In this thought-provoking episode, Steve Gregg addresses the challenges of modern church leadership and the potential pitfalls of personal visions that lead to division. With calls from concerned listeners, Steve offers candid insights into the true purpose of the church, which is to make disciples and nurture spiritual growth. Learn about the balance between pursuing church projects and fulfilling the real needs of the congregation. This episode is a must-listen for anyone questioning the alignment of church goals with biblical teachings.
SPEAKER 1 :
Thank you. Thank you.
SPEAKER 07 :
Good afternoon and welcome to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we’re live for an hour taking your calls. If you have questions about the Bible, about Christianity, anything like that, feel free to give me a call. We’ll talk about that. If you think differently than the host about something, feel free to talk about that too. The number to call is 844-484-5737. That’s 844-484-5737. I’m still in the midst of an itinerary speaking in the Midwest. I’m in Michigan tonight in Attica at a little church there. Tomorrow, I think it’s tomorrow, yeah, tomorrow I’ll be down in Temperance, Michigan. I think it’s very close to Toledo, Ohio. If we have any listeners down there, you may be interested in that. And then on Friday, I think it’s Friday, I’m not looking for this, I’ll be in Indianapolis. And then on the weekend, I’m going to be in Illinois, a couple of different places. So if you live in those areas and want to consider joining us for those meetings, you can go to our website, thenarrowpath.com. Look under the tab that says Announcements. And on each of the dates, you’ll find the time and place and probably a reference to whatever it is I’m speaking about in those places. And you can just show up. We’d be glad to meet you if we haven’t or to see you again if we know you. Anyway, that’s up through this weekend. I’ve got these Midwest events. So you can check that out if you’re a Midwesterner in this part of the country. We’d be glad to see you. Again, thenarrowpath.com is the website. The tab to click is announcements. All right, our lines are full, so we’re going to go to the phones and talk first of all to Ian from St. George, Utah. Hi, Ian. Welcome.
SPEAKER 06 :
Thank you, Steve. Glad to be on your show. Hey, I’ve got a question for you about the book of Genesis. I believe it’s chapter 30, and I’m wondering if you can kind of tell me what the heck is going on with these speckled sheep and Jacob and him taking the bark and taking it apart and putting it in water and being accused of being like folklore, magic folklore in the Bible. What is going on with that?
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, some people think that this is some kind of a superstitious thing that is stated. What happened was that Jacob was working for his uncle Laban, and they had sheep. And Jacob had fled from home. He didn’t bring anything with him. He was kind of penniless. He married Leah, and he married Rachel. But he made a deal with Laban after that that he would – the sheep that were speckled and irregularly colored, spotted, striped, ring-straped, as it says, whatever sheep were born that way would be Jacob’s pay. Now, almost all sheep were white in the Middle East, and almost all goats were black, solid. The striped and the spotted were the rarity. And so Jacob was saying, you know, Laban, I won’t take anything from you, but I’ll just take my pay being whatever is irregular. And the purpose for this was because neither Jacob nor Laban trusted each other. And this would be a way to tell at a glance, you know, Jacob, do you have any of Laban’s sheep? You know, obviously you’re not stealing his sheep. All these sheep are the colors that we agreed on. Well, what happens is that it says that Jacob would take, when the sheep were breeding, and he had the whole flocks. He had Laban’s and his own flocks there. He said when the strong sheep came to breed, he took some rods of a certain kind of tree, and he stripped the bark off. And this was to let the sap be in the water. And this is because he believed, and he may have been right, we don’t know, that something in the sap would encourage the sheep to actually conceive. Now, some people wrongly think that his thinking was it’ll affect the coloration of the babies, of the sheep, of the lambs that are born. But actually, I think they say that because he cut with a knife or something streaks in these rods. And so they were streaked. And he put them in the water that the sheep drank. But he only did it when the strong sheep did and not when the weak sheep did. Now, the thing is that he was just trying to make the flock stronger. We don’t have any reason to believe that he was trying to influence the coloration of the sheep. although it would turn out to his advantage if the sheep were spotted and ring-straightened and so forth. But the Bible is not suggesting that he was manipulating that feature. But just as a good cattle rancher, he was trying to cull the flock of the weak. And so when it was the stronger sheep, this is when the stronger sheep came, he put those in there so that they would conceive. Apparently, it was considered that this, whatever’s in these branches in their sap or whatever, would help encourage conception. Now, he might have been superstitious about this. We don’t know. I don’t know anything about, you know, this kind of old wives tales about increasing the fertility of sheep by putting something like that in their water. He could have been quite mistaken. But the thing is, he wasn’t affecting the color of the sheep. That was not the issue. But it says he was trying to increase the value, the health and the strength of the flock. Because it says he didn’t put those rods in when the weaker sheep came. So he’s dealing with weaker and stronger sheep and trying to increase the strength of the herd. It doesn’t sound like he’s trying to affect the color at all, but we do read that it seems like most of the strong ones, when they bred, they threw lambs that were spotted or ring-straight or striped, which was… I think it was a mystery to him why that was happening because the next chapter tells us that he had a dream. And in the dream, he saw all the rams that were leaping on the ewes were striped and ring-striped, the colors that they’re supposed to be. And he says to his wives, therefore the Lord has taken all the sheep and given them to me from your father. Now, what I think is going on there, why did God have to give him the dream so he’d see that all the rams were the right color? I don’t think they were externally the right color. I don’t think he saw this going on the way that God did. I mean, God knew the genetics of the sheep. Jacob would not have any idea what the genetics of the sheep were. He just saw strong sheep breeding, and he wasn’t encouraging conception of the weak sheep. And I think that was just being responsible. And that could have benefited Laban as well as himself. I mean, it’s always good to have a healthier flock. But he saw that God was manipulating things so that the rams that were coming to breed with yous happened to be the rams that, although not externally… I mean, if they were externally these colors, he would know that without having a dream. God had to reveal it in a dream. These rams are all the rams that produce, you know, these irregular colored sheep. And it’s like God didn’t have the rams breeding so much that would throw solid colored sheep. So it’s not really suggesting that Jacob manipulated the outcome of how the sheep were colored. And I think the reason that people get the impression that he was, although it doesn’t say that, is it mentions he made streaks in these rods when he put it in there. And they say, okay, so it must be that he thought there’d be some prenatal influence if sheep, when they’re breeding, were looking at streaks, that their babies would come out with streaks. And the Bible doesn’t suggest that at all. And I have no reason to believe that’s what he thought. He thought he was enhancing the health of the sheep. But God… gave him a dream that showed him that, hey, these rams that are reading, whether you know it or not, they are all internally, you know, in their genetics, they have apparently the recessive genes of rams. He has spots and stripes and things like that. So that all the sheep were producing babies like that. So that Jacob’s flocks increased and Laban’s diminished. But Jacob had to have that revealed to him in a dream. And he said to his wives, therefore, God has given me all these sheep. You know, I didn’t do it. So, I mean, I think people mistakenly think, and I can see why, because it mentions making stripes in these rods. That just means that he took the bark off so that the… The sap inside would bleed into the water. Now, I don’t know if there’s any science or just old wives’ tales or conventional ancient wisdom about how to increase the fertility of sheep. I don’t know if he had any validity to what he was doing. But the Bible doesn’t say that what he did had that impact. Because the only thing he was trying to do was make sheep more fertile. He wasn’t doing anything that would specifically be expected to change the color of the sheep. And the coloration of the lambs turning out in his favor was simply God’s doing it. And we know it was genetics. They didn’t know about genetics then. This kind of God gave him a revelation. These rams, they’re all spotted and striped. Now, they weren’t to look at. Because if they were, he wouldn’t need a dream to show them that. He could watch that and see that. But I think what God’s saying is… Inside, the part of these rams that’s actually sending along their genetic traits, these are the rams that have those traits. And that’s how I understand it. And therefore, there’s no superstition being affirmed here. Now, Jacob might have been superstitious. But not in the way that people think. You know, we’re not told that he thought if he did this, this would make more striped baby sheep. He just thought it would make the sheep more fertile. And that’s why he put the rods in there when the strong sheep came. He wanted the strong sheep to pass on their strength to the next generation. and he didn’t put them in where the weak sheep did. So, essentially, he was not trying to manipulate the color of the sheep, but simply the strength of the flock. And God is the one who manipulates the colors of the sheep, so that he ended up having more than 11.
SPEAKER 06 :
Gotcha, gotcha. Well, thank you for that. I really appreciate it. Can I run something by you real quick? Ask you to think about it? Sure. So, another, I’m actually writing a book right now on on Jacob and the struggle he had with the angel. And it’s one of those weird stories and a lot of Christians shy away from it because it says that Jacob wins. You know, it says the angel could not prevail over him or the man could not prevail over him and displaced his hip. And even after that, he said he wouldn’t let him go. And so I’ve done a lot of thinking on that. You know, when I was a younger Christian, I used to lean away from problems and think, you know, somebody smarter than me knows. But, you know, I’ve been a more mature Christian. I kind of try to lean into problems to see what the answer is. And it’s going to come off a little Calvinistically, but so be it.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay, but quickly because my lines are full.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay. Okay. All right, all right. Well, basically, you know, Jacob, the natural man, like God can do everything outwardly to the natural man, and the natural man will fight him off. But God had to change him fundamentally by touching his hip. And then once the regeneration happens, in other words, this is a reflection of salvation. Once the regeneration happens, then man fights to keep God until he blesses him. And then he has to reveal his name, which is usurper. Anyway, it’s basically a microcosm of what God does in the hearts of individuals who he chooses to save, basically. I don’t know. You can tell me what you think about it on another episode. All right. Take care, Steve. God bless you.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay, Ian. God bless. Thanks for your call. Kathy from Newport Beach, California. Welcome to The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 02 :
Hi. I have a personal question. My husband and I are on a three-year restraining order. My husband is a very good man. He’s very responsible. He tries to be very honest, and we’re on the set. We already finished a two-year restraining order, and the only problem that my husband did have was anger control. And my question is, how do I – we are also on Medi-Cal, and – The four-member family, my daughter is 23, my son is 15.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay, hold on, Kathy. I think you’re assuming I know something and I don’t. You said your husband, you are in a three-year restraining order. Who put the restraining order? Who’s being restrained? Is your husband being restrained or you are both and from what? I don’t understand what your situation is at all.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay, it was because of the accident happened on October of 2022. Okay, I don’t need all that.
SPEAKER 07 :
I don’t need all that. I just want to know who is under the restraining order and who put the restraining order on that person and why.
SPEAKER 02 :
The district attorney, because it was, I was, I flew into the wall, made like a huge hole into the drywall, and…
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay, I’m afraid you don’t know what I’m asking. I don’t know. Was there somebody that the district attorney, they put a restraining order on your husband so that he can’t see you? Is that it?
SPEAKER 10 :
Right.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay, fine. So quickly, what’s your question about that?
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay, so right now four of us are on Medi-Cal, but my husband has been paying off our almost $3 million house and paying the electric bill and the water and the gas.
SPEAKER 07 :
Could you tell me what your question is?
SPEAKER 02 :
Sure. My question is, right now we’re on Medi-Cal. How can we be affording three test clubs at the same time all of a sudden? It’s not driven off the lots.
SPEAKER 07 :
My daughter told me that… Okay, the answer is I don’t think anyone on Medi-Cal can afford three Teslas. So, yeah, I don’t know anything else about your situation, but this is about your finances. If you can afford three Teslas, I don’t think you should be on Medi-Cal. But on the other hand, if you qualify for Medi-Cal, you shouldn’t be buying three Teslas. I think that’s about all I have to say. I don’t know anything more about your situation. That’s not really the kind of thing that we talk about on this program. I thought maybe you had a question about the Bible. That’s what we’re discussing here. Thank you for your call, though. Eddie from Kentucky, welcome to The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, Steve, I’ve got a question for you here. Israel, first they were called Hebrews. Then it was Israel. Then it was Jews. Is there any difference in that, or what should they actually identify as? You’re from America. You’re an American. I’m an American. If you were from China, you would be a Chinese.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay, well, we’re Americans, but that’s not our ethnicity. That’s our nationality. Ethnicity has to do with your racial background. Now, the Chinese might be Chinese nationality and Chinese racially because there’s, for thousands of years, there’s been a fairly homogenous background. uh you know race of chinese in that region so you know somebody is a chinese they’re probably saying something about their race maybe even more than about their nationality because they might be chinese americans or something but the jews you say they were first called hebrews actually abraham was called a hebrew Only one time does the word Hebrew really appear with reference to Abraham, but he’s called Abraham the Hebrew in Genesis one time. Hebrew, it’s not clear exactly what Hebrew means, but many scholars believe that Hebrew is derived from the name Eber, one of the ancestors of of Abraham was named Eber. And some think that the word Hebrew developed from Eber, like an Eberite or an Eberu. And no one’s quite sure about that, but that’s probably the theory you meet most. But that has to do with, you know, kind of an ethnic background that he had. Now, in the Bible, typically the people descended from Abraham aren’t necessarily called Hebrews, though if he was, then they were too. And so, I mean, we could speak of them as Hebrews, but that’s not exactly a common biblical designation. Now, Israel was the name that was given to Abraham’s grandson, Jacob. Jacob wrestled with that angel just like a previous caller mentioned, and his name was changed to Israel. He had 12 sons, so his sons were the children of Israel. Eventually, each son got married and had big families, and they were tribes, so there were 12 tribes of Israel. They’re named Israel because of the man, Jacob, whose name was also Israel. In fact, in Scripture, the so-called nation of Israel were sometimes called Jacob, too. They’re kind of interchangeable names. Israel was… more or less the name given not just to that family eventually, but also to the nation that came out of Egypt and God formed them into a nation. And they were predominantly people descended from Jacob, from Israel. Not all, because there was a mixed multitude that came out of Egypt, but it was primarily, I think, these people from Jacob. And so their nation was called Israel. Later on, the word Israel referred to the northern ten kingdoms when they split off from the southern tribes of Judah and Benjamin. So there were two nations. One was called Israel and one was called Judah. That northern kingdom came to an end in 722 B.C. when the Assyrians conquered them and dispersed them. After that time, only the southern kingdom, which survived that, they were called Israel, though they were also Judah. when they were taken away into captivity in Babylon, from that time on they often became called Jews. The name Jew is a short form of the name Judah. And that was the name of the southern kingdom that was taken into captivity. So everyone that was taken into captivity were called Jews, even though they weren’t all of the tribe of Judah. They were the nation of Judah. When the nation split into two, the northern tribes called themselves Israel and the southern tribes as a nation called themselves Judah. But there were individuals and quite a few individuals apparently from the northern tribes that migrated south and rejoined the southern kingdom because they wanted to worship in Jerusalem and they didn’t want to worship the golden calves that Rehoboam had made in the northern kingdom. So there were quite a few representatives of the various tribes in the north that who became part of the nation of Judah before Babylon came in and took them all away. But they had become assimilated in the nation of Judah, though they still were of other tribes. They weren’t all of the tribe of Judah, but they were all of the nation of Judah. So when the nation of Judah was taken into captivity… And foreigners basically called them Jews because they were from Judea. And since that time, it’s been customary for people of Israeli stock also to be called Jews. However, the name Jew can be ambiguous because it can refer to people of Israeli stock, as it often does, or it can refer to people who hold to the Jewish religion, which is a different thing because there’s many people of Israeli stock and are Jewish in that sense, but they don’t hold to the Jewish religion. In fact, probably the majority of Jews in the world today are actually atheists, hold to no religion at all. Some do hold to the Jewish religion. Some hold to Christianity. Some hold to Buddhism. I mean, Jewish people who are by stock Jewish are not always religiously Jewish. On the other hand, Gentiles can convert to the Jewish religion. and have often done so. And so, today the word Jew might strictly mean somebody who is ethnically descended from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but whether they are of the Jewish religion or not, it’s strictly an ethnic identity. On the other hand, the word Jew can be used for someone who’s of the Jewish religion, whether they’re of that ethnic background or not. Famously, in an earlier generation, Sammy Davis Jr. was an African-American who entertainer, and he converted to Judaism. Now, he had no Jewish blood in him, but he lived his later years and died as a Jew, but not ethnic. He was just part of the Jewish religion. So the term Jew… is a little confusing in that it sometimes does refer to somebody’s religious background or commitments, I should say. And sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes it just speaks to their ethnic background. So it’s an ambiguous word. And I would just say, you know, if you have Jewish friends, you should probably call them by whatever designation they want to. I don’t think very many modern Jews go by the word Israelite, although they would identify themselves as Israel, the descendants of Jacob, Israel. But I think it’s more common just to identify as a Jew. The terms these days are used pretty much interchangeably, with the exception that if you’re not Jewish by birth, but you’ve converted from a Gentile family line, to Judaism, you probably would not be called Israel. Israel would be almost entirely an ethnic way of looking at it, not biblically necessarily, but just in the sense of the way they self-identify. Whereas Jew could either mean the same thing as that or it could mean something very different. It means they just hold to the Jewish religion. Those words can confuse, I’m sure. And so I hope that clarifies it a little bit. Thank you for your call. Let’s see. Our next caller is John from Austin or near Austin, Texas. John, welcome to The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 01 :
Oh, hello, Steve. Thanks for taking my call. I’m calling on behalf of a friend from work. He goes to one of these big megachurches in Texas. And about a couple of years ago, he wanted to start a small Bible group. So I got him into listening to your verse by verse. And the pastor was a bit heavy-handed. He says, you know, you’ve got to be teaching what we do on Sundays and stuff. But he got over that. And we tried to get the pastor involved to help some orphans that we work with. And the church didn’t have enough budget for it, so he thought nothing to it. But then not long after, the pastor said he was walking through the car park and he heard a voice say, and he believed it was God, so it’s time to build. So then he started this $15 million building project from the church, and we got a lot of the donors to commit and everything like this. And my friend’s not too keen on that, but he never really said anything. And then recently, this is a year later, he did this sermon at church basically saying, if you don’t agree with our vision, you need to get out of the church. And he said, you can, you know, you can go to another congregation, that’s fine, but you have to be committed to this vision for this $15 million, because I think some of the people in the church are a bit not happy with where their tithes are going, I guess. And my friends have sort of ensued minds about it, because he’s made a lot of friends there of genuine Christians, and he doesn’t know what to do. But he’s never voiced his concern to the pastor or anybody. But now the pastor’s basically saying, you’re causing divisions if you don’t agree. And he said, the house divided can’t stand. He used 1 Corinthians 3 to say, like, we’ve destroyed the temple of God. But he’s the one saying, others should leave the church. So I said to my friend, it seems to me like he’s causing divisions. So my question is, what do you think about this?
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, now… There’s a break coming up, so I’m going to hold you over the break, and I’m going to answer it on the other side. But briefly speaking, this pastor is an example of everything that’s wrong with a modern institutional church. And I’ll tell you why when we come back in a few minutes from this break. I’ll put you on hold and come back to you. You’re listening to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. We’re halfway through today’s broadcast. We have another half hour coming up. We don’t want you to go away at this point. We just do want you to know that The Narrow Path is a listener-supported ministry, and if you’d like to help us pay the radio bills, you may. You can write to us at The Narrow Path, P.O. Box 1730, Temecula, California, 92593, or go to our website, thenarrowpath.com. I’ll be back in 30 seconds. Don’t go away.
SPEAKER 03 :
Everyone is welcome to call the narrow path and discuss areas of disagreement with the host, but if you do so, please state your disagreement succinctly at the beginning of your call and be prepared to present your scriptural arguments when asked by the host. Don’t be disappointed if you don’t have the last word or if your call is cut shorter than you prefer. Our desire is to get as many callers on the air during the short program, so please be considerate to others.
SPEAKER 07 :
Welcome back to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we’re live for another half hour taking your calls. If you’d like to call in with any questions you have about the Bible or the Christian faith, let me give you a number. And you can call in. We have one line open at the moment. The number is 844-484-5737. That’s 844-484-5737. We’re going to go back and talk to John from Austin, Texas. He presented a question before our break, and I didn’t get a chance to answer. John, I’ve got you back on, but let me summarize your question. You’re asking for a friend. Your friend is in a church. He’s got friends there. He’s got relationships. He would be loathe to leave, as is hopefully always the case when you’re in a church. You should be loathe to leave because you should have the kinds of relationships that you don’t want to lose. On the other hand, you shouldn’t have to lose them. If you feel like you have to leave that church for some reason, that shouldn’t mean that you can’t have those friends. However, that’s not how pastors see it. Apparently, that’s not how that pastor sees it. That pastor feels like God spoke to him to build something for, I think he said, I don’t know, $15 million, $15,000. I don’t remember. Some amount of money.
SPEAKER 01 :
$15 million.
SPEAKER 07 :
$15 million, yeah. And so the pastor presented it to the church as this is the vision. You need to get on board with the vision. You need to help support this vision. And if you’re not into the vision, you’re divisive or divisive. So your friend isn’t all that happy about it, along with some others. And though he’s not speaking up against it, but the pastor knows he’s not on board, and so he said you’re causing divisions by not being supportive. Is that how it works? That’s what’s happened?
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, he gave a sermon to the whole church basically saying, look, if you don’t agree, you’re causing divisions. I’m guessing some people have paid it to him. but he’s trying to get rid of what he thinks is the rock before it causes problems in the church. And my friends, as well as my heart, I don’t agree. What should I do?
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah. Well, first of all, like I said before I took a break, this pastor is an excellent example of everything that’s wrong with institutional churches. He thinks he’s the boss. Now, Jesus said when he talks to his apostles, who are frankly more, better leaders than any pastor today. They were the 12 he chose to lead the whole body of Christ worldwide. He said, the rulers of the Gentiles exercise authority over them, but it shall not be so among you. He said, among you, whoever would be chief must be the slave of all. So leadership, this pastor has a top-down leadership. He’s got a… secular corporation mentality. He’s the CEO. Probably the elders or the deacons are his board of directors. And the congregation are his customers or else employees in one way or the other. They’re the ones who are supposed to support his projects. Now, there’s nothing about that that is biblical. First of all, I don’t know that churches are supposed to be having projects. The purpose of the church is to make disciples, teaching them to observe everything Christ commanded. Churches get distracted with building projects and special projects that the pastor thinks will make his ministry look good in the sight of the other pastors in town, a bigger building. you know, more impressive expenditures on things that don’t have anything to do with making disciples. And then they come up with their carnal visions, and then they kind of impose a guilt trip on their congregation to support their vision. This whole idea of the pastor having a vision that involves anything more than just discipling the people to be followers of Christ, that’s wrong. The fact that he thinks that his vision somehow obligates the church to do what he wants means he thinks they’re his servants. They serve his vision. He’s not their servant. What if the people in the church actually have some needs that they’d kind of like to have met? Well, he should be out there meeting their needs, but he sees them as his ticket to build his empire. which will build his reputation. And maybe he cast it in the idea that, yeah, once we’ve done this building project, think of how many more people we can disciple. Well, you’re not discipling the people you have now. What would be the good of bringing more people into your church when you’re running it like a corporation anyway? You’ve got more than you deserve. Probably shouldn’t have any. As far as I’m concerned, these pastors who think they’re corporate bosses… and that anyone who doesn’t get on board with their projects is causing division? Excuse me? When did the Bible say that the pastor CEO gets to cause division and anyone who doesn’t agree with it is causing division? It sounds like he’s causing division. And I think you said that, that The body of Christ, people may be there because they want to worship and learn about Christ and follow Christ, and he’s putting up some alternative goals and saying, hey, I know you want to follow Christ. I know you might want to be taught the Bible. I know you might want to have like a biblical church, but I’ve got another idea, and I’m going to require you to go with my idea or else you’re causing divisions. No, pastor, you’re causing divisions. The church, if you feed the sheep… That’s what you’re called to do. If you serve the sheep, and that means what do they need? What do they have a felt need to want? Are you discipling them? Are you helping them grow closer to Christ? That’s the only thing that justifies your existence as a pastor. And if you’re not doing that, frankly, you don’t deserve any sheep, much less a growing church with more. Why should Christ entrust you with more of his own sheep when you’re not feeding the sheep you have and when you’re beating the sheep? This is something that, you know, the leaders of Israel in the Old Testament did this. And Ezekiel rebuked the leaders, called them bad shepherds. In Ezekiel 34, he says, woe to the shepherds that feed themselves rather than the sheep. In other words, they’re serving their own agendas. They’re building their own reputation and no doubt their own salary increases too with it. But that’s another issue. And this pastor cares about himself, his career, and his reputation. And, you know, if a certain significant number of people in the church say, you know, we’d rather use our money to feed the poor. We’d rather use the church’s money to support missionaries. We’d actually like to use the money to do something related to God rather than something related to real estate and buildings and empires of the pastor. This pastor is not alone. The churches in America are full of pastors like this. I’m not saying they are. I shouldn’t say that. That’s not true. There are many churches that don’t have pastors like this. I should say this kind of mentality is extremely common among especially the successful pastors and the wannabe successful pastors. They may not be successful, but they dream of it. This mentality is secular. This is not God. They’re not spiritual leaders. And, you know, a lot of times they say, well, the Bible says obey those who are leaders over you. Yeah, it also says in the same chapter who have spoken to you the word of God. You support the men who have taught you the word of God. Why? Because they’re helping you to be more obedient to God, not to them. Anyone who wants to cast a vision and say all you people have to get on board and give money for it, they’re not pastors. I mean, they’re maybe what the American church sometimes will call a pastor. They’re professional religious product dispensers. And, you know, that’s not scriptural. It’s anti-scriptural. They are like diatrophies in the book of 3 John who love to have the preeminence, and they’re making people obey them. And you know what diatrophies in the church he was in in the biblical times? Anyone who really wanted to follow the apostles, wanted to follow John, He put those people out of the church. What’s the difference between that and this guy? If someone says, well, we don’t want to spend God’s money on this building project. We’d like to spend God’s money on something God cares about, like people. Aren’t there poor people in this church who need their rent paid because they’ve lost their job? Aren’t there single mothers who can hardly support their children and need some help if they want to homeschool them and they need support? I mean, there’s some real needs in this church. The pastor apparently doesn’t know about those or care about those because he’s a shepherd who’s feeding himself. And I know, you know, if you ask me sometimes what I really think, I’ll be more honest with you and say it plainly. You know, but I don’t have any problem saying this because this is so true and so common. And that guy should be out of that church. And hopefully his friends will still stay friends with him. And maybe some of them will follow him out of the church. And, you know, he’s not causing divisions. He wants to follow Jesus. That’s the only thing that he’s required to do is to follow Jesus. And the only thing the pastor is required to do is to help him do it. And instead, the pastor is interfering with it because the pastor has agendas of his own. He’s got career goals. He’s a climber. He’s a social climber. He’s a career climber. And that man does not deserve to be followed by any sheep that belong to Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER 01 :
Thank you, Steve. That’s pretty much what I thought. Do you think… Because I said to my friend, I’ll say this very quick, I said, it’s weird to draw lines in the sand. You don’t just have to have an allegiance to the law, but you have to have an allegiance to my vision. I thought that was a very weird line in the sand to draw. Do you think he’d fall into the type of person that in 1 Corinthians 3, all his works burn up, but he himself is still saved? Or do you think that sort of mentality puts him out even further than that?
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, he seems more like a hireling than a shepherd, but I don’t know. He could be a man who really at one time was committed to serving God humbly. And then when he became successful, he kind of drifted off to, you know, over to the edge. And now he’s really on the edge of the cliff where he’s about ready to fall off into hell. I mean, I wouldn’t. I won’t mince words here. This man, those who are leaders have the stricter judgment. You know, this man is doing sinful things, and he’s doing it as a leader. And the more people who he’s leading, the stricter the judgment is because the more people he’s corrupting or leading astray. This man does not belong in leadership over God’s sheep in any form in his present state. Is he a believer who will, you know, his works will be burned up and he’ll be saved yet as by fire that Paul talked about in 1 Corinthians 3? I can’t say. There may be a possibility of that. God will be the judge of that. All I can say is, whether he is or not, if he is a believer in any sense, he’s a very corrupted one. And he’s very much abusing the stewardship that God has given him over the sheep. And, yeah, I mean, it’s amazing. So many pastors who call themselves Protestants say, They’d be critical of the popes in the Middle Ages who were dominating people and corrupt, and yet they’re a pope in their own little fiefdom. Now, the only thing a pastor has to be concerned about is, are my people, are the people that Jesus has entrusted me with, are they being fed? Are they growing? Are they protected spiritually? Are their needs being met? Are their families strong? Do they know the Lord? Are they getting closer to the Lord? That’s his job. And it’s not a job. It’s his assignment from the chief shepherd, you know. And he will be judged, I think, extremely severely for abusing his post. But, you know, I always get suspicious when a pastor says, I have a vision for this church. Well, if your vision is anything other than my vision is for these sheep to be transformed in the image of Christ and to follow him faithfully, then you need to recalibrate your vision. they usually mean I have a vision for this congregation, this particular 501c3 corporation, that to do something that not all Christians are required to do, but I think this is something that we should spend our money on. Well, maybe it is, maybe it isn’t, but I don’t think the pastor is supposed to be the CEO. That’s what CEOs do. CEOs, they come up with the visions, and then they kind of pressure or demand that the church, financially support their vision and get on board, volunteer for it, and so forth. That is not being the servant of all. That is being the boss of all. And it’s the opposite of what Jesus said should be said. That’s what the rulers of the pagans do. He says, it shall not be done that way among you. It’s very adamant. Jesus said that if you’re going to be one of the chief, you’ve got to be a slave. He literally used the word, you’ve got to be a slave of everybody. Instead, this pastor wants everyone to be his slave because he’s got an idea and he needs their manpower and their money. Okay, I realize I’ve been ranting, but this kind of thing has to be ranted about sometimes. Anyway, John, I’ve got a lot of people waiting and I should get to them. I think I’ve made my opinion clear. Thank you, brother. All right, let’s see here. Who’s next? It looks like it’s going to be Julian in – boy, I don’t know this name. It must be an Indian name. Coquitlam, British Columbia? Julian, welcome.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hi, Steve. Yeah, it is Coquitlam. It is a native name from – it’s near B.C., like 20 minutes, sorry, from Vancouver. First, I want to thank you for your ministry, your verse-by-verse and topical lectures. It’s been a great blessing. I appreciate that. I wanted to run an idea about, I believe the Jehovah Witnesses and Islam both view Jesus as a good man, but also believe in the crucifixion. Is that correct?
SPEAKER 07 :
Jehovah’s Witnesses do? Yes. They believe Jesus is more than a good man. They just don’t believe he’s God. Now, the Muslims do not believe Jesus was crucified. They believe Jesus was a great prophet. Muslims actually believe Jesus was a greater prophet than Muhammad. They believe he was the greatest prophet ever. But they believe we should follow Muhammad because he came later than Jesus and that they are obligated to follow the most recent prophet. But they don’t believe Jesus was crucified. They believe that he appeared to be crucified, but that somebody was at the last minute substituted for him and crucified in his place. Some say Judas.
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay, so that would be similar because my thought was, because I get Jehovah’s Witnesses quite frequently and I try not to be confrontational anymore and try to talk to them and maybe get some questions in the back of the mind. If that’s true, is that not human sacrifice? Would that then be considering that Yahweh, Jehovah, is asking for human sacrifice, whether you think it was just Jesus or another substituted human?
SPEAKER 07 :
I see. Well, yeah, if it is seen as a sacrifice, yes, it would be so. Now, you know, it is a sacrifice. Jesus sacrificed. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 5, 7, Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. And, of course, he’s called the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, referring to his role as a sacrificial victim. But as you said, yeah, I mean, if he’s just a man and if God required him to be sacrificed, That would be requiring human sacrifice. So the closest God ever got to that was when he told Abraham to offer Isaac, but he didn’t let him go through with it because human sacrifice is not a thing.
SPEAKER 05 :
It was a test of faith.
SPEAKER 07 :
Right. Now, Jesus, of course, was human.
SPEAKER 05 :
He was human.
SPEAKER 07 :
But he was, I believe God visited us in the form of man and offered himself. God was in Christ reconciling himself to the world. So it wasn’t like God was asking us to sacrifice some man to placate him. Absolutely. He said, I’ll come down here, I’ll die. You know, that’s how I understand it.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yep. The maker of the law stepped into the justice for us. Yeah. So I can’t remember which lecture it was. I think it was about cults. I was looking through the topical where you actually go over the Jehovah Witness Bible and its differences. I was looking at the topical lectures. I can’t remember. Do you by any chance remember the lecture where you go over the Jehovah Witness Bible and the slight differences that they’ve adapted to it?
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, the only case I know of that, like I do have at our website, there’s two lectures on cults. And the second one, I think the second one is specific about Mormonism. The first one is about cults in general, but I think more about Jehovah’s Witnesses in that one.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, I remember it was a part of a lecture, not a complete lecture. One other quick thing, I can’t find MP3 downloads on the narrow path. Is that still a thing, or is that not available anymore?
SPEAKER 07 :
I didn’t know about that. I have nothing to do with the website. I mean, I don’t manage it.
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay, sorry.
SPEAKER 07 :
I’m not informed about it. But, yeah, I know it used to be possible to download. It should be. If for some reason it’s not doing that, that’s not a good thing. But I will say this. If you go to another website, theos.org, theos.org slash media, you’ll find almost all my lectures there. Maybe all of them are there. And I think you can download MP3s from there, last I heard.
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay, I’ll take a look at that. I appreciate it. Thank you very much.
SPEAKER 07 :
All right, brother. God bless you. Okay, let’s see. Yossi in Knoxville, Tennessee. Welcome to The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 09 :
Thank you, Steve. I have a two-fold question about studying the Bible. I know there isn’t a perfect answer for this, but the first part of my question is, how do you, Steve, personally, how do you go about studying the Bible and just remembering some of Scripture? Because I greatly admire that about you and your speech filled with the Word of God, and also the second part of the question is as you grow in knowledge, how do you also grow in the grace of God, like Peter says, and not be tossed up, avoid that. Thank you.
SPEAKER 07 :
Sure. Good questions. As far as how I actually study the Bible, I don’t only use one method. I’ve been immersed in the Bible since I was actually a child. And when I first, just before I started teaching. I started really reading the Bible in earnest, and I would say studying it, but I didn’t have any study aids, so really it was just reading it carefully and absorbing it and meditating on it. To me, I actually think the advantage that is greater than study, although I’ve done a lot of study too, is meditating on the Word. The Bible doesn’t The Bible doesn’t tell us how to academically study the Bible, but it does tell us to meditate day and night on it. And you’ll be like a tree planted by rivers of water that brings forth its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither, and whatever you do shall prosper. I always took that promise seriously. And so I would read the Bible a lot, I mean all the time, except when I couldn’t read, like when I’m driving or doing walking or something like that. And then I’d be meditating on it. I’d be thinking about it. It was always on my mind. And still is. I mean, I think about other things, but the Bible is still the filter through which I think about everything. And I think it’s not so much a question of study, though I’ve done a fair amount of study. And when I’m studying, it’s when I’m going to be teaching something. Let’s just say something I’m not very familiar with in the Bible. or something, a book of the Bible that I’ve done before, but I want to learn more before I teach it again. And I’ll, you know, it depends on what I’m interested in studying. If I’m studying a book, I might pull out some commentaries and use it, or I might just read the book. a lot of times and think about it because that’s what meditating is, thinking about it. And when I do think about a book, since, I mean, I have the advantage now of being familiar with the whole Bible, so I think of all the other things in the other books that are on the same subject. And I’ll have to say this, too. Not everyone will have the same advantages as everyone else. My mind was constructed in a way that’s fairly analytical and also hungry for knowledge. for knowing the Word of God. I’ve always been hungry to know the Word of God. And so it’s always coming to my mind and I’m always thinking, you know, analytically about it and thinking about application. I always want to apply it. So all those things are at work. I think that when you study the Bible… There are lots of aids, lexicons, even commentaries and that kind of thing. I’ve used all of those. But I can’t really say I’ve gained most of my knowledge of the Bible from those things. Probably more from the lexicons than from any commentaries. I don’t use commentaries that much, but I have them. It’s mostly the way I read. I mean, I read analytically. I read… Asking the, you know, the inductive questions, you know, who is this to? What’s the situation? You know, what’s the context? Why did he say this? What’s the purpose of this? And I didn’t, no one taught me to do that. That’s just, to me, that’s the way you read. That’s how you learn stuff. You read stuff. the authority of Scripture. And in that lecture series, there is near the end of the series. I’d suggest listening to the earlier lectures in the series as well. But near the end of the series, there is a. A lecture about how to study the Bible. And let me see. I’m kind of trying to find it online. I don’t multitask well, so when I’m talking, I don’t look things up well. But here we go. Here’s the authority of Scripture. It’s the first series on there. And let me see here as I go down. Yeah, the fifth, let’s see, the 15th lecture. is called Tools for Biblical Studies. And then the 16th lecture is called Three-Stage Inductive Bible Study. So I do recommend a means of studying the Bible, which you might want to just see that lecture if you’re interested in it. It’s at thenarrowpath.com. There’s a tab that says Topical Studies. You’ll find a bunch of topical sites, but there’s a series called Authority of Scripture. And the 16th lecture is a three-stage inductive Bible study method. So I guess that’s how I’d answer it. Now, as far as how do you grow in grace, I think that’s something God does as you trust him and yield to him. And, you know, as you learn what he wants you to do, you orient yourself toward obedience. I think he does that too, by means you and he together. You take the attitude that I want to follow Christ. I want to be Christ-like. I want his spirit to reproduce Christ in me. And it’s the grace of God that does that. I think we pray for that. And we, you know, grace comes through faith. So as we trust God to answer our prayers along those lines, I think he answers them. It’s that faith that is our access to the grace in which we stand. And we do grow in grace as we grow more mature and more Christlike. We’re almost out of time. I probably should try to take one more call. Let’s see here. Alistair, also in British Columbia, Vancouver. Welcome.
SPEAKER 08 :
Welcome. Thanks for taking my call, Steve. Very quickly, please. Yeah, sure. I want to make reference that Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no one come to the Father but my me. Now, I’m interested in finding out, before Jesus existed on the earth, how did people get to heaven?
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, getting to heaven was not ever mentioned before Jesus came to you, so it wasn’t even a concern. Being right with God was the issue. We should want to be right with God, even if there was no heaven or hell, just because God is worth it. I mean, we were created to be God-oriented, and that’s what the Old Testament is about, how Israel could be oriented properly toward God. Now, I believe if they were faithful and trusted him, they went to heaven when they died, but he never mentioned that to them. So there’s no plan for going to heaven in the Bible. Even the New Testament doesn’t speak about going to heaven, but in a few passages it The whole Bible is about how to live to please God, how to live for the glory of God. This is the fascination of the godly person, that God be glorified in our lives. You know, if that’s what we are, then we’re going to be in heaven, too. But that’s not what we’re thinking. We’re not thinking about heaven. We’re thinking about God. And so in the Old Testament, those like Abraham who believed God, it says in Genesis 15, 6, it was counted to him for righteousness. Likewise, David. In the Old Testament. In Psalm 32, verse 1, talked about how blessed he was because God did not impute sin to him because of his repentance after his sin with Bathsheba. So, I mean, no one is saved apart from Christ. But people have been saved before he came, and some may be saved after he came who have not really necessarily heard, but they orient themselves toward God in such a way that God counts them to be, you know, agreeable with Christ. And Christ’s death is for everybody. So, I mean, God can decide who he’s going to save, but I think that those who are who seek to be trusting of God and seeking God, were saved before Jesus came. And they were saved because of him. I think God forgave them on credit, and Jesus came along and paid the tab. That’s how it works. I’m out of time. Thanks for joining us. Our website is thenarrowpath.com.
