This episode takes you on a captivating journey through diverse topics. From unraveling the mysteries of dinosaurs and evolution to discussing the significance of Hanukkah and the Deuterocanonical books, Steve Gregg provides insightful perspectives anchored in Scripture. Engage with listeners’ queries on life after death, the resurrection, and the identity of Jesus in the New Testament. Embark on a thought-provoking exploration of Christian doctrine in a vibrant and interactive setting.
SPEAKER 1 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 01 :
Good afternoon and welcome to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we’re live for an hour each weekday afternoon. We have a live program so that you can call in while we’re in progress and you can call with your questions about the Bible or the Christian faith. I’ll be glad to take your calls. And if you ask questions, we’ll talk about those questions. We’ll talk about what may be the answers. We’ll do our best and we’ll use the Bible as our source. If you have a different viewpoint from the host, maybe you don’t believe in the Bible or Christianity, I’d like to find out from you what you do believe in and why. Feel free to give me a call. The number is 844-484-5737. Now, most of our lines are full right now, but we have one line open. So if you call right now, you can get that one. 844-484-5737. We’re going to talk to Lonnie from Vallejo, California. First of all, Lonnie, thanks for calling. Welcome to the Narrow Pass.
SPEAKER 08 :
Can you hear me okay? Mm-hmm. In Titus, Paul speaks evil of no one. And since we’re supposed to become like Jesus, but didn’t Jesus speak evil of the Pharisees? You know, calling them brood of vipers, whitewashed tombs, hypocrites. So where do you draw the line? Yeah, well, I can take it offline.
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay, that’s great. Thanks for your call. Well, I think that if you speak the truth in love, you’re not really speaking evil, even if what you’re saying is a negative thing. You may be speaking negatively about somebody, but if you’re speaking the truth, first of all, the truth is not evil in itself. If you’re speaking the truth in love, as Paul talks about doing, then you’re not doing it in an evil way. So the truth is not evil, and the way you’re saying it is not evil, so it’s not evil speaking. Of course, speaking evil of somebody would then be either slandering or gossiping or libel or lying to somebody. I mean, these would be speaking evil. there’s a lot of different ways your mouth can speak evil. And Paul said in Ephesians 4, let no corrupt communication come out of your mouth, but only what is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace to the hearers. So the standard is that you want to speak what is going to be helpful, edifying if possible, truthful, of course, in love. That’s what Paul teaches elsewhere. Now, Paul also wrote Titus. So I’m sure that when he talked about not speaking evil of people, he means, you know, not slandering them and not speaking wrongly about them. Now, gossip may often be truthful, but if it’s gossip, it’s bad. Now, what is the difference between, you know, speaking gossip about somebody, true or false, and just speaking the truth in love? Well, if you’re speaking to somebody about somebody else who’s not there, and you’re speaking in a way that you would not wish to be spoken about in a similar situation, if you were the one being spoken about, then very probably you’re involved in gossip. Now, of course, the gossip may be true, but generally speaking, if there is something bad that somebody has done, instead of you talking to somebody else about it, you should be talking to that person about it rather than gossiping. Rather than talking about them, you should speak to them. And so if the person is the one who’s a part of the problem and you’re speaking to that person, then it’s not gossip, of course. Or perhaps it’s not. Maybe you don’t have occasion to speak to the person who’s the problem, but you might be talking to somebody who is the one in the position to be a solution to the problem. That is to say somebody who’s responsible for the person who’s gone wrong. And, you know, you need to inform them. You need to inform a parent about the misbehavior of their teenage children or something like that. You know, that’s not gossip when you’re talking to the parent about their child or to somebody who is supposed to be part of the solution to the problem. So I would say if you’re saying negative things, I don’t think you’re speaking evil of somebody if you are, in fact, speaking to the person with the idea of, you know, correction. That’s loving. It’s good to correct somebody. Or if you’re speaking to the person whose actions can and should remedy the situation. So if they’re part of the problem or part of the solution and you’re talking to them, that’s not gossiping. But if you’re talking to somebody who’s neither part of the problem or the solution – and the person who is in those positions is not present, then I would say that’s gossip, and that would be evil speaking. And the Bible, many times in the Proverbs, warns against the evils of what’s called tailbearing in the King James Version, which is gossiping. And I think that’s probably what Paul is talking about. He’s talking about speaking evil of somebody in a situation where it’s not redemptive, It’s not going to improve the situation. It doesn’t have any potential to do so. You’re not speaking in love to the person. So that’s what I would understand to be what’s forbidden in terms of speaking evil to somebody or about somebody. Okay, let’s talk to Steve from Tucson, Arizona. Steve, welcome. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 10 :
Hi, Steve. I’m a part of a Bible study group that would go over different things on a on a quest to try to find out what Jesus wants us to do. I myself really want to follow him as closely as I can, and I really like what you have said in the past about salvation is found in abiding in Christ. In that Bible study, one of the guys brought up that the Great Commission was not a commandment to us, that it was just to those apostles at the time. And I was really… thrown off by that, and they said that Paul and in the other writings that nobody is backing that up, saying that we should go out and do these things. And I just really didn’t have much to say, and I’m still yet to look into it for myself, so I really need your help on this. Sure.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, the Great Commission… Yeah, the Great Commission, at least there are several versions of it. The one that is usually given is in Matthew 28, verses 19 and 20. Jesus says, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I’ve commanded you. Now, the fact that he says we have to, you know, that this has to be done to all nations, and that everyone who is then baptized needs to be taught, specifically obedience to all of Jesus’ commands. These are obviously, first of all, just to teach one person. All of Jesus’ commands is very time-consuming. If you’re supposed to do it to two or three people, that’s even more so. If you’re trying to do it to your whole nation or to all the nations, that’s more than the job of one person, and a person can’t do all of that. So we have to say that the command that Jesus gave to the disciples there is, I think, a command to the church as a whole. It’s not an individual command to any one person. You need to go to all nations. I mean, think of how many plane tickets you’d have to buy to go to all the nations if it was up to you and it was your responsibility. No, it’s the church’s responsibility. It’s the body of Christ. Now, we are the church. The church is made up of all Christians. But not all Christians play the same role in doing that because Paul said in Ephesians 4, And verse 11, that Christ gave gifts to the church. He said he gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers. Now, the ones who are prophets are not necessarily evangelists. The ones who are evangelists are not necessarily pastors and teachers. These are different gifts. Now, evangelists are those who preach the gospel. That’s what the word evangelist means. It means one who evangelizes. The word euangelion is the Greek word for the gospel evangelist. So an evangelist is a person who preaches the gospel to the lost. Now, there are people who are called to do that, and they certainly should do it. But they are not the only members of the body of Christ. There are some people who work in the office at the church and keep track of things, who do the accounting. There are people who have regular jobs, but they support missionaries to go and do that. I mean, the Bible indicates there’s lots of different gifts involved. The church as a unit, as a whole, the body of Christ, has been commissioned to make disciples of all the nations. And, you know, God calls the individuals to do various, whatever their role will be. Now, I knew Keith Green, and I saw him go through several phases before the time he died. I’m talking about the musician, Keith Green. He died quite young, but he died. He was very zealous and at the end of his life, especially, he was very zealous for missions. And when he would preach places, he would say, you know, the last command that Jesus gave us is to go to all the nations and disciple the nations. And he said, unless you’ve received a specific command that is more explicit than that, you should go. But that’s not really balanced. Keith went through his ups and downs. He got zealous about certain things, then he’d kind of mellow out, and then he’d get zealous about something else. If he had lived longer, he would have mellowed on that, too, I’m sure. He would have realized that you don’t just tell an audience of 10,000 listeners, you need to get a plane ticket and go to all the nations, because that simply may not be what God’s calling all of them to do. I mean, when you look at the book of Acts, relatively few Christians were sent out on the mission field. The Church of Antioch, for example, is the church that sent out Paul and Barnabas and later sent out Paul and Silas. And they also sent out Barnabas and Mark on one team. So there’s like three teams we know of that they sent out, and yet they’re considered to be the main missionary church in the book of Acts. So, I mean, they had a church with a lot of people, and they sent out some of them. In fact, the ones they sent out were their leaders themselves. Because we read in Acts 13 that in the opening verses that Paul and Barnabas were among the five leaders of the church. And then the Holy Spirit told the church to send them out as a team. So they were first church leaders, then their missionaries. But what about all the other people in the church? What were they doing? Well, I think they were promoting the kingdom of God in their own town. That’s what the church does. It’s a beachhead. When an evangelist or missionary goes out and evangelizes some people in a region that’s pristine and hasn’t been evangelized before, their converts become the church there. And the church is to represent the kingdom of God as the body of Christ in their town. And I think God wants to be churches in every city. Paul told Titus to go and appoint, you know, overseers, elders in all the cities in Crete where he sent him out. So he didn’t say go appoint missionaries. You know, he said go appoint church leaders because the church isn’t comprised only of missionaries. There are missionaries. But the church, you know, by sending out missionaries and supporting them, is doing its part in fulfilling the commission to reach all the nations. But once somebody has been converted, let’s say, in a new area, let’s say there’s three new converts because a missionary came through, okay, so are they supposed to drop everything and go out as missionaries too, or should they – Shall they plant a church there? Shall they become part of the body of Christ in that area? So it has an ongoing outreach there. So, I mean, you know, yeah, the Great Commission is everybody’s concern, but not everybody has the same function in seeing it take place. The body as a whole, the corporate body of Christ, has the responsibility to disciple the nations. But Paul said there’s many different gifts. He said to one is given the gift of teaching to another prophecy, to another giving or leading or showing mercy or helps. There’s a lot of different things that people do, and not all of them have to do with preaching or missionary activity, which is why you don’t find very many of the Christians in the book of Acts actually being sent out as missionaries. Very few. After Pentecost, there were 3,000 converts. On one day, 3,000 people got converted into church in Jerusalem. And we read that it was the 12 apostles that were preaching every day. Well, what were the other people doing? They were being the church. They continued daily under the apostles’ teaching and in breaking bread and fellowship and prayers. They became a community of Christians in that area. Eventually, some of them were scattered by persecution, and they did some missionary work. But… Not everyone’s called to do that. And sometimes God makes it happen. Sometimes the church just sends them out. Anyway, we should take the Great Commission very seriously, obviously. But it’s not the case that everybody has the same role to play. And the person needs to know, what is it God has me doing for his kingdom? Am I supposed to be here where I live? Or am I supposed to go overseas? Well, you shouldn’t just assume that going overseas is the default option. that all Christians should do. In fact, nobody in the Bible went out as missionaries. Paul, for example, didn’t go out as a missionary with Barnabas until they were sent out by the church. And later on, Paul and Silas were sent out by the church. So the rest of the church that wasn’t sent out didn’t go out. I assume they did their best to support the missionaries, but also to nurture them. the congregation in the town that they were in, which churches ought to do. So is that clear?
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah. I just wanted to ask you specifically, do you think that we are supposed to make disciples? I mean, not necessarily going and traveling, but as we encounter… Oh, no.
SPEAKER 01 :
Oh, no. I’m sorry you got cut off. Please call back. I’d like to hear your second question. I think that was my fault. It looks like I may have accidentally pushed a button I didn’t intend to push. Steve from Tucson, call me back, and I’ll try to get that second question. My apologies for that. I’m pretty sure I’m to blame for that. Okay, let’s talk to Jan from Bloomington, Minnesota. And, by the way, I will be speaking in Minnesota a week from tonight and a week from tomorrow and a week from Sunday. So this is Friday. So next Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, I will be speaking in an area north of Minneapolis. And if you are in the area and want to join us, we’d love to have you come. Just go to our website, thenarrowpath.com. and look under announcements, and you’ll find out where those are. So Jan is in Bloomington, Minnesota. Hi, Jan, welcome. Hi. Hi.
SPEAKER 07 :
I’ve had a fascination with dinosaurs since I was about seven or eight years old.
SPEAKER 03 :
Me too.
SPEAKER 07 :
And I’m now in my early 70s. And I wonder, when it comes to Genesis, the Bible story, and millions of years and all that, I’ve tried to figure out at times, how does that all fit together?
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, the Bible doesn’t mention any millions of years, so we don’t have to fit them in there. If there were, in fact, billions of years, and some people say there were, then we’d have to fit them into the whole creation narrative. Now, the Bible talks about six days that God spoke and created things. There are some people, there’s a lot of different views about whether those are six consecutive 24-hour days, which is the way it sounds like when you read it, Or some people have taken it differently, thinking that the days represent very long periods of time or punctuate long periods of time. For example, if God said let there be, you know, let dry land appear and let the plants appear, that’s on the third day. Well, some people think, well, maybe he did that on the third day, an actual day. But then the fourth day that he created wasn’t immediately the next day that he may have allowed these plants to grow and cover the earth and maybe even have varieties of them develop and so forth because that’s what happens over time. Yeah, because dinosaurs actually did exist. You go in the museums and you see these dinosaur skeletons. Yeah, there’s no question about that. I mean, at least I’ve never had any question about it.
SPEAKER 07 :
Have you ever been into any museum and seen dinosaur skeletons? Of course.
SPEAKER 01 :
Of course I have, yeah.
SPEAKER 07 :
I’ve been to at least 20 museums across the northern states have seen dinosaurs on display.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, you don’t have to convince me. I’ve never doubted that there have been dinosaurs. I’m not even 100% sure that there aren’t any still around, but I don’t know.
SPEAKER 07 :
The closest thing to a dinosaur nowadays are birds.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, I think a crocodile would be a lot closer than a bird to a dinosaur, probably.
SPEAKER 07 :
No, that’s not the case, believe it or not.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, okay, I don’t know if anyone really knows that. Because when we say the closest to a dinosaur, if you mean the closest relative to a dinosaur, then you’re suggesting that there’s an evolutionary relationship between dinosaurs and other animals, like birds. Of course, evolutionists do say that. Evolutionists say that dinosaurs did evolve into birds. Now, when I say the closest thing to a dinosaur, I’m not assuming that dinosaurs evolved into anything. I don’t necessarily believe in evolution. So if there’s no evolution, then dinosaurs aren’t literally related anyway. Just like, you know, I’m not related to somebody that I didn’t descend from or that we don’t have a common descendant somewhere, you know. So if dinosaurs had common descent from creatures as birds had, then they have some kind of cousin-like relationship to be sure. But if they didn’t, they’re not related. They’re just special created creatures that lived and died, just like, frankly, all created creatures do. Now, when I say the closest thing to a dinosaur, I mean the closest thing like a dinosaur. I believe dinosaurs were reptiles. Some people think not. Some think they were hot-blooded animals and so forth, but I don’t think that’s necessarily something we have to hold to. I believe dinosaurs were, no doubt, very large reptiles. And we have very large reptiles now. So those are, I would say, the large reptiles we have today. The closest thing we have to dinosaurs. I’m not saying they’re relatives to dinosaurs, because I don’t believe that, like, I don’t believe that turtles, which are reptiles, are relatives of snakes, which are also reptiles, which are relatives of crocodiles, which are also reptiles. I don’t believe they’re related. We call them reptiles because they share some characteristics. They’re cold-blooded. They lay eggs, you know. They have scales. They’re quadrupeds. Well, of course, snakes are not. But, I mean, they share some reptilian characteristics, so we call them reptiles. The Bible doesn’t use the word reptile, and it’s a modern word that we’ve made up to describe certain kinds of creatures. But just because there’s different reptiles doesn’t mean that they’re all related to each other somehow. They just have some characteristics in common with each other. I have some characteristics in common. with many people I meet. For example, I have blue eyes. So do many people I’ve met. I have gray hair. A lot of people I know have gray hair. Actually, it’s getting closer to white these days. You know, I’m a certain height, and there’s a lot of people my height. So I share characteristics with them, but they’re not necessarily close relatives of mine. In fact, we don’t have any known common ancestors between us, although Adam and Eve would be the common ancestors of all of us. But What I’m saying is that I’d say crocodiles are the closest thing to dinosaurs we have right now because they basically, there were dinosaurs who looked like crocodiles. They’re just even bigger. So I’m going to have to just say, you know, I believe dinosaurs were created as animals, just like other animals. And they were created alongside dinosaurs. other kinds of animals. So I don’t claim to know how old the earth is. It may be a young earth. It may be an older earth. I don’t think the Bible really makes an issue of how old the earth is. I don’t think it becomes an important point anywhere, but I don’t believe evolution describes the development of different kinds of animals for the simple reason that there’s no evidence that they did. The fossil record certainly doesn’t confirm it, and that’s the record of what really happened. You know, you can have all kinds of theories about this creature evolved from this creature and went through all these different stages to get there, but we have no record of it except in the fossils, and the fossil record does not confirm it. So, you know, I’m just not convinced that evolution is true. It’s a theory that came up to describe certain phenomena. I think the same phenomena can be explained without it. So that’s where I’m at. Anyway, I appreciate your call. Let’s see. We’re going to talk next to Carol in Fountain Valley. Carol, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 03 :
Hi, Steve. Hey.
SPEAKER 06 :
Hey, can you hear me?
SPEAKER 01 :
Yes, but go ahead, please.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay. Well, first, I missed last night in Huntington Beach. Are you going to be there next month?
SPEAKER 01 :
I wasn’t there last time. Oh, they got canceled? Yeah, I’ve been announcing all week that it was canceled, yeah, and it was canceled. Our announcement’s on our webpage, so it was canceled. Yeah, okay, so listen, you and I are going to run out of time here before the break.
SPEAKER 10 :
Real quick, real quick, real quick. Protestant religions teach that Catholics can’t go to heaven. They do? Your thoughts, and I’m going to hang up.
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay. Yeah, I’m not sure I’ve met… Well, you know, I don’t know. There’s thousands of different kinds of Protestants. I suppose there are some of them who think Catholics can’t go to heaven. There are Protestants who think that certain other Protestants aren’t going to make it to heaven, too. There are some very limited, you know, very narrow-minded Protestants. But to my mind, the people who are going to be in heaven are the ones who are devoted to Jesus Christ. That’s the only thing the Bible tells us will get somebody to heaven is if you are in Christ. God has given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that has the Son has life. He that has not the Son of God has not life. That’s what 1 John chapter 5 tells us. So I believe that someone has Christ, and they’re his on his terms, meaning that they trust in him, they follow him, they’re loyal to him, they’re faithful unto death to him. then I can’t imagine what about them would prevent them from being in heaven with him. So, you know, yeah, there are teachers. Frankly, there’s cults and stuff that don’t believe that any people are going to heaven except people in their cults. And then there are, like I said, thousands of kinds of Protestants. Some of them probably do teach that Catholics can’t go to heaven, but not the people I’ve been around. I’ve been a Protestant all my life. And, you know, when I was young and a Baptist, if someone had said, do you think Catholics would be in heaven? I don’t know if I had given it any thought at the time. I really believed that Catholics were wrong, and I still do, about many things. But I think Protestants are typically wrong about many things, too. I don’t think you’re going to heaven because you were right about everything or going to hell because you were wrong about certain things. I think you’re going to be in heaven or not, depending on whether you were devoted to Jesus Christ as your King and your Lord. And you’re surrendered to him and living your life with his will as your primary goal. I can’t think of anything else the Bible would say about it. So, yeah, so I mean, there are Catholics that would fit that description. And it’s a good thing, too, because there was about a thousand years or so in Europe, in Western Europe, where almost everyone who was a Christian was a Roman Catholic. There’s hardly anything else. But I believe they’re not all in hell today. I think a lot of people are, but I don’t believe that being a Catholic is something that God says, you be a Catholic, go to hell. That’s not God’s word. That’s man’s word. You’re listening to The Narrow Path. We have another half hour coming. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. I’ll be back in 30 seconds, so don’t go away.
SPEAKER 02 :
If truth did exist, would it matter to you? Whom would you consult as an authority on the subject? In a 16-letcher series entitled The Authority of Scriptures, Steve Gregg not only thoroughly presents the case for the Bible’s authority, but also explains how this truth is to be applied to a believer’s daily walk and outlook. The Authority of Scriptures can be downloaded in MP3 format without charge from our website, thenarrowpath.com.
SPEAKER 1 :
The Authority of Scriptures
SPEAKER 01 :
Welcome back to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we’re live for another half hour calls. If you’d like to be on the program, you have questions about the Bible or the Christian faith, or you disagree with the host and want to say why, feel free to call me. This is the number 844-484-5737. That’s 844-484-5737. 5737. And I want to remind you that a week from tonight I’ll be speaking in the general area of Minneapolis, Minnesota. And not just Friday night, but Saturday and Sunday as well. So the whole weekend I’ll be talking about eschatology. Now by the way, I just want you to know eschatology is not my hobby horse. It’s not even one of my favorite subjects, but I But I do speak on it, and I was asked to speak on it, so I’m coming there to the Minneapolis area to talk about eschatology for three days, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. If you’re interested in joining us to find out where we are and what time and so forth, go to our website, thenarrowpath.com, and look under announcements and look up the dates, and you’ll see the time and the place and all that stuff. All right, we’re going to talk to Jim from Sacramento, California. Hi, Jim. Thanks for waiting.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hello, Steve.
SPEAKER 01 :
Hi.
SPEAKER 05 :
First of all, before I get to my question, I just want to ask everybody to please pray for me because on Monday I’m going to be going under a surgical procedure to implant a pacemaker in my heart. I’ve had heart trouble for a third of a century now.
SPEAKER 01 :
I know. I know that, yeah. Hey, okay, so what’s your question, brother? I’m sure many people will be praying for you.
SPEAKER 05 :
Appreciate that. Okay, my question is this. John 10 is the only reference to the time of the year that we celebrate during the holidays.
SPEAKER 01 :
Hanukkah, yeah. The Feast of Dedication, it’s called, yeah.
SPEAKER 05 :
And that is, in fact, of course, Hanukkah.
SPEAKER 01 :
Right.
SPEAKER 05 :
Now, my question is this. Since Jesus celebrates Hanukkah, and since Hanukkah comes from the first book of the Maccabees, in what’s known as the Deuterocanonical books, Yeah. which are in some Bibles and not in others. My question is this. Does not Jesus’ observation of Hanukkah and celebration of Hanukkah put more or less of an imprimatur on the book of the Maccabees and thereby label the Deuterocanonical books as being part of the word of God, then it should be included.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, it’s a fair question. I personally don’t think that I would draw that conclusion from it, because Hanukkah is not based on the book of Maccabees. It’s based on the fact of the Maccabees, the history of the Maccabees, the fact that they rededicated the temple after Antiochus Epiphanes had defiled it. Now, that happened. Whether there was a book about it or not, the Jews would still be celebrating it. So, yeah, it’s true that the book of 1 Maccabees does record that story. But the record of that story doesn’t make that story real. It’s the reality of the story that makes the record real. And whether we had a record of it or not, it would be an actual historical event in the history of the Jews and one that I’m sure they would celebrate. And no doubt, because it was such an important event, the book of Maccabees was written to commemorate it and give the history of it. So the fact that a book is written about something and that Jesus celebrated that something doesn’t tell us everything that we would need to know about the book that’s written about it. Now, I personally think that the book of First Maccabees gives, for all we know, an accurate account of the Maccabean War. and the things that happened there. I believe that book is accurate. But you see, that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily a book that is inspired. I’ve got on my shelf quite a few books. I’ve got some books on American history. I’ve got a few books on world history. I’ve got some books on the history of revivals. I’ve got some church history books. None of them are inspired, as far as I know. But I do assume… they’re fairly accurate. That is, the writers were competent and honest, so I can get a good read on what happened historically from reading these books. But to have an accurate history doesn’t mean you have an inspired book. For example, at our website, I’ve written an 11-page autobiographical sketch about myself. It’s completely accurate, but I wasn’t inspired. I mean, if someone read it, they’d know something. facts about me, and they could trust them because I was there. I knew they happened, and I’m also honest. But that doesn’t make me inspired. And the same thing is true of the deuterocanonical books, the books that are written in the intertestamental period. They’re not written by prophets. They don’t even claim to be written by prophets. And that’s why Protestants have usually not put them on the same level with the books of the Bible that are written by prophets and apostles. Now, Jesus celebrated, well, we say Jesus celebrated Hanukkah, which in John chapter 10 is referred to as the Feast of Dedication. But we read only that he was in Jerusalem at that time, and he had some conversations. We’re not told if he was celebrating or not. He probably was. I have no problem with the fact that he’d be celebrating Jewish celebrations. He was a Jew, and he probably celebrated Hanukkah every year of his life. and probably Purim also, and some other interesting feasts that Moses didn’t describe. But that he did so, or that he was there, doesn’t tell us exactly how much he was celebrating. For example, we read that Jesus often went into synagogues to preach on the Sabbath, and so did Paul. But we’re not told that they were doing so as an observance of the Sabbath, They went there because that’s where there was a crowd. In the synagogue on Sabbath, you’ll find the Jewish population. And they went there to preach. Now, they could have celebrated the Sabbath. We don’t know if they did or not because the Bible doesn’t tell us about them celebrating the Sabbath. For example, celebrating the Sabbath requires that you don’t do any work. It would appear that Jesus did the same kind of work on the Sabbath they did every other day, preaching. In fact, he kind of rubbed it in the faces of the Jews because they thought he should do those things six days a week and not do them on the Sabbath. They even said that when he healed a woman in Luke 18 or Luke 13. I think it was a woman who was bent over on the Sabbath in the synagogue. He healed a woman and the rabbi protested and said, bring your sicknesses to be healed six days a week, but don’t do it on the Sabbath. And Jesus rebuked the man and said, hey, you should care about this woman on the Sabbath too. And so, I mean, Jesus really didn’t keep the Sabbath in the sense that the law said to because he didn’t stop from his normal work, which is exactly what’s commanded on the Sabbath. But he did go into the synagogue on the Sabbath, which was never, by the way, commanded in the Old Testament because the synagogues didn’t exist in the time of Moses, nor did he command that they should. So synagogues didn’t exist until the Babylonian exile or later. So, in other words, going in the synagogue on the Sabbath to preach to people who he knew would be gathered there is not the same thing as keeping the Sabbath. Yet many Sabbatarians say, well, Jesus kept the Sabbath. Well, how do we know that? Because we see him preaching in the synagogue. Well, Sabbath law didn’t say you shall preach in the synagogue on the Sabbath day. He preached every day. That’s where the people were. And it may be that feast of dedication. I’m not insisting on this because I have no problem with the idea that Jesus may have celebrated Hanukkah. It wouldn’t bother me at all. But it’s also possible that he was there because these are the feasts where Jews tended to be gathered together in large numbers to celebrate. And so he was there to preach as usual. But let’s just say he was celebrating Hanukkah. And yes, the first book of Maccabees describes the origins of Hanukkah and the reasons for Hanukkah, the Maccabean War. But But he would not necessarily be placing his imprimatur on that book, which is simply a history of why that feast is celebrated. And that’s the thing about the difference between Protestants and, well, let’s just say most Protestants and certain other branches of Christianity. The Protestants usually don’t accept the apocryphal books anymore. or the deuterocanonical books, whereas Catholics and some others do. But these deuterocanonical books, as far as we know, are not written by prophets, and it’s generally assumed that the other Old Testament books are. And that’s the main reason why some books are in the Bible and some are not, that some are written by inspired authors and some not. give no indication that they are, and we have no reason to believe they are. So, yeah, I’m going to say no to that one, but I mean, it doesn’t mean I have any objection to the book of 1 Maccabees, and I doubt if Jesus had any objection to it. Why would he? I mean, it’s a historical book. of things that had happened a couple hundred years before his time. And, you know, who doesn’t love good history? I think that Jesus probably liked the book of 1 Maccabees. I was familiar with it. But that doesn’t tell us whether he thought it inspired scripture or not. All right. Let’s talk to Harriet from Detroit, Michigan next. Hi, Harriet. Welcome.
SPEAKER 06 :
Hi, young man. I love your program. So my question is to you that I’ve been struggling with for years. So why do people always say when their loved ones pass that they’re in heaven? The rapture, 1 Thessalonians 4, 16 and 17 says the voice of the archangel will rise and the trumpet and then that those who dance will rise again. And we were met in the air. In Acts 2, 28, verse 30, it says David is still in his grave. So why do people say that their loved ones are in heaven? That’s my question. Thank you. Thank you very much.
SPEAKER 01 :
Oh, sure, sure. Thank you for your call, Harriet. Well, the Bible does talk about the resurrection time. of the dead on the last day when Jesus comes back. He said he’ll raise up his people on the last day. Paul describes, as you pointed out in 1 Thessalonians 4, verses 16 through 18, that when Jesus comes back, the dead in Christ will rise first. That’s the resurrection. And then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up to meet the Lord in the air. That’s the rapture. So Jesus and Paul both teach that at the end, when Jesus comes back, all the dead and the living saints will meet the Lord in the air and shall always be with him from that point on, he said. Now, but that, I think, is not related directly to the question of where our souls go when we die. Now, there are many people who believe that the soul slumbers, that when we die, we are totally unconscious. We’re not aware of anything at all. We’re nowhere until the resurrection. And then when the resurrection comes, We are revived. Suddenly, you know, we’re not brain dead anymore. Our brains are all conscious and we’re in new bodies and so forth. That is, I suppose, a possible way of looking at it. Some verses of scripture are taken that way. But other verses do suggest that when we die, we are absent from our bodies. Now, by the way, if I can be absent from my body, then I am something other than my body, right? I mean, there’s my body. And I can be present with the body, Paul said, or I can be absent from the body. So who am I? I’m not my body. I’m somebody who’s either in my body or not in my body at a given time. It’s that part of me that’s not my body that now lives in this body, like in a house or in a tabernacle, Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5. My body is not me. although it’s part of me, but the part of me that isn’t my body, that resides in my body, is what goes to be with the Lord, I believe. Because Paul says that when we’re absent from the body, he identified that with being present with the Lord. So the part of me that lives in my body now will not be in my body. My body will go into the grave. It will rot. It will be eaten by worms. It will be reduced to dust over time and ashes. And And I will be with the Lord. Paul in Philippians chapter one mentioned that he was eager in one sense to die so that he could depart and be with the Lord. That’s what he said, which is far better, he said. So he expected in dying he would depart. That is, he would not be present in his body anymore. And he would go to be with the Lord, he said. Now, that’s what I expect, too, when I die. But you see, my body doesn’t go at that time. But when Jesus comes back, the Bible says he will raise our bodies and glorify our bodies and immortalize our bodies. Our bodies, which have been reduced to dust, well, that shouldn’t be a problem to him because he made man from dust originally. God can easily take our dust and make it back into a body. But the body he’s going to give us at his second coming is a glorified body, is an immortal body, we are told. A powerful body. He says our bodies, when they’re buried, are sown in weakness. They’re raised in power. They’re sown in dishonor. They’re raised in glory. They’re sown a mortal body. They’re raised an immortal body. So this is the kind of thing that will happen when Jesus comes back. And that’s when Paul talks about the trumpet will sound and the dead in Christ will rise first. That’s at the second coming of Christ. You’re right. Our loved ones who have died have not experienced that yet. And we won’t experience it until Jesus comes back either. No one will. But the question is, when we leave this body, where do we go? And if we’re followers of Christ, I believe we go to be with the Lord. That is our spirit, our non-physical self, our soul, or whatever you might want to call it. It goes to be with the Lord. And then when he comes back, he brings us with him. He brings the souls of those who’ve died with him. and reunites them with their bodies, but these bodies have been transformed into a very different kind of body, much better than what we ever had before. And it says that, and also in 1 Thessalonians, the same chapter that talks about the rapture, just a few verses before the rapture passage. In verse 14 it says, if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so will he bring with him, Those who are dead in Christ. He says, who sleep in Jesus. That’s his metaphor for death. So those who have died, he’ll bring them with him when he comes, he says. Which to my mind means they are with him now. And he’ll bring them along when he comes back. But he’ll raise the bodies then. And we will live in immortal bodies then. So that’s how I would explain those two things. At death, one thing happens to your soul or spirit. and when Jesus comes back, something happens to your body. It’s raised from the dead. All right. I appreciate your call and that question. Mark from West Hartford, Connecticut. Welcome. Hello, Steve.
SPEAKER 11 :
Hi. I have two questions. The first one is probably shorter, but it is, is there anywhere in the New Testament that says Jesus is God or God incarnate? Not in the reference to the Son of God or Savior, etc., but point blank without no interpretation needed.
SPEAKER 01 :
Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, there’s nothing that needs no interpretation because there are things that people take literally. That’s a way of interpreting something, literally. Or they take it figuratively, which is another way of interpreting it. And there’s no way you can read something and make any sense of it without interpreting it because we’re looking at black people. black letters on a page that mean nothing until you give them meaning. And that process is called interpreting them. But there are passages that do seem to very straightforwardly say Jesus is God. Of course, the first one that comes to mind for most Christians, including me, is John chapter 1. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And then in verse 14 it says, and the Word, who we’ve already been told is God, was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father. Likewise, Paul talks about Jesus as being God. Well, he said he was in the image of God. He was in the form of God, he says in Philippians chapter 2. And he considered that equality with God was not something to hang on to, and he emptied himself and came down to live among us as a man. That’s in Philippians 2. Beginning around verse 5, going through about verse 10. In Romans 9, verse 5, Paul’s listing all the advantages that God has given to the Jewish people. And it’s a long list, but verse 5, he continues this. Of whom, that is of the Jews, are the fathers, from whom, according to the flesh, Christ came, who is over all the eternally blessed God. Okay? So Christ… is overall the eternally blessed God. That’s Romans 9.5. And there are a number of other places that give that kind of impression. In Hebrews 1 and 2, the writer of Hebrews is going through a whole bunch of Old Testament passages and showing how Jesus is superior to the angels because God said things to Jesus that were never said to angels. And among them, would be, for example, Hebrews 1.8, which says, this is quoting from Psalm 45, verses 6 and 7, Your throne, O God, is forever and ever. Now, in verse 8, it says, To the Son, God says, Your throne, O God. Now, this is spoken to the Son, to Jesus. Your throne, O God, is forever and ever a scepter of righteousness, a scepter of your kingdom forever. he says you’ve loved righteousness so forth and then in Hebrews chapter 1 verse 10 it says and this is addressed to Jesus too apparently according to the writer of Hebrews or else it’s no reason to quote it he’s talking about how God speaks to Jesus uniquely he says you Lord in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth now that’s God speaking or the psalmist speaking to Jesus according to the writer of Hebrews now Lord there, he’s quoting Psalm 102, verses 25 through 27, is Yahweh. You, Yahweh, in the beginning laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you remain. They will all grow old like a garment, like a cloak, etc., etc. This is addressed to Jesus. You, Yahweh. Now, I mean, there’s no way that this could be this. The writer of Hebrews is clearly… saying these are things that are said to the Son, that is to Jesus. So, you know, he’s called Yahweh. And, you know, there are a number of other verses in the Old Testament where they are addressed to or about Yahweh. And then, of course, in the New Testament, they are spoken of as applying to Jesus. So the New Testament writers definitely saw Jesus as God incarnate, God in human form among us.
SPEAKER 11 :
Okay. Yeah, I was just wondering if, and you have explained it well enough, that if one of the apostles or Paul or anybody that was writing the epistles or after Christ’s resurrection actually went up to somebody and says, Hey, listen, Jesus Christ is God. But you have, you’ve explained it in that sense, but okay. My second question is a baptism question. I think I’ve mentioned this to you before, but I need to be reminded. I attend a Baptist church. I was baptized as a Roman Catholic as an infant, so I said I would like to be baptized by immersion. Not a problem, they said, but they require a written testimony to be read before the congregation, more so as an encouragement to others and glorifying God publicly. A testimony… My testimony, I wrote this all out.
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay, we can’t have your long testimony here because we’ve only got like five minutes left. We’ve got lots of people waiting. Go ahead.
SPEAKER 11 :
Okay. My testimony was this, that Jesus is Christ. And so they want more of a conversion testimony. Is it wrong for me just to be baptized by another believer that truly knows of my faith in Christ? And should the church I attend recognize it as true and valid?
SPEAKER 01 :
I think so.
SPEAKER 11 :
I think it could be valid, yeah.
SPEAKER 01 :
I believe it could be valid, and I believe that your church should recognize its validity. Yes, absolutely. All right. Let’s talk to, let’s see, Yvette from Tampa, Florida. Hi, Yvette. Welcome.
SPEAKER 09 :
Hi. Hello, Mr. Gregg. I have a quick question about a scripture that has been disturbing me for many years, and it’s the Matthew 5, verse 32, where it says that if someone marries a divorced woman, that they commit adultery. Could you explain that to me?
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, I tell you what, we have so little time, I can’t cover it entirely in the time we have, because we’re literally off the air in less than five minutes. But let me suggest to you that you go to our website, thenarrowpath.com. TheNarrowPath.com. Go there. And you’ll see there’s some tabs along the top. And one of them says topical articles. Don’t confuse this with topical lectures. There’s also a tab that says topical lectures. But the topical articles have some articles that I have written that have been published in magazines, and now they’re on the website. And there’s one about divorce and remarriage. And I do go into some considerable detail. about what Jesus said about that and what the whole Bible teaches on it, I don’t think I leave out any of the verses that are relevant to the subject. And so rather than trying to go over all that in the time we have, I just suggest go to thenarrowpath.com, look under topical articles, and find the one on divorce and remarriage. I think that would be the best I can do for you. I can’t abbreviate it enough in the time we have.
SPEAKER 09 :
All right. Well, thank you. You have a good evening.
SPEAKER 01 :
All right, sister. God bless you. William from Linwood, Washington, you’re our last caller. We only have a few minutes. Go ahead.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes, Steve, thank you so much. I just had some more thoughts about the age of the earth and the scientific study of which sounds like it’s more about the carbon dating, and it doesn’t take into account the pre-flood and post-flood. as well as the length of reptiles living on the earth. Reptiles never stop growing the entire time they are alive. So if they were living for many, many years, hundreds of years like people were before the flood, then they, of course, would also be very large dinosaurs. What do you think about all of that?
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, I know those things to be true, and that probably explains some things. There have been dinosaur eggs that have been found, I think. And I mean, there are eggs that are thought to be dinosaur eggs, at least. And some of them were quite large, which suggests that even at birth or at the time of hatching, dinosaurs were probably bigger than modern reptiles. But you are correct. If there were conditions in the environment that caused people to live upwards of 900 years, which is about 13 times as long as people live now, then those same conditions might have caused all other animals to live 13 times as long. And Unlike mammals and birds, which reach an adult height or size and then stop growing, reptiles keep growing. Their growth slows once they reach adult size, but they do keep growing. So, obviously, if they did live 13 times as long before the flood as they do now, they would eventually get a lot bigger. And certainly some of the big reptiles we have now would be huge, we presume, and would be, of course, among those that we call dinosaurs. But there were obviously different species of reptiles then. Frankly, there were different species of insects and of mammals and so forth too. You know, woolly mammoths and giant sloths were mammals. Yes. Giant, you know, dragonflies with a four-foot wingspan. Obviously, there were different species of creatures then too that are now extinct apparently, including some reptiles. But, yeah, you’re right. I mean, the reptiles we have with us today would be enormous today. if they live 13 times as long as they may have before the flood. I’m sorry I’m out of time, but I appreciate your observations. You’ve been listening to The Narrow Path. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. Have a good weekend. Thanks for joining us.
