In this thought-provoking episode, we delve into the complexities of relationships within the Christian faith. Can a believer marry someone of different spiritual views, and how should one approach friendships with people of bad character? Through engaging discussions and biblical references, we unravel the teachings of Hosea’s marriage to a harlot and Jesus’ friendship with Judas, reflecting on their implications for today’s believers. Additionally, explore the challenges and responsibilities of being a faithful Christian while engaging with a diverse secular world.
SPEAKER 1 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 01 :
The number to call if you’d like to be on the air, we have several lines open at the moment. The number is 844-484-5737. That’s 844-484-5737. And our first caller today is Jim calling from Atlanta, Georgia. Hi, Jim. Sorry for the mix-up. Welcome to The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, I thought they said I was first in line, so I was confused when I heard somebody else.
SPEAKER 01 :
You were first in line. And I tried to put you on, but they couldn’t hear me through the equipment, so there was something wrong that we had to fix it.
SPEAKER 03 :
No worries. So my question is, if Jesus knowingly welcomed Judas, a person who was of corrupt character, into close fellowship, and Amos also obeyed God by marrying a prostitute, which is essentially the deepest form. Amos, or is it Hosea?
SPEAKER 01 :
Hosea was the one who did, yeah.
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, sorry. Entering into the deepest form of intimacy, then what does that say about the nature of divine direction? In both cases, spiritually upright individuals chose to pursue, you know, close relationships with people actively living in sin, and these were not accidental or concessions. They were deliberate, God-led choices, so… Can a person who seeks to walk uprightly before God also be led to pursue close relationships with sinners, trusting that this is part of God’s redemptive plan?
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, not if we’re told not to. If you’re talking about marriage, we are actually forbidden to marry unbelievers. Now, Hosea was told to marry a woman who, in chapter 1 of Hosea, was described as a woman of fornication, a woman of harlotry, or a wife of harlotry. it is not clear whether she was already involved in harlotry or if this is the way that God described her as this is how she would turn out to be. He’s going to have a wife and she’s going to become a harlot. That is unclear and commentators actually disagree about that with each other. Either she already was a harlot and he went and picked her, married her, and then she went back to harlotry, which is what many people think the story is, or she was not a harlot until after she was married and then she did go away. Of course, a lot of A lot of Christian men have had that experience. They’ve married women who were apparently godly, but the women went off and cheated on them. We don’t know if Hosea, therefore, was told to marry a woman who was already a harlot, although, frankly, there was no law of Moses that would forbid a Jew from marrying a harlot. Rahab was a harlot, and she married a man of the tribe of Judah named Solomon, and she was in the ancestry of David and of Christ. So, I mean, there’s nothing in the Bible that forbids a man from marrying a harlot. A priest could not. There was a law that said the priest could not marry a harlot. But the average Jew was not forbidden to do so. In fact, it would be probably considered making an honest woman of her. She shouldn’t have been a harlot in the first place. But if she gets married, she could be delivered from that lifestyle. So we don’t know if God was leading Hosea to marry a woman who was already a harlot. But if so, that’s not really a sin to do that. Presumably, she was, by marrying him, giving up harlotry for the time being anyway. And she did go into that lifestyle, whether that was a return to a former way of life or a new adventure for her after she married Hosea, we don’t know. But the whole point is, of course, Hosea’s marriage was intended by God to be a picture of God’s marriage to Israel. And that’s, of course, made very clear. Hosea, like many prophets, had to live out his prophecy in certain symbolic actions. Jeremiah had to wear an ox yoke over his neck to indicate that Israel was going to bear the yoke of bondage to Babylon. Ezekiel did a whole bunch of symbolic things which had to be explained. Likewise, Hosea had to marry this woman and go through the heartbreak. of having an unfaithful wife, and so he could forgive her and be like God was offering to do with Israel. Now, I wouldn’t say that what God tells a prophet to do is something that we could make normative for all of us, since prophets, generally speaking, had special messages and special instructions. And since there was nothing sinful about marrying a harlot, even if it’s going to be heartbreaking, there’s no moral breach in doing so in the law. So I don’t see a problem with that. Yes. So you say, can God maybe lead a godly person to to marry somebody who’s going to give him heartbreak and turn out bad? Yeah, we know of at least that case, but it’s not really generally speaking a good habit. It’s not very wise to marry someone who’s going to be an unfaithful wife at all. Not only because of the heartbreak, it’ll bring the husband. but the damage it will do to children if there are children in the marriage, and there should be. Normal marriages at least generally have children in the Bible. So that’s that. Now, as far as Jesus picking Judas, we don’t know that Judas was a bad guy at that time. He may have simply gone bad. We know of many people who have been faithful to God at one time or another, and then they went bad. They just renounced Christ, renounced God, became atheists, went away, did their own thing. Judas could have been of that type. Now, some people think that Judas was not a real disciple, even from the beginning, and that Jesus chose him just because the prophecies had to be fulfilled that one of his disciples would betray him. So he had to find somebody who would do that and call him to be a disciple. However, the prophets do not say anywhere that one of the Messiah’s disciples will betray him. The idea that Judas, in betraying Christ, fulfilled prophecy is really looking at some psalms where David describes how his friends, who have been his familiar friends, have turned against him. And David is a type of Christ, so when Judas did this to Christ, it is seen in the New Testament as a fulfillment of that type, that is, David is a type of Christ, and he’s betrayed by his friends, so Christ is betrayed by his friends. But there’s certainly nothing in the Old Testament prophecies that would indicate that it had to be one of the twelve, or anything like that. My impression… Probably, I mean, I could go either way, but I lean toward the idea that Judas was probably a real believer at the beginning, and that he became disillusioned because Jesus wasn’t doing things his way. I mean, even John the Baptist seemed to struggle with disillusionment, though I don’t think he fell away. But, you know, he seemed to be not all that happy with the course Jesus was taking. Judas also may not have been happy with it, and he may have gone so far as to open his heart to the enemy, because the Bible says the devil entered into Judas. Now, we don’t know, but the fact that God told Jesus to pick Judas doesn’t tell us very much about what Judas was at the time, or even what he was going to become. But in those cases, if you’re asking, does this give us precedent for us as Christians to become married, to unbelievers or to people of poor character, or even, frankly, to become intimate friends with people who are of poor character, I don’t think these cases would give that kind of warrant. There may be times when you need to befriend people who are of bad character. They might even be members of your own family. They may be people who work with you. there’s lots of people of bad character that will be in your life, and God might lead you to befriend them in some kind of an outreach-oriented situation. But I don’t think God would ever necessarily lead someone to marry somebody of bad character, unless they maybe are a prophet and their marriage is supposed to be telling the world something about God, like Hosea. But… Yeah, I don’t think those two examples necessarily would provide some kind of justification for saying, I’m going to go out and have my friends be bad people. Jesus had a friend, Judas, and he called him friend. Even when Judas came to betray him in the garden, Jesus said, friend, do you betray the son of man with a kiss? So, I mean, Jesus had a friend. Judas was his friend. Probably Judas was a good friend who went bad. We don’t know. It could be the other way, but In any case, we don’t find any case where Jesus is accommodating bad people and saying, hey, let’s go out and get drunk together because I know that’s what you like to do. Sometimes people want to have worldly friends because they kind of want to be worldly themselves. But certainly there’s no excuse for that in the Bible.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay, that makes sense. I guess the question then is, how friendly should you be with somebody who is of negative character if you’re not, at the same time, let’s say, evangelizing to them?
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, well, I mean, as far as being friendly goes, if that means kind, being kind to somebody, or even being generous to somebody, that’s loving, that’s friendly. I don’t see any reason not to do that. I think you should be kind to everybody that you can possibly be kind to, I think that being generous, we don’t give to everybody who asks because some people will take advantage and are not really worthy of the charity. But on the other hand, if somebody has a real need and you can help them and they’re not a good person, there may be situations in which you would be generous to them. Of course, when you say someone a bad character, that might mean somebody who wastes money. Lots of people with bad character waste money, and if they’re wasting money, I wouldn’t be giving them money to waste because that would be just bad stewardship. If they are people who are, maybe they have a problem with cursing or something like that, but their wife and kids are going hungry because they’re out of a job, I mean, being generous in a case like that might help. be justified. I would just say, you know, you don’t choose bad people for your friends because the Bible says bad company corrupts good morals. And that’s obvious anyway. Anyone can see that. Somebody said, show me your friends and I’ll show you your future. Because basically whoever you choose to want to be around and please are going to be the people that you’ll tend to become like. So, you know, there’s that. Anyway, I’m not sure what situations you’re thinking of, but, you know, if I were working with unbelievers and I knew they were bad people in their private lives, I’d still be friendly to them. I’d still be kind to them. I might even help them out in some cases. But, you know, I wouldn’t choose them to be my main companions unless they wanted to learn from me, which is probably that would be an indication their character is not quite that bad after all.
SPEAKER 03 :
That makes sense, that makes sense, yeah, because in many environments in the secular world, you’ll be surrounded, I guess, with people who are, who exhibit bad characters or have some kind of sin that they’re pursuing. You may not be in that environment where they’re pursuing the sin, but the question really is how, whether you could, whether you should adopt him as a friend, regardless of whether they’re pursuing the sin or not. And kind of, kind of what you’re reminding me is that that’s not really how you should operate.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, the real question when you talk about befriending somebody is, are you befriending them because you want their approval, or are you befriending them because they want your approval and they want your influence? I mean, that’s the way to look at it. If you’re with somebody who’s not a very good person, but they are being influenced by you, clearly, and want to be influenced by you for good, that would be somebody to befriend on those terms. But if they just want you to approve of them, then I wouldn’t say so. I mean, just to be so they can call you their friend. even though they’re not interested in changing, then I wouldn’t give them special, I wouldn’t give them an awful lot of my time. Okay, let’s talk to Nick from Ortonville, Michigan. Nick, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 07 :
Hey, Stephen, am I there?
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, you’re there.
SPEAKER 07 :
All right, how are you doing? Good. Good. I got two quick little questions for you. I hope they’re quick. One of them, so I’ve been looking into a lot of covenantal theology in the sense I do my best to read through the scriptures, and right now I’m working on writing down why basically I believe covenantal theology through the scriptures. I have one question. You know, I found like, this is just an example, nine times out of ten, you know, it seems like the Bible aligns with covenantal theology. There is one question on Genesis chapter 17, verse 8. It talks about God giving an everlasting promise for the Israelites to have the land of Canaan. And I think you can see fulfillment in that. I think it was Joshua chapter 21. But my question would be, during the holy wars with the Christians and the Muslims, is there an argument for why God did not allow the Christians, in a sense, to take over that area? Or did they, and I just don’t have a history quite right?
SPEAKER 01 :
I’m not sure I understand it. First of all, I don’t think there were any really holy wars between Christians and Muslims. I don’t think Christians should be fighting wars with Muslims. They might call them holy wars, but I wouldn’t characterize them that way. But as far as the everlasting promise of the land given to Abraham, this is repeated many, many times in Scripture. But it’s also made clear in Scripture that the promise of them having the land is conditional. I mean, it’s forever as long as they meet the conditions. And it doesn’t have a natural shelf life. It doesn’t have a natural expiration. It could go on forever and ever as long as they keep the conditions. But if they don’t keep the conditions, then obviously that changes things. I mean, here’s what God told them in Leviticus chapter 18, verses 24 through 28. He said, do not defile yourselves with any of these things. He has just listed a bunch of sins that the Canaanites were doing. It says, don’t do that. Don’t defile yourselves with these things. For by all these things, the nations are defiled, which I’m casting out before you. For the land is defiled. Therefore, I visit the punishment of its iniquity upon it. And the land vomits out its inhabitants. It says, you shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgments and shall not commit any of these abominations, either any of you or your own nation or any stranger who is among you. And verse 28 says, lest the land vomit you out. Also, when you defile it as it vomited out the nations that were before you. So it makes it very clear. The land, it vomited out the Canaanites because they’re wickedness. God says, so don’t you do those same things because the land will vomit you out too. Now, once the land vomited people out, it wasn’t theirs anymore. I mean, when the land vomited out Canaan, it didn’t belong to the Canaanites anymore. And when the land vomited out Israel for doing the same things the Canaanites did, They didn’t own it anymore. And, you know, and that’s many, many times stated in Scripture. Deuteronomy 28 from verse 15 on talks about if Israel breaks all these commandments that God told them not to break. And by the way, they did. He says, I’m going to destroy you. I’ll destroy you from off the land. that I gave to your ancestors. So, yeah, there’s no unconditional promises there. Many times things are said to be true forever in the sense that, you know, given the fact that you don’t do something to cancel this out, which can be done. You know, if I say to my wife, I will love you until we’re 90 years old, But before we’re 90 years old, she kills me. Well, my statement would have been true, but on the conditions that we both lived that long. Clearly, there are things that can make something that’s intended to be forever not be forever. And the Bible mentions that many, many times. So, you know, yeah, to say that God gave the land to the people forever, to Abram’s people, Well, the very next chapter, you quoted from chapter 17 of Genesis, the very next chapter, chapter 18 and verse 19. God says about Abraham, for I have known him in order that he may command his children and his household after him, that they keep the way of the Lord to do righteousness and justice so that the Lord may bring to Abraham what he’s spoken to him. Now, God had already spoken to him certain things, including the land is going to be yours and your offsprings forever. But he says that Abram has to teach his children so that they will do righteousness and justice so that I can keep these promises. In other words, if they don’t, I can’t. I won’t. These promises are conditional. And so that’s the way we actually have to look at that kind of thing.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, I agree with all of that. I want to try to rephrase a little bit then because So my question then would be is I hold a point of view, and maybe I’m wrong, but in a sense that the church has become Israel. And if that’s the case, then God’s promise to Abraham is also to the church, which is a combination of both the Jews and the Gentiles. And if so, then why is the land of Canaan not in a sense ruled by the Christians right now?
SPEAKER 01 :
Oh, I see. Well, the land of Canaan was never promised to the Christians. It was promised to the Jewish people on the conditions that they keep his covenant. Now, we don’t live under that covenant. There’s a new covenant. Jeremiah predicted there would be a new covenant, and the New Testament tells us there is one. And in Hebrews, we’re told that the new covenant has made the old covenant obsolete. So the promises of the land belonged to Israel through the old covenant. Now, there is no old covenant anymore, at least not one that God recognizes. So the promises of the lands are simply not valid. Now, many of the promises in the Old Testament were physical things that were promised, but they have a spiritual fulfillment or a larger fulfillment in the New Testament. And, you know, the New Testament tells us that we’ve come to a spiritual Mount Zion, that Abram was looking for a land who’s a heavenly country, he said, and a city whose builder and maker was God. There’s a spiritual inheritance that was the ultimate fulfillment. inheritance Abraham was looking for, and we as his spiritual children received that spiritual inheritance. But more than that, it says in Romans chapter 4 and verse 13 that the promise to Abraham and his seed was that they would inherit the world. If you look at Romans 4.13, it says that God promised Abraham and his seed that they would inherit, they’d be heirs of the world. So that, you know, under the old covenant, the little strip of land the size of New Jersey was that God gave to Israel was only a token of the ultimate land promise that God’s going to give to Jesus, which is the whole world. The Bible says in Psalm 2.8, Jesus says, the Lord said to me, ask of me and I’ll give you the nations for your inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for your possession. Jesus is going to possess the whole world and will inherit it with them. Jesus said, blessed are the meek, they shall inherit the earth. So we’re going to be joint heirs with Christ. When he inherits the whole world, that’s when he comes back. But in the meantime, there’s this spiritual country that Hebrews chapter 11 talks about that Abraham was looking for. And he was looking for a spiritual inheritance. And we are his spiritual children and receive that spiritual inheritance. But, you know, there’s never been a promise that the specific land of Canaan would be given to Abraham. Abraham’s spiritual seed, that was offered to the nation of Israel as long as they remained a nation in the covenant with God, which they did not. They did not. They ceased to be a nation twice. Once in 586 B.C. when they went into Babylon, and then God gave another chance, let them start the nation over from scratch, and then they blew it again, and they ceased to be a nation in A.D.
SPEAKER 1 :
70.
SPEAKER 01 :
And they have not become a nation since. Now, there is a nation since 1948. over there in the Middle East called Israel. But it’s not a covenant nation. They don’t have a temple. They don’t worship God. They don’t even acknowledge God. They don’t exist as a religious nation, which is the only kind of nation that ever existed there in biblical times. Israel, both before and after the Babylonian exile, had the temple as its center. And its reason to exist was to be a covenant people, worshiping and serving Yahweh. When Israel came back in modern times, that’s not even one of their interests. They’re not even a religious country. So, I mean, obviously, what’s over there now is not an analogy to Israel in the Bible. It’s just a political secular state populated by some of the same ethnic peoples in the same location. But it’s not a parallel to Israel in the Bible. I’m out of time for this segment. We have another half hour coming up. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. I’ll be back in 30 seconds. 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-lecture 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. Welcome back to The Narrow Path Radio Broadcast.
SPEAKER 01 :
My name is Steve Gregg, and we’re live for another half hour, taking your calls. If you have questions about the Bible or the Christian faith, or you disagree with the host and want to say why, feel free to give me a call. Right now it looks like our lines are full, but they do open up throughout the hour. You can call this number, 844-484-5737, and you might get through before we’re done today. That would be nice. Because I’d like to talk to you. Okay, let’s talk to Jim from Palmer, Texas. Jim, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 04 :
Hi, Steve. How are you doing? Always a pleasure to talk to you. My question has to do with last week there was a conversation about angels, about Michael the archangel and Gabriel the angel. And when Jesus was in the desert after Satan left and He was ministered to by angels. But my question has to do with in Joshua 2, where the angel of the Lord came up from Gilgal to Bochum, and he said, I led you up from Egypt and brought you to the land which I swore to your fathers. And I said, I will liberate my covenant with you, and you shall make no covenant with the heavens and kill down the earth. But why have you not obeyed my voice? My question is, Isn’t the angel of the Lord, because it was brought up last week, I believe, that the angel of the Lord is God himself? Is that a theophany, as the same way when Joshua saw the warrior standing across from him? Is that a theophany as well?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, it could be.
SPEAKER 04 :
The angel of the Lord, and the angel, the angel of the Lord, no angel has ever made a covenant with the people of Israel. That’s my question.
SPEAKER 01 :
Right. Well, I mean, the angel is obviously speaking for God. That should be obvious. So he’s speaking as God’s agent if he’s not God himself. Whether the angel of the Lord is actually a pre-incarnate appearance of Christ, as you say, a theophany or not, that’s something that many people believe is the case. And some would say maybe not. The thing is that the angel of the Lord always speaks as if he is God. Right. And, you know, but the word angel means messenger. That’s what the Hebrew word angel means, the messenger of the Lord. Now, this could be, you know, as some people would say, the second person of the Trinity appearing, you know, in a theophany. And he’s speaking, so it’s Christ speaking as God. Okay, I could live with that. And many Christians believe that to be true. or whether it’s simply an angel that is commissioned to speak God’s words to the people from God and speaks them in the first person, just like, say, a prophet would. A human prophet speaks in the first person for God, too, as if he is God speaking. So, I mean, the angel, the messenger of the Lord could be just another angel who’s talking in the first person as if he were God. I mean, I could live with that, or… It could be that he is Christ appearing previous to the incarnation, and that’s what most people mean by theophany or Christophany. You know, you’ll probably be in the company of most evangelicals if you take the position this is Christ, and I have no problem with it. I couldn’t prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah. And that’s the same way with Joshua there?
SPEAKER 01 :
Yes. Well, in the case of Joshua, the messenger, he described himself as the captain or the commander of the Lord’s hosts. So he’s not just bringing a message. I mean, he has a message, but he’s also commanding the armies of God. And this probably has even a stronger claim to being Christ himself. But we may not know. All right, brother. Yeah, we may not know for sure. But, I mean, certainly a case has been and can be made for that.
SPEAKER 04 :
God bless you. Thanks.
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay, Jim. Thanks. Thanks a lot. Okay. We’re going to talk next to Chuck in San Diego, California. Hi, Chuck.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hi, Steve. You know, in the Bible, it speaks about Satan’s has a desire to be worshipped as God. And apparently he deceives people into worshipping him. There are hundreds of religions all over the world. And I was wondering, do you think that it’s possible that Christians are deceived and that they worship the devil?
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, why would they do that?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, money… Mainly. That seems to be the thing with Christianity. They always take in a lot of money. Yeah.
SPEAKER 01 :
It’s really rich. Yeah, but that wouldn’t say anything about Jesus being the devil. Now, Chuck, are you really from San Diego or are you calling from Hawaii? Oh, well, I live in San Diego. Are you the same Chuck who used to call from Hawaii? Yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah, so in other words, you snuck by me that way. Okay. Yeah, Chuck, it seems like every time you’ve called, it’s a shame you can’t conceal who you are because you always say that Jesus is Satan. And I’ve told you before that, A, that is not true, and second, it’s blasphemous. So, you know, if you want to call with any questions from the Bible someday, that’d be fine. But just to blaspheme is not really what I’m here to take calls for. Okay, let’s talk to Carrie from Pennsylvania. Carrie, welcome.
SPEAKER 08 :
Hi, Steve.
SPEAKER 01 :
Hi.
SPEAKER 08 :
I’ve heard you describe the reason that you accept sola scriptura, because you believe the words of God who is perfect and all-knowing, rather than men who can lie and aren’t all-knowing. Then those who support church tradition as equal in authority to Scripture might point out that it was men who decided on our canon of Scripture, which became the Bible.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, that’s because we don’t have any other species above man to make those decisions for us.
SPEAKER 08 :
Right. But how would you respond to them saying that if we trusted them to, you know, just make those decisions but not other things?
SPEAKER 01 :
Oh, well, the question of which books belong in the Bible, and by the way, this is a common argument made against the Sola Scripture doctrine by people, Orthodox and Catholic people, Sola Scriptura is the idea that God’s word alone is the absolute authority for faith and practice for the believer. Now, this doctrine was enunciated in the context of the conflict between Luther and the Catholic Church because he was saying that the Catholic Church followed tradition. And, of course, they say this themselves, too. Catholics do follow traditions of the church, meaning decisions made by the church councils. centuries after the time of the apostles, and that they placed them at the same level of authority with Scripture. Luther said, well, we can’t put anything on the same level with Scripture because Scripture is inspired by God. Church councils, well, we don’t have any evidence that they are. And so that’s the soul of Scripture. Scripture alone is the final authority. Now, you say, and Catholics always say this, you know, well, who do you think put the Bible together? Well, human beings, to be sure. But I don’t trust the books of the Bible because some council told me to trust them. I trust them because of who wrote them, not who collected them. It was known long before there were any councils making decisions like this, for example, that the four Gospels were written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. That was… That was stated clearly in the days of Irenaeus and Tatian in the late 2nd century. This is before these councils met to decide what books belong in the Bible. And then, of course, Acts was always recognized by the same author as Luke, and so those five books were never really questioned. Likewise, all the epistles of Paul have his name right in them as the author, which means that they’re either written by Paul or by somebody pretending to be him, and The church understood from the earliest days that these were really Pauline epistles. Paul really wrote them, so he’s an apostle. So that leaves us with Hebrews and seven general epistles and the book of Revelation to consider. Now, there was question about some of these books. Hebrews was written anonymously, and therefore some people weren’t sure if it should be considered apostolic. The book of Revelation was written by somebody named John. I believe it was the Apostle John, and that’s what most people believe, but some thought it might be another John because he doesn’t say he’s the Apostle John. So there’s some questions about Hebrews and about Revelation. There was also questions about James and Jude, since we don’t know them to have been apostles in the same sense as the other apostles. They were brothers of Jesus, though. I think that probably caused them to carry some weight. 1 John… was always accepted as being from John the Apostle, and 1 Peter was always accepted. Those 2 and 3 John and 2 Peter, there were some questions about those. So what we really have is from the very time these books were written and delivered into the hands of the churches, the churches knew who wrote them in at least 20 cases out of the 27 books. at least 20 or 21 cases, there never was any question about the authorship. And since the authors were apostles, well, we know Jesus put the apostles in a position to speak on his behalf, so that’s why we accept those books. Now, books like 2 Peter, Jude, 2 and 3 John, Revelation, and Hebrews, there were some questions about the authorship of those books. and therefore they were kind of held at arm’s length for a little while. But the church was very interested in knowing if these were written by their traditional authors, and so they looked into that. It took a little longer to research that, but they eventually concluded, and I think rightly, that those were written by the authors whose names are on them, and that’s why they’re accepted. Now, if somebody said, well, that was a church that decided that, I’d say, well, yeah, but do I have reason to believe they were wrong? They had I mean, they lived very close to the time of the writing of these books. They were only a few generations from the apostles, and therefore there’s likelihood that they had access to information that we don’t have separately available. But let’s just say this. Suppose I had some question about, say, the book of Revelation or the book of 2 and 3 John, and I wasn’t so sure they were really written by those people. Okay, well, I could live with the rest of the Bible. I don’t have to have the 27 books, right? of the New Testament in order to be a follower of Jesus and to have good doctrine. After all, until the canon was finally decided, which wasn’t really until about 397 A.D., until the final finishing touches were placed on the canon of the New Testament by the church, before it was decided, the church lived for God just fine because they had the teachings of Jesus, they had the teachings of the Apostles, Yeah, they might not have known whether 2nd or 3rd John, which are like 12 verses and 14 verses respectively, or whether the book of Revelation was written by an apostle. Well, one could be undecided about that and still follow Jesus very well. Because, frankly, the things in those books are not essential to our discipleship. So, I don’t worry about it. All I know is that I accept the fact that the church was closer to the facts the time of the case than I am. And I figured that they had no reason to lie. I don’t find anything in the books they accepted that disagree theologically with the books that everybody agrees about. So, you know, if I say, well, I’m not really sure who wrote Hebrews to tell the truth. Not really. You know, if there’s some question whether Peter wrote 2 Peter or not, well, I don’t hold questions about those things. But if there was, it doesn’t matter. It’s not a problem to my Christian life. I don’t hold to the authority of those 27 books because some council had some kind of infallible decision they made because councils don’t have infallible decisions. The Council of Carthage, where they made this decision finally, was not the first council to come up with the canons of the New Testament. The canon of the New Testament was not agreed upon in some of the earlier councils. So if we say these councils are Infallible? Well, which ones? Which ones? They were all ecumenical councils and different lists of the New Testament books existed from different councils. So we have to decide, well, which council is infallible? Well, I don’t think any of them were infallible. But I think that the longer they took to decide about these disputed books, the better chance there is that they were holding out for the best evidence and finally had it. They didn’t approve them lightly or quickly. So I’ve got no problem with the canon of the New Testament. But let’s just say somebody says, well, I don’t think the book of Jude belongs in there. I don’t think Jude was an apostle. He quotes Enoch. He quotes from another apocryphal work. I just don’t know that he’s, I don’t know that that belongs in the Bible. Well, okay, that’s fine. You’ve got everything Jude said is also in 2 Peter, so that’s fine. But, you know, I have no problem with Jude. I accept all the books of the New Testament, but I don’t need all of them in order to walk with Christ. The church, until 397, didn’t have all of them in the New Testament. They hadn’t decided on all of them yet. That’s 400 years. The church got along just fine, went through times of great persecution for 200 years, died as martyrs. That’s faithful. That’s faithful Christianity. And they didn’t even have a complete canon of the New Testament. So I don’t worry about that. What I do, what solo scripture does mean is, is that where I have the testimony of Jesus or the testimony of a prophet or the testimony of an apostle, that carries more weight than the testimony of anybody else who’s ever lived since then. That’s what I take soul of scripture to mean. Oops, I’m sorry. Hang on a minute. Did I? Are you there, Carrie?
SPEAKER 08 :
Yes, I am.
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay, I’m sorry. I think I put you on hold because I wanted to go on a rant. Go ahead.
SPEAKER 1 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, I was kind of looking at it like they’re assuming we do accept the canon of Scripture, and so therefore they’re using it as support for why we should also accept church tradition. I have a close family member who’s looking into Catholicism. So if I could just ask one quick follow-up question, that would be… And, of course, she’s been brought up Protestant, which is what I am. So what would your top two or three issues with Catholicism be that I should kind of look into first?
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, alienation from God, kind of. That would be one of them. Because Jesus told us that we should go directly to the Father to pray. It was his intention to remove all barriers between us and the Father. He said, no man comes to the Father except through me. But it’s obvious he came so that we could come to the Father. And he said, when you pray, say, our Father. It’s very clear that the purpose Jesus had in coming was to restore our relationship and our closeness to the Father, who’s God. Now, if somebody says, yeah, well, I don’t feel very comfortable talking to her, so I’m going to talk to somebody else. Maybe I’ll talk to Mary about that, or Saint so-and-so, or even to Jesus. Jesus said in John 16, I don’t say I’m going to ask the Father for you. The Father loves you. You ask him yourself. You go to him in my name. So, I mean, to any degree that we place anybody between us and God, we are, in some measure… countering what Jesus came to do. And the Catholic Church, of course, has done that in spades. They even have not only saints in heaven they pray to, they have priests who decide if they’re forgiven or not, you know. So, I mean, it’s just moving people by stages further and further from a relationship with God and more and more dependent on the relationship with people, living or dead, you know, which that’s a big one. And, of course, I believe the Eucharistic idea that the bread turns into the body of Christ and the wine turns into the blood of Christ, it’s not biblical. And if it’s not biblical, then what can we call it that’s superstitious? I mean, if it is biblical, then it would be rude to call it superstitious, obviously, because what the Bible teaches is not superstition. But if it’s not taught in the Bible… then it’s hard to know what to call it. If you say this piece of bread turned into something else magically when a man said some words over it, isn’t that what magicians do? How is that not superstition? How is that not magic? Now, again, I don’t mean that to be rude, and I know that’s very offensive to some people, but If it’s in the Bible that there’s actually this transubstantiation of the elements, well, then I wouldn’t see it as superstitious at all. It’s just that it isn’t in the Bible. So where does that idea come from? Jesus said it was a memorial. He said, when you do this, you do it to remember me. Now, remembering him, we could do that 24-7 with or without the bread and the wine. that’s a very normal thing. Why wouldn’t he tell us, when you do this, you’re actually imbibing my real body and my real blood, and you’re getting eternal life through it? He didn’t say that. He said, no, when you do this, remember me. And, of course, when he instituted it, it was at a Passover. The Passover meal was not a meal where bread and wine turned into something else. The Passover meal was a memorial meal. Remembering salvation of the nation of Israel from Egypt. Jesus was now saying, from now on when you take this meal, do it to remember me. Not to remember the exodus. Remember the salvation I’m bringing you. It’s a memorial meal. That’s all the Bible ever said it was. And to make it where amazing, strange things happen, every time somebody says the right words over something, then frankly, to my mind, that’s very distracting. Of course, what it does, it does sort of the same thing that dietary laws did for the Jews. The Jews thought that if they eat unclean food, they become defiled before God. And Jesus said, you know, what goes into your mouth doesn’t have any impact on your spirituality at all. It just goes right through your body and comes out the other end. So he said, you’re not the more or less spiritual or unclean or defiled because you eat something or don’t. And to suggest that eating a certain thing is what makes you have eternal life is to make the same error as the Jews made by thinking that eating certain things made you defiled before God. Spiritual defilement and spiritual life don’t come from what you put in your mouth, Jesus said. Right. Okay. Thank you so much. All right, Carrie. Good talking to you. Thanks for calling. Okay, we’re talking next to Eric in Vancouver, British Columbia. Hi, Eric. Welcome.
SPEAKER 06 :
Oh, hi, Steve. Thank you for taking my call. I’m a very newborn-again Christian. I’ve been born again for a couple years only. Great. I am in my 50s now, and I work in research science, and I’ve been working in research science for about three decades now. And as a result, or as such, all my family are either atheists or maybe a couple are Catholics, distant relatives who passed away now. And all my colleagues, almost all of them are atheists, maybe a couple are Catholics. And again, some of them would have passed away now. And some of these who passed away were, even though they were not saved, they were critically important links in the chain for me to eventually find Christ. And what I now find is when I’m praying, I pray a lot about the living. I have a lot of unsaved people in my life who I love, and I pray a lot fervently for the Holy Spirit to soften their hearts enough that they’ll hear the good news of Jesus. But I’ve been keeping my past relatives and colleagues who died unsaved completely off limits because I’m afraid if I even discuss with God about that I love them and how grateful I am to them. Maybe I’m implicitly asking him something which is obviously completely unbiblical, which is to change his judgment. It’s appointed for man to die once and then the judgment. I would never in a million years knowingly ask God that. I’m afraid to even talk to God about how much I love and miss these people and how grateful I am. What do you suggest about praying about, if not, certainly not for the deceased in your past?
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, I don’t think God is offended when you talk to him about such things. It may be of no value or it may be of some value that we don’t know about. God hasn’t told us very much about this. The verse that comes closest, it seems to me, to saying something about this is 1 John 5, 16, where he says, If anyone sees his brother sinning a sin which does not lead to death, He will ask and he will give him life for those who commit sin not leading to death. There is a sin leading to death. I do not say that he should pray about that. Now, what I understand this to mean, and I see this differently than many people do, but I believe sinning unto death means dying in your sins. In other words, you continue sinning without repentance until you die. That’s sinning until death. And yet there are people who have sinned, but they haven’t died yet, so they haven’t sinned unto death yet. And John says, if you see someone who’s sinned but not unto death, that means they’re still alive. You can pray for them. They might repent. But he says, but if they have sinned unto death, he doesn’t say don’t pray for them. He says, I do not say that you should pray for them. It’s almost like John’s not committing himself. It’s like maybe he himself doesn’t know because the Bible doesn’t tell us. And maybe he didn’t know either. What’s going on with them after they die? Is there any hope for them to obtain more mercy after death that we don’t know about? John doesn’t commit himself to say you can’t pray for them or you should pray for them. He’s just saying, I’m not saying you should pray for that. If somebody’s already dead in their sins, that’s not what I’m recommending. Now, I find it interesting that he says, I am not saying that you should do that. It’s very different than saying something firm, like do it or don’t do it. That’s not what I’m talking about when I say sin, to pray for people. So it may be that, I mean, there’s no great harm in praying for them, although it may do no good either. It’s like John himself doesn’t indicate that he knows whether it would be okay or not. But in any case, your love for people who have died can hardly be offensive to God. He loved them too. He died for them. You know, if he loved them enough to die for them, he certainly can’t be against your loving them, too, enough to pray for them, even if, you know, it does no good. I don’t pray for people who have died. At least, I mean, not very specifically. Well, I have to tell you this. Sometimes maybe just without, this doesn’t conform to any doctrinal position I have or not, but I sometimes when I remember some godly person who’s died, I just ask, Especially if I’m blessed by them, I say, God bless them, you know. I mean, maybe, you know, give them some more rewards up there, you know. I don’t know. And I don’t know that I would feel bad if somebody died lost for me to say, God, have mercy. You know, it doesn’t mean that they’re going to be saved or not. It just means that, yeah, God be as merciful as you can be. I don’t really have a strong position, and I certainly don’t have a strong enough position to say that people should pray for the dead. But I would say that, again, it’s natural for you to talk to God about people you care for, even who’ve died. It’s a very different thing than praying them out of purgatory or some tradition like that, because the Bible doesn’t teach that there’s a place called purgatory you can pray people out of. So, you know, that’s that’s bad. But as a new Christian, I don’t I don’t recommend that you make a habit of talking to God about people who’ve died. But on the other hand, if you’re praying about other things, and you just feel moved. I don’t think God minds. The Bible just says make your requests known to God. He doesn’t have to answer them if they’re not appropriate ones. At least any prayers that you offer to those people, even if they’re totally of no value, they can’t be offensive to God because they are expressions of your love for those people. And God loves them, too, more than you do. So he can’t be angry at you for loving them. He’ll do what’s best. He’ll do what’s best for them. And, you know, the fact that you say these people who are in your past who died and were not saved had a lot to do with you becoming Christian. This is part of the answer to the question of why didn’t God just, knowing some people would not become Christians, just not let them be born? Well, because some of them are going to be important persons in getting someone else saved, whether they wanted to or not. Hey, I’m out of time. I wish I wasn’t. God bless you. And those of you who didn’t get on, I apologize. You’re listening to The Narrow Path. Our website is thenarrowpath.org. Check it out. Lots of free resources. You can donate there, too, if you wish.
