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In this episode, discover the fascinating story of Jacob’s divine encounter and how it represents our own struggles with obedience. Steve tackles the pressing concerns of listeners spanning topics like the dismissal of pagan wives in Ezra and the mystery of John the Baptist’s survival during Herod’s reign. This is a call to embrace faith with a broader understanding, examining how we can all strive to walk as children of light in a sometimes cloudy world.
SPEAKER 1 :
It is important to know that you are not alone. You are not alone. You are not alone. You are not alone. You are not alone.
SPEAKER 02 :
Good afternoon and welcome to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg. We are live this December 1st and we usually are live weekdays at this time for an hour. Commercial free, so that we can spend the whole time taking your calls. If you have questions about the Bible or the Christian faith, we’d love to talk to you. If you disagree with the host and want to talk about that, we’d love to hear from you. We have some lines open on a switchboard right now. It’s a good time to get through. Number is 844-484-5737. That number again is 844-484-5737. A few announcements. Tomorrow night, I’ll be interviewed by A.K. Richardson on his podcast, about the debate with Dr. Brown, and that happened a couple weeks ago. This is a live-streamed podcast, and I believe that the time is at 5 o’clock Pacific time. So tomorrow night, 5 o’clock Pacific time, you could watch this podcast. There is a link to it at our website, And you can find that there at thenarrowpath.com under announcements. Also on Wednesday night, we have our regular Zoom meeting. Now, the Zoom meeting is just about an hour and a half of Q&A and people all over the world, especially all over the United States. Join us for that and can ask questions. You can ask questions there on Zoom. We do that the first Wednesday of every month, and that is this Wednesday. So tomorrow night at 5 o’clock, and then the Zoom meeting Wednesday night at 7 o’clock Pacific time. Those things are happening this week. And then all of next week I’ll be speaking in different venues in the Washington State area, mostly in the Seattle area. And so if you’re in that area, You may wish to look at our schedule and see about joining us for any of those meetings. All of these opportunities are at the same location on our website, thenarrowpath.com announcements. The tab that says announcements has the logon information. for the podcast tomorrow, for the Zoom meeting the next night, and it’ll have the information about my speaking engagements in the Seattle area next week. Check that out, thenarrowpath.com under announcements. Now our lines are full, so we’re going to go to the phones and talk to Dennis from Tecumseh, Oklahoma. Hi, Dennis. Good to hear from you again.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hi, Steve. Good to hear your voice again, and I always appreciate your instruction on the radio. Hey, from time to time I hear you refer to the church fathers. I actually have two questions, one related to that and another pretty quick. But I’ve not read anything by them or anything about them, and I’m wanting to begin, and I thought I’d ask you if I was going to do a deep dive on one or two of them and then branch out from there. Who would you recommend that I read first?
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, you’re going to buy a book or you’re going to look online or what?
SPEAKER 05 :
I’m not sure. I’ll probably buy a book.
SPEAKER 02 :
The reason I ask is you don’t usually buy these guys individually because a lot of their words are short. But they usually have collections of them. If you go online, say Amazon or Christianbook.com, look up the word Apostolic Fathers. Now, the apostolic fathers are the very earliest church fathers whose writings have survived for us. They would include guys in the late 1st century and early 2nd century. So they’re perhaps the most interesting in some respects because they were closest to the apostles. You can’t always assume that what they say is exactly what the apostles taught because they are a generation or two removed. And you know that as soon as Paul left Galatia, the church went south. theologically and paul had hardly left corinth when they began to have people denying the resurrection now none of the church fathers denied the resurrection or went in the direction of galatians but we can see that a church and its leaders can go wrong uh you know rather quickly once the apostles are gone and so uh however it is generally assumed that these apostolic fathers are pretty faithful to what the apostles taught. In a collection called the Apostolic Files, you’ll find Clement of Rome, one of the earliest writings we have from that era. You’ll find the Didache, You’ll find probably the letter to Mathetes, which is a really good letter. You’ll probably find Ignatius in there. I mean, there might be different ones in the collection, but for the most part, probably the Shepherd of Hermas is there. A lot of those kinds of things are going to be in that collection. Now, later on, once you get past the second century, you’ve got you know, what’s called the Latin fathers who wrote in Latin and were part of the Western Church, and the Greek fathers who wrote in Greek and were part of the Eastern Church, for the most part. And so they’re different groups. You know, you probably won’t want to buy the whole set. There’s, what, 30-some-odd volumes of the church fathers on my shelf, which has almost all of the things they wrote. But just one volume called The Apostolic Fathers will be interesting enough and familiarize you with at least half a dozen different guys. Very good. That’s just what I was looking for.
SPEAKER 05 :
Second question is about the Bible Project. I’ve known about them for quite a long time and every once in a while just run across one of their animated overviews of a book of the Bible and appreciated them and just recently discovered they have lots of other resources on their And I wondered about the two guys that began the thing and wondered, well, I’ve never heard you refer to their project before and wondered what you thought of it and them.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, I don’t comment on it very much because I’m not that familiar with it. Of course, like yourself, I’ve seen some of the animated videos, and I think they’re very good. I’ve been quite impressed. with their ability to make attractive videos that compress so much information into so short a space. So I would say my general feeling about the Bible Project is positive. In fact, I don’t have any negative feelings toward them that I know of. Now, I do know that the theologians behind it, were quite taken with Michael Heiser’s work. So they kind of incorporate that, especially in their Genesis video. Michael Heiser had some ideas that I don’t share, but I don’t consider them dangerous ideas. So, I mean, it’s one thing to say I don’t agree with everything someone says. It’s a very different thing to say, you know, stay away from those. Those are dangerous, you know. And frankly, there’s not very many people that I would say stay away from because they’re dangerous. Because even if I think they can be dangerous, I think Christians should be well-read and well-familiar with positions of different folks. Obviously, if someone’s not a very discerning Christian, I would say they shouldn’t probably read certain persons that I could name for them until they know more about the Bible and have some discernment. But in terms of the Bible projects, I don’t think I’ve encountered anything there. that I would even give a warning about. I would say they no doubt have some beliefs. I know they have some, and they may have quite a few beliefs that I don’t share. But I’m not the kind of person to say, well, if I don’t believe what they do, stay away from them. I’d say think for yourself. But to my mind, the materials of their scene are quite good.
SPEAKER 05 :
And that’s one thing I really appreciate about you, Steve, and it’s really opened my heart to fellowship with people that see things differently than I do. And I think you have a little testimony in that respect. So I respect you a great deal about that.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, thanks, Dan. It’s good to hear from you, brother.
SPEAKER 05 :
Good to hear from you, too. Hope to see you sometime in Oklahoma in the future.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, I hope to visit you again there.
SPEAKER 05 :
Good. All right, Steve.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 05 :
Bye-bye.
SPEAKER 02 :
All right, our next caller is James from New York City, New York. Hi, James. Welcome.
SPEAKER 06 :
Welcome. How are you, Steve? I have two fast questions also. At a family get-together, when they speak about religion, the first thing they tell me… They’re Catholicists, you know, some Catholics, they all are. And we pray, and they wanted to know, do they automatically go to hell? This is what I told them once I wasn’t that familiar. I said, whoever doesn’t believe who is not born again will go down to hell. And this is what the Bible says. Am I right or am I wrong by saying that?
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, I mean, Jesus did say you have to be born again. to see or enter the kingdom of God. However, evangelicals like myself, I’m a lifelong evangelical, we have a certain way of understanding the expression born again, which definitely goes beyond anything Jesus said on the subject. Jesus mentioned being born again to Nicodemus. Peter mentions it also to his readers in 1 Peter chapter 1, that they’re born of God. And And yet, I think evangelicals have made the assumption that to be born again, you have to go through a certain formulaic conversion experience. You have to say certain words in a prayer. You have to specifically ask certain things. And then, of course, trusting God to do the work. Now, Jesus and Peter never explain how one becomes born again, but I understand it to be the case that a person is born again by the Spirit of God When they surrender to Christ as their Lord, and as Jesus said, ask the Father and he’ll give you the Holy Spirit. He said he’ll give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him. And when the Spirit comes, he regenerates us. We’re born again. Now, God might do some of those things if he finds the appropriate state of heart in a person, even if they don’t know what to ask for. I mean, let’s face it. Well, I was raised with the impression that someone has to hear the gospel preached exactly the way we Baptists preached it. And if they didn’t hear it quite that way, no matter what response they made to God, they’re not in because they didn’t respond to our form of the gospel. But as I got older, I realized that our form of the gospel was not necessarily laid out in Scripture in the terms that we used. We had our favorite verses to prove certain points of it. But there’s many things the Bible says that were not part of our definition of the gospel. So, you know, as I’ve gotten older, I’ll tell you this. I believe that God desires us. for all people to be saved, and therefore is looking for any excuse to forgive somebody. I think if somebody is seeking him, even let’s just say they don’t know much about him, but they want to please him, they seek him, they ask for forgiveness from him, and it’s in their heart to humbly serve him. Well then, I don’t know that they have to take the specific steps that I, as an evangelical, have always recommended. Now, I do believe people should take the steps that I’ve always recommended. I’m not doubting the value of the gospel as I have preached it and always heard it preached. I’m simply saying that we had been very specific about things that the Bible is sometimes not that specific about. And I believe that since God desires people to be saved, he may save some people differently. that we were surprised because they didn’t jump through the hoops. We did. Remember, the Bible says once in the Old Testament and twice in the New Testament, it says God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. So I think that a proud Protestant or a proud evangelical may be resisted by God and that a humble Catholic or a humble person of some other denomination, God might give them grace. I can’t really say because God is more gracious than I am and certainly more loving than I am. He may have included some people whose hearts he sees are just the kind of people that he’s looking for, even if they haven’t been told, you know, the four spiritual laws as steps to go through to get saved.
SPEAKER 06 :
So he looks into their heart. That’s what he’s basically doing. Like David, you know, he searches their heart and he knows. That’s just how I’m understanding it, basically, the way he would make his choice.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, I don’t want to give the impression that people, you know, they just have to have a good heart and then they’ll be saved because… people might get the impression that it doesn’t matter if I believe in Jesus or not. It doesn’t matter if I’m a disciple. I know you’re not saying that, but some people might. And that is not my position. My position is that it doesn’t matter whether you follow Jesus or not. I think it’s mandatory to follow Jesus to the best you know how. It’s just that some people don’t know very much about it, and they may be following Jesus the best they know how, and God may give them grace for that. I don’t know. I’m not saying I know who’s saved and who’s not. But I am saying that I’m not going to rule somebody out as going to hell simply because they haven’t grown up in my tradition in the church.
SPEAKER 06 :
Understandable. The last thing when they pray to saints, is that also in that same category?
SPEAKER 02 :
I think so. I think praying to Mary and praying to the saints is a big mistake. I don’t think that the saints or Mary… can hear us. If we spoke to them, I don’t think they’re listening. I don’t think they’re omnipresent like God is. If there’s millions of people praying to Mary at the same moment around the world, I don’t see how she can possibly hear them all unless she’s a God, too. But she’s not a God. And therefore, I think that it’s a big mistake to pray to them. But, I mean, I have to say… You know, if they’re not really trusting them instead of God, I mean, most Catholics would say we’re not praying to the saints and we’re not praying to Mary. We’re we’re asking for them to pray for us, which in their mind is a different thing. Now, in my mind, since I follow the scriptures, Catholics do not necessarily claim to do so in all points. But but I think we should. I believe I don’t have to pray to saints or Mary, whether they can hear me or not. I have nothing to do. My petitions have nothing to do with them. It is God. Jesus said we pray to the Father. And so that’s why I pray to him.
SPEAKER 06 :
Exactly. And, yes, I do agree with that. And I do appreciate what you’re telling me. That’s very helpful. The last question, real fast, Jacob wrestled with the spirit. Was the spirit God? And if it was, why couldn’t it be Jacob? And he says, let me go.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, well, okay, this man, the Bible says in Genesis, a man came and wrestled with Jacob all night long. And as the dawn was breaking, it says, the man saw he could not prevail against Jacob. And so he said to Jacob, let me go. And I have to go now. And Jacob said, I won’t let you go unless you bless me, which means that Jacob was tenaciously got a hold on him. And And Jacob said, tell me your name. Well, actually, the man asked Jacob his name first. What’s your name? He said, Jacob, you’re going to be named Israel now. And then Jacob said, well, what’s your name? And the being who was wrestling with him said, why do you ask after my name? Seeing it is wonderful. Now, it seems very likely to most Christians that this being was Jesus himself. or a theophany, an appearance of God in a human form wrestling with Jacob. Now, you ask, well, then why couldn’t God beat him? Well, it just depends on what beating him involves. I think this was something God was working on Jacob’s attitude and his heart. Yes, he was wrestling with him physically, but I think he was trying to bring him to the end of himself. Jacob was a very capable man, a very intelligent man, a very strong man for his age. There are many indicators of that in his story. He’s unusually competent and trusted in himself, and he didn’t really know God. He knew of God, but he had never referred to God as his God. He called him the God of Abraham and the fear of my father Isaac. He never referred to him as my God until after this time when he went back to the promised land, went to Bethel, and he offered his sacrifice. He named it God, the God of Israel, El Elohe Yisrael, he said, which means that’s his own name, Israel. So it’s at that late point in life that Jacob surrendered to God and said, okay, you’re my God now. And I think that that’s the surrender. that was being sought metaphorically as well as physically, that Jacob was to be brought to the end of his own strength where he realized, okay, I can’t do this. I can’t beat you. I can’t win. But the angel couldn’t, or the being, God or whoever it was, couldn’t beat him either in the sense that beating him meant getting him to surrender.
SPEAKER 06 :
His attitude, was it his attitude he was trying to change?
SPEAKER 02 :
Right, and I don’t think God changes our attitude against our will. So there was something going on there, and a lot of it may seem metaphorical, but I believe it actually happened. But the important thing, perhaps, to your first question, is who was it who wrestled with him, is that he named the place the face of God. He says, because I’ve seen God face to face. It’s Peniel in Hebrew. He said, I’ve seen God face to face and my life is preserved. And so he named the place Peniel, which means face of God. And so he said that he had seen God face to face. He recognized that this was an encounter with God. And so since the Bible records it without rebuke, without any correction, I think by default, I would suggest this was, in fact, God coming in a human form, as he often did, or maybe not often, but sometimes did. For example, in Genesis 18, 1, Abraham was sitting in his tent door, and God appeared to him as a man and ate food with him. You know, and I mean, this happened from time to time in the Old Testament. So that’s what I think it was. I think Jacob and God were in a contest. And God’s desire was to bring Jacob to a willing but somewhat pressurized submission or surrender. which Jacob did, and he received a new name, Israel, for it at that time.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay. I can work on that. It makes a lot of sense. When I go back and read that, I’ll just put that all into my understanding. All right, bro.
SPEAKER 02 :
I’ve got a lot of calls waiting.
SPEAKER 06 :
A lot of calls waiting.
SPEAKER 02 :
I’m going to take another call, but thank you for joining us today. Bye now. Priscilla in Vancouver, B.C. Welcome.
SPEAKER 11 :
Steve, wonderful to speak to you again. Can you make me clear today? I can hear you. Go ahead. Thank you.
SPEAKER 03 :
If I may, again, I know I become very layered with you sometimes because As a person I hang up after, can you describe for us 30 to 50-year-olds who are just going around and around the mountain, how would you advise us to really take the calling? And when you’re really feeling it and you’re stubborn and rebelling, the wages of sin, I know, are death. I want you to give it hard to our generation when you know he’s calling. And why are we taking the call? Why do we choose to go around and around the mountain? And why is it more of a hard lesson to have to learn? When in my heart, I know that he needs me and wants me, but my obedience can’t be the way I want to do it my way. What would it take for me besides doing it myself? Why are we so stubborn?
SPEAKER 02 :
All right. Well, we’re stubborn for any number of reasons. One, it is our nature to want to be in control of our own lives, to make decisions for ourselves. I think that’s actually what Eve was tempted by when the devil said she ate of that forbidden fruit. She could pretty much know good and evil for herself, wouldn’t have to ask God anything about it. She’d be like God in that respect. I think we all want to be kind of independent of God in some measure. Now, even people who love God and don’t want to be in rebellion against God, there’s always that temptation to say, but I really want to be in control of my decisions. I mean, I love God and everything like that, but it’s scary to be out of control. I think fear, I think it’s unnecessary fear, but you see, it’s like, why does, let’s use an analogy, why does a wife often want to not be submissive to her husband. Now, there are wives who are very submissive to their husbands, but some, you know, it gets their rankles up. If you say you should submit to your husband, which is what the Bible says. What bothers them so much about it? It’s a funny thing because the same women, if they have a job and a boss, they’ll do what their boss says and they won’t get their ankles up. It’s like they don’t mind submitting to the boss at work, but submitting to the guy who loves them enough to forsake all others and live for them and maybe die for them. That person, they really don’t want to even tell them to submit to him. Why is that? I think it’s because we’re afraid that if we give up control, then the one we give it up to may do us harm or at least make some decisions that we’ll wish he hadn’t. Now, to my mind, that’s like a patient who’s in the hands of an expert and sympathetic doctor with a rare condition. And he says, listen, if you want to be healed, you’re going to have to do this. And they say, well, but it doesn’t sound very desirable. And actually, I’m not sure I trust you. I’m not sure that if I follow your instructions to the letter, that I won’t be sorry that I did it. And I believe that many people, whether they say it or not, that’s how they feel about God. If they follow him in everything, if they lay down their own agendas, their own will, if Jesus said, if anyone comes to me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me, that doesn’t sound fun. That doesn’t sound like what I would choose for myself. So, in other words, maybe I’m afraid that if I totally surrender to God’s will, I’ll be sorry that I did. Now, trusting God, is what we’re called to do. And it’s not hard to trust somebody who is trustworthy. It’s hard to trust somebody if you don’t think they’re trustworthy. It’s hard to have faith in someone that you don’t think is faithful. And therefore, what we need to do is what Sarah did. The Bible says, by faith, Sarah believed to receive strength to bear a child when she was too old because she She judged him faithful. She judged God faithful who would promise us. So, you know, to trust somebody means to make a judgment about them. They are faithful. I’m going to trust them because they are trustworthy. It’s the fear that God is not trustworthy or the person that we’re being asked to submit to may not have our interest at heart. That makes it hard. Once we say, listen, I’m going to trust that God is faithful. He has said that he is. I’ve never discovered that he was not. And many thousands of people throughout history have said that they found him. So I’m going to trust that he’s faithful. And that means I’m going to do what he says. I’m going to surrender completely, lay down all my reservations, do what he says, and trust that I will never have reason to, at least in eternity, and probably not in this life, to wish that I had done otherwise. Hey, I’m out of time at that time, but that’s what I would suggest. I appreciate your call. You’re listening to The Narrow Path. We have another half hour coming, so don’t go away. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. I’ll be back in 30 seconds to take more of your questions.
SPEAKER 01 :
Small is the gate and narrow is the path that leads to life. We’re proud to welcome you to The Narrow Path with Steve Gregg. Steve has nothing to sell you today but everything to give you. When today’s radio show is over, we invite you to visit thenarrowpath.com where you’ll find topical audio teachings, blog articles, verse-by-verse teachings, and the archives of all the radio shows. Study, learn, and enjoy. We thank you for supporting the listener-supported Narrow Path with Steve Gregg.
SPEAKER 02 :
Welcome back to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg, and we’re live for another half hour taking your calls. If you’d like to join us on the program, you have questions about the Bible or the Christian faith, or you disagree with the host and want to tell us why, the number to call is 844-484-5737. That’s 844-484-5737. Our next caller is John from Oklahoma City, our second call today from Oklahoma. Hi, John. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for joining us. Hey, Greg. How are you? I’m well. Thank you.
SPEAKER 04 :
Just listening to the former calls, and you talk about people being faithful that God calls to be his own, to be his elect. Yes. 1 Corinthians 2.14 talks about the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God. They are foolishness to him, and he can’t know them because they’re spiritually discerned. How does that fit into your understanding of some people being faithful, and why are they faithful?
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, people are faithful who decide to be faithful. And who continue in that decision. I mean, it’s the same thing like if you tell your child you will never betray them, you’ll never do them harm willfully, that’s a promise. Now, the child is expected to hold you to trust that and to think of you as a faithful person whose promises can be counted on. And how do you do that? Well, you do it by making sure you don’t break your promises. That’s it. How is it that people stay married? We call that being faithful, too. And, you know, the reason is because when you get married, you make vows, you make promises. And both parties are to trust the other party to be faithful to those vows. But how can we be faithful? Well, anyone can be faithful. They can just refuse to lie. They can refuse to break their promises. Anyone can do that. We do it all the time if we’re people of good character. We do it all the time. Some people say, well, but man could never be faithful to God. Well, why not? If I can be faithful to my kids, if I can be faithful to my wife, what’s wrong with God that I can’t be faithful to him? Do I love him less than I love them? Being faithful is simply a function of love. You love people so you don’t lie to them. You don’t break your promises to them. it’s not the only part of love, but it’s certainly something that is part of love, because love means doing to others what you would wish done to you, and you never want anyone to break their promises to you or to lie to you. So being faithful to all people is required, and being faithful to God even more so. Now, I’ve never understood people who say, well, you know, we know we can be faithful to, you know, if we make a contract to buy a car, we can make those payments for 60 months faithfully. or a house payment, or we can be faithful to our husband or wife, but we just can’t be faithful to God. Well, why not? How do you be faithful to God? You do so by refusing to break your promises. And anyone can refuse to break their promises. Now, some say, but sometimes it’s really hard to not break your promises. Yeah, that’s true. Sometimes it’s hard not to break your promises to your wife or your husband. or to the bank that you’re buying your house from. It’s kind of hard sometimes to make those payments. You do it anyway. Why? Because you’re determined to not break your promise. At least that’s what should be the reason. And so that’s how we are faithful to God. When we get saved, we commit ourselves to Christ. Just like when you get married, you commit yourself to your other party. And when you’re baptized, that’s like your pledge. I’m pledging myself to Christ for life. Well, how do you stay faithful? Well, you just don’t lie. You don’t turn your promise into a lie. And anyone can choose that or can choose to be unfaithful. But if you choose to be unfaithful, it’s not okay.
SPEAKER 04 :
Greg, would you say that there are just some people that are of a good character, some people have good character, and some people don’t? Is that what you’re saying?
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, of course some people have good character and some people don’t. But that’s a choice. Some people don’t care to have good character. The ones who do have good character have made lots of choices to keep their promises when they could have found it easier and more convenient not to do so. Character is developed by choices, and choices become habits, and habits become character. And, you know, I’m not sure if you’re taking the Calvinist approach that, you know, you can’t do that without, you know, somehow divine election or something like that. But lots of non-Christians keep their promises. So it’s obviously not something that the Christian necessarily needs some special supernatural, you know, election to be faithful. Lots of non-Christians who are not elect are faithful to other people. And if you can be faithful to others, you can be faithful to God. I will say this, though, that we are not faithful without God’s help because God gives us grace. The reason we find it somewhat easier to be faithful to God is because as we trust him for it, he gives us the grace to do it. And he’s promised that, that if we trust him, he gives us grace. And grace makes it easier to go through hard things, including martyrdom, if necessary. We have to be faithful unto death, the Bible says. But perhaps what you’re saying is, I think maybe you’re a Calvinist because Calvinists usually bring this up. They say, well, why would one person have good character and another not have good character? And the answer they think is correct is because God elected one to have good character and not the other. The problem is a lot of people who we regard to be saved and probably are don’t have as good a character as they should. And a lot of people who have very good character are not saved. So, I mean, it’s not as simplistic as sometimes Calvinists want to make it.
SPEAKER 04 :
So your view of 1 Corinthians 2.14?
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah. What Paul is saying there is quite different than what you’re thinking. Yeah, when Paul says the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God because they’re spiritually discerned and they’re foolishness to him because he’s a natural man, Calvinists like to say that means that a natural man cannot receive the gospel. That’s not even anywhere close to the context of what Paul is saying. Paul begins this chapter telling the Corinthians that they are carnal, and babes, actually he says that to them in chapter 3, verse 1, and he says in chapter 3, verse 1, I, brethren, could not speak to you. He means when he was with them. He couldn’t preach anything to them that he would to spiritual people, but to carnal, because you’re babes in Christ, okay? Now, in chapter 2, he’s harping on the same thing, and he says in verse 2 of chapter 2, I determined not to know anything among you, except Jesus Christ and him crucified. Why? Because they could only eat milk and not meat, he tells them in chapter 3. So he gave them nothing but the simplest gospel. And that’s all he gave them, because he couldn’t give them anything more. But in verse 6 of the same chapter, he says, However, we do speak wisdom among those who are mature. Now, he’s already told them they’re not mature. They’re not mature people. They’re not spiritual people. They’re converted, but they’re not spiritual people. And so they’re thinking like natural men, he tells them. That’s what he says in verse 3 of chapter 3. For you are still carnal. For where there are envy, strife, divisions among you, are you not carnal and behaving like mere men or like natural men? A carnal Christian thinks a lot like a natural person does in too many ways. Now, he says, I found you to be that way. And therefore, I didn’t teach you anything very deep because you didn’t have the spiritual perception to even receive it. Jesus said that to his disciples in the upper room, remember, because the spirit was not yet given, but they were certainly spiritual men for their generation. And in John 16, I think 11 and 12 or 12 and 13, Jesus said, I have many things to say to you, but you’re not able to bear them yet. However, when the spirit comes, he’ll lead you into all truth. So they weren’t spiritual men yet. But he said the Spirit would eventually lead them into that. They couldn’t bear it. And so the Corinthians, Paul says, could not bear it. He says this in 1 Corinthians 3.2, I fed you with milk and not with solid food, for until now you were not able to receive it. And even now you’re still not able. Okay? So as Christians, they were not able to receive it. Being unable to receive it isn’t limited only to natural people, but even to carnal Christians, he said. So he says in verse 6, just to let them know that he doesn’t treat everybody that way. In chapter 2, verse 6, he says, however, we speak wisdom among those who are mature. Ever met any of those people? Well, we talk differently to them than we did to you, he says. You are babes. We couldn’t talk to you the way we talk to mature people. But we do know of mature people, and we do talk differently to them. We speak wisdom among those that are mature, yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age who are coming to nothing, but we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery. The hidden wisdom. Now, these are the things, the spiritual things, that natural men cannot receive. It’s a hidden wisdom. It’s the wisdom of God in a mystery. He’s not talking about the Gospels. He’s talking about Christians who are mature. He gives them meat, not milk. And in the middle of talking about that, he says in verse 14, But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him. He cannot know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is judged by no one. So he’s saying, you Corinthians… I couldn’t get far with you guys. I could only give you milk. I couldn’t give you solid food because you’re babes, because you’re carnal. However, not all the people we preach to are babes and carnal. There are some mature Christians, too, thankfully. And we can teach them the wisdom, the hidden wisdom of God in a mystery. These things are not the kinds of things that a carnal or natural person is capable of processing and receiving. That’s what he says. So when he says the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, he’s not talking about the gospel, because he’s saying the Corinthians couldn’t receive these things, but they did receive the gospel. He said, I preach nothing to you except Christ and him crucified. So he preached the gospel to them. But he didn’t preach the spiritual things to them, which only spiritual people can process. So I think one of the problems when people have a theological system to defend, they go looking for verses that sound like they may support their position. And Calvinists always use this one, which this is simply ignoring context. This is what we call proof texting. When you want to prove something, you go find a verse that sounds like it works for you and just quote it. Ignore context. Don’t pay any attention to the flow of thought. Make it mean what you want it to mean. And that’s what Calvinists do with this verse. But Paul had entirely a different discussion going on. These people had received the gospel, but they were still thinking like carnal men. They were still like natural men. And he said, you know, if you were more mature, I would have been able to give you more. I would have been able to give you spiritual things, but natural men can’t receive those. And he’s essentially saying, and that’s what you guys are like. And that’s why I couldn’t give it to you. So just read, you know, First Corinthians, chapter two and three straight through. And this will be much easier to to see in the passage. It helps. It helps if you read a whole book of the Bible at one time in one sitting, because that’s how it was written. Every book of the Bible, at least every epistle, is written in a single sitting. There’s a flow of thought. There’s a train of thought. Everything in the argument fits into a part of that flow of thought. When you go simply combing through an epistle and looking for a verse that sounds like it might support what you want to prove, you better make sure you’ve read the whole epistle first and also, you know, especially the surrounding material in the chapters that the verse appears in, or else you end up proving what isn’t there. And that’s something that, unfortunately, I’ve found many Christians do when debating. They do not know context. They don’t care about context. They proof text. And that’s not a mature way to deal with the Bible, in my opinion. Anne from Abbotsford, British Columbia, welcome.
SPEAKER 08 :
Hello. Hi. Thank you so much for having me. I’m just wondering, for Ezra, Chapter 10, I just have two questions. When they said they had to separate, was that like a true separation, a divorce, or was it just a separation? Because I tried to find the Hebrew for the words that say separate. And then also, when the women and wives are sent away, the men shall have to provide for them financially. Thank you.
SPEAKER 02 :
Are you by any chance going through Bible study fellowships?
SPEAKER 08 :
Yes, they have. Oh, so funny.
SPEAKER 02 :
It’s funny. I had breakfast with someone today who’s going through Bible study fellowship, and they had the same question.
SPEAKER 07 :
Oh, no way.
SPEAKER 02 :
It must be this week’s assignment. Okay. Yes. Okay, I’ll tell you what I told her.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay, thank you.
SPEAKER 02 :
Ezra was indeed telling them to divorce their wives. And the reason was because their wives were pagans. Now, Paul, of course, in 1 Corinthians 7, tells Christians, if you have an unsaved husband, don’t divorce them. Stay with them if they will stay with you, and maybe you’ll win them. Now, some said, well, Ezra didn’t give that advice to them. He didn’t say, stay with them, maybe you’ll win them over. There’s something very different in the Old Testament than the New, and that is the Holy Spirit. The work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer. When a person in the New Testament gets converted, the Holy Spirit comes and regenerates them, lives in them, empowers them, you know, leads them into all truth and so forth. That’s what makes Christianity different than a religion. Religions just lay out the rules and you do your best to keep them. Christianity gives you a new life. The Spirit of Christ living in you, causing you to live like Christ. And so that’s what they didn’t have in the Old Testament. So God, for example… tried to keep the Israelites from having any significant contact with the pagans. Remember when he told them to go in and wipe out the Canaanites, he said, because if you don’t wipe them out, you’ll learn their ways, you’ll worship their gods, then I’ll have to destroy you. He had no confidence that the Israelites could have contact with paganism without it defiling them and causing them to go wrong. Where Paul… knowing his readers had the Holy Spirit, even though the Corinthians were quite carnal, they at least had the Spirit, he knew that there was a possibility that they would have the influence on the unbeliever. That’s why Jesus tells us to go out into all the world and preach the gospel, because we’ve got the power of the Holy Spirit and the truth, and we can have contact with the world and change it rather than it changing us. At least that’s ideally what’s supposed to happen. Now, Israel didn’t have that. They just had rules and their carnal flesh. And those were not a good combination when you’re encountering religions that let you do every carnal thing. You know, you have orgies for worship service. You glut yourself on religion. feasts of all kinds of food that’s unclean and so forth. I mean, there’s a lot of attraction to a carnal person, which the Israelites were in that religion. Now, remember that Ezra was dealing with the community that had recently come back from Babylon. Why had they been in Babylon? Because their ancestors in Israel had worshipped idols, had gone into paganism, and it had practically destroyed Israel. Well, it did destroy them. The temple was burned down, the city was destroyed, and they were all taken away into captivity. That was a pretty destructive thing. Now some of them have just come back. And some of them are marrying the pagan women locally there in Palestine, where they’ve come back to. These are Samaritan women. But these Samaritan women had other gods. They had other culture. And they were having kids, and their kids were being raised, you know, exposed to this culture and so forth. And God did not want Israel to be, you know, intermingled with pagan culture. they had just dodged a bullet because God could have wiped them out permanently, but he gave them another chance. They came back from Babylon. They got chance number two to get it right. And now they’re marrying pagans, the very people that they should be separated from, and having their kids with them. This is not okay because Ezra, and Ezra, by the way, Ezra might have been a little more zealous than he had to be because we’re not told that God instructed Ezra to give these commands, but But he was a godly man with godly concerns, and he realized that this is just one step toward the next destruction of the nation. So get rid of these pagans out of your households. You’re not supposed to be there in the first place. And he gave different instructions than Paul did because Ezra knew very well the Jews do not have the capacity to be hanging out with unbelievers without becoming unbelievers or compromised believers themselves. And Paul knew that Christians did have an inner power to do the other, that they might convert their spouses, he said, to Christ. So there’s a difference there. Now, you ask, is putting away, is it divorcing them? Yes, I believe it’s the ordinary word for divorce. You say, well, then shouldn’t they support their wives and children then? You would ordinarily think so, but these women… And their children could go back to their own families. They could go back to their fathers and their brothers and their own people. And they could remarry. These women who were pagans could remarry other pagans. And they could be taken care of that way. It is pretty harsh telling them just send them off because you don’t know what’s going to become of them. But it’s not like they’re out wandering in the desert with nothing, you know, livelihood. They were local women from local villages. They could go back to their homes they came from, like many women do when their husbands die or when they divorce their husbands. In society, unfortunately, marriages sometimes break up, often when they shouldn’t. But once they do, usually the women can do something, like go back to their families or marry again. Those are at least two options. And so it wasn’t like these women and children were left in a situation where they could do nothing. And we don’t know, you know, we don’t know what became of them. We don’t know whether any of these men helped, you know, send support to their children or whatever. I mean, I don’t think so because they didn’t probably have the same ideas about divorce as we have in modern culture. But it is, you know, it’s Old Testament. It is a command that we’re not told that God made them do it. I think only Ezra said it. But Ezra was a godly man and his concerns were very real. that already the compromises that had so recently caused them all to go into Babylon were now reappearing in their compromises. So he told them, no, let’s go and nip this in the bud. And, you know, we might say, well, maybe he was a little too harsh. I will say this, though. These women could become Israelites, in which case there’d be no reason for them to separate. I mean, if the women converted to the worship of Yahweh and were faithful to the covenant that Israel followed, they’d be, as the law itself says, they’d be like a native of the land. They’d be part of Israel. Ruth did that. Rahab did that. These are Gentile women who became Jews because they wanted to become faithful to Yahweh. And I’m pretty sure that Ezra would not have forbidden that. In all likelihood, if these women had married Jewish men and had retained their own paganism in spite of it, means that they were pretty tied to their paganism. They were pretty fond of it. But if they wanted to actually repent and become Israelites, they could, because any Gentile could do that, male or female. So those are the thoughts I have on that.
SPEAKER 08 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay, and thanks for your call. Okay, let’s go to Jennifer in Tinsborough, Massachusetts. Hi, Jennifer. Hi, Jennifer.
SPEAKER 09 :
Hi, Steve. Thanks for answering. I have a question. My husband and I were wondering. In Matthew Chapter 2, it says when Herod was mad and he sent out to have the children who were two years old and under in the districts of Bethlehem and its surrounding districts, He was having them slaughtered. We were wondering why John the Baptist wasn’t slaughtered, because I think he was only a few months older, and we were wondering about that. I’ll take the answer off the air.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay. Well, the Bible indicates that John the Baptist’s parents did not live in Bethlehem. they were distant relatives of Jesus’ family, but they didn’t live in the same town. In fact, even Mary and Joseph didn’t live there. They lived in Nazareth at the other end of the country. They had only gone down to Bethlehem for a short-term obligation to register for taxation, and the baby came while they were there, and they were still there at the time that the threat came from Herod, so they had to go to Egypt. Now, John the Baptist, on the other hand, his family, as far as we know, had no association with Bethlehem. They were a Levitical couple, and therefore, that is, Zacharias and Elizabeth were a Levitical couple, and they probably lived in a Levitical city, which Bethlehem was not one of those. So, you know, John the Baptist, or for that matter, most babies in Israel We’re not subject to this. The command of Herod was to kill all the male children two years old and under in Bethlehem. Most scholars have felt that since Bethlehem was such a small village, there might not have been more than about 20 baby boys in that age range. I mean, 20 is too many to kill. It’s a horrible crime. But it’s not like there was a mass slaughter. mass slaughter of babies all over the country. So John the Baptist would not necessarily be vulnerable to that. He didn’t live there. I appreciate your call. Let’s talk to Gil in Long Island, New York. Hi Gil.
SPEAKER 10 :
Oh Steve, I hope you remember me. I’m the blind caller that calls your show. And I also have ringing as a result of the ringing in my ears. I taught myself how to play the piano even though the doctor said there’s nothing that can be done for me. And I learned how to read Braille, too. In Ephesians 5.8 says, For ye were sometimes darkness, but now ye are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light. And then Jesus said in Matthew 5.16, Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. And then he says in verse 14, he says, You are the light of the world. I was wondering if you could expound on that. as us being agents of light in Jesus Christ as new creations.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, it’s interesting because the Bible often talks about us being in the light as opposed to in darkness. But you’re right. Ephesians 5.8 says you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of the light. You were once darkness. Now, if I am in the light or in the dark, it has an impact on how I can see. If I’m in the light, I can see. If I’m in the darkness, I cannot see. But what if I am light or am darkness? That means that by my influence, others will be able to see or not. You know, Paul says in that very passage, whatever illuminates is light. So the reason we are in the light is because light has come to us and illuminated us. But now that we’ve been illuminated, we are also lighted. We illuminate others. We were once darkness, which means that we once obscured. We had an obscuring impact concerning the truth on other people. Just like we were in darkness ourselves, we were promoters of darkness that helped others to be blind. But now we are light. Jesus said you’re the light of the world. But Jesus was the light of the world too. But he was never darkness. We were darkness and we’ve been called out of darkness into his marvelous light. It says in 1 Peter chapter 2 and verse 10. So we not only are in the light, we also are light bearers. We are light. And so we not only have come out of blindness, we can bring others out of blindness too. And God bless you as a blind person listening. I appreciate the efforts you’ve made and the improvements you’ve made in your life. God bless you. Thank you. We’re out of time. You’ve been listening to The Narrow Path radio broadcast. We are listener supported. If you want to help us stay on the air, you can write to us at The Narrow Path, P.O. Box 1730, Temecula, California, 92593. Or go to our website, thenarrowpath.com.
