Join Steve Gregg on The Narrow Path as he explores what it means to be a true servant of Christ, delving deep into scripture to provide insights on stewardship and faith. Listeners call in with heartfelt questions about balancing life’s responsibilities with their spiritual duties. Explore how practical obedience and steadfast faith play a crucial role in the Christian life.
SPEAKER 02 :
Good afternoon and welcome to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we are live for an hour each weekday afternoon. So we can take your calls if you want to call in with questions you might have and want to discuss on the air about the Bible or the Christian faith or about issues that you have a difference of opinion with the host about. Feel free to call about that. The number to call is 844- 844-484-5737. There’s a couple of lines open right now, so this is a good time to try to get through. You can do so if you strike while the iron is hot. The number, 844-484-5737. And since it’s Friday, it’s my last opportunity to tell you in advance that we are going to be – I am going to be speaking four successive evenings in the general Seattle area, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday evenings next week. So, you know, in three days from now and for the successive four evenings. These will all be in different locations, all of them in western Washington State, And if you live in that area and want to know where I’ll be speaking, I might be in your area, certainly within a relatively short drive from where you live, perhaps, because I’m in several locations. Check it out. Go to thenarrowpath.com. That’s our website, thenarrowpath.com. And there’s a tab that says announcements. Check there for times and locations and so forth. at thenarrowpath.com under announcements for the meetings. I’m having four days, four evenings in different locations in the Seattle area. All right, we’re going to go to the phones and talk to Steve calling from Tucson, Arizona. Steve, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 07 :
My question is, what does it mean to be a true and proper servant of Christ, my Lord and King, stewarding my time and resources? understanding what it means to be a good and faithful servant, to study and know the real gospel. Thanks a lot, Steve. May God continue to bless you, brother.
SPEAKER 02 :
All right. Well, thank you for your call. Well, Jesus actually raised that question and answered it in Matthew chapter 24. You asked, what does it mean to be a true and good servant of Jesus Christ? Here’s what Jesus said as he raised the same question. He says, who then, this is Matthew 24, 45, who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his master made ruler over his household to give them food in due season? Blessed is that servant whom his master, when he comes, finds him so doing. Assuredly, I say to you, he will make him ruler over all his goods. Now, so who is a good servant? Well, the person who has been entrusted by his master with some stewardship and is engaged in stewarding those resources for the master’s benefit. And the master comes and finds him thus engaged. He’ll reward him and give him even more authority. Now, the whole issue here then is stewardship, and you included that in your question also. Stewardship, there’s not a set of rules I know of for stewardship. There’s some guidelines perhaps, but I actually have a whole chapter about stewardship in my book, Empire of the Risen Sun, book two. But, you know, the thing is that everyone has been given something, and not everyone’s been given the same thing to steward. Some people have a lot more money than other people have. Other people don’t have a lot more money, but they have some money. They’re stewards of the little bit or the much or the medium amount that they have. Obviously, Jesus said, to whom much is given, of them much will be required, because along with much opportunity comes much responsibility. And so money, at least any more money than you need to live on, is an opportunity. Now, I’m not saying you have to live on the bare bones, you know, on food and clothing alone, though Paul said to Timothy, having food and clothing with these, we will be content. So, I mean, if we were reduced that low and didn’t have more than food and clothing, Paul said, well, we could be content with that. But he didn’t say we have to live at that level, at that subsistence level. Paul didn’t have, in my opinion, he didn’t have any regular predictable income. So sometimes he probably had abundance income. from what was given to him, and sometimes not so much. But he said if it gets down to the point of only having food and clothing, we can live with that. We can be content with that. But he didn’t say we have to live at that level. The point is that some people can, and of course other people would find it much more difficult if you have children and need a certain amount of housing, you need transportation, you need tools of your trade depending on what your work is. There are things besides food and clothing that some people need. Most people need some things more than food and clothing. But allowing for that fact, once you have provided for the things you really need, every other resource you have beyond that is an opportunity and therefore a responsibility. Now, Paul said that no man can judge another man’s servant. And each of us, as you point out, are servants of Christ. Who is a good servant? Well, I can’t judge you and you can’t judge me and we can’t judge any third parties for how they are stewarding their master’s goods. We might certainly have an impression that what we see some people doing is very wasteful. They don’t answer to us, however, although we might decline from supporting them if we feel that they’re not good stewards. But they don’t answer to us ultimately. I can’t tell you what your stewardship should look like, but what your heart should look like. And that is that you should love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. You should be devoted to the kingdom of God, seeking his kingdom first, knowing that God will provide all things necessary for you if you do that. And then with all those things that are opportunities, and there’s obviously some people have a great deal of opportunity, and it may not be in the form of money. Maybe not everyone has a lot of money, but some of them who don’t have money might have a lot of time on their hands, which is time that can be invested too, just like money can be invested. Some people who have, you know, regardless how much money or time they have, they might have some other gifts, other opportunities to serve. If you’re good at something that other people aren’t good at, then that’s an opportunity, something you can use to further the kingdom of God. There’s any number of things that differ from one person to the next in terms of what God has given. It says in James, every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and comes down from the Father of lights. So everything that is good in your life, everything that presents an opportunity to do one thing or another either for yourself or for God or for others. Every good thing you have is God’s. It’s a gift from God. And it’s, as Jesus said, has been put into the hands of the servants to give food to the fellow servants in due time. Now, food can mean physical food. It can also refer spiritually to the fact that, you know, there are spiritual things to steward. And Paul talked about being stewards, or Peter talked about the stewards of the manifold grace of God. And Paul talked about himself having a stewardship of the gospel and being a steward of the mystery. That is, God had revealed things to him that not everyone had revealed to them. And he saw this as an opportunity to feed others with these spiritual truths. And so giving food to the fellow servants can be a physical thing. It can be a spiritual thing. But the point is, whether it’s physical or spiritual, whether you have lots of money, lots of time, lots of talent, you know, whatever, or only a little bit of those things. Everyone has some things. And Jesus talked about a master giving one servant, you know, like one talent and one five or one two talents and one five talents or whatever. And each one is given a different amount. But they’re all going to be giving an account to God for what they did with the amount they had. And those who have been given very little in the parable, you know, one is given two talents, one is given five talents. Well, both of them double it. And both of them, although they have less to show for it at the end, they’re both commended by their master. He says, well done, good and faithful servant. You’ve been faithful in small things. I’ll give you responsibility over more things. So the idea is that not everyone produces the same amount of benefit for the kingdom of God, but not everyone starts out with the same amount of opportunity to do so either. The point is, whatever opportunity you have, God knows it. God gave it to you on purpose. He sees you as a servant. He’s given the opportunity through whatever resources he gives you to serve and feed others and promote his interest, his kingdom. And so, you know, how do you be a good servant in that way? Well, First of all, you have to have the mind of a servant, a steward. A lot of people think that they, you know, as good Christians, they can just give whatever is the minimum God requires and it’ll be okay. And that’s why so many people ask, you know, do I have to give a tithe? Well, I think almost everybody can give a tithe and even more of what they have. I don’t believe we’re commanded in the New Testament to give a tithe. But if someone’s saying, how little can I give and be meeting my obligations? I would not see that as a servant or steward’s attitude. A servant’s attitude is everything I have belongs to my master. How little of it do I need to use or can I use to meet my actual needs to do his service and to be fed and housed in that role? And how much can I arrange to have left over to use to promote the kingdom of God in other respects, which can mean helping poor people. It can mean supporting the church. It can mean supporting missionaries. It can be just buying things. Bibles and giving there’s all kinds of ways that money can be used to spread the kingdom of God and so how do you be a good servant by being one by taking stock of the fact that whatever you have that provides an opportunity to accomplish something that’s God’s and you should only seek to accomplish such things as God would see as useful things for his purposes because you’ve been bought with a price you’re not your own All that you have and all that you are belongs to him. And the day will come at the end of this life when he’ll say, okay, let’s see how you did. What did you do with the opportunities I gave you? And some servants will probably be somewhat embarrassed to have to give an honest answer at that time. And they won’t be allowed to give dishonest answers. So, I mean, as a person who wants to be a good servant of Christ, I’d say, live with an eye toward that final accountability. Live your life, manage your goods, manage your time, manage your opportunities to help people or to do good things. Manage those opportunities with a mind that someday God’s going to say, remember that opportunity you had? I was keeping track of that. What did you do with that? And if the best you can say is, well, I fed my kids. I raised my kids. I did my best to be a faithful mother or father. Well, if that’s all you had opportunity to do, that’s fine. God will be pleased with that. But if he gave you many other opportunities and you did not use them or you use them, let’s just say to to to to increase your own comforts or, you know, wealth or something like that. Well, I mean, I’m not going to judge you. I’m just going to say God’s going to judge you. So. Knowing that that is the case, you should be making your decisions appropriately in view of that. I appreciate your concern and your question about that, brother. Thanks for joining us. We have an anonymous caller. Hello, anonymous. Welcome. Hi. Can you hear me okay?
SPEAKER 09 :
Great. I appreciate your ministry and all the work you do for us, and so I wanted to say that up front. I have a dilemma that I’ve been dealing with many years now. We have an estranged daughter who’s a Christian, and she’s estranged from us because of issues with her mom, who’s also a Christian. And they’re both alike in temperament, which I think is the catalyst for a lot of this. They just are so alike in terms of how they react. And so when they mix, it’s not the greatest. And I’m in the middle of this and have been for the last, oh, boy, seven, eight years now. So I was just wondering if you had any advice for me other than pray and do what I can.
SPEAKER 02 :
What do you perceive to be at the bottom of this alienation? Was your wife unfair to your daughter? Was your daughter unfair to her? who is failing to forgive here? Is there like a series of offenses that have gone both ways and both need to forgive? What do you perceive? Now, there may be things you don’t perceive, but you’re in the middle of it. So how do you look at this?
SPEAKER 09 :
I perceive it as both needing to forgive each other. My wife has a more, because it’s always sound to her, tone with my daughter over the last two or three years. but it was pretty hard for the first three or four years toward her because my daughter is a pretty strong-willed child.
SPEAKER 02 :
Now, you mentioned your daughter. Is she also your wife’s daughter? I mean, is this your first marriage? Yeah. Right. Well, you mentioned both mother and daughter have the same temperament. I have to assume that neither of them have the temperament of Christ quite to the degree they should since if both had the temperament of Christ, they would not be remaining alienated. Christ has made it very clear that if we are offended by somebody, we need to deal with it. Or if we know that we have offended somebody, we need to deal with it. Both situations are addressed by Christ. If I’m the one who offended somebody else and I know of it, Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, I need to go and make peace with them before I be engaged in worshiping God. He said that when he talked about if you bring your gift to the altar, which is brought to worship God there, and you remember your brother has something against you. Okay, so you’ve done something they’re holding against you. You need to go apologize. You need to go work it out. And he says, leave your gift at the altar. Don’t even worship God yet. Fix it first and then come back and worship God. So, I mean, there’s a priority that Jesus expresses there. Now, on the other hand, maybe you haven’t offended somebody else, but they’ve offended you. And Jesus, on at least two or three occasions, said, well, you’ve got to. Got to work that out. You’ve got to forgive them. And in order for the relationship to be resolved, not only is it necessary that you forgive them in your heart, but if possible, you need to have reconciliation where the person repents and you can trust them again. So, I mean, the only thing that causes alienation that I know of is an offense, right? I offended you or you offended me. If you’re not offended by anything I did, I’m not offended by anything you did, we’re not at odds. We’re not alienated. We might not see each other a lot, but we don’t have any resentment or unforgiveness toward each other. So somebody offended somebody. Maybe both of them over the years have mutually offended each other. But both of them, according to Christ, have the obligation to do everything possible to seek reconciliation. Now, So if both parties have done things wrong, this may require considerable humbling on both of their parts. Certainly it requires it on one side because one side has to be humble enough to go and say, hey, listen, something has happened between us. I may be responsible for some of this, maybe all of it. I don’t know. But I don’t want this to continue between us this way. And if a person, let’s just say your wife, for example, if she has said something offensive to the daughter, and I’ll take your word for it, probably your daughter’s more at fault than the wife. That’s often the case, that the child is the one who’s more unreasonable, but a parent can be also. But let’s just say your wife knows that she has said something or done something that your daughter’s offended by. Now, that doesn’t mean that your wife was really in the wrong, because your daughter might have been offended without very good reason to be offended. Some people just like to get offended. It’s kind of hard to prevent that. But if she knows of something and she knows your daughter holds it against her, then she should seek to write a letter or give her a phone call, talk face-to-face if possible, and say, listen, I know that this offended you. I just want you to know I didn’t mean any harm. I didn’t mean to offend you, but it’s important to me that we don’t have any
SPEAKER 09 :
barriers between us and so i just want to apologize for that and i want you to tell me if there’s other things i’ve done and i’ll apologize for the caveat i’d like to add though if i this might help a little bit my daughter uh distinctly feels that my wife has been untruthful in terms of her communication with me about things so there’s a lot of things that occurred between the two of them that i was not here to observe and so i take my wife’s side on it and she believes that her mom is not being truthful, and that is right now the biggest impediment to her communicating with her mom, and again, her mom’s position will, you were sort of rude to me, and so her pushback is probably a little over the top at times, and maybe some things that weren’t exactly the way they were.
SPEAKER 02 :
Given the format of this radio show, and the And the fact that the offenders are not calling me about this, you are. I mean, you’re concerned about it, of course, and you’d like to see it resolved. But, I mean, I can talk to you all day long about what they should do, but they’re not the ones asking. They’re not the ones asking what they should do as far as what you should do.
SPEAKER 09 :
My position is we just pray about it and just stick to my guns as it were. Because you’re right, I didn’t call about them particularly. I was wondering what I could do, if anything.
SPEAKER 02 :
Right. What I would do, of course, prayer is a very important aspect of this, but I think also to speak in a conciliatory way to each of them about the other to the degree that is possible. Remember, Jesus said, blessed are the peacemakers. They should be called the sons of God. And a peacemaker is not just somebody who seeks to live at peace with others. but one who seeks to help others who are not at peace with each other to be reconciled. And so, I mean, certainly the thing you can do is, even if you know that your wife may have done some things really wrong and your daughter has done some things really wrong, when you speak to each of them, do what you can to speak conciliatory things about the other person and try to help them to see the other person’s point of view, which doesn’t mean you’re saying the other person is right. I mean, let’s see, people aren’t always right. In fact, in a case like this, probably both parties are not right about certain things. But peace can be more likely brought about if your wife can see what your daughter’s complaint is from the standpoint of your daughter. And if your daughter can see what the complaint of your wife is from the standpoint of your wife, And, you know, to me, I mean, Jesus said what you would that men should do to you, do the same to them. That’s what it means to love your neighbors, you love yourself, which means you’re committed to, you know, obviously seeing the other person’s side so that you can, you know, you’re sensitive to how they feel about the thing, not just how you feel about them, but how they feel about you. and what might be done to make peace. I don’t know anything about the things your wife or daughter have done over the past eight years, probably a very large number of things that have gotten under the skin of the other, but I think what you can do and probably should do is, in every case, try to speak to both of them if you have access to both of them. And when you do, speak about the other person in such a way as to try to communicate where they’re coming from and without saying that you’re taking sides. Because, I mean, you can’t really take sides against your wife. And you really can’t take sides against your kids. But you can say, listen, I think there’s some errors on both sides. But instead of me telling you what I think is wrong with you, why don’t I tell you what I see her problem is with you? And what can we do to ameliorate that? Because as long as we’re alive, we’re going to be related. And being related… But alienated is the pits. I mean, it’s just anyone who wants that is not sensible or maybe even sane. I mean, people want peace if they’re sensible. And if we want peace, we need to figure out how to restore peace and maintain it. Anyway, that’s, I think. That’s fine.
SPEAKER 09 :
I appreciate it.
SPEAKER 02 :
Oh, go ahead. I have some lectures called The Way of Peace. I think there’s like three of them. At our website, if you go to the narrow path dot com and there’s it says topical lectures at one of the tabs, click that. Once you get down beyond the listing of lecture series, there’s like one hundred and thirty individual lectures, I think. after that listed in, and they’re in alphabetical order, and I believe there’s like three in a row, if I’m not mistaken, that are called the way of peace. So it’s pretty near the bottom of the list, I would think. Anyway, I discussed there, you know, what the Bible teaches about maintaining peace and reconciliation with people, and that those might be helpful. Well, thank you very much. God bless you, and I appreciate your time. Thank you, Anonymous. Have a good weekend. God bless you. Bye-bye.
SPEAKER 1 :
All right.
SPEAKER 02 :
Bye now. Well, we have a break coming up. Too soon for me to take the next caller. We do have another half hour, though, so don’t fret. We’ve got quite a few callers waiting. We’ll get to all those calls, Lord willing, after the break in our second half hour. At this point, the reason that we take a break is is because a lot of people don’t know that the Neuropath is listener-supported. They might have deduced it when they find out there’s no commercial breaks, no products for sale, no promotions of anything where we could get money from anyone. But we do pay radio stations. We’re not employees of the radio stations. I’ve actually had people ask me, how much does the station pay you to be on? No, we pay them. We pay them to be on. That’s how Christian radio works. They sell blocks of time to ministries that want to reach their audience. And we’ve been buying blocks of time from radio stations for 28 years daily. And we still do. But at the end of the year, we have to decide which ones we will continue for the following year. Because it costs a lot of money. And that’s fine. We’re not complaining. God has provided. We’ve been able to provide. We’re not in debt. And we will not. Unlike many ministries, we pay in advance before we use the airtime because we do not believe in going into debt. But we do sometimes notice that money is sometimes thin, not always. And when it is, we have to ask, are there any of these stations we might need to draw? Anyway, we make those decisions at the end of each year. And part of it’s based on finances. In any case, if you’d like to help us stay on the air on the station you listen to, you can write to us at The Narrow Path, P.O. Box 1730, Temecula, California, 92593. Or you can donate at the website, which is thenarrowpath.com. I’ll be back in 30 seconds, so don’t go away.
SPEAKER 12 :
Do you find that reading the Bible leaves you scratching your head with more new questions than you had before you read it, but don’t know where to go for answers? You may be interested then in Steve Gregg’s many online lectures, downloadable without charge from our website, thenarrowpath.com. There’s no charge for anything at thenarrowpath.com. Visit us there and be amazed at all you have been missing.
SPEAKER 02 :
Welcome back to the Narrow Path Radio Broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg, and we’re on for the next half hour, our second half hour of the day. And as in the first one, we are taking your calls. If you have questions about the Bible or the Christian faith, we’ll be taking calls from people like you who call in. Now, at this moment, our lines are full. So don’t bother calling in right now. But if you want to call a little later when lines may have opened up, the number is 844-484-5737. And we’re going to go to the phones right now and talk next to Jason in Salem, Oregon. Jason, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling. Hey.
SPEAKER 08 :
Oh, thank you, Steve. Appreciate your ministry. It’s always great to talk to you. My question today is about Daniel 2, about the image, particularly the feet with the iron mixed with clay. It got me thinking about Revelation with the two beasts, one Jerusalem and one Rome, and then also the woman riding on the beast, who was, I think, Jerusalem and Rome, and it just kind of made me think. Maybe that was something that was going on there. Maybe think about golems and dreidels, which are kind of Jewish things that are made of clay. And then I was reading in Jeremiah 18 about how Israel is compared to clay. So I was wondering, I went and listened to your lecture on Daniel 2, and you didn’t mention anything about that. I know it just says that it represents brittleness, but I wonder if maybe the clay represents judaism or jerusalem or it’s like an extra time stamp that when the when messiah came it’s not just during the time of the roman empire but more specifically during the time that um jerusalem had some power that had kind of been abdicated to it by rome i wonder just uh my question i guess is just what do you think about that and uh is that uh i don’t know i just kind of thought that and i was wondering get your thoughts on that
SPEAKER 02 :
All right. Yeah, well, I haven’t seen any deeper meaning in the iron and clay. As you’ve listened to my lectures, I mentioned that what it does say about that is that just in verse 42, it says, as the toes of the feet were partly of iron and partly of clay, so the kingdom shall be, meaning the Roman Empire, shall be partly strong. and partly fragile. And he says, and as you saw, iron mixed with ceramic clay, they will mingle with the seat of men. I’m not sure exactly what that means, but they will not adhere to one another, just as iron does not mix with clay. Now, the image, of course, started out with a head of gold, followed by, as you move down toward the feet, the chest of silver and the belly of bronze, legs of iron. All of those are solid metals that, you know, have durability. But as you get down toward the feet, there’s a mixture. The iron legs kind of get intermixed with clay. And the only point that is made about it is that they become brittle. They don’t adhere to each other like iron and clay don’t adhere to each other. Now, you’re suggesting maybe that clay has a deeper meaning, perhaps referring to Israel and the Roman Empire or something. It might, it might, but Daniel doesn’t say that it does. I mean, in other words, when he gives the interpretation of the vision or the dream, he does not actually mention anything like that. Now, there may be some, you know, there may be some hidden meanings in there that are not mentioned, but apparently if there are, it is not part of the message that Daniel was inspired to give concerning the meaning of the dream. We might be able to speculate about some other things, and I’m not sure what that would be. But when it says in verse 43, they will mingle with the seed of men, I mean, that could mean any number of things, but it makes me suspect that it’s saying that the Roman Empire because of the amount of its conquests, incorporated men who were not very like each other. It became so multicultural because there were Germanic peoples and the Spanish peoples and British peoples and North African peoples and Latin peoples and so forth. And then there were the barbarians who were, periodically some of them were conquered and so forth. So you have all this mixed culture that doesn’t really stick together that well. And we see that somewhat. I mean, this is not what Daniel was saying about us. He wasn’t talking about us. But we see that, the parallel to that, kind of in our own country, where at one time this country was considered to be like a melting pot of people from different cultures coming mostly European and some Asian and a few from African countries and Hispanics, they would come in. But at one time, they came in in order to blend in. They came in order to be a part. of the American culture. They came in because they liked the American way of life. They liked the American ideal. They liked the Constitution. And so people from other countries wanted a piece of that and came in and they adopted American ways. But then when you begin to take in so many who don’t want to become American, they want to bring their own culture with them. They want to have their enclaves in some of the major cities where they are from a different culture, and they still want to be of a different culture. They want to maintain the culture of the land they came from but still have an outpost. where there are a growing number of people in American populations, but without blending in at all or any interest in blending in, not learning the language or caring about the cultural norms. Now, this tends to be divisive. This tends to break things up because now we have, I mean, there’s always been cultures that were different from each other. When you put them all together in one place and try to mix them, but they’re like clay and iron and they don’t mix together, it makes the whole society more brittle. Now, I think that’s what happened to the Roman Empire. And in my opinion, I think that’s what Daniel’s referring to. But I don’t know that he’s speaking of the clay as referring to the Jewish or any other particular national culture. It is true that uncompromised Jewish culture would not blend with Roman paganism at all. And so your suggestion… is not an impossible one. I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily wrong, but I don’t think there’s enough given to us for us to say it is probably correct. It may be, but I’m not seeing more in it than what Daniel says. There could be more in it than what he says, but I’m not seeing it. So, I mean, the fact that I don’t see something doesn’t mean it isn’t there. I don’t see everything that’s there to be seen. You’re just asking me if I think maybe that is an explanation. You know, it’s not one that I’ve seen previously, nor upon here it doesn’t necessarily seem compelling, but it could be. I’ll allow it. You could be right about that. Okay, let’s talk to LT in Middleton, Tennessee. Hi, LT, welcome. You going to join us here?
SPEAKER 06 :
Hello.
SPEAKER 02 :
Hi.
SPEAKER 06 :
Hey, yeah, I had a question on the line of finance. I was trying to see was it biblical for the church to pay musicians For organists or drum players, I know it’s biblical for the church to receive a salary. I know a lot of churches, they pay musicians, organists, different people outside the church. Is it biblical for the church to pay anyone besides the pastor?
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, let me just say this. I don’t know that any ministry in the church should be that of a contract laborer who’s expecting to pay. for the simple reason that nobody should minister in the church unless they’re ministering in the gifts that God gave them. And if God gave them gifts, Jesus said, you receive freely, freely give. I mean, if God has given you a gift and you want to freely give it to the edification of the church, that could be as a janitor or a church secretary or as a pastor or as a musician or anything else. I personally think that the body of Christ… is a society of people who give what God has given them toward the edification of all the others. And they’re not doing it as a job. If you’re doing it as a job, you’ve got something other than a normal church. You’ve got some kind of an entertainment venue, perhaps. I mean, after all, what do you need musicians for? Unless it’s either to elevate people’s hearts to worship God, Or to entertain. Those are the main things you have musicians for. Now, if you’re here to elevate people’s hearts to worship God, then I wouldn’t understand why you would charge for that. I mean, you’re doing it for God. I mean, are you charging God? I wouldn’t. And I don’t think in the early church anyone was ever given a salary for ministering in the gifts that they had. Everyone in the church had gifts. And some people had leadership gifts. Some had teaching gifts. Others had other kinds of gifts. But everyone just, as Jesus said, they received it freely, they gave it freely. Now, on the other hand, the Bible does say that if you receive benefit from somebody spiritually, there is a reasonableness to making sure that they have all they need materially. In other words, let’s just say you’ve got a pastor who’s really quite flush financially. He’s doing great. But you’ve got someone who’s voluntarily… playing the organ or the piano in the church or part of a worship team who’s really doing it for the Lord. They’re not doing it for money. But you know that they have certain needs and that they don’t have any obvious way to meet those needs for the church or someone in the church to say, I’m going to give some money to them. I’m going to help them out. Well, that’s just the same thing as any other thing is helping the poor. We’re talking about somebody who needs money. They’re giving freely what they have to bless the church. And so somebody else who has another gift, probably the gift of giving, gives freely to them. In other words, they don’t have a contract labor arrangement with the pastor or with the musicians or with anyone in the church. If somebody doesn’t want to work for God for free, well, then probably you should find someone who will because that doesn’t mean they can’t be helped. by members of the body of Christ who appreciate what they’re doing, especially if they have needs. But, you know, when you’ve got professional ministry, that sounds like a business to me. It doesn’t sound like a church. It doesn’t sound like a family. I mean, my mom, when she cooked Thanksgiving dinner for the family, sometimes people would bring some food also, but no one paid my mom for the time she spent fixing the food or buying the food. Why? Because it was family. It was a family thing. Now, if my mom had been poor, which she was not, if she had been poor, then we might have helped her out financially any number of times. Maybe at Thanksgiving, maybe not then, but other times when she needed it. The point here is that we don’t have a contract with family members to behave like a family, to bless each other in whatever ways we can. But we also as a family should be mindful that some members of the family might be in a tight spot or they might have no other way to feed themselves than through the generosity of other family members. Same thing is true in the church. So, I mean, I guess I’m unusual in this way, but I would be very normal in the early church. In the early church, they said if a preacher asked for money, he’s a false prophet. That’s what’s said in the book of Didache, which is the normal church order book of the first century. So the understanding was if a person’s coming ostensibly to minister, but they ask for money, well, they’re a false prophet because you don’t minister to the Lord and then send God a bill for it. No, you’re a slave. You’re owned by God. You’re bought with a price. You offer freely to God money. And how do you do that? By serving his people. Jesus said, inasmuch as you did it to the least of these, my brothers, you did it to me. So how do I serve Jesus? How do I serve God? Well, by serving his brothers and sisters. So, you know, I don’t send God a bill. I’m not going to send my brothers and sisters a bill. I’m not going to charge for that. And I’ve had that conviction since I was a teenager, and I’ve been in ministry for, what, 56 years or so, something like that now. And I still hold that view, never have changed, because I just don’t believe that brothers and sisters charge each other for ministering to each other. On the other hand, because there have been times in my life where I didn’t have very much money, people have sent me money, but I didn’t ask for it. I didn’t do anything for them expecting that. So this is a very different mentality. You say, should the drummer, should the organ player in the church be paid? No, I don’t think so, unless they have need. But I think they should be willing. If they’re doing this unto the Lord, they’ll do it without pay. And on the other hand, People who have money to contribute and who are good stewards of the things God’s given them will assist them if they have need. That’s just the way families are. The other thing is the way businesses are. And I realize churches are businesses now, but the real church of Jesus Christ is not. And so I really wouldn’t want to be part of a church if it’s more of a business than a family. Because Jesus didn’t set up a business. He set up a family. And so that would be my rant on that particular issue. I appreciate the call and the question. Let’s talk to Daniel in New Rochelle, New York. Hi, Daniel. Welcome.
SPEAKER 03 :
Hey, Steve. How are you?
SPEAKER 02 :
Good.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, that’s good. Yes, Steve. Yeah, I actually want to ask you a couple things. But since there’s not enough time on the broadcast, I’ll ask you one thing. Yes, someone asked you, in Hebrews, right? Hebrews chapter 11? Yeah. It says, the time would fail to tell Gideon and Barak and Samson and David and the prophets who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the knots of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the sword, out of weakness remained strong, became valiant in battle, turned to fight the armies of the aliens. And it goes on saying women receive their debt raised to life again. Others were tortured not accepting deliverance.
SPEAKER 02 :
And what is your question? What is your question?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, so my question is, what is the meaning behind that verse? Because is that talking about people who lived a bad time? And is that referring, like talking about faith?
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes, it is talking about faith. The whole chapter is about people of the Old Testament who are familiar to us from the Old Testament and pointing out that none of them were justified by their works, but rather by their faith. Now, their faith was active. Their faith manifested itself, and this is an important thing. Of course, the New Testament teaches that the faith of Abraham is what justified him, and therefore… The faith of believers is what justifies them. But some people say they have faith, but you couldn’t tell by looking at their life. They say they believe that Jesus is Lord and King, but the choices they make in life certainly do not reflect any conviction that they have to that effect. And so what the writer of Hebrews is doing in this chapter is showing that these people were all justified by faith, But their faith always brought about some kind of evidence. There was some evidence they had faith. And he starts out by talking about things that people did. By faith, Abel offered a more excellent sacrifice. By faith, Enoch… He walked with God. By faith, Noah built an ark when he was warned about something that he had never seen before. By faith, Abraham left his home. By faith, Abraham offered up Isaac when he was told to do it. So it’s saying that people, because they had faith, you could tell because they acted accordingly. They did the things that God told them to do. But other ways that their faith is seen are also mentioned. One of them is in the verses you read. He said time would fail to tell of all the cases in the Old Testament. There’s way too many, he says. But we could include, if we were to take the time, Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah. These are some of the men from the Book of Judges. He said also David and Samuel and the prophets. And then he just kind of just summarizes these kinds of things happened. Through faith, they did various things. They subdued kingdoms, like David did, for example. They worked righteousness. They obtained promises. They stopped the mouths of lions, no doubt referring to Daniel, but also probably Samson also, who grabbed a lion by the jaws and broke its jaws, stopped its mouth. They quenched the violence of fire, probably thinking of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. they escaped the edge of the sword, as David frequently did when he was fleeing from Saul. Out of weakness, they were made strong. Jonathan did, and others. David was, as it were, discouraged, and he strengthened himself in his faith in the Lord. The Bible says, they became valiant in battle. They turned to flight the armies of aliens. Women received their dead to life again, largely through the faith of Elijah and Elisha. But the point here is saying, you see, faith actually showed up. in their life. It’s not just that they said they believed certain things. They actually saw the results of faith because they lived out their faith. And actually, God’s vindication of their faith often was seen in their deliverance and in supernatural things like their surviving the flames or surviving a lion attack or an army attack. God came to their rescue. Their faith was vindicated by God in invisible ways that we can read about. And then he goes on and he says, others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. Others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and chains of an imprisonment. They were stoned to death. They were sawn in two. They were tempted, blah, blah. And their faith showed up this way, too. I mean, faith shows up in different ways. It shows up in you obeying what God tells you to do. It shows up in God coming to your rescue when you’re trusting him at times. Other times, if he doesn’t come to your rescue, it shows up in your faithful endurance of hardship and maybe martyrdom, too. What the writer of Hebrews is saying is it’s always been faith. It’s always been faith. And even in Old Testament stories where they don’t underscore the issue of faith in these stories, they do show that these people had faith by the things that we are told about them. They did what they did. They endured what they endured. They received the promises that they received. And he’s saying that was because of their faith. He’s saying you don’t hear a lot of talk about their faith in the Old Testament, but you see their faith in action. And that’s how faith is. If you have faith, it will show up in various ways. Your life will be different than it otherwise would be in many ways. And that, I believe, is the point that the writer is trying to make there. Okay. Let’s talk to Barbara in Roseville, Michigan. Hi, Barbara. Welcome.
SPEAKER 04 :
Oh, hi, Steve. Thank you. I just wanted to comment on… When the man talked about wanting to be a good servant of Christ, one of the things you didn’t mention, at first he must be born again to get his name put in the Lamb’s Book of Life. Otherwise, he’s working for free.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, I think he knows that. He was a Christian. I mean, it’s very clear he’s a Christian. I mean, I could mention all kinds of things. I could mention he should be baptized. You know, he should love his wife. He should raise his children in a godly way. You know, he should… love his enemies and serve the poor. I mean, there’s lots of things that could be mentioned. But since his question was about stewardship and about being a good servant, obviously I took him to a passage that answers that question directly using those very terms. But, yeah, I mean, there’s lots of ways. A good servant of Christ will be seen to do many, many things. In fact, the whole New Testament is probably about more than half of the verses in the New Testament are about what that looks like. I appreciate your thoughts, but I don’t think he was missing that point. I think he was looking for, you know, something more about his practical service to God. But, yeah, I mean, I agree with you, sister. Thank you. Okay, let’s talk to Tony in Orcas Island, Washington. Hi, Tony, welcome. Tony, if you’re not there, I’ll have to take another call. We’ve got a lot of calls waiting. Okay, let’s talk to Frederick in Dunmore, West Virginia. Hi, Frederick. Welcome.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yes, hi, Steve. I’ve got two questions. Did someone ask Moses if he was the one they were waiting for, maybe referring to the he will bruise the serpent’s head, but the serpent will bruise his heel verse? I’m not sure. Did people ask Moses if he was that person? Did somebody ask Moses that? I heard a sermon they played, these Lutheran Hour from 1963, Oswald Hoffman. And I thought I heard him say that somebody asked Moses if he was the one.
SPEAKER 02 :
No, they asked John the Baptist. We don’t have any record of anyone asking Moses that. So you might have misheard the preacher or he might have misspoke. You know, because there’s no record in the Bible of anyone inquiring of Moses about that. But we do have, of course, in John chapter 1, the Pharisees came to John the Baptist and said, are you the one? And John himself, John the Baptist, sent messages to Jesus asking if he was the one. Even though John knew at one point his confidence was somewhat shaken by being in a third world jail for a while and Jesus didn’t appear to be doing anything. to relieve the situation. So he sent messengers. Are you the one that we’re waiting for? Do we look for someone else? So both John the Baptist and Jesus were asked that question in the New Testament. But in the whole story of Moses, we don’t have anyone asking. They may have misspoke or possibly this is like the third call today that I’ve activated and they weren’t there waiting. Hello? Are you there, Peggy?
SPEAKER 04 :
Oh, yes, I’m sorry. Yeah, you cut out on me.
SPEAKER 02 :
Going once, going twice, gone. We have a question from a prisoner who wrote and said, Are Muslims trying to take down Christianity or destroy Christ’s followers? Probably some Muslims are. I imagine there’s some Muslims who are not. The word Muslim refers to a whole lot of different religions. in many countries who embrace the Muslim religion. Some of them are rather militant. Islam, by definition, is a religion that seeks to be…
SPEAKER 1 :
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
