Join Steve Gregg as he unravels complex theological questions, ranging from the distinctions between favoritism and impartiality in the eyes of God to navigating personal convictions in a faith-based life. In a discussion on sin, Steve offers clarity on traditional doctrines and their everyday implications while tackling listener questions about staying in faith and the essence of sin according to scripture.
SPEAKER 1 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 01 :
Good afternoon and welcome to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we’re live for an hour each weekday afternoon with an open phone line for you to call if you have questions you’d like to raise for conversation on the Bible or the Christian faith or things related to those things. You can also call if you’ve heard the program before and you disagree with something the host has said and you want a balanced comment. You do us all a favor if you wish to do that, feel free to give me a call at In either case, the number is 844-484-5737. That’s 844-484-5737. And about now is when I need to start announcing regularly a debate I’ll be doing in Wisconsin. in the town of Onalaska. I don’t know if I’m saying that correctly or not. It looks like Onalaska is the name of the town in Wisconsin. And in a church there that has invited me and Joel Richardson to debate on the subject of the kingdom of David, basically. It’s essentially a debate between the amillennial and the premillennial position that the kingdom that the Messiah was to establish, the Davidic kingdom, Did Jesus establish it at his first coming or will he do so at his second coming? I’m on the first. I take the first view and Joel Richardson will take the second view. I believe this debate will be live streamed by the church. I don’t have at my fingertips right now the way to connect to it, but we will have any necessary information about that at our website, thenarrowpath.com, under the tab that says announcements. On the other hand, if you happen to be in Wisconsin or planning to be anywhere near there, I know people are coming there from Minneapolis and some other places. Yeah, you can find the place, the time, all the information at our website, thenarrowpath.com, under the tab that says announcements. That’s coming up this, not tomorrow, but a week from tomorrow, on the 6th of March. It’s already March. Isn’t that amazing? All right. So that’s happening, coming up. That’s the only thing I think I have to announce, so we’ll go to the phone lines. Before we do, let me just say, I don’t remember if I gave you the number. I must have, but there’s a couple lines open, which isn’t usually the case after I give you the number. The number is 844-484-5737. Again, that’s 844-484-5737. I just received an email from Josh who said that he can’t listen to the program live. I guess he’s at work or something at the time, but he listens to the program the next day. So he couldn’t call in with his question, but he wished I would answer it. So I’ll quickly take that before we take calls. He said, good morning, Steve. Could you help me understand the difference between respective persons versus favor with God and demand? How does that apply to new covenant believers? Now, I have to admit, it took me a while to figure out what it is he’s asking, but I think I know. It’s too bad we can’t talk because he could clarify it. But the Bible says that God does not have respective persons. At least the King James and the New King James uses that expression. Modern translations sometimes use a different expression. But, you know, it says that God does not have respective persons. He judges without respective persons. What is respective persons? Now, he says, Josh asks, how is that related to? to God having favor toward man in the New Testament sense. In other words, grace. Grace means favor. Favor means grace. So does God have favor toward man? Then what does it mean that he doesn’t respect persons? I think there’s a misunderstanding here probably of what the term respective persons means. Actually, almost all new translations would render that word The expression without respect to persons means without partiality, without showing favoritism to some group over another. For example, in Romans 2, verse 11, when Paul is saying God has no respect to persons, in the context, he’s making it very clear God doesn’t prefer or show favoritism or regard favoritism. the status of Jews more than Gentiles. Everyone will be judged on the basis of how they behave, Jew or Gentile. So no respective person, simply it’s no partiality toward people based on their status, in this case, as Jews. Now in another passage, like 1 Peter 1, verse 17, he says that if you call on the Father, who without respective persons, now modern translations say without partiality, King James says, without respect of persons, judges everyone according to his works, past the time of you sojourning here in fear. Now here, without respect of persons doesn’t seem to be about Jews and Gentiles, but just people in general. God will not show favor toward some people based on anything other than their behavior. He says if you call God your father and he’s going to judge everyone without respect to persons, well, then that means he’s not going to put anyone in a category where they’re judged on a different basis. He doesn’t have a double standard, in other words. Now, respect to persons is maybe an awkward expression, and that might be why only the older English translations use it. The word in the Greek means something like regarding the face of somebody. But regarding the face of somebody itself is idiomatic. It means just not regarding somebody’s status or their standing. Are you a Jew or a Gentile? Doesn’t matter. God’s going to judge you the same way. Are you a Christian or a non-Christian? Well, frankly, Peter says in 1 Peter 1.17, even if you call God your father, which means you identify as a Christian, God’s not going to treat you any differently than everybody else in the sense of judging according to your works. So not respecting persons means without partiality. That’s all it really means. It’s not saying God doesn’t respect people or doesn’t favor people. God favors all who love him. God favors all who trust him. He certainly favors his children, but not in the sense of giving them a pass so that if they misbehave, he’s going to somehow just turn a blind eye and say, oh, well, you’re my kid. I’m not going to. I’m not going to judge you by the same standards as everyone else. That’s what it means. He doesn’t do it with a respective person. So a respective person just means without favoritism or without partiality. It just means God’s going to deal with everybody pretty much the same, regardless what status they may think they have or the world may think they have. The rich, the poor, the Jew or the Gentile. The religious or the non-religious, you know, your works will give it away. Now, I realize that some people say, well, but wait, in the new covenant, we’re not saved by works. Well, they weren’t really saved by works under the old covenant either. According to scripture, Abraham was justified by his faith. It was by faith that Noah built an ark. These people had faith. David was justified without works, according to Psalm 32, verses 1 and 2, which Paul quotes in Romans 4. The Old Testament characters were not saved by their works. They were saved by their faith. But we have to understand, faith doesn’t mean that you’ve just signed on to saying, I agree with these propositions, so I believe them. No, faith is something more robust than that, like the book of Hebrews. Chapter 11 goes through the whole Old Testament, starting with Abel, and then Enoch, and then Noah, and then the judges, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the judges, and then David, and the prophets, and so forth. It goes through in Hebrews 11, and every time it says, by faith, this person did this. By faith, this person did that. In other words, they did stuff. And what they did was what God required them to do. But it says they did it because of their faith. Now, they’re saved by faith. But the kind of faith they’re saved by is one that caused them to do what God wanted them to do. And that’s what, James says that too. James says faith without works is dead in James chapter 2. And Paul said the same thing. In Galatians 5, 6, Paul said, in Christ Jesus, circumcision counts for nothing. Uncircumcision counts for nothing. What counts is a faith that works through love. So, Paul, James, the book of Hebrews, essentially the whole Bible, Jesus, indicate that if you believe in the sense that you’re expected to believe, you’ll also obey. And that means that on the day of judgment, when everybody says, God, I believe, I believe, I believe, I’ve always believed. You know, he won’t have to just take your word for it. He said, well, let’s pull out exhibit A, your behavior, exhibit B, your behavior, exhibit C. Let’s look at how you behaved. We’ll see if you behave like somebody who believes. Somebody who believes I’m the king. Somebody who believes I’m the Lord. Someone who believes I’m God. Someone who believes you’re supposed to please your king. Did you behave that way? Oops, looks like you didn’t. Depart from me. I never knew you. You know, that’s what it says in Matthew 7. So, you know, we’re saved by grace. We’re saved through faith. But when you are saved by grace through faith, You behave differently than if you’re not. And that behavior is basically a course of obedience and submission to Christ as King and Lord. So, you know, it’s quite safe for people who are saved by faith. to be subjected to a judgment of works. And that’s the only kind of judgment the Bible ever mentions, is a judgment of works. You’ll never find a statement in the Bible that talks about the judgment, except that it says everyone will be judged by his works. Everyone will receive the deeds done in his body. And that’s talking about Christians as well as non-Christians. So God’s favor toward people. is grace. And that grace, if it’s received, shows up in the right kind of works. And if those works are present, it doesn’t matter if you’re Jew or Gentile, rich or poor, religious or non-religion, you’ll be judged favorably. If your works prove that you didn’t have faith in Christ as your King and Lord, it doesn’t matter your race or status. God doesn’t respect different categories of people. He respects those who honor Him. You know, back in the Old Testament, back in 1 Samuel 2, I think it’s verse 30, that God is rebuking the priest Eli. Now, Eli was of the lineage of priests. God had chosen the Levitical priesthood and made promises to them. And a prophet came to Eli who was compromised. And the prophet said, thus says the Lord, I said indeed that you and the household of your father would walk before me, Forever. Walk before me means it’s a reference to being a priest before God. But then he says, but now, saith the Lord, far be it from me. For those who honor me, I will honor. And those who despise me will be lightly esteemed. So in other words, yeah, you might be one of the priests. You might be one of the Levites. And I have chosen the Levites from which to select the priests for this ministry. But if you don’t honor me, I won’t honor you. You know, I’m not going to show respect to you because you have Levitical lineage. If you honor me, I’ll honor you. If you don’t, I won’t. And that’s how God is toward Jews, Gentiles, religious people in general, rich, poor. There are categories that our fellow men will respect. About you. People respect each other because of their status. God doesn’t. God treats everyone basically the same and judges them exactly by the same standards. All right. That’s what respective persons is referring to, or more properly, impartial judgment is what he’s talking about. All right. Let’s talk to Scott from Fort Worth, Texas. Hi, Scott. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Hi, Steve.
SPEAKER 03 :
Hey, I got a very simple question, but it gives me all kinds of grief trying to figure it out. And that is, what is sin? And, you know, I ask that because growing up in a Catholic church, you know, they talk about sin being, there’s two different varieties, venial sins, moral sins. I don’t know if that’s the proper way of looking at things. But Romans 14.23 says, and this is the one that always gets me, is, for whatever does not proceed from faith is sin. And so I’m like, what does that really mean? How can I stay in faith, you know, all day long, 24-7? And how do I know that I’m in faith, if you get the gist of my question?
SPEAKER 01 :
Are you married? Yes. Do you trust your wife all day long?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes, I do.
SPEAKER 01 :
Or are there sometimes that you don’t trust her?
SPEAKER 03 :
No, I don’t always think of her, though. That’s, I think, probably the problem.
SPEAKER 01 :
All right. Well, this doesn’t talk about what you have to be thinking about every moment. But you obviously, yes, how can you stay in faith all day long? Well, you do it by trusting God and never distrusting him. But it doesn’t mean that your thoughts are directed toward him in a focused way all the time because you have work to do, too. I mean, in a sense, even when you’re doing the other work, it’s a settled matter of your mental furniture that God is there and you belong to him. You know, and you never forget that entirely. But obviously there’s times when you focus on God more directly because you’ve got the opportunity to do so. Other times you’ve got to do your work and you can’t just be reading the Bible all day necessarily. Unless your work is reading the Bible, like mine. That’s kind of a nice job to have. But the point here is, when Paul in Romans 14 said, whatever is not of faith is sin, he wasn’t saying what you think he is. Because in the context, he’s talking about people who have different convictions or faith. Conviction is faith. Some have the conviction that if they would eat meat that was sacrificed to idols, that would doom them. They’ve become idolaters. Now, in that setting, in the ancient world, especially in Gentile regions, a lot of the meat that was available, even just in the marketplace of the meat market, was the remnants of animals that had been sacrificed in the pagan temples. There were pagan temples in every town, and animals were sacrificed there. But parts of the animals were preserved from the fire and were sold in the marketplace. But you wouldn’t know, if you went to a meat market necessarily, if this piece of meat you’re thinking about buying, is that the remnant of an animal sacrificed to idols, or was it an ordinary animal that wasn’t? And you might not be able to find out. So… A lot of times Jewish people who are Christians and non-Christian Jews too, they just wouldn’t eat meat sacrifice idols. They felt like that was too much of a compromise with idolatry. And sometimes they wouldn’t eat meat at all. They just wouldn’t buy it because they didn’t know that it was safe. Or they’d have kosher meat markets where they’d know that wasn’t the case. But the Corinthians, for example, and the Romans were living in situations where you might be served meat or buy meat in an ordinary place where you buy meat or be served meat. And you’re not sure, is this a remnant of animals that are sacrificed to animals? Now, some Christians felt in their heart that it would be wrong for them to eat such meat, even if they didn’t know whether it was or not. They felt like that’s too compromising with idolatry. Others said… You know, we don’t worship idols. We can eat whatever we want to. You know, Paul said in the very same place, essentially in Romans 14, 14, he said, you know, I’m persuaded by the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean of itself, but to him that thinks it is unclean, it’s unclean for him. And the point Paul is making is. Christians have different convictions about things that aren’t really forbidden outright. Let’s just say drinking alcohol or smoking cigarettes. Those are the kinds of things that you don’t find anything in the Bible that forbids them outright. But some people think, yeah, but it doesn’t glorify God. I don’t think it’s good. It’s not healthy. I don’t think Christians should do it. Well, if you don’t think Christians should do it, then you shouldn’t do it. But you shouldn’t judge anyone else who doesn’t feel the same way because the Bible isn’t on your side. If you say Christians should never drink alcohol, the Bible is not on your side about that. So you can’t judge someone else and tell them they can’t drink alcohol, but you sure shouldn’t drink it. Because you think it’s wrong. And if you do willingly what you believe is wrong in the sight of God, even if you’re mistaken, your heart is not right. And that’s the sin. When Paul said, whatever you do that’s not of faith is sin, that context is saying, if you don’t have the faith or the conviction that it’s okay to eat meat, sacrifice, idols, don’t. Because if you do, it’s a sin for you. Now, someone else might be able to do it because they don’t think it’s a sin, and the Bible doesn’t say it’s a sin to eat such meat. So they’re not sinning, but you would be. What Paul’s actually saying, what if you do that’s not of faith? He means if you don’t have the conviction that it’s right, if you don’t have the confidence that it’s right, that is, you don’t have faith that it’s right, then you better not do it because if it’s not right to you, it’s not right for you. That’s what he’s saying there. Now, when you ask what is sin, the word sin in the Greek simply means missing the mark, like a marksman aiming at a target and not hitting the target. And the mark is that is the target for the Christian and for the human is to be like God. God made people in his own image and expects them to behave like him. You know, it says in Ephesians 5, 1, as dear children imitate God. Be imitators of God as dear children, he says. In other words, God wants people to be like him. That’s why he made them. Because of sin, we often are not like him. The target is being like God, or like Christ, we could say, because God made himself known in Christ, so we could kind of see what God with skin on looks like, because we have skin on, so he gave us a good model of a an actual visible human being who is God modeling for us and teaching us what it means like. So the mark is, the target is to be like Christ, to in all ways resemble Christ and, you know, be God-like like he is. But we miss the mark. Whenever I do something that is not God-like, it’s either because I’m not imitating Christ properly or I’m not obeying the commands that he’s given, I’m falling short. I’m missing the target. That’s what sin is. Sin is missing the target. Now, since hitting the target is what God expects us to do, therefore sin puts us subpar. The wages of sin is death. We need to be redeemed from those misses. And that’s what Jesus has provided. So, you know, I know the Catholic Church talks about venial sins and mortal sins and so forth. The Bible doesn’t make distinctions like that. I mean, certainly some things are greater sins than others. I’ve known evangelical Christians who say that’s not true. Every sin is equal. But I don’t think that’s correct. I mean, even the least sin, if we could speak of a least sin, is still missing the mark. So it’s not OK. We can’t say, well, it’s only a little sin. I’m OK with that. No, we can’t be OK with any sin at all. But that doesn’t mean that some sins aren’t worse than others. And we know that because God gave the law to Moses to define sin. righteous behavior. And there were penalties since Israel was a theocratic nation with laws that had to be enforced, just like an other nation with criminal justice system. There were criminal penalties for certain sins. And some of those had the penalty of more or less a slap on the wrist. Some of it was a fine, like making restitution for destroying property. And sometimes it was the death, the death sentence. There were probably over 30 sins in the law that had the death penalty. They were capital crimes. Now, the fact that all of these were sins, but some of them were, you know, they were really bad. You’d have to be put to death for them. Others, you can offer a sacrifice or make restitution and then, you know, it’s all cool. I mean, sin isn’t cool, but you’re back to normal. It’s obvious that greater penalties, because God is always just, will only be affixed to greater offenses. Lesser penalties to lesser offenses. So when people say all sins exactly alike. I mean, I can appreciate what they mean if they’re saying, if you haven’t committed really, really big sins, you’re still a sinner and you still need Jesus. Of course, that’s true. But getting it out of that realm of, you know, am I damned by my sins, which all sin is capable of damning you, I suppose. But beyond that, are some sins really more heinous than others? Sure they are, of course. I mean, it’s like some people say, well… If you look at a woman to lust after, it’s no different than if you commit adultery with her. No, it is different. Both are wrong. One is adultery in the heart. One is adultery acted out with a human being. Now, adultery in the heart is not okay. God knows the heart. God’s offended by it. It’s not okay to commit adultery in the heart. But we can say this about it. If no one finds out about it except God, you can repent and no one is damaged by it. But physical adultery… damages people. You’ve defiled another person. You may have destroyed their marriage. You may have destroyed a family and the kids, you know, by that. It may cause a divorce. These are horrible things. So, I mean, it’s like Jesus suggested, if you’re angry at your brother without cause, you know, you’re kind of guilty of a similar thing to murder. Similar, but not exactly the same. You can repent of your anger and be cleansed, and no one is the worse off for it. You commit murder, you can repent of that, too. But some people are still the worst off for it. Someone’s dead and some families lost a family member. So some sins are more heinous. But that doesn’t mean as long as you avoid the big ones, you’re OK. It’s more like saying even the smallest ones are totally unacceptable and we need to be redeemed from them. And they will condemn us. But you can get worse than that, too. And you certainly don’t want to do that. You don’t want to commit any sins. But the Catholic Church, you know, by saying there’s some menial sins or whatever, some moral sins, venial sins, I should say, you know, they are making a category distinction that the Bible does not make. But to say, I mean, for example, the Bible makes it very clear that sins that are committed knowingly and rebelliously are worse inside God than the same sins committed ignorantly. And we know that too because the penalties are different. You commit a knowing sin, there’s one penalty. You do it accidentally or you don’t know it’s wrong and you do the wrong thing, the penalty is less. So lesser penalties means it’s a lesser magnitude of crime, but it’s still not okay. I mean, take, for example, murder. In the Old Testament, if a person committed murder in any sense deliberately, they had to be put to death. There was nothing for it. You couldn’t offer sacrifice. You couldn’t be redeemed to that. You just had to die. But if you accidentally killed someone, if you’re swinging your axe and the head flies off the handle, unbeknownst to you, and strikes someone in the head and kills them, Well, you didn’t have to die for that. But you did have to go to a city of refuge and live there the rest of your life, or at least until the high priest died. And you still lost your freedom. It’s still not okay. Even an accidental death was not okay. You’re not just off the hook. But you’re not considered, you know, it’s not a capital crime like it would be if you did it on purpose. So sins differ from one another in terms of their, you know, severity, I suppose. But I don’t know that we need to be thinking about sin in that way. It’s for God to know how to dish out penalties. God’s the judge. For us, the goal is to not sin in any way. to be like Christ, to follow Christ, and not make excuses even for what we might call little sins. All sin is unacceptable, and all sin is missing the target. So I guess that’s what I have to say about that. I need to take a break, and we’ll take hopefully the rest of these calls in the second half hour. We’re not done, and almost all of our stations carry the whole hour. Some may not. The Narrow Path is a listener-supported ministry, which means we don’t have sponsors. We don’t break the program up with advertisers or anything like that. We don’t have any underwriters. But people support it. Listeners support it. And if they do, it’s entirely voluntary. And when they do, we can pay the radio stations to keep us on the air. If you’d like to help contribute to that, you can. You can write to The Narrow Path, P.O. Box 1730, Temecula, California. 92593. Or you can do it from our website, thenarrowpath.com. I’ll be back in 30 seconds. We have another half hour. Don’t go away.
SPEAKER 07 :
If you’ve been listening to The Narrow Path for very long, you know how much it has enhanced your study and understanding of Scripture and possibly your whole Christian life. Don’t you think all your friends should benefit from the program as you have? You help to partner with us in impacting the body of Christ when you tell all your friends to listen to The Narrow Path. If you have not done so, visit the website thenarrowpath.com and discover all that is available for your learning pleasure.
SPEAKER 01 :
Welcome back to The Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we are live for another half hour. So if you’d like to call in with questions about the Bible or disagreements with the host, I’d be very happy to hear from you. The number to call is 844-484-5737. And our next call is from Tony in Greenville, South Carolina. Thanks for waiting, Tony.
SPEAKER 06 :
Hi, Steve. Can you hear me? Go ahead. 1 Timothy 3, 2 through 4 says, and maybe this is important to some of your listeners too, you know, there’s so many churches and various places around anymore. I want to burrow in on that real quick on two parts of it where it says the overseer must be above reproach and then skillful in the teaching. Those two are lists in there among the self-controlled, respectable, all those others. But I want to Get those out, and I want to get your thinking on this about who that person should be, like what age. You know, for instance, you’ve probably had a lot of chance in your life to mull through in all the years of your life what makes you skillful in teaching, right? But it’s also balanced against. As you get older, sometimes you go through a lot of things, and maybe you’re not really about reproach, right, because, you know, we all mess up. And I don’t need to say that that’s not true, but you, as you get older, you know, I don’t know how many of the guys that get way up high in the churches and they end up, you know, getting messed up with some church secretary or whatever, right? So these kind of things happen. So my core question is, is what are the qualifications, experiences, knowledge of the Bible, the philosophical needs you have to have that only come with age? Is there a gift of prophecy, you know, no mistakes? Do you have to be a salesman? What college you go to? I mean, what’s your take on the qualifications for those people?
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, when you read the qualifications for an overseer in 1 Timothy 3, and also a similar list in Titus chapter 1, you find that you’re just reading about a good Christian. I mean, able to teach might be the only gifting that is mentioned. There’s no reference to a need for a certain amount of education or ordination or things like that. Basically, it’s character. He’s got to have a good marriage. He’s got to have his kids well-behaved in his home. He’s got to have a good reputation out in the world for being an honest and good guy without reproach. He’s not a drunkard, not given to wine. When you read the qualifications for a leader, it has almost entirely to do with his character. You know, there’s very little there about his theological sophistication or anything like that. Now, obviously, if he’s got to be able to teach, he’s got to have some measure of biblical knowledge and theological sophistication. But a man might have a lot of sophistication and a bad life. And that being so, he would be disqualified, I think, by Paul’s terms. On the other hand, a man might have a very exemplary life and not be extremely, you know, sophisticated in his theological grasp. But it doesn’t mean he can’t teach at all. I mean, it doesn’t say he has to be an excellent teacher. He has to be apt to teach or able to teach. You know, in Hebrews chapter 5, the writer of Hebrews thought that by a certain age in the faith, everyone should be able to teach at some level. Now, Paul made it very clear, not all are apostles, not all are prophets, not all are teachers. There’s people who have gifts of teaching that are, you know, more unusual, just like prophecy and other different gifts that people excel in. But that’s true of showing mercy or helps or giving. There are people with gifts in that area, but everyone should do some of that. Everyone should help. Everyone should show mercy. Everyone should give. So, in other words, when people have a gift in something, it doesn’t mean they’re the only people who can do that. It may mean that God has put them in a special position or given special temperament or abilities to do that more than the average person. But when it comes to teaching, the writer of Hebrews says in chapter 5, you know, he’s complaining that his readers are immature. And he says, for the time you ought to be teachers. You have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of Christ, and you need milk instead of solid food. You should be at the stage, he said, where you could eat solid food as far as spiritual understanding goes. But he says you should be teachers. Now, I don’t think the writer of Hebrews thought any more than Paul did, that everyone is a teacher in the body of Christ. But anyone who’s been a Christian for very long, unless they really, you know, have a speech impediment or their mind is confused about something, they should be able to pass along to younger Christians things that they have learned. That doesn’t make them primarily a teacher in the body of Christ, but they could teach. And what Paul said about elders, they have to be apt or able to teach. And I think that any Christian who’s been growing for some years and is not illiterate or whatever and has read their Bible a lot, I never planned to be a Bible teacher myself. I was 16 years old. I had read the Bible most of my life because I was a Christian from childhood. But in the Jesus movement, I was around a bunch of people who were new converts out of the hippie lifestyle. They didn’t know the Bible at all, and they wanted to be taught. I didn’t volunteer to teach them. But when they found out that I had been raised reading the Bible, they asked me, this is the Jesus people at my high school campus at lunchtime. We were fellowshipping at lunchtime. They said, why don’t you teach Bible study? Why don’t you teach us every day? I had no idea what I could teach. I’d never thought of it or taught it or taught about anything. But I tried and, you know, I was able to do it okay. I did. was not aware of whether I had a gift in teaching or not. I just knew that I had some experience and a little bit of familiarity with the Bible more than they did. Turned out I was able to teach pretty well, so, I mean, that’s what I ended up doing. And now, of course, that would be what I imagined my gift to be. But the thing is that even if a person isn’t highly gifted as a teacher, they can still pass along information. Every parent… should be able to pass along the faith and basic Christian knowledge to their kids, at least once the parent has been a Christian for a while. So the word elder, which is interchangeable with overseer in the New Testament, the word overseer is episkopos in the Greek, which means overseer. The word elder is presbuteros, which means an old man. These are the same offices by different names. But the elders or the overseers were older men. Paul made it very clear he wanted them to be men, the husband of one wife, for example. And he wanted them to be mature Christian men. But when you read the qualifications for them, really… There’s nothing in that list that shouldn’t be true of every Christian. Shouldn’t every Christian have their family in order? Shouldn’t every Christian not be given over to alcohol? Shouldn’t every Christian be not a violent person? Shouldn’t every Christian have a good testimony? Shouldn’t every Christian be able to teach someone younger than themselves? I think so. And what I see is that the qualifications for leadership in the early church had nothing to do with special training. or any even special gifting, but an especially mature Christian walk, an especially consistent Christian walk. Now, there’s a sense in which you could say everything in the list of qualifications for elders can legitimately be a qualification of being a Christian. I mean, not a qualification, but sort of what every Christian should be. It’s just that not every Christian is what every Christian should be. They should be, but they’re not. And so I think Paul is saying in the church there are some who are good examples of what a Christian is supposed to be. When you choose people to be overseers, pick those ones. You know, don’t pick people who are not good examples because the primary leadership activity that Paul and Peter mentioned, in addressing elders, is shepherding, which means walking ahead of the sheep, being an example to them. Again and again, the New Testament tells leaders, be an example. Be an example to the flock. In other words, you’re not a boss standing at the top of the flow chart and everyone else has to submit to you through some line of authority. That’s how the rulers of the Gentiles operate, Jesus said. He said, don’t do that. Don’t let that be so among you. But whoever would be chief among you, be a slave of everybody. Leadership qualities, if they’re spiritual leadership, if they’re biblical leadership, have nothing to do with being, you know, a hard-bitten CEO who keeps a tidy ship and runs the shop, you know, with an iron hand. That’s how pagan organizations are successful. Jesus said, yeah, that’s how the rulers, the Gentiles are. Don’t be like that. The ones who are the spiritual leaders are leaders because they are spiritual leaders. They are a spiritual example. Young Christians need to be taught. They also need to have examples of Jesus in human form. And every Christian, as they grow older, should become that. Some don’t. Some seem to be stunted in their spiritual growth, like the writer of Hebrews said. But it shouldn’t be very rare when you’ve got a group of Christians meeting and a bunch of them, have been in there, have been, what should we say, Christians for years and years, shouldn’t be too hard to find some who are the kinds of Christians that all Christians ought to be. And that’s what the qualifications for leadership are. So I hope that answers your question. Thank you, brother. Doug from Prairie Grove, Arkansas called yesterday. We had a phone connection problem. He’s back. Hi, Doug. Good to hear from you again. Hope we do better today.
SPEAKER 05 :
I certainly hope so. I’ve got a good signal. Thank you for putting me back on. Do you remember where we were yesterday? Do you want me to restate any of it? How should we go forward here?
SPEAKER 01 :
We were talking about antinomianism, which for the sake of those who are not familiar with that word, means sort of a religious position of saying there’s no law. There’s no rules. Now, you were contrasting that with legalism or with Jewish law. And you were going to put a finer point on your question, but what I had said up to that point when your phone started going bad, I said we’re not under the Jewish law. The Jewish law is part of the old covenant, and we don’t have to keep the Jewish law. But that doesn’t mean we don’t have any standards that we’re required to live up to because all people, Christian or otherwise, are going to be judged by how well they fit the standard of being God-like or Christ-like. I mean, Christ is the ideal man, and his teaching and his example are the rule for our life. Now, we’re saved by grace. And if we fall short of measuring up, that doesn’t mean we can’t be saved. But on the other hand, the fact that we can be saved by grace doesn’t mean that we don’t want to measure up to what pleases God and what’s normal. And I was going to give you this verse, then you were going to put a finer point on your question. And you can tell me if I summarized it correctly or not. But Paul said in the ninth chapter of 1 Corinthians, verse 19 in following he says though I’m free from all men I have made myself a servant to all that I might win the more and to the Jews I became as a Jew that I might win the Jews to those who are under the law as under the law now he’s not under the law and he makes that clear but he says I’m with Jews they are under the law and I don’t want to offend them so I live under the same restrictions that won’t offend them he says that I might win those who are under the law this is to those who are without law as without law that is I live as one who is not under the law, because I’m not when I’m with those who are not under the law. But then he has this caveat, not being without law toward God. He goes, I’m not antinomian. I’m not without law. I’m under the law to Christ. So he says, I’m not under the law of Moses. When I’m with Jews who are, I will live the way they do just so I don’t offend them. But when I’m not with Jews who are under the law, I ignore the law. The law of Moses, that is. But I’m not lawless. I’m under the law of Christ. Christ is my king. Christ is my Lord. Just because I’m not under the law of Moses doesn’t mean I’m free to live an immoral or reckless life. There’s still a standard. Exactly so.
SPEAKER 05 :
The standard stands, but my view would be that it doesn’t stand because it was ever the law. The moral standard is there is because it reflects God’s character, and that’s always been the case. I would say that if I disagree with you at all or what I understand with you is you sometimes talk about, well, there’s civil and ceremonial law, and those have passed away, but the moral law has not. And my argument would be to just refine that a bit to say, well, all the law is passed away. The standards that were held to, we are held to because Christ reflected them. They’re the nature of God, and it has no bearing on the fact that it was once law. So how far off am I on that? Is it not a bit more accurate to state it the way I did?
SPEAKER 01 :
Possibly. I mean, I’ve stated it essentially that way sometimes, and I don’t disagree with that at all. When I make a distinction between the moral law and the ritual and civil laws, I’m not saying that when we go to the Old Testament, we look for the moral laws and we have to keep those because that’s the moral part of the law. And then the ceremonial law, we don’t have to keep. I believe the whole law, that is, as a body of legislation, the Torah… has been, as it were, replaced by the authority of Christ himself and his teaching. So I have to do what Christ says, but I don’t have to do anything that Moses said. However, it turns out that Christ requires me to do some of the things that the law did too. So I still can’t murder. I still can’t commit adultery. I still can’t steal. But it has nothing to do with the fact that Moses said that or even that I was in the Ten Commandments. It has to do with the fact that Jesus teaches that. Now, when I make a distinction between the moral and the ceremonial, what I’m saying is, it turns out that the code that Jesus reinforced is consisting entirely of the moral aspects that you find in the Old Testament law. Not like he’s continuing the law or even that portion, but he’s not deviating from the standards that informed that law. You know, the laws of Hammurabi came before the laws of Moses, and they had some of those moral things too. But, you know, those things don’t become moral or immoral because the law says so. As you said, they’re moral or immoral because they do or don’t conform to the character of God. It’s just that good laws, even pagan laws, if they’re good, will forbid some things like murder and adultery and recognize, you know, that’s criminal behavior. The law of Moses included those, and so does the teaching of Christ, simply because that’s an unchangeable, I think this is what you said, this unchangeable standards of the nature of God. But if someone says, well, why does Jesus enforce some of these laws and not enforce some of the other ones? I say, well, the reason is because God is concerned about those ones that reflect his moral character, and therefore they are unchangeable things. Not unchangeable laws, but an unchangeable standard, which even if you throw out the old code, The new code has to include them, too, or else it’s not a good code. Now, as far as the ritual ones, Jesus never repeated any interest in those just because they aren’t moral. They aren’t permanent. They were temporary. And, you know, so it’s a manner of speaking, I suppose, because I believe that even Jesus could not have come and said, now, here’s a new code. You shall murder. You shall commit adultery. You shall steal. But Jesus couldn’t do that because that’s against the character of God. But the fact that he said we should not do it isn’t because we’re beholden to the Sinaitic law any more than if you were a Babylonian under the law of Hammurabi, and it said you shouldn’t murder and you shouldn’t commit adultery and you shouldn’t steal. That’s why you shouldn’t, because Hammurabi said so. No, it has nothing to do with who said so. It’s a question of what God is like. And, you know, no matter who says so or otherwise, you have to be as much like God as you can.
SPEAKER 05 :
So, refined that way, then I’m back on board with you. It’s a little confusing if you break out civil and ceremonial and call them law and still refer to the moral law. We both agree then that it’s not because it’s law, it’s because it’s the character of God. And in fact, the standards that Christ restated didn’t just uphold those standards, it actually made them higher than the Mosaic Code. The standard is not just not murdering, but it’s not having that murderous intent murdering your heart. So if we’re in agreement there, then do I push it too far if I get more aggressive and say God… Never cared about. He doesn’t care about the law, and he never cared about the law. The law was a mechanism to help restrain evil because he clearly cares about justice and righteousness. He cares about knowing us and us knowing his character, and it was a mechanism to show us his character. So… What I alluded to yesterday, I actually said that I think the antinomians are about 90 percent right. And until they go all the way to the end and say, well, then your behavior doesn’t matter. Well, that’s an invalid conclusion from saying God never really cared about the law. He cared about us knowing him and him knowing us and upholding justice and mercy. So am I straying off there? Where did I go off the rails on that?
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, the justice and mercy you mentioned is obviously what God cared about, and not all the laws were related to justice and mercy. But like Micah said, he’s shown you, O man, what is good and what the Lord requires you to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God in Micah 6.8. And that’s Old Testament teaching. I think I can say with some caveats. That you’re right, God never cared about the law. Now, I wouldn’t say he never cared about the law in some absolute sense, because he required it. You know, he put them under the law. There was condemnation and penalties if they broke the law. So we can’t say God didn’t care about it. But it was never what it was all about. I mean, take David, for example. A couple of crimes he committed against the law. One was he committed murder and adultery. Yeah, horrible, horrible crime. Yeah, the other is that he ate the showbread, which only the priests were allowed to eat. He was not a priest, so he broke the law there, too. Now, when he committed murder and adultery, that’s the death penalty in the Old Testament. And God did forgive him because he repented. But he did have to repent of that. We don’t ever read that David ever repented of eating the showbread, even though that was a violation of the law. Now, both of them were equally parts of the law. James said that whoever violates one part of the law breaks the whole thing. So, you know, if we’re seeing the law as a block of legislation, David did break it. He broke it when he committed murder and adultery. He broke it when he ate the showbread. But one was a real sin. The other was just an infraction of a code that was, you know, ritual. And God didn’t even seem to call him up short on the ritual thing, but he certainly called him on the moral thing. Now, we could say this shows it’s not the law that mattered, because David broke the law as much when he ate the showbread as when he killed Uriah. And, you know, God was willing to give him a – well, he forgave him for both, but – I don’t even know if he even had to forgive him for eating the show bread. We don’t read that God ever was offended by that. Yet it was a breach of the law. So we could say, yeah, the law was not the issue. The issue is justice and mercy, which are the character of God, which are violated by murder and by adultery and by… Frankly, moral infractions are violations of justice and mercy and faithfulness, which Jesus said are the weightier matters of all. Now, in other words, I think you’re reacting to the word law, and I can see why, because, I mean, in a sense, we’re not under law, but we are kind of. I mean, law is a flexible word. If we’re talking about a legal code, and that’s what we mean by law, you’re right, we’re not under law. But you’ve agreed with me that the word standards is a good term. You know, there are standards of behavior, and they are defined by God’s character and his standard of behavior. So if, you know, if someone feels better saying, we’re not under law, but there are standards. We’re not without standards that we have to live up to.
SPEAKER 05 :
Where the antinomians go wrong is by saying we’re not under the law, we can do anything we want. Well, that’s not it at all. We are not under the law, but we’re still accountable to God to please him, to follow his character, grow more like him, to love him to the degree that it matters whether there’s a law there or not, which is the point of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, right? To show us and make it possible for us to love God and love his standards apart from the law.
SPEAKER 01 :
But I would caution against calling that antinomianism, only because antinomianism actually does have a meaning, and it’s a heretical meaning, and it is the idea, not just that we’re not under law. I mean, antinomian means against law or not under law, but the term itself refers to the idea that it doesn’t matter how you live. As long as you believe or know the truth, you can be as immoral as you want to. And that’s what the term antinomian referred to. So I would, instead of using that term, I would just use the term grace. You know, I mean, the contrast between law and grace, or even in place of grace, even love. You know, love. Love God. Love your neighbor. And live according to the standards of love, which are justice and mercy and faithfulness and that. So, I mean, I don’t think I disagree with anything you’re believing. I would caution against using the word antinomianism. to speak of it, although maybe technically the word could refer to it, it’s not a word that exists in a vacuum, theologically. Right, right.
SPEAKER 05 :
I concur with that because they did take it to… They drew an illogical conclusion from otherwise sound biblical facts. There’s nothing to support their end state, which is there’s no standards at all. Well, that’s not drawn from being apart from the law or separated from the law. I think you’ve helped me. As I said, I’ve talked… Stopped this to a few people and got an only extremely negative response as if I was way off target. And I needed some wisdom on that to see maybe if I was further off than I thought.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, I’m glad you called back. And your phone call was a good, strong one, so we didn’t have to have the same problems as before.
SPEAKER 05 :
All right.
SPEAKER 01 :
Thank you very much, Steve. God bless you, Doug. Love you, man. Bye now. All right. We have time maybe for one call more, but unfortunately it’s going to be short. We’re really low on time, but Wendell’s been waiting the whole hour from Evansville, Indiana. Do you have a short question for me, brother?
SPEAKER 03 :
No. No?
SPEAKER 01 :
Why don’t you call me tomorrow? Call me early tomorrow. Of course, you called early today, but we went long on a lot of the calls. I’ll try. All right. Thanks, Steve. Bye. I apologize. I’d love to take your call. Maybe no one has a short enough call. Greg in Corona, California, do you have a short call or has it longed to?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, can you hear me?
SPEAKER 01 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, if you can answer this quickly, I’m new to this show, so you probably answered this a hundred times. I was just wondering, you alluded to something yesterday, and I listened to Charles Stanley and David Jeremiah and J. Vernon McGee and Jack Gibbs, Greg Laurie. Where are they all missing the mark on… preaching on a pre-trib rapture.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, let me take that now. I hear your question. They’re missing the mark, in my opinion. in that they have bought into a system of theology that includes a pre-tribulation rapture, which is called dispensationalism. This system of theology did not exist in the church until the early 1800s. Those who study it know exactly where it came from and what year. It was 1830. It came up with John Nelson Darby. He taught something that was not taught by the church for the first 1800 years, but it was very popular and became popular, and it includes dispensationalism. the innovation called the pre-tribulation rapture, the idea that the rapture will occur before a seven-year tribulation. Now, that there is a rapture seems undeniable. I mean, if by that we mean a time when the living saints will be caught up to meet the Lord in the air at his coming, Paul speaks about that rather unambiguously in 1 Thessalonians 4, 16 and 17. The dead will rise first, then the living saints will be caught up. The second thing, the catching up with the living saints, It’s what we call the rapture. The Bible doesn’t use that term, but that’s okay. There is a rapture. But the church has always thought that this happens on the last day. This happens when Jesus returns, not seven years before, not three and a half years before. The church is caught up when Jesus comes down. And so that’s the doctrine. I think they’ve missed it. Jesus said numerous times that he will raise up his people on the last day. Now, him raising his people, it refers to the rapture and the resurrection, which it seems like, then that’s the last day. It’s not seven years earlier. At this point, I think they’ve gone wrong. And I used to believe what they believed, but I had to change. I’m out of time. You’re listening to The Narrow Path, our website, thenarrowpath.com. Thanks for joining us.
