Key Life Network

Steve Brown: How do you get rid of a Bible? The answer to that and other questions on Key Life. If you think laughter isn't spiritual or that faithfulness to God means conformity to Christian stereotypes, then this program probably isn't for you. But if you're looking for honest biblical answers to hard questions, then welcome to Key Life.

Here's our host, author and Seminary Professor Steve Brown, along with Pete Alwinson from Forge Truth.

Steve Brown: Thank you, Matthew. Hi Pete, how are you?

Pete Alwinson: I'm doing good. That question's going to need a lot of clarification.

Steve Brown: Yeah, well, we're listen. We'll deal with it. Don't turn off your radio or your computer until you find out what I was talking about. It's not what you think. We'll see. That's Pete Alwinson.

If you haven't read Like Father Like Son, consider yourself uneducated. That is a wonderful book and a life-changing one. And you can get it in any good place. Amazon. Get it at Key Life and you'll be glad that I recommended it to you.

By the way, as you know, Pete comes in on Fridays and we spend Fridays answering questions. And we love your questions. And you. You can send a question to Key Life Network, Post Office Box 5000, Maitland, Florida, 32794. In Canada, it's Key Life, Canada, Post Office Box 20860, Waterloo, Ontario, N2L6J8, or you can email us at steve@keylife.org.

Or anytime, 24/7, pick up the phone, dial 1-800 Key Life, 1-800-539-5433. Follow instructions, ask your question and sometimes you'll make it on the air. Oh, I forgot, and I shouldn't have. If you can, send money.

Pete Alwinson: Why don't you?

Steve Brown: Well, that you know I bottom line. If you can help us financially, please do and we'll squeeze every dime for the glory of God. If you can't, pray for us. Okay, Pete. You pray for us and we'll get to these questions.

Pete Alwinson: There you go. Oh, our great God. What a joy it is to be your children. And we come to you at the end of this week. Lord, we take a sigh of relief and we thank you for being the sovereign God, the loving God. Thank you for being the God of grace and truth. Lord Jesus, that you came, you gave us the truth of our need for a Savior. Then you gave us the ability to turn to you.

And so, Lord, we we've never regretted that. We know that we are deeply loved, deeply forgiven forever enfolded into your family. And we ask for your grace today as we move into the weekend time to spend time a little bit more time with family and friends. Lord, we ask that you would help us be encouragers of those who need it and good listeners.

But then also good worshipers. And we pray for our pastors and our teachers, our leaders, our priests, all those that Father will represent you. May they do it well. And may you by your spirit communicate to our hearts. We give you this time of Q&A right now and ask that you would do a good thing through it in Jesus name we pray. Amen.

Steve Brown: Amen. Let's first go to our phone lines.

Guest (Female): Where my son was in junior high in shop class, he made a form of Jesus Christ. They had a mold that they poured it into, and I still have it. He's now 68 years old. Nobody wants it in the family and I don't know what to do with it. I don't want to just, you know, put it in the garbage or something. So I need your opinion and answer of what I can do with this bust of Jesus Christ. Thank you, Steve.

Steve Brown: You know, we're laughing, but that's because we identify.

Pete Alwinson: Yeah.

Steve Brown: You know, we do first.

Pete Alwinson: Send it to Key Life. No. Yeah.

Steve Brown: No.

Pete Alwinson: I think it needs to go on your desk, Steve. I'm throwing you under the bus, man.

Steve Brown: No, I think she ought to just throw it away.

Pete Alwinson: Oh, okay.

Steve Brown: And there's a reason for that, a biblical reason. We do not worship a bust of Jesus. That's right. That's just a nice thing your son and if nobody wants it, without guilt, just throw it away and do not send it to Key Life. And but that brings up another question.

Pete Alwinson: I don't know. I I I'm on the board. I give permission.

Steve Brown: Well, let's bring it. Let's there that's true. You know, I feel that way. I have a pile of old Bibles, because I can't. I just like she feels. I think, what am I going to do with these old Bibles? They're falling apart.

Pete Alwinson: I know. Yeah.

Steve Brown: And I know my head and everything I know about scripture says we do not worship the Bible. We worship God.

Pete Alwinson: Right.

Steve Brown: And the written word is a gift that He gives to us and it's all true. So I should take all those old Bibles and throw them in the incinerator. And I'm fine. I'm God's not going to be upset. But I just can't do it. It's just hard to what's hard. You were telling me before that all right, what if you got a flag?

Pete Alwinson: Yeah, well, I was a boy scout and I'll never forget when I was a young boy scout, they had a a flag retiring ceremony, a tattered American flag. And it was at a campfire and they in a regular way, they they did us a uh, you know, they'd played taps or something and they laid the the flag on a campfire and that's how you're supposed to retire it. At least that's what we were taught back then. And so, you know.

Steve Brown: There is a proper way to do that.

Pete Alwinson: There is a proper way. And I think, you know, it's interesting because I I think that that that's what the Jews did with Holy Torah is that they did not the reason why we have so many more manuscripts of the New Testament than we do of Holy Torah, the Old Testament is that the Jew when the manuscripts got bad, I believe they burned them. And and so if you could do that with a Bible, that might be in the in the spirit of of the Old Testament saints.

Steve Brown: You know, I know that. I really do and I don't worship. And I but but when I don't have any more bookshelf space, because I got old Bibles. I'm going to see if I can sell them. And if I can't sell them, I'm going to get a campfire. Put on a Boy Scout uniform, and then I'm going to I'm going to.

Pete Alwinson: I know. Don't do that. The shorts and the knee socks are just killing me right now.

Steve Brown: You know, this, um, this, you know, I thought this was a joke. But Jeremy, our producer, he's going, I'm going to ask him about it. And I saw this question and I thought, you're kidding. This is somebody, a pastor, who had a music director who gave trouble. And and, um, and and this was a facetious question. But evidently, it wasn't.

Pete Alwinson: Apparently not. Yeah.

Steve Brown: Is there somewhere in the Bible that mentions Lucifer being the minister of music for Jesus? I go, I'm not touching that. I'm not going there. And then Jeremy, Jeremy, you said you grew up with that kind of teaching.

Jeremy: You know, I, uh, I did. And when you mentioned that the other day that this question came through and the way you guys were talking about it, I was like, no, no, wait a minute. You've never even heard of this?

Steve Brown: No, never.

Jeremy: And and I was like, well, wait, I not only have heard of this, I've heard it, I've heard it taught, I've heard it preached this way. Now, again, I think the question is a legit one. In other words, I don't believe it's a facetious question. I believe this person is saying, the the subtext that isn't written is, I've heard this, is there any scriptural basis for the thing that I have heard?

Steve Brown: Right, right.

Jeremy: Now, okay, you can look at Ezekiel and you can look at the, you know, the third of heaven and the angels rebelling and, you know, there's some, there's some things that give you a gist of what has happened. And and there's things in you guys are the theologians here in Isaiah and other places it talks about, uh, him being a an angel of light and you know what I mean? Like there's certain descriptors that we get.

That one, we don't, you know, is he a music guy? I don't know that we get that. But there's something, there's a reason this came up and I think it's something about the idea that if there was a choir of angels in heaven, and I think we know that there probably is that, that if Lucifer was the choir director, right? And there's worship and and this is a visual picture. Allow me to paint this with my words, okay?

There's God is on the throne. There's angels looking up at the throne and they're worshipping with their angelic voices. Now, imagine how you would have a choir. You have the choir director facing the choir. Not facing the throne, right? So, he got you your God on the throne. You got your angels looking at the throne. You got Lucifer, the choir director, looking back at the angels, directing them in worship to God. In other words, the worship is blasting past him, going up to the throne as it should be, and I think the theory is somehow in conducting all this worship for eternity, he kind of gets the, you know, I'm doing a pretty good job here. I should get a little bit.

Steve Brown: That's right. I should get some of this. We're going to have you involved in more of these questions. But I ain't buying it. I don't I don't I'm going to say no way that's it. But there are those who hate contemporary worship that say yes and he used contemporary music. And there are others that hate old time hymns.

Pete Alwinson: Yeah, yeah.

Steve Brown: They say yes and he sang from a hymn book. No. Well,

Pete Alwinson: Well, at bare minimum, the question is an anachronistic because Lucifer as mentioned means angel of light and that's an Old Testament term back there. He didn't, he he didn't live in Jesus' time on the planet in a human body.

Steve Brown: Okay.

Pete Alwinson: So, it's an anachronistic question.

Steve Brown: That works for me. I could deal with it. Okay, I always say we take your question seriously. And we took that one seriously. I hope you noticed. Can this is an email too. Can spirits affect our thoughts?

Pete Alwinson: You know, I I I do think so. I think that we are open to all kinds of suggestions through various different means. We do have the Holy Spirit as Christians. And as we stay connected to the Word and the Spirit and God's people, we can discern. And that's a big concept in the New Testament, discernment.

Steve Brown: Which comes from the Holy Spirit.

Pete Alwinson: Comes from the Holy Spirit. Right, right.

Steve Brown: What about evil spirits?

Pete Alwinson: You know, we again, yes, I do believe that Christians encounter evil and evil spirits. In other people, we I don't believe are are, um, we can be oppressed but I don't believe we can be possessed by them. Yeah. But but I think there's much of spiritual warfare in the world today all around us.

Steve Brown: I agree. I agree with you. But don't obsess on it.

Pete Alwinson: That's right. Yeah.

Steve Brown: You know, you can go crazy if you start seeing demons under every bed and spirits around every corner. And I've met some Christians who really kind of lost their cutting edge because they gave too much credit to a being who's already defeated on the cross.

Pete Alwinson: That's right. Right. I agree with you 100%.

Steve Brown: Okay. We got to go and we are so glad you're here. One of the things you know, Key Life is a listener supported production of Key Life Network.