Key Life Network

Announcer: Was everyone originally Jewish? The answer to that and other questions on Key Life. This is Key Life, dedicated to the message that the only people who get any better are those who know that if they don't get any better, God will still love them anyway.

That teaching raises a lot of questions. So here's author and seminary professor Steve Brown, along with Pete Alwinson from Forge Truth, with answers from the Bible that will make you free.

Steve Brown: Thank you, Matthew.

Pete Alwinson: Hey, man. How are you doing? Happy Friday.

Steve Brown: I'm doing really good. You know, we've spent, you know, we we record these and sometimes we talk for five or ten minutes, not about the program, but just about all kinds of stuff.

But you and I went into deep

Pete Alwinson: I know.

Steve Brown: long. We're way behind.

Pete Alwinson: I know we are. We are. But we're ready, we're warmed up.

Steve Brown: Oh, yeah. That's true. And I wish our listeners could have been there because what we said was quite profound.

That's Pete Alwinson, as you know, he comes in and has for years every Friday and we answer your questions, and we love your questions. You can call in anytime 1-800-KEY-LIFE. That's 1-800-539-5433.

Follow the instructions, ask a question and sometimes we put your voice on the air. Or you can send your question to Key Life Network, Post Office Box 5000, Maitland, Florida 32794. Or Key Life Canada, Post Office Box 2060, Waterloo, Ontario, N2L 6J8. Or you can email us at steve@keylife.org.

And those are places where you could help us financially if God leads you to. I promise we'll squeeze every dime for the glory of God. If you can't, we understand, if you can, we'll rise up and call you blessed, and so will a lot of other people.

Steve Brown: Okay, Pete, lead us in prayer and then we'll get to these questions.

Pete Alwinson: All right, that sounds good. Let's pray together.

Our great God, what a joy as we bow our heads now just for a minute to thank you for who you are and to worship your holy name. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And we worship you. It's been a long week. We're tired. We want a change. We need to worship. But we know that we need you. Thank you for who you are. Thank you for being in charge of our whole week.

The answered prayer, the encouragement that you gave us when we were discouraged, the friends that we needed at just the right time. And Lord, we know we need you all the time. And so we worship you, we honor you, and we thank you that you have a plan for the ages and how you did use the Jewish people that you raised up. And Lord brought Messiah through them. So we thank you for your greatness and your glory.

Lord, be with our pastors and teachers and priests and worship directors and the leaders this weekend who will be at point in leading your church. Oh, we need to meet. We need to see each other face to face and worship you. And we pray that you would give our leaders the boldness and the grace to bring us your holy word. We commit this time of Q&A to you right now. We thank you in Jesus' holy name. Amen.

Steve Brown: Amen.

Steve Brown: Pete, this first question is an email. Was everyone originally Jewish? And if so, when did other races and religions develop?

Pete Alwinson: All right, I'm going to throw that back on you. How do you answer that?

Steve Brown: Jewishness was a later development. So you can't say that Adam and Eve were Jewish, probably, not in a formal sense of that. Jewishness came in a particular relationship with God with a named people. He said, I will be your God and you will be my people.

So, no, not everybody was Jewish in the beginning. And I suspect that other races and religions, because we know in the Garden of Eden, it wasn't just Adam and Eve. Satan was there too.

Pete Alwinson: Mhm.

Steve Brown: Snake.

Pete Alwinson: Mhm.

Steve Brown: And there was a fight.

Pete Alwinson: That's right.

Steve Brown: And they So other religions maybe came from that, but maybe came from just everybody has a God-shaped vacuum.

And that God-shaped vacuum means, and I'm talking about atheists, they got it too.

Pete Alwinson: That's right.

Steve Brown: And so they're looking for something that will give them meaning.

Pete Alwinson: Right.

Steve Brown: And there is no lie so weird that some people won't believe it.

Pete Alwinson: Boy, is that the case. That is so true.

Steve Brown: So you began to develop other religions and other philosophies and other metaphysics.

Pete Alwinson: I guess.

Steve Brown: Even, even, even as far back as the Tower of Babel.

Pete Alwinson: You know, I mean, how how that they wanted to be God and they wanted to create God in their image. So when God established a covenant.

Steve Brown: And divisions came out of the Tower of Babel. God was separating people.

Pete Alwinson: That's right. That's right.

Steve Brown: Yeah. Go ahead, I'm sorry.

Pete Alwinson: Well, I wanted to go back to Genesis 12. So, with Abraham, right, post-flood, was he Jewish? Or do you have to wait till you get to Moses and after Mount Sinai?

Steve Brown: Well, I would probably wait because I don't think it was that defined there.

Pete Alwinson: Right. Right, right.

Steve Brown: But now that I think about it, maybe when we get home. What what's that old joke about the kid who said the atheist said, you believe that the whale swallowed Jonah? And she said, yes. And he said, she said, when I get home, I'll ask him. And the father going to mess up this joke, but the but the final line was, uh, well, what if he doesn't have an answer? And then the little girl says, well, you ask wherever you go.

Pete Alwinson: That's right. I mean you something like that. Yeah. Yeah.

Pete Alwinson: What what if he's not in heaven, but in hell? Well then you ask him.

Steve Brown: You know? Well, thanks for helping me out. It's really a good story, and I can tell it sometimes if I think about it before.

Pete Alwinson: Oh man. Grace, right? Grace.

Steve Brown: Yeah.

Pete Alwinson: But yeah, so so I would say, you know, probably as we start thinking when do they start taking on the the Hebrew character? They were Semitic people.

And so Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and then and probably were they were they spoke Hebrew during that time, most likely ancient Hebrew.

Steve Brown: And were God's covenant people. So if you define Jewishness that way, then yeah, of course.

Pete Alwinson: And but already, as you said, as you well said, there were already other splinters of the human race that had gone in directions from from from Noah and and his sons after the flood.

Steve Brown: That's a thoughtful question, by the way.

Pete Alwinson: It is.

Steve Brown: Okay, this is another one. Do you think God will separate the oneness people and the Trinity people or really say, you just didn't get it about who I am? Will he say, come on home anyway, or you're lost?

Pete Alwinson: I love that. I love that. I love that. They obviously listen to you because that. Okay, you don't know who I am, but come on home anyway.

Steve Brown: Yeah, right.

Pete Alwinson: You know, I I the oneness people are those that would really claim to be within the Christian sphere, Christian community, Christian church, but and there it's sort of a denomination, but they don't really believe and don't emphasize the Trinity.

Steve Brown: So they're basically Unitarian?

Pete Alwinson: It seems as though they are basically, but they have a high view of Jesus. And so I would think they all say that they put their faith and trust in Jesus for salvation. And that's why I think that response back, all right, you just didn't get it about who I am, but I come on home anyway, because they're I think they would all say that their faith and trust is in Jesus as Lord and savior, even though they may not have as high a view of Jesus as they should.

Steve Brown: You know, I really, and and you laugh about probably he's been listening to me, but I but I honestly believe that we're all get some of it wrong. Westminster says that.

Pete Alwinson: Yeah, uh-huh.

Steve Brown: And and and that's not what saves us. I, you know, I and I talk about that dream that God says you're all wrong. Some of you were really wrong. But welcome home because Jesus hugged you is a good thing to remember and a good thing to go by.

Pete Alwinson: That's right. That's right.

Steve Brown: Recently you talked about those who are saved, but by their temperament and actions haven't gotten to know Jesus yet. Can the opposite be true? I'm thinking of those who by their temperament and actions seem to know Jesus, but do not know or profess a saving experience or a personal relationship with him.

Pete Alwinson: That's a good question.

Steve Brown: Yeah.

Pete Alwinson: Yeah, well put. And I and I think I think you mean by that, by their temperament and actions haven't gotten to know Jesus yet, they trust in him as savior and Lord, so they know him at that level.

Steve Brown: Yeah, and left. They didn't hang out with Jesus. They went out to so it became a Ponzi scheme.

Pete Alwinson: Okay, okay. Now, and and so then the other side of this is can there be people who seem to be so nice and and wonderful, but they've never really put their faith and trust in Jesus? I'd say absolutely.

Steve Brown: Oh, absolutely.

Pete Alwinson: I meet those people.

Steve Brown: And some of them are nicer than our people.

Pete Alwinson: Yeah. That's right.

Steve Brown: The reason, what I was saying and what he's referring to is why are Christians in general and Calvinists in particular so mean.

Steve Brown: And I just say they haven't been hanging out with Jesus enough. They left before they got loved. And I think that does happen. I think we get the propositions right and get saved. And then that's as far as we go. That's why our walk, the walk where he loves us first. And that's why we can love each other and love him. Is so important that it be the central movement of what's going on in a Christian's life, or you'll go out. You know, it's dangerous to be right.

Pete Alwinson: Yeah.

Steve Brown: It really is.

Pete Alwinson: It is.

Steve Brown: Some of the meanest people in the world are right.

Pete Alwinson: And and I think that what what we what you're saying is that we we have to really have that if we really know Jesus and we know the truth, there's a humility that inevitably comes with that and a love. And we don't we get the gospel in our head, but we don't let it affect our emotional structure so that our identity is wrapped up in being right rather than being God's children.

Steve Brown: And therefore, I say, they left before they got loved. And that's and I was saying exactly what you just said. That's so important that you stay.

Pete Alwinson: It is. That's right. That's right.

Steve Brown: You know, and presupposed, and we don't have any more time to talk about it, but there's a presupposition in in this. And that is that God doesn't need you. I mean, you're not you're not going to ruin his plans. He doesn't have any perspiration on his upper lip. He's doing fine without you, but he loves to hang out and for you to be a part of it.

Pete Alwinson: It's good.

Steve Brown: That works.

Pete Alwinson: Yeah.

Steve Brown: Well, we got to go, but first, Key Life is a listener supported production of Key Life Network.