Key Life Network

Steve Brown: Hey, what about healing? The answer to that and other questions on this edition of Key Life.

Guest (Male): Welcome to Key Life. Our host and teacher is Steve Brown. He's nobody's guru, but he does have honest answers to hard questions about the Bible. God's grace changes everything: how we love, work, live, lead, marry, parent, evangelize and worship. Now, here's Steve and Pete Alwinson from Forge Truth with street smart Bible teaching for real life.

Steve Brown: Thank you, Matthew.

Pete Alwinson: Hey, man. Happy Friday.

Steve Brown: Happy Friday to you.

Pete Alwinson: You look, you look like you don't need healing. You look great.

Steve Brown: You know, I shouldn't. I mean, there should be some serious things wrong with me. And I keep waiting for the other shoe to fall. And then I just got over a cold, and I thought I was going to die. And I said, "Jesus, is this the time?" And he said, "Blow your nose and get busy." And so I did.

Steve Brown: That's Pete Alwinson. Check out fortruth.com and then come back and thank me for telling you about it.

Steve Brown: The podcast there is amazing. And you're going to find all kinds of video and audio material that especially if you're a guy, but for everybody, that's going to make a difference.

Steve Brown: Pete, as you know, comes in and we answer questions on Friday. And we love your questions. You can ask one anytime by calling 1-800 Key Life, and that's 1-800-539-5433.

Steve Brown: And the reason I give you those numbers is because a listener who is blind said, "I have trouble with the Key Life thing. Could you give the numbers for those of us who are blind?" And being the very kind and merciful person that I am, I'm trying to do that, okay?

Steve Brown: Or you can write Key Life Network, Post Office Box 5000, Maitland, Florida 32794. If you're in Canada, it's Key Life Canada, Post Office Box 2860, Waterloo, Ontario, N2L6J8. Or you can email your question to steve@keylife.org.

Steve Brown: And if you can, do help us financially. This is an expensive ministry. Someday I'm going to go down why it costs so much, but it is, and nobody's getting rich from this ministry. Nobody's living in a mansion and nobody's driving a new Mercedes.

Steve Brown: Or just want you to know that. And someday I'm going to itemize why it's expensive. Help us if you can, and I promise we'll be faithful with your gift. If you can't, we understand, and it wouldn't hurt if you said a prayer for this ministry.

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

Pete Alwinson: All right. Our great Father, we come to you right now as your children. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we come to the God of the universe who is immortal, invisible, the only wise God. As we think about who you are, we realize that you spoke and you spoke into existence all things that are good.

Pete Alwinson: We thank you for this world and the beauty of it, as well as the many resources that you have put in the earth for us to use and to enjoy. And so we praise you, our heavenly Father, and for our salvation. We know you have provided that completely. We bring our sin to our salvation, and that's all.

Pete Alwinson: And so we thank you for your grace and your mercy, and Lord Jesus, we praise you for taking on human flesh and walking among us, dwelling among us, teaching us, and then taking our curse on the cross. At the end of this week, we worship you. We look forward to doing that on Sunday, and we pray for our pastors and priests and teachers and leaders and worship directors. Lord, as they prepare to draw us into your presence, Holy Spirit, would you show up in a powerful way and renew our hearts and minds in worship and in living?

Pete Alwinson: We commit this time of Q&A to you right now as we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

Steve Brown: Amen. All right, let's go to our phone lines.

Guest (Male): When the woman touched him that had the issue of blood, he said, "Who touched me?" His disciples said, "Lord, they're all pressing against you." He said, "No, someone touched me with their faith." They pulled healing virtue or anointing out of his body. This is why the Bible says their faith made them whole. What do you guys think that means, Pete and Steve, that their faith made them whole?

Steve Brown: I think it means their faith made them whole. But I think your explanation of that text leads a lot to be desired. You, you're reading into the text stuff that's not a part of the text.

Steve Brown: And there is also an assumption there that we can do what Jesus did if we allow people to draw from us, and that's not there. That is a particular thing in a particular time, in a particular way and not to be applied universally.

Steve Brown: Or we, but does God heal people? Of course, he does.

Pete Alwinson: Right, right. And I applaud your, your openness to the reality. We both do. You know, there are many Christians who don't believe God can do any supernatural things and they've lost, they've lost that. What I really encourage you to do is to go back and look at all of the incidences in the Gospels where Jesus heals.

Steve Brown: Yeah, they're interesting, aren't they?

Pete Alwinson: And there's no doubt that faith, that he's impressed by those who believe him and trust him.

Steve Brown: That's true.

Pete Alwinson: You cannot deny that. But, having said that, he heals people who don't even know who he is and have no faith in him.

Steve Brown: I know.

Pete Alwinson: And he says, you know, go tell him about the Son of Man and one guy says, "Who is he?"

Steve Brown: Yeah, right.

Pete Alwinson: You know. And so he heals people in many different ways. Sometimes when they have faith, the ultimate reason for Jesus healing is to prove his identity as Messiah. Right? So, sometimes he heals Christians and sometimes he doesn't, and same with unbelievers.

Steve Brown: I had, with one guy who was blind, he made mud and put it on his eyes.

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

Steve Brown: And I have a friend who says, "In our time, we would create a whole denomination and call them the Muders and cause division in the body of Christ."

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

Steve Brown: That's a good question and a good thing that, especially those of us who are more formal, we need to be reminded that this faith is supernatural and that, yes, God does heal sometimes and sometimes he doesn't. But he did with Jesus.

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

Steve Brown: As a sign of who Jesus was. I get that. This is Matthew 16:28 and an email concerning it. The text says, "I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom." It sounds as if he is saying that some of the disciples will not die before Jesus returns. Please clarify.

Pete Alwinson: Yeah, yeah, that is one of those very interesting and important texts, and there are probably 20 different interpretations of that.

Steve Brown: There really are. You know, but it's clear if you have a high view of authority, Jesus, and a high view of scripture, which he did. If you have that, you got to deal with something like this, and obviously, everybody who knew Jesus in the first century, they're dead.

Pete Alwinson: Yeah, that's right.

Steve Brown: You can say a lot of things about them, but they're all dead.

Pete Alwinson: Yeah.

Steve Brown: So it obviously doesn't mean that. So I would suggest that the coming of the kingdom was, and we get into a lot of theological kingdom talk about this. Is it a future kingdom? Is it a present kingdom? And I personally think it's both.

Steve Brown: And I think the kingdom came at Pentecost. And I think in that sense, that was a prophecy about Acts and Pentecost. But as you said, I could be wrong, there are a lot of other interpretations.

Pete Alwinson: Well, that, that is one, one helpful interpretation. I think it, I think it is a major one, Steve. And certainly Pentecost was a lynchpin, you know. Something happened there in an amazing way as the Spirit of God was poured out. Some would say, well, just a few days later, the Transfiguration took place.

Steve Brown: That's true, it could have been that.

Pete Alwinson: And so, in that sense, it could have been that they saw the Son of Man in that, in that pre-second coming coming of his kingdom.

Steve Brown: In fact, that's better than my explanation. I like that.

Pete Alwinson: Well, that's it's it's difficult to get a satisfying interpretation because. It is true that it does tend to lend itself toward the second coming of the Son of Man, Revelation.

Steve Brown: It does. It does lend itself in that way, and certainly in that sense it didn't.

Pete Alwinson: Or you could interpret the race, some who this race, these people, the human race will not pass away until that comes. So we've confused the matter some, but don't base any doctrine on this, because it's it's a difficult one to understand fully.

Steve Brown: A good principle to follow is when you hit a verse that you don't understand, don't change your views, change your study of scripture and dig deeper, and you begin to see light in these kinds of situations. Good question though.

Pete Alwinson: Yep.

Steve Brown: Okay, where do Christians, this is an email. Where do Christians go when they die?

Pete Alwinson: Ah, what do you think, Steve?

Steve Brown: When you're dead, you're dead, it's over.

Pete Alwinson: You cease to exist. No.

Steve Brown: I believe you move out of time, and there is some confusion at the sound of the last trumpet. The dead in Christ will rise. Jesus said to the thief on the cross, "Today you will be with me in paradise."

Steve Brown: And I think that is God trying to communicate in time language what is a non-time kind of happening. When I die, I am no longer constrained by the time.

Steve Brown: I'm in eternity, and I'm in eternity with him forever instantly at that moment.

Pete Alwinson: Yeah.

Steve Brown: And time then becomes irrelevant.

Pete Alwinson: That's right. That's right. And so, so the Bible is written in time and linearly so, so that the language is all that that we have in our time period. But we're outside of time. So, to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.

Steve Brown: Absolutely.

Pete Alwinson: Paul said it. We can we can lean on that.

Steve Brown: And it is true. It is.

Pete Alwinson: Yeah.

Steve Brown: Okay. Yeah. And the dead in Christ will rise.

Pete Alwinson: That's right.

Steve Brown: It's nice to remember that it's true.

Pete Alwinson: That's right.

Steve Brown: Especially if you're an old guy like me. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. We got to go. Key Life is a listener supported production of Key Life Network.