The Narrow Path

Steve Gregg: 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 at this time. And we take your calls throughout the program if you have questions you want to bring up for conversation about the Bible, about Christianity, about anything that's related to those topics.

If you disagree with the host either because you're a Christian and you have some Christian disagreements with the host, which is I'm sure the case with many listeners, or if you're not a Christian you just disagree with Christianity and the Bible altogether, you're always welcome to call and bring up those differences. We can talk about them. The number to call is 844-484-5737. Right now I think we have one line still open if you want to try to call now. 844-484-5737. All right, now those lines are full. Let's go to the phones and talk to Merna in Worcester, Massachusetts first of all. Hi Merna, welcome to The Narrow Path.

Merna: Hi Steve. How are you?

Steve Gregg: I'm well, thank you.

Merna: Quick question. Looking at the Bible and what it says about forgiveness, I know that God wants us to forgive not necessarily with the other person repenting. At any time has God himself forgiven without the person repenting? And I'm mentioning this because I'm looking at Adam and Eve.

Steve Gregg: Well, we don't know of any case, at least I don't know of any case, where God forgave somebody who did not repent. God would certainly be free to do that if he wished to. Now, when we talk about Adam and Eve, we don't actually read of them repenting. In fact, in both cases when they were confronted by God after they sinned, they seemed to make excuses and try to pass the buck and not really come clean.

And therefore of course they did suffer punishment. But they did live a long time after that, 930 years, during which time they very well might have repented. We don't have any more stories about them except for them having some children and that must've happened rather early on after the fall. So I mean there must have been at least 900 years or more of their lives that we have no information about.

So we can hope that they may have repented and been forgiven. But if God did forgive them, it no doubt would have been because of their repenting. I don't know of any case of God forgiving someone in the sense of restoring the relationship. You see, we have to understand what we mean by forgiveness. Forgiveness, the goal of forgiveness is reconciliation. That is to say to restore a relationship that's been broken by an offense.

And there's two parts of reconciliation. One is that the person who's been offended has a willingness to forgive, maybe even an eagerness to forgive because they love the person that hurt them and they want things to be reconciled. They want things to be as they should be. But the desire that that should be so, even though that may be a disposition within the injured party, doesn't make it happen.

Because as long as the injurer, as long as the offender has not had a change of heart, there must always be assumed that what they did to you once, they might do it again. They've never expressed any desire not to. They've never even acknowledged that they were wrong. And therefore, whatever it is they did to you might be something they would do regularly without even giving a thought. So you can't really trust them again. You can't be vulnerable to them again. And that means that the relationship isn't fully restored.

And so I believe that God does exactly what he expects us to do. In fact, I think he wants us to do it because that's what he's like. And that is that before we repent, God still is eager for us to be reconciled to him. That's why Jesus was sent to the world. Because the world was alienated from God. He could've just let it go or he could've just burned it up and punished everybody. But he actually wanted to be reunited, reconciled with the people who were the offenders, which is all of us.

And so he sent Jesus to do what he could to draw us back. But that would be through repentance. Now, God can't make us repent, I don't think. Doesn't seem like he has that. That's not the way he deals with man. He waits for us to repent. He may induce us somewhat. He may convict us by his spirit. He may deal with our behavior in such a way that we realize we'd be better off if we repented.

I mean, it's not like we repent in a vacuum. But God, I don't think, just unilaterally puts it in us to repent. Some people think he does. I don't. Because if he could do that, he'd do it with everyone. Because the Bible says he's not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. And yet some people apparently do perish and not everyone does come to repentance. So it must not be in God's power to simply unilaterally put repentance into people's hearts. There's some agency that we have. There's some responsibility we bear.

So God's heart is toward us even before we repent. It says in 2 Corinthians chapter five that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses to them. Now, in other words, the world is alienated from God, but God in Christ was expressing his not desiring to impute trespasses, that is to say, to hold these things against us.

Now, there's still no reconciliation unless we choose it. Because when a relationship has been broken, it takes both parties to restore it. In many cases, the offender is somebody who doesn't want the relationship restored, and sometimes the offended party doesn't either. And therefore, people remain alienated and offended for the rest of their lives.

But on the other hand, very often it's the case that somebody, let's say the offender, hasn't changed and doesn't care about the relationship, but the offended party does, especially this is true of say, the offended party is the parent or the spouse or something of somebody that has hurt them. And they want that relationship restored. They value the relationship, and the other party doesn't.

The only way the relationship will be restored is if the offender has a change of heart and the offended party is willing to forgive. But if one of those two things is so, then there's no restoration of the relationship. So what I think we have to understand is that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them. That is to say, God is saying, "Okay, you've injured me, you've offended me, you've done harm to me, you've insulted me, but I'm not going to hold that against you. I'm going to send my son to bring you back to me. I want this relationship back."

But there still has to be agreement on the other side. One person can't make a relationship happen. And God already has decided he wants the relationship restored. So it's up to us to choose it also. And that's why Paul, the passage I was referring to, 2nd Corinthians chapter 5, it says in verses 19 and following, "God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and he is committed to us the word or message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ as though God were pleading through us, we implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God." Now obviously Paul's saying that in Christ, God was trying to patch up the relationship, but it's not fully patched up unless we participate, unless we also want that relationship. And so he says, "We're imploring you. We're agents of reconciliation sent by God to implore you in his place to be reconciled with him." So obviously God is waiting for us to respond now because he took the initiative in removing the basis for offense by sending Christ.

Merna: So when we think of Adam and Eve, the reason that I mentioned them was because I want to believe that they did repent because there's kind of like a foreshadowing atonement there for them where he kills the animal and covers them.

Steve Gregg: And clothed them. Yeah, I'd like to believe that too. I think we probably we all would. And I'm not saying it may be just wishful thinking, but I think we have every reason to hold out hope that that's what did happen, that they covered their nakedness, which might be a symbolic act of forgiving them. I mean I think in preaching that passage we often see it that way. But we don't know what their attitudes were. We don't know if they continued to live in rebellion against him or whether they turned around and tried to live out their lives obedient to him. We just don't have information. I guess we'll find out someday.

Merna: Thank you, Steve.

Steve Gregg: Okay, Merna. Thanks for your call. All right, Daniel in New Rochelle, New York is our next caller. Hi Daniel, welcome to the Narrow Path.

Daniel: Hi Steve. I actually today I want to ask you about the Seven Deadly Sins, right?

Steve Gregg: I've heard of the seven deadly sins. The Bible doesn't list seven deadly sins, but go ahead.

Daniel: Do you believe in them?

Steve Gregg: I believe they're sins. Yeah. Is that your question?

Daniel: Well, no. Well, it says the Bible doesn't list them. It's not in the Bible, but it's developed in early Christian theological tradition. So are they true or are they just...?

Steve Gregg: Well, I mean, are they true? I'm not sure what that means. Does that mean is it true that there are seven and only seven sins that we could call the seven deadly sins? If that's the question, I'd have to say no. No, there aren't only seven. If the question is are these really the very worst, the seven very worst sins of all? Maybe. I mean, I'm not sure that I could say what are the worst of all. I don't think murder is on the list, if I'm not mistaken. Maybe it is. But I mean it's mostly things like pride and covetousness and sloth I think is on there. I don't remember all the list.

But I don't need to. I don't try to memorize lists of sins. The Bible doesn't give us a list of deadly sins. Many, many sins are enumerated in scripture. And everything that we do that's not like Christ is sin. That's falling short. The word sin means to miss the mark. It's like you're an archer shooting at a target and you're trying to hit a bullseye and you don't hit it. And you keep trying and you still don't hit it.

Now that's what sin is suggesting that we are aiming at being like Christ but we fall short of it. Our arrows fall short and hit the ground. We fail to be like Christ and that's what sin is. It's missing that mark, it's missing that target. How many ways are there to do that? Maybe hundreds, I don't know. I'm not really sure why the seven deadly sins were ever listed or who made the first list. But it wasn't in the Bible and it wasn't the apostles that did it.

I don't have any objection to the list except I guess if I have any objection, I don't know what it is. I guess I'd have to know what is it they're saying about these sins to make them more deadly than other sins. The Bible says the wages of sin is death. And I don't think there's just seven things that are sins with that penalty attached to them. So the list was probably made because these are very prominent sinful behaviors and probably to just teach a moral code to categorize believers.

Somebody made up a list of the sins that are most notorious to be aware of. I'm only guessing because it's a very early list I think. I don't know who made it but it doesn't have any inspired authority behind it that I know of. So I'm not really I don't have a problem with the list but if you're saying is it true that these are really the bad ones, well, they are bad ones. There's other things that are bad too.

So why confine yourself to that list? You know, I think maybe if you found somebody who's totally a pagan and has had no restraint in their life until they become a Christian, and you want to give them a memorable list without a hundred things on it which they can't keep in mind, and you say just here's seven things, work on these. I could see that as maybe a starting point.

But you know, if you get to a place where you're not really committing those sins with any regularity, there's going to be other sins that you will become aware of in your conscience. And the idea that well there's seven deadly sins, does that mean that other sins are not deadly? I think they're all pretty deadly. So yeah, I don't make anything special of that list. Never have. I appreciate your call though. Let's talk to Priscilla in Vancouver, British Columbia. Hi Priscilla, welcome.

Priscilla: Hi Steve. I went through a really good flogging since our last conversation.

Steve Gregg: Flogging?

Priscilla: Yeah, much needed.

Steve Gregg: Are you talking about self-flagellation?

Priscilla: Yes, and much needed. I'm going to get to my question. I want to know, I've been using all this investigation, and you to me are in that hall of faith living. I'm referring to Hebrews 11.

Steve Gregg: Well, not yet. I haven't died yet. I haven't died faithful yet. But I will with the help of God.

Priscilla: No, and I've been doing that. You're the living hall of faith, sir. The living cheerleader. And I feel like you're definitely going to be there. And I've just been studying that. I would like you if you may could you expand on that more. And when I go through this, you actually even quoted it yourself. What it means for you, it's very deep. Do you know that you have an autobiography?

Steve Gregg: Yes, at our website. There's a short autobiography.

Priscilla: Beautiful. It's inspired me so much. And you are golden through and through. Hair and all, wink wink, okay?

Steve Gregg: That's silver. My hair is silver.

Priscilla: No, you are worth more than gold. I just want to check in and say thank you. And I'm going to let you go for now. And amen. Praise God.

Steve Gregg: All right Priscilla. Thanks for your call. You wanted me to say something about the Hall of Faith. The Hall of Faith in Hebrews chapter 11 simply lists people beginning with Abel, which was the first generation after Adam and Eve, and going on through frankly all the great people we know of in the Old Testament from Abel, then it goes to Enoch, then it goes to Noah, and then you jump to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and then you're going to jump up to Moses and Joshua and stuff.

And then the prophets are mentioned there. Pretty much covers the whole Old Testament and basically says, "Okay, all these guys that we read about, they were people of faith, and the reason we remember them is because they had faith." And what he's saying to his readers is, "That's what God expects of us. God expects us to keep the faith, and these are examples of people who kept the faith."

In James chapter five, it says, "Take the prophets, brethren, for an example of suffering affliction and of patience. Behold, we count them happy who endure," James says. And then he says, "You've heard of the patience of Job and have seen the end of the Lord," that I think it says the Lord is very patient or longsuffering or whatever, and of tender mercy.

Basically it's saying these Old Testament characters, they went through a lot of stuff and they remained loyal to God. And that's what we're supposed to think about them as kind of examples. Now since the time that those books were written, since the time of the New Testament, there's been thousands and thousands of great examples of Christian faith. We don't know most of them but somebody knew them.

They've been all over the world in every century. There's been martyrs. There's been Christian leaders. There's been people who stood out for their following of Christ. And yeah, and I have to say, when I see their biographies, when I read about them, they inspire me just like the Old Testament prophets do. The Hall of Faith, as we might call it, did not end with the Old Testament saints but if anything it was just the beginning as there have been now in the past 2,000 years many thousands of Christians who if we met them, we would feel probably like we are their spiritual inferiors. I know I would.

Now, when you try to add me to that list, well, I hope that we could all be added to that list. That's the idea. The idea is that everyone who follows Christ should be faithful unto death and receive the crown of life. If you begin to compare yourself with others of your generation, you begin to make a mistake because I mean you probably think that about me because you read my biography and I've been a Christian all my life and I trust I'll be a Christian all my life to remain.

But and I know you've told me before you've had a rough background and so you probably think of me as a great saint. I'm not a great saint. I'm just an about average, I think, when it comes to if you take true Christians throughout history, I'm about average. And I don't know of anything about me that's exceptional except maybe I feel God has given me gifts, but when God gives you gifts that's no credit to you.

It's what you do with them. It's whether you live a godly life or not. I've tried to do that since my youth. I have. And I'm old now and I intend to live out the rest of my life as godly as God's grace will allow me to do. But I've had my stumbles too, man. I've done some bad stuff. It hasn't ever characterized my life. It's been like James said, "Many things we all stumble." I'm no exception to that. I've stumbled.

I don't go around broadcasting all the things I've done that were awful. But I'm aware of them and God's aware of them and there are people who are aware of them. So don't think too highly of anyone. I'll tell you it always concerns me if when I hear people seemingly kind of putting me on a pedestal because I just see myself as a person who's an ordinary Christian who's just doing what the Bible tells us to do and have just been taking it seriously all my life.

But I've stumbled too and if you put someone on a pedestal and then you find out they aren't as perfect as you thought, then that can really be a stumbling block. And I certainly would not wish... if I have any regrets about my stumbles in the past, it's this: that people may be themselves stumbled by them. And so you're less likely to be stumbled when you hear that somebody you admire is human and falls too, if you just remember they're human.

They're not special. If somebody's a better Christian than me, and many people are, I consider it because God's given them more grace. And if I'm a better Christian than someone else, and that might be the case in some instances, that's because of the grace that God's given me. We all are to walk in whatever grace God gives us, and that will... if we take Jesus seriously and we don't ever stop doing that, we're going to grow.

We're going to grow in grace and in the knowledge of Jesus Christ and hopefully we can be examples to others as a result of that because people need examples. And unfortunately there's a lot of bad examples too. Anyway, I appreciate your confidence and your flattery, but I think there's other people who deserve it more than I do. And if there's anything there, it definitely is God that gets all the credit for that. And I'm not saying that just to be humble, I'm just saying that because I know it to be true. Thank you. Roger from Bakersfield, California. Welcome to The Narrow Path.

Roger: Thank you. My question has to do with the penalty for sin. It's my understanding, or at least one position is that Jesus died for the sins of the world, all the sins. Which means that if a believer dies and is saved, then Christ has paid the penalty for his sin. If an unbeliever dies and is lost, he pays the penalty for his own sin. But if Christ has also died for his sin and paid the penalty, his sins are... the penalty for his sins are paid for twice. Is that possible?

Steve Gregg: Well, I personally think that the metaphor of purchase is one of the metaphors for the atonement that the Bible uses. There are others. What Christ accomplished at the cross is sometimes spoken of as if it's a payment of a ransom. Jesus said he came to give his life a ransom for many. And Paul says in 1st Timothy 2 that Jesus gave his life a ransom for all. So I mean a ransom is a payment that's made to a kidnapper, right? And to release somebody.

But that's not the only metaphor that is used in the Bible. Conquering Satan at the cross is a major metaphor for what Christ accomplished. Buying and freeing a slave is another metaphor. Again, that's kind of a financial one. You pay for a price for the slave to be free. There's a lot of different ways that the atonement is described in the Bible. And because it is a divine transaction that I believe there is probably no perfect earthly transaction that is completely like it.

But God has done his best to find analogies, legal analogies, slavery analogies, battle victory analogies, and so forth. Things that we're familiar with. I think all of these things are true about what Christ did in a certain sense. But to press any of them as if that's the whole picture or that it's in every way like the earthly counterpart that's being used as an analogy would be, I think, going too far.

I think that we could say... you see what you're saying is if Jesus died for someone who never gets saved, well he paid the price for their sins. But if they die without receiving that, they pay the price for the sins. So but Jesus already paid it, so why would there be two payment twice made? I don't think that the analogy is intended to be taken that far. I think it'd be more like this: that what Jesus accomplished was a general pardon.

Suppose the president of the United States, because he has the power to do so, simply issued a general pardon to everybody in prison. Everyone's free to go. Okay. Now that would mean that he's provided pardon for everybody. But what if they say, "I don't want it," especially on the terms. If the idea was if you'll come out of your prison and not commit the crimes anymore, then I'll pardon you.

Well, some might say, "I'm not going to commit myself to not doing that. I like those crimes. I want to keep doing those crimes." Or if it's like a man had slaves, let's say a very cruel man had slaves, and a very rich man came and said, "I'll buy all your slaves and give them freedom," like Jesus has done. So Jesus pays the price for all to be out of slavery. But suppose some of the slaves say, "Well, I like my master. I don't want to be free. Thanks but no thanks. I kind of like the way my master treats me."

Well, some people like the way the devil treats them. Some people like the way sin their master treats them and they don't want that. It's not that the pardon hasn't been issued generally or the purchase made in those cases. It's that, okay, they're not going to get the freedom that was bought for them. It was paid for, but they don't want it. And that's pretty much I think the only way that people end up being lost is if they don't want what Jesus did for them on his terms.

Of course, his terms means total surrender to him and repentance of sin. I need to take a break here. We have another half hour coming, so don't go away. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. You're listening to The Narrow Path. I'm Steve Gregg. Another half hour coming up. So stay tuned. I'll be back in about 30 seconds.

Welcome back to The Narrow Path. My name is Steve Gregg and we're live for another half hour taking your calls. If you'd like to be on the program, you have questions about the Bible or the Christian faith or want to disagree with the host, the number to call is 844-484-5737. That's 844-484-5737. Our next caller is James from Manhattan, New York. Hi James, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

James: Hi, how you doing? Thank you. I came to ask the question about Psalms where it says, "open up the heavenly doors, the heavenly gates." The question is I want to know is that a portal? A portal to someplace else. That's what I heard from long time ago.

Steve Gregg: Wait, wait, before you do that. Are you talking about Psalm 24, which says in verse 7, "Lift up your heads, oh you gates, and be lifted up, oh you everlasting doors, and the King of Glory shall come in"? All right.

James: Right. Is that a... go ahead.

Steve Gregg: Yeah, I no, I don't believe it's a portal. I believe it's talking in terms of the city of Jerusalem, which was a gated and walled city. And I believe it's no doubt welcoming God to come in and some I think Christians would probably see it as the second coming of Christ that he's going to return to Jerusalem. The Bible doesn't ever say that quite as clearly as some Christians want it to.

I think basically it's just saying that... it could be like when they brought the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem. We don't have any information about when it was written or what the occasion was. It's a Psalm of David, we're told. Now, we do know that at one point in his kingship, David brought the Ark of the Covenant, which was an emblem of the presence of Yahweh, the presence of God, and installed it in a tent in Jerusalem.

It may very well that this is what that's referring to. You everlasting doors, meaning the gates, the gates of the city, open up and let's bring the Ark of God in. Let God come in. Now, I can't prove that's what it's talking about because we don't have information about the specific event. But as far as thinking of it as a gate to heaven, I think that's what you're suggesting. I don't think the Bible... it certainly not in the Old Testament ever suggests anything about a gate to heaven or people going to heaven.

We do have Jacob's dream where he saw a ladder with its foot on earth and its top in heaven. But it was just a symbolic dream where the angels of God were ascending and descending from heaven and God was at the top and it was obviously the ladder represented some kind of a portal to God, though not specifically a portal to go up to God. It wasn't Jacob who went up that ladder, it was angels coming and going on it.

It sounds to me like it was basically representing the fact that God was sending his blessings and to earth, that this ladder represented that avenue. Because of course Jacob was at Bethel. He'd come into the holy land from... well he's about to leave the holy land. Actually, he's fleeing from Esau. But he, Jacob, was not much of a believer at that time and he didn't know the value of the land that was going to be their inheritance.

And I think this dream was to reveal to him that the land he was leaving and would return to, because he was leaving to go stay with Laban in Syria, that that land was the place that God was going to choose to pour out his blessings from heaven on the world. And the angels ascending... we're never given any information about what the ascending angels and descending angels would be. My guess is angels ascending were probably representing prayers carried up to God from earth.

And the angels descending, I would imagine, would represent those angels that are coming down and bringing the answers to those prayers. We do have that kind of imagery a little bit in Daniel chapter 10 and so forth. But I'm not even sure of that. But the interesting thing is it's not really discussing man going to heaven if that's what you mean. Man is never mentioned as going to heaven when he dies in the Old Testament. And so I don't think that Psalm would be talking about that if that's what you're... if that's what you're wondering.

I believe the gates and the doors would be reference to the gates and doors of Jerusalem because that's David was enamored with Jerusalem. It was his capital city, was his hometown. He'd conquered it specifically to... he wanted to build a house for God in it. He didn't, but Solomon later did. So I think the everlasting doors and the gates and so forth are in the context referring to letting God come in, and very possibly, in my opinion, when the ark was being brought, which represented God, represented his coming into the city.

All right, let's talk to Yugoslavia, not a caller from Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia is the name from Miami, Florida. Hi Yugoslavia, good to hear from you.

Yugoslavia: Hi, I'm calling from my car. Can you hear me well or should I just put it on regular speaker?

Steve Gregg: I can hear you. There's some background noise, but go ahead and give me your question.

Yugoslavia: I don't have a question, I have a comment and I'll be quick. In regards to what Priscilla was saying, okay, so our pastor from our church told us on Sunday, "Praise the Lord. Let your neighbor hear you. Let a family member hear you. You don't know what's going to happen in their heart. So go ahead and do it."

So, to add to what Priscilla was saying, Steve, when I get into my car at five o'clock, I just want to hear you, like I want to hear my pastor because we live in a world where it can be contaminated and when we listen to the Word of God, these questions and then the answers, that helps us. And I'm very grateful and I just want to say thank you because you're sharing your gift with us and thousands of listeners. That's all I want to say. Thank you.

Steve Gregg: All right, well, thank you for your call. Yeah, it certainly is the case that in the world, especially those who are not in ministry like I am, but if you're out working in business or somewhere else, you're going to be hearing all kinds of stuff that's not very edifying. There's a lot of messages that come across on whether it's on the radio or TV or movies or on the internet or just in the people around you talking.

And if you're a Christian and you really are trying to keep your thoughts on the truth, it can be... you can feel bombarded sometimes. So if there's something, your pastor, somebody you hear on the radio, some podcast you listen to, that's edifying, it is definitely a relief. And that's what I understand you to be saying. And I'm glad this show can do that for some people. I wish it could do it for everybody. Thanks for your call. All right, let's talk to Ken in Port Huron, Michigan, whom we talked to yesterday. Hi Ken, welcome.

Ken: Hi Steve. Talked to you yesterday and you asked if I had anything else and I said, "No." And then I listened to your Friday show on YouTube and you talked with somebody about something I wished I had said more. I'll try to move right along here. 1st Corinthians 14:34-35, and that's what you talked about with a caller on I believe it was Friday.

And I've heard you talk before on this subject and I'm just going to... I'm going to dare to challenge you a little bit here. Context. If we go back to verse 29, let two or three prophets speak and let the others pass judgment. Now, I've heard you say before that's two or three prophecies per meeting. It doesn't say that.

And it says two or three prophets speak, that's two or three prophecies, and then the others, that could be everybody else, weigh it, judge it, pass judgment, assess it. I understand that to mean, because we functioned in that and I understand that to mean slow down folks. Slow down. Slow down. There's an order here.

Then Paul says the next verse, "But if a revelation is made to another who's seated," take your turn kind of a thing. "For you can all prophesy. You can all prophesy, not just two or three. You can all get your turn so that all may learn and may be exhorted. The spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets. God's not an author of confusion."

And during this time, I'm adding this, and during this time, as in all the churches, the women are to keep silent during the time of assessing prophecies, during the time of judging prophecies. Women should assess, they should judge, but they should keep silent. And if they have any questions, they can ask their husband in the car on the way home. Or in the chariot.

Steve Gregg: Yeah, or in the chariot. Yeah.

Ken: The chariot. That's what it says, chariot. They desire to learn anything, they can ask their husbands at home. And it's like the oversight of the meeting is male usually, elders, Corinth may not have had elders. And if there are no elders, the point is the women are to keep silent in this one area right here. And that's when prophecies are being assessed. I've seen that work.

It doesn't always have to be something said during that time of assessing and weighing. Sometimes you just pause and chew on it for a little bit and then you move on with the meeting. But once in a while there's times that there does need to be something said to reel it in, to bring it in a little bit, maybe even a question asked, but not by women. Women should keep silent during that time.

Now when I saw that, it was a few months later, I'm listening to Mike Winger and he gave five views of these two verses here in 34 and 35. He gave five views and the fifth one was exactly what I just said. And he said this is his view, what he favors and that he finds that that view is getting more popular today. I just wondered if you'd ever heard that or considered it.

Steve Gregg: Yeah, I mean over the years among the things I've read in terms of commentaries, a lot of them seem to be saying that the silence of women is simply in connection with the judging of prophecy. And I think that's what you're saying. So that's definitely one of the views out there to be sure.

Ken: Okay. I wondered if you'd ever heard that because in listening to you I've never heard you bring it up but okay that answered my question.

Steve Gregg: Yeah. The problem is that there are different views of what the background is, what was going on in the church of Corinth. And therefore also that would create different interests that Paul had in making these statements. Is he trying to have women be quiet in the church completely? Is he trying to get them not to judge prophecies? Is he trying to get them to just stop interrupting by asking questions in the church? Everyone has their own opinion about what the scenario was. And Paul doesn't tell us what it was but certainly what you've suggested is one possibility. I don't have any problem with it.

Ken: Yeah. We used to have the camp meetings where too long they'd go three, four, five hours and there would be a break, not an official break, but the ladies would take the kids back and put them to bed maybe and then the meeting would slow down then it would pick up again and it was like a whole different... well if you're going to limit the prophecies to two or three per meeting you better define a meeting.

Steve Gregg: Yeah, I'm not going to get into that right now because I have people waiting but yeah, I mean I don't worry too much about that. All right, thanks so much Ken. Good talking to you. Bye now. All right, we're going to talk next to Matthew in Sheridan, California. Sounds like it should be Oregon. Is this Sheridan, California or Oregon, Matthew?

Matthew: It's Sheridan, California right on the border of Lincoln. It's Northern California. I got two questions for you theologically that I have taught on, never preached but taught on, and you and I have never disagreed on anything you said.

Steve Gregg: That sounds dangerous.

Matthew: Do you want the question about Jesus on the cross or do you want a question about the church?

Steve Gregg: Depends on how long it takes. Give me the one that's at the forefront of your mind, maybe if it's short enough I can maybe answer two.

Matthew: Okay. So here's the church. So we know historically that the Catholic Church was at one point totally different than it is today. It's evolved to what it is today. My question is when God created man and created Eve, they walked along with him in the Garden of Eden. They walked side by side with him. Then sin entered the world. God being so holy and so righteous, he could no longer walk with man. So there was a separation that took place that was permanent and forever. But God created a way for there to be communion between them again through offering and sacrifice.

Steve Gregg: Yeah, let's get closer to what you're asking because we're running out of time here. Go ahead.

Matthew: My question is if you look through the entire Bible, the Old Testament into the New Testament, that is a repeated pattern where God establishes a way to communicate with man. And over time by the time Jesus shows up, the Pharisees managed to corrupt what God has established and then Jesus strikes the plate and makes it all much broader, bigger, and simpler.

Steve Gregg: You're cutting out. Are you in motion somewhere or are you in one place? Because your voice is cutting out quite a bit.

Matthew: I'm in one place now. I just pulled over on the side of the road. Can you hear me better?

Steve Gregg: I can right now. So could you put that question in a single sentence again?

Matthew: Yes. So here's the question: Do you think that the Catholic Church in what it was and the way they teach of Peter being the first pope and the way it was established was actually the church that God established but over time as man corrupted it then the Reformation happened which was God's way of saying, "Okay, now we're just going to get right down to basics because you've polluted it with all these unnecessary things: mariology and idolatry and all these things." My question is that.

Steve Gregg: Okay, yeah. First of all, we must remember the Roman Catholic Church was not the only church on the planet. Besides... I mean, that was just the Western church with Rome as its capital. There's also the Eastern church, the Eastern Orthodoxy, with its capital in eventually in Constantinople. And then later there's the far Eastern church which was over in the Babylon and Syria area and even as far east as India where Thomas was. And then down in Africa there was the Coptic Church.

And these churches were not all under the same authority and they weren't all following the same evolutionary pattern from the original church. I think what we have to understand is that any movement... and we see that whenever any new denomination forms, whether it's the Wesley revival that evolves into the Methodist church or Luther's reformation that evolves into the modern Lutheran church or even the Anabaptist movement that evolved into modern Mennonites and so forth, often these things start out by recovering something of original Christianity which had been forgotten or covered over with some traditional covering that people had forgotten it.

And they rediscover it and in doing so they start a new movement. But then within a few generations even they become either legalistic or encrusted with certain traditions and inflexible and so forth. And I think that that's just a carnal human tendency. The tendency is to add to what the original purity of the church was. And when we add things, it's never an improvement in my opinion. We always think we're making it an improvement but I don't think it is.

I believe the early church was simply comprised of people who regarded themselves as brothers and sisters, children of God, followers of Jesus as their king and their Lord, and who gathered together to edify each other and to minister to each other and to learn together about the things of God. And there were the apostles initially would be teaching them on a daily basis in Jerusalem there. And then of course the apostles eventually were scattered. And so there were other teachers that picked up that banner.

Paul told Timothy, he says, "The things you've heard of me in the presence of many witnesses tell those, teach those things to faithful men who will then in turn teach other people." So the apostolic teaching was supposed to be passed down through the generations. Now, the Catholic institution, and I have to say I'm not trying to bash Catholics because I think this is true of almost every Protestant institution, I'm not sure of any church in the world that hasn't gone through some kind of an evolution.

But the Catholic Church eventually thought it'd be best to perpetuate apostolic authority not as much through the teachings of the apostles, which is the way Paul wanted it perpetuated, that's what he told Timothy, "Teach the, you know, another generation the things I teach and then have them teach the next generation." So apostolic authority according to the Bible should be passed down through the faithful teaching of what the apostles said so that the church doesn't drift very far from it.

But it was in the early 2nd century Ignatius, you know, is the one who wrote seven letters to seven churches there around 110 AD and he in order to keep the church kind of united told everyone to submit to the bishop of the church. Now when Paul was on the earth there wasn't a bishop in every church. The bishop's the word episkope in the Greek means overseers and they were the same as the elders.

There's no distinction between an episkope, a bishop overseer in the early church as the elders. And there were several elders in each church if there were any. We don't know of any church that had a singular bishop. But by the second or third generation after the apostles already they'd started having a single leader that everyone had to obey. Well of course it's a short step from there for all the bishops of the different churches to have to obey one of the bishops, the bishop of Rome being a natural choice.

And then of course they have to come up with some kind of a justification for this and so they go back to the Bible start looking for ways to force passages that don't teach this into the paradigm that they're trying to say is biblical. This is what denominations do also. I mean the Catholic church is no different. Any time people get their hands on Christianity and start trying to develop it, try to make it better than it was, try to make it more stable or whatever in a human way, I don't think they improve it. I think they corrupt it.

And I think that this idea that Peter's the head of the church, there's not nothing in the Bible says that. I know the verses that Catholics use for it, certainly. I know the verses. I've talked to them, I've debated them, but they don't say that. You have to have the doctrine in your head first and then you can kind of try to read it into these verses which don't say it. But if the doctrine was true you could kind of read those verses through that and say, "You know this is kind of the germ of this idea."

But the verses themselves don't teach it. And so I think that every generation of Christians has to reform in a way because the generation before them may have added some things. And if a church doesn't reform itself, if every fresh generation doesn't say, "Let's get back to what Jesus said, let's get back to what the apostles taught," then there's going to be this accretion and accumulation of traditional things that go unchallenged.

A new generation comes up and starts teaching something and unfortunately if it doesn't get challenged at that point, the next generation is going to be taught it as if it's true. And then it becomes a tradition that several generations teach the same thing even though it never was in the Bible, the apostles never taught it. And that's what I think. So you were talking about how the church changed and evolved, the Catholic church did. I think all churches do to some extent.

But the body of Christ is comprised not of members of these organizations per se. People who are in the body of Christ might be found certainly will be found in these organizations but these organizations are not the body of Christ themselves. They're not the church. They're simply organizations that identify themselves as the church. The church is the body of Christ which Christ started and which every believer is a part of. And you know, it's never been necessary, I believe, for any Christian of any generation to be loyal to the traditions, the man-made traditions of the previous generation. And if they don't challenge them then those traditions accumulate like barnacles on the hull of a boat and you have to pull it out of the water and clean it off eventually or else you're just going to be destroying your boat. Anyway, I appreciate your call. I don't know if we have time, we might if it's short, Jerome in Shoreline, Washington. We got a couple minutes. Welcome.

Jerome: Okay, yeah, thanks Steve. I appreciate the comment about the chariots. I'm looking forward to getting back to those days.

Steve Gregg: Me too. Go ahead.

Jerome: Okay, but the question is the subject is grace. I live across the street from a congregation that has a pride flag out and I've come from that lifestyle and give me some advice on how to balance... how do I balance grace and minister to such folks as I used to be? I'll take your answer on the radio.

Steve Gregg: Well, some of your words were a little muffled. How do you balance grace with what?

Jerome: With the lifestyle I got out from... the people with the pride flag across the street. And I came out of that lifestyle and I'm wondering how to balance...

Steve Gregg: Gotcha. Okay. I hear you. Now I know your question and I'd like to answer it before we're out of time. I don't mean to cut you off but you answered me and I need to get to answering or you won't get anything. All right. So the church across the street has a pride flag and you know we're saved by grace and so how do we balance an emphasis on grace with an emphasis on biblical morality?

Well, the Bible... it's not really a question of balance. The Bible teaches that grace itself makes us subject to Christian teaching, to Christ's teaching. It's grace that restores us to a relationship with Christ. By grace we're rejoined with him from our alienation. And that's not by works, that's by grace. But now that we're rejoined, what is a proper relationship with Christ? The proper relationship with Christ is he's a king and we're not. He's a Lord and we're not.

And anyone who's in rebellion against him and not following him is a subject who's in rebellion and they're not in a proper relationship with him. So the proper relationship that grace brings us into with Christ is one of loyalty and submission. And when we learn that Jesus wants us to give up our sins and tells us to live a life that people should always have lived in the first first place if they'd never rebelled, well that's what a Christian does because of the relationship, because I mean a dutiful child will obey their father why because they're taking seriously the fact that they're the child of that person.

If you're a servant of a master you follow the master. Jesus said, "Why do you call me Lord, Lord and you don't do what I say?" There's no conflict here. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. I'm sorry to say we're out of time. I hope that was helpful, brother.