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. We're taking your calls if you have questions you'd like to raise for conversation on the air about the Bible, about the Christian faith, or about something you disagree with the host about. Feel free to give me a call. We'll talk about those things. The number to call is 844-484-5737. That's 844-484-5737. It looks like we have two lines open on the switchboard right now, so this is an opportunity for you to get through that you may not have again later in the hour. 844-484-5737 is the number.

Once again, I want you to know that next weekend I will be up in the Sacramento area speaking a number of times on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, if I'm not mistaken. If you live in the Sacramento area and are interested in taking in any of those talks, you are welcome to do so. Just go to our website, thenarrowpath.com, look under announcements, and you'll see the locations. You just show up and you're there.

Then a couple of weeks after that, I'll be doing a week-long itinerary in Michigan. If you're listening in Michigan and you didn't know that, feel free to go to our website, thenarrowpath.com, once again under announcements, you'll see the appointments we have for me to speak there in Michigan. That's in about three weeks from now. All right, we're going to talk to Rez, calling from the Bay Area in California. Rez, welcome to The Narrow Path.

Rez: Hi, Steve. How are you doing? Thanks for taking my call. I had a question regarding just history and I wanted to ask you something about the Bible. I was wondering if you knew if it was true if the Jewish at the time were behind the transatlantic slave trade because of their beliefs and what they were taught in the Old Testament about having slaves as it being okay. Then secondly, I wanted to ask you how we can defend the Bible, or should we defend the Bible as the Word of God when it almost in some areas promotes slavery?

Steve Gregg: Can you give me an example where you think it promotes slavery?

Rez: I don't have all the verses, but I think Leviticus was some of the places. I think there was in the New Testament where it seems to say to tell people for slaves to obey their masters. I don't have all the verses.

Steve Gregg: Sure. I don't know any place in the Bible that specifically promotes slavery. Slavery was a reality in the entire world long before the Bible was written and, of course, the Jews themselves are one of the nations that was kept entirely in slavery for hundreds of years before they founded their nation. So, the great story of the Old Testament is how God liberated slaves from Egypt. The Egyptians had made slaves of them and God liberated them.

Now, God liberating Israel from slavery doesn't mean that he ended slavery on the planet. Every nation still had slaves and always did right up until very modern times. Even to this day, there are still slaves in some countries because it's not illegal in all countries, but it certainly has been illegal for a couple of hundred years now in the West, in most countries, certainly America and England.

Until very recently, slavery was just one of the institutions of humanity like marriage and other institutions, employment. It seems strange to us because we live at a time where long since slavery has been denounced and made illegal in our society, and rightly so. We're glad of it. But the point is we might be surprised to find slavery mentioned in the Bible as something that exists without necessarily condemnation of the institution as a whole.

We feel like, well, God should have condemned it because we do. Well, we condemned slavery, Atlantic slavery, because it was unjust. Frankly, people from Africa were kidnapped by other African tribes and then they were sold to slave traders against their will and brought across the Atlantic and sold over in this part of the world. That's very unjust. It involves kidnapping, which under the Law of Moses would be a capital offense. So whoever kidnapped them in the first place would be put to death if the law of God was followed. There wouldn't have ever been this institution of slavery that we had over here. No one can blame the Bible for that. People violate what the Bible says all the time.

Now, a person could sell themselves into slavery, or they could become a slave in the Bible times by being a prisoner of war. Prisoners of war were sometimes instead of killed, now some places just killed all the civilians of a defeated nation, but Israel was not permitted to do that by their laws. So they would keep the civilians alive and they'd come back and serve in Israel as servants. This is not because of their race. It's simply because of being enemy combatants or part of an enemy nation of theirs.

Israel was told to keep their slaves kindly, to treat them kindly, which was not done in other countries. Other nations, a slave was just a piece of property you could abuse, kill, do anything you wanted with if you really wanted to, but in Israel, you were not allowed to just kill your slave. You're not even supposed to abuse them. You're supposed to have compassion on them.

Now, why, if the Bible says to have compassion on them, why doesn't it just say release them? Well, I'm sure there were lots of slaves that would have liked to be released, but there were some who didn't want to be released. We know that because the Law of Moses said that you should let your, at least your Israeli slaves, you should let them go after seven years, but they might not want to. If they want to stay slaves for life, then they could.

We can't imagine why anyone would want to be a slave for life, but then we probably have never been in the circumstances that caused many people to sell themselves into slavery. They had absolutely, I mean, these were usually people who were broke. They had debt that they couldn't pay. They couldn't support their families. They were starving. They couldn't cover their medical and all their housing bills and so forth. So they'd sell themselves into slavery and they get all that for free.

To suggest that's unjust is kind of strange in a time where socialism or communism is having a comeback, which is entirely a slavery system. Basically, you give up all your rights and then the government will provide all you need. That's what slavery was. You give up all your rights and your master will provide all you need.

To have a good master who takes care of you would not be an awfully terrible thing. Having a bad master would be awful, of course, terrible. But the point is it wasn't a given. It wasn't a guarantee that slavery would be an oppressive situation for somebody who couldn't make it on his own and had sold himself into slavery for his own survival. To ban the whole institution of slavery would have put these people back on the streets and they'd probably be like our homeless people are today because they just didn't have, they couldn't make it on their own. So it would have been a very cruel thing to ban all slavery, although truly, I'm sure many slaves would have been better off if they had been released.

A great number probably would not and that's why they had sold themselves into slavery. So slavery is something for a society to work out. It can be cruel, it can be kind, it can be just, it can be unjust. The Law of Moses required that Israel, in so far as they would have slaves, they must treat them justly. That's what the New Testament says. Paul told masters to treat their slaves justly and slaves to be submissive to their masters, of course.

That's like telling children to be submissive to their parents. They're part of a household. There's a master of the household and if there are people in the household that are rebellious and resisting and making it hard, that's not a good thing. Peace in the household requires that the person who's at the top of the household, that is the master of the household or the father, that he's kind and fair to those who are vulnerable to him and those who are subject to him. But it also means that those who are subject to him behave submissively so that he doesn't mess up the whole household thing.

Anyway, somebody's got to make a case to tell us why the Bible shouldn't allow slavery. It doesn't promote it. The Bible never promoted slavery at all. The Bible was written in a society where every society, including Israel, had slaves. So what the Bible did was regulate it, and it did so in a very compassionate way. But if we want to blame the Bible writers for not abolishing slavery, well, then you're going to have to explain how these people who sold themselves into slavery, who couldn't take care of themselves, how they're going to take care of themselves now without their master to do it.

There were slaves who were offered their freedom and they said, "I don't want to be free. I've got a cushy gig here in this role." And that was even true from what I understand, I'm no expert on American slavery, but I think there were even slaves that were treated kindly in this country, although they had been unjustly taken from their homes in Africa. But once they were here, sometimes Christians had slaves and treated them like family members.

The emancipation, I'm sure, was a great joy to many slaves, perhaps most, but there were some who weren't eager to be emancipated just because they had a secure situation with a kind master. But like I say, our whole society, well not our whole society, but one branch of our society, one of our political parties, is moving toward the whole idea that everybody should be slaves. Let everyone give up all their rights to their property and their free speech and their self-defense, give up all their rights and then the government will provide everything for them. That's exactly what slavery is: exchanging your freedom for security. Even if we don't have the institution of slavery anymore, there definitely is a move and apparently lots of people behind it in this country to just turn the whole society into a slavery state just like the Soviet Union used to be or China. Anyway, Rez, I hope that helps you a little bit.

Let's talk to Carrie from Fort Worth, Texas. Carrie, welcome to The Narrow Path.

Carrie: Hi, Steve. Got a couple of questions. The first one is James 3:18 speaks of the seed. Does that refer to Christ?

Steve Gregg: James 3:18. Let me turn there. Okay. Now the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. That's the verse you're talking about?

Carrie: I think so. Doesn't it say the seed of righteousness?

Steve Gregg: No, not some translations might say that. The translation I'm looking at, and I think all the ones I've read, says "the fruit of righteousness is sown." Now, sown is what seeds are, seeds are sown. So it is talking about sowing seeds that produce the fruit of righteousness. These seeds are sown or this fruit is produced in by those who are peacemakers, those who make peace. So he's basically saying that if we want to have righteousness in our society, we need to be peacemakers. And the seeds of that righteous fruit of righteousness is done by people who are peacemakers.

Now you say, "Is the seed Christ?" I think what is being sown there is not Christ Himself. It's the righteousness that comes through His reign. When a person comes under the reign of Christ into His kingdom and takes Him seriously and begins to obey Him, which is what happens when you really become a Christian, you begin to obey Jesus, then you live a righteous life. You live a just life. You don't oppress people. You don't cheat people. You don't lie to people. Those ways of life are contrary to living under Christ's reign. So if you're under Christ's reign, you're a peacemaker and you live a righteous life and you're sowing the seeds of righteousness or the fruit of righteousness. So I don't think if you're seeing that as sowing a seed of righteousness, although I don't see that word there, it wouldn't be necessarily speaking of sowing Christ the seed, but sowing that which grows into righteousness rather.

Carrie: Okay. My second question, are you familiar with the book Victorious Eschatology?

Steve Gregg: I haven't read that book. I read many years ago a similar named book called Eschatology of Victory. That was by, oh, the author's name escapes me at the moment, but it was a book on post-millennialism. I think Victorious Eschatology is also about post-millennialism, isn't it?

Carrie: Well, it's kind of a anti-dispensational view.

Steve Gregg: Right, yeah.

Carrie: And they, I'm only about halfway through it, but they're explaining the Matthew verses and then they go to Daniel and then they're going to go to Revelation explain some things. But they were talking about the 70 weeks in Daniel and the 70th week and talking about how that 70th week was fulfilled. They take half of that week up to Christ's crucifixion and the other half they take to the death of Stephen or to where Paul comes on the scene. I was just wondering in I've heard you talk about this before also that but there are numbers in which people can play with to to get to this. Are there any numbers that they use to kind of validate their view from the death of Christ to Stephen?

Steve Gregg: There's nothing in the Bible that tells us how long it was from Christ's death to Stephen's stoning or to Paul's conversion. The second half of the 70th week probably ended at one of those two things and therefore the second three and a half years after Christ's death probably ends either with the death of Stephen or I think even maybe more likely the conversion of Saul. I've always seen both of those as possibilities and we don't know.

Now, do we have figures, facts, and figures to tell us it was three and a half years from Christ's death until either of those events? We do not. However, it is possible to do some calculations about when Saul was converted from what we learn in the book of Galatians. We know that Galatians was written just before 50 AD, just before the Jerusalem Council. It was written after the first missionary journey of Paul and it's the churches of that he established on that journey that are being addressed in the book. And it's just before he went to the Jerusalem Council. Now why do I say that? Because it was seemingly shortly after he came back from that missionary journey that he went to the Jerusalem Council. He and Barnabas had gone out from the church of Antioch. They'd planted these Galatian churches. They came back to Antioch and because of conflicts over the circumcision issue, Barnabas and Paul went down and had the Jerusalem Council. So between the return from the first missionary journey and the going down to the Jerusalem Council is when the book must have been written.

Now, that being so, it was around 50 AD. Now you can in Galatians, Paul tells his readers that he got converted and then three years later, you know, he came back to Damascus and then he went off into Arabia. And then he says in chapter 2 of 1 of Galatians, then after 14 years I went up again to Jerusalem. Now I believe this second trip to Jerusalem is the one recorded in Acts 11 where he and Barnabas went and took a gift from the Antioch church to the church in Jerusalem. Now he says he did that 14 years later. Later than what? Later than his conversion or later than the previous three years? Because in chapter 1, verse 18, he had said, "Then after three years." Presumably this means after three years he'd spent in Damascus, he went to Arabia, he came back to Damascus, then after three years he went to Jerusalem. And then the next time he went was after 14 years. Was he measuring still from his conversion or from the end of that three years? We don't know. But let's say it was 17 years.

Okay, you begin to measure backward from 50 AD 17 years and you come back to about 33 AD, right? Am I doing that right? Yeah, about 33 AD. That's about three years after Jesus died. So, he places his conversion somewhere around three years after the death of Jesus, it seems to me. And he doesn't give the exact date, but if we would speculate that it was three and a half years and it was the end of the 70th week then that he was converted and sent to the Gentiles, then this would fall in the right time frame. So we don't have exact information but that certainly comes close. Thank you for your question. Christopher in Newmarket, New Hampshire. Welcome to The Narrow Path, Christopher.

Christopher: Hey, Steve. How are you doing today?

Steve Gregg: Good.

Christopher: I wanted to see if you could expound on Romans 10:9 and I also wanted to know the pros and cons of judging whether or not people are saved. Because I know sometimes you have to to help them, but if you're wrong, you could also offend them. So I was just wondering your thoughts on that. I'll take my answer off the air.

Steve Gregg: Okay, thanks for your call, Christopher. Well, the verse you're asking about says that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and some translations say if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you'll be saved. What this tells us is that you are saved at the same time that you acknowledge that Jesus is Lord.

Now some people talk about making Jesus the Lord of your life, but it's too late for that. Jesus was made the Lord by God 2,000 years ago. He's made the Lord of the whole heaven and earth, including you, including all the unbelievers. He's their Lord. They're in rebellion against their Lord, but he's their rightful king and Lord. So there's no need for us to make him the Lord. That happened 2,000 years ago. But there is a need for us to submit to him as Lord. There's a need for us to stop pretending that he isn't Lord and start living like we know it's true.

Now, if a person acknowledges Jesus as Lord, Paul is assuming that this means they are taking His lordship to be a fact and essentially embracing that fact because they're confessing it instead of denying it. And then they're believing that he was raised from the dead and says if you do that you'll be saved. So in other words, whereas some people think you can be saved at one point and then later acknowledge Jesus as your Lord, there's nothing in the Bible ever gives that impression. Paul says if you acknowledge him as your Lord, then you'll be saved. There's only one Jesus in the Bible. He's Savior and Lord. If you have Jesus, you have a Savior and a Lord, not just a Savior. If you don't have Jesus, you don't have a Savior or Lord. Savior and Lord are two labels for the same person. And so Paul is making that very clear. You don't accept Jesus as your Savior at some point and then later accept him as your Lord. You're not saved until he's your Lord. That's what Paul says.

Now, as far as judging people's salvation, certainly we can't help but wonder about somebody who says they're Christian and their life is inconsistent. But again, if somebody says they love Jesus and you can see some effort being made on their part to please the Lord and to obey the Lord, even though they have weakness and stumble and things like that, well, James said we all stumble. Some people stumble a lot more than others. I can't judge who's a Christian and who's not by how much they stumble. I myself have stumbled far more than I should have and there's people who've had fewer advantages than I have and therefore probably have stumbled a lot more than I have, but stumbling is by definition accidental.

A person who is taking Jesus seriously and defining their whole life as that of being subject to him as their king and their Lord will fail on occasions. That doesn't change the fact that he's their king and Lord or that they believe him to be. So God alone can really decide those things and that's why Paul said in 1 Corinthians chapter 4 and verse 5, he says, "Therefore judge nothing before the time until the Lord comes who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness and reveal the counsels of the hearts and then each one's praise will be coming from God." So in other words, we shouldn't judge before there's any sufficient evidence.

Now, if we can see that somebody is denying Christ with their mouth or they're saying they're a Christian but they make no effort whatsoever to indicate that Jesus means anything to them or that they have any interest in doing his will, I think it's a pretty easy thing to judge and righteously to judge that this person doesn't know what it means to be a Christian. And by saying they're a Christian, they're just speaking mistakenly. They're not a Christian because a Christian, Jesus said you'll know them by their fruits. The Pharisees wanted to be baptized by John and he said, "No, bring forth fruits of repentance first. Then we'll talk about it."

The truth is a converted person will be changed. That's what convert means. If you convert something from analog to digital, it means you've changed it. Convert means to change. If someone says they've been converted but they haven't been changed, well, they just don't know what being converted means and certainly there's no evidence that they are converted. You don't have to believe them when they say it. But, you know, how much change is the question. If a person has been living a really sinful life and they turn to Christ and they give up some of their sins or all that they can or they're working on it, they've given up their life of sin and their weaknesses they're still working on defeating them, they could be very well very imperfect and still a genuine Christian.

But of course, being a Christian is not based on how well you obey. It's based on how determined you are to obey, how sincerely you embrace Christ as your king and your Lord, which is seen in your sincere effort to obey. And again, we can't always tell. If somebody's stumbling, we can't tell if they really want to obey more than they're succeeding. So I don't think I have to judge if someone's saved or not. I think my goal is to bring as many people closer to Jesus as possible. And if everyone gets closer to Jesus, some of them are going to get saved and some who are already saved are just going to get better, which is a good thing too. I need to take a break but I appreciate your call. You've been listening to The Narrow Path radio broadcast. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. We're not out of time yet. We have another half hour so stay tuned.

Steve Gregg: Welcome back to The Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we're live for another half hour taking your calls. If you have questions about the Bible or the Christian faith or you disagree with the host and want to say why, feel free to give me a call. The number is 844-484-5737. And our next call is coming from Brad in Vancouver, British Columbia. Hi, Brad. Welcome.

Brad: Hi, Steve. Thanks for taking my call. I've got two questions unrelated, if you've got time for both, but I'll start with the first one. I was explaining to a friend of mine my journey of looking deeper into the house church model, and he expressed concern that not many should be teachers, and he was using James 3:1 as a reference there. I kind of countered with Hebrews 5:12 where it talks about maturing in the faith and why are you not... the author's saying why are you not teachers by now? You should be teachers by now. So I'm trying to wrestle with that one. I don't know if you have something to add to that conversation.

Steve Gregg: Of course. Well, what the writer of Hebrews is saying is you're old enough in the faith that you should be able to be teaching others, but you can't. You don't know enough to teach anyone anything. You have need to be taught the first principles over again as if you never knew them. So he's basically complaining that they're not mature enough to be of any assistance to anyone else in understanding the things of God. To say you ought to be teachers is in contrast to being a kindergartner who just needs to learn. He's not saying that everybody's going to be a teacher in the sense of one who stands before the congregation and addresses the congregation. In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul said, "Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers?" All those three are expecting a negative answer. No, not all are apostles, not all are prophets, and not all are teachers.

However, he does say that they could all prophesy, but they're not all prophets. And everyone can teach if they know something. That doesn't make them teachers in the body of Christ. In the apostles and prophets and teachers, he's talking about people who are set aside for that ministry and they do those things to the benefit of the whole congregation and so forth, where a person might prophesy without being in the office of a prophet. A person might teach somebody something without being an elder or teacher of the church. Priscilla and Aquila, for example, they took Apollos aside and helped him to understand things that he didn't quite understand well enough. This was a private session for them. They didn't do it in public. I think everyone who's a mature Christian should be able to do that. Everyone should be able to know what they believe and why they believe it if they've been a Christian for very long.

It should certainly be the goal of younger Christians that before very long they will be mature in understanding enough that they could counsel and teach others. Not necessarily that they'll go into a role as a teacher in the body of Christ. But I mean, frankly, everyone has to teach, for example, their children and to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Timothy was taught the Scriptures by his mother and his grandmother. Now, we're pretty sure that Paul wouldn't make his mother and grandmother elders in the church or make them teachers in the formal sense of the word. But they taught their grandson and son, which frankly everyone needs to be able to teach. Everyone needs to be able to communicate the truth to those who know less. But that's not the same thing as you're all going to be teachers in the body of Christ.

Now, when James says, "Do not be many teachers," in James 3:1, "for we shall have the stricter judgment," I think he means the ones who guide the church through their instruction, through their formal, public instruction. They are teachers. And they have a stricter judgment because they're guiding not just themselves or one other person like their children, which is important enough, but they're guiding a whole church. If they guide them wrong, that's a big problem. So they need to take their role very seriously.

Now, somebody was saying... you were talking about formal church versus organic church with one of your friends?

Brad: Like organic church versus institutional.

Steve Gregg: Yeah. And he was saying well you shouldn't be many teachers. I'm not sure what he means by that.

Brad: Well, being when you gather in small groups, there's not enough teachers to be teaching those smaller...

Steve Gregg: Then you don't need many teachers, right? So yeah, I mean, that's just it. You don't need many teachers if you're in a small group.

Brad: But if you're lots of small groups, you'd need a teacher in each group is kind of what he's saying. Like if you have hundreds and hundreds of verses, just having one teacher teaching thousands is kind of what he's saying.

Steve Gregg: Right, but I think when James says don't be many teachers, we have to understand him to mean assuming that you can avoid it. God calls some people to be teachers and they can hardly avoid it. God called Jonah to be a prophet and he tried to avoid it and didn't work out for him. When God calls you to something, Paul was called to be an apostle, he said, "Woe is me if I don't preach the gospel." I mean, when you have a call of God on your life, you've got no choice. Well, I mean you do have a choice, you can try not to do it.

But I think when he says don't be many teachers, I don't think he's saying even if God has raised up quite a few teachers among you, well just pipe down and don't talk because we don't want a lot of teachers around here. I think what he's saying is let's not assume that everyone or a lot of people should be teachers because then we'd probably end up sticking people in that role that God may not be calling to that role. And there are definitely people who are self-appointed teachers and ministers or who kind of thrust into that role by someone else and don't have the gifts, don't have the knowledge, don't have the call of God, don't have the anointing, and they shouldn't be.

But I don't think James is saying we don't want to have very many teachers. So even if in a church of a hundred, God has raised up ten people who can teach, well we'd better keep some of those guys quiet because we don't want that many teachers. I think what he's saying is don't be quick to seek to multiply teachers because teaching is a pretty responsible role. I mean, obviously the Bible does indicate that everyone teaches if they know something, they teach other people, but not everyone's going to have the role of a lead teacher.

Now, when you have a home church, you don't have to have somebody who's got the role of a lead teacher. If you do, more power to you. But why couldn't a group meeting in a home, let us say, why couldn't they watch a video or listen to a recording of somebody who is a teacher or read a book together and discuss it together? There are edifying things to do even if you don't have a trained or ordained teacher or preacher there. Lots of growth can take place in groups where people just all share what they know and the older Christians kind of put a check on the dumb stuff the younger ones say.

Brad: All right. You got time for my second one?

Steve Gregg: Okay, go ahead.

Brad: Revelation 13, the two beasts. You may have recalled an email I sent a few weeks ago, but our church has been doing a study on Revelation. And as I'm listening to the message, I've had a sharp feeling of I'm not getting this. But the way I see it, and I'm looking for rebuke or affirmation, is the first beast being the political power, and a lot of people see that as have stamped that as Hitler or the Roman Empire or many different things over time. But the way I see it is kind of I see it as the kingdom of darkness of like the governing authority of darkness in our world, evil, evil kingdom. And the second beast I see as religion, our church, like not some people say it's the Islam or another religion, but I see it as many of our churches today. When it says make an image of the first beast, I see it as our structures and policies and governance of our Western churches look a lot like the evil world that we are a part of.

Steve Gregg: Well, let me just say there's as you know there's lots of different views of Revelation and these different views have different ways of identifying what they think the beasts are. The way you've just described it is not a problem to me. The way I understand Revelation that would be a legitimate possible application to what the Bible is saying about the beasts there. So, I'm going to affirm you there.

We have another Vancouver caller, David in Vancouver, BC. Welcome to The Narrow Path, David. Do you know Brad, our last caller?

David: Yes, hello, Steve. Hi there. I don't know if there's any way for Brad to get my phone number. I found it quite difficult in Vancouver to find those that are have been dealing with the institutionalized church versus the lordship of Christ and I don't know if there's a way to get my phone number to him or if I should just throw it out now with the hope that he writes it down, I don't know, or I could just leave it.

Steve Gregg: I don't have his phone number, but if you want to give out your phone number to the public, you can.

David: Okay, I will, I will. I just want to keep it brief though. It's 778-848-1347. That's for Brad, 778-848-1347. Yeah, thanks very much, Steve. I'll try to keep this brief. I'm second-time caller. Very much appreciate the ministry. You've mentioned and responded I think more than once with regards to the question of gambling. And what I've understood you to communicate the bottom line around that is that it can be okay as a set of entertainment and pastime if it is not a problem for you and you're disciplined with putting out those few dollars for entertainment purposes. And you'd also given parallel examples with regards to pricing out the price of a meal at a restaurant or entertainment or an activity.

And so that left me with the assumption that you were kind of supporting it just at that safe level where it's not a problem for people or an addiction for a person. So my question is, and what I had a difficult time with your response, was the actual concept that gambling is presented to us from Scripture. And what the question I have is around the specific Scriptures, I think there's at least one in Proverbs, which speaks about the condemning or the evil of trying to get something for nothing.

Steve Gregg: Right.

David: And that is why today I have a problem with putting even ten cents into anything that resembles gambling, trying to get something for nothing.

Steve Gregg: So you wouldn't want, you'd feel guilty if you won ten cents in a card game?

David: No, no. If I put ten cents or a dollar into anything that resembled gambling, it's the concept of getting something for nothing.

Steve Gregg: I hear you. Well, let me just say this. Lots of times we get something for nothing like if our parents die and we inherit their fortune then we got something for nothing. The question is did we do anything sleazy, did we do anything dishonest, did we do something greedy to get something for nothing? Obviously, the Christian has to acknowledge that the ideal and normal way to get money is by working for it. Though it is not the case that we never receive any gifts, which is something for nothing, or an inheritance or something else. So to me I'm just not legalistic about this. I do not gamble myself. I have no interest in it. I don't even like competitive games. I don't have any interest whatsoever in getting something for nothing.

But I'm saying if we're going to start telling people what they cannot do, we'd better have a good scriptural reason for it because as soon as you start making rules that the Bible doesn't make, then of course you're legalistic. Now, I don't think it'd be legalistic to forbid gambling to people who are greedy and are just trying to get rich without working. Then I'd say yeah, don't do that, you're greedy.

And I also would not like to receive money at somebody else's expense. In a business transaction, you're supposed to be giving goods or services commensurate in value to what the person's giving you. So nobody is cheated. Everybody gets what they want. Now, in my case, I don't work at a regular job or anything. I don't sell anything. But I don't want anyone to give me any money unless they feel like they've gotten something from me that's worth that money. I don't want to go out with a handout and I never ask for money from anyone. But I do receive gifts from people. They come. I don't ask for them, but they come. And I'm assuming that they are doing so because they've gotten something out of something I've offered, which is fine. I mean, Paul said that if we ministered to you in spiritual things, it's no large thing if we receive material things from you. And I've always felt that way.

But to be greedy and to want to without making any contribution to want to make money at the expense of somebody who gets nothing out of it, that would be an evil thing. Now, I don't know under what circumstances people gamble. If people are playing card games with their friends on Friday night and each one, you know, has a ten-dollar limit, they put a dollar in per game. I mean, I don't know if that's what people do or not. But if someone did that, and everybody's willing to lose their ten dollars and a good time was had by all, and it was worth the money to them just to have the socializing and the fun and so forth, to me that's a very cheap form of an evening's entertainment. Cheaper than going to the movies, cheaper than going out to eat.

Now, in other words, I don't see that as your typical "I want something for nothing" thing. I think maybe the risk of losing something and adds to the enjoyment of the game, the excitement, I don't know. They've got something in that thing in the person's brain that enjoys that. I was born without that. I'm missing that. But I don't condemn it. Lots of people have things like I don't like sports. Some people are wild about sports and they'll maybe make some bets on that. I don't... you know, I'll say this, if you feel convicted that by doing so you're acting in greed then I'd say don't do it. But like I said, if it's a small expenditure for a night of social activity that everyone enjoys, I think social activity is a good thing. And if it only costs you ten bucks or whatever for the night, you got a good evening for cheap and I don't see that as a bad thing.

But obviously, you're right. I mean, if someone's trying to get rich easy then that motivation is not a good one in my opinion. I think that's something the Bible speaks against doing. Thanks for your call. Let's talk to Joshua in Phoenix, Arizona. Welcome.

Joshua: Hi, Steve. So when it comes to like faith and works, it seems like you do advocate for works.

Steve Gregg: Of course.

Joshua: Yeah, which is great because I talk to a Protestant friend who I talk to about, he's Pentecostal, as I've learned things about him he kind of talks about works too.

Steve Gregg: So does the Bible.

Joshua: Yeah, so when it comes to Catholicism, would you agree with the faith and works besides like going to church and all that, but just in a sense of obeying Christ?

Steve Gregg: Well obeying Christ is what comes from a surrender to Christ. A surrender to Christ is what faith is. When you trust in Christ, not yourself. When you've decided that Christ is your king and your guide and his agenda is what matters, not yours. That's what conversion is. Now, being converted doesn't require any works, but if you've been converted, it'll show by the works you do.

I mean, it's like if a man and woman get married and somebody else pays for the marriage license or whatever, it's not a big deal the amount. They're not buying their relationship with each other. They're not paying to be married to each other. But being married means they'll behave differently than if they were single. And they'll behave loyally to each other. They'll forsake all others and cleave only to their spouse. I mean, this is just part of what it means to be married.

If you're surrendering to Jesus Christ and forgiven of your sins, that's free, but if you've really done it, that's going to show up in the fact that you're living under a Lord. If you're not showing that you're living under a Lord, then you're probably not. You know, James said faith without works is dead. He's not saying that you need faith plus works to get saved. He's saying you need faith that produces works and Paul said the same thing in Galatians 5:6. In Galatians 5:6, Paul said it's not circumcision or uncircumcision that matters to God. It's a faith that works through love. Not faith plus works. It's a faith that works. The faith is what saves you. What kind of faith? Well, not the kind the demons have. The demons believe and tremble. They've got a faith, but it's not saving them any. It's a faith that works. It's a faith that changes you. If it doesn't change you then it hasn't changed you. You're not changed.

Works... if someone says, well, I've got faith, but I also have to find... I have to do enough works to make sure I'm saved. Well, I mean, I'd say sometimes Catholics and Protestants have been guilty of thinking that they need to believe and then they have to do a certain number of works and hopefully they'll do enough works that God will save them. No, that has nothing to do with salvation in my opinion. No, when you get saved, what does it mean to be saved? It doesn't mean you get a ticket to heaven. It means you get to be a follower of Christ. That's what being saved is. Okay, what's it look like to be a follower of Christ? Well, it looks like a Christian life. It looks like obedience. That's what it is. And if you're not obeying, then you're not following. And if you're not following, you're not a follower. And if you're not a follower, you haven't been born again yet. That's how I see it.

Joshua: Yeah, I would agree with you, Steve, because the times that I've gone into sin, it was when I have put Christ out of my mind, far from my mind. And when I've put Christ close to my mind, when I'm thinking upon Him and what He's done for me, I want to avoid sin for that's what sin did, right, to Christ. It put Him on the cross. All right. Well, Steve, I really appreciate the talk and God bless you and your ministry.

Steve Gregg: Hey, thank you, brother. Good talking to you, Joshua. By the way, I'll be coming to Arizona. I'll be speaking in a number of places, I think for about a week in November. Those engagements will also be at our website, thenarrowpath.com. Let's see, Brian from Ontario, California, I believe, not Canada. Brian, welcome.

Brian: Yes, good afternoon, Steve. Yes, Ontario, California, you are correct. Quick question. I know we're at the end of the hour, so I'll make it quick. Matthew chapter 23, when it talks about call no man your master, call no man your father, your rabbi, etc. And I know Catholics in general might have a problem with this Scripture, but they try to explain it away. And even Messianic Jews because their teacher they call him rabbi and the Scripture says call no man rabbi. And I have a friend who's a Messianic Jewish Christian and I brought that up. I was like, well, you know, you're calling your leader rabbi, the Scripture says clearly don't call no man rabbi. And then he came back at me saying, "Oh, well, well, it says call no man your father, but your biological father, your dad, if you call him by his first name, wouldn't that be disrespectful?"

Steve Gregg: Well, let me just jump in because we're going to run out of time and I know the argument the Catholics use too. When you say call no man father and they call their priests fathers. They say, well, don't you call your biological father father? Didn't Paul say in 1 Corinthians 4 that he had begotten them in the Lord and you don't have many teachers, 10,000 teachers, you only have one father, meaning himself? He's not asking them to call him father. He's simply reminding them that they have this relationship with him. He's the one who brought them to the faith and therefore he's explaining why he has so much concern for them, whereas ordinary teachers who might mislead them aren't concerned for them. There's lots of teachers, but your dad, the one who brought you into this world, is going to be the one who cares about you and he's like their dad. But he's not asking them to call him father.

You can call somebody father if they are your father. What Jesus is talking about is don't call the rabbi father because he's not your father. If you call your rabbi father and he's not your father, you're calling him that in order to give him some kind of dignity or some kind of honor. And that certainly is the case with the Catholic priests. Catholic priests, when you call them father, they're not anybody's father. They're not even married. They don't have kids. So how is he your father? "Well, he's my spiritual father like Paul was the Corinthians." Oh, well, if the priest led you to Christ and you became a Christian because of him, then I guess he is kind of your spiritual father, but you still don't have to call him father. Paul was the spiritual father of the Corinthians, but he never encouraged them to call him father. That's a relationship that they bore. It doesn't mean that it entitles him to be called by that kind of a title.

And what Jesus is saying is the Pharisees loved to be called rabbi, rabbi. Why? Because that's a term of honor, a term of respect. They love to be elevated above the ordinary person by such titles and so forth. And he says, listen, don't be called rabbi and don't call anyone father. You're all brothers, Jesus said. You're all just brothers. No one's supposed to be above anybody else. Whoever wants to be the chief among you should be the lowest, he said, should be the slave of all. He's just basically coming against the desire that some people have to be honored and recognized as in some sense superior to the average person in a religious community. And that's a very common, carnal, sinful attitude.

Now, I'm not saying that a Catholic priest has a sinful attitude when he's called father because he might be happy enough not to be called father. It's just the tradition in that group. They call him father. He might just say, well, I'm not going to fight it. I'm certainly not their father. But if somebody's your real father, whether spiritual or biological or your ancestor, Abraham was called our father in Romans 4:1. Okay, you can call them father because that's what they are. But you don't call someone father if they're not because the only reason for doing that is to give them some kind of artificial dignity. And it's okay to treat them with respect. You should treat everyone with respect who deserves it. But if they're expecting you to call them that, then that's a problem because it means that they're desiring something to be put on a pedestal that Jesus said, "No, don't be doing that."

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