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 taking your calls. If you have questions you'd like to raise for conversation on the air about the Bible or the Christian faith, this is one place you can bring those things up. We will talk about them. If you see things differently from the host and want to balance comment with your own insights, feel free to do that. The number is 844-484-5737. That's 844-484-5737.

I don't have any announcements to make today except that this coming Saturday is the third Saturday of the month. So you men who come to the men's Bible study in Temecula, that's going to be this week. It's only once a month and that's Saturday morning. By the way, if you've never been there, information about it can be found at our website, thenarrowpath.com. If you're a man, you're welcome to join us at 8:00 this Saturday in Temecula. All right, we're going to go to the phones and talk to Allen calling from Grass Valley, California. Allen, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Guest (Allen): Good afternoon. I have a two-part question. They're closely related and they involve appointing an elder in a church. Scripture clearly says Timothy and Titus were granted authority to appoint by Paul, but it also implies that we're going to have elders in the church today. The person doing the appointing wasn't granted that authority, so they're getting their authority from somewhere. Can you help me understand where that authority comes from?

Steve Gregg: If it's true spiritual authority, then it comes from God. I also think that somebody whom God has placed as an authority or given spiritual authority does not exercise that authority or demand that authority be exercised in the same way that the rulers of the Gentiles do. Those who are chief among you, Jesus said, are the ones who make themselves the slaves of all.

Now, for example, we think of spiritual authority, even eldership, in terms of institutional churches today. That's because churches have been institutionalized for almost 2,000 years. However, the church as Jesus founded it and the apostles too, was a family. Jesus made it very clear, "Don't call any man father, don't call any man your teacher, you have one Father, God, you have one teacher, Christ, and you are all brothers." He said that to the apostles, that they themselves were supposed to be just seen as brothers to everybody else.

However, it was very clear to everybody that Jesus made them spokesmen for himself so that their authority came from carrying out the commission that Christ gave them. Of course, Timothy and Titus functioned as what we would call apostolic legates. They were extensions of Paul's ministry and he gave them kind of apostolic responsibility. Now, when someone's been apostolized, that is when someone's become officially sent by an authoritative person to act in their name, their actions are considered to carry the same authority as the person who sent them.

But of course, we don't have those people today. At least we Protestants don't think we do. Catholics and I believe Eastern Orthodox believe that there's been a steady stream of apostolic succession from the time of the apostles till now, and they believe that that authority lies within the bishops or the ministers of those churches. Somehow those institutions that are run by those bishops are themselves the true church because they're thinking of the church in institutional terms.

Now, everybody who knows church history knows that it didn't take long after the apostles died for some churches to go really wrong. Even in the medieval times, the Catholic Church was quite wrong in many ways and had some very evil leaders. That's not a secret, even official Catholic historians know this and admit it. But they would say their authorities had apostolic authority because they would say each pope since the time of Peter was sort of the successor of Peter, appointed by the previous one. We don't have evidence of that in the Bible and I'm not sure it's true.

But even if it were true that Peter had appointed the next man in Rome to be the Bishop of Rome and then that man appointed another and so forth, that would not suggest that those men had the same authority that Peter had. Jesus gave unique authority to the twelve apostles. But how do we assign elders today? Well, I think that one thing that would help us is if we would begin to have our doubts about the institutionalization of the church and the legitimacy of that change that took place.

Instead of a family of people who are all just children of God, loving God, brothers and sisters, who have older brothers and sisters to imitate and who can teach them, which is what the early church had. The word elder, by the way, the word bishop and elder in the Bible are interchangeable terms. The word elder in the Greek, *presbuteros*, simply means an older man. An elder was somebody who was older and who had, as Paul makes it very clear when he talks to Timothy and Titus both what the qualifications are, an older man who's an exemplary Christian man who can also teach others.

There may be many people in the church who can do that who don't hold any office in the church. I myself do not attend a hierarchical church group that has leaders like that, but I do have people that I would recognize as spiritual elders in my life because they're older than me. Some of them are dead and I have their writings. Some of them are still alive. There are not very many of them in my neighborhood, but there certainly have always been. Even when I was not in institutional church of any kind, there's always been people, some of them were pastors of churches I didn't attend, and some were just older Christians who held no office at all, who were servants, who were good examples, who were role models, who could give counsel if I needed it.

Now, you don't have to have an institutional proclamation that says these are the people you talk to about that because when the church is institutionalized, the only kind of authority a man can receive in that is institutional authority. But spiritual authority comes from being spiritual. It comes from God. It comes from the Holy Spirit working in your life and making you the kind of person that people can follow safely, your example, and become better Christians for it and can get good biblical counsel or teaching from you.

That's what a leader is. Now, of course, our institutional churches sometimes their very charters or their bylaws require that they have an eldership. Well, I believe in elders and I do believe that in the early church, no church had just one pastor as far as I can tell from reading the Bible. All the churches that had official leaders had elderships, that is groups of elders who did the pastoral work or at least were told to.

And yet, these were recognized men. But sometimes we assume that the recognition of these men made them sort of have some kind of political authority as you would have in our modern 501(c)(3) corporations that have an executive director or a president or something like that and a board of directors and they make business decisions. The church was not a business. The church was a family. The church was not a religious organization. It was a family of people who were all children of God and wanting to follow God.

And they had among them older Christians and younger Christians. Among the older Christians were some who were very excellent Christians, who basically you could count on them to give you a good example and good counsel and teach the Word of God without leading you astray. Now, those were the ones that Paul said, recognize those ones. He didn't say give them some kind of political position. He just said they are to be recognized. They are to be pointed to so the younger Christians will know, here's people you can trust. Here's people in the church that you want to know something, they can tell you. You want to know how to live your life, watch these guys.

Now, every church should have people like that in it and those people are the true elders, whether they're appointed to an official elder board in some 501(c)(3) corporate setting or not. The ones who fit those qualifications are the ones the spiritual leaders. They don't take charge of the body because spiritual people don't take charge. Spiritual people serve. They're slaves. Jesus said, he that would be chief among you must be the slave of everyone else.

So we've got things upside down because we've made the church into the kind of corporation that the Gentiles have, that the pagans have. In fact, almost every church today is a corporation, a 501(c)(3) corporation, which means a tax-free corporate structure that has to be organized like a secular corporation with a board of directors and executive director and those kinds of things. So we've got churches that operate as corporations.

But Jesus said that the church should not be like these Gentile corporations. They are upside down. He said the rulers of those groups exercise authority over them, but it shall not be so among you. Whoever's chief shall be your servant. Now, here's a problem because people say, well then who's going to make decisions for the church? Well, hopefully Jesus will, because he's the head of the church.

But I think what they mean is who's going to make decisions about the building? About the salaries? About where the money's going to go? Who's going to make the decisions about what's allowed to be taught in the church and so forth? Well, these are decisions that have to do with a corporate church, that is to say a corporation kind of church. Because in the early church, there were Christians who whoever taught was the ones that were recognized to be faithful to the Word of God.

That's what it says in Hebrews chapter 13, I think it's verse seven, "Remember those who lead you, who have spoken the word of God to you." So the ones who speak the word of God are the true leaders. Now, by the way, every pastor probably quotes from the Bible or does some teaching in the church. That doesn't mean he's spoken the word of God to you in the sense that this means. Leaders are the ones who actually communicate to you the message of God faithfully. And some do and some don't. The ones who do are your leaders. The ones who do are the ones who have spiritual leadership.

But people like that don't try to boss you around because people who try to boss others around are not spiritual. They're basically like the rulers of the Gentiles. So how do we get our leaders now? I guess the same way as before. The only difference is back when the apostles were around and Timothy and Titus, they could point out to the young churches which men in the church would fit such qualifications and could be trusted in those roles.

But it was always considered a wrong thing for those men to try to become the big boss. We see this in 3rd John where John's very displeased with a man named Diotrephes who's running the church basically like a dictator. He says, "This man loves to have the preeminence." Well, a spiritual man doesn't love to have preeminence. A spiritual man wants God to have the preeminence. So when you find a man who loves to be in charge, who loves to give the orders, who expects people to obey him, yeah, that's Diotrephes. That's not a spiritual leader. He may be a leader by force in a group of people who are intimidated by him, but he's not spiritual. The very activity he's involved in is not spiritual activity. He's a carnal man.

And a carnal man cannot be an actual spiritual leader. He can be the head of a corporation. He can be elected as senior pastor of a church or an elder. But he's not spiritual, so he's not a spiritual leader. And see, this is the thing. The body of Christ is a spiritual family. And the real spiritual people who are in it, and by that I mean people who are born again, spiritual, following the Spirit of God, they're looking for people who are that way too and who will help them along. Unfortunately, many of us have been convinced, I guess simply by the norms of the modern church, to think that we're supposed to be in some kind of an organization that has some big boss elder or eldership or pastor who suddenly he makes all the decisions for people's lives.

No, the shepherd doesn't have to make decisions for the sheep all the time. Jesus is the shepherd. The sheep dog, the pastor, he goes after the strays. And there are Christians who need someone to go after them. There are people straying. But most Christians, the norm for the Christian life is you walk in the Spirit. As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the children of God, the Bible says in Romans 8.

So we don't have the apostles, the original apostles, here to tell us who to follow. But we know who to follow. We follow Jesus. And for those who are young Christians, there need to be older Christians who know more than they do, who've got more experience, who've walked with Jesus successfully for years or decades, and who can counsel and direct them. And yet, those men will not be bossing them around. They won't be telling them what they have to do. They'll be teaching them what Jesus said and expecting the young Christians to learn to follow Jesus because that's what being a Christian is, following Jesus, not men. So we have to choose our spiritual leaders based on their spirituality, I would say, unless we're going to just have kind of a church that's a typical corporate structure like an organization, like a secular one that has leaders who are in roles analogous to secular leaders. That's not what Jesus wanted. All right, let's talk to Ron in Fort Worth, Texas. Ron, welcome.

Guest (Ron): How's it going, Steve? I was just calling to try to see about this Ecclesiastes 9, verse 5, the last part. And it says, "For the memory of them is forgotten." And last week I heard you tell a lady that it's like they're not like you were saying that the people would still remember them so that would mean they're still remembered. But I think it's not the right interpretation simply because when it says, "the memory of them is forgotten," it's saying the memory of the dead person. It's not saying the memory of the people. You see what I'm saying?

Steve Gregg: So you're saying their memory is wiped.

Guest (Ron): Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I'm saying it's saying when it say, "for the living know that they shall die but the dead know not anything neither have they any more a reward for the memory of them is forgotten." It's still talking about the dead person.

Steve Gregg: The memory of them. I personally believe that the memory of them refers to the phenomenon of people remembering them. It's like we have memories of our childhood or if we don't remember our childhood, the memory of our childhood is forgotten. It doesn't mean our childhood memory has been wiped from our childhood, but from our present minds. Anyway, you can see it that way if you want to. I don't think that's true. I don't believe that's what the Bible teaches. I don't think that's the meaning of the phrase.

Guest (Ron): To back it up, I'm going to say it says for their memory of them is forgotten, also their love, still talking about the dead people. Then it says and their hatred, still talking about the dead people, and their envy is now perished. Neither have they any more a portion forever in anything that is done under the sun. It talked about the dead people's memories being erased when it said but in Ecclesiastes 9, verse 5, it said for the living know that they shall die, but everything after that was talking about the dead losing his memory. And it's just telling you everything after that.

Steve Gregg: It's talking about two things about the dead. One is their conscious memories or their conscious awareness. And the other is their earthly influence. Their earthly influence is over and the memory of them, I believe, on earth has been forgotten. It says they have no more reward. Now, this is an interesting thing since that's not true. Everybody who has died still has a future reward. In fact, it says that in Ecclesiastes chapter 12, because it says in verse 14, God will bring every work into judgment, including every secret thing, whether it's good or evil. So there's still a reckoning. But "no more reward" is talking about under the sun. Ecclesiastes is talking about on earth. It's not talking about in heaven.

So the memory of them is forgotten is talking about their memory, not people's memory of them. I think the phrase is throwing you off because I see what you're getting out of it, but I don't think that's the way the words are used in the passage when it says the memory of them is forgotten. I think it means that nobody remembers them. Now, of course, you're saying their own the memories in their own minds are gone. But it seems like forgotten would be the wrong word for that. I think the memory, you know, their memories are wiped, their memories don't exist, or something like that would convey that idea. But my memory is forgotten, what you mean is the contents of their memory is no longer there and therefore forgotten by them. Yeah, I don't think that's what the words mean, but you're welcome to believe it that way. I'm not going to fight you over it. I appreciate you calling, brother. All right, thanks for your call. Carrie also from Fort Worth, Texas. Welcome to The Narrow Path.

Guest (Carrie): Hi Steve. I found a Facebook page where somebody is posting sayings from A.W. Tozer's some writings and articles that he had. And the other day he was talking about the Catholic Mass. And I don't know too much about what Catholics do, but he was saying that it perpetuates the sacrifice of Christ and therefore being in either in they don't understand the passage in Hebrews where Christ was to die only once. And I guess the only thing I could think of is that he was referring to the sacrament of the bread and the wine. But I never thought of it, I mean I've always thought they were in error that way, but I've never thought of it as them perpetuating the death of Christ. Can you shed any more light on that?

Steve Gregg: Well, yeah, this is a typical Protestant criticism of the Mass is that Jesus, it says in Hebrews, died once and for all, never to have to die again. And yet, from the way that the Mass is described by Catholics, we get the impression, at least we Protestants when we hear their description, get the impression that they believe that Jesus is being sacrificed each time they offer the Mass. In fact, they call it the sacrifice of the Mass.

So it sounds like they're saying Jesus has to die again every time they consecrate the bread and the wine. He's dying again and his blood is being shed and put in that cup and so forth. Now, that's how Protestants see it. And I have to say, it sounds that way to me too when I hear them describe it. I think that Catholics usually would say, though, that Jesus isn't thought to be dying again. But what they're just doing is re-presenting his death as something to remember it through. I think, I mean, that they do believe the wafer becomes the body of Jesus and the wine becomes the blood of Jesus. They really believe that.

But I don't think they're saying that Jesus, who is of course alive at the right hand of God ever since his resurrection and ascension, I don't think they believe he's coming back down and dying on the cross again. I think that they're re-presenting the body and blood of Jesus for our consumption, but not that he has to die all over again. Now, I'm not a Catholic scholar. So I mean, there might be Catholics who say, no, Steve, that's not really how we say it. But I think that's how they say it because I've of course talked to them about this before. Protestants often bring this particular point up that it would appear that if the offering of the Eucharist is actually a sacrifice of the body and blood of Jesus, sounds like he's dying again, being offered again on the cross.

But I'm pretty sure they believe that that's not what they're saying. But they're saying that Jesus, who died the one time, is being freshly presented in his body and his blood to us as a consequence of his one-time death. It's probably a very mysterious thing. I think they usually resort to saying, well, the Eucharist is very mysterious. Because after all, they don't believe that if they say the words of consecration over the cracker and it does in fact become the real body of Jesus, that when you eat it, that you've somehow eaten human flesh literally because they know that if you happen to get sick and vomit it up, it's still a cracker. It hasn't become any flesh at all.

But they would say, yeah, well the accidents of the bread and the wine do not change. And by what they mean by that is the objective phenomena, the atoms, the molecules, nothing really changes. They know that the wine and the bread don't change in that way. But they believe that there's something mystical that happens in which the real body inhears in it and the real blood inhears in it. This is not anything the Bible teaches at all. And you know, if the Bible taught it, we'd have to call it maybe a mystery.

Since the Bible doesn't teach it, I don't think we could be blamed for calling it superstition. I mean, if the Bible actually said something like this, I'd go with it. You know, there are mysteries that God knows that I don't, and I'm willing to accept them. All he has to do is tell me about them and I'll accept his word for it. But it never says anything like this. The Bible doesn't tell us that such a thing happens. And therefore, without God telling me, if it's just some man telling me, I'm going to say it sounds like magic or superstitiousness to me. And I mean, I don't mean to be irreverent, but that's how do we know superstition from anything else? We can know that something is not superstition, even though it seems mysterious, if the Bible teaches it. But if the Bible doesn't teach it and doesn't hint at it, then any belief in something that's that counterintuitive and that strange and that unrelated to the physicality of the elements, that just sounds like superstition. But I don't say that to criticize except to say that's what it has all the marks of.

Anyway, yeah, that's what Protestants usually say and so Tozer was not very original in that particular statement, although I love Tozer and he does say very insightful things sometimes. You're listening to The Narrow Path. We have another half hour coming. We are a listener-supported ministry. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. You can donate there if you want or just take for free anything that's there at thenarrowpath.com. I'll be back in 30 seconds, so don't go away.

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, I'd be very happy to talk to you. Right now I'm looking at two open lines, so this is a good chance to call. Number is 844-484-5737. Our next caller is Joe from Los Angeles. Hi Joe, welcome.

Guest (Joe): Hello Steve, thank you for taking my call. Two questions. What do you know about the Talmud? Is it true that it has demonic messages in it? And my second question: how will the end take place? Does it all happen at once? The white throne judgment, the rapture, does it all happen at the same time?

Steve Gregg: Yes, it all happens at the same time. The Bible talks about a day which the Bible speaks of as the day of the Lord or the day of Christ. On one occasion in 1st Corinthians, Paul calls it the day of the Lord Jesus Christ. In 2nd Peter 3, Peter refers to it as the day of God. This one day is what Jesus also called the last day. And he said he's going to raise his people up on the last day. He said that in John chapter 6. And he said that he's going to judge the wicked on the last day, which he said in John 12:48.

So it's the day that the Christians will be raised, that's the resurrection and the rapture of the living Christians will take place on the last day. It's also the same day he's going to judge the wicked, Jesus said. Now, in the story of the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25, the sheep and the goats both are raised and brought to judgment together. The sheep go into eternal life, the goats go to eternal punishment. So this is the good guys and the bad guys. Jesus said when the Son of Man shall come in his glory and all his holy angels with him, then he'll call all the nations before him, he'll separate between them, the sheep and the goats, then he'll judge them and send them their separate ways.

So Jesus indicated there's a particular time when he returns, the day of his second coming. He's going to raise everybody, they're going to come to the judgment, some will go into eternal life, some to eternal judgment. Now, there are other viewpoints which disagree with this. The dispensational view, for example, believes that there's a whole bunch of different things going to happen in different orders, like maybe the next thing that's going to happen is the resurrection of the saints and the rapture of the living saints. And then there's a tribulation during which you've got the antichrist rising and the abomination of desolation and the plagues of Revelation.

And then at the end of that time, Jesus comes back and brings with him the Christians that he raptured seven years earlier. And then he sets up a millennial kingdom for a thousand years and he reigns on earth for a thousand years with the saints. And then there's a rebellion against him and then the rebellion is put down and the heavens and the earth pass away. There's a resurrection, there's a judgment, the great white throne judgment, and then there's the new heavens, the new earth.

All of these things are set in some kind of a sequence in the dispensational system and in other premillennial systems too. But the Bible doesn't support such a sequence. The Bible places everything at the last day. And that's why it's the last day. If it's not the last, then he wouldn't have any reason to call it the last day. And if it is the last, there aren't any days after that. Now, in the new heavens, the new earth, there's no day or night, there's no sun, moon, or stars, it's all day. So the last day would be the last day of this world. And so that's when I believe all these things happen on that day. But again, my position is not the only one out there and it's certainly not the one that you would most often hear on the radio. In Christian radio, you'll usually hear the dispensational view. But throughout most of church history, no Christian had ever heard of the dispensational view because it didn't exist until 1830.

So there's that. And then your first question was about the Talmud. Now, the Talmud is the encoded writings that were, much of the contents of the Talmud was the traditions of the elders in Jesus' day. There are two basic Talmuds. There's the Babylonian Talmud, which I think was put together in the second century, and then there's the Jerusalem Talmud, which I think was put together a couple centuries later. It's many volumes of work. In Jesus' day, the Talmud did not exist in writing, but much of its contents existed in orally transmitted traditions of the rabbis.

The rabbis, well Orthodox Judaism follows the Talmud and they believe that when Moses was leading Israel, he gave them not only the written law which we have in our Bibles with its 613 commandments, but they say he also gave an oral law which didn't get written down. It was just passed down orally for centuries. And this is the oral law that now was written down in the Talmud, they say. Now, I will tell you this, I'm not sure how much I trust any tradition that's passed down without writing orally for 1,500 or 1,600 years before anyone writes it down. It's awfully hard to keep it pure and it seems strange that it wouldn't be written down if it really existed because they had writing. The whole Old Testament was written during that whole time. They had a lot of writing going on.

So it's hard to know if such an oral law did exist, why didn't they write it down? Seems like nothing would prevent it. I think that the rabbis invented it. I think the oral traditions were invented during the Babylonian exile. The rabbinic institutions, the synagogues were created about that time. And then this tradition of the rabbis, it just developed over time with rabbis arguing with themselves about the meaning of passages and things like that.

And eventually, these discussions were written down in what's now the Talmud. Now, the Orthodox Judaism of today, we sometimes think of it as the religion of Moses and the prophets. It's not. I'm not saying they don't believe in Moses and the prophets, but the religion that God gave Israel at Mount Sinai through Moses was a sacrifice-temple centered religion. Of course, they had the tabernacle first, which was later replaced by the temple, but the whole purpose was to offer blood sacrifices, animals, to God for the atonement of sins and for the maintenance of the covenant relationship God had with Israel.

They don't do that anymore. They can't. In 70 AD, the temple was destroyed and the Jews have not offered any of those sacrifices since then. And yet, those make up a huge portion of the Torah, a major part of Judaism as Moses gave it to them was about how you cut the throats of these animals and twist the heads off these birds and drain their blood and offer them in such and such a way. That's the law.

Now, the Talmud of course was written in order to provide an alternative to biblical Judaism because the temple had been destroyed, the Jews could no longer follow biblical Judaism, and so they came up with a man-made replacement, which is Talmudism. And Orthodox Judaism today is Talmudism. That's not a criticism. They would say the same thing. Now, you asked if there's demonic stuff in the Talmud. Well, I don't know whether I'd say any of it was inspired by demons. I have no idea. There are volumes and volumes and volumes, a huge library of the Talmud.

But there are some very blasphemous things in it. The Talmud contains some very blasphemous statements about Jesus. They say that he was the bastard son of a Roman centurion and a Jewish girl. And they say that he was a sorcerer and a deceiver. And they say that he was rightly crucified or hanged, they would say in the Talmud, because he led people astray. And they even say in the Talmud that Jesus will be punished by being boiled forever in hell in boiling excrement. That's where they believe Jesus is now, I guess.

So that doesn't sound, I mean we could say that's demonic if it's at the very least blasphemous. So if some people think that Judaism is kind of similar to Christianity, it's not. It's actually less similar to Christianity than Islam is. Islam actually has a very high view of Jesus, not high enough. Islam's view of Jesus is that he's the greatest prophet ever. Judaism's position is he's the greatest deceiver ever. And so obviously if we think of Judaism is a close kin to Christianity, we'd have to put Islam closer to Christianity in its beliefs about Jesus, and Judaism's outright blasphemous against Jesus. And I'm just saying that based on what their own book says. You can find those statements about Jesus there. Is that demonic? Well, could be, or it could just be rebellious people lying about Jesus. All right, Joe, thanks for your call. Cooper calling from the Bahamas. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Guest (Cooper): Hi Steve. I listen every day. I have a question. About a year ago, I enrolled into a Bible seminary, Zion Theological Seminary. Have you ever heard about them? They offered a Masters of Divinity degree, a one-year course, whether you've have an associate degree or bachelor's degree. But then they start teaching some stuff, like they start teaching that John the Baptist was the forerunner of Jesus, but he meddled in the politics. He told Herod he shouldn't have his brother's wife and he should have turned his disciples over to Jesus when Jesus came. And then it says that just as John was the forerunner of Jesus, that when Jesus comes back the second time, there will be another forerunner and that person is already on the scene. He lives somewhere in the Philippines and he's 90 years old. I just wonder if you've ever heard of that?

Steve Gregg: Yeah, a number of cults have come to us from the Philippines and from some other Eastern venues like South Korea. There are certain cults, false messiahs, false teachers that, if they say that there's a forerunner to Jesus' second coming that is now living somewhere in the Philippines, you can be sure that they're going to direct your attention to that person rather than to Jesus. I don't think there's going to be a person who will come as a forerunner to Jesus at his second coming, though some people think that Elijah the prophet will.

I understand the prophecy of Malachi differently than they do, but they would say from Malachi chapter 4 verses 5 and 6 that Elijah the prophet, the Tishbite, will come back to Earth again and will prepare the way. But I don't believe the Bible teaches that. I don't believe that's what Malachi is saying. Jesus said that that was a reference to John the Baptist and it wasn't talking about the second coming, it was talking about his first coming. So I just don't see it that way.

But I would say that even if we did believe Elijah was coming back, I don't think that he'd come back as a little boy because he went away alive as a man, he'd come back presumably as a man. But this is just an error. Cults that pretend to be Christian often have their own little wrinkle of error that they introduce. That's why there's so many different denominations because there's thousands. There's thousands of denominations which all would say something like the Bible is true, Jesus is the son of God. They say the same things Christians say about some things, but then you get out into the fringes of their teaching and they have really weird stuff. Each one has their own little weird thing, which is why they're not part of the other group.

What was the name of the seminary?

Guest (Cooper): Zion Theological Seminary. They originated in the US but they have no physical address. It's online. And every time when you question them about anything, they get upset. They don't want you to ask them any questions.

Steve Gregg: Okay, well that's the mark of a cult. There's no question. Any group or any minister who gets upset when you question them about their beliefs is a wolf in sheep's clothing. Because a true shepherd wants to teach and wants to clarify. Like if a man's a good pastor or leader of a church and somebody says, "Well, I'm not sure I agree with what you said." He'll say, "I'm glad you asked. Let's talk about that. Here's where the Scriptures say what I'm saying. Do you have a hard time seeing that?" and will gladly show you what they believe and why they believe it.

And in most cases, if they're a true good shepherd, they'll want you to search it out for yourself and convince yourself of it because they want you to not be dependent on them for what you believe. This is the problem. I was talking earlier about institutional church and how people want official leaders. A lot of times what that's about is they're saying you need me to tell you what to believe. In a world of confusion, you need me to tell you what the right things are.

I was watching a documentary on these fundamentalist LDS people. Some of the people in that cult were talking about their leader saying, "He's the one who's going to guide me spiritually." Well, anytime a group tells you that you need their leader to guide you spiritually, run the other way. I'm not saying you don't need insights from godly people and so forth. But if some man, some individual or woman, says, "I'm the one that will guide you properly," that person is a cult leader, whether they call it that or not.

You need Jesus to guide you. And there's not one person who's come to Christ who can fail to be led by Christ if they want to be led by Christ. Read the Sermon on the Mount, read the Gospels, meditate on it, ask God how to apply those things to your life, and you'll be fine. You won't need a man to tell you otherwise. It says in 1st John, you have no need that anyone teach you, but that anointing that you received from him, which is the Holy Spirit, will teach you.

Now, of course, you may get impressions of what you think is true and should do, which go against what the Bible says. If so, then your impressions can't be trusted. But it's not hard to read what Jesus said and live by it. If you have the Holy Spirit, he'll help you do that. And you certainly don't have to have some man or woman telling you how to understand things. And if the person who's actually teaching you gets upset when you inquire or want more information, then they've got something to hide. And no true spiritual man of God will have something that they want to hide from you. So that's a group not to trust. I appreciate you bringing it to my attention. I didn't know about that one. Thank you, brother. All right, let's talk to Keith in Sacramento, California. Hi Keith, welcome.

Guest (Keith): How you doing today? I've been listening to you for a while and I really enjoy it. I had two questions. One is when is the next time you're going to be in Sacramento, California? And the second one is can you tell me what's the difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament?

Steve Gregg: Yeah, as far as when I'll be in Sacramento again, I usually come once a year. And when I do, I usually teach several days in a row in different places in the area. I don't think I have anything set up right now. But I will say this, that I always announce on the air usually every program for a week before I go somewhere. If I'm going to Sacramento, I'll say, like on Monday through Friday of the week before, I'll say I'm coming to Sacramento. So if you listen, or if you just check the website once in a while, it'll tell where I'm coming, places I'm going. That's at thenarrowpath.com under the tab that says announcements.

Now, the difference between the Old and New Testament is that they are sequentially the means by which God has revealed what he wants his people to do to live to please him. When he brought the Israelites out of Egypt to Mount Sinai, he made what we call the Old Testament. He made a covenant with them. And that included the Ten Commandments and 613 laws and all the stuff you read about in Exodus and Leviticus and Deuteronomy. These were the provisions of the covenant.

Now, a covenant is like a contract. And in this case, it was like a marriage covenant because God was presenting himself, as it were, to be Israel's husband and Israel to be collectively his bride or his wife. And that's how he understood it, that's how he proposed it to them. And when they cheated on him, worshipped other gods, he considered that like a wife committing adultery. He warned them that if they kept doing that, that's going to be the end of them. And he said in Deuteronomy, I'll find someone else, I'll make you jealous, you make me jealous with other gods, I'll make you jealous by taking another people.

And he did because they did make him jealous. They did cheat on him. Now, before he destroyed Israel, which he did in 70 AD, he sent Jeremiah to say there's going to be a new covenant. Now the new covenant is what we call the New Testament. It's a new contract that God would make with the remnant of his people. And this covenant was made through the Messiah, Jesus. And he made that new covenant in the upper room with his disciples when he gave them the bread and the wine.

He said, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood." Now the Bible says that the new covenant is now the means by which God expects people to relate with him and to connect with him and to live to please him. And that new covenant is based on the teachings of Jesus. So the old covenant was basically defined in terms of what Moses taught in the law, which God gave him. The new covenant is defined in terms of what Jesus taught.

And Jesus said, for example, when he gave the great commission in Matthew 28:19 and 20, he said, "Go and make disciples of all the nations," he said, "baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit," and this is an important part, "and teaching them to observe everything I've commanded you." So under the new covenant, when we make disciples, we're teaching them to obey everything Jesus commanded. In John 8:31, Jesus said, "If you continue in my words, then you are my disciples indeed."

So it's not Moses' words. We don't offer animal sacrifices anymore because that's what Moses God told Israel to do through Moses. That's the old covenant. The new covenant has replaced the old covenant. It says in Hebrews 8:13 that where there's a new covenant, it has rendered the old one obsolete. So the covenant God made at Mount Sinai is obsolete. The sacrifices, the restrictions on diet, the festal calendar, all that stuff. Those were all part of the old covenant.

And Colossians 2:16 and 17 tells us that those things were all a shadow and temporary things, and they were anticipating the coming of Christ. And since he has come, the shadow is no longer followed. We don't follow the shadow anymore, we follow the substance who is Christ himself. That's the new covenant is about Jesus. The old covenant was about the law of Moses. David in Phoenix, Arizona. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Guest (David): Hi Steve. I really appreciate your program. I've learned a lot from you over the past years. When's the next time you're coming to Phoenix, Arizona? I saw you a couple years ago. And my question is: what's your opinion about celebrating birthdays? I know we do that for Jesus's birthday, although I'm not really sure if that's the exact date or not he was born, but what's your opinion about celebrating birthdays?

Steve Gregg: Well, as far as I know, the early Christians didn't celebrate birthdays, as far as I know. I think the only birthday that we read about in the Bible was Pharaoh's birthday when Joseph was in prison and it was Pharaoh's birthday. And he had that dream and Joseph was able to interpret it for him. But it doesn't say anything special was done about it. And Pharaoh of course was a pagan king, so some people say, I think Jehovah's Witnesses are opposed to keeping any holidays including your birthday.

And I think they'd say, "Well, only pagans celebrate birthdays in the Bible." Well, we don't have many examples to go from. We don't know that anyone thought it was wrong to do it. That is, we don't know that the law of Moses doesn't forbid it. Jesus didn't forbid it. As far as I'm concerned, you can celebrate any day that you think is worthy of celebration. I don't do special things necessarily as some do on Easter because that's a celebration of the resurrection of Christ. But I believe that my whole life, every day, is supposed to be a celebration of the resurrection of Christ.

If Christ isn't raised, there's no reason to get up in the morning. There's no Christ, there's no hope, there's no Christianity. So just being devoted to Christ is a celebration of the fact that he's alive and rose from the dead. I'll celebrate that on Easter as well as any other day, but I don't set one day apart for it. And I don't do much about Christmas either. To me, it's another day. But there's certainly nothing wrong with celebrating the birth of Jesus if that's what you want to do on any day you want to do it on.

Once again, I'm not a legalist. Some people say if the Bible doesn't command it or directly say it's okay, we shouldn't do it. I think that's legalism. I think the Bible's attitude is if the Bible doesn't forbid it, go ahead if you want to. When God set things up with man, he didn't say to Adam and Eve, "Only eat this group of trees that I'm saying you're allowed to eat." No, he said you can eat all the trees, just don't eat that one. In other words, the default position of God toward man is liberty.

There are some things we shouldn't do and God tells us what they are. Apart from those things, we have liberty. And again, if God says nothing about birthdays, he doesn't say observe them or don't observe them. To my mind, that means you can do it. And I, frankly, I don't know of anything that any Christian I know has ever done on their birthday to celebrate it that was objectionable. I mean, if people have parties where they get drunk and do awful things, take drugs, then that's one thing. But most birthdays I've been to are for Christians and there's not a thing they do that a Christian should object to about it. So when it comes to birthdays, like so many other things, I believe we have liberty. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there's liberty. If God had said don't observe any birthdays, then I would say I don't know why he doesn't want us to, but we shouldn't do it. But since he didn't, I'd say nobody should forbid it. If someone forbids it, they are a textbook legalist.

All right, you're listening to The Narrow Path radio broadcast. We are listener-supported. You can write to us if you want at The Narrow Path, PO Box 1730, Temecula, California 92593, or go to our website thenarrowpath.com.