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. During this hour, we take your calls if you have questions you want to call in and we can discuss them about the Bible, about the Christian faith, or maybe about any disagreement you may have with the host, which you'd like to discuss. I'd be glad to have you do so.

I sometimes have said this, I've been doing this show daily for 29 years, so I've had occasion to say almost everything at one point or another. But from time to time, I used to mention this. I like having a live program so people can call and disagree if they want to. I've listened to Christian radio all my life and the one frustration I had is when I heard somebody say something I thought was irresponsible or untrue. Frankly, you do hear such things on Christian radio sometimes.

I just felt like there's no way I can correct that on the air. I could write to them and say I disagree with that, but the only person who would hear about it is a secretary in their office and the people who heard the misinformation from the program itself would never hear the response. One thing I think is great about live radio is if you hear me say something you think is wrong, you can say I'm wrong right in front of the same audience that heard me say what I said.

In other words, you can balance comment. That's what we always refer to. If you want to balance comment on anything or just ask a question because you're curious about something, feel free to give me a call. The number is 844-484-5737. That's 844-484-5737.

A couple of announcements. Just one announcement. We have tomorrow morning in Southern California, in Temecula, a men's Bible study which is held once a month, the third Saturday of each month. That's tomorrow at 8:00 in the morning in Temecula. If you're a man, it's a men's Bible study. You can look at our website, find the location, and show up. The website is thenarrowpath.com. The place to look for that information is under the tab that says "Announcements."

All right, so we're going to go to the phones now and talk to our callers. We actually have a couple of lines open. So if you want to get through, this is the last day of the broadcast week, the last opportunity before the weekend. Feel free to give me a call. The number is 844-484-5737. Our first caller is Kai, calling from Tampa, Florida. Hi, Kai. Welcome.

Kai: Hey, how you doing, Steve?

Steve Gregg: Good, thanks.

Kai: Question for you. I'm in leadership in my local church and as such, I'm a mentor to young believers who are looking to turn their life over to Christ. I've been mentoring this young girl who comes from a much different path. We have strong Anabaptist roots in our church. She doesn't look like us. She asked to be baptized. She has repented and professed faith in Christ and has definitely shown fruits of repentance and walking with Christ. I know leadership will not accept her the way she is and I'm torn because I don't know that we should be forcing change on her. Should I ask her or coax her into being more like us? I'm really torn.

Steve Gregg: That is one of the things about being in a church tradition that has strong cultural roots as well as theological roots. The Anabaptists, if you're thinking of Mennonites, I'm assuming that's probably what you are, or of course there's Amish, there's Hutterites. They are all Anabaptists. And then there's also non-denominational groups that buy into Anabaptist theology, which I think is pretty good theology. I've had a lot more in common with their thinking than any other denominational brand.

But here's the thing. Anabaptist groups sometimes have dress codes and cultural codes where the women wear head coverings or in some cases they don't have TVs in their homes. Of course if you go back to the Old Order like the Amish, they don't even drive cars. So those are major cultural differences. I don't know which of those, if any, are part of your church.

Kai: Okay, I thought I lost you there. Go ahead.

Steve Gregg: No. But so a young woman has come to Christ and wants to be baptized. I'm assuming when you say she doesn't look like us, you're probably referring to her style, her clothing style, maybe whether she wears makeup.

Kai: Yes. She comes from a more Gothic past, so she has some face piercing and she doesn't wear a head covering. I just don't want to stand before God guilty of adding to the word of God and making her do something. But she feels very much at home and family and they treat her as family. It's a really good fit for her. I just don't want to do something that would go against God's word.

Steve Gregg: I hear you. Well, I think you should probably have a talk with her and say the community that I fellowship with here are accustomed to women wearing head coverings according to the way we understand 1 Corinthians 11. We don't want to be legalistic about it because not all Christians feel the same way, but you might feel awkward if you don't do so. We're not going to judge you. I don't know if anyone will, but no one should judge you about it. But that could be avoided if you chose to wear a head covering.

If you choose not to, that's okay too. I think God will accept you, but you should do what you believe God wants you to do. So we'd like for you to study the scriptures about this and as you become persuaded one way or the other, take your stand and do it. It may be that you will end up wearing head coverings like most of the women do.

And but the main cultural difference between Christians and non-Christians is love. Jesus said by this all men will know that you're my disciples if you have love one for another. Remember Jesus was criticized by religious people, conservative religious people, because the company he kept was so rather controversial. And we have to assume that some of them probably didn't follow the best clothing style choices and so forth. Now I will say this about piercings.

Obviously, I think Christians ought not to take on a lot of piercings and things like that. I'd be happy if they didn't have any. Obviously, a lot of women pierce their ears and have done so both in the church and out of the church, and that's piercings too. But when it comes to more piercings that simply appear to be wanting to get special attention because they're not mainstream in our culture, not just in your culture of the church, but in American culture, it's not mainstream. There's a lot of people who have piercings, but it's still a minority and it's still considered to be in many cases a little bit on the rebellious side. Sometimes that's the reason they have them.

I have to say that I've never known anyone who came to Christ with piercings that didn't eventually just voluntarily give them up as they became more sanctified. And that happens. You don't have to tell them to change their style unless their style is let's just say a woman's coming dressed in a way that's half naked to church or something like that, something very immoral. Then of course you should just say we love you no matter how you dress, but it would be very offensive to many people if you come exposing so much of yourself to church.

So would you please, would you object to covering up yourself more? Not because we're going to make laws about how you have to dress, but because you should out of consideration and love for your brothers and sisters do everything to the glory of God including the way you choose your clothing. So to disciple someone needs to disciple them in the liberty that's in Christ, but it's not a liberty to take advantage of other people and offend them. That's what Paul said. Our liberty we should use to serve each other, not as occasion to the flesh.

So she's apparently a very new Christian, which is why she's wanting to get baptized at this point. And I would just talk to her very plainly and say not all Christians would make an issue of this, but our particular group for many, many generations and centuries, the women have worn head coverings. They've dressed modestly and we think that's a very godly thing for a woman to do. And so you don't have to be part of our group to be a Christian. You could join a different church or you can come to our church and we're not going to force anything on you.

But just realize that in the culture of our church, people have come to see this as the norm. Again, we don't have to enforce the norm. We're not going to condemn you to hell. And the truth is that if the norm is very uncomfortable to you, I don't think that you'd want to necessarily choose a church where you're the only person who doesn't accept it. So you could conform or you could just tone it down. The things that you do that are most contrary to the way that our church does things, you might tone that down a little bit. Or you could of course find a church that thinks differently. You are in leadership. Are you an elder in the church there?

Kai: No, just a minister, pastor.

Steve Gregg: And how do other ministers there feel about her situation?

Kai: In our local church, they're somewhat okay. Like we only wear head coverings, it's only mandatory during services. But I just don't know like holding, I guess the issue I'm having is the elders would not baptize her. They would kind of hold it over her head if she did not wear a head covering or take the piercings out beforehand because it would completely change the dynamic of the church as far as, in an Anabaptist surrounding it's just, she's very much, a lot of tattoos, which obviously the tattoos are not going to come off, right? They're there.

Steve Gregg: And we got to realize too, there's a lot of younger people who've had a tough life and have done things to their bodies and adopted styles and identities and so forth that are not godly, but are not in themselves game changers for them having a relationship with God. I believe one can have a relationship with God if she doesn't wear a head covering. I believe she can have a relationship with God if she doesn't have any piercings or if she does have some piercings.

But the thing is, when someone has a relationship with God, they also automatically have a relationship with all his children. And the children of God that you choose to associate with will be the ones we hope that you feel most comfortable with or that you at least think are the holiest and most the way you want to be. So I would simply let her know that your church, there'll probably be some people who would think if she maintains her present appearance that she's not really wanting to change in order to fit into that crowd.

But you could say, I don't say that these changes have to be made for you to be saved, but obviously once you're saved, you're going to choose some fellowship to be a part of. And that fellowship you're going to hopefully be one that accepts you as you are or at least challenges you to become better in many ways. And if you want to be challenged to do better, you could start by not offending these people in these ways and conforming to it.

Not because God requires it, but because every group of Christians have things they're sensitive about. Every group of Christians, especially groups like the Anabaptists that have been around for 500 years, they are kind of set in their ways. I mean they can love you, but they'll have a culture and it's a very awkward thing. You're right. But I would just make it very clear to her. She can be saved without making those changes, but she probably will cause some discomfort in this particular church if she doesn't make those particular changes. And it's one thing to cause some discomfort in church and another thing to be rejected by God.

But the truth is that if you're going to fellowship with a group of people, if you love your brethren, you're going to want to cause as little discomfort to them as possible. I was, when I moved to McMinnville, Oregon, when I was running my school in Oregon, and there was a Mennonite church. It was kind of a charismatic-leaning Mennonite church of all things about a block from our school. So I started attending there because I like Anabaptist people and theology. And of course some of the women there, the older women, were wearing head coverings. But the younger ones, actually the offspring of these older ones, were pretty much throwing that off and dressing more modernly and stuff.

And there's some tension, there was some cultural tension between the generations there. Eventually in fact there was a split over, not that but just generational differences in that group. But I remember when I was there, I didn't know what was acceptable or not and it was hot, it was summertime, and I thought about going to church in shorts, which I would feel free to do anywhere else I'd gone to church before. But I thought maybe these Mennonites wouldn't approve of that. So I didn't.

And I went to church one morning and some of the younger guys, like the sons of the leaders, came to church in shorts. And I thought, okay, they're open to that here. So the next Sunday I came in shorts. And one of the guys that had influenced me that way, that I had noticed wearing shorts the week before, he came and said, I hope you didn't do that because we did. We were just trying to be provocative because people don't like that here wearing shorts to church. So I didn't wear shorts there anymore.

Not because I think Christians can't wear shorts, but I knew that I learned that that was something that they didn't like there. And I thought why should I go to a church and deliberately do things that they don't like? So I think it's simply the attitude of a Christian, not I have to not wear shorts to be a Christian. But it might be that I should not wear shorts to church in a church where that specific thing bothers people. And I think that's the way that she's got to consider it. As far as being baptized, obviously she should be baptized as soon as possible. And I don't think that people should refuse to baptize a person before they take out their piercings. If they take them out and God hasn't convicted them to do it, they're going to be starting their Christian life out in a spirit of legalism.

But I believe if she's accepted and she's really following Christ, in time she's going to want to take those piercings out. When people get sanctified, they don't want those.

Kai: Let me ask you this because I know I'm going long. That is the issue right there, that last point. So if they're not willing to baptize her because of the piercings and whatnot, should I still maybe recommend to her that? I just don't want to stand guilty before God because I don't even believe it myself, you know what I'm saying? And I know the church will not be free for her.

Steve Gregg: Well, is there any reason you couldn't baptize her outside the church somewhere, in a swimming pool or something?

Kai: Oh, that would cause a split.

Steve Gregg: Oh my goodness. See, here's the thing. We have to realize when someone's being baptized, they're not being baptized into our congregation. They're not being baptized into our denomination. They're being baptized into Christ. And unless only our group is in Christ, then there's no reason that they have to conform to our group to be baptized into Christ. We have to recognize that people in Christ have different tastes and outlooks about things and even different cultures and that's not bad. It's okay to have different cultures.

But when you're baptized, you could be baptized by some Christian who goes to a church with a certain culture and then just be a Christian that's not of that culture, not of that group. But baptizing people, it'd be disobedient for us to not baptize somebody who wants to be baptized and is a believer and following Christ. And if we say well we can't baptize them outside of our church, my question would be then when we do baptize them, does that mean we're baptizing them into our church? I don't think that's what baptism is. I think baptism is being baptized into Christ and Christ isn't exclusively ours. Other Christians have him too.

If it would be too provocative for you to baptize her outside the church and the church won't baptize her as she is, I mean you could certainly ask her if she could remove the piercings long enough to get baptized. I don't know.

Kai: At least while she's at church is what I was thinking.

Steve Gregg: Yeah, I would think so. I would think so. And like you said, your church believes that women should wear head coverings when they're in church, but not other times. Well, then it should accept the fact that women can wear certain things when they're not at church that they wouldn't want them to wear at church, just like the church I was mentioning. They didn't want men wearing shorts to church. I don't know that they cared whether men wore shorts at other times.

So it's cultural sensitivities. This is a hard thing to navigate, but I think there's two things. She needs to be willing to change because she's becoming a Christian, she needs to learn to be sensitive to other Christians. And the church might need to change too in broadening its idea of what it means for someone to be a Christian. So it looks like the tension would most readily be resolved if both sides adjusted their attitudes. But if that's not going to happen, maybe you should recommend she be baptized at another church down the street that doesn't have those problems.

Kai: I want to be respectful for everybody else online. I appreciate it, Steve. I really appreciate your time and your wisdom. It helps me a lot.

Steve Gregg: Okay, Kai. God bless you. I appreciate your call. I appreciate your dilemma. All right, bye-bye.

Steve Gregg: All right, Bob from Bellevue, Washington. Welcome.

Bob: Hello, Steve. I appreciated your comments to the previous caller. My question has to do with Abram leaving Ur on the direction of the Lord and then in Genesis 12 where he gives the promise and then other chapters where he kind of adds addendums to that promise or defines them, probably is a better word. My question has to do with the descendants. It seems, and I just want to make sure you clarify what I'm thinking here, is that in the descendants of Abraham, there are many, including the six sons from Keturah after Sarah died.

Steve Gregg: Right. And the Arabs, Ishmaelites.

Bob: Exactly. But those descendants are also the inheritance of the land as it indicates with the stars and the dust of the earth. But they are not the heirs of promise because Genesis clarifies that through Isaac and Jacob and Judah and all the way through lineage that there is a specific line of promise leading to the Messiah. But the land is given to the descendants of Abraham, which there are many, many, many people. Am I reading that correctly?

Steve Gregg: Well, I'm not sure. I mean, I kind of follow what you're saying, but I'm not 100 percent sure of precisely what you're saying. There were many descendants of Abraham who were not the Jewish people. Ishmael was a son of Abraham and his descendants, most people think, were the Arab people. Then he had six sons by Keturah. They were sons of Abraham too. And those sons became other nations, the Midianites among them, for example, of whom Moses' wife was a Midianite. So there's a lot of sons of Abraham.

Now the special promise that through his seed all the nations of the earth would be blessed is clearly followed through one of those sons, Isaac. And then Isaac had two sons, Jacob and Esau. Now by the way, Esau is the father of the Edomites and he's a descendant of Abraham too, Abraham and Isaac too. I mean so you've got all these different Middle Eastern people that came from Abraham. But special promises were made only to the descendants of Isaac and then later of Jacob and then Jacob's 12 sons.

Now one might argue that God gave all the land all the way to the River Euphrates to the sons of Abraham, that is to the combination of the Jews, Arabs, Midianites, Edomites. I mean that whole region of the world was eventually inhabited and dominated by descendants of Abraham. Not by the Jews for the most part, but just various descendants of Abraham. In which case God did give all that land to the sons of Abraham.

Now there was a more specific portion of that from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean that was designated to go to the 12 tribes that descended from Jacob. And after the Exodus, God took them and through Joshua gave them that land. Now seen that way, God had promised land to all of Abraham's seed and not just the Jewish ones. But the land that was given to the Jews was the specific land that later came to be called Israel. And that would, in a sense, be one way to look at the fulfillment of those promises.

Now as I understand it, the promises that God made to Abraham and his seed, as interpreted by both Paul and Jesus, is restricted to the seed of Abraham who did the deeds of Abraham or had the faith of Abraham. Paul said in Galatians 3, only those who are of the faith of Abraham are the children of Abraham. And Jesus said to the Jews of his time, if you were the children of Abraham, you'd do the works of Abraham. In other words, both Paul and Jesus said being descended physically, genealogically from Abraham really doesn't make you special in God's sight. It's those who had Abraham's faith and who obeyed God like Abraham did, those who are spiritually his kin.

And by the way, in 1 Peter chapter 3, it refers to Christian women who are subject to their husbands as being like Sarah's children. Now probably very few, if any, of the people Peter was writing to were descended from Abraham and Sarah. They might, the Jews would have been among them, but probably few others were and it was mainly Gentile churches Peter's writing to. But he's saying that the women in that church are the children of Sarah if they continue in the same spirit of Sarah. So it's obvious that Abraham and Sarah, their children in the Bible are defined by their spiritual qualifications. Jesus said so, Paul said so. It just seems obvious from the way things are taught in the New Testament.

As far as the land promises, at least portion of the land was given specifically to the Israelites. It may be that the remainder of the larger land that he mentioned from the Euphrates on so forth was to other children of Abraham. After all, that would be fulfilling the promise to Abraham's seed too. But the specific promise that through his seed all the nations would be blessed comes only through one narrow line of Abraham's descendants, and that would be Israel first and then within Israel, all those who are like Abraham in faith, as the Bible says. I'm sorry, that was kind of a complicated question. I'm out of time for that question though. You're listening to the Narrow Path, our website's thenarrowpath.com. We have another half hour, don't go away. I'll be back in 30 seconds.

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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, the number to call is 844-484-5737. Our next caller is Mr. Bloom from Little Rock, Arkansas. Hi, Mr. Bloom. Welcome.

Mr. Bloom: Hey Steve, can you hear me okay?

Steve Gregg: Sure, go ahead.

Mr. Bloom: Okay, listen. I had two related questions concerning what I thought I heard you say concerning mental illness. The first one is did I hear you say that the mentally ill are probably influenced by demons?

Steve Gregg: I said some of them are. When I talk about mental illness, I mention that I believe that there are some things that are regarded to be mental illness which are caused by physical causes. In which case they're not really mental illness. They may manifest themselves in a disordered mind, but they are more like physiological illness. The mental is not a physiological thing. The brain is an organ, the mind is not. And so something that's mental is not physical and therefore some people have mental problems because their brain is disordered or there's a chemical imbalance. So that would be a form of actual illness. But then other people have been said they've been told they're mentally ill when in fact their problems are probably not an illness at all but probably just a spiritual issue.

Mr. Bloom: And the second question was did you say that there's never been a mentally ill person that's been documented or medically diagnosed?

Steve Gregg: Well, no. I don't remember making that particular statement. You may have heard me say, because I would say, that many people who are diagnosed as mentally ill have received a diagnosis without any kind of scientific testing or medical testing. It's simply, and by the way many people in the so-called mental health professions have admitted this outright. No one has ever really been called, let's say, chronically depressed or paranoid schizophrenic or even bipolar affective disorder based on a chemical test or by something that they have found physically. They judge someone to be that way by their behavior.

One famous quote comes from the mental health professionals that says that a psychiatric diagnosis is simply one man's opinion about another man's behavior. In other words, these are behavioral issues. If someone does not have a behavioral issue, they don't go and see a psychiatrist. Assuming whatever their problem is found in behavior, including the behavior of the brain. So once behavior takes you to the doctor, he should run tests like doctor-type tests. Take serum samples, blood samples, do brain scans. Do those kinds of things.

And those are the kinds of things that determine if there's something physically at issue here. And this is not the way that people are usually diagnosed. In fact, very seldom if at all they are. They go and they explain what their behavior problem is or their mood problem or whatever's going on, and the doctor says well here, take this pill, this'll fix that. Well, that's not the same thing as proving that there's something physically wrong. Some people think that well if you take the pill and it fixes it, it must have been a physical problem because the pill is physical, it's addressing a physical issue.

Well, I don't doubt that pills address physical issues. But the fact that a pill can numb the mind or cut off some certain activities of the brain as some of them are known to do, and therefore you feel different, you perceive different, you act different. Many cases people who take the pills say they act differently because they totally like become zombified or close to it. They just, their brain is just not working. They're cutting off the activity of the frontal lobes of the brain which makes them more emotionally flatlined or whatever. There's just different things that drugs will do to your brain and therefore to your moods and things like that.

Some of those things that drugs do seem desirable. They are the things that you wish to have done. So these ones become prescribed to people who want those things to be done to their brain. Although it's a commonplace, everyone knows who knows anything about this, that many of these drugs have what they call paradoxical effects, which means they actually cause worse, they aggravate the problem that they're supposed to cure. So that some people, certain percentage, when they take anti-anxiety meds, they become more anxious and more paranoid. Some when they take antidepressants, they get more depressed.

So not always. Obviously, some people feel some relief or else they wouldn't keep taking them. But the truth is the drugs do not constitute a diagnosis. It's the behavior and the problem that is presenting is virtually not a physical problem. That is to say you can't find a tumor or a blood imbalance, chemical imbalance, to correspond to it and seldom do they try. They generally speaking say okay you're having this behavior, we know what to do about that, this drug will help.

Well, it might help or it might not. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. There's some very bad things sometimes have happened from taking these drugs, including tardive dyskinesia and other movement disorders and things some of which are hardly ever curable. So there's a lot of experimentation on human guinea pigs in the field of psychiatry. And when they find something that I guess most people find to be helpful, they just hand it out to people who have the same presenting problem.

So it's more nuanced than what you think I said. I do want to say this too, that even if a person's behavior or problems can be somewhat ameliorated by the taking of a pharmaceutical product, that doesn't tell us that there was no spiritual issue in the first place. Because it's very difficult to know, especially if something does alter brain chemistry and then there's let's say moods or strange mental actions that take place as a result of that brain chemistry change. That doesn't mean, see you don't know which came first the chicken or the egg.

Sometimes they'll point to these brain scans that they can take where they can see different parts of the brain are lighting up on the machine as red or green or yellow or whatever and they're saying see this part of the brain is where you've got your problem because you've got depression and that corresponds with this part of the brain we can see your brain is the problem. Well maybe the brain is the problem, maybe the mood is the problem. Maybe it's affecting the brain. I mean we don't know.

Obviously if you have a thyroid problem, that's a physical problem and it does affect behavior sometimes and mental activity sometimes. On the other hand, if you're in a situation where there's an emergency and you have an adrenaline rush, that causes you to be able to do things sometimes, super-strength things. What's the cause and what's the effect? The emotion of sudden fear can cause the brain to react with adrenaline or whatever. So these are, human behavior is much more complex and much more nuanced than some would give the impression.

Many people who are in the mental health profession just want to say listen we've got this all figured out, you've got a problem everybody's got, we can give you this pill for it'll fix it. And they give the pills partly because they've been told that this'll help by the pharmaceutical companies and also they're often being receiving a bit of a kickback from the pharmaceutical companies for prescribing it. Anyway, but nothing I've said has said that there is no such thing as a physical cause for mental aberrations. And nothing anyone else can say would prove that there's not a spiritual cause in many cases.

Because if you don't go to a psychiatrist who can prescribe and will prescribe drugs, if you go to a psychologist who's just a talk therapist, they'll tell you things like your guilt feelings or your fears or your unforgiveness, your bitterness or whatever, those are causing your problems. And they may be right, but those are spiritual problems. Those are not physical problems. So the human being is a very complex thing and I would suggest that you don't just take a passing statement I make and then extrapolate to what you think I must think about it because it's more complicated than that.

I do have a series of lectures though that will clarify what I think about most of these things at our website thenarrowpath.com. Under topical letters there's a series called Biblical Counsel for a Change and I do analyze what's usually called mental issues and I do talk about psychiatry and psychology and the drugs and things like that there. And the Bible. It's an eight lecture series. It's called Biblical Counsel for a Change. It's at our website thenarrowpath.com under the topical lectures. Thank you for your call.

All right, we'll talk next to Marcel from Sacramento, California. Welcome.

Marcel: Hi Steve. How you doing today?

Steve Gregg: Good, thanks.

Marcel: Yes, I wanted to inquire about a couple things, a question about it. I been a Baptist Christian since I was a little kid to present day which I'm an older adult now and I was baptized when I was a young adult at least three different times, one in North Dakota and then twice in Sacramento. Does that bring me closer to God or does it not matter or what? Because I have been a strong Christian for the longest time.

Steve Gregg: Well, let me ask you why you were baptized three times. Generally speaking, the norm is when a person becomes a Christian they get baptized and that's for life. They don't need to have another baptism. Why did you have three different times?

Marcel: I didn't know that at the time that it only takes once, that's why I was inquiring.

Steve Gregg: Yeah, well baptism doesn't exactly make you more spiritual. It is the portal you pass through when you change from being a non-Christian to being a Christian. It marks your passage from death to life, the burial of your old life and the resurrection into a new life. That's what baptism is. That shouldn't ever have to happen more than once.

Now I have known people who got baptized as children and then when they're older they came to understand what it means to be a Christian and they realized they never really were a Christian, but now they want to be and they choose to be baptized again. That makes sense only because they're not seeing their previous baptism as having any relationship to their conversion. I believe baptism follows conversion, at least every known case in the Bible and every statement about it in the Bible seems to suggest that.

Jesus said whoever believes and is baptized shall be saved. Peter said repent and be baptized. So believe and repent are mentioned as taking place prior to baptism. We never read in the Bible of anyone ever being baptized who had not already believed. And this is contrary to what some Christians believe. Some Christians think that you should baptize your babies if you're a Christian. That's been controversial throughout church history, but it's not controversial in the Bible. There's only one model in the Bible that's given to us and that is for people who come to faith, they get baptized.

There's a few places that talk about a whole household got baptized, but there's no evidence that anyone in that household failed to come to faith first or were a baby, for example. So anyway, yeah, if you had not been saved when you were baptized the first time, then it would have been appropriate to be baptized when you did get saved. But if you've been baptized after being converted, being baptized repeatedly will not put you any rungs higher on the ladder of spirituality. It doesn't bring you closer to God.

Now whatever motivated you to be rebaptized might be something in your own heart that is a drawing nearer to God. I mean someone who feels like I just really want to dedicate myself more to God, I think I'll be baptized again. It's totally unnecessary and it's not what baptism is for, but the very fact that you make that choice because you want to, it's your motivation to draw closer to God, I would say what's going on in your heart might bring you closer to God, but the more water baptism doesn't make you more spiritual. Thank you for your call. Tom from Maine, welcome to the Narrow Path.

Tom: Hey Steve. Hey, my question is regarding the altar call and the sinner's prayer. My question is don't you got to start somewhere?

Steve Gregg: I would say so. Yeah, you start by repenting and believing and getting baptized.

Tom: Okay. Not you so much but I do hear people say that type of that bent. But I'm thinking a guy's got to start somewhere, right? You got to start learning, you got to start growing and, you know?

Steve Gregg: Yeah, I don't see anything as controversial. I think what you're saying is you have the impression that I am opposed to altar calls and sinner's prayers. Well, what I'd say is you don't find any altar calls in the Bible. Okay, so in other words, we don't have any examples of an evangelistic meeting where the sermon was preached and then the preacher said, okay, come forward if you want to accept Christ, for example. That's a very typical modern American evangelical practice and I believe many people have gotten saved that way, but it's not a practice that you find practiced in the Bible.

Likewise, the idea of saying a sinner's prayer, Lord Jesus come into my heart, blah, blah, blah like that, we don't find that in the Bible either. The closest thing we have to an actual sinner's prayer is the thief on the cross saying, Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom. And of course that guy was saved and that was a good, that was a good prayer. But it's not like that that was adopted as a normal way of getting people saved. Hey, say these words or say any particular prayer.

Now I do believe that when you repent before God, it's very typical and natural to speak to God about it, to apologize to God for your rebellion, to express to him you believe in Christ, to confess Christ with your mouth. These things certainly can happen through the avenue of a prayer. But the point is that you just don't find any examples in the Bible of an evangelistic situation where the person who's passing from paganism into Christianity does so by saying a prayer.

Like even when Jesus called the disciples from their nets, he didn't say, okay, now you're going to be my followers, say this prayer, Lord Jesus come into my heart. No, he just said follow me and they followed him. That was conversion. Conversion is when you change the direction of your life to be a devoted follower of Jesus Christ. That's what salvation is. Now I think for many people it's a very natural thing to do that with a prayer. I have no objection to that. On the other hand, I know that if we institutionalize this form of conversion by saying, okay, you get saved by asking Jesus in your heart, say this prayer, what we often do is give people a routine which they can follow, repeat after me kind of a thing, and they can say every word of that prayer and not mean a thing.

If God's not drawing them, if their heart isn't surrendered to God, if they're not repentant, and yet we've somehow talked them into repeating this prayer after us, they may leave that situation believing they're saved when they haven't done any business with God at all in their heart. Salvation is not through a prayer. The salvation is through a change, through a change of direction by repentance turning around instead of following your own way you follow Christ and you're devoted to Christ. But I'm certainly not opposed to that being marked by a prayer or by a spoken confession of faith or anything like that. Generally speaking in the New Testament that decision was marked simply by being baptized. So people would just, they turned to Christ and generally in the Bible they just got baptized same day because that was their I guess that was what they used instead of what we call a sinner's prayer. That's how you signal that you've made the change from death unto life and to being a selfish person to being a follower of Christ.

And that is a point of beginning. All you say you got to start somewhere, I agree you have to start somewhere. I just don't believe that starting somewhere is always identified with saying a particular prayer. Starting somewhere means turning around from your own wicked ways and becoming a devoted follower of Christ for the rest of your life. That's when you do that, that's starting and I recommend it. All right, let's talk to Cara from Sacramento, California. Hi, Cara. Welcome.

Cara: Yes, yes. I love your show, it's very informative. I'm wondering about why Matthew 17:21 was deleted from my Bible, but some Bibles have it. That Matthew 17:21 refers to, but this kind never comes out except by prayer and fasting. I'm thinking they're talking about, I don't know, healing or sickness or whatever he's referring to.

Steve Gregg: No, he's referring to demon possession. He's talking about demons. He said there's a certain kind that doesn't come out. Now why isn't it in your Bible? Well, because your Bible is following the most ancient manuscripts that have come down to us. Whereas the King James Version, which is closely followed by the New King James Version, follows different manuscripts that are not quite as old but have been known to us for a longer period of time.

That is in 1611, when the King James Version translated the Greek manuscripts into English, they were using some manuscripts that had that verse in it and that's why they wrote it in there. This kind does not come out but by prayer and fasting. But later on, like in the end of the 19th century, some manuscripts were discovered that were older, older than the ones that were used by the King James Version. And those manuscripts didn't have that particular line. Now the verse numbering and everything already had included it because of the King James it had become customary to have it, but the newer translators decided well maybe that wasn't in the original because the oldest manuscripts we have don't have that verse. So perhaps that isn't something Matthew wrote originally.

And so they leave it out, but generally if they do they'll put a footnote in and say that some manuscripts have this in there. But if you trust the older manuscripts as many people do, then you would have to say that verse was not in the original. That is, it's not in the oldest copies of the original that we have. And later copies do. So many people believe that later scribes who were copying a copy of Matthew that didn't have it, they added it. Now why would they add it? Was there a tradition they had? Did they think it should be in there?

Well, I'll tell you this. Over in I think in Luke's parallel to this, same statement, I mean it's the same passage in the parallel, it says this kind does not come out except by prayer. It doesn't mention fasting. But in one of the parallels, Jesus does say and this is in all the manuscripts including the oldest ones, Jesus said this kind does not come out except by prayer. The fasting, again, is not really in the older manuscripts. But if some scribe was copying a statement where Jesus said this kind only comes by prayer and they realized he's talking about very stubborn demons in this case, some scribe might have thought maybe we should also add some fasting to this for extra oomph.

In other words, some people think that some copyists, someone who copied an earlier copy, added those words and that's why modern translations don't trust that particular line because it's not in the oldest manuscripts.

Cara: They're trying to be more authentic actually then or closer to it.

Steve Gregg: Yeah, that's why they don't have that in there.

Cara: Oh, very, very fascinating. Well, thank you for your scholarship. Now that gives me an understanding. Thank you. Good to talk to you. God bless you.

Steve Gregg: Good talking to you too. God bless you. Let's talk to Sally in Boise, Idaho. Sally, welcome to the Narrow Path.

Sally: Hi there. My question is, and I haven't thought about this until just recently, what is the difference between our soul and our spirit?

Steve Gregg: I don't think the Bible makes a clear distinction between the soul and the spirit. There are some places where the soul and the spirit are mentioned in such a way that they could be differentiated, but not very many. There are some places, though, where the Bible mentions our soul and spirit and when you compare passages they sound like they're kind of used interchangeably. So there's some question among theologians as to whether the soul and the spirit are the same thing, just different words for the same thing, or whether they are different aspects of our inner man.

Paul does speak in various places of the inner man, so does Peter in 1 Peter 3. Paul does in 2 Corinthians 3. He talks about the inner man and the outer man as if there's two parts of us, the body which is the outer man and the inner man which is the spiritual part of us. And some think that the spiritual part of us is sometimes called the soul, sometimes called the spirit, sometimes called the mind, sometimes called the heart. There's the interior part of us that's called by these different names.

Those who think that way, their view is called dichotomy. Dichotomy means two, there's two parts of us, the inward and the outward part. And the inward part on that view is the soul/spirit, both are kind of the same thing, different names for the same thing. On the other hand, there are people who hold the trichotomy view. I think I do, but it's not entirely clear or unambiguous in scripture. The trichotomy view obviously means three parts, body, soul, and spirit as individual parts. Now in favor of that view, we have one or two verses possibly, maybe a few more, but a main one that would be used to prove the trichotomy view would be 1 Thessalonians 5:23 where Paul says may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

This is the closest statement to speaking of three parts, spirit, soul, and body. Now a dichotomist who thinks there's only two parts, they would simply think that spirit and soul here should be hyphenated. There's the inner part, the spirit/soul, and then there's the body. So they still would see only two parts here, but the way Paul words it sounds pretty much like he sees three things there. Seems like it to me. Likewise, in Hebrews 4, a relative statement to the debate, it says for the word of God in verse 12, Hebrews 4:12, the word of God is living, powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit and of joints and marrow. It pierces between soul and spirit. That must be a difference between the soul and the spirit.

Although the dichotomist would say no, soul and spirit is on one side of the divide, joints and marrow on the other side. There's two parts. It divides between the soul and the spirit, which is one thing on one side of the divide, and the joints and the marrow, which is one thing on the other side. So it's vague. Those who believe in trichotomy would probably say the soul speaks of your mental activity, your emotions, your intellect, your will, and the spirit is something a little deeper that connects directly with God. The spirit of God communicates with our spirit, it says in Romans 8. But beyond that we have nothing very explicit. You're listening to the Narrow Path, our website's thenarrowpath.com. Thanks for joining us.