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 about the Bible or Christianity, we welcome you to call in. We'll talk about them. If you disagree with the host, we welcome you to call in about that and we'll talk about that too. The number to call is 844-484-5737. Once again, that's 844-484-5737.

The only announcement I want to make today is that in June, I will be doing a speaking itinerary in the Seattle area, the second week of June. Essentially, the whole second week of June is all you need to remember. But if you want to know the specific times and places that I'll be speaking during that week, go to our website, thenarrowpath.com. Look under the tab that says announcements. You'll find all the places, the times, and such and you can certainly join us at any of those gatherings. That's again a few weeks from now, but just giving you a heads up, second week of June, Seattle area. All right, let's just otherwise go to the phones and talk to Michael in Fort Washington, Maryland. Hi, Michael. Welcome.

Michael: Yes, how you doing, Steve? Nice talking to you again. I just had a question because I'm going through the process. I just went through reading Ezra and I was wondering if Ezra 6:21 was a fulfillment of Isaiah 14:1. The reason I say that is sometimes I engage with Hebrew Israelites and I asked a guy one time when we were back and forth and asked him what the gospel was. He said, Isaiah 14:1 and 2. I was trying to see if that was the fulfillment of Isaiah 14:1 and where does Isaiah 14:2 with the whole they will take them to be servants and those who held you captive will now be your servants type of thing.

Steve Gregg: All right, first of all, what is the verse in Ezra 6?

Michael: 6:21.

Steve Gregg: Okay, so that says, then the children of Israel who had returned from the captivity ate together with all who had separated themselves from the filth of the nations of the land in order to seek the Lord God of Israel. Okay, so you're wondering if that somehow fulfills Isaiah 14:1. For the Lord will have mercy on Jacob and will still choose Israel to settle them in their own land. The strangers will be joined with them and they shall cling to the house of Jacob. I would say both are roughly about the same thing. They're basically about the restoration of Israel from captivity and Ezra lived at a time when the captivity in Babylon was over and where many of the exiles had returned and reestablished the city of Jerusalem and the temple and all of that.

Ezra is describing those who had returned from captivity celebrating because they had finished the temple. They had rebuilt the temple that Nebuchadnezzar had burned down and they were celebrating that consecration of the temple. These were the people who had come back. Isaiah 14, among many other places in the Old Testament, does predict that God would bring them back. Now, you say you were talking to Black Hebrew Israelites?

Michael: Yes. They're really big on verse 2 in 14.

Steve Gregg: Which says, then people will take them and bring them to their place and the house of Israel will possess them for servants and maids. This is simply saying that instead of being the captives themselves, they will have been released and they will have servants and so forth that will come back with them from Babylon. That is to say there will be a role reversal, whereas they had been the captives in Babylon, now those who were not of Jewish race, some of them were servants of Israel now.

It's just saying that God's going to reverse the roles. I don't see how this would fit the narrative of Black Hebrew Israelite-ism because the Black Hebrew Israelites believe that the actual Hebrews are the African people, the black African people. Of course, there's a lot of things in the Bible about the Hebrews being enslaved particularly in Babylon and earlier than that in Egypt.

Sometimes the Black Hebrew Israelite movement will quote verses about slavery and say, well, black people were enslaved, so that must be us. They have a rather narrow way to look at the Bible not realizing that an incredibly large number of ethnic groups at different times have undergone captivity and slavery, Israel included them. To say the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob would experience captivity does not connect them with black slavery in the 17th century or something like that. I'm not really sure how they would try to prove a point. Are they making a specific point from anything in these verses that make you think that there's some kind of support for their position?

Michael: No, I just kind of want to because what they're saying in verse 2 as far as the house of Israel is going to possess them for servants, of course, they believe that that's white folks or white people, the Edomites, that's who they say is going to happen to.

Steve Gregg: Are they saying that the ones who will possess them are white people possessing black people? Is that what they're seeing in this verse?

Michael: No, they're saying that this is kind of the get-back for that since white people will eventually be slaves of the black people.

Steve Gregg: It would certainly be a regression back to a less moral time if one race was enslaved to another race. Throughout history up until the 19th century, slavery was practiced everywhere on the planet from the earliest nations to the more modern nations. Slavery was just an institution of the economic world. It wasn't always one race against another, although of course famously, the slaves that were brought here to this country were largely brought over from Africa, so they were black. Black people no doubt were enslaved in other countries too, but the point is there were slaves from many different countries.

In fact, the very word slave in the English language comes from the word Slav because the Slavic peoples, who were not black, were famously enslaved by people a lot. The Barbary pirates enslaved a lot of Englishmen and other white Europeans by the hundreds of thousands. In fact, Thomas Jefferson as president waged war against the Barbary pirates because they were kidnapping and enslaving so many American citizens and we're not talking about the black people being enslaved here. There's so much slavery in history that it's too opportunistic for one group to say, well, we've been through slavery, so that must be us.

No, that's it is true. Unfortunately, many of the black people have endured slavery at the hands of whites and by the way, at the hands of other blacks because of course the white slave traders bought them from black African people who had captured them and sold them as slaves. It wasn't strictly speaking black versus white, although in America, since most people were white and virtually all the slaves were black, it seemed like primarily a racial issue. It was like everywhere else, an economic issue.

But the point here is that Christianity is what caused slavery to be abolished in modern times. It was Christians in England and then in America that absolutely wouldn't tolerate slavery anymore on Christian principles. Now, if they're thinking that someday in the future, the African races who are the Hebrews they think are going to enslave the white people, then I guess they're thinking that Christianity's gains throughout history, which included a lot more civil rights and things than people ever had before Christianity came, including the abolition of slavery, that those gains are going to be lost and that somehow we're going to go back to enslaving people.

That still is happening in some countries, mostly in Africa and Muslim countries. Islam is not contrary to slavery. It's not against it. And there is still slavery practiced in some black countries. The only slavery that's practiced in like America is illegally slave trading girls, trafficking for sex. Most of those are not black, but some of them could be. Just the whole idea of oversimplifying history and saying, well, slavery, that's who has been enslaved more than the blacks? Well, the Jews have at least as much, if not more, and other groups have been too.

Whenever you've got a false doctrine that uses the Bible, they clearly are people who do not know or exploit people who do not know how to read the Bible or how to exegete passages. If you read through the Bible, you find out pretty quickly there's a narrative that goes all the way through and there's one people in particular, the Jews, that it is primarily about and there's not any evidence whatsoever that they were originally from Africa. They actually originated from Mesopotamia according to the Bible. That whole movement is quite vacuous in terms of having a biblical support. I've talked to them before. I'm just warning you it's not a sane way of looking at the Bible. All right, Michael. Thanks for your call, bro. Let's see Holly in Pine Grove, California. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Holly: Hi, Steve. So my husband and I were watching a recent YouTube video of you debating with another gentleman on the pretrib.

Steve Gregg: Yes, that would probably be the recent debate with Mondo Gonzales, perhaps.

Holly: Yes, with Mondo. I've been listening to you for a few months now and predominantly have gone to Calvary or non-denominational churches my entire walk with the Lord. The issue, and I'm not quite sure how to manage it other than we all have our own free will, is my husband was extremely bothered by your points and your position because he's like, so all of these Christians have been believing this way and now it might be something else and they're going to be very troubled. I go, well, why would they be troubled? I said it's not a salvation issue and it's just a way of interpreting the word of God and each person can look at the same passage and interpret it differently. But he was really bothered with it and it almost didn't cause a rift between us but I'm very open and he was just very concerned. I guess I'm looking for I don't really even know how to put that into a question.

Steve Gregg: Let me address that if I could. First of all, I don't want to say anything negative about your husband's expertise. I would just say it seems like his knowledge of church history and theological history may be like most people's, fairly provincial. In other words, you get saved, you hear your teachers teach you a certain thing, you're surrounded by thousands of people who say the same thing, you hear the same thing on the radio, you read a bunch of popular books on the same thing and they're all saying the same thing. You think this must be what Christians have always believed. This must be mainstream Christianity because it certainly is in my experience. Everyone around me believes it.

Therefore, especially for someone who doesn't want to think very hard and make up their own mind or criticize something and see if it's true, like Bereans are supposed to do, it's unnerving to think, wait a minute, could all these people be wrong? In fact, I've had people say, I can't believe they're wrong because how could that many people be wrong? Well, a whole lot of people have been wrong historically. Your husband may be aware of something called the Reformation. For a thousand years before the Reformation, Roman Catholic theology was mainstream. If you had been in Europe during that thousand-year period, the only theology you would have ever heard would be Roman Catholic.

Along comes Luther and he's saying, wait a minute, that's not taught in the Bible and he basically undermines many of the Catholic doctrines. I'm sure that it must have been traumatic for many people at that time who'd only known Catholicism and all their priests were Catholic and all the theologians they'd ever read were Catholic and all their friends were Catholic to suddenly be saying, well, no, you need to look at the Bible again because actually the Catholic traditions often are not in line with what the Bible teaches.

Now, I don't agree with Luther about everything, but I do agree with him that we need to correct our theology as soon as we find out that no matter how many people have believed or how popular it's been in certain circles, if it doesn't square with scripture, well, we need to find out what does. That's always been my mindset even when I was a dispensationalist myself in the Calvary Chapel movement and even as a teacher in that movement. But when I began to question the pre-trib rapture and that was a very long time ago, 50 years or more ago, then it wasn't too unnerving to me.

What was unnerving to me is that I had taught it so confidently and defended it so much. But if I began to see fault lines in it, it made me a little nervous. But I thought, well, if there's problems with what I teach, I'd better find them out before I teach it longer, before I spend more years teaching wrong. Teachers will have the stricter judgment the Bible says and I realize that if I'm teaching something wrong and God has allowed me to begin to suspect that it is wrong, then I become a dishonest teacher. I'm suppressing the truth because I don't want to change, I don't want to think about it, I don't want to be unpopular, and that's when I become a teacher who really deserves a stricter judgment.

If I'm honestly unaware of other views and I've read the Bible and been taught the Bible and I see it a certain way and I've never heard of anything else and my mind just doesn't know how to think about it differently and I teach it faithfully, I don't think God's going to hold that against me even as a teacher. But if I begin to see fault lines and cracks in the foundations of what I've been teaching and I just say, oh, I can't go there, I can't let myself go there. I've been too committed to this viewpoint too long. I can't look at it. Then I'm saying I don't care about the truth so much. I like the status quo because it's treating me pretty well. I've got a lot of popularity in this teaching and I just don't really think the truth is worth embracing if it's going to cause so much of a problem with me and other people.

If Luther had thought that way, of course, we'd all still be Catholics today. But the thing is, even among the Protestant movement, there's disagreement among them. And the dispensational Protestants, of course, dispensationalism is strictly within the Protestant movement, the dispensational view is a provincial view. It has come up late in history. It has never commanded the loyalty of most Christians. It has, at this point in time, commanded the loyalty of probably the most vocal Christians, the loudest Christians, the ones who write the most books and have the most broadcasts.

But it is not the case that the majority of Christians living today are necessarily dispensational, nor certainly throughout history. So when I began to realize that, I think, okay, well, maybe I shouldn't be so afraid or offended at someone questioning. Maybe I happened to have been converted into a minority view which isn't the right one. Imagine if you had been the first influence you had from the Bible was the Jehovah's Witnesses coming to your door. And they taught the Bible and they could quote a lot of Bible verses. They sounded persuasive. You start going to the Kingdom Hall and after a few years, maybe several years, the only people you know who believe in Jesus are the Jehovah's Witnesses because that's who you're with. You're surrounded by them and you're being indoctrinated by them.

And if someone begins to say, no, those doctrines are wrong, I can see that a JW would begin to feel threatened by that because they've imbibed it so thoroughly. Now, it's hard for any of us to think that the church we're in would be in any way analogous to Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses or any other group that dictates a narrow interpretation of things which has not been held by the church through most of history. But some teacher came up with it as a newly discovered truth.

The funny thing here is that John Nelson Darby came up with dispensationalism around 1830, which is the same time that Joseph Smith started Mormonism. Both of them felt they were rediscovering true apostolic teachings which had been lost since the time of the death of the apostles. They knew they weren't teaching historic Christianity. They knew that no one had taught it since the time of the apostles to their own time, but they believed nonetheless that they were rediscovering it.

Everyone at their time in the church knew that. They knew that Joseph Smith was introducing a novel idea of Mormonism and everyone knew that Darby was doing that too. In fact, most evangelicals of Darby's time thought his view was liberal. Nowadays, it's the essence of fundamentalism is Darbyism in the perception. But in 1830, when Darby came up with it, mainstream Christianity thought this is liberalism. This is not following the Bible.

And yet, because it grew and became popular. If you were first converted into a Mormon church or Jehovah's Witness church, Catholic church, dispensational church, whatever you were converted into is going to seem right. It says in the book of Proverbs, he that is first in his own cause seems right until his neighbor comes and examines him. We have to realize that there's no doctrine that we shouldn't re-examine from scripture. We are 2,000 years removed from the time of Christ and the apostles and a great number of human ideas and traditions have become available. The ones that seem right to us are usually the first ones we heard when we became Christians.

But it's a helpful thing if a neighbor comes and cross-examines. At least for me it is. I've been very happy. Now, to tell you the truth, I cross-examined myself and studied my own way out of dispensationalism before I even knew that it was a relatively modern theory. I just rejected it on biblical grounds before I knew very much about its history. But if a person reads a book or something that introduces them to a new idea, they don't have to believe the new idea. But they certainly should say if there's any scripture being quoted here that doesn't look like it's being twisted, then maybe I should consider it as a legitimate challenge to what I've been thinking.

I've never been afraid to challenge my thinking, which is why I've changed my view on many things. But at least now I've come to a place which dispensationalists I don't think can possibly be at, which is I don't have to worry about anyone challenging me about any point of scripture. Because what I have come to has gone through all those challenges. I was a dispensationalist. I was in some of these camps that I now critique and I know the case for them. I defended them. The reason I don't believe them now is because I studied it out and what I arrived at I didn't just pick up somebody else's viewpoint somewhere.

I piece by piece, I developed my own alternative understanding of it which happened fortunately fall into the majority viewpoint of Christianity over the history. I didn't know that at the time. But in doing so, I realized that that's going to cause some waves and I don't like to cause waves. I'm not a controversialist. And it's almost ironic that this is controversial because Darbyism, dispensationalism, when it first appeared was the controversial thing. It's the thing that introduced new ideas to Christianity that hadn't been there for 1,800 years.

And now it's spread and so has Mormonism, so has Jehovah's Witnessism. I'm not saying that dispensationalism is exactly on the same plane with those, but what it's like is if that's the view that you first heard and you've spent your whole spiritual life learning in that environment by people who reinforce it, well, there's a very good chance there's something out there that you haven't heard that maybe you should take a look at because much as we may be devoted to our teachers and we do come to love our teachers and our pastors.

I can love my pastor, Chuck Smith was my pastor. I got thoroughly indoctrinated with dispensationalism by Chuck Smith. And I love him. I've given up dispensationalism. It took a gradual a lot of study and gradual, but I still love Chuck Smith. You don't have to stop loving your pastor just because you say, okay, I think he's seen this wrong. And you don't have to stop loving me if you think I'm seeing things wrong. You should love all the brethren. Love everybody. There is a fear that some people have of change and we need to overcome that fear.

Other people become excited about change, maybe too excited. Right now, we're living at a time I gave up dispensationalism about 50-something years ago. But there's people giving up right now who are so excited about they swing way over into anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism and anti-stuff because that's on podcasts and stuff now. And I think, okay, come on, you're getting a little too enthusiastic about this.

The truth is dispensationalism gave Israel an exalted position that the Bible in the New Testament does not support. But once you stop thinking like a dispensationalist, it doesn't mean you have to hate it or hate the Jews or be against the Jews. I'm not. I'm not against Israel or the Jews. But some people just get excited by a new way to think about things. I'm just a little more sober than that. I just want to believe what the Bible says. I don't want to go wild with anything except my loyalty to Jesus. Anyway, I hope your husband can think clearly but he doesn't have to change his views if it makes him uncomfortable to hear my arguments. Then he doesn't have to listen to them. If he does listen to them, rather than reject them, he might want to consider them and look at the Bible and see if I'm right or not. But I don't care. I'm not trying to convince anybody.

Listen, I need to take a break. I appreciate your calls. We have another half hour coming so don't act like we're gone. We're not gone. We have to take a break. This is The Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and our website is thenarrowpath.com. Going to take about a 30-second break and I'll be right back.

Guest (Male): Everyone is welcome to call The Narrow Path and discuss areas of disagreement with the host. But if you do so, please state your disagreement succinctly at the beginning of your call and be prepared to present your scriptural arguments when asked by the host. Don't be disappointed if you don't have the last word or if your call is cut shorter than you prefer. Our desire is to get as many callers on the air during the short program, so please be considerate to others.

Steve Gregg: Welcome back to The Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we're live for another half hour. Our lines are full so I won't give out the phone number at the moment. But we are on Monday through Friday for an hour and with open phone lines, you can call in with questions about the Bible or to disagree. Our last caller we're going to move along and take some more callers.

But the last caller was addressing when we came to the break. Her husband was made uncomfortable by hearing challenges to the theological system which she and he had heard all their Christian lives, which is dispensationalism. And so we were talking about that. But I just want to say if she's still listening, there are a lot of lectures at my website that deal with that. And boy, we do use the scriptures. We go deep into the scriptures.

But there's also a podcast or a YouTube that you might find interesting where I address some points made by Jack Hibbs. Jack Hibbs is a Calvary Chapel pastor who posts a lot online and on the radio. And if you look up on YouTube "Steve Gregg Jack Hibbs," put those two names together, you'll see that I give a point-by-point response to a video that he posted that is on these subjects. And I think my response to the subject, my explanation of things, might be something your husband would benefit from hearing. So if you just look up on YouTube "Steve Gregg and Jack Hibbs," you'll find that video. All right, let's go to another caller. Right now, our next caller is Jim from Palmer, Texas. Jim, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Jim: Hi, Steve. How you doing? It's a pleasure to talk to you as always. My question that I'd like you to address is I wrote down this even before the program started, it had to do with dispensationalism and the claim that the Jews are going to rebuild the temple and resume the animal sacrifices. And the dispensationalists are okay with that and the high priest goes into the temple once a year and he has to be a high priest, has to be a descendant from Aaron, right? All the priests. And where are they going to get the DNA of Aaron? Do they really take the time to think this out?

Steve Gregg: Well, some of the questions are hard to answer. It is true, dispensationalists do anticipate that in the future, the Jews will build a temple, which will in fact be the third temple. The first temple was built by Solomon 3,000 years ago. Then a second temple was built after Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the temple in 586 BC. It was rebuilt in 520 BC and that was the second temple. That was destroyed in 70 AD and now there's been no temple for the past 2,000 years in Israel and I don't think there's going to be another one.

But some people think there will. There's this idea that the third temple will be built. And this is based on one kind of interpretation of a couple of passages in scripture. You've got Ezekiel 40 through 47 describes a temple. To suggest this is a third temple is to add to the text what's not there in my opinion. It's a reference to the second temple. But then you have Zechariah 14 mentions a temple and sacrifices and some think that's referring to a third temple or a millennial temple. Anyway, there's not much there, hardly anything there, and in my opinion, the verses they use are very poorly interpreted in terms of the context.

And I just don't see anything in the Bible that says there'll be a third temple. The only thing in the New Testament some people think they find is 2 Thessalonians 2 where the man of sin sets himself in the temple of God, Paul says. But Paul never uses the term temple of God to refer to the Jewish temple. He does twice, the only other two times he uses that expression temple of God is in 1 Corinthians 3:16 and 2 Corinthians 6:16. He says to the church, do you not know that you are the temple of God? So the only use of the term temple of God that we know of from Paul in his writings is to refer to the church.

So when he says the man of sin will sit in the temple of God, there's no evidence whatsoever to point us in the direction of seeing this as a Jewish temple. Almost certainly Paul is using that term the way he always uses it and that is to mean the church. So I don't think there's a case for a third temple. Now, do the Jews want to build a third temple? Some of them do. A very small number. My Messianic Jewish opponent in debate a few months ago, Michael Brown, has pointed out that it's a very small interest in Israel today. There's very few Jews who are interested in rebuilding the temple.

But there are some and of course the dispensationalists who think there will be a third temple, they would say, yeah, these guys will eventually prevail. Now, what happens when you build a temple? You offer animal sacrifices. There's no other use for the temple. You don't need a temple unless you're going to offer sacrifices. The place of the temple is where the altar is and the animals that are sacrificed by the priests. So you need animal sacrifices to be restored if there's going to be a new temple. You need Levites or Aaronic priests as you point out. You're wondering is there some kind of way to trace the DNA of somebody to know if they're descended from Aaron or not.

I have to say, I just don't know enough about DNA results to know. I've heard that there might be. I do know this that there are some Jewish names still very common in modern times like the name Cohen, which mean priest. Cohen is the Hebrew word for priest and it's generally assumed and probably correctly that somebody whose last name is Cohen is descended from a priestly line. Although it doesn't mean that it's been a pure priestly line. A last name can be passed down through a father even if there's a great deal of racial mixing among the mothers. So it's just really I don't know.

There may be in some way, maybe by testing the DNA of all the people named Cohen and see what the common elements are and they say, okay, that's the priestly element. Maybe they can find that. I do not know how they do DNA. It's way over my head. So you're challenging the dispensationalist saying, hey, you guys are going to need a son of Aaron to be the priest and the high priest and is there really a way to find out who is descended from Aaron?

Their answer probably would be yes, there is a way. I sitting here doing this radio program now, I have no idea what that way is, but there might be DNA ways to do that. The main thing is you mention that many churches are financially assisting those who want to build the temple. It's called the Temple Institute in Israel. It's a Jewish organization that wants to build the temple again. And many dispensational churches are sending big bucks donating them to this Temple Institute to build the temple. And you said, are these Christians just ignorant or what? I would have to say yes.

I mean, they must think if they're sending Christian dollars to build a Jewish temple, it's just as sensible as sending Christian dollars to build a Buddhist shrine or a Muslim place, mosque or something. Because frankly, Judaism and that's what the temple belongs to, Judaism is an anti-Christian religion. In fact, the only need for a temple would be if they reject Christ's sacrifice. Christ brought an end to all legitimate animal sacrifice. If the Jews restored those, it's because they reject Christ. In fact, it's an act of rejecting Him. It's not just that they happen to do it and they also happen to reject Christ.

Establishing animal sacrifices, and that's the only purpose for the temple, is simply an act of rejecting Christ. And I'm not sure why Christians would have any interest in sending money which is no doubt donated by Christians to the church and or to these organizations and therefore it's Christian money that should be used for spreading the Christian gospel. I don't know why they'd want to build buildings that support anti-Christian religions. But thinking clearly does not appear to be a commonplace behavior among Christians or non-Christians today. I have to say. Thank you for your question. Let's talk to Holly from Pine Grove, California. Welcome. Hi, Holly.

Holly: Hello?

Steve Gregg: Yeah. Hi.

Holly: Hi. Oh, actually you already answered my questions.

Steve Gregg: Okay, I'm sorry. You were still hanging on the line so I thought maybe you had another one.

Holly: Well, yes, if I have time, perfect.

Steve Gregg: Well, we don't have a lot of time. Go ahead. Sure.

Holly: Okay. Well, I just wanted to make a comment. I've gone to like I said earlier lots of different Calvary Chapels and non-denominational churches throughout the years. I'm almost 60. And one of the things that I was baptized as an infant, six months old. I was also baptized as a public confession of my faith in Christ on my own behalf. And then I also went many, many years later to a church of Christ in Seattle who said,

Steve Gregg: Oh, and they made you baptized in their church. Yeah, right.

Holly: Yes, they made me be baptized for the remission of my sins. So I guess just off the hand, one of my comments things is I should hopefully be pretty well covered.

Steve Gregg: One would hope so. Well, yeah, when you're baptized as an infant, many people when they are baptized as infants, they grow up and they find Christ and they realize that they didn't know anything about Jesus when they were an infant and therefore what happened to them wasn't their doing. Being baptized as an infant is your parents' choice, not yours, and therefore doesn't reflect anything about where you stand. It doesn't say that you have faith in Christ. It doesn't say that you have any commitment to God. It doesn't say that you have any say in the matter at all. And that's why of course the Bible never has any examples or teachings about people being baptized as infants. In the Bible, the people that we see being baptized as near as we can tell, they were all believers first.

So when you get older and you were baptized as an infant, sometimes people have come to realize, well, that baptism I had as an infant wasn't really biblical baptism at all. It doesn't have any connection or visible similarity to biblical baptism. So now that I'm a Christian, I should be baptized, which you did. And then you went to a Church of Christ. And I like Church of Christ people very much. I actually agree with much of their doctrine. Their views on baptism though are somewhat different than mine. First of all, they don't believe that you can go to heaven at all unless you're baptized. I believe we're supposed to all be baptized and every Christian who's obedient will do so if they can. Sometimes they can't. There are situations which make it impossible. Someone gets converted just before while they're sitting on the electric chair ready for them to turn on the juice. Well, that person's not going to get baptized before he dies, but I believe he could still repent and be saved just like the thief on the cross.

But the point here is Church of Christ also typically would say you don't only have to be baptized, you have to be baptized by them. You have to be baptized in their group. Now, this I totally disagree with. You're not baptized into one denomination, you're baptized into Christ himself. And it's true that the Church of Christ kind of sees themselves as they call themselves the Church of Christ, meaning it raises questions whether any of the other churches are churches of Christ, whether they're of Christ. But the Church of Christ is just one congregation in a town that might have many congregations with other labels on them.

The real question is whether you're baptized into Christ. And when you got saved, when you were baptized as a public confession of your faith as you said, that was your baptism. You were baptized if you were sincere. That's all that's required. The Bible doesn't say you have to locate a congregation of the Church of Christ and be baptized by them. Now, Church of Christ people are some of the finest people I've known and I've loved them and I also agree with much of their theology more than some of the other denominations. But on that one point, I understand their thinking and I can see how you might be confused about that. But yeah, you don't have to be baptized more than once as an adult or as a believer. So you say you feel you're pretty covered. I guess so. I guess you're more than covered. More than once.

Holly: Yes. The other thing was I did hear your recommendation for your video. I had actually started watching that with Jack Hibbs and funny enough, my husband and I actually do watch Jack Hibbs live on Sundays. So it's and again, I'm pulling away from the dispensationalism because I'm seeing that that's not what scripture says but yet my husband is still very much there and so it does, it shouldn't cause an issue between us because it's not salvational, but it's a little sticky.

Steve Gregg: Well, I will say this. Of course, it's not salvational. The Bible nowhere makes it a condition for salvation that you have a correct view of the end times or a correct view of Israel or the correct view of the rapture or the correct view of the millennium. Those things are totally unrelated to salvation. Salvation is through following Jesus. And by the way, Jesus didn't talk about those things very often. But what he did talk about was how to follow him, how to obey him. And that's what makes a person a Christian.

Now, among those who follow Christ, there's many different opinions they hold on eschatology and that's okay. We don't have to know what's right about that, although I love to find out. But the truth is, honestly, I've heard Jack Hibbs say even on that one video that I've referred to that if you don't have the right view of this, it might be a salvation issue for you. Which is, to my mind, I don't hear many dispensationalists say that, but he's considerably more vociferous in it than many because he does talk about how if you don't believe what he's saying about these things, you might not believe the Bible at all. In fact, he has said, especially after October 7th, he said if things don't go the way his eschatology says they would, then the Bible's not true. He actually said that I have it on tape. You can actually go to his website.

Yeah, he said if my understanding of Israel in this situation isn't if it doesn't work out, he said, then the Bible's not true and you have no basis for believing you're saved. He said that more than once from his pulpit. And I've heard it on tape. I have friends who go to his church too and they've told me he said it more often than I've heard it. So anyway, just so you know, I mean, Jack Hibbs, I assume he's a sincere man. He is definitely a dispensationalist like all Calvary Chapel pastors, but not all Calvary Chapel pastors and certainly not all dispensationalists would take the position that he takes about that. They'd be more like you. It's not a salvation issue. Hey, thanks for your call. Need to take another call here. Let's talk to Rayma in Detroit, Michigan. Rayma, welcome.

Rayma: Hi. Today's question is John 8:51 and the scripture reads if you obey me you will not die. So we know Christians die, so I just want to hear your view what does that verse say, what does that mean really? If you obey me you will not die when we know Christians die. Obviously it's not literally but just...

Steve Gregg: Sure, okay, so let me read it because your voice was a little muffled on the air, but I heard it so let me just for the sake of the listeners. You're referring to John 8:51 where Jesus said, "Most assuredly I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death." And you're saying, well, but Christians do die. And the response of the Jews when he said that was exactly like yours. They said, "Now we know you have a demon. Abraham is dead and the prophets, and you say if anyone keeps my word he shall never taste death. Are you greater than our father Abraham who's dead? And the prophets who are dead? Who do you make yourself out to be?"

What they're saying is what you're saying doesn't make sense at all. You're saying people who believe in you will not die, and yet people who are in good terms with God do die. Abraham did. The prophets did. And of course what they were understanding him to mean is physical death. Of course even Jesus himself died physical death. Even the apostles died physical death. In fact, it was a condition of following him that they had to be prepared to die if necessary. "Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it," is referring to losing your physical life.

Dying faithful to God is baked into the whole idea of following Christ. So clearly Jesus wasn't saying that he or his disciples or whoever listened to him would never physically die. That was a misunderstanding his hearers had, which sounds like maybe you're struggling with that same misunderstanding. What he's saying is they will have everlasting life and to say they'll never die, I believe he means that that particular everlasting life that is in them, spiritual life, will never have an end.

A little earlier in John 5:24, Jesus said, "Most assuredly I say to you, he who hears my word and believes in him who sent me has everlasting life and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death unto life." So he's saying if you believe in me and follow my father that I'm talking about, then you have, not will have, you have everlasting life. And in chapter 6 of John, verse 54 he says, "Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life," now, has it, present tense, "and I will raise him up at the last day." Now, of course when he raises our bodies up on the last day, that's not talking about spiritual life, but our physical resurrection. And in the physical resurrection, we will have bodies that won't die anymore.

But when he says whoever believes in my words will not die, he means that they receive a life at this present time, eternal life, which has no end. It even through physical death, it continues. Remember he said in John 11, "I am the resurrection of life. He that believes in me, though he were dead, yet will he live, and whoever lives and believes in me will never die." Same promise. So he's saying there's a part of you that comes to life when you become my follower and that life will never die. Your physical body will die but even that will be raised again someday and then that will never die too. At least that's his theology.

Now, I won't pretend that he made that all clear in the one statement in John chapter 8. Jesus often said things when he's dialoguing with his enemies that puzzled them and he didn't make too much of an effort to make it clear because he didn't cast his pearls before swine and these were Jews who were rejecting him and criticizing him and so forth. And so he often said things enigmatically in a way that puzzled them and he almost just was okay with it. They'll be puzzled, that's what they deserve. But we aren't because we have the whole of his teaching. So he clearly is teaching about our spiritual rebirth, that life we receive then will never end, never die. So that's how I understand that. Joshua in Houston, Texas, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Joshua: Yes, I was wondering if you can comment on street evangelism and street preaching and maybe give us some counsel on how to do it.

Steve Gregg: Well, I'll tell you what. In the Jesus Revolution, the Jesus Movement back in the 70s, a lot of people did a lot of street preaching. You'll still see it since then, but it's not as common. But a lot of the young Jesus people, the hippies who got saved, wanted to tell all their friends and everyone else about Jesus and they'd go out to the beach. I think the Calvary Chapel grew initially partly because Lonnie Frisbee, who was a hippie preacher, went out on the beaches and just preached on the beaches, open air, or on the pier, I remember in Newport Beach and so forth. And I had friends who went out and preached on streets.

In that time, street preaching just struck me as the greatest thing. I was not good at it. I mean, I wanted to evangelize. I did evangelize one-on-one but I felt awkward getting up on a street corner and beginning to shout at people who didn't show any interest. But I thought, well, this is how Jesus did it. This is how we're supposed to do it. And I had a friend who ran a street preaching ministry down in the deep South and I once got a letter on his letterhead, fundraiser or whatever, and his letterhead had the words on it, "Jesus was a street preacher."

I remember thinking at the time, was he? Was Jesus a street preacher? It does say about him, Isaiah 42, which is quoted in Matthew 12, "He shall not cry out, he will not raise up his voice in the streets. A bruised reed he shall not break and a smoking flax he will not quench." And it's interesting that he won't raise up his voice in the streets. And I thought, well, Jesus preached to crowds. But then I realized he didn't just go out in the street and start preaching to uninterested people. He was followed by people who wanted to hear what he had to say. His miracles, he had a reputation for that, he also had a reputation some people thought he was the Messiah and so they thought well we're going to find out. Let's go hear.

Wherever Jesus went, there were crowds of people waiting to hear what he had to say and he'd teach them. Actually the Bible doesn't say he preached them, he taught them. But he did teach in the open air as well as in synagogues and wherever else he was. But the crowds he drew were too big to be in buildings most of the time and they were usually out on the hillsides or maybe even out in the temple. He taught in the temple also. There were courts, rooms for that or open corridors for that. So Jesus did preach in the open air and teach in the open air, but it wasn't like most of those street preachers I was acquainted with when I was young because people weren't asking them what they had to say. People weren't curious standing on the street corner in San Francisco and shouting out to people who go by, in many cases, was simply annoying them. They weren't curious, they weren't interested, and the words were probably lost on them and in some cases might have alienated them, made them think Christians are kind of rude people.

Now, the people who were preaching, they knew they were being ignored by the majority of the people, but they felt that kind of felt good. I mean, kind of well Jesus said, if they reject you, that's you've got a crown for that, great is your reward in heaven. But being persecuted for obeying Jesus is one thing. For being persecuted because you're just being kind of obnoxious and insensitive isn't the same thing. And so I'm not against public speaking preaching.

But I would say if we wanted to have something like open air preaching that was that resembled what Jesus did or even the apostles, because we find the same thing among them, it's important to probably find a crowd or make a crowd interested some way. Jesus would do miracles, so would the apostles. Crowds would gather to see what had happened because it was a big stir and while they were there, they'd say, "Hey, this is what this is about," and the gospel would be preached. In other words, they were preaching to people who were curious, people who wanted to know, "What's going on here?"

If we can find ways to make people curious or gather a crowd or get them interested and then preach to them, that'd be very parallel to what Jesus and the apostles did. Now, I'm not saying you can never go somewhere where there's a crowd and just kind of start shouting. I can't say that won't always work, won't ever work. I'm just saying that's not the parallel to the way open-air preaching was done by Jesus and the apostles. He generally got their attention and their interest first and then he let them have it. There may be other ways to do it that are good, but that's what I observe. You're listening to The Narrow Path. Our website's thenarrowpath.com. Thanks for joining us.