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. Because we're live, you can call in during the program and ask questions about the Bible or the Christian faith, or state opinions that are contrary to those of the host. If you have one, you'll have to be prepared to give some kind of reasons for that, but that's fine. That's a very thought-provoking thing to have on the air and I'd love to have you call if you take an alternative viewpoint to that which the host has advocated.

Anyway, the number to call is 844-484-5737. It looks like the lines have all just filled up just as I was giving out the number. So don't call at the moment, but in a few minutes, if you call, one of these lines will be opening up, maybe more, and you can get through at 844-484-5737.

I want to remind you—I don't suppose it's too early to do so—that if you live especially in the Seattle area, I'm going to be speaking at several places in the Seattle area over a period of about a week from Sunday, June 7th to Sunday the 14th. So a full week, a couple of Sundays on either end. If you live in the Seattle area and are interested in where those places are going to be, there are quite a few different places I'll be speaking, including once in Vancouver Island, which of course is not in Seattle or even America, but Vancouver Island. There's going to be one event that's going to be on Friday the 12th. Anyway, there are multiple options for those living up in that area. Check it out at our website, thenarrowpath.com. You'll see it under the announcements link where all those things are.

All right, we're going to go to the phones now and talk to some of these callers, hopefully all of them. Mike in Dallas, Texas, is first. Mike, welcome to The Narrow Path. You're on the air.

Mike: Hey, Steve. Question regarding what these converts need to know for baptism. In our church, for example, when a person expresses a desire to be baptized because they've repented and believed, typically it's like a three-to-nine-month process of counseling them. They want them to know a bunch of church denominational stuff, but some of it's like Trinity, sanctification, sins, things of that nature. I'm just having trouble with that going back and forth with a friend of mine. I read in Matthew what Christ said, and I don't know that there's this process and how much knowledge is needed to know about the message of Christ and being a disciple of Him prior to water baptism.

Steve Gregg: Well, in the Bible, there are not baptismal or pre-baptismal classes before they baptize. In fact, they baptized their converts on the same day that that person repented and became a believer. They considered that repentance and faith and baptism and receiving the Holy Spirit were all parts of the conversion experience. Therefore, as near as we can tell, these things were done on the same day as the person decides they're going to follow Christ. As soon as they become a Christian, they would be baptized.

Now, I believe that's an important thing to do. I will say this: I think probably some churches have had these pre-baptismal classes for the simple reason that a lot of times the gospel isn't preached very well and people respond and say, "I want to be a Christian, I want to be baptized," who in many cases don't really know what the gospel is. They don't really know what Christianity means or what Christ calls them to be committed to.

So, sometimes because of the eagerness to get a convert baptized—and I think it's usually the opposite, I think usually they delay it too long—there may be a church that would baptize them right away and afterwards realize that this person really didn't have very much understanding of what they were doing and maybe they weren't even surrendering to Christ in the way that they thought they were. That is, maybe they didn't even know what the gospel was calling them to do.

There's enough confusion about that in the modern church. Some people think if I just decide I'm going to believe that Jesus is the Son of God, that He died and rose again, I guess I believe those things, so I'm a Christian now. Well, the devil believes those things and he's not a Christian. Obviously, the early church knew that when you put your trust in Christ as Messiah, as King, as Lord, this was like a total surrender of your whole life to Jesus forever. It's a radical step.

People knew that because the gospel wasn't preached any other way in biblical times. They preached the full commitment. Jesus Himself said that you shouldn't really become a disciple unless you first sit down and count the cost and see. So, in other words, because the gospel was preached properly by the apostles, people who responded to it almost always were the kind of people who were making the kind of commitment that Jesus requires and which justifies being baptized into the body of Christ.

Of course, in those days too, there was a price to be paid for it because persecution was not uncommon for Christians and therefore people weren't just going to jump in because their friends were doing it or something like that, or because they had heard a sermon and were moved emotionally and decided, "I probably should go forward." I mean, that happens all the time now where there's no cost really to some people to be saved, there's no persecution to speak of.

And therefore, in biblical times, if someone said, "I want to follow Christ," generally speaking, they knew what they were being asked to do and they knew this could cost them something. They were serious and they were probably real converts, and so baptizing them made perfectly good sense.

In our day, there are people who say they want to be Christians but the gospel has been watered down so much in many cases that people don't even know that you have to have Christ as your King and Lord. In fact, there are whole Christian movements, evangelical, hyper-dispensational movements in this country that teach that that isn't the case. They teach you just have to accept Jesus into your heart, something the Bible never actually mentions. That phrase "accept Jesus in your heart" is simply not there or even the concept, as near as I can tell.

But they would say you just have to accept Jesus as your personal savior, which is another phrase not found in the Bible. The Bible never talks about accepting Jesus as your personal savior. Those are terms that modern American evangelicalism has apparently come up with and I can hardly imagine that everyone who hears this message understands what in the world they're being asked to do.

Many times they're told you need to accept Jesus as your personal savior or else you're going to go to hell, or maybe you'll miss the rapture and be in the tribulation period and have to die for Jesus or go to hell. I mean, people are manipulated emotionally with fear and other things like that and very seldom told what Jesus really is calling you to do.

Because of that, there are a lot of people that might come forward and say, "I want to be baptized," but they don't even know what they're doing. Sure, the pastor can lead them in a sinner's prayer, "repeat after me" kind of a thing, but we don't know if that person has repented. We don't know if that person believes. We're not even sure that they know they're supposed to because of the poor preaching often of the gospel.

Now, if somebody has had the gospel preached to them properly and you're pretty sure that people wouldn't respond to this message if they didn't know what they're doing, I believe you should baptize them instantly. If they haven't heard the gospel properly, they may not be really converted though they think they are. And baptizing them before their actual conversion would not be sensible or profitable.

So it may be that this is what churches do because people come forward at an altar call or something. It's possible these churches that have that policy have found out that they ended up baptizing people who didn't really know what the gospel was, didn't really know Jesus, and they might as well have baptized an infant because they didn't know what they're doing.

And so it's possible that their rationale is, "Okay, this person thinks they want to be a Christian, but before we baptize them, we better make sure they know what it means to be a Christian." Now, if this means for them to take them through a whole theology course so they can understand the Trinity and justification by faith alone and sanctification and these kinds of things before they baptize them, I'd say no. I'd say that's not really biblical. People don't have to know those things or understand those things to become a Christian. At least no one in the Bible had to to become a Christian. None of those things were really preached when Peter preached on Pentecost or when Paul preached in the synagogues. The record we have of them preaching does not include any of those things. They just proclaimed that Jesus was Lord and that He commands all men everywhere to repent and be His followers. So okay, people who did that, they baptized them.

So I'm kind of caught between two things. I always want to do things the way the primitive church did if we can—the apostolic church, I mean. But they also preached differently than sometimes people do today and it made sense when someone responded to their preaching to baptize them because they knew what they're getting into. Today, it's not always evident. I believe there are many people listening to me right now who have been in church for many years and count themselves Christians, probably got baptized, and yet they don't really know the relationship between salvation and lordship and good works and following Christ and all that stuff. Those are the basic things of the gospel of the Kingdom of God that the Bible gives us.

And so I would say that if a person came forward and says, "I want to be baptized, I want to receive Christ," or whatever words they want to use, I would want to make sure they know what they're doing before baptizing them. That doesn't mean I wouldn't baptize them the same day, but if in talking to them I wasn't really sure that they knew what they're talking about or what they're thinking of, I would probably hold off until I could make sure. I'm not saying there should be whole classes on it. I might expect them to sit for an hour or so while you explain what it means to be a Christian. But to go weeks, have a 12-week course before you get baptized, I think this is unbiblical. I can see why people might want to do it because of the washout rate of so many people who've gotten baptized prematurely, but I just don't think that's biblical. I think the more you delay baptism to somebody who really is converted, the more you're departing from biblical Christianity. So those are my thoughts. Sounds like your thoughts are maybe not very different.

Mike: Yeah, on your comment of "I would want to make sure," what would that look like? Because I've been counseling with a young person for six months and I believe they're saved and the church is very hesitant. So what, in your opinion, would make sure look like?

Steve Gregg: Well, make sure—first of all, I should say this: nobody can be absolutely sure that another person is saved since you don't know to what degree they're putting on an act or to what degree they're thinking wrongly about what you're talking about. You're talking about one thing and they're hearing a different thing, thinking a different thing about it. You can't be 100% sure, but you can certainly be pretty close to sure when you see that somebody is broken over their sin. You can see that somebody has the light gone on in their head that Jesus is the King, that He's the Lord, He's risen from the dead—they believe that. And they show an eagerness to follow Him.

Now, you don't have to wait six months to see if they've followed Him, but you can sometimes tell—you should be able to tell—by talking to someone that they're just saying, "What does God want me to do? I want to do it," kind of a thing. I mean, when someone comes forward or whatever is done, you lead them to the Lord somewhere and they want to get saved, I would just say make sure you find out if they have the marks of somebody who really wants to get saved.

And again, while you can't read their heart—only God can do that—and you might even mistakenly decide that they really are sincere and find out they weren't after you've baptized them, but I would just say you take their word for it as soon as you know or have reason to believe that they fully understand what they're getting into. Now, when I say fully understand, I'm not sure anyone fully understands what they're getting into. I think once you start following Christ, you start realizing what the cost is. But you have to before you start have some sense of what the cost may be and realize that it could be far greater or more costly than I can imagine.

The idea here is it's like when people get married. I consider it to be very, very similar. When people get married, they vow that they will be loyal to each other for the rest of their lives, period. And then sometimes they modify it by saying in sickness and in health, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, until death us do part. Those words are good words to have in there just because it reminds us that when you're committing yourself for life, you realize that life is going to have its ups and downs.

And at the times that things are down, it may be that you and your spouse are not on the best of terms, you might be on opposite sides of a controversy or of an opinion or of a choice. And you just know when you're getting married, "I'm going to stay in it no matter what difficulties may arise between me and my partner. I'm just going to stay in it, we're going to work it out because I'm committed." Something that a lot of people don't understand, being committed. I'm committed to my wife, she's committed to me for life. And it may be hard or not hard; our marriage has fortunately been pretty easy. But I've been in situations that were hard before and kept my word because I was determined to. And that's what a person has to be doing when they come to Christ: "I'm committing myself to Christ for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer." Does God make me rich or poor? That's up to Him. I'm in. What if He lets me be sick? Well, I'm in. I'm in, no matter what it's all going to be. I'm in no matter what. That's the commitment.

Mike: So Steve, would fruits like this person was deep in fornication and the occult and they've broken off and they're celibate and they've shown fruits of following Christ?

Steve Gregg: Yes, I would say that's good enough fruit of repentance. I don't think that they should be denied baptism. Your church would be very offended, I assume, if you baptized them. I know in some churches they insist that they must do it. The Bible doesn't say that. The Bible doesn't say that anyone in particular has to be doing the baptizing. Philip, who baptized the Ethiopian eunuch, wasn't an apostle or a pastor or anything like that. And the man who baptized Saul of Tarsus—Paul—Ananias, we're not told that he held any church office. He was just a guy, just a disciple like you. So there's nothing in the Bible that says you can't do it, although if that's going to put you on the outs with your church, that could cause a crisis. But on the other hand, I mean, you've got to do what you believe is right. And sometimes that means the church you go to isn't going to be on your side about it.

Mike: Yeah, I appreciate that. I really think about a lot what Peter said to the Pharisees: "Should we obey you men or God?" And that's been going in my head.

Steve Gregg: Yeah, and Paul said in Galatians 1:10, "If I were pleasing men, I wouldn't be the servant of Christ." That's a hard one. That's a hard one. I appreciate your wisdom and help, Mike. God bless you. Good talking to you.

Allen in Old Lyme, Connecticut. Welcome to The Narrow Path.

Allen: Thank you for the welcome and I always appreciate your expounding on our questions. Here's my premise and my question. I'm a Pentecostal by formation and it says in the Old Covenant, on these days don't do any customary work. Now, I had some things to do yesterday, but I did go to church and I enjoyed Pentecost.

Steve Gregg: You mean on Sunday?

Allen: Yes. Yesterday was Monday, but yeah. My bad, sorry. So is there any instructions for a holiday like Pentecost that no customary work or any other observance in the New Covenant?

Steve Gregg: In the New Covenant, no. Now, the more ancient church traditions—I'm talking about the Roman Catholic, the Eastern Orthodox, and even some of the more historic early reform churches and so forth—they do keep a festal calendar. I mean, they do something different at Pentecost and they do something different at Easter and they do something different at these different days, Christmas and so forth or Advent.

Now, the Bible doesn't say that that's required and we don't have any evidence in the Book of Acts that any Christian or, frankly, in the New Testament anyway, that any Christian celebrated these things in the way that has come to be traditional in some of the churches. I myself don't—I'm not even familiar with the festal calendar because I've never been a celebrant of it. To my mind, following Jesus means following Jesus and I never heard of Him recommending or asking us to do those things.

And that includes Sabbath. Jesus didn't say that we have to keep the Sabbath either. That was part of the Old Covenant and Jesus made a New Covenant and the Bible says where there's a New Covenant, the old one's obsolete. So there's nothing in the New Testament that suggests that keeping Sabbath is important. Although it's a very major thing in the Old Covenant—it's mentioned so many ways and in so many contexts in the prophets and in the law and so forth in the Old Testament—that it's amazing that it doesn't show up at all in the new. I mean, it's not like the Sabbath isn't mentioned; it's just not mentioned as any kind of a duty. It's mentioned as something the Pharisees did and that they criticized Jesus for not doing much Sabbath keeping.

We just don't read of the New Testament believers observing Sabbath unless, of course, they were evangelizing in the synagogue on Sabbath. We don't even know if they kept Sabbath in that sense. Keeping Sabbath, as you mentioned, means not doing any work. Yet Paul did all the same work on the Sabbath, so did Jesus do the same kind of work He did on the other days. That is to say, there was no difference between the Sabbath and any other day for them. And Paul said that was true of the church in general, at least some people in the church in Rome. In Romans 14:5, Paul said one man—meaning one Christian in the church—esteems one day above another. Another man—meaning another person in the church—esteems every day alike. And then he gave his judgment. He said let everyone be fully persuaded in his own mind. In other words, just do what your conscience tells you to do. If you want to keep a day holy, do it. If you don't want to, if you want to keep every day holy, then that's seemingly better, I would think.

And I'm one of those second type. I like to keep every day alike. I don't think there's any day that I'm allowed to demote the centrality of my service and worship of God below the level of any other day. I think 100% commitment, 100% obedience, 100% love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength—that's like 24/7. That's necessary. There's no vacations from that. You don't get a week in between doing it.

So I could not treat Saturday or Sunday more holy than I treat Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday because, frankly, those days I'm 100% God's and there's no more I can do than that on a Saturday or Sunday. Now, some people want to go to church on one day a week and Sabbatarians believe you should do it on Saturday because that's what the Sabbath was and is. But some people think it was changed to Sunday. Well, the Bible didn't change it to Sunday, but that doesn't matter. More Christians go to church on Sunday than any other day and that's all right because you can go to church any day of the week you want to. There's nothing in the Bible that says you can't go to church on this day or that day or can't meet with other Christians on this day or that way.

The Sabbath—the main thing about the Sabbath—is they weren't allowed to do any work on it. But again, that is not a New Testament commandment; that's an Old Testament commandment. So that's where I stand now. When it comes to Pentecost and these other festivals in the Old Covenant, they had to treat some of these days like Sabbaths. Passover was a whole week long and so was the Feast of Tabernacles and you had to treat the first and the last days of that week as if they were Sabbaths, even if they didn't fall on a Saturday. So sometimes you'd have two Sabbaths in a week; you'd have the Saturday Sabbath and then maybe two, three days later Passover would begin, so you have to treat that day as a Sabbath too. So there were extra days.

But the Bible doesn't actually talk about us observing those in the New Testament because we're not Jews and we don't go to the temple. All those special days—at least the special holidays—you go to the temple, you offer animal sacrifices and stuff. We just don't do that anymore. So we don't have that same custom, nor are we necessarily supposed to, at least that's how I understand it.

Allen: Thanks for that clarification. Well done. Good day.

Steve Gregg: Okay, Allen. God bless you. Thanks for your call. Tom from Gainesville, Florida. Welcome to The Narrow Path.

Tom: Thank you. I think the Bible should be more positive about loving and kind gay couples.

Steve Gregg: Well, if the Bible believed in gay couples, I suppose it would be more so. If we think that the Bible should be more positive toward gay unions, I guess we could also say—and I don't mean this to insult gays—but I mean every kind of sexual sin is forbidden in scripture and is treated under the heading of fornication. Now, I don't know how positive we can be about fornication because the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 6, verse 9 or thereabouts, that fornicators will not inherit the kingdom of God. And Paul said the same thing in Galatians 5, verses 19 through 21, mentions fornicators as not inheriting the kingdom of God.

So I don't know how positive you can be about activities that will debar you from the kingdom of God, especially since the kingdom of God is the whole thing that Jesus came about. The whole thing is that Jesus called us to be born again and enter into this kingdom that He started and be a part of it, but you can't if you're going to be a fornicator.

So what's fornication? In the Bible, fornication is any kind of sexual activity outside of marriage as God made it. And Jesus said God made it male and female. A man leaves his father and mother, cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh. That's what Jesus said marriage is. So anything else—a dog and a man, a dolphin and a woman (by the way, there have been people who have sued to get marriage licenses for those kind of unions), a man and his daughter, a woman and three guys, two guys, two women—those are not models of marriage in the Bible. Those are just models of people having sex with people they're attracted to without the sanction of God.

Now, God's not a prude, but He realizes that sex is a very powerful thing. I mean, if someone thinks it isn't, just ask any gay couple or straight couple who are living together just to give it up. Now, the previous caller mentioned he's counseling someone who was a great fornicator, he became a Christian, he's been living celibate. That's an evidence that that person is a follower of Christ. And being a follower of Christ is what's necessary. You give up fornication and any other known sin.

So if a couple are having sex and they're not in a biblical, God-ordained marriage, they're simply fornicators. And I don't mean that as an insult; that's just the definition of the word. So I don't know why the Bible would be more positive toward it. It's not very positive toward adultery either, but a lot of people want to do that. Hey, interesting to hear your opinion. Thanks for calling. You're listening to The Narrow Path. We have another half hour, so don't go away. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. I'll be right back.

Welcome back to The Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we're live for another half hour taking your calls. Unlike the first half hour, we have a few lines open. We started the program a half hour ago with all our lines full. Right now, there's some lines open. If you'd like to call, you have a question about the Bible or the Christian faith you'd like to bring up, like to disagree with the host about anything, you're always welcome to do that here. We won't hold that against you; we'd love to talk to you. The number is 844-484-5737. That's 844-484-5737.

Our next caller is Bert from San Jose, California. Hi, Bert. Welcome to The Narrow Path.

Bert: Hi, Steve. I have a question, wanted to get your take on tithing. I belong to a mega-church; they have lots of buildings, you could tell they have a lot of financial assets. And I was told by some of the pastors here and some other mega-churches: when you tithe, you give to the church first. But I'd rather give to like a smaller charitable organization that needs the money and is involved in discipleship and outreach in that sense. So they claim that you should give that for charity over and over and above the tithe. I just wanted to get your opinion on that.

Steve Gregg: Do they have any scripture that they use for that?

Bert: I think they've cited some, but it doesn't necessarily apply. Like they used Malachi, but nothing specific to that end.

Steve Gregg: I understand. Well, yeah, I've heard that teaching: you tithe to your local church, meaning you give 10% of your income to the local church, and then you're free to give any amount you want to other charities, but you have to give your first 10% to the local church. There's nothing in the Bible to support that idea.

In fact, tithing is not commanded in the New Testament at all. And no wonder, because we don't have the temple anymore. The temple was a big, expensive building that had to be maintained and they had a big staff; they were called the Levites. There were tens of thousands of Levites and they were all full-time set apart for God. They weren't all working at the same time; they'd get in each other's way too much. But in shifts they would come and work at the temple and then they'd have to survive between times, so they'd be supported in their off-months too.

But the thing is, there's a large number of people to support, like I said, tens of thousands, and therefore the rest of the nation had to bring a tenth of their crops that they harvested to the temple to support the Levites. Now, the Levites would take that 10% and they'd take 10% of that and give it to the priests, which was a smaller group of Levites. So the whole tithing thing was to support the temple and its staff.

Now, I don't know any church today that has thousands of ministers full-time, and I'm not sure what they do if they do have them. If they're supporting a thousand missionaries full-time, fully supported—I say, amen! That's great! I'd love to give them 10%. Many churches are not supporting that many missionaries, and many of them have only a few pastors on staff and they're getting a big paycheck, which I don't begrudge them being supported because ministry should be supported, but I don't think God ever called ministers to be contract laborers working for a salary. Jesus didn't, the apostles didn't. I mean, they didn't work for organizations; they worked for God and God provided for them. And I know that works because that's how I live too and have always for 50-something years.

But the whole idea here is that we don't have a parallel situation, so no wonder the New Testament doesn't set up a parallel obligation. The obligation to give 10% was an Old Testament one. Malachi is in the Old Testament and the people in Malachi's day, which was 400 years before Christ, were neglecting to bring their tithes as they were supposed to do. The law required them to bring their tithes to support the Levites and so God said, "Hey, you're robbing God here. Bring your tithes into the storehouse that there may be food in all My house," He said, "and see if I don't," He says, "test Me, see if I don't open the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing more than you can even receive."

That's a famous passage; pastors like to quote it. If they're teaching that you should tithe, they use that, though it doesn't say anything about Christians, it doesn't say anything about the church. It doesn't say anything relevant to New Testament Christians at all. And when you come to the New Testament, you simply don't find any command to tithe anywhere.

Now, some people like to use Matthew 23:23 where Jesus rebuked the scribes and Pharisees as hypocrites because they paid their tithes of mint and anise and cumin but they neglected the weightier matters of the law, which Jesus said were justice and mercy and faithfulness. And He said you should have done both. That is, you should have paid your tithes and you should have been following justice and mercy and faithfulness too, shouldn't neglect either of them. And some say, "See, Jesus said we should pay our tithes." No, He said the Pharisees who did pay their tithes were doing what was required of them and they should have done it and they did. They just didn't do the thing they were supposed to do.

Now, the Pharisees were not Christians. They weren't part of the church, they weren't followers of Jesus, they were part of Judaism. And therefore to say that they were required to pay their tithes is a precisely true statement. Jesus never said that His disciples were supposed to pay any tithes, especially after Pentecost when they were no longer part of the temple system. Instead, people committed all they had to the Lord. Jesus said in Luke 14, "If you don't forsake all that you have, you can't be My disciple." Which doesn't mean you have to sell everything and give it all to the church; it just means that everything you have is the Lord's and you now steward or manage His goods in the way you believe that He wants them to be managed and in a way that you won't be too embarrassed when He stands before you at the end of the world and says, "What did you do with My money?" You know, that's between you and God how you do that. You can give 10% or more or less if that's what you think God wants you to do. But there's nothing too.

Some people who teach what they call the doctrine of storehouse tithing because Malachi said bring all the tithes into the storehouse, I've heard them preach it this way: they say, "You know the storehouse is where you go to get your food and to be fed. And your local church is where you go to get fed. Therefore, the church, the local church you attend is the storehouse where you have to give your tithes." No, that starts out wrong and ends up further wrong. It's not true that the storehouse is where you go to get your food. The storehouses were in the temple where the tithes were given to the Levites. They were stored for a year because they wouldn't get them till the next harvest season. They had big storehouses in the temple and once a year at harvest time, the grain would be brought in and put in the storehouses and then the Levites would live off of that for the next year until the next season of harvest.

So the storehouse was not where the Israelite went to get his food; it's where the Israelite gave to the temple was stored for the Levites. So to say no, if I'm supposed to bring my tithe into the storehouse, the storehouse is where I'm going to get food—no, that's not. It wasn't where the Jew went to get fed. He ate at home. This was—the storehouses were not an analog to any local congregation anywhere. In fact, we don't have in the Bible at all, either the Old or the New Testament, the analog to a modern congregation.

What we have now is one temple made up of living stones. Every Christian in the world is part of this temple. The needs of Christians is what Christian money should be used for. And that's why when money was given to the apostles, as we read in Acts chapter 6—people would bring their money and also Acts chapter 4 mentions this too—they'd sell stuff, they'd bring their money to the apostles and the apostles would distribute it to the poor. Why? Because the poor were the body of Christ, the temple of God. Yeah, the money was given to the temple, but it's a spiritual temple made up of people. Peter said in 1 Peter chapter 2 and verse 5, "We're living stones being built up into a spiritual house." That's where the money goes: to people.

Now, you're going to a big mega-church, you said. And apparently a lot of their money goes other places besides to people. It goes to maintaining a building, maybe paying a mortgage on a building, or maybe it's paid off but they—money was spent on a building. Money is spent on salaries for professional leaders and secretaries and stuff like that. And who knows where else the money goes. But I'm sure some of it goes to people. Most churches that I've been part of have what they call a benevolence fund. So if somebody's really poor, the deacons or someone can give them something out of the benevolence fund. But usually that's a very small portion of the church's budget.

And likewise, helping missionaries overseas is usually a pretty small portion of a church's budget. There are churches that are exceptions, but it's commonplace for churches to give a very small portion of their budget to missionaries. Why? Because there's so many salaries and buildings and parking lots to maintain and things like that. And I'm not saying they shouldn't maintain these things, but that's not what the early church used money for. They didn't have buildings. They had people and the needs of people were the needs of the church. So I mean, there's no analog in the modern local church to the early church in this respect. All the money that was given by the disciples to be distributed was distributed to people, Christian people who were poor.

And so that's really not what churches do with their money now. Now, so in other words, we don't have in the Old Testament or the New any command to pay tithes and certainly no command to give to a particular organization to maintain their building or salaries. It is true that the Bible says that those who are taught—and Paul says this of course in 1 Timothy 6 and there's other places where this comes up—that those who are taught should share with those who teach. That kind of thing is stated maybe three or four, maybe five times in the New Testament. That doesn't mean they should be given a salary, but it means that those who are receiving spiritual benefit from somebody should probably at least make sure that that person doesn't starve to death since their survival has something to do with their being able to continue to contribute spiritual benefit.

So, you know, giving a church pastor a salary—it's not a sin, but it's just not what they did in those days. They shared according to need. The elders who ruled well were esteemed worthy of double honor in this respect. But the point was that the money is the Lord's money. And the Lord is concerned about the poor and He's concerned about the spiritual outreach of the church.

So if I'm going to steward the money that God gave me, I'm going to make sure that as much as possible goes to the spreading of the gospel and the support of missionaries and such people as spread the gospel, and also to the poor. And when Jesus comes and says, "What did you do with My money?" I'm going to not be ashamed at all to say, "I used it to help spread the gospel and to help the poor." And that's where He'll say, "Well done, good and faithful servant," because that's what He told us to do.

Now, if when Jesus comes back we say, "Well, I gave 10% to this big building and to an organization that gave most of it to salaries of professionals who ministered but not for free, they ministered for a paycheck, and a lot of poor people were around us we didn't help, a lot of missionaries were out there we didn't support"—I'm not going to want to face Jesus with that kind of an accounting of my stewardship.

So everyone's just got to—it's simply between one person and God, each person and God. You don't have to answer to the church as an organization for what you do with the money God gives you. You don't have to answer to me or any other person. You have to answer to God for it. What we need to remember is that everything we have belongs to God. He hasn't told Christians in the New Testament to give 10% of it to anything in particular, but I for most of my life have felt that giving 10% to the kingdom of God would be cheating God because I could afford as an American living with an American economic system—I could live on less than 90%. And I should if I can, you know. I should give as much as I can.

Not that there's a legalistic obligation. You don't have to be a legalist to say when Jesus comes back and He says, "What did you do with My money?" You'd rather say, "I lived on as little as I could and gave as much as I could to the things that you care about," than to say, "Well, I just gave 10% to the church though they didn't really seem to need it that much and I certainly had a lot of fun with the other 90%." There's—we answer to God as slaves. We've been bought with a price. We're not our own. Our goods are simply God's goods that are entrusted to us. We're the managers and someday He'll come back and say, "What did you do with My stuff?" And that's what the Bible teaches, that's what Jesus teaches. I've known that all my life and that's been important to me all my life. Hope it's important to everybody because it will be someday. All right, appreciate your call, brother.

John in Salyersville, Kentucky. Are you there, John? John isn't there. All right, let's talk to April in San Bernardino, California. Hi, April. Welcome.

April: Hi Steve. Thanks for taking my call. Mine is a real short question. It's actually about the intro music to your program. It is so beautiful and I love it so much. Can you tell me who wrote it and was it written specifically for the program or did you just grab it from somewhere?

Steve Gregg: It was written by a student of mine when I ran a Bible school in Oregon. His name is John Marr. J-O-N M-A-R-R. As far as I know, he doesn't have any albums available. He did record some music, but this was on a cassette tape that he wrote and performed the song while he was a student at our school in Oregon. And if you'd like to hear the whole song including him singing the words to it, you can find it at our website, thenarrowpath.com. Up in the top corner you'll see a thing that says Resources and Links and if you look under that tab, you will find that there is a song. I think it's called "Like the Arrows Do," right. "Like the Arrows Do," that's the name of the song. And he's performing it there. It's not even on a CD; it was on a cassette tape so there's some tape hiss and stuff, but it's a beautiful song as you said. And I chose it because when I started the show 29 years ago, I chose that song and still use it because I like the guy and I like the song. And it has a long introduction before the singing starts so I could use it as theme music at the beginning. And also it sets a mood. You know, when I was just getting started on the radio and I went to these station managers to work out a deal to get on their station and stuff, when they heard the theme music, more than once they said, "I think you should have something a little more exciting, something a little more high energy for theme music." I said, "I don't want to. I know that most of the shows have fairly high energy music, but my show's not a high energy entertainment show. It's a thoughtful show. I think it's thoughtful music and that's what I want because that's—I want to set that tone."

April: Yeah, it reminds me of that song "In the Garden," "He Walks With Me and Talks With Me." It feels like you're walking down the narrow path with Jesus. That's why I loved it so much. But thank you so much for that info.

Steve Gregg: Yeah, I don't know where you could—I don't know if John Marr has his own website. As I said, it's J-O-N and then his name M-A-R-R. And he's not only a musician—in fact, far more than that—he's an artist, I mean a painting artist. He's an incredible guy and he's also, like to my mind, a technical genius. He knows computers—he's built computer apps and stuff like that and he's done really amazing things. Oh, my wife handed me a note. You might be able to find him at jmarrdesignstudio. If you look that up, you might find him there. He's a great guy, wonderful guy.

April: Thank you so much.

Steve Gregg: All right, God bless you. And you can hear his song at our website if you go to thenarrowpath.com under Resources and Links, look up "Like the Arrows Do," that's the name of the song, and there's a YouTube video that has kind of like a slideshow with that music and him singing it. It's about children, about raising children like arrows. All right, God bless you April.

Yvonne from Denver, Colorado. Welcome to The Narrow Path.

Yvonne: Hi, thank you, Pastor Steve. I have a comment and a couple of questions if I may. My comment was just as congregants we have the ability and the right to ask the church for its financial budget and stuff and I think as good stewards that we should do that. And so I came in on your show a little late and when I first came in you were talking about fornication and all these—there's many more besides fornication where we cannot—it says they will not inherit the kingdom of God. And I just wanted clarification. I mean, when you're a Christian and you know those are a sin and we are definitely not to do them. And if you're a saved Christian, are you saying that they will keep you from salvation?

Steve Gregg: Well, anyone who's living a life of sin is not a disciple of Jesus. That's what Paul is saying. You can't ride two different horses going different directions at the same time. You can't follow Jesus and follow your lusts and sins too. You have to choose between them. That's what repenting means. It means before you were following Jesus, you were doing this other stuff. And when you repent, you say not anymore, I'm going to follow Jesus now. And you turn tail on those things and don't do them anymore.

Now, do Christians fall into that behavior sometimes? Of course. Jesus said the spirit is willing, the flesh is weak, and many people's flesh is weaker than the average. And Paul said the flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh and these two are contrary to one another so you don't do what you want to do. Galatians 5:17. So obviously Christians sometimes don't do what they want to do.

But Christians want to be holy. If a person doesn't want to be holy and live as sinlessly as God will allow them to do, they're not converted yet because God puts a new heart when someone's converted. He writes His laws in their heart so that means their heart is now programmed to want to do God's things. And He takes out the heart of stone, gives a heart of flesh, and puts His spirit in and makes you go His way, which means He changes the direction of your life.

You can't—being a true follower of Christ spoils you for sinning. It doesn't mean you can't sin, but you can't enjoy it like you did. If you love Jesus, you cannot enjoy sin and you will not live in sin. And the Bible's very clear about that. And so those who are doing these things—meaning this is something that's part of their life that they're doing—they do not inherit the kingdom of God. Yeah, so that's what Paul says.

Yvonne: Okay, understood. Thank you. And the other question was I wanted to know what was your position on the gifts of the Spirit that were doled out at Pentecost or in the Upper Room, however that—because the question is, are those gifts just given to the disciples that were there or, you know, the 5,000 that were there? Or are they here today if we knew how to have them with no doubt and how to use them?

Steve Gregg: Yeah. Well, as far as the day of Pentecost is concerned, the only gift we read about there is the gift of tongues, but Paul other places does mention not only the gift of tongues but lots of other gifts. In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul lists nine gifts of the Spirit in one list and he has another list at the end of the chapter where he lists probably three additional ones, three or four maybe additional ones. So there's something like 12 gifts in chapter 12 of 1 Corinthians. And then in Romans 12, he mentions seven gifts of which only one of them is found in the other list. So you know, there's a lot of gifts. You know, if we take all the lists together, there's probably 20 or more that are mentioned and there could be a lot more that aren't on the list.

So are those gifts for today? Well, I'd have to think if they weren't, we'd have to be told that. You know, they certainly weren't just for the people in the Upper Room on the day of Pentecost because the Corinthians weren't there. Paul's writing to the Corinthians telling them how to regulate the gift of tongues and the gift of prophecy in their church services and the gift of interpretation. And none of those Corinthians were in Jerusalem at the day of Pentecost. These were people in Greece that were later converted through Paul's activities. So it's clear that the gifts were not just for the people that day or in that location, but they were throughout the church.

Now, are they still? I believe they are. That doesn't mean that we'll be seeing miracles and prophecies every time we turn around. Frankly, that wasn't the case in the first century either. There were—most people were not doing miraculous things. We read that the apostles did many signs and wonders and a few other people did too, like Philip and Stephen in Acts 7 and 8. But actually, we don't read of everybody doing miraculous things, but Paul said everyone had a gift.

But the thing is, Paul said some of the gifts include things like helping—the gift of helping. The gift of giving. The gift of showing mercy. The gift of encouraging. The gift of leading. These are all gifts that Paul mentions in Romans 12 in his list there. And obviously there are people in church who do all those things and those are gifts of the Spirit. You just don't notice them because they're not miraculous. So the Bible doesn't suggest that all the gifts of the Spirit are obviously miraculous. Some of them are, some of them do not appear to be, but they are all gifts or what we could say assignments that God has given to each one. Paul says every Christian has an assignment and has been gifted to do it.

So you might say, what kind of a gift does the person who has a gift of giving need? Well, he needs to have money for one thing. Persons who have money—God's given some people a lot of money and they have therefore the function of giving. Paul said in 1 Timothy 6, you know, instruct those who are rich in this world not to be haughty or, you know, trust in uncertain riches, but to be rich in good works, you know, ready to distribute and so forth. In other words, Paul says if you got money, you've got a gift, a gift of distribution. Because it's God's money, you know, and God doesn't really get much out of it when it's just sitting around in your bank account—unless, of course, you've got it invested in things that will increase it so that more of it can be used for God. That's between any person and God.

But yeah, there are gifts of all kinds in the Bible and as far as I know, none of them have been discontinued. The Bible doesn't mention any of them being discontinued before Jesus comes back. In fact, in 1 Corinthians 1:7, Paul says that the church will lack in no gift while they're awaiting the revelation of Jesus Christ, which means I believe the second coming of Christ. So the church won't lack any of the gifts while they're waiting for Jesus to come back. I'm still waiting for Him to come back, so I believe we live in a time when the church does not lack the gifts.

Now, I don't have all the gifts. As far as I know, I only have one of them. I think that's normative; people usually only have one, maybe some people have a few. But the church collectively has all the gifts. If you say, well, I don't know anyone who has the gift of miracles, well, maybe no one in your church has that gift, but there are some people who do, according to the Bible.

I'm out of time, sorry to say, but I hope that was instructive for you, hopefully helpful. You've been listening to The Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg. We're on Monday through Friday, have been since 1997. We are listener-supported. If you'd like to help us, you can. If you don't want to, you can just use our stuff for free. Everything's free at our website, nothing for sale, at thenarrowpath.com. Just take it, benefit from it, and go your way. Or if you want to donate, you can do that at thenarrowpath.com. Thanks for joining us. We'll be on again tomorrow, Lord willing. Talk to you then.