The Narrow Path

Steve Gregg: Good afternoon and welcome to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg, and I'm finally back in California after a long absence. I did an itinerary up in the Pacific Northwest for about two and a half weeks. I'm glad to be at the end of that, although I met wonderful people and had a great time, but it's hard to be away from home that long.

So anyway, we should be back to normal for a while. The program, if you're not familiar with it, is live and it allows you to call in if you have questions you want to ask on the air about the Bible, about the Christian faith, or any questions. We'll talk about them. You can also call if you have heard the host previously and you don't agree with something and you want to disagree on the air. Feel free; you are always welcome to do that. Right now we have one of our lines open. You can call right now at 844-484-5737. That's 844-484-5737. I don't think I have any announcements to make now, so I'm going to just go to the phones and talk to Summit in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. Hi, welcome to the Narrow Path.

Summit: Hey, Steve. I was sitting around the table having dinner with my family and we were talking about Michael Jackson. I think everyone is these days. The topic of Mary, the mother of Jesus, came up because I have a close friend considering Catholicism. I'm just asking if the belief that Mary was sinless was taught in the early church, or if not, when did it develop? Secondly, does the Bible say anything about Mary not being subject to original sin?

Steve Gregg: The Marian doctrines, as they're called, of the Roman Catholicism and also Eastern Orthodoxy developed gradually over the centuries. Some of them are a little over a century old. Some of them are fairly new doctrines. As far as the early church, the specific Marian doctrines that she was a perpetual virgin, that she was born without original sin, that she was the product of an immaculate conception where she was conceived without sin through her parents, those doctrines just aren't in the Bible.

They're not really taught clearly by the early church fathers. In fact, in the fifth century, there was still a dispute that had not been resolved whether it was okay to call her the mother of God, the Theotokos, the God-bearer. These are doctrines that the Catholics developed. I'm not really sure why they felt the need to do that, but they certainly placed Mary in a place that the Bible nowhere places her.

They say, for example, that they can pray to Mary, or sometimes they'll say they're just asking Mary to pray for them, but they think that's going to touch God's heart a little more than if they just pray to God. They look to her to be an intercessor of some sort. They do the same with other saints, but Mary's called the Queen of Heaven, which was actually a name that was used in the pagan religions of biblical times for Ishtar or Astarte, the wife of Baal.

It's interesting that the Catholic Church eventually began to adopt names for Mary and ideas about Mary that aren't in the Bible and actually mimic names for certain goddesses in the pagan world. I don't know why they did that. I think they were probably trying to accommodate the sentimentality of converted pagans who had worshipped the Queen of Heaven as a goddess. They developed Mary into that position.

I've heard them say that they don't pray to Mary; they just talk to her to pray to Jesus. They say Jesus would never deny his mother. They would say that she would never be denied a request by Jesus. There's nothing in the Bible that says that she has any bargaining power with Jesus. In fact, the opposite seems true because there are some times in the Bible where it seems like she tried to have bargaining power or someone else thought she should, and it just didn't happen.

Like at the time Jesus turned water to wine in Cana, Mary came to him and said they don't have any wine, as if she's putting that burden on him. He said, "Woman, what have I to do with you?" In the Greek, it means, "What are your concerns to me?" He's not on her schedule; he's on the Father's schedule. He basically put her off.

If somebody said he did turn water into wine, true, he did. I'm not sure she was asking him to do that. I think the Father told him to do that. I don't even know if she knew that he could turn water into wine. She just put an issue on him as a burden for him to consider. He'd been the oldest son in the family for a long time. Joseph had been dead for some time, no doubt, and she'd been accustomed to coming to Jesus when there were problems.

She came to him when there was a problem, but for the first time, probably, he said, "I'm not on your schedule. I used to be, but I'm on my own now, following my Father." He said, "What is your concern to me?" or "How are your concerns mine?" That doesn't sound very much like a son who's got a commitment to doing whatever his mom wants.

There was another time when his mother and brothers came to see him because, it says in Mark chapter three, they thought he'd gone mad. They came to see him and they couldn't get to him because there was a crowd around him. They sent a message, "Your mother and your brothers are here to see you," and he apparently didn't even bother to see them. He said, "Who are my mother, who are my brothers? Those who do the will of my Father, those are my mother, my brothers."

Once a woman in Luke chapter 11 cried out in the crowd, "Blessed is the womb that bore you and blessed are the breasts that nursed you," meaning blessed is your mother. He says, on the contrary, "More blessed are those who hear the word of God and do it." People at one point were trying to put Mary on a pedestal, and he said anyone who hears the word of God and does it is blessed.

There's nothing in the life of Jesus and his relationship with Mary that gives the impression that he had some kind of a commitment that whatever she wants, she's going to get it from him. So I don't know why we'd think that now. Also, in the Book of Acts, we find that Mary and Jesus' brothers were in the upper room with the 120. They were among the 120 when the Spirit fell, so they were part of the Jerusalem church and no doubt remained part of it until their death.

Yet, when we read the stories of the church and their activities, we don't read that they ever consulted Mary or deferred to her, asked her to intercede for them or anything like that, and she was right with them. The idea that Mary is some kind of exalted person above all other people who has more access to Jesus than others and more claim on him just isn't something the Bible teaches at all.

But it developed. These kinds of doctrines of Mary developed through various councils that the Catholic Church had, probably no earlier than the fifth century. I appreciate your call. Let's talk to Earl in Roseville, California. Hi, Earl, welcome.

Earl: My question is about tithing. I have conflicting views about it. I've been going to this church for over 17 years that taught tithing, and the former senior pastor would occasionally mention it and has said you can't outgive God and the tithe is holy and give God your best. He was very persuasive. He even gave a complete sermon on it and quoted Malachi 3:8 and that verse where it says if you don't tithe, you're cursed under a curse. I disagreed with just about everything he said in this sermon. My understanding of it is if you tithe, you're putting yourself back under the Old Mosaic Law and Christians are no longer under the law but under the new covenant. Why do this? But if a Christian does tithe, they are still giving generously according to 2 Corinthians 9:6. According to 2 Corinthians 9:7, it says, "So let us each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity, for God loves a cheerful giver." Isn't it more important to follow the Bible on what it says on giving instead of tithing, or should a Christian tithe?

Steve Gregg: First of all, your view is correct. The tithe thing is not a New Testament teaching. Jesus never taught the disciples to tithe; none of the apostles taught the disciples to tithe. Instead, what we find is the early church made everything they owned available to the poor. In the Old Testament, the tithe, which is 10 percent, was a surrender of the increase of your crops. The Jews were told to bring it to the temple or the tabernacle, and it was then used to feed the temple staff, which were the Levites.

All year long, the Levites would eat the grain that was brought during the harvest season, a tenth of all the other tribes' produce. That supplied full-time workers in the temple. Now, we don't have a temple with full-time workers anymore. We don't have Levites, we don't have priests, and we don't have all that stuff going on. We have ministers, but they're not the same.

The Bible does say that we should be concerned about the support of ministers. If you're being fed at church or somewhere, it's like you're benefiting. The Bible says if you're receiving the spiritual benefits, then you should be concerned about their having enough physically and materially to survive. Jesus told the ministers, "Freely you've received, freely give." In other words, you're not charging for the ministry, but that doesn't mean people aren't supposed to be supporting the ministers who are doing that.

So anyway, I'm not against the ministers teaching giving or receiving support, but to say that a tithe of people's income is owed to the local church is what they usually say. They usually call it storehouse tithing. They say the storehouse where Israel brought their tithes was where they went to be fed, and when you go to church to be fed, you should give your tithe to that.

Yet, the first premise of that is mistaken. The warehouse is not where Jews went to be fed. The storehouse was where they stored the tithes that they gave to the temple. The storehouses were in the temple, and it's where the Levites got fed, not the people who were paying their tithes. Although it was possible in the law that they could eat some of their tithes the day they brought it when they brought it to the temple. Before they left most of it there and went home, they would have a big meal and they'd eat some of that tithe with the priests or with the Levites.

They didn't have to go to the temple to be fed; they could have eaten the same food at home. It was theirs. So it's just not correct teaching to say that our local churches have some obligation for us to give tithes to them. Now, as I said, in the New Testament, they gave more than a tithe. Some people sold their houses and lands and brought them to the apostles' feet to distribute to the poor.

Jesus said unless you forsake all that you have, you can't be my disciple. I think he was talking about this very thing, that everything you have becomes the Lord's, not 10 percent of it. And then you become the steward of it, and so you're handling God's money and you're managing his stuff. And then, of course, a couple of the parables of Jesus say that when he comes back, each of the stewards will have to give account for how they profited their master through their stewardship.

It's not a 10 percent thing. That 10 percent is strictly an Old Testament teaching. There's not one place in the New Testament that commands it. Sometimes people want to quote Matthew 23:23 where Jesus was talking to the Pharisees, not to his disciples. He said to them, "You hypocrites, you pay your tithes of mint, anise, and cumin, but you neglect the weightier matters of the law, justice, and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done and not leave the other undone."

He said you should have done the weightier matters, and you should have not left your tithing undone either. But you only did the tithing part, which is not very important. The most important things you neglected altogether. You should have done the important things and the less important things, which included paying tithes.

He's not giving instructions to his disciples. He's not even giving instructions to tithe to the Pharisees; they were already doing that. In fact, he was telling them that's the one thing you are doing right as a Jew; you're observing the tithe obligation that Jews have. Christians don't have that obligation, but it was under the law that Jews had that obligation. So he said, "Yeah, you should have done that, and you did." But you didn't do the thing you should have done even more.

So you're not going to get in the New Testament any teaching commanding tithing. Pastors, I'm not sure why they are mistaken about this, but honestly, I find that a pastor learns what they learn. A lot of times when they go to seminary and stuff, they're taught that the church should tithe, and so they teach their congregation. I don't find a very large percentage of pastors who spend their time digging through the word of God to see if what they were taught is there. But I think they should. We expect our congregation to be Berean; it'd be good if the pastors at least would be Bereans too. Anyway, I'm on your side about that particular issue. Thanks for calling. Brant in Roseville, California, welcome.

Brant: Hi, Steve. My question probably falls in the category of church authority. It does come with some context about a dear friend and a brother in Christ and the quandary he's in. Out of respect for your callers and the time, I went ahead and wrote my question out. If someone felt strongly, a stir of passion in their heart, for what they believe to be from God, how much emphasis should they give to requiring the blessing of their church leaders versus what they feel is a calling from God, and should it be a prerequisite that those two things are aligned?

Steve Gregg: That's a good question because obviously in the early church we read that Paul and Barnabas were sent out by the laying on of hands of the elders of the church who had been fasting and seeking the Lord and the Spirit spoke to them and told them to do it. So they sent them out with the laying on of hands. The laying on of hands were basically saying we endorse you. We are your partners; you're extensions of ourselves.

That was a good thing, and you do see the laying on of hands of elders too. Timothy is told to appoint elders but not to lay hands hastily on anyone. Timothy himself had hands laid upon him, probably when he was sent out to go minister with Paul. Probably the church in Ephesus where he was laid hands on him. Paul says that Paul himself laid hands on him, but also the presbytery or the elders of the church did. Laying on of hands to kind of release somebody or at least acknowledge somebody for ministry was in fact done.

Although we have to realize that the leaders of the churches in those days, it was assumed, are definitely in touch with what the Holy Spirit's saying, as especially in Acts 13 where the Holy Spirit spoke to the leaders and said separate this person for me. Now, on the other hand, there were ministers who weren't didn't have hands laid on them and they went out and God used them too. Stephen and Philip are examples in the book of Acts who although they were they did have hands laid on them to be deacons or to be table servants and distributors of food, no one ordained them to preach.

Stephen just got into discussions with the people at the synagogue and started arguing with them and ended up preaching the gospel to the Sanhedrin and got himself stoned to death. Philip, he just fled from Jerusalem when the persecution started and ended up first in Samaria and he planted a church there and was ministering and evangelizing. And he evangelized and baptized the Ethiopian eunuch too.

So Stephen and Philip are examples of people in the book of Acts who had significant ministries that God just raised them up in almost accidentally on their part, and they had not been commissioned by the church to do those things. These two men happened to be commissioned by the church to do other things like practical helping of the poor in the church, distributing the food, but going out and preaching and things like that, they hadn't been ordained to that and yet God did use them.

I'm going to have to say it's always a good thing and ideal to have the laying on of hands. It's sort of like when one's being baptized in the Spirit. God can baptize someone in the Spirit without the laying on of hands. We see it in the book of Acts in chapter 10, the house of Cornelius. They were baptized in the Spirit without anyone laying hands on them. But normally in the book of Acts, people had hands laid on them to be baptized in the Spirit.

We see there's the Holy Spirit has some liberty to act outside the ordination of the elders in raising ministers up and such. Agabus was a prophet; we don't know if he if anyone laid hands on him or not. We don't read where he came from. But also Apollos, I don't know that anyone laid hands on him. They might have; we just don't know. But he was just traveling around preaching the gospel too.

It seems to me that it's always a good thing if the church can authorize or approve officially someone who goes out from them as especially as missionaries and stuff like that. It's good for the missionary himself to be able to point to the fact that that happened when people question him, "Why should we listen to you? Maybe you're some kind of heretic." And you say, "Well, these people laid hands on me and sent me out, so they trust me. They recognize what God's doing in my life and so that's kind of an endorsement from people who already had some credibility."

That's always good to do that. It's sort of like when Christians write books, like I do. Sometimes the first pages are endorsements from other Christians who are known and respected just because you don't need them, but people who might wonder about your credibility perhaps will decide that you probably are credible if these people are saying so.

That's what the laying on of hands I think does. I don't think a person who's running for his life from from persecution and just wherever he ends up he starts a church and ministers there, I don't think he's doing something wrong. But it's always good to feel that you're connected to the body of Christ in a larger sense and that you're just not some kind of a lone ranger.

I was back in the '70s, the shepherding movement said God doesn't have any lone rangers. Well, he does. He's got lone rangers; he's got a lot of them. All the prophets of the Old Testament were lone rangers and Philip was kind of a lone ranger and stuff. But I think God can do what he wants. If you feel like you're really called or someone you know is really called to do something, it'd be good to have the church lay hands on them and authorize them.

If he's asked them to and they won't, then I'd want to know what is it they're seeing that he's not seeing? Maybe they know something about him. Maybe they say, "Well, we'd like someone to be doing this, but I don't think you're the guy to do it right now," because sometimes people are zealous to go out and evangelize or something like that and they're really ill-prepared and their elders could see that.

They say, "Well, hang on, we're not quite ready to give our endorsement." Because Paul said to Timothy, "Don't lay hands suddenly on anyone and don't be partaker of other men's sins." Sometimes when you approve when the elders approve of someone too hastily and that person is really not ready, they go out and they blow it. I've seen lots of street preachers who I'm pretty sure no one authorized them and they're preaching the gospel in really offensive ways and things like that sometimes.

I think, "Well, maybe they'd be better off growing up a little bit before they go and just exude their zeal." And then of course there's people who send themselves out and then they're not really strong Christians. They fall into sin and bring reproach. That's what Paul was suggesting when he says don't lay hands suddenly on anyone nor become a partaker of other men's sins. The idea is that if you're authorizing him and he goes out and does bad things, he's doing that with your authorization. You're a partaker of his sins too; you're somewhat guilty.

So if I felt I was called to ministry and I was sent to go do something, I would definitely ask the elders of my church to lay hands on me. And that has happened to me in the past when I was younger. But if they don't, it might be because they're just not into doing that. In which case I think if you just go out and do what God tells you to do, it's fine. But if I felt I was called to ministry and the elders said we don't quite see you as ready for this yet, I might want to say what is it they see about me that I don't see? Maybe I better learn; maybe I better figure it out before I go out and cause trouble somehow.

Brant: Yeah, I see it would probably warrant some self-reflection at that point. Well, that's brought some stuff for me to think about as I'm struggling witnessing this. So I appreciate this, Steve. Thank you very much.

Steve Gregg: Okay, Brant. God bless you, man. Thanks for calling. Okay, let's see here. Pretty close to our break. I better not take another call; it would be too frustrating that I won't have time. We've got callers waiting and we have one line open. We have another half hour coming up in just a moment. So if you want to take that one line that's open, you can call 844-484-5737. Once again, that's 844-484-5737.

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Welcome back to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we're live for another half hour taking your calls. Now our lines are full, so I won't give out the phone number right now. If we have lines opening up in time for it, we'll give out the phone number before the show's over. This is our second half hour and the lines are still full from the first half hour, pretty much. So we're just going to go to the phone lines and talk to some of these folks. One of them is Mike from Elyria, Ohio. Hi, Mike.

Mike: Hi, Steve. Thank you. In Job 38, God asked Job, "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?" And in Matthew 7, Jesus tells false Christians, "Depart from me, I never knew you." Now in John 1:13, it talks about the born-again Christian that has the right to become sons of God. Now it seems to me with those three examples, it seems foolish to think that humans are born in the image of God.

Steve Gregg: Why is that? I mean, how do those examples make that point?

Mike: Well, Job, God talks to Job. He tells him, "Where were you? I didn't where were you when I laid the foundation."

Steve Gregg: Right, there were no humans yet. So Job wasn't there. So I'm not sure how that tells us whether humans are made in the image of God or not.

Mike: So Job wasn't a human being?

Steve Gregg: What's that?

Mike: I don't understand. Job. When God was talking to Job?

Steve Gregg: Yes, he was, but when God laid the foundation of the earth, Job wasn't there. That's what God's saying.

Mike: Right. So my point is Job wasn't there, and Jesus tells us unbelievers or false believers to depart from me, I never knew you. And in John 1:13 gives the description of how you become children of God.

Steve Gregg: Right, so but you're seeing something in those verses that make it sound like God did not make man in his image?

Mike: He made Adam. And then Eve came from Adam, but Adam being created in the image of God and Jesus being the second man, the final Adam, the son of man. Yes, he created Adam, but we are not created. We are born of the flesh, by the will of the flesh and the desires of the flesh. That's what John 1:13 says. Does that make sense?

Steve Gregg: But we still bear the image of God. I mean, we bear the image of our ancestors and they were made in the image of God, so we have the image of God too. That's actually what James says. In James chapter 3, he's rebuking Christians for cursing other people. He says in verse 9, "With our tongue we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men who have been made in the similitude of God. Out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be." So he says we shouldn't be cursing men who are made in the similitude or the likeness of God. And the people around us weren't around when Adam was made, but they are around us and they are made in the similitude of God, the Bible says.

Mike: Okay.

Steve Gregg: Because human nature was made in the image of God, and we inherited human nature from Adam, and that's just what the Bible says.

Mike: I mean that is a slap in the face to the Messiah and it also ignores the fact that you need to be born again of the Spirit from above. And if any flesh that refuses that—

Steve Gregg: Wait, it doesn't slap Jesus in the face and it doesn't contradict anything. We were made in the image of God, but we're fallen. We are sinners and condemned by our sin. So we need to be born again; we need Jesus to redeem us. He came down to be one of us. He came, the Bible says that he came in Galatians says he came in the likeness of sinful flesh. He wasn't sinful, but the likeness he came in our likeness, but we're sinful and he's not. So the likeness doesn't have anything to do with sinfulness or righteousness; it has to do with the nature. The human nature is made in the image of God, and a human being can be righteous, especially if they're born again and they're a Christian, or they can be unrighteous, but they still are the same species in a sense; they still have the image of God that's from birth. Anyway, apparently you don't agree with that, and that's certainly your prerogative. I just don't think the verses you're using actually make the point you're trying to make. But thank you for calling. We're going to talk next to Vincent from St. Paul, Minnesota. Vincent, welcome.

Vincent: Thank you, Steve, for taking my call. Just to chime in on I believe it might have been your first caller about Catholicism and Mary. I think how I take that is the Catholic Church, when they first got started, basically what they did is they stripped the Holy Spirit from its glory and gave it to Mary, an earthly mother. I take that because it seems like in New Testament themes we're more gentle, unlike Old Testament prophets, which would appear to be more masculine. So my call was just chiming in on how Catholicism got to be how they give so much glorification to Mary and I'm just saying that the glory should have been given to God.

Steve Gregg: Of course it should, yes. Okay, well thank you for your thoughts. Let's talk to who's been there longest, Jared from Leavenworth, Washington. I've been there; that's kind of that little Bavarian town, isn't it? Hi, Jared.

Jared: That is true. Guilty as charged.

Steve Gregg: Been there once; my wife and I.

Jared: Yeah, it's a nice area. My question was, well, I've had sin in my life as we all have. When Lot's wife looked back at Sodom and Gomorrah, I'm just trying to figure out why she turned to a pillar of salt.

Steve Gregg: Well, actually she of course disobeyed God. God told them not to turn back, not to look back. I think the command not to look back, although we can spiritualize it and say she was longing for her old life, and when Jesus said "Remember Lot's wife," he meant that we shouldn't be like that, longing for our old life, looking back. But I'm not sure it means that. The point is that what I believe was that the whole area was going to explode. Fire and brimstone from heaven is like a bomb blast.

In the region, of course, that's where the Dead Sea is. In fact, the probable location of Sodom and Gomorrah is actually covered by the Dead Sea now because the Dead Sea is expanding. It keeps getting more water from the Jordan River, but it doesn't have any outlet, so it gets bigger and bigger. The southern half of the Dead Sea is really quite shallow because it's extended that way. Most, I think, scholars used to, maybe still do, think Sodom was under that shallow area; maybe it's been covered now by the water of the Dead Sea.

But that whole sea is so full of salt. It's like the Great Salt Lake in Utah. You can't sink in it; it's too dense with salt. So there's a lot of salt in that area. And if a bomb blasts there, there'd be all kinds of molten salt flying around. So you've got to get away from there if that's going to happen. And the angel said, "Just go. Don't even stop to look back. Just go." And apparently Lot and his daughters obeyed, but Lot's wife didn't and she looked back.

But I think we have to assume she looked back where she was too close to be out of the blast zone. And so I think she got encased with salt. To say she became a pillar of salt, when I was a kid I thought that meant that somehow all the atoms of her body or molecules of her body turned to salt molecules, so that she stopped being a human person but was all now like a statue carved out of a salt block. But I think now she became a pillar of salt, in my opinion, she was encased with salt and looking back was what prevented her from putting enough distance there. She no doubt wanted to watch; she had some daughters still in the town that wouldn't leave, and so she probably was looking back on them with horror and wanting to see how things fared, but she'd been told by God not to do that. And so she didn't distance herself enough, in my opinion. It could be otherwise than that, but I've come to believe that's what happened. So that would answer your question, I think. Thank you for your call. Let's see here. We've got Anthony next from Sacramento, California. Hi, Anthony, welcome.

Anthony: Hi, how are you?

Steve Gregg: Good.

Anthony: Good. Hey, I've got a question. It's just these thoughts that go through my mind sometimes and so I've asked multiple people and nobody can really have an answer. I heard was listening to your show and thought, "Man, this guy's going to have the answer," or I hope anyway. So my question is if the Jewish people, now I'm not talking Christian Jews but Jews they don't recognize Jesus as the Messiah and so he wasn't so for them Jesus didn't die for their sins, right? We know that he died for our sins.

Steve Gregg: He died for everyone's sins, yeah. He died for the sins of the whole world.

Anthony: Well, yeah, no, I but I'm saying but them not recognizing him as the Messiah, they don't believe that he died.

Steve Gregg: Right, they don't believe in Jesus.

Anthony: Right. So what my question is, so in the Old Testament there were animal sacrifices, that's how they atoned for their sin. Why aren't they practicing that today?

Steve Gregg: Well, they can't. There's no temple. The temple was destroyed and the Jews were dispersed throughout all the world for 1,900 years. And then in the middle of the 20th century, some of them came back and they re-established a nation there and they recovered Jerusalem even more recently than that. But the spot where the temple was, at least for a long time it was believed that that's where the Muslims have since built a mosque. And so they can't build the temple there.

Now, there's a difference of opinion. Some people think the temple site was actually not where the mosque is and that they can build the temple, but doing so at this point would be a very politically charged thing to do because Jerusalem is considered the most holy city also to the Muslims as it is to the Jews. So if the Jews built their temple there, that would be basically claiming Jerusalem from the Muslims and as their holy site. It's just would be politically controversial. Some people think it would start a war and things like that, but of course they've had war for years, so I don't know how that changed anything.

The point is though that the government of Israel's not interested in building a temple. The government of Israel's not religious. Israel is not a religious country. It's a secular country. And so I mean there are religious Jews who live in Israel and there are Christian Jews who live in Israel, but they make a very tiny, tiny minority. The government itself is not committed to the Jewish religion. And so they got no motivation to try to rebuild a temple like Solomon did; that was a hugely expensive project. Had tons of gold and tons of silver and things like that building it.

The government of Israel's just not interested in laying out that much money. There are people who want to see that done. It's a very small number of those in Israel. They're called the Temple Institute. There's a very tiny number of Jews actually are interested in building a temple, but the government's not into it and the the number who want it don't have the money and they probably won't. But they may; I don't know if they will or not. The Bible doesn't predict it. A lot of people say that the Bible predicts they'll make a third temple. I don't think that's in the Bible anywhere. So I don't know that it'll happen. It might; it might not; but the Bible didn't predict it.

And if they did build it, if they did build it, they couldn't just go back to offering animal sacrifices and have that be okay with God. God's not interested in animal sacrifices anymore. So they'd just be trying to do an end run around Jesus. God replaced the temple and its sacrifices with Jesus. And that's the reason that devout Jews who are not Christians have longed to build their temple again, but if they do, well then that's thumbs their nose at Jesus. They're just trying to say, "Okay, we don't need Jesus; we're going to have our animal sacrifices again." God would never approve of it. Just like it'd be like building a Hindu temple or something; it's not something God would be into, though people do that kind of thing. And the Jews might someday do that.

Anthony: So they just don't have any way to atone for their sins then?

Steve Gregg: Same as the rest of us. Yeah, I mean, we all have a way to atone for our sins, and that's coming to Christ. And Jews aren't any different than Gentiles in that. Jesus came for the Jews and the Gentiles; he died for the Jews and the Gentiles, and both Jews and Gentiles have come to Christ in large numbers. But the majority of Jews and the majority of Gentiles don't come to Jesus.

Anthony: If they don't believe in Jesus, then you know what I mean, that's where my question is. Okay, then how are you atoning for your you know what I mean?

Steve Gregg: Well, they're not. Some of the Jews some Jews will say, "Well, we fast on the Day of Atonement." They still observe Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, and one thing they were commanded in scripture was to fast on that day, so some devout Jews do that. They fast on Yom Kippur, but the Bible doesn't say that that would cover their sins. In the Bible on Yom Kippur, they did fast, but they also offered a whole bunch of animals in the temple. So fasting alone isn't going to do it for them. But they have nothing else unless they want to come to Jesus, they've got all they need, just like you and me. But if they don't want Jesus and they're hostile toward Jesus, which many of them are, well then they got nothing. It's just like a Muslim or a Hindu or a Buddhist; if they don't come to Jesus, they're going to have to just have an inadequate religious system that doesn't atone for sin.

Anthony: Right. Okay, well, I appreciate your time.

Steve Gregg: All right, good talking to you, Anthony. Thanks for calling. Okay, we're going to talk next to Linda in Grass Valley, California. Hi, Linda, welcome.

Linda: Hi. I was reading a scripture in Revelation chapter 9 and it refers to—can I just read that one scripture? It's pretty short.

Steve Gregg: Okay.

Linda: "They were told not to hurt the grass"—he's talking to the locusts—"not to hurt the grass of the earth nor any green thing nor any tree, but only the people who do not have the mark of ownership or the seal of God on their foreheads." And then it directed me to Ezekiel 9:4. I've never heard of a mark on your forehead from God before.

Steve Gregg: Well, it's symbolic. In Ezekiel chapter 9, Babylon was threatening to destroy Jerusalem and God said that this is his judgment on Jerusalem. And Ezekiel had a bunch of symbolic visions warning the people about it. In one of his symbolic visions, he saw six men with a slaughter weapon in their hands, the King James says, deadly weapons. And a man who had an inkhorn and God told the man with the inkhorn, "Go through Jerusalem and place a mark on the forehead of all those who sigh and cry over the abominations done in Jerusalem."

And he did that, and then it says he said to the swordsmen, "Go and slaughter everyone starting at the house of God and throughout Jerusalem, but don't slaughter those who have the mark on their head." So God was identifying—for his own benefit—those that are on his side and he's not going to slaughter them. Now, that's what Revelation's doing too. In my opinion, Revelation is mostly about the destruction of Jerusalem a second time in AD 70. And so it borrows a lot of the images from the destruction of Jerusalem the first time in the Old Testament, like Ezekiel.

So in Revelation, I believe the same symbolism is there. It's not literal; no one's going to have a literal mark on their head.

Linda: Okay, well that's what I was wondering because you know I was wondering how that compares to the mark of the beast, having marks on your forehead.

Steve Gregg: Well right, I mean that's the thing. The mark of the beast is mentioned in Revelation 13:18. At the end of Revelation 13, the next verse which is Revelation 14:1, it says that he saw the 144,000; they had their Father's name on their foreheads. What Revelation is saying symbolically—these people don't really have anything tattooed on their foreheads—he's saying just like slaves in those days often had their master's brand on their forehead or their hand so that they'd be easily identified as a slave of the master. Satan has his slaves and God has his slaves, and it's symbolically as if they had their master's name tattooed or branded on them. But it's not literal; God's real servants, we are God's servants and we don't have his name literally branded on our foreheads, but we're his servants and that's what's being referred to by that imagery. The book of Revelation, like Ezekiel, is highly symbolic and so when people are looking for a literal mark on people's foreheads, they're probably misreading it.

Linda: I've learned that the hard way.

Steve Gregg: Amen. Thanks for your call. I'm going to talk to Chet from Lake Mary, Florida. Hi, Chet, welcome to the Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Chet: Hi Gregg, thanks for answering my call. I have a question. The Bible says that Jesus is the only way, he's the way, the truth, and the life and no one comes to the Father except through him. So what about other religions prior to Christ's sacrifice on the cross? Hindus for example, Hinduism existed long before Christianity. How would they be judged, and people who believe in other religions prior to Christ?

Steve Gregg: Well, I have some thoughts about that, and different Christians have other thoughts about that. The Bible doesn't really say what happens to the Hindus or Buddhists who lived and died before Christ. We do know that the Jews who lived and died before Christ, some of them were saved and some were not. Many of the Jews were apostate, worshippers of Baal and Moloch. Sometimes God had the ground open up and swallow them up, even though they were called to be God's people. If they were disobedient and rebellious, they were lost.

But there were Jews in the Old Testament like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and David and Moses and those people who were faithful to God, and there's every reason to believe that they were saved through Christ too. Christ hadn't come yet, but Christ was planned to come. God predicted the coming of Christ when Adam and Eve were still in the Garden of Eden. And in the book of Revelation, it says that Christ is the Lamb that was slain from the foundation of the world.

So Jesus coming when he did in history wasn't some kind of a surprise; he was predicted from the earliest times. And God knew Jesus was going to come and die for the sins of the world. So if somebody was loyal to him, he could apply the credit of Christ to them. And it says that in Romans chapter 3 that by sending Christ when he did, he justified God in having previously forgiven sins that had been done in the past before Christ came.

Now what about Hindus and Buddhists and those kind of people? Well, the Bible doesn't mention them. But if we think that when it says no one comes to the Father but through Christ, there's a couple things to say about that. One is Jesus doesn't specifically mention going to heaven; he's talking about coming to the Father. The whole purpose of the Christian life is to be reunited with the Father, like the prodigal son and to come to him. We come to—Jesus said you can pray to the Father now. You don't even have to have me go for you; he loves you because you believe in me.

Approaching the Father is our privilege in this life. Of course we also will go to heaven when we die, but when Jesus said no one comes to the Father but by me, he didn't say no one goes to heaven but by me. So he might be not even talking about that; he's talking about access to God right now. On the other hand, there's another thought, and C.S. Lewis mentioned this, but so do some others, that no one can go to heaven or be saved apart from Christ. But he doesn't say that they can't go to heaven if they didn't know that Christ saved them.

Christ saved Old Testament saints who were loyal to God even though they didn't know the name of Jesus; they didn't know about the crucifixion, the resurrection. They didn't know the gospel, and yet because they were faithful to God—like Abraham believed God, it was counted to him for righteousness. So in other words, a person didn't have to know the gospel or Jesus in the Old Testament times; he hadn't been born yet, he hadn't preached to them yet. But they believed God and apparently the salvation that Christ later purchased was applied to them because of their faith.

And if that's true of people in Israel who didn't know the name of Jesus, we don't know for sure that God didn't know some people in other countries who didn't know Jesus either but were seeking God just like Jews were who didn't know Jesus. And who knows? Maybe he applied the blood of Jesus to them too. Now, someone might say that's heretical; you're saying other religions will save. No, I didn't say any religion saves anyone. No religion saves anyone. No one's going to be saved through Hinduism or Buddhism or Islam or even through the Christian religion. There's no religion that saves anyone; it's Jesus that saves.

The question is whether Jesus, having died for the sins of the whole world, has the possibility of recognizing people in the world who've never heard of him, some of whom who are actually seekers. Some of them would have believed and would be glad to believe when they finally know he existed. So we don't know; Jesus might save them. The Bible doesn't say he will. I'm not affirming that that's true; I'm saying that's one possibility. There's other things people have thought differently. But I don't see anything in the Bible that would make that an impossible suggestion.

Jesus, if he wants all men to be saved, doesn't want anyone to perish but whatever. And there's people in lands where the gospel's never been preached, and among those people are a bunch of sinners who would reject Jesus even if they heard him, which missionaries often find out to be true. But a lot of those people in those foreign lands would accept Jesus if they heard of him. It's like the saints in the Old Testament; they hadn't heard of Jesus but they would have accepted him because they were faithful to God; they were seeking God.

So God alone knows how to apply the salvation that Jesus purchased for all men to individuals who he sees their hearts. He knows whether they believe in him like Abraham did without knowing the name of Jesus and like David did. So God's going to have to work that out. But the Bible does not teach that people who never hear the name of Jesus are all lost for the simple reason that all the Old Testament saints weren't lost and they didn't hear the name of Jesus. And there's people in the world today who are just like them. Jesus has never come to them yet; his message has never come to them. So just like Old Testament people, God can save them through Christ if they are faithful, if they're repentant, if they're seeking him. I don't know what he does or how he figures it, but that's up to him and he knows what he's doing.

Anyway, that's a possibility anyway. Thanks for your call; I'm out of time. You've been listening to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we're listener-supported. You can write to us at the Narrow Path, PO Box 1730, Temecula, California, 92593 or from our website, thenarrowpath.com. Have a good weekend, God bless you.