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 so that you can call in if you have questions you want to talk about on the air about the Bible or the Christian faith. Or if you have a difference of opinion from the host and want to talk about that, that's always welcome here as well. Feel free to give me a call. The number is 844-484-5737.

Now, once in a while we have a problem, in fact, frequently we have a problem that at the end of the program, we run out of time, the hour runs out, and we still have people waiting in line on the phone and they don't get on the air because we just don't have time for it. But what I want to make clear to you is if you want to get on the air, call early. Everybody who calls right now will in fact get on the air today. I can pretty much guarantee that.

We have a couple lines open on our phone line, I should say. 844-484-5737. If you get in this early, you'll get on before the show's over. I guarantee you. Not that you can't get on if you call later. Sometimes people call in the second half hour and still get on, but whenever there's people waiting at the end of the show and we're out of time, it's because they called too late. So, if you want to get on the air, call as early as you can.

I realize that you have things to do, you don't want to just sit on hold. Well, yeah, that's an issue. If you do go on hold, keep your phone with you because when I call your name, you won't hear it on the radio for another 20 or 30 seconds. There's a delay there. So, don't walk away from your phone and listen on the radio and say, "Oh, when I hear my name, I'll get back to my phone." You'll hear your name after I've been calling it for 20 or 30 seconds and I won't usually keep the connection open. So, keep your phone with you, but just go about your work and keep on hold and we can get to you before the end of the program. Our lines have just filled up, so just bear that in mind for the second half hour. All right, let's talk to Nelson in Fort Worth, Texas. Nelson, welcome to the Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Nelson: Yes, thank you for clearing up the idea, the concept of pillar of salt, Lot's wife turned into a pillar of salt. I really appreciate you clarifying that and making it more realistic. No, I want you to help me clarify Joshua, where he talks about the sun standing still. Somewhere in Joshua, because I think his battle was so successful, he poetically said, "Sun, stand thou still, moon, stand thou still," because the battle was the Lord's and the Lord gave him such success that they considered it done all in one day as if the sun stood still and the moon stood still poetically. So, was that what they were saying?

Steve Gregg: Well, I can't prove you wrong about that. That's not the way I see it, but honestly, that kind of language is not unheard of in the Bible where they talk about movement or falling or darkening of the heavenly bodies, and it's talking figuratively. So, there is a possibility that that is the case. As I read it, that's not the message I generally take from it, but I'm not going to say that it couldn't possibly be that.

I tend to take it more literally. Of course, it's not a matter of the sun literally standing still since the sun isn't in motion; the earth is in motion. I realize our flat earth people don't agree with me on that, but I'm not trying to please them. I don't think they are on the right side of that issue. But I do believe that the earth moves and makes the sun appear to move, but the Bible does speak in phenomenal language. So, when it says the sun stood still, this would require, if true, that the earth stood still.

Now, I don't know that that's what happened, but it sounds like that's what happened. Now, of course, people say, "Well, if the earth stood still suddenly, don't you know that all the trees and things would fly sideways, everything would fly off the earth because it's turning at a thousand miles an hour at the equator and you slam on the brakes, everything would go flying sideways a thousand miles an hour?" Well, that would be the natural result, I suppose, if some natural force caused the earth to stand still.

On the other hand, we're not talking about a natural force here. We're not talking about a natural event. And in my opinion, God can do whatever he wants to. If he wants to make the earth stand still suddenly, he can make it so that we wouldn't even notice. He could hold everything in place. So, I don't really have any problem with the miraculous. I believe the miraculous is found in the Bible.

Now, there are people who feel that this story about Joshua making the sun stand still for a day, that they feel like there is something non-miraculous implied, that something else is going on. I don't know how to explain it. I have read explanations of it. I remember years ago reading a guy who I like actually, Ralph Woodrow. He wrote some good stuff. He, in one of his books, was explaining that he didn't feel like the earth actually stood still and he gave an explanation of the passage which I have to say I don't remember in detail, but I do remember when I read it, I wasn't able to follow very well.

So, I guess I never understood it, and now I've forgotten what it was. All I can say is different people have made different suggestions about this, and I don't have anything invested in it. If there is a way to interpret the words of Joshua in a way that doesn't mean that the sun stood still for a day, then I mean, if it's a valid way to interpret it, I have no problem with it. I'm not invested in the idea that the sun literally stood still.

I'm also not invested in the idea that it didn't because I believe God can do everything. So, you've got a third option there. You feel like it's a figure of speech. It could be. There are figures of speech in scripture. So, I'm going to just remain uncommitted about this. When I'm uncommitted, when I've heard various positions on things that all are maybe have a measure of credibility, I typically stay with the one I've already got, not because I'm unwilling to change, but because I don't find anything incredible about the view I already take.

And what I will do is acknowledge that there are other explanations. I am by default taking the literal view that the earth stopped and the sun appeared to stop. And I realize how silly that sounds to people who are naturalistic and don't believe in miracles. But then anyone who doesn't believe in miracles I think seems kind of silly to me because to rule out miracles, you have to rule out God.

In other words, you can rule out certain individual miracles. There are certain miracles I say I really don't mean that I don't believe that was the face of the Virgin Mary in the coffee cup imagery, how the creamer distributed itself and so forth. I don't, you know, there are people who say they have miracles, which I sometimes reject individual miracle claims. But I don't reject miracles outright as if there aren't any because that would have to mean that millions of people around the earth who claim to have seen supernatural things are all delusional.

And I realize that there can be delusional people, but there's an awful lot of credible people who've seen or reported supernatural things. So, I mean, to rule it out, I'd have to know everything in the world, including the fact that there's no God in the heavens who can work miracles, or that if there is one, that he has never done any. And for me to make that position, take that position is simply, to my mind, a very non-intellectual position. It's strictly speaking a religious position. It's a prejudiced position.

You cannot prove that there's no God and nobody has ever witnessed that there's no God, where there are people who've witnessed miracles. So, I'm going to go with the testimony of millions instead of let's just say the speculations of somebody who just wants to doubt it. I don't have infinite skepticism. I have skepticism and I'm skeptical about certain miracles, but I'm not skeptical about all miracles, especially ones that have some evidence.

Now, this one in Joshua, there's no particular evidence I can point to that this miracle happened. What I can point to is the reliability of the scriptures, which can be demonstrated on archaeological and other bases, and the fact that miracles don't happen randomly in the Bible, they happen according to a narrative that makes sense within its own narrative context. In other words, it's not like magical stories where trees turn into people and things like that in mythologies. But the miracles in the Bible are actually consistent with the general storyline.

And while I certainly could never prove or don't have any need to prove every claim to miracle in the Bible, I believe in them because there are miracles in the Bible that I think have been proven well enough, including the resurrection of Jesus. And once you have the resurrection of Jesus, you've got an authoritative person in Jesus who said that the scriptures, meaning the Old Testament scriptures, were reliable and as he said cannot be broken. So, it's my belief in Jesus that actually makes me believe in the Old Testament because he believed in it. And my belief in the Old Testament is not shaken by the fact that there are incredible things that happened. Frankly, there are incredible things happening throughout the world all the time. They're not all miracles; some of them in history have been.

So, yeah, just because we can't duplicate this, we can't make the earth stand still and show that it can be done, we can't experiment with it, but that's the nature of miracles. They're one-offs. They're like any other historical event; they only happen one time, and you can't go back and take them in the laboratory to try to make it happen again. So, it's not within the realm of science; it's within the realm of history. If it happened, it's a historical event just like every other historical event. And just like every historical event, the only way we would know about it is if somebody who was living actually saw it and gave credible testimony to it. And in my opinion, the Old Testament is credible and does give credible testimony to miracles. So, that's where I'm at with the Joshua long day. But on the other hand, I don't fault you for saying, "Well, it seems to you it could be poetic figures of speech." There are such figures of speech in the Bible. And so, I'm not ruling that out. All right, I appreciate your call very much. Thank you for joining us today. Let's talk to Priscilla from Vancouver, BC. Hi, Priscilla, welcome.

Priscilla: Hello, Steve, good day, long time awesome. How are you?

Steve Gregg: I'm fine, thank you. What would your question be?

Priscilla: Good. Revelation 7 verses 5 to 8, all those tribes, can you explain all the tribes and who are the chosen, sir? Like are they professionals, are they poor, rich, fat, ugly, pretty, beautiful? Who are these people and why are they chosen?

Steve Gregg: Well, God doesn't choose individuals unless they are responsive to him. God doesn't take anyone who's rebellious against him, whether they're beautiful or ugly or smart or foolish or whatever any of those categories you gave. He doesn't favor some category except for the category of those who respond to him in a favorable way. He said that those who honor me I will honor, those who despise me shall be lightly esteemed.

He said again, he gives grace to the humble and he resists the proud. So, he's talking about his response to people's responses to him. There's inner God's interactive God. He's not just a dictatorial God who's just pointing his finger making things happen everywhere so that he's the only actor in the universe. He made human beings to also be actors, responsible actors. And so, we are responsible to respond to him.

Now, the chosen therefore are those who have responded to God specifically in Christ because Christ is the one that God has appointed to be followed by all who will be loyal to God himself. And Jesus had said, "Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father," that is, whoever doesn't honor Christ isn't honoring God. So, those who respond to God and respond to Christ and submit to him as they're commanded to do, those are the ones that he calls his chosen. He's chosen the group.

The Bible does not indicate that he's chosen individuals to be saved, although he does choose individuals for special purposes, like he chose the apostles to be apostles, he chose the prophets to be prophets. But to say that he chose among the whole mass of humanity certain individuals to get saved and he chose that others would not is not something the Bible teaches. I believe that God chose Christ and he chose us in Christ, all those who submit to Christ, those who trust in him, those who are abiding in him are the chosen too because he is chosen and they share in his status and dignity.

Now, as far as the tribes, there are a few mysterious things about the list of tribes in Revelation 7, but the way you asked the question makes me think that you're kind of mystified by the whole idea of tribes. I'm not sure. These are 12 tribes that descended from the 12 sons of Jacob. Jacob in the Old Testament had 12 sons. These sons had families, these families grew into clans, and these clans grew into tribes. Each one was a tribal leader so that all these names were the names of divisions of the one family, those that were descended from Jacob who was also called Israel.

So, they're called the children of Israel or the sons of Israel, and therefore they're called the 12 tribes of Israel. Okay, that's where the tribes come from. Now, there's nothing too strange in the Bible to talk about the tribes of Israel, it's just like one of the main themes, especially in the Old Testament. But we even read about them in the new, here and also in James, he addresses his letter to the 12 tribes that are scattered abroad, greeting. Paul said when he was preaching on one occasion that he's preaching that which was the hope of Israel, which the 12 tribes longed for year after year. The 12 tribes is simply a reference to the people from the 12 sons of Jacob, the people descended from them. So, that's what the tribes are.

Now, in this particular list, it's kind of interesting because there really are 13 names available to list because one of the 12 tribes was one of the 12 sons was Joseph. Now, there were 11 other brothers besides him, but Joseph was one of the 12. But he had two sons, and before his death, Jacob adopted the two sons of Joseph to be full sons, which means they were on the same status as the other 11. Joseph was on the status of the other 11, but his two sons were elevated to that status.

So now, there's 11 plus the two sons of Joseph, that makes 13. Now, many times when the Bible's listing the 12, because there are 13 possible names, sometimes one is left out. A lot of times it's the Levites that are left out or some other minor tribe. In this list, there's also 12, but what's weird is it doesn't list the tribe of Dan. Dan is the one that they leave out here. But there's, it's worse than that because there's the tribe of Joseph and the tribe of Manasseh. Manasseh is one of the two tribes of the tribe of Joseph. Ephraim and Manasseh were the two halves of the tribe of Joseph, but the passage you're talking about in Revelation 7 includes what's called the tribe of Joseph, which must mean Ephraim, and then Manasseh.

Now, Ephraim and Manasseh make up the tribe of Joseph. So, it's a weird listing, and in order to make it 12, it leaves out the tribe of Dan. Now, as far as reasons for that, I've read some ideas about that. One of the church fathers thought that Dan was left out because the Antichrist was going to come from the tribe of Dan. But there's nothing in the Bible that would suggest that at all. That's just made up off the top of his head apparently, or somebody's head. So, I can't give you a reason for it. But it sounded like you were not even familiar with the idea of the 12 tribes. Those are the segments of the race that descended from Jacob or Israel, and they've always been referred to as the 12 tribes. All right, thanks for your call. Larry in Kent, Washington. Oh, Larry, that's pretty loud there.

Larry: Yes, hey, Steve, I'm talking to you again. I had a question, a family member asked me. They were cleaning up our library or storage room and they got a lot of old Bibles that are worn and torn, and he's like, "Should we burn them? What do we do with them?" And I know in churches, it's practice to, like in our church, they'll burn the napkins from communion that they used to wipe the wine, and like choir songs and anything that has a sacred Bible verse on it or something, they'll burn it, prayer requests. Just so I kind of thought about it, but then just wondering what do people do out there with old sacred literature, biblical literature? Is burning the method?

Steve Gregg: It's always kind of a hard thing to know what to do because you revere the Bible. It's sort of like how do you get rid of an old American flag? If you're a patriotic person and you revere the flag, you don't want to burn it and you don't want to throw it in the trash can, but really, I guess there are procedures that are prescribed for getting rid of a flag. There are no such procedures for getting rid of a Bible.

One thing we have to realize is that we could fetishize Bibles as if the book itself, the pages, and the leather, which eventually are yellowed and torn and falling out and the leather is cracked and maybe not attached to the innards of the Bible anymore—I've had Bibles in that condition—you almost say, well, this is the word of God, I can't throw it away. Yeah, well, what can you do with it? You can't just store them up. I think throwing them away is not irreligious.

I mean, realize first of all in biblical times, people didn't have Bibles accumulating. They didn't have printing presses so you couldn't go buy a Bible. You couldn't buy several. They existed in scroll form. I don't know what they did with the scrolls when they got old, but I think they just copied them and tossed the others. In fact, some of the oldest manuscripts, especially Sinaiticus, one of the oldest manuscripts of the New Testament we have, was found in a trash can in a monastery. It was rescued from there and kept.

But I mean, the monastery, what they did is they copied the New Testament over and over again, and I guess the ones that were worn out or whatever, they tossed. So they, this is like in 300 years after Christ, they didn't have this, I guess, superstition about, "Oh, this parchment is holy parchment." And we might do well to get over that kind of thing, but we have that. I mean, you're right, the Catholic Church has to do something special with the hosts and the wine and so forth that doesn't get consumed at the mass, and I didn't know what they do with the napkins and so forth that they wipe the glass with, but there's something we almost revere, or are taught to revere, physical objects that are related to our worship of God.

Whereas I don't know that God had that attitude or I don't know that Jesus had that attitude or the apostles. Of course, they revered the scriptures. But what they revered is the word of God, which is contained in the scriptures. The parchment, the ink—it's not holy ink, it's not holy parchment. It's easy to feel that way about it if you revere the Bible. But it's the words themselves. And when you throw a Bible out because it's simply dilapidated and can't be used anymore, well, you're not getting rid of the words. The words of the Bible, they live on in new copies and hopefully in your mind and in your heart.

So, I feel strange tossing a Bible that's no longer to be used by anyone, but I don't think it's a wrong thing to do it. It's just awkward just because you do revere the Bible. Some people won't put anything on top of a Bible, some will not place their Bible on the ground just because they think it's not a reverent thing to do. But we're not told to do that. We're not told to treat the physical object that way.

But if someone does, if they can't throw it away, you could give it to the Salvation Army, you know. They'll throw it away probably if it can't be used anymore, but let them do it. There is such a thing as restoring an old Bible, getting a new cover on it and stuff like that, but really, the paper does get so brittle and old that you can hardly turn the pages without it breaking and crumbling. So, I mean, obviously tossing a book like that, nobody's going to be able to read it. What's the point of having it?

And this is almost another attitude you have to be careful of. Some people think it's holy to have a Bible on their shelf even though they never read it. Keeping a Bible but not reading it is not reverencing it, and there are Bibles that get so old you can't really practically read them anymore because they'll fall apart in your hands. So, I would just say you don't have to feel guilt if you have to throw it away. Probably you have another one waiting, a newer one that replaces it.

The main thing is for the word of God to continue generation by generation, not for the physical pages on which it's written to be cherished. You know, the, when Israel was in the wilderness in the Book of Numbers, they were under God's judgment and God sent some deadly serpents among them and they bit them and the people were dying. And Moses interceded for the people and God said, "Put up a bronze statue of a serpent on a pole and whoever looks at it will be healed," and that did happen.

But we read later on, I think it's in the time of Josiah, that Josiah had to destroy that bronze serpent because people had begun to burn incense to it, that is, they'd begun to worship it. It was just an object that God had them make for this one thing, but they tended to make it into something to worship. And I think that the warning against that is physical objects, in so far as they've been associated with our relationship with God in any way, we may feel they're too sacred to do away with. But Josiah in his reforms actually destroyed the bronze serpent because it had become physically an object that they worshipped. And I think there's such a thing as worshipping the Bible, which is not a good thing too. Following the word of God, cherishing the word of God is good, but the word of God lives on after the Bible is gone, that is, a physical Bible has fallen apart and no more in use. Anyway, I understand the feelings that come with that question. I appreciate your call.

Philip in Oakley, California. Wait, we got to take a break here, the music's playing. We have another half hour coming so don't go away. That first half hour seemed to go by really fast. You're listening to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg. You know, we've been on Monday through Friday doing this show since 1997. I always have a dyslexic brain. I'm not looking at it. I always say 1979. I guess I'm kind of stuck in the 70s. I'm a baby boomer, the 70s were made big impression on me. We've been on the air since 1997. That's still 29 years. And we are listener supported. If you'd like to help us stay on the air, you can write to the Narrow Path, PO Box 1730, Temecula, California, 92593. The website's thenarrowpath.com. I'll try to get my head together before the next half hour. Hold on.

The Narrow Path is one feature of the teaching ministry of Steve Gregg. Steve's philosophy of teaching is to educate, not indoctrinate his listeners. He believes that Christians should learn to think for themselves about the Bible and not be dependent on him or any other teacher for their convictions. We hope to teach Christians how to think, not what to think about the Bible.

Welcome back to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we're live for another half hour taking your calls. If you'd like to be on the air, you have questions about the Bible or the Christian faith or you want to disagree with the host, that's always fun. Give me a call at 844-484-5737. I am really making mistakes with the numbers today, but that was correct. That's the correct phone number. 844-484-5737. And we're going to talk to Philip from Oakley, California next. Hi Philip, welcome.

Philip: Yeah, how are you doing? I got a question. It's from 1 Corinthians chapter 15 where talking about the resurrection and he was talking about Paul that some people says there is no resurrection. Then he says, "How if there was no resurrection, how can people pray for the dead?" And I ask that me, I want to know what does that mean, people praying for the dead?

Steve Gregg: Well, Paul doesn't mention anyone praying for the dead. He does talk about people being baptized for the dead in verse 29. He says, "Otherwise what will they do who are baptized for the dead if the dead do not rise at all? Why then are they baptized for the dead?" Yeah, there's no mention in any of Paul's writings about praying for the dead or to the dead.

And as far as what he's referring to when he talks about being baptized for the dead, the most common view that I've heard, which I don't necessarily accept without question, the most common view I've heard is that there were people who were baptizing living Christians on behalf of people who had died and who could not themselves be baptized. So it was kind of a proxy, by proxy baptizing one person for another. Now, the Mormons still do this to this day and they justify it by this particular verse, 1 Corinthians 15:29.

Now, Paul does not necessarily say that that's what's happening. He doesn't say there's proxy baptisms, and there's been several other interpretations that have been given to this verse. What we can say is that Paul does not authorize proxy baptism by any means, and he talks about those who are doing it, why are they doing it? Baptizing for the dead, whatever that is, why are they doing that if there's no resurrection for the dead?

Now, my opinion, and this could be wrong because there's a whole bunch of opinions and no one really knows what Paul's referring to except his readers did. I mean, let me just say this before I give my opinion. A lot of people think this is a problem in the Bible that it's got things that nobody knows what it means. Well, it wasn't written to anybody living today; it was written to the Corinthians. They knew what he meant. We're reading their mail. If we don't understand it, that's our problem, not the Bible's problem. Paul communicated quite effectively to his readers. They're not living right now. We are and we're trying to understand what he was alluding to, something they knew but which we to this day do not. So we only guess.

Fortunately, we don't have to know because he's not promoting, he's not advocating a certain practice. But my thought is he's saying if the dead don't rise, why would people be baptized with reference to, and the word for can mean with reference to, the dead? And by that I take the dead to mean Jesus. Christians are in fact baptized with reference to Jesus. We're baptized in his name, we're identified with him in his burial and resurrection. So Christians are baptized with reference to Christ. But why would we do that if the dead don't rise? Because Paul has already said if the dead don't rise, then Jesus didn't rise and he's dead.

So why would we be baptized with reference to a dead person if that's true? Now, he it was earlier that he said in verse 13 of the same chapter, "If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen." Okay, what he's saying is if there's no resurrection, then Christ is still dead. And if he's dead, why would people be baptized with reference to him if the dead don't rise? Now, this may not be the correct understanding, but he he doesn't specifically criticize the practice that he is mentioning.

If he was talking about people baptizing living people by proxy for dead people, which is what people often think when they first read it, it seems like he he would distance himself from that somewhat. And he doesn't. He doesn't say he's whatever it is he's talking about, he's not criticizing it. He's just asking why people do it if there's no resurrection. But since there is a resurrection, which is what he's arguing, the practice might be well justified if what he means is "the dead" in this case refers to Christ if there's no resurrection. If there's no resurrection, then Christ is dead. Why would people be baptized with reference to him?

That's my opinion, but I will just be honest with you. One commentator that I read years ago said he had discovered 40 different interpretations of this one verse. So mine is only one out of 40. If mine is wrong, then one of the other 39 might be correct. Better still, if we don't know which one is right, we might just be humble about it and say, "I don't know." It won't hurt us because it's not advocating something that we aren't doing or need to be doing. I appreciate your call. Sorry I can't give you a more definitive answer. I don't think anyone can really. Johnny in Sacramento, California. Welcome to the Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Johnny: Thank you, Steve. My question is about people being baptized in Acts 2:38 it says in Jesus' name and in Matthew 28:19 it says baptizing in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Can you shed some light on that?

Steve Gregg: Sure. You're right. Jesus did commission the disciples to baptize, well, to make disciples and baptize those disciples in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Now, we don't read of anyone being baptized with that formula in the Book of Acts, which is where we read of the apostles' activities after Jesus rose from the dead and ascended into heaven, and that happened in the first chapter of Acts.

And the continuing story of how the disciples carried out the commission that Jesus gave them. And several times in Acts we read of them baptizing people, but we never read of them baptizing in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Now, Jesus said to do that. So we have to assume one of two things. Either the apostles disobeyed Christ, and that hardly seems likely since it would be easier to obey him than not to in a case like that—why not just baptize in the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit like most churches do now?

Why did they baptize in the name of Christ? And you're right, I mean that's what Peter said, "Every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." And you also read other places in the Book of Acts of people were baptized in the name of Christ or in the name of Jesus and never in the terms of the formula that you find in Matthew 28.

So, like I said, either the disciples were disobedient or they weren't. If they weren't disobedient, I'm that's the theory I'm going with, then they interpreted Jesus' command in the way that they practiced it. I assume we would have to say that they interpreted "the name," which by the way is a singular, "the name" of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit as the name of Jesus.

Now, this would suggest a very high view of the deity of Christ right from the beginning because if they identified Jesus' name with the actual persons of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit or with God, I mean if they're substituting the name Jesus for the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, then it would seem like they were seeing Jesus as God. Now, Paul of course in Colossians 2:9, he said that in Jesus dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And all the fullness of the Godhead seemingly would include the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and the whole fullness of the Godhead dwelt bodily in Christ.

So the apostles apparently saw Jesus as the embodiment of the whole Trinity in a way. Now, I don't know how to understand that or explain that. I'm just going with the material we have in the Bible. And so my impression is they were in fact baptizing in the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit when they did it in the name of Jesus. Now, again, the Bible doesn't explain that to be the harmony of those two statements.

But I'm a logical person, you know. I have to believe either they deliberately disobeyed what Jesus told them to do, and that doesn't seem likely and there doesn't seem any good reason to change it, or else they figured that's what he was talking about when he said "baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit." So, I mean many people say, "Well," once they realize that the apostles baptized in the name of Jesus, they say, "Well, you shouldn't be baptized then in the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, you should be baptized only in the name of Jesus."

And yet, how could it be wrong to baptize in the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit if that's what Jesus actually said? You know, there's some people who are hung up on the formula. I believe the issue is the identity of the person you're baptized into. When Paul said the church in Corinth was dividing in 1 Corinthians 1, said some were saying "I'm of Paul," "I'm of Cephas," "I'm of Apollos," "I'm of Christ." Paul said, "Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of Paul?"

Now, he's saying you weren't. You weren't baptized in the name of Paul. You were baptized in the name of Christ, so you belong to him. The question is what identity is the identity of the person you are baptized into. In 1 Corinthians 10, Paul said that the Israelites when they came through the Red Sea in the exodus that they were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, meaning their baptism was swearing allegiance to Moses.

If people had been baptized in the name of Paul, he suggests then you would be of Paul. You'd have allegiance to Paul. But you don't because he didn't die for you and you weren't baptized in his name. So, I think the important thing is not what syllables are used specifically because actually in the Book of Acts you'll find them sometimes in the name of Jesus, in the name of Christ, in the name of Jesus Christ, I mean these are the Lord Jesus Christ. These are different words but they are the same person. And the important thing is that when you're baptized as a new believer, you're being baptized into that person, Jesus Christ.

And if his name is spoken of as the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and that's the term that is used when one is baptized, I don't see anything that's wrong with it if we're talking about the same person. I mean it, frankly, if somebody said, "I baptize you in the name of the Good Shepherd, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, the Alpha and the Omega," we're still talking about the same person here. I mean, that's a different set of syllables than any that was used in the Book of Acts, but it's the same person.

And I think that the issue is not the formula. That's just a ritual, the formula. The question is the reality. Were you baptized into Jesus Christ or not? And if so, it may be that, you know, the preacher said, "I baptize you in the name of Jesus Christ" or the name of Christ or the name of the Lord Jesus Christ or the name of the Lord Jesus or the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit if that's equivalent. Again, there would seem to be justifiable flexibility in the actual words used as long as we're not being flexible in terms of the identity of the person that you're being baptized into. That'd be how I look at that issue. I appreciate your call. Johnny in Sacramento, California. Welcome.

Johnny: Thank you very much. Bye now. Hello?

Steve Gregg: Hello?

Johnny: Hi.

Steve Gregg: Hi, Johnny.

Johnny: I guess I'm supposed to hang up now?

Steve Gregg: Well, did I get your question covered?

Johnny: Yes, sir.

Steve Gregg: Okay, just want to make sure before I hung up. Okay, Johnny. God bless you, man. Bye now. All right, I don't like to say goodbye and hang up if I don't think I've got the question fully done to their satisfaction. Daniel in New Rochelle, New York, welcome.

Daniel: Hey Steve, how are you? Steve, I really appreciate your ministry and what you teach and all your knowledge and understanding is really helpful and it's really interesting. My question is, I suffer with lust and temptation, right? Like lusting over if I see a girl I like or I adore. I want to ask you is there like a penalty for lusting and what is the penalty?

Steve Gregg: Well, let me just say lusting falls into the category of temptation. There is no penalty for temptation because there's no guilt in temptation. Being Jesus was tempted. The Bible says he was tempted all ways like we are, but he's not guilty of anything because he didn't sin. We have to realize that temptation is not sin.

It says in James Chapter 1, "Everyone is tempted when he is drawn away by his own lusts and enticed, and lust when it conceives brings forth sin." So, there's a point at which lust is there, but it hasn't conceived and it's not sin yet. Well, how does lust conceive? By you agreeing to it. He said when you're drawn away by your lust, even mentally, if you agree with it, then it becomes yours. You own it. As long as you're saying no, then you don't own it.

There might be any number of things that come to your mind that you would desire, and the word lust only means desire. In the Bible, it's sometimes mostly it's used for bad things, but it's a Greek word that just means to desire. And it's even used of things that you might desire that are not bad. Like Jesus said, using the same Greek word, he said to his disciples, "With great desire I've desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer," in Luke Chapter 23, I guess it was.

So, it's the same word. Lust. "With great lust I've lusted to have this Passover." So it's a word for strong desire that isn't always evil desire. Now, it is evil desire if what you're craving is something God forbids you to have. But having the desire isn't a sin, it's being drawn by that desire, James said. And when that desire conceives, I believe that's at the point where your will says yes. When your will says yes to the desire, then it becomes yours. You own it.

As long as you're saying no, then you don't own it. It's the devil or your body or whatever, or both conspiring to make you desire something and be tempted to do something that you're not supposed to do. And Jesus said, "If a man looks at a woman to lust after her," that's his actual words, "looks at a woman to desire her," that means that you're not just seeing a woman and suddenly spontaneously desire arises, that happens to people all the time. It means if you're looking at her in order to desire her. In order to have sexual fantasies about her.

Well, then if that's your motivation, then you're committing adultery in your heart, he said. But he's not saying that every time you see something—and by the way, our world is filled with visual images that are aimed at stirring up desire—every time you see something and then suddenly you feel desire, that's not sin. There's no penalty for feeling desire. But if you look at that in order to satiate desire, even if you don't do anything physical, if you're doing it in your mind, he said, "Well, that's committing adultery in your heart."

So, yeah, I realize when you say you have that struggle, I'm not sure of any young man that doesn't have it and many old men have it. You don't necessarily outgrow it, especially as you get out of your adolescence hopefully it's not such a compelling drive. Although some people indulge it so much when they're young and continue to so that they never really get over it because they think, "Oh, I'll just give in to this, that'll make it go away." No, that'll just establish it as a pattern in your mind that wherever you whatever you want, you go for it. And there are men, dirty old men who've been indulging their lusts mentally or physically, both, all their life and now they're totally trapped in it.

But Jesus still will save and he can save you from your sins. He might not save you from your temptations because temptations are a part of life that that define the battle. We're here to wage war. We're here to win victories. We're here to build character and to overcome sin in our lives through the power of God. And so that's our battle. We're supposed to do that.

Some people's battle, even when they're old men, is probably going to be this sexual lust thing because of the way they mismanaged it when they were younger. But if that's not their battle, there'll be other battles. Pride, hatred, envy, whatever. We all have to overcome sin in our lives. So when you say, "Well, I have a struggle with lust," you too, I mean, most men do at some point in their lives.

So, that's at least you know what your struggle is. And struggling is a good thing because if you weren't struggling with it, you'd be succumbing to it. That would be a bad thing. Struggling against it means you're on God's side in this matter, you're not on its side, you're fighting it. As long as you're fighting it, you're not on its side. So be glad that you're fighting it rather than just caving in at the first impulse.

It's hard. It's hard, but you know, this life is short, eternity is long. The rewards of making the right choices in this short lifetime are eternal and infinite. It's worth the struggle. That's at least what Jesus said. That's what the Bible teaches. So, just seek God and seek his help and ask him to help you walk in the spirit and you won't fulfill the lust of the flesh. You'll still be tempted by them, but you won't fulfill them.

And that's true of any sin that people are tempted with. But there's no guilt for having temptation. I realize that was your question, and the answer is no, there's no guilt for being tempted. But it is a potential situation where you could fall into guilty behavior and that's a test to see if you will, are you on God's side or are you on the side of your lusts? That's what this test is about. And our life is a test and we pass the test when we're faithful unto death.

I appreciate your call, Daniel. Let's see if we can get a couple more calls in. I don't know if we can. Let's talk to Paul in Portland, Oregon. Paul, welcome.

Paul: Hey, how are you doing? Thanks for taking the call. I just wanted to share something with you. I've studied under J. Vernon McGee for 35 years and I've listened to a lot of sermons and I think there's a consensus on a lot of teachings of Christ. But something that just really grieves me about Christianity is how far off they are on Chapter 3 in Genesis. It is a very important chapter and I'll give you just a couple of examples.

We get this book out and it says, you know, when God tested Adam and Eve with a command and they ate of the tree, and it never seems to make sense that the tree is in the garden. It's outside the provision of God. The city of Ai where Joshua lost a battle is because it was defiled from a guy stealing something. Jesus Christ was crucified between two thieves. Is this going to get to a question? Just let me know, is this going to get to a question? Because we're almost out of time for the show.

Is there a question? I just believe when the God gave the word of God to Adam, it wasn't to test them, but it was to empower him to overcome the serpent.

Steve Gregg: Well, it didn't work then. But I do, it's I believe it's a test. I mean, the word temptation means test. I don't know if you're aware that in Hebrew and in Greek, the word temptation means test. And it was definitely the devil is the tester or the tempter. So, the devil was put in the garden and so was the tree in order to test them.

I don't believe it made them stronger. I don't think that, I mean, if you resist temptation, yes, you'll get stronger. That's good. And no doubt that's what God wanted to happen. I'm sure he wanted them to resist the test, to win the test, let's say, resist the temptation and pass the test. And if they had passed the test one day and then they did the next day and the next day and the next day, no doubt they'd get more resolved and stronger. That's good. When you pass tests spiritually speaking you do get stronger. So that would have been of course a good outcome that God would have wanted. But a test can always be failed also. And that was the point of giving a test, to see if somebody will pass or fail. So I believe that it's both that and also could have been as you say something to strengthen them.

We only have a couple minutes left, but Rick in Napa, I want to give you a chance. Go ahead.

Rick: On the question of the accounts in Acts of the baptisms, one thing is that those are not exhaustive accounts. They don't include absolutely every detail. For instance, we'd like to know how much water they were baptized in, but that's not given to us. Now, it may be that Luke's account is sort of a shorthand and they were baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Steve Gregg: That's entirely possible. I mean, you're right. I think that a lot of times the speeches, the sermons, the things that people are recorded as saying in both in the Gospels and in the Book of Acts are what we might call a faithful digest, a faithful digest of what was said. And a summary. So it and certainly there are times when it is a paraphrase.

Because we know for example that Luke who wrote the Book of Acts also paraphrased things in his in his Gospel. Matthew tells us that Jesus usually used the term Kingdom of Heaven. But whenever Luke records something that Jesus said about the Kingdom of Heaven, Luke paraphrases it to Kingdom of God. In Matthew, Jesus said, "When you see the abomination of desolation, flee to the mountains." Luke paraphrased that in Luke 21:20 to say, "When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, flee to the mountains." Same statement, he's just paraphrasing it in the same discourse at the same point in the same discourse.

So Luke does paraphrase in order to make things easier to understand. And it is possible, you're right, that the disciples did baptize in using the formula in the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit. But Luke paraphrased it to "well, they were baptized in the name of Christ." And that would not be out of character for Luke. We know that and or for other Gospel writers. Sometimes they took a longer statement and compressed it into a shorter one. So, I mean, you make a good point. And frankly, I think it's one that I don't think I've ever made when answering that particular question. So I appreciate you bringing it up because it's I think it's got validity.

The music's playing. I'm out of time. Rick, thank you. I'm glad I got your call in. Thanks for joining us. You've been listening to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we're live Monday through Friday at this same time and this same station. Maybe you're listening on the air, maybe you're listening online. Maybe you're listening on the app. If you're not listening on the app, you should be. The app is free. You don't get it from the App Store and you don't get it from Google Play. You go to your browser, something like Safari or Google, and go to the website on your browser thenarrowpath.app. Once you get there, it'll tell you how to download it onto your phone. Then all the shows and the lectures and everything from our website are available there on your phone. It's great or on your iPad. That's thenarrowpath.app on a browser. Our website for donations or otherwise getting our materials is thenarrowpath.com. Thanks for joining us. Let's talk again tomorrow. God bless you.