The Narrow Path

Steve Gregg: Good afternoon and welcome to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we're live for an hour each weekday afternoon taking your calls. If you have questions you'd like to bring up for conversation on the air about the Bible, about Christianity, or if you have a difference of opinion from the host you want to bring that up for conversation, this phone line is for you. You can call me at 844-484-5737. One more time, that's 844-484-5737. Our first caller today is Brian from New Ipswich, New Hampshire. Hi Brian, welcome to the Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Brian: Yes, hi Steve. I hope that you recall about three nights ago there was a guy that called in and he was lamenting about his feelings, how he felt inside, and you were trying to console him. He was feeling really kind of down and so forth. I don't know if you remember that.

Steve Gregg: I do.

Brian: Okay. All I wanted to do is, and I'm hoping that he's listening, that something I would have liked to say to him if I could, is that there was that part in the scripture that says, "I would that you were hot or cold." And both conditions, hot or cold, were acceptable, but lukewarm was the unacceptable condition.

Steve Gregg: Okay, well, we don't know for sure exactly what hot or cold means. I think we might assume, I'm not sure we have any biblical grounds to do so, we might assume that it means being emotionally hot or emotionally cold. Though of course in Revelation 3, I think all scholars know it's a reference to the waters of Philadelphia, which they came six miles from a hot springs to the town, they cooled down. By the time the water system in Philadelphia received them, they were lukewarm. You couldn't really be refreshed with them as with cold water, and they weren't hot enough to do anything good with. They also had picked up a lot of minerals on the way that were kind of distasteful.

So Jesus is making a sort of an allusion to something well known in that town, that they had lukewarm waters that were disgusting. Now, we might say you people are disgusting too in a way. Waters would be more helpful if they were cold or hot. Lukewarm is about the worst possible temperature for them. He could be saying that being hot means on fire for God. We use that imagery in modern times. I don't know that they would have had that idea in ancient times. And being cold then would be the opposite of that, being basically careless about God.

Now, it sounds like what you're saying is that the young man, the man who called, is apparently lukewarm, that he's not cold and he's not hot, and therefore he better go one way or the other. Well, it depends on what being hot or cold means. As far as I'm concerned, if a person is fully committed to Christ, that's as good as God hopes for us to be. That's the thing. He wants us to be fully committed to Christ. Now, what I told him is if he's fully committed to Christ, he shouldn't be worried too much about his emotions. Now I'm not sure if you're calling to disagree with me. I do invite people to do that, and maybe that's what you're doing. Maybe you're saying, well no, God does care about your emotions, you have to be hot or cold.

But Jesus never says anything about emotions in that statement, not clearly. I mean, certainly it's one thing to say, "I think hot and cold refer to different emotional states." Well okay, you're welcome to think that, but you wouldn't be welcome to say that Jesus explains that to mean that. And it would be a theory. I certainly wouldn't want to counsel somebody in their Christian life based on a mere theory.

And by the way, it was the church, not particularly individuals, that were lukewarm. So anyway, I hear what you're saying and I certainly know the usage of that expression and the tendency of some people to think it has something to do with your emotional state. What I was telling him is that your standing with God comes from your devotion to Christ, and your loyalty to Christ, and your determination to follow Christ.

There are people who have those things in maximal amounts who aren't extremely emotional. And that's more of a matter of temperament, probably, than anything else. Some people get all excited about everything. They might get excited about Jesus, but they also get excited about the football game. I'm more excited about Jesus than I would be about any football game, but there are people who get excited about their birthday. I mean, some people just get excited about stuff. I'm not one of those people.

I'm thrilled to know Christ. I consider it a great privilege and I'm devoted to him. And I don't know the man who called, whether this is true of him or not, but my emotions in the matter are not mercurial. I tend to be a pretty even-keeled person. So I'd hate to think that with total devotion to Christ and an effort to be totally obedient to him at all times and loyal until death, that somehow God's going to be disgusted with me because I don't have the same temperament, the same emotions that some maybe flightier people have. Anyway, I'm not sure that what you're saying would be good counsel for him. I don't think he was saying, "I'm trying to find a justification for being lukewarm." What he was saying is, "How can I get beyond this point?" And to just tell him, "Well, you can't be lukewarm or God will vomit you out of his mouth," I don't really know that that's recommending anything practical for him to do. It's just telling him, "You're in a lot of trouble." I'm not sure how much trouble he was in. It sounded like he's trying very hard to be a follower of Christ and he was thinking that maybe there should be more emotional gratification coming from it. My point to him was, maybe not. Sometimes there is, sometimes there's not. But if you evaluate your spirituality by how emotional you feel, you could be very well deceived because emotions run the whole gamut of high and low in the life of a person who is very zealous for God.

I mean, Elijah was probably very ecstatic when the fire came down on Mount Carmel and burned up the altar and vindicated him in front of all the people of Israel. A few days later he was wanting to die because he's so depressed. Why? Because his spiritual life was now deficient? No, the opposite. He said he was the only one in the area who was loyal to God, everyone else had bowed the knee of Baal, he felt. So being depressed on that occasion was not a mark of his distance from God. He had his ups and downs like everybody else has. So yeah, I wouldn't take that hot or cold thing and try to impose it on somebody who's not feeling a lot of emotion as a way of saying, "You're in trouble, you've got to get hot emotionally." I don't know that the Bible says that anywhere. Anyway, I appreciate your input because I always am welcome it. Thank you Brian for joining us. Fred from Alameda, California, welcome to the Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Fred: Yes, I was reading something from Charles Spurgeon today and I hardly know anything about him. I was born in '68 and I just remember Billy Graham in the 80s coming on TV. However, this particular preacher was called the Prince of Preachers and I was wondering if you can go into a little bit of detail about him and what you think about Charles Spurgeon.

Steve Gregg: Well, who could not admire Charles Spurgeon? Charles Spurgeon was a pastor in London, England in the 1800s and he did not have a college education. I believe he started pastoring when he was 19 years old, but he's the most read author in the world because all of his sermons, which were by the thousands, were published and distributed around the world, as well as the fact that there are many books of his and so forth and volumes and volumes and volumes of his material on many people's bookshelves. I have quite a bit of his works too, not anywhere near most of them, there's far too many. Very influential man, very godly man as near as I can tell. He suffered greatly in pain. He had chronic pain through much of his life. Sometimes he was bedridden, but he pastored a huge church. And I just don't have anything bad to say about him.

Now, he was a Calvinist, but so were frankly most evangelicals in England in those days, I think. Most of the great writers of that period of the evangelical movement tended to be Calvinistic in some of their beliefs and he was no different. So I would disagree with his Calvinism, but to disagree with a man's Calvinism doesn't mean to suggest he's not a great Christian. Now you can have wrong doctrines and those can make you not a great Christian, but most wrong doctrines don't predict for being a bad Christian. In other words, some very good Christians can be very mistaken about many subjects. Calvinism being one of them. So yeah, he was a Calvinist and once in a while when you read Spurgeon, he'll say things like, "Arminianism is from the pit of hell." That's just when he's getting a little excited. Most of the time he's not saying that kind of stuff. Most of the time he is saying very edifying things. I love to read him. And so if you're reading him wonder if that's good or not, sure. But just like when you read anybody else, realize that they do have their own theological conviction as everyone should. And some of their convictions may not, they're not omniscient, let's face it. He doesn't know everything, so could be wrong. You should check everything with scripture. Don't just follow a man because he's a great man. Check everything out. And so I highly recommend Spurgeon. I don't recommend his Calvinism, but that's a very small blot on his great reputation. He's a wonderful guy. I'd love to have known him. But he's been dead for over a century or whatever. Anyway, appreciate your call. Hope that helps you Fred. We'll talk next to Rez in the Bay Area in California. Hi Rez, welcome.

Rez: Thanks Steve, how you doing?

Steve Gregg: Good.

Rez: You kind of said something just earlier that didn't fully answer my question, but it answered a lot. You said there could be a lot of good Christians that are wrong about many things. And I wanted to just ask your opinion about something that I'm dealing with with a friend and how you've dealt with these kind of things in the past. If you'd make it brief, I'd appreciate our lines are full and sometimes you do go quite long. Go ahead and give me a brief summary. Okay, so she's a Christian and sometimes I think she's a little unbalanced because she thinks a lot of things that are weird, like some of them being that she believes that her problems are because of witches and warlocks attacking her. Things like that, and it's hard to talk to her about these things because she believes that everything she hears is from God.

Steve Gregg: Yeah, I've known people like that. In fact, I get letters from them. Everything that's going wrong in their life is a special attack from demons and things like that. It is very difficult for many people to remain balanced in this area of the supernatural, especially of supernatural evil, magic, demons, the devil, things like that. The Bible acknowledges all these things do exist. The Bible actually acknowledges that they are dangerous. That is, it's a dangerous thing to practice witchcraft or magic. It does not say that it's dangerous for you as a Christian to have somebody else trying to practice magic against you. The Bible does not tell us that there's any danger to the believer from somebody who's invoking demonic powers or whatever else. The Bible says "greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world" in 1 John 4:4.

So if you've got Christ in you, you don't have to be afraid of the devil. You do have to realize the devil's malicious. The devil is hostile. There are demons. If you compromise in the areas of the occult and things like that, you are in a sense throwing certain doors open to demons to invade areas of your life and possibly up to and including demon possession. I'm not going to go so far as to say I know at what point that takes place, but definitely we should be very much aware of those things. On the other hand, once people become aware of them, and I know this from personal experience because I was this way when I was young, it's possible to suddenly think that the whole of reality is defined in terms of demonic activities in the world.

I say I know this from own experience because I was raised in a Baptist church. We didn't talk about demons there. We did believe in the devil and stuff. I went to church for my childhood and I don't remember anyone mentioning demon possession as a phenomenon in modern times. Until I was about 14 years old and some missionaries who our church sponsored came back to raise funds and things like that and to report on what they'd been doing in Africa. And I went to hear them on a Sunday night at our church and they mentioned having encountered a demon-possessed person and that they'd cast the demon out of the person in the name of Jesus. And I remember just thinking, "Wow, I read about that in the Bible, I didn't know that still happened. Are there still demons around? Are there still demon-possessed people around?"

I had never had any thought necessarily that they weren't around, I just never heard anyone bring it up. I had kind of lived my life oblivious to it. And I do remember thinking at the time, "Wow, there's demons around, demons exist." And then I had another experience a few years later when a friend of mine had a very traumatic experience out in the woods where she thought she saw the devil or a demon or something like that visually appearing to her. And I don't know if she did or not, I'm not going to make any judgments about that, I'm just going to say she thought it was true and I was like 16 or 17 and I didn't know any better. I thought, well maybe that's true too. And I remember thinking, "Wow, the devil's really real. The devil really is something to watch out for."

But to watch out for, to me meant watch out for him doing scary things, things that would spook me. We do have to watch out for the devil, but not that he'll spook us. We need to watch out for the devil that he doesn't succeed in tempting us away from Christ. If you are uncompromised in your Christian life, it doesn't really matter what the devil wants to do to you. You don't belong to him, you belong to God. And in James 4:7 it says, "Resist the devil and he'll flee from you." He's the one who's afraid. The Bible says also in James, "The demons believe and they tremble." Okay, so they're the ones who should be shaken. They're the ones trembling. They're the ones who've got to flee. They're not the ones we should be afraid of.

What we need to be afraid of is our own stupidity in allowing ourselves to be drawn away by them, that is into sin and into compromise. If we're living for Christ, we don't have to worry about the devil really in terms of what he can do to us. Now can he do things to us through bad people that he controls? Yeah, but he can't do anything spiritually to us. Can he kill us? Well yeah, Judas Iscariot was filled with, the devil came and filled him and that resulted in of course Jesus getting crucified. So yeah, you can get killed. But guess what? You're going to anyway. Christians should never be afraid of being killed. I mean, if you're afraid of being killed, then you can be controlled. You can be controlled by people who threaten your life. If a person puts his gun to your head and says, "Now deny Christ or cheat on your husband or your wife or curse God" or something, if that gun to your head has any impact on your decision, then you're not going to be very good Christian. Not that everyone's going to have a gun to their head, most people won't, but if that would, that means that you're afraid to die.

And if you're afraid to die, you can be controlled by anyone who threatens to kill you. Now of course the Bible says that we don't have to be afraid to die and Jesus said whoever gives his life for my sake shall find it. So if the devil can induce bad people to do something physically harmful to you, kill you, well, okay, that's the world we live in. Something's going to get you. But you don't, the only thing you have to be worried about is that when that time comes that your life ends, you have remained faithful and uncompromised and you're not moved away from your faith at all. So that's if you've got witches or something trying to put hexes on you or something like that, well, I would just ask God for protection against it. I mean the devil does have power, he just doesn't have power over a person who's walking in the power of Christ and the Spirit and trusting in God.

So I've often told the story, even in one of my books I do, but I've told it on the air before about Smith Wigglesworth who was a kind of a legendary evangelist from England. He was a plumber, totally uneducated guy, but when God called him to do evangelism, he also worked a lot of miracles and stuff. There's lots of stories about Smith Wigglesworth in the early part of the 20th century. There's a story which I'm not sure is true. I think some of the stories about him are in fact legendary, but some of them are quite instructive. And there's a story about how he was asleep one night and his bed started shaking like there was an earthquake. And he woke up in a sweat thinking it was an earthquake and then he looked down at the foot of his bed and the devil was sitting on the foot of his bed leering at him. And when Smith Wigglesworth saw the devil, he said, "Oh, it's only you," and went back to sleep. And to me, that's exactly the way a Christian should be about the devil. People get so spooked by the devil. I think partly because they live a lot of their lives not even knowing there is such a thing as a dark supernatural realm and then when they become aware that there is, sometimes they become more impressed with that than they are with God. Which is one of the many, many, many ways that people get distracted from Jesus. Start thinking about the devil instead. Now why don't we just think about Jesus? Then you'll have nothing to worry about from the devil. And I would tell your friend that, if that's what you're asking me Rez, I would tell her that. Jimmy from Jamesport, Missouri, welcome to the Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Jimmy: Hi Steve. A friend of mine recently asked me, well she's been reading the book *Slave* by John MacArthur.

Steve Gregg: That's a good book, *Slave*. Yeah, I like that book very much.

Jimmy: Okay. She recently asked me what the difference between servant and slave is. And I couldn't answer, so I was wondering if you might be able to help me.

Steve Gregg: Well, there is a difference between a servant and a slave. Well, I should say this, a slave is also a servant. There's different kinds of servants. A slave is a servant who happens to be owned by the master. He's not a free person. He's been sold into slavery and he's like part of the household, part of the estate. He's just, he's property of his owner. Now we don't have that in the modern Western world except illegally in things like sex slavery and human trafficking. That's slavery, but it's illegal. But it used to be legal everywhere in the world. Everywhere in the world had slaves and most places, many places still do.

So a servant is someone who serves somebody else. That's their vocation, that's what they spend their time doing. That's how their life is lived, serving. But there are servants who are paid. They're not, they're not owned. They're free people, but they have a job serving and they get paid for that. In the Bible times there were paid servants who were like, we had a lady come clean our house today. She's a paid servant. She does that once in a while. That's how she makes her living.

But there were also servants who were not paid. Well, I mean they were provided for, their housing, their food, their clothes, everything's provided by their master, but they weren't free and they didn't get salaries or paychecks. So that's the difference. A slave would be a servant who is also owned by the one that they're serving. They would be a servant. And in the Bible, the word *doulos*, the Greek word *doulos*, means slave. Now there's other words like *diakonos*. *Diakonos* means servant, which is used, even it's the word for deacon, *diakonos* is the Greek word we get our English word deacon. And the deacons in the church are *diakonoi*, they are servants of the church, but they're not owned like a slave. But in biblical times, as well as now in some places, there were people who are owned by other people and they did serve as slaves. And that's what the word *doulos* referred to. And that's the term that many times the Apostles refer to themselves as the *doulos* of Jesus Christ, the slave of Jesus Christ. And the reason for that is because in 1 Corinthians chapter 6, Paul says we've been bought with a price, we're not our own. We're like slaves. Jesus purchased us. And that's a good thing because the only other option is to be a slave of Satan and that's really a bad thing. So yeah, so that's the difference.

Jimmy: Yeah. So would you agree with MacArthur then that in every instance where *doulos* is used, it should be translated slave as opposed to servant? That's my final question.

Steve Gregg: I don't know any exceptions. I don't have exhaustive knowledge of Greek literature and there may be times when *doulos* is used in some sense lesser than a slave, but according to the lexicons and so forth, that is the word for a slave. I would trust MacArthur on that. He may have studied that out more than I have. I thought his book was pretty good. Did you have some issues with his book?

Jimmy: No, I didn't. I was just trying to answer a question for a friend who's reading it. I think she was troubled a little bit by his insistence that *doulos* needed to be translated slave in every instance, and I think she was trying to reconcile it with the fact that we're also called friends, servants, son, children.

Steve Gregg: Well yeah, I mean, I'm a father. I'm also a husband. I'm also a son. I'm also a slave of God. None of those things cancels out the others. These are all references to different aspects of my life. I'm owned by God. Of course I'd be owned by God even if Jesus didn't die for me because God made me, he has the right to own me. But Jesus purchased me and as a Christian I'm one who have welcomed that transaction. I'm delighted to be escaping the slavery of Satan and sin in order to have the freedom of being a slave of Christ. And I say the freedom, because you know, if you can do whatever you want to do, that's being pretty free. And when Christ comes, he, it says, "if the son sets you free, you're free indeed." He changes your heart. If you've become one who surrenders to Christ, he puts it in your heart to want to do what's right. And therefore, though you do what's right, you're doing what you want to do. He writes his law in your hearts. It's him that works in you to will and do of his good pleasure. So it's a good thing, it's a good gig, certainly a lot better than being a slave of anyone else, which everyone is who's not a slave of Christ. I need to take a break. I appreciate your call. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. I'll be back in 30 seconds. Don't go away.

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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. I'm looking at a couple of open lines if you want to call. You have questions about the Bible or the Christian faith or a disagreement with the host, feel free to give me a call. We'll be glad to talk to you. The number is 844-484-5737. Once more, that number 844-484-5737. Our next caller is Bob from Downsville, Louisiana. Hi Bob, welcome.

Bob: Hey Steve, it's been a chore to get on with you. My brother has encouraged me to call Steve sometime, so...

Steve Gregg: Well thanks for calling.

Bob: Well, you're welcome. I've enjoyed the program thus far today and I'm sure he'll listen to this program tomorrow if he's not listening now. But I'm looking at, I grew up in a Methodist church, Steve, and they didn't talk too much about demons either, as that's what you were talking about. But I'm looking at, I've been dealing with some people, and this is for nine years ago, Steve, a little background, not much, but nine years ago I wrote this: "Do you think I am contending with you when I tell you that Jesus is not God? Is it that, is that what you think? Have you found a way to tell me what you want God to do with me? I am a servant of God, a child of God, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, and I don't think you like my preaching." So and from the replies I get, I get a lot of...

Steve Gregg: I'm not sure who that's addressed to. Am I supposed to understand you're addressing that to the devil or you're addressing it to me or to somebody?

Bob: No, I was speaking with someone years ago. They told me I was going to hell because I told them that Jesus is not God, that I am a servant of God, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, and I don't think I'm preaching a false gospel.

Steve Gregg: Well, I think very few people would say that they themselves are preaching a false gospel. I'm pretty sure that everyone who preaches, I mean there are some deceivers, there are some people who know they're lying and they're just doing it for the money or for the women or whatever they're trying to get out of it. But I think many preachers preach things that aren't exactly true on many subjects though they think they're true. They're sincere and they understand the scriptures differently than some others do.

I myself believe that Jesus is God in the flesh because the Word, according to John 1:1, is God. And according to John 1:14, he is the Word who became flesh and dwelt among us as Christ. So I believe that Jesus is the Word who is made flesh. Now I also believe that since the Word is God, that he is God made flesh.

But many people don't understand even what that means. They seem to think that you're saying then the Father doesn't exist separately from, I mean if Jesus is God, who was running the universe while Jesus was dead? Who was Jesus talking to when he said, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Who did Jesus refer to when he said, "I'm going to my Father and your Father and my God and your God?" I mean, people would say, well clearly Jesus is talking like he's not God. Well, he is talking like he's not the Father, that's for sure. "I'm going to my Father and your Father. Your God and my God." It's obvious that the word God in that particular sentence is referring to the Father.

Not every Christian in history has been Trinitarian. That's why there was a number of councils of the early church in the 4th century to kind of decide if the Trinitarian idea was true or not, and if Jesus is God or not. And for the first three centuries, there were people on both sides of that issue and there still have been. The only thing that's changed is some church councils got together and clarified what those at the council believed to be the case about the deity of Christ. I happen to agree with those councils, but I don't know anything in the Bible that says that anyone is obligated to agree with councils. What councils say, it seems to me that if a council says something, we, our obligation is to search the scriptures and see if these things are so.

Now, I've done that and I do believe that some of those councils are correct, especially the ones that recognized a Trinitarian paradigm of the Godhead. But there are people who search the scriptures and they see things differently. Let's face it, the scriptures on the subject are not as clear as a bell. I mean, some of them seem pretty clear, but others seem to other people, it seems clear that Jesus said he's not God. Now what are you going to do? You've got some people who see scriptures that say he is, some people who see scriptures that sounds to them like they're saying he's not. What I would say is, some of these scriptures apparently are not as clear as they're being mistaken to be. And therefore it's quite an enterprise to sort through all the relevant passages and find the way that they harmonize.

And that's why it took 300 years for the leading Christians to even come up with a some kind of an agreement about this. Now the fact that leading Christians came to an agreement doesn't mean that all Christians did. Even after the Nicene Council, there were still Arian Christians throughout Germany for a whole century, most of the churches in Germany were still Arian and didn't go along with the Nicene Council. Now that wasn't a change, they weren't rebelling against the council, they already had been Arians. They just didn't see why the council would have any authority to tell them what they have to believe.

So there have always been Christians who had difficulty accepting a Trinitarian doctrine or the deity of Christ and I'll let God sort out which things people need to know about that and which things they don't need to know about that. Fortunately, we're not saved so much by what we know as by what we choose to do with Christ. Knowing all the theology that you could learn from a systematic theology book will not save you, but following Christ will. And people who follow Christ, they've taken his yoke upon them and they're learning from him. That's what being a Christian means. You take his yoke upon you, he's now guiding you, and you're for the rest of your life learning from him. And in the course of learning, you don't know everything yet. You're learning. And therefore those who are following Christ are still have things to learn, still things they're wrong about, but they will get right if they're really following Christ.

That's what distinguishes a Christian from a non-Christian. Not that the Christian has ticked all the boxes in a list of theological propositions. At least that wasn't the way they became Christians in the 1st century or the 2nd century. And I don't think it's the way people become real Christians now. I think we should have the best theology we can. But since we're not omniscient, we have to live with the fact that some theological conundrums we might not be answering them properly because we don't know everything. But one thing I do know, I do know if I'm a follower of Christ or not. I do know if he's my King and my Lord or not. I do know if I have surrendered to him as my Lord. If that is the case, that's what the Bible says makes me a Christian. It says in Romans 10:9, "If we confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in our heart that God raised him from the dead, we shall be saved." Of course confessing with our mouth that Jesus Lord is more than just lip service, we have to mean it. But that is if we embrace Christ as our King and our Lord, well then there's not a whole lot of other theological propositions that are in the list that you have to believe.

Now if someone says, well don't you think a Christian should believe all the theological truth? Absolutely. As soon as they understand it they should. As soon as they know it to be true. But some people don't know it to be true just because a council or a theological camp tells them such and such a thing is true. And it's something that Christians disagreed about for 300 years before this camp said so. It means if they didn't understand it for 300 years, it may not be crystal clear. And it may be something that we have to just keep trying to understand better. So I'm on the other side of the aisle from you on that matter of whether Jesus is God. I believe he is and you don't believe he is. But I've met other people like you who are serving Christ, they're trying to serve him, and they're trying to understand, and they're using the Bible, and they see scriptures that seem to become a hurdle for them in accepting a theology that became normative in the 4th century. I think everyone should be Trinitarian, but I certainly would not say that all the people throughout history, especially before the councils even discussed this, who did not see it my way were not saved. That'd be a crazy thing to say. Some of them were martyrs for Christ. Anyway, I'm not one of those who says that you're going to hell, if that's what you're wondering. I appreciate your sharing your thoughts. Okay, let's talk next to Gil from New York City, New York. Hi Gil, welcome.

Gil: Hi Steve, you remember me. I'm the blind caller that calls your show sometimes. Before I ask a question, I just want to quote Colossians 3:16, "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord." Now I taught myself how to play the piano back in 1991, '92 somewhere around there because of ringing in my ears it was so hard to concentrate. And I enjoy playing songs like "God is so Good," "How Great Thou Art." What were some of your favorite songs that you enjoyed playing? I think I heard you say one time that you was with a band years ago and you did music together in a church, am I correct?

Steve Gregg: Well yeah, I was in a Christian rock and roll band actually. I play the piano also and guitar, but listing favorite songs, I don't really know that that would be something to use our time up here with, there's a lot of people waiting to ask questions. But I have a lot of favorite songs. I have a lot of favorite musicians and bands. I really, I mean, I love the hymns. There's hardly a hymn you can find in a hymno that I don't think is wonderful. I was raised singing the hymns and they're some of the richest songs I know. But some songs that may not be as rich may be as inspiring or more so. And some of the camp songs we sang in church camps were very inspiring. In the Jesus movement there were some fabulous bands. "Love Song" was one of my favorites, you know, Andre Crouch and the Disciples were wonderful. Their music was great. So I have a lot of, honestly, I could make a very, very long list of favorites and I won't because I'm looking at a full switchboard and not much time left. But yeah, and everyone's going to have different favorites. But Gil, I appreciate the fact that you've learned to play piano and you're making melody in your heart to the Lord and I'm sure that you'll increase your repertoire as you go along. Thanks for calling brother. All right, let's talk to Ray in Fort Worth, Texas. Hi Ray, welcome.

Ray: Hey Steve, it's great to talk to your ministry, such a blessing to me. My question is what is your opinion on the validity or lack of validity of the Shroud of Turin?

Steve Gregg: I'm inclined to believe in it. I have to say when I first began to hear about the Shroud of Turin, it was probably back in the 70s, maybe the 80s, and I just thought, oh, another of those Catholic relics. I don't believe in relics in general. First of all, Catholics sometimes attribute some kind of great virtue to touching relics or visiting relics and things like that. I think it's just superstition. And then of course you hear these stories about, they sell splinters of the cross that Jesus died on and if you'd get all those splinters in one place you could build a skyscraper with it because there's so many of them, which means they're all fake. And I believe a great number of relics are fake, probably most of them.

And when I first heard about the Shroud of Turin, I thought, ah, another silly relic. But I will say that I've seen in the years since then a number of documentaries about it. There had been more tests done on it in recent years than had been done before. And I have to say, it looks like it could be the real deal. Now if it is, to my mind I don't think there's any virtue in going to visit it or touch it or anything like that, but it is, it just would be a matter of interest to say, okay, this is the cloth that Jesus was buried in. Now I'm not willing to swear that it is because I don't have absolute knowledge about this any more than anyone else. Maybe it's not. But I don't know of any way that that image could be imprinted on that cloth in a natural way that could have been done hundreds of years ago or thousands of years ago. And so as far as my opinion, I'm leaning in favor of accepting it as genuine.

Ray: Well great. Okay, well thank you.

Steve Gregg: All right Ray. Good talk to you. God bless you. Next caller is Dave in Hooksett, New Hampshire. Hi Dave, welcome.

Dave: Hey Steve, God bless you man. And when I get home I'm going to go online and give you some money because I love what you do. It's awesome. And the previous caller, what came to mind right away was when Jesus was asked if they would show the disciples the Father, and he said, "Well if you've seen me, you've seen the Father." So I think that kind of lays that one to rest. But I just want to thank you so much for your ministry and just thank you so much very much that you're doing this for thousands, maybe millions of people out there. And I love reading God's word and I love hearing explanations from you and others as well about the deeper meanings and how to apply them to our daily lives.

Steve Gregg: Well, thank you for the kind words Dave.

Dave: Thank you for your show.

Steve Gregg: Thank you. God bless you. All right, let's talk to Robert in Pinole, California. Robert, welcome.

Robert: Hi Steve. Yeah, I'm at the gym right now so let me know if it gets a little loud, I'll try to go to a quieter room. But my question is, in 1 Timothy chapter 3, because I've heard people say, "Well God has called me to preach or to do this." But when I read it, it says, "Here's a trustworthy saying: whoever aspires to be an overseer desires a noble task." So my question is, is it type-four to say, "Well God has called me to do this" because the way I read it, it's like a desire? Now I guess God can give us that desire and how do you see that verse right there?

Steve Gregg: Well, Paul goes on of course to lay out what the qualifications are for someone to be a bishop. It's easy to imagine that there could be people who desire to be a bishop but wouldn't meet his qualifications. So he's certainly not saying that having that desire in itself means that that's what you are supposed to be. It does mean, however, that if you have all those qualifications and you don't want to be an elder, you probably won't be. I think two things have to be together. One is the willingness and the desire to do it, and the other would be the qualifications to do it, which Paul lays out.

Now there can be qualified people who don't want to do it and there can be people who want to do it but aren't qualified. So I wouldn't take just one part of this and say here's how you know. I had a friend, he's been dead for some years now, but when I first met him, he was frustrated with churches, but he had a lot of good ideas and he was a good Christian guy. And I asked him if he'd ever thought about starting a church in his home or anything like that. And I said, maybe God's calling you to be a spiritual leader. He says, "Well I look over my shoulder and I don't see anyone following." And I said, yeah, that could be indicative of something. If you're a leader, and if God calls you to be a leader, then God's people are going to probably recognize that and want to follow your example or whatever.

There's more than just wanting to be an elder. Now there's other things to be besides elders. What Paul's talking about there to Timothy is part of the eldership of a local congregation. There's lots of ways to be in ministry without being an elder. I'm not an elder in a congregation. I was when I was younger, but I'm less qualified now than I was then. I actually don't know if I was ever really qualified on Paul's terms, but anyway, I don't feel like I'm elder material. I'm not pastoral in the way that an elder I think needs to be. And there's other issues too. I'm rather a Bible teacher. Now elders have to be Bible teachers, but they have to be something else too. I travel, I teach, I'm not tied to a local congregation, so I'm not really a pastoral person. But I don't feel that I have to be a pastor in order to serve God.

And if I couldn't teach, I'd find out what God's gift to me was because whatever God has gifted you to do defines what he's calling you to do. It might be, I'll tell you this, when I was young, I thought it'd be wonderful to be a crusade evangelist. I loved Billy Graham from the time I was a kid, still do although he's gone now. He was one of my great heroes. I went to Billy Graham crusades, I counseled at a Billy Graham crusade when I was 15 years old. I loved the guy. And I remember before I knew what I would be in the ministry, I had a sense of call to the ministry and I didn't want to be a pastor, but I thought I'd love to be a crusade evangelist. Well, that's not what God called me to be even though I had a love for it. God called me to be something else and I love that too. In fact, I love it every bit as much. I mean, it'd still be great to be a crusade evangelist if I had the gifting for it. I don't think I do. So it wouldn't be so fun. If you have to do that and you don't have the gift, it'd be really not very fun at all, be just a burden.

But on the other hand, I love what I do because it's what God made me to do. And there's lots of things that God has made different people to do. And there's a likelihood that you're going to be drawn to it. You might be drawn to other things too, just like I was being drawn to be a crusade evangelist but it wasn't my calling. You might be drawn to be this or that and not be that. Remember Paul said we should desire the best gifts, especially prophecy. And yet he did say not all are prophets. But he did indicate that everyone should be interested in that. So there can be lots of ministries that people could be interested in being, which isn't what their calling is.

But I seriously doubt that God does have a calling on someone and they won't be interested in it. There just needs to be something more than just the interest. I believe that if you're called to do something, it'll be something on your mind, something that God's put an inclination toward. But he'll also give you gifting or abilities and the body of Christ will recognize those in you even when you're not trying to show them off. They'll just be being around you and they'll say, "Hey, this is what I think your gift is." And then that's what you're probably going to find your calling to be. But yeah, the fact that desiring to be a bishop or an overseer is a good thing, it is a good thing. It's even better if you're qualified to do it too, but just not everyone who wants to be a leader is called to that particular position. But the most satisfying thing in the body of Christ is to do what is what you're called to do. That's the exciting thing to do. So I hope Robert that you will definitely find that what it is that God's called you to do. Paul in Buena Vista, Colorado, welcome to the Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Paul: Hey Steve. First of all say that I really respect you doing what you do because you get a lot of different dynamics going on. But I just heard you sharing with that previous caller and I was with my grandson here. I don't know about that. I really believe that when a person first receives Christ, they're not even a babe yet. They're out in left field, they're in the world, they're wherever they are. And I know where I was when I was seven years old and then again in high school and early adulthood when I recommitted. And I think there's too much emphasis on the works aspect even though that's really important and I get it, the James scenario, all of that. But I think for the early converts to say, unless you fill these, check these boxes, and I think the Billy Graham crusade thing that you just mentioned kind of spells that out too because I think Billy was geared that way. But I don't see that as true evangelism and I get the sloppy grace that you're continually speaking against but I don't think you use that term but you know what I'm talking about. The greasy grace that makes it really easy for somebody to come in and then they don't have any committal. But it's the Holy Spirit's work...

Steve Gregg: Paul, we only have a few minutes left. Could you summarize what you called to say or what you're asking?

Paul: I think you're just being too legalistic with the new believers and the conversion experience to me.

Steve Gregg: Okay, give me an example of that. I'm curious about that. So I'm not aware of being legalistic at all.

Paul: You were talking with that previous caller about how you got to get this right, you got to get that right... and I can't really pinpoint it right now but I just heard it just a few minutes ago and I didn't take notes, I'm at work but my grandson said call him.

Steve Gregg: Okay hang on, I'm not sure what I said. Are you saying that when I was mentioning that Paul said there are qualifications for being an elder and if a person's not qualified then they're not one. Is that what you're referring to?

Paul: Well, but it also delves over into just conversion period. I've been listening to you for over eight, nine years, okay? And it just seems like...

Steve Gregg: Okay, so give me an example of something I've said that you think of as a legalistic position.

Paul: You know, you're constantly getting calls on people losing their salvation because they turn away...

Steve Gregg: I don't give any kind of legalistic answers to that. I say we're saved by faith. Don't I say we're saved by faith? Okay.

Paul: Right. And I've heard you enough to say that I think you're very close but there is a lot of preachers out there that I listen to that I hear say to people, "When you first come into the faith, you don't know anything. You're less than knowing anything and Christ finished the work. It's done. And we can't add to it or take away from it no matter how theologically astute we become."

Steve Gregg: Well right, but let me ask you this because I really want to know and we only have like two minutes left which is disappointing, but because I'm really interested to know what have I said that sounds legalistic because I'm very curious to know. I don't think I'm legalistic at all. Go ahead.

Paul: It's more rather than legalistic I would say it's that you're plugging works into the conversion experience, I guess I'll sum it up with that.

Steve Gregg: Wait, wait, wait, no I'm not. Conversion is when you surrender to Jesus Christ as your King and Lord. That's not works. That's a surrender. When a person surrenders he stops working doesn't he? I mean if surrendering is laying down your arms and stopping your resistance.

Paul: Right, and people don't even understand that. I didn't understand that when I was 23 years old. There's no way.

Steve Gregg: Well then maybe you weren't evangelized properly. But the point is that's what it is. That's what conversion is. It means that you're no longer serving Satan and fighting against God. You are now surrendered to God and you're on his side now. See you're not on his side until you've surrendered. Because until you surrender you're his enemy.

Okay, so are you saying that a person can be God's enemy and still be saved? If you say that, I'm not really sure what Bible you're reading. I believe that you become a Christian when you are, when you surrender your arms, you lay down your fight against God and say, "Hey, I'm in. I'm yours." If you know of anything in the Bible that says you can be saved without that, I'm not really sure what Bible it'd be in. But you'll have to call me another time because sadly I'm out of time for today's program. I really would love to get more information from you about what you're thinking. Because I'm not tracking with what you're saying. Anyway, I appreciate your call. You're listening to the Narrow Path, we are listener supported and our website is thenarrowpath.com. That's thenarrowpath.com. Everything there is free but there's a lot. Check it out. thenarrowpath.com. Let's talk again tomorrow.