The Narrow Path

Steve Gregg: Good afternoon, and welcome to The Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg, and we are live for an hour each weekday afternoon with an open phone line for you to call if you have questions you would like to raise for conversation about the Bible or the Christian faith, anything like that. Or if you disagree with the host on something you have heard affirmed on this program and you feel that there should be some correction or balance, feel free to call and bring that balance and correction. We welcome you.

The number to call is 844-484-5737. We have a few lines open right now. If you want to call, this is a good time to get through. It may be later if you try to get through that the lines will be full. They are not right now. Call 844-484-5737. Our first caller today is Jerry calling from Sacramento, California. Hi Jerry, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Jerry: Hey Steve, I'm coming from out of Ephesians chapter 1. If you could shed some light on this. In most translations, it has the period and then it has the "in love" and then it has the next verse. I just kind of hit if the "in love" should be included in verse 4 or should it be a new sentence. I will take it offline.

Steve Gregg: All right, thanks for your call. There is a phrase at the end of Ephesians 1:4 that it is not clear whether it is ending the thought of verse 4 or whether it is introducing the thought of verse 5. In the original, when Paul wrote, he did not break it up into chapters and verses as we have it in our Bibles, nor did he use all the punctuation that we have, so translators have to assume certain times where the commas go and such.

Now, here is what it sounds like in verse 4. This is in the middle of a long sentence. By the way, in the original Greek, this sentence goes on for 13 verses, so it's a long, drawn-out sentence. But in verse 4, I am at the New King James. It says, "Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love."

It sounds like "in love" speaks of how we are supposed to be. We should be holy and blameless in love, which makes sense. But there are those who think that if the punctuation was different and the verse numbering was put in a different place, both of which are fluid and could be done differently, they would say that the words "in love" at the end of verse 4 really are the beginning of verse 5, which would have it saying, "In love having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself."

In other words, this would be speaking not of us being loving, but of God being loving. He, in love, adopted us or predestined us to be adopted. The caller wants to know which way should it go, and the answer is I don't think anyone knows for sure. That is why translators do different things with it. Sometimes they place the "in love" at the beginning of verse 5 instead of at the end of verse 4.

The term, let's face it, makes sense either way. In the first instance, it is saying we are obligated to live in love. In the second option, it is God who is loving. But, of course, the Bible affirms both of these things elsewhere. It is like you could go one way or the other and you wouldn't end up with different doctrines than you find throughout the rest of the scripture.

The question would be which of the two doctrines: A, that we are required to love each other, which is taught throughout the New Testament and even the Old Testament, or B, that God loves us, which is taught through the Old and New Testament too? Both of them are godly doctrines. The first option in this punctuation would support the first doctrine, and the second option would support the second.

Because of the way Paul wrote it, it is virtually impossible to choose between them. So you could flip a coin. I think maybe, all things considered, there might be a slight leaning toward the second option as I said, simply because adding the phrase "in love" to the end of Paul's statement about being holy and blameless before Him, that phrase exists in Colossians and in Ephesians.

In Colossians, he does not follow it up with "in love." Therefore, he might not have intended it to be so here. He might have meant for us to understand that he means in love God predestined us, so it is a totally different emphasis, an emphasis on God's love, not ours. It is a tricky thing, and different translators take it different ways, and it's one of those things I simply am not able to be too concerned about only because either way you take it, you are in perfectly good, safe theological waters.

But if there is anything that would lean one way or the other, it is the comparison with Colossians where the same phrase appears, and I think that may suggest that in Ephesians 1:4 the last words "in love" actually introduce the next thought rather than end the one that he has given just before it. If you are not looking at your Bible, that might be all very confusing, but it is something you will notice if you compare different translations of the Bible in Ephesians 1:4 and 5. I hope that helps. It doesn't solve the problem for you, but I hope it gave you some more ways to look at it or to think about it.

All right, we will talk next to Priscilla in Vancouver, British Columbia. Hi Priscilla, welcome.

Priscilla: Hi Steve, greetings. When it comes to Pride Month and those certain things happening around towns, how do we keep our value, our integrity as a Christian, but still be supportive? How do we still own our integrity without being bashing or hateful towards that group? Second, when one is beginning or thinking of fasting, how and where do we start fasting, and why as a Christian do we fast? Or if you are a beginner, where do we go with that? Thank you. Much love, and I'll take your answer off the air.

Steve Gregg: Thank you so much. I will talk about those two things. When it comes to Pride Month, how do we get involved with that? We don't. Pride is a sin. At least the kind of pride they talk about there is. There are two kinds of pride. One is innocent enough and unselfish, and that is when you are proud of somebody else.

You are inspired by obstacles somebody has overcome and what they've achieved, and you just feel very encouraging toward them. You feel very pleased with them, and you are proud of them. That's an unselfish kind of pride because you are not giving yourself any credit. The kind of pride that is sinful is where you are proud of yourself. You give yourself congratulations, and you take credit and so forth for something, and you're proud of yourself. You're pleased with yourself.

That is a different thing than being proud of someone else. The same word is used in English for both kinds, but just like there is a good kind of fear and a bad kind of fear, there is a good kind of anger and there's a bad kind of anger. There is a good kind of pride, or at least a neutral kind, on the one hand, and there is a bad kind. The kind that is "I'm proud of myself" is sinful pride.

If we have somebody who we know is a heroic firefighter, and they run into a burning building and they save a baby and bring them out, and you know this person and you know that they used to be very fearful and had overcome a great deal of fear to do something so brave, you're proud of them. There's nothing wrong with that. There is nothing wrong with being proud of someone for doing something heroic and good.

You're not taking any credit for that. You're not thinking highly of yourself. You're thinking about them, not you. Therefore, it's not sinful. Now, Gay Pride, or whatever they want to call it, LGBT Pride, I'm not sure what they're being proud of. It seems like they're being proud of themselves. "I'm proud to be gay," "I'm proud to be transgender," "I'm proud to be this or that."

That is sinful pride, and even if it didn't have anything to do with gay or LGBT at all. If I said, "I'm proud to be a white man," "I'm proud to be smart," "I'm proud to be rich," "I'm proud to be athletically superior," that's sinful pride. Now, I will say this, I could see more temptation to be proud if you were athletically a champion, or if you were smarter than everybody else, or more beautiful, or something like that because you could say, "This is me, I could have done worse. I've done well," and you could almost take credit for that, which I don't think you should. I think humility would argue against doing that.

But I'm straight, I'm a heterosexual guy. Am I proud of that? Why would I be proud of that? Is there something virtuous about being heterosexual? Most people are heterosexual. I'm in the majority in that respect. And I know people who are heterosexual and that fact leads them into all kinds of bad behavior.

If I said I'm proud of being celibate, let's say I'm a single man and I've got to control my sexual drives, and I said I'm heterosexual but I'm celibate, which was the case when I was single, then I guess someone could be proud of that. That's an accomplishment just like an athletic accomplishment. But I don't think we have reason to be proud of it if we're Christians, because every virtue we have, we recognize that's a grace that God's given us to be virtuous.

But being heterosexual doesn't mean you're good. You might be a whoremonger. You might be a prostitute. You might be something terrible and be heterosexual. So your sexual orientation isn't really itself a virtue or a vice, it's just the way you are. Therefore, I can't see any reason for anyone to be proud of their orientation.

When people are proud of being gay or transgender, I would say this, I don't think there's any call for pride in that fact. But if a person was, let's just say, "I've struggled with same-sex attraction all my life but I've remained pure. I've remained celibate. I've obeyed God. I've resisted all my temptations and I'm living a life pleasing to God despite this burden that's been upon me from my youth."

I'd be proud of them for that. They shouldn't be proud of themselves because, of course, you shouldn't be proud of yourself. But I think that I could be proud of that if I had a cousin or a friend who was gay and had nonetheless remained self-controlled and pure and holy in their behavior. I'd be proud of them for that because they're fighting a battle and they're winning it. That would be inspiring.

But if the people who are proud of being gay are not fighting that battle, if they're just saying, "Hey, I have sex with guys of my own gender," or women of my own gender, what's to be proud about that? Frankly, a gay person or a straight person has nothing to be proud of if they're sinning. To be proud of your sin doesn't really make an awful lot of sense.

It's not an accomplishment, by the way. That's the thing where Gay Pride, or many kinds of pride, even if you're proud that you're good-looking and it has nothing to do with your sexual orientation, you didn't make yourself good-looking, God did that. If you've done some kind of an accomplishment, I can see where some credit is due. But just because you say the people I want to have sex with are of the same sex as me isn't certainly anything to be proud of any more than to say the people I want to have sex with are of the opposite sex as me. It's just the way you are.

If you do nothing to resist temptation in either of those conditions, then you've got nothing to be proud of. I don't really understand the whole pride thing. As a Christian, I'm generally speaking against pride of all kinds, not gay pride particularly, just pride. The Catholic Church with its seven deadly sins, I think pride is at the top of their list. I don't know about seven deadly sins, but I do know that pride is a very evil thing and God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.

There'd be nothing about gay pride that I can resonate with. First of all, I can't relate with being gay. Secondly, if I could, I can't celebrate someone who's gay and indulging in fornication any more than I would be proud of somebody who's straight and engaging in fornication. Your sexual orientation, your sexual behavior, if you were born that way, you've got nothing to be proud of. Pride itself just rubs me the wrong way, all pride. A proud person is a hard person to be around because they're out of touch with reality. They feel like they've got something to boast about when in fact they don't.

About fasting, the Bible doesn't command us to fast anywhere. Jesus assumed his disciples would fast sometimes. He didn't command them to, but he did say, "When you do fast, don't be like the hypocrites." That statement is not a command to fast, it is an assumption that they will sometimes fast and it is a command not to do it the way that other religious people do it when they fast.

Likewise, when the Pharisees' disciples asked Jesus, "Why don't your disciples fast like we do?" He said, "Can the children of the bridechamber mourn while the bridegroom is with them? No, they're not going to do that. But when the bridegroom is taken away from them, then they will fast." Again, Jesus predicted and believed his disciples will fast on occasion, but he didn't command it. It's just assumed that fasting is something that all people would do on some occasions.

Some people just do it because they're so grieved they've lost their appetite, like somebody who's been through a recent divorce probably loses a lot of weight in the first year after that and they're not even aware they're not eating much because they don't have the appetite. Other people fast for religious reasons. Jews, Muslims, Buddhists I think fast, and Hindus and some Christians do.

It's not a command, but you say when should they fast or whatever? There are times when fasting is appropriate. Like Jesus said, why would you fast when you're at a celebration? But when there's reason to fast, and he equated fasting with mourning, by the way. He was asked in Matthew 12, "Why do your disciples not fast?" And he said, "Can they mourn when the bridegroom is with them?"

He used the word "mourning" and "fasting" as similar. People fast generally speaking because of mourning. Maybe they're mourning the loss of their loved one, or maybe they're mourning their own sins or mourning the catastrophe somebody else is in that they're praying for. Fasting can be coupled with prayer.

And yet, again, the Bible doesn't command it and doesn't give very many instructions. It just says when you do it, don't make a show of it. You do it when it's appropriate to do it, which means I think if you're going to be fasting, you should just be led by the Holy Spirit. "I feel led to fast over this matter. I feel grieved over this matter. I think I'll fast today. I think I'll fast for a few days."

The Holy Spirit leads people to do that at different times. It's not like there's a schedule for it. Now, I would say the more liturgical churches have their calendars where they have fast days and feast days and things like that. The Jews had their festival days and they had one fasting day originally on the Day of Atonement. That's the only day of the year that the Old Testament law commanded Jews to fast. Later on, after the exile in the times of Zechariah, they had added some fast days just because they wanted to. They were like four different days that they mourned because those were the anniversaries of bad things that happened to them as a nation.

But God never told them to do that. Fasting can be one of two things. It can be done as a religious duty, in which case I don't think it's worth much. Or it can be done because it expresses the real sorrow of heart that a person feels, that they allow their bodies to suffer the same depression the soul is suffering and they pray through that. So I think fasting can be a good thing to add to prayer. But when it becomes a religious ritual, I don't think it's of particular value spiritually. It might be valuable for your health. Fasting is good for your health. But in terms of spiritual benefit, Paul talked about this in Colossians 2.

He says in Colossians 2:20-23, "Therefore, if you died with Christ from basic principles of the world, why as though living in the world do you subject yourselves to regulations?" and he gives the example, "touch not, taste not, handle not, which all concern things which perish with the using according to the commandments and doctrines of men. These things indeed have an appearance of wisdom in self-imposed religion, false humility, and neglect of the body, but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh."

So there are things you can do that hurt your body, punish the body. Some people think that's a good way to discipline yourself to be more spiritual. Paul says, yeah, I don't think so. You can do all those things, but if it's just religious practices, they have no impact on overcoming your flesh. Those are my thoughts in a nutshell on that. All right, let's talk to Jim from Hayward, California. Hi Jim, good to hear from you again.

Jim: Yes, Steve. By the way, I understand the producer did give you my phone number. Very quickly, if you can keep me on hold because I don't have a radio. I hear credit of course to John Nelson Darby for dispensationalism and the futurist viewpoint. But my question is: Was that around before Darby?

Steve Gregg: Good point. Dispensationalism as a system of theology was not around before Darby. Some elements of it were taught by some Christians before. Darby put together some of what had been minority views that some Christians had taught different times. For example, the first three centuries, there were a number of church fathers who were premillennial.

Now, they didn't believe in a pre-trib rapture. They didn't believe Israel is God's chosen people after Christ has come. They didn't believe that stuff. They believed that Christ was the fulfillment of all the promises to Israel. So they weren't dispensationalists, but they did believe there's going to be a millennium when Jesus comes back. Now, that view was largely eliminated from the church in the fourth or fifth century and disappeared until Darby revitalized it.

Darby reintroduced a premillennial view, but not the same. He added stuff to it. What Darby mostly introduced and as far as I know was the first to do so was that even though Jesus has come, Jesus is not really the fulfillment of the promises God made to Israel. He is part of it, but the real fulfillment has to do with them coming back to the land in the end times and inheriting the old Abrahamic promises, and Jesus didn't do that, so Jesus really didn't fulfill it.

Darby is the one who introduced that idea, that God did not fulfill all His promises to Israel. And he thought the real promises to Israel have to do with geography in the end times. That's Darby's introduction. Now, before him, there were some church fathers, two or three or four that we know of, that actually thought that the Jews will be gathered to their land in the end times.

But they didn't hold Darby's view. They didn't believe that God was doing this in order to fulfill promises to Israel that had not been fulfilled. No, these church fathers, Irenaeus among them and some others, believed that the Antichrist would gather the Jews back to their land in order to continue the judgment of God upon them for their rejection of Christ.

We don't see them saying that there are unfulfilled promises to the Jews and therefore God has to fulfill those in the end times. That was not the view of any of the church fathers of which I'm aware. Though a couple of them at least or three did believe there will be a return of the Jews in the end times which would be brought about by Antichrist. Now, whether they're right or not, I don't know because the majority of church fathers didn't say anything about it or else they didn't believe it. For example, Justin Martyr did not believe that anything remains for the Jews because the church is the true Israel.

So there were some elements of Darbyism before Darby, but they weren't really like his views, and he combined them in a unique way to create dispensationalism. You're listening to The Narrow Path. We have another half hour coming up. Don't go away. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. Everything there is free, though you can donate there if you'd like. We're listener supported, thenarrowpath.com. I'll be back in 30 seconds. Don't go away.

Welcome back to The Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we are live for another half hour taking your calls. I'm going to give the number up because our lines have pretty much cleared. There were some calls waiting just before the break and they hung up. And now we have open lines. So this is a good time to get through, very good time. The number to call is 844-484-5737. If you have questions about the Bible or the Christian faith or a disagreement with the host, call this number. We'll talk about it, 844-484-5737.

Chris wrote in to me and said, "Steve, do you have any thoughts on whether Christians should use guns to defend themselves?" He says this is related to the Second Amendment debate. "I'm just looking for resources in your opinion of self-defense and how it relates to turning the other cheek as Jesus spoke about it."

Well, Chris, I'll tell you turning the other cheek has a certain context to it. Jesus is not talking about somebody coming at you with lethal force, with deadly force, somebody coming at you with a gun or a sword or a knife or a spear. Just turn the other cheek. In most cases, Christians understood that when that's happening, it's actually more virtuous if they could to run away and escape. Jesus said, for example, in Matthew 10, "When they persecute you in one city, flee to the next."

The apostle Paul fled from Damascus through a window in a basket on a rope because people were waiting outside by the gates to kill him. So for Christians to avoid being killed as long as it doesn't involve spiritual compromise on their part is advisable, to get out of the way of danger if you can.

Now, I will say this: Jesus said he that saves his life will lose it and he that seeks to lose his life shall save it. He's talking there about you should be willing to lose your life if the only way you could not do so is to betray him or to deny him or to compromise in some way. Obviously, if someone says, "I've got a gun to your head, you can live or die, deny Jesus and you'll live, stay faithful to Jesus and you'll die." Well, if you love your life and try to save it by that kind of a compromise, Jesus said you'll lose it.

But he's not saying that if you look both ways before you cross the street because you don't want to die hit by a car that you're going to lose your life for that. That's no compromise. There are deadly things that we face that we can wisely avoid if we take precautions. There are some things we cannot avoid and that would include if the police are there and they say "Deny Jesus or we'll shoot you or we'll take you to jail," then you just stay faithful unto death and receive a crown of life in the end.

Now, when it comes to a situation where somebody is facing you or your loved ones or even an innocent neighbor and they are in a position where they are planning to kill an innocent person, this is not the situation Jesus is describing when he says turn the other cheek. He said if someone slaps you on one cheek, turn the other cheek. That's about how you respond to a slight against yourself. You can absorb the pain, you can absorb the insult, you don't have to react. You can be humble, you can be kind to your attacker. That's all about how you respond to a slight against yourself.

He does not describe a deadly situation where if somebody is going to shoot an arrow into you, just turn your back and let them shoot you in the back. No, he's talking about somebody who has insulted you by slapping you across the face. Well, eat your pride, swallow your pride, and let them slap the other one if they want to. Don't be roused. Don't be proud. Just humble yourself. That's what Jesus is teaching.

Now, of course, even if he was talking about a deadly situation where somebody is pounding you with a baseball bat and you're likely to die from it, even if you felt like, "Well, I should turn the other cheek in this case," I'm not sure you should, by the way. But if it came to that and you felt that way, that's still not the same situation as if they're threatening other people. And perhaps even the only reason they're beating you up is because they're trying to get past you to someone else who's innocent that they're going to beat up next, or rape, or do something like that.

In that case, I think you have an obligation to stand up for your brother or your sister or your wife, your children, whatever, your neighbor. And, of course, should you use a gun for that? Well, that's your question, should we use guns for that? Actually, the question was: Should we own a gun? First of all, there's nothing wrong with owning a gun since a gun is not a bad thing, and guns have been used for very many good things including feeding your family and things like that.

If you're better with a bow and arrow, maybe you should have a bow and arrow instead of a gun for hunting stuff. But it's also the case that if somebody breaks into your house and defending your family, let us say, is a legitimate option for you. But you don't have a gun and the person coming is a lot bigger than you and maybe they do have one, or maybe they have a knife or something, I don't really see how defending your family with a gun is worse than defending them with a baseball bat or with your fists.

Of course, using a gun is more likely to end up in a fatal result for your attacker, which I think as a Christian you would prefer not to kill somebody even if they're a bad guy. You don't hate them. But if you are obliged to protect innocent parties and you have got no other way to do it than to use a gun, then I don't really see how that's wrong.

There's a law in Exodus, I think it's in chapter 22 if I'm not mistaken. It says if a man breaks into a house at night and he gets killed by the homeowner, then the homeowner will be not held responsible for it. He's in the dark, he can't switch on a light, he doesn't know how much damage the guy's going to do, who he's going to hurt, he's just fighting out and the guy gets killed. This is actually Exodus 22:2-3.

"If a thief is found breaking in and he is struck so that he dies," okay, so the homeowner lethally resists the man, it says, "there shall be no guilt for his bloodshed." That is, the homeowner who killed the intruder will not be guilty because he was defending his home. It's even possible that he would have preferred not to kill the man, but he's groping around in the dark in the night, he doesn't know what he's doing, he's just thrashing about and the guy ends up getting killed.

It may be even accidental or not. But because the guy was where he ought not to have been, he put himself in a danger which he realized by being killed. And there's no guilt for defending your home. But the next verse says, "If the sun has risen on him, there shall be guilt for his bloodshed." And by this, what I think it means is if the man got into the house, stole what he wanted, and fled, and you hunt him down the next day when the sun comes up and you kill him, well then you're guilty. You're not supposed to do that because if he stole, he has not done a capital crime. And for you to execute him in that case would be for you to do a capital crime.

It says, "He should make full restitution." Okay, so instead of dying for theft, if a thief gets into your house, takes something, gets away with it, you find him the next day, you don't kill him. If you kill him, you're guilty of murder. What the man should do is pay you back and make restitution, is what the Bible says.

So it's saying that theft is not a capital crime. But if in the course of seeking to steal, the man breaks into someone's house and there's a scuffle in the dark and the thief gets killed, well, that's on him. If he hadn't been there doing the wrong thing, it wouldn't have happened. So I see it that way. I think that there is the right, especially assuming that the Christian is not living alone and everybody in the house is under his protection, for him to resist as much as it takes to make the guy stop.

I mean, if you're a perfect shot, you can shoot in the leg. Very few people are good enough to do that under pressure. But I mean, if you can stop him without lethal force, I think you'd want to do that, and you probably should if you can. If you don't have that kind of skill and the only way you're going to stop him is put three in his chest or whatever, I mean, I would never want to do that to anyone. I wouldn't want to do that to my worst enemy. But if my wife was in danger, if my children in the house were in danger, I would say, hey, I've got to do a duty that transcends my preference here.

My preference would be that you'd leave the house safe. In fact, my preference is you never got into the house wrongly. And now that you're in, my preference is that you go away safely. But if that's not going to be an option for me, I do have an obligation to protect these premises, and it's not going to go well for you if I have anything to say about it. Is that a non-Christian attitude? I don't think it is. I don't know of anything in the Bible that says that's a wrong attitude. Turning the other cheek is not discussing a situation like that really at all.

Okay, our lines are full. Let me see if I can get some of these in here now. We're going to talk to Dan from Maine. Dan, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Dan: Good day to you, sir. I'll be talking about Zechariah chapter 12. And I read the New Living Translation, that's the Bible version that I like lately.

Steve Gregg: You can be forgiven. Go ahead.

Dan: Okay, thanks. So the heading on this chapter says "The Future Deliverance for Jerusalem." And it says in verse 1, "This message concerning the fate of Israel came from the Lord." This message is from the Lord who stretched out the heavens, laid the foundations of the earth, and so on. "I will make Jerusalem like an intoxicating drink that makes nearby nations stagger when they send their armies to besiege Jerusalem." That kind of sounds like the Ezekiel 38, 39 invasion to me.

But that's not where I'm going. I'm going, so then he goes on to say, "On that day I will make Jerusalem an immovable rock; all the nations will gather against it to try to move it, but they will only hurt themselves." So this looks like it's definitely in the future. And my question is about verse 10, where it says, "Then I will pour out a spirit of grace and prayer on the family of David and on the people of Jerusalem. They will look on me whom they have pierced and mourn for him as for an only son. They will grieve bitterly for him as for a firstborn son who has died." This sure looks to me like Jesus when it says they will look on me whom they have pierced. Am I on track?

Steve Gregg: Well, you're certainly I think on track in seeing this as a reference to Jesus, but I don't think it's His second coming. There's nothing in the passage that directs our attention to the end times. Zechariah was living about 500 years before Christ. He is talking about things that would happen after his time. The question we have to ask is: Have they happened since then? Did they happen after his time just as he predicted?

In my opinion, the answer is yes, which means that they don't talk about something that will happen later from our point of view. Just like you'll find in Psalm 22 or Isaiah 53 references to the Messiah being killed and so forth. Yeah, those were future predictions from the standpoint of the author. From our standpoint, those happened in the past. Jesus died 2000 years ago and fulfilled those things.

Now the question is these things that Zechariah's talking about, did these happen in our past though it was in his future? I believe the answer is yes. I believe that the nations coming against Jerusalem and finding it impossible to remove Jerusalem is a reference to various people who between Zechariah's time and the coming of Christ tried to destroy Israel.

Antiochus Epiphanes in the early 2nd century BC certainly tried to do that and he was destroyed by the Maccabean Revolt. In the days of Esther, some of the Persians tried to destroy Israel but God rose up and delivered them. And so the Persians, the Syrians, and others have tried to destroy Israel over those years.

This is of course the timeframe of Zechariah's after they've come back from captivity. They had spent 70 years in Babylonian exile. They're back now, they rebuilt their temple. Zechariah's living at that time and he's saying this Jerusalem which was standing in his day will withstand a great deal of hostility from various nations who want to remove it and they'll find it impossible to remove. They will be destroyed instead. And that's what I believe is being described there.

Now, then it does say that in verse 10 a time was coming when God would pour out His Spirit on the house of David and the house of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem. He's going to pour out His Spirit on them. Well, did that ever happen after Zechariah's time? I think it did. I think it happened in Acts chapter 2.

God poured out His Spirit on the faithful inhabitants of Jerusalem. Initially, there were 120 of them, but by the end of the day there were 3,000 of them. And then within days there were 5,000 and then more and more and more. So the faithful remnant, the children of Judah in Jerusalem, God did pour His Spirit out upon them.

And it says in chapter 13 verse 1, which just follows this, "In that day a fountain shall be opened for the house of David and for the inhabitants of Jerusalem for the sin and for uncleanness." I personally believe this refers to Christ's death, that His blood, in fact it's interesting because in chapter 12 verse 10, the one that you mentioned, it says they'll look on me whom they have pierced.

Well, actually, in John chapter 19, John describes how he himself observed Jesus' side pierced and blood and water flowing out. And he actually makes reference to this particular verse. This is in John 19, he says, "One of the soldiers pierced His side with the spear and immediately blood and water came out. And he who has seen," meaning John the author, "has testified and his testimony is true and he knows that he's telling the truth so that you may believe. For these things were done that the scripture should be fulfilled: 'Not one of His bones shall be broken.' And again another scripture says, 'They shall look on Him whom they pierced,'" which is of course a quotation of the verse you raised, Zechariah 12:10.

So the piercing of the side of Jesus caused a fountain to be poured out for the cleansing of sin. That happened. If you'd been living in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost, you'd see the flood of grace going out, thousands of people being converted, the Spirit of God being poured out on them, people being cleansed and becoming followers of Christ.

And if you'll notice in Zechariah 13 verse 7 says, "Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, against the man who is my companion, says the Lord of hosts. Strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered. Then I'll turn my hand against the little ones." Now, that verse "Strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered," Jesus quoted it in Matthew 26:31.

When he was in the Garden of Gethsemane, he said tonight this scripture will be fulfilled: "Strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered." In other words, Jesus would be arrested and the disciples would flee. So in other words, the whole timeframe of this prophecy as far as we can tell is in the first century when Jesus came, He was crucified, He was stricken, the Spirit was poured out subsequently.

And then of course in chapter 14 verse 1, it says, "Behold, the day of the Lord is coming and your spoil will be divided in your midst," speaking of Jerusalem. "For I will gather all the nations to battle against Jerusalem. The city shall be taken, the houses rifled, the women ravished." Okay, so here we go, Jerusalem is going to be attacked again and apparently succumb. The city's going to be taken, the houses will be rifled, the women will be raped.

Well, did this happen sometime after Zechariah wrote this? It certainly did, 70 AD. So we've got the death of Jesus, we've got the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, we've got His arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane, we've got the destruction of Jerusalem again in 70 AD. All these are prophesied in Zechariah 12 through 14.

Of course, the language in many cases is very symbolic, but we know the New Testament kind of quotes some of these verses and tells us what their fulfillment was. And so what I'm saying is when people look at chapters 12 through 14 and say, "Oh, this is going to happen in the end times," I think why would you say that? The apostles didn't think that. The apostles saw it happened in their day. So why should we think otherwise?

Now you mentioned that in the New Living Translation, I think it is you said you use, that the title that's over chapter 12 says something like "The Future Deliverance of Israel," something like that. The word "future" is put in by the editors. In fact, that line "The Future Deliverance of Israel," it's not in the Hebrew at all. You've got a Bible where editors have put in titles over sections in order to clarify for people who don't study the Bible very well for themselves. They can just look at a glance and say, "Oh okay, this is about the future."

But that's the interpretation of the editors. The passage itself doesn't say anything about the future. This is simply the dispensationalist leaning of the editors, and they take all this about the future. The New Testament writers didn't. They took it pretty much as being about what happened through Christ and Pentecost and the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. So that's how I see it, but I understand many people see it differently. I appreciate your call, brother.

Let's talk next to Michael in Inglewood, California. Hi Michael, welcome. Michael, are you there? Okay, I don't hear Michael at all. Jan in Saint Paul, Minnesota, welcome.

Jan: Yeah, thank you for taking my questions. I'm going to ask them in four parts, but it's all relating to the same subject, and then I'll hang up and listen to your response. Okay, so is cremation an acceptable form of burial? Two, what scriptures support cremation or don't support cremation? And then if I understand what I read correctly, our soul leaves our body upon death. So I just would like clarification if cremation is an acceptable form of burial. Thank you, and I'll hang up.

Steve Gregg: Okay, thank you for your call. I appreciate hearing from you. First of all, there's a long tradition of Christians not favoring cremation. And it's based on a couple of different Christian ideas, but I don't think they're correctly applied.

One of them is the biblical idea that our bodies are inhabited by the Holy Spirit in our Christian lives and therefore we are living stones in part of what's called the Temple of the Holy Spirit, the Temple of God, the church collectively, the people, make up a spiritual habitation for God or temple. Now because of that, Paul says things like you don't want to defile the temple, meaning your body.

By that, he's talking about don't fornicate in 1 Corinthians chapter 6 and also 2 Corinthians 6. In both places, he says your body is the temple of God and you're not supposed to do things that would defile it. That is to say, you should not, just like a Jew would not go into the temple in Jerusalem and sacrifice a pig there because that would be considered to be defiling, so we shouldn't do things that are morally defiling with our bodies.

And it does say in 1 Corinthians 6, "whoever destroys God's temple, God will destroy," so they fear, okay, our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit, it's an indignity to burn the body of a Christian or to burn a human body because it's a temple of God.

Well, and then the other argument is that we're supposed to be resurrected from the dead and so we want to keep the bodies intact, buried rather than burned into ashes so that they can be raised on the last day as the Bible teaches they will. Now that's pretty much the whole case that I've ever heard. There is actually nothing in the Bible that mentions cremation or that forbids it, but the Christian attitude against it is mainly based on these two ideas: your body is the temple of God, you shouldn't destroy it; secondly, if it's destroyed, how will it be raised from the dead on the last day?

Now all you have to do is think a little bit to realize that these two arguments are not particularly cogent, since the reason our body is the temple of Holy Spirit is because the Holy Spirit's living in them. Now the Holy Spirit lives in our bodies while we are alive. When the body is dead, it doesn't have a spirit in it, doesn't have the Holy Spirit or our human spirit in it. It says in James chapter 1, the last verse of James 1, "as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead." There's no spirit in a dead body.

So while we're alive and as Christians, our bodies are part of God's temple. When we're dead, He doesn't live in us anymore at that point, and neither do we. The body is simply an empty vessel. And therefore its preservation is not essential. And whether it's burned by us or burned accidentally, I mean some people die, they're not cremated, but they die in a building fire or a flaming airline crash or something like that and they get burned up.

Well, okay, but they're dead. And when they're dead, the Holy Spirit's not in them, their body's not at that point functioning as a temple of the Holy Spirit, and no one has destroyed the temple in that case. Death, I guess, could be said to destroy it, but everyone's going to die at some point. The second thing about being able to resurrect the dead and therefore we shouldn't burn it to ashes, that doesn't make an awful lot of sense either simply because almost everybody who's died in history going back a few hundred years anyway, their bodies are dust now anyway.

I mean, what cremation does in a few minutes or hours, I don't know how long it takes, but what cremation does in a single day will be done by nature in decades when a body has been buried. That being so, cremation doesn't do anything to the dead body that nature itself won't do. And if God cannot resurrect a body from ashes because it was cremated, well, it sounds to me like He'll have the same challenge raising anyone from the dead who died more than a few hundred years ago because He's going to have to raise them from ashes.

So God made man's body from the dust of the earth. There's no problem Him doing it again. In fact, He says in Genesis 3 to Adam, "Dust you are and to dust you will return." So it's a given. When people die, their bodies go back to the basic elements. You're right, the soul leaves the body, I believe that. And then when Jesus comes back, He raises the bodies. Now, what if they're just dust? In fact, what if they're dust that's been scattered out over a field or over a continent over the years? Well, He's going to have to be able to do that. And I don't think He'll have a problem doing it. He made the original man's body from dust. I think He can remake the body from dust.

So that's my opinion. I don't see anything in the Bible that forbids it nor approves it. I don't see anything in the Bible that mentions it at all. So I would not feel any compunction about practicing cremation. I don't care if I'm cremated or not. I'll be dead then. God will raise me and my body will be fine again when He does. I appreciate your call. I'm sorry I'm out of time. The music playing tells me I've got 20 seconds left. The Narrow Path is a listener-supported ministry. We don't have any advertising, we don't sell anything, we don't have any sponsors. We're just listener-supported. If you'd like to help us, you can write to us at The Narrow Path, PO Box 1730, Temecula, California, 92593, or go to thenarrowpath.com.