The Narrow Path 07/31/2026

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. This is Friday, the last weekday of this week and therefore the last day for you to get through to the program before the weekend. The lines are full, which means don't bother calling at the moment, you'll just be turned back by a busy signal. In the course of this hour lines will open up. If you have questions about the Bible or the Christian faith or you want to express reasons for disagreement with the host on something, I'd be very happy to hear from you. That's what we do here every day. We've been doing it for 29 years on the air. You're welcome to call this number: 844-484-5737. There is a lot of eights and fours, so let me give you this, especially a lot of fours. This is the number again: 844-484-5737. That's the number that gets through, but not right now, it won't because our lines are full. But use that number, call randomly in some minutes from now, and there will be lines opening up. We will be glad to have you on the program. Our first caller today is Greg calling from Bakersfield, California. Hi Greg, welcome to the Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
Greg: Thank you, Steve. I really enjoy your show. I watched your debate with Chris Morrison about once saved, always saved, and I was blown away by your humble spirit. You obviously have the Holy Spirit in you, the way you handled that debate and the way you handled yourself. I hope that my question isn't too much like the belly button question you had a few days ago, but we know a little about Christ's childhood and his visit to the temple. What is it that you think he was like as a child? He was God obviously. Did he act like a God or did he act like a child? Did he need to be reared and fostered and grown and his behavior- what do you think that was like?
Steve Gregg: Well, that's something that we may never be able to say. We're asking what was Christ's subjective awareness, what was it like to be him? The Bible tells us that God took on a human form and lived among us as a human being, but still with his divine nature. What would it be like? I'm a human being. What would it be like if I knew I was God? If I were God in the flesh, which I'm not, but if I were, would I know that from the time I was born or is that something that would dawn on me at some point? If so, how would I be sure of it and so forth? These are questions we sometimes wonder; thinking people do. What was it like to be Jesus? If he was God visiting us in the flesh as a child, did he think of himself as God or what? The answer is not known to us. We can't get under the skin of Jesus in his childhood and so forth, and we don't have even any record of his inner thoughts or even his actions between age two and 12 especially. After 12 till age 30, we don't have any record of his activities or statements or inner thoughts. We can say this, though: there are some hints. In Philippians chapter two, it tells us that Jesus before becoming a man existed in the form of God. He did not consider his equality with God a thing to be clung to, to be grasped. But he released that. He emptied himself, it says. He took on the form of a servant. For God, who fills the whole universe, to empty himself to the degree of being able to take on a human form, what does that involve? Obviously God fills the universe, a human being does not. He's got to trim himself down to our size in some respects. We have to say there are some qualities of deity which although Jesus remained deity while he was human, he had to sacrifice those for the time being. For example, omniscience. God is omniscient. He knows everything. We're told that Jesus didn't know everything. He said he didn't know everything. He said there was at least one thing that he mentioned that only the Father knows. He said, "I don't know that, the angels don't know that." We know also that Jesus had to learn as a child. He wasn't born knowing everything. As far as we know, he wasn't even born knowing how to read or speak or do any of those things. We are told in Luke chapter two, and the last verse of Luke 2, that the child Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature, which means his height, and in favor with God and man. Just like any other person growing up from childhood, he increased in size and he increased in wisdom. If you can increase in wisdom, it means you don't start out with all wisdom, you gain more wisdom as you get older. I believe that Jesus took on all the handicaps of a human being. Though before he was a human being, he had all the characteristics of God. God is omnipresent. He's everywhere at once. Jesus, while he was on earth, was not everywhere at once. He was one place at a time. If he was one place and wanted to be another place, he had to walk there. Sometimes he'd have to walk a whole week to get where he wanted to be. He wasn't everywhere at once. Omnipresence is a divine attribute, but that certainly is one that Jesus emptied himself of when he trimmed himself down to our size to become one of us. Omniscience is another one. God knows everything. Jesus did not, as he himself told us he did not. God is all-powerful. But Jesus became a weak infant. One aspect of God being all-powerful is the Bible says he never gets weary. He's got infinite energy. He doesn't ever get tired. But we read frequently of Jesus becoming tired, falling asleep, sleeping through a storm because he was so exhausted. Jesus didn't on earth have all power and all wisdom and all knowledge and presence all over the world. Another thing he didn't have was invisibility. God is invisible, but Jesus was not. He was seen. God is not physical, but Jesus was. He was touched. God is not mortal. Jesus was mortal. He died. God can't be tempted with evil, but Jesus was tempted in all points like we are. In other words, there are things about God which Jesus possessed and which he emptied himself of when he came to live among us. He lived under the real handicaps of a real human being. In the absence of information to the contrary, I'm going to think that when Jesus was born, he didn't know anything else than an ordinary newborn baby knows. I don't think he could understand what people were saying around him until he learned the language just like any baby does. I don't think he knew what people were thinking any more than we do. I don't think he knew what was going on on the other side of the universe. I think he had to learn what was going on in the spot of the universe where he was. Being Jesus was in many respects probably very much, especially in his early years, very much like being anyone else. He was learning, growing, developing relationships. He learned how to do carpentry as an apprentice under Joseph and so forth. Both he is referred to by the people of Nazareth as the carpenter and also as the carpenter's son. Joseph was a carpenter and Jesus also became a carpenter. Jesus worked in the shop apparently till he was 30 years old, so he had time for the locals in town to get to know his business and his trade before he left that to become a preacher. Did Jesus know he was God at some point? Of course he did. We don't know exactly how Jesus would have explained that. We don't have Jesus ever saying "I am God." He very rarely says "I am the Son of God." Both of these things are affirmations that are made about him in Scripture, and I believe them. I believe he was God in the flesh, and I believe as a human being he was known as the Son of God. Jesus knew this about himself at least by the age of 12. The only anecdote from the life of Jesus that is recorded for us of his pre-age 30 activities or statements, we only have one story about Jesus speaking or knowing anything. That is when he's 12. When he was 12, he and his family went to the temple. He got lost in the crowd apparently, his parents lost track of him. When they saw him, they found him at the temple and he was conversing with the learned teachers of the law, the religious leaders. The Bible says he was asking them questions and they marveled at his answers, which is interesting because he's asking questions, but they marvel at his answers. It must be that they gave an answer and he must have responded to their answer. If his adult life and the records of his conversations with these same leaders tell us anything, he was pointing out the weakness of their answers. They answered certain things, like when he was an adult, he said, "Whose son is the Messiah?" and the religious leaders said, "Well, he's David's son." Which is in a sense true, but then Jesus said, "Well, if he's David's son, why did David in the Psalm 110 verse 1 refer to the Messiah as his Lord?" How can your own son be your Lord? It says the leaders couldn't answer. That was a conversation and an exchange that took place in his adult life. Apparently there were things like that being discussed by Jesus and the teachers when he was 12 and his answers baffled them; they marveled at his wisdom. We don't read that he did any miracles or anything like that. We do read that Mary, when she found him, kind of scolded him for getting lost. He said, "Why did you have trouble finding me? Wouldn't you know I must be about my Father's business?" or another translation of that line is "I must be in my Father's house." Interestingly, he's referring to God as his Father. The temple was his Father's house. That means that at age 12, Jesus regarded himself to be in some unique sense the Son of God. Did he know it before that time? Maybe, maybe not. But at least from that point, he knew it. Like any growing person, we read after that he increased in wisdom and stature. Even after age 12, it's possible that the ramifications of who he was came to him gradually or in bits and pieces by revelations. I believe that God revealed to him he was the Son of God. He might not have revealed it before he was age 12. Age 12, 13, that's around the time that a Jewish boy is transitioning from being a boy to a man. Modern Jews have a bar mitzvah for a Jewish boy at age 13, which is emblematic of him passing from childhood to manhood and to being a responsible agent in his own right, not simply under his parents' household authority. It's possible that this was true, that Jesus at that point was transitioning from childhood to manhood and that at that point God revealed to him who he was. He could have spoken to him, he could have given him a dream, it could have just come to him as an insight given by God. Just like later on, when Jesus asked Peter, "Who do you say I am?" He actually asked all the 12 and Peter answered, "You're the Christ, the Son of the living God." Peter recognized him as the Son of God too. Jesus said, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you but my Father in heaven." In other words, you recognize me as the Son of God because the Father has revealed it to you. Yet, we have no reason to believe that Peter had a dream or a vision at that time or some special angel came and revealed to Peter that Jesus is the Son of God. It's something that dawned on him, the Father opened his understanding and recognition of this fact. It was a spiritual insight that Peter had, and it's very possible that this is how it came to Jesus too earlier, when he was a child or when he was becoming a man. I'm speculating here a bit, but this is not unlikely to be true. It could be true, it could be false, but my guess is that Jesus growing up up until age 12 or thereabouts was probably as far as his inner experience was concerned probably not much different than that of any godly child. I know for example, I'm an ordinary person. I was raised in a godly home. I was going to church. I had a Bible. I thought about the Bible a lot. I read the Bible a lot. I cared a lot about the Bible when I was a child. I believed every word the Bible said and I probably meditated on the Bible as a preteen more than most the kids in the church I knew did. At least they thought I did, and I suppose they were right because I began to get my own insights into things in the Bible and into spiritual things based on those insights. I'm just a normal person. Jesus was not a normal person. His experience as a child might have been not much different than that. He had a God-ward orientation, he was in a godly family, he knew the word of God, he was taught the law as all Jewish boys were, and he obviously had a much more than average awareness of the importance of God and of his law and so forth, and then at some point God revealed to him that he was who he is. This is my meanderings on this subject. It's certainly an interesting question. When did Jesus know, what was it like being God in the flesh for him as a child? All bets are off. But what I've just described could well be the case with him. I'm inclined to suspect that that is the way it was, though I could certainly be wrong. All right, let's talk next to Jim in Hayward, California. Hi Jim, good to hear from you again.
Jim: Yes, Steve, good to talk to you again. By the way, I believe your producer passed you my phone number last week.
Steve Gregg: Yes, he did, but I haven't had occasion to call you. Am I supposed to call you about something?
Jim: Yes, would you please? Because I don't have internet access and I would like to make a contribution to support the program. So I wish you would call me for that.
Steve Gregg: Well, I appreciate that. I'll call you when I can.
Jim: Okay, appreciate that. Now, you mentioned Calvin, of course, Institutes of the Christian Religion. But Calvin was actually parroting Saint Augustine.
Steve Gregg: That's true.
Jim: I've always considered myself, theologically speaking, an Augustinian.
Steve Gregg: Well, you're a Lutheran and Luther was Augustinian.
Jim: It seems to me as I've read the testimony of Augustine that he really saw himself as somebody who could not have on his own become a believer.
Steve Gregg: He believed that eventually. It's true, Augustine held to what we now call Calvinism. As far as we know, nobody in the church before Augustine held to those views. Calvin's views, at least as held among church fathers, did not exist until Augustine, and that was around the late 4th and early 5th century. Before that time, church fathers spoke on the same subjects as Augustine did on these things and had a different viewpoint than what he later expressed. They knew of the doctrines that Augustine held, at least what we call Calvinism. Augustine had many doctrines that virtually all Christians hold. He definitely was obviously a Trinitarian and believed that Christ is the Son of God and all those things; Jesus died for our sins and rose again. Those things that all Christians hold, Augustine of course held. The thing is, Augustine wrote hundreds of thousands of pages of material on theology and obviously got into realms that not all Christians hold the same views about. When we talk about the distinctive views of Augustine, there's a whole lot of distinctive views of Augustine to consider. When we're talking about Calvinism, we're talking specifically about those views of Calvinism which were found in Augustine and which have to do with the Calvinistic understanding of sovereignty of God and of free will and of predestination. Those famous Calvinistic doctrines were originated with Augustine. Calvinists would say, "No, they originated with the Apostle Paul or with Jesus or even maybe the Old Testament." Anyone can say that about their beliefs. I don't believe they're in the Bible, I don't find them there, and you can't find them in any theological works prior to Augustine. Before Augustine, church fathers did talk about those very subjects, but they talked about them opposite of the way Augustine did. They argued entirely for free will and they actually wrote against the view that all such things are determined by God. That whether you believe or not is a thing God has determined. They actually addressed that and said no, they understood that to be part of Manichaeism, which Augustine of course adhered to before he was a Christian. In his youth, Augustine was a Manichaean philosopher, and then he became a Christian later. Manichaeism held those views. Therefore, when they appeared in Augustine's writings late in his life, in his disputes with Pelagius, they suspiciously appeared to be his old Manichaean ideas re-emerging because all the earlier church fathers in addressing those same subjects said those were Manichaean heresies and that Christians expressed the opposite views, namely that God does not determine who's going to be a Christian and who's not and that everyone has a free will and we're totally responsible for our actions because of that. Augustine really did introduce very new concepts into Christianity. Since he's the most influential theologian in church history, being the father of both Roman Catholicism and of the Reformation, his views have become very acceptable, in fact, revered in churches. If we had lived in his time, if we had been schooled in the church fathers and in Scripture and the things the church believed for the first three and a half centuries, we might have recognized some of Augustine's stuff as heretical, as the intrusion of pagan philosophy being mixed in with Christianity. Augustine was a very good Christian in most respects, I believe. I believe he was a sincere and godly monk, and that he was saying what he thought was true. I don't believe he was infallible. Therefore, I would never describe myself as Augustinian. I'm a Christian. I'm not of Paul, I'm not of Cephas, I'm not of Augustine, I'm not of Pelagius, I'm not of Arminius, I'm of Christ. Being of Christ means if I might share some of the views that some famous theologians have because I find them to be taught by Christ, but my loyalty is not to any theologian, my loyalty is to Christ. That's the way I see it. You're right, Augustine came to see himself the way that Calvinists see themselves, namely that the only way they would possibly have come to faith in Christ is if God predestined them to be and more or less made that something unavoidable for them. They couldn't not believe because God's sovereign decree had elected them to believe. That's the Calvinist view, that's the Augustinian view. It certainly was not the view of any Christians that we know of in the church for the first three and a half centuries. I'm not Augustinian. Obviously there's things Augustine believed that I also believe. I think much of what Augustine believed all Christians believe. Like most theologians who write many volumes of theology, his own ideas about some theological things would differ from the views of many other Christians on those same subjects. In the case of Augustine, his views on these subjects differed from the views of all Christians before him that we know of for three centuries. When somebody innovates new theology that the first seven generations of Christians would have rejected and would have seen as unscriptural, then we need to take a look at his theology very carefully to make sure that he- it's not just that he's influential because he's a good arguer, but we need to make sure whether he's interpreting the Scriptures correctly. One of the things that Augustine had against him, and he admitted this, he didn't read Greek. He was a Latin Father and Latin was his language. He knew some Greek, just like I know some Greek. I can't read Greek either, but I know a little Greek. I know some words and stuff in Greek, but I certainly would flail in a situation where I had to analyze Greek grammar in a very deep and sophisticated way or even to just read the Greek New Testament and translate, I couldn't do it. Neither could he. That's interesting because the church fathers before him that he disagreed with were Greek fathers. Koine Greek, the Greek language of the New Testament, was their native tongue. They grew up reading Greek. That was what they spoke at their mother's breast. They cut their teeth on the language of the New Testament. For 300 years, they read the New Testament in their own native language, which is the language it was written in. They didn't see it the way Augustine later did. But Augustine's ideas were influenced in some cases by the way the Latin Bible read, rather than the Greek. That's one reason that I haven't really followed him in that. We can do better. Anyway, I appreciate your call, Jim. You're listening to the Narrow Path. We have another half hour coming up. We are listener supported. If you'd like to help us stay on the air, go to our website thenarrowpath.com or the address that I will give at the end of the program. We have another half hour coming, don't go away. I'll be right back. Welcome back to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we're live for another half hour taking your calls. If you'd like to call in with a question about the Bible or the Christian faith or maybe to disagree with the host and say why, I'd love to have you do so. The number to call is 844-484-5737. We're going to talk next to James in New York, New York. Hi James, welcome to the Narrow Path.
James: Yes, hi Steve, good to talk to you. The question I have is as far as Catholicism- I was a Catholic, my family, we were born all Catholics. I did get away from the Catholic Church and now I always find myself when we get together, my family, they always want to know why am I right and they are wrong. How do I explain to them when they say they pray to the Mother Mary and other saints and they say, "What's wrong with that?" I said in the Bible and also God says I am the only one you should pray to as far as the Ten Commandments go, but they still insist that that's not so. So how do you get through to someone like to tell them what they're doing is wrong and that I'm right? It's just sometimes impossible. Then they'll ask me what church I belong to. Right now I don't belong to a church because there's so many: Methodist, Baptist, the Church of Christ- I don't really know which one to go to that would have my beliefs, just basically the Bible itself.
Steve Gregg: All right, well, I understand the predicament. Roman Catholics believe that the Catholic Church is the true church and that the leadership, the living modern leadership of the Catholic Church, are lineally descended- not biologically, but in terms of institutionally- they can trace their offices back to the time of the apostles and therefore they say that through the process of apostolic succession through the ages, the Catholic bishops have preserved the identity of the true church. They say this is the church that Jesus built on Peter the rock and so forth. This is why they trust it. What they don't realize is believing those statements that I just gave about the Catholic Church- namely that apostolic succession connects their leadership by descent to the apostles, the church is built upon Peter, they are the church- those are statements of faith on their part. Any modern Catholic, if they're told those things and they believe them, well, they're making a choice to believe that instead of some other possibilities. Many denominations that are not Catholic feel that their theology is faithful to the apostles and they believe that sometimes even in an organization that starts out on the right track, it can go wrong. They have to recognize if an organization has gone wrong rather than just embrace it because it's been around a long time. The Eastern Orthodox have exactly the same claim about their church. The Eastern Orthodox are not Roman Catholic. There was a split between the Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox back in the 11th century, and both groups say that theirs is the group that traces its authenticity back to the time of the apostles. They can't both be right. They could both be wrong, but they can't both be right. To say, "Okay, I'm a Roman Catholic and that makes me-" well, here's what they say about you and here's why they're wrong. They say that if you're not a Roman Catholic, you're kind of arrogantly assuming that you can make up your mind different from the historical church. They're saying essentially, "the church throughout history has taught such and such, and you think you're smarter than everybody else, you think you can interpret the Bible better than they did. How could you be so arrogant? How could you make a choice like that? Why shouldn't you just submit to the existing church?" Here's the problem: how do we know the Catholic Church is the existing church? They claim it, but so does the Eastern Orthodox Church. How do we know they are? If they are, then the Roman Catholic is not. It's not as if Protestants are making some kind of a personal choice as to what to believe and Catholics are not. The Catholics are making a personal choice to believe the Catholic claims, all right? That's a personal choice too. We know that because people can make another choice than that. Every human being is making a choice based on what they consider to be the best evidence of what's true. The Catholics choose to be Catholics. A lot of times it's not because they've actually considered what the best evidence is, it's because they were cradle Catholics, they were born Catholics, or because they find something beautiful in the liturgy of the Catholic Church and they like that. Or because somebody told them and they trust the person who told them this, that the Catholic Church is built on Peter and that's how Jesus said his church would be built. If somebody told you that and you believed it, you had a choice to believe that or something else. If you chose to believe the Roman Catholic claims, that's your choice. If I choose not to believe them because I look at the evidence in Scripture and elsewhere, and I say, "no, I don't think that's true." Is it arrogant for me to make up my own mind and not just go in lockstep with the Catholic organization? That depends. Is the Catholic organization the true church? They claim they are, but I don't think they are. Jehovah's Witnesses tell me they're the true church. Am I arrogant to question their claim and not go along with it? The Mormons tell me they're the true church. Am I arrogant because I don't believe them? How about if I look at all the groups that claim to be the true church and weigh the evidence and compare them with what Jesus said, who is actually the founder of the true church, and make my choices based on what he said rather than what man says? If somebody says, "the Catholic Church is the true church," some men say that. Some men say there is no God too, but I don't believe them either. Some men say the Eastern Church is the original. Some people say the Baptist Church is the true church. I don't accept what men say. If I have a choice, if I've got Jesus speaking on a subject and then I have men saying things that aren't the same as what Jesus said, I make a choice to follow Jesus and not to follow men. I don't believe there's any institutional church in the world that is the true church. I believe the true church is made up of all followers of Jesus Christ. That's what the church was originally, that's what Jesus founded. He's the cornerstone, the apostles and prophets are the foundation. If I follow what Jesus and the apostles taught, which I have fortunately preserved in their writings, then I must be part of the movement he started, the membership of which has nothing to do with joining an organization. It has to do with being born spiritually of God and included by the Holy Spirit in the family of God and made a child of God. Once I'm in that category, I can go to church wherever I think best represents the way God wants me to worship. People can be disagreed about that. One is not more arrogant than another just because they make a different choice than one makes. I believe there are Catholics who are born of God. I believe there are Catholics who are true Christians, who love Jesus and follow Jesus just like I do. I think they're mistaken in their doctrines, but they go to the Catholic Church because they judge that the way things are done there is the way that pleases God most. I don't go to their church because I judge there's different things that please God more and that maybe there's some things in their church that don't even please God to my mind. That's for me to decide for myself. I'll stand before God for making right or wrong choices; so will they. Many times Catholics feel like, "we're not making a choice, we're just being faithful to the original church." No, to identify the Catholic Church as the original church is a choice. We are living in a time where many groups think they're the original church. If you decide to believe one of them and say, "Okay, this group is the original church," then you're making a choice. You've got other options. It's interesting because the Catholics sometimes do give the impression that it's a very humble thing just to toe the line with the Catholic Church, and if you think you know better than them, how could you be such an arrogant fool? I'm going to say I don't think there's any arrogance in making a choice. I think we need to make a choice based on the evidence. And the evidence of what the true church is is going to be found in the words of Jesus and the apostles, not the words of some organization. That's how I look at that, James. I appreciate your call. Marie in Sacramento, California, welcome to the Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
Marie: Thank you. My question is about Galatians chapter four, where Paul is discussing Hagar and Sarah, comparing them to the old covenant and the new covenant. And here's where he is quoting Isaiah in verse 27, Isaiah 54:1. So this one part where he says, "For the desolate woman now has more children than the woman who lives with her husband." Who's he talking about there? Is it Judaism and the Jews that are currently worshipping in the temple in Paul's day?
Steve Gregg: Right, let me read the passage for the sake of those who don't know it. This comes of course, this is Isaiah 54:1, which is immediately after Isaiah 53. Isaiah 53 of course talks about Christ and his crucifixion and even hints at his resurrection. What follows immediately is the church, the church that came from Christ's death and resurrection. Isaiah says, "Rejoice, O barren, you who do not bear. Break forth and shout, you who do not travail. For the desolate-" in this case meaning the childless or the barren "-has many more children than she who has a husband." She who has a husband is Israel. That is the Jews, the Jewish race. Some of them are children of God. But he's saying there's those who've never had that husband. That would be the Gentiles. God never had a covenant with them before Jesus came. He had a covenant, a marriage with Israel from Exodus 20 verse 1 on. Israel was the wife, God was the husband, and all the children of God, or at least most of the children of God that came, were through that entity, through that race, through those people. That's the married wife. God has some children from that married wife. The Gentiles all through those 1400 years before Christ came, they didn't bear children for God. They didn't have a covenant with God. They were barren in terms of bringing forth fruit for God because God hadn't really approached them yet about it. In Christ and the preaching of the gospel to the Gentiles, God now extends covenantal relationship not with Israel only but with the Gentiles too, the new covenant that Christ made. Covenantal relationship is marriage. God now has a wife that's made up of the faithful Jews and the faithful Gentiles, but more Gentiles than Jews. That is the one who's bearing most of the children for him. Paul is saying that Isaiah 54:1 was looking at that when it said, "the barren ones, the Gentile nations, which had never borne children for God, never had been God's people, now they are." The ones who believe are. And there's more of them in the family of God now than there are from the married woman, from Israel. He's saying more Gentiles than Jews are children of God now. He's not eliminating all Jews, but he is suggesting that if a Jew is not also a Christian, they're not really one of the children of God or the children of Abraham. Paul says that very same thing somewhat more briefly in Romans chapter 9 verses 7 through 9 or so, which I won't look at now because we have other people waiting. That is what the Isaiah passage- how Paul understands that Isaiah passage.
Marie: Okay, thank you. And who is Keturah's children? Are they the Persians?
Steve Gregg: No, a lot of them became very obscure Middle Eastern peoples. Some of them are- we know for example Shuah was one of them, and one of Job's friends was a Shuahite. But I don't know that there's any Shuahites today. There may be, but who'd identify them with, I would not know. They might fall under the general rubric of what we call Arabs today. There's a lot of Arab ethnicities. Probably if any of Keturah's children have descendants living today, we'd call them Arabs. Midian was also one of those, and the Midianites came from them. I don't believe there's any Midianites today. If there's any people descendant from them, we would just classify them probably as Arabs.
Marie: So they're not necessarily the Persians.
Steve Gregg: No, the Persians are actually not Arab. They're different than that. Persians are from different stock than Arab.
Marie: Thank you so much.
Steve Gregg: All right, thank you for your call, Marie. Bye now. Mirna from Worcester, Massachusetts, welcome to the Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
Mirna: Yes, hi, good evening Steve. Just wanted to make one comment and then I also have a question. The comment is I know they were talking about the term Catholic. Isn't Catholic a word that's kind of universal for the universal church versus being Roman Catholic?
Steve Gregg: Originally that's how the word Catholic was used. Before there was the Roman Catholic institution, which developed in the 5th and 6th centuries primarily, before that, the regular mainstream church was called the Catholic Church. They weren't called Roman Catholic. The word Catholic is a word that simply means universal. People like Irenaeus and the early church fathers in the 2nd century, they would speak of the Catholic Church or Catholic Christianity in contrast with heretical groups. The word Catholic meant the universal true church in contrast to groups that had broken off and deviated by heresy. Once of course Western Europe began to recognize the Bishop of Rome as having authority over all the other bishops, this was after Augustine's time, then they began to call it the Roman Catholic Church. Not all Christians were of that stripe. There were the Coptic churches in Egypt and of course the Eastern churches eventually that were not under the Pope.
Mirna: Okay. And the other question that I had was in Ephesians 4, verse 11. I know this is Paul talking where he says, "And he himself," which he's talking about Jesus, "gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers." All these titles, because I'm assuming that Paul was an apostle, a prophet, he was a pastor, he was an evangelist, he was a teacher. How are these titles used interchangeably or how do we set them apart? Because they all seem like- besides the apostle, it's like-
Steve Gregg: I'm not seeing it that way. I think these are five different offices or descriptions of people's positions in the church. If you work backward from it, you've got teachers. I teach, so I would regard myself as a teacher. There is also pastors. Pastors and teachers are in the list. Pastors also teach, but they do more than I do. Pastors also tend a flock. They actually oversee a congregation. I'm not a pastor. I don't have a congregation. I do teach. Pastors also teach, but they do more than teach. The role of teaching is included within the pastor's role, though there are some people who teach and aren't pastors. Evangelists, any Christian can be an evangelist, including a pastor. Anyone can preach the gospel to people, but some people have apparently special gifting or anointing for evangelism and definitely have more success than others and are set apart for that primarily, which means they go to the unbelievers and preach the gospel. Prophets are people who receive oracles from God, like the prophets of the Old Testament and like the New Testament prophet Agabus and there were other New Testament prophets, Philip's four daughters were. There is the apostles who have a very special role, a unique role. They are official agents who speak with the authority of Christ himself, not because they're prophets, but because he appointed them as his official spokespersons. They can prophesy. Whether they're prophesying or not- if they prophesy, they're speaking the direct words of God like a prophet. They also can evangelize. They also can teach. They also can briefly pastor churches. Paul wasn't really a pastor, but he did stay in the fledgling church in Corinth for 18 months and probably shepherded that church that time, and later he was in Ephesus and shepherded that church for three years. Paul didn't really stay in churches and shepherd the flock much. He usually planted churches, he'd evangelize, so he did the work of evangelist. He would probably teach them as much as he had time to do, then he'd leave them under other shepherds to continue teaching them. Prophesying is something that Paul said any Christian might do and every Christian should desire to do, and apostles could prophesy. They weren't prophets, that's a different thing. To prophesy is an activity; to be a prophet is your rank, is your official position. Evangelists and pastors and teachers clearly exist in the church today and belong in the church today. There is some question as to whether apostles and prophets are still in the church, that is people holding that rank. One reason to question it, even though they're in the same list with evangelist, pastors, and teachers, which everyone accepts there are those, why would there be question about the apostles and prophets still being around? Because two chapters earlier in Ephesians 2, Paul said that the church was built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. The church was started being built in the first century; that's when the foundation was laid. Everyone who's come along since then is building on that foundation, Paul said. the apostles and prophets in the first century laid the foundation of the church, and the evangelist, pastors, and teachers now build on that foundation. It is possible that the office of apostle and prophet no longer exist. On the other hand, even if that's so, that doesn't mean that there are not people who prophesy sometimes. It does not mean that there are not people who do apostolic kinds of things, like church planting and stuff like that. The issue here is whether there's anyone in the church today who has the same kind of authority that the apostles had that Jesus apostolized and that holds the office of prophet. Because you can prophesy without holding the office of prophet. King Saul prophesied, though he's not a prophet. Caiaphas prophesied, though he's not a prophet. Both of them were evil men. Paul said you can all prophesy, but he said all are not prophets. He said, "Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all evangelists?" No, not all are. Some of the activities of the group first mentioned are activities that are found among others too. The apostle seems to have kind of the whole collection of roles, and then others who are mentioned- prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers- in some respects have more particularized roles. Apostles seem to have all the gifts at some time or another. That's how I see it. Some people probably see it differently. I appreciate your call. Paul in Auburn, California can use one minute. That's about what we have, I think. Is that okay, Paul?
Paul: Yes, that's fine. I'm a Christian, but I get a lot of questions about Islam and they're saying that it is the oldest religion.
Steve Gregg: No, Islam is not the oldest religion. Christianity's been around before Islam, like 600 years before Islam. Muhammad came in the 600s after Christ. Islam's not the oldest religion. Judaism was before Christianity, though modern Judaism is different. Modern Judaism is Rabbinism or Talmudism and that is more modern than Christianity. It came along after the time of Christ and was encoded in the Talmud. the Judaism of the Old Testament was temple Judaism, and that doesn't exist anymore. Christianity's just about the oldest surviving religion in the West. You've got Buddhism and Hinduism in the East; they're older. I'm out of time. Thanks for joining us. The Narrow Path is a listener-supported ministry. Go to our website thenarrowpath.com and see how to use our stuff.