The Narrow Path 09/09/2026

Steve Gregg: Good afternoon and welcome to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg. We have a live broadcast so that we can spend an hour together interacting with you in real time. If you call in, you can ask questions about the Bible or the Christian faith that we'll discuss on the air, or you can call to disagree with the host and try to correct something that's been said inaccurately on a previous broadcast. Feel free to do that. The number to call is 844-484-5737. Once again, that number, 844-484-5737. This weekend, as I've been telling you this week, I will be speaking a number of times in the Sacramento area. I'll be speaking in Citrus Heights, I'll be speaking in Roseville, and I'll be speaking in Lincoln. Those are all surrounding Sacramento. If you're in the Sacramento listening audience, you may be interested in some of these gatherings. I will be speaking three times in Roseville at the Westside Community Church. Then there's a couple of places, one in Citrus Heights, one in Lincoln, that I'll be speaking in homes. These are private residences, so we don't list the addresses on our website, but we do give contact information so you can RSVP if you're interested. Each of these will tell at the website what I'm speaking about and so forth and where. If you're interested in those, just go to our website, thenarrowpath.com, and look under announcements and you'll find out. Then you can join us if you'd like. We'd love to see you. All right, and that's the only thing that's coming up right away. A few weeks from now, about two and a half weeks, I begin an itinerary in Michigan, and we have a lot of people listening in Michigan. I'll be in a lot of different places in Michigan over the course of a week. Feel free to consult our website if you're in that area to see where those places are and to join us there if you happen to be in that part of the country. Again, to find all of these things, as well as some that are coming up the following month, not just next month, but the one after in November, I'll be in Arizona for about a week. So we're all over the place. If you're interested in joining us in any of these places, go to thenarrowpath.com and click on the tab that says announcements, and all the information is there. All right, let's go to the phones now. We'll talk to John in Roland, Oklahoma. Hi, John. Welcome to the Narrow Path.
John: Hey Steve, thanks for taking my call. I've got a quick question for you. In the Old Testament, we don't ever read of the practice of baptism. And then in the New Testament, it seems like they just start writing about baptism like it's a known occurrence. I was just wondering if you had any thoughts on kind of where baptism came from, as far as I know what the meaning of baptism is, but the method of immersing in water, kind of how that started? Because I don't know if it ever explains it, necessarily. Just kind of your thoughts on that.
Steve Gregg: Well, the first biblical baptisms in the New Testament are those of John the Baptist. It does say in the account John came baptizing as if the readers know what baptizing means. Of course, these books that recorded the story were written decades after the time of John the Baptist and Christ. So the meaning of baptism had become well known throughout the Roman Empire because there were Christians everywhere and they practiced baptism. So when the Gospels were written, they could mention that John came baptizing, and to an audience living 30, 40 years after John's time, they would know what that means because it had become common. Now, did John originate baptizing? We know that Jesus also and his disciples baptized, and Jesus commanded his disciples after his resurrection to go into baptize in the process of making disciples of all nations. So it's definitely something that we know of three different phases of baptism. One is John the Baptist, one is Jesus himself, and one is in the Great Commission, the church going out to baptize. Was there anything like baptism before that? Well, there were some things that were kind of like it. They weren't referred to by that term as far as we know, but in the Jewish law, there were certain washings. The Bible calls them ablutions. These are ceremonial washings. And the priests had to do them. A person who had contracted uncleanness by touching a dead body or by being in some state of ceremonial uncleanness, after the time of their uncleanness, they would wash themselves and their clothing. Now, this is not called baptizing as far as we know, except in the book of Hebrews. It does use the word baptismoi, I think is the word it uses. And so it's like our word baptism. Baptize means to immerse. And so the washings of the law, some of them were immersions. They didn't have the same meaning that John's baptism did or that Jesus' baptism did, but it was at least a similar phenomenon of washing in water to end a period of uncleanness. And that probably gave rise to John's meaning too. Now, many scholars believe that before John the Baptist started doing this, that the Jews were already doing this kind of thing for people who were converted to Judaism. Gentiles could be converted to Judaism. They'd be called proselytes. And if a Gentile wanted to be a Jew, he could be circumcised and go through a ritual and become a proselyte. And the ritual eventually, the Jews began to incorporate baptism into the ritual so that a Gentile who wanted to convert to Judaism would undergo baptism. We know this was happening among Jewish practices at least a century after John the Baptist, but I think it's not known for sure whether they did it prior to John the Baptist. But they might have. If they did, then John's doing so would have been quite provocative. Because he would be then doing something that the Jews did to bring unclean Gentiles into the fold. But he's not preaching to Gentiles. He's preaching to Jews. He's telling them they're unclean. They need to be baptized. In other words, they're no better than Gentiles. Just as much as Gentiles need cleansing, so do they. And this was pretty controversial. Now, when Jesus began baptizing, we don't know if he was doing the very same thing that John was doing or if it had the exact same meaning. Probably it did initially. Initially, when Jesus and his disciples were baptizing, they were doing it at the same time as John, as it says in John chapter 3 and chapter 4, verse 1, and so forth. So John and Jesus were baptizing side by side. And there's no suggestion that Jesus' baptizing at that time had any different meaning than John's. It probably was symbolic of the cleansing of the heart through repentance. Now, after Jesus rose from the dead, Christian baptism took on a meaning that John's baptism never had had. And perhaps Jesus' baptism had not had at the time before the cross either. It's hard to say. But since Jesus rose from the dead and commanded his disciples to go out and preach and to baptize people, the New Testament gives different meaning to the thing. Of course, going through water or being immersed in water is a picture of death and burial, Paul said in Romans 6:1-6. Colossians 2:12 talks about it. It's buried with Christ in baptism and raised with him in baptism. So the going under the water represented being buried, the old life, the old association with Adam and the fallen life is buried and dead and we're raised to a newness of life in Christ. That's one meaning that Paul understood baptism to have in the Christian era. Another meaning that Paul thought it had, or maybe just another illustration of it, in 1 Corinthians 10:1-6, Paul said that the Israelites who came out of Egypt had many parallels to us in their coming out of Egypt. They resembled us in our conversion and coming to Christ. In fact, in verse 6, he says they were a type of us or a type shadow of us. Now, what he said about them is, among other things, they were baptized into Moses in the Red Sea. Now, they went into the water, of course they were dry because the sea was parted, but they did go down below the water line and came out again. So, again, in passing through water like that, Paul sees an analogy or type of our going into the water and so forth. And as Israel was abandoning slavery in Egypt and coming to freedom in their relationship with God, Paul saw a parallel between that and our baptism. Now, Peter also saw another meaning in water baptism and that he compared in 1 Peter chapter 3, like verse 19 through 21, he said that Noah and his family being saved through the water of the flood in the ark are like us. He also said it's a type of us being saved through our baptism in water. So there's a variety of things the New Testament says about it. Probably the thing said most often is that we were buried with Christ in baptism and raised to newness of life. But then Paul and Peter both find Old Testament parallels in the Jews coming out of Egypt and in Noah surviving the flood respectively. So those are the meanings that baptism has, apparently, before and after the time of John the Baptist and Christ. I hope that clarifies.
John: Okay, thank you for that.
Steve Gregg: All right, John. Thanks. I'm sorry, my finger was on the button and then you started to speak again. I didn't mean to cut you off. I apologize. We'll talk next to Justin in Wichita Falls, Texas. Hi, Justin. Welcome.
Justin: Hi, Steve. I just had a real quick question. When Jesus is in the Garden of Gethsemane and he's praying by himself, how do we know that he asked God to take the cup from him if his disciples were asleep and if he was quickly arrested by the Roman soldiers? How do we know that's what he prayed for specifically?
Steve Gregg: Yeah, well, there's a few things in the records of Jesus' life that happened with no witnesses. Like, for example, his temptation in the wilderness. He was alone in the wilderness and the devil tempted him. But none of the disciples, although frankly three of them record it, Matthew, Mark, and Luke give record of it, none of them saw it. And therefore, they must have had to trust Jesus' own reports of that since it's one of the few things they record that they couldn't possibly have seen or witnessed. Now, as far as his prayer in the garden of Gethsemane, they may have heard him say this because the Bible says he brought three of them into the garden, told them to pray for an hour. He said, watch for an hour with me. And he went, it says, a stone's throw away. And then he started crying out loudly to God in his prayer. Now, it's possible that from a stone's throw away they could hear him calling out loudly. Now, the Bible suggests that he prayed for an hour, but the only part they recorded was he said, if it's possible, let this cup pass from me, yet not my will but yours be done. It wouldn't take an hour to say that. My suspicion is they heard him say that, but they didn't stay awake for the whole hour and didn't hear the other things he said. But he was within earshot in all likelihood. So there's no way that they wouldn't notice that he was saying those things. However, he came back and found them asleep, so they apparently fell asleep rather quickly, but he complained that they couldn't stay awake an hour. So he must have been praying for an hour and came back and they weren't awake anymore. So I think that Matthew, for example, well, Matthew was not actually one of the three closest to him at that point. Peter, James, and John were the ones that were furthest in, closest to him in the garden. But Peter, of course, is the source of Mark's Gospel. That's been understood from earliest times in the church that Mark wrote the Gospel as he heard it from Peter. And, of course, John was one of them too. So Peter, James, and John, two of those three actually produced records of what happened, and they almost certainly heard him say those words, though perhaps not very many more before they fell asleep. All right. Thank you for your call. Ethan from Dallas, Texas, welcome to the Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
Ethan: Hey, Steve, I have two questions, but I'll ask you the first one and allow you to answer and then ask the second one, if that's okay.
Steve Gregg: All right.
Ethan: I'm a part of a Southern Baptist church, so the idea of supporting modern-day Israel is pretty prevalent and it's pretty like a common belief. But I find it biblically lacking, at least for me, but I have heard good arguments for both sides of the debate. So I was wondering, as a Christian, should I be supporting modern-day Israel?
Steve Gregg: Well, not by default in my opinion. The reason the Southern Baptists generally emphasize the support of Israel, as do many other denominations, certainly Assemblies of God, Calvary Chapels, many evangelical groups, believe that Christians should support Israel. But they do so not because of the reasons that let's say a secular person might support them, but because they believe God is supporting them. They believe that God is on their side, that God has brought them back to the land against all odds, that it's been almost a miracle that they came back into their land, they believe, and that we need to be on God's side about this. So their understanding is that God has some promises yet to fulfill to Israel that are part of the covenant he made with Abraham. And that being so, they believe we're seeing those promises either being fulfilled now or things are being set up for their fulfillment. And therefore, we should rejoice to see these things coming to pass that have been anticipated for so long. And that it would be really wrongheaded for us to be in opposition to that. That's what dispensationalism teaches and that's where that idea is coming from. Dispensationalists believe that God is now fulfilling certain promises to Israel that were unfulfilled until recently. Now, I don't believe that. I'm not a dispensationalist. I was. I taught that myself for some years. But, of course, from studying the Scripture I realized that I was simply repeating talking points from a narrow system of theology that actually arose rather late in history and doesn't have as much biblical support as the historical Christian doctrines that were taught by the church for 1,800 years had. And it turns out I don't believe that anymore. The Bible doesn't support it in my opinion. But so I don't believe what they do, that we have to really support what God's doing in Israel just because it is God and it's God's doing. I don't know that it is or isn't God's doing. There's nothing in the Bible that predicts it or gives reason to see a divine purpose in it as far as I'm concerned. Now, should you support Israel on other grounds? It is possible for people living in America and other countries to support the nation of Israel's interests against their adversaries, not for divine reasons, not because they see Israel as chosen by God and to be on Israel's side as to be on God's side, but simply because whatever's going on in the Middle East they see as something that human beings should be interested in. And just like we have maybe some interest in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. Now, nobody I know has ever said that either the Russians or the Ukrainians have a divine mandate from God to exist or anything like that. But that doesn't keep people from having an opinion about which side they should be on. The real question is, what side has justice on its side? That's the real issue. I mean, is one side behaving more justly than the other? If so, then we should support justice. I'm honestly not able to say in the Russia-Ukrainian situation which is more just. It certainly does seem wrong to me for Russia to have invaded them a few years ago, but there's been long-standing gripe between them and it's more complicated than we usually hear about. So I don't know what to think about that one. But when it comes to the conflict between Israel and Hamas, the more recent one, it is true there's been long-standing mutual aggressions between both those countries or both those peoples for a very long time, at least as long as Israel's been a nation in modern times, the past 78 years or whatever it's been. So there's been lots of hostilities both ways. The most recent flare-up, if I'm not misinformed, and I say that because I don't claim to be highly informed. I don't follow geopolitics as thoroughly as some people do because I don't have much to say about them or much to do about them. I'd rather focus largely on the things that have something to do with my duties and my responsibilities. But from the information that seems true to me that I've heard, it seems like the modern flare-up was caused by Hamas and by the Palestinian attack against Israeli civilians at a music concert and so forth, which strikes me as a pretty wicked, nasty thing to do. And they also took some 300 or so hostages and held them for well over a year, starving them, beating them, raping them, and some of them died in captivity. Now, that strikes me as the kind of thing that nations go to war over. And they did. And Israel retaliated. The thing is, Israel is so much more powerful than Hamas militarily that it was not symmetrical. And eventually, of course, Hamas and the Palestinians suffered a lot more casualties, including civilian casualties, than Israel had in that particular provocation of October 7th. And so some people are saying Israel overreacted. Other people are saying, you know, this has been going on tit-for-tat between the two groups for decades and Israel's just got tired of this kind of stuff and they're just trying to put an end to it once and for all. Now, I'm not over there. I'm not doing a play-by-play saying who's doing the worst stuff. I will say this, though, that the main thing you hear against Israel in this matter is that they are committing a genocide against the Palestinians. Now, believe me, I'm not against Palestinians. In fact, there's a higher density of Palestinians in Palestine that are Christians than there are of Israel's Jews in Israel who are Christians. In fact, the truth is, even in Israel, the percentage of Christians is three times among the Arabs, three times that of the Christians among the Jews in Israel. So, I mean, Palestinians have much more of a Christian heritage than Israel has, and I'm a Christian and I'm for my brothers. But I also have to say this: I both sides have done some pretty atrocious things. If someone says, do you think Israel is committing a genocide? I don't claim to have enough knowledge about that, but it just common sense seems to me that even in a situation where there's a great deal of civilian casualties, that's not necessarily what we call a genocide. When America bombed Germany's Dresden or Japan's Hiroshima, there were some civilian casualties, a lot of them, but America was not trying to commit a genocide. We were not trying to wipe out all German people or all Japanese people. We were trying to end the war. And I'm not going to give my moral assessment of whether we did the right thing or not. I'm just saying what it wasn't. It was not a genocide. Hitler was committing a genocide, and he wanted to wipe out every Jew in Europe if he could. And that's a genocide. Now, if Israel wanted to wipe out every Palestinian, they'd all be dead now. Israel has nuclear weapons, Israel has superior troops and armies and all technology. If Israel wanted to do a genocide of the Palestinians, they would have been dead and gone, that is, the Palestinians would have been non-existent now. If someone says, well, the only reason they don't wipe them all out is because there's too many children and civilians that Hamas is hiding behind. And that's exactly right. Israel doesn't want to commit a genocide. They don't want to kill those children. All if they wanted to kill the children, then the fact that their enemy combatants are hiding behind civilian shields would not stop them from going full-scale wipeout because they didn't care. When an army unethically hides its combatants behind civilian shields, that makes warfare very difficult. I don't know how I'm glad I'm not involved and I wouldn't want to make the decisions. But I will say this: that if Israel wanted to wipe out civilians, and that's what genocide would mean, then the civilians would be wiped out. Because frankly, that'd make it a lot easier to get to the combatants who are hiding behind them. So I don't see Israel as wanting to commit genocide. I see them as wanting to win a war. In the process, a lot of innocent people, unfortunately, are killed. I'm not saying that's good, bad, or indifferent. It certainly doesn't seem good to me, but it may be no less justified in a hot war than some of the things we did to end World War II. And so what are we going to say? Should we support Israel? My position is Israel is simply another secular nation, just like America is. We shouldn't support any secular nation in its unjust actions. But we should support them or at least not criticize them if they're doing something justly. And that would be true sometimes of Israel and sometimes of their enemies. So sometimes I'll be supportive of them and sometimes not. That'd be my position. I need to take a break. You're listening to the Narrow Path. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. We are listener supported. You can use all our stuff, take it all free if you want, at thenarrowpath.com. I'll be back in 30 seconds. We have another half hour, so don't go away.
Steve Gregg: Welcome back to the Narrow Path. My name is Steve Gregg and we're taking your phone calls for the next half hour. If you have questions about the Bible or the Christian faith, feel free to give us a call. The number is 844-484-5737. And our next caller today is Andrew from Manchester, New Hampshire. Hi, Andrew. Welcome to the Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
Andrew: Hi. Question for you, do you as a Bible teacher recognize the difference between confidence and certainty as it relates to faith? I grew up in a tradition that was very much about, you know, are you 100 percent sure of where you're going to die or where you're going to go when you die? And even as I listen to your program and other Bible teachers, they often project this air of certainty. But as I've been pondering, like the nature of faith recently, it seems to me that kind of embedded in faith is this idea of we're not entirely certain, right? Faith is the substance of things hoped for, it's the evidence of things not seen. And so I'm just wondering if you recognize kind of a difference, like you're confident about these things, but your worldview and your faith is based upon a certain level of uncertainty, things you don't actually know, like for instance, what's going to happen after you die, because you haven't died yet, if my question makes sense.
Steve Gregg: Well, I'll say this. When it comes to certainty, if we mean 100 percent certainty, then we never have that about anything. I mean, speaking technically, we can't even know with 100 percent certainty that we exist, because in some dimension we don't even know about, we might be the dream of a god, you know, and not even be real, like the characters in our dreams are not really there, not really there. Well, of course, I don't believe that for a second. But I mean, people could come up with all kinds of really long shots and say, well, what you think is true, really you don't know for sure that it's true because there could be this other really bizarre explanation that you're interpreting this way. I realize that. Okay, so when we say that we have confidence in something, or that we believe something, or even that we know something, we're really speaking of a degree of confidence that we have in it based on good evidence. In other words, we don't Richard Dawkins, the atheist, said, well, faith, you only need faith when there isn't any evidence. Well, he doesn't know even what faith is apparently. And I mean, he was in a debate with John Lennox, a Christian, and Dawkins made that talking point he always gives. Oh, faith is only for those who don't have evidence. And Lennox said, well, do you have faith in your wife? And Dawkins said, yes. And Lennox said, do you have any evidence for that? He said, well, yes. In other words, he had evidence and he had faith. Because if you believe somebody is reliable, you may have very good reasons for believing that. You might have strong evidence that they're reliable. And once you know they're reliable, then you believe what they say. I mean, you should, if somebody is reliable. If someone's unreliable, it's either because they lie or they don't know what they're talking about. There are people there are sources that are unreliable. And they can only be unreliable if they don't know what they're talking about, or they do what they're talking, but they're lying about it. Unless one of those two things is there, somebody is completely reliable. Now, I believe that God is completely reliable, and I believe he knows what he's talking about, and I believe he's doesn't lie. So and I'm confident in that. Now, do I know that with 100 percent certainty? Well, I don't again there's virtually nothing can be known with 100 percent certainty. But if we were waiting for 100 percent certainty for everything, we couldn't move. When I go driving on the freeway, am I 100 percent certain that the cars going the other way are not going to come across the median and hit me head on and kill me? No, I mean, I kind of count on them not doing that because most of them won't. You know, the chance that one of them would is maybe one in a million, given all the cars that pass by without doing it. So, you know, in other words, there's there's a possibility, a remote one, but I can't live my life fearing that which is a remote possibility. I have to I have to say what is the most well established by evidence proposition? And I will live by that. Now, that God exists, that God tells the truth, that God knows everything, that the Bible is his word, these are all propositions that I've looked into all my life and for, you know, looking at evidence. This is not something I just chose to believe because I was a little kid and it made me feel good to believe it, like Santa Claus or something. No, this is something I've looked into critically and the evidence and so have frankly, literally millions of Christians throughout history. They've examined the evidence and they say, yep, this all the best evidence is in this in favor of this. Now, once that's true, then I believe completely, you know, I believe completely that for which there's no basis of doubt. And so, you know, when you say confidence, faith actually is confidence. That's kind of they're kind of synonyms. If I have faith in my wife, I have confidence in her. If I have faith that my car will make it on the road trip I'm going to make this weekend, that means I have confidence that the car's sound and it will do that. Faith is simply confidence. And to put your confidence in that for which there's a great deal of evidence, even if you can't prove it 100 percent, is a very rational thing to do. And frankly, it's the only way life can be lived. So, I mean, if I if I didn't trust the restaurant I go to to not put poison in the food I order, I couldn't eat out. But I don't know that they won't put poison in there. There's a remote chance that they could, but it's like one chance in a million, and I'm willing to live with those kind of probabilities. So, yeah, I mean, faith means confidence. I'm totally confident that what God said is true. And, you know, I wouldn't have basis for confidence in any other view. I mean, suppose we say, well, you're assuming that there's a life after death. You're assuming that there's rewards that will come from God to those who please him. You're assuming that. I am assuming it, but I'm assuming it because he told me so. You know, I'm assuming it because I have credible witness about that. And to assume anything else would be without any witness at all. What witnesses are there out there who can who can testify that there's no life after death? Well, of course, no one could testify to that because no one knows that from experience. But so I have confidence in that which for which confidence is warranted. And I put little confidence in things that don't warrant it. So that's my position on faith. Faith is confidence.
Andrew: Okay, yeah, no, I just feel like maybe we could do people a little bit more service by not necessarily projecting, and I'm not saying you specifically, but a lot of churches that I go to, there's this this sense of well, you gotta know know. And I think that doesn't leave a lot of room for... Hello?
Steve Gregg: Well, let me say this. I I agree with part of what you've said. Churches have sometimes indicated to their converts, it's absolutely necessary that you know you're saved. Well, I would say it's very gratifying to know that you're saved. Perhaps it's very helpful to know that you're saved. But I don't know that I don't know that you would not be saved if you didn't know you were. The Bible doesn't say believe that you will be saved and you'll be saved. It says believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you'll be saved. So suppose I put my faith in Christ, and my faith is in him, not in myself, okay? So I mean, I say, I know that Jesus is Lord, I know that Jesus is Savior, I'm going to obey him on those terms. I'm not 100 percent sure about myself. I'm not 100 percent sure that I've that I'm, you know, measuring up in my faith, that I have enough faith or whatever, but I'm going to just act on it. I mean, what can I do? Okay, a person like that would say, well, I'm not sure I'm saved, but I think I am. Now, I'm not in that category. I I know I am not because of any cockiness or anything on my part. I've just I've done nothing but follow Jesus since I was a child. I mean, if there's if there's such a thing as being saved in the Bible, you know, I've had confidence that I am ever since I started following Jesus. And, you know, there are evidences of that in a person's life too. So you can, without arrogance, have high confidence that not only is Christianity true, but that you are a true Christian. If somebody isn't sure they're a true Christian, what I would say is, well, just, you know, put your confidence in God and act as if it's true, and, you know, maybe you are, maybe you're not, you'll find out when you meet him. But I do believe there will be people who had some questions about their own salvation, but they believed in Jesus and sought to follow him, who will end up finding out that they were indeed saved because of their confidence in him, not in themselves. So, you know, apparently you're saying it seems a little unwarranted to be 100 percent sure that you're saved. Hmm, I don't know, I think I think there are ways to be mighty sure that you're saved, but I understand that some people think you're not saved unless you know you are. And I'm not sure of anything in the Bible that says that. The Bible says we should know. He God wants us to know that we're saved. That's what the book of 1 John says repeatedly. We know that we've passed from death unto life because we love the brethren. We know that we abide in him because his Spirit is within us. You know, we know that we're his disciples, you know, because we follow him and so forth. There's lots of we knows in the book of 1 John. In fact, that the book is written in order to give that confidence. But yeah, I I'm not going to I'm not going to criticize those who encourage people to have confidence in their salvation. It seems to me like your walk with God is greatly diminished if you don't know that God loves you and that he accepts you and that you're one of his children. The promises God made for our lives day by day living are made to his children. And if I don't know if I'm one of his children, probably the quality of my Christian life will be much compromised, I would say. That's at least my thought on that particular question. Thank you for your call. Let's talk to Jeremy from Phoenix, Arizona. Jeremy, welcome to the Narrow Path.
Jeremy: Hi, Steve. Thank you. I'm so glad I came right after this other previous call. I just went through your study in First John, actually finished it today. And it was so great and right up the line of what he was talking about. It reassessed my life and it really kind of put me straight and especially in the obedience sector. But my original question, and only question, I'll take it off the air, was in in First John when it's talking about loving the brethren and in just general love for other people, does the does the Bible make a distinction between the type or kind of love we have for the brethren versus just everybody else in the world?
Steve Gregg: Okay, sure. I'll be glad I'll be glad to address that, Jeremy. God bless. By the way, those of you who wonder what series on First John he's referring to, he may be referring to my verse-by-verse teaching through First John, or there's another series of four lectures at our website called How Can I Know That I'm Really Saved? And that's an analysis of what First John says on that subject too. So either way, I mean, one could go to my verse-by-verse teachings through First John or to the topical series called How Can I Know That I'm Really Saved? And that's one of those two is what he's alluding to. Now, we love the brethren. What about other people who aren't our brothers? Now, in a sense, we're all brothers. You remember the prodigal son and his brother were brothers, though the prodigal son had repented of sinful life and the other brother doesn't appear to have been repentant about anything he had done, nothing wrong is recorded against him, but they definitely had very different backgrounds up to that very moment that the son came home especially. And the father indicated that, you know, the older son should be rejoicing in the salvation of the younger son. And you would rejoice in somebody's salvation if you cared about them, if you loved them, if you wanted the best for them. So a person getting saved means somebody who was not saved makes the transition into eternal life, and that's a person that you were glad to see made it. And the reason you're glad to see made it is that you weren't very happy about them being in the condition they were before. You cared about them. You wanted to see them do better. So we should desire that all unbelievers be saved, and we should also wish well for our brothers. Now, it is true, there is a difference between a mere neighbor and a brother. In the Bible, everyone who is a follower of Christ is a son or daughter of God and is one of the brethren. In Galatians chapter 6 and verse 10, it says as you have opportunity, endeavor to do good to all men, especially those of the household of faith. Now, the household of faith would mean the Christian family, the family of faith, brothers. Well, who are the others? The others is everybody else. Do good to all men, but especially those of the household of faith. That is, if we see someone in need, we should help them whether we know them to be a Christian or not. If we know them to be a Christian, then we should be especially eager to help our own spiritual kin, but we should also be eager to help anyone else too. You know, the story of the Good Samaritan is about people two men, one was Jewish who fell among thieves, the other was a Samaritan, they were of different countries, they were of different religions, and different ethnicities. And yet the helping of the Jew by the Samaritan is said to be an example of what it means to love your neighbor as you love yourself. Jesus told a lawyer you need to love your neighbor as you love yourself, and a neighbor, of course, isn't always going to be a brother, but he's a neighbor and you love him as you love yourself, that's the command. And the lawyer said, well, who's my brother? And he told the story of the Good Samaritan and basically saying, this is what it means to love your neighbor as you love yourself. These people were not of the same faith, of the same race, of the same nationality. In fact, they belonged to races that were hostile to each other. And yet the one helped the other because they were neighbors. So it's not just that we love brothers, we do, we love our neighbors too, and our neighbors can mean our enemies and can mean non-Christians. But we especially have obligation to help our brothers. And love, by the way, is helping. Jesus defined loving your neighbor as you love yourself by saying if you what you would want someone to do to you, do that to them. That's loving your neighbor as you love yourself. So, yeah, it's not just not just the brethren. Now, it is true that probably because you it is assumed that Christians interact with other Christians in the body of Christ in the Christian community more than, you know, and in different degrees than they do with outsiders, that they'd probably mostly be interacting with brethren. But they should also when they're out and about, you know, with the unbelievers, they should also be caring about them too. I don't know if if there's like a distinction in how intensely one feels love for a brother as opposed to just for an unsaved neighbor. There may be, but obligations are pretty close to the same, because we should do good to all men, especially those of the household of faith. Okay, let's talk to Fred from Alameda, California. Fred, welcome.
Fred: Hi, yes. I have this book on Billy Graham, it's called Billy Graham God's Ambassador, and it's big on photographs like when he was meeting with presidents. But my question is there's these two pages back to back and there's nothing there's no photographs, but, you know, there's also quotes from that book about Billy Anyway, they have this map of the world and there are these dots, and those are Billy Graham crusades held in that area. Okay, so Florida, like there's it's ridiculous, there's a whole cluster of dots, and I'm just wondering if you knew and then I have another question, what was so special about Florida, if you knew?
Steve Gregg: I have no idea. Second question?
Fred: Okay, second question is it says that Billy Graham crusade major crusades were held in six continents. So there's seven continents, right? So what continent would you guess that Billy Graham missed?
Steve Gregg: I'm going to suggest Antarctica.
Fred: Okay, because it's really cold there. Yeah.
Steve Gregg: Well, there's no people there, just penguins. Thanks for your call. Okay, let's talk next to Derek in Arlington, Texas. Derek, welcome to the Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
Derek: Hey Steve, thank you for taking my call. First-time caller. Great. My question is regarding Christian nationalism. Looking from the outside looking in, it appears as if they have changed their position on Israel, but do they still hold America to the same standard of having an unjust war?
Steve Gregg: I'm not sure, because I don't I don't read any or I don't I'm not in touch with any Christian nationalist, so I'm not sure what they've changed. What do you mean they've changed their position on Israel? What did they believe before and what they believe now?
Derek: Well, they a lot of Christian nationalists, they believe that Israel dragged America into war with Iran.
Steve Gregg: Okay, that's what they believe now.
Derek: Yes.
Steve Gregg: Okay. So, what's your question to me?
Derek: So my question is, why don't Christian nationalists believe that America is having an unjust war?
Steve Gregg: Well, maybe they do. I don't know what they think. I I really don't I don't really have any association with people that are called Christian nationalists. I'm not even sure what a Christian nationalist is. But I mean, I've heard the term and I've I don't know anyone personally who calls themselves that term voluntarily. I mean, if someone says are you a Christian nationalist, I'd say well, those two words have a meaning. A Christian has a meaning, I am a Christian. Nationalist usually means the opposite of a globalist, which means that they believe that God has made different nations to to be sovereign and independent of each other so that it becomes more difficult for one evil man to control the whole world because the nations have their own national interests. Now, globalism's a very popular view among progressives now, and they want there to be more like a one-world government. That's globalism. I'm not a globalist. If that makes me a nationalist, that's then that's fine. There's nothing embarrassing about being a nationalist in that sense. Most people throughout history have been nationalists. They believe in nations and and they believe that a nation should take or the government of a nation should take care of its own citizens who support it with their taxes. That's what nations do. Anyway, in that sense I would be a nationalist. I'm also a Christian. But I'm not sure why I would call myself a Christian nationalist because my Christianity is not necessarily connected to my nationalism per se. I'd be a Christian whether I was a nationalist or not. So but who but then again, I I know other Christians like myself who in those terms, I guess you could call them Christian nationalists, but I don't think they'd call themselves that. I don't call myself that. So, yeah, I don't know if there's people who think that Israel has dragged us into the war in Iran. I don't know if they're right or wrong. I'm not sure who those people are, and I don't know that they're listening to me or taking advice from me. So not sure I can do anything for them in that area. Stella from Las Vegas, Nevada, welcome to the Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
Stella: Hi, good afternoon, Steve. I was calling because, mainly, my question is how would you explain biblically to a child around five years old about why we don't celebrate Halloween? Or should we celebrate Halloween?
Steve Gregg: Right, exactly. A lot of Christians don't celebrate Halloween, some do. The ones who don't usually don't because they they feel there's an awful lot of occult associations with it, which is have their high sabbath on Halloween, for example, which is a nasty thing. A lot of the images associated with Halloween are dark things like witches and you know, zombies and monsters and stuff like that. That's dark stuff. But other Christians, they're not looking at that side. They say we've never been involved in witchcraft, we've never been involved in the dark stuff. Halloween was originally a Christian holiday in the Catholic Church, where it was All Saints' Day is November 1st, and All Hallows', which means all saints, evening, All Hallows' evening, was like Christmas Eve, the evening before Christmas. All Hallows' Eve was the night before All Saints' Day, which was a Christian holiday. I mean, a Catholic holiday. I never celebrated it nor Halloween. But some people say, well, you know, Halloween that's simply originally a Christian holiday. Now, the fact that some bad people have brought bad things into their celebrations of it and they probably don't even know what it means anymore doesn't mean that we shouldn't be allowed to do so. And the same thing could be true about Christmas. Frankly, there's a lot of people who have brought probably don't even know what Christmas is for, but they go to Christmas parties and they get drunk and they fornicate and they do bad stuff sometimes. Well, that shouldn't make us not able if we wish to to celebrate Christmas. I'm not really that much into celebrating any holidays. Never have been. So, I mean, I could go without Christmas celebrations, without Halloween celebrations, without virtually any holiday celebrations because I don't believe they're commanded in Scripture, and it's just not my temperament. I like to I like to think of every day as holy and it's impossible to make one day holier than all the others because then that's diminishing the holiness of the others. But that's just me. And people don't have to think like I do about everything. So I don't I'm not necessarily I don't necessarily condemn Christians who do something on a Halloween. Now, some churches have what they call a harvest party on Halloween night as sort of an alternative to the trick-or-treating and other things that are dark. And sometimes they even wear costumes of sorts, but then there's the purists who think Halloween should be viewed as entirely satanic, who say well, it's compromising even to have any kind of a party on that day because it's obvious that you're just you're celebrating Halloween, you're just doing it kind of in a different location and calling it something else. Well, if you're doing something if you're calling it something else, it isn't the same thing. You know, if you want to have a Christian gathering on Halloween evening, I don't see that that's more forbidden than doing the same thing any other day of the year. As far as I know, Christians are at liberty to have to celebrate any day they want to any way they want to. I would say if Christians are participating in dark occultic witchy kind of stuff on Halloween, then they are definitely compromising, it seems to me, because that kind of stuff is an abomination to God. So I would just tell the children that, you know, we don't do the kinds of things that offend God even though lots of people do. But that doesn't mean they can't do something and you just have to decide for yourself what your family will do on those cases. I'm out of time, I'm sorry to say. You've been listening to the Narrow Path. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. Thanks for joining us.