The Narrow Path 09/10/2026

Steve Gregg: Good afternoon and welcome to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we're live for an hour as we usually are weekday afternoons, and as we have been for about 29 years. We have a commercial-free broadcast, that means virtually an hour, actually it's 55 minutes to be quite exact, for you to call in and to ask questions if you wish about the Bible or the Christian faith. We'll talk about them on the air. You can also call in to disagree with the host. We welcome you to do that too. The number to call is 844-484-5737. That's 844-484-5737. As I've been saying all week, I'm going to be spending three days teaching in the Sacramento area beginning tomorrow night in Roseville at the Westside Community Church. I'll be there for a men's breakfast the next morning, Saturday, and then I'll be speaking there Saturday night as well. On Sunday, I've got a couple of meetings in private residences, but they're open to the public if they're not full yet. You have to RSVP to get the location. Those are in Citrus Heights and Lincoln. The church is in Roseville. I'm going to be speaking in those areas beginning tomorrow night, twice on Saturday and twice on Sunday before I return home. If you're in the Sacramento area, go to our website, thenarrowpath.com. Look under the tab that says announcements and you'll find the time and place of each of those gatherings, which will allow you to join us if you want to. We'd love to see you. All right, we're going to talk to Nathan in Ellensburg, Washington, first of all today. Hi, Nathan, welcome.
Nathan: Oh hi, Steve. I'd like to give a little background if I could. I have a daughter who's gone off to college and got in with some Catholic friends and now she has a Catholic boyfriend and she wants to convert this Easter and I'm just really grieving. Our family is. In the sense that we've asked her just to wait until she graduates to give it time and she said no. I said this church is bringing division in our family. She said, "Well, Jesus said that I come to bring not peace but a sword." She quotes the scriptures. I don't know if you can speak to that. I've had a lot of questions that I could ask but...
Steve Gregg: I understand the problem that this is causing in the family. I will say this, not to be flippant or to take it lightly, but it could be worse. She could be converting to Islam or Buddhism or even deconstructing her faith. Many young people raised in Christian homes have done that. Obviously if you don't believe the Catholic faith is the true faith, I can see why you wouldn't wish for your children to embrace it. I also don't believe the Catholic faith is the true faith, obviously. I do think though that Roman Catholics can be followers of Christ. I think they simply have a lot of accretions of tradition that are perhaps distractions from following Christ or can be. Let's face it, there have been some very good Christians who worshiped God in the Catholic faith. Through the medieval times before the Reformation, virtually all Christians in the West were part of the Catholic Church and there were some good ones as well as some not very good ones. Everybody was baptized at infancy in Europe. So obviously a lot of people weren't even Christians. Some who were, think of St. Francis of Assisi or Savonarola or more recently, I think of Mother Teresa, people like that. They love God. They love Jesus. I'm sure that whatever mistakes they made in their theology are not as important to God as their hearts toward Him. The real issue would be that. Of course, this is not, again, I'm not trying to make light of it. The main thing is that you and I believe the Catholic faith is wrong, is mistaken. Therefore, when she says, "Well, Jesus came to bring a sword," certainly he came to bring a sword between those who embrace the truth on one side and those who reject the truth on the other side. There's a sense in which either the Catholic Church or your version of Christianity, which is also mine probably, one of them is wrong on many points. Perhaps not wrong enough to prevent someone from being saved, from following Christ, but wrong about many things. That's why there's differences. How long has she actually known this young man?
Nathan: How long has she known what?
Steve Gregg: The young man she wants to marry.
Nathan: Oh, nine months.
Steve Gregg: Okay, well, that's pretty quick. To convert from your childhood or family faith to another faith in order to marry someone you've known only nine months, good heavens. Seems like waiting is a sensible thing to do. That is wait to get married. At least wait to know that getting married is what you're definitely not going to regret doing before you get married. If you have to convert and you think that's the right way to go, then fine, but to convert all the way from an evangelical faith of your youth into a complete renunciation of that by joining Roman Catholic faith, which is quite different in many respects, is a pretty radical thing to do in a nine-month period of time. There's a lot to research. Every single thing that the Catholic Church differs from you about is something that should be looked at and carefully considered biblically. Just because she's heard some arguments for the Catholic position, she should be a little wary. Just like if the Jehovah's Witnesses or the Mormons come to your house and they give some pretty interesting, maybe even persuasive arguments too. To just jump overboard and join their group without really having time to examine and think through the biblical case for those things is very irresponsible. But of course, when you want to marry somebody, it gives you a strong motivation to overlook responsible exegesis and so forth. I had a friend in my Baptist church growing up that, well, he was a good Baptist, but he met a girl in college who was Catholic and he converted to Catholicism and they got married. He did it of course strictly so he could marry her. Now he remains Catholic and they raised their children Catholic. I haven't seen him for ages so I don't know how he's doing with the Lord. Sometimes falling in love with someone is the thing that makes someone want to change their views, which is interesting to me. It kind of shows that their views were not based entirely on solid rational convictions for some reason. If I was single and I fell in love with somebody who was a dispensationalist, I might get married, but I wouldn't convert to dispensationalism because my views against it are very well thought out and I wouldn't just jump ship over to their view just to get married. But then I probably wouldn't have to convert to that in order to marry. The Catholic Church will not let a Catholic in good standing marry a Protestant. So she's either got to give up the relationship or get married. I don't know how long she's willing to wait. But is she willing to look at or read anything that interacts with the Catholic faith and critiques its traditions or she's just kind of closed?
Nathan: We've asked her to and she said she will. But when we've asked her point-blank just some of the more outrageous things that they believe, just to think critically about it, she will not say anything negative about the Catholic Church, any one of the dogmas.
Steve Gregg: Well, some people think differently than we do, I guess. Listen, I would suggest that you get a book called *The Gospel According to Rome*. The author's name, I think he teaches at the Master's Bible College, John MacArthur's Bible College. The man is a former Catholic himself and very knowledgeable. It's a very good, kind, and polite examination of the various areas where evangelical Christianity differs from Catholicism. James McCarthy is the author. My wife just looked it up for me. James McCarthy is the author. If she would agree to read that, you're not going to probably disown her if she converts to Catholicism. So I think what you should say is, "You know we feel strongly against what you're doing, but we're not going to disown you. In exchange for our acceptance of you, no matter what you do, we'd like you to do something and that's read this book and read it thoughtfully. If you do that, there won't be much more we'll have to say about it, about that subject."
Nathan: That's good.
Steve Gregg: I'm sorry this is happening, but it may not be the end of the world. Of course you don't want your kids raised Roman Catholic if you don't believe in Roman Catholicism. I understand that. But I've had people who are themselves Protestant say to me, "Oh no, my children are becoming Eastern Orthodox," or "My children are becoming Anglican," or "My children are becoming Roman Catholic." I have some children who aren't walking with the Lord at all. I'd be glad if they converted to something like that. At least if they're following Jesus they can be led through it and out of it because if they're one of his sheep he will lead them. But sometimes he lets his sheep go to Rome.
Nathan: That's a good perspective.
Steve Gregg: By the way, some Catholics are very good Christians and very intelligent Christians and very devout. But again, the way they worship is quite offensive to many Protestants. But what were you going to say?
Nathan: Oh, well, I have kind of got into some of the issues and we'll talk about the Bible and study certain scriptures and she'll say, "Well, how can you even trust the Bible because it was put together by Catholics?" And also she says that Apocrypha was a part of the Old Testament before Jesus came.
Steve Gregg: Well, that's not true either. The Jews in their Old Testament did not accept the Apocrypha. The reason Catholics say they did is because the Apocryphal books were found in the Septuagint. The Septuagint of course was the Greek translation of the Old Testament Hebrew Scriptures. Once they made the translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, they kept making translations of and adding more religious books in the Greek language to the Septuagint. They added lots of books. Actually the Septuagint contains several books that the Catholic Bible doesn't include. It's not the case that the Apocrypha were accepted as scripture by the Jews. They were included in the Septuagint by the Jews, but that doesn't mean they saw them as scripture. They put in a lot of things there that no one ever thought was scripture. As far as the Catholics put together the Bible, they always say that. No, the Bible was written by the Apostles and their companions. Out of 27 New Testament books, 20 of them were never disputed by any Christians as being genuine. It is true there were about seven of them that were disputed. That is, some in the church weren't sure they were authentically apostolic and some thought they were. Those included books like Hebrews and Revelation and Second and Third John and Second Peter, among others, Jude. Those ones were held kind of at arm's length by some Christians for the first almost 400 years. During that time, many Christians accepted them and eventually all Christians did. They say the Catholic Church gave us them. No they didn't. No, those decisions were made before there was a Pope, okay? Before they had someone called a Pope in the church. The term "Catholic" for the first 500 years or so simply meant universal, the universal church. It didn't refer to the Roman Catholic Church. The Roman Catholic Church developed with the development of the papal superiority. When the Bishop of Rome came to be seen as having authority over all the bishops of the church, then it became Roman Catholic under the Pope. That didn't happen until close to 600 AD and all the books of the New Testament were included long before that. Catholics do have their talking points, but it would be very good for her to hear another side. See, she's never heard these Catholic talking points until she met her boyfriend. Hearing them she says, "Oh, wow, that makes a difference." It would if they were true, but there's always such a thing as once you've heard something, check it out and see if it's actually true. If someone doesn't want to do that, it may be because she's in love. Anyway, brother, I appreciate your call. I hope things work out for you guys. Joe in Jacksonville, Florida, is next. Welcome to the Narrow Path, Joe.
Joe: Hey, how are you doing, Steve? So my question is about Second Samuel chapter seven, a couple verses into the Davidic Covenant, verse 14. It says, "I will be to him a father and he shall be to me a son. When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men with the stripes of the sons of men." Now, I was under the impression that this is a Messianic prophecy, so why is it saying anything about committing iniquity if it's about Jesus?
Steve Gregg: Well, the prophecy is talking about the dynasty of David of which the Messiah would be the ultimate representative and the ultimate final representative. All of the sons of David from Solomon, Rehoboam, and so forth on until they ran out at the Babylonian Exile, all those 20 kings were sons of David who sat on the throne and as such they were types and shadows of the Messiah who would be the ultimate son of David. The prophecy kind of mixes the images of the types and the Messiah. The "I will be to him a father, he shall be to me a son" which is quoted there is quoted in Hebrews chapter one and verse five about Christ. So we know that it is Messianic. The sons and the throne of David were represented by a series of kings, as I said, who kind of looked forward to Christ. The prophecy kind of encompasses the whole dynasty of David of which the Messiah would be the supreme member. It could be understood that the collective dynasty of David, when they do evil, God will discipline them. He won't just give up on the whole dynasty. That's apparently what he's saying there. In other words, he's not going to give up on his promise that eventually a scion of David will be the Messiah. But in the meantime, there will be scions of David that kind of go the wrong way. Instead of throwing them out the window and saying I'm done with you, like he did with Saul, he'll still work with that dynasty because he's not going to reject the dynasty though he may have to deal harshly with some of the individuals who were part of it. That's how I understand it. It could also be understood this way: that although Jesus didn't commit iniquity, he was treated as if he had. That is when he took our sins upon himself as it says in Isaiah 53:6, "All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned everyone to his own way, but the Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all." Jesus took on the iniquity and the guilt apparently of the whole sinful race, and therefore he was chastened as our representative. He didn't commit any sin, but he officially became our scapegoat. He's the one who's treated as if he had. Both of those things are kind of in view here. Both are in view with the throne of David represented by all the kings that ever sat on it, and the Messiah. Both are kind of interwoven in the Jewish mind and I think in the prophecy too. That's my understanding.
Joe: That makes sense. I guess where I got hung up was because I was thinking the same thing that you're talking about where Jesus had to deal with punishments that were undue obviously. But the word "commits" where it says "when he commits iniquity," that's what I got hung up on because Jesus didn't commit any iniquities. That makes perfect sense though. So thank you, Steve. I appreciate it.
Steve Gregg: Okay, Joe. Thanks for your call. Myrna from Worcester, Massachusetts, is next. Welcome to the Narrow Path, Myrna.
Myrna: Yes. Hi. How are you, Steve? A couple days ago, and I normally agree with you, but I'm not sure about this one. A couple of days ago someone called, I'm not sure what the question was, but you were basically talking about the church in general in meetings and how the church used to meet in the beginning where they used to meet in homes and that basically those meetings were really just for believers. Right, but we don't know if they brought unbelievers there that became believers and were baptized is one of my questions. And then the other thing is we know that the church has evolved. They don't meet no longer in homes like that. I know sometimes you like to do that and I think that's great. I think that's great that people still do that all around the world. But the church has evolved and they meet in buildings now as a little bit more structured. And those churches are open for everyone, non-believers in general. We should be out there evangelizing obviously.
Steve Gregg: I hear you. Well, let me just say this. Paul does mention in First Corinthians 14 that an unbeliever might wander into a church meeting somewhere. He talks about how those who are speaking in tongues in the church should be doing so in an orderly way because if somebody comes in who's not a believer, they might otherwise think you're all crazy. He does talk about unbelievers possibly coming into the church meeting and happening to experience the worship of the Christians. But you don't direct the meeting to the unbelievers because the church is the body of Christ. As I said in that call, I don't mind if churches hold evangelistic meetings too. But they should have meetings for the church as well. The church is made up of only Christians. By the way, in the early church, not only in apostolic times but also in a century or two after that, the central aspect of a Christian meeting was what they called the Agape feast. It was a love feast and they took communion there. It was very much understood both in the New Testament and in the church fathers that an unbaptized person has no place at that feast. It was just a given that these Christian meetings were for Christians. It's not like they had a guard at the door that would prevent some non-Christian from visiting, but they did the meeting for the sake of building up the saints. I don't know very many churches that do that, honestly. Some do. Some have edifying worship, some have edifying instructive sermons and so forth for the believers. Lots of churches don't. They just kind of want the service to appeal to the broadest general audience, to be entertaining if possible and to keep the customers satisfied. That's just not what the church is supposed to be. The church has evolved and that's one of my complaints. The fact that the church more often meets in a big building than in a home is not the real problem. I'm not saying there's no reason the church could meet in a big building; it might be necessary sometimes. If the church is primarily a giant gathering in a concert hall or in a theater-type place, then it changes the character of the meeting itself. If that's what Christians are mostly doing is going to a big theater house to hear music played and a sermon presented, then they're not able to do in that setting what the church is supposed to be doing. It seems to me. Obviously everyone can check for themselves whether the Bible says that or not. Just read First Corinthians chapter 14 and see what does it sound like. Read First Corinthians 11 about the love feast, about the communion. They actually had a meal at their services and they took communion at a meal. It was different then. Yes, there can be flexibility. At times there are some changes that may have to be made to the normal pattern just because they have to be made for whatever reason. But we have to recognize that it's like I think Chesterton said: if you're walking through a meadow and you see a fence, before you decide to take the fence down you better ask why it's there. Before you start changing things, start changing the way the apostles did things, you might better ask, "Well, why did they do things that way? Maybe there's some principle they were preserving." Maybe not. If you can think of some change to be made that doesn't change any of the principles that the apostles held, it might be harmless enough. To simply say the church has changed, yeah, I'm aware of that. That's the problem. Because the church has changed not only in the fact that they don't meet in homes anymore, it's also changed in the fact that many people in it aren't saved anymore, and the ones who are are barely discipled. That's a change that's not something I'd be willing to make. Anyway, I appreciate you calling because you're certainly welcome to disagree with me. God bless you, Myrna. We will just keep studying that. You're listening to the Narrow Path. We have another half hour coming but right now you just need to know our website is thenarrowpath.com. We are listener-supported. If you want, you can donate there but everything's free at 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're live for another half hour taking your calls. If you have questions about the Bible or the Christian faith or disagreement with the host, feel free to give me a call. Always glad to talk to you and discuss whatever's on your mind. The number to call is 844-484-5737. Once again, it's 844-484-5737. Once again, if you're in the Sacramento area, I'll be speaking five times in the Sacramento area in the next three days starting tomorrow night. If you're interested, go to our website, thenarrowpath.com. Look under announcements and you can see where I'll be and perhaps you can join us there. All right, we're going to go back to the phones of course and talk to Tom in Maine. Hi Tom, welcome to the Narrow Path.
Tom: Hi Steve, I appreciate you. My question today is on First John the third chapter where it's talking about who the children are that are righteous don't sin and the devil's do sin. In verse nine it says, "Whoever has been born of God does not sin for his seed remains in him and he cannot sin because he has been born of God." Now, whose seed? Explain that to me.
Steve Gregg: Well, God's seed could refer to Christ, but he's not usually called God's seed; he's usually called God's son. Some people would say God's seed refers to Christ. Christ lives in us. I think perhaps what John is referring to is that God has planted a seed of his own life through his word. His word is compared to seed in the parables of Jesus. The sower went out to sow, that seed was the word. He could be simply saying that if you're truly born again, it's because God has planted a seed of his own life in you which is growing and his nature is in you because of it. His nature is growing to be more and more dominant in your character and in your life and it's going to crowd out sinning. The love of sinning is going to be gone and the love for righteousness is going to be there because that's what God's character and God's life is. I think it's not very different, and I could be wrong of course, but I think it's not very different than what Peter had in mind in Second Peter chapter one and verse four. I should read verse three and four. He says, "As his divine power has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceeding and great and precious promises, that through these," that is through the promises, that is through God's word, "you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust." Through the promises of God, through the word, the gospel and what he's said to us, we've received that and by those we've received the divine nature. That's what I think may be what John has in mind too when he says that God's seed as he's planted a seed of himself of his own nature in us and that changes the way we are.
Tom: Yeah, that makes sense.
Steve Gregg: I think that's probably what he means in First John 3:9. In that verse as well as several others in First John, he mentions that Christians who are born again do not sin, and that's how you know the difference between a child of God and a child of the devil. That's of course the verses 10 and 11 and beyond of the same chapter. That bothers some people because Christians do sometimes sin. They have been known to sin. We all have sinned, and not just before we were Christians but afterwards too if we've been saved very long we know that we've stumbled. We're not perfect. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak, Jesus said. What's he saying that they don't sin? Of course what he's talking about is there's two paths. There's a path of righteousness, there's a path of sin. When you are not a Christian, you're on the path of sin. When you hear the gospel you reach kind of a fork in the road and you decide, am I going to follow the path of sin or the path of obedience? The Christian is the one who's chosen the path of obedience, which simply means they're not walking in sin anymore. Sin is not what they're defined by anymore. Obedience is what they're defined by. They have taken a turn away from a life of sin. Do they sometimes fall into sin? They do but it's not their practice. It doesn't define their life. It's a deviation. It's what James called stumbling. James said in many things we all stumble. Stumbling is not walking. Stumbling is different than the way we walk. We do stumble sometimes even when we're walking. The unbeliever walks in sin. The believer walks in the spirit. He walks in love. He walks in faith. He walks worthy of his calling. He walks in obedience. That's simply the description of a Christian life. Not every moment of every day there are failures. It is certainly the trajectory. A Christian is one who by definition has given up on sinning. That's what Peter says, for example, in First Peter chapter four where he talks about the Christians who were suffering persecution. He says in First Peter 4:1 and following, he says, "Therefore since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind, for he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh for the pleasure of men, but for the will of God, for we have spent enough of our past lifetime doing the will of the Gentiles." He says that the Christian is one who has ceased from sin. That's why he's suffering. He's suffering because his friends don't appreciate the fact that he's gone a different direction from them and they speak evil of him, it says in verse four. You're suffering because you've ceased from sin and you're no longer living the rest of your life to please the flesh, but to please God. I liken it to saying a vegetarian doesn't eat meat. Lots of people I've known who are vegetarians have been known to succumb to the temptation to eat a piece of meat. If they're really vegetarians they realize that's a deviation from what their commitments are and they say, "Okay, I don't want to do that anymore." If they're going to start eating meat they're not going to call themselves vegetarians anymore. A vegetarian is by definition someone who doesn't eat meat. That doesn't mean a vegetarian will never stumble into a temptation to eat meat, but if they're going to stay a vegetarian they're going to stay on the path of avoiding meat. Christians by definition are people who follow Christ as opposed to sinning.
Tom: Very good. Thank you, I appreciate that, Steve.
Steve Gregg: All right, Tom. Thanks for your call. Good talking to you. K in New York, New York. Welcome to the Narrow Path, K. Thanks for calling.
K: Hey, thanks, Steve. Nice talking to you. I've been listening to you for about nine years. I really appreciate your emphasis not to be dogmatic in areas that do not need to be dogmatic, and that has impacted me a lot. I used to be a dispensationalist, I went to Calvary Chapel the first five or six years of being a Christian. Then I read the entire Bible in 2015 for the first time and I wasn't able to be a dispensationalist after that.
Steve Gregg: You too?
K: Yeah, I know, we have some similarities. But the difference between me and you is I did not replace that with any other eschatological system. I've read all your books, including your book on partial preterism, and I really appreciate the angle. But the problem for me more than anything is it seems the centerpiece of the Olivet Discourse is the physical return of Jesus, not the destruction of the temple, even though that's how the whole conversation started. So I would just like your input on that.
Steve Gregg: If you read my book on partial preterism, I have two chapters on the Olivet Discourse. I make the case that the Olivet Discourse in Matthew 24 and Mark 13 and Luke 21 really doesn't say anything specifically about the second coming of Christ. It's about 70 AD and Jesus said it'll happen in that generation, which it did. It does have some language in it that sounds like the coming of Christ, talks about coming on clouds and things like that. As I mention in that, and I point out cross references and so forth, this kind of language is common language in the prophets. It's what's called apocalyptic language that sounds like it's the end of the world kind of stuff when in fact it's really talking about the end of Babylon or Edom or Egypt or Jerusalem or some other empire. The language sounds like the end of the world language to us. So does the language in Isaiah 13:10, which is talking about the fall of Babylon in ancient times, or Isaiah 34 where it talks about the fall of Edom and it certainly sounds like the stars are falling from the sky in it. That's just the language of prophecy. Everything up to about verse 34, at least everything up to where he says, "This generation will not pass till all these things are fulfilled," is focused only on 70 AD in my opinion. Matthew does something that Mark and Luke don't do. They all, either two or all three of them, mention Jesus says after the "this generation" statement, he says, "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away." In saying that, Mark and Luke do not have Jesus giving any further teaching on that particular point of heaven and earth passing away, but Matthew does. In doing so, Matthew brings in material that isn't in the Olivet Discourse in Mark or Luke. It is in another discourse of Jesus in Luke 17, which I believe is about the end of the world and the second coming of Christ. I believe that what Matthew has done is he has intended to include the discourse about 70 AD and the discourse about the second coming of Christ, and he uses Jesus' statement "heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away" as the transition point to move into the end of the world portion. I give my reasons for that in detail in the back, that is in my book *Why Not Full Preterism*. I have two chapters on the Olivet Discourse. In the second case, it's got the charts where I compare Matthew, Mark, and Luke side by side and make my commentaries. I can't go into more detail into it now just because I have other calls waiting and we have very limited time. Is there one other point about this or a specific point that you'd like to have me address while you've got me on the line?
K: Well, like I said, I've done a lot of study. I've read a lot of people, different opinions, including preterists, R.C. Sproul for instance. I just cannot make a decision about where the significance really is focused. I will say this, I'm really glad you're not a full preterist and I thank you for your light and salt, man.
Steve Gregg: All right. Well, let me just say this too. When you say you can't make a decision, that's fine. You don't have to make a decision about that. I think people get nervous or stressed about things if they think they are required to make a decision, but they feel like they don't have enough information and so they feel like, "Oh no, I don't know what to think." To be confused is not a Christian reaction to information that you can't quite synthesize or you don't know how to take it. Instead of being confused, we just can be undecided. Think how many people are going to be in heaven on good terms with God who never even read the Olivet Discourse because they don't have a Bible. Or who did read it and thought the wrong things about it. It's not like we have to see it correctly in order to be on good terms with God. On the other hand, we don't only want to know the things that are absolutely necessary to be on good terms with God, we'd like to be right about other things too, even if they're peripheral. That's what the Olivet Discourse is; it's peripheral. If you say, "I can't really see it, Steve, that way," that's okay, you don't need to. I don't need to either, but I do now. Like yourself, when I gave up on dispensationalism, I did not know of another system to embrace. There was no internet back then. This happened to me 50 years ago almost. We didn't have the internet so I couldn't, I never heard of preterism, I never heard of amillennialism in the circles I was in. We only knew dispensationalism. When I came to the place where I couldn't embrace dispensationalism any longer and couldn't teach it anymore, I didn't know what I had become. I knew what I thought about some of those subjects, but I didn't know how it all put together with other things I thought and I certainly didn't know if there's a name for it or if there was a system for it. It was some years later I realized that there are names for these views. I wouldn't be alarmed about being in that position. We've got the rest of our lives to keep learning and we could be undecided about some things even to the day we die and not be on bad terms with God about it. I appreciate your call, brother.
K: Right on.
Steve Gregg: Thanks for joining us. All right, let's talk to Gary in Westminster, Colorado. Hi, Gary.
Gary: Yes, I have two questions. First one is if a person has confessed their sin to God, how does that square with the judgment? If he's forgotten your sin, is he going to bring it up again?
Steve Gregg: All right. The way I see it is the judgment for the Christian ideally should simply be a judgment that has to do with what responsibilities you've shown yourself capable of being trusted with. The stories about the stewards of the talents and of the pounds or the minas as it's translated in New King James. It's talking about how the master comes back and he gathers his servants who he's entrusted things to and he assesses how good or bad they were at their stewardship. If they were good, he assigns them greater responsibility. It seems to me like that's what the judgment of Christians is about. Jesus did say every idle word a man shall speak he will give account of in the day of judgment. I think, "Well, I've spoken a lot of words that I probably wouldn't want to have to give account for on the day of judgment." So what do I do about that? Paul has an interesting statement in First Corinthians 11. He's in the context blaming the church for allowing misbehavior in the church and especially at the Lord's table. How they allowed people to get drunk and allowed people to take more food at the love feast than they should and other people going away hungry and some were going away drunk and stuff like that. Because of this misbehavior, you're disrespecting the Lord's body. He says, "For this reason, many of you are sick and weak and some have died." He says this: verse 31, "For if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged." Now, by "we would not be judged" he means by God. We can either be judged by God or beforehand we can judge ourselves. That is we can self-correct. We can look at our behavior and say, "Hey, that's not good, I've got to self-correct." If we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged. But when we are judged, this is verse 32, First Corinthians 11, he says, "When we are judged, we are chastened by the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world." What Paul's saying is the church was undergoing chastening. The form it took was some of their people were sick and some had died. That was the chastening of the Lord on the church because of their sacrilegious behavior they permitted at the Lord's table. The principle's interesting. He's saying if you guys would have self-corrected, these people wouldn't have to get sick or die. God would not have to chasten you if you chasten yourself. If the church cleans its own house then God won't have to come and clean house in a way that's more painful. If we do that for ourselves, we don't have to be judged by the Lord. Whenever we repent, we are in fact judging ourselves. We are assessing our behavior saying that was wrong, I'm going to change that. If we judge ourselves, we won't be judged by God. The Christian life is one of self-judgment and repentance and self-correction. Therefore, when we stand before God, he'll say, "Oh, looks like you took care of everything." Now, "took care of everything" doesn't mean you made yourself perfect; you can't do that. It means that when you saw your imperfections, you repented of them and you sought to reverse course. We're not going to be saved because we were perfect, and we're not going to be lost because we stumbled sometimes. God's always watching to see if we're going to repent and endeavor to obey. If we're not, then he'll have to chasten us. If he does chasten us, he'll do it so that we won't be condemned with the world. That is his chastening he hopes will bring us back to the right path so that we won't have to suffer the condemnation the rest of the world suffers. That's what I think he's talking about there.
Gary: The second question is I have a very good friend who's a devout Catholic and we were talking about Mary having children. When I pointed out scriptures in the Bible telling about his sisters and brothers, he said that meant like you and I being brothers, not children.
Steve Gregg: Of course it's not Mary that had sisters or brothers; it's Jesus who had sisters and brothers and the brothers are named. It's not saying that's like you and I being brothers; you and I are brothers but so is every Christian. When it speaks of the brothers of Jesus, it names specific men by name and then it says Mary had daughters too there. There were sisters and brothers of Jesus. The Catholic Church has two ways of looking at this and both are acceptable to the Roman Catholics. One is the idea that Joseph was an older man when he married Mary and that he was widowed and had children from a previous marriage. There are many Catholics who have suggested this. That Joseph may have had children who were basically Mary's step-children and Jesus' step-brothers; they weren't really the children of Mary, but they were the children of Joseph. That's one way Catholics have suggested. There's nothing in the Bible to support this. This is just one way of them trying to get out of an awkward situation. The reason that, of course for those who don't know Catholic doctrine, the reason they're in an awkward situation for them is that the Bible does name four brothers of Jesus and mentions he had sisters too in the context of his family, of Joseph as father and Mary as mother and so forth. The Catholic Church teaches that Mary remained a virgin. She never, even after she got married, had sex. She just remained a virgin to the day of her death. There's nothing in the Bible to support that, not a word. They think that's part of their tradition. Because they hold it, then it's embarrassing to say that Jesus had brothers and sisters if his mom was a virgin and he's the only one that was born to her. They think Joseph may have had some kids. Again, there's no confirmation of this in the Bible at all. The other thing is that they say well the word "brothers" can mean relatives like cousins and stuff like that. That is true. Abraham referred to himself and Lot as brothers in the 14th chapter of Genesis I think it was. Lot and Abram were uncle and nephew, but they were called brothers. Brothers can sometimes mean relatives. They say Jesus had relatives, cousins and stuff like that. That's perfectly possibly true too. But that just doesn't, that's not the natural meaning when someone's talking about your nuclear family. They say, "Isn't this the carpenter? I mean Joseph's son? And isn't Mary his mother and aren't his brothers James, Joses, Simon, and Judas? And aren't his sisters among us?" It sounds like it's talking about a nuclear family, talks about the parent and the brothers. While it's not impossible for brothers to imply a more distant kind of relative, it's not the first thing that the word means. You'd probably have to have some kind of indicator that you're not talking about siblings if you're not. Siblings, it works as siblings in a sentence like that better than anything else. They're guessing. They have an ad hoc theory. They have to come up with a theory that either Joseph had sons and daughters besides Jesus before he got married to Mary or else it just means Jesus had other relatives. In which case it'd be strange that there be so few. If it's about cousins and all that stuff, the fact that there'd only be a handful of them in a society like that would seem a little strange. You can't prove the Catholics wrong on that particular point, but I think the burden of proof would have to rest with them since there's no reason to suggest that Jesus didn't have blood brothers and sisters or that Mary did stay a virgin. There's no suggestion of that in the Bible. All right, Gary, thanks for your call. Julie in Fair Oaks, California, welcome to the Narrow Path, Julie.
Julie: Hi. My husband and I listen to you a lot every day. I listen to you too. I had a lot of questions, I'm not going to have them all today.
Steve Gregg: We don't have a lot of time so give me one as quickly as you can.
Julie: I know, I understand. One thing is I've had experience worshipping on the worship team in a few churches and I have now run into a problem where I am noticing that they are wanting to audition. I want to know how you feel about that. They support that and back that with scripture of having experienced, being skillful. They bring out this scripture to back them up of are you good enough and who are you and we need to get to know you. I understand that part. However, they audition. I just want to know how you feel about the whole auditioning thing and then saying that backing that with scripture of you need to be skillful.
Steve Gregg: All right, well let me jump in before we're out of time here. So you've sung on worship teams in a variety of churches and the one you're at now invites people to audition for that. Auditioning means that someone who's making the decision about whoever's going to be on the platform leading worship wants to know if you're gifted at it or wants to know if you're good at it. I don't know what they're looking for. I don't know if they're looking for spirituality or musical talent or what. Not everyone who walks up to a pastor and says, "Hey, I want to sing on the worship team," if he doesn't know them, why would he assume that it'd be a good idea to put them on the platform? I think that you want to put people in ministry who have a gift in it, not just that they have a desire to be on platform. I think an auditioning kind of thing, audition sounds kind of carnal, but it just means let me hear what you do, let me become familiar with what you're talking about here. I don't think that's wrong. It makes some sense. You've been listening to the Narrow Path, our website's thenarrowpath.com. Thanks for joining us.