The Narrow Path 10/02/2026

Steve Gregg: Good afternoon and welcome to The Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we're live as usual. We weren't yesterday, that was a foul-up. I was not able to get on the internet where I was, I'm traveling. But I've got a good connection now, we're going to have a normal show, I think, which is a live program where you can call in and ask questions if you want about the Bible or the Christian faith for us to discuss on the air. You can also call to disagree with answers that have been given previously on the program and you can call to balance comment. Feel free to do either of those things. I'm going to give you the phone number right now but the lines are full so don't call right now. But if you call in a few minutes, lines will be opening up and you will get through or probably will get through. There's a very good chance if you call early enough. But don't call, say, for the next five minutes and by then we might have some lines that have opened up. We'll see. I am traveling as I said. I am in Michigan and I'm speaking in quite a few places between now and next Thursday night here in Michigan. I'm going to be in the Detroit area, I'm not there yet. I'll be in the Flint area, I'm in the Grand Rapids area now. I'm going to be in the Toledo, Ohio area. I'm actually going to be on the Michigan side in Temperance, Michigan. I'm going to be up in Port Huron. So there's a lot of different places all over the place that I'll be speaking and if you live in Michigan near any of those places and you want to join any of the gatherings, we would love to have you do so. You can go to our website thenarrowpath.com and there's a tab that says announcements. And so just go to thenarrowpath.com, go to announcements and you'll see all the days that I'm speaking in Michigan and where I'm going to be and what about and so forth. And join us if you want to, you're certainly welcome. And that's all I'll say about that. We're going to go to the phones and talk to Steve in Show Low, Arizona. Hi Steve, how you doing?
Steve (Guest): Hello Steve, absolutely love your program and we thank God for all the blessings he's bestowed on your program over the last 29 years. My question is, we heard someone state that God's the only one who has authority to put a curse on somebody, but there was no scripture provided for that so we were curious what you would have to say about that.
Steve Gregg: Right, I don't think the Bible would support the idea that God is the only person who could put a curse on somebody because there are, of course, demonic powers too. We don't know that they put curses on people. Not much is taught about curses, although curses are definitely mentioned in the Bible. We don't have a theology of them given. But it does say in the book of Proverbs, and I admit I don't remember the reference now, but it says that as a sparrow flitting about, so a curse unwarranted will not alight. That is kind of a paraphrase, but the idea is that an unwarranted curse will not hit its target. So my understanding would be that assuming we are walking with God and walking as we should, we don't have to fear that any curses from anybody else that they may want to put on us would have any impact on us. Now if a person's not a Christian, I don't know that they have protection from that kind of thing from God. I mean, the Bible does promise various protections to Christians which it does not mention necessarily that God would protect other people from them too. I mean, we see in the book of Job how that the devil couldn't do any harm to Job unless he got God's permission. Should we conclude that the devil can't do any harm to his own people, that is the devil's people, without God's permission? I don't know that we could extend that idea that far. We're not told that the devil does or does not need permission to attack unbelievers, but we do know that Christians have that promise. So and I would say the same thing about curses, which is another kind of an affliction or attack. I don't think that Christians can probably be affected by such curses unless, of course, there's some compromise in their life, maybe then. I don't know. But my assumption is if we're really Christians, we're not going to be compromising much, we're going to be trying to live a holy life and assuming that is true, we wouldn't have to worry about curses. But as far as the statement you heard, that only God can inflict a curse, the Bible doesn't say that. And so whoever said that is guessing.
Steve (Guest): Okay, I realize your line is full, do you have time for one more very quick question?
Steve Gregg: Okay, go ahead.
Steve (Guest): My wife was wondering which Bible you would recommend for a 12-year-old boy?
Steve Gregg: Well, how precocious is he? Is he a good reader?
Steve (Guest): Yes, he's a very good reader.
Steve Gregg: I would get him a New King James probably, but there's some other good ones too. I use a New King James partly because I like the King James, but the King James is hard for a lot of people to read. By the way, the proverb I gave, my wife is not with me here, but she texted me and she told me that the reference is Proverbs 26:2. I like the New King James and I like it because it's one of the versions that uses what we would call a formal equivalence translation philosophy. It's not a dynamic equivalence, which means they are not trying to paraphrase. A lot of Bibles are trying to paraphrase. And so the New King James is good, but honestly, a lot of people like the Legacy Standard Bible. I haven't used it much yet, but I have a friend who's switched over to it. That's one that John MacArthur's ministry put out, which I've looked at it a bit and it looks like a good translation. I don't know that I'd switch over simply because I've been using one translation that I like for a long time. But the New American Standard is also good, the ESV is a pretty good one. But if you have to pick one, I personally would pick the New King James.
Steve (Guest): Okay, well thank you so very much, Steve, and God bless you.
Steve Gregg: All right, thank you, God bless you too. Thanks for calling. Not only did my wife send me that Proverbs reference that I didn't know, she also told me that I said I'm going to be near Columbus, Ohio. It's not Columbus, it's Toledo, Ohio. So if you live in Columbus, I'm sorry, I misspoke. It's in the Toledo area. Okay, hopefully I won't make any more mistakes today. That's a big ask, isn't it? Mike in Cool, California, welcome.
Mike (Guest): Good afternoon, Steve, I hope you're doing well and it was sure a pleasure seeing you here when you were in Sacramento.
Steve Gregg: I enjoyed meeting you.
Mike (Guest): And you told me that your wife and I deal with kind of the same thing and I just pray that she's feeling better.
Steve Gregg: Yes, she'd prefer not to have that talked about on the radio. Go ahead.
Mike (Guest): Okay. So I was listening to a pastor and he was saying that the reason the Romans killed the Christians was because they wouldn't add Jesus to their plethora of gods. Now is that true? Because I can think of the time when Paul went to Athens and he was talking to them and he said I know who the unknown god is that you have your statue of.
Steve Gregg: Yeah, I think the preacher who said that was confused, if he said it as you said it. It may be that you may have misheard him, but if you did not, he was mistaken. The Romans did not persecute the Christians because the Romans refused to add Jesus to their pantheon of gods. The Romans would have added any number of gods, in fact, they conquered a lot of heathen lands and they let all those people keep their gods. The Romans may or may not have believed in all those gods, but they weren't offended by them. The problem that they had with the Christians was the opposite. It was that the Christians didn't recognize their gods and especially when Caesar made himself a god and required people to worship him. Christians were required to burn incense to Caesar as an act of worship. The Christians would not do it. And the Romans couldn't understand why not. I mean, they figured all gods are alike, why not worship our gods too? But Christians and Jews were different than all other religions because they were monotheists. They only had one God and they were pretty jealously loyal to the one God. Now, if you say why didn't the Romans persecute the Jews then, if the Jews only worshiped one God and wouldn't worship Caesar? When the Romans conquered a territory, they had a policy that any religions that were already active in that area could continue. They didn't seek to abolish historic religions of the areas that they conquered. But they did say that no new religions were allowed to be spawned in regions that Rome had conquered. Therefore, Judaism had been around a lot longer than the Romans and therefore the Jews were given sort of a grandfathered in status once they were conquered by the Romans. They were allowed to worship their God and therefore to not worship other gods. Christians, however, were a religious system or religious group that arose after Rome had conquered the area. Judea was under Roman oppression and conquest at the time Jesus was born. So Christianity was seen as a new religion that had sprung up. And it took the Romans a while to recognize that because initially, the Romans just felt that anyone who was a monotheist was a Jew, especially if they were Jewish by ethnicity, which Jesus was and the apostles were and the flagship church was in Jerusalem and they believed in the Jewish God and had scriptures. So the Romans really, not knowing much about religions other than their own, they just thought Christians were Jews and so they tolerated them. It was especially after the city of Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans in war, which had nothing to do with religion but had to do with the rebellion of the Jews against the Roman state, and the temple was destroyed, which ended Judaism. The Christians flourished. They didn't need the temple and that's when it became clear to the Romans that these Christians were not just another sect of Jews, they were something else and that's when persecution became official on occasions. There were emperors who didn't actively persecute Christians but there were at least ten emperors over a period of 200 years that did actively persecute Christians and it was because they saw it as an intrusive religion and an exclusive one in that they wouldn't worship the Caesars and so forth. So that's why the Romans persecuted. It wasn't that the Romans had any problem adding more gods and Jesus was just another one they could add, that wouldn't have been a problem to them. We have no evidence they ever had a problem like that. But their problem was that the Christians didn't add any gods to theirs and that's what sometimes came into real conflict with the demands of the Caesars to be worshiped. I appreciate your call, bro, we'll talk again. George from Michigan is our next caller. George, welcome.
George (Guest): Hi Steve, how are you today?
Steve Gregg: Fine, thanks.
George (Guest): Good, good. Steve, I have a question about salvation. In the Old Testament in Psalms 147, God said that he showed his word unto Jacob and his statutes and judgments unto Israel and he goes on to say in verse 20 that he hath not dealt so with any nation and as for his judgments, they have not known them. Praise ye the Lord, right? So God's given his word to Jacob and Jesus comes and he says salvation is of the Jews. I've been a Christian now for probably a little bit about 35 years and over the years I've begun to change. In the Old Testament, even in the New Testament when Jesus is here, salvation was that you came to Jesus, you got baptized and you started keeping the commandments. Am I right?
Steve Gregg: Sort of, yeah. I mean, that's one way of looking at it.
George (Guest): Okay, and so here's the other part. Now modern-day Christianity, I notice that when people are offered salvation, there's no mention of God's commandments. And we're talking about keeping the Sabbath day, the dietary law, and the feast of the Lord. Most Christians don't. But the way of salvation to me seems like it has never changed. Who changed it? And is there any biblical support that God changed the way of salvation being of the Jews? Because nowadays you would think that salvation is of the Gentiles, and I say that not in a sarcastic way, but we have this way of like a Billy Graham kind of come down the aisle.
Steve Gregg: I hear you. Okay, let me answer your question. When Jesus said in John 4, salvation is of the Jews, what he meant is it comes through the Jews. It's not just for the Jews, it is from the Jews. God had chosen Israel to know God and to make him known to the other nations and therefore the knowledge of God would be mediated through the Jewish people to the world. This has really nothing to do with so-called commandments and dietary laws and things like that. This has to do with salvation which existed actually before there were Jews. I mean, in Jesus' day, he lived after God had made promises that it would be through Abraham's seed that all the nations would receive the blessings of salvation. But before Abraham was there, Abel was saved and Noah was saved and Enoch was saved. People could be saved before the Jews existed. The Jews are not the saviors, but God chose Abraham's seed to be the one through whom salvation would come. Now, the Jews were regarded as Abraham's seed, but of course it's one particular Jew that came through the Jewish line and that's Jesus. That salvation comes from him. People are saved through their relationship with Jesus, not through their relationship with the Jews or with Judaism. Judaism is the Jewish religion. But today, I mentioned a moment ago that when the temple was destroyed, it brought an end to Judaism. Judaism was established as a religion at Mount Sinai when the Israelites came out of Egypt. It ceased to be the biblical religion that it had been when the temple was destroyed permanently in 70 AD. Since that time, what is usually called Judaism is simply rabbinism or the teaching of the rabbis and the Talmud. It doesn't have sacrifices, doesn't have a temple, and therefore it's not really Judaism of the Bible. The Bible's Judaism required temple sacrifices and that hasn't happened for very close to 2,000 years now. So the Judaism that exists now is simply Talmudism, it's following the Talmud, not Moses' law. Moses' law is in there too, but not all of it, because about a third of it or more has to do with the temple and they can't do that anymore. So Judaism is not a source of salvation to us, Christ is. Christ came through the Jews and therefore he said salvation is of the Jews. He was contrasting the Jews with the Samaritans when he's talking to the woman at the well, saying that they were not the ones who God used to mediate salvation to the Gentiles, it was the Jews. Now, you said that in the days of Christ, salvation meant you believe in Jesus and you keep the law of Moses. Well, the Jewish people, even when they did follow Jesus, did in measure keep the law of Moses, though even Jesus himself didn't fully keep the law of Moses because he wasn't required to. He is the Lord of the law, he's the Lord of the Sabbath and therefore he did things on the Sabbath that the Sabbath law wouldn't permit. He did his regular work. The Sabbath law was do your regular work six days a week and don't do it on the seventh day. Jesus did his regular work all seven days a week and didn't even care what day of the week it was. In fact, often he went out of his way to do things on the Sabbath that were controversial just to raise the issue that he was the Lord of the Sabbath. He also, we don't know if he ever ate unclean foods, perhaps not, but it's not because he was under the law about that. Jesus himself said it's not what goes into a man's mouth that defiles him, but what comes out of his mouth because that comes out of the heart. As far as keeping ritually clean, he did not. He touched lepers, he let a woman with an issue of blood touch him, both circumstances under the law of Moses would make him unclean for a week, but he didn't follow that. He didn't see himself as unclean since the people who touched him became clean instead. So Jesus was in many respects above the law because he was the Lord of the law. And the Sabbath was the sign of the law, it says in Exodus chapter 31 that the Sabbath was the sign of the covenant. Now Jesus made it very clear he's the Lord over that. And that means he can do things that ordinary people could not do at that time because it's like a traffic cop who's chasing a criminal on the freeway with his lights on and his siren going, he's going 100 miles an hour. He's breaking the law, but he's authorized to do that. It's against the law to go that fast on the freeway, but he, unlike the other cars on the freeway, is capable of violating that if he's in pursuit code three. But he can't just do that because he's a cop anytime he wants to. There are times when he has the authority to break that law and it's not law-breaking for him because he's got the authorization to do it. Jesus had the authorization to do whatever he wanted on the Sabbath. He was the Lord of the Sabbath, he was not under it, he was over it. Now, what you're saying is, today when people are evangelized, evangelists don't tell them to keep the law, and there's a good reason for that, because there's a new covenant. And it always amazes me that people have a Bible that says Old Testament and New Testament and don't understand there's a difference between an Old Covenant and a New Covenant. The testament is covenant. God made a covenant with Israel in the old and then he made a new covenant through Christ. Covenants are contracts. Now, if you've got a contract with somebody to do something and you rework the contract and you have a new contract instead, well then the revised contract is what you're obligated to keep, the old one you don't have to. And Jeremiah, who lived under the Old Covenant, prophesied by the Holy Spirit that the days would come where God would make a New Covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant he made with their fathers in the day he led them out of Egypt, but a New Covenant.