MS Top 6 Season 3 #29

We're partnering with the Persecution Project Foundation right now to help embattled Christians that are being attacked for their faith in the Sudan. Go to Christmasairlift.com right now and give whatever you can to help these dear families in the Sudan.

Christmasairlift.com. This is the Truth Network. Matt Slick is president and founder of the Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry. Matt is a masters of divinity and is ordained. He's passionate, and Matt stands firm and lives to defend and promote the Christian faith. Monday through Friday, Matt takes calls from all around the world on his radio show. We've compiled this week's best, Matt Slick's Top 6.

Number 6. Is it a sin to burn the body or what? No, it's not. You can cremate.

That's fine. There are people who have died in house fires, boat fires, forest fires, and their bodies are essentially cremated. If being cremated was a sin, then they would be sinful for dying in a fire.

It doesn't make any sense. Furthermore, people who have died in fires like the martyrs, the Protestant martyrs, for example, where the Catholics would burn them at stake, and they would essentially be cremated and their bodies would become fuel for the fire. They will have their bodies resurrected because that's what's prophesied in First Corinthians 15, 35 through 45. So cremation is not sinful. It's just getting cremated. So it's not a big deal.

God certainly has the capability of reassembling all your atoms to create your body to be created. Okay? Number 5. Forgive our debts. What does that mean? That debt isn't financial, is it? The word there, debt, in Matthew 6-12 is ophilemon, and it means legal debt. The parallel account of this verse is found in Luke 11, starting at verse 2, and it's another version of the Lord's Prayer. And it says, Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins, as we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us. So what Jesus is saying there is to forgive everyone who's indebted to us. He says, Forgive us our sins, which is the word hermartia in the Greek, and then forgive us those who are indebted to us.

That's ophilemon. Number 4. Sin is breaking the law of God, so there's a legal aspect to sin as being a legal debt because it's breaking the law of God, which is why Colossians 2-14 says that Jesus canceled out the certificate of debt. Jesus equates sin with legal debt. So when he's talking about this in Matthew 6-12, Forgive us our debts, what he's talking about is, metaphorically, our sins against God, as we forgive those against our debtors or those who have sinned against us in our debt in the sense of having broken God's law.

Number 3. Why would the Lord lead us into temptation? I pray that every morning, but lead us not into temptation. God don't lead us into temptation. It's just a phrase. It's just a way of talking.

There's two perspectives that you can look at. God does allow us to be tempted because nothing occurs to us without his permission. So he can allow us to be tempted in order to test us and to purify us. And so if it's in the will of God for that to occur, then praise God. But on the other hand, what we can do is say, Lord, lead me not into it. It's just a poetic way of saying, deliver me from the fowler's snare, as Proverbs talks about, as being trapped. And so just deliver us from that, OK?

We don't want to have that. He says, and give us this day our daily bread. A lot of this is just kind of a poetic way of speaking. But it's just basically saying, God, just don't let us be tempted.

Number 2. My question is your take on a divorced man becoming either a pastor or an elder in the church. Divorce is biblical and allowed under certain circumstances. If the wife or the husband were to commit adultery, then the offended party is free to be able to divorce.

Not obligated, but free to. If the person wants to work on restoring the marriage, that's between him or her and the Lord and the spouse. If the person says, that's it, we're done, you broke the covenant, then he or she can get divorced at that point. The other condition for divorce is abandonment. 1 Corinthians 7 talks about this. And so if the unbelieving spouse were to abandon the believing spouse, that's also breaking the covenant.

And so in those areas, from what I see, the Bible says that such a person is free. And so, in my opinion, I would not penalize, in this case, a man who divorced his wife because of her unrepentant adultery. And or if she abandoned him. He's not responsible.

He did no wrong. And if he sought for reconciliation and she abandoned him, then he's free. And I would say he could be a pastor and an elder. Now there's the issue of, well, what happens if he unbiblically divorced his wife before he became a Christian?

And this gets a little bit more difficult to wade through. He's the one who committed adultery and his wife divorced him for that. This is before he's a Christian. And then he becomes a Christian and he confesses all his sins.

My personal policy is that such a man must be strictly examined. And he must absolutely understand that what he did was unbiblical and ungodly, but that it was taken care of in the cross. And he's a new man, a new creation. And so, in my opinion, I would allow such a man to be a pastor or an elder. Because he did it in the throes of his unbelief, which has then been removed and cleansed.

And he's a new creation and a Christ and he moves forward. Welcome back now, dear. I always trust a guy named Matt Slick on the radio. We hope you've enjoyed this episode of Matt Slick's Top Six. For more on Matt and his live syndicated call-in radio show, go to TruthNetwork.com. Got a question? Matt Slick has your answer. This is the Truth Network.