Do I Need the Church to Understand the Bible?

Do I need the Church to help me understand the Bible, or can I do it alone? That's just one of the questions we'll be answering on today's edition of CORE Christianity.

The CORE. That's 1-833-843-2673. As always, you can post your question on one of our social media accounts, Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. You can watch us right now live on YouTube and message us that way. And of course, you can always email us your question at questionsatcorechristianity.com. First up today, let's go to Ginger in Gallatin, Tennessee. Ginger, what's your question for Pastor Adriel? My question is, I understand the Old Testament and the New, and I get totally confused when people continuously, a lot of churches, believe that we should not eat pork. But God said in the New Testament, call nothing of mine unclean, and may he bless it. And God bless you too. I honor and love this program.

Hey, thank you for that encouragement, Ginger. Yeah, I think a lot of people are confused about the application of God's law today. So those dietary laws in the Old Testament, in particular, were a part of the ceremonial law, the law that the Hebrews observed.

It was helping to make them distinct from the pagan nations around them. But of course, under the New Covenant, those laws have been set aside. We don't follow the ceremonial law anymore, and one of the passages you referenced there was Acts chapter 10, where Peter has a vision given to him from God, where this tent, this great big sheet, if you will, comes down from heaven with all of these unclean animals on it, lizards and birds and that kind of thing. And Peter says, he's really confused by this, because he hears the voice of God, and God says to him, rise, Peter, kill and eat. And Peter's response is, I've never eaten anything unclean, Lord, I'm not going to do that. And he hears this voice two more times.

So God speaks to him three times just to confirm it. And then as a result, after this, he goes and preaches the gospel to a Gentile named Cornelius, who's welcomed into the church, he's baptized. And so it's a sign of the sort of dividing wall being broken down under the New Covenant. And yet still, people try to resurrect those ceremonial laws, if you will. The problem that the church in Galatia had, it's one of the reasons why the book of Galatians was written. You also have Paul's words in Colossians chapter two that again, make this absolutely clear for us under the New Covenant, it's okay to eat pork. Colossians chapter two, verse 16, therefore, let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. And so, you know, I too, Ginger, am concerned about this sort of misapplication and misunderstanding of God's law. It's so important for us to stick to the scriptures. And when we do, I think it's very clear that under the New Covenant, bacon is okay. And aren't you glad for that? I certainly am.

So thanks for your call. You know, Andrew, the larger issue here is often it's not just foods. It's a lot of Old Testament laws that some churches are trying to, you know, get their congregants to follow and saying basically that these Old Testament ceremonial laws still apply today. Why is that happening so much in our country right now? Yeah, well, I think it's just we definitely see a lot of biblical illiteracy out there, and I think that's part of the problem.

That's one of the reasons why this broadcast exists. Somebody asked me the other day, you know, answering questions every day about the faith, what do you think are some of the biggest problems, key problems in the church today, questions that Christians have? And I said, you know, one of the things that comes up over and over again is just this, Bill, the application of God's law to the life of the Christian. How do we understand those Old Testament ceremonial laws, the civil laws, even what sense do those kinds of things apply today? And because there's a lot of confusion about that, we can get God's law wrong.

We can misunderstand it. And again, that was a problem that the church in Galatia had, and so we should expect to see that kind of problem even today. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. We'd love to hear from you if you have a question about the Bible or the Christian life. The number is 833-THE-CORE.

That's 1-833-843-2673. Let's go to Debbie in Lincoln, Nebraska. Debbie, welcome to the program. What's your question for Pastor Adriel? Well, thank you very much for taking my call.

I've called you before, and you guys are wonderful to listen to. My question is, I've heard people both ways talk about karma. They say they don't believe in karma. A lot of people believe in karma. What do you say about it, and what is the Bible? Is there anything in the Bible about karma?

Thank you for that question. Well, the idea is this is sort of general principle that you get what you put in. The Bible does talk about that, in particular in the wisdom literature in places like the Book of Proverbs. You do sort of get over and over again this sense of if you do the right thing, good things will happen.

There's a practical result. I think that there is biblical wisdom that we can bring into play here. I wouldn't call that necessarily karma. I know that there's all sorts of other things that are associated with karma in terms of a religious belief. You also have the words of the apostle Paul in Galatians chapter 6 verse 7.

He says, Don't be deceived. God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the spirit will from the spirit reap eternal life. Now, again, I wouldn't necessarily call that karma. I would just call it this biblical principle of you reap what you sow. Then when we think about the gospel, in some sense we have to say the gospel is totally opposite to this sort of idea of karma because in the gospel, Debbie, God gives us what we didn't earn, what we didn't deserve. I think about what the apostle Paul says in Romans chapter 4 verse 5, To the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted, his righteousness, just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works. Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin. Karma is actually not really that great of news. It's, you know, if you do good, you'll get good, that kind of a thing.

Obey the law and you'll be fine. But that's not the gospel. The gospel is we failed, we've sinned, and God solely on the basis of what Christ has done and because of his great mercy extends his forgiveness to us freely so that we might love and follow him. That's not karma, that's the gospel. And so I appreciate your question and always good to hear from you, Debbie. Isn't it great to celebrate God's unmerited favor, his mercy and grace, huh?

Would be destroyed without it, Bill. Just have no hope apart from the grace of God. So yeah, we praise God for that.

Amen. This is Core Christianity with pastor Adriel Sanchez. If you're a parent or a grandparent, you may have some concerns about your kids staying in the church and following Christ as they get older.

Well, we have a free resource on that topic that we'd like to offer you today. Yeah, I mean, as a parent, I know first and foremost that we rely on the grace of God and the work of the Holy Spirit in our own lives and in the lives of our children. But God does call us to be proactive in teaching the faith, if you will, to our children.

It's so important that we take this seriously. And we have a resource over at corechristianity.com called Five Ways to Help Your Kids Keep the Faith. It's free for you when you sign up for our weekly newsletter.

We really want to partner with you in this because we know it's so important. And so head over to corechristianity.com forward slash offers to download Five Ways to Help Your Kids Keep the Faith. That's corechristianity.com forward slash offers for that free download. You can also call us for that or any of our resources at 833-843-2673.

That's 833 the core. Well, one of the ways you can ask us a question is by emailing us. Our email address is questions at corechristianity.com.

Here's an email we received from one of our listeners named Angie. She says, I understand that scripture is to be understood as the sole source of divine revelation, the only inspired, infallible, final, and authoritative norm of faith and practice. However, I have heard a theologian say that while this is true, scripture is to be interpreted in and by the Church. Doesn't this give the Church more authority than scripture alone? Angie, thank you so much for that email, and this is a very important question, one that often comes up in conversations between Roman Catholics and Protestant Christians. It's the question of authority and the question of the relationship between the Bible and the Church. Does the Church give the Bible its authority as it were? Is it over the Bible in terms of, you know, it's my particular Church's interpretation that you need to adhere to?

This is a really important question. The first thing I'll say is we're never supposed to, as Christians, live this life where it's just me and my Bible alone in the closet. I think too many Christians live that way. They don't see the necessity of the Church for growing in grace and growing in our understanding of the scriptures. We're sort of reading the Bible in isolation, on our own, having our own personal, you know, experience with Jesus. And the fact of the matter is, you know, we ought to have a personal relationship with Jesus, but not a private relationship with Jesus in the sense that it's separated from or severed from the Church.

Because you can get into all sorts of trouble in that way. The scriptures are complex and we do need to read them in the context of the community of faith so that we might grow into a deeper understanding of who Jesus is and what the apostles taught. I think of this wonderful scene, actually I was just reading this recently, my own personal devotions, in Acts chapter 8 where Philip has an encounter with this Ethiopian eunuch who's reading the book of Isaiah and he's trying to understand the book of Isaiah. Philip ran over to him and heard him reading Isaiah, the prophet, and asked him, do you understand what you are reading? And he said, how can I unless someone guides me?

And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. And the passage of scripture that he was reading was, and then, you know, you have this quotation from Isaiah focused on the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ. But again, right there, the importance of growing together and being brought into a deeper understanding of the scriptures through the Church.

And so that's the first thing I'll say. We need to be studying the scriptures in the context of the local church under the ministry of the word where there's a pastor who's been called and he's qualified to teach the scriptures because he's been trained in the scriptures. That does not mean that the church has authority over the scriptures. The scriptures are, as you say, Angie, the primary and final authority. The job of the church is, we sometimes say, ministerial. We're submitted to the word of God. Together, we're all under the word of God and ministering that word. The authority is in the word, not in the church, not in an individual pastor, not in someone like the Pope. First and foremost, it's in the word. And that's the primary main authority. And so very important that we understand those distinctions, that we value the church for what it is, the place where we continue to grow in the faith, but we recognize that the church doesn't have an authority above the word. It's submitted to the word.

Thank you for your question. Adriel, as fallen human beings, is it also possible that we can misinterpret scripture and get it wrong? Yes, Bill, we definitely can. And I think that's why it's so important to have the sort of safeguard of the church, to have others around us. And I've seen this happen again and again, over and over. And it's especially prevalent in those contexts where you have one individual who's reading the Bible on their own, sort of in the closet, apart from the community of faith, the history of the church, if you will. That's where we really get into trouble. And that's why we stress over and over again on this broadcast, look, it's great to be in the word, study the scriptures with all your heart, but don't do it in isolation on your own.

We need each other, so. Amen. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez.

Let's go to Bill, calling in from southern Illinois. Bill, what's your question for Pastor Adriel? My question is simply this. I've been doing some reading and some listening to different people talk about what happens when we die, and specifically to our soul and our spirit. And I'd be interested in your thoughts on that. Yeah, the souls of believers are at their death. Now, I'm speaking of believers here. They're made perfect in holiness, and they immediately pass on into glory. Their bodies are left in the ground waiting for the resurrection of the dead, but the soul of the believer, when we die, again, we're made perfect in holiness. You see this in places like the book of Hebrews. In Hebrews chapter 12, the author to the Hebrews has a vision of the people of God worshiping around the throne of God, the saints who had been perfected in holiness.

That's how they're referred to. You also see visions like this in the book of Revelation. Sometimes we'll get the question, Bill, about this idea of soul sleep. When I die as a Christian, does that mean I'm just going to be taking this really long nap until the resurrection of the dead?

I'm not going to be conscious. No, that's not what the Bible teaches. In places like 2 Corinthians 5, in Philippians chapter 1, even Jesus' words to the thief on the cross, it seems very clear that when we die as Christians, we're immediately in the presence of the Lord. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord, and there is great joy there. Sin is done away, and we get to enjoy God's presence. Thank you for that question, Bill.

Good one. This is Core Christianity, and let's go to Dennis who's in Beatrice, Nebraska. Dennis, what was your question for Pastor Adriel? You were mentioning earlier about the, or addressing the question about the dietary restrictions of the church, how some churches still observe those, and I appreciate your insight on that. The question I have though is, is there a difference between the way that Jewish believers are called to act and the way that Gentile believers are called to act with regard to some of those issues?

Not food, obviously. The ceremonial issues are, that's a different thing, but things like circumcision, things like the Passover, many of those things in the Old Testament, there is a statement that says it's a perpetual statute throughout your generations. It doesn't say until the Messiah comes or until there's, you know, there's some ending to it.

It says it's permanent, it's forever. So is there a difference between the way Jewish believers are called to respond and the way Gentile believers are called to respond as far as the Old Testament law? Dennis, appreciate your question following up on when we got a little bit earlier in the broadcast. I think I would refer again to that text that I went to in the book of Colossians in Colossians chapter 2, because even there the Apostle Paul brings up the idea of festivals, and what festivals would he have had in mind? Well, those festivals that were celebrated by the Hebrew people under the Old Covenant. Again, he says, let no one pass judgment on you, questions of food and drink or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath.

Why? These are a shadow of the things to come. That is, even the Passover meal, as it was observed under the Old Covenant, was a shadow, a type of something far greater that would be coming. Who is our Passover now under the New Covenant? Well, the Lord Jesus is.

In fact, the Apostle Paul makes it very clear in 1 Corinthians chapter 5 verse 7, cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. So now we have the reality. It's not the type, the shadow. That would be sort of going back, if you will. Now we have the reality, the unleavened bread of what?

Sincerity and truth. The way in which the church under the New Covenant participates in the reality, in particular, this holy meal, if you will, is by the Lord's Supper. Of course, the Apostle Paul is going to talk about that a little bit later in 1 Corinthians 10 and 11.

I would say that there's no distinction. It's not as if the Jewish people today under the New Covenant are still called to observe some of those things, and Gentiles don't have to. I would say, no, now we're all under the reality of what Christ has done, and we get to enjoy that reality in fellowship with each other.

That doesn't mean we can't and shouldn't continue to learn from those types and shadows as we study the Old Testament because they shed so much light on the redemptive work of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we're not bound to those things anymore. Thank you for your question. Thanks so much for that, Adriel. Great clarification. This is Core Christianity.

By the way, we've mentioned this. If you are a parent or a grandparent, we have a wonderful resource that will be a big help to you as you raise your kids in the faith. It's available right now, and it's absolutely free. It's called Five Ways to Help Your Kids Keep the Faith. You can find that by going to corechristianity.com forward slash offers to download it.

Again, that's corechristianity.com forward slash offers. Let's go to Steve in Lawrence, Kansas. Steve, what's your question for Pastor Adriel?

You can find that by going to corechristianity.com. Hey Steve, are you there? Yes sir. You might want to turn down your radio, but what was your question? Oh, my question was, and thank you for taking my call, is there somewhere that scripture addresses what we're calling socialism or Marxism now as it pertains to this country? Yeah, thank you for that question. I mean, of course, the Bible predates a lot of that stuff, and yet there are—I mean, when we look at Israel under the Old Covenant and the laws that God gave to them as a civil body, if you will, if we look at the church under the New Covenant, I think that there are general principles that we can bring out and think about in terms of justice, in terms of what it looks like to love our neighbors, and the reality is there are things in the Bible that critique all sorts of different political systems and viewpoints out there. I don't know that there's one that's perfect apart from the sort of biblical vision that we're given, and so I think it's important for us to read the scriptures and to look at the times that we're in and what it is that people are suggesting or pushing and to say, okay, well, here are principles that seem in line with scripture, and then here are principles that don't seem as though they're in line with scripture, and that takes a real, I think, close and careful reading of the Word of God and then thinking through how to apply it today, but it's sort of anachronistic to think about how or to suggest that the Bible is speaking to our specific political situation today.

There are applications and things that we can take from the Old Testament and the New Testament in terms of thinking about our situation today, but the Bible doesn't particularly say anything about maybe what we're referring to today wholesale, and so we have to be real careful as we're reading the scriptures. Thank you for your question. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. We had a YouTube question come in from one of our listeners named JR. By the way, our program is live on YouTube every day at 11 30 a.m pacific time, which translates into 12 30 mountain, 1 30 central, or 2 30 eastern time.

You can watch Pastor Adriel on YouTube and send us a message that way. Here's what JR says. He says in Galatians 5 16 and 18, it says, not to fulfill the lust of the flesh. Verse 18 also mentions, but if ye be led by the Spirit, ye are not under the law. What does it mean to be under the law?

Yes, this is a great question. I think another parallel passage that we can go to that would help in defining sort of what it means to be under the law is in the book of Romans in Romans chapter 7 where it talks about basically being dead to the law now through our Lord Jesus Christ and what he's done for us. To be under the law is to be under the law as this sort of works covenant called to obey the law, and of course Paul in Galatians a little bit earlier, he makes it absolutely clear if we're under the law, we're going to be cursed, and that's one of the reasons why he's warning the Galatians. They're trying to go back under the law, under some of those old covenant ceremonial rules, things like circumcision.

Sort of interesting, Bill. We've been talking about this quite a bit on today's broadcast, and Paul in Galatians earlier, he says, look, if you do that, if you go back under the law, if you get circumcised, you know, that kind of a thing, you are obligated as a religious ritual, you're obligated to keep the whole law. And so he says in Galatians chapter 3 verse 10, for all who rely on works of the law are under a curse, for it is written, cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law and do them. Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law. The righteous shall live by faith, but the law is not a faith, rather the one who does them shall live by them. So to be under the law is to go back under that old covenant system for your justification, and Paul says if you do that, you're in big trouble. If you're relying on your obedience on the works of law, whether those are, you know, ceremonial rituals or even just your own righteous deeds, if you're relying on that to justify you before God's court, you'll be cursed because brothers and sisters, each and every one of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

Even our best works are tainted. You know, you do something good, something to please the Lord, if you will, in obedience to him, and then immediately you think, I wonder if anyone was watching. I wonder, and it's just so true, even our good deeds are, they still fall short. Now that doesn't make them bad necessarily, it just means that we can't be justified on the basis of our good deeds.

We need something else. We need the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ, which is what Paul brings out in places like Galatians and in the book of Romans, and so the question is, friends, what are you trusting in? Are you trusting in your works to please God, to justify you before his throne, or are you trusting in his son, the perfect one, Jesus Christ the righteous?

If you're trusting in Jesus, you can rest in knowing that you're forgiven and accepted. Thanks for listening to CORE Christianity. To request your copy of today's special offer, visit us at corechristianity.com and click on offers in the menu bar or call us at 1-833-843-2673. That's 833-THE-CORE. When you contact us, please let us know how you've been encouraged by this program and be sure to join us next time as we explore the truth of God's word together.