Dr. Brown Tackles Your Best Questions

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Phone lines are open. You've got questions. We've got answers. It's time for the Line of Fire with your host, biblical scholar and cultural commentator, Dr. Michael Brown. Your voice for moral sanity and spiritual clarity. Call 866-34-TRUTH to get on the Line of Fire. And now here's your host, Dr. Michael Brown. It is a joy to be back in our home studio in North Carolina, broadcasting live, as always, 866-34-TRUTH.

You know what we do on this day? Any question of any kind that relates in any way to subject matter we cover on the Line of Fire, or anything I've written or said in any setting or context, by all means, give us a call. 866-348-7884. We've got some phone lines open, which often we don't at the beginning of the show.

Often it's completely filled before we even start. So now is a perfect time to call 866-348-7884. We will start with Caleb in Canton, Ohio. Welcome to the Line of Fire. Welcome to the Line of Fire, Dr. Brown. Thank you for having me.

You are very welcome. So I recently became aware that you wrote a foreword to a book written by Kevin Zadai called Mystery of the Power Words. And I have some grave concerns for why you wrote the foreword to that book.

And I was wondering as to how you can, one, how can you defend such a book and how can you defend Kevin Zadai? Yeah, hey Caleb. Yeah, great.

I'm very happy to talk to you about it. How familiar are you with my ministry? How long have you listened to the broadcast? How many of my books have you read?

Just out of curiosity. I've been listening to a show about a little over a year and I haven't read much of your books. Okay, so you really don't know. Okay, so you've never read one of my books cover to cover? Never cover to cover, no. Okay, yeah, and I'm not accusing.

I'm just trying to get context. And I write normally five articles a week. How many of those would you say that you read?

Not many. Okay, right. That was my assumption only because the people that have followed my ministry for years are not the ones asking this question because they know me, they know what I stand for, they know my message, etc. So let's focus on the book then specifically. You read the book, you read his book cover to cover, correct? I didn't read his book cover to cover. I read excerpts from it. Ah, and you at least read my forward? Yes, I did read it forward. Okay, so you read the forward and the caveats and all that.

Okay, great. So please tell me within the book what you found wrong or indefensible. Well, I think to go, I think Kevin Zadai is going beyond scripture when he says that he, when Jesus told him face to face that Jesus suffered in hell, and that he had to recite the Psalms over to.

The only mention we get in scripture of Jesus going to hell is, I believe, in 1 Peter 3, and it, in context, it appears that he is, he's more so preaching to the spirits, meaning he's proclaiming his victory. Yeah, that's my view as well, Caleb. So what I put about that... Yeah.

Right. Yeah, so here's, here's what I wrote, as for the controversial subject of Jesus's descent into hell, which Kevin discusses in the chapter on resurrection power, it is interesting to compare what he writes to the treatment of this subject in the early church fathers, as well as in various church traditions, including Eastern Orthodox, and as always, everything must be examined through the lens of the scriptures. What did happen between the cross and the resurrection? And I also say that anything that Kevin claims that Jesus told him must be tested by scripture. So that's, that's how I address that. There are various views.

Caleb, just hang on. In church history, if you look at church fathers that are quoted through the centuries, that are respected, they had different views about Jesus, quote, suffering in hell. Totally different from what Kenneth Copeland has taught in the past, that Jesus died in hell, became demonized, and was resurrected as a born-again man, quite apart from that heretical teaching.

There is different teaching about did he suffer in hell, and if so, what did it mean? And that's discussed in the church tradition. So his view, Kevin's view, is not my view there, right? I've taught that for decades, exactly the same way you teach it, 1 Peter 3, exactly the same way, for decades, quite openly. So that's why I said, must be tested by scripture, and I reiterate that, you know, elsewhere in the book. Kevin says Jesus told him X, Y, Z, must be tested by scripture. And I have no issue with Jesus appearing to someone and speaking. I have zero issue with that scripturally. I believe it happens, it's happened to colleagues of mine.

But everything must be tested by scripture. Well, Kevin also claimed that Jesus took him up to heaven in a space elevator. Do you believe that?

I'm not aware of that. Never discussed it, never heard him say it. And he also claimed that Jesus played a saxophone by his bedside, and he also falsely prophesied about the 2020 election. And to be fair to you, Dr. Brown, you know, I know a lot of critics have been critical of you on this, but you have them still in the bill from prophecy.

Yeah. And I've talked to Kevin, yeah, I talked to Kevin about it face-to-face, and you know, asked him certain specific questions about it. He said he never wanted to talk about those things publicly, was asked to do it on Christian TV, and did.

And he believed God showed him what he desired to do, not necessarily what was going to happen. We had the discussion, but here, Caleb, your questions are totally fair. A hundred percent fair.

And I recognize when you have them. So here's my side, all right, and then you can evaluate. You think I did the right thing or the wrong thing, but I'm just going to tell you exactly what happened, all right? My son-in-law, Ryan, works very closely with Kevin, spends weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks out of the year with him, has been traveling with him now probably the last year and a half to two years, knows him very closely, tells me he's the real deal, that he's not in this for money, that he's not in this for ministry, that he really loves the Lord. He told me that Kevin wrote a book that I would really appreciate emphasizing repentance, holiness, things like that, and that Kevin asked me to write a foreword for it.

So based on my son-in-law's endorsement of Kevin as a person, my son-in-law's a real man of God, is, you know, is one of my closest friends in this world, married to our younger daughter with amazing two kids. So I didn't, not aware of what Kevin had claimed or not claimed, et cetera, aside from the one time we spent a couple hours together talking face to face, and I told, you know, it was wonderful fellowship around the things of the Lord. And so I read the book, and I really, it was very challenging. It really was Jesus-centered, and it really was about repentance and holiness and walking with the Lord and being consecrated and not being worldly. In fact, it challenged me in certain ways to draw closer to the Lord, and then he had a couple things about, you know, God's provision and healing, and I said, okay, if you think he meant it in the word of faith name and claim it way, that's not what this book is about.

And I absolutely reject that. I understood this, and here are the controversial parts that you have to test with Scripture. So you may think that if I knew more about his ministry or heard more claims, that I would be, that I wouldn't have done this.

If not for my son-in-law, Ryan, recommending Kevin to me and mentioning that I really liked the book, then I wouldn't have done it just because we get asked to do this all the time, and most of the time I have to decline. Since then, one individual reached out to me, an individual who's posted many false things about me over the years, misleading false, and said he'd like to interact with me and call on me to retract the foreword. I said, if you're willing to retract all the false things you've posted about me, I'm glad to have a conversation.

So instead, he just went public with a video. That's the history there. So I saw a massive lack of integrity on that side. If I wanted to call this individual out and post falsehoods and misleading things, it wouldn't be hard for me to do, but that's not my purpose. But anyway, that's the history, Caleb. If you think I made a mistake, that's your call, and you're totally entitled to that. I take it on the chin, you're totally entitled to it. Could I make one point?

Please, go ahead. Well, with regards to the false stress prophecy, I will give credit where credit is new. For example, Jeremiah Johnson, he publicly repented, and I could give grace for people where they say, oh, I thought God was talking to me through a dream, or I got thoughts mixed up in my head and concocted stuff in my own mind, but I mixed it with interpreting it for God. But Kevin Zadai goes beyond that, because he doesn't claim that God told him Trump would win through a dream, or through a vision, or through a mental picture. He claimed that Jesus told him those things in heaven, faith to faith. And for me, at least me personally, it's a lot harder to give grace to that, because God's not a liar. I agree.

I totally agree with you. And that would then call into question everything else that Jesus allegedly told someone, right? But do you see the point I'm trying to make?

100%, 100%, so here's the deal. I did talk to Kevin face to face about that move last year, right after the elections, I think. What I understood was he said that God was sharing his desire, what he wanted to see happen, but if we didn't pray or whatever, it was not going to happen, so it was conditional.

That's what I understood. Now, you're telling me, and someone else recently said that he said Jesus told them face to face that Trump would win the election, okay? So, my pledge to you, Caleb, is I will follow up directly with Kevin, because when I spoke with him, maybe I asked the wrong questions, okay? He said he did not want to talk about it publicly before, he did not want to be airing stuff about Trump or prophecies, he did it because he was asked, but he didn't want to do it. Either way, if he said Jesus told him face to face, Trump would win, right? You say, well, he did win, it was stolen.

That doesn't matter to me, because the fact is, he's not in the White House, now Biden is, and that's all we cared about, right? Not the theoretical winner, and if Jesus showed you who's going to win, then let him show you it's going to be stolen and it's never going to happen. So, here's my pledge, Caleb. I will reach out to Caleb, through my son-in-law, to Kevin, and ask him directly, are you on record for saying Jesus told you face to face that Trump would win? And that you did not give conditions with it, et cetera, and based on what he says, I will follow up accordingly. I will absolutely do that, I 100% agree that if someone says that, they have to completely, very strongly, repent publicly, and it now calls into question other things that you say Jesus told you face to face.

I'm 100% with you on that. You don't believe Kat Kerr, right? Oh, no, no, not for a split second.

So why do you not believe in Kat Kerr, but believe in Kevin Zadai? Okay, so tell you what, I'm going to answer your question on the other side of the break. I normally don't take this time, much time on one call, but because of the importance of this, I want to do it.

So, I'm going to come back to Caleb really quickly on the other side of the break, and then everyone else holding so patiently, I'm coming right your way. Thank you. It's the Line of Fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get on the Line of Fire by calling 866-34-TRUTH.

Here again, it's Dr. Michael Brown. Welcome back, friends, to the Line of Fire broadcast, 866-34-TRUTH. Okay, Caleb, let me just respond to one last question, and then in fairness, I want to get over to other callers. Why do I so strongly reject the ministry of Kat Kerr? I don't know her personally. I do not know anyone close to her that can tell me more about her personally, but everything I've seen her say has been wacky, has been unscriptural, has been false. So, the clips that I have actually seen in context, the interviews in context, which I never even would have known about her ministry if not for a lot of the things that happened with the failed Trump prophecies, has been false.

Therefore, I reject it. In contrast, my son-in-law, Ryan, who's a real man of God, spends probably 150 days in a year with Kevin, has spoken to me about his own walk. The face-to-face time that I had with Kevin was time with someone that seemed very, very devoted to Jesus, very much in love with the word. And everything that we talked about, these are things dear to my heart, and reading his books, if you read this one book in any case and go through it, I think you'll find yourself saying, amen, amen, amen, that's good, that's strong, that's scriptural.

Now, it doesn't justify something that's unscriptural, all right, but that's why I've made a distinction here. As to other charges that he said this or this or this, I'm not aware of that, if so, again, I'll follow up. Listen, I've done a lot of interaction with my friend, Sid Roth, because I don't watch the show, I don't watch Christian TV, I haven't for years and years and years. People sent me various concerns, one gentleman put out an entire video saying, Dr. Brown, maybe you're not familiar with some of the content, I sent it over to Sid's folks, we've had serious talks about better vetting processes, I've urged that on them. And you've got to do this and do this and do this, and claims where people claim extra revelation, all the more does everybody have to be tested by scripture, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

But I've known Sid 40 years, I know his love for the Lord, I know his devotion to the word, I know his witness to the lost, I've known him and watched him consistently, I know how he's not in this for the money, based on his own life and lifestyle, so that does color my thinking. But the concerns are totally valid, they are 100% valid to raise these, I'm not downplaying them whatsoever, and I will, I will follow up Caleb, all right, in terms of the Trump prophecy question. Thank you for the call and for pressing the issues, I really appreciate it. 866-34-TRUTH. Let's go to Eugene in, you tell me how to pronounce where you live, Eugene. It's Fort Huachuca, sir. Fort, okay, I never would have gotten that from the way it's spelled, thank you.

Yeah, I don't know why it's spelled that way either. That's all right. Well, welcome to the broadcast. Yes sir, thank you. So just a quick question, sir, and I will have to go after I ask this question, as I'm dealing with something at work right now.

All right. My question, sir, I've been studying theology now for about five years on my own, I've been a dedicated student since then, and I know a lot, I've learned a lot, God has shown me a lot of stuff before in his Word, and so I don't believe knowledge is the issue in my situation, but I developed, to keep it short, a mental pattern, a way of thinking when I was younger to cope with some of the issues of my childhood that I don't think are exactly sinful, but I do think that they are things that God wants me to be done away with. He wants me to grow out of this way that I've thought since my childhood, and I believe I have the knowledge that if I applied these biblical principles taught in the Bible, I can walk away from this, even though there might be a struggle in dealing with it. In other words, I don't lack knowledge in the situation again, but I do believe I lack faith, sir. I've been dealing with this issue for so long that it's, I mean, to call it habitual is an understatement. And I'm just wondering, sir, again, I do have to go after access, so I'll come back when we watch your answer, but is there anywhere in the Bible where someone in my situation, in my way of thinking, who just feels definitely bound by something that he's done his whole life, could maybe read and get a sense of encouragement, because again, I know what the Bible says, I know how to apply biblical principles, and I do have a prayer life, and I believe if I apply the things that I know I can win, but it's kind of like that imagery of an elephant who's tied by a rope to a tree stump.

Even though he has more than the capabilities to break free from that rope, because he was essentially bound when he was younger, he doesn't apply what he has, and so he's bound by something that is not really that significant, and I believe that's me. So I do have to go, but thank you for your ministry, Dr. Brown. I'll be listening to your response. You have a blessed day. All right. Thank you very much, Eugene.

Thank you for the call. Okay, so obviously, as you're watching this later, listening to it later, you won't be able to interact with my answers. So I'm going to lay out all the various possibilities that come to mind as you were speaking. Number one, sometimes it is a matter of just doing the same thing over and over and over. Your daily time with God, your time in the Word, renewing your mind, praying about these things, asking Him for help, and little by little they change, or suddenly a breakthrough seems to come out of nowhere, but really you've been getting healthier, stronger, healthier, stronger, healthier, stronger, getting more built up, more built up, more built up, and then the breakthrough comes.

And we talk about often here, Isaiah 10, 27, that the yoke breaks because you've gotten so fat that the yoke on that animal breaks because of that spiritual health. That's part of what we try to do day in, day out here on the line of fire. So that's one thing. You may say it's been years and years, it's hard for me to think the breakthrough will come that way.

It could well be. Second thing, sometimes you have to get to that point of desperation, which is that you just shut yourself in over a weekend. You cancel non-essential appointments and get on your knees, get on your face, you fast, and you say, God, I need a change here. This is a destructive, negative, hurtful pattern.

I need a change. And you just, you go after them until the breakthrough comes. Or you fast once a week, or you do something like that. That's another thing. A third thing is to read things that will build your faith. As you said, faith seems to be the issue.

I don't know if the famous book by Neil Anderson, Bondage Breaker, is applicable. In your case, I know more about that book than firsthand having gone through it carefully. But I know so many were helped by books like that, that there may be something to build your faith, and that may be the key.

So taking in faith-building testimonies, material, and then liberty coming out of that. Or, last option, is that you sit with godly, gifted counselors. It could be pastoral leadership in your church, it could be people that do this as their service to the body, or their employment in service to the body. And you pray together with them and talk these things through, and they help you get down to the roots, get back to patterns that were established in your childhood. Not through some spiritual abracadabra kind of thing, but through real spiritual insight and help. And you realize, wow, this has been, it doesn't just come with the knowledge which you said you have, but with a spiritual revelation that then helps pull the thing up from the roots. And then from there, from there, okay, how do I move forward? How do I renew my mind in a positive way now that I've recognized this with spiritual anointing to turn the tide? Now, how do I build from there? That would be another thing. And each of the things I mentioned, these are all things in my own life at one point or another, have helped me gain real freedom and liberty before the Lord. All right, let us go to Al in San Lorenzo, California. Welcome to the Line of Fire.

Thank you, sir. My question is about the book of Jonah, and where he was swallowed by the great fish and was in the belly for three days and three nights. Three days and three nights has been used several times in the Bible, and I'm curious, somebody else mentioned to me about the word Sheol.

I'm curious what your definition is and how does, how does that relate to the story of Jonah, for example? Right, so Sheol is the place of the dead, right? It is the netherworld. It can refer to the physical grave, but it's really where the dead go after they die. It doesn't have to be a place of consciousness.

In other words, the definition of Sheol itself doesn't tell you whether it's a place of consciousness or not, but it is the netherworld. It's the place of the dead. So it's more than just the physical grave site. It's the place of the dead. So Jonah 2 incorporates a psalm, which is really a psalm from someone that has got one foot over on the other side.

You know, we say they've got one foot in the grave. When people in the ancient Near East, I documented this in my doctoral dissertation, when they were healed from a deadly disease, they said they were raised from the dead. That's the way it was actually said. So he's writing as if he's in the place of the dead, as if he's in the netherworld, as if it's all over. And it's either his own words that are being prayed there in that metaphorical way, or it's another psalm that's being adopted for that purpose. You know, maybe it was a psalm that was known in his day, a psalm of crying out from the depths of hell, so to say. And he now adopts it, or the author of Jonah adopts that to fill that in.

So that's the imagery there. The deliverance after three days is something that you do find a number of times in Scripture. So when Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15 that Jesus was raised after three days according to the Scriptures, he's not quoting one verse. He doesn't say as the Scripture says, but the Scriptures.

Because this theme of deliverance on the third day or after the third day occurs a number of times. But, you know, you've got the psalmist saying, like, the waters have come right up to my neck. And here he's like, yeah, literally, in my case, that's my situation.

So it's taking something that's normally metaphorical language and using it in a very vivid way as he finds himself in the belly of the fish, which becomes a living picture of Sheol. Hey, thank you, sir, for the call. I appreciate it. We'll be right back. This is how we rise up.

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Let's go to Jesse in Twin City, Minnesota. Thanks for holding. Welcome to the line of fire. Thanks for taking my call, Dr. Brown.

You're welcome. So I want to unpack. This is going to take about two minutes. Is that OK?

Go for it. All right. So first, I apologize for belaboring this point so much, but it's necessary for me to know the ins and outs of this topic because it's to make a reasonable conclusion on it. And that's the topic of free will and how much we have it.

All right. I've been involved with the topic for a while. I've read a good deal of this from John Piper.

700 Big Buck Providence. John Piper is only one person, so I want to cast a bit wider net with this. I've asked you several times about the issue with two verses Proverbs 21, one and Proverbs 16, nine. Now, the reform view on this is that they do not believe that someone who wants to seek repentance cannot, because God damns them, which not all reform believe in double predestination.

I don't. They would say God does something in the person that makes them want to repent. They would use Ephesians 2 that talks about being dead in sin and then being made alive by God alone. Where you would differ, I assume, is that the cause of repentance is found in the individual choosing it and given that they have a choice to. But the reformers look to passages where it is clear that God caused the actions of someone. The go-to passage for them is Genesis 50, 20, which says, As for you, you meant it for evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring about that many people should be kept alive as they are today.

So I ask you with humility, given I just want to understand the topic better, two questions. Could you give me a solid passage that talks about God giving man complete freedom for his choices separated from God's hand? And two, why these passages mean God in his providence does not direct what man does in any sense of his detritive will, and why this means that God does not fulfill his purposes through whatever evil that is done by the means of secondary causes?

Alright, so number one, the whole Bible is against the position that you're putting forward. Meaning, from beginning to end, God says choose, choose, choose, choose, choose. And then he holds us responsible for those choices, he commends us for the right choices, he rebukes us for the wrong choices. Now imagine that here is a man, crippled from birth, unable to move, if his life depended on him, if he was in a house burning with fire, he could not move, he's crippled from birth, and I tell him get up and walk, and he doesn't get up and walk, and I condemn him for that. That would be completely contradictory because he has no power to do that.

It would be as if I'm pulling strings of a puppet and then commending the puppet when I pulled the strings. I know it's an overstatement and Calvinists would object to it, but I'm just laying things out to be concise in the clearest way they can. So the whole Bible, choose, choose, choose, God being grieved over wrong choices we made as opposed to God being grieved over wrong choices we made because he preordained those choices or because we had no other choice but to do the wrong thing and that that grieves him and that he regrets certain things expressed like that in scripture. So, no, that makes no sense with a predestinarian viewpoint. Secondly, there are passages where God distinctly says, for example, Ezekiel 18, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked but rather that they repent and live. So turn to me and live, house of Israel. Or Jesus in Matthew 23, how often I longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. So if they weren't willing because God did not give them the ability to be willing and he reached out to them, it's like reaching out to the cripple. Please get up now and run out of the building.

I want to save you. But does not give them the power to do it, then it's all meaningless. But if they could only do it because God gave them the power to do it and gave them the will to do it, then how can he commend them for doing that very thing? How can he commend them and say you're doing what I preordained you to do and made you to do well done?

How could he ever say well done, good and faithful servant, when all we did was what he enabled us and willed us to do and if he didn't will us to do it, we never could have done it? As for Genesis 50, yeah, they meant it for evil. They had bad intent. They chose evil. They meant it for evil, but God turned it for good.

He does that every second of every day. People mean things for evil. Satan means things for evil. But in Genesis, it doesn't say God used it for evil.

It says God meant it for evil. Right, right. And God meant it.

Right, right. It's intended. You intended it for evil. That was their intent. And God meant it for good, though. Right, because God was going to work through it.

Yeah, exactly. So were they guilty of sin? Yes. Were they guilty of sin by their choice? Yes. Did God have another plan for it? Yes. Does it say God preordained what they did?

No. It says that God... There's nothing logical...

Here, Jesse, there's zero logical about what you're saying. Here, Genesis 20. Why does God not allow Abimelech to sleep with Sarah? Why doesn't he allow him to do it? What does it say?

He caused him to not sin. Why? Why?

Why? Why did he... We aren't told. Of course we're told.

It says it. Because God saw the integrity of his heart. It says it in the text, Jesse. God saw the integrity of his heart. And therefore didn't let him sin because he knew Abimelech didn't mean to commit adultery. Okay, I know you've been a Calvinist, so I'm sure you understand the idea about secondary causes, right?

Yeah, but Jesse, here's my problem. I gave you scripture after scripture after scripture and reason after reason. And this may be our last chat on this just for a while, in fairness to others, because I try not to talk to the same person about the same topic over and over.

It's just not fair to others who try to get through and call. But bottom line, you don't have a response to these other verses that's anything but twisting. I'm not trying to twist anything, honestly. I know you're not trying to, but I'm saying you don't have a response that's not twisting.

You have to bend the thing to make it work. Just read through Proverbs 1. Read through Proverbs 1 and ask yourself, is this the voice of the Lord speaking to people who have been predestined one way or another or who have no power to respond? Remember, we believe in prevenient grace.

We believe in the power of the gospel. So a human being in and of himself will not draw himself or herself to God. But John 12 32 is quite explicit. If Jesus is lifted up, he will draw all men to him.

And the same Greek is used elsewhere for a forceful drawing. So since the cross, the Holy Spirit is drawing all people to Jesus through the cross, and then they can say yes or no. What I say you're doing is taking a verse here and there, rejecting everything else in Proverbs around the verse that seems to support what you believe is the right view. And I'm just going to leave it here for now in fairness to others rather than have a debate. This is not debate Friday.

So just in fairness and because this is maybe our fourth call on the same subject. So in short, read Proverbs. Start at the beginning, go to the end. What is the overwhelming impression?

Overwhelming. Human beings make choices, good or bad. Proverbs is saying make the right choices based on wisdom, make the right choices based on wisdom. If you don't, your blood's on your own head.

If you do, well done. That is telling me that there is an ability to say yes or no to God. Choose. Why does it say choose life? Choose life.

I said before. Choose life. And now those who are preordained to choose life will choose.

No, that's not what it says. There's grief over those who choose wrong and commendation for those who choose right. All right, Jesse, I'd encourage you to start reading Genesis to Revelation.

Right? Get right to the end of Revelation 22. And whoever is willing, let him come. That's the message. That's the message.

I simply take it at its plain sense without trying to get into a massive theological behind-the-scenes discussion. And it was, by the way, the testimony of the whole Bible that hit me like, boom, right between the eyes was that one of the deciding things that made me abandon Calvinism in 1982-83. Hey, thank you for the call. All right, let's go over to Nick in New York City.

Welcome to the line of fire. What's up, Dr. Brown? How are you, sir?

Doing well, thanks. You know, let me tell you, I have debates like that with my Calvinist friend all the time. He's a Calvinist predestination Presbyterian. I'm an Armenian Pentecostal. We go back and forth, but we still love each other. Good.

Yeah, absolutely. You and James White inspire. So anyway, the reason why I'm calling is regarding that, you know, I've been talking to a lot of friends from the other side of the aisle when it comes to sensationists and their disbelief of spiritual gifts, you know. And I was baptized with the Holy Spirit and I started speaking in the privacy of my own home. I wasn't in church.

Nobody laid hands on me. It was just something that I was just pouring out my heart to the Lord about maybe eight years ago. And it just came down like fire. And I just was speaking in tongues for hours.

And it was the most beautiful feeling I've ever felt in my entire life. And I know my personal experience fully explains exactly what First Corinthians 14 is talking about. But I have just a couple of questions regarding the history of it and also some understandings from the other side of the aisle. I don't understand that where in church history, how would they read First Corinthians 14 when it says, he that speaketh in an unknown tongue speaketh not unto men, but unto God, for no man understandeth him, for howbeit in the Spirit he speaketh of mystery. Like, how would they...

I try to... Tell you what, Nick, super quick answer. Some said it was for the first century or whatever. It just wasn't what they were experiencing. Others thought it was just earthly foreign languages.

John Calvin even said Paul knew a lot of different foreign languages more than the Corinthians. Amazingly enough. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get on the line of fire by calling 866-34-TRUTH.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks, friends, for joining us on the line of fire. Yeah, Nick, I'm trying to see if I can get Calvin's commentary here online quickly.

I think I've got it because I remember reading it decades ago. And as brilliant as Calvin was, you know, like everybody else, we're people of our times. And let's just see, First Corinthians 14, 19. Let's see. I would rather speak five words. This is spoken hyperbolically unless you understand five words meaning five... Now, as Paul, who might otherwise have excelled at lawfully in the power of speaking with tongues, voluntary stance from it, and with that, and he showed... Okay, I thought I remember him saying...

Okay, let's see. Yeah, I thought he said that he spoke in more different languages than them. But in any case, Nick, some just took it as having the ability to speak a foreign language.

Either supernaturally or naturally. And that's what it applied to. But yeah, I'm 100% with you.

When you have experienced it for yourself, First Corinthians 14 makes perfect sense. Absolutely makes perfect sense. Hey, thanks for the call, man. I appreciate it.

Let us go to Jan in Western Germany. Thanks so much for holding. Welcome to the line of fire.

Thanks, Dr. Brown, for having me. I have a question concerning the manuscript of the Old Testament. So, okay, I did a master in Belgian theology. I learned Greek, Hebrew, textual criticism. And I came up with a question that there are sometimes significant differences between the Hebrew manuscripts and the Greek manuscripts, which are older. And my question is, I believe in biblical inerrancy.

But what do I do when I have such a case? Like, either the Greek manuscripts have somewhat chapters. I think it's like Jeremiah or Job, or they have less chapters. What do I take as the real inspired word? Do I use the Greek or the Hebrew?

Because sometimes, I think some time ago you said you have to judge case by case. So, but if it's a real, I mean not some first, like real chapters and a whole bunch of texts, which the one has and the other doesn't have. What is the real word of God, please? Right, so always, a hundred times out of a hundred, the Greek is a translation and the Hebrew is not. That doesn't mean that the Hebrew always reflects the original text. But a hundred times out of a hundred, the Hebrew is not a translation, the Greek is a translation. So the Greek is always secondary, alright?

That's the starting point. In the vast majority of cases, the Septuagint largely agrees with what we call the Masoretic Textual Tradition, or the Masoretic Text. But again, a hundred times out of a hundred, the Greek is a translation. And in most cases, is a little bit longer than the Hebrew Expansive. The only difference with that is Jeremiah, where the Septuagint is about seven-eighths the length of the Masoretic manuscripts. Okay, there's an additional psalm, there's a hundred fifty-first psalm in the Book of Psalms, which we actually have from Qumran. So you could say, okay, there's one more psalm in the Septuagint, that could be an original one. It'd be odd that it's a hundred fifty-one versus a hundred fifty, given the five-fold nature of the book. But in any case, you do have that, and you do have in Jeremiah, it's primarily a different order of the books. The oracles against the nations are joined together and put in a different part of the book.

So the order is different, the overall text otherwise is the same. Aside from that, most of the major addition subtractions can easily be understood through using the various tools of textual criticism. And that's why ninety-nine percent, maybe more than that, of all translation of the Bible into English or into German, is going to be based on the Masoretic textual tradition, with the Septuagint used in a secondary way. If you get support from the Septuagint, where it really seems to explain a discrepancy in the Hebrew, and then is backed, say, by the Syriac Peshitta, and then is backed in manuscripts from the Dead Sea Scrolls, then you would say, in that case, it seems that preserves the original reading. But that's going to be the rarest of times, it's not going to be for lengthy portions of scripture or anything like that. Just here and there, over the process of time, in the transmission of scripture, obviously we don't have the original text, we have copies of copies, etc.

But we have enough that we can say with confidence, this is what the authors wrote these centuries ago, and here's a verse here, or an order of a verse there, where we're going to question things. But not a more major question. Does that make sense? Yes, thanks a lot.

Thanks for answering your question. By the way, is it correct that at the end of the month you will be teaching in Rotterdam? Is that correct, or is it an old page, I found?

Oh, it must be an old page. No, it would be a joy to be back in Europe. There's a possibility that I may be in Poland late August or September for my first time there.

There's a possibility I've been to, of course, Holland many times, and Germany many times, and England many times, but never to Poland. But that'll be updated on our itinerary, which is on the S. Dr. Brown website, sdr.brown.org, click on itinerary. So if we're anywhere around, it'd be a joy to meet you, sir. Thanks a lot, Dr. Brown. I wish you good evening.

Thank you so much. All right, hey friends, we are going to be continuing with our YouTube chat. So for those of you who are unable to get through, we can't get to your call at 4.15, so what, 22 minutes from now, Eastern time, we're going to continue on YouTube with just a Q&A chat there.

Right, so the ASK DR Brown, the Ask Dr. Brown channel on YouTube will be continuing there. Let us go over to Kwon in McAllen, Texas, from Jan to Kwon, welcome to the broadcast. Hello, Dr. Brown, it's actually Kwon. Kwon, oh, okay, just a typo there, it happens.

On Friday, our call screeners are scrambling, so we get, they're nailing it, but okay, Kwon, welcome, so from Jan to Kwon, there we go. Yeah, I thought that was kind of funny, but just real quick, you know, recently I've gone through, I'm going through a reconstructing, not a deconstructing, a reconstructing of my faith, because God's really been talking to me, and you know, just realizing that, you know what, all my life I've just really depended a lot on my preachers, teachers, and other forms of information to get what I, you know, what I believe in, and really reading the Word of God for myself and what the Bible says. Yes, I've read the Word of God, but I've always gone to reading the Word of God with a presupposition of what I've already been taught. And I felt like the Holy Spirit just told me, like, no, put away everything that you've ever learned, and let me guide you through the Scriptures, okay? And one of the issues that I've come up with, that I've had a little bit more difficulty with, and I know what I kind of believe, well, I know what I believe down in my heart, but I don't know how to make sense of it, but it's the whole debate with the whole Trinity versus the One, because it just seems like it gets really confusing. I've seen some of your debates, I've seen some of the stuff, and it's quite clear-cut of where you stand on it, and I just kind of wanted to get kind of some information of where I can find more information, or how I can go about reading the Word of God, versus what way I can read the Word of God to get a better understanding.

Yes, sir. First, I think what you're doing is important, and I've been challenged to do it since I first came to faith as a Jewish believer, and virtually every major thing I hold to I've been challenged on over and over, and determined I want to do my best to follow the word wherever it leads. I want to do my best, having been convinced that God is real, that Jesus is the Savior, that the Word is true, but even there, I mean, each of those things has been challenged over the years, right?

And for some, it's difficult, and your world kind of falls apart around you, and what's real, what's not, but I'm convinced if you really seek God earnestly and say, Lord, I want to follow you and your truth, period, that's it, that's all I want, and your attitude is right, that he will guide you into all truth. So, I would encourage you to really focus on John 14, 15, and 16, all right? As a central passage, this is the longest discourse we have from Jesus, starting in the 13th chapter, 14, 15, 16, then his prayer in 17, so there's a little interaction back and forth there, right? To really, really look at that and to see, okay, when he's talking about him going and the Spirit coming and the Spirit testifying to him and him glorifying the Father, et cetera, is it the way when this teaches it, or is it that there is a distinct Father, Son, Spirit who is one God? So, I emphasize, as does all of scripture, there is one God and one God only. That is the most fundamental revelation in the Bible, you could say. And this one God is clearly complex in his unity, meaning, at one and the same time, he can sit enthroned in heaven, his presence can fill the universe, he can be working invisibly by his Spirit in the hearts of human beings while physically incarnated in a body. And, as we study scripture, we see that the Father is hidden in his glory, no one has ever seen him or can see him, the Son is the one who makes him known, and it is the Spirit who works invisibly among us, and when you go through scripture, you see that the Spirit teaches and leads and can be grieved and can be lied to, therefore he has distinct personality that is undeniable in a separate way, that Jesus, of course, spiritually is one with the Father, and yet is separate and distinct from the Father, the Son is separate and distinct from the Father, and the Father conveys things on the Son, and the Son glorifies the Father. So, I don't always use the word triune or Trinitarian in Jewish ministry and outreach because people immediately hear three gods. So, we want to emphasize one God, one God only, who we know through scripture as Father, Son, and Spirit, therefore Trinitarian doctrine. So, if you want to read more of what I've written on it, volume two in answering Jewish objections to Jesus, volume two in answering Jewish objections to Jesus. God bless. It's all resistance. You can't resist us. Another program powered by the Truth Network.