Dr. Brown Tackles All Your Questions

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Phone lines are open. Our next question is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks, friends, for joining us on the Friday edition of The Line of Fire. You've got questions.

We've got answers. 866-342. That's 866-348-7884. Any question of any kind that relates in any way to the subject matter we cover here on The Line of Fire or any area of expertise I have, by all means, give us a call. Right now, we've got a few phone lines open. No phone lines open through the whole show, but we've got a few phone lines open, so it's a great time to call now, and then we're sure to be able to get to your call as the show goes on. 866-348-7884.

Going straight to the phones, we go to Alice in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Welcome to The Line of Fire. Thank you, Dr. Brown. First of all, thank you for your voice and your ministry. Please know that you're in my prayers. Well, thank you. That means the world to us. Thank you.

Good. I have a three-part question. If I can get my three questions first, it has to do with the inheritance of Israel through Abraham, the covenant regarding the borders of that inheritance. First question, if I may, referencing Joshua 1-4, it references there the three borders.

I got that, but my question is, I don't quite understand what the southern border would be. Second question, very quickly, was the promise fulfilled under, say, the reign of David or Solomon? And then my third point question references Ezekiel 47-48, where I think it's talking about the millennial Israel, and it talks about the borders there, and how that may change in the millennium, which I don't understand. So those are my three questions.

Wonderful questions. Number one, Joshua 1-4 is somewhat ambiguous in terms of the southern border. I'm going to read it for you in the New Jewish Publication Society translation. Your territory shall extend from the wilderness and the Lebanon to the great river, the River Euphrates, on the east. All right, so that would be a border that would be far more than Israel had experienced under the days of Joshua. All right, all of the land of, excuse me, yeah, the whole Hittite country and up to the Mediterranean Sea on the west. Well, obviously, you can't go beyond that because the west is the sea. So all the land from the desert and the Lebanon, so the desert in the south, Lebanon in the north. So it doesn't give a precise line, but the southern desert, Sinai desert, would certainly be part of it.

How far down would it go? It certainly didn't say all the way into Egypt at that point. So it's not a precise line.

It's a general line. Was the promise fulfilled under the days of David or Solomon or any time in Israelite history? It would have been fulfilled in that Israel was like a mini empire under David and Solomon and had rulership and control over some of the surrounding nations. But did Israel itself possess all of that? The answer would be really no, so that the promises, and there are several different land promises given.

If you compare all of them, you'll see there's some variation. Did Israel in ancient history ever fulfill that, live out all of that? The answer would be no. And that's something that traditionally Jew would be expecting in the Messianic era. Now, is that what we see reflected in Ezekiel 40 through 48?

Most likely. In other words, if we are to understand Ezekiel 40 through 48 as a literal vision of the future, obviously this has not happened at any time in history. Even the dimensions of the temple would be different than the dimensions of the tabernacle that God gave to Moses. And that's presented problems for traditional rabbis, because in their mind the Torah would be eternal and unchangeable, so how is it that the dimensions of the temple slash tabernacle would be different? And there's a Talmudic story that one rabbi figured out the differences, but we don't have his writings. So it creates problems for everybody. Why will there be physical sacrifices in the millennial kingdom if it's a future vision after what Jesus said on the cross? So there are all kinds of questions.

However, if we are to take this as something literal to come, yes, it would speak of what you would say are the millennial borders, and that would be the fullness of everything that God promised to Israel. Well, thank you for that. Now, I know you have other callers. I don't mean to take up your time. Do you have time for a quick comment?

Yeah, go ahead, please. I read online your article today regarding the rise of anti-Semitism, which always pains my heart. I will just tell you briefly that I was privileged as a child to attend a parochial Christian school, and studying the Tanakh or the Old Testament was just as important to us in relating to Israel and our heritage there as it was in the New Testament.

And like I say, it pains my heart, not only the history that we've heard about in Germany and so forth with the Holocaust, but the things that are coming today very much pain me. And also I'll mention, in those days at the parochial high school, we were mandated in chapel to see the films, and I think you know what films I'm referencing of, of that time, of that period in history. And it made an indelible mark on all of us as young Christians who watch that, students.

So here's my thinking. You know, we have Christian kids out there today, and of course I haven't been blessed with children, so maybe I'm not speaking correctly, but my idea would be this. Some of the slack, I think, parents can't cover all this, but you know when children, even myself when I went to university, I'm kind of dating myself, we're talking 60s and 70s, even then in the humanities class, they were starting to promote this relativism, and there's no absolutes, that type of thinking, I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. But what I'm suggesting is that the churches, whether it's in their Sunday school classes or not, start to prepare the youngsters in their mid-teens or whatever for what they're going to encounter in college, and not only that, to educate them on things to refute anti-Semitism, and that we as a body, as a body believers, need to relate to Israel and to our history as well in the Old Testament.

Those are just some thoughts I had. Yeah, well, Alice, thanks for sharing that. Thanks for your heart. And again, you are like the Christians I've met for the last 49 plus years who have been lovers of the Jewish people, lovers of Israel, not an anti-Semitic bone in their body, they can't relate to the idea of anti-Semitism having any connection to the church. This is what I've met with, encountered people with a lovely spirit like yours, and many who have been educated with understanding, and yet there is an undeniable, horrific, ugly, rising tide of anti-Semitism right within the church, be it Catholic Church, be it Evangelical Church, be it other branches. We're seeing these things in front of our eyes, that's why I wrote Christian anti-Semitism. It's challenging, you know, local church can only do so much, parents have so much on their plate, and yet somehow together we have to do better to educate the next generation in the word and in key things so that they don't fall into the errors of the past. Thank you for calling.

Hey, let me just say this quickly, because I want to just devote my time as always to your calls. So a colleague sent me a meme yesterday or day before, and it was an ostrich sticking its head in the ground, denying the existence of Christian anti-Semitism. And I said, that's one reason that I wrote my book, and somebody posts, I'm not going to read your book, it's inaccurate and accusatory. It's like, I didn't reply, ostrich, but that's exactly, I'm not going to read it. How does he know what's in it? How does he know it's accusatory?

He doesn't even know what's in it, but he's not going to read it. Stick your head in the sand. And then someone else, someone else, apparently Catholic background, because I'm encountering this a lot in my own evangelical circles, but I know of it in traditional Catholic circles as well, and other branches of professing Christians. Listen to this comment. This is what someone posted in response to me talking about anti-Semitism in the church.

He said, why should we respect the Christ killer religion who curses Jesus and his blessed mother? Love? The only love I'll show is the love Jesus showed to the Pharisees, Jews, the Christ killers. So friends, this is out there. This junk, this cancer, spiritually speaking, is out there, and we will continue to confront it in Jesus' name. All right, let us go to Daniel. Nope, we don't.

I was going to Canada, but we won't. All right, let's go over to Bob in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Welcome to the line of fire. Hey, Dr. Brown, good to talk to you. Thank you, sir.

Exodus 21, 22, and 23. I wonder... Can you kind of explain that? I don't quite get what it's saying, and what I'm really trying to ask you is, like, you remember Scott Peterson that killed his wife, supposedly? Yeah.

He got actually convicted of two murders because she was pregnant. Right. So I'm wondering, is this verse here or any other place in the Bible, New or Old Testament, which suggests that if you kill a woman and she's pregnant, that would be a double murder? Right. So, yeah.

So it's specifically Exodus 21 verses 22 and 23, and this is the key text in terms of a legal text that would address this. The larger issue of does the Bible speak of the child in the womb as being an actual human being? There's a well-known pop star now.

She identifies as bisexual, feminist, strong supporter of Planned Parenthood, just found out she's pregnant. And she says, I love the mini human inside of me. And I wrote an article saying, that's right, that's a mini human.

You're exactly right. That's a little human being inside of you. And maybe that'll impact your own view of childbirth and children, abortion, things like that. But we could point to the humanity of the child in the womb. You know, John the Baptist, John the Immerser, jumping in his mother's womb when Mary and Mary comes in pregnant with Jesus or other passages. Rachel being told she's pregnant with, excuse me, Rebecca being told that two nations are in her womb, those kind of things. But this verse, Exodus 21, 22, I'm going to read it in the ESV, when men strive together and hit a pregnant woman so that her children come out.

But there's no harm. The one who hit her shall surely be fined, as the woman's husband shall impose on him, and he shall pay as the judges determined. If there is harm, you shall pay life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burden for burden. It goes on from there, several verses. So the debate, and this is a major debate among Hebrew scholars, does it mean that she miscarries, in which case the miscarriage, you're just, you fine.

There's a fine, there's a payment, but it's not considered like a death. Or is it saying her children come out, but there's no harm, meaning she gives birth successfully. So this verse is actually debated. It would be the one and only that would potentially speak to this and say yes, if there is a death of the child miscarriage, then that's considered murder. Or is it saying that the miscarriage is punishable, but not at the same level. There's a great debate among Hebrew and legal scholars. I believe you can argue for our position that it does represent a human life.

You just can't be dogmatic about the Hebrew. It's The Line of Fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks for joining us today on The Line of Fire. Michael Brown, delighted to be with you. 866-342-866-3487-884. All right, let us go to Aria in Fort Myers, Florida. Welcome to The Line of Fire.

Hi, thank you so much. My name is Aria and I do consider... Hang on, I'm losing you there. Hey team, was I the only one not hearing Aria there?

Is there some other issue? I tell you what, Rachel, just check to make sure the connection's good and I'll get right back to her. I'll just try to grab another call first. Let's go to Kevin in Nebo, Kentucky. Welcome to The Line of Fire. Hey Dr. Brown, I'm such a huge fan. Thank you.

And I've got a question that I think you're probably acutely able to help me with. I have a pastor friend who is Torah observant and in his church they wear head coverings and have phylacteries and fringes. And they believe in, you know, they don't believe in justification by faith and that the elect are those who do the best. And I was wondering, do you know the best way that I could help, you know, minister to this guy or help him to see? Because man, he is really set on just following as many laws as he possibly can because he thinks it's going to help me get into heaven. I can't really find a good biblical way to, you know, try to help him with that. Yeah, unfortunately if he's leading a whole congregation in that direction, that's a very serious path to error. It's one thing for Jewish believers to say, hey, we're still Jews and we identify as Jews and we're part of our people. And this is part of our covenantal heritage, but this is not for justification or salvation. This is simply part of our calling as Jews. You know, just like you might be a Korean American really called to cultural engagement with your own people, but this would just be on a deeper biblical level. But to say it's mandatory and then to bring Gentiles in and to say it must be done. Well, this is somehow earning one's way into God's kingdom. I mean, that's that's complete heresy that the person is is stepped outside of the faith.

If that's actually what they believe, if they if they repudiated justification by faith, what I would do is really, really pray, really pray for them. You know, I have addressed this a whole lot. And if you'll just go to my my website, askdr.brown.org, type in the words Torah or Torah observant, those kind of things, you'll see dietary laws. You'll see a lot of this come up, Sabbath observance.

These things will come up. But if there seems to be any openness, I might just do a line by line study of Galatians. He'll probably have answers and kind of turn Galatians upside down to read it ways you've never read it before.

But I would I would prayerfully give it a try. And if he's really got a wall up or as an answer for everything, you just have to pray for him because he has stepped out of the faith into full blown deception, if it is the way you described it. How many folks go to his congregation? You know, there's there's about 50 and they don't believe that Jesus is God either.

It's strange. OK, so that right. So they're right. That's why I said they've gone over into heresy.

That was inevitable. But I was going to tell you was that if they haven't gotten there, that's where they're going. In other words, this will always lead to a denial of who Yeshua is, who Jesus is. And then it will even go further into sometimes a complete repudiation of him as the Messiah. I've even seen congregations go as far as convert to Judaism. So these folks are well on the way to well, they're in they're in apostasy already. They are ready based on the way you described that they are already heretical and outside of the faith. And you just really pray for their repentance like you would with any other cult.

And the one leading the way is going to be the hardest to reach. Just pray for divine appointments that that God would help them to see error, help them to see where they have departed from grace. Help them to realize how far they've fallen. And perhaps God will grant some of them repentance.

But it's it's it's sad to see. And friends, this is totally different than going to a local messianic Jewish congregation led by a Jewish believer that holds to all the same fundamentals of the gospel that you would hold to, but says, hey, we're Jews. No one called us to be gentiles.

And there and thereby strengthen their witness to their own people as Jews, messianic Jews who follow Yeshua, Jesus. This what Kevin's describing here is outright heresy. What a shame. Thank you for the call, sir. Wish I could say more. All right.

Eight, six, six, three, four, truth. Let's retry Aria in Fort Myers. Hopefully the connection is better this time. Go ahead. Hi.

Sorry about the bad connection. So I do consider myself a messianic Jew. I was raised Jewish and I was bought misfit and went to Hebrew school and actually finding Jesus totally amplified my Jewish pride. And so I've been trying to tell my family about Jesus because it has been so life changing for me.

It's really the best decision I've ever made. And finding your YouTube channel has been so, so helpful because it can sometimes feel a little bit alone being a Jew that let's see this. And I think a big concern my family has is that it's, quote unquote, disrespectful to the Jewish people.

And obviously I don't see it that way, but I don't know how to communicate the correct message to them of it not being disrespectful. So I'm just wondering if you have like any advice in general. Yeah, sure. Aria, how old were you when you came to faith? It was about two years ago.

So I was twenty two and I'm twenty four now. Got it. Got it. All right. So do you have volume one of my series answering Jewish objections to Jesus?

I do not. I actually recently discovered your channel. All right. So here's here's here's what we're going to do. All right. Rachel, that that just taught you on the phone, she is going to get your your address, your name and address. And I'm going to send you a little care package of of of a couple of books that will be relevant.

All right. So, Rachel, you just put down Jewish care package. We'll take it from there. A couple of books that will be relevant and a debate video that will be relevant.

And then this week you could share with your pay. Can we watch this debate or tell me what you think of this just so that they can hear from another Jewish believer with with more background and years of dialog and interaction with our community and and let their eyes be open. Understand, hey, this is thoroughly Jewish in terms of what we believe and why. And here, if you've got common objections, you can read the books to fortify yourself.

You'll get a ton of answers there. All right. Then, if you like, share the books with with your family. But keep us posted. All right. So stay right there. As soon as Rachel has a moment, she will come on and get your name and address. And then we'll send out to you, like I said, a little care package of a book and a couple of videos that you'll find helpful.

And you could learn from them and then share them with your family and then get back to us. Let us know how things are going. OK. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.

Yeah. And Aria, you are like so many that when you came to faith in Jesus, that it strengthened your identity as a Jew, because here it is. You believe that that this one who has touched the whole world, Jesus, actually one of us. And that it's a Jew who has brought the knowledge of God to the ends of the world.

So you're not you're not judging the rabbis and others who don't believe they may be very sincere. And this to them is a blind spot. But that's the whole thing.

This is hey, if your family can get this is one of us. One of our flesh and blood who's brought the knowledge of God to the ends of the earth. And and I never felt so good. Go ahead. I know. Yeah.

I've never felt so much more pride than I than I have felt ever since I found Jesus. But sounds so ironic to people that don't understand it. But it's been so powerful. It is. You bet. You bet.

When we're here to help, if questions come up, we've got team members that are glad to help answer specific questions that come up. And look, we understand that there will be opposition and rejection and that that's always going to happen, especially when you're in a small minority. And then there have been many professing Christians through the centuries that were hostile to the Jewish people, persecuted Jewish people. And and because of that, Jesus himself gets a bad name. That's why it's like, well, let's go back to what he said and ask, you know, why is it that evangelical Christians are the best friends of Israel?

It's because of that that identification and union of heart. All right. So Rachel's going to get your name and address and we will get you that Jewish care package sent your way. And friends, let's pray for Arias family.

Yeah. OK. You see, Rachel, we'll take care of it. Jewish care package and we'll take care of it on our office side. Thanks for thanks for asking there. OK, let's get to Patrick in Vidalia, Louisiana. Welcome to the line of fire. How are you doing, Dr. Brown?

This is one of your grads from class of 2000. Come on, man. Awesome, buddy. How are you doing? I feel like I was that I fell back in a boat in the blue or the orange. Listen to you.

I'm doing great. I'm in the process getting my ordination through the Church of God. Come a minute for pastoral. I've got a question.

I want to know. Socusism is the sign for Jews, for men. What would be the equivalent for a woman? Would it be child will be children or would it be under their male authority, like a husband, father or whatever?

Yeah, it would. There would be no sign for a woman. There is no physical sign or sign by which she would enter the covenant. That was that was through men specifically. So basically, if if she was born to a Jewish mother, she would be considered Jewish herself, or if she was a gentile and converted to Judaism, she would go through ritual immersion and then would be would be recognized as as Jewish.

Again, there's no physical sign or physical equipment. Now, there are many things that are required of women in Judaism. And, you know, ritual immersion is one of them. You know, after a monthly cycle and other things that Jewish women get to get in a privileged way, saying the blessing over the the Sabbath candles and things like that. So they have a highly esteemed role within Judaism. But no, there's no there's no sign. It's not like when you have a kid, you're officially in or when you get married, you're officially in.

There is no equipment. It's an interesting question, but it does in that in that regard. The sign is on the man, the sign of circumcision on the eighth day. Hey, may the Lord be with you, Patrick.

Keep bearing good fruit. And by the way, when he mentioned the blue or the orange, we had these two large rooms. One could see like twelve hundred with the other, maybe six, seven hundred. And students would meet in those. We'd have chapel services. One had this kind of strange orange carpet near the blue.

So they were the orange and the blue during their school. All right. God bless. We'll be right back with more of your calls. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34-TRUTH.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thank you for joining us on the line of fire, 866-34-TRUTH. If you're watching on Facebook or YouTube, if I just pulled right back in the screen, it's just signing a letter. And I think I got in in time, but just saw the movement.

That's what was happening. All right. We are here to answer your calls. Take your questions. 866-34-TRUTH is the number to call. And where do we go?

Let's go to Daniel in Lexington, Kentucky. Thank you for calling the line of fire. Hey, Dr. Michael Brown. Thank you so much for having me on your show today. You're welcome.

It's a great honor to be on here. So, Dr. Brown, I bought your book, Conquering the Stronghold of Food, and I just finished it earlier. Breaking the Stronghold of Food.

I'm sorry? Breaking the Stronghold of Food. Yeah, that's right.

That's right. Breaking the Stronghold of Food. I'm sorry. I just finished it earlier this week. I just want to say it's made a huge difference in my life, and I just wanted to say thank you for writing that book.

You and Nancy did an awesome job on it. But there's one question I have about it. In your book, it seems like you talk about eating meat as if it's something that shouldn't be done if you want to follow the nutritarian lifestyle. And I understand why we cut out sweets, empty carbs, and other junk foods, but not fat-free meat such as steak, fish, or chicken. Is that a personal decision for you, or is that something that Dr. Fuhrman recommends? Yeah, so the first thing is I'll normally have a little grilled meat, normally chicken, about once a week. Now, multiple weeks can go by, a month can go by, and I haven't had anything. I don't really think about it. But especially if I'm on the road, and it's an easier thing to do, and I'm not out as much as I used to be on the road right now, I'll have, like I said, a little grilled meat, maybe six ounces, once a week. That's what I did pretty much on average from the start. And I am absolutely no expert on the nutritional reasons, the hows, the whys, Dr. Fuhrman's guidelines of what we've gone by.

Nancy's the one that really mastered everything. And the only reason, sorry, I corrected the name of the book, was unless someone goes to look for it and doesn't find it. That's the only reason I interrupted you. But anyway, from what I understand from Fuhrman's studies, that if it was the proper type of meat in the right amounts, so you're not talking about eating pork or eating a lot of red meat or something like that, and it was less than 10% of your caloric intake, that overall it shouldn't affect things in a major way. Generally speaking, if you think to biblical days, say Luke 15 with the product of the sun returning, kill the fat and calf, it's a feast day. They weren't having a lot of meat every single day. It was not part of a normal diet. And even though there's the carnivore diet now and the positive results of that, it's basically maybe positive in one way, but long-term can be very negative in other ways. So once you're eating really healthily, your body will be craving the healthy things. And especially because you can have these giant salads and other stuff, it becomes very gratifying as you see changes come, as you see the benefits. I was doing an interview yesterday with a biblical nutrition show, and I was telling the host, I thoroughly enjoy my meals, healthy meals, I thoroughly enjoy eating them. But I said the exchange, so all the bad stuff that I used to love eating and got into eating, you go out and have this and go to this location, get this, and all the built-in rewards I had in my life with food, because the intensity of ministry and travel, that was the indulgence, food, what I want to eat, have this, and so on. But I said, when your whole life is so much more vibrant, and I mean here, it's been six and a half years of totally healthy eating, and God willing, I turned 66 in March, and 10 to 1, I feel more vibrant, more alive, more energetic, healthier, mentally sharper, on every level now than six and a half years ago. In other words, for me, the aging process has been reversed over these years. And I used to have, oh, good two, three headaches every week, sometimes more than that, you know, to the point that I'd take Advil or something and deal with them. And I've virtually been headache-free for six and a half years.

So I was talking to the host of the show, and I said to her, you know, think if that's, let's say, three headaches a week, 52 weeks in a year, let's say 150 headaches a year, and that was over six years, so it's over 900 headaches I would have had that I didn't have. And that's one area out of 10, 20, 30 different benefits. So the key thing is whatever is a stronghold in your life that you have to have, you have to break that entirely. And when that's broken, then it's like, yeah, maybe I'll have this or not. And honestly, when I'll go out, like, you know, the family may be a special occasion, grandkids' birthday or something like that, and they'll want to go to a nice steak restaurant. So I'll, you know, I'll get a tiny salad, because that's what they serve, right, you know, and then I'll get my steak, and they put it on the plate, and I'll maybe have grilled vegetables or steamed vegetables or something, and I look at that, it's like, that's it. That's the meal, because I'm not having the bread.

And then that and the other stuff, it's like, I'd rather have my giant salad, you know. So the key thing is you... Yeah, we went to a really nice steakhouse here in Lexington recently with my wife, and they brought out the bread, and it was literally the first day that I made these changes since finishing your book. And I just looked at the bread, I could smell it, it was calling my name, but I said, nope.

I remember Dr. Brown talking about all these wonderful changes that his change in relationship to food made for him, and I want that, because like you say in your book, I know what it's like to be where I was, and it didn't work for me. So I'm just looking at this bread like, not going to do it, it's not worth it. Yeah, and you have kids? Not yet. Not yet, okay.

Do you plan to? Yeah. Yeah, well you want to be here healthy, you want to be able to play ball with your grandkids, you know, and... Yes, exactly. Right, so you make these good decisions, and it just, the little bit that we give up is so infinitesimal, and then you get used to it, so I never feel deprived. I'll go out, eat what you want, I'm not there to judge them, but I don't feel deprived because I'm thriving.

And think of this last thing, and I'll get to other calls to be fair, but think of this last thing, Daniel. The overall amount of time that you eat in the day, unless you snack continuously, let's say you have three main meals and a little snack here and there, and most people do, how much time is that literally over the course of the day? Hour, hour and a half?

I mean, how much actual eating time is there? Now, if you think the rest of your life, the other 23 or 22 and a half hours, is what you're living out, sleeping and living out, if that could be full of energy, full of vitality, no headaches, backaches, immune system strong, energy level up, mind sharper, and then you're paying dividends for the next year and the next year and the next year and the next year, wow. I mean, isn't it worth it?

Isn't it worth it? So may God give you grace to stay with us, and the best parts of breaking the stronghold of food are Nancy's parts, as you know from reading it, get strengthened. And one little psychological trick Nancy gave me to use at the beginning was when I was feeling deprived, I'm never going to have this, I'm never going to, she said, just say to yourself, just say to yourself, I can eat whatever I want tomorrow.

And of course, tomorrow would never come and at a certain point it's like, hey, I'm eating what I want to eat because it's healthy and good. All right, thank you again for the call and the good report. 866-34-TRUTH. Let's go to Matt in Upper Sandusky, Ohio. Welcome to the Line of Fire. Hello.

Hello. My question is, why did the Christian Church change the Sabbath to Sunday? And is the seventh day still the true day of Yeshua? Number one, the New Testament does not change the Sabbath to Sunday. It's not found anywhere in the New Testament. This is later church tradition.

That's the first thing. The second thing is when God gave the seventh day Sabbath as a law, it was only given to Israel. In other words, he never gave that to the nations as a whole.

This was given to Israel under the Sinai Covenant, and it is not taught as mandatory for Gentile Christians in the New Testament. What you do find is because of varied schedule, life, you did not have the normal six day work week with the seventh day in the ancient Greco-Roman world. You had variations of things. So it was understood that you're going to have people living together with different practices. And early on in church history, the believers began to gather early morning Sunday or after work on Sunday to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus.

And that's how that became set apart. And ultimately in the fourth century, the church then made an official statement that this is a Sabbath. So God never changed the Sabbath. He gave it as a seventh day to Israel, but he never required Gentile Christians to follow the seventh day Sabbath. And therefore, as the church developed Sunday as a day set apart to the Lord, that was perfectly fine. There was nothing against that. Romans 14 lays that principle out.

Also, go to my website if you want more on that AskDr.Brown.org and just type in the word Sabbath. Hey, thank you for the call. We've been asked this many times.

That's the reason I'm not spending more time answering now. Let's see. Let's go to Ray in Toledo, Ohio.

Got to turn the radio down. All right. Great. Good to talk to you.

I want to say, Dr. Brown, I appreciate you so much for answering my question. But let me just get right into it. Let me just get right into it. I am a young believer in Christ who has been put in a position of leadership in my church. And I've been really studying on how to become a man, a more godly man in the body of Christ. And I've read Tony Evans' book. I've read a book called No More Christian, Nice Guy.

I've read David Robinson's book. But the concept of agape love is the one that's always been a real struggle for me. Because I feel like I've never expressed agape love towards other people. And what makes me question myself, have I really experienced agape love on a deeper level with my relationship with God?

So my question would be, how do I express that love and how do I receive that love? Well, Ray, first, I appreciate you recognizing that you're young in the Lord and yet been entrusted with certain leadership. And that's a serious responsibility and obviously one that gets you on your face before the Lord. And the more you're entrusted with, the more you realize, OK, I'm in over my head. This is too big for me. I need God's help. So you stay low. And that's how I've lived my whole life in the Lord, recognizing, OK, this is too big for me.

This is beyond me, but it's not beyond him. So I'm really going to lean on him and look to him. And then, of course, the other leaders that you're around in your church, the older leaders, you want to get wisdom from them. Learn everything you can from them. Sit under their feet as much as you can. Watch their example.

But I wouldn't tell you what. Stay there. Stay there.

And I want to recommend the book to you and then give you some practical suggestions to answer your questions. Stay right here. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Welcome, welcome to the line of fire. Michael Brown, delighted to be with you.

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And we pour back into you in many, many ways. So find out about that on the Web site. Ask Dr. Brown dot org. All right.

So back to to Ray in Toledo. Just jot this book down. The author is David Harwood. H A R W O O D. And it's the book is God's True Love.

David Harwood. God's true love. Read that when you're able. It'll it'll really revolutionize your your understanding of God's love for you and deepen your appreciation for it. So the more you receive it and understand it, the more you can give it.

But what I did so that I highly recommend that it'll be educational and inspirational. But what I did is a new believer because I was a very nasty, mean spirited, sharp tongued sinner. And when I got saved, God began to change me. But I still had a temper that could really flare up an ugly temper.

And, you know, I've been in the world now. I'm radically saved at 16 years old. So what I did is I took key passages of scripture, for example, First Corinthians 13. That lays out the qualities of love.

It's patient, kind and not rude and not easily angered. I take out those passages and I memorize them myself. But I memorize a lot of verses.

Not everyone could do that as well. But every night in the closing prayers that I would pray. So before I go to sleep, the final thing, spending time with God in prayer. I would pray those over myself that God would give me those qualities.

Or, for example, in Colossians, the third chapter, after he talks about putting to death the deeds of the body, he begins to talk about putting on godly virtues or Second Peter one. Add to your faith, virtue and knowledge and grow in these different ways. So I would pray those over myself every single day that God would put those in me, that God would manifest those to me. And I'm always reminded of how gracious and patient God is towards me. And that helps me be gracious and patient towards others because he's very long suffering with me and very kind and very gracious and doesn't deal with me as my sins deserve. Otherwise, I would have been fried a long time ago and fried many times since. So the more you are conscious of God's love for you, the more you receive it, the more you can give it, the better you feel about your relationship with God, which makes you more secure and able to bless others.

And then just pray those things in. You know, I did a documentary. I hosted a documentary for American Family Association.

American Family Studios called In His Image, dealing with gay transgender issues in the church and the Bible. And I hosted the broadcast, the documentary called In His Image. And I helped the production team put things together, you know, think it through together. They did all the hard work. Then I came in, helped them think things through together.

But I was the unanimous choice of the people involved to host it. The reason being compassion. Now, that's not who I've always been.

Right. I've not been known for compassion. And yet over the years, as God's worked in me, that's something. There's a grace that's in me towards others that wasn't there years and years ago. So you spend time with them, meditate on the key verses, the ones that really jump at you and write them out, speak them, pray them over yourself. Just say, Lord, may I walk in that love? And you just pray out exactly what it is. Because you do that on a regular basis and the Holy Spirit will then convict you of a wrong attitude or word or something.

And you go back to Him. You really find yourself growing and changing. And a lot of people don't even think about this.

They just try to succeed in other aspects of ministry. But you're focusing on things that really matter. And God will bless you for that.

So the book God's True Love by David Harwood and those verses. All right. God be with you, man. Thank you.

You are very welcome. 866-34-TRUTH. Let us go to Saul in Kannapolis, North Carolina. Welcome to the Line of Fire.

Hey, Dr. Brown. Thank you so much for taking my call. I really appreciate your life and what you're doing to the ministry at the Botany of Christ. I have a quick question for you. In the Hispanic culture, there is a big culture that they believe that any woman that wears pants, they are sinners and they're going to hell. So my dad is a pastor. We tend to wear real clothes at times. But there was one time that my sister was preaching.

She actually had a dress and she had pants underneath. They believe that, prophetically speaking, they said that the only reason why my dad wasn't getting healed because he's prediabetic or he actually is diabetic and also has other things going on. But they said that because of this, he's not getting healed because my sister is wearing pants. So I want to know your input with the belief that you guys have with your studies of Hebrew and Greek. What does this say in scripture?

How grounded it is. It is absolutely not grounded in scripture. And it is completely unscriptural and even dangerous to say that if a woman wears pants, that she's going to hell, that she can't be saved. That's a sign that she's not saved, that disqualifies her from salvation. It's 100% unscriptural and nothing to do with how God saves us, which is through faith in Jesus and turning to God and asking him to forgive us of our sins. That's number one. Number two, the idea that God would be judging him with sickness because of a family member wearing pants is equally absurd. The people involved may be very sincere, but they're sincerely wrong. These are human traditions and human beliefs that are masquerading as words from God. That's the second thing.

The third thing is the only scripture that would touch on this is in Deuteronomy 22. That speaks of a man wearing women's clothing or garments or a woman wearing man's clothing. And it's obviously not a matter of just culture that you go to certain parts of the world and women wear pants and men wear gowns.

In other words, it's just a cultural thing. That would have to do with a man dressing up as a woman or a woman dressing up as a man. It's called cross-dressing.

That would be what's being addressed. So obviously in the early church culture, women wore dresses and skirts and men wore pants. And then I remember going to school, my earliest days, and girls wore skirts to school.

And then at a certain point, it's like, oh, they're starting to wear jeans. It was like a new thing. So in their view, that was the bad thing.

That was the world. But it was just a style. It's no different than a man combing his hair this way or that way. There's nothing intrinsically right and feminine about a woman wearing a dress and masculine about a man wearing pants.

You know what I'm saying? If you're in Scotland and men were wearing kilts, that would not be right. Look, one of my friends, a pastor from Louisiana, told me many years ago he went to India as a young man on his first missions trip and got into a village to preach and was absolutely outraged and preached from Deuteronomy 22 that it's an abomination for a man to wear women's clothing because the men wore these gowns, these dresses, and the women wore these pantsuits.

And he was so angry and preached. What he didn't realize is in their eyes, he was the one that was dressed like a woman. I mean, we can laugh about that, but look, the people may be very sincere. You know, it's not like they're demons. They may be very sincere. And in their background, when pants came in, it was wrong. It was the world.

And then they developed this tradition. But you want to get completely set free from that mentality. It's the minority of the minority of the minority of religious extreme. It has nothing to do with the way God deals with us.

You want to get completely free from that and liberating. What kind of diabetes is he suffering from? Diabetes II. It actually has affected his eyes. He has had heart attacks, seizures, which we prayed, and God has healed him in those two areas. Right now, he's having dialysis as well. So we have faith that God is going to come through with his healing.

One of the things that I really enjoyed listening to you is your transformation through your dieting as well. Is that one of the things we're actually trying to go down to in that path as well? Yeah.

Check the best book that I know on this. Again, I'm not a medical doctor, so I refer you to one who is. Do you have The End of Diabetes by Dr. Joel Fuhrman? I do not. This is the first time I hear it.

Yeah. This is, I believe, the very best book. It is totally dietary-based. The End of Diabetes.

Joel Fuhrman. F-U-H-R-M-A-N. Obviously, Type 1 diabetes, I understand, is different. But I talked to a woman, a Pentecostal charismatic woman. She said in the one-week food retreats where they would minister to or serve people with diabetes and then get them weaned off certain things and on a healthy diet. She said, I saw more people healed in one week of that than in my lifetime just praying.

So since you've mentioned nutrition, The End of Diabetes, Dr. Joel Fuhrman, F-U-H-R-M-A-N. Hey, folks. Got to run. I'm going to be down in the Tampa, Florida area this weekend. God willing. I'll find out tonight. Ministering in a Messianic congregation Saturday morning at a church in Lithia, Florida. A little bit out of Tampa on Sunday morning. So check my itinerary at AskDrBrown.org. Maybe I'll get to see you there this weekend.