Dr. Brown Tackles Your Best Questions

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Full 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. Thanks for joining us, friends, on The Line of Fire.

Michael Brown, delighted to be with you. Here's the phone number to call with any question of any kind that you have for me, as long as it relates in some way to The Line of Fire and the things I've talked about, spoken about, written about. 866-34-TRUTH, 866-34-87, 884. And for the hundredth or thousandth or ten-thousandth time, God knows the exact count, to all those who take delight in bashing me online, attacking me online, telling me how wrong I am, call. Because I'd love for you to have that opportunity to tell me directly, and perhaps I can set the record straight, or perhaps I may have more information than you realize, or perhaps there's something you can teach me. Oh, what do you know? 866-34-87, 884.

Four. Okay, tell you what, a follow-up call. All right, I'll do it.

I normally don't do this, but I will do it. Phone lines are open, and often we start on a Friday and I look at my board and every line is filled. We've got most lines open right now, so this is a perfect time for you to call. 866-34-87, 884. Okay, I want to go back to Terry.

I virtually never do this in terms of taking a call from the same person within a few weeks time. It's against our code of radio. But I understand, sir, that you were not clear in my answer, so we will break our normal rule. And go ahead, if you could clarify what your question was and what you didn't understand in my answer.

I'm happy to give it another shot. Okay, yes, my question is not about the Muslims. I think I understood that very—I know what I'm talking about, about that. But my main question to you is about divinity of Jesus. One of the things that kind of bothered me that I didn't really understand, I know we talked to before, is the question was, Jesus is supposed to be God. In the Old Testament, I guess, it says, when the Messiah comes, he will fear the Lord. Or I didn't understand about, if Jesus was God, what would he say?

For example, what was it? If you blaspheme the Holy Spirit, you can't be forgiven. But anything against the Son of Man can be forgiven. And I thought Jesus was God and couldn't understand the thing. So can you explain that to me to keep my question short? Yeah, thanks.

Thanks, Terry. So, number one, if Jesus was God, why did he need to eat or drink or sleep? I mean, you know the answer to this, but what is the answer? If he needed to eat and sleep. Yeah, why did he need to eat or drink or sleep? To me, I'm not saying I don't see God in the text.

I see him in collagions. It's very obvious. No, no, no, no.

Just hang on. I'm not asking a larger question. Why would you, when the Son of God was on the earth, why did he need to eat and drink and sleep? He was human.

Exactly. Why did he pray to his Father? Because he was human. Why did he walk in the fear of the Lord? Because he was human. He was fully God, he was fully man, but he laid aside his divine prerogatives while here on earth so that he could die for our sins and fully take on our nature, but without sin. So, it's the only way it could be if he was going to come in human form. Just like in Genesis 18, when he was there on the earth with two angels talking to Abraham and Sarah and Abraham literally has this, you know, they wash his feet and he eats. He was obviously there in flesh and blood. But it says when he was done talking to Abraham, he left.

Why? Because he was there in flesh and blood. So, while on the earth, he takes on the limitations of the earth. That's why it says in Luke 3 that he grew in wisdom and stature.

Why? Because he was a human being. He had to learn to talk.

He had to learn to walk. So, as a human being, he prayed to his Father and honored his Father. At the same time, his deity is explicit in the New Testament. When he says, before Abraham was, I am, only God could say that. Not I was existing before Abraham, but I am. When he's identified as the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end in Revelation, only God is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. When it says in Hebrews 1 that it says on your throne, O God, is forever and ever.

And in the beginning, you laid the foundation of the earth. That's only spoken of God. So, the Revelation is explicit in terms of his deity.

At the same time, he's fully human. Look, Jesus didn't say if you blaspheme the Father, you can't be forgiven. Right? You think that? No, he says you blaspheme the Spirit.

Why? Because the Spirit was the one working the miracles there. And in Mark 3, it says that the religious leaders said he has a devil, he has a demon. In other words, that the miracles that the Holy Spirit's working in front of their eyes, they saw it, they knew it, they understood it, and yet they attributed it to the work of Satan. That was crossing a line beyond what could be crossed. And it's the Holy Spirit who works in our hearts on a daily basis, that if you hear his voice, don't harden your heart, that's the Spirit. If we blaspheme the Spirit, we are utterly rejecting God. So, it all makes perfect sense, once we understand the full revelation of God and the Incarnation, it makes perfect sense.

In fact, it couldn't have been other than that. Thank you so much. You are very welcome. I'm glad that helped. Thank you, thank you. God bless.

866-34-TRUTH. Let us go over to Chris in Los Angeles. Welcome to The Line of Fire.

Hello, Dr. Braun. Can you hear me? Yeah, sure. Great.

Awesome. I really love your show, really have been blessed by it. I did have a question that I, sometimes I think I see things, and so I want to ask, you know, someone who knows so much about it, and you know so much about the Hebrew religion, Judaism, and so I was looking, I was looking through the five great sacrifices in Judaism, and one of them is called the Minka, is that correct? Minka, yeah, the C-H is, yeah, Minka, uh-huh, yep. Minka, and it's a presentation of frankincense, oil, and grain, and I was wondering in Matthew, the Magi present Jesus with frankincense, myrrh, and gold, and myrrh, you can extract an oil from myrrh, and I was just wondering, are we seeing a presentation of the Minka with what the Magi are doing there? It's an interesting thought, but I wouldn't go that way. I mean, it is interesting, but it certainly wouldn't have been part of their culture, you know what I'm saying, the Minka offering wouldn't have been part of their culture being meant from a different religion, that's one. And two, if it was meant to convey that, that it was some type of spiritual offering, then it would have been the exact stuff. It would have been the exact equivalent, you wouldn't have had to substitute gold for grain. So no, this was them giving costly gifts, costly and valuable gifts, as opposed to something that was a parallel of a Jewish offering.

So it's an interesting thought, I just don't think it works. Okay, thank you very much. You are very welcome, I appreciate you asking. 866-348-7884. Let's go to San Antonio, Texas. Mike, welcome to the line of fire. Hey Dr. Brown, can you hear me?

Yeah, pretty well. Let's keep going and see how it sounds. Okay, sorry about that, I think I was on Bluetooth.

That's better. Okay, thanks for taking my call, I enjoyed the show called a couple times before, but my question is about spiritual gifts, and particularly how spiritual gifts manifest, it's a two-part question. The first question is around this, I got a video the other day about the Kundalini spirit, and I was looking up one of your videos before, as you talked about it maybe four years ago, and I just kind of wanted to understand that a little bit more, because part of it feels like when people don't have a true understanding of spiritual gifts, then if someone manifests itself one way, then they just label it as something that they've heard of before, and so I'm wondering if that's the case with this, you know, whether it's twitching or laughing or anything like that, is this actually something we should be paying attention to in terms of Kundalini spirit, and if you could answer that first, and then I'll ask my second part of the question. Yeah, I mean, I started dealing with the Kundalini spirit nonsense accusations like 20, 25 years ago, I heard it, so the basic theory is just what you're saying, someone in a service, the Holy Spirit is moving, right, or the Holy Spirit is allegedly moving, and you see people falling to the ground or shaking or twitching a certain way, now you go over, here's a video from a Hindu gathering, and the people are shaking the same way or twitching the same way, and that's because of Kundalini yoga or Kundalini spirit, and now the conclusion is, well, these Christians actually have a Kundalini spirit. Of course, it's a completely ridiculous assumption, number one, because the people that were being touched in the church service, when you hear their testimonies, they were drawn closer to Jesus, they repented of sin, they embraced the authority of scripture, their marriages were healed, they became devoted evangelists or missionaries, in other words, that's what the Holy Spirit does. Satan can't cast out Satan. So, when someone has a profound experience in the spirit and ends up loving Jesus, the Jesus of the Bible, loving the word of God, living a holy life, giving their life to reach the lost, that's from above, not from below. The flesh can't do that, Satan won't do that, whereas the people in the Hindu meaning are not getting any of those results, they're not seeing any of that, they're not being drawn to Jesus, and Jesus said if you ask your father for bread, he won't give you a stone. He said if you being eaten by you, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him? And what's fascinating, Mike, and we'll continue with your second question on the other side of the break, what's fascinating is that when you look through the history of revival and outpouring, go back to revivals that Calvinists and Satanists will talk about, like the Great Awakening with Jonathan Edwards, there were very unusual things that happened. His wife could be in a trance for hours, sometimes longer, and when Whitefield preached, people would fall to the ground and sometimes convulse and shake, and all these kinds of things happened to the point that the critics attacked it and said this is not real, this is not God, and Jonathan Edwards had to write whole books refuting that. So we don't put the emphasis on that, but just like when it gets cold in a room, people might shiver, right?

Sometimes when the Holy Spirit moves a certain way, people will shake or fall or quake, it's just a human response to the presence of God. We'll be right back. This is Michael Ellison, founder of Tributa Wellness. I want you to hear an amazing testimony from my friend James Robison, and most all of you will know of him. He and his wife Betty host the Life Today television program. Now here is James. Let me tell you about a miracle I experienced. My friend Michael Ellison, he and his wife are our 40-year plus best friends.

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Call 800-771-5584 or go online to TriVita.com. 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.

Welcome back, friends, to the line of fire. So those folks wanted to find out what happened to my friend James Robison. He was on the phone with me one day.

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800-771-5584. So, Mike, back to you. Right, so it's really interesting that Jesus uses spittle and a couple of occasions to heal. But magicians of that day use spittle. And in mythology, there were different deities that were said to have the spittle of life.

For example, Marduk, the principal deity worshiped in ancient Babylon, it was said of him that he had the spittle of life. Why did Jesus do that? That's what the magicians did. Well, he's God.

He can do what he wants to do. The others are the counterfeits, right? So, you're always going to have counterfeit. You have counterfeit parallels to a dying and rising God. You have counterfeit parallels to so many things that happen in the biblical world. Why should it surprise us that you have counterfeit parallels in the spiritual realm? But unfortunately, many of our cessationist friends, non-charismatic friends, I know there's a big cessationist conference coming up in a couple of days, which to me is a very sad thing, because God's moving powerfully around the world and signs wonders and miracles and people are being healed and filled with the Spirit and speaking in tongues and prophesying and the church is growing and hundreds of millions of people have come to faith in recent decades. And our dear cessationist friends in the midst of global thunderstorms say it's not raining.

You know, that's sad to me. But the fact that here, here somebody has some ecstatic experience, begins to shake, it's demonic, right? They begin to shake and speak, you know, new words.

Now someone else touched by the Holy Spirit, overwhelmed, shaking in the presence of God like Moses shook at Mount Sinai, and they begin to speak in tongues. So, this is lots of the devil. Why? Because there's a pagan counterfeit?

Of course not. So, you test it, number one, what does the word say? And then number two, let's see the fruit in that person's life.

That's how you test things. So, essentially what you're saying is, if I could just paraphrase, unusual and uncomfortable does not automatically mean demonic? Perfect. Very well said. Better than I said it.

More concisely. Okay. Yes, sir. Yep.

Okay. And it doesn't necessarily mean Holy Spirit either, right? Right.

It certainly doesn't necessarily mean demonic. Exactly. Right. Right. Because too often, what'll be cited is Matthew 17, with Jesus and the epileptic young man, and then because he was having, I guess, an epileptic episode, that anytime we see something like that, that we should, and Jesus cast out the demons, then the assumption is, when you see this happening, then this is an evidence of demonic attestations, as what you're expressing is, that doesn't necessarily mean that, and we have to test it further.

Yeah. Now, let me say this. If someone is having a physically harmful experience, right, that they are running and smashing into a wall or banging their head, that's not the Holy Spirit, but it could be they're being set free from a demon, right? It could be, you know, just like the boy, you know, has a seizure, people thought he was dead, the seizure was so terrible, that was the demon leaving, right? So, the Holy Spirit was setting that boy free. So, I've never seen someone touched by the Holy Spirit that has symptoms that would be like a, I've seen people have grand mal seizures, it's something very, very different, right? But certainly, the fact that someone's shaking or falling or overcome or looks different, could be the Spirit, could be a demon, could just be they're weird.

There are any number of possibilities, right? Yeah, go ahead. So, your second question. My second question is, given, let's say someone comes out of a faith tradition where there is no, where their cessation is, and come into the belief of, and what scripture teaches, which is, there are spiritual gifts, we are to be asking for these things, should that person, or any person for that matter, take trainings? And because, you know, there's all these different trainings out in society now, online, in different places, where there's these trainings on the gifts of the Spirit, and how to be trained? Is that something we should be trying to do?

And if so, how is, how do we kind of discern that? How do we kind of sift through the ones that are actually genuinely trying to teach us how to use, I guess, or utilize these gifts from the ones that are just harming us and leading us into false beliefs and practices? So Mike, the biggest thing is going to be, first, the ministry, who are they, what's their track record, what do they teach on other things? If I don't know, here's Pastor Joe, I've never heard of him, he's got this new series out, and a close friend of mine says, I'm not really sure about this. Well first, I want to find out who he is, right? Or his main teaching sound, or his main emphasis sound, is the fruit that he's bearing, good biblical fruit.

Okay, that's really good, that's good to hear. Now he's got a teaching on, say, you know, learning to grow in the ministry of healing. Okay, well maybe he's going to teach about the role of compassion, or how to build your faith, or, you know, things like that, or maybe it's a teaching on how to hear the voice of God. Just like anything else, you know, we can have classes on how to pray more effectively. You may have a gift to preach, but when you go to seminary, you may go through a homiletics class. So I have no problem, in theory, with the idea that you learn about the operation of the gifts, or you may have misconceptions, so let's understand what the Word says, and let's try to understand how the Holy Spirit works in us and through us, how we cooperate with the Holy Spirit, pitfalls, things like that. If it's something like, take this course and we guarantee that you will prophesy, or we guarantee that you will heal, or for this amount of money, you know, then it becomes suspect. But if it's a matter of, hey, here's a course, you pay for it like any other course, we're going to teach you what the Word says, we're going to talk about how the Holy Spirit works and manifests Himself in different ways today, we'll talk about things that we've learned by experience, and then pray for the Holy Spirit to work according to His will and plan, whatever gifts, whatever He has, to be energized through you or to come through you, we're going to ask God to do that. Yeah, well, good, fine.

Nothing wrong with that. But again, if I saw some ministry in general, everything was flaky, everything was sensationalistic, there was no foundational biblical teaching and everything was some weird way out revelation, I wouldn't be interested in anything they had to say, you know what I'm saying? Whatever the class was, I wouldn't be interested in it. So, you look at the bigger picture first, and then from there, you look at the more specific things, and then you, like anything else, look at the teaching. Is this helpful?

Does this seem to be something that works well? And for someone, you know, coming from a non-charismatic Pentecostal cessationist background, it may be worthwhile to get the class like that. I've never in all my life been in a class like that. I've taught certain classes, but never been in a class where someone taught me how to move in the Spirit or taught me how to prophesy or taught me how to minister to the sick or something.

But, you know, I learn from others, I watch, I understand, learn from mistakes, learn from mistakes I've made, and above all, seek to really be intimate with God, spend a lot of time in His presence and really devour His Word and then live it out. Hey, I appreciate the calls, sir. We come back, oh, let's see, Rick Travis and Margaret. I want to go straight to you, Margaret. I'm intrigued by what we're going to talk about. 866-348-7884 is the number to call. We'll get to as many calls as we can in the second half of the broadcast. If you're not getting my emails, you know what we're pouring out content every single week to build you up, to strengthen you, to encourage you, to help you, and it's all free.

So go to AskDr.Brown.org, AskDr.Brown.org. Right on the home page, you'll be able to sign up for our emails. We want to pour into you every single week. We'll be right back.

Hey, friends, Dr. Michael Brown here. Do you remember when people thought I was crazy when I said it's not too late for America, that God can still do something in our country, that there is going to be a pushback, a gospel-based moral and cultural revolution? And do you remember when people thought that you were crazy because you felt the same way, because you believed what I was saying and already felt it in your heart? Well, friends, that pushback is here. The gospel-based moral and cultural revolution we've been talking about for 25 years is unfolding, and we are right in the thick of it, and the line-of-fire broadcast is divinely positioned for such a time as this. Friends, you would be so gratified and blessed as I hear, if you can hear what I hear, testimony after testimony as leaders, young people, old people, moms, dads, students, people from all backgrounds come up to me and say, Dr. Brown, you're providing a template for us. You're providing a blueprint for us. You're showing us how to do this, how to have hearts of compassion, backbones of steel.

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You can click on donate and monthly support to find out more. Alright, with that, I want to go to Margaret in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Thanks for calling the Line of Fire. Hello, Dr. Brown. How are you, sir? I'm doing very well, thank you.

Good, good. I'm in the process of converting to Judaism and I just finished with my conversion classes and I'm writing my synopsis now and it's going to be given to, you know, the Zaken and then the Zaken and Rabbi, I guess, then they'll decide and they'll assign me to somebody to work with me for in the future. Now, I'm converting to Lapid Judaism. I don't know if you've ever heard of it and the Rabbi there is Rabbi Ellis, I think his name is, Aaron Ben Ellis, something like that.

You know, I know Ben means son off, but anyway. Now, I had, you know, I grew up in the Baptist Church and when I left Georgia, I moved to New York and I got a chance to experience Pentecostal, Kojic and Catholic and all the rest of it and something was always missing and I went through some terrible times. The end of last year, I lost my brother-in-law, my sister-in-law and, you know, and, you know, it's just always was something missing and then I went, I was and at around that time, Rabbi Snyder from Messianic, from the Jewish Jesus, he came into my feed and I enjoyed it but it still was something missing and right after that time, Lapid Judaism came into my feed and I think I found a home because as the Zaken said, he said, you know, he was familiar with the Messianic. He says, but have they ever invited you to be a Jew? And I said, well, he said, we could be grafted in and he said, you can be converted and become a Jew and so, you know, because he said that Abraham was the first convert and, you know, there are so many other converts like Ruth, Obadiah, Leah and Rachel and so now my rabbi says that Israelite, Hebrew and Jew are synonymous.

Do you agree with that? In contemporary usage, yes. In other words, the originally, a Jew was of the tribe of Judah or the kingdom of Judah but as all the remnants of the tribes coalesced into the kingdom of Judah and other tribes scattered and lost in terms of their identity, that Israelite, Hebrew and Jew can all be used. For example, I would be an Israelite, I would be a Hebrew, I would be a Jew, but may I ask, was that the only question you wanted to ask me or was there another reason for your calling before I ask you a question? Okay, I wanted to ask you about the new law because now it starts tomorrow night. I know other people, those Hebrew Israelite groups, people, you know. Let me just back up, if you don't mind.

Yes, the celebration of Sukkot actually starts tonight, so here's my question for you. Who do you think Jesus was? He was the Son of the Living God. He was our Messiah.

He was our back arm. Okay, so if he made Jew and Gentile one in him, in other words, when you read the New Testament, you see that in the past, for someone to be part of the people of God, they had to become part of Israel, like Ruth had to become part of Israel and herself become an Israelite, but when the Messiah came, now Jew and Gentile in him became equal, just like male-female became equal in him. There is no caste system or class system. So, why would you then want to convert to Judaism? How do you say Judaism? How would that add something to you if you find completeness, forgiveness of sins, new life, through Jesus the Messiah, and when traditional Judaism doesn't believe what you just said? Traditional Jews don't believe he was the Son of God or the Messiah. So, maybe I'm missing something, but can you understand my question?

I understand. Now, first of all, Lapid, we do not accept Paul's letters as Scripture. We only accept Genesis to John, because Paul's letters are really specific letters to certain groups of people.

We don't know what the question was, or the context of whatever it was, and some of his writings go against Torah. So, we follow the orthodox method, but we are Yeshua-centered, and so we don't believe Jew and Gentile are the same. You know, you must come into the covenant, the law of Moses.

This is what we are taught. And how is Lapid Judaism spelled? L-A-P-I-D. Okay, L-I-P-I-D. Ah, okay, got it.

Yes. Lapid Judaism. Judaism, yes, and they're on the internet.

We have, in fact, they are stationed out of Saginaw, Texas, and we have Aliyah every Monday through Friday at 1030 Eastern Standard Time, and there we do Shabbat on Saturday. Just a question for you, Margaret. I wasn't familiar with them before. I'm glad that you embrace Yeshua as Messiah, but why do you think the apostles, Peter, John, James, these different ones, why do you think they embraced Paul and worked side by side with him if he was so wrong and off? I don't think they did, because there are clear distinctions in the New Testament. In fact, after Yeshua left and went back to heaven, Paul was not the leader, it was Peter. But how do you know that, though?

How do you know that? If you don't accept, you only accept through John, right? So the Hebrew scriptures and then Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, how do you know that Peter was the early leader? Peter became the leader after Yeshua went back to heaven. So we know that from the book of Acts, right? Yes. Right, but the book of Acts talks about Paul and how Peter and Paul worked side by side, affirmed one another.

So we get that from the book of Acts. Well, there were definitely some distinctions and some problems here, sir. I don't want to get into an argument or debate with you, would you, because you're a learner, you're interested in Jewish things and Jewish study, and roots and all of that, and you believe Yeshua is the Messiah, the Son of God. Could I send you a free book to read called The Real Kosher Jesus? I think you'd find it really interesting, regardless of what decisions, we won't put your name on a mailing list or give your name out to anybody, it's just private. So if you would allow me to send that to you, and then once you get a chance to read it, you know, a few weeks from now or a month or two, you could give me a call back or say I agree with this or disagree.

Is that fair enough? Because again, I don't want to get in an argument or challenge you or anything like that, but because you're reading and studying and thinking, I think you'd really find this to be an interesting read. You'll agree with a lot of it. All right, so tell you what, stay right there, okay? And our call screener Margaret is going to get your address.

Again, we're not going to put you on a mailing list or anything like that, get your address, and I want to send you a copy of The Real Kosher Jesus. So truth, go ahead, go for it, get Margaret's address, and we'll send that book out. And we'll leave things right there for the moment, okay? We'll leave things there for the moment.

Okay, let's go over to Franklin Square on Long Island. Rick, welcome to the Line of Fire. Hi Dr. Brown, I had a couple of questions regarding the Greek and the Gospels. The first one was Mark 10 21. Half of the translations there say, take up your cross, and half of them don't leave that sentence completely out. The King James, New King James, those translations have take up your cross, but the NIV and other translations leave the sentence completely out.

Could you explain what's going on there with the Greek? Yeah, so if you go to BibleGateway.com, right? BibleGateway.com, and then type in Mark 10 21, so here it's going to come up in the NIV. If you go to BibleHub.com, it's the same kind of thing. But you say Mark, right, so now I click on Mark 10 21 in all English translations, right?

So anyone can do this, this is why I'm saying it like this. So, for example, so I go to King James, and it's going to add in, as you said, take up the cross and follow me, right? I go to New King James, right?

This is the next place I want to go. New King James, and I see the same thing, take up the cross and follow me, but then I see the NIV and the ESV, et cetera, don't have it. So, it's because the King James translators and the translators of most modern English translations follow two different Greek textual traditions. And some of them have certain words that others don't. There's no contradiction in terms of overall message or truth, but whenever you find this that the King James and those that are in that genre, so King James, New King James, or MEV, Modern English Version, you'll find consistently they have certain words, and then you find NIV, ESV, NASB, et cetera, don't have it. Well, this is an entire sentence, Dr. Brown, it's an entire sentence that's missing.

Right, right, right. So, the best understanding is that this is something that was added in, an additional saying that was added in later, in other Greek texts. The earliest manuscripts we have don't have those words. The majority manuscripts have them because those are later. We'll be right back, but that's the answer. They're following different textual traditions.

You can argue for one or the other, that's the answer. We'll be right back on the other side of the break. This is Michael Ellison, founder of Tributa Wellness. I want you to hear an amazing testimony from my friend, James Robison, and most all of you will know of him. He and his wife, Betty, host the Life Today television program. Now, here is James. Let me tell you about a miracle I experienced. My friend, Michael Ellison, he and his wife are our 40 year plus best friends.

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Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks for joining us on the line of fire. All right, so back to you, Rick. Yes, this is again a difference between two different major textual streams that we have that have been preserved. You've got to be one of the biggest differences I've ever seen in Scripture as far as an entire sentence missing from half the translations. Well, why not say add it to, why not say half a sentence add it to some translations?

Right, yeah, I mean it's an eye-opener. But generally speaking, scribes add rather than take away. In other words, when you look at something being copied, let's say for example you had in 10 straight verses, it mentions the blood of Jesus, the blood of Jesus, the blood of Jesus.

Then the 11th verse said the blood. It's easy for a scribe to think, oh, the words of Jesus were missing and they added in. It's less likely that they would omit words.

This is just general scribal traditions as you look at manuscripts. So, you'd say what's more likely that a saying of Jesus that is very common elsewhere got added in? Yeah, that would be likely, but here's the deal, it contradicts nothing. In other words, it's the same message he's preached day and night and it's just saying it in a different way. And it could well be that he said that whole sentence and some manuscripts preserved it and some didn't preserve it. Either way, it's not like there's a contradiction, right?

Right. I have one more question regarding another verse in Matthew 6 19, when Jesus is talking about laying up your treasures in heaven where no moth and rust destroy. But the King James uses where no moth and vermin destroy. Rust and vermin is completely different words. I looked at the original Greek and looked at the word vermin in the Webster's Dictionary and it has nothing to do with rust. Hang on, hang on for a second here. Now my mind could be betraying me here, all right?

I memorized 4,000 verses in the King James Bible almost 50 years ago. Yeah, it doesn't say vermin, it says rust. And why does it say vermin in, you know, the King James?

It doesn't. It doesn't, it says rust. It says rust. It says rust in the King James.

That's how I memorized it. Well, if you go to biblehub.com. Sir, sir, it's rust.

I memorized it 50, over 50 years ago, where moth and rust corrupt. Well, if the listeners go to biblehub.com and look at Matthew. I'm looking, sir, I'm looking online at it and I have the King James in front of me as well. It doesn't say vermin. Sir, it doesn't say vermin. You've never seen this word vermin from Matthew 619? No, not the King James. It's not the King James, I guarantee it. Okay, so what translation does have that, if I may ask? I don't know.

I've never seen it, never heard it. The reason why I ask this is because I look, you know, some of the translations, one of the major translations has the word vermin, which means, you know, I looked it up in the website. Okay, sir, I'm just gonna jump in. Here's the deal. I'm looking right now at several dozen translations in front of me, okay, and I don't see vermin anywhere.

Good news version says canker. Everything, moth and rust, moth and rust, moth and rust, moth and rust, and anyway, hey, help as much as we can, but it doesn't say what you thought it said, so you're not going to find any major ones about it. Okay, let's let us go over to Travis in Oceanside, or Oceanside, California. Welcome to the line of fire. Hey, how you doing, Dr. Michael? Doing well, thanks. Hey, thanks for taking my call.

Yeah. I had a question. So there's a lot of people, a lot of Christians that will bring up a traditional biblical marriage ethic when they are speaking out against homosexual marriage, but the thing is, if you go through Scripture, like, just picking out, like, three, for instance, men in the Bible, you got Abraham, Joseph, and David. Abraham raped his slave to give his wife a baby. Well, hang on, let's start there. Let's, hang on, let's start there. Where does it say that he raped his slave? I would say, I would argue quickly that if you have sex with a slave, it's not consensual or romantic or equal.

But hang on, hang on, just want to start here. Sure, sure. Where does it say that Abraham raped his slave? Just please show me the text. Where says Abraham raped his slave?

I can rephrase it. I can say impregnated his slaves, if you like. She became his wife. She became his wife. He had a second wife. She became his wife. So, okay, so.

Probably a great honor, a great honor for her to do that. Yeah. Go ahead. And then there's David, who had multiple concubines, sex slaves, wives, and those are described as gifts from God in the Bible, and then you've got... Well, Travis, hang on. I would love to have a discussion with you, but not when you're making things up. I might as well talk to Santa Claus instead of Travis.

What good is that? It doesn't say that there are sex slaves. It doesn't, it does not say that for a split second. He had a lot of wives, which is an explicit violation of the Torah, okay? Explicit violation of Torah law. If it says there are gifts from God in the Bible... Where does it say there are gifts from God? That he had sex slaves who were gifts from God. I don't have my Bible in front of me. I'm just walking my dogs, but...

But, Travis, hang on. It's just like the last caller saying, why does the King James version say vermin when it doesn't say it? I'm happy to talk about what the Bible says and where people blew it, you know, and David's sins and Solomon's sins and things like that. Polygamy was always contrary to God's ideal.

He started with Adam and Eve, and then the only reason divorce was brought in, Jesus said, was because of hardness of heart, but God's intent was one man, one woman together. All right, so we could say there are all kinds of aberrations in Scripture, and these are all contrary to his ideal. Okay, can I bring up one more example?

But go ahead. Yeah, all right, so two strikes, but let's try the last one. Okay, so my argument is that, okay, so the last one is Joseph. So Joseph was an upstanding man by all accounts. Joseph was probably middle-aged, and Mary was probably a teenager. So my question is... Well, how do you know he was middle-aged? How do you know that? From all accounts that I've heard, he was probably around 40.

Where do you get that from? He definitely was an adult. No, he was six. He was six years old. I might as well say he was six since he was 40. There's a little stitch of evidence for that.

Zero. Okay, that's always what I was brought up being taught. Okay, so he married Mary. Travis, with all respect, with all respect, how can you go, you said three things, none of which are true whatsoever, to make a point about the church being hypocritical if we condemn same-sex matters. Here's the deal, the Bible categorically condemns homosexual practice from beginning to end.

There's never a case where it's acceptable. The only relations God blesses are male, female, and there are variations of that that are not the best. One man, one woman for life is what God intended. It says in Genesis, Paul reinforces it, Jesus reinforces it. But all the other stuff is myths.

I mean, why should we talk about myths? Okay, so my question is, throughout the biblical text, do you have, is that what we see is one man, one woman, and that's the biblical marriage? Because I think that all throughout the Scripture, additional biblical marriage is not what we see today.

I think it's not even consensual in most of Scripture. So what we have today in our society is actually state-led. It's actually what we have decided is good for us in our modern society. So I think it's just disingenuous to say. Right, right, right. All right.

Travis, Travis. First, please, just for the sake of truth and so we can be constructive, go back and read the Bible and don't read your ideas into the Bible, okay? That's the first thing. How does God start things off in the Bible? One man, one woman, the two become one. Did God make Adam and Yvonne and Yvette and Eve?

No, didn't do that. When you have polygamous relationships in the Bible, whenever they're discussed, there's always a problem. Something bad always comes out of it.

All right. When you get to the New Testament, Jesus says God's intent, one man, one woman joined together for life. The two become one. Paul now lays it out very explicitly. So Jesus said this was God's intent from the beginning. Paul now lays it out very explicitly. Husbands love your wives.

How? As Christ loved the church. You lay your life down for them. Wives submit to your husbands as unto the Lord. So you have a husband giving himself sacrificially for his wife, for his one wife, the wife honoring, respecting her husband, the two becoming one, a beautiful, beautiful picture. If you were going to be a leader in the church, what's the New Testament teach? You can only have one wife.

Right? Because that is the example that is God's ideal. So, there are all kinds of other arrangements that are made, and there's polygamy in much of the world, there's polygamy in the Bible, it was never the best.

And in fact, when you have it, you have all kinds of problems coming out of it. And the Bible also talks about rape. The Bible talks about rape and condemns it. So, if rape was just, hey, you overpower someone and take her, then why does the Bible have actual laws against it?

In any case, here's the deal. Same-sex marriage does not exist in God's sight, no matter what spin anyone puts on it, no matter how loving, does not exist in the sight of God as anything that He recognizes or blesses, because He made man for woman, woman for man, and those who struggle with same-sex attraction. We have compassion, we love, we reach out, we recognize much hypocrisy in the church. Hey, how about no-fault divorce? I said, for years, no-fault divorce in the church is more damage to marriage than all gay activists combined. But does the Bible give it ideal for marriage? Absolutely. And when we live by it, it's beautiful and wonderful. God bless, friends. God bless, friends. Back with you on Monday.