The Narrow Path 10/13

Music Playing Good afternoon and welcome to the Narrow Path Radio Broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and as we usually are, we are live today for an hour with open phone lines.

Yesterday was an exception. I'm traveling at this time. I'm back east. I'm in Indiana today. I was in Missouri yesterday at showtime and we were in a little tiny town where we just couldn't find an internet connection.

Strong enough to do the broadcast from. So we had to play a recorded program yesterday. Today we're back on normal procedures and normal format. We're taking your calls. If you have questions about the Bible, about the Christian faith or any such thing related, feel free to give me a call. If you see things differently than the host and want to discuss that difference, feel free to call about that as well. At the moment is not going to be the best time to call.

However, because the lines are full. But if you take this number down and call in a few minutes, you may very well find a line has opened up. The number to call is 844-484-5737.

That's 844-484-5737. Now I should announce where I'm going to be in case any of you are in the regions that I'm speaking in the next couple of days. Tomorrow, which is I guess I would say Tuesday, Wednesday night in Evansville, Indiana, I'll be speaking on the four views of Revelation at a church called One Life Church West. That's One Life Church West in Evansville, Indiana. And the address and information can be found at our website about that at One Life Church West in Evansville, Indiana, tomorrow night at 630. The next night I'm speaking in Indianapolis, and that information is at the website as well if you happen to be in Indianapolis or near there.

Join us. That's Thursday night at 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. And that's just going to be I think just a Q&A for those two hours. And we'd love to see you there. A couple days later on Sunday night, I'm going to be speaking in Battleground, Indiana at the Battleground Bible Church.

And that information, all this information is at our website, thenarrowpath.com. And for those of you in Oregon, that might seem pretty far from Indiana, but next Tuesday, a week from today, I will be speaking, having a Q&A. I'll be actually in Oregon. I'll be speaking at the Youth with a Mission base in Salem for the middle part of next week. And on Tuesday, we will be having a meeting at a location in Shedd, actually, near Albany, Oregon. And that's open to any of our Oregon listeners.

You can find that also at our website. Now, how am I going to be in Shedd, Oregon on Tuesday if I'm in the Indianapolis area on Sunday night? Well, I'm going to fly.

That's not what I'm doing. I'm traveling by road, over the road on this trip. We've been in many locations, too many to fly to. But I'm going to be flying out to Oregon for this few days in the middle of next week. I'll fly back to Indiana and drive home to California.

So that's what things are looking like here. So if you're an Oregon listener, I haven't been to Oregon for a while, even though I used to live there in the Albany area in Shedd. I'll be having a meeting a week from tonight. And the rest of the meetings in the rest of this week are in Indiana, Evansville, Indianapolis, and Battleground. And if you can find all those meetings listed at the website, thenarrowpath.com, that's thenarrowpath.com under Announcements. And you're welcome to join us at any of those meetings. Our first caller today is Lisa from Hillsboro, Oregon. Lisa, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Uh-oh, my button is not working here. Studio, could you activate her call for me? Hi, Steve.

Hi, Lisa. I was just thinking, as you were talking, it would be fun if me and my family, who I'll listen to, to come see you sometime. And then you said you're in Oregon next week, so maybe we'll have to see if we can make that happen.

Yeah, Hillsboro is not too long a drive. I just had something that I was kind of curious about. My friend and I were talking last week, and I had mentioned that my husband Andy and I had switched over to the New King James Version on your recommendation, because we listened to your lectures and stuff. And she said that she had actually switched over to the New King James Version years ago because her and her friend had decided to memorize Romans 8, and they got together and were reciting the first part and realized that in the NIV, the first half of Romans 8-1 was missing. And so through that, she started researching the NIV, and she says that through her research, she found that some of the people that were on the committee to make the NIV weren't even Christians, and she said that one of them was even a Wiccan. And I was just wondering, do you know anything about that, and if that's true, why would they have non-Christians making a translation of the Bible?

It doesn't make sense to me. Well, honestly, any time you go online and look for critics of the NIV, you'll get sort of the same information. I don't know if the information is true or not. I don't know if there was a Wiccan on the editorial staff or not. There could be. I've heard that there was at least one homosexual on the staff.

I've heard that before. Most of the people who were saying bad things about the NIV—now, by the way, I don't care for the NIV. I'm not a fan of the NIV. But most of the people who were saying bad things about it would have to say similarly bad things about the New American Standard Version and the English Standard Version and, frankly, any modern translation. The removal, as they might call it, of the latter part of Romans 8.1, or excuse me, eight who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit, that's at the end of verse 4. It says that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk—no, it's earlier. The King James actually has that line earlier on at the end of verse 1. It's not found in the oldest manuscripts, and that's why the NIV doesn't have that line who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit at the end of verse 1. But it is at the end of verse 4 in all translations, including the NIV.

So the NIV is not trying to deny that we have to walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. They just do not include it at the end of verse 1 of Romans 8 because no modern translation will. The modern translations use certain manuscripts that date back further than the manuscripts that were used by the King James and the New King James, and those earlier manuscripts do not possess, do not contain that particular line at the end of verse 1, though they do have it at the end of verse 4, as all translations do. So it is thought that since the earliest manuscripts don't have it at the end of verse 1 and later manuscripts which were used by the King James do have it, that perhaps somebody working from the earlier manuscripts had transported that line from verse 4 to verse 1 so that you have it found in some of the later manuscripts. This whole issue of which manuscripts are closer to the original is a complicated thing, and most people who write critiques of the NIV are not very complicated thinkers. Most of them just assume that if there's a difference between a modern translation and the King James Version, that means the modern translation is flawed or even a conspiracy to obscure truth. Well, there are some differences like this between the King James Version and most modern translations, all modern translations, but they're not based on any conspiracy. They're based on the fact that the oldest manuscripts available differ in a few ways. From some of the later manuscripts that were only the only ones that were available to the King James translators.

What I'm saying is there are differences, but there's no sinister thing behind it. Now, I don't know if the NIV had a Wiccan on their translation board. However, the NIV was published by a Christian publisher and with Christian editors, and if there was somebody, I'm sure they hired the translators based on their knowledge of the original languages. I mean, they're not trying to sneak Wiccan doctrine in there. There is no Wiccan doctrine in the NIV. There's no pro-homosexuality in the NIV.

So if one of the translators was a homosexual, it didn't affect the translation. This is almost, you know, when people don't like the NIV, and like I said, it's not my favorite. I wouldn't recommend it if you're looking for an extremely accurate Bible, and that's what I would suggest you should use.

But people often get very unfair, and they want to make it look worse maybe than it is. I mean, I don't like the NIV because the translation philosophy it follows is too loose. It's more of a thought for thought rather than a word for word translation, and that's not the kind of translation I like to use. But if you want to add something, a sinister layer to it, oh, and there was this conspiracy to obscure this or that doctrine, I don't think any doctrine that you'll find in the King James is absent from the NIV. I think all the doctrines are there.

It's simply that when I study a Bible, I'd like to read it in the Greek and Hebrew, but I'm not a scholar enough to do that, so I want to have a translation that gives me as close to possible of a word for word translation. And the NIV doesn't even attempt that, doesn't claim to. Most modern translations don't claim to. The New Living Translation does not.

Frankly, most of the modern ones do not. So I like the New King James. I would never say it or the King James are the only Bibles worth having, but the ones that are not the King James or the New King James do have some phrases that are not in them that are in the King James.

And some people just make long lists of comparisons. Here's these verses in the King James and here's the same verses in the NIV, and look how many things are left out of the NIV. Well, they're picking on the NIV a little bit unfairly because the NIV is not the only translation that leaves those out. All new translations do, and that's not because they're trying to omit any doctrine. It's because they're trying to be true to the manuscripts that they think are the better manuscripts. Not everyone agrees that the Alexandrian texts are the better manuscripts, but the ones who do are trying to give an honest rendering in most cases, I think. That makes sense.

Thank you. I appreciate that. It's interesting, after listening to some of the stuff that you said about, like I said, my husband and I had switched to mostly reading from the New King James, but even still I think now a lot more than I ever did if there's a verse that's kind of like, I'm kind of like, what? And I'll go read the other translations, and I feel like it's kind of helpful to get those other translations and to just realize that one translation sometimes seems to have a completely different, it almost seems like sometimes in some translations one translation will seem to have a different meaning than another one. Sometimes they do, and what you can do, what I always recommend is that you use a good translation for your regular reading, and when you want more clarity, you can have another modern translation that more or less kind of, what should we say, paraphrases it a little more, and it put a spin on it that you wouldn't have gotten, but it might be a well-educated spin that the scholars are doing. I don't want my translators putting their spin on my translation, but I don't mind reading separately from the translation I'm using what they think it might mean, because sometimes it gives you an angle that you would not otherwise have. So I'm not going to condemn new translations, or I'm not even going to condemn paraphrases, but I would say if you're using two different translations to consult, then I would highly recommend that you get yourself also a Greek-English interlinear New Testament, because that has the Greek text with the literal English words under each word, and you can then say, okay, my New King James reads this way in this verse. Let's just say the English standard version reads slightly differently. I wonder which one's more correct. Well, then you can look in the Greek-English interlinear, and you can see what the Greek itself says, okay, I see why the ESV did it this way, or I see why the New King James did it this way.

I favor that. Anyway, I can't go on and on about the translations with my lines full. There's so many translations and so many different ways to critique them. But, yeah, if you go online and look for critiques of the NIV, you're going to find some pretty conspiratorial critics, and I'm not with them. I don't necessarily believe that the NIV was a conspiracy to corrupt the Bible.

I just think it followed a translation philosophy, which many others do, that is not my favorite. All right. Maybe we'll see you next Tuesday. Okay, Lisa.

Yeah, maybe. God bless you. Thanks for your call. Okay, my computer's not hanging up on these people. Okay, let's go to Rich in Las Vegas.

Hey, Rich, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling. Hey, Steve, thanks for taking my call today. Hey, good to hear from you. Congratulations on the baby. Thank you so much.

Appreciate that. So my question today is, since Paul said we are changed from glory to glory, in 2 Corinthians, appearing to imply the process of starting at the glory of conversion and ending with the glory of glorification at the resurrection, or when he said that he was confident God's work in the church at Philippi would be completed on the day of Jesus Christ, or another time when he said we believers would be changed in the twinkling of an eye at the resurrection, these all imply that glorification occurs on the last day when the resurrection takes place. So with that being accepted, is it not possible that the process of sanctification for the believer continues beyond the grave in the intermediate state? If we don't have any specific scriptural passages that explicitly state this, is it something we can infer from the passages we do have, such as Hebrews 12.14, where the author said, Pursue holiness without which no one will see the Lord.

Well, I'm not sure if we could infer, but I don't think we could exclude it. You know, I mean, that's kind of like, you know, the Roman Catholics have their purgatory, where they believe that somebody who's saved enough that they shouldn't go to hell, but not, you know, perfected yet, that they would go to purgatory, and there they would be, they'd undergo a purgative or a purifying, a purging experience, and become more holy, and then they'd go to heaven. I mean, the concept, the idea of purgatory is not taught in the Bible, but the concept that some people, when they die, even though they're saved, might have some level of improvement that needs to be made and perhaps can be made after they've left this world, is, I don't know that that's anything that we can rule out. I don't know if the verses you quoted would necessitate it or necessarily infer it, but maybe they would.

Maybe that's what they're referring to. It is true that we have references to being changed into His likeness on the last day. In 1 John 3, it says, Beloved, now we are the children of God. It does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.

It kind of sounds like it might be instantaneous, although I'm not sure if it's instantaneous or not. We do know that in this life, our growth in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, as Peter refers to it, or as Paul refers to changing from glory to glory, is progressive and not instantaneous. And I don't know of anything in the Bible that would say the moment we die, suddenly all that distance from what we have arrived at in this life to that which God wants us to be, all that distance is just covered in an instant when you die.

I wouldn't be sure of that at all. So it may be, I don't know if it's so, but it may be that in the time after we die and before Jesus returns, that is before the judgment, that more perfection continues. But that's something I think the Bible's silent about, unless some of those verses might be taken to infer it.

I don't think that they do unmistakably so. But it might be one of those things we could hold open as a possibility from some of that information that's not really so explicit. Yeah, it seems like the passage you quoted in 1 John, it says, when He appears, we shall become like Him. So is that not referring to when He appears in glory? Well, I believe so.

I believe so. Although it doesn't say when He appears, we will become like Him. It says when He appears, we will be like Him. So it could imply that He will not appear until we have reached that point. When He appears, we will be like Him. It might mean He will find us in a condition like Him.

But I think it's more likely and more common to assume that when He appears, that He's going to make us like Him at that point. I don't have details about that nailed down. Right, because the saints in the first century have spent more time in the intermediate state than they did in their short life on earth. And they were better than us when they started. Right, right.

So they shouldn't be so long. I know, that's true, that's true. But I mean there is like, there's definitely believers who suffer martyrdom who probably are much closer in that process than others considering that they died a death similar to Christ. But, you know, I don't think it's so much a Roman Catholic idea because the Roman Catholic idea is more of like they have to pay for their sins, like more of like a just punishment, like paying for the penalty themselves. But what opened my idea to this concept was Jerry Wall's essay where he talks about the possibility of purgatory. But from a Protestant standpoint where it's more about sanctification, it's more about just becoming more like Christ, not paying for our sins, that's already been done at the cross. So throwing the whole idea of purgatory out with the Reformation is kind of similar to other things that the Protestants did, you know, just anti, that's anti-Catholic but maybe not necessarily the whole truth.

Right, it's very possible the Reformers, you know, overbalanced and pendulum swung, you know, beyond what they should have. Hey Rich, that's interesting, interesting thoughts. We'll leave those out there to be chewed on. Yeah, for sure. All right, God bless you man. All right, bye.

You too, bye. Okay, let's talk next to Willie from Tiffin, Ohio. Willie, welcome to The Narrow Path, thanks for calling. Hi Steve, really appreciate your ministry, your recent find, and I really value your input there. Just have a quick question and maybe a subsequent one. But in terms of what we understand from history with the Euangelion, what would you say, how would you define what the Gospel is and then if that definition changes, what would that mean for evangelism as a whole?

And I'll go ahead and listen to that later. Oh okay, okay great, I appreciate your call. All right, thank you.

Thank you, oops, I'm sorry. Okay, so what is the euangelium, the Gospel? Well, euangelium means good tidings or good news, but what is the news? It's obviously good news, so it's not a message about hell and condemnation and things like that, which some people make it.

That would be pretty much bad news, even if they tagged on a little bit of good news at the end. The good news that Jesus preached, according to Mark chapter 1 verses 14 and 15, was that the kingdom of God had drawn near. And Jesus, of course, said in Matthew 24 and 14, this Gospel of the kingdom must be preached in all the world as a witness to all nations.

And that's what Paul said in Acts 20 and 25. He said he'd gone among the people preaching the kingdom of God. And so the kingdom of God is the message, but what is the kingdom of God? The kingdom of God is the assuming of total authority as king over all by Jesus Christ, which he said after his resurrection had happened. He said that all authority, which means rulership, has been given to me in heaven and earth. So the message is that Jesus is now the king. He's seated at the right hand of God on the throne ruling.

Now, he's not dictating to the world. I mean, people say, well, if Jesus is ruling, how come there's so much evil in the world? Well, because many people are not in his kingdom. Those who turn to Christ are those who accept him as king and Lord in their lives and begin to follow and obey him. And the collective number of those who are his disciples, so described, they are his kingdom.

They're his subjects. He's the king. And the idea is that the kingdom of God is a growing phenomenon as more people become followers of Christ. So Jesus said in his day, the kingdom of God was like a little mustard seed, but it's grown up into a great tree.

He said it would, and it has. In Daniel chapter 2 and verse 44, he had indicated that the kingdom of God in Nebuchadnezzar's dream had been likened to a little stone, but it grew up into a great mountain to fill the whole earth. So the kingdom is the collective society of those who acknowledge Jesus as king, not only with their mouth but with their lives. They submit to him that he's their Lord, in fact, and not only in theory. So the gospel of the kingdom is a call.

Well, it's an announcement. A gospel is an announcement. It's the announcement that there's another king, that Jesus is the king. That's good news because if he wasn't, everyone would be doomed to continue to serve Satan as their king.

Satan had a kingdom, and Jesus came and defeated him. That's good news. Jesus is now reigning, and his kingdom is righteousness and peace and joy.

That's good news. Satan's kingdom isn't any of those things. So this is the good news of the kingdom of God. Now, a lot of people want the good news to be about where you go when you die, and of course it has ramifications. If you're part of the kingdom of God, that's a kingdom that lasts forever. And so you live in it now, and then when you die, you will later live in it again, later on in the resurrection.

So it has ramifications for eternity, but it begins here. The call of the gospel is to call people to surrender to the king and to submit to him and to live obediently to him so that they are now part of the society on earth that recognizes him as king, proclaims him as king, and obeys him as king. That's the kingdom of God. And what if we don't preach that kingdom? Well, we might not get people saved. They might respond to a different gospel, but Paul said if anyone preaches a different gospel, let him be accursed, even if it's an angel from heaven. So we know of false gospels that some of the cults preach, and we generally think, well, those gospels aren't the true gospels, so people who accept those gospels may not really be saved.

And the same would be true if we're preaching something other than the gospel of the kingdom, which Jesus and the apostles preached. Maybe they're not saved. But I think that many times people just hearing about Jesus get truly saved because their hearts are convicted by the Holy Spirit, and they do surrender to Christ genuinely. But if they don't, if they just say a sinner's prayer and think that that saves them and they're not really interested in following Jesus, there's no salvation to that. And unfortunately, some people preach a gospel as if that is true. Just ask Jesus into your heart and you're saved forever.

The Bible doesn't say that in any part of its text, and it's not the gospel Jesus preached. Well, I need to take a break here, but I do want to say I just wrote a couple of books on the kingdom of God. The first of them will be released in about three days from now. And you can go to Amazon, look up my name, Steve Gregg. The book title is Empire of the Risen Sun.

You can already pre-order it. It'll be shipped in a couple days now. The Narrow Path is a listener-supported ministry. Our website is thenarrowpath.com.

I will be right back in thirty seconds. Welcome back to The Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg, and we're live for another half hour. We're taking your phone calls. Once again, our lines are full, but I'll give you the number anyway because if you want to call in a few minutes, these lines, some of them will open up. The number is 844-484-5737. It's 844-484-5737.

John from Westminster, Massachusetts. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling. Hi, Steve. Thanks for taking my call. Yeah. I picked up the imitation of Christ again. It's wonderful.

It is. I noticed he makes a very strong emphasis on solitude and the Hermetic lifestyle. He mentions people like the Desert Fathers and so forth, and I understand this is coming out of the wider half of the Middle Ages. Yeah. I wanted to ask you, do you think the way Thomas at Kempis describes retiring solitude, do you think it's extreme, and how do you think solitude plays into the Christian life, and how do you strike the balance between that and the community that is necessary?

Yeah. Well, of course, he was a monk, and everything he wrote was to people living in a devoted life in a monastery, more or less, and of course solitude was something valued in that society, in the community, and so there was time set aside for it. Not everyone is called to be a monk, though I think many people would find it very enriching if they could live in that kind of a community.

It's not what everybody is called to live in. Certainly the imitation of Christ does not require that you live in a monk community, and if you don't, then you probably won't be able to have quite the time on your hands to just go off and be alone for hours at a time with God. Some people do. Even people who don't live in monasteries sometimes can arrange their lives that way. I would think people who are retired, people who don't have to work much for a living and so forth might, or even people who work at jobs, and this was me for a long time. I've been in full-time ministry for quite a few decades now, but my first 12 years during which I was ministering almost full-time, I was also working almost full-time, but I would always choose jobs. I never had a career outside the ministry because I didn't want one, but when I needed to, I'd take a job, but I would choose jobs anytime I could that were like janitorial or washing windows or something like that or mowing lawns or something that would not require a lot of brain activity. I didn't want to become an accountant or something like that where I'd have to be thinking a lot about my job because I wanted to meditate on the things of God. You don't have to go off into a cave somewhere to have solitude with God.

You can find it if you schedule it into your life, and some people get more of it than others. I'm not saying that the more solitude you get, the better. There's probably a certain amount of solitude that is all that's going to be beneficial to you, and the rest of your time should be spent serving other people, being in community life, because Christianity is not just me and Jesus. Being a Christian doesn't mean as long as I get my soul straightened out, nothing else matters.

That's frankly the opposite of it. The purpose of Christianity is to love your brother and to love your neighbor and to do good and to promote justice and do the things that Jesus said, but those things in themselves are of no value if your own inner life is not of a good quality. That's what Paul said. He says if I bestow all my goods on the poor, even if I give my body to be burned, if I don't have love, it's nothing. It doesn't serve any good purpose for God. So I have to have my inner life nurtured, but that's just preparatory really to serving the world and to ministering to my brothers and sisters in the church and functioning in the gifts of the Spirit. Solitude is not the only part of the Christian life, and it may be a part of the life that many Christians don't have the luxury of. Let's face it, throughout history, most Christians have been peasant farmers probably or businessmen who really worked sun to sun, sun up to sun down.

And the idea of, oh, let's go out and have a few days alone with God, I mean, that'd just be a dream that they would never have a possibility of doing. Christianity doesn't call you away from society, except maybe for short times. If you don't get away from the noise and the influence of other people at all, even if it means just getting up an hour earlier than the rest of the family and going to find a quiet place to pray, if you never get any time alone with God, I think your spiritual life is going to become stale and weak. But the Christian life is not primarily solitude. And so when you read Thomas the Kempis and the book of the Imitation of Christ, you have to realize he's writing to people who live in a monastery like himself, and you just have to take that with a grain of salt. I mean, if you're not living in a monastery, then the principles are true. The principles of, hey, get alone with God and some quietness and solitude is a great thing, meditate on the Scriptures and so forth.

But not everyone's going to have the luxury to do it as much as Thomas the Kempis and his original readers did. Nonetheless, it's a great call to modern Christians to restore something that isn't found naturally in our lifestyles, and that is solitude. We need to get alone sometimes to just pray and to meditate on God. And as I said, if people are in a job that requires a lot of their attention, as long as they're at work or whatever, there's going to be limits to how much solitude they'll ever get. But if you have a job that allows it, then obviously you can take time even while you're on work and be getting your work done properly and still be meditating on the things of God.

And that was what I did and chose to do earlier in my life when I had to work at a regular kind of a job. I appreciate your call, brother. Let's talk to Bill in San Francisco, California. Bill, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Bill Scoot, how you doing? Well, thanks. Thank you for your ministry.

I just wanted to give you a call and have a comment regarding— I had a comment, then a quick question. But the comment was regarding the Holy Communion, the sacraments at the Catholic Church that I received when I became an adult Catholic. And I didn't really know what to expect. There was a feeling—and I know we're not supposed to go by feelings, but I mean we're feeling-oriented people— there was a feeling that came over me that was just undescribable and a peace that I never had in every time in my life. And I received communion at a church, at Protestant churches. And I just wondered what your thoughts were on that.

Yeah. Well, let me ask you, were you raised Catholic? Or were you an adult convert? You were an adult convert. Okay. And you're a Catholic now? Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. Well, I mean there definitely are people who feel different things and different religious experiences. We have to realize that Hindus and Buddhists and Mormons all profess to feel certain things too.

We don't really count that to be a proof that their religious ideas are correct. But some people, I mean genuine Christians, who are real followers of Christ, do seem to respond to a more liturgical kind of church practice. They feel holier, they feel more reverent, or they feel something. They feel closer to God in those situations.

And if they really are closer to God, it'll show up in the way they live. And I've got no objection to people having that more liturgical temperament. And it sounds to me like that's probably the case with you because you felt something when you took communion at the Catholic church that you didn't feel elsewhere.

Now I myself am very different than that in my temperament. I don't have any interest in being liturgical. I don't find anything in Jesus' teachings to his disciples, let's say in the Sermon on the Mount or anywhere else, or in Paul's teachings that encourage a liturgical approach to worship or to discipleship, but they didn't forbid it either as far as I know. So I think one thing will bless one person and another thing will bless another. I do disagree with the Roman Catholic idea of transubstantiation, and that is, of course, related to the Eucharist there, but I believe a person can have a mistaken notion. That is a notion that I consider to be a mistaken notion about communion and still kind of connect with God there.

So I won't dispute what you said. Have you heard anything regarding that there's been actually more healings of people that have received communion? I've heard no statistics. Yeah, I've heard no statistics about that.

Okay. And the other quick comment that I had, and I'd like to answer that as well, is the church that I grew up in was, I think, pretty legalistic. It was SDA in nature, and so everything was pretty much frowned upon, looked upon as evil. Wow, you went from SDA to Catholic? I mean, those are like polar opposites.

Complete polar opposites. Yeah, I don't know anyone who's as anti-Catholic as the SDA church is. No, it's absolutely true. If it weren't for my physical healings that I received at the Catholic church during communion, I wouldn't have believed it myself. I had severe neurological problems, fibromyalgia, a lot of issues that all went away. That's wonderful, and there's no reason why that can't be God's healing you, but we have to realize that people have been healed by God, other churches too. I mean, it's not the Catholic church itself that brings healing. It's Christ who heals, and He's done so in lots of different kinds of churches. But did you have a question?

Because I need to move along quickly here. Yeah, the question I had was, as an Adventist, a lot of things were kind of found upon me. Some of it as well was, you know, medication, taking medications for certain issues and ailments. I had suffered severe panic issues and panic disorders and anxiety for many years, and I tried to fight it off and pray it off, and I was told, you know, it's just the enemy attacking my mind. And that, you know, worked for a little while. So you wonder what I think about medications? Yeah, is it what you think?

Okay, I think we can get there a little quicker this way if I bring this up. Okay, so I personally believe that the things many people take meds for are not physical or physiological conditions. Obviously, there's an awful lot of medicines that do treat physical conditions, but there are also things that are not as near as I can tell physiological conditions for which medications are often prescribed. And some of those appear to be things that are spiritual issues. There's, I mean, we have to realize that the Bible speaks to people who had, you know, that lived under stress, that had, you know, depression and fear and anxiety and things like that too, and even who were mad, you know, who were, we'd say, crazy or mentally ill. We might call them, today we might refer to these people as, you know, schizophrenic or paranoid schizophrenics. Some of those cases were, in fact, caused by demons, especially in the latter category in the Bible. We find that by being exercised of demons, people were cured of conditions and behaviors that today we would probably give them meds for. And others, like anxiety and depression and things like that, which we also give people meds for, are treated in the Bible as if they have to do with your spiritual discipline, your faith and your obedience to God and things like that. And the Bible indicates, if you walk in the Spirit, that the fruit of the Spirit includes, of course, joy and peace, which are the opposites of depression and anxiety. And so, I'm not saying that there's never been any physiological route to people's anxiety or to their depression. There probably sometimes is, because brain damage or chemical imbalances, things like that, even prolonged loss of sleep, things like that sometimes mess with your brain and can cause people to, you know, be kind of a little crazy. And that being so, I'm sure that there are medicines that may help with that. My problem is that we live in a society where anything that there is a medication for, people just run to that.

And, for example, if I'm feeling depressed, instead of wondering how might I apply what the Scripture says about this more effectively, or if I'm afraid, if I'm anxious, how might I apply the Scriptural truth in the way that Jesus and Paul and the early Christians did, and all Christians had to before there were meds for these things, maybe these things are symptoms of something that is at root a spiritual issue with me and God. And if that's true and I simply medicate, then I'll never get to the root of it. My grandfather, now deceased, would never take aspirin. And his reason was, he said, if I have a headache, there's something wrong. It's not the headache that's wrong, it's something causing it.

And that means there's something that's not quite right. And he didn't want to take a drug, aspirin, to mask it. He thought, well, I don't want to be unaware that something's wrong if there is. And although I wouldn't give advice to avoid aspirin for headache, I do think that many times the things that medications will mask are real spiritual concerns, which once they are masked by medication, may prevent us from getting to the root of them. So I believe there are physiological problems that medications are good for. I also believe there are spiritual problems, and those medications may have an impact on, but it may not be God's preference that we medicate.

I mean, it might be His preference that we modify whatever it is in our behavior inwardly, in our faith or whatever, so we don't need to mask them. And so that would be my personal approach to these questions. All right. I appreciate your call.

I need to try to get another one in or two before we're done here. Let's talk to Quinn from Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. Quinn, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Hey, Greg. You're still living the dream, my friend. I liked how you answered that people don't have headaches because of aspirin deficiencies. That's right. That's right.

Right. You know, I've got an example. I got this email or text message today. I supported Trump in the 2016 election. It says that if I don't support the Republicans, that Kamala Harris is going to be president. And it's kind of this jump of someone who maybe I agree with them. They're on the right side of politically what I agree with.

But they're making an assumption and then they're going a step further and implying something that's not fact. And earlier in the day, you answered a little bit about some Bible verses. I'm just going to ask if you were familiar with the scholar John Bergeron. He wrote a book called The Revised Revision. He was a Ph.D. scholar who studied translations for 40 years. And he found that some of the disclaimers in some of these modern translations, older versions do not include this verse or that verse.

He was able to find first century commentators, like in Pertulian or other people that would make comments on verses that were missing from what they call the older transcript. That is true. That is true.

And that's a true fact. Irenaeus in particular cited or at least alluded fairly clearly to certain verses in what we call the long ending of Mark, which is Mark chapter 16 verses I think 9 through 20. And that ending of Mark is not found in the oldest manuscripts of the Bible, which happened to be themselves later than Irenaeus' time. Which means that Irenaeus, who lived before our earliest manuscript copies of the New Testament, quoted from passages that are not found in those earliest ones, which means he had an earlier version that did have them. So the idea of which passages in the Alexandria text actually are original and which ones are different, that's a complicated study. In many cases you have to take it case by case, especially with the long ending of Mark I think. But I wouldn't say that one set of manuscripts is always superior to the other. I think that the truth is that there's some flaws in the textus receptus, which the King James used.

And I think there's some flaws in the Alexandria text. I appreciate your call. Let's talk to Martin from National City, California. Martin, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Hello, Steve. Your first caller was Lisa, and your second caller, Rich, was speaking about when the exact time like glorification would take place or something. And I thought, could you blend in Isaiah chapter 22 verse 14? You want to read it to me, or shall I look it up? Yeah, I got the King James that says, and it was revealed in mine ears by the Lord of hosts, surely this iniquity shall not be purged from you till ye die, saith the Lord God of hosts.

And what is the point you're making from that verse? Yeah, because you're talking about the possibility of purgatory and things. Yeah.

Okay, okay. So it says, it will not depart you from you till you die. Is that what it says? Yeah, it seems to me the process of death does the whole purification for you.

Well, yeah, I'm not sure if I would understand that to be Isaiah's meaning, but it is perhaps something to throw in the mix when considering that question. I appreciate you waiting so long to share that. Gary from Derry, New Hampshire. Welcome to The Narrow Path, Gary. Hi, Steve. Thanks for taking my call. Yeah. Steve, the saying, my sword will defend the Jews, is that in the Bible? I don't believe so.

No, I don't believe that that line is in the Bible. Okay. All right. That answers my question. I drive by a house and he has a sign out in his front lawn. And so I was just wondering, was that in the Bible? And I guess it's not. You know, it could be.

I mean, there's a lot of kind of similar kinds of things to that, but I just don't recognize that specific wording from any passage. Excellent. Thank you. Okay. Gary, thanks for your call. Take care. Bye now.

Jim from Texas. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Probably didn't think we were going to get to you. We did. Yeah, I know. It's great to talk to you, Steve.

Yeah, I was surprised I got through. My question, I'll be quick. My question is, in your suicide, when will these things be? In the resurrection of the dead, the just and the unjust are all resurrected on the last day at the same time, right? According to Jesus in John 5, 28?

Yep. Wouldn't that, and what God teaches on the rapture, that the church is going to be raptured, doesn't that destroy Jesus' teaching, or doesn't that destroy dispensationalists altogether? Don't the rules come off at that point? Well, I think they do.

I think they do. You know, they would have some way of making their own explanation of that, but I don't think it would be a valid one. Most systems of theology can explain most verses in the Bible that are, let's just say, verses that seem hostile to their view. They can import ideas that aren't there, but I think if we just take Jesus' words at face value, He said, as you said in John 5, 28, He said, The hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice and come forth, some to resurrection of life and some to the resurrection of condemnation. So He's saying there's an hour coming where everyone comes out of the grave at the same time. Now elsewhere Paul tells us, obviously, that the dead in Christ will rise just prior to the living in Christ being raptured. So the rapture and the resurrection occur seemingly at the same time, essentially with the dead rising just shortly before the living. So the rapture and the resurrection would occur at the same time as the resurrection of those who, as Jesus calls it, are resurrected to condemnation. Also, Jesus did say four times that when He's speaking about His own people, He says He will raise them up on the last day. Now raising them up, obviously, according to Paul in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, is raising the dead and raising the living.

That is, He'll resurrect the dead and rapture the living. And Jesus said He'll raise them up on the last day. Now the last day would mean, well, I guess it would mean the last day.

There's no days after that. And therefore, we can expect the resurrection and the rapture to occur on the last day. Jesus said that in John 6, verse 39, and verse 40, and verse 44, and verse 54. So in John 6, four times Jesus said He's going to raise His people on the last day. By the way, He also says He's going to judge the wicked on the last day.

He says that in John 12, 48. So He's going to raise the righteous, and He's going to judge the wicked all on the last day. That's why the Bible speaks all the time about the day of the Lord, or the day of Christ, or the day of God. These expressions are used in the New Testament to refer to the second coming of Christ. It's the last day, and it's when all the dead will be raised, righteous and unrighteous.

And, of course, the church will be raptured. It's also the last day of the earth, because there will then after be a new heavens and new earth. Now, some people think there will be a millennium before the new earth, but Jesus' words don't leave any room for it.

In fact, no place in the Bible does, except for perhaps a popular interpretation of Revelation 20, which in my opinion can be interpreted better a different way. But apart from Revelation 20, there's no suggestion in the Bible of a millennial kingdom or anything like that between the second coming of Christ and the new heavens and the new earth. Peter, in fact, joins the second coming of Christ with the new heavens and new earth.

In 2 Peter 3, he says the day of the Lord, which I take to be the second coming, will come as a thief in the night in which the heavens will be dissolved and the elements will melt with the fervent heat and so forth. He says, but we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and new earth. So he's not looking for a millennium.

Peter wasn't looking for a millennium. He was looking for the new heavens and the new earth to come at the day of the Lord, which will be like a thief in the night. So, you know, neither Peter nor Paul nor Jesus had any concept of a rapture that came any time prior to the second coming of Christ, like seven years earlier or three and a half years earlier. They believed the rapture would happen on the last day, and because it is the last day, there's not a thousand years longer on this earth. So no more days after the last day. But in the new heaven and new earth, there's no days or nights, according to the description in Scripture, so that the day at the end of this present life, at the end of this present world, I should say, is the last day. There will be no more days after that, according to Revelation 21. Well, I hope that's helpful.

I think you are the one who figured that out on your own before asking, but I agree with your conclusions. You've been listening to The Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg, and we're live Monday through Friday, when possible, at this same time. We are, you know, the archives of the show are on our website. We also have a mobile app that is free. You can listen to the program anywhere in the world on the mobile app. You can also listen to the archives and to lectures from our website on the app. The app, just like the website, is TheNarrowPath.com.

Look it up, download it for free, and you can get everything on your phone. The Narrow Path is listener supported. If you'd like to write to us, the address is The Narrow Path, P.O. Box 1730, Temecula, California 92593. Thanks for joining us. Let's talk again tomorrow. God bless.