The Narrow Path 10/28

Welcome to the Narrow Path Radio Show. This is the Narrow Path Radio Program hosted by Steve Gregg.

Steve is not in the studio today, so calls from listeners will not be able to be taken. In the place of the usual format, we've put together some of the best calls from past programs. They cover a variety of topics important to anyone interested in the Bible and Christianity. In addition to the radio program, the Narrow Path has a website you can go to www.thenarrowpath.com, where you can find hundreds of resources that can all be downloaded for free. And now, please enjoy this special collection of calls to Steve Gregg and the Narrow Path. All right, we're going to go to the phones, and our first caller today is Bruce from Beaverton, Oregon. Bruce, welcome to the Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Hi, Steve. Good to talk to you. I hope this echo isn't too tough on you, but your question, it's been, you've probably talked about this before, but I heard the question come up, it must have been a week ago, and they were asking about translations of the Bible, and you pointed out that the NIV and the living translation were more thought for thought. But you didn't share with us what you like in terms of the word-for-word translations, and I wonder if you could do that.

Now I have one last quick question. You mean I didn't share which translations I liked? In terms of the word-to-word. Yeah?

Okay. Well, I like any translation that's more or less word-for-word. There is no translation that is 100% word-for-word, but there are translators who aim at that. That's their philosophy of translation, is to try to represent the text in English word-for-word from the Hebrew and the Greek. The NIV and the living translation are among many translations where the translators didn't even attempt to do that. Their philosophy is not to give us a word-for-word translation, but more of a paraphrase, more thought for thought. But among those that do aim at more of what we call a formal equivalence instead of a dynamic equivalence would be the King James Version and the New King James Version, both of which, of course, use the Textus Receptus in the New Testament, which bothers some people and excites others favorably. And then also, using the Alexandrian text for the New Testament, you've got the New American Standard Version as well as the older American Standard Version, which is harder to find. The Revised Standard and the New Revised Standard are sort of that direction. They do take some liberties, but again, all translations take a few. The ESV, I think, is regarded to be a formal equivalence translation.

So we've got what on the table? KJV, New King James, New American Standard Version, the ESV, that's the English Standard Version. Some people told me that the Holman Christian Standard Bible is more or less word-for-word, so there are several. But as far as what I like, I like the New King James.

I also like the New American Standard Version. And they both aim at a word-for-word, but they do use different New Testament manuscripts for their New Testament, so they differ a little bit, not very much. That's helpful. The other question, and I don't think I've ever heard you speak about it, but in terms of a spiritual context, the idea of exercise. And I just wonder, it goes to that issue about, you know, our body is supposed to be the temple and so forth. And I just wonder if you personally have any, you know, your own personal disciplines or any general observations about, you know, in terms of counseling, sometimes exercise is a good way to get people... Okay, so this is a question about my opinion about the, okay, about physical exercise, okay. Well, like Paul said, physical exercise profits a little, but godliness is profitable in all things for this life and the life to come. So, given the two options, if you only could do one, I would suggest that spiritual development is more important than physical exercise. Most of us, however, if we really want to, could get a little of both.

And I get a little of both. I don't exercise physically very much. I mean, I have a gym membership, but I don't think anyone there recognizes me when I walk in.

I'm not there very often. I go for long walks and so forth most days. I try to walk five miles a day, but I don't always get that much in. But, you know, in other words, exercise is not the highest priority for me, but I recognize the value of it. Like Paul said, it profits a little. It may profit a great deal if longevity is your aim because, obviously, I think people who get more of the right kind of exercise probably extend their good health longer. That's just, I think, conventional wisdom, and I don't dispute it. On the other hand, longevity may not be your aim, but we are stewards of things that God has given us. If God has given us bodies that can move, then we should probably move them from time to time in ways that keep them movable, that keep them from, you know, being useless. It's not the most important thing, but certainly most everything we do is done through our body. Of course, the part of my body I use the most is my mouth, and I get a lot of exercise of that. But even anything else I would do to help anyone, to serve anyone, requires that I use my body for that. So to be able to keep my body working would be a worthy stewardship option. But it's not the highest priority.

It shouldn't be. Now, when people say, well, your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, and that's an argument for exercise, I've heard that carried to an extreme. I remember reading a Christian bodybuilder had written an article, and he talked about how he wanted his body to be big and strong because his body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. He wanted the Lord to have a lot of room in his temple.

I have a big house, and this guy, I think he either had to be joking or else he had no spiritual perception of anything that he was talking about. God is not cramped inside a small body, and he doesn't rattle around inside of a big one. To say our bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit is not even referring to the size or even the condition of our body. He's talking about the spiritual sanctity of the body. Paul says if you sin against your body, you're defiling the temple of the Holy Spirit. It's a matter of treating your body as something sacred.

It's not a matter of keeping it particularly healthy, though I would say given the choice, staying healthy and staying spiritual would be all around the best option. I appreciate your call, Bruce. Let's talk to Scott from Fort Wayne, Indiana. Scott, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling. Hi, Steve.

Thank you for taking my call. My question is about Matthew 16, 17. I think they call that Peter's confession of Christ. And this is coming from the standpoint of, I don't know if unlearning is the right word, but I've been taught so much of the Calvinist perspective and not that it was presented as we're giving you the Calvinist perspective, but that's what I've been exposed to for years and years and years. And now I'm attracted to a different way of thinking about things.

So I'm asking this because I've been taught this passage one way for so long and I'm trying to kind of unlearn that, that when Jesus answers Simon and says, Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father who is in heaven, that that means that the way that Peter came to saving faith in Christ was supernaturally a revelation from God. I would agree with that. I wanted to get your perspective on that. Does that teach that that is universally how it works? Well, it doesn't necessarily teach that, but one might imply that from that. If there's sufficient biblical grounds elsewhere, the idea that you have to actually have a revelation from God in order to be born again, that you have to have a miraculous rebirth that comes with putting faith in Christ and becoming a new creation, that's not strictly a Calvinist doctrine. The difference between the Calvinist doctrine and those who are not Calvinists is that the Calvinist believes that this happens unilaterally. That God just has already decided before you're born that this is going to happen to you, if it is.

And if He decided it's not going to, then it's not going to. And that basically it has nothing to do with the choices you make. It has everything to do with the choice God made before the foundation of the world. And I don't see that implied in this verse or any other verse. I don't see anything, even those verses that affirm that we have to be born of God or that we have to have things revealed to us from God or that we have to be supernaturally regenerated from God.

I don't see any of the things even in those passages that eliminate the fact taught everywhere else in Scripture that a person will be saved if they believe in Christ, and they won't be if they don't believe in Christ. Now, when Jesus said to Peter, Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven, this is actually what we call a limited negative. It really means flesh and blood is not the only one that revealed to you, but you've also had that revelation from my Father in heaven. Because Peter had heard that from flesh and blood. His own brother Andrew, according to John chapter 1, when Andrew was called by Christ to follow him, he went and got his brother Simon, who was Peter, and Andrew said, We have found the Messiah. And so he brought Simon to Jesus and had told him, This is the Messiah, and Jesus changed his name to Peter there. And so certainly when Peter said, You are the Messiah, this is in fact something that had been revealed to him by flesh and blood.

His own brother Andrew had told him this before he ever laid eyes on Jesus. And yet it's not only flesh and blood, but also the Father. I think that everyone who's really born again has heard of Christ through some human being, that is through the preaching of the Gospel, either live or over a broadcast or on a printed page or something like that. But then something else has to happen or else they're not born again.

They have to believe what they've heard. And when they believe what they've heard, then God also does a supernatural work. This is what Jesus said when he was talking to Nicodemus. Nicodemus was asking, How can a person be born again? And Jesus said, Well, it's like when Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness. So also the Son of Man must be lifted up and whoever believes in him will have everlasting life. That is, being born again is receiving everlasting life.

And how's that happen? Well, by believing in him. Just like Moses raised up the bronze serpent in the wilderness and people who had been bit by snakes were told if they looked at the serpent they'd be healed. And the ones who did were. And the ones who didn't weren't. Obviously the lifting up of the serpent was God's initiative.

Looking at it was an individual choice. The ones who looked at it experienced a supernatural work from God of healing. Jesus said, That's what it's like to be born again. I'm going to be lifted up. He means on the cross. And whoever believes in me, which is I guess comparable to looking at the bronze serpent as believing in Jesus. Whoever believes me will have everlasting life. There's this miracle of rebirth will happen to those who believe when I've been lifted up. And just as the serpent of the wilderness left the initiative to the individual who was dying to look and be healed and live. So I believe that when Christ is raised up and we hear about this and he's presented to us then the initiative is ours to believe and live or not. And at least that's how the Bible always talks about it.

John almost at the end of his gospel at the end of chapter 20 said, Jesus did many other things besides the signs in this book, but he says these ones are recorded so that you might believe that Jesus is the son of God and that you might have life through believing in him. In other words, you'll receive life if you believe. Calvinism says, No, you'll believe if you receive life. They believe that you're dead in trespasses until you're regenerated and only after you're regenerated can you believe. So they would have most of the statements of scripture backward and the Bible continually says, If you believe, you'll be saved. If you believe, you'll have life. But the Calvinist doctrine is, If you are saved, you'll believe. If you receive life and regeneration, then you'll believe because they don't believe you can believe until then. So I think Calvinists and non-Calvinists both would have to argue that if you're really born again, it's a work of God. You have to hear from man, you have to hear the gospel from man, but you also have to hear from God. If you put your faith in the gospel, once you hear it from man, then you additionally receive that revelation from God, that God works the work of regeneration in you as a result.

This is how I understand the interaction of God and faith and man and the will and so forth in a passage like this. Okay, that helps me. Thank you. Okay, Scott, thanks for your call. Good talking to you. Let's talk to Mary from Vail, Oregon. Mary, welcome to The Narrow Path.

Thanks for calling. Yes, thank you. I would like your opinion on some teaching that I heard over the radio. I heard a sermon about how we need a vision from God, and the preacher talked about how Paul, you know, Christ, called him to preach to the Gentiles, and that was his vision. And then he was encouraging people to pray about their vision.

And the reason why I'm asking this is because I have been praying about whether or not to go back to school to become a teacher, and after praying about it, I feel like God would say, yes, go ahead and go back to school, but I was just wondering if that was my vision. Well, when people use the word vision these days, we have to realize that they're using it a little more broadly than the Bible does. The Bible uses the word vision to speak of something similar to a dream.

You know, Daniel had a vision. I'm sorry, I believe he had a dream of four beasts coming out of the sea in Daniel 7, but he also had a vision, and I believe that vision was of the ram and the he-goat, if I'm not mistaken. In any case, prophets sometimes had visions, and sometimes they had dreams.

The main difference between a dream and a vision was that you were awake when you were in a vision and asleep when you were in a dream, but otherwise, the two seemed to be almost identical. And remember, it says in Joel chapter 2 that, I'll pour out my Spirit on all flesh, says the Lord, and your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions, and they'll prophesy. Seeing visions and dreams was, generally speaking, what prophets did. God told Aaron and Miriam, if I, the Lord, send a prophet in Israel, I will give him a dream or a vision or speak to him in dark sayings. So Paul did have a vision of Jesus.

He saw Jesus and heard a voice on the road to Damascus. Not everyone has visions like that. And if the pastor was saying, well, you need a vision from God, probably what he meant was not that you need to actually see a revelation of Christ like Paul had, but he probably is using the word vision in a broader sense. I mean, secular corporations have vision statements that they make of what they hope to accomplish.

They've got something in mind they want to do. And I think Christian preachers use the term vision in that sense a lot, although the Bible does not. They'll sometimes quote the proverb that says, without a vision, the people perish. And, however, they use it the way like a corporate leader, a CEO, would have a vision for the coming year and sales and promotion and things like that, where, in fact, when Solomon said without a vision, he means without God giving a revelation, meaning through the law, people will perish. He's not talking about what we talk about as a corporate vision. Now, a lot of times, pastors do talk about their vision for the church, and they want everyone to get on board with their vision. In many cases, what they're using the word vision to mean is not any different than the word agenda. The pastor has an agenda for what he wants for the corporate structure he's calling a church, and he makes it sound more spiritual by calling it a vision because vision is a biblical word.

It's just not being used in a biblical way. Now, to have a vision from God in the literal sense would be something you can't make happen, and God doesn't give visions like that to just everybody. He could. He could give one to anyone he wants to, and he could give you a vision for your future. But if he doesn't, that doesn't mean you can't follow his leading. He can lead you through the desires of your heart as you submit to him and ask him for guidance.

He can put it on your heart what he wants you to do. I wouldn't call that a vision, but I would call it his leading. He can lead through visions, but I don't know very many people who've had visions.

I believe they can still happen, but I don't know many people who've had biblical-type visions. But I do know a lot of people who've been led by God through various means, and a lot of times it's just by what God puts on your heart. And if you want to go back to school and you feel a peace about it, and you're praying about it and saying, God, direct me elsewhere if you don't want me to do this, and you feel completely at peace with it, I would proceed in that direction on the assurance that God either is calling you to do that, or if he isn't, that he'll interfere with it, that you're submitting yourself to him. As you acknowledge the Lord in all your ways, he will direct your paths, the Bible says. Sometimes he directs your paths once you're already in motion. So you start going the direction that you think you should, and God can sovereignly intervene if he thinks that's not the right way or if he feels something else in mind. He can redirect you either by just letting you know that's the wrong way, or else just changing circumstances in such a way that you end up somewhere different than you thought you would. But I don't know if I'd share the pastor's language in speaking of it as having a vision, but it's very common for sometimes pastors to speak that way. All right, let's talk to Jeff from San Francisco.

Jeff, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling. Steve, if I could quickly make a comment in talking about this last couple of shows, I wasn't expecting to bring it up concerning Christ's appearance.

That was because a caller called in Wednesday and saying that, you know, as if what I was talking about was of little or no importance, and I would disagree it is of great importance. Let me ask you, Matthew 17, when Jesus took Peter, John, James to the mountain transfiguration, what was the purpose of that? He was glorified before them, and it was also shown to the disciples that Moses and Elijah, representing the law and the prophets, were fading away and Jesus was going to remain, and that they would no longer be following Moses and Elijah, but only Jesus. But in that event, we do see Jesus glorified among them. Right, and they also heard a voice from heaven, which was, I guess, God the Father, correct? Yes, yeah, this is my son, hear him, he said.

Right, yeah. So, I mean, you know, Jesus was giving them a lesson, you know, as His disciples, they were constantly learning from Him. Yes, Jesus was glorified, and they saw Him in His beauty that they never seen before. Well, let me just say this, let me just say this. In our previous conversation, you and I were not talking about Jesus in His glory, we were talking about Him in His human appearance. On the Mount of Transfiguration, He was supernaturally changed so that His face shone like the sun, and His clothing shined like radiance, and His hair was white as wool and things like that, which is not His natural human appearance, but a vision of His glory.

And by the way, there's no particular reference to the beauty of it, though we might assume that it's very beautiful, what they saw, but I think that people who were reacting to your earlier comments were reacting to the fact that you were talking about His natural appearance, and that you would hope that He was very handsome, because if He was very ugly, that would be a stumbling block to you, and I think that's where people were, you know, in a different place than you about that point. Yeah. All right, we don't have much time for your question.

Go ahead and give me a question. Okay, I've been watching Billy Graham's funeral, and it's really nice. I just wanted to ask, he had the honor of being in the Rotunda in the Capitol building, and I was just curious, because he wasn't a politician, he was a great evangelist for a particular religion, and so is there any conflict with the separation of church and state? Well, I don't think there is a separation of church and state implied in the Constitution. The expression separation of church and state was not in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights or the Declaration of Independence, it was in a personal correspondence between Thomas Jefferson and someone else, and he invented the term separation of church and state. The only thing in the Constitution says that Congress shall make no law establishing a national religion, and Congress never has done so, and even if they had Billy Graham move into the White House when he was alive and lived there just because he was a Christian evangelist, that would not be Congress making a law establishing a religion. So people have taken what the Constitution says, and usually for their own convenience, if their agenda is to silence Christianity in the public square, they usually have interpreted that as there's supposed to be a total separation of church and state, so they use that to get God out of the schools and God out of government and so forth. They haven't done very well because, of course, there's still the Ten Commandments in the Capitol, I think, and so forth, and in some courthouses, too, including one where I used to live in Idaho. But the point here is, no, I mean, it's not a violation of anything constitutional, if that's what you're wondering. I certainly don't think so. Okay.

If I can ask one quick last question, I could take it after the break. I asked you before if someone would have a lasting effect in eternity, and I believe that it will, simply because when Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden fruit, that irreversibly changed the future of human beings, of human history, meaning that some people who had sinned not into the world would not exist. For example, people born of incest, rape, out of wedlock, those people from a moral perspective should not exist. But since they're already in existence and they have a free will to accept God, I think that would state that sin will have a lasting effect in eternity in some way, shape, or form. Well, rather than saying that people who were born of incest and outside marriage should not exist, I think probably what we should say more properly is that the parents from whom they came should have been married. Now, if it's incest, they shouldn't be married, but I personally believe that God could send the same soul into a different body.

If there had been no incest and God wanted that person to live, but it happens that they were conceived in incest, I believe that if there had been no incest, God could have had the same person, maybe with different genetics, but the same soul and spirit in yet a different body that came through legitimate means. So, I mean, certainly God has accommodated the fall, and there have been lasting effects of sin. And you asked me if there are going to be eternal effects of sin.

I don't know. I don't think I know the answer to that, but I don't know if I could deduce that there will be from the fact that there have been lasting effects in this world because of Adam and Eve's sin. Adam and Eve's sin has caused long-term problems for humanity. We call that the curse that came on the earth. There is, however, a reference in Revelation 21 to a new earth where there is no more curse.

And if there's no curse, then very probably we'd say that those effects of sin will no longer be present. I appreciate your call. I need to take a break here because some of our stations leave the network at this point.

Others stay with us for the whole hour, and we will be going on for another half hour shortly, taking the rest of the calls on the board. You've been listening to The Narrow Path. If you're leaving us at this point, just know we are listener-supported. If you'd like to write to us, the address is The Narrow Path, P.O.

Box 1730, Temecula, California, 92593. Our website is thenarrowpath.com, and hope you'll avail yourself of the resources. Everything there is free at thenarrowpath.com.

In 30 seconds, we'll be right back to take more calls. Small is the gate, and narrow is the path that leads to life. We're proud to welcome you to The Narrow Path with Steve Gregg. Steve has nothing to sell you today, but everything to give you. When today's radio show is over, we invite you to visit thenarrowpath.com, where you'll find topical audio teachings, blog articles, verse-by-verse teachings, and the archives of all the radio shows.

Study, learn, and enjoy. We thank you for supporting the listener-supported Narrow Path with Steve Gregg. Welcome to The Narrow Path radio program hosted by Steve Gregg.

Steve is not in the studio today, so calls from listeners will not be able to be taken. In the place of the usual format, we've put together some of the best calls from past programs. They cover a variety of topics important to anyone interested in the Bible and Christianity.

In addition to the radio program, The Narrow Path has a website you can go to, www.thenarrowpath.com, where you can find hundreds of resources that can all be downloaded for free. And now, please enjoy this special collection of calls to Steve Gregg and The Narrow Path. Our next caller today is Timothy from Ontario, California. Timothy, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Hey Steve, thanks for taking my call. My question, as I was at lunch today, was the passage I came across in Luke chapter 13, verses 1 through 8, and I thought, what is going on there? What's that all about? About the Galileans being slain by Pilate, and it almost seems like a political issue is being raised for Jesus to do something. Yeah, some people are trying to get Jesus to get politically involved, and he's not taking the bait. Basically, it says there was some president of that season who told him about the Galileans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. Now, commentators would agree that this was saying that some Galileans, and remember, Jesus was a Galilean himself, and some Galileans had been in the temple in Jerusalem sacrificing to God, and Pilate had apparently sent soldiers in and just massacred them.

I mean, a huge atrocity. And so someone came to tell Jesus about it. Now, it's my opinion they wanted to get a rise out of Jesus and get him to start a revolution.

Most of the Jews who were hoping, most of the Jews who thought of Jesus as someone significant were hoping that he might be a political revolutionary who'd overthrow the Romans. And so to tell him about some of his own countrymen, Galileans, who'd been just massacred in cold blood while they were innocently worshipping God in the temple, I mean, if anything's calculated to make you angry and say, you know, this is intolerable, let's overthrow these guys, that would be it. And Jesus surprised them and said, do you suppose those Galileans were worse sinners than all other Galileans because this suffered such things? He says, I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you'll all likewise perish. Now, likewise, you'll all likewise perish. This verse is sometimes used just as a general evangelistic verse.

You know, if you don't repent, you're all going to perish. Well, I believe that is true, but that's not the context. In the context, Jesus is telling these people that not only those Galileans, but you also will likewise perish.

Now, likewise means in the same way. He's not talking about hell. He's not talking about hell here because there's no real reason to believe those Galileans went to hell. They were martyrs while they were worshipping God. I mean, you might as well say, you know, that, you know, Christian martyrs go to hell because they died. No, he's talking about their physical death.

He's not talking about hell here. And he's saying these people were not greater sinners than others, but they perished. And he says if you don't repent, and he means by that if you don't come into the kingdom of God. His message, as we know from Mark 1.15, is the kingdom of God is at hand.

Repent and believe the gospel. So he's calling them to come into the kingdom and repent. And if they didn't, then they would perish similarly to the way that the Galileans who were killed by Pilate were.

Well, what's similar about it? Well, the Romans killed a whole bunch of people in the temple in AD 70 when they burned it down. And when he says, basically he's telling his audience that there is a crisis coming in which many of those people themselves will perish similarly. That is at the hands of Roman swords. Some of them maybe even in the temple as thousands of Jews were killed in the temple by the Romans when they broke through the walls.

And then he gave this. He gave another example in verse 4. Or those 18 on whom the tower of Siloam fell and killed them. Do you think they were worse sinners than all others who dwelt in Jerusalem?

He says, I tell you no, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. So again, there's two ways that people died recently in Jerusalem at that point in time. And one was killed by Romans in the temple. Another was a tower fell on them, killed them. But that happened too when the Romans broke in AD 70.

They knocked down walls, towers fell, people were killed by falling stones and things like that. And he's basically saying, these people were not worse than you. They suffered in this way, but you know what? A whole lot of you are going to suffer this way too. If you don't repent, you'll similarly perish. You'll die in the same ways.

Not all of you will die from those particular things. But just as these people died prematurely at the hands of the Romans or at the hands of falling masonry or whatever, you're in danger of these things unless you repent. Now of course if they did repent, they would not experience these things. Because we know that those who repented in Jerusalem became Christians. And the church in Jerusalem fled before the war. That's what Eusebius tells us. Before the war broke out, the Christians in Jerusalem fled out of Jerusalem.

So they weren't there when the Romans came and wiped people out. So Jesus, you've really got a choice here. You can join my kingdom, in which case you won't perish like they did. Or you can not repent and you'll perish like they did.

And this is what I think he's saying. Well man, I appreciate the insight on that. I haven't had a chance to really look at it. I was reading it on my Bible app. So yeah, that just makes great sense. I'm going to do some more reading up on it.

I don't know why. I don't remember any of the other Gospels ever mentioning that story. No, that story is only Luke. That's only Luke, yeah. Only Luke, yeah. Wow.

I don't know why it just jumps off the page like, wow, I've never seen this. All right. Well, thank you very much, Steve. God bless you and your ministry. Thanks, Timothy. Thanks for your call. God bless you. All right. Sarah from Walnut Creek, California.

Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling. Hi, Steve. Thanks for taking my call.

Sure. So my question is regarding John chapter 8, the beginning portion. My church has a Wednesday night class where we're learning about how we got the Bible and the stuff that it took to get the English Bible that we have today and why we can believe it. But it came up a few weeks ago that John 8 is not in the earliest manuscripts.

That's correct. So that kind of made me wonder how it got into the later manuscript. Well, not John 8 per se, but just the first few verses that are about the woman taken in adultery. Actually, it's from John 7, 53 to chapter 8, verse 12.

That particular section is not in the oldest manuscripts, and that contains the story of the woman taken in adultery. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. He mentioned, it's our pastor who's teaching it, and he mentioned it was about the adulterous woman.

Yeah. So I was just wondering how that got in there, and if we know who put it in there, and if we can still take that as scripture. Well, we need to understand that when we say it's not in the oldest manuscripts, that just means it's not in the oldest manuscripts that we have. There were much older manuscripts than any of the ones we have. We haven't found the originals of John or any other book of the Bible, and we haven't even found first or second generation copies. We have found manuscripts that date from the fifth century or even maybe the fourth century, and those are the earliest manuscripts we have, but there were predecessors to them.

We don't know what the predecessors of those manuscripts did or did not have. This story is found at this point in a very large number of manuscripts that are later than our oldest ones, but we don't know whether it was in the manuscripts that were before our oldest ones because those ones are not available to us to look at. One thing we do know is that there are some manuscripts, not very many, but some actually have this story somewhere else, not in John but in Luke. The story appears in a number of manuscripts in different locations. So there's some reason to question whether it really was part of John originally, but it might have been an actual story of the life of Jesus from Luke or one of the other gospels which got somehow transposed there in somebody's copy.

They just copied it into a copy of John and it ended up being treated as part of John after that. I'll tell you what, if Jesus didn't really say and do the things in this story, then I'd like to find the person who did and worship him because Jesus is so amazing in this particular story. They get him on the horns of a dilemma. They say, is it right to put this woman to death or not? As Moses said to do, what do you say? And if Jesus had said yes, put her to death, then he would have been accused of the Romans of teaching insubordination to Rome because the Romans denied the Jews the right to exercise capital punishment according to their laws. But if he had said no, don't do it, then they'd accuse him of being a rebel against Moses, which wouldn't go well for him either. So yes or no, he'd be hanging himself and Jesus brilliantly said, well, whoever's without sin, let him be the first to cast the stone at her.

He wasn't even ruffled and eventually, because they all knew they didn't qualify, they all left and the woman was spared. It's a great story. If it weren't a true story, you almost need a supernatural being to be in that story anyway.

But there's every reason to believe it's a true story. Even commentators who maybe don't believe it was ever part of the canon of Scripture often have suggested that it could have been a true story about Jesus that was added after John had been written because everyone knew it as a story. Paul, for example, in his writings, quotes saints of Jesus that we don't find in the Gospels. So we know there were stories and saints of Jesus that circulated orally and were not written down in the Gospels. It's possible that an authentic story of Jesus and this woman was circulating orally for a long time and eventually, just so that it might not be lost, someone inserted it in the Gospel of John or in Luke or wherever in some of these other manuscripts.

One thing that's interesting, I think it would be more likely to belong to Luke than John. For one thing, this is the only place in the Gospel of John that uses the terms the scribes and Pharisees, which is used very frequently in the other Gospels, but not in John at all. It's in chapter 8, verse 3. It says, then the scribes and Pharisees brought him a woman caught in adultery. Again, scribes and Pharisees is a phrase we have all the time in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and never in John except here. So this suggests it has affinities to the synoptic Gospels rather than John.

Also the fact that they came to test him, we see in the synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, near the end of Jesus' earthly life, in the Passion Week, he was approached by Pharisees and Sadducees and lawyers and so forth, testing him with hard cases like this. We don't have that in John, but this would fit very well into the Passion Week narrative of some place like Luke. Also, by the way, the story tells that Jesus was staying in Bethany and would come into Jerusalem in the daytime and teach in the temple and then go away again. That's what we find him doing during the Passion Week in Luke and in Matthew and Mark. So the story has, as I say, features in it that would make it a perfect fit for a Passion Week narrative in one of the synoptics. But it doesn't fit real well in John, and so some think it might have been originally in Luke, because some manuscripts have it there in the Passion Week. But most of the manuscripts that have survived have it in John, and that's why our Bibles have it there.

Anyway, we'll never know exactly where it was originally, but I personally and most scholars don't have any serious doubt that it's a true story of Jesus and that it really happened the way it's recorded. Let's talk to Ruth from Mission Viejo, California. Ruth, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Thank you, and thank you so much for taking my call. God says that he's not willing, that any should perish. And I'm questioning in John where Jesus says, no one can come to him unless the Father draws him. So then I wonder, well then, why doesn't the Father draw everyone since he's not willing that any should perish?

Maybe he does. Jesus did say in John chapter 12, if I am lifted up, I will draw all men to myself. So if Jesus said he's going to draw all men to himself, maybe that's exactly what he does.

The real question is, if he is drawing somebody, can they resist? In other words, could God be drawing all men to himself, and yet some of them don't come? Calvinists would say no. Calvinists would say God only draws the elect, and the elect are inevitably going to come, and the drawing is irresistible. This is the doctrine of irresistible grace, the fourth point in Calvinism.

And I don't agree with Calvinism, but the thing is, I believe that the Bible teaches everywhere that God can draw and we can resist. Many times in Isaiah, God says, I called and no one came, you know. Many are called and few are chosen, Jesus said. Some of them don't respond and become part of the chosen people. It says in Matthew 23, I think it's verse 37, Jesus said, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how many times I would have gathered you as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you would not come.

So he was trying to draw them, he was trying to gather them, but they wouldn't come. So you know, maybe God does draw all men to himself. We see that there are people in the book of Acts who, when they hear the gospel, their hearts are pricked, which would suggest that God is convicting them. In the case of the Sanhedrin, in Acts chapter 7, when their hearts were pricked, they stoned the messenger, Stephen. In the case of the pilgrims in Jerusalem in Acts chapter 2, their hearts were pricked and they said, what must we do to be saved?

So God pricks people's hearts and sometimes they convert and sometimes they kill the messenger. How, then, do you put that together with, there are so many verses that call believers chosen? Well, we are, God has chosen to take all believers and adopt them as his children and allow them to be conformed to the image of his son, as it says in Romans 8.29, that whom he foreknew, he also did predestined to be conformed to the image of his son. So the ones that he foreknows, that's the believers, he ordains for them to be brought into the image of Christ, which is our destiny.

We are not yet there, but we will be there. That's what he is destined for, Christians, is that, and we are chosen for that. But the category is chosen.

It's a chosen category. If you are in Christ, Ephesians 1, 4 says we are chosen in him and God chose us in him. So Christ is the chosen one. And if we are in Christ, we participate in that chosen status with him.

If we're not, we don't. So once we are, it's like Israel, Israel was the chosen people, but an individual could join Israel and be part of the chosen people. If they wanted to, a Gentile could be circumcised or a Jew could abandon the chosen people.

He could be cut off from his people. So it was collectively Israel as a nation was chosen and individuals could choose to be in or out of the chosen people. If they chose to be in, then they become part of the chosen people too. Likewise, Christ is the new Israel and being chosen is now not being in Israel but in Christ.

He is collective. You were talking to a non-believer and they made a comment or something like, well, just because you were chosen or made it seem like you're chosen, aren't you special? Could you say to them, well, you also could be chosen if you believe? Is that okay?

Absolutely. Everyone who believes is then part of the chosen people, part of the chosen one, Christ. We become in Christ and we're chosen in him. I've given more than one example in the past, but if you think in terms of a football team, my son played high school football and his high school's team was chosen to go the next season up to Seattle from California with another high school team that was chosen and play football in a major stadium and have it televised and stuff like that. I don't know how that was arranged because I never followed the sport that much, but my son came home and said, wow, we've been picked for this. Our school has been picked, our team.

Sure enough, they were, but by the time the game was played, he had dropped out. His team was chosen, but the constituency of the team changed between the time of choosing and the time of it happening. Same thing can be true of Israel. God chooses Israel, but people can choose to be in it or out of it. It's not the individuals who are chosen, it's the team, it's the group, it's the category.

Those who are in Christ are chosen. Well, that's extremely helpful. Thank you so much.

Okay. I appreciate your call very much. God bless you. It looks like Debbie from McMinnville, Oregon, where I used to live. Hi, Debbie. Welcome to The Narrow Path.

Thanks for calling. Hi. This is such a simple question.

I'm almost embarrassed to ask it, but I thought, who better than you to answer it? What is the difference between a disciple and an apostle? Well, they are overlapping categories. Every Christian in the New Testament is called a disciple. For example, on one occasion, Jesus sent out 70 disciples, two by two. And then, of course, he told his apostles to go and make disciples of all nations. And in the book of Acts, in the early days, in the early chapters, the believers are always called disciples. And then we have in chapter 11 of Acts, in verse 26, it says the disciples were first called Christians at Antioch. So the word Christian was adopted to replace the more common word disciples for believers. So in the Bible, a disciple of Jesus Christ is simply a Christian, and a real Christian is always a disciple. Now, there are people who today would call themselves Christians by some other definition.

Like they said a sinner's prayer, they joined a church, or they're baptized as an infant, or something like that. But in the Bible, a person is a Christian only if they're a disciple of Jesus. That means they're following him. Now, an apostle—of course, the apostles are also disciples, they're also Christians—but they were specially selected and sent to represent Christ officially. The word apostolos in the Greek refers to an official messenger who is sent.

It literally means a sent one, someone who is sent like an ambassador, someone authorized to speak on behalf of the one sending him. Now, we read in the Gospels that Jesus called his disciples to him, and from them he chose 12 and called them apostles. So there's obviously a larger number of people he was calling disciples, and a small number within them he selected to call them apostles. This doesn't change the fact that they were disciples, it just adds another layer of significance. It was an authoritative position to be leaders in the church. And many times in the Gospels, when it says the disciples, it really only is referring to the apostles. Sometimes it says Jesus and his disciples got in the boat and went across the lake. Well, the disciples who got in the boat were the apostles.

So there are times when the word disciple is used to describe the apostles, but it's never assumed that all disciples are apostles, but that any believer in Christ, anyone who's following him, was a disciple. All right. Wonderfully put. Thank you. Thank you.

I can share that with my family, too. Thank you so much. I enjoy your show. Tremendous. All right.

All right, Debbie. Thank you for your call. God bless you.

Jacob from Phoenix, Arizona. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

Hey, Steve. Thank you for your insights and everything. I'll just make this quick, because I know you ain't got much time, but I was reading through Numbers and Leviticus, and I came upon, kind of seems to be like an age of accountability where he talks about that the 20 and up were the ones who were not going to be able to enter the Promised Land. Especially being Deuteronomy chapter 1, yeah.

Yeah, and then if you read on to Numbers, I mean, Deuteronomy chapter 1, he specifically says because they had not known that they were evil, right? Right. And I was kind of thinking about that, and then I'm also thinking about as far as the age of accountability and other cultures and nations that are outside of the gospel of Christ and people, because people definitely have died, you know what I'm saying, they hadn't heard the gospel, you know, like how does the age of, you know, like what would the age of accountability be like, and exactly, you know, somebody come accountable for their sin, you know, whether or not they've heard Christ. Sure. It's kind of like those issues, like what about people outside of Christ, like how does that work, you know?

Yeah. Well, first of all, I should point out that there are a lot of evangelicals who don't believe the doctrine that there is an age of accountability. I do, so I'm on your side about this one, but there are people who believe there's no age of accountability, and they say the term age of accountability is not found in Scripture.

That is true. The term age of accountability is not found in Scripture, but the idea that children below a certain age are not held accountable as older people are for certain things for which they'd otherwise be culpable is certainly found in Scripture, and you mentioned Deuteronomy chapter 1. It's in verse 39. Moses said, Moreover, your little ones and your children, who you say will be victims, who today have no knowledge of good and evil, they shall go in there into the promised land because they didn't participate in the rebellion, or they didn't know better than to do so, is what he's saying. And that's, you know, that basically points out there is an age group of people who don't know the difference between good and evil.

In Isaiah chapter 7, it says in verse 16, For before the child shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land that you dread will be forsaken by both their kings. Now this simply mentions a child that would be born and says, before the child knows to refuse evil and choose good. Obviously, it's taken for granted there is an age or a point at which a child reaches an age where they know to choose good and refuse evil. He doesn't say what age that is. In Deuteronomy chapter 1, the age that was referenced was like people 20 years and under. More modern Jews would make that age 13, and that's why the bar mitzvah is given at age 13 because the child becomes responsible for keeping the law himself instead of being under the umbrella of his parents' obedience to the covenant. In any case, we don't have any direct statements in the Bible about how old a person would be when they cross that line to accountability, and I think probably because it would really differ with different people. Some people mature more quickly than others.

Some kids are late bloomers. Some people are mentally challenged. Some may be so mentally challenged that there certainly are people who are mentally disabled to the point where God might see they never reach an age of accountability. But you were asking about people who've never heard the gospel. Now people who've never heard the gospel would also, of course, be born with the same innocence or we might not say innocence, but let's just say exemption from condemnation because of their ignorance. But they would also reach an age where they know right from wrong. They might not know the gospel. They might not know the law of God. They might never hear the scripture. But everyone reaches an age where they become mindful of the existence of moral reality, and if they violate that, which everyone does, that brings upon themselves condemnation. At what age do they reach that awareness? Again, I don't know that we certainly don't have any evidence in the Bible of any particular age being the age, but I would say it'd be at a pretty young age. But God only has to know.

No one else has to know that. We're all responsible as soon as we know that we should do something, that we should start doing it. We're held responsible for that. I'm afraid we're out of time, and I'm responsible for closing down the program here, so I appreciate your call.

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