The Narrow Path 11/10

Music Good afternoon and welcome to the Narrow Path Radio Broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we're live for an hour each weekday afternoon taking your calls. If you have questions about the Bible or the Christian faith, feel free to give me a call and we'll talk about them together. The number to call is 844-484-5737. That's 844-484-5737. And we're going to go directly now to callers and talk to Eli in Riverside, California.

Eli, welcome to the Narrow Path. Thanks for calling. Hi Steve, thank you. Thank you for taking my call. I've been reading Matthew and Mark and every feeling that Jesus does. He always tells not to tell no one, not to mention him. I wanted to know why he does that and how can I apply that to my Christian life and I'll take the answer on the radio.

Okay, thank you for your call. Why did Jesus, when he healed people and raised them from the dead like Jairus' daughter, why did he so frequently tell the people who had received this benefit from him not to tell anyone about it? Well, it is a very strange thing because we would assume that if Jesus was trying to become famous, he would want the rumors of his miracles to spread and he wouldn't discourage that.

On the other hand, we don't have any reason to believe that Jesus was intended to become famous and it sounds like he didn't want to encourage rumors to spread about him, though they did anyway. Generally speaking, when he told people don't tell anyone about this, they did anyway and so crowds would hear about it and he was swamped. It may be that he simply knew that the word was already out and would continue to grow it. He'd have no control over how much people talked about the things he was doing, so he didn't want to increase that. He was already swamped. Sometimes it's hard for him to walk down the street because the crowds were clogging the streets and so forth and sometimes he was so busy with people he didn't even stop to sleep or eat, the Bible says, for apparently several days on end. So it may be that he had plenty on his hands without encouraging people to go off and spread the news. He wasn't starting a corporation.

He wasn't starting even any kind of a money-making thing, so having more people there would only perhaps make his work less efficient and he's not trying to build a big name for himself. In fact, when he told his disciples that he was the Messiah, he told them don't tell anyone about this until after I've risen from the dead, which is interesting because, again, we sometimes think, many times people think Jesus was one of these people going out claiming to be the Messiah and, you know, why should we believe him when he says that since there were a lot of false messiahs claiming to be the Messiah. Well, he didn't claim to be the Messiah, not openly. He did in private to the woman at the well he mentioned.

She brought the subject up and he said, well, I'm him. And also Peter brought the subject up when Jesus said, who do you say? And he said, you're the Messiah. And Jesus said, well, yeah, that's true, but don't tell anyone about this. He did tell Caiaphas that he was a Messiah, but again, Caiaphas brought it up. He said, are you the Christ?

I adjure you by the living God to tell me the truth about this. And he said, yeah, well, I am. So, I mean, Jesus never demured from telling the truth about the matter in situations that were relatively private when he was asked about it. But in public, we don't find him ever going out and using the word Messiah to speak to of himself. People had ideas about who he was. Some thought he was John the Baptist. Some thought he was Jeremiah the prophet or Elijah. But, um, he never actually announced publicly in words that they understood to be referring to this, uh, that he was the Messiah.

So why not? Why did he not encourage people to go talk him up more? Well, because he wasn't on the kind of plans that we're on. He wasn't leading a manmade movement. Churches are all manmade. I mean, the church, the body of Christ globally is not.

It's that something God created. But individual churches in any given town were founded by people, uh, founded by people who applied for corporate status. And, uh, and then they, uh, in many cases they have, uh, you know, made salaries on it and they've, and they have tried to build their churches to be big for various reasons. Um, even though many times they're not doing a very good job of making disciples of the, even the ones they have, they seem to be sometimes addicted to growth.

Why? Well, that's cause that's human thinking. Man's corporations need to be, uh, need to be supported by man's fleshly efforts. And since every corporate church that is every corporation church is a something that man created.

And I'm not, I don't say that as a put down because any group of people that gets together, some man has to make it happen. But the church, the true church, the movement that Jesus started, the kingdom of God is a thing that God promotes and Jesus didn't want to, uh, promote it. He didn't want his disciples at that point to promote it either. Uh, first of all, the gospel that he was preaching had another important element that needed to be added before the gospel could be preached to all people. And that was that of course Jesus was going to die and rise again. Um, and he couldn't make that publicly known until it actually happened.

The reason is because it says in first Corinthians chapter two that, um, if the, if the rulers of this world had known what was that he was going to conquer in this way, they would not have crucified him. And so Jesus had to kind of keep, keep it as a secret between himself and his disciples. He told his disciples, they didn't understand it, but he didn't publicly declare it. So I think when Jesus just said, don't tell anyone about this, it's not like, I don't think it's like, no, by no means tell anyone about this.

If anyone hears about this, it's a, it's a terrible thing. Uh, if so, then these people greatly disappointed him because they did go out and tell people anyway. I think he was just discouraging them from publicizing it because frankly, his ministry already had enough publicity. And, uh, after he rose from the dead, of course, he told his disciples to go out and preach it to every nation. But that's because first of all, uh, he would not be in danger of being thronged in the streets cause he's going to go back to heaven and his message could be preached by thousands of people throughout the world. And of course, by the time he died and rose again, the message was complete. Uh, he was preaching that the kingdom of God was at hand and had even come, but he had not yet taken the throne as the King. He did that after he ascended to heaven. And then the message could be preached to everybody.

So I think it's just the stage of development and what Jesus was accomplishing that, that had reached to that point. He, he was not looking for a huge amount of publicity. A lot of times he found publicity to be annoying. Many times it says that he just tried to get away from the crowds. He jumped in the boat with his disciples and crossed the lake to get away from the crowds.

Now they found him anyway. And when he saw them, he had compassion on them. So he ministered to them and healed the sick and did those things. He, he did the things he did not for publicity. He did the things he did because he cared and because, uh, he was, you know, doing what the Messiah was said to do. But, uh, yeah, it just seems bizarre to us cause everybody who starts a church or starts a movement or a cult or even a business, they want everybody to know about it.

They want, they, you know, there's nothing like, there's no such thing as bad publicity when you're trying to, you know, get attention. But Jesus didn't come to be an attention getter and uh, and sometimes the crowds I think were a little bit a hindrance to his movements and he found it somewhat difficult at times to get away from them. So that probably has something to do with why he didn't want these people to go around, you know, spreading the word about what he had done when he healed them or raised them from the dead. I could be wrong. And of course the Bible doesn't say why he did, but we know that that's what he did.

I think it's consistent with his general behavior throughout his earthly ministry. Mark and Chandler, Arizona. Welcome to the narrow path. Thanks for calling. Hello. Hello. Hey Steve. This is Mark. Hi.

I have a, I want your opinion. I'll tell you my, I have a adult daughter that claims she's gay, has a girlfriend and they attend this church and they still claim that they are Christian and they base this whole premise on that there's no reference to lesbianism in the Bible and that the in Galatians and I believe also in Corinthians where it mentioned homosexuality, that that word in the original Greek, it actually means a boy prostitute or, or referring to using a boy to, for sex or to, to rape. Yeah. So, so the, I've, I've, I've read those things too. I mean, what she's been reading is very popular among, you know, gay affirming churches. They say those things, they're not really very responsible with the Greek. As a matter of fact, the, the words that Paul uses, for example, in a first Corinthians six that are translated effeminate and, and homosexual are different words in the Greek for each other. And one of them refers to the, the, the member of a, of a male homosexual couple who plays the role of the female in the sexual act and, and the other is the one who plays the role of the male. And it is true therefore that technically lesbianism is not mentioned in the Bible, but that's, that's not important to, to note. The question is what does God reveal as the normal and proper and moral use of sex? Now this is something that's a subject that people hardly ever think about anymore because sex outside of marriage or sex without marriage is just normative in our corrupt culture. And yet the Bible indicates that sex that is not within marriage is fornication. And we can see that that's true, whether it's a man or a woman that's having sex because let's say a woman who is engaged to be married to somebody and who had sex with somebody else was put to death along with the guy who had sex with her. In other words, the man and the woman are both equally guilty of having sex outside of marriage. Now it's true when Paul talks about homosexuality and many other things, whenever he talks about people as in a generic category, he, he calls them by masculine examples.

You know you know when the Bible says if any man should believe in him, he'll have everlasting life. Man, well what about women? Well of course, we're living in a time where the devil has tried to so confuse language and so confuse communication, so confuse morality that the things that people knew normally by common sense when they read the Bible are no longer recognizable to people who, who simply are products of this age. We no longer are allowed. I noticed in writing my recent book, when I'm speaking generically of a human being, I have to say his or her or he or she doesn't have to use both because the days seem to be gone where you can just say he and everyone will know you mean a human being, male or female.

That's how the language was used for hundreds of years, but suddenly people don't understand English anymore and so you have to kind of change things up. Well yeah, Paul does talk about homosexual sex as corrupt and, and he uses the male example of it, but whether he does so or not, whether he mentions lesbianism or not, lesbianism is not normative marriage because Jesus defined a marriage in Matthew chapter 19. He said, have you not read that from the beginning he made them male and female and said for this cause a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife and the two should become one flesh. Now becoming one flesh is what happens when people are in a sexual relationship and, and Jesus said that happens when a man takes a wife. Now in, in a homosexual arrangement, there is no wife or, or if there are two wives, there's no man.

So clearly whether you have the word lesbian or the idea spelled out like that or not, Christians who think, well, the sin I'm committing isn't named specifically in the Bible, therefore I can get away with it, are not people who are concerned about pleasing God. They're concerned about making sure that they're getting away with something. You know, that's legalism. Legalism says, you know, what am I forbidden to do?

Tell me and I'll try to avoid it. But, uh, a Christian says not what am I forbidden to do, but what, what does God want me to do? What is the will of God for my life? It's not my will, but his that I want. And so there's a huge difference between a religious person who's just saying, Hey, there's no law against what I say.

So it's okay. On the one hand, and a person who says, you know, I really want to know what the will of God is for my sexuality. And I'm going to look to the word of God for that. Oh, I see. It's for marriage. It's for having children. It's for a man and a woman to become one flesh.

That's what it is. And therefore, if I am not going to marry a woman, me as a man, or if a woman is not going to marry a man, then that person should resign themselves to being celibate because sex is for marriage. And I'm not saying that only about lesbians or homosexuals. I'm saying that about straight people too. If a person does not want to marry a person in the norms of biblical marriage, then they are to be celibate.

That's just what the is very clear. And if a person says they're a Christian, but is a fornicator, Paul said, don't have anything to do with them. They're not going to inherit the kingdom of God.

He said that in first Corinthians five and first Corinthians six and Galatians five also says it in verses 19 through 21. So there's really only one proper use for sex and that's within biblical marriage. If a person is not in biblical marriage, that would mean a heterosexual person who's never married or is not married or a gay person who's not married. And being married to another gay, that is two people of the same sex being married is not biblical marriage.

And so even if the culture calls it that, who cares? You know, our culture for decades now since the sixties have been allowing people to divorce. I'm talking about heterosexual couples to divorce and remarry at will.

Well, that's not okay. Jesus said that if a man divorces his wife for any reason other than fornication on her part, then if he marries again, he's committing adultery, which means that second marriages are adultery if they're not properly punctuated by a proper divorce of the previous marriage. Now, so our society has been marrying people who don't have any right to be married to each other.

I'm talking about heterosexual couples since the sixties. Now, just because the culture says that's okay, it doesn't change what the word of God says. Jesus doesn't change his mind just because we decide to ignore what he says and in rebellion make laws that are different than what he says. Likewise, if we're now marrying same sex couples, it's no more legitimate to do that than it is to marry a couple that's heterosexual, but one of them is still married to somebody else. It's just not okay. The law may allow it, but the Bible doesn't. So, I mean, the problem here is that she's saying, I have attraction sexually to other women, not to men, and I don't want to be celibate. So I'm going to find some way to justify what the church has always condemned, what the Bible has always seen as forbidding.

I'm going to find a way to justify that so I can have what I want. Well, she can do that, but she can't be a Christian to do that because Jesus said, if you're going to come to me, you have to deny yourself and take up your cross and follow me. And following him means obeying him, imitating him, being loyal to him, and denying yourself means that you don't do what you want to do, you do what he wants you to do.

So I realize that churches are full of people, straight and gay, who have never denied themselves. They've never been willing to say, well, I'll let God have his way instead of me have mine. What they want is to feel good about themselves. That means they want to feel religious. They want to feel like they're worshipping God. But, you know, Jesus indicated that worshipping him is of no value if you're disobedient. He said to obey is better than to sacrifice. Sacrifice is worship. Obedience is something else. I mean, people could do whatever they want to, but if the churches are not telling them that until you become obedient to Christ, until your will is laid on the altar and you say, not my will, but yours, God, until you're there, you haven't surrendered yet. You're still at war with God.

And people are at war with God are not saved. Well, I agree with you a hundred percent. I just, it's almost like I just, I need, uh, support and ammo to, I understand. I understand. I'm very fortunate. I'm very fortunate that none of my children have, uh, have come out as homosexuals. I know many Christians whose children have, but some of my children have, uh, have done other things that are not proper for Christians to do and have chosen as a lifestyle before. So I understand what, as a Christian parent, how difficult that is. But you know, you know, I think when a Christian has a child who says, well, I'm gay, I can't help it.

I was born this way or whatever. And that is what she says. And I can disagree with it.

I do too. But of course she says that. But, but when a parent has a child like that, it seems more hopeless because like if you have a heterosexual child who's living with a partner, uh, you think, well, at least they could get saved and get married. But if, if a child is homosexual, they probably won't ever get married in a biblical sense, um, because they're not attracted to it. And this is sad. I mean, it's sad for the child. It's sad for the parent.

It's sad for everybody involved. And that's what sin has done. But I will say this, that many Christians throughout history, believe it or not, have chosen to be celibate. Uh, I was single for 10 years, uh, in the, in the, uh, first decade of this century. And, uh, 10 years is a long time for me. I, and I, and I didn't know if I'd ever remarry.

Fortunately I did, but I actually began to wonder maybe I'll never remarry. But you know what? I knew that part of the cost of being unmarried is I stay celibate. It's not what I wanted to do.

I'm not sure it's what very many people at all want to do, but being a disciple of Jesus means you do what he says, not what you want. And you, I completely agree. I mean, I just, it's just, you know, it's, it's, it's been tearing me apart for sure. I mean, I, I knew it before she even told me a couple of years ago. I mean, it was, it was evident just by her behavior. And, uh, but you know, now, now that she has this significant other partner, you know, um, and I know that, um, whenever she's gonna come to visit, she's, you know, I hope I don't have to get into that, you know, they're not going to be staying in my house, but I'm hoping that she understands that that's just not something that I'm going to be okay with.

Yeah, that's the hard thing. And the truth is she'll think you're the rotten one for making that decision, but really who does she think she is that she can do things that totally violate your principles and your morals and your conscience and, and presumed to stay under your roof. Why should anyone think that they should be able to stay in your house if they're, if they're living in a way that's abhorrent to you, you know, it's, it's amazing how entitled these people seem to feel children.

Now these are adult children, adult children don't have any innate right to be in your house, uh, especially if they're not going to live the way that you approve of. Right. I mean, I agree a hundred percent. I just, it's just that, uh, it's just a battle that I, I hear you, I hear you and I put it on the, I put it on the shelf and I don't, uh, you know, I don't, I don't have to address it at times, but then it's coming. I know that battle was coming. I'm sure it will. And Mark, there's many of our people listening who have been in your shoes precisely.

And uh, I'm sure they'll be praying for you and they sympathize with you as, as, as I do. God bless you. Uh, we have another Mark in line here who's from Vancouver, BC. Hi Mark.

Welcome to the narrow path. Thanks for calling. Steve. As you very well know, the, uh, a millennial truth and the super session of streets are very basic and clear biblical doctrines, but sadly missed by probably 60% of Christian leaders today. Um, I have felt burdened to, uh, and with your great teaching and I've kind of put together a two minute, um, summary of, of the subject. I just want to get your comment on it.

Just take two minutes. Uh, John the Baptist warned the leaders of Old Testament Israel that status with God is not based upon biological connection with Abraham. Jesus affirmed that biological connection with Abraham is not what counts with God, but rather spiritual connection with Abraham. Jesus said to the leaders of Old Testament Israel that they were spiritual sons of the devil, even though they were in fact physical sons of Abraham.

Jesus also affirmed that it was not so much his own natural mother and brothers who were his true family members, but rather anyone and everyone who does the will of God are his true family members. Jesus said to the leaders of Old Testament Israel, the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation who will produce spiritual fruit. And Peter confirmed that this new nation was none other than the church of Jesus Christ. When Peter wrote that the New Testament church is a royal priesthood and a holy nation who were previously not the people of God, but now are in fact the people of God. Peter also said in the book of Acts that Jesus Christ was the prophet like Moses spoken of in Deuteronomy 18 and Peter further confirmed that Christ was already at that time sitting upon the kingdom throne of David and anyone and everyone who does not submit to the kingdom of Jesus Christ will be utterly cut off from the Israel of God.

God the Father endorses Jesus Christ in Matthew 17-5 when he said, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased, hear him. Paul confirms in Acts 20-24 that the gospel of the kingdom of God is one and the same gospel as the gospel of the grace of God. Paul also said in Galatians that if any man preach any other gospel than this one true gospel, let him be accursed. Paul clearly teaches in Romans that not all Israel are of Israel and that the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God.

He is not a Jew who is one outwardly but he is rather a Jew who is one inwardly. Israel did not obtain the promise but the elect remit did obtain it. Paul clearly teaches that all the promises of God are an amen in Christ. To Abraham, one more minute, 10 more seconds, Paul clearly affirms that all the promises of God to Abraham were particularly directed to one specific singular seed of Abraham and that one specific singular seed of Abraham is none other than Jesus Christ and if you are in Christ then you are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. Would you say that's a good summary? Yeah, yeah, it sounds like something that could be taken from my lectures on Israel too.

I mean, not that you haven't gotten it from there. That's what the Bible says and that's what all millennialism and supersessionism has always said, which is of course New Testament Christianity. Hey, I appreciate your call. I need to take a break as you can hear the music.

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Share what you know. Welcome back to The Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we're live for another half hour. Take in your calls if you have questions about the Bible or the Christian faith. Be glad to talk to you. Also, if you have a different viewpoint from the host, you're welcome to call. The number is 844-484-5737. That's 844-484-5737. Our next caller is Nelson calling from Sacramento, California.

Nelson, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling. Thanks, Steve. I have a little situation I need to talk to you about. We're a Christian family. My wife and I are very upset about the election results. My wife is mad at God for letting this happen. And I've tried to explain to her it's not God's fault, it's man's fault. We are becoming an apostate nation and when you turn your back on the Lord, bad things happen. What do I say to her?

I don't know what to tell her. I think you've got it right. You know in biblical times people didn't even have a choice as to who ruled them and yet sometimes they got evil rulers. But the Bible makes it very clear that ultimately receiving evil rulers can be in fact God's judgment on a nation that has turned from Him. And as you pointed out, ours certainly has done that long ago. It's amazing that He hasn't judged us sooner.

But when it comes to a nation like ours where actually the leaders are democratically elected by votes of the people, when the bad guys win, that makes very clear that the voters are the bad guys. In other words, we get exactly what we deserve and this time we brought it on ourselves. If the Christians in Rome in Paul's day had to live under Nero as he covered them with pitch and burned them or fed them to lions and did all kinds of things like dismembered them, they might say, what did we do? What did we do to have this happen? Well, they didn't do anything.

God was putting them through hard tests like He has put many Christians in different times. But we don't have to say what did we do? We know we voted.

And I mean, I didn't vote for the man, but but many people do. I mean, if if the outcome is fair and true now, I personally don't believe it was. But of course, the proof, the proof has not been forthcoming, although a certain lot of evidence has been brought forward. And I don't think it's over yet.

I don't know. I just don't know how it's going to turn out because there are a lot of things still being challenged. I'm not convinced. I'm not convinced that Biden's going to be the president, but he might be. And if he is, it'll be because it'll be because, you know, he got the votes or at least, you know, at least it can't be proven that he didn't.

Let's put it that way. So I mean, your wife is wrong at the wrong person. First of all, it's it's people who elected presidents, but it is God who allows them to rise or fall. And if she thinks that she can blame God for this, then she's saying that God's making a bad choice. And I'm not really sure on what basis any of us could say God made makes any bad choices. I mean, if we say God, maybe if we say God made a bad choice, what we're really saying is he made a different choice than I would. And that means, OK, so he and I are not on the same page, apparently. And so who's wrong him or me?

Yeah. Well, I'm I'm I'm pretty upset about her being mad at God. I'm trying to talk, talk her down a little bit. I've known people who get mad at God. I've never understood how anyone could get mad at God because you get mad at someone when they didn't do the right thing. You don't you don't get mad at people for doing the right thing. You get mad at people when they didn't do the right thing.

So if I say I'm mad at God, then I'm implicitly saying God did the wrong thing. Well, in whose judgment? Whose judgment was the wrong thing? Well, mine. Oh, so my judgment and God's are, you know, in competition. Is my judgment likely to be better than his? If you think so, it's a little arrogant, don't you think?

I'm smarter than God. Yeah. Just a little. Yeah. Yes. I mean, there's no.

Yeah. I mean, people people are sometimes emotional and and they feel and they feel emotions like anger and sadness and grief and fear and things like that. But, you know, but people are not only emotional, they're also rational.

That's what the brain in your head is for to be rational. And when you have emotions, you can't always help what your emotions are, but you can rebuke your own emotions. Remember, David in the Psalms said he rebuked his own soul. He said, Why are you cast down on my soul? Hoping God, you know, I mean, it's like his brain knew what was right, but his soul, his his emotions were cast down.

He was depressed. Okay. Is that a verse that I can that I can share with her?

Sure. Yeah, that's in Psalm. I'm gonna have to look it up here at Psalm forty forty three.

And let me see. It's forty. Yeah, it's forty two and forty three.

It's this comes up. Well, yeah, in Psalm forty two verse five. And then also same chapter verse eleven. And then the next next and then Psalm forty six verse five also. So so chapters Psalm forty two and forty three. And, you know, what we see there is David or the writer.

It's actually David. The writer recognizes that his emotions are not right. He's cast down. He's depressed. Well, he can't help being depressed, but he kind of takes his soul to task about this.

How dare you? How dare you be cast down? You need to hope in God. You know, it's now hoping in God is your when you tell yourself to open God, that's your rational brain commanding your emotions to get in line. And that's what we have to do. We can't just go by our emotions or else we'll be up and down and up and down.

We'll be unstable as water. But we can't deny that we have emotions, but we can certainly deny that our emotions are valid if they're not valid. And in many of our emotions are not valid.

And we know it because they're out of sync with what God says. So, you know, I would say that those those verses might be helpful. Yeah, that was exactly what I was looking for. And and you've kind of brought me to tears here because I've been struggling with that. And I thank you very much for that. I will pray with her tonight.

And we'll go over that and maybe that'll maybe that'll calm her down. Thank you so much. Bless you. God bless you, Nelson. I appreciate you calling in today. Mike from Aurora, Oregon. Welcome to the Narrow Path.

Hi, Mike. Hey, I've been leading a Bible study with some newer believers. And so I was we were going through the elementary principles of Hebrew six. And as we were going through those, it seemed like five of them are really obvious that these are real big things.

But the one I'm having a little bit of a hard time with laying on a family laying on of hands. It seems I am I missing something? It's like it seems like if you're going to make a list of six things that every new believer needs, I wouldn't put that in my top list. I'm not arguing with God, but I'm I'm thinking maybe I miss something or maybe the whole church has missed something. You know, I mean, listen, the writer of Hebrews is reflecting the understanding of Christianity that the apostles had in the days of Christ and after Christ had left. Our understanding is the understanding of the church 2000 years later, after having some rather traditional additions and subtractions to Christianity. So this is why going back to the scripture and saying, Well, what did they believe about Christianity is so necessary, because we cannot assume that 2000 years later, the church is not going to have moved from it. There's all kinds of warnings in the Bible moving from it, including in Hebrews. And Hebrews says, Make sure we don't we need to be careful.

We don't move away or drift away from these things. He says in Hebrews chapter two in verse one. So I think the church has drifted away because in the in the days of the apostles, these were thought to be the fundamental issues, the foundation of Christianity. Of course, there's no mention of but there's the assumption of the lordship of Christ. But but he says we we need to get beyond these first principles of Christ. And let's go on to maturity not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, of faith toward God, of doctrine of baptisms, of laying on of hands, of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment. Now, I want to say there's first of all, a real controversy among Christian scholars as to whether he's writing about things that per pertain to Christianity or that pertain to Judaism.

Remember him about that? Yeah, his readers are Jewish Christians. And he sounds that they need to go beyond these fundamental things. And so some people think he's talking about the things of Judaism, the fundamentals of Judaism, we need to go beyond that, and go all the way into understanding of the New Covenant and following Christ and so forth. So they would say he's listing Jewish practices. Well, the truth is, there, these are Jewish practices. But they're certainly not the foundations of Jewish practice.

I mean, if we're talking about Jewish religion, the foundation be animal sacrifices. And certainly if he's going to list Jewish things they need to get beyond, you'd think it'd be things like circumcision, and dietary laws, and festivals, and, and also, you know, like I said, circumcision, and so forth. And yet, those things which are much more fundamental to Judaism, the Jewish religion, Old Testament, are not none of them are on the list. The things that are on the list are not exactly the most fundamental things to Judaism.

But are they the fundamental things to Christianity? Let me say this, one good argument that he is talking about the fundamentals of Judaism rather than Christianity, is that the word baptisms he uses in verse two, is a word that is used elsewhere to speak of Jewish washings. But and so they, some people say see, he's talking about Jewish practices. However, the John the Baptist, and Jesus did not deny that baptism replaces Jewish washings that it is in itself, the Christians version of those washings that were part of Judaism.

And the word baptisms is, is very close to our word baptism in the Greek language. And, and so I don't think we can rule out that these are Christian practices. Let me make a case for them being Christian practices. He says, first of all, let's, let's leave the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, verse six, chapter six, verse one. So he's talking about the fundamental principles of Christ or of Christianity. He talks about repentance and faith. Okay, those are certainly fundamental to Christianity, baptisms, and the laying on of hands.

Now you wondered about the laying on of hands, we'll get to that in a moment. But those certainly those are practiced in the New Testament. And he said a resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment, which are both New Testament teachings, also Christian teachings.

Now, actually, the resurrection of the dead was never extremely clearly taught in the Old Testament, but it's announced very clearly in the New Testament. But nonetheless, all of these things were things that the Jews did. But they're also things that Christians did. But the interesting thing is, if he's trying to list Jewish things that the Christian Jews should leave behind, and that's what he is saying, let's, let's go beyond this. Is he going to say, I mean, wouldn't he say, let's give up on the circumcision of the sacrifices and all the dietary laws.

He wouldn't say, let's give up on faith and repentance. Let's give up on, you know, the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgments. I mean, these are things that Christianity retains. These are things that, although many things in Judaism, we do get rid of them. That is, God has gotten rid of them.

We don't have to keep them yet. These are not those things. If he's trying to say, you know, let's leave Judaism behind and go into Christianity. Well, these are not the things that Christianity leaves behind when it leaves Judaism. These are things that Christianity retains.

So it seems to me, he's talking about Christian practices that, you know, when he says, let us go beyond them, he doesn't mean we have to abandon them, but we have to get further than that. And would it be, would it be wrong to say, I've always, I think I've always looked at these as being almost like the foundation of a house. These are foundational things and let's get beyond and start building the rest of the house. And is that, is that a proper intention? Yeah, that's what the word foundation means there.

But you asked specifically about laying on of hands. I want to say this, if you read these six things, and by the way, I have a lecture series on foundations that goes over this in great detail on my website, but if you read these six things, there are six of them and they are in three couplets. There's repentance and faith is one couplet. Baptisms laying on of hands is another couplet. Resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment is a third couplet.

Now these things, each of these couplets has something unique about them. Repentance and faith are what you must do yourself. Nobody else can do that for you. Your Sunday school teacher can't repent for you. Your parents can't believe for you. You have to believe and repent yourself or else you won't be a Christian. That's fundamental to being a committed Christian, repenting and faith and believing. But then when you come to the other, the next two, baptism and laying on of hands, these are things that you can't do for yourself. Christians didn't lay hands on themselves or baptize themselves.

The church does that. That's, this speaks about not only having a personal relationship with God, but a social connection with the body of Christ. The laying on of hands speaks of connection. It speaks of mutual involvement and so does baptism. And then the last two, resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment, these speak of not what you do or what the church does, but what God does. God raises you from the dead.

God will judge ultimately. So these, the fundamentals of Christianity are personal conversion, involvement in the body of Christ, and looking to God for the final resurrection and judgment. And laying on of hands is a lot like baptism in that it has a symbolic value.

Baptism is a symbolism of, of course, passing out of one life into a new life. Laying on of hands is it has to do with being connected, interconnected with members of the body of Christ. When people laid hands on someone, let's say to send them out as missionaries or something like that, which was a common practice in the early church, they were basically saying, we're connected here.

We could just send you off, but we want to connect with you. We want to actually place our hands on you so that you become, as it were the extension of our own hands and what you, what you do, we are endorsing what you do, we are doing. And therefore we're not just a bunch of isolated individuals out there serving God alone. We're all part of a team. We're part of a family.

We're part of a movement. And and, and the laying on of hands and baptism were the ways of be speaking that connection. So although laying on of hands itself may not be one of the most, uh, what should I say? One of the most important of all practices, the listing that he gives, I think emphasizes three fundamental things about being a Christian. One, you must repent and believe it's a personal decision. No one else would do that for you. Secondly, baptism in the lane of hands means you must be part of a Christian community.

You can't, you can't do these for yourself. You can repent and believe yourself, but you can't lay hands on yourself and baptize yourself. That's done by others. It, it presupposes you now are with others who are welcoming you into association with them in the body of Christ. And then the third thing of course is the hope of the Christian at the end of the age that God will raise us up from the dead and judges.

All of these things are very fundamental when, when Paul encountered Christians in Corinth who didn't believe in the resurrection of the dead, he wrote a whole chapter rebuking them, indicating that, you know, if the resurrection is not true, then the gospel is not true. Uh, so it's, it's pretty fundamental. Um, so that, that's what I see.

That's what I see the writer doing here. Wow. That was, that was excellent. Thank you so much.

I feel like it really gave me a way broader understanding. Thank you so much. Well, thank you, Michael.

I appreciate your call very much. Let's talk to Melvin from Texas. Melvin, welcome to the narrow path.

Thanks for calling Melvin. Hello. Hi. Hi Greg. How are you going? Going good. There's some noise on your phone. I don't know what's going on. I want to, um, get some input on the subject you're just talking about and see if, see if it helps and tell you what I see.

Okay. Yeah, I'm a pastor and I teach, I have called him this often in Hebrews chapter six is that when it's speaking of moving to spiritual maturity, that's the end. If, if, and if so, then each one of these has to be referring to something that occurs in a believer's life at the onset of their walk with Christ. So, so then obviously repentance from dead works, we got to repent to be saved. Uh, we go demonstrate or, or, or bring forth faith toward God. Uh, we have to be baptized. Um, we, we are, we'll have our hands laid on us. Anytime the Bible talks about, um, hands been laid on new believers to receive the Holy Spirit.

Yeah. And, and then we have, when it says the resurrection of the dead, I believe referring to our spiritual resurrection, um, from the spiritual debt condition, we come to Christ in and concerning our deliverance from eternal judgment. So those are things that we were concerned about and had a need of being dealt with to come to Christ.

So once we come to Christ, then it goes on to talk about, so it's a leave the principle principles, meaning the fundamental, the foundational things of the gospel of Christ. And it's speaking of the child of God's necessity to move on to greater and deeper things and spiritual growth in our walk with God. That is true. That's what he's talking about.

Yeah. And so that's, that's what I see that this is the bottom line here is speaking of spiritual growth is telling the believer those sure those things are foundational. They are, they are very, very important to enter into a walk with Christ.

But once you have entered, then move on, go on. There are deeper things. There are greater things that God has for the believer to know, to understand, to, to prepare to even teach and minister to others. So what the writer is actually, what he's wrapping up to is discussing Melchizedek. Uh, you know, he has just said just prior to that, uh, he wanted to talk to him about Melchizedek in chapter five, verse 10. And, but he says in verse 11 of chapter five of whom we have much to say and hard to explain since you have become dull of hearing for though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again, the first principles or of the oracles of God. And you've come to need milk and not solid food.

So he's complaining to them that he has things to talk about that are kind of deep, like the Melchizedek subject he wants to bring up. And he says, I'm really concerned because you guys are not really ready for solid food. You still drink milk. You're still babies. You haven't moved on beyond the first principles of Christ.

And he almost is not going to talk to him about this. Well, let's try it. Let's, let's move on from there. Let's, let's not lay again these foundations over and over.

Let's move on to, as you say, deeper things. And then he does. That's what he does in chapter seven. He begins to talk about Melchizedek in detail.

So, uh, yeah, you're right. He's, he's saying you don't want to stay babies and just hear sermons over and over again about the same things you already know and that you've known for years. You need in addition to that, to move on into a deeper understanding of the things of God. Uh, you know, Melvin, I appreciate your call very much. I need to talk to a couple more before we're done if we can, uh, or maybe only one, I hope we can get to, uh, Carlos in Carson, California. Welcome to the narrow path. Thanks for calling.

Hi, uh, listen, I have a question now. Now that Biden is in, and of course the Democrats are associated with Marxism. Uh, many of them call themselves Marxist. Yeah. Let's remember historically the Marxist persecuted Christianity in many of the communist countries.

That's an official, that's an official part of the agenda of Marxism is to destroy Christianity. Yeah. Right now, now that by then what's going to happen?

Are we going to gradually go into that kind of persecution, the Christian church? Well, I think many people are wondering that same thing. Yeah, I think many people are wondering that same thing.

And all I can say is, well, there's a couple of things. First of all, Biden is not really officially in, they keep talking about him as if he holds office now or something. No president has ever held office from election day forward. He will hold office when he's inaugurated as president, if he is. And that's in January.

Uh, it's, it's kind of silly. The Democrats are talking about him holding the office of president elect. That's a new term. The office of president elect, he doesn't hold any office. The only office he's been elected to is the office of president and he is not president yet. So he doesn't hold an office of any kind as president elect or any other kind. Uh, he's just a guy like Trump was six, four years ago when he got elected, he wasn't president. He didn't hold the office of present elect. He held no office until he was inaugurated in the office he was elected for, which is president. So Joe Biden is not in, he will very possibly be in if he's inaugurated in January, but until then he's nothing except somebody who expects to become the president and then it may be an expectation that will come true.

But you can't, you know, when I was young, I looked forward to being 30 for some reason, but by wanting to be 30 and knowing that I would send to be 30 I wasn't already able to claim myself to be 30. Uh, you have to wait for that. You have to wait for things to come that aren't there yet. And, uh, president elect Biden does not hold any public office at this moment. So that's the first thing, whether he will or not remains to be seen. Your second question is if he does, uh, will we be persecuted? Well, of course, of course we were already persecuted.

They already put people in jail if they don't go along with the gay agenda and make bake cakes and photograph weddings and so forth for them. I mean, this is persecution of Christianity. They don't do the same thing for Muslims. Muslims are every bit as disagreeable toward gay marriage as Christianity is. In fact, all religions are. Uh, but no one says a word against Muslims, but they'll shut down Christians, uh, and arrest them and so forth. So, I mean, it's, it's, it's targeted.

There's no question. It's targeted. And this happened before the socialists really fully came to power, but there, uh, it looks like they may come to power. I mean, it may not, we can pray. You can pray for, uh, you know, the election to be overturned or, uh, if Biden and Harris do become the new executive branch, pray for them because God is able to turn the hearts, uh, of the Kings. The Bible says in Proverbs 21, one, he turns the heart of the King. He doesn't do it automatically, but through the prayers of God's people, things do change. That's why prayer exists is because it changes things. It's prayer doesn't exist just as a therapeutic therapeutic exercise for us Christians.

It's a, it is petitioning God to do something that he would not necessarily otherwise do, but that is his will to do. He doesn't do his will unless he's asked in many cases. That's why James said you do not have because you do not ask.

If you did ask, of course it means you would have it. God's will is out there and if we don't ask for it, it might not come. So that's, that's where we play a role, but we may be persecuted. We should be ready for that.

All who live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution is a promise of scripture. Not, it's not in those promise boxes we usually have, but it's a promise. Nonetheless, I appreciate your call. You've been listening to the narrow path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg. We are listener supported. You can write to us at the narrow path P.O. Box 1730 Temecula, California 92593 or go to our website, the narrow path.com and listen in again tomorrow. We'll talk again. God bless.