The Narrow Path 07/28/2026

Steve Gregg: Good afternoon and welcome to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we are on the air an hour every weekday afternoon, commercial-free, live so that you can call in and we can talk about the questions you raise about the Bible, about the Christian faith, or the disagreements you have with the host. We can talk about those too. Now, if you're not familiar with the program, that's what it is. It's just 100 percent call-in. We don't have a topic, just call in with whatever questions you have. We've been doing this for 29 years. We're going into 30 years coming up here real soon because we've been on since 1997 and five days a week. That's a lot of broadcasts. So, we've had thousands and thousands of calls. A lot of these calls have been indexed topically at a website which is not our main website. Our main website is thenarrowpath.com. The name of the program is The Narrow Path. The auxiliary website I mentioned is called matthew713.com and there we have a topical index of over something like 30,000 calls that have come in over the years, arranged topically. You look up a topic, you'll see all the questions that have come in on that topic. You click on one of them and it takes you directly to that call where someone asked that question and gets an answer over the air. That's an amazing resource. If you haven't been there, you'd be amazed. There's over 2,000 topics and, as I said, about 30,000 different calls are indexed there. That's at matthew713.com. All right, now right now I'm looking at a reasonably open switchboard. We'll go to the calls immediately here, but if you're a regular listener, you know that's not always the case that we have lines open. Often it's full. Right now there are a few lines open. If you want to call, you can call me at this number: 844-484-5737. Again, it's 844-484-5737 and we'll put you in line and we'll get to your call today if you call now. Our first caller today is Michael from Inglewood, California. Michael, welcome to the Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
Michael: Hi, Steve. Apologies about yesterday on not being able to talk on the phone. And also, matthew713.com, there's 29,820 calls on there now.
Steve Gregg: 29,820, so we're just short of 30,000. Yeah, amazing. You must have a lot of time on your hands. Maybe too much time on your hands. Okay, go ahead.
Michael: So, my question had to do with dispensationalism or how to refute it. I guess I'm wondering if—I kind of see it as the Jews were first and then the Gentiles are the church and then they're coming back for the Jews. But is it not correct that basically like Peter and the Jews actually are that first church?
Steve Gregg: Well, that's exactly right. I think sometimes dispensationalists oversimplify the facts of this matter of Jews and Gentiles. They will say the Jews had their chance in the Old Testament, Jesus came and offered himself to the Jews, the Jews rejected him, so the Jews were rejected for a while, put on hold, put aside, and then the Gentiles came in and that's the church. And when the church is finished, when the Gentiles have come in, God's going to take the church away and go back and bring in the Jews. That's the dispensational timeline. But that's not really the way it has been in the Old or the New Testament. There never was a time when it was when most of the Jews necessarily were faithful to God. There were many, many times when there were so few Jews faithful to God that Elijah thought he was the only one left who was faithful. God told him there were 7,000 more who had not bowed the knee to Baal, but that's still a pretty small minority in the Jewish population. So, in the Old Testament, most of the Jews rejected God. Some accepted him. They were called the faithful remnant. And the faithful remnant were the true Israel, the Israelites indeed. Jesus referred to Nathanael that way. He said, "Here comes an Israelite indeed, one who in whom is no guile, no dishonesty, no lie. He's not a hypocrite, he's real." That's a true Israelite, he said. And in the Old Testament, there were true Israelites who were faithful and were honest and were God's real people. But you know what? There were Gentiles who were, too. Under the law of Moses, any Gentile who wished could become part of Israel. They could get circumcised, they could keep the law, keep the covenant, and they would be considered to be like a native of the land, like a native-born Israelite. And there were people like that. We know of Rahab, for example, and Ruth as famous examples. There were others. And so, in other words, in the Old Testament, it wasn't like, okay, the Jews were God's people and then later the Gentiles were. No, in the Old Testament, the faithful were God's people. Most of those in the faithful community were Jews, but most Jews were not faithful and were not part of the true Israel according to Jesus' definition of those things. That's why Jesus told the Pharisees, who were Jewish, "I know you're descended from Abraham, but you're not the children of Abraham. If you were the children of Abraham, you'd do what Abraham did. You're the children of the devil," he said. Now, all he's saying there is that to be physically descended from Abraham, which was what most people thought makes a person a Jew, isn't what makes a person a Jew as far as God's concerned. It doesn't mean anything to be descended from Abraham if you don't behave like Abraham. If you behave like the devil, then you're a child of the devil, not of Abraham. So, that's Jesus talking. And the Old Testament said things similar to that, too, by the way. So, it's not the case that the Jews were God's people in the Old Testament. Some of them were and some of them were not. The people who kept the covenant were God's people. And most of the people in those days who did were Jewish, though there were Gentiles too. And there was nothing that dictated that the majority had to be Jewish. If millions of Gentiles had decided to become part of it, then that entity would have been mostly Gentile, but they'd still be the same entity. They'd be the old covenant people. Now, in the New Testament, some people say, "Well, the Jews rejected Jesus, so the Gentiles were accepted." Well, that's not exactly true. I would say it's possible—we don't know the exact figures—it's possible that a larger percentage of Jews accepted Jesus than the percentage of Gentiles who did. At least in the beginning, all the followers of Jesus were Jewish, up into the tens of thousands, beginning on the day of Pentecost with 3,000 and then it grew and grew and grew. And as far as we know, before any Gentiles were converted, there could have been tens of thousands of Jews who were following Jesus. So, to say the Jews rejected Jesus isn't true. The majority of the people of Israel did reject Jesus, but the majority of Gentiles do too, to this day. So, to represent it as if the Jews were God's people in the Old Testament and the Gentiles are now, which is the way dispensationalists sometimes represent it, isn't true to what scripture says or to history. Most Jews were not God's people in the Old Testament and most are not now. Most Gentiles were not God's people in the Old Testament and most are not now. The only difference that has taken place is whoever is faithful to God, Jew or Gentile, was faithful to him in terms of an old covenant in the old days. And when Jesus came, he made a new covenant and whoever is the people of God now are those Jews and Gentiles who are faithful to the new covenant. But it's not a racial thing. There never was a time when a certain race was given some kind of unconditional privilege. In the Old Testament, there's no suggestion of unconditional privilege to Jewish people and there's certainly no suggestion of the same for Gentiles now. Paul talks about the Israel tree in Romans 11 and says the Jewish people who were originally part of the tree, the ones that have rejected Christ, have been broken off. They're like branches removed from the tree. There are still Jewish branches on the tree because lots of Jews accepted Christ. So, the tree is made up of those who accept Christ, Jews, and then he says Gentiles have been grafted in among them, believing Gentiles, which makes the Israel tree one composed of Jewish and Gentile believers. And who's not on the tree? Jewish and Gentile unbelievers. Same as always. Same as always. But then he says, "You Gentiles don't get too uppity about this because if you don't continue in his goodness, you can be broken off just like they were." So, there's no unconditional position in Israel for Jews or Gentiles. It's abiding in Christ that makes one part of it. Now, that's not what dispensationalists represent things as, and we don't read in the Bible of a time when God's going to stop dealing with the church and then go back and bring the Jews in. The most we can hope for for the Jews, if they're to be saved, would be for them to turn to Christ like we have and like many Jews have, like tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of Jews have throughout history turned to Christ. They become part of the church. They become part of Christ's body. And it's still possible for a Jew to do that and it's in fact possible for every Jew to do that if they want to. I don't have any reason to believe they will anymore than I believe all Gentiles will. But the point is, it's not as if there's some kind of racial barrier there that somehow since Christ has come and the Jewish nation crucified him, that somehow now there's a big barrier up between God and the Jews. No, any Jew can be saved and many tens, hundreds of thousands of them have been since Jesus was here. And if our prayers are answered, many millions of them may still be saved in the future. But if they do, that's not a restoration of the Jewish nation. That's just a recollection of people from Jewish ancestry into the church, just like if all the Irish would turn to Christ or all the Brazilians or all the Chinese, they'd all be part of the church, same as if all the Jews did. The church is the body of Christ. It's the eternal purpose of God. There's not something else coming afterwards. It's the fulfillment of all the promises of God according to New Testament writers. So, that's how I differ from the dispensationalists on that particular outlook. I appreciate your call, brother. We're going to talk next to David from Clackamas, Oregon. We still have a couple lines open. The number is 844-484-5737. David, welcome to the Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
David: Hi, Steve. I'm calling with the intention to use your response and provide it to my grandson. He is studying religious studies in a secular university in a very liberal city. He grew up in the church with us. He posed some questions to me, however, that I wanted to just get on the record and provide to him. He made the argument in which the early believers, the early church, operated without the teachings and writings of the Apostle Paul. He also made note that most of the New Testament books of the Bible are written and authored by the Apostle Paul. His argument is that early Christianity only had the teachings of Christ, and I suppose his beef is that the Apostle Paul—he made the argument, or rather is just regurgitating the argument—that Paul never walked with and spoke with Christ, and therefore his authority is diminished. Do you have a response to that? Are there any books or lectures perhaps you could point me in the direction of?
Steve Gregg: Well, first of all, to say the church operated without the writings of Paul is true. I mean, until Paul was converted, the church didn't have input from Paul. But they did have input from the other Apostles. And when Paul came along and became a believer, he was in fellowship with the other Apostles. He had the same views as the other Apostles. He didn't walk with Jesus in Jesus' lifetime because he wasn't a believer in those days and probably wasn't in Israel when Jesus walked the earth, but he did associate with the people who did walk with Jesus, and their whole life was about talking about Jesus. So, he learned probably—I mean, he spent time in Jerusalem with the Apostles and heard them preach all the time, and they were always preaching the stories and teachings of Jesus. That's what their message was about. So, it'd be crazy to think that Paul was somehow ignorant of that. Now, what Paul tells us is that he received a lot of his information from divine revelation, as Jesus appeared to him. On one occasion, Paul was caught up into the third heaven and heard things, some of them he couldn't even report. So, in addition to having the input from the other Apostles who all walked with Christ, and no doubt Paul had a very good familiarity with it—and let me just interject this: Luke traveled with Paul, and when Luke wrote the gospel of Luke, he claimed to have a very thorough and comprehensive knowledge of all the things he was writing about. Now, where'd Luke get those? He got those from the other Apostles because he was with Paul hanging out with the Apostles a lot of times. And to suggest that Luke somehow spent enough time with the other Apostles in Paul's presence that Luke could have a thorough knowledge of the story of Jesus enough to write the book of Luke and Acts, and yet to think that Paul, who was there too, didn't have that information or didn't have access, would be rather stupid. So, in other words, insofar as Luke got his material right, Paul would have his material right, too, in all likelihood, and Luke and Paul were traveling together for years but also spent time with the other Apostles. But one thing Paul had going for him, and Peter had some of this too—Peter had revelations too, on the house top in Joppa and so forth—Paul had revelations. He was caught up into the third heaven once, and Jesus appeared to him at least twice that we know of. And an angel appeared to him at least once that we know about. So, Paul had the information the other Apostles had about Jesus, but he also had things Jesus gave him directly. And much of this seemingly he got before he even hung out with the other Apostles because he said in Galatians 1 that the gospel that he preached, he didn't get that from them. He got it directly by revelation from Christ. But then, of course, he said he did spend time with the other Apostles too. And what did the other Apostles think of him? Well, initially they were suspicious of him because he'd been a persecutor of the church. But then he convinced them—not he, actually Barnabas convinced them. Barnabas was a trusted church member in Jerusalem and he convinced them that Paul was truly converted and he was. And they saw several things that convinced them. One was that Paul was serving Christ, was loving Christ, was laying down his life for Christ, was beaten and persecuted and his life was threatened and eventually he died for Christ. That sounds pretty sincere. But more than that, he did the same kind of miracles the Apostles did because he said Christ met him and made him an Apostle and gave him the signs of an Apostle to prove he's a real Apostle and they saw that too. And then, of course, they saw his character. They saw that he didn't live the life that a charlatan lives. False preachers, if you watch them long enough, they're usually trying to get the babes or the bucks. They're in it for the money or for the women, and every false teacher who starts false religions and so forth is getting either the bucks or the babes or all everything, the whole shootin' match, and the power. Paul didn't get any of that stuff and he didn't want any of that stuff. You can't really pin any dark motive on Paul for doing what he did. He was doing what he did because Christ called him to and he's being obedient. Now, the Apostles saw that and, believe me, they would have been the ones most suspicious of him. They were suspicious, but for him to win them over is really something. And Peter read many of Paul's letters. We know this because in 2 Peter 3:15-16, Peter spoke about Paul's epistles. He said in all his epistles he speaks about these things that Peter's speaking of. In fact, most of what's in 1 Peter is repetition from the book of Ephesians and Romans from Paul's writings. And Peter referred to Paul's writings as scripture in 2 Peter 3:15-16. So, I mean, let's put this way: yeah, Paul didn't walk around with Jesus like Peter did, and he came along later, but he had access to Peter's information and the other Apostles' information, he had revelations from God, and he gave every convincing evidence that he was not a charlatan. Now, if someone today wants to say, "Well, he was a charlatan," they're saying they know more about him, though they've never met him or seen him, than the Apostles knew about him, who would have been very suspicious and careful since he had persecuted them before. Yeah, I mean, if you think you know more about it than the Apostles did, you're welcome to your arrogance, but don't expect anyone with good sense to believe you. I'll believe what the other Apostles did. They had much more to lose by being mistaken, and they knew it, too. Anyway, those are thoughts about Paul. Now, Paul's writings were written—at least the earliest of them were written—before any of the gospels were written. And Paul is the one who planted the Gentile churches, so they didn't exist without Paul's teaching. And we're talking about first-century churches. We're probably talking about churches as early as maybe in the early 40s, just maybe a decade and a half after Jesus rose from the dead, the churches that were planted in Turkey and in Greece and other places. They were planted by Paul and they had his teaching. Now, it was never assumed by anyone in the early church that they had different doctrines or different teachings than the church in Jerusalem had. There was a different emphasis. The emphasis was the church in Jerusalem was made up of Jews in the temple city, and they went to the temple, not because they had to but because that was what you do when you're in Jerusalem and it's not as if the temple was a bad thing. And Paul didn't believe that his Gentile converts had to do any of that Jewish stuff. Now, there was initially a disagreement about that. But Paul and Barnabas went to Jerusalem and they had a big council with the other Apostles, and the other Apostles came around to seeing it Paul's way. Peter supported Paul at that council in Acts 15. So, I mean, if someone wants to say, "Well, Peter and the other Apostles, they were one thing, but Paul's something else," not much, not much different. And as far as what Jesus taught, I don't think Paul taught anything different than what Jesus taught. If somebody thinks he did, call me, let me know. I made a chart you can find at matthew713.com of Jesus and Paul's teaching. I made a chart showing the 15 major things that Jesus and Paul taught. And once we get past major ones, we get into some minor ones. A few minor ones are included, too. Paul taught exactly what Jesus did. It's true Jesus emphasized a few things more and Paul emphasized a few things differently, but their teachings were the same. And so, you know, when somebody at a religious studies class says, "Well, Paul, you know, he invented Christianity as we know it now, but real Christianity was different when Jesus preached it." Yeah, that's easy to say to a bunch of empty-headed students who don't know a thing about it. All you have to do is look at the evidence and you realize this is just a modern skeptical attempt to undermine Christianity today because we do follow Paul. We follow Jesus, too. Actually, I follow Jesus more than I follow Paul. At least I define my Christian life as a follower of Christ, not as a follower of Paul. But I haven't found anything about Paul that I find difficulty following in good conscience as a follower of Christ. In fact, Paul himself said in 1 Corinthians 11, "Be followers of me as I am of Christ." In other words, if you're having trouble knowing what it looks like to live like Jesus, I'm doing it. If you're trying to live like Jesus, imitate me. And it wasn't a ridiculous statement. He was probably the most Christ-like man we know of in his generation. So, I mean, let your son listen to this call if he's not listening already. And if he has further feedback, I'd be glad to have him call the show or you can call to follow up.
David: You mentioned there was a chart. What was the website one more time?
Steve Gregg: matthew713.com. Go there and there's several categories of things. I mentioned earlier there's a topical index of calls. At the end of the show this call will be among them. But there's also the chart is part of "Charts and Graphs" or something like that, and you can find it. It's called "Paul vs. Jesus" or "Jesus vs. Paul" and it compares their teachings point-by-point.
David: Thank you for your scholarship. I will take a look at that and then also find the call online, since I do know that you record these and post them. Thank you for that. God bless, Steve. Thank you so much.
Steve Gregg: Thank you and tell your grandson I'd be glad to hear from him.
David: I suspect he will certainly be hearing this call. Thank you.
Steve Gregg: All right, God bless you, David. Thanks for calling. Bye now. And I just might use this opportunity to say this: a lot of Christian kids in their high school classes, their college classes, university, whatever, they have professors that are out there to try to undermine their faith. And not all of these professors are even teaching religious studies classes or relevant classes to the subject. Some of them are English professors or sociology professors or some other kind of professors who apparently aren't very excited about teaching their assigned topic and they spend as much time as they can trying to ridicule Christians. I know of a college professor who told his students the first day, "If you're a Christian, you won't be when you leave this class, and if you're still a Christian, you'll fail the class." There are professors who just want to undermine the faith of Christian kids. I want to invite any one of those teachers or professors to call me. Pick on someone your own size. Give me a call. You tell me why I shouldn't be a Christian. I want to hear from you. And by the way, you kids who are in classes like that, feel free to have them call me. Also feel free to have them challenge to debate me publicly. I'd be glad to debate them. I know these people. I'm 73 years old. I've been teaching the Bible and studying it since I was 16. I've heard all of their arguments. I've read it. I know they're fake. And I would love to talk to them publicly in any setting, including this program. All right, we're going to take a break here just because we do that at the bottom of the hour to let you know, as I said earlier, I think, that The Narrow Path is a listener-supported ministry. By the way, people do donate, but I want to make it very clear: all the money that's donated goes to pay for radio time on the 90-something radio stations we're on across the nation. There's no paid person. There's no overhead. We don't have any salaries. I get nothing. Nobody gets anything. It all goes to buy airtime. That's the most efficient use of money any ministry has ever had, I think. You can write to us at The Narrow Path, PO Box 1730, Temecula, California 92593, or go to our website, thenarrowpath.com. You can donate there, but everything's free. I'll be back in 30 seconds. Don't go away. We have another half hour. All right, welcome back to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. A couple of things I want to say. Just before the break, I said I was 72 years old. My wife corrected me. I'm 73 years old. I turned 73 a while ago. I forgot. That's what happens when you get this old, you forget that you have birthdays. In fact, you even forget a lot of other things more important than that. Anyway, I'm not 72 and I'm not trying to pretend to be young. I'm 73. Okay, the other thing is we were talking to David before and he wanted to share the call with his grandson. I've made several references today to the website matthew713.com and there is a topical index there of calls. You can also find this program on our website or whatever. But if you go to matthew713, you can look up, for example, his call was about the Apostle Paul. Look up under the topic "The Apostle Paul" or just "Paul". Today's calls on that subject will be there and at the website there at matthew713.com, by each call, there's a share button. So, if you like a call and you want someone else to hear it, you hit share and you can send it to them so they can hear it. It's very cool, very cool website. I wish I'd thought of it. Someone else did. All right, let's talk next to Olivia from San Diego, California. I better repeat the phone number, we have some lines open. The number is 844-484-5737. That's 844-484-5737. Olivia, welcome to the Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
Olivia: Yes, thank you. This question has to do with the translation in the New Testament on regarding the prayer, the "Our Father", we call it. Would it have been better translated as "Abba" instead of "Our Father"?
Steve Gregg: Well, Abba is an Aramaic word and it means father. It actually means it's what a child uses to address his father. So, some people say it's like the word "Daddy". And there's certainly nothing wrong with calling God Abba because it says in both Romans chapter 8 and in Galatians chapter 4, it says that we call God Abba Father. We have received the spirit of adoption so that we call God Abba Father. And it would appear that when Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, he said, "Abba, Father. Abba." Now, but the translators don't do that here not because they're trying to avoid that word, but because the Greek text that they're using doesn't have the word Abba in it. It has the Greek word for father. Now, it's very possible when Jesus was giving this teaching, if he was giving the teaching in his native tongue of Aramaic, he might have used the word say "Abba" because that's the language—it's the word for father in the language that he and his disciples spoke. And I think it's even probable that he did because we again in the Garden of Gethsemane, in one of the gospels it represents him praying and saying "Abba, Father, if it's your will let this cup pass from me." So, we know that Jesus used that word in Aramaic and he may well have used it when teaching the disciples to pray. He might have said, "When you pray say, 'Abba,'" you know? And it's possible that they did. However, when the gospels were written, they weren't written in Aramaic, they were written in Greek, which means everything Jesus said, with very few exceptions, was translated into Greek from the original Aramaic. Once in a while, one of the gospels will preserve an Aramaic saying of Jesus without translating for some reason, like when he said "Talitha koum", which means, "Little girl, I say unto you arise," or "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani," which is, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Occasionally, the gospels will actually preserve the actual Aramaic line. But in 99 percent of the cases, they translate whatever Aramaic Jesus was using into Greek for a Greek readership. And so, our Greek gospels, which are the originals, are they don't have the word Abba. So, translators when they go when they're translating from the Greek, they find the Greek word for father and they translate with the English word father. So, that's why it doesn't say Abba. But it's very possible that Jesus did tell his disciples to say "Abba." But here's the thing: if he did, then there's a certain type of Christian who's going to say, "Well, then we have to call him Abba." Well, I don't know. I don't think we have to speak Aramaic. It's like saying we have to call Jesus Yeshua or Yashu or someone something like that instead of Jesus because in Aramaic that's how they'd say his name. Well, yeah, but we don't—the Bible doesn't say we have to pronounce his name that way. We speak English, and in English, pronunciations are different. Even in Greek they are. So, that's why in the Greek New Testament they don't use the word Yeshua. That's a Hebrew form of his name and it's very possibly what he was called by his Hebrew friends. But Iesus is the Greek form of that name. And and so, that's what the New Testament uses and then the English form is Jesus. There's no argument that I can think of for having to use the Aramaic words that Jesus used when in fact 99 percent of them or more are translated into Greek even in our gospels.
Olivia: Would it be appropriate then in English to say something more like "Dear Father" because it seems like Abba is more a childlike, loving expression to the father?
Steve Gregg: Yeah, I mean, any English expression that conveys that idea would be fine. I don't think God's legalistic about that.
Olivia: Thank you so much.
Steve Gregg: Thank you very much for calling, Olivia. God bless you. Bye now. Okay, our next caller is let's see it's going to be Brian from Ontario, California. Hi, Brian, welcome to the Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
Brian: Hey, Steve, good afternoon. Quick question. I want to ask you about the scripture that says, "Touch not my anointed nor do my prophets harm." And as you know, a lot of pastors, a lot of leaders, they use that scripture. They teach that to their people to basically keep themselves from ridicule or from criticism. So, what is your opinion on that? I want to hear your take on that. What do you think?
Steve Gregg: Well, first of all, the statement is, "Do not touch the Lord's anointed." How do we know that any given pastor is the Lord's anointed? In the Psalm, Psalm 105:15, it says God protected Abraham from others who would have hurt him and he told them, "Do not touch my anointed ones and do my prophets no harm." We know that David, when he had opportunity to kill Saul—and actually his friends encouraged him to do it since Saul was a bad guy and actually trying to kill David himself—David refused to do it. He said, "God forbid that I would touch the Lord's anointed." Those are kind of the cases. So, Abraham was the Lord's anointed according to Psalm 105, and then Saul, of course, had been God's anointed. He had been anointed, but the anointing had left him by the time David was being pursued and actually had come on David. But David still figured if God once anointed this guy, I'm not going to resist him, I'm not going to fight him. Now, that's just showing respect for someone who's had a special anointing from God. It's interesting how many preachers, if they are criticized by somebody in the congregation, will so inappropriately say, "Do not touch the Lord's anointed," meaning themselves. We don't find anyone, even the anointed ones of God in the Bible, referring to themselves as the anointed or claiming immunity or privilege for themselves because they're anointed. David was anointed, but he never made that statement when his son Absalom tried to kill him or whatever. And by the way, we're talking here about don't kill somebody if they're God's prophet, if they're God's anointed. If I would criticize a pastor for teaching something wrong or doing something sinful and he said, "Do not touch the Lord's anointed," I'd say, "No worries, I won't do that. I'm not going to touch you, I'm not going to kill you, and I'm not so sure you're the Lord's anointed anyway." But you don't have to worry, I won't touch the Lord's anointed. But the statement in the Bible refers to don't kill him, don't do him harm. And certainly to give somebody a criticism who needs to be corrected, that's doing them no harm, that's doing them a favor. They do themselves harm if they don't receive it and correct themselves. But when you make a—when you speak the truth in love, when you criticize somebody legitimately, or you believe it's legitimate, if it turns out that they are not really guilty of whatever it is that you're thinking they are, they should have no problem saying, "Oh, that's not actually true. I don't really do that," or, "I never said that," or, "I don't believe that," if you're criticizing something someone believed or said or allegedly did, they can calmly respond and say, "Yeah, well your information's wrong there. I'm sorry that's not true. I wouldn't do that, I didn't do that." If so, but anyone who says, "Don't touch God's anointed," they're not refuting you, they're rebuking you for having the audacity to criticize them. And I would say they have much more audacity in thinking that scripture applies A, to them and B, to what you're doing. What you're doing isn't touching them, harming them. And who they are? If they say they are God's anointed, well, they can say what they want to. Anyone can say that. The Bible doesn't tell me that any given pastor is God's anointed in a special sense. Now, I will say this: that God does anoint Christians with different gifts, but there's also people who are in pastoral roles who don't exhibit any evidence that they have that spiritual gift. They might. I do believe there's people today who have that anointing, but the person who has it shouldn't be the one going around saying that he has it. When people tell me they've got this or that gift, I always wonder, "Yeah, why don't you let me come to that conclusion by seeing what you do and say?" If it's really true, I'll certainly recognize it because I'll check it out, but you don't have to tell me that. I mean, you don't wear a badge that says, "I am a prophet, I'm a pastor, I'm God's anointed." Pastors who do that are just disgusting. I have to just say, it's a disgusting arrogance that even if they're basically good people, that arrogance itself would disqualify them from being a spiritual leader in any congregation I would want to be part of.
Brian: Okay, that's very good, Steve. Thank you for that. I appreciate your answer.
Steve Gregg: All right, Brian. Thanks for calling. Bill in Boise, Idaho, welcome to the Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
Bill: Yeah, I'm calling—I don't know if you've heard of it and I want to explain as best I can, but I have friends that have left the church to join a church that's part of the Pauline movement, the Pauline church, and they have the beliefs that the Great Commission and the writing outside of the Pauline epistles do not apply to Christians today. So, things like baptism and the Great Commission were prior to the mystery that was revealed to Paul.
Steve Gregg: Yeah, that's basically hyper-dispensationalism. It's also called Bullingerism. E.W. Bullinger is kind of famous for that view. Some people call themselves mid-Acts dispensationalists, meaning that the dispensation of the gospel began not at the beginning of Acts, but in the middle of Acts when Paul was converted, began to preach. They will say that Jesus didn't preach anything that's relevant to us. He was preaching to the Jews about a Jewish kingdom which will be manifested in the millennium, they say. And they say that the 12 Apostles, Peter and the rest, they weren't as enlightened as Paul. They were basically just preaching what Jesus did—horror of horrors, preaching what Jesus did—and that therefore they were not really preaching the gospel for the present dispensation of grace. They say only Paul had that gospel, or at least Paul was the first, and that he's the Apostle that—they kind of think that the 12 missed it and God had to call Paul or Saul to bring the proper gospel of grace for this dispensation. Now, that's scary. Because if they're saying that the Sermon on the Mount and the things that Jesus taught are not for us to be bound by, there's a couple things I want to say. One is at the end of his ministry, or just before he ascended after his resurrection, Jesus said, "Go and make disciples of all nations." That's not just the Jews, that's all the nations, that's the Gentiles too. "Baptizing them," he says, "and teaching them to observe everything I've commanded you." Now, you could say, "Well, that wasn't for us, that was for the Jews." No, Paul saw himself bound by that commission. That's why he went around preaching that people should obey everything Jesus said. And Jesus himself said it should be preached to all nations, so this is the global mission of the church. Now, Paul said something very important that these people need to take stock of in 1 Timothy chapter 6. Because he says in 1 Timothy 6:3 and 4, he says, "If anyone teaches otherwise"—this is Paul speaking—"if anyone teaches otherwise and does not consent to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the teaching which is according to godliness," which of course he means what Jesus taught in his words, "that person is proud, knowing nothing, but is obsessed with disputes and arguments over words from which come envy, strife, reviling, evil suspicions." Now, what it's saying is these people are saying we don't have to do what Jesus said, we have to do what Paul said. Now, I told an earlier caller in our first half hour, I made a chart which you can get from matthew713.com. It's posted there, you can get it, called "Jesus vs. Paul". I forget which name comes first. Jesus vs. Paul, okay. Jesus vs. Paul. And you'll find where I compare everything Jesus taught, all the major things he taught about and all the major things Paul taught about. Found out that the major things Paul taught about are the same major things Jesus did, and when they taught on them, Paul said the same things. He taught the same doctrines Jesus did. That is to say, if you want to say Paul was teaching different things than Jesus did, you're not understanding Paul. The truth is, if Paul actually did teach things contrary to what Jesus said, the other Apostles would have been duty-bound to denounce him as a heretic because the mission of the church is to follow the headship of Jesus. He's the head, he's the Lord, he's the king. What he said, Jesus said, "Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and you don't do what I say?" You know, if someone says, "Yeah, well, we don't have to do what Jesus said, we'll do what Paul said," well, if Paul's teaching contradicted Jesus's, then Paul demonstrates himself to be the false Apostle that many people thought him to be at the time and which many people today would say he was. But Paul demonstrated himself not to be a false Apostle. The other Apostles gave him their endorsement eventually and he didn't teach anything different than Jesus. If someone wants to say Paul taught different than Jesus, give me one thing. Give me one thing Paul taught that wasn't taught by Jesus. And if you think there's some, go to that website matthew713.com, look under, I think it's called "Charts and Tables" or something like that, and there's a chart called Jesus vs. Paul and you'll find otherwise. So, there's no place for a church to say, "We're the Pauline church." And you know what? Paul rebuked that very thing specifically in 1 Corinthians chapter 1, where he said the Corinthian church, which he had founded—he was the father, he said he was their spiritual father in the Lord, he had begotten them in Christ—they were starting, some of them were to say, "I'm of Paul," and some were saying, "Well, I'm of Cephas," that's Peter, and some were saying, "I'm of Apollos," he had preached there and impressed some of them, and some were saying, "I'm of Christ." And Paul said, "What? Is Christ divided?" He said, "Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of Paul?" And he rebukes them for saying they are of Paul. Why? Because it wasn't Paul who was crucified for them, it was Christ. It wasn't Paul in whose name they were baptized, it was Christ. They are not of Paul, they are of Christ. Even though Paul was the founder of that church, he absolutely rebuked them for identifying their church with him instead of with Christ. And so, I had not heard that there are churches that call themselves the church of, what, Pauline Christianity or something like that, but I mean, it's exactly the thing that Paul forbade. And it's also what Paul said, which I read a moment ago, 1 Timothy 6:3 and 4, that if anyone speaks contrary to the words of Jesus, that person knows nothing and they're proud and they're foolish. So, this is Paul's epithet upon any church that says we don't have to follow Jesus, we just follow Paul. Paul would have emulated Jesus and gone in there with a whip and driven out those people. Anyway, that's crazy. It's crazy. I mean, there's so many ways to go wrong in the Christian faith if you simply stop putting Jesus at the center of everything. And of course, as soon as you stop putting Jesus at the center of everything, you've moved away from Christianity. Christianity's not about Paul, it's about Jesus. He's the hero. Paul's a hero, too, but Paul wouldn't want anyone to make him the hero. All right, I appreciate your call, Bill.
Bill: I guess I was just curious because of that, then, if I have brought that up with my friend and he's still trying to motivate people to come to church with him, do I have to treat him as a divisive person? I believe it's Paul that says and dissociate.
Steve Gregg: Yeah, Paul—when it comes to church discipline, both Jesus and Paul taught it. Now, Jesus mainly taught it to discipline somebody who's living in some kind of a sin that they won't repent of. But the specific sin that Paul emphasized mostly is that those who cause divisions. Paul said in Romans 16:17, "Now I urge you brethren, note those who cause divisions and offenses contrary to the teaching which you learned and avoid them. For those who do such do not serve our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly." And over in Titus chapter 3, he said something very similar. Again, this is Paul talking, the one they say they believe in, the one they think they follow. He said in verse 10, Titus 3:10, "Reject a divisive man after the first and second admonition, knowing that such a person is warped and sinning and self-condemned." So, this is Paul's assessment of those who are dividing the body of Christ and doing so in Paul's name.
Bill: Thank you.
Steve Gregg: Okay, Bill. Thanks for your call. Let's see, this name is one I've never heard before: Legacy in Upland, California. Hi, Legacy. Welcome.
Legacy: Hello. So, I wanted to ask what exactly does the Bible mention how we can deal with shame? More specifically, we feel shameful towards God because, you know, we stumbled in sin and, you know, it feels like something that's countlessly happened again and again and again. And at least I personally have started to get that idea in my head that each time I stumbled that God loves me less. You know, I've heard it's not true, which I firmly believe that, but you know it's very hard not to believe, you know, because of the grasp of shame and sin.
Steve Gregg: I hear you. I mean, there is a sense in which it's proper to be ashamed of many things we've done. And Paul talked about how it is a shame even to speak about some of the things that the pagans do, some of which we might have done when we were pagans. There's shameful things and we should wish we hadn't done them. But to carry shame is not a Christian thing. Think of it this way: whatever things you've done that are shameful since you've been a Christian, you probably did them or similar things before you were a Christian. Now, before you were a Christian, in fact before anyone was a Christian, when everybody on earth was doing only shameful things, God so loved the world that he sent his son to die for them. Jesus said, "Greater love has no one than this, that he die lay down his life for his friends." Now, if God loves you even before you were on his side, even when you're his enemy, if he loved you enough to die for you, how much less do you think he loves you now that you're his child and you're trying to do what's right? Yes, he is disappointed that we're not perfect, but he's not surprised. God knows us better than we know ourselves. I mean, we sometimes think we're going to do better than God already knows we're not going to do. God sees shocking and shameful things done by non-Christians and Christians alike a billion times a day. He's watching everything on the earth. There's so many things. God is not thin-skinned or easily shocked. He hates evil because it hurts people and he loves people. He loves sinners. He hates sin because sin hurts sinners. He wishes we'd stop. But it doesn't make him love us any less. I don't know, do you have any children, Legacy, of your own?
Legacy: No, I do not.
Steve Gregg: Well, when the time comes that you have children, you will know that, especially if you're a normal father and you love your children, that your children you don't love them any less when they do things that are dangerous to themselves. You fear for them. You hate the folly. You hate the misdirection that's misleading them. But you don't hate them. You love them, which is why you want to deliver them from that folly. That's why you want to help them. And God is patient. When Peter said, "Shall I forgive my neighbor seven times?" Jesus said, "How about 70 times 7?" Now, God wants us to be, in other words, virtually infinitely forgiving of no matter how many times someone sins against us. But he doesn't expect us to be more forgiving than God is. Jesus tells us to forgive because that's what God does and that we need to forgive others because God forgives us and he will forgive us future things, too. That's why he told us to pray, "Forgive us our sins or our debts as we forgive our debtors." We ask him and he does it. Now, do you still feel ashamed of things you did wrong? Hopefully there's a little bit of shame there that makes you not want to do it again and makes you wish you hadn't done it. But that should be, in a sense, overwhelmed by gratitude that God is not nitpicky. He loves you, he wants you to stop sinning, he wants to help you stop sinning. He may be more patient than you are in getting you to the final victory because we who are Christians want to get victory over sin, all sin, now. We don't ever want to sin again. God would like for us not to sin again either, but we learn lessons by waging war against temptation and stuff and he sometimes he's patient. He'll get what he wants from us at the end. But in the meantime, you shouldn't think he's saying, "Oh, I can't, Legacy, I can't believe you did that again. I just can't believe you did that again." God knows what you're like. God knows our frame. He remembers we're dust. He also knows the spirit is willing and the flesh is weak. He's not a condemning father. He's a loving father. That's why he hates sin. But he doesn't hate sinners. He wants to save sinners and you're his child. So, how much more is he going to be, not tolerant but, accepting of you as his child despite your weaknesses and your failures. I'm sorry I'm out of time. You've been listening to The Narrow Path. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. We are listener-supported. If you'd like to help us out, you can do that at the website thenarrowpath.com. Thanks for joining us. Let's talk again tomorrow.