The Narrow Path 09/25/2026

Steve Gregg: You can go to our website, thenarrowpath.com, and there you can look under the tab that says announcements, and you'll see my whole speaking itinerary there. All right, and that's all the announcements I need to make today. Let's go to the phones and talk to Dwayne, calling from Santa Ana, California. Hi, Dwayne. Welcome.
Dwayne: Thank you for taking my call, Pastor Gregg. Okay, so I just wanted to briefly set this up. I've been going to a church now for a non-denominational church for well over 25 years. But I grew up in a Southern Baptist church in Texas, and I've got two friends who are pastors. So, here's where my concern comes in. I need some guidance on this. You probably have heard about the almost split or the division in the Southern Baptist Convention that happened several years ago. Well, both of my friends are on different sides of that argument. Here's the deal. This church that I'm going to now, in the past year or so, they have female pastors on staff. But now, in the past half year or so, they've been putting them on preaching and pastor roles. Right now, I'm able to kind of deflect some of that because I'm actually operating a camera, so I don't hear a whole lot of it. I'm just getting shots. Still, it really disturbs my heart. I'm not sure what to do about it because there are so many people who think one way and so many people think the other. So, what are your thoughts on female pastors and stuff? I'm open to it as long as it's biblically accurate and correct, that's all.
Steve Gregg: Sure. Well, the Bible teaches basically against it. I don't know that the Bible makes it a moral issue because not everything that the Bible gives instructions about are moral issues. This is more of an issue of protocol, perhaps, or ritual. But the point is that Paul makes it very clear that he does not put women in that role. In 1 Timothy chapter 2, verses 12 through 15, he makes that very plain. Then, in the very following verses in 1 Timothy 3, he does give the qualifications for somebody who's going to be an elder in the church. By the way, in Paul's day, the elders were the pastors. That is to say, instead of having a pastor, they had an eldership, and the elders were given instructions to pastor the church in places like Acts 20:28 and 1 Peter 5:1 through 5. The elders are told to do the pastoral work. Now, there are qualifications for elders given in 1 Timothy 3 at the beginning of that chapter and also in Titus chapter 1. In both places, it says that one qualification for being in that role is to be the husband of one wife and one who has his house in order, and his wife and children are believers and submissive and so forth. Now, Paul therefore makes it very clear that a man must be the head of a household before he can show that he can be the leader of the church. In fact, he says it's his leadership of his household and the condition of his household that will determine whether he's in a position and qualified to lead the church or not. So, him being the head of the home is the important thing. Now, it's very clear also that Paul teaches in several places that the husband is the head of the wife. So, there's just no question that Paul would have seen women as qualified to be elders in the churches. Now, some people say, "Well, Paul allowed women to minister in other ways." I say yes, that is true. Neither Paul nor I have any interest in keeping women out of the ministry. But the ministry in the Bible is made up of people of various gifts, lots of different gifts. Being a pastor is one calling, and there's a whole bunch of other ones. As far as we know, women are not excluded from any of the other ones. There's some people who say that in Romans 16, Paul makes reference to a female apostle. If he does, he seems to be talking about a married couple, and he says of this married couple they are of note among the apostles, which some people understand to mean they are regarded as apostles. Others would just say it means that the apostles respect them. But in any case, some insist that the way that passage should be read is that the wife as well as the husband are called apostles. Well, the Bible doesn't say that apostles can't be women, although Jesus didn't pick any. It's interesting that Jesus didn't seem to be gender-blind, like our society wants to be. When he picked apostles, there were 12 positions to fill. He had women and men around him. Some of the women around him were some of his closest confidants and friends, and the ones that he praised most highly. But with 12 positions, a gender-blind choice would at least have a few women in there. But Jesus obviously chose only men. There must have been a reason for that. There must be a reason why Paul says that he doesn't put women in the role of eldership in the church. If our society has trouble understanding why, then maybe we should just say maybe Paul and Jesus knew something we don't. There's a possibility of that, especially if our objections to this are not really based on anything in Scripture. They're based on our culture. Now, the question I have is, is the church supposed to allow itself to be conformed to the culture of the world, or is it supposed to stand as an alternative to the culture of the world? Romans 12 says, "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds." When people are converted, their minds are coded with the values and the opinions of the world around them that they were raised in. He says, "Well, don't be conformed to the world. You need to be transformed by the renewing of your minds." Now, does that include the way we think about men and women? I would certainly think so if we're living in a culture that rejects everything the Bible says on the subject. Now, we're seeking to be obedient to the Word of God. I would say there has to be some considerable renewing of our ideas about that. So, I'm like yourself, I don't have any emotional problem with women being pastors. I don't have anything against women at all. But I do have something against churches that decide they know better than Scripture, that they're more spiritual than God, that they know better than Jesus and Paul about how the church ought to be arranged. Having women pastors would not be the only way that churches could exhibit that they think they know better than God, but it certainly is a common way. And obviously, there are some churches that have gone so far as they're putting gay people and other people who are morally compromised in positions of leadership in the churches too. The church, of course, can be and has at many times in history been apostate. In our time, there are churches that truly are apostate, and there are churches that are not. Now, I don't say that a church having a female pastor is apostate necessarily, although I want to know why they put one in there. If they say, "Well, we know that Paul didn't allow this, we know that Jesus didn't put any women in authority over the churches, but we just think it doesn't matter what they thought. We just want to do it our way, that's the way our culture thinks now, we're just going to do what our culture thinks, we don't care what Jesus or Paul said." Well, if that's the way the church is going, it's apostate. On the other hand, if they say, "Well, we're not really sure that Jesus or Paul objected to women in church leadership the way that traditional Christians have often thought," then I believe they're wrong, but I don't think they're apostate. I think if they're trying to follow Scripture but they just don't understand Scripture very well, they may be relatively innocent. But the thing is, it is a controversy. And even if I were a woman in a church and I thought I'd be qualified to be a pastor, and let's say the church thought I'd be qualified to be a pastor and said, "Would you consider becoming a pastor here?" I would say, "You know, if I became a pastor here, I'd have to continually be answering people's objections from Scripture, and I don't have any Scripture to answer them with." I don't want to be in a position that is going to be scripturally controversial to everybody who loves the Scriptures. I'd kind of like to be on the side of the people who love the Scriptures. By the way, that's one reason I've said many times on the air I don't believe I would qualify to be a pastor, nor have I ever wanted to be a pastor. But I don't think I'm qualified to be an elder because I have an imperfect family. I mean, my present marriage is very wonderful, but I have a past family history and adult children and so forth that do not necessarily fit the pattern of what Paul said an elder should be. And while there are many churches that would probably say, "Oh, you know, that's okay, we'll make you an elder anyway," I wouldn't want to be. Why would I want to be an elder and invite every biblically literate person who cares about following the Bible have them come and say, "Well, are you the husband of one wife?" I'd say yes, I've always been the husband of one wife when I've been married. I never had two at the same time. But some people think that means you can't be divorced and remarried, and I don't want to argue with them. Besides, why do I need to be an elder? The persons who insist on being in offices of leadership at the expense of unity in the church, I have to ask, is this really a healthy desire on your part? Is this a humble desire on your part? Isn't it possible for you not to hold an office and still do the same service to your members of the body of Christ? I do. I don't hold any office. I don't intend to hold any office. But the service I perform to the body of Christ is, you know, I'm full-time. I'm full-time serving the body of Christ, but not as a pastor. I don't know why a woman whose qualification to be a pastor would be very controversial by anyone who believes the Bible would want to have that controversy. Why shouldn't she just humbly serve, which Jesus said makes you the greatest in the kingdom if you just be a servant of all? So, I wonder about the motives, both of the people who put women in places of authority. What are they thinking about Paul here? Are they thinking they know better than him, or do they just not understand what he said? And the women who were actually put in that position. Don't they know that there's half a dozen biblical arguments against them being in that position and none in favor? Why would they want to be in that position? Why make your ministry more controversial than it needs to be? That's my position. And if they say, "Well, just because we think it's a chauvinistic thing to only have men in the eldership," then that's a woman talking or a man talking who needs to be renewed in their mind because they're talking like the world and not like the Bible. I would not want to be in a church even where the pastor was a male if he said, "I insist on having this office, I will not serve God in this church without being recognized as a pastor." Okay, then I'll go somewhere else. Even if you're otherwise a good pastor, anyone who has that attitude, and frankly, a woman who insists on being a pastor in a controversial setting, she's got this attitude too. Men and women both have that too. I don't want a man or a woman in authority over a church if they have the attitude that they have the right to be and should be and won't serve unless they are. Okay, then we're talking about something other than the church here. We've got something other than the body of Christ we're looking at. We're looking at an organization that doesn't care about following the head, and yet they're claiming to be the body. This kind of stuff is very common in the churches. I would have very little to do with that. Anyway, I do have lectures at my website if you want to know about women's role in ministry. There are at least dozens of ministries that Paul names that women are not excluded from, including prophets, as far as we know apostles, evangelists, teachers of women, teachers of children. These are things that the Bible does not forbid women to do and which a person can do without being controversial. So, that's my opinion. You asked my opinion, and that's where it is. But if you go to my website, thenarrowpath.com, under topical lectures, there's a series there called Some Assembly Required. The last lecture in that series is about the roles of women in the church, and you may want to check that out. I appreciate your call, brother. Thanks for joining us. Let's see Anthony in Memphis, Tennessee. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
Anthony: Yes, sir. How you doing, Steve?
Steve Gregg: Good.
Anthony: Okay. I'm going to let you off the hook today. I got a real simple one for you, and it's short. It has to do with seed, financial seed planting. I do know there is a premise in the Bible that has to do with give to get, and what that is in Deuteronomy. But I do think I've always been against it, but my pastor, one Bible study, a few people came up and planted seeds and he tried to explain it, said, "Well, they're planting, they heard something great from the biblical teaching and they planted this seed." Now, I want to know if it's okay for somebody to think in that manner, to give to get, because there seems to be, God seems to be okay with giving to get, even though some people don't think you should give to get, God seems to be okay with it. I'll go ahead and hang up and listen.
Steve Gregg: All right. Thanks for your call. For those of you who don't know what he's referring to, it's a doctrine. I think it was Oral Roberts, possibly, who made this most famous, but it's called seed faith. And it's about money. And they point out that Jesus said no one has forsaken houses or lands or family who will not receive a hundredfold back in this life. They take 3 John where John says to his friend Gaius, "I desire above all things that you may prosper and be in health, even as your soul prospers." And they say God wants you to prosper, but the way you are to prosper is by planting the seed. Now planting a seed means sending them money. You send me money and you'd be surprised how much money God will send back to you. Now, you know, if these preachers really believe that, it seems to me like they ought to be sending me money so that God will give them a lot of money. If they need money in their ministry and they're telling me to send money to them, well, why don't they send me money, since they really do believe that doing so will give a lot of payback to them? Now, I'm not asking for money. I do not ask for money. I have no problem with money. I have enough. But the point is, I don't know why they, if they think having a lot of money is a valuable thing, I actually don't. I don't think that being wealthy is any more desirable than not being wealthy. Though if God makes you wealthy, you have a lot of responsibility to use his wealth for his kingdom in a big way. If you don't have very much wealth, then that's fine too. You have less responsibility. But whatever we have belongs to God. Now to say, shall we give, they say you plant a seed by giving, and then the abundance will come back to you, just like when a farmer plants a seed and it comes back 30 or 60 or 100-fold. Now, definitely this teaching appeals to greed in people. I'm not saying that everybody who believes it is greedy. After all, a person might simply believe it because they think that's what the Bible teaches. They might have very little interest in getting rich. They may be very content to have whatever God gives them. But if they think the Bible teaches such a thing, they may believe it without being themselves greedy. On the other hand, the teaching itself appeals to greed in people. It seeks to exploit the fact that people are greedy and say, "Listen, you want to get rich? I'll tell you how. Here's a quick get rich thing. Give me money. Or give money to God, obviously. And you're planting a seed and the harvest will come back abundant." Now, this is not necessarily what the Bible teaches. The Bible does teach that if you're generous, God will be generous toward you. That is true. That he that waters others will be watered himself, it says in Proverbs. Paul said that the Philippians in Philippians chapter 4 had sent him a generous gift, and he says, "And my God will supply all your needs according to his riches in glory. You've sent me some money while I'm in prison here, God will take care of your needs." Now, the most that can really be said about this whole doctrine is that God has promised to provide all of our needs. That is true. That's Old and New Testament. God will provide your needs. But the idea is you seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you. Seeking first the kingdom of God means you're not seeking money. You're seeking the kingdom, you're seeking righteousness, you're spiritually motivated. But there's a promise that since you do seek God's kingdom, he'll look after you. In other words, if you don't make it your priority to seek after money, you won't do badly. You won't go broke if you're doing what God is leading you to do. You simply don't make money the reason for doing it. You do it to please God, you do what you think God wants you to do, and then you just don't worry about the rest. You let God take care of it. He'll provide. Now Jesus specifically said in Luke 6:35, "But love your enemies, do good and lend, hoping for nothing in return, and your reward will be great and you'll be sons of the Highest." So when you lend to people, expect nothing back. In verse 30 of the same chapter, which is Luke 6, he says, "Give to everyone who asks you, and from him who takes away your goods, do not ask them back." The idea here is you're giving, you're releasing it out of generosity. You're not trying to get something back. You're not trying to get it back with interest. You're not trying to sow a seed of a little bit of money so that you can have a lot of money. Now, I will say this, my own experience has been that as I've given more, not expecting anything back, more has come back. I mean, God has been generous to me as I have chosen to be generous with others. And that is what the Bible teaches in general. But there's no promise that you'll get rich, and there's certainly no promise that if you give ten dollars, he'll send you back a thousand, a hundred-fold. Everything Jesus said about those who have given up houses and lands and so forth, who'll receive a hundred-fold back. Giving up houses and lands is not giving ten dollars as a small investment to get something more. This is giving up everything. You forsake everything you have, God will provide for you far more than you could possibly give up to him. That's why preachers often say you can't out-give God. The point is, when it comes to giving, it is true that God appreciates generosity. If you're a good steward with what you have, God will say, "Hey, I can trust you with more then." But this is a very different thing than saying give ten dollars and God will give you a thousand back. Give a thousand and he'll give you a hundred thousand back. That's not taught in Scripture. That's not what the Bible means. What is meant is that we are all stewards of whether it's little or much. If we're faithful in small things, God will recognize, "Oh, here's somebody I can trust with a little more responsibility," and he can give you more. But once you get more, you're supposed to be faithful with that too. It's not like I was faithful with a little thing, God gave me a lot more, now I can live like a king. No, no, no, it's not like when God rewards you, now you've upped your standard of living. He gives you more because you showed you could be trusted with the little you had, and he wants you to be trusted with this too, which means you're going to use it to spread his kingdom. And then if you are, then very likely he'll give more, but I mean, if he wants to. I will say this, in almost 60 years of ministry, I've lived modestly. I've given to the poor generously, and I lived poor for many years. In my later life, God began to just provide more for me, and I wasn't doing anything different. God just provided more. So I'm comfortable, but the more comfortable I get, the more I feel like I have to give. And that's the whole purpose of having money is to spread the kingdom of God with it and to do the will of God with it, not to just get fat and lazy. So I mean, this planting a seed, I don't really see there's nothing in the Bible that says you have to plant a seed, but there is a principle that if you do well with what God has given you, whether it's much or little, he will recognize that you're a faithful steward. And, you know, he has money to entrust to his servants. He's going to probably entrust more of it to you as long as you continue to be a faithful steward. But if he rewards you with a great income, that's not saying you were faithful with little, now you can be unfaithful, you can just your responsibility's over, you can just now enjoy fat and rich lifestyle. No, if he gives you more, he wants you to manage that for him too, and give more, and invest more in his kingdom. I believe, at least that's what I understand to be the biblical teaching, and that's what I've chosen in my life. And I don't have any complaints about how God has responded. But if God kept me poor my whole life, I would still be faithful with what I have and I would not complain about being poor. Paul said he's learned whether he has little or much to be content. And that is really the desire. Even the rich often are not content with what they have. To be content is to be happy. To be content is to be rich, even if you have but little. And so being content with little or much and being faithful with what you have is obviously the financial pattern that the Bible teaches. I need to take a break, but we have another half hour coming, so don't go away. You're listening to The Narrow Path. 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, thenarrowpath.com. I'll be back in 30 seconds. Don't go away. Welcome back to The Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg, and we're live for another half hour taking your calls. If you'd like to ask a question about the Bible or the Christian faith, or you want to respond to correct or balance something the host has said previously, feel free to give me a call. The number is 844-484-5737. Once more, that's 844-484-5737. Our next call comes from Boise, Idaho, from John. Welcome to The Narrow Path, John.
John: Good afternoon, Steve. Really appreciate you and your show. I wanted to talk to you about water baptism. Like to start off by saying the word baptism is not synonymous with water. Matthew 3:11 actually distinguishes the two, and Jesus repeats that distinction in Acts 1:5. But what I'm getting at is where's the command for an already believing Christian to undergo physical water baptism? I know Matthew 28 commands the Apostles to make disciples, to baptize and teach, but the people being baptized are the recipients. They're not the ones commanded. And then Paul later says, "Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the Gospel." If water baptism were a universal requirement of the Gospel, doesn't Paul's statement at least seem difficult to explain?
Steve Gregg: That one statement in 1 Corinthians where Paul says Jesus didn't send me to baptize but to preach, could be understood as if it's saying baptism's not necessary, although it would conflict with most everything else that he's taught and that the Bible taught. What I mean is he doesn't mean that baptism's not necessary. Paul traveled as a team with others and his team apparently baptized. It says in John chapter 4 that Jesus was baptizing more than John the Baptist was. Then it says, "But Jesus himself didn't baptize, his disciples did." Now, Jesus's baptizing was done by his disciples, not by him. And Paul probably had his disciples or his companions baptizing the converts, probably just because he had less time on his hands than he needed to baptize everybody. So he could appoint Silas or Timothy or someone else to do the baptizing. But he wasn't saying that baptism is unnecessary. Paul's saying when you are baptized, it shouldn't be too important who's doing it to you. You're not baptized in the name of Paul or in the name of Apollos, he said, you're baptized into Christ. So it doesn't have to be somebody important doing it because it's Christ, not that person, that you're being baptized in their name. That's what he's saying there. Now, on the other hand, we know that when Peter was in the house of Cornelius and the Spirit was poured out on them in Acts chapter 10, Peter said, "Well, who can deny water to those who have received the Spirit as we have?" And then it says he commanded them to be baptized. We know that in Acts chapter 2, verse 38, the people said, "What must we do?" Peter said, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you in the name of Jesus for the remission of sins and you receive the Holy Spirit." So we know that Peter did command to be baptized. Jesus said baptize them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So Jesus commanded the disciples to baptize their converts and Peter commanded the converts to be baptized. And of course, when Philip ran into the Ethiopian eunuch, the man said, "Well, here's water, what hinders me from being baptized?" Now, where'd he get the idea about being baptized in water? He'd only heard about the Gospel from Philip. Philip must have mentioned it. It doesn't mention that Philip mentioned it, but the guy got it in his head that being baptized was apparently a part of becoming a Christian. So, I mean, I believe that baptism was such a commonplace factor in people coming to Christ that the early church, and I mean the church in the generation after the apostles, they didn't consider someone to be a Christian if they weren't baptized. They wouldn't let them have communion in the church if they weren't baptized. This being baptized was simply the entry ritual into the church. Now, unlike say many people in the churches of Christ who believe you have to be baptized to be saved, I believe that the minister who leads them to Christ should baptize them, and the person should submit to baptism. But I don't think that a person who's let's just say they've come to Christ, they've come to faith, they've repented, they're following Jesus, but they don't know anything about the need to be baptized because the person who evangelized them was negligent and they just don't know what's taught in Scripture about that, and therefore they didn't get baptized, I wouldn't say that they aren't saved. Some people make the water baptism an essential part of God accepting you. I believe baptism was an essential part of the church accepting people and recognizing that they had made the decision to become followers of Christ, which was followed the same day. Usually, in the book of Acts, it's usually the same day they were baptized. To say, well, does the Bible actually command everyone to be baptized? That depends on whether you think Jesus's command in the Great Commission is a command to everybody or whether Peter commanding them to be baptized is for every Christian. But I would say, you know, if someone says, "Well, just because they commanded those people to be baptized doesn't mean we all have to be," what's so difficult about being baptized? I mean, what's the objection to it? It's one of the easiest things Jesus commanded. Jesus taught us to do some things that are really hard to do sometimes, but being baptized isn't one of those things. It's not hard to do unless there's no one there to baptize you, which may be the case in a few instances. But, you know, if the case, if someone wants to make a case that baptism isn't commanded, they can make that case if they want to. But the burden of proof would be on them since the whole bulk of Scripture seems to point in the direction, as well as church history, I mean, but Scripture too. So, I mean, I'm not a legalist about this kind of thing, but you know, if someone says, "I don't think God cares if you're baptized or not," I'm going to want to know what they do with what Jesus said, what Peter said, what Paul did. Paul baptized, we read in Acts chapter 19, although he said in chapter 1 of 1 Corinthians God didn't send me to baptize but to preach the Gospel. Yet Paul did baptize people. And he did baptize in Corinth. He baptized the household of Stephanas, he said, and Crispus and Gaius, I believe, but not many others. Others were baptized apparently by Paul's associates. But in Acts chapter 19, he evangelized 12 men in Ephesus in the first seven verses of Acts 19, and when they converted, he baptized them in water. And so, I just think that it's a pattern that if somebody says, "Well, I don't think I want to be baptized or don't need to be baptized," I think, really, I mean, is it really that hard to get baptized? I mean, you have to make a very vigorous and strong case to say it's not required since it appears to be required throughout Scripture. And, you know, if you can make that case, why even bother to make that case? Why not just be baptized? That's how I think about those things.
John: Yes, I'd like to add to that because I know John did bring up in Matthew 3:11 that he baptized with water and Jesus would not baptize with water. And so then we have in 1 Corinthians 12, there's one Spirit that we are all baptized into one body. And then Ephesians 4 says there's one body, one Spirit, one Father, one faith, one baptism. So you have two baptisms, one with water, John's, and one without water, Jesus's. And so just the order of supremacy, I mean John even said Jesus is greater than I, so why would we go with the inferior baptism?
Steve Gregg: You're saying that Jesus didn't baptize with water. We don't read that he didn't baptize with water. The Bible says he baptized more than John did in John chapter 3. But in chapter 4, it says it was actually Jesus was doing it through his disciples, not himself. Okay, so the disciples of Jesus under Jesus's supervision were baptizing people more than John was baptizing. So it's not like it wasn't Jesus's idea. It's not like Jesus didn't believe in water baptism but the disciples just came on it themselves and said, "Hey, let's just start baptizing people. Jesus, do you mind? I guess you can go ahead." But no, Jesus was teaching his disciples and commissioning them to do things. And one of the things he commissioned them to do obviously is to baptize converts just like John did. But I don't know, again, I don't know what the objection is here to baptism. And we're not really talking now about John and Jesus's behavior. We're talking about Paul and Peter. Now Paul and Peter baptized people in water, just like John and Jesus did. Now when you say John said that Jesus won't baptize in water, he didn't say any such thing at all. He said, "I baptize with water. He who comes after me will baptize in the Holy Spirit." He didn't say that Jesus wouldn't baptize in water also. He just said that he would do something John can't do. John can only baptize in water. Jesus can baptize in water and in the Holy Spirit and would do both. And Jesus did both. So I mean, I'm going to just have to disagree with you on that one. I don't think you're going against Paul, you're going against Peter, you're going against Jesus, you're going against John the Baptist. Now I don't think we have to do John's baptism. John's baptism was different than Jesus's baptism or than what Paul did. But Paul did baptize people in water and so why not just do what they did? Why make a case against it?
John: So what's the difference between John's and Jesus's if it's not water? One's distinctly water, because Jesus even said in Acts 1:4 or 5, "John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit." So he did draw a distinction there between one being water and one being the Spirit.
Steve Gregg: But he didn't say that he himself didn't baptize water. He said John baptized with water, but that's all he could do. You're going to get another baptism too. You're going to be baptized with Spirit, just like John said you would. But he doesn't say, "Yeah, but I don't baptize in water." No, you're reading stuff in there that's not there. You haven't answered my question, which means I don't think you can or want to. You want to say we don't have to be baptized in water because John said that Jesus wouldn't. Well, John did not say that Jesus wouldn't, you're making that up out of whole cloth. But the other thing is, let's forget about for the moment what John or Jesus did. What did the apostles do? What did they command? They commanded people to be baptized in water. And if we're going to be followers of Christ, we have to do what the apostles taught. Jesus said he that receives him that I send, meaning apostles, receives me. So when the apostles speak, that's Jesus speaking. He commissioned them to speak as his agents. If he comes and speaks to you or the apostles come and speak to you, that's Jesus through his agents commanding the church. And like I said, if you haven't read the Bible enough to realize that the apostles commanded it or you don't understand it the way I do, fine. But you have to strenuously argue against it for no good reason. Why not just be baptized? That's how I think about those things. I really wonder, if you're going to rebel against baptism as an act of obedience, what are you going to be doing when he says, "Be faithful unto death"? Baptism doesn't cost anything. The Christian life does. And the baptism is the simplest step of the Christian life. If you're going to rebel against that, I don't know what you're going to do with the rest of your Christian life, man. In fact, I don't know that you have a Christian life since you're making it up as you go along. Being a Christian means following Jesus and following, of course, the teaching of the apostles whom he ordained to speak for him. And if you're going to follow Jesus, you're going to be baptized, unless you're going to say I have more authority myself than the apostles have to know what Jesus wants, and that doesn't seem very humble. Corey, from Wildwood, Florida. Welcome to The Narrow Path.
Corey: Hey Steve. I've listened to your teaching on eldership and women in ministry and based off of that teaching, I think you kind of fall under a soft complementarian view seeing a distinction between eldership being for men, but deaconship being allowable for women considering Phoebe and some other reasons. My question is when it comes to the biblical teaching, where do you think the line is drawn between what Priscilla did and like teaching a small group or teaching on Sunday night or teaching on Sunday morning, or even what you do? Could you give us kind of a biblical line that you believe is drawn for what women can do when it comes to the topic of teaching?
Steve Gregg: Well, I think women can do anything that the Bible doesn't forbid them to do. So if a woman is capable of teaching, let her teach. That doesn't mean she becomes a pastor. Like I said, I teach but I'm not a pastor. I don't want to be a pastor. A pastor has a specific role to play. An elder has a specific role to play. It's a different role than an evangelist has, or an apostle, or a prophet, or an administrator, or a giver, or a helper. There's lots of different gifts. Pastoral work is one calling. Being a missionary, for example, is a different calling. They're not pastors. And so anything that the Bible does not forbid a woman to do, I can't see any reason to forbid. Now, Priscilla and her husband Aquila, in a private setting after the church was over, it says they took Apollos privately and talked to him about his theology. And both Priscilla and Aquila apparently knew the theology better than Apollos did, and so they corrected him. Now, Priscilla was involved in that. She might have even been the one who did most of the talking since her name is mentioned first. You know, it's possible that her husband was not as talkative as she was and she might have been doing most of the teaching. But she wasn't a pastor of the church. This is a setting just like anyone coming into my house, my wife and I might talk to them about the things of God. And if my wife did more talking than me, as long as what she's saying is true, I can't see any reason to object to it. So there's no gag order on women. It's not like God doesn't want women talking about the things of God. It has to do with who he wants to be viewed as providing leadership to the, especially to the men of the church. The reason I say especially to men is because women, their husbands should be providing that leadership. I mean, that's very clear in Paul's writings. It's very clear in history that women basically are under the protection and headship of their husbands. I realize our generation, my generation, may have been among the first. No, there were some before mine that started the feminist movement. They decided women shouldn't be submissive to their husbands and their husbands shouldn't be the leaders. Well, people can make up any kind of false doctrine they want to, but the thing is that a woman is not placed in the leadership of the church over the men is what Paul's saying. Now, women, along with men, can talk to a man or even maybe not with a man. I mean, if Priscilla had talked to Apollos alone privately and corrected him, still she's not the leader of the church. She's just somebody who knows the Gospel better than he does and she's sharing it with him. So I don't really draw lines about what women can do. But if a church places a woman in the leadership of the church, this is not what Paul does. If she's got some kind of leadership over her own husband in the church or over the men of the church, this is not what Paul wanted. And I can see why.
Corey: I've heard people make the distinction with eldership being one of the requirements being able to teach and deaconship that not being a requirement. People say to teach is to exercise authority over men. So that's where my question lied, is a woman teaching a Sunday night or even a Sunday morning, even though she's not operating in a position, but even if she's teaching doctrine at that moment, is that her exercising authority over men?
Steve Gregg: Well, whether it's a man or a woman teaching the congregation, the authority is in the Word of God itself. It's not the guy. If I get up and I teach something and what I'm saying isn't biblical, no one should count me as authoritative. No one should listen to me. I mean, they should listen, but they should not believe or comply with what I say unless it's scriptural. The authority is not in the man or the woman. It's in the Scriptures. It's in the Word of God. So ideally, the leaders of the church should be speaking the Word of God. Now can women speak the Word of God? They can, of course. Now if a woman speaks in the pulpit as often as a man does, she's likely to be perceived by everybody as one of the leaders of the church and the church being all the Christians, including the men. This is something I think is a difference between being an elder and just being somebody who can share something they know. Anyone who shares the Word of God, in so far as they share it faithfully, is speaking authoritatively. But when Paul talks about he doesn't have a woman teach or have authority over the men, it's in the context where he's telling Timothy who to choose and who not to choose to be overseers or bishops or elders of the church. And so he's thinking of that. It's not just that a person can't talk to a man, a woman can't talk to a man and about the things of God and teach him something. The question is, Timothy, when you're appointing people to be viewed as overseers of the church, that's a position that I don't want the women in. And why? Well, because they're going to be exercising some roles that, frankly, usurps the authority of their husbands or other people's husbands who are in the church under them. So I mean, that's what I see. So I don't have a line I draw, women can go this far and no further. I just would say women should not be recognized as elders in the church. And of course, in the Bible times, being an elder was what we call a pastor today. Thank you so much, Corey. God bless. Julius from Georgia. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
Julius: Hey, good afternoon, sir. I had a couple questions. Are you an abolitionist of abortion or a pro-life incrementalist? I'm curious your view on that. And then what's your opinion on street preaching? What is the biblically proper method of public evangelism?
Steve Gregg: All right. Well, let's talk about the abolitionist thing. There's a movement in the church called the abolitionist movement concerning abortion. And they generally say, you have to join their group or adopt their tactics or else you're not really pro-life. Now, their tactics are get in the face of everybody who's pro-abortion, and especially women who've had abortions and abortionists and so forth. And the ones I've met typically want to be very confrontational about it. And I say, well, okay, there's a place for being confrontational about it if that's your temperament, if that's your calling. But some people have other issues. You know, the way back in the early '70s, I had friends who protested abortion in front of abortion clinics, and I totally supported them in that. I didn't show up, I had other things to do. But there were some who said, "If you're not out there protesting, you're guilty of the blood of these babies." I think, "Okay, so abortion in your mind is the only issue that justifies our attention. I have other things that I am called to do. I can't do all things. You apparently feel called to go and protest against abortion. Excellent. I'll support you in that." That's a good ministry. But I have a ministry and other people have ministries that are not the same as yours. And when someone says, "You need to do our thing," and basically what they're saying is what we're doing is more important than what you're doing. What we're doing is the most important thing, the only important thing, and anyone who does other things for God and isn't doing what we're doing is simply not pleasing to God. I disagree with that attitude. Now, I'm pro-life. I would never vote for a candidate that I thought was going to promote abortion. In fact, if there's a candidate that's going to do something to end abortion, I'll vote for them pretty much every time unless they've got some other abominable thing they're doing. But the point I'm saying is abortion is a heinous crime. It's murder. It's not the only murder going on. By the way, there are people who are trafficking children. Okay, now I assume the abolitionist would like to abolish that too, although which are you going to do? Are you going to divide your time equally between going after the traffickers and going after the abortionists, or are you going to recognize that some people have set up ministries to go after those traffickers and some have set up ministries to go after the abortionists and to end abortion? And there's some other issues too, by the way. There's lots of issues that Christians may have on their heart to get involved with. So, one thing is for sure: no Christian who understands anything about Christianity and the Bible or God can support abortion. But to say I don't support abortion, but I'm not out there protesting on the streets about it, just means I support it, but it's not what I'm called to do with all my time. After all, I spend an hour a day on the radio, often speaking against abortion, but not only that. There's lots of things people need to be concerned with. And if one is called to be a full-time abortion protester, fine. Excellent. We need that. However, a lot of people who do it are not very winsome. And sometimes they may turn people off who would otherwise be able to be brought along more incrementally. And this is what our abolitionists don't like. They don't like the idea of incrementalism. But that's just a philosophical question. It's not a moral question. The incrementalists are trying to get rid of abortion too. Now someone says, "Well, you gotta do it suddenly, not incrementally." Well, go ahead, end it then. If you can end it suddenly, do it. Otherwise, we're going to keep chipping away at it. But I don't think you can end it suddenly. I don't think that the abolitionists have ended abortion any more than the incrementalists have. But they often condemn incrementalists. But that's, I think sometimes, I know some good people who are abolitionists, but sometimes that kind of movement attracts people who are one-issue people. The world is against God in many areas. Abortion's one of them, and the body of Christ needs to speak out about that and many other things. So that's how I feel about the abolitionist movement. As far as street preaching, I'd say that's kind of the same thing. Some people are called to do it, some are not. However, if I was called to preach on the street, I'd try to do what Jesus did, which is attract a crowd first and then preach to them, rather than go and preach to a bunch of people who are just walking by who don't want to hear it. Sometimes you just drive people away, which might make you feel, "Oh good, I'm persecuted for righteousness' sake," but you might be persecuted for obnoxiousness' sake. And so there's such a thing as having wisdom as well as zeal. I'm out of time for today's show. Sorry to say. You're listening to The Narrow Path. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. Thanks for joining us.