20260904

0:00by Good afternoon and welcome to the NARO Path, Radio Broadcast. My name is Steve Greg and we're live for an hour each weekday afternoon. We're taking your calls. If you have questions you'd like to raise for conversation on the air about the Bible, about the Christian faith, or about something you disagree with the host about. Feel free to give me a call. We'll talk about those things.

1:00The number to call is 844-484-5737. That's 844-484-5737. It looks like we have two lines open on the switchboard right now. So this is an opportunity for you to get through that you may not have again later in the hour. 844-484-5737 is the number. Once again I want you to know that next weekend I will be up in the Sacramento area, speaking a number of times. I think it's Friday, Saturday and Sunday if I'm not mistaken. If you live in the Sacramento area and are interested in taking in any of those talks, you are welcome to do so. Just go to our website, thenarrowpath.com. Look under announcements and you'll see the locations. You just show up and you're there.

2:01And then in a couple weeks after that I'll be doing a week long itinerary in Michigan. If you're listening in Michigan and you didn't know that, feel free to go to our website, thenarrowpath.com. Once again under announcements you'll see the appointments we have for me to speak there in Michigan. I'll be back in about three weeks from now. All right, we're going to talk to Res calling for the Bay Area in California. Res, welcome to thenarrowpath. Hey Steve, how you doing? Thanks for taking my call. I had a question regarding to his crew and I wanted to ask you something about the Bible. I was wondering if you knew if it was true, if the Jewish at the time were behind the Atlantic slave trade because of their beliefs and what they were taught in the Old Testament about having slaves, is it being okay? And then secondly I wanted to ask you how we can defend the Bible or should we defend

3:03the Bible as the word of God when it almost in some areas promotes slavery. Can you give an example where you think it promotes slavery? I don't have all the verses but I think Leviticus was some of the places I think there was in the New Testament where it seems to say to tell people for slaves to obey their masters. Well, I don't have all the verses. Sure. Yeah, I don't know any place in the Bible that specifically promotes slavery. Slavery was a reality in the entire world long before the Bible was written and of course the Jews themselves are one of the nations that was kept entirely in slavery for hundreds of years before they found their nation. So, you know, the great story of the Old Testament is how God liberated slaves from Egypt, the Egyptians had made slaves of them and God liberated them. Now God liberating Israel from slavery doesn't mean that he ended slavery on the planet and

4:07every nation still had slaves and always did right up until very modern times. In this day there are still slaves in some countries because it's not illegal in all countries but it certainly has been illegal for a couple of hundred years now in the West in most countries, certainly American England. So until very recently slavery was just a part of one of the institutions of humanity like marriage and other institutions, employment. It seems strange to us because we live at a time where long since slavery has been denounced and made illegal in our society and rightly so we're glad of it. But the point is we might be surprised to find a slavery mentioned in the Bible as something that exists without necessarily condemnation of the institution as a whole. We feel like, well God should have condemned it because we do.

5:09We condemn slavery, Atlantic slavery because it was unjust. I mean frankly people from Africa were kidnapped by other African tribes and then they were sold to slave traders against their will and brought across the Atlantic and sold over in this part of the world. That's very unjust. It involves kidnapping which under the law of Moses would be a capital offense. So whoever kidnapped them in the first place would be put to death. If the law of God was followed there wouldn't have ever been this institution of slavery that we had over here. So no one complained the Bible for that. People violate what the Bible says all the time. Now a person could sell themselves in slavery or they could become a slave in the Bible times by being a prisoner of war. Prisoners of war were sometimes instead of killed. Now some places just killed all the civilians of a defeated nation but Israel was not permitted to do that by their laws. So they would keep the civilians alive and they'd come back and serve

6:15in Israel as servants. This is not because of their race. It's simply because of being enemy combatants or part of an enemy nation of theirs. Now Israel was told to keep their slaves kindly to treat them kindly which was not done in other countries. Other nations that a slave was just a piece of property. You could abuse, kill, do anything you wanted with if you really wanted to. But in Israel you were not allowed to just kill your slave and you're not even supposed to abuse them. You're supposed to have compassion on them. Now if the Bible says to have compassion on them why doesn't it just say release them? Well I'm sure there were lots of slaves that would have liked to be released but there were some who didn't want to be released. We know that because the law of Moses said that you should let your at least your Israeli slaves, you should let them go after seven years but they might not want to. If they want to stay slaves for life then they could. Now we can't imagine why anyone who would want to be a slave for life but then we probably have

7:17never been in the circumstances that caused many people to sell themselves into slavery. They had I mean these were usually people who were broke. They had debt that they couldn't pay. They couldn't support their families. They were starving. They couldn't cover their medical and all their housing bills and so forth so they'd sell themselves into slavery to get all that for free. I mean there's frankly to suggest that unjust is kind of strange in a time where let's just say socialism or communism is having to come back which is entirely a slavery system. Basically you give up all your rights and then the government will provide all you need. Well that's what slavery was. You give up all your rights and your master will provide all you need. So I mean to have a good master who takes care of you would not be an awfully terrible thing having a bad master would be awful of course terrible but the point is it wasn't a given.

8:18It wasn't a guarantee that slavery would be an oppressive situation for somebody who couldn't make it on his own and it sold himself to slavery for his own survival to ban the whole organism the whole institution of slavery would have put these people back on the streets and they'd probably be like our homeless people are today you know because they just didn't have they couldn't make it on their own. So it would have been a very cruel thing to ban all slavery although truly I'm sure many slaves would have been better off if they had been released but you know a great number probably would not and that's why they'd sold themselves into slavery. So slavery is something for a society to work out it can be cruel it can be kind it can be just it can be unjust. The law of Moses required that Israel and so far they would have slaves they must treat them and that's what the New Testament says Paul told masters to treat their slaves justly and slaves to you know to be submissive to a master's of course it's like telling children to be submissive

9:20their parents they're part of a household there's a master of the household and if there are people in the household that are rebellious and resisting and you know making it hard that's not a good thing. Peace in the household requires that the person who's at the top of the household that is the master's household or the father you know that he's kind and fair to those who are vulnerable to him and those who are subject to him but it also means that those who are subject to him behave submissively so that he doesn't you know so it doesn't mess up the whole household thing. So anyway to I mean somebody's got to make a case to tell us why the Bible shouldn't allow slavery it doesn't promote it the Bible never promoted slavery at all the Bible is written in a society where every society including Israel had slaves so what the Bible did is regulated and it did so in a very compassionate way but if if we want to blame the Bible writers for not

10:22abolishing slavery well then you're going to have to explain what how these people who sold themselves in slavery who couldn't take care of themselves how they're going to take them and says no without their master to do it and there were slaves who were offered their freedom in this I don't want to be free I've got a christian gig here in this in this role and so I mean and that was even true from what I understand I'm no expert on American slavery but I think there were even slaves that were treated kindly in this country although they had been unjustly taken from their homes in Africa but once they were here sometimes Christians had slaves and treated them like family members and and you know the emancipation I'm sure was a great joy to many slaves perhaps most but there were some who weren't eager to be massages because they had a you know they had a secure situation with a kind master but like I say our whole society will not a whole society but one branch of our society one of our political parties is moving toward the whole idea that hey everybody should be slaves like everyone give up all their rights to their

11:25property and all and their free speech and their self-defense or give up all their rights and the government will provide everything for them that's exactly what slavery is exchanging your freedom for security and so even if we don't have the institution of slavery in war there definitely is a move and apparently lots of people behind it in this country to just criminal society and to a slavery state just like you know so that union used to be or China anyway res I hope that helps you a little bit let's start to carry from Fort Worth Texas carry welcome to the narrow path hi Steve got a couple of questions the first one is James 318 speaks of the seed does that refer to Christ James 318 let me turn there probably that's okay now the fruit of fruit of righteousness is sewn and pieced by those who make peace that's that's the version of the argument I think so doesn't it say the right justice not no now some

12:34translations might say that the translation I'm looking at and I think all the ones I've read says the fruit of righteousness is sewn now sewn is what seeds are seeds are sewn so it is talking about sewing seeds that produce the fruit of righteousness these seeds are sewn or this fruit is produced in by those who are peacemakers those who make peace so it's basically saying that you know if we want to have righteousness in our society we need to be peacemakers and the seeds of that righteous fruit of righteousness is is done by people who are peacemakers now you say is the seed Christ I think that I think what has been sewn there is not Christ himself it's the righteousness that comes through his reign when a person comes under the reign of Christ into his kingdom and takes him seriously and begins to obey him which is what happens when you really become a Christian you begin to obey Jesus then you're you live a righteous life you live a

13:36just life you don't oppress people you don't cheat people you don't lie to people that's simply those ways of life are contrary to living under Christ's reign so if you're under Christ's reign you're a peacemaker and you live righteous life and you're sewing the seed to righteousness or this fruit of righteousness so I don't think the you know if you've seen that is sewing a seed of righteousness although I don't see that that word there if it's talking about sewing a seed of righteousness it wouldn't be necessarily speaking of sewing Christ the seed but sewing that which grows into righteousness rather okay my second question are you familiar with the book victorious eschatology um I haven't read that book I read many years ago a similar name to what called eschatology of victory and that was by the author's name escape name moment but it was a

14:40book on uh... post-moliniolism I think uh... victor's eschatology is also about post-moliniolism isn't it? well it's kind of a anti-discontational you right yeah it's uh... and and the uh I'm only about halfway through it but uh they're explaining the uh Matthew uh verses and then they go to Daniel and then they're going to go to uh revelation explain some things but they were talking about uh the 70 weeks in Daniel and and the 70th week and talking about how that 70th week was fulfilled and then they take half of that week up to Christ's crucifixion

15:44right okay and the other half they take to the death of Stephen or okay where Paul comes on the scene right and I was just wondering and uh... I've heard you talk about this before also but there are numbers in which people can play with to get to this are there any numbers that they use to uh kind of validate their view from the death of Christ to Stephen uh... there's nothing in the bible that tells us how long it was from Christ's death to Stephen's stoning or to Paul's conversion uh the second half of the 70th week probably ended at one of those two things you know uh and and therefore the second three and a half years after Christ's death probably ends either with the death of Stephen or I think even maybe more possibly more likely

16:48that the conversion of Saul I've always seen both of those as possibilities and we don't know now do we have figures facts and figures to tell us it was three and a half years from Christ's death till either of those events we do not uh however it is possible to do some calculations about when Saul was uh converted from what we learned in the book of Galatians um we know that Galatians was written just before uh 50 AD just before the Jerusalem council he was written after the first missionary journey of Paul and it's the churches of that of that that he established on that journey that are being addressed in the book and uh and it's just before he went to the Jerusalem council and I want to say that because uh because it was seemingly shortly after he came back from that missionary journey that he went to the Jerusalem council uh he and Barnabas had gone out from the church of Antioch they planted these Galatians churches they came back to Antioch and because of conflicts over the circumcision issue Barnabas and Paul

17:54went down and had the Jerusalem council so uh between the return from the first missionary journey and they're going down to the missionary council uh the Jerusalem council is when the book must have been written now uh that being so it was around 50 AD now you can in Galatians Paul tells his readers that you know he he got converted and then three years later uh you know he went uh you know down he came back to Damascus and then he went off into uh Arabia and then he says inverse each after two of one of Galatians then after 14 years I went up again to Jerusalem now I believe this second trip to Jerusalem is the one recorded in Acts 11 where he and Barnabas went took a gift from the Antioch church to the church in Jerusalem now he says he did that 14 years later

18:58later than what later than his conversion or later than the previous three years because in chapter one verse 18 he had said then after three years presumably this means uh after three years he spent in Damascus he went to Arabia he came back to Damascus then after three years he went to Jerusalem and then the next time he went was after 14 years was that is he measuring still from his conversion or from the end of that three years we don't know but let's say it was 17 years okay you begin to measure backward from 50 AD 17 years you come back to about 33 AD right am I doing that yeah about 33 AD that's about three years after Jesus died so you know he places his conversion somewhere around three years after the death of Jesus it seems to me and he doesn't give the exact date but if we would speculate that it was three and a half years and it was the end of the 70th week that he was converted and sent to the Gentiles then this would this would it falls

20:05in the right time frame so we don't we don't have exact information but that's it certainly comes close thank you for your question uh Christopher Christopher a new market new hamster welcome to the narrow path Christopher hey Steve how you doing today good I um I wanted to see if you could expound on Romans 10 nine and I also wanted to know the pros and cons of judging whether or not people are saved so I know sometimes you have to to help them but if you're wrong you could also offend them so I was just wondering your thoughts on that and I'll take my answer off the air oh okay thanks for your call Christopher um well you know the verse you're asking about says that if you confessed with your mouth the Lord Jesus and some translation say if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believing in your heart that God has raised him from the dead you'll be saved

21:07oh what this tells us is that you are saved at the same time do you acknowledge that Jesus is Lord as some people talk about making Jesus the Lord of your life that it's too late for that Jesus made God Jesus was made the Lord by God 2000 years ago he's made the Lord of the whole heaven and earth including you including all the unbelievers he's their Lord they're in rebellion against their Lord but he's their rightful king and Lord so there's no uh no need for us to make him the Lord that's that happened 2000 years ago but there is a need for us to submit to him as Lord there's a need for us to stop pretending that he isn't Lord and start living like we like we know it's true now if a person acknowledges Jesus as Lord Paul is assuming that this means they are taking his Lordship to be a fact and essentially embracing that fact because they're confessing it instead of denying it and then they're believing that he was raised from the dead and it says if you do that you'll be saved so in other words whereas some people think you you can be saved at one point

22:10then later acknowledge Jesus as Lord you know there's nothing in the Bible ever gives that impression Paul says if you acknowledge him as your Lord then you'll be saved there's only one Jesus in the Bible he's Savior and Lord if you have Jesus you have a Savior and a Lord not just a Savior if you don't have Jesus you don't have a Savior or Lord he you know Savior and Lord are two labels for the same person and so Paul is making that very clear you you don't accept Jesus as your Savior at some point then later except if you're Lord you're not saved until he's your Lord that's what Paul says now as far as judging people's salvation certainly we can't help but wonder about somebody who says their Christian and their life is inconsistent but again if somebody says they love Jesus and they you can see some effort being made on their part to you know to to please the Lord into obey the Lord even though they have weakness and stumble and things like that well James said we

23:16all stumble some people stumble a lot more than others I can't judge who's a Christian and who's not by how much as they stumble I myself have stumbled far more than I should have and there's people who have fewer advantages than I have and therefore probably have stumbled a lot more than I have but you know stumbling is by definition accidental a person who is taking Jesus seriously and defining their whole life as that of being subject to him as their king and their Lord will fail on occasions that doesn't change the fact that he's their king and Lord or that they believe him to be so you know God alone can really decide those things and that's why you know Paul said in 1 Corinthians chapter 4 and verse 5 he says therefore judge nothing before the time until the Lord comes who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness and reveal the

24:18councils of the hearts and then each one's praise will be coming from God so in other words we shouldn't judge before there's any sufficient evidence okay now if we can see that somebody is denying Christ with their mouth or they're saying they're a Christian but they make no effort whatsoever to indicate that Jesus means anything to them or that they have any interest in doing as well I think it's a pretty easy thing to judge and righteously to judge that you know this person doesn't know what it means to be a Christian and there's and by saying they're a Christian they're just speaking mistakenly they're not they're not a Christian because a Christian Jesus said you'll know them by their fruits you know the Pharisees wanted to be baptized by John he said no bring forth fruits of repentance first then then we'll talk about it you know the truth is a converted person will be changed that's what convert means if you convert something from analog to digital it means

25:23you've changed it convert means to change if someone says they've been converted but they haven't been changed well they just don't know what being converted means and certainly there's no evidence that they are converted you don't have to believe them when they say it but you know how much change is the question the person's been living a really sinful life and they turn to Christ and they give up some of their sins or all but they can they're they're working on it they're they've given up their life of sin and and you know their weaknesses they're still working on defeating them you know they could be very well very imperfect and still a genuine Christian but of course me the Christian is not based on how well you obey it's based on how determined you are to obey how how uh sincerely you you you embrace Christ as your king and your lord which is seen in your sincere effort to obey and again we can't always tell it's somebody stumbling we can't tell if they really want to

26:25obey more than they're succeeding so i don't think i have to judge if someone's saved or not i i think my goal is to bring as many people closer to Jesus as possible and if everyone gets closer to Jesus some of them maybe it's saved and some who are already saved are just going to get better which is a good thing too i need to take a break but i appreciate you called even listening to the narrow path radio broadcast our website is the narrowpath.com we're not out of time yet we have another half hours to stay tuned. If you've been listening to the narrow path for very long you know how much it has enhanced your study and understanding of scripture and possibly your whole Christian life don't you think all your friends should benefit from the program as you have you helped to partner with us in impacting the body of Christ when you tell all your friends to listen to the narrow path. If you have not done so visit the website the narrowpath.com and discover all that is available for your learning pleasure.

27:32Welcome back to the narrow path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Greg and we're live for another half hour taking your calls. If you have questions about the Bible or the Christian faith or you disagree with the host I want to say why feel free to give me a call. The number is 844-484-57-37 and our next call is coming from Brad and Vancouver British Columbia. Hi Brad welcome. Hi Steve thanks for taking my call. I've got two questions unrelated if you've got time for both I'll start with the first one. I was explaining to a friend of mine kind of my journey of looking and deep into the like not. The actual church model and he expressed concern that not many should be

28:32teachers and he was using genes 3 verse 1 as kind of a reference there and I kind of countered with with Hebrews 512 where it talks about you all should be sure and we why are you not like kind of the author saying why are you not teach you should be teachers by now. Yeah so I'm trying to wrestle with that one not enough yet some some to add to that conversation. What the writer of Hebrews is saying is you're old enough in the faith that you should be able to be teaching others but you can't you don't know enough to teach anyone anything you you have need to be taught you know the first principles over again as if you never knew them so he's basically complaining that they're not mature enough to be of any assistance to anyone else understanding the things of God to say you ought to be teachers is in contrast to being you know a kindergarten you know who just needs to learn he's not saying that everybody's going to be a

29:37teacher in the sense of one who you know stands before the congregation and addresses the congregation in 1 Corinthians 12 Paul said are all apostles are all prophets are all teachers all those three are expecting a negative answer no not all are apostles not all are prophets and not all are teachers however he does say that they could all prophesy but they're not all prophets and you know people everyone can teach if they know something that doesn't make them teachers in the body of Christ uh he's in the apostles and prophets teachers he's talking about people who are set aside for that ministry and you know who they do those things to the benefit of the whole congregation and so forth you know a person might prophesy without being in the office of a prophet a person might teach somebody something without being you know an elder or a teacher of the church priscilla and Aquila for example they took a Paulist aside and helped him to understand

30:40things that he didn't quite understand well enough this was a private session for them they didn't do it in public and I think everybody who's on the chair christian should be able to do that everyone should be able to to know what they believe and why they believe it if they've been a Christian for very long it should certainly be the goal of younger christians that before very long they will be mature and understanding enough that they could counsel and teach others not necessarily that they'll go into a role as a teacher in the body of Christ but I mean frankly everyone has to teach for example their children and to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord uh Timothy was taught the scriptures by his mother and his grandmother now we're pretty sure that Paul wouldn't make his mother and grandmother elders in the church or make them you know teachers in the formal sense of the word but uh but they taught their their grandson and son which frankly everyone he's able to teach everyone he's be able to communicate

31:43the truth uh to those who know less but that's not the same thing as you're all going to be teachers in the body of Christ now when James said you know do not be many teachers in James 3.1 for we saw the stricter judgment I think he means the ones who guide the church through their instruction through their formal you know public instruction that they are teachers and um you know they have a stricter judgment because they're guiding not just themselves or one of the person like their children which is important enough but they're guiding a whole church if they guide them wrong that's a that's a big problem so they need to take their role very seriously so uh now somebody was saying you were talking about formal church versus what organic church with when he friends like or down church versus like institutional church yeah yeah and um you know he was saying we shouldn't be many teachers I'm not sure what he means by that but being when you when you just gather in small groups there's not enough teachers to be teaching

32:46it's both smaller than you don't need many teachers right so uh yeah I mean that's just it uh yeah you don't need many teachers if you're in a small group uh but if you're lots of small groups you need a teacher and each group is kind of what he's saying like if you have 100 100 versus just having one teacher teaching thousand right but I think when James says don't be many teachers we have to understand it being assuming that you can avoid it uh I mean God calls some people to be teachers and uh and they can hardly avoid it I mean uh he got called Jonah to be a prophet and he tried to avoid it and didn't work out for him when God calls you to something I mean Paul's called to me to possibly woe is me if I don't preach the gospel uh I mean when you have a call of God on your life you've got a choice well I mean you do have a choice you can try not to do it but uh why why fight God no I think he's I think when he says don't be many teachers I don't think he's saying even a even if God is

33:49raised up quite a few teachers among you uh well just pipe down and don't talk because we don't want a lot of teachers right here I think what he's saying is let's not assume that everyone or a lot of people should be teachers uh because then we'd probably end up sticking people in that role that God may not be calling to that role and you know there are definitely people who are self-appointed teachers and ministers or who you know are kind of thrust into that role by someone else and don't know don't have the gifts don't have the knowledge don't don't have the call of God don't have the anointing you know and they shouldn't be but I don't think James is saying we don't want to have very many teachers so even if in a church of a hundred God is raised up 10 people who can teach well we better better keep some of those guys quiet because we don't want that many teachers now I think what he's saying is don't be quick to seek to multiply teachers because teaching is a pretty responsible role um I mean obviously the Bible does indicate that everyone

34:50teaches if they know something they teach other people um but not everyone's going to have a role of a lead teacher now when you have a home church you don't have to have somebody who's got the role of a lead teacher uh if you do more power to you but why couldn't a group um meeting in a home let us say why couldn't they watch a video or listen to a recording of somebody who is a teacher or read a book together and discuss it together um you know I mean there there are edifying things to do even if you don't have a trained or you know ordained teacher or preacher there um lots of lots of growth can take place in groups where people just all share what they know and the older Christians kind of put a check on the dumb stuff the under ones say all right you got time for my second one okay go ahead revelation 13 the two beasts you may have recall an email I sent a few weeks ago um but that might we're our church is being doing a study on revelation and as I'm listening

35:55to the message I've just had a sharp feeling of I'm not getting this but the way I see it and I'm looking for review or affirmation is the the first beast being the uh political power and a lot of people see that as have kind of stamp that as Hitler or the Roman Empire or many different things over time but the way I see this kind of I see that it's the kingdom of darkness of like the the governing authority of darkness in our world evil evil kingdom and the the second beast I see as relic our real our church like it not not like some people say it's the Islam or another religion but I see it as many of their churches today when it says make an image of the first beast I see this our structures and policies and governance of our western churches

37:01look a lot like the evil world that we are part of well let me just say there's as you know there's lots of different views of revelation and these different views have different ways of identifying what they think the beasts are uh the way you've just described it is not a problem to me the way I understand revelation that would be a legitimate possible application to what the Bible is saying about the beast so I'm going to affirm you there we have another Vancouver caller David in Vancouver BC welcome to the narrow past David do you know Brad or last year yes hello see hi hi hi there I didn't know there's any way for Brad to get my phone number I found it quite difficult in Vancouver to find those uh that are I've been dealing with the institutionalized church versus the Lordship of Christ and I don't know if there's a way to get my phone number to him or if I should just throw it

38:06out now with the hope that he writes it down I don't know I can just leave it I don't have his phone number but if you want to give out your phone number to public I will I will I just want to keep it brief though um it's seven seven eight eight four eight one three four seven that's for Brad seven seven eight eight four eight one three four seven yeah thanks very much Steve I'll try to keep this brief okay um second time caller very much appreciate the ministry um you've mentioned and responded uh I think more than once with regards to the question of the question of uh gambling and and what I've understood you to communicate the bottom line around that is that uh it can be okay as a sort of entertainment and pastime if it is not a problem for you and you're disciplined with putting out those few dollars uh for entertainment purposes and you'd also given uh parallel

39:09examples with regards to uh pricing out uh the the price of a meal at a restaurant or entertainment or an activity right and and so um that left me with the assumption that you were kind of supporting it at just that that's at that safe level where people it's not a problem for people or an addiction for a person so my question is um and what I had a difficult time with with your response was um was the actual concept that gambling is presented to us from scripture and what I'm the question I have is around the specific scriptures I think one there's at least one in Proverbs which speaks about the uh condemning or the evil of trying to get something for nothing right and that is why

40:10today I have a problem with putting even 10 cents into anything that resembles gambling where I'm trying to get something for nothing so you wouldn't want uh you you'd feel guilty if you won 10 cents in a card game um no it uh no no if I put 10 cents or a dollar into anything anything that resembled gambling uh trying to get something for nothing it was the concept of getting something for nothing oh here well let me just say this a lot of times we get something for nothing like if our parents die and we inherit uh their fortune uh then we got something for nothing the question is did we do anything sleazy did we do anything dishonest did we do something greedy uh you know to to get something for nothing obviously the Christian has to acknowledge that the the ideal and normal way to get money is by working for it though it is not the case that we never

41:13receive any gifts uh you know which isn't something for nothing or the inheritance or something else uh and so um i mean uh to me i'm just not legalistic about this i do not gamble myself i have no interest in it i don't even like competitive games i don't have any interest whatsoever and getting something for nothing but uh but i'm saying if we're going to start telling people what they cannot do we'd better have a good scriptural reason for it because as soon as you start making rules of the bible doesn't make then of course you're legalistic now uh i don't think it would be legalistic to forget for bid gambling to people who are greedy and are just trying to get rich without without uh without working uh now i'd say yeah don't do that you're greedy um and and i also i also would not like to receive money at somebody else's expense you know in in a

42:13business transaction you're supposed to be giving good to your services a commensurate value to what the person's giving you so nobody is cheated everybody gets what they want now in my case i don't work at a regular job or i think i don't i don't sell anything but i you know i don't want anyone to give me any money unless they feel like they've gotten something for me that's worth that money you know i i don't want to go out with a handout and i never ask for money for anyone but um i do i do receive gifts from people they've come i don't ask for them but they come and i'm assuming that they are doing so because they've gotten something out of something i've offered which is fine i mean Paul said that if we've administered to you in spiritual things it's no large no big thing if we you know receive material things from you but and i've always felt that way but uh but to be greedy and to want to without making any contribution to want to to want to make money uh you know at the expense of somebody who who who gets nothing out of it uh that would be

43:18an evil thing now you know i i don't know i don't know under what circumstances people gamble with people paying card games with their friends on Friday night and each one you know has a ten dollar limit they put their put a dollar in per game i mean i don't know if that's what people do or not and someone did that and everybody's willing to lose their ten dollars and a good time was had by all and it was worth the money to them just to have this you know socializing and the fun and so forth to me that's a very cheap form of an evenings entertainment uh cheaper than going to the movies uh cheaper than going out to eat now in other words uh i i don't see that as your typical i want something for nothing thing is i think maybe the the risk of losing something adds to the enjoyment of the game this excitement or so i don't know i i they they've got something in that that thing in the person's brain that enjoys that i i i was born without that i i i'm missing that but i don't condemn it lots of people have things like i don't like i don't care about sports

44:23some people are wild about sports and and and they'll maybe make some bets on that i don't uh you know i'll say this if you feel convicted that by doing so you're acting in greed then i don't do it but like i said if it's if it's a small expenditure for a night of social activity that everyone enjoys i think social activity is a good thing and if it only costs you ten bucks or whatever for the night uh you got got a good evening from cheap uh and i don't see that as a bad thing but obviously you're right i mean if someone's trying to get rich easy then that's that motivation is not a good one in my opinion i think that's something the bible speaks against doing thanks for your call let's talk to uh Joshua and Phoenix Arizona welcome hi Steve hi um so when it comes to like faith and works um it seems like you do advocate

45:23for like works like an assortment uh of course yeah which is yeah which is great because i i i talked i have a Protestant friend who i talked to about um he's one is to castles um as i've learned things about him he kind of talks about works too so what what what yeah so when when it comes to Catholicism would you agree with uh like the faith in works besides like going to church all that but just like in a sense of like obeying Christ well you know obeying Christ is what comes from uh a surrender to Christ a surrender to Christ is what faith is when you trust in Christ not yourself when you when you've you you've decided the Christ is your king and your guide and his agenda is is what matters not yours that's what conversion is now being converted doesn't require any works but if you've been converted it'll show by the works you do i mean it's like uh if a man

46:27and woman get married and somebody else pays for the marriage license or whatever you know it's not a big deal the amount they're not buying their relationship with each other they're not paying to be married to each other but being married means they'll behave differently than if they were single and uh they'll they'll behave loyally to each other they'll they'll they'll forsake all others and cleave only to their spouse i mean this is just part of the what it means to be married uh if you're surrendering to Jesus Christ and forgiven of your sins that's free but if you've really done it that's going to show up in fact that you're living under a law if you're not showing that you're living under a law then you're probably not you know the James said faith without works is dead he's not saying that you need faith plus works to get saved he's saying you need faith that produces works uh and policy the same thing in Galatians 5.6 in Galatians 5.6 policy that it's not you know circumcision or un-circumcision that matters to God it's a faith that works through love

47:33not faith plus works it's a faith that works the faith is what saves you what kind of faith well not the kind of demons have the demons believe in tremble they've got a faith but it's not saving them any it's a faith that works it's a faith that changes you if it doesn't change you uh you know then it hasn't changed you you're not you're not changed um so you know works you know if someone says well i've got faith but i also have to find i have to do enough works to make sure i'm saved uh well i mean i'd say sometimes people Catholics and Protestants have been guilty of or mistaken to think that they need to believe and then they have to do a certain number of works and hopefully they'll do enough works that God will save them no that's that has nothing to do with salvation my opinion uh no when you get saved what does it mean to be saved doesn't mean you doesn't mean you get a ticket to heaven it means you get to be a follower of Christ that's what being

48:38saved is okay what's it look like to be a follower of Christ well it looks like a Christian life it looks like obedience uh you know that's what it is and if if you're not obeying then you're not following and if you're not following you're not a follower and if you're not a follower you haven't been born again yet that's that's i see yeah i would agree with you Steve because um the time so that i've gone into sin um it was when i have put Christ out of my mind far from my mind and when i put Christ close to my mind when i'm thinking upon him you know and what he's done for me i want to avoid sin for that's what sin did right Christ put him on the cross okay all right well Steve i i really appreciate the talk um god bless you and your ministry hey thank you brother good talk to you Joshua by the way i'll be coming to Arizona i'll be speaking in a number of places i think for about a week in november those those engagements will also be at our website

49:40veneropath.com um let's see Brian from Ontario california i believe not candidates uh Brian welcome um yes um good afternoon Steve yes on treto california you worked for us um quick question i know where at the end of the hour someone make a quick so we're talking about mass view in chapter 42 when it talks about um hall no man your master's hall no man your father your rabbi etc and then um i know catholics you know in general they they they they might have a problem with the scripture but they try to explain it away um and even probably messianic Jews because they their teacher they call that they call them rabbi and assistant there's no no man rabbi yeah and i have a friend who's a messianic uh jewish christian uh and then i brought that up i was like well you know you're calling your leader rabbi the scripture says clearly go call no man rabbi

50:45and then he came back at me saying oh well um well you what it says call no man your father but your your biological father you know your dad if you call him by his first name wouldn't that be disrespectful i said yes well let me just jump in because we're going to run out of time and i know i know the i know the argument the catholic choose it too when you say call no man father and they call their priest's father they say well don't you call your biological father father didn't didn't Paul say in first Corinthians four that he had begotten them in the Lord and he's you don't have many he says you might have many teachers 10,000 teachers you only have one father meaning himself he's not asking them to call him father he's simply reminding them that they have this relationship for them he's the one who brought them to the faith and uh and therefore he's explaining why he has so much concern for them whereas ordinary teachers who might mislead them don't aren't concerned for them there's lots of teachers but your dad the one who brought you into this world is going to be the

51:48one who cares about you and he's he's like their dad but he's not asking them to call him father you can call somebody father if they are your father what jesus has talked about is don't call the rabbi father because he's not your father if you call your rabbi father and he's not your father you're calling in that for in order to give him some kind of dignity because I'm kind of honored and that certainly is the case with the catholic priests catholic priests when you call them father they're not anybody's father they're not even married they don't have kids so how is he your father well is my spiritual father like Paul was the Corinthians oh well if the priest led you to Christ and you became a Christian because of him then I guess he is kind of your spiritual father but you still don't have to call him father Paul was the spiritual father of the Corinthians but he he never he'd never encouraged them to call him father he's that's a relationship that they bore it doesn't mean that entitles him be called by that kind of a title and uh what jesus is saying is

52:49the the Pharisees love to be called rabbi rabbi why because that's a time a term of honor a term of respect they love to be elevated above the ordinary person by such you know titles and so forth and he says listen don't don't be called rabbi don't call him and father you're all brothers Jesus said you're just brothers uh no one's supposed to be above anybody else whoever wants to be the chief of when you should be the lowest he said should be the slave of all he's just basically coming against the desire that some people have to be honored and recognized as in some sense superior to the average person in a religious community and that's a very common carnal sinful attitude now I'm not saying that a Catholic priest has a sinful attitude when he's called father because he might be happy enough not to be called father I mean it's just that's the tradition in that group they call him father he might just say well I'm not going to fight it I'm

53:50certainly not their father but you know if somebody's your real father whether spiritual or biological or your ancestor Abraham was called our father you know in Romans 4 1 then okay you can call him father because that's what they are but you don't call someone father if they're not because the only reason for doing that is to give them some kind of artificial dignity and it's okay to treat them with respect you should treat each other with respect who deserves it but if they're expecting you to call them that then that's a problem because it means that they're designing something they're designed to be put on a pedestal that Jesus said no don't be doing that you're listening to the narrow path radio broadcast our website is the narrow path calm check it out everything's free you can donate there if you want to at the narrow path calm have a good weekend