The Narrow Path 07/20/2026

Steve Gregg: Good afternoon and welcome to The Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg, and we are live as we usually are for an hour, commercial-free, with an open phone line so that you can call in. We can talk to you about the things you raise as questions about the Bible or the Christian faith. We can talk about those things. If you have a different view from the host, maybe you're not a Christian, or maybe you are and you have a different view from the host, feel free to give me a call. We'll be glad to talk to you. I'm looking at a fairly open switchboard, not entirely, but if you'd like to get through, this is a good time. The number to call is 844-484-5737. That's 844-484-5737 if you'd like to be on the program today, as is the case with Benjamin in Uxbridge, Massachusetts. Hi Benjamin, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
Benjamin: Hello, Steve. Thank you for your ministry. My question is in regards to the Old Testament law and two New Testament passages that address it. The first is Romans 6:14, where Paul tells us we are not under law but under grace. And then Luke 16:17, where Jesus says it is easier for heaven and earth to disappear than for the least stroke of a pen to drop out of the law. On the surface, there appears to be some tension between these two statements, so I was hoping you could address that.
Steve Gregg: I'm not sure what translation you were reading in the Luke passage, but what Jesus is saying is that it's easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one jot or tittle of the law to fail. What translation are you reading, by the way?
Benjamin: That was the NIV.
Steve Gregg: NIV's not very accurate sometimes. Did it say "easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for what, a jot or tittle to drop out of the law?" Is that what it said?
Benjamin: Yes.
Steve Gregg: Okay, well, one jot or tittle to fail is really what Jesus was saying. Of course, that agrees with what he said in Matthew 5:17 and 18, where he said, "Do not think that I came to destroy the law or the prophets." He said, "Till heaven and earth pass away, not one jot or tittle of the law will pass until all is fulfilled." So, he's saying until all is fulfilled, it can't disappear. In other words, the law and the prophets had a purpose, and they served that purpose. When that purpose has been fulfilled, well then, of course, it's not a matter of them being destroyed; it's a matter of them having reached their fulfillment. Once something has reached its fulfillment, you don't need it anymore. If the thing you're talking about was anticipating something, and then that something arrives, well then, that thing that was anticipating it has served its purpose. It's not needed. It's not destroyed. It hasn't failed. In fact, it has succeeded. It succeeded in anticipating correctly what was going to happen. Now, what the Bible is saying is that the law and the prophets were anticipating Christ and were anticipating the spiritual realities that have come into being in the New Covenant. Even the prophets themselves, like Jeremiah, spoke of a New Covenant. Ezekiel spoke of an everlasting covenant that God would make. The idea that there'd be another covenant made by the Messiah that's different than the law of Moses is very clear in the prophets. Even Moses himself said that God would send another prophet like himself, and that those Israel would have to hear him or be doomed. So, Moses and the prophets did mention that their authority, their purpose, was limited. It was limited to the time of the Messiah coming and the New Covenant coming. It says in Hebrews chapter 8 and verse 13, where there's a New Covenant, the older covenant, the first one, is obsolete. Now, the law can become obsolete without it becoming destroyed or failing. Because as I said, when the law predicts something, and it did, all those ceremonies were types and shadows of Christ; they were anticipating Christ. It says in Colossians 2:16 and 17, Paul said that the new moons and the Sabbaths and the dietary restrictions, which were the parts of the law, he said those were a shadow for the time being, but the substance or the body is Christ. So, Paul, from whom I think you quoted one of the verses, and one was from Luke, who was Paul's companion, Paul certainly had the same view Luke did, and therefore the same one that Jesus did, since Luke wrote Jesus' words. Luke and Paul are saying the same thing that Paul's saying elsewhere when he says that the gospel, he says in Romans chapter 1, the opening verses, he says the gospel was promised before by the law and the prophets. So, if something is promised and then it comes true, then the promise did not fail. The promise isn't destroyed, but it has served its purpose. It is obsolete. You don't need somebody to promise something will happen when it's already happened. So the value of the promise is until the promised thing is realized. That's what Jesus said. There's not one thing in the law and the prophets is going to fail or be destroyed until it's all fulfilled. So that's what he's talking about there. Now, when Paul said we're not under the law in Galatians and elsewhere and Romans, you quoted Romans 6:14, he's saying that the Jewish law, which was the basis for a relationship with God among Israel under the Old Covenant, or at least it was a basis for acceptable worship of God, that's obsolete now. That law does not any longer describe our duties before God. The reason is because there's a New Covenant and there are new duties, and that is to follow Christ, to obey him, to observe all things he commanded, as he said. So all the statements that you both statements and many others on the same subject are quite the same, making the same point, and they're not really contradictory to each other. I see you've moved on, so I'm going to move on too. I appreciate your call. Next caller is Jeremy from Vancouver, British Columbia. Hi Jeremy, welcome.
Jeremy: Hi Steve. Thank you for taking my call. I appreciate it. I just had a general question. It's just really difficult to explain because I pray and I pray and I pray, and I keep praying. Am I doing something wrong? Because I feel like I still have the attachment. I know the Holy Spirit is connected to me and brought me back to the faith, obviously. But something's missing, and I don't know what it is. In my prayer, am I praying wrong? Do I have to just do the regular our Father in Heaven and carry on with that, or is there something I'm missing? Because for whatever reason, there's a disconnect, and I don't know what that is. I know Christ isn't giving up on me, and I'm not giving up on him, obviously. I'm just wondering if there's something I'm doing wrong.
Steve Gregg: Well, let me ask you this. You said he brought you back to faith. Are you saying that you once had a more vital relationship with God and you fell away, and now you've come back and you're not experiencing the same thing? Is that what you're saying?
Jeremy: Yeah, I think so.
Steve Gregg: Tell me about your earlier walk with Christ before you fell away. What was that like?
Jeremy: Well, everything was indifferent because I was connected to a cult. That was so strange because what I was reading just never matched up with the Bible. My brain has been indoctrinated through a Jehovah's Witness pattern, and I can't seem to break that, and I don't know why.
Steve Gregg: Well, okay, so what is it that you expected to be? Let me see if I've got this right because I'm trying to put your picture together so I know what to say to you. You were in the Jehovah's Witnesses at one time and saw things their way, and then you left that faith, went into the world, lived a sinful life, and now you've come back to God in a more Christian manner? Is that what you're saying? Am I carrying too much sin or something? Is that why? Because the thing is, I hear people getting called out now, and they can feel the Lord and feel this euphoria, and it really changes them. My son even says, "Yeah, I really felt this connection." I feel the connection, I live the connection, but I just don't feel it as much as maybe what I'm seeing. I know you're supposed to make Christ your own and follow in his footsteps and live by his example. I'm a firm believer of God in the sense that we were made in his image.
Steve Gregg: All right, well, let me jump in here if I can. It sounds like maybe the mistake you're making, and you may be making a different one, but I'm guessing the mistake you're making may be that you're comparing your experience with what other people say about their experience, and especially in terms of their subjective feelings about things. I will say this: there's different temperaments of people. They don't all have the same feelings. A relationship with God means that you've come into a covenant based upon Christ with God. That covenant means you are devoted to following Jesus Christ. You're devoted to loving God. You're devoted to obedience and things like that, which I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt that I'm assuming that's the case with you. Maybe it's not. If it's not, then there's what you're lacking. But let's just say you have made this commitment to Christ. Well, that really defines your relationship, that you are living to please him. Now, I will say this: different people feel different things in different relationships. Take a relationship that you have with your children. I assume you have a wife, or at least at one time probably did, and probably do now. Now, if you have a wife, I'm not sure if you always feel married. But you still have to live to please your wife. You still have to live in connection with the promises you've made at your wedding to your wife. There may be times when you and your wife are feeling really amorous toward each other, and other times when you feel like you're just two strangers living under the same roof. I mean, emotions go various ways. And so, regardless of how you feel about being married, if you've made a commitment to your wife, you're married. And so that's really what marriage is. Marriage isn't a set of feelings. Now, if somebody's always talking about how much they love their wife, how exciting it is to come home to their wife, and how pleasant their wife is and how beautiful their wife is and so forth, then they're obviously enamored. Well, I mean, good for them. I suppose it'd be good if everyone was. But the thing is, if you say, "Well, I don't talk about my wife there. I'm not sure I feel everything about my wife the way that these people are feeling about their wife." Well, it's always a nice thing to feel that way, but that's not what makes you married. A man could feel that way about his wife and live totally selfishly and ignore her needs and ignore her wishes and maybe even be unfaithful to her, even though he feels that way toward her. A good relationship isn't based on your feelings. Hopefully, a good relationship will be accompanied by positive feelings, but depending on a person's temperament, some have more intense feelings than others. And that's true at different times in life, too. A lot of times, people feel that intensity in marriage during their honeymoon, and then they settle into something more like a just a settled contentment and appreciation for each other later in life. I'm not saying that that's supposed to be the way it is, but certainly is that way for a lot of people. The point is that the marriage itself is an objective reality. No matter how you feel about it, if you've got married, you have this commitment and you are a married man. Now, the same thing is true if you've made that commitment to Christ. Now, lots of people feel quite a buzz when they become Christians. Some of these people have felt a lot of buzzes on other things before they became Christians, too. They're sort of inclined to that kind of emotional response. Or some people feel that when they first become Christians and it kind of goes away, and then they wonder, "Oh, am I not a Christian anymore?" You see, if we're basing the fact of our being a Christian on how we feel, then we're going to sometimes feel like we are and sometimes feel like we're not, because nobody feels the same thing all the time. Nor can you be held responsible for how you feel. You do not decide how you feel in most cases. You can, of course, control, you can discourage certain feelings and encourage certain feelings, but the truth is, emotions can be based on your digestion, upon how much sleep you've had, what your basic temperament is, all kinds of things—what you're going through at a given time. You don't judge whether you're a Christian or not by whether you feel something when you pray. Truth is, lots of people don't feel very much when they pray. But if they're remaining faithful to Christ, if they're pursuing his will in their life, if their desire is to please him, then that's the evidence that they love him. Now, we think of love as an emotion primarily, and sometimes we may not feel as strongly that we love certain people, maybe our own children or our friends or our spouse or even God. We don't have the same feelings all the time toward them. But if our commitment is still to them, then that's what love really looks like. Love doesn't mean feeling a certain way; it means you are devoted to doing for them what is best for them, just as you would want done for yourself. Jesus actually summarized the commandment "love your neighbor as yourself" with these words: he said, "What you want others to do to you, do that to them." That's loving your neighbor as yourself. It's what you do. Now, of course, feelings are not entirely absent, but they're not dominant. And if your child or some other Christians you know talk about how great they feel, well, there's nothing wrong with pursuing a good feeling. If you say, "Well, I wonder why they feel so good and I don't," well, maybe there's something to examine in yourself. Certainly, you can feel a blockage between you and God, just like you can between you and any other person you have a relationship with if you've done something that displeases them. If you're not repentant, if you're not thinking of them, not considerate of them, same thing with God. But on the other hand, if you say, "No, I'm doing everything I think I know to be loyal to God, to please God. He's my whole concern of my life is to please God. I'm still not feeling anything." Okay, well, God's not going to judge you based on how you feel. Feelings are not under your control. Your commitments are. Your convictions are. Your patterns of life are. They're under your control. And so I would judge by that. Now, I understand how discouraging it can be if the people around you say, "Well, I prayed and I just felt I came right into the presence of God and God spoke to me and blah, blah, blah." Okay, I'm going to take for granted these people are telling the truth. I've had that happen to me on some occasions—not as many as I would like or most people would like. But you know, on the other hand, if God's not giving you that buzz, then that's on him. He must maybe he doesn't want you to have that buzz. There's nothing in the Bible that tells us that our emotions will be a gauge of how close we are to God. Though I will say this, and I did say it a moment ago, that if you are living in sin and not repenting, that will put a damper on any positive connections you're feeling with God. But when your heart is clear, when your conscience is clear and you say, "Okay, I'm living for God the best I know. I can't do any better." I would ask him, certainly, to fill you with the Spirit if you haven't done that. I mean, every day, maybe even before you pray anything else, say, "God, fill me with your Spirit. Guide me in my prayers by your Holy Spirit. I want to walk in the power of your Spirit. I want to be filled." That certainly is normative. And if that's something neglected, that may be that might be part of what your problem is. But I would say the main thing is to be doing what God tells you to do, what Jesus tells you to do. Do it because you love him, not because you're some kind of legalist, but you love him and you want to please him. And if so, I believe he'll say, "Well done, good and faithful servant," at the end of the day. And you should always be sensitive to maybe somebody else is doing something different in their life that I'm not. Maybe they've got a more vital connection to God than I have. It doesn't hurt to explore that question. I know I did. I know when I was raised in a Christian home and I got converted as a child, and I really was a believer. I actually was even evangelizing people and stuff. And then when I was about 16, I met some Christians who really had another kind of connection with God. They called it the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and I looked it up and found it was scriptural, and I pursued that myself. And I will say that when I got baptized in the Spirit, it revolutionized my subjective aspects of my Christian life. But it wasn't a highly emotional experience, just because I'm a different kind of temperament than some people. Some people said you're going to feel goosebumps or you'll shake or you'll feel like warm honey's poured over your head or you're going to fall down. None of that happened to me. I didn't even speak in tongues like they said I would. But I did get filled with the Spirit, and it did change my life. But I won't say that ever since then it's just like I can sense Jesus sitting in the chair next to me or something like that everywhere I go. I know he's there, and the Christian life is lived by faith, not by feelings. If you never have any feelings, that might be a symptom of something. But if you're just concerned because most of the time when you pray you're not getting anything back from God that you can feel, well, you might be about normal in that way. There are people who talk about their feelings that they have in prayer and all the times God's talking to them, which, I have to say, while I can't rule out that God would do that, I think a lot of these people have learned to interpret things that they're feeling through the filter of seeing that as God speaking to them and so forth. I know for a fact many people have told me God told them such and such, and it's obvious he didn't because what they're talking about is something that wasn't true or something that God wouldn't say. So I wouldn't be so desperate to get a word from God that I start interpreting every hunch I get as a word from God. But I just I wouldn't judge my Christian the reality of my Christian life by what I feel, and it sounds like maybe that's what you are doing. Be faithful to God, and if he doesn't give you back many feelings, maybe that's something of a cross to bear. But the main thing is that you're faithful to what you've committed yourself to God to do until death. I appreciate your call, brother. I'm sorry that you're having the frustration, but I know a lot of people have been conditioned to judge their spirituality by their feelings, partly because a lot of people they talk to who are Christians have mainly appealed to their feelings and so forth to speak of the genuineness of their walk. I would say that if you want to go to my website, there are a number of lectures there—free, all of them free—that would probably help develop your connection with God. They're intended for that. If you go to thenarrowpath.com, there's like 1,500 lectures. You might say, "I don't have time to listen to 1,500 lectures." Well, listen to one of them. See if you want to listen to a second one or a third one. I do hear from people who say they've listened to all of them and they're going through them again because they've had some benefit to them. That's one reason we have our website: to give those resources to people. They're all free at thenarrowpath.com. If you haven't used those resources, I suggest you start and see what happens. All right, well, I'm going to go to the next caller, though we're going to have a break coming up, too, so we may have to hold it over through the break. Let's talk next to Steve in Eugene, Oregon. Hi Steve.
Steve: Hey Steve, thanks for taking the call. Appreciate it. I just want to get your opinion on—I might have a couple of comments on it—are you of the opinion that the church has replaced Israel?
Steve Gregg: I wouldn't put it that way. I would say the New Covenant has superseded the Old Covenant, and the church is the people who relate to God through the New Covenant. I mean, that's what the Bible teaches. What would you say?
Steve: Okay. I would think that God's not finished with Israel. I don't think that Israel is God's—it's his chosen people, not his preferred people or favored people. I think that with all the prophecies that he uses Israel to fulfill his plan, and I don't think he's done with—I don't know what that's going to look like.
Steve Gregg: Well, that's an important thing. If we say that God still has something to do with Israel and he's going to use them, it's a shame if we don't have any idea whatsoever of what he's going to use them for. I hear people telling me this a lot. They say God's still not done with Israel, they've got a purpose, and I say, "Okay, so what is the what's the purpose for them?" I've never gotten a straight answer because, and you know why? Because there's no Bible verse that can answer that question. The Bible verses about Israel are in the Old Testament, and God prophesied that he would do certain things with them, and then he did those things. It's like we were talking earlier: the law and the prophets won't pass until they're fulfilled. But once they're fulfilled, they're fulfilled; they've served their purpose. In my understanding, Israel had a purpose. Their purpose was to bring the knowledge of God into the world among the pagans. They didn't do that very well. Their purpose was also to bring Christ into the world, which they did, kind of almost in spite of themselves because they tried to kill the prophets and even killed Christ, but nonetheless, God used them to bring the Messiah, who was the Savior of the whole world. And that was the promise he made to Abraham. He promised Abraham that through his seed, which means Christ, all the nations of the earth would be blessed. So the whole world would come under the blessing of Christ, and Abraham's seed would be the one who brings that about. That did happen. Now that it's happened, I don't know anything else that's predicted. So if you say something else is predicted, I guess feel free, but I don't know of anything in the Bible that's predicted to happen, and it sounds like you don't either. You said you don't know what it looks like. I don't either. Hey, I need to take a break. Thank you for your call. You're listening to The Narrow Path. As I said, our website is thenarrowpath.com. We have another half hour coming, so don't go away. I'll be back in 30 seconds. Welcome back to The Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg, and we're live for another half hour taking your calls. Our lines are full at the moment, so don't bother to call right now. But if you call in a few minutes, it may well be that some of the lines have opened up. The number to call is 844-484-5737. That's 844-484-5737. All right, we're going to talk next to David in Madison Heights, Michigan. Hi David, welcome.
David: Hi Steve. Thanks for taking my call. Just a couple of quick questions if possible. One of them, I love the church I've been going to lately, and they really encourage membership and growth tracks and finding your place. I'm just kind of curious what you think of that, as I don't know how much I see it in the Bible, but I do see some value in being associated with a certain local or a specific local church. And the second one is from 1 Samuel 23, when David inquires of the Lord with the ephod. I've heard your teachings on the Urim and Thummim coming through the Old Testament, and I'm just curious what your thoughts of how that maybe happened was when he asked about the city of Keilah and how he got his answer. Because it seemed like he got an audible voice. It seemed like it.
Steve Gregg: Yeah, it's hard to say whether it was an audible voice or the Urim and the Thummim that did it. Let's go back to your first question. Membership, church. I agree. I got it. You don't see membership in the Bible, but you think it's a good thing to be associated with a church. I agree with you. It's not in the Bible, and it can be a good thing to be associated. Now, it depends on what they mean by membership. I've known of some churches that understand membership to be like a marriage commitment. They want you to make a covenant. They actually sometimes have their members sign a covenant with the church. Now, I'm not sure why they would do that. You don't have a covenant with a church. You're part of the body of Christ, and no individual church owns you. Christ owns you. You're part of his flock. And these churches are man-made organizations, really. I mean, I'm not saying the church is a man-made organization. The body of Christ is something God created in Christ. But every church in every town is a man-made organization. That's why they have a corporate status. Someone filed those papers. Someone decided, "Let's start a church. We'll get a 501(c)(3). We'll appoint somebody to be the pastor," and so forth. It's just like setting up any corporation. It's a man-made system. Within that system, it may be that most of the people are truly parts of the body of Christ, and the work of the body of Christ is being done there, which is fine. But there can be ten or 50 or 100 or 2,000 churches in one big town, and they're all man-made organizations. And none of them owns you. The body of Christ—Christ owns you. So in other words, if they say, "We want you to be a member here," which means we expect you to be here every Sunday, we expect you to give your tithes here, we expect you to not really go to other churches quite so much as you come here, you're really committed here. Well, I don't know. I mean, God may, in fact, lead you to be committed, very committed, to working in a certain group of people, a certain venue, and that'd be fine. But to sign on the dotted line and say, "Okay, I'm going to be a member here in a way that I'm not a member of the rest of the body of Christ," which is really what they usually mean. I always say, if someone says, "Why don't you become a member of our church?" I'd say, "I'd be glad to. Can I be a member of every church in town equally?" Well, they'd probably say, "Well, you how could you be involved?" I didn't say involved. I said a member. The Bible never mentions being a member of a church. The only way the word member is used in the New Testament concerning the church is like a limb of a body. We are the body of Christ made up of many members: arms, legs, nose, eyes, ears. That's the only sense in which people are members. You're not like members of a club. Not like members of a fraternity. We're body parts of Jesus. Now, as a body part of Jesus, I can be devoted to every Christian on the planet, meaning that if I hear that any Christian on the planet has needs, I feel like, "Well, I'm part of the same body with them. I should pray for them. If there's something I can do to help, I should do it." That's how the early church was. You know, when the church in Antioch, which was in Syria, received a prophecy from Agabus that the church in Judea was going to suffer from a famine, the church in Antioch decided to take up a collection and send it to the church in Jerusalem to help them. Most of these Christians didn't even know these people in Jerusalem, but they knew they were part of the same body. And then Paul traveled around through Greece and Turkey, and he took up collections for the church in Jerusalem too, for the same reason. All Christians are part of the same body. So in other words, I'm committed to the body of Christ. Does that mean that I go to all the churches? No, probably not. In all likelihood, God's going to have you form relationships with a limited number of people just because your time can't be distributed among millions. Though your loyalty should be to all members of the body of Christ. Remember those in prison as being bound in the same body with them, Hebrews says. So we have to be connected to all the body parts, but not necessarily physically or geographically, but in our heart we belong to the whole body, not to one group. Now, I will say that though that is true, there are a smaller number of Christians that I connect with on a regular basis. And that's usually going to be the case, or it's got to be the case. Frankly, you got to be connected with someone and you can't be connected with an innumerable people. So going to a church, if it's the place where you connect well with the body of Christ, volunteering there, serving there with your gifts, contributing financially to them, not a thing wrong with that. Nothing's wrong with that. What becomes wrong is if they say, "Okay, now that you're doing that, we want you to sign this paper that says you belong to us." Well, but I don't. I belong to Jesus. I don't belong to an organization. There's no 501(c)(3) corporation on the planet that I belong to. The Narrow Path is a 501(c)(3) corporation. I don't belong to The Narrow Path. You know, it's a something that provides an avenue of service. Fine. But I don't belong to it. I don't belong to a local church either. But I serve in many local churches. And there's been seasons in my life where I served in one local church very regularly, every week and sometimes many times a week. So I mean, yeah, I agree with you. It's good to be connected and involved in a church. I think every Christian should be if they can. But the membership thing, yeah, you're right, there's nothing in the Bible for that, and it almost sounds like something that the Bible actually forbids. Remember there was a church in Corinth Paul wrote to, and in chapter 1 of 1 Corinthians he said, "I've heard that some of you are saying, 'I am of Paul,' and 'I am of Cephas,' and 'I am of Apollos,' and 'I am of Christ.'" He said, "What? Is Christ divided?" In other words, you're not "of" any subgroup in the body of Christ. You're part of the body of Christ. Christ isn't divided. Now you might attend a Baptist church or a Pentecostal church or a Methodist church or a Presbyterian church or an Episcopal church or something. And that's fine. And if that's where God has led you and that's where God is using you to serve and so forth, you've got my blessing, and God's too, I hope. So anyway, that's how I look at it. But it doesn't mean you're a Baptist or a Presbyterian or a Lutheran. It means that you're a Christian, and these different congregations are the places where God has you planted to serve. But he can replant you. In fact, it may be, it maybe rather rare, but it may be that God would have a person attending three or four churches with some degree of regularity. There's a church here in Temecula that I go to once—or Murrieta, I guess it is—that I go to once in a while, every few weeks. Why? Because the people there, the pastor there is a friend. I like him. You know, I mean, I like to keep in touch. But it's not I don't go every week. I have a church in my home that I don't even do every week. We do that once a month. And we go to other churches. So the body of Christ is much larger than any one church. So I would say if you feel God's led you to a very good church where your services are welcomed and your gifts are used, by all means be involved. But if they say you have to be a member here, I'm going to ask, "Well, who makes me a member of the church?" I think the Bible says the Holy Spirit does that. The Holy Spirit has made us members of the body of Christ. Where else does the Bible talk about any other membership than that? I'm in the body of Christ. Are you saying that this church is going to make me more of a member of the body of Christ than I was before I came to this church? Where's that coming from? That'd be very hard to understand their concept. So I am against, I myself am against church membership simply because you don't need it. You follow the Holy Spirit's leading and he'll lead you to serve him in various places, and it might be that he'll lead you to serve in one congregation for the rest of your life. Fine. But if they say, "No, you have to be a member here," I'd have to ask them, "Well, what do you mean? Can I be a member here and a member of all the other churches in town? If not, then what you're calling membership is saying 'I am of Paul' or 'I am of Cephas' or 'I am of Apollos,' and Paul said that's sin. He said that's carnality. He said that's being immature, a babe in Christ," he said in 1 Corinthians 3. So I don't want to be a babe in Christ. I'd much rather just be a real Christian who serves God in this congregation perhaps. But you see, why do they want membership? I don't know why they want membership. I think they think that makes you—I don't know—gives them more control. It doesn't. Every church I know of has twice as many people on its membership as they have actually attending. So obviously having church rolls with members doesn't tell you anything about who's going to be committed or who's going to be there or how big the church is going to be. So I just say, hey, why don't we just skip the non-biblical stuff, especially the stuff that borders on sin and Paul says exhibits immaturity and carnality? How about we don't do that? Let's just serve Christ. I'd love to serve Christ here. See what they say about that. Now, you asked about the Urim and the Thummim. I don't know how that worked; nobody really does. But when David wanted to seek guidance from the Lord, he called for the priest who had the ephod. The ephod had the Urim and the Thummim in it, which were two stones. And these were given by God as a means for ascertaining God's mind about things. Nobody knows how they worked. They didn't speak audibly, I'm pretty sure, but they were—some think it was like a black stone and a white stone, and you draw it at random like drawing a coin out of your pocket, and the white stone would be an affirmative answer and the black stone a negative answer. Some think the Urim and the Thummim actually were kind of supernatural stones that lit up a certain way to give the answer. Nobody knows. I could guess, but there's no sense in my doing so since nobody knows the answer. All right? You there? Okay, he seems to be gone. All right, we'll talk next to Joshua in Phoenix, Arizona. Hi Joshua, welcome.
Joshua: Hi Steve. I just had a disagreement with you. You said this about a year ago, I think, so I might misphrase what you said. It was something along the lines of when I'm in heaven, I don't want to be concerned about the things of this world in this earth because I want to be at peace, something along those lines. I don't know if you recall saying something like that.
Steve Gregg: Yeah.
Joshua: And so I was just thinking. You know, we have saints as Catholics, and one of the saints said that she wants to spend her heaven doing good on earth. And I think that's fascinating because we are called to love our neighbors and not just God. It's not just about love of God; it's also love of neighbors. And Paul, I think, said love remains in heaven. So you would think that we would love our neighbors even in heaven. So the idea that I don't want to care about people in heaven anymore or on earth would kind of go against that. I don't know, just wanted to know your thoughts.
Steve Gregg: Yeah. Well, I'm not sure that when I'm in heaven, the people on earth are going to be my neighbors. I think heaven is pretty far above earth, and it's always in scripture contrasted with earth. So my neighbors when I'm in heaven are going to be in heaven, and my neighbors while I'm on earth are on earth. But as far as loving people in general, yeah, I don't ever want to stop loving people. But loving people doesn't mean I have to be in their business, in the business of people that are not in my life. I mean, if I hear about them, then they're in my life. If I hear that there's a tsunami or an earthquake somewhere or starvation and I have the opportunity to give, loving my neighbor means I get in their business in that way; I help them out. But there are people on the planet I'll never know who they are, I'll never know what's going on in their life, I don't have any information of their existence even. And I don't feel like I have to be, in order to be a loving person, that I have to know what's going on in certain tribal groups in Papua New Guinea. Someone may be knowing what's going on there, but I don't know everything that's going on in the world like God does. And I don't think I will know everything in the universe when I'm in heaven either. I don't plan to be omniscient. I'm not God. I'm not going to become God. And because of that, I don't have any reason to believe that when I'm in heaven, I will be knowing of anything that's going on on earth. And frankly, it would not be very pleasant to see—for example, to be aware—to know that little girls are being raped on a daily basis, children are being tortured by stepfathers, that innocent people are starving to death everywhere. It's not that would not be a very pleasant thing to know. If God lets me know it, then I'll deal with it. But I don't have any reason to believe that the rest from our labors that the Bible speaks of when we die is going to include all of that, worse than now. It'd be worse than now because I don't see these people suffering every day. I know they're out there, but they're not a vivid reality to me. But if in heaven I'm one of the saints who has to get involved in these things, I think why? Why should I be involved in it? Isn't God everywhere? I don't see how I'd be capable of doing anything about it any more than I can now. As a Catholic yourself, I know that you think the saints do get involved in assisting people and so forth, but actually the Bible doesn't say anything about them doing so. And my impression is that God's the one who does those things. And if he needs assistance, he's got angels to do that kind of thing. I don't know of any case in the Bible that says that we should petition the assistance of humans who have gone on to heaven. So, yeah, you and I do disagree with that. You're right.
Joshua: Yes, we are going to have disagreements, and that's fine. But at the end of the day, you're my brother in Christ. And I appreciate, Steve, that you're available and that you're diligent in your ministry. God bless you, okay?
Steve Gregg: Thank you, brother. Good talking to you. All right, bye now. All right, let's see here. I thought I hit the button to end that call. Maybe my computer may be frozen. I'm not sure. Anyway, that call is supposed to hang up. Call screener, would you hang that call up? Oh, there it dropped. Okay, now we're going to go to another caller. By the way, we have some lines open if you want to try to get through before we're done. 844-484-5737. Keith from Rancho Cordova, California. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
Keith: Yes, hi Steve. It's been a while since I talked to you. I had a two-part question if it's possible. The first one is, I'm almost similar to the gentleman that you talked to a little bit earlier in the first half hour. I've been a Christian since I was a kid, and I've been praying for a long time, a very long time for me, to meet the right woman. It just hasn't happened. And I've been trying to do everything possible. So I just wanted to ask you, what can I do other than praying to God and Jesus and Moses and everybody? And then the second part question is, why is there so many wars between Ukraine and Russia and Israel and Iran? You know, it just seems senseless.
Steve Gregg: Well, they're territorial wars. I mean, people war because they covet other people's territory. That's where it says that in James chapter 4 and verse 1. It says and following, "Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war against your members? You desire and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask." So he's saying that the reason wars happen is because somebody is coveting something from someone else. They desire what someone else has. That's true whether we're talking about Ukraine and Russia, we're talking about Israel and Palestine or any other wars. People covet land, and sometimes the people they covet it from also want it. So they fight over it. It shouldn't be, but that's how sinful man is, and the Bible certainly depicts us as living in a world full of sinful people. Now, as far as praying for the right woman to come along, if indeed the right woman has not come along, you can be thankful that you recognized that and that you didn't hook up with the wrong woman. I will say this: there is tremendous difficulty in finding godly women. But the best way to find a godly woman is to be a godly man, because godly women are looking for godly men. I know many people who are very serious about following God—many men—who say, "I just can't find a woman who's that serious about God." But then I hear women saying, "I can't find a man who is." And I believe them both. I believe them both because it's hard, even when you go to church, to find very many people who are as serious about God as Christianity calls us to be. Even when you go to church, you'll meet people who sing the songs, who attend, put some money in the bag, they talk like Christians, at least when they're there, sometimes even when they're not there. And yet, they're not going to persist in holiness when the going gets tough. Jesus talked about people like that in the parable of the seed and the soils. He said some seed fell on this shallow soil that had rock underneath, and it sprang up, but when the sun came up, it burned up the seed and it died because it couldn't get its roots down. He said that's like people who hear the gospel and they receive it joyfully initially, but because they have no roots, persecution and hardship and tribulation for the gospel comes and they fall away. Now, I've seen lots of people do that. There shouldn't be many, at least there should be, I would hope, more in the church who are real Christians who are going to stay with Christ. But you don't want to marry somebody who's going to fall away. I can tell you from experience, you don't want that. So if you say, "Well, I haven't found the right woman yet," well, one thing I'd say is, if she's out there, the fact that you haven't found her yet is no big indicator that God doesn't answer prayer. There may be a lot of men who are looking for that same woman, but God will bring the one to you that he wants. If he doesn't, then he wants you to wait. But I will say that when the right woman comes along, the most important thing for you is to be the right man. While you are single, you need to develop the spiritual disciplines and the spiritual depth that will be attractive to a very spiritual, godly woman. So that should be your whole project—besides what you do for a living. But doing what you do for a living is also preparation, too, because most women are going to want a guy who can support them. They should. So to become financially stable, financially capable of supporting a family and children and things like that, to be stable emotionally and spiritually, to be immersed in the scriptures so that the scriptures are guiding your life and that you can be a spiritual leader to a woman who's a spiritual woman—these are things that, if you do those things, two things: one is you might never find the right woman anyway, but you'll have benefited from becoming that kind of person. Anyone would be better off by being that kind of a person. But also, when that woman does come around, you'll be the guy she'd been looking for because a good woman is looking for that kind of a man. So that's the most I can say. Now, if you say, "Why doesn't God answer my prayer?" I don't know. I was thrust into singleness against my will when I was almost 50 years old, and I prayed for God to give me a good woman, and it was ten years before I met her. And I've been with her now for 14, 15 years, and it's the greatest thing ever. Of course, I was an old man by the time she showed up; I was 60 almost. So but it's been a great time since then and worth the wait. I'm glad I didn't get hooked up with somebody who was not the right one, because I'd still be stuck with them right now. So have patience and while God has you waiting, be busy about your Father's business and about developing your own spiritual depth and responsibility and character. Because that's going to be what's important to the woman when you meet her. The woman who doesn't care about those things is not the right woman.
Keith: I told a friend of mine named Marcus that I leave myself in God's hands.
Steve Gregg: Amen. That's what you got to do. That's what Peter says: cast all your cares upon God, on him, because he cares for you. How do you cast your cares on him? You just say, "God, this is your problem. I mean, I can't fix it. I can't make that woman materialize in my circle of friends. Only God can bring her there." So, "I see, God, that this is not something that you've given me power over. So I'm going to let you worry about it. This will be your problem. You find her for me in your time, and I'll wait, and I'll wait actively making myself the kind of person that you will want me to be and that she will want me to be when she shows up." And if she never shows up, I'll accept from your hand a single life, and I'll be a better man for it because I will have done all this preparation.
Keith: Thank you, Steve.
Steve Gregg: All right, brother. I'm sorry about your loneliness. I know how that can be. God bless you. Trust God. Bye now. All right, now my computer is not responding to my buttons here, so I want to move on to talk to—well, we don't really have time to talk to. We got our lines full here, and my computer's froze, I think. Now it's changed. Anyway, those of you who are waiting, I would put you on, but I'm looking at a clock that says like in two minutes we're done. So I don't want to give you short shrift. Call me back tomorrow; this is only Monday. I appreciate your calling, and I apologize for not being able to get to your call. But we are on Monday through Friday at the same time. Call early enough and I'll be glad to get to your calls. I could wish I had three hours to do it and take all the calls. But hours cost money, which brings me to the subject of why we're on the air. We're able to pay for radio time because other people want us to, and they supply the money. So we're listener-supported, in other words. You may have noticed we don't have any commercial breaks, we don't have any sponsors, we don't sell anything at all. We just trust God to provide, and he does. Been doing it for 29 years now we've been on the air. If you'd like to help us stay on the air, you can write to The Narrow Path, P.O. Box 1730, Temecula, California 92593. Or you can do it from our website, thenarrowpath.com. Thanks for joining us. Have a good evening. We'll talk to you tomorrow.