August 6, 2025 • 56 mins
Pastors' Perspective is a one-hour call-in program where listeners can call in and get answers to questions about the Bible, Christianity, family, and life. The program is live Monday through Friday from 3:00 PM - 4:00 PM Pacific. You can call 888-564-6173 to ask your questions.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Hello and welcome to Pastor's Perspective. It's that time once
again where we open up the studio lines and let
you call in. I shouldn't say let you, it almost
makes it seem like we're, you know, doing the opposite. We,
we don't want you to call in. OK, you can
call us this hour. No, our phone lines are always open,
but what we do during this hour is answer questions
you might have about the Bible, the Christian faith, uh,
(00:37):
maybe something you heard at church over the weekend or
here on the
Radio this morning or when you were doing your morning
devotions and you came across something and you're wondering, what
does this mean? How does it apply to life today? Well,
let's talk about it. 888-564-6173 is the number to call
for the next hour. Answering your questions today, we've got
Doctor Scott Ray. He's a professor of philosophy and Christian
(01:01):
ethics at the Talbot School of Theology at Biola University.
Scott Ray, good to have you here again, sir. Right?
Always good to be with you all. Yes, and Nick Kay,
he's the lead pastor of Whitefields Community Church in Longmont, Colorado.
That's on the other side of Shortmont, right?
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Uh, yeah, yes,
Speaker 1 (01:20):
of
Speaker 2 (01:20):
course
Speaker 1 (01:20):
it
is. Yes, he's here. He's in town. He's visiting Southern California,
so he said, Hey, do you need an extra pastor today?
We said, actually, we do. So, uh, he's here and, uh,
great to have you here for the.
Second time this, uh, well, since last week was your
first time here, yeah, it's great to hear again, yeah, yeah,
we didn't scare you away
Speaker 2 (01:38):
or anything. No, not yet.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
That's great.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
See how
Speaker 1 (01:41):
it goes. Yeah, so you can also send us your
questions online. There's the pastor's perspective Facebook page. You can
send us a question on, uh, Messenger, or you can
DM us on the pastor's perspective Instagram. You can go
to Kwave.com and look for the pastor's perspective page, which
isn't always.
Easy to find, but it's there. It's like a little
puzzle that you've got to navigate or something, a scavenger hunt.
(02:04):
But if you're watching us right now on Facebook, YouTube,
or Instagram, you can scan the QR code, and that
takes you directly to that page where you can fill
out the form to get your question to us. But
we prefer to hear the sound of your voice, so
give us a call at 888-564-6173. Here's a question that
was sent in online. It's from Spencer in Riverside.
(02:24):
And Spencer asks, does God not like it when people
leave their ex-partners after having children and meeting someone new
and having more children? Scott Ray, what do you say?
I'd say it depends on the circumstance of leaving. I mean,
in gen in general, God's not thrilled about divorce under
any circumstance because it, it tears apart families and tears
(02:48):
apart the one flesh relationship.
That the couple had established, but I think under the scripture,
I think gives an allowance for divorce under certain conditions.
There's some debate on what those conditions are, but I
think most people agree that in the case of adultery
or in the case of desertion, um, those are legitimate
(03:08):
grounds now I think others would suggest that things like
abuse or addictions, things like that also fall under the
heading of what the Bible allows, uh, for in the
case of divorce.
And I think if the divorce is legitimate, then remarriage
is also legitimate uh so I would say I, I just,
I need to know a little bit more about what,
what the circumstances, which is another reason we prefer if
(03:30):
you guys called but but in general, God's not thrilled
about people abandoning their marriages and their families.
Yeah,
Speaker 2 (03:38):
in this situation, it is a bit hard, as we've
stated that we don't know a lot of details about
the situation. I mean, uh, he mentions ex-partners, so we're
not even sure that there's a marriage happening here. It
seems that maybe there were some, some children in a
relationship and then he's moved on or someone's moved on
to having a new relationship. And so I think that
(04:01):
we would point people to God's ideal for marriage in
the family, which is one man and one woman together
before God.
Until death does impart, and children born under that heading.
That's the ideal. Now clearly a lot of things happen
outside of the ideal, and so they
That's where things get a little bit more complex is
where we need biblical ethicists.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Well, I'm, I'm happy to still stay employed, so.
All right, Spencer, thank you for sending in your question.
Hope that answers it. 888-564-6173, the number to call us,
and here's another one that was sent in online. This
one is from Ember Hill in Wildemar.
If government rule and the Christian faith were to merge,
(04:45):
would it bring order or merely the furtherance of sinister
intentions cloaked in fulfilling biblical prophecies? My earnest concern would
be if leaders of other faiths would seize upon the
precedent and impose their own beliefs based upon their scriptures.
What do you think, Scott?
Well, this, this is, there's, there's, there are other options
(05:07):
besides the two that are presented here. Uh, I don't
think no, nobody that I'm aware of, except for very
few are in favor of what what we call a theocracy,
which is where the law of God is automatically the
law of the land like it was in the Old
Testament and like it like it is in in many,
many Islamic countries around the world, uh, when, when the
Bible is when the Bible says that we are no
(05:29):
longer under the law.
What that means is that we are no longer under
the law of Moses as a rule of life for
the church today. We're no longer under the sacrificial system
to gain us atonement for sin because Christ did that
once and for all, and we're no longer under the
civil law either that governed the relations with quote the
state or the the the monarchy.
(05:52):
Uh, and govern relationships in community together. Now I think
they set out general principles that we're obligated to follow today,
but the specific application for today is likely to be
quite a bit different than it was in Old Testament
times so I.
I would say, you know, I, I don't think there's
anything problematic about a politician bringing their Christian convictions into
(06:17):
their calling in the political arena. In fact, we would, we,
I would think it's sort of odd if a politician
left all their.
There are Christian convictions at the door before entering the
political arena. I think we don't really ask anybody to
do that. That would actually be a violation of his
or her freedom of religion. Whether those things should become
the law of the land is that's an entirely different question,
(06:41):
and I think in, in most cases, uh, we're we're
better off relying on moral persuasion as opposed to the law.
Uh, because in general, I think, I think what the
founding fathers had in mind in general was when moral
persuasion failed, then the law would step in.
Uh, and so for example, I, I don't think adultery
(07:01):
should be criminalized. I don't think people should go to
jail for sleeping around on their spouses.
I don't think most sexual relations that involve consenting adults,
I don't think should be a matter for the law.
Others I think are appropriate, such, you know, I think,
I think abortion is appropriate to be a matter for
the law and consistent suicide is appropriate to be a
matter for the law because those violate both of those
(07:25):
violate fundamental civil rights.
In my, in my view, both of the unborn and
of the elderly, so I think we, we need to
make sure that we're not automatically assuming that just because
the Bible lays out a moral prescription that we automatically
then make that rely on the law to enforce that
because I think in a lot of cases that's just
(07:46):
not true.
Uh, so I, I don't know about, I don't know
exactly what this person means about the sinister intentions and
fulfilling of prophecy that I need to hear a little
bit more about what they mean by that, but I
think the idea that you would have a theocracy where
the law of God is the law of the land
I think is, is no longer appropriate today in the
(08:08):
age of the church, Nick.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Well, one thing's for sure that the laws, now whether
these be moral laws from the scriptures or civil laws
from government, that's not able to change somebody's heart. We,
we would agree on on that. Uh, however, what they
can do is that they can prohibit or in some cases,
prevent or prevent bad things from happening or protect people
(08:34):
from the evil actions of others, or at least put
up some some boundaries in those ways.
Sometimes people use this phrase to say you can't legislate morality.
In one sense, I absolutely understand what they mean by that,
but in another sense, I mean, all legislature is in
a way moral in nature. And so, uh, I think
(08:55):
that we as Christians, we would say that we believe
that God's vision for life, morality is going to lead
to the most flourishing and the most happiness of individuals
and in society. So in one way,
I would like to live in a more Christian society
than a less Christian society, and you know,
Speaker 1 (09:15):
so do a lot of atheists around the world I
believe and they're and they're they're becoming well publicized. Richard Dawkins,
for example, made it really clear that he thinks living
in a Christian culture is much preferable to any other
one on the
planet.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
And Tom Holland wrote this great book, Dominion, and in
the book he catalogs how Christianity has influenced.
Western society and how many of the things that we
take for granted as far as like human rights and
the rule of law, how many of these things come
from Christianity and how
Speaker 1 (09:50):
they're just part of the air we breathe exactly.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
We take it as, oh, these are great things that
humans came up with. Well, we came up with them
out of a theological framework which is shaped by the Bible.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
And you, you make a great point when you suggest that,
you know, every law is the imposition of somebody's morality, yeah.
And this is why it drives me nuts when people
say I'm so tired of you religious people imposing your
morality on as though you're not as though the secularist
is not, uh, and.
You know, we, we should get rid of the silly
that silly notion that that the law is somehow morally neutral,
(10:26):
which is clearly not.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
So on the one hand, you know, as, as this
is a topic, by the way, it's been discussed a
lot throughout Christian history, going back to Augustine, writing, you know,
to about two cities and uh going into the Reformation
where you actually did have what's called the magisterial reformation,
the magisterial reformers were those where the government and the
(10:51):
religious leadership were hand in hand. They were working and
in some cases like in Calvin's Geneva, they were one
and the same.
What's interesting in in the case of Calvin's Geneva is
that you see that even in the case where the
church was the government, uh, bad things still took place.
Um, so it's, it has been something where it's like, OK,
(11:12):
what is the right relationship between church and state? Personally,
I guess I'm of the mind to say, as the
more I've thought about, the more I've said, I would
rather that we live in a more Christian society than
a less Christian society, um, but the question is how
do we go about doing that and implementing it. I
personally think in our society, I think it would be
(11:32):
very difficult because um which church is going to be
In charge of the government, you know, I'm saying, we
have so many different churches and denominations. There isn't one over, um,
I guess overlording church.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
I
think we should be clear too about what what the
founders had in mind about the separation of church and
state because that phrase appears nowhere in the any of
the founding documents.
Uh, and it was, I think it was assumed by
the founders, they, they were good students of history and
they knew that when you had a state sanctioned church
where the state had a certain sect or denomination or
(12:11):
set of beliefs that they were enforcing by law, that
was a bad situation that the founders wanted at all
costs to avoid, uh, because they've seen that, you know,
it was religious persecution and the Inquisition and 100 Years'
War and it was it was bloody and messy.
And they determined to do something different, but to be clear,
(12:31):
they did not envision a society that was devoid of
religious influence in fact they were not optimistic about the
future of both democracy and market economies.
Without the moral framework that religion provides and reinforces, uh,
and so I think it's incumbent on the church to
(12:51):
actually live out that moral framework in a way that
doesn't undermine it as some scandalous things often do, but
they clearly envisioned a culture where religion in general was
not marginalized, but, but no specific faith was given the,
the government's good housekeeping seal of approval.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Yeah, and I think it is really important that Christians
be encouraged to live out their faith in the public
square in different capacities. So sometimes that might be helping
to shape the formation of laws, helping to shape, you know,
different entities that exist, um, but at the same time,
we remember that we proclaim a king and a kingdom, um,
(13:36):
that is coming, that has not yet come in fullness.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
Very good. I think one, yeah, sure, sure, sure, sorry,
point on this too. I think we should, we should
also be aware that some of the, some of the
most basic affirmations that the early church made were really
strongly political statements. So even the statement Jesus is Lord
was basically saying that Jesus is Lord and Caesar is not,
and by refusing to follow a lot of the traditions
(14:03):
of the Roman Empire, which the, the Romans believed were
essential for their society to flourish.
By by separating themselves from those and refusing to follow those,
they were seen as seditious and treasonous, uh, and then
they had no obviously had no problem doing that.
Uh, and then they were right to withhold from those practices,
(14:24):
but they had, they had serious political overtones and so
just because something has political overtones today doesn't necessarily mean
that it's a theocracy and I think sometimes uh people,
people of a more secular bent.
Will actually lump lump in basically any position that they
(14:44):
disagree with that has a religious underpinning and call it
a theocracy when in reality it's, it's nothing of the sort, yeah,
Speaker 2 (14:51):
and sometimes people will say, well, you know politics is
politics and religion is religion and let's keep those two separate.
I would say, well, for us who love and follow Jesus, it's,
it's so.
Bound up with who we are in our identity that
it would actually be, it would be a betrayal of
who we are as Christians to not bring it into
every aspect of our lives in not just the private
(15:14):
area but in the public sphere as well.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
If the
Lordship of Christ means anything, you don't get to, you
don't get to heaven little side compartment for a pretty
significant part of your life.
Amber Hill, thank you for sending in your question through
the pastor's perspective page on Kwave.com. Gonna go to the
phones now because we have a uh question that's on topic.
Here is Casey calling in from Temecula. Hey, Casey, what's up?
(15:40):
Hey, how are you guys doing? Doing fine.
Oh yeah, so I heard the question before and I
was like, man, I gotta give these.
Oh, because, you know, fellow Calvary Chapel, uh, graduate and
went to your guys's Bible College and so, anyways, I
just wanted to comment and say I'm reading a book
(16:00):
by a guy named Douglas Wilson, and it's called Mir
Chris Mir.
Christianity and or Mir Christendom or somewhere along those lines.
Are you guys familiar with them at all?
Speaker 2 (16:11):
I am, yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Yes.
Are you guys familiar with Doug Wilson's ministry?
Speaker 2 (16:19):
Yeah, we are.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
OK, yeah, so he wrote a book and he argues
in his book that if Christ is Lord, right, then
that means he's Lord over everything, Lord over the nation,
lord over all of it. And so I guess that
maybe ask you guys to further expand upon that because
he argues, well, the counter, the counter.
(16:42):
Uh, to, you know, a theocracy is what like secularism
which leads leads to nowhere, right? It just leads to
more debauchery, more.
Godlessness and so in his book, he proposes that Christ
is Lord, like the early church proclaims, right, kind of
like NT right, how he also along those lines. I mean,
(17:02):
obviously they have different theological opinions, but um along the
lines of if Christ is raised from the dead.
Then obviously his lordship is over everything, and that means everybody,
including the Caesars of this age have to fall in line.
So what's your guys' thoughts on that, Nick, you've read
this book?
Speaker 2 (17:23):
I have not read this book, but I'm actually very
familiar with uh Doug Wilson and his church uh through
some personal relationships that we had and people who uh
worked for our church, uh, in the past and um.
I, I don't disagree with everything he says by any means. I,
I think that, um, what I would direct you to
is there's a really helpful framework that was created, uh,
(17:44):
I think it was in the 1950s by a theologian
named Richard Nieber, and he wrote a great book called
Christ and Culture. And what he does in that book
is he outlines five modes that people have historically related to,
Christians have historically related to culture.
And he puts them on a spectrum, and he says
(18:05):
that the, the, you know, the ends of the spectrum,
those two that fall in there, he says those actually
fall outside of the biblical vision, right? In other words,
they contradict what the Bible has to say about how
Christians are called to interact with the culture around them. Uh,
the one is, you know, Christ against culture, and the
(18:26):
other one is total concession, right? Where there's definitely no
challenge and you're just kind of giving in to everything.
Uh, in between that, he finds 3, so a smaller
spectrum within the spectrum that he says are faithful and
biblical ways that Christians have historically done that. And if
you read that book, you'll notice, you'll be able to say, oh,
this is what these people are doing, and this is
(18:48):
what these people are doing. So those kind of are
what he calls the first one is called
Um, Christ and culture in paradox, and I'd say this
is much, this is mostly what most evangelicals have done
for the last 100 or so years and maybe maybe longer,
but um that is where really they say we are
(19:09):
going to do our thing.
And we're gonna not necessarily try to change the culture,
but we're gonna, it's more of a grassroots change. We're
gonna change the culture from the inside out, through heart
change one individual at a time, and as people's lives
have changed, that will change society.
Uh, the next view is, uh, Christ's transformer of culture.
(19:30):
And so this is where people start to get a
little bit more involved in the public sphere and in
politics in trying to shape the culture into a more
Christian viewpoint. This is also common among some evangelicals, and then,
then he moves a little further down the line towards
a little bit more acceptance of culture.
Uh, where Doug Wilson would fall in that view is
(19:52):
definitely in the middle right there, in, in what is
a historically Christian viewpoint. The one thing I would say
about Doug Wilson is that he is post millennial in
his eschatology, and I believe that his eschatology very much
shapes his view of why he believes that we need
to um do everything we can to bring about Christ's
(20:13):
reign on earth.
And um so I think that that's a really big
part of it that I, I disagree with. I mean,
I really just disagree with uh his post millennial viewpoint,
but the, the way he goes about it, creating institutions
and changing a city, I, I think that there's uh
much that I do agree with.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
I, I probably wouldn't have titled the book Mere Christendom.
Because Christendom implies sort of a Christian empire and, you know,
it's sort of the the the the way that that
the church sort of subs subsumed the state in a
lot of the Middle Ages, um, so I that I
(20:54):
think is a little bit misleading that suggests more of
a theocracy.
Which he claims he is not trying to do. But
if you look at a subtitle, it it kind of
makes it sound like he is trying to do that.
The case for bringing Christianity back into modern culture leading
by faith to convert secularism. Well, and I don't, I
don't have a problem with trying to talk people out
of their secularism. In fact, I think that's, that's probably
(21:16):
it may be a little easier task than some we
sometimes think.
Uh, and there's a, I think a growing disillusionment, I
think with, with a lot of what secularism can't provide
for people, you know, things like meaning and purpose and
the things that really make life go for people. Secularism,
I think, is largely come up empty handed on that.
(21:37):
Um, and I think you, you know, that's really helpful
what you provided about neighbors, you know, his categories, and
I think Christ the transformer of culture, I think is
largely what the scripture has in mind. As long as
we recognize what the points you made a little bit
earlier that God's kingdom, it has not come in its
fullness yet.
And that the, you know, the earth is the Lord's.
(21:58):
This is my father's world that's all true, but the
final realization of that, the final sort of playing out
of that won't come until when the Lord returns and
so I think we, you know, I think we are
called to.
You know, to share the gospel, we are called to
do good in our in our communities. We're called to
live out God's righteousness in our communities with the hope
(22:21):
that our cultures will change, but I, I think there's, there's,
there's a I think a helpful analogy here with evangelism that,
you know, our responses we are not responsible under God
to lead people to Christ, right? That's the, that's the
Holy Spirit's job to change people's hearts. We are responsible
to faithfully proclaim the gospel and give people an opportunity
to respond.
(22:41):
Right? And we trust God with his movement and this
movement of his spirit in people's hearts. The same thing
I think is true of the culture. We are called
to to faithfully live out the gospel in every arena
of life that we have contact with.
And that includes that includes our work, our communities, our families,
our neighborhoods uh I think even I think we even have,
(23:05):
you know, other parts of the world that we that
we're called to from to from time to time we're
called to live out those things and and impact the
culture as best we can given the position that we're
in but ultimately it's God's responsibility to change the culture.
And I think you, your, your eschatology, I think is
absolutely right. We hold to more of a pre-millennial view which,
(23:27):
which says that the that the, the Lord will return
before pre the millennium or the the 1000 year period
where His kingdom will reign in its fullness, not post
millennial where the church essentially ushers in the return of Christ.
The Bible, I think is pretty clear that, you know,
sort of goes to shiel in a handbasket before the
(23:48):
Lord's return.
And you know, the worst in fact I think it'd
be fair to say that the that for a lot
of the world prior to his return it'll be his
return is the only hope for the world, uh, and
I think in in in some parts of the world
we're probably there already, uh, others not not so much.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Yeah, and just to to give a little bit like
what would, what would uh another perspective on that be,
would be to say some people would say well it's
actually through politics or shaping culture, you know, through institutions
that we can best be transforming or at least be
tools that.
God uses to transform the culture for good. And how
(24:30):
can we best love people? Some would say, well, by
creating laws that lead to flourishing, and I, and I
definitely understand that, and I, I don't disagree with it.
I sympathize with it. I think some people are called
into that realm, and I would encourage them to do
it to the glory of God. Um, but I, again,
the eschatology thing I think is, is, uh, Casey, the,
(24:51):
the one thing that you should keep an eye on
because
Um, you know, why are we doing it and what
are we seeking to bring about? And so, with a
post millennial eschatology, really the idea is that we must
bring about the kingdom of God on earth, and then
at the end of this 1000 year reign of the
(25:11):
of Christ.
Through the church, and that's that's really their their key phrase.
The reign of Christ through the church during the millennial period,
which they believe we are either in or on the
cusp of, uh, then Christ will return at the end
of that, whereas a pre-millennial view, uh, along with an
all millennial view, would tend to say.
(25:33):
Uh, no, we, we don't believe that that's, that's the case.
We believe that Christ is going to return and then
he will reign over his kingdom.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
So, what do you think of all this, Casey?
Um, I really enjoyed it. Um, I really enjoyed the
well rounded perspective. Like I said, you know, you, you
guys hit it, hit it on the head pretty well. Um,
it was just, it was a fascinating, it's been coming
up a lot, so, you know, I've been in.
(26:04):
Uh, reading that book along with like NT right and
you know you have like a variety of perspectives and interpretations.
Those are two quite different perspectives. They are, yeah, very,
very different. I mean there's similarities overlap, but like you
guys were saying with post millennialism, which comes from like
Jonathan Edwards and you know, the hope of like God's
(26:27):
kingdom arriving fully through our participation of that, but like
you guys also pointed out.
Um, I, I, I kind of have a it's like
a question mark in my spirit with it just because
when you read Revelation or you read Paul, you seem
to see, you seem to.
No, no, the world's not going to just be redeemed
(26:50):
by us. Jesus actually has to come back and establish
it. Yeah,
Speaker 2 (26:55):
and Post Williams a relatively latecomer to theological discussion and
and the church, so.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
But this, I think what this shows us too is
that your theology really matters. And even, even something that
you might not think about all that much like eschatology, uh,
it really matters in forming the lenses through which you
see the world. Casey, thanks for your phone call today
on Pastor's Perspective. 888-564-6173 is our number. Dante, where's Dante?
(27:26):
Dante hung up, so, uh, let's go to Layla. If
you're still listening, Dante, call us back. Layla.
In Rancho Santa Margarita, how can we help you today?
Oh yes. So I was listening to the conversation and
I heard one of you guys say something along the
lines of that we don't praise like God's kingdom that's here,
(27:48):
we praise like the kingdom that's coming. So it's kind
of on topic, but I was wondering like, can you
just explain what you mean by that? Like specifically when
you say like that it's coming. I don't know. I'm just,
I just want a little bit more like
Framework on when God's kingdom is coming and why, why
(28:11):
we say that. Well, I'd love a little more clarity
on when God's kingdom is coming too. Uh, I, I might,
it might, it might change a lot of things, uh.
Nick, you go ahead and give you and Leila,
Speaker 2 (28:23):
I think that we're probably gonna have to go to
break if you don't mind holding through the break, um,
but I'll just begin by telling you this. When we
talk about God's kingdom, the common term that's used amongst
Christians and theologians is the idea that God's kingdom, uh,
has come in part but is coming in fullness. So
sometimes we use this phrase, it's here already.
(28:45):
But it is not yet. So already, but not yet.
So Gia says, you know, my kingdom has come in you,
and yet he talks about the kingdom as something which
is to come in the future, and I'll talk about
that more, and we can all talk about it more
after the break.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
Yeah, any thoughts, Scott? Well yeah, I think and when
when the Bible says the kingdom of God is in
in your midst, when Jesus came, I think what they
what
What he meant by that is that the kingdom is
here in the presence of the king, and then there
there's a whole lot more that's yet to come. All right,
so Leyla, stay on the phone. We'll continue this conversation
(29:21):
and we'll talk about whatever you want to conversate about
888-564-6173 is our number. We're gonna be in the studio
for another.
30 minutes, we've got Doctor Scott Ray from Viola University
here and Pastor Nick Kay from Whitefields Community Church in Colorado.
He's in town in Southern California. We've brought him in
to help answer these questions that you guys have, and
(29:43):
you guys have some great questions. 888-564-6173 is the number
to call to ask your question.
(30:20):
Welcome back to Pastor's Perspective. I'm Brian Perez. 888-564-6173 is
the number to call us with your questions today. We
were speaking with Layla just before the break, and it
looks like she had to go, but we're gonna continue
talking about her topic because it's really good. We've got
Scott Ray and Nick Katie here. Uh, Nick, what did
you want to bring up next? And Leyla, we hope
(30:41):
you're still listening.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
Yeah, so the topic was about the kingdom of God,
and Leyla had picked up on something I said earlier,
which is that the kingdom is yet to come.
Uh, so, she asked, what does that mean? Talk about it.
So I was saying that one of the phrases we
use theologically is that we say that the kingdom is already,
but not yet. And one of the things where we
get the already part is that we say, well, Jesus
(31:03):
said the kingdom of God is here, or it is
amongst you who believe, and yet he's continually speaks about
the kingdom as something which is to come.
And, um, for example, throughout Matthew's Gospel, uh Gus speaks
in parables talking about the time of the kingdom coming.
So what does that mean? Well, I guess it's really
(31:24):
important to define what the kingdom of God is. I
think that that's um that's famously difficult to do, but
the one of the definitions I've given, I'm Scott, I'm
curious to hear your take on this would be that
The kingdom of God, a kingdom is the realm in
which someone reigns, and so the kingdom of God is
(31:45):
the realm in which Jesus reigns and is honored as king.
And so in a sense, you could say that the
kingdom of God exists within you, which is what Jesus
had said, when you make Jesus the Lord of your life,
when you treat him as your king, live with him
as your king, then the kingdom of God has come
in you in part.
And yet what we see is that there's an eschatological hope, uh,
(32:10):
eschatological meaning like ultimate hope of the kingdom which is
to come. And in that kingdom, for example, we read
in Revelation, but also in the Old Testament, that there
will be no more death, there'll be no more sickness,
tears will be wiped away, and clearly we haven't gotten
there yet, right? And a lot of the prophetic books
end with this picture of the kingdom, which is to come.
(32:31):
And we can look at those pictures and say, well,
that certainly has not yet happened.
And so in the one part, we do experience benefits
of living in God's kingdom right now.
Um, for example, God's leading in our lives, God's speaking
to us, having a relationship with him. We also see
(32:51):
some tangible benefits. For example, when Jesus came and he
performed miracles, well, what were those miracles? You could say
that it was the king opening a window, if you will,
into the kingdom which is to come, the the fullness
of the kingdom. So when he heals somebody, what is that?
That's a preview of the kingdom. It's not just something
cool that Jesus could do.
(33:12):
It's a preview of what the kingdom will be like.
In the kingdom, lepers will be healed, the the blind
will see, the deaf will hear, the lame will walk.
And so he's opening a window or giving a preview
or manifestation, sometimes we call it, of the kingdom which
is to come. And sometimes we experience those. We, we
experience God's healing power.
Today, we experience uh a word from the Lord, and
(33:35):
so these are previews or glimpses, windows into the kingdom,
which is to come, but it's not here yet in fullness.
And one day it will be here. And the last
thing I'll say on this is just in 2 Peter
chapter 1, I believe it's verse 9, but I don't
have it in front of me. It's
Say, uh, Peter uses the picture of a new day
that is dawning, and he speaks of Jesus as the
(33:57):
morning star. And actually what the morning star is, if
you think about it, um, I guess from an astrological perspective,
is actually the, the planet Venus, it's the last star,
if you can call it that, that you see in
the sky, and what it means is when there's only
one star left in the sky, the morning star, that
means that it's dawn.
(34:18):
And dawn is an interesting time of day because at dawn,
it's no longer night, but it's not yet morning. The
sun has not crested the horizon, but you know that
the darkness is no longer as dark as it used
to be, and yet it's no long, it's not yet
the fullness of day. So the new day has not
yet dawned, but
(34:39):
It is about to, and so that would be the
description that the early Christians gave us of the time
that we live in today. Jesus has come, he's the
morning star. He's the sign that the new day is
going to come, the new day being the fullness of
God's kingdom. And so, we're no longer living in the darkness,
which we once were. There are inbreakings of the kingdom
(35:01):
all around us.
And yet we still look forward to the fullness of
the kingdom to come.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
Yeah, just one thing to add to that's really, that's
a really helpful sort of primer on what the kingdom is. I,
the only thing I'd add to that is that.
When when the prophets in the Old Testament foretold the kingdom,
they would they look forward to what I would call
both an individual component where every knee bows at the
name of Christ and everybody's everybody's rightly related to God
and but there's also a social component.
(35:29):
That that the kingdom ushers in a proper ordering of
society where sin will not infect the the structures of
the culture and of the society so sin will not
infect the workplace, for example. I admit I have a
little trouble getting my arms around exactly what that's gonna
look like, uh, but I know it's gonna be a
(35:50):
vast improvement over what we have here. And when Jesus
came bringing the kingdom, we said the kingdom of God
is in your midst.
Uh, some people wanna say that that that's only an
internal thing, and I don't think that's, I don't think
that's true to what the prophets had in mind because
there's there there was a social component too, so in
the meantime.
(36:10):
During the not yet period we have obligations both to
the individual and to the social components of the kingdom.
We have the obligation to share the gospel, to do
the best we can to, to bring people to Christ,
but also to be involved with, with things living out
our faith and living out God's righteousness in the broader culture,
in the public sphere, and what really in whatever sphere
(36:31):
of influence that we find ourselves having access to.
Great conversation today on Pastor's perspective. If you missed any
part of it, we're gonna archive it a little bit
later on, on Facebook, YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify. We
archive all of our stuff on YouTube if you want
to go back and listen to past episodes. 888-564-6173 is
(36:52):
the number. We are.
on this Wednesday afternoon for another 20 minutes or so,
grab an open line at 888-564-6173. Scott Ray and Nick
Kay are here to answer your questions. Let's go to Fullerton.
Here is Mark, who's watching us on YouTube. Let's wave
to Mark. Thanks for calling in today. How can we
help you?
How's it going guys? Great. I would just had a
(37:14):
question about anointing oil.
Uh, anointing oil what it is and how you use it.
OK, and the reason you're asking?
Because I have some and I wanna, I wanna use
it correctly and just a question for everyone.
All right, what's the situation that you're that you're presented with?
(37:36):
Mm, I'd rather not talk about it, but it's just, yeah,
I just, uh, I have some and I just would
like to know what it's for and how to use it.
And here's a strange question, but people might be wondering this.
Where did you purchase this anointing oil or how did
you obtain it? It was, I was, uh, I was
serving at church and one of my, their main leaders
(37:58):
gave it to me. OK.
And uh so it's that way, yeah.
I think I'll defer to Nick on this one. I
have never anointed anybody with oil, so we, we don't, uh.
Uh, we, we don't do that with our students regularly.
We leave that to the church. We leave that to
the church to do
Speaker 2 (38:14):
right now as a pastor and our pastoral staff, we
regularly anoint people and we invite people to come and
uh be anointed with oil. And the reason why we
do that is found in James chapter 5 verses 14
and 15. I'll read the passage to you. It's really
the clearest New Testament passage on the use of oil
and anointing in prayer.
And so that's the first thing I would tell you
(38:36):
is that anointing oil is meant to be used with
the sick in prayer. That's the idea here. So, it
says this in James 5:14 15. Is anyone among you sick?
Let them call the elders of the church. So that's
that's an important aspect, to pray over them and to
anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord,
and the prayer offered up in faith will make the
(38:58):
sick person well, and the Lord will raise them up.
And there's a bit of a debate, to be honest,
about uh what this oil is and why is oil
used at all. Uh, it goes back to the Old Testament,
so there's some passages, for example, in Exodus chapter 30,
where Moses uses a specific formula given to him by
(39:18):
God for anointing, uh, with oil, for using an oil, um,
but that's for consecrating the tabernacle, the priests, and the
sacred objects, I'd say.
So some people are like, is that what this is about?
Is it a consecration? Uh, and is the oil a
symbol of the Holy Spirit as we see that it
is elsewhere? Or could it be that oil was for
(39:41):
medicinal purposes and it represented like nowadays we would take
somebody to the doctor and have a doctor check them
out or give them some antibiotics, for example, and this
was
Uh, essentially their way of doing it, that they would
anoint the wound or they would anoint uh something with oil. Uh,
for example, in Mark 6:13, Gus' disciples, it says they
(40:02):
drove out many demons and anointed many sick people with
oil and healed them. Now the question, why did they
anoint them with oil? Were they, was it because these
people who had been demon possessed, did they have wounds
that they needed to have treated medically? Is that what
this is? Kind of like a
You know, over the counter, um, medical treatment that you
(40:25):
would give to somebody.
Or does it have some sort of special property when
it's combined with prayer? Now we're we don't know the
answers to that, but so we're just trying to be
faithful to the scriptures.
And that's why we do it at our church. So
we're just trying to do what the scriptures say. If
(40:45):
somebody's sick and they call the elders of the church
to pray for them, then we'll anoint them with oil. Personally,
I don't think there's any specific uh formula for the
anointing oil. In fact, we've used whatever is available, everything
from olive oil, we've used canola oil. Recently, uh, we
couldn't find anything at the church. Our oil ran out
and um so.
(41:06):
What we ended up using was an essential oil, um,
and then we all smelled like whatever that
Speaker 1 (41:12):
essential oil
Speaker 2 (41:12):
was for about a few
days.
Speaker 1 (41:14):
I was gonna ask about that because there's so much
talk nowadays about essential oils, and that's not what we're
talking about here, but what is up with that? What is,
I mean
Speaker 2 (41:23):
I have no idea. That is definitely not my area
of expertise.
Speaker 1 (41:27):
I think the chances are that in in the first
century in in New Testament Israel, uh, and the surrounding
Greco-Roman world where where olive trees and olive oil was
so plentiful, my chances are it was olive oil that
they used and it was cheap and plentiful, uh, I,
I wouldn't, I wouldn't go to the stake for that view, but, uh, I, I,
(41:49):
my guess is that's probably what they did. Plus, is
there a guarantee that if you use anointed oil.
That there will be healing, because that might be something
people think. Oh, the reason I'm not healed of this
disease or this sickness or whatever is because I'm, I,
I'm not using anointing oil. Let me go to the church.
Let me go to Nick's church in Colorado because, well,
(42:09):
once you get a new supply, because right now you're out, uh,
but once, once the new supply comes in from Amazon
or wherever you order it from.
Speaker 2 (42:16):
And if the delivery guy, it spills all over him,
as he healed, yeah, and so he
Speaker 1 (42:22):
just becomes very holy.
Speaker 2 (42:24):
Yeah, I mean, here's again, to your point about oil
being what we might call an over the counter medical treatment.
You could look at Luke 10:34, which talks about the
Good Samaritan, and it says that he bound up the
wounds of the injured man and poured oil and wine
on his wounds.
(42:45):
Um, so why did he do that? I mean, this
guy is Samaritan, he's not even a believer in Israel, right? He's,
he's part of this, you know, pseudo-Israeli sect. And um,
so it seems that that is a good case for
saying that this had something to do with an over
the counter kind of treatment. In other words, and I
guess in our day, without trying to make it sound trite,
(43:07):
giving him an Advil and and praying for him.
Um, but again, we want to be faithful to the scriptures,
even when we don't completely understand why it says to
do that, and so that's what we, we do with prayer,
but I don't believe there's any kind of mystical or
magical element to it. I, I would say the key
is that it's combined with prayer. So we're not just, uh,
(43:30):
I mean, if, if it was not, then we could
just put it in a super soaker and just spray
the crowd and be done.
Speaker 1 (43:37):
I would, I wouldn't want to.
End up with the view that prayer by itself wasn't
good enough. Oh right, yeah, yeah, true, true. All right, Mark,
what do you think of our answers?
I like it. Awesome. There there was one thing I
heard too, but besides, uh, putting the oil on the
actual person, but I heard in the front of your
(43:58):
house before you walk in the door, you're supposed to.
Put the anointing oil on your door. Is that, is
that true
also?
Speaker 2 (44:05):
That probably comes from Exodus 30, where you see Moses
anointing the tabernacle and anointing the elements that are used
in the tabernacle, and then anointing the priests. Um, but again,
remember that was a special formula of oil, which was
for consecration uh unto the Lord.
And it seems like a pretty specific case, right? There's
(44:28):
no other instruction in the Bible about anointing your house
and so I think there's nothing wrong with praying over
your house and I, I think it should be encouraged,
but I don't think there's uh anything biblical about praying over,
you know, the doorway to your house.
Speaker 1 (44:44):
All right, Mark, thank you for your phone call today
here on Pastor's Perspective. 888-564-6173. Here's a question that was
sent in on Instagram, not gonna read the entire handle
to keep it somewhat private. Special K wants to know,
are there any scriptures in the Old Testament that speak
of being born again, or does that only pertain to
(45:05):
the New Testament writers? Scott?
Well, the Old Testament describes salvation a little bit differently
than is described in the new.
Uh, because the, the, the, the revelation of, of Jesus,
that what was prophesized about Jesus and the cross sort
(45:26):
of unfolded as the Old Testament progressed.
And so in Genesis 15 for example when it says
Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as
righteousness I believe Abraham was saved at that moment because
he believed what he trusted what he knew what had
been revealed to him about God and his promises, believed
(45:47):
that and entrusted himself to God and followed, you know,
basically followed his instructions, uh, and I think based on
what he knew of God at that time he was saved.
Now and later when the prophet Isaiah, for example, in
Isaiah 53, tells a little bit more about what the
Messiah is going to do that he's actually gonna come
and pay the penalty for our sins and be, you know, be,
(46:10):
and be, you know, he bruised for our transgressions as
Isaiah describes it, we get a little bit more detail
about what people had to believe in order to to
be saved, uh, and then of course when Jesus comes and.
You know, and after his death on the cross, when
the apostles explain the significance of it, then there's it's
(46:30):
even clearer what someone needs to do in order to
be saved. So I, I don't, I don't see the
term born again.
In the Old Testament, uh, in the same way that
we do in the Gospel of John, but I think
when it says that it was, it was counted, it
was reckoned to him as righteousness in the case of Abraham,
(46:51):
what that's what that's referring to is a like an
accounting ledger where your your sin that the debit of
your sin is crossed out and you are credited with
righteousness in the credit side of your account, uh, and
I think that's, that's what I think that's what the
New Testament later comes to describe as justification.
And so we just get we as we learn more
(47:14):
about who God is who Jesus is and what he
came to do, we're accountable for for believing based on
the level of knowledge that has been revealed at that
point in biblical history, Nick.
Speaker 2 (47:29):
Being born again, that's a metaphor which is new with
Jesus in the Bible, but it's describing something which was
also described by some of the prophets using different terminology.
And that's actually why when Jesus uses this phrase in
John 3, speaking in Nicodemus, who was a a student
of the law, he's an expert in the law.
(47:51):
Nicodemus is like, what does that even mean? Right? So
it's not a phrase or a metaphor that he's familiar with,
but then Jesus explains it and he does come to
understand it. And then you see after Jesus, the New
Testament writers, disciples of Jesus, picking up on that term
and using it in different ways. So like in Ephesians 2,
(48:11):
Paul talks about being dead and being born to new life.
You see Peter and First Peter talking about being born
again to new life.
Um, but in the Old Testament, what is it, what
are the metaphors that are used to describe a new thing? Well,
it says that when the Messiah comes, there's going to
be a time when you will receive a new heart
and a new spirit, right, where you can't, uh, you know,
(48:32):
if you take out my heart, I'm gonna die, right?
But if you give me a new heart, well then
I guess I would be born again, in a way.
So you could, you could see the connection there. It's
not a completely foreign concept, um, it's just a new
metaphor for this concept which was talked about.
Um, yeah, so Ezekiel talking about a new heart and
(48:52):
a new spirit, Jeremiah talking about a new covenant where
God will put his law within us, ride it on
our hearts. Uh, in Deuteronomy, Moses uses the, the phrase,
the circumcision of your heart.
So, uh, again, oh well, one more is that in
Psalm 51, there's a prayer for renewal. Create in me
(49:13):
a clean heart, renew a right spirit in me. So
there's the idea of renewal, receiving a new heart, receiving
becoming a new person.
Speaker 1 (49:21):
All right, thank you, Special K, for sending in your
question on the pastor's perspective Instagram. 888-564-6173. Melissa and Irvine,
listening on FM 107.9 K wave. What did you want
to ask Scott Ray and Nick Kay?
Yes, I was wondering in Exodus, Lord, they can't hear me. Um,
(49:42):
in Exodus, they, there is a plague that takes out
all the livestock.
But yet when they at the very last one, when
he strikes down the first born, he strikes down the
first born of all the animals as well. How is
that possible if they're all dead? Mm.
What would you say, Nick?
Speaker 2 (50:03):
Um,
Yeah, I think that one thing to keep in mind
with many of the plagues is that uh many of
them were geographically isolated, right? So it wasn't like all
of the animals in the entire world. So was it
all in the modern country of Egypt? Was it in
within Egypt? It seems that like where the where the
Jewish people lived was in the land of Goshen, which
is actually outside of like the main um
(50:26):
Main center where the Egyptian people live. So they had
kind of like they were geographically isolated in a sense,
they had their own community, and it does seem that
there was a difference as far as like what things
happened in which geographic locations. So that would be my
first take at it, but
Speaker 1 (50:45):
I've
I've always understood this as being uh sort of geographically
restricted to an area where the Jews, the Jewish people lived.
In Egypt so that the Jews could understand the significance
of the different plagues and then they would be able
to experience the notion that God is fighting their battles
(51:07):
on their behalf and, and I think you make a
good argument that each of the 10 plagues was a
shot at one or more of the gods in the
Egyptian pantheon.
And so they, you know, the Jews have become very
familiar with Egyptian religion during their, you know, decades and
decades of slavery in Egypt. And so when they, when
(51:28):
they saw for example that the Nile River had been
turned to blood, that was a shot saying that that
the God of Israel was superior to the god of
the Nile and the same with, with the other 10 plagues.
What do you think, Melissa?
Um, that was, that's a pretty good answer, and I
have one more question. What do you mean just pretty good?
(51:51):
I'm just kidding.
No, I just wanted to know why did God have
to make Pharaoh's heart, uh, hard, harden his heart.
Scott, I think Pharaoh was already well along the way
of having a hardened heart, um, and I think in, in,
I think Pharaoh was, was not particularly inclined to letting
(52:13):
the children of Israel go because they, they, they were
losing a whole lot of free cheap labor, uh, to
build their homes and their buildings and other structures, um,
and I think what the way I, I understood this
is that Pharaoh, his heart was already moving in that direction.
Uh, and, and so he, he, he, he could not
(52:36):
blame God for hardening his heart, um, and, and, and
and be, be blamed for the catastrophe that fell upon
his people.
Uh, but I think that what, what, what God did
was just was solidify the direction of Pharaoh's heart so
that the ultimate goal could be accomplished, which was the
(52:58):
release of the children of Israel. Like remember what they
asked for originally was just to go away for a
2 or 3 day retreat to worship their God, and
God has something much bigger in mind than that.
And so I think by by solidifying that hardening of
Pharaoh's heart, God allowed for the children of Israel to
(53:18):
be released once and for all because Pharaoh, as soon
as the firstborn plague hit, Pharaoh said, I, I don't
want anything else to do with these people. Get them,
get them entirely out of here once and for all.
And so that was, that was God's way, I think
God way of achieving the ultimate objective in that case.
Does that happen today, would you say, when it comes
to the hardening of the heart where.
(53:39):
Whether it's people themselves who's who harden their own hearts
or God does it to them after a while.
Speaker 2 (53:45):
Well, yeah, very, very obviously it does because we know
we're actually told that in the New Testament in the
book of Romans. It talks about that exact thing that
just is with Pharaoh hardening his heart that God.
Does that as well today, but clearly there was an
interplay that took place between God and Pharaoh. There was
a call to repentance, a refusal, and then I completely
(54:06):
agree with Scott that God was, uh, confirming or solidifying
the direction Pharaoh was always going in, and this is
a really key thing I think is from Romans chapter one,
it makes it clear that essentially God's judgment many times.
Takes the form of giving you the thing that you want,
or the thing that you desire, which is ultimately, uh,
(54:29):
you know, the thing you're pushing for and insisting on,
even though it's not best, and if you continue in
that way, there comes a point where God might say,
OK, as a form of judgment and that
Speaker 1 (54:40):
that's a great insight because I think, you know, we,
we sometimes say be careful what you wish for and
I think when, when Romans one talks about God giving
them over to their own desires, he's essentially saying be
careful what you wish for. I'm gonna give you what
you wish for, but I don't think that's what you want.
We've got 30 seconds left. What do you tell somebody
(55:00):
who just happened to turn on the radio right now,
and that's the situation they're in, where maybe they are
going in the wrong direction.
Speaker 2 (55:08):
Yeah, my, my message is, is this, that as long
as there is breath in your lungs, there's hope for
your soul. And anyone who calls in the name of
the Lord will be saved. If you believe in your
heart that God raised him from the dead and confess
with your mouth that Jesus says, Lord, you will be saved.
So if that's you, um, you should do that.
Speaker 1 (55:27):
I would agree. You too, Scott, right? That's right. Nobody's
beyond redemption. That's right. Thank you so much for joining
us today here on Pastor's Perspective. We've, uh, appreciated having
Scott Ray and Nick Katie here, and we appreciate you
watching and listening, and we will be back tomorrow. If
you couldn't call today for whatever reason.
Give us a call tomorrow. We'll open up the phone
(55:47):
lines about 7 minutes before 3 o'clock, and today's episode
will soon be archived on Facebook, YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify.
Good night. God bless. Thanks for watching and thanks for
listening to Pastor's perspective.
Hello and welcome to Pastor's Perspective. It's that time once
again where we open up the studio lines and let
you call in. I shouldn't say let you, it almost
makes it seem like we're, you know, doing the opposite. We,
we don't want you to call in. OK, you can
call us this hour. No, our phone lines are always open,
but what we do during this hour is answer questions
you might have about the Bible, the Christian faith, uh,
(00:37):
maybe something you heard at church over the weekend or
here on the
Radio this morning or when you were doing your morning
devotions and you came across something and you're wondering, what
does this mean? How does it apply to life today? Well,
let's talk about it. 888-564-6173 is the number to call
for the next hour. Answering your questions today, we've got
Doctor Scott Ray. He's a professor of philosophy and Christian
(01:01):
ethics at the Talbot School of Theology at Biola University.
Scott Ray, good to have you here again, sir. Right?
Always good to be with you all. Yes, and Nick Kay,
he's the lead pastor of Whitefields Community Church in Longmont, Colorado.
That's on the other side of Shortmont, right?
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Uh, yeah, yes,
Speaker 1 (01:20):
of
Speaker 2 (01:20):
course
Speaker 1 (01:20):
it
is. Yes, he's here. He's in town. He's visiting Southern California,
so he said, Hey, do you need an extra pastor today?
We said, actually, we do. So, uh, he's here and, uh,
great to have you here for the.
Second time this, uh, well, since last week was your
first time here, yeah, it's great to hear again, yeah, yeah,
we didn't scare you away
Speaker 2 (01:38):
or anything. No, not yet.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
That's great.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
See how
Speaker 1 (01:41):
it goes. Yeah, so you can also send us your
questions online. There's the pastor's perspective Facebook page. You can
send us a question on, uh, Messenger, or you can
DM us on the pastor's perspective Instagram. You can go
to Kwave.com and look for the pastor's perspective page, which
isn't always.
Easy to find, but it's there. It's like a little
puzzle that you've got to navigate or something, a scavenger hunt.
(02:04):
But if you're watching us right now on Facebook, YouTube,
or Instagram, you can scan the QR code, and that
takes you directly to that page where you can fill
out the form to get your question to us. But
we prefer to hear the sound of your voice, so
give us a call at 888-564-6173. Here's a question that
was sent in online. It's from Spencer in Riverside.
(02:24):
And Spencer asks, does God not like it when people
leave their ex-partners after having children and meeting someone new
and having more children? Scott Ray, what do you say?
I'd say it depends on the circumstance of leaving. I mean,
in gen in general, God's not thrilled about divorce under
any circumstance because it, it tears apart families and tears
(02:48):
apart the one flesh relationship.
That the couple had established, but I think under the scripture,
I think gives an allowance for divorce under certain conditions.
There's some debate on what those conditions are, but I
think most people agree that in the case of adultery
or in the case of desertion, um, those are legitimate
(03:08):
grounds now I think others would suggest that things like
abuse or addictions, things like that also fall under the
heading of what the Bible allows, uh, for in the
case of divorce.
And I think if the divorce is legitimate, then remarriage
is also legitimate uh so I would say I, I just,
I need to know a little bit more about what,
what the circumstances, which is another reason we prefer if
(03:30):
you guys called but but in general, God's not thrilled
about people abandoning their marriages and their families.
Yeah,
Speaker 2 (03:38):
in this situation, it is a bit hard, as we've
stated that we don't know a lot of details about
the situation. I mean, uh, he mentions ex-partners, so we're
not even sure that there's a marriage happening here. It
seems that maybe there were some, some children in a
relationship and then he's moved on or someone's moved on
to having a new relationship. And so I think that
(04:01):
we would point people to God's ideal for marriage in
the family, which is one man and one woman together
before God.
Until death does impart, and children born under that heading.
That's the ideal. Now clearly a lot of things happen
outside of the ideal, and so they
That's where things get a little bit more complex is
where we need biblical ethicists.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Well, I'm, I'm happy to still stay employed, so.
All right, Spencer, thank you for sending in your question.
Hope that answers it. 888-564-6173, the number to call us,
and here's another one that was sent in online. This
one is from Ember Hill in Wildemar.
If government rule and the Christian faith were to merge,
(04:45):
would it bring order or merely the furtherance of sinister
intentions cloaked in fulfilling biblical prophecies? My earnest concern would
be if leaders of other faiths would seize upon the
precedent and impose their own beliefs based upon their scriptures.
What do you think, Scott?
Well, this, this is, there's, there's, there are other options
(05:07):
besides the two that are presented here. Uh, I don't
think no, nobody that I'm aware of, except for very
few are in favor of what what we call a theocracy,
which is where the law of God is automatically the
law of the land like it was in the Old
Testament and like it like it is in in many,
many Islamic countries around the world, uh, when, when the
Bible is when the Bible says that we are no
(05:29):
longer under the law.
What that means is that we are no longer under
the law of Moses as a rule of life for
the church today. We're no longer under the sacrificial system
to gain us atonement for sin because Christ did that
once and for all, and we're no longer under the
civil law either that governed the relations with quote the
state or the the the monarchy.
(05:52):
Uh, and govern relationships in community together. Now I think
they set out general principles that we're obligated to follow today,
but the specific application for today is likely to be
quite a bit different than it was in Old Testament
times so I.
I would say, you know, I, I don't think there's
anything problematic about a politician bringing their Christian convictions into
(06:17):
their calling in the political arena. In fact, we would, we,
I would think it's sort of odd if a politician
left all their.
There are Christian convictions at the door before entering the
political arena. I think we don't really ask anybody to
do that. That would actually be a violation of his
or her freedom of religion. Whether those things should become
the law of the land is that's an entirely different question,
(06:41):
and I think in, in most cases, uh, we're we're
better off relying on moral persuasion as opposed to the law.
Uh, because in general, I think, I think what the
founding fathers had in mind in general was when moral
persuasion failed, then the law would step in.
Uh, and so for example, I, I don't think adultery
(07:01):
should be criminalized. I don't think people should go to
jail for sleeping around on their spouses.
I don't think most sexual relations that involve consenting adults,
I don't think should be a matter for the law.
Others I think are appropriate, such, you know, I think,
I think abortion is appropriate to be a matter for
the law and consistent suicide is appropriate to be a
matter for the law because those violate both of those
(07:25):
violate fundamental civil rights.
In my, in my view, both of the unborn and
of the elderly, so I think we, we need to
make sure that we're not automatically assuming that just because
the Bible lays out a moral prescription that we automatically
then make that rely on the law to enforce that
because I think in a lot of cases that's just
(07:46):
not true.
Uh, so I, I don't know about, I don't know
exactly what this person means about the sinister intentions and
fulfilling of prophecy that I need to hear a little
bit more about what they mean by that, but I
think the idea that you would have a theocracy where
the law of God is the law of the land
I think is, is no longer appropriate today in the
(08:08):
age of the church, Nick.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Well, one thing's for sure that the laws, now whether
these be moral laws from the scriptures or civil laws
from government, that's not able to change somebody's heart. We,
we would agree on on that. Uh, however, what they
can do is that they can prohibit or in some cases,
prevent or prevent bad things from happening or protect people
(08:34):
from the evil actions of others, or at least put
up some some boundaries in those ways.
Sometimes people use this phrase to say you can't legislate morality.
In one sense, I absolutely understand what they mean by that,
but in another sense, I mean, all legislature is in
a way moral in nature. And so, uh, I think
(08:55):
that we as Christians, we would say that we believe
that God's vision for life, morality is going to lead
to the most flourishing and the most happiness of individuals
and in society. So in one way,
I would like to live in a more Christian society
than a less Christian society, and you know,
Speaker 1 (09:15):
so do a lot of atheists around the world I
believe and they're and they're they're becoming well publicized. Richard Dawkins,
for example, made it really clear that he thinks living
in a Christian culture is much preferable to any other
one on the
planet.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
And Tom Holland wrote this great book, Dominion, and in
the book he catalogs how Christianity has influenced.
Western society and how many of the things that we
take for granted as far as like human rights and
the rule of law, how many of these things come
from Christianity and how
Speaker 1 (09:50):
they're just part of the air we breathe exactly.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
We take it as, oh, these are great things that
humans came up with. Well, we came up with them
out of a theological framework which is shaped by the Bible.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
And you, you make a great point when you suggest that,
you know, every law is the imposition of somebody's morality, yeah.
And this is why it drives me nuts when people
say I'm so tired of you religious people imposing your
morality on as though you're not as though the secularist
is not, uh, and.
You know, we, we should get rid of the silly
that silly notion that that the law is somehow morally neutral,
(10:26):
which is clearly not.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
So on the one hand, you know, as, as this
is a topic, by the way, it's been discussed a
lot throughout Christian history, going back to Augustine, writing, you know,
to about two cities and uh going into the Reformation
where you actually did have what's called the magisterial reformation,
the magisterial reformers were those where the government and the
(10:51):
religious leadership were hand in hand. They were working and
in some cases like in Calvin's Geneva, they were one
and the same.
What's interesting in in the case of Calvin's Geneva is
that you see that even in the case where the
church was the government, uh, bad things still took place.
Um, so it's, it has been something where it's like, OK,
(11:12):
what is the right relationship between church and state? Personally,
I guess I'm of the mind to say, as the
more I've thought about, the more I've said, I would
rather that we live in a more Christian society than
a less Christian society, um, but the question is how
do we go about doing that and implementing it. I
personally think in our society, I think it would be
(11:32):
very difficult because um which church is going to be
In charge of the government, you know, I'm saying, we
have so many different churches and denominations. There isn't one over, um,
I guess overlording church.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
I
think we should be clear too about what what the
founders had in mind about the separation of church and
state because that phrase appears nowhere in the any of
the founding documents.
Uh, and it was, I think it was assumed by
the founders, they, they were good students of history and
they knew that when you had a state sanctioned church
where the state had a certain sect or denomination or
(12:11):
set of beliefs that they were enforcing by law, that
was a bad situation that the founders wanted at all
costs to avoid, uh, because they've seen that, you know,
it was religious persecution and the Inquisition and 100 Years'
War and it was it was bloody and messy.
And they determined to do something different, but to be clear,
(12:31):
they did not envision a society that was devoid of
religious influence in fact they were not optimistic about the
future of both democracy and market economies.
Without the moral framework that religion provides and reinforces, uh,
and so I think it's incumbent on the church to
(12:51):
actually live out that moral framework in a way that
doesn't undermine it as some scandalous things often do, but
they clearly envisioned a culture where religion in general was
not marginalized, but, but no specific faith was given the,
the government's good housekeeping seal of approval.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Yeah, and I think it is really important that Christians
be encouraged to live out their faith in the public
square in different capacities. So sometimes that might be helping
to shape the formation of laws, helping to shape, you know,
different entities that exist, um, but at the same time,
we remember that we proclaim a king and a kingdom, um,
(13:36):
that is coming, that has not yet come in fullness.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
Very good. I think one, yeah, sure, sure, sure, sorry,
point on this too. I think we should, we should
also be aware that some of the, some of the
most basic affirmations that the early church made were really
strongly political statements. So even the statement Jesus is Lord
was basically saying that Jesus is Lord and Caesar is not,
and by refusing to follow a lot of the traditions
(14:03):
of the Roman Empire, which the, the Romans believed were
essential for their society to flourish.
By by separating themselves from those and refusing to follow those,
they were seen as seditious and treasonous, uh, and then
they had no obviously had no problem doing that.
Uh, and then they were right to withhold from those practices,
(14:24):
but they had, they had serious political overtones and so
just because something has political overtones today doesn't necessarily mean
that it's a theocracy and I think sometimes uh people,
people of a more secular bent.
Will actually lump lump in basically any position that they
(14:44):
disagree with that has a religious underpinning and call it
a theocracy when in reality it's, it's nothing of the sort, yeah,
Speaker 2 (14:51):
and sometimes people will say, well, you know politics is
politics and religion is religion and let's keep those two separate.
I would say, well, for us who love and follow Jesus, it's,
it's so.
Bound up with who we are in our identity that
it would actually be, it would be a betrayal of
who we are as Christians to not bring it into
every aspect of our lives in not just the private
(15:14):
area but in the public sphere as well.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
If the
Lordship of Christ means anything, you don't get to, you
don't get to heaven little side compartment for a pretty
significant part of your life.
Amber Hill, thank you for sending in your question through
the pastor's perspective page on Kwave.com. Gonna go to the
phones now because we have a uh question that's on topic.
Here is Casey calling in from Temecula. Hey, Casey, what's up?
(15:40):
Hey, how are you guys doing? Doing fine.
Oh yeah, so I heard the question before and I
was like, man, I gotta give these.
Oh, because, you know, fellow Calvary Chapel, uh, graduate and
went to your guys's Bible College and so, anyways, I
just wanted to comment and say I'm reading a book
(16:00):
by a guy named Douglas Wilson, and it's called Mir
Chris Mir.
Christianity and or Mir Christendom or somewhere along those lines.
Are you guys familiar with them at all?
Speaker 2 (16:11):
I am, yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Yes.
Are you guys familiar with Doug Wilson's ministry?
Speaker 2 (16:19):
Yeah, we are.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
OK, yeah, so he wrote a book and he argues
in his book that if Christ is Lord, right, then
that means he's Lord over everything, Lord over the nation,
lord over all of it. And so I guess that
maybe ask you guys to further expand upon that because
he argues, well, the counter, the counter.
(16:42):
Uh, to, you know, a theocracy is what like secularism
which leads leads to nowhere, right? It just leads to
more debauchery, more.
Godlessness and so in his book, he proposes that Christ
is Lord, like the early church proclaims, right, kind of
like NT right, how he also along those lines. I mean,
(17:02):
obviously they have different theological opinions, but um along the
lines of if Christ is raised from the dead.
Then obviously his lordship is over everything, and that means everybody,
including the Caesars of this age have to fall in line.
So what's your guys' thoughts on that, Nick, you've read
this book?
Speaker 2 (17:23):
I have not read this book, but I'm actually very
familiar with uh Doug Wilson and his church uh through
some personal relationships that we had and people who uh
worked for our church, uh, in the past and um.
I, I don't disagree with everything he says by any means. I,
I think that, um, what I would direct you to
is there's a really helpful framework that was created, uh,
(17:44):
I think it was in the 1950s by a theologian
named Richard Nieber, and he wrote a great book called
Christ and Culture. And what he does in that book
is he outlines five modes that people have historically related to,
Christians have historically related to culture.
And he puts them on a spectrum, and he says
(18:05):
that the, the, you know, the ends of the spectrum,
those two that fall in there, he says those actually
fall outside of the biblical vision, right? In other words,
they contradict what the Bible has to say about how
Christians are called to interact with the culture around them. Uh,
the one is, you know, Christ against culture, and the
(18:26):
other one is total concession, right? Where there's definitely no
challenge and you're just kind of giving in to everything.
Uh, in between that, he finds 3, so a smaller
spectrum within the spectrum that he says are faithful and
biblical ways that Christians have historically done that. And if
you read that book, you'll notice, you'll be able to say, oh,
this is what these people are doing, and this is
(18:48):
what these people are doing. So those kind of are
what he calls the first one is called
Um, Christ and culture in paradox, and I'd say this
is much, this is mostly what most evangelicals have done
for the last 100 or so years and maybe maybe longer,
but um that is where really they say we are
(19:09):
going to do our thing.
And we're gonna not necessarily try to change the culture,
but we're gonna, it's more of a grassroots change. We're
gonna change the culture from the inside out, through heart
change one individual at a time, and as people's lives
have changed, that will change society.
Uh, the next view is, uh, Christ's transformer of culture.
(19:30):
And so this is where people start to get a
little bit more involved in the public sphere and in
politics in trying to shape the culture into a more
Christian viewpoint. This is also common among some evangelicals, and then,
then he moves a little further down the line towards
a little bit more acceptance of culture.
Uh, where Doug Wilson would fall in that view is
(19:52):
definitely in the middle right there, in, in what is
a historically Christian viewpoint. The one thing I would say
about Doug Wilson is that he is post millennial in
his eschatology, and I believe that his eschatology very much
shapes his view of why he believes that we need
to um do everything we can to bring about Christ's
(20:13):
reign on earth.
And um so I think that that's a really big
part of it that I, I disagree with. I mean,
I really just disagree with uh his post millennial viewpoint,
but the, the way he goes about it, creating institutions
and changing a city, I, I think that there's uh
much that I do agree with.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
I, I probably wouldn't have titled the book Mere Christendom.
Because Christendom implies sort of a Christian empire and, you know,
it's sort of the the the the way that that
the church sort of subs subsumed the state in a
lot of the Middle Ages, um, so I that I
(20:54):
think is a little bit misleading that suggests more of
a theocracy.
Which he claims he is not trying to do. But
if you look at a subtitle, it it kind of
makes it sound like he is trying to do that.
The case for bringing Christianity back into modern culture leading
by faith to convert secularism. Well, and I don't, I
don't have a problem with trying to talk people out
of their secularism. In fact, I think that's, that's probably
(21:16):
it may be a little easier task than some we
sometimes think.
Uh, and there's a, I think a growing disillusionment, I
think with, with a lot of what secularism can't provide
for people, you know, things like meaning and purpose and
the things that really make life go for people. Secularism,
I think, is largely come up empty handed on that.
(21:37):
Um, and I think you, you know, that's really helpful
what you provided about neighbors, you know, his categories, and
I think Christ the transformer of culture, I think is
largely what the scripture has in mind. As long as
we recognize what the points you made a little bit
earlier that God's kingdom, it has not come in its
fullness yet.
And that the, you know, the earth is the Lord's.
(21:58):
This is my father's world that's all true, but the
final realization of that, the final sort of playing out
of that won't come until when the Lord returns and
so I think we, you know, I think we are
called to.
You know, to share the gospel, we are called to
do good in our in our communities. We're called to
live out God's righteousness in our communities with the hope
(22:21):
that our cultures will change, but I, I think there's, there's,
there's a I think a helpful analogy here with evangelism that,
you know, our responses we are not responsible under God
to lead people to Christ, right? That's the, that's the
Holy Spirit's job to change people's hearts. We are responsible
to faithfully proclaim the gospel and give people an opportunity
to respond.
(22:41):
Right? And we trust God with his movement and this
movement of his spirit in people's hearts. The same thing
I think is true of the culture. We are called
to to faithfully live out the gospel in every arena
of life that we have contact with.
And that includes that includes our work, our communities, our families,
our neighborhoods uh I think even I think we even have,
(23:05):
you know, other parts of the world that we that
we're called to from to from time to time we're
called to live out those things and and impact the
culture as best we can given the position that we're
in but ultimately it's God's responsibility to change the culture.
And I think you, your, your eschatology, I think is
absolutely right. We hold to more of a pre-millennial view which,
(23:27):
which says that the that the, the Lord will return
before pre the millennium or the the 1000 year period
where His kingdom will reign in its fullness, not post
millennial where the church essentially ushers in the return of Christ.
The Bible, I think is pretty clear that, you know,
sort of goes to shiel in a handbasket before the
(23:48):
Lord's return.
And you know, the worst in fact I think it'd
be fair to say that the that for a lot
of the world prior to his return it'll be his
return is the only hope for the world, uh, and
I think in in in some parts of the world
we're probably there already, uh, others not not so much.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Yeah, and just to to give a little bit like
what would, what would uh another perspective on that be,
would be to say some people would say well it's
actually through politics or shaping culture, you know, through institutions
that we can best be transforming or at least be
tools that.
God uses to transform the culture for good. And how
(24:30):
can we best love people? Some would say, well, by
creating laws that lead to flourishing, and I, and I
definitely understand that, and I, I don't disagree with it.
I sympathize with it. I think some people are called
into that realm, and I would encourage them to do
it to the glory of God. Um, but I, again,
the eschatology thing I think is, is, uh, Casey, the,
(24:51):
the one thing that you should keep an eye on
because
Um, you know, why are we doing it and what
are we seeking to bring about? And so, with a
post millennial eschatology, really the idea is that we must
bring about the kingdom of God on earth, and then
at the end of this 1000 year reign of the
(25:11):
of Christ.
Through the church, and that's that's really their their key phrase.
The reign of Christ through the church during the millennial period,
which they believe we are either in or on the
cusp of, uh, then Christ will return at the end
of that, whereas a pre-millennial view, uh, along with an
all millennial view, would tend to say.
(25:33):
Uh, no, we, we don't believe that that's, that's the case.
We believe that Christ is going to return and then
he will reign over his kingdom.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
So, what do you think of all this, Casey?
Um, I really enjoyed it. Um, I really enjoyed the
well rounded perspective. Like I said, you know, you, you
guys hit it, hit it on the head pretty well. Um,
it was just, it was a fascinating, it's been coming
up a lot, so, you know, I've been in.
(26:04):
Uh, reading that book along with like NT right and
you know you have like a variety of perspectives and interpretations.
Those are two quite different perspectives. They are, yeah, very,
very different. I mean there's similarities overlap, but like you
guys were saying with post millennialism, which comes from like
Jonathan Edwards and you know, the hope of like God's
(26:27):
kingdom arriving fully through our participation of that, but like
you guys also pointed out.
Um, I, I, I kind of have a it's like
a question mark in my spirit with it just because
when you read Revelation or you read Paul, you seem
to see, you seem to.
No, no, the world's not going to just be redeemed
(26:50):
by us. Jesus actually has to come back and establish
it. Yeah,
Speaker 2 (26:55):
and Post Williams a relatively latecomer to theological discussion and
and the church, so.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
But this, I think what this shows us too is
that your theology really matters. And even, even something that
you might not think about all that much like eschatology, uh,
it really matters in forming the lenses through which you
see the world. Casey, thanks for your phone call today
on Pastor's Perspective. 888-564-6173 is our number. Dante, where's Dante?
(27:26):
Dante hung up, so, uh, let's go to Layla. If
you're still listening, Dante, call us back. Layla.
In Rancho Santa Margarita, how can we help you today?
Oh yes. So I was listening to the conversation and
I heard one of you guys say something along the
lines of that we don't praise like God's kingdom that's here,
(27:48):
we praise like the kingdom that's coming. So it's kind
of on topic, but I was wondering like, can you
just explain what you mean by that? Like specifically when
you say like that it's coming. I don't know. I'm just,
I just want a little bit more like
Framework on when God's kingdom is coming and why, why
(28:11):
we say that. Well, I'd love a little more clarity
on when God's kingdom is coming too. Uh, I, I might,
it might, it might change a lot of things, uh.
Nick, you go ahead and give you and Leila,
Speaker 2 (28:23):
I think that we're probably gonna have to go to
break if you don't mind holding through the break, um,
but I'll just begin by telling you this. When we
talk about God's kingdom, the common term that's used amongst
Christians and theologians is the idea that God's kingdom, uh,
has come in part but is coming in fullness. So
sometimes we use this phrase, it's here already.
(28:45):
But it is not yet. So already, but not yet.
So Gia says, you know, my kingdom has come in you,
and yet he talks about the kingdom as something which
is to come in the future, and I'll talk about
that more, and we can all talk about it more
after the break.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
Yeah, any thoughts, Scott? Well yeah, I think and when
when the Bible says the kingdom of God is in
in your midst, when Jesus came, I think what they
what
What he meant by that is that the kingdom is
here in the presence of the king, and then there
there's a whole lot more that's yet to come. All right,
so Leyla, stay on the phone. We'll continue this conversation
(29:21):
and we'll talk about whatever you want to conversate about
888-564-6173 is our number. We're gonna be in the studio
for another.
30 minutes, we've got Doctor Scott Ray from Viola University
here and Pastor Nick Kay from Whitefields Community Church in Colorado.
He's in town in Southern California. We've brought him in
to help answer these questions that you guys have, and
(29:43):
you guys have some great questions. 888-564-6173 is the number
to call to ask your question.
(30:20):
Welcome back to Pastor's Perspective. I'm Brian Perez. 888-564-6173 is
the number to call us with your questions today. We
were speaking with Layla just before the break, and it
looks like she had to go, but we're gonna continue
talking about her topic because it's really good. We've got
Scott Ray and Nick Katie here. Uh, Nick, what did
you want to bring up next? And Leyla, we hope
(30:41):
you're still listening.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
Yeah, so the topic was about the kingdom of God,
and Leyla had picked up on something I said earlier,
which is that the kingdom is yet to come.
Uh, so, she asked, what does that mean? Talk about it.
So I was saying that one of the phrases we
use theologically is that we say that the kingdom is already,
but not yet. And one of the things where we
get the already part is that we say, well, Jesus
(31:03):
said the kingdom of God is here, or it is
amongst you who believe, and yet he's continually speaks about
the kingdom as something which is to come.
And, um, for example, throughout Matthew's Gospel, uh Gus speaks
in parables talking about the time of the kingdom coming.
So what does that mean? Well, I guess it's really
(31:24):
important to define what the kingdom of God is. I
think that that's um that's famously difficult to do, but
the one of the definitions I've given, I'm Scott, I'm
curious to hear your take on this would be that
The kingdom of God, a kingdom is the realm in
which someone reigns, and so the kingdom of God is
(31:45):
the realm in which Jesus reigns and is honored as king.
And so in a sense, you could say that the
kingdom of God exists within you, which is what Jesus
had said, when you make Jesus the Lord of your life,
when you treat him as your king, live with him
as your king, then the kingdom of God has come
in you in part.
And yet what we see is that there's an eschatological hope, uh,
(32:10):
eschatological meaning like ultimate hope of the kingdom which is
to come. And in that kingdom, for example, we read
in Revelation, but also in the Old Testament, that there
will be no more death, there'll be no more sickness,
tears will be wiped away, and clearly we haven't gotten
there yet, right? And a lot of the prophetic books
end with this picture of the kingdom, which is to come.
(32:31):
And we can look at those pictures and say, well,
that certainly has not yet happened.
And so in the one part, we do experience benefits
of living in God's kingdom right now.
Um, for example, God's leading in our lives, God's speaking
to us, having a relationship with him. We also see
(32:51):
some tangible benefits. For example, when Jesus came and he
performed miracles, well, what were those miracles? You could say
that it was the king opening a window, if you will,
into the kingdom which is to come, the the fullness
of the kingdom. So when he heals somebody, what is that?
That's a preview of the kingdom. It's not just something
cool that Jesus could do.
(33:12):
It's a preview of what the kingdom will be like.
In the kingdom, lepers will be healed, the the blind
will see, the deaf will hear, the lame will walk.
And so he's opening a window or giving a preview
or manifestation, sometimes we call it, of the kingdom which
is to come. And sometimes we experience those. We, we
experience God's healing power.
Today, we experience uh a word from the Lord, and
(33:35):
so these are previews or glimpses, windows into the kingdom,
which is to come, but it's not here yet in fullness.
And one day it will be here. And the last
thing I'll say on this is just in 2 Peter
chapter 1, I believe it's verse 9, but I don't
have it in front of me. It's
Say, uh, Peter uses the picture of a new day
that is dawning, and he speaks of Jesus as the
(33:57):
morning star. And actually what the morning star is, if
you think about it, um, I guess from an astrological perspective,
is actually the, the planet Venus, it's the last star,
if you can call it that, that you see in
the sky, and what it means is when there's only
one star left in the sky, the morning star, that
means that it's dawn.
(34:18):
And dawn is an interesting time of day because at dawn,
it's no longer night, but it's not yet morning. The
sun has not crested the horizon, but you know that
the darkness is no longer as dark as it used
to be, and yet it's no long, it's not yet
the fullness of day. So the new day has not
yet dawned, but
(34:39):
It is about to, and so that would be the
description that the early Christians gave us of the time
that we live in today. Jesus has come, he's the
morning star. He's the sign that the new day is
going to come, the new day being the fullness of
God's kingdom. And so, we're no longer living in the darkness,
which we once were. There are inbreakings of the kingdom
(35:01):
all around us.
And yet we still look forward to the fullness of
the kingdom to come.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
Yeah, just one thing to add to that's really, that's
a really helpful sort of primer on what the kingdom is. I,
the only thing I'd add to that is that.
When when the prophets in the Old Testament foretold the kingdom,
they would they look forward to what I would call
both an individual component where every knee bows at the
name of Christ and everybody's everybody's rightly related to God
and but there's also a social component.
(35:29):
That that the kingdom ushers in a proper ordering of
society where sin will not infect the the structures of
the culture and of the society so sin will not
infect the workplace, for example. I admit I have a
little trouble getting my arms around exactly what that's gonna
look like, uh, but I know it's gonna be a
(35:50):
vast improvement over what we have here. And when Jesus
came bringing the kingdom, we said the kingdom of God
is in your midst.
Uh, some people wanna say that that that's only an
internal thing, and I don't think that's, I don't think
that's true to what the prophets had in mind because
there's there there was a social component too, so in
the meantime.
(36:10):
During the not yet period we have obligations both to
the individual and to the social components of the kingdom.
We have the obligation to share the gospel, to do
the best we can to, to bring people to Christ,
but also to be involved with, with things living out
our faith and living out God's righteousness in the broader culture,
in the public sphere, and what really in whatever sphere
(36:31):
of influence that we find ourselves having access to.
Great conversation today on Pastor's perspective. If you missed any
part of it, we're gonna archive it a little bit
later on, on Facebook, YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify. We
archive all of our stuff on YouTube if you want
to go back and listen to past episodes. 888-564-6173 is
(36:52):
the number. We are.
on this Wednesday afternoon for another 20 minutes or so,
grab an open line at 888-564-6173. Scott Ray and Nick
Kay are here to answer your questions. Let's go to Fullerton.
Here is Mark, who's watching us on YouTube. Let's wave
to Mark. Thanks for calling in today. How can we
help you?
How's it going guys? Great. I would just had a
(37:14):
question about anointing oil.
Uh, anointing oil what it is and how you use it.
OK, and the reason you're asking?
Because I have some and I wanna, I wanna use
it correctly and just a question for everyone.
All right, what's the situation that you're that you're presented with?
(37:36):
Mm, I'd rather not talk about it, but it's just, yeah,
I just, uh, I have some and I just would
like to know what it's for and how to use it.
And here's a strange question, but people might be wondering this.
Where did you purchase this anointing oil or how did
you obtain it? It was, I was, uh, I was
serving at church and one of my, their main leaders
(37:58):
gave it to me. OK.
And uh so it's that way, yeah.
I think I'll defer to Nick on this one. I
have never anointed anybody with oil, so we, we don't, uh.
Uh, we, we don't do that with our students regularly.
We leave that to the church. We leave that to
the church to do
Speaker 2 (38:14):
right now as a pastor and our pastoral staff, we
regularly anoint people and we invite people to come and
uh be anointed with oil. And the reason why we
do that is found in James chapter 5 verses 14
and 15. I'll read the passage to you. It's really
the clearest New Testament passage on the use of oil
and anointing in prayer.
And so that's the first thing I would tell you
(38:36):
is that anointing oil is meant to be used with
the sick in prayer. That's the idea here. So, it
says this in James 5:14 15. Is anyone among you sick?
Let them call the elders of the church. So that's
that's an important aspect, to pray over them and to
anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord,
and the prayer offered up in faith will make the
(38:58):
sick person well, and the Lord will raise them up.
And there's a bit of a debate, to be honest,
about uh what this oil is and why is oil
used at all. Uh, it goes back to the Old Testament,
so there's some passages, for example, in Exodus chapter 30,
where Moses uses a specific formula given to him by
(39:18):
God for anointing, uh, with oil, for using an oil, um,
but that's for consecrating the tabernacle, the priests, and the
sacred objects, I'd say.
So some people are like, is that what this is about?
Is it a consecration? Uh, and is the oil a
symbol of the Holy Spirit as we see that it
is elsewhere? Or could it be that oil was for
(39:41):
medicinal purposes and it represented like nowadays we would take
somebody to the doctor and have a doctor check them
out or give them some antibiotics, for example, and this
was
Uh, essentially their way of doing it, that they would
anoint the wound or they would anoint uh something with oil. Uh,
for example, in Mark 6:13, Gus' disciples, it says they
(40:02):
drove out many demons and anointed many sick people with
oil and healed them. Now the question, why did they
anoint them with oil? Were they, was it because these
people who had been demon possessed, did they have wounds
that they needed to have treated medically? Is that what
this is? Kind of like a
You know, over the counter, um, medical treatment that you
(40:25):
would give to somebody.
Or does it have some sort of special property when
it's combined with prayer? Now we're we don't know the
answers to that, but so we're just trying to be
faithful to the scriptures.
And that's why we do it at our church. So
we're just trying to do what the scriptures say. If
(40:45):
somebody's sick and they call the elders of the church
to pray for them, then we'll anoint them with oil. Personally,
I don't think there's any specific uh formula for the
anointing oil. In fact, we've used whatever is available, everything
from olive oil, we've used canola oil. Recently, uh, we
couldn't find anything at the church. Our oil ran out
and um so.
(41:06):
What we ended up using was an essential oil, um,
and then we all smelled like whatever that
Speaker 1 (41:12):
essential oil
Speaker 2 (41:12):
was for about a few
days.
Speaker 1 (41:14):
I was gonna ask about that because there's so much
talk nowadays about essential oils, and that's not what we're
talking about here, but what is up with that? What is,
I mean
Speaker 2 (41:23):
I have no idea. That is definitely not my area
of expertise.
Speaker 1 (41:27):
I think the chances are that in in the first
century in in New Testament Israel, uh, and the surrounding
Greco-Roman world where where olive trees and olive oil was
so plentiful, my chances are it was olive oil that
they used and it was cheap and plentiful, uh, I,
I wouldn't, I wouldn't go to the stake for that view, but, uh, I, I,
(41:49):
my guess is that's probably what they did. Plus, is
there a guarantee that if you use anointed oil.
That there will be healing, because that might be something
people think. Oh, the reason I'm not healed of this
disease or this sickness or whatever is because I'm, I,
I'm not using anointing oil. Let me go to the church.
Let me go to Nick's church in Colorado because, well,
(42:09):
once you get a new supply, because right now you're out, uh,
but once, once the new supply comes in from Amazon
or wherever you order it from.
Speaker 2 (42:16):
And if the delivery guy, it spills all over him,
as he healed, yeah, and so he
Speaker 1 (42:22):
just becomes very holy.
Speaker 2 (42:24):
Yeah, I mean, here's again, to your point about oil
being what we might call an over the counter medical treatment.
You could look at Luke 10:34, which talks about the
Good Samaritan, and it says that he bound up the
wounds of the injured man and poured oil and wine
on his wounds.
(42:45):
Um, so why did he do that? I mean, this
guy is Samaritan, he's not even a believer in Israel, right? He's,
he's part of this, you know, pseudo-Israeli sect. And um,
so it seems that that is a good case for
saying that this had something to do with an over
the counter kind of treatment. In other words, and I
guess in our day, without trying to make it sound trite,
(43:07):
giving him an Advil and and praying for him.
Um, but again, we want to be faithful to the scriptures,
even when we don't completely understand why it says to
do that, and so that's what we, we do with prayer,
but I don't believe there's any kind of mystical or
magical element to it. I, I would say the key
is that it's combined with prayer. So we're not just, uh,
(43:30):
I mean, if, if it was not, then we could
just put it in a super soaker and just spray
the crowd and be done.
Speaker 1 (43:37):
I would, I wouldn't want to.
End up with the view that prayer by itself wasn't
good enough. Oh right, yeah, yeah, true, true. All right, Mark,
what do you think of our answers?
I like it. Awesome. There there was one thing I
heard too, but besides, uh, putting the oil on the
actual person, but I heard in the front of your
(43:58):
house before you walk in the door, you're supposed to.
Put the anointing oil on your door. Is that, is
that true
also?
Speaker 2 (44:05):
That probably comes from Exodus 30, where you see Moses
anointing the tabernacle and anointing the elements that are used
in the tabernacle, and then anointing the priests. Um, but again,
remember that was a special formula of oil, which was
for consecration uh unto the Lord.
And it seems like a pretty specific case, right? There's
(44:28):
no other instruction in the Bible about anointing your house
and so I think there's nothing wrong with praying over
your house and I, I think it should be encouraged,
but I don't think there's uh anything biblical about praying over,
you know, the doorway to your house.
Speaker 1 (44:44):
All right, Mark, thank you for your phone call today
here on Pastor's Perspective. 888-564-6173. Here's a question that was
sent in on Instagram, not gonna read the entire handle
to keep it somewhat private. Special K wants to know,
are there any scriptures in the Old Testament that speak
of being born again, or does that only pertain to
(45:05):
the New Testament writers? Scott?
Well, the Old Testament describes salvation a little bit differently
than is described in the new.
Uh, because the, the, the, the revelation of, of Jesus,
that what was prophesized about Jesus and the cross sort
(45:26):
of unfolded as the Old Testament progressed.
And so in Genesis 15 for example when it says
Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as
righteousness I believe Abraham was saved at that moment because
he believed what he trusted what he knew what had
been revealed to him about God and his promises, believed
(45:47):
that and entrusted himself to God and followed, you know,
basically followed his instructions, uh, and I think based on
what he knew of God at that time he was saved.
Now and later when the prophet Isaiah, for example, in
Isaiah 53, tells a little bit more about what the
Messiah is going to do that he's actually gonna come
and pay the penalty for our sins and be, you know, be,
(46:10):
and be, you know, he bruised for our transgressions as
Isaiah describes it, we get a little bit more detail
about what people had to believe in order to to
be saved, uh, and then of course when Jesus comes and.
You know, and after his death on the cross, when
the apostles explain the significance of it, then there's it's
(46:30):
even clearer what someone needs to do in order to
be saved. So I, I don't, I don't see the
term born again.
In the Old Testament, uh, in the same way that
we do in the Gospel of John, but I think
when it says that it was, it was counted, it
was reckoned to him as righteousness in the case of Abraham,
(46:51):
what that's what that's referring to is a like an
accounting ledger where your your sin that the debit of
your sin is crossed out and you are credited with
righteousness in the credit side of your account, uh, and
I think that's, that's what I think that's what the
New Testament later comes to describe as justification.
And so we just get we as we learn more
(47:14):
about who God is who Jesus is and what he
came to do, we're accountable for for believing based on
the level of knowledge that has been revealed at that
point in biblical history, Nick.
Speaker 2 (47:29):
Being born again, that's a metaphor which is new with
Jesus in the Bible, but it's describing something which was
also described by some of the prophets using different terminology.
And that's actually why when Jesus uses this phrase in
John 3, speaking in Nicodemus, who was a a student
of the law, he's an expert in the law.
(47:51):
Nicodemus is like, what does that even mean? Right? So
it's not a phrase or a metaphor that he's familiar with,
but then Jesus explains it and he does come to
understand it. And then you see after Jesus, the New
Testament writers, disciples of Jesus, picking up on that term
and using it in different ways. So like in Ephesians 2,
(48:11):
Paul talks about being dead and being born to new life.
You see Peter and First Peter talking about being born
again to new life.
Um, but in the Old Testament, what is it, what
are the metaphors that are used to describe a new thing? Well,
it says that when the Messiah comes, there's going to
be a time when you will receive a new heart
and a new spirit, right, where you can't, uh, you know,
(48:32):
if you take out my heart, I'm gonna die, right?
But if you give me a new heart, well then
I guess I would be born again, in a way.
So you could, you could see the connection there. It's
not a completely foreign concept, um, it's just a new
metaphor for this concept which was talked about.
Um, yeah, so Ezekiel talking about a new heart and
(48:52):
a new spirit, Jeremiah talking about a new covenant where
God will put his law within us, ride it on
our hearts. Uh, in Deuteronomy, Moses uses the, the phrase,
the circumcision of your heart.
So, uh, again, oh well, one more is that in
Psalm 51, there's a prayer for renewal. Create in me
(49:13):
a clean heart, renew a right spirit in me. So
there's the idea of renewal, receiving a new heart, receiving
becoming a new person.
Speaker 1 (49:21):
All right, thank you, Special K, for sending in your
question on the pastor's perspective Instagram. 888-564-6173. Melissa and Irvine,
listening on FM 107.9 K wave. What did you want
to ask Scott Ray and Nick Kay?
Yes, I was wondering in Exodus, Lord, they can't hear me. Um,
(49:42):
in Exodus, they, there is a plague that takes out
all the livestock.
But yet when they at the very last one, when
he strikes down the first born, he strikes down the
first born of all the animals as well. How is
that possible if they're all dead? Mm.
What would you say, Nick?
Speaker 2 (50:03):
Um,
Yeah, I think that one thing to keep in mind
with many of the plagues is that uh many of
them were geographically isolated, right? So it wasn't like all
of the animals in the entire world. So was it
all in the modern country of Egypt? Was it in
within Egypt? It seems that like where the where the
Jewish people lived was in the land of Goshen, which
is actually outside of like the main um
(50:26):
Main center where the Egyptian people live. So they had
kind of like they were geographically isolated in a sense,
they had their own community, and it does seem that
there was a difference as far as like what things
happened in which geographic locations. So that would be my
first take at it, but
Speaker 1 (50:45):
I've
I've always understood this as being uh sort of geographically
restricted to an area where the Jews, the Jewish people lived.
In Egypt so that the Jews could understand the significance
of the different plagues and then they would be able
to experience the notion that God is fighting their battles
(51:07):
on their behalf and, and I think you make a
good argument that each of the 10 plagues was a
shot at one or more of the gods in the
Egyptian pantheon.
And so they, you know, the Jews have become very
familiar with Egyptian religion during their, you know, decades and
decades of slavery in Egypt. And so when they, when
(51:28):
they saw for example that the Nile River had been
turned to blood, that was a shot saying that that
the God of Israel was superior to the god of
the Nile and the same with, with the other 10 plagues.
What do you think, Melissa?
Um, that was, that's a pretty good answer, and I
have one more question. What do you mean just pretty good?
(51:51):
I'm just kidding.
No, I just wanted to know why did God have
to make Pharaoh's heart, uh, hard, harden his heart.
Scott, I think Pharaoh was already well along the way
of having a hardened heart, um, and I think in, in,
I think Pharaoh was, was not particularly inclined to letting
(52:13):
the children of Israel go because they, they, they were
losing a whole lot of free cheap labor, uh, to
build their homes and their buildings and other structures, um,
and I think what the way I, I understood this
is that Pharaoh, his heart was already moving in that direction.
Uh, and, and so he, he, he, he could not
(52:36):
blame God for hardening his heart, um, and, and, and
and be, be blamed for the catastrophe that fell upon
his people.
Uh, but I think that what, what, what God did
was just was solidify the direction of Pharaoh's heart so
that the ultimate goal could be accomplished, which was the
(52:58):
release of the children of Israel. Like remember what they
asked for originally was just to go away for a
2 or 3 day retreat to worship their God, and
God has something much bigger in mind than that.
And so I think by by solidifying that hardening of
Pharaoh's heart, God allowed for the children of Israel to
(53:18):
be released once and for all because Pharaoh, as soon
as the firstborn plague hit, Pharaoh said, I, I don't
want anything else to do with these people. Get them,
get them entirely out of here once and for all.
And so that was, that was God's way, I think
God way of achieving the ultimate objective in that case.
Does that happen today, would you say, when it comes
to the hardening of the heart where.
(53:39):
Whether it's people themselves who's who harden their own hearts
or God does it to them after a while.
Speaker 2 (53:45):
Well, yeah, very, very obviously it does because we know
we're actually told that in the New Testament in the
book of Romans. It talks about that exact thing that
just is with Pharaoh hardening his heart that God.
Does that as well today, but clearly there was an
interplay that took place between God and Pharaoh. There was
a call to repentance, a refusal, and then I completely
(54:06):
agree with Scott that God was, uh, confirming or solidifying
the direction Pharaoh was always going in, and this is
a really key thing I think is from Romans chapter one,
it makes it clear that essentially God's judgment many times.
Takes the form of giving you the thing that you want,
or the thing that you desire, which is ultimately, uh,
(54:29):
you know, the thing you're pushing for and insisting on,
even though it's not best, and if you continue in
that way, there comes a point where God might say,
OK, as a form of judgment and that
Speaker 1 (54:40):
that's a great insight because I think, you know, we,
we sometimes say be careful what you wish for and
I think when, when Romans one talks about God giving
them over to their own desires, he's essentially saying be
careful what you wish for. I'm gonna give you what
you wish for, but I don't think that's what you want.
We've got 30 seconds left. What do you tell somebody
(55:00):
who just happened to turn on the radio right now,
and that's the situation they're in, where maybe they are
going in the wrong direction.
Speaker 2 (55:08):
Yeah, my, my message is, is this, that as long
as there is breath in your lungs, there's hope for
your soul. And anyone who calls in the name of
the Lord will be saved. If you believe in your
heart that God raised him from the dead and confess
with your mouth that Jesus says, Lord, you will be saved.
So if that's you, um, you should do that.
Speaker 1 (55:27):
I would agree. You too, Scott, right? That's right. Nobody's
beyond redemption. That's right. Thank you so much for joining
us today here on Pastor's Perspective. We've, uh, appreciated having
Scott Ray and Nick Katie here, and we appreciate you
watching and listening, and we will be back tomorrow. If
you couldn't call today for whatever reason.
Give us a call tomorrow. We'll open up the phone
(55:47):
lines about 7 minutes before 3 o'clock, and today's episode
will soon be archived on Facebook, YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify.
Good night. God bless. Thanks for watching and thanks for
listening to Pastor's perspective.
Popular Podcasts
Fudd Around And Find Out
UConn basketball star Azzi Fudd brings her championship swag to iHeart Women’s Sports with Fudd Around and Find Out, a weekly podcast that takes fans along for the ride as Azzi spends her final year of college trying to reclaim the National Championship and prepare to be a first round WNBA draft pick. Ever wonder what it’s like to be a world-class athlete in the public spotlight while still managing schoolwork, friendships and family time? It’s time to Fudd Around and Find Out!
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!