Bible Q&A • Episode 48

Hi everybody, we're back with some more of your Bible questions. This is episode 48, and I think we have some good questions this time.

Well, good. Let's take a look at them.

Yeah.

Alright. The first one is from Antonia. Will we know one another in heaven, and will we be judged in front of others? Oh, that sounds terrible. I know our sins are forgiven, but judgment for what we didn't do for God's kingdom?

Yeah. Okay. There's a few questions here. First of all, will we know one another in heaven? Of course we'll know one another. Is heaven going to be less than what it is now? Yeah. I love how you always say that. It's going to be more than what it is now. So yeah, of course we're going to know one another. We're going to know everything. Paul says in 1 Corinthians, we're going to know as we are known. And God knows you pretty well. So we're going to know in that same way. Will we be judged in front of others? It's a very interesting question, especially in light of the fact that Antonia goes on to say, I know our sins are forgiven, but she doesn't. I hear people say this a lot. I know my sins are forgiven, but... And then they go on to ask a question about judgment. And so what that tells me is, you know, theologically that your sins are forgiven, but you don't know how far that extends. And you don't know if that's a complete forgiveness, because if there is any judgment for sins or for lack that you have to deal with, then, you know, here's my question. Did Jesus die for our sins? Well, I think the answer, everybody's going to say, yes, He did. Would you consider it a sin that you didn't do things for the kingdom of God? Yes, probably. That you were supposed to? Yeah. So did Jesus die for those? Yes. Yes, He did. So are you going to be judged for those in heaven? No. No. Heaven for you is going to be a judgment of rewards, not a judgment of condemnation for what you didn't do. There is therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Right?

Good word.

So, yeah.

Alright. I'm going to take a guess that this next name is Adaimi from Nigeria. Boy, that's a tough one.

Yeah, well, I'll go with it.

I don't think you're right.

Well, okay. You give me your version.

No, I'm not going to do that.

Scaredy?

Yeah. No, it's pretty, it's pretty tough. We'll have to ask this person maybe to send us a phonetic spelling or pronunciation.

Sure.

Let's go with this. A viewer from Nigeria asks,

Okay. I want to develop this a little bit because I do get this question from time to time and I want to be clear about my position, my interpretation and understanding of Isaiah 53, which is one of the most beautiful passages in the Bible. It's very prophetic about the death of Jesus on the cross and what he accomplished for us there on the cross. First of all, I want to say, and I want this understood, that I completely believe in the absolute authority of Jesus over disease, demons, death, and anything else. Okay. Let me just say that. I believe. And I also believe that Jesus still heals today. Okay. So I want those things understood as we get into this and now kind of talk about Isaiah 53. That chapter, and in particular, the statement in that chapter, by his wounds, we are healed. Often translated by his stripes, we are healed. In its context, when you read Isaiah 53, in its context, you see that it is referring to spiritual healing, not physical healing. That is something that is accepted almost universally by Bible students and scholars. That's an important thing. Now, that being said, as this person points out, and very accurately, I will say, in Matthew chapter eight, Matthew points to the healing ministry of Jesus during his earthly ministry as a public fulfillment of the statement, and here's how Matthew quotes it, he took our illnesses and bore our diseases. Okay. Now you need to know something about that statement. In the original Hebrew, the way your Hebrew Bible, your Old Testament reads, that's verse four. It reads this way, and this is the best translation, surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Okay. Different wording. Matthew probably was quoting from the Septuagint. I didn't look into it to make sure. The Septuagint was a Greek translation of the Hebrew that many of the Jews were reading at that time. Anyway, Matthew is clearly applying what he knew and understood from verse four of Isaiah 53 to the public healing ministry of Jesus. There's no question about that. I accept that completely. I accept what Matthew said. I believe he wrote it and said it by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, but here's the deal. Just because Matthew applied that verse to what he witnessed, because he was an eyewitness of those things. When Jesus, you know, was going around healing people, casting out demons and dah, dah, dah. That does not mean that the other references to that verse are also referring to physical healing. Okay. Nor does it mean that we have a blanket promise for all time of physical healing. And let me repeat again, I believe God heals. I believe Jesus is still in the business of healing people physically. But what people do with Isaiah 53, 4 is they create a doctrinal guarantee. And they'll say, by his wounds, we are healed. So be healed. And they're essentially believing and teaching that healing is guaranteed, right? That not only is it guaranteed, it's a guarantee of the sacrifice that Jesus made on the cross. Because he died on the cross and by his wounds, we are healed. That means it's a proof text that healing, physical healing is guaranteed. All right. Now keep in mind, when Jesus took our penalty on the cross, he came to wipe out the effects of sin, the curse of sin. All right. And sickness and disease are part of that. I totally agree with that 100%. Sickness and disease are not something God originally created. They're something we invited through our sin. And they're definitely, you know, what Jesus came to reverse by his death on the cross. But here's the deal. If you believe, as many people do, that physical healing is guaranteed today, then you have to explain why we still die. Why people die. We have very few people even over 100 years old. We should have people multiple hundreds of years old. Absolutely. Right. We should have people who are a thousand years old. Here's the deal. If healing is complete for us, if it's a guarantee, death shouldn't be happening. Why are people still dying if healing is guaranteed? That should be all. So are you going to say, well, sickness, but old age isn't, why? Why not? You see, it's illogical to just accept that healing of physical disease. Listen, what kills us is physical disease. Sure. That's what ultimately kills us. I believe Jesus can and does heal. I've said that. But listen, the full benefit of what he came to do on the cross is not yet ours. We know that in other areas as well. It's not here yet. Death has not been eliminated. The cause of death, which is disease and so forth, has not been eliminated. It will be one day. That's the good news that we have. But when the apostle Paul described how we live our lives today, he said we groan. He talked about our bodies as a tent. He actually used that word in this tent. And a tent is a temporary residence. He said, in this tent, we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling. Well, people who believe that healing is guaranteed, they're skipping way ahead. And they're saying, no, that's ours now. Paul didn't believe that. Paul said, no, we groan. We groan. And so the bottom line is that I believe strongly in healing. But complete and guaranteed healing today, I don't see that as borne out in the word of God. And I don't believe that just because Matthew cited what he saw. And by the way, what he saw, yes, he quoted Isaiah 53.4. But you know what he said? This fulfilled that. He said it fulfilled that, the healing ministry of Jesus. Listen, Jesus needed to come and heal and cast out demons because he had to show he had power over those things, that the kingdom of God was now among us. But we're not fully there yet. I wish we were. I wish that I could say, like the prosperity preachers do, that you should never be sick a day in your life. I wish I could say that. And I wish I could experience that.

Yeah, that's what I was gonna say. More so.

But unfortunately, I can't. And it's just not in the word.

Well, that's a good comprehensive answer.

I hope so.

Thank you very much.

I hope so.

George has a question. But first he says,

Isn't that adorable? They call them Sue and A's.

Sue and A's. Okay, that's cute.

That's cute.

In Philippians 3.6, how can the Apostle Paul say that he is blameless concerning the law? Doesn't that go against Romans 3.23? And then even his own profession in 1 Timothy 1.15.

Yeah, it sounds like that at the outset, but it's only a problem if you interpret the word blameless as perfect or sinless. And that's not what Paul means. It literally means not subject to blame. And so for Paul, it was kind of a way of summing up his commitment to being a Jew under the law and the way he practiced being a Jew under the law. And you know, Paul fully admitted that he couldn't keep the law perfectly, but to be blameless under the law of Moses didn't mean you were without sin. It meant that when you sinned, you did what the law said. You go and you bring your sacrifice and you repent and you call on God to forgive you. And basically Paul's saying, I followed the law. And even the law had a provision for forgiveness. And so when Paul says I was blameless, he's simply saying I did it the way Moses handed down to us. It doesn't mean I was a perfect human being or that I did everything right. I did it the way Moses gave it to us. That's what he's saying.

That's good. Titina says,

Well, first of all, there's nothing in the word of God about playing cards at all.

Sure.

Okay. Can playing cards be used for evil purposes? Sure.

Yeah.

Can they be used for fun and games? Sure. Are playing cards evil in and of themselves? No. What is evil? The heart of man.

Right.

This comes back to that same thing. People want to point the finger at things and say, that's evil.

Sure.

Rock and roll music is evil. Going to movies is evil. Doing this, doing this, doing this. And of course they come up with all, and hey, she mentions tarot cards, astrology, Ouija boards. Those are used for evil purposes. They're tools of-

They're tools of the occult.

Yeah, no question about it. And I don't think any of those things can be used for frankly, for good things. Playing cards, you know, good grief, you know.

Sure. This is really similar to a question we had about a month ago. Someone asked if the internet was evil. And you know, the television set, the internet, the playing cards, you know, they're all amoral. It depends on what you do with them.

Exactly.

The heart of man, like you said.

Exactly. It's the heart of man that is evil. So what's going on in your home is what you need to be concerned about. It's not those specific things. So Titina, I would say, enjoy time with your children.

Yeah, have fun playing with your kids.

Yeah.

Robert says,

Yeah, Robert is absolutely correct. There's no case for individual church membership. And what I mean by that is being a member of a local body. There's nothing in the Bible about it. That doesn't mean it's wrong.

Sure, yeah.

To be a member of a local fellowship. What can get a little cumbersome is all the rules that we create with those memberships. You know, when you look up the word member in the Bible, you're gonna find that one of the big uses is talking about our appendages on our body.

Right.

You know, the members of our body, like our arms, legs, and so forth. Now the word member is used for membership. And Paul uses the word in Ephesians 2 when he says, so then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God. But this is members of the body of Christ universal. This is not speaking of any local membership. I don't have a problem with churches who set up a membership, but the question is why? Why are you doing it? Are you doing it to control the people? Are you doing it to obligate the people? Are you doing it for other reasons that maybe are unbiblical? If you're gonna create a membership, fine. Hey, you're a member of our fellowship, our body.

Sure.

But don't, I would say to anyone who's doing that, like Robert, don't attach elements of membership that are unbiblical.

Well, and another thing that he's talking about launching to be a missionary, I think we also need to be very careful not to attach cultural elements of one group off into another area.

Yeah, that's true.

And maybe where he's going, that is a big part of the culture is membership. And so it's something to evaluate. But if it's merely a part of the culture from a different, you know, culture, yeah, then be really careful because the body of Christ takes on different flavors around the world.

It really does. And you're dealing with something here that is frankly just not biblical, but not necessarily wrong. So just be careful how you apply it. I think that churches who have a membership that carries on when somebody stops attending, that's ridiculous.

Right.

You know, there should be no such thing. You know, in the church that we pastored for 35 years, people were members if they came to church and considered themselves a member. We didn't have a membership role. We didn't have voting rights that we gave to people. And that's often what membership is about, which in and of itself isn't really biblical. It isn't always bad. It can be bad. So, you know, those are things that you have to kind of work through. What's the membership for?

Right. Yeah. Okay, Daniel says,

That's a good question, isn't it?

Sure.

Although I have to say, I'm always a little dubious when somebody starts off their question with I've heard people say.

Oh.

You know, because people say all kinds of things. And some of them are really dumb, you know, and thoroughly unbiblical. This one is, biblical. If people say, well, you know, if you pray for patience, God's going to set you up with an opportunity to be patient. That's not in the Bible. He may very well do that. But what I guess what Daniel is asking is, does it have to come through an orchestrated circumstance? Or can God just give you a heart of patience without being tested? God can do anything he wants to do. That's the way I'll answer that question. He often does use circumstances, at least he has in my life, because that's how things are formed. I wouldn't know what patience really is, unless I had a need to be patient. I wouldn't really know what forgiveness is, unless I needed to forgive someone. You see what I'm saying? So those sort of circumstances provide a very powerful mode of understanding what we're even praying for. So I think those things, that's probably why people say that.

Yeah, well, James starts his letter that way. Consider it pure joy, brothers, when you face trials of many kinds, because what does it do? God's developing things in you. You're developing character traits. And so it is certainly a means, but like you say, God can do whatever he wants.

I have heard, I've had people testify, let me say that, that they have prayed for something like deliverance from something.

Sure.

And the Lord has answered it without any sort of external circumstance. They just were delivered from maybe cigarette smoking or drinking or something like that. Those things can happen. God can do whatever he wants to do. Again, I'm always dubious when people say, this is the way God works.

Well, and we do need to be careful with our words. If we're praying in a women's Bible study and somebody just says, Lord, just give me patience, and then we get done. And yeah, I prayed for that, and the Lord gave me twins. So look out. We tend to throw those things around a little bit too liberally.

That's funny. Yeah, we do.

Alright. Ketley says,

You know, we're told that God gave us the Old Testament as an example of how we were to live. And Egypt in the Old Testament is a picture of sin, and bondage, slavery to sin, and that sort of thing. And God gave us this beautiful picture in the Old Testament of bringing his people out of that slavery, into freedom and into blessing. And he told them, don't go back to Egypt. You know, that was a word he gave them on many occasions. And what he was saying was, don't go back into slavery. Well, we have the same message in the New Testament. Paul says in Galatians 5, it is for freedom that Christ has made you free. So be free, and don't go back and live a life of slavery, you know, take on that yoke of slavery. So Egypt is that picture. When the Israelites were told, don't go back to Egypt, they're saying, God is basically saying, don't go back to sin. But there were things in Egypt that were attractive to them. Turning to the Egyptians as an ally in war, in times of war, was sometimes attractive to the Israelites. Going back to Egypt, where there were things that the Israelites didn't have, God was saying, I'm your provider, I'm your protector, don't go back there for the things that I can give you. And I think the message for you and me today is don't go back to the world. I've brought you out of the world, out of bondage and slavery to the darkness of the things of the world. So don't go back there. So there is a message. But it's not a literal like today, don't ever step foot in the nation or the country of Egypt.

Yeah. And wasn't the connection there in Second Chronicles probably don't go to Egypt to buy horses. He was not to collect a lot of those resources.

Yeah, there were a lot of things that God told Solomon not to do that were part of the kings of the land, that, you know, were just opulence. And he was trying to get Solomon to avoid opulence. But the larger command of don't go back to Egypt is one that reverberates through the Old Testament.

Right. Yeah. Well, here's our last question from Sue. "I hear you and other pastors refer to Hebrew and Aramaic translation. What do you recommend to discover what those original words mean?"

Well, first of all, it's mostly Hebrew and Greek. There's a smattering of Aramaic in the Bible, but it's predominantly Greek in the New Testament, and Hebrew in the Old Testament. This is a good question. What do I recommend? Well, there are different options. There are free options. And there are ones that will cost but you can decide how much you want to pay. I would encourage anybody who wants to go deeper in the Word of God, and maybe doesn't really have a budget for that sort of thing, to simply get on their laptop phone or whatever, and do a search, an online search, search for free Bible tools that help me to understand the meaning of Greek and Hebrew words. Okay? You will be presented with a lot of options. I'll give you a couple. One that I use a lot is the Blue Letter Bible. I use it on my phone mostly. And I don't use it for deep study. I just use it mostly for looking up passages. But the Blue Letter Bible does have a tools option, where you can view an interlinear Bible, meaning you can see the English and the Hebrew or Greek alongside that. And then there are some Hebrew and Greek dictionaries available on the Blue Letter Bible, like Thayer's Dictionary, and some others. And that's a completely free option. BibleHub is another one that I encourage people to check out. I've used it on many occasions. One that I haven't used a lot is one that is provided by the scholars of Tyndale House in England. But it's called Step Bible. You can Google it and check it out. Apparently, there are some tools there. I've never used them, but I've heard that they're good. And then finally, you and I use Logos Bible Software, which is a paid program, but they have a free version. And you can download that free version. In fact, if you have like a Chrome book, you can even use the web version. And you don't even have to download anything. But then you can purchase just the modules you want. For example, you might want to purchase the main Bible that you want to study just as a single module. And then you can purchase a Greek and Hebrew dictionary module. And you can limit how much money you have to spend. And right there you have a fantastic, it's the program I use. I literally, when I'm looking at the text of a Bible passage, I can click on any word, I'll double click on the word, and up comes my Greek Hebrew dictionary, and just instantly tells me what that word means, where what its origin is, and so on and so on. So those are, you know, there again, there are free things that you can do, and there are paid things. But look into it, do a Google search, do a Google search, and you'll get a lot of good hits.

So good, very good advice.

Yeah, that's it.

Okay, well, that is this particular episode. Very good questions. Thanks for sending them in. If you who are watching have some questions you'd like us to tackle, just email us at questions at lifebibleministry.com. You can also just get on our website and send us questions right from there through our contact connection. That is lifebibleministry.com. We'd love to have you visit and leave us a note. And until we see you next time, God bless you.

Bye bye.