Bible Q&A • Episode 56

Hi everyone. We're back again with more of your Bible questions. I'm Pastor Paul. I'm here with my wife Sue, and we've got some good ones this week.

Some other, some more good questions.

Yes, we do. Want to get started?

Yeah, let's do it. Allison is from Australia, and she says,

Interesting. Interesting sort of conclusion. Did Jesus conquer death? Yes. Are we married until death? Do we part? Yes. That's talking about the physical death of the body. When the Bible says that Jesus conquered death, it simply means that death is not the end. We've been given life beyond this death. That's why Jesus said to Martha, though a man dies, yet shall he live. And so, no, we are not married after life on this planet, this earth, as Jesus referred to it as, this age. When Jesus was answering the Sadducees, they had a question about marriage after death, even though they didn't believe in a resurrection. And Jesus said that people who die and are in heaven, or with the Lord if you will, do not marry and are not given in marriage. So marriage is for this age, this time. It is not for the age to come.

Gotcha. Our next question is from Topher.

I had a question about the comment you made in a previous Q&A about how the Bible narrates, especially the Old Testament, without necessarily making a moral judgment. What differentiates the biblical narratives from other documents that give a narrative, such as comparable Greek-Roman texts of the time, that would have shaped religious views?

Well, what makes the difference is inspiration. You know, when we say that a narrative in the Bible doesn't necessarily teach doctrine, we're not saying it's not inspired. We're not saying it's not important. Or there's not a moral story to it. Sure, yeah. There often is. And all we're saying is you have to be careful when it comes to a narrative. Narratives are given to us to simply tell us what happened, what was said between people, how events played out, and so forth. It doesn't mean they're not important, and we believe they're all important. It's all inspired. Things like Greek and Roman texts of the time, you know, included narratives and other things, but they weren't inspired. They weren't inspired by the Holy Spirit as the Bible is, and that's what makes the difference.

Yeah, good. Haya says,

Speaking of narratives...

Yes, there you go.

Yeah, so we're kind of back to narratives.

Right.

What is being asked here is, why don't we follow the example that is given, at least as far as how the Jews buried their dead? Well, the reason is is because we're not told to do that. That's simply given in a narrative, and this is a good example of you have a narrative of how the Jews dealt with their dead, but you also have a narrative of how the Egyptians dealt with their dead. So which one are we to follow? Well, we're not told to follow any narrative that's given in the Bible. We're not told how to bury our dead at all, and so it's kind of up for grabs, you know? And that is the response I give to people when they write and ask about cremation versus, you know, burying the whole body versus anything else that might possibly come up as an option. The Bible doesn't instruct us in that area, and that's why we don't do it like the Jews did it.

Beatrice says,

You know, the Bible doesn't reveal second chances. It says, in fact, quite the opposite, that there is given unto men once to live and then once to die, and then the judgment. So the Bible doesn't talk about second chances. Whether or not God somehow works second chances in there for people, that's His business, but He doesn't reveal it for us. And so we don't encourage people to put it off, you know, responding to the gospel.

Lauren is from Australia. She says,

Yeah, I can understand that. I believe, you know, we're talking about a 12-year-old here. I believe that there's a very important truth that we need to pass along to our children, and frankly adults need to know this as well. We are born with sinful tendencies. When people talk about same-sex attraction, I don't deny the fact that someone can be born with that tendency. It doesn't mean it's not sin, just as the tendency to lie is also a sin. The tendency to cheat is a sin. The tendency to steal, okay, but you can be born with those tendencies too. It's important to understand that our sinful tendencies don't define us. The problem with the whole situation with homosexuality is that it is taught us as a defining trait, and since it defines us, the idea goes, this is what we are, and there's no changing it. Well, that's just not the reality when it comes to biblical Christianity. The hope of the gospel is that we can exceed and transcend our sinful tendencies, that we can break free from the tyranny of what sin demands of us, and all the things that we perhaps gave into before coming to Christ, we can have victory over and conquer through the name of Jesus and the power of the gospel. So I think it's important for this mother to begin to work this sort of a truth and reality into this 12-year-old and say, listen, if this is a true tendency that you have in you, it's no different than any other sinful tendency. You must conquer it in the power of Jesus Christ, and he gives us the hope that we can conquer our sinful tendencies. So think of it like you think of anything, you know? We look at what the Bible calls drunkenness, we look at today, we call it alcoholism. Well, it's interesting, even though we have a different name for it, we still understand that it's something that needs to be conquered. It's a tendency that needs to be conquered, and it's the same with all sinful tendencies. So I believe that's something that needs to be instructed in a child's heart, and they need to be given the hope of understanding that through Jesus Christ, this doesn't have to be who you are. You can be like Jesus, you know? We're all born after the flesh. We're all born with the flesh in charge. Once we come to Jesus Christ, we are given the freedom to exercise a new nature. Not the nature of the flesh, but the nature of the Spirit. It's challenging, it's hard, but it's there, and it's a hope, and that needs to be communicated, even to this 12-year-old. This does not need to define you.

Right. Yeah. And I would probably add to really pray through your son's influences.

Yeah, oh yeah.

Who is influencing, who is throwing out a label, and those kind of things, and really be, you know, take whatever action is necessary to protect him from influences that would convince him of things.

Ultimately, this child needs hope. He needs hope, to know that there is hope. I mean, even in this note that she shared, you know, he's saying things like, if I'm truly gay, I'm gonna kill myself. Well, you know, that's a hopeless sort of a response to the situation. Again, we're all born with sinful tendencies. Our hope is in Jesus that we can conquer the flesh and walk in the Spirit and be like Him.

Absolutely. Jean is from Ohio, and she asks,

I think people define Christian nationalism differently, but my understanding of Christian nationalism is the idea that biblical Christianity kind of takes over and becomes the rule of the land. You know, in other words, Christians rise in power, they take over various political positions, and the way of Christ and the way of Christianity begins to become, you know, the norm in the land. I personally don't see that happening according to Scripture. The Apostle Paul makes it clear that in the last days, very terrible times are going to come upon us, and I believe that we're seeing those happening now. So I don't believe in that definition of Christian nationalism. I don't believe it's a biblical idea. It frankly has been around for a long time. It just wasn't called Christian nationalism. It was basically the idea that we would usher in the millennial kingdom. That's been a belief for many, many years, that Christians would improve culture over a period of time, and we would invite through our effort and our propagation of the gospel, the millennial kingdom. There really is no need for Jesus to come and establish His throne on earth because we're going to do it for Him through our Christian nationalism. Well, I don't believe it, you know. So that's my take.

Alright, well, Stephen says,

Well, there is a bit of a misunderstanding, first of all, in that particular passage, because that passage is a warning that Jesus gives about the words that we speak, either acquitting us or condemning us, okay? Well, as believers, first of all, our condemnation has already been born in the person of Jesus Christ. And we need to recognize that, that we want to be careful that we're not somehow believing that I'm a Christian, I'm saved, but if I allow reckless words to come out of my mouth, I could be condemned to hell. That's simply not going to happen because your faith is in Jesus. Your condemnation has been born already when He sacrificed Himself on the cross. So the passage is really talking about something a little bit more profound, you know, about the words of men in their confession and so forth. Now, that being said, if this individual has a conviction that saying gosh and darn is wrong, then he shouldn't say it. By the same token, I think he should be careful not to condemn others because of his own personal conviction, because other people may be using gosh and darn because they don't want to say what they consider to be bad words, and they consider gosh and darn to be okay, you know? And so it's, again, we're coming back to a not a one-size-fits-all sort of a response. If you're being convicted about the usage of these words, then don't use them, right? But don't foist that upon others. Don't assume. Don't add that to your rule book to teach everyone.

Yeah, exactly. And don't go around condemning people if they perhaps use those words and aren't under the same conviction. Although I would probably add that as a mother, I would dissuade my children from getting into the habit of using them.

Sure, sure. And I think that it's important that we do need to be careful about slang words and substituted word, meaning words that we substitute for obscenity. We do need to be careful about the usage of those. And I think all of us could stand to, you know, watch our language.

Tidy up our language a little bit. Miranda says,

What should we be looking out for? Well, you know, the Bible tells us that you will know them by their fruit. The problem with prophets today or people who claim to have a prophetic gifting is that they're now on either television or the internet and we can't get to know them personally.

Exactly.

And it's almost impossible to know their fruit. You know, that word was given in a day when you got to know people personally and you saw the kind of a life they were living, how they treated people around them, how their marriage, you know, might be and how their children's faith might also be a sign of their devotion to the Lord. These things are hidden from us now because these people are strangers. But they're simply saying, I have a word from the Lord. So you got to be extra special careful. The question goes on to say, you know, how can we know? Well, you have to, one, compare it with scripture, you know. You have to pray and you have to ask the Holy Spirit for discernment and you have to let time pass to see if what they're saying is true. But we are told to test everything. I've repeated that so many times during these Q and A's. We are told in no uncertain terms to test everything and that includes words of prophecy. We are not to just carte blanche accept words of prophecy. If somebody gives what they say is a prophetic word, no prop, take notes if you want to and yeah, okay, that's interesting. I'm gonna test that and see if it holds up. We don't accept things just because somebody said so. We have to test them. And the word of God is the great and first test, the power of the Holy Spirit to discern error from truth is another great one and then the passage of time.

Yeah, that's really good. I would probably add just to be extremely, extremely careful about the prophetic ministry on YouTube, period.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, just stick with the local church where there are pastors and elders. If someone has a prophetic word, then you've got that level of accountability to help, you know.

To know.

To know, yeah. Whether the person is, you know, playing fast and loose.

Exactly. And so forth. Daniel says,

That's a really interesting question, isn't it? When I stop and think about it, I can't necessarily say that intimacy has become easier. I think it's still a challenge sometimes to spend that intimate time with the Lord. I think that life can become busy at certain times. When I think about when I first really got serious about walking with Jesus, I think intimacy was pretty easy to come by because things were pretty fresh and my knowledge and understanding of my salvation was so new and so powerful at the time that I think intimacy with the Lord, you know, came pretty easy, actually. That's not to say that spending, you know, long times in prayer was ever easy, but intimacy is something that comes from making a determination to take the time. You know, people ask me sometimes, what does intimacy with the Lord look like? Well, it looks the same thing like intimacy with people. It comes from spending time with people, getting to know them, and that's how we become intimate with the Lord as well. We spend time with him. We get to know him through his word, through prayer, meditation on the word, and so forth. I think that that's something you have to just keep working at, you know? If this pastor truly takes two hours a day to spend time alone with the Lord, God bless him. That's wonderful. I think that's semi-rare, you know, but it's great, you know? Part of the question was, how much time do you spend alone with the Lord each day? I don't know, and you can answer this for yourself, but I don't know. I try to nurture time with the Lord whenever I'm alone. Like, if I'm driving in the car, I'll just start talking to the Lord. If I'm out on a walk or a bike ride, you know, by myself, I'll just naturally just begin to talk to the Lord. That's alone time. It kind of depends on how much time you set aside to be alone in a given day, you know. Maybe you'd like to respond to that question personally.

Yeah, I agree with you that when we were first saved or born again, everything was pretty fresh and the time alone, I do remember at the job I was at, just seeking out time to go to the bathroom so that I could just be alone and pray and all that. And life becomes different after 40 plus years. There are some pitfalls to being decades past being first born again, because sometimes we can allow experience to replace intimacy. And there's, you know, there's a lot of give and take on both sides. But for both of us, our time with the Lord is fairly routined in the morning. And like you say, you know, then there's other times like, well, I'm walking, which I can't do because it's so smoky outside right now, it's dreadful. But that is always the time that I'm talking to the Lord or listening to the word or something like that. So it is not, I don't know if I have really what it takes to do this two hours time slot like that. But like you say, you know, good for you. And some people are better at that, but I'm just a little bit more like you are. Like start the day, I have my routine, it looks more like about 20 minutes, 30 minutes or so. And then throughout the day to be just conversing with the Lord in the word, letting the word, letting the Lord speak to me through the word.

Yeah. You know, it used to be called practicing the presence. And becoming cognizantly aware of the presence of God throughout your day. I wouldn't want to spend two hours with the Lord in the morning and then forget about him the rest of the day. I would rather spend 30 minutes with him and then be aware of his presence throughout the day whenever I find myself alone. It's going to be personal, you know. People are going to spend time with the Lord and foster that intimacy with the Lord in different ways according to what they are able to do. You know, a young mother with small children who like to get up early and bounce on the bed at the break of dawn, they're not going to have as much time to do that. So you know, it's going to change at different times of your life. I think the best thing to do is to grab every opportunity you can to be with the Lord and to talk to the Lord.

Yep. I agree. Pierre says,

There have been teachings for many years now about the lost—when we say the lost tribes of Israel, we're talking about—they usually are talking about the lost 10 tribes. A little Jewish history is necessary to understand this because, you know, really only Saul, and David, and Solomon ruled over a united kingdom of Israel. When Solomon's son Rehoboam took the throne, Israel had a national split where they divided into a northern and a southern kingdom. The northern kingdom was made up of 10 tribes. The southern kingdom was made up of two tribes, and that was Judah and Benjamin. Now this is where the whole idea of the lost 10 tribes comes from because in around—I wrote it down here—around the time 722 BC, Israel, the northern—and this is something that people need to know because this can get confusing—the northern kingdom retained the name Israel. Its capital city was Samaria. The southern kingdom took the name Judah and had as its capital, Jerusalem. All right. So now you've got from Rehoboam onward, you have the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom. In about 722 to 721 BC, the northern kingdom of Israel was attacked and conquered by the Assyrian army. The way the Assyrians would take hold of their captives is they would cart them off and repatriate them into other lands that they had conquered so that those people would ultimately be assimilated into those other cultures, and they would really kind of lose their national identity. Some Jews got to stay in the northern kingdom, but they intermixed with the people of the land and other people the Assyrians put there, and they became known by the New Testament as Samaritans. They were half-breeds, and they were frankly despised by the people of the lower southern kingdom, which was all that remained by the time Jesus came. Because those northern 10 tribes were conquered by Assyria and interspersed among other people groups, it is generally believed that they were lost, and here's why, because God never promised the northern kingdom that they would return. Now the southern kingdom was also conquered before the time of Christ. That was by the Babylonians, and they were actually taken into exile into the Babylonian kingdom. But there was a difference with the southern kingdom. God promised He would bring them back. He did it through the prophet Jeremiah. In fact, He told Jeremiah how long they would be in exile. It would be a period of 70 years, and then they would return. So because the southern kingdom of Judah was told by God that they would return, and we know historically that they did, it is assumed by people that the northern 10 tribes were dispersed, assimilated into other cultures, and lost, and that all you have today are the remnants of two tribes, Judah and Benjamin. Well, this person who wrote this question quoted me as saying, God never loses anything. And I said that all 12 tribes of Israel are still available today, and there's nothing lost. And so he's asking, how do you know that? Well, we know it because the Word of God tells us. First of all, we know here, even in the United States of America, that there's something interesting going on. There's a shifting of populations. What is causing that shifting? Well, people tend to gravitate toward whatever they believe in, okay? If people believe in a more conservative area, and they're living in a liberal area, progressive area, they will often relocate to that conservative area. If people are more comfortable in a liberal and progressive environment, they will leave a more conservative land and go live among a liberal people. This has been going on for generations, and it happened in Israel as well. We're told this in 2 Chronicles 11, let me read this, verses 13 through 17. And the priests and the Levites, who were in all Israel, presented themselves to him from all places where they lived. For the Levites left their common lands and their holdings and came to Judah and Jerusalem. Why? Because Jeroboam and his sons cast them out from serving as priests of the Lord, and he appointed his own priests for the high places and for the goat idols and for the calves that he had made. So it tells us right there that the Levites began to move south. Well, that's just one tribe, right? But look what it goes on to say, and those who had set their hearts to seek the Lord God of Israel came after them from all the tribes of Israel to Jerusalem to sacrifice to the Lord, the God of their fathers. They strengthened the kingdom of Judah by moving there, okay? And it says, and for three years they made Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, secure, for they walked for three years in the way of David and Solomon. All right. So we're told right there that there was a migration of all the tribes, every representation. They all moved down south to be part of this part of Judea, or what was later to be called Judea, that's the Greek name for Judah. Because where the true worship of God was taking place. Jeroboam I started his own pagan religion up in the northern kingdom. But there's another passage, and this is a prophecy that was also given to Jeremiah, the same one who was given, who was told how long the the saints of Judah would be in exile. It's found in Jeremiah chapter 3 verse 18, and it says this. Oh, and by the way, this is a prophecy of the Millennial Kingdom. This is that period of time after the Great Tribulation. In those days the house of Judah shall join the house of Israel, and together they shall come from the land of the north to the land that I gave your fathers for a heritage. This is speaking of that time in the Millennial Kingdom when the scattered Jews will return to the land, and it says the kingdom of Judah will be joined with the kingdom of Israel. Well, people who say the the ten tribes of Israel were lost, there is no kingdom of Israel. God says there is, and they will, even though they were scattered, they will all be brought back during the Millennial Kingdom.

It's a good history lesson.

Well, it's a long history lesson, but it is a good one from the standpoint of understanding. When you take this understanding of the Word of God, you realize that these doctrines, these beliefs in the lost ten tribes of Israel are false, and it's not supported. It is a conclusion based on certain narratives that doesn't take into consideration other passages of the Bible.

And you just gave the rest of the story.

And that's the rest of the story.

Right, exactly. And I think that's it for this episode. That's the rest of our questions.

Yeah. Well, thank you so much. Really good questions. I hope everybody learned something. These are important things to ask. If you have a question that's burning in your heart, by all means, send it along. You can just email us at questions at lifebibleministry.com. We'll get to it just as soon as we can. And until we meet with you, God bless you. Have a good rest of your day.

Bye-bye.