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"Questions and Answers" by Hiram Kemp and Neal Pollard · Cumberland Trace Church of Christ (Formerly Lehman Ave Church of Christ)

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Bear with me, I've got 3 gadgets up here and I'm trying to figure them
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out. Good evening, everybody. Thank you
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for coming out. It's a good Sunday evening crowd. Glad that
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you're here. As Neil mentioned this morning, this has
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become a regularity for this congregation to
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periodically engage in a period of question and answers.
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This congregation provides great questions.
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Tonight is no exception. This congregation also has
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a couple of guys that give great answers from the Word of God, and we're
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certainly blessed to have them. So, we've got 10
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questions tonight, again, very good questions. So,
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without any further ado, we'll go ahead and get right into it.
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And Neil, I believe you have the
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first one tonight. How can we be sure when
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commands in the Bible are given as cultural
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and not as law? I think this is a
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very crucial and basic question to how we
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interpret the Scriptures, because Scripture was written
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in another time and another place by people
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who spoke different languages originally. And customs,
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cultural norms change in places and time. So the
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question becomes, when we encounter something in Scripture, when are we looking at something
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that is cultural and not applicable to us? Or when
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we look at something, when does it go beyond the culture? We might use the
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word transcend or override the culture. I think before we
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get to the heart of our question, we all need to understand
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that culture is going to have some bearing on commands. A lot of the commands
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in the Bible. Let me give you just a couple of examples to kind of
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represent the point. The command comes in 1 Timothy
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2:9 for the woman of God to be modest.
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Now that command is going to be stuck into a
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cultural context necessarily. If you think back 150
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years ago, what the culture would have said was modest
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would be completely different. For example, A woman's ankle could not be shown or
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it would be immodest. But when it comes to how we
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look at the way that culture evolves, there are
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biblical principles that are going to influence that. And so, we are not going to
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ever arrive, or we should never arrive, at a place where what we choose
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to do by way of modesty is something that would
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conflict with what the Word of God has to say. So, there are the principles
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of purity and holiness and brotherly love that are going to influence
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us in some cases to be countercultural on that, but the culture affects that.
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Or how about good manners? 1 Peter 2:12, we're to conduct ourselves
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excellently among the Gentiles, and that takes in a lot,
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even a lot more than manners, but manners differ from one place to another.
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So culture impacts some of the things
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that we are told by way of commands. But as I mentioned a moment ago,
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commands override the culture.
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There are times where the culture wants to do things. You think back in the
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first century, it was cultural norms to engage
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in having multiple wives or to ignore the poor.
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And of course, the Christian couldn't do that in those settings. And today you would
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think about some practices that are cultural norms. Abortion is legal in
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our country. Fornication is commonly practiced. And yet
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that goes against the norm, the law of Scripture. So how can we go
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to passages and to be able to determine when it's binding
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on us today and it's not simply cultural. This is not exhaustive,
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we can't be, but let me give you some principles that I think will help
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with regard to that. If Scripture is telling us something that's
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universal in its scope, then it is binding. It's not
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just cultural. And I'll give you a couple of examples. In Acts 2:38-39,
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you have the folks on Pentecost being told to repent and be baptized every one
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of them in the name of Christ for the remission or forgiveness of sins,
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and you'll receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is unto you
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and your children and them that are afar off, even as
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many as the Lord our God shall call. Not just the folks present on
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Pentecost, but all folks. Or how about in Acts 17:30
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where we see that the time of ignorance God once overlooked, but now
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commands all men everywhere to repent. It's a universal
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principle. Not just for the folks on Mars Hill, but for everybody.
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Also, if it's a timeless principle, that is, that if it's not for just
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one place and one time, then it is not cultural, it's something
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that's binding on us. I think of Noah, who's told in
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Genesis 9:6 not to shed blood. If you shed blood
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of someone, then that blood will be required of you because man is made in
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the image of God. This is before the old law and the
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death penalty and the avenger of death. And so this is a principle
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that applies to all times. And some other examples would be marriage,
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Matthew 19:8. We'll talk about that more in another question.
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But Jesus says, Moses, because of the hardness of your heart, permitted it to be
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so, but from the beginning it was not this way. So he steps outside
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of that culture and he says, this is not a time-sensitive or
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in this culture only. 1 Timothy 2:12 would be another example.
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There'd be other passages that would say that. And so that's something
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else that's a consideration for us.
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Another consideration as to whether it's cultural versus whether it's
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normative is, are there exceptions to it?
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So if there's a command in the New Testament and we don't see an exception
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somewhere else, then perhaps we see this as something that crosses
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that boundary. Examples of some that would be both.
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1 Timothy 2:12, a woman is not to have
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authority over the man or to— she's to learn quietly and submissively.
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Are there any exceptions to this in the New Testament? There's not.
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So then that becomes the practice. Romans 16:16 says,
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greet one another with a holy kiss. Is there an exception to
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this? Yes, in 3 John 14, when I see you face to face.
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Or Galatians 2:9, I'm going to extend to you the right hand of fellowship.
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There's more than one way to greet. And so we're not bound by the holy
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kiss. Same with other cultural
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examples that we might give, like the head covering.
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1 Corinthians 11:5-16, at Corinth, this was a sign
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of submission. A woman in the public assemblies was to cover her head.
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But 1 Timothy 2:9, 1 Peter 3:3 shows us
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they didn't cover their heads where Peter addressed, or to the church at
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Ephesus in 1 Timothy 2:9. And so it's a cultural thing,
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it's not a binding thing. How about singing?
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Ephesians 5:19, Colossians 3:16.
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Are there any exceptions to that? And we don't see that. And so the practice
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is to sing in the custom of the church or a cappella because
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there is not an exception. So this just begins. There's a whole lot more to
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say about that. But we've got to be able to notice that there are times
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when principles override the culture, and we're
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going to go with what God's Word says regardless of what culture we're in.
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Thank you. Hiram? Okay, thank you.
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All right, Hiram has the second question tonight.
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I'm not sure I've seen this discussed before in church,
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but it says, is the Shroud of Turin authentic? Could it be?
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Is it a matter of fellowship? Okay,
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so first things first, I'm going to answer the last part of this question.
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Is it a matter of fellowship? The answer is absolutely not. It's not a
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matter of fellowship. If you're unfamiliar with what the Shroud of Turin is, um,
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it's also called the Holy Turin or the Holy Shroud
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by some people. It's an artifact that's been found, and some
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people believe because of an image that is on this garment, on this
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linen garment, that it depicts the face and body of Jesus,
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and that it is the very linen shroud that was placed in the empty tomb.
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And so people that are on the side of believing it's authentic point to
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gospel passages where the shroud is mentioned.
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You think about Matthew 27:59, Mark 15:46,
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Luke 23:53, and John 19:40.
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All 4 gospel accounts tell us that when Joseph of Arimathea buried
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Jesus, he also wrapped his body in this linen cloth,
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or some translations go with the linen shroud. It was first displayed
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in a church in France in, I believe, 1534, and there are just varying ideas
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on whether or not people think it's authentic. I believe it's been carbon dated
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or tested twice, and from what I found and what I've seen in trying to
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research and look up the Shroud of Turin, and you can do your own study
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on this, the first time it was tested, it's been dated to the medieval period
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of the 1500s. And so some people say that's where it is. Others say,
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nope, there needs to be more work done. And we'll find that this is authentic.
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This was the shroud or the cloth that Jesus was wrapped in, and it goes
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back to 1st century times. Could it be authentic?
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The answer to that question is possibly, yes. My conclusion, though,
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is I don't believe it is. And here are some of the reasons why.
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First, I believe so far all of the information we have
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pointed to the medieval time period of the 1500s. Second,
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the apostles never mentioned anything about having this cloth that was
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wrapping— wrapped Jesus's body up. Nobody mentions this as being a part
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of ancient artifacts that the New Testament authors say that they had or that they
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pointed to. And in a more important way, I think throughout Scripture what you find
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is God is really not a fan of leaving behind certain artifacts that his people
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might end up worshiping in the process and trying to produce
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artifacts in relation to truth. Think about 2 Kings 18:4. Moses lifts up
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a bronze serpent in the wilderness, and people eventually take that and worship
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it for a long time or use it in idol worship. And during the reign
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of Hezekiah, it's ultimately destroyed. And last
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but certainly not least, throughout the New Testament, the,
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the focus of proof and evidence that's supposed to draw people
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to the truth of the resurrection is really not any archaeological discovery
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or ancient artifact. It's apostolic testimony based on these eyewitnesses,
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2 Peter 2. Chapter 1, verse 16, 2 Peter 1:16-17.
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Faith comes by hearing, Romans 10:17, and also by the
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empty tomb and the proclamation of those who witnessed it and saw it, 1 Corinthians
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15:1-10. And so the evidence in the New Testament is we walk by
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faith and not by sight, not that we have this linen shroud that would clearly
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evidence that Jesus was in this tomb and then raised from the dead, but instead
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based on the proclamation of the gospel. And so that's what I think is in
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relation to the Shroud of Turin. But there are prominent New Testament scholars
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that think otherwise, and maybe some of you do too. I want to end where
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we started. It's not a matter of fellowship. In the end, it really wouldn't make
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a difference if we had it or if we didn't in the grand scheme of
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things, because God has authorized the Scriptures, the New Testament, as the
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final revelation of who Jesus is and why we should believe that he came,
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he died, and that he rose from the dead. Thank you.
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I agree with that in substance. I'm probably one who's a little bit more receptive
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to the possibility of it. I would place it in the realm of other archaeological
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discoveries that have been made that don't replace faith,
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but that augment that. And as we get more sophisticated
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in AI and some of the other innovations arrive that
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may make people a little bit more jaded about discoveries, God seems to come along
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sometimes and make those things available. But at the end of
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the day, even if that's so, I agree with that last question. It's not a
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matter of fellowship. And I agree very much with what's said, that the, the basis
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of our faith needs not to be on archaeological discoveries,
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but on the testimony of Scripture, because it's a far more sure witness
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than anything outside of that, though we may look to other things.
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Thank you. Okay, next one is for Neil.
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Hebrews 10:26 states that if we sin willfully after
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being baptized, there is no exception— the expectation of
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forgiveness. Does that mean a person cannot repent and receive the grace
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of God? What is real repentance? And Hebrews
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10:26 says, for if we sin willfully after
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we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice
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for sins. So I think that the Hebrews
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writer, and by the way, I don't— we don't know who it is. The name
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Paul may come out of my mouth. It's just going to be an accident,
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a slip. But the writer of Hebrews is writing
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about 2 groups of people. And oftentimes writers do that. There in Hebrews,
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you have those who have already fallen away, Jewish Christians who let external
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pressures cause them to abandon the faith. You have
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other passages in Hebrews like Hebrews 6:4-6 that would say something very similar.
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What he seems to be dealing with in Hebrews chapter 10 is those who,
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this present participle here, they are going on and sinning willfully.
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This is their present state. This is where they find themselves. And the
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Hebrews writer describes what that looks like. They have counted
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the covenant with which they were set apart by God an unholy thing.
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They have trampled underfoot the Son of God. They've done despite to
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the Spirit of grace. They have cast away their confidence. They have shrunk
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back. He says in verse 35 and 39, There's this group
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of people who have left the church and have gone back to where they had
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come from. And in the condition in which they find themselves,
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there is no sacrifice because the sacrifice only belongs
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in Christianity. They've abandoned the sacrifice to go back to where there was
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no sacrifice. So that described them as they were.
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The Hebrews writer's writing this letter of exhortation, this sermon
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indicates that he has a desire for everyone to
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be back in faithful fellowship with one another and with God.
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And so there's no indication that he's saying that this is an irreversible
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situation, and it certainly would not synthesize
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with the rest of the New Testament. It would not agree with
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the heart and the mind of God. Why Luke 15,
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where you have a prodigal who is in the father's house, who goes off and
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has done certainly what the Hebrews writer is saying here, and has thrown everything
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away, he comes back and what reception is he given?
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Or you think about 1 John 1:9 where John is writing to
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Christians and he is talking about how it's possible for them to come back.
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And it was one of our memory verses this quarter, he is faithful and righteous
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to forgive us of our sins. And so the Hebrews writer is
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writing to those who are in a current state
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of having abandoned the Lord. But if they'll come back, And the
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Lord will receive them and will restore them. That's the heart of God. That's the
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New Testament message. And the last question is,
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what is real repentance? Well, first of all, that's something the Bible determines
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for us. And we can— we're not necessarily
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to be the analyst for that in others. If somebody's abandoned, has left the Lord,
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and they come back. And by the way, church discipline. You have a man who
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had his father's wife and had been withdrawn from Paul said
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that they were to receive him back, 2 Corinthians chapter 2,
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when he had repented and been restored. Same thing in 2
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Thessalonians 3 and verse 6. How do you treat somebody who is away from the
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fold, who has left? You're to exhort them as a brother to get them back.
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So the whole message of scripture is to get them back.
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Repentance literally means to change the mind
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that leads to a change of action. Best passage, there are others,
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that combine all of what's involved in repentance is 2 Corinthians
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7:10-11. It involves a godly sorrow that
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leads to salvation, that repentance, and it proves itself.
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It does everything it can to show the change of life.
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Anything that's amiss, we try to make it right. That to me is repentance,
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and that's what the Hebrews writer wants for them to exhibit. All right.
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I'd just say on Hebrews 10:26 and other passages like it,
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whenever you're reading in the Bible, whenever we're reading Scripture, and we
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come across something that we think clearly just is contrary to everything else
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we've read in Scripture, if there seems to be a major contradiction in passages—
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on the one hand, God says He forgives us if we repent, and then Hebrews
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10:26 says there's no longer any sacrifice for sins or forgiveness possible—
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there needs to be some harmonizing on our part. The Bible's not in conflict with
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itself. There must be something special going on in Hebrews 10:26, as Neil
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mentioned, And this involves people who are living in such a way that they don't
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want God's forgiveness. But Hebrews 10:26, just as an example,
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but in a more general sense, whenever you're reading Scripture and you come across a
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passage that seems to fly in the face of everything else you've read
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and studied, especially about the character of God, it always means you need
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to go back, we need to go back and rethink our interpretation of a passage
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and make sure we're harmonizing those passages together. And maybe something unique
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or the context is being dealt with in that passage And not that God
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has somehow changed His personality and His character concerning His
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desire to forgive. Thank you. All right, Hiram,
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this next one is for you. Question number 4,
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explain 1 Timothy 2:8. What is meant by
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the lifting of holy hands? What about clapping hands
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in worship? Is the Hebrew term yada justification
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for this? And I'm sure my Hebrew is just right on there. It was spot
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on, Chris. Perfect. All right, if you got your Bible out, go ahead and turn
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to 1 1 Timothy 2:8. There are several aspects to this question, and I want
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to try to take them one by one as briefly as we can. The first
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thing is 1 Timothy 2 and verse 8. 1 Timothy— Paul tells you he wrote
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this book in chapter 3 and verse 15 so that Christians would know how to
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behave themselves in the household of God, which is the church of the living God,
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the pillar and the ground of truth. In this book where he's telling us how
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to conduct ourselves in the household of God, in 1 Timothy 2, he talks
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about how this ought to be done. And so 1 Timothy 2 1 through 4,
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Paul tells Christians who they're to pray for and why.
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He says pray for all people everywhere, government officials, so that we
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can live a quiet and peaceful life in godliness in Christ Jesus. And then
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in 1 Timothy 2:5-7, he talks about how all of this was made possible.
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Jesus is the one mediator between God and man, and in verses 6 and
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7, he gave his life as a ransom to be testified of at the proper
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time. And then our verse, in verse 8, after he says all of this,
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he says, I would that men pray everywhere lifting up holy hands without wrath
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and without doubting. In 1 Timothy 2:8, when Paul mentions this
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lifting up of holy hands, Paul's not really talking in this passage about
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a prayer posture. He's talking about the holy life
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that a person is supposed to live as they approach God in prayer. This is
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sometimes called in more technical terms a synecdoche. And maybe you don't know
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that term, but you know what a synecdoche is. It's where a part stands for
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a whole or a whole stands for a part. So say somebody is working on
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a job and the boss comes in and says, you know, we need some new
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faces around here. He doesn't really mean we need new mugs. He means what?
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We need new people. The face stands for everybody. Or suppose
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you're on a ship and somebody says, all hands on deck. They don't just mean
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the hands. They mean the totality of the person. And so in 1 Timothy 2:8,
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when Paul says, I would that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy
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hands, He's using a synecdoche. The hands represent the entire
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person, and Paul's saying, if you're going to lead in prayer as a Christian man,
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I want you to do so with a holy life, and that's symbolized primarily
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by the hands. And this is done throughout Scripture. In Psalm 24:4,
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the Bible talks about approaching God with clean hands and a pure heart.
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And in James 4:8, James says, cleanse your hands, you sinners,
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and purify your hearts, you double-minded. James doesn't mean follow the CDC
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code, wash and sanitize. When he says clean hands, he means a pure life.
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And that's what Paul's talking about in 1 Timothy 2 and verse 8.
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Now pivoting from that, in relation to holy hands in general
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though, I think this is dealing with a prayer posture. And I'll just say
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this about what the Bible teaches concerning this: there are various
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prayer postures mentioned throughout the Bible, and every time we see them, they're always
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meant to communicate something about the person approaching
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God in prayer and what they're trying to communicate. So, for example, sometimes a person
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has their face lifted up and it's symbolizing I'm looking up
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to God, dependence toward God. Psalm 121:1,
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John 17:1, Jesus prayed that way. Sometimes a person
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is on their knees and it's submission and it's suggesting help
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and worship. Acts 7:60, that's what Stephen does before
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he dies. Or a person may be laid out on the ground as Jesus
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was in Matthew 26:39, and that also also symbolizes submission
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and this idea that, God, I completely lay myself before you and I need your
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help. And then there's the posture of lifting one's hands in
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prayer, and it's a biblical prayer posture. You find it in the Old Testament,
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Psalm 134:2, Psalm 141:2,
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but also in the New Testament, Luke 24:50,
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before Jesus ascends, he lifts his hands and blesses the people
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as he does that. And so So, it is a prayer posture. It's not commanded,
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neither is it expected that everybody's going to do that. I think when you think
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about a worship service especially, congregational and cultural practice
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do matter. And so, if I'm in a place where that's not happening,
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then I don't think we ought to poke anybody in the eye and introduce something
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that would be foreign or would be a stumbling block. But I also think just
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because something's foreign to us doesn't necessarily mean it's foreign
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to Scripture. And there are different ways to raise hands. The raising of hands doesn't
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have to be straight up vertically like this. It was often done in the ancient
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world with this posture, symbolizing several things. First, there's nothing in
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my hands, nothing corrupt, nothing immoral, nothing impure.
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But secondly, and we sing a song about this,
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nothing in my hands I bring. God, I have nothing with which to recommend
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myself to you. I'm in complete need and dependence. On who you are.
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And so the lifting up of hands in prayer, it's an ancient biblical practice
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with precedent both in the Old and in the New Testament. And again, I think
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people do it today for various reasons, but we shouldn't try to impugn on the
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motives of others. We just simply have to echo what the Bible says on it.
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And the last thing, hand clapping in worship. Hand clapping in worship,
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whether you mean accompanying the singing and song or in
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response to the sermon, so far as I can tell from the New Testament,
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it is an unbiblical practice. Christians are to sing. Our worship
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is to be vocal, Ephesians 5:19 and Colossians 3:16.
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And preaching is really not a performance, a performative act where we would
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clap in applause. But if we do agree or affirm something being said
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in the sermon, the biblical response is to simply utter an affirmation
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of amen, 1 Corinthians 14 and verse 16, and that would be
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sufficient. And I don't think I can improve on Chris's Hebrew, but the
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Hebrew term yada It doesn't communicate anything about hand
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clapping in worship or praise. It often is used in the Old Testament
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explicitly for verbal praise, verbal expression
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in song or in prayer and praise toward God. So when you're talking about a
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worship service, hand clapping in worship is never
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mentioned or authorized as an accompaniment to singing. Neither is
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it a biblical response to the preaching of God's Word. Thank you,
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Neil. Okay. All right,
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Neil, you have the next one, question number 5.
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And I think this— we're all impacted by this at some point or another dealing
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with it. Is it wrong to attend church service with a friend that
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is not a Christian or with a friend that attends a denomination?
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Now, I, I grasp the, the very serious nature
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of this, and so I'm going to I thought about there,
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there are some complicated factors that one has to overcome in
24:02
order to justify doing this. And I'm going to put it in the form of
24:05
questions that I think we need to ask ourselves to help us to,
24:08
to form our decisions with regard to this. And to me,
24:12
when you put those together, it makes it very difficult for us to
24:16
answer in any way other than yes, it would be wrong. And here
24:20
are the, here are the questions I think we need to ask. Number one,
24:22
We need to ask, is it okay to go and worship God in
24:25
a way that violates his will? The Bible's very
24:29
clear on what God wants in worship, and everything
24:34
that we do in worship needs to be put through the filter of Scripture.
24:38
And if there is a place where we are going where they're going to be
24:41
violating that, where they're teaching for doctrines the commandments of men, Matthew 15:8-9,
24:46
then we should never want to be anywhere worshiping God in a way that
24:50
violates his will. Number 2, what will engaging in such
24:53
worship do in your effort to teach that how one worships God
24:58
matters? And so as I'm trying to determine this, what will my
25:02
presence there do in the ongoing effort that I'm trying to make in
25:06
order to get them to obey the gospel and simply be a New Testament
25:10
Christian? That would be a problem. Number 3, would you be going in order
25:14
to avoid an uncomfortable conversation or to avoid being seen
25:18
as judgmental or harsh. I think this is at the heart of that because none
25:22
of us want to be perceived in that way. And so this peer pressure that
25:25
we face may push us in a direction
25:29
that we know is inconsistent with what the New Testament teaches.
25:32
You think about Romans 12:1-2, we're not to be conformed
25:36
to this world, but to be transformed by the renewing of our mind so
25:39
that we may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
25:43
Not only that, but Ephesians 5:11-12, though it's talking
25:47
about moral issues there, says that we're not to have fellowship with the
25:50
unfruitful works of darkness, but rather to reprove them. And so, we're not going to
25:54
put ourselves in a place where because
25:58
we feel this peer pressure, we're going to acquiesce and do something
26:02
that we— just to avoid conflict. Number 4,
26:06
is there another way to try and show them respect for their religious convictions
26:10
or to reach common ground that does not require us to compromise God's
26:14
Word. Here's where I think we find ourselves a lot of times, and that's in
26:16
1 Corinthians 9:19-22. We want to be all
26:20
things to all men. Now, that means that there is a certain
26:24
amount of accommodation, but that accommodation ends with violating
26:29
the will of God. For example, Paul says, to those who are without law,
26:33
I became as one without law, yet not being without law, but being
26:37
under the law of Christ. So Paul says, my accommodation does
26:40
not allow me to cross lines that God has laid down in scriptures.
26:44
And then number 5, we always want to be wise and never do anything that
26:48
makes our job of reaching our lost friends harder or that creates
26:53
stumbling blocks. Our impulse is to try to reciprocate when
26:56
someone has done something for us and has come with us, but we cannot
27:00
reciprocate in a way that ever causes us to violate God's commands
27:04
in any way. And that's how I would answer that. Ira, you want to add?
27:07
I would just say, Neil talked about this at the very end. Sometimes it is
27:11
this response, it seems unfair. We want people to come with us,
27:14
and we should also be willing to go with them. And I would just say,
27:17
especially as it relates to evangelism, as Neil already mentioned,
27:21
sometimes the response is nobody has to go with anybody. Maybe they
27:24
don't go with me and I don't go with them, and I say, hey,
27:26
you don't have to violate your conscience. I don't have to violate my conscience.
27:29
We can sit down and study the Bible together. I've talked with people
27:33
and we'll say, well, I want to go to check it out so I can
27:34
point out the error. But in 2026, we can just watch
27:39
it online. I already see what you're doing in worship. You can see what we're
27:41
doing in worship. And then let's just both, as unbiasedly as we
27:44
can, try to sit down and open the Bible and study together. And so if
27:48
we can do that, we can still reach the same goal without physically being present.
27:52
And sometimes the answer is Well, maybe they don't come with me to worship,
27:55
and that's okay. That's one opportunity or method of evangelism, but it's not
27:59
the only one. We can just sit down without going to anybody's church service and
28:03
let's study the Bible and then agree to hopefully attend where the Bible is being
28:06
practiced in its fullness. Good answers. All right,
28:10
Hiram, I think you're next here.
28:15
How do we have faith that God hears our pleas for His
28:19
help? This is
28:23
a struggle as we pray, and I don't know about you, but surely there have
28:26
been times in my life praying and you just are wondering, though you're a Christian,
28:30
is anybody on the other side listening? And how can you have assurance that God
28:34
hears you? Well, there are several lines of reasoning that I'll go through.
28:37
The first is the Bible regularly and repeatedly tells Christians
28:41
to cast their cares on God, 1 Peter 5:7,
28:44
or to come before God with our anxieties and our concerns, Philippians 4:6-7.
28:49
And the Bible also affirms that when we do this and when we're righteous,
28:53
and I just take righteous to mean we belong to God and we behave like
28:57
we do. And the Bible says that the eyes of the Lord are over the
29:01
righteous and his ears are open to our prayers, 1 Peter 3:12.
29:05
Psalm 62:8 says, trust in the Lord at all times.
29:09
Pour out your heart to God. God's a refuge for us, or God is our
29:13
refuge and strength, a very present help in times of trouble. Psalm 46:1.
29:17
So the first thing is we can have faith that God hears our pleas for
29:20
his help because the Bible repeatedly tells us that he does. The Bible tells
29:25
us to pray and reminds us that God will hear and that God will help.
29:28
But secondly, I think we need to appreciate and consider what it
29:32
means to pray in the name of Jesus. So to pray in
29:36
and through the name of Jesus is not just biblically how we sign off on
29:39
our prayers. To pray in the name of Jesus means we approach
29:43
God with Jesus as our mediator. And when we approach God, yes, by Jesus's
29:47
authority and with his permission, but Jesus is going in with us
29:51
into the throne room of God and granting us divine access. And so
29:54
at the end of John's Gospel, in John 14:14,
29:58
in John 16:23, and in John 16:24,
30:02
Jesus says several times, before this you've asked nothing in my
30:06
name, but ask and you will receive so that God's joy may be fulfilled in
30:10
you. Or God wants to hear from you in prayer, and when you ask in
30:14
my name, you receive as a Christian a hearing with God previously
30:18
unknown to humanity. And then third, and I would not
30:22
discount this, how do we have faith that God hears our pleas for his help?
30:26
Because you know that God has answered you so many other times in your life.
30:29
And I don't think that's merely anecdotal. Just think about your own life and times
30:33
you've prayed to God for specific things, and God has heard,
30:37
and God has intervened, and God has helped. In 2 Corinthians chapter 1,
30:40
verses 9 through 11, Paul says, we trust in the living God who delivered
30:45
us from so great a death, who does deliver, and we've set our hope on
30:48
God that he will deliver us yet again. So Paul looked at the threefold deliverance
30:52
of God— past, present— and that gave him hope and confidence
30:56
for the future. When Jacob stood before Pharaoh in Genesis 48
31:00
and verse 15, he says, the God of my fathers Abraham and Isaac,
31:03
and the God who has been my shepherd all my life long. And every
31:08
Christian, really every person in the world in a sense, could say that. God has
31:11
been our shepherd our whole life long. So if you have any doubts about,
31:15
does God hear me and my pleas for help? Look to the Scriptures that trust
31:20
and verify that He does. Remember, you approach Him not in your own name and
31:23
confidence, but in and through the name of Jesus. And then third, just take
31:27
a look not only at all the prayers He's answered in the past biblically for
31:30
others, But in your own life, how many times have you prayed to God and
31:34
it's been made apparent, it's evident, the only way I got out of this or
31:38
the response that I received is a clear indication that God does hear,
31:41
that God does answer, even when we don't know it or appreciate
31:45
it or sometimes agree with or like the answer. In Psalm 77:19,
31:49
the psalmist says, God, your way is through the flood and through the waters,
31:54
and you are ever present with me, though your feet I see them not.
31:57
And the psalmist is saying, God, you've been right there all along,
32:01
even in the times when your presence was not readily available,
32:05
even still you were with me. And that confidence is ours
32:08
in the new covenant to a greater degree. Neil?
32:11
I'll just say 1 John 5:14 explicitly
32:16
says, this is the confidence that we have in him. If we ask anything according
32:20
to his will, he hears us. And so he's told us he's going to do
32:23
that. And just as we can count on every promise that God gives, we can
32:26
count on this one. And so, I think that's wonderful
32:29
to know. Thank you. Neil has question
32:34
number 7. God's pattern and law for marriage is
32:37
the same from the beginning. It hasn't changed. Jesus taught the same thing.
32:42
How do we answer those who bring up those who had multiple wives but
32:46
were still described as righteous, such as,
32:50
Abraham, David, Jacob, et cetera.
32:53
So there's a lot of understanding in this question that really will kind of
32:56
help the answer. I really think that the heart of this answer is in Matthew
33:01
19:3-9, where Jesus is tested by
33:05
the Pharisees and they want to know if it's lawful for a man to put
33:08
away his wife for any cause. And Jesus establishes
33:12
what God's original intent was, that from the beginning,
33:15
God made them male and female. And for this cause, a man shall leave his
33:18
father and mother and shall cleave unto his wife. And they shall be one flesh.
33:20
Well, they didn't like that answer. A lot of times folks don't like God's
33:24
answer and they want it to be broader than it is. And so they point
33:28
to the Law of Moses in which Deuteronomy
33:31
24:1-4 is being referenced that there would be a law of
33:35
divorcement, at least to free the man to be able to get married to someone
33:38
else. And there were certain restrictions in that, but it was a different
33:42
time under that law that permitted them to do so.
33:46
And even before that time, we've got to remember that God will
33:49
judge everybody that lives under the covenant in which they lived. So you think about
33:53
2 of the individuals, there was another one, I think Elkanah was on the original
33:56
question. And Elkanah and Jacob and Abraham,
34:00
Abraham and Jacob would've lived under the patriarchal age.
34:03
Elkanah and David would've lived under the Law of Moses. And in both of those
34:07
dispensations, God had this broader law that
34:11
allowed men out of the hardness of their hearts without the fullness of the revelation
34:15
we have in Christ to be able to have multiple wives or to have concubines.
34:20
There were a lot of other things that existed under those former covenants
34:24
that we would not try to press into the kingdom of Christ today. They were
34:27
going to be judged by the laws that they had and the commands that God
34:31
gave them. Whatever God permitted in the past, Jesus says,
34:35
Moses, because of the hardness of your heart, permitted it to be so.
34:38
But I say unto you, he's already taken them back to the Garden
34:42
of Eden and said, here's the original intention of God for marriage, one husband,
34:45
one wife for life. And just to remove all doubt,
34:48
he says, to be my follower, to be my disciple,
34:52
this is for everybody, whosoever we are, whatever had
34:57
been done in the past and called righteous, it's not going to be so under
35:00
the covenant of Christ. The old law, we're not under, we can't be under 2
35:04
at once, Romans 7:1-4. Christ nailed it to the cross, Ephesians 2
35:08
and Colossians 2. What we have is better, Hebrews 8:6-8.
35:12
And under our covenant, we go back to God's original design,
35:16
one husband, one wife for life, except for fornication and
35:20
death, where in those 2 circumstances, one, if they—
35:23
who they marry is permitted to be married, can be married again.
35:27
I mean, in addition to that, I would just say in reading the Old Testament
35:31
and looking at Abraham, David, and these others, every time somebody in
35:35
the Bible had more than one wife, it went terribly.
35:38
And God evidences this repeatedly. Like, it's always bad— Jacob,
35:42
David, Abraham, Solomon. And so in historical narrative in
35:46
the Old Testament, God doesn't come out and say, thou shalt not, but he does
35:49
give a sampling size and say, look at how Jacob's life went when his
35:52
2 wives were competing about who could give him the most children. Look at David's
35:56
life. Look at what happened when Abraham went outside of God's will. So Jesus in
36:00
the New Covenant, as Neil mentioned, makes this evident. But also in the Old Testament,
36:03
God repeatedly shows nobody had things go well for them
36:07
when they married multiple people and practiced polygamy.
36:10
That's good. All right, Hiram, you get the next
36:14
one. It's a rather broad question here. Can you explain the
36:18
last 10 chapters of Ezekiel, such as the new temple,
36:23
the prince, water flowing from the temple, Etc.,
36:27
but just 10 chapters.
36:29
I'll say something about the prophets
36:33
in general, and then we'll apply it to Ezekiel. So when you get to the
36:36
major prophets— Isaiah, Jeremiah,
36:39
Ezekiel, Lamentations, Daniel— the major
36:43
prophets are typically— and the minor prophets too, but let's just stick with the major
36:46
for now— they're typically doing 3 things. And I think if we get these 3
36:50
things down, it'll help clear up some of what's happening at the end of Ezekiel.
36:53
On the first hand, the prophets are typically telling God's people that because
36:57
of their sin and their idolatry, they're going into slavery— Babylonian slavery,
37:01
Assyrian slavery or captivity— and that's their punishment from God. And that's normally
37:05
pretty apparent to people that read these books. But then there are 2 additional things
37:09
being said after that slavery time period or that punishment.
37:12
Number one, after you go into the captivity, the slavery,
37:15
whether it's Babylon or Assyria, better days are coming.
37:19
God's going to restore Jerusalem. He's going to restore the temple.
37:22
Jerusalem is going to be this great and awesome place. And then in addition
37:26
to that, there are capital B better days that are coming that point past
37:30
that time period to the Messiah and to the New Covenant. And those
37:33
days are also described using the same terminology: new temple,
37:37
new priesthood. Things are going to be great. It's going to be glorious. The challenge
37:42
in reading the prophets though is that the lowercase b better days that are going
37:45
to happen in the land of Jerusalem when they come back from slavery, and the
37:49
capital B better days that are going to come in the New Covenant are often
37:53
described using the same terminology. And so the question becomes, well, which one is
37:56
the prophet talking about? And I think there are some helps that can
38:00
clear this up for us as we read. The first thing is there's this phrase
38:04
that's typically used in the prophets, and whenever you see this in the prophets,
38:07
it's normally talking about capital B better days,
38:10
Messianic time period with Jesus. When He fixes everything,
38:13
and it's the phrase, in that day. When you're reading the prophets and you
38:17
read, in that day, that's an indication that He's talking about not
38:21
in that 24-hour period, but in that Messianic age, here are the great
38:25
things that are going to happen. Then secondly, just look at the New Testament itself,
38:29
and does it say anything about the things that are taking place in the prophets
38:32
and describe the New Covenant age as fulfilling those things?
38:36
And then look at the context of the passage.
38:39
So quickly, with relation to Ezekiel in the last 10 chapters— the new
38:43
temple, the prince, the water flowing from the temple— I think when you read Ezekiel,
38:46
really chapter 40 down through 48, it becomes pretty clear that
38:50
the things Ezekiel is talking about— challenging, difficult, tedious,
38:53
no doubt— he's looking forward to New Covenant and New Testament times for
38:58
the following reasons. The temple that Ezekiel describes as being built,
39:01
if you read and study the dimensions, it was never rebuilt in the
39:05
time of Nehemiah, Ezra, and those that returned. Furthermore, it's so massive
39:09
it wouldn't fit in physical Palestine. However, it does
39:13
nearly word for word depict the very same temple that John
39:17
describes at the end of the Bible in Revelation 21 and 22. His description
39:21
of the heavenly city is nearly identical to that which Ezekiel mentions
39:26
in Ezekiel 40 through 48. On top of that, Jesus describes himself
39:29
as the temple John 2:19-22.
39:33
The flowing waters that will flow from the temple— Jesus says, I am
39:36
going to provide living water, John 4:10-14. And describes
39:40
his people as the royal priesthood, the new temple, the holy house of
39:44
God, 1 Peter 2:5-9. So the last 10
39:48
chapters of the book of Ezekiel is challenging and difficult reading, and you might be
39:51
reading this and saying, when is this happening? What is this about? If you keep
39:55
in mind that the prophets are sometimes talking about a lowercase b better days coming,
39:59
physically going to happen in Jerusalem after the slavery that happened in
40:03
the days of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Zerubbabel. But in addition to that, there's a capital
40:07
B Better Day coming in Messianic times.
40:11
You'll see that much of that points forward to the time
40:14
of Jesus Christ as the Messiah. I'll just say, the more you read the Old
40:18
Testament closely and carefully, you'll see that God really has more
40:22
Easter eggs tucked in the Old Testament than a Taylor Swift album.
40:25
I mean, God just plants all sorts of things that are going to
40:29
happen eventually that point to the time of Jesus Christ. And I think the end
40:33
of Ezekiel is no different. Thank you, Neil. You got any Taylor Swift
40:38
references you'd like to add? Who is that? No,
40:41
I was hoping you would tell me. Okay.
40:46
All right. Question number 9.
40:50
For Neil. In Romans
40:54
16:1, Paul calls Phoebe a diakonos.
40:58
How was that pronunciation? Perfect. Deacon, servant, or minister.
41:02
It is the same word he used in 1 Timothy 3:8-13.
41:05
How do we respond to those who use this passage as
41:08
biblical justification for female deacons and
41:12
claim we are ignoring it? Romans 16:1 says,
41:16
I commend to you Phoebe, our sister, who is
41:19
a servant of the church in Cenchreae.
41:23
Go ahead and read verse 2 as well. Okay. That you may receive her
41:27
in the Lord in a manner worthy of the saints and assist
41:31
her in whatever business she has need of you. For indeed,
41:35
she has been a helper of many and of myself also.
41:39
Okay. So Paul, when he gets to Romans chapter 16, has an extended
41:43
series of greetings. That begins with Phoebe and runs throughout the chapter.
41:48
And depending on if any of you are carrying an NIV,
41:51
you may see that the word deaconess is how
41:55
they translate diakonos. If you have a New American Standard
41:59
Bible, as I often use, it'll have a footnote or
42:03
a rendering there, a marginal note saying that, or deacon
42:07
or deaconess. This word diakonos is found 29
42:11
times in 27 verses. And not just with
42:14
this verse, but a word, but with any word that we're looking at, you've got
42:18
to look at how it's translated everywhere.
42:21
Instead of just focusing in on one, or in this case, 2 passages where
42:25
that word is used, and in that second passage, I think we can all agree
42:28
for reasons we'll look at in a moment that diakonos should
42:32
be translated deacons or this particular office. We've got
42:36
to look at how it's used throughout those other 27 times. 25 verses.
42:41
The word simply means, as it said there, servant and minister.
42:45
That is the more general way that it's translated. Typically,
42:48
that's how it is translated. For example, Jesus in
42:52
Matthew 20:26 and Matthew 23:11 says the same
42:55
thing, that if you want to be great, you have to be a servant.
42:59
That's the word, same word that's used right there. In John 2:5,
43:03
you have the servants at the wedding feast at Cana
43:07
who fill up the jars, the water pots. That's the
43:11
word that's used to describe them. Even in Romans 13:4,
43:14
talking about those governmental officials whom God uses,
43:17
he calls them ministers. It's the same word that's used there.
43:21
So when a word is translated throughout the New Testament, you've got
43:26
to look at the context. And all of that comes together. All the uses
43:29
of any word form what we call a semantic range. And all that
43:33
means is the full way in which the word is used. We have that in
43:36
English. This is not Taylor Swift, but how about the word dog? That's a word
43:41
we use in English, and that word has a sense in which it means a
43:44
canine, but it also can mean some other things.
43:48
To talk about somebody who's a scoundrel, some will refer to them as a dog,
43:52
using the same English word in a different way. There was a time
43:55
some years ago when it was a colloquial term for a friend
44:00
or a buddy. What's up, dog? You know, and it's the same word and it's
44:03
used in a little bit of a different way. Or you can use it to
44:06
speak of a person generally. It's a lucky dog.
44:09
Same word, there's a range.
44:12
When we get to 1 Timothy 3:8-13, to go back
44:16
to what was said a moment ago, you have the Apostle Paul laying down how
44:19
one is to behave in the household of God. He has dealt with the roles
44:23
of men, 1 Timothy 2:8, and women, 1 Timothy
44:26
2:9-15. Right on the heels of that, he gives
44:30
us qualifications for 2 official works in the
44:34
church, one being the elder in verse 1 through 7 of chapter 3, and then
44:37
for deacons in verse 8 through 13. In that
44:41
special class of qualifications, you have him saying that he is
44:45
to be the husband of one wife. It's the only list of qualifications in
44:50
the New Testament. Seems to be pointing to those who are men.
44:53
Somebody says, well, what about verse 11? Well, the word there is simply women.
44:57
You can make a stronger, stronger case that these women would be qualifications
45:01
for women who are wives of deacons, and they can't disqualify
45:05
their husbands through their behaviors, as it is to say that this is a list
45:09
of qualifications for a deacon or deaconess.
45:13
And so I think we read too much into the text, and even translators
45:17
have done that to say that this should be translated deaconess.
45:20
The way that it was read— did you read from the ESV? New King James.
45:24
New King James is a straightforward rendering
45:27
of that, a sensible translation that
45:32
she is a servant in the church in Cenchreae. Did she have some official
45:36
job that she did? It seems to be indicated not just here, but in 1
45:40
Timothy 5:10, there are women who are widows who could be placed
45:43
on the roll or the register who had done certain works
45:47
and they could be paid for those things, or at least supported
45:51
in the work that they were doing. But there's no sense in which we
45:55
should look at this and say, this is an official work, this is an official
45:59
job. And it certainly doesn't seem to synthesize
46:03
or to agree with all that the New Testament says.
46:06
But everybody who is a Christian is
46:10
to be a servant of Christ. And it would be foolish for
46:13
us to ignore that in the work of the
46:17
church in any place I've ever been and that we would ever be, that work
46:21
could not get done without the active service and work of
46:25
women, as well as men who aren't married and men who
46:28
don't have children who are serving in some capacity. You think about every
46:32
major thing that's done at Cumberland Trace, the fingerprints of
46:35
women are all over that and it would not succeed, it could not
46:38
happen without them. But as to whether she serves
46:42
in an official capacity, in an appointed way,
46:46
I think we strain to say that that's what Romans 16:1 is saying.
46:50
Okay. Hiram, any— okay. All right. Hiram, the last
46:54
one will go to you. Explain Acts
46:59
21:17-25. Were the elders in Jerusalem
47:03
condoning Jews holding to the old law even
47:07
after they sent a letter to the Gentiles telling them they
47:10
did not need to hold to the old law.
47:14
Acts 21, starting in verse 17, says, and when he
47:18
had come to Jerusalem, the brethren received us gladly. On the following day,
47:21
Paul went in with us to James, and all the elders were present. When he
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had greeted them, he told in detail those things which God had done among
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the Gentiles through his ministry. And when they heard it, they glorified
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the Lord, and they said to him, you see, brother, how many myriads of Jews
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there are who have believed, and they are all zealous
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for the law. But they have been informed about you that
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you teach all the Jews who are among the Gentiles to forsake
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Moses, saying that they ought not to circumcise their children nor to walk
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according to the customs. What then? The assembly must certainly
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meet. For they will hear that you have come. Therefore,
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do what we tell you. We have 4 men who have taken a vow.
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Take them and be purified with them and pay their expenses so that they
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may shave their heads and that all may know that those
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things of which they are informed concerning you are nothing,
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but that you yourself also walk orderly and keep the law. But concerning the
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Gentiles who believe, we have written and decided that they should observe no
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such thing, except that they should keep themselves from things offered
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to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from sexual
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immorality. Okay, Acts 21:17-25.
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Paul comes back from his 3rd missionary journey, and as he typically
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does, he goes to Jerusalem to let them know about the great things God had
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done in his travels with the Gentiles. And as Chris just read,
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they hear it, they're excited, excited, but they say, Paul, we have a problem.
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All these Jews know you're here, and it's been reported in and around
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Jerusalem that around the world you've been going around telling everybody, don't keep
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the Law of Moses, don't circumcise their children, and reject the other customs.
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And there's a sense in which Paul really said no such thing. Paul simply said
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that the Law of Moses, circumcision, etc., no longer saved
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anybody, and you couldn't appeal to those Old Testament covenant
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things for justification or for salvation. Salvation is now in and through the person of
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Jesus Christ. And they tell Paul, the way to fix this is we've got 4
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men that are under a vow, possibly the Nazarite vow of Numbers
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6. And they say, Paul, we would really like it if you pay their expenses,
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go through this sacrifice with them, and then everybody that hears about
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this will know you don't have a problem with the Old Testament law. There'll be
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peace and things will be great. If you're worried about the Gentiles. Paul, don't worry
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about that. Remember the letter we sent in Acts 15? The Gentiles
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don't have to do these things. Don't worry about it. But we really need you
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to do this. It'll go well for your evangelistic efforts while you're
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here in Jerusalem. There have been 2 major schools of thought on what is happening
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in Acts 21, and I'll let you decide for yourself. But the first is
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that these elders, James and others, did no wrong. What's happening
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here is they're applying the principle Neil mentioned earlier from 1 Corinthians 9,
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and they're asking Paul, just become all things to all men culturally,
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just go through the steps of this Old Testament sacrifice and ritual
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so that you'll be able to better reach the Jews that are in Jerusalem.
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And some people think that's exactly what Paul's doing.
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But then there are others that believe that Paul, in going
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through with this, and the elders and James that were encouraging him to do this,
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were in the wrong and were sinning because they're saying, hey Paul, we know we
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said the Old Testament that law is no longer binding, but it would really look
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good to the Jews that are in this area. And if you could just do
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this for us, it would really go great and things would end in a good
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way. And the more I read the book of Acts, the more I think the
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second of those options is true, and that the elders in the
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spirit of compromise tried to get Paul to do something that really wasn't
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in his best interest. And if you read the rest of the book of Acts,
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you'll see it didn't go well. Paul's arrested and
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riot breaks out because he's in Jerusalem and it didn't appease or it didn't help.
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I would just say this, regardless of what you think about what happened in Acts
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21, there are some lessons that even people that really know the Bible
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well— and by this time Paul had written Galatians and the book of Romans—
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even people that really know the Bible well can make big mistakes,
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even about things they previously taught, preached, and believed,
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and that every one of us needs the blood and the grace of Jesus.
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As Paul would say in Galatians 2, even Barnabas was carried away with the hypocrisy.
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And the third thing is the tension between Jews and Gentiles
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was very strong in the first century. I think sometimes we just
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read over this, but we fail to see how hard it would have been to
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be a Jewish person in the first century and not only become a Christian,
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but also to have fellowship with Gentiles and to be among your
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other Jewish kinsmen and to be able to say, I'm doing this because I believe
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it's right and because God authorized it. And you see these men,
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spiritual leaders and titans in the New Testament, struggling with
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how to go about doing this and be honoring to God, but also in
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some sense how to save face with their countrymen. And it's just a
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reminder to us that spiritual compromise is dangerous, and it's a struggle and
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temptation that we all face. And so God is merciful and gracious,
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but let's always hold to the truth, because in the end,
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compromise of a sinful nature doesn't really help us to
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win other souls and doesn't glorify God.
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Thank you, Neil.
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Thank you, man. Great job. This congregation is
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certainly blessed to have these 2 men.
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God works in a mighty way through them, and thankful, thankful for each of them.
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It's always appropriate when we do assemble together that we offer an invitation if
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someone needs to come to Christ, if someone needs to be become in
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Christ. You know, in Ephesians chapter 2,
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Paul diagnoses the human condition of all those who are outside
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of Jesus Christ. In verse 1, he diagnoses that condition
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as being dead, dead spiritually. He says, you were
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dead in your trespasses and sins. This chapter
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goes through a transformation that takes place in the life
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of all those who have obeyed the gospel. At one point, we were
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dead in our trespasses and sins. Verse 2 says, in which
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you once walked according to the course of this world,
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according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works
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in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves
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in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the
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mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as
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the others. If you have not obeyed the gospel,
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if you're not in Christ, if you have not done what we're
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told to do in Colossians chapter 2, which is a sister epistle to the
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book of Ephesians, then you still find yourself in those 3 verses.
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But there is a transformation that takes place when we obey the gospel,
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when we come to Him, starting in verse 4. And here's
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who's responsible for it. But God, but God, who is rich in
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mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,
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even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive
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together with Christ. By grace you have been saved. And raised
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us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places in
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Christ Jesus. Ephesians is about the blessings that we
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have being in Christ. If you're not in Christ,
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We invite you to come and be in Christ,
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putting Christ on in baptism. Or if you've wandered away
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and you need to come home or you need prayers, would you come right now
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as together we stand and sing?
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When the trumpet of the Lord shall sound, and time shall
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be no more, and the Lord embrace eternal life
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in bear. When the saved on earth shall