The Sin of Pride and How Do We Control It? - Ask the Pastor

You can listen to Ask The Pastor every weekday at 9:00am MST on 97.1FM Hope Radio KCMI! You can also listen and subscribe to Ask The Pastor in your favorite podcast feed. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music and most other podcast services.

This edition of Ask the Pastor features Pastors Ben Poole and Gary Schick.

Ben Poole
All right, so the question this morning, "Can you address the sin of pride? How do we get a grip on it?" So like I said, I think this is a sin that probably to some degree, we all struggle with.

Gary Schick
Amen and proud of it!

Ben Poole
Yeah, we're proud of how much humility we have! Pride is a hard one, because it can come off almost so innocently and how do we address that in our own lives? What is pride? What does the Bible have to say about pride? And so I think there's a lot that we could dig into in our short period of time. So Gary, why don't you open this up with some thoughts?

Gary Schick
I think there's also confusion based on how you use that word pride. I mean, I think there's a, what we use in our language as a healthy pride, you know? Taking pride in your work, healthy self-esteem, this is I guess what you call a right and proper, appreciation of doing your best. But what the Bible's talking about with pride is actually, self-esteem out of balance, it's self to the extreme, you know? Just the first thing that comes to my mind, that I remember learning in the old King James as a kid, the word from Proverbs, "Pride cometh before a fall." And of course, probably the greatest example of that is Satan himself, which taking from some things in Ezekiel and Isaiah, it appears that he was at one point the highest of the angels. So a healthy pride would've been, "Wow, God has placed me here. What a wonderful thing!" But that wasn't enough, he wanted to place himself above God. And that's what we do when we sin pridefully. C.S. Lewis, I believe in Mere Christianity, calls pride the cardinal or root sin. The sin that is basically at the base of all other sins, where we want our own will above what God has asked of us. That takes a certain unhealthy focus on self and an unhealthy view of yourself, kind of putting yourself in the place of God. So what's the cure to that? Well, Jesus, of course, is the cure to everything and how do we come to Jesus? We have to humble ourselves. You know, when I talk to kids about the 10 commandments, I remind them that there's two sides to every commandment, you know? Thou shall not kill, well what is that? You know, don't murder, don't kill, but what's the opposite of that, that we should be doing? We should be valuing life, you know? Honor your father and mother and respect authority. So what's the opposite of that? Don't disrespect authority. We can go through all 10 commandments. Well similarly, in the cardinal sins, there's also their counterparts, cardinal virtues. And you know like, the opposite to hate perhaps would be love. The opposite to pride would be, I believe humility. And interestingly some of these great thinkers, C.S. Lewis I think, I think he got it right, pride is at the root of all sin. Another great thinker Andrew Murray, in a book on humility, actually calls humility, let's see if I can find it, "The highest virtue and the root of every virtue." You know, Jesus modeled humility and everything. He said, "The son of man came not to be served, but to serve," He humbled Himself. In Paul's letter to the Philippians he said, "Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus, who being in very nature of God did not consider equality with God something to be grasped but made Himself nothing. Taking the very nature of a servant, He humbled himself then became obedient to death, even death on to the cross. And God has exalted him to the highest place that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow every tongue confessed that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father." So Jesus, in His total obedience to the will of the Father exemplifies a healthy humility in all of its ways. And what does the scripture say to us? "Humble yourself under the mighty hand of God and in due time He will lift you up."

Ben Poole
Yeah, this is such a huge topic, and I think that a lot of what you talked about, even what C.S. Lewis said is so true. That pride really, from my perspective, is selfishness, "It's about me." And as Christians it's everything but about me. It's supposed to be about God and about others, and that should be our hearts desire. So I just kind of looked this up. There's so many different places you can look on different topics of the Bible. One of them is openbible.info, where you can type in different themes and it'll put out, you know, like the first hundred verses of that topic. Well so I put in pride just to see, and there's well over a hundred verses that talk directly about pride and pridefulness and the sin of it. A lot of them are found in Proverbs, which is a book of wisdom, which I think we ought to be reading in pretty regularly. I just wanna read a few of these: Proverbs 11:2, "When pride comes then comes disgrace, but with the humble is wisdom." Proverbs 16:18, "Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall." Proverbs 29:23, "One's pride will bring him low, but he who is lowly in spirit will obtain honor." Jump to the New Testament, because this is also talked about in the New Testament, one that's I think really impactful, it comes out of James. That I think sometimes we don't like to talk about some of these things, because it's unpopular, uncomfortable. But this is what James 4:6 says, "But he gives more grace. Therefore Scripture says: God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble." So one thing that I strive for in my own life is, if there's pride what position is that placing in me in my relationship with God?

Gary Schick
And others.

Ben Poole
And others especially, you know? And so that realization that if I'm allowing pride to settle in my life, this is a real sin, and if I'm allowing it to settle, what does that mean? That I am in opposition to the will of God. To consider that is detrimental to the Christian to think, "I'm placing myself at odds with God." I don't know anyone who's a Christian who wants to be at odds with God. And to lose maybe the blessing of God because of selfishness and pride. And so we strive to be humble and what does that look like? And there's so many things that we could talk about there, but---

Gary Schick
Jesus.

Ben Poole
Its really yeah, what did Jesus do? He gave His life for others and we're called, you know, and I think about this even as husbands. You know, as we are to lead our family and Ephesians says, "Husbands, you are to love your wives." How? Like Christ loved the church. What did Jesus do to love the church? He gave Himself up for the church. That's how we lead our families is a sacrificial way that we would give up ourselves for the people that we love.

Gary Schick
And others, if you're in any kind of a position of power or authority, how do you view and treat those that are under your care or leadership or direction? Do you demand or do you serve? Do you lead by example or do you lead by authority and position? I tell you what, pride not only puts us out of balance, but putting us in the place of God. When we are not that, we're just vice Regents in this creation who rule under Him. But it also dries up everything that we desire, it's a love killer. Let's not forget 1 Corinthians 13, "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered." It's not proud, not self seeking. You know, in a way that definition kind of spells out what pride is. It's wanted itself, to put it in the Old King James, it puffs itself up, it puts itself first and ends up ultimately, last and alone. A lonely place to be.

Ben Poole
So you're listening to this and we're talking about pride, and you know, we don't have a whole lot of time left, but I just kind of wanna look into how do we get that? How do we get a grip on it? How do we really address, as you did touch on that, kind of at the beginning, what's the anecdote for this? Jesus. And we say that, but I wanna put some meat on that. What is that gonna look like? And I think part of it is, maybe you don't know if there's pride in your life or not. One thing that I do and I try to do regularly in my own prayer time with God is, "God, if there is sin in my life that I'm not aware of, would you help me to see it so that I can truly repent for from that?" And that's where it comes to, is this heart of, "I do not desire to be proud I want to be humble. So God, would you show me in my life where I have the sin of pride?" And then go to God in prayer and truly repent and give that up to God. And then through your daily life, I'm kind of a practical person, so I think about throughout the day, you know, one of my struggles as a Christian is anger, you know? And so I have to be really hands on with that, and really address that. And when I see a situation that I'm struggling with, that I want to be angry, I'm aware of it because it's on my mind. And I think pride or any other sin can be that way. It's in our mind, we're thinking about it and we're trying to stop Satan from having that foothold in our life that we can, "No Satan, you are not welcome here. I'm not allowing this to take place, I'm sticking with team Jesus here. You know, and I'm gonna go a different path." And sometimes, and I think pride especially, that can be really hard. Where to have that understanding that we to be like Christ and have that same mindset. That was not an easy thing, even for Jesus to do, you know? He really, you know, I think about the sacrifice He gave for the world. I mean, He was so stressed out physically as a human, nearly to the point of death already. That sweating blood was a real thing that took place, and it means that your body was so distraught that it's near death from the stress. And so I'm not saying that that's where we're at, but I'm understanding that God is full of grace, thankfully, and He sees that. But we need to understand that we're not called to live this easy life, the stress-free life. We're living a life of sacrifice, but for the glory of God.

Gary Schick
Yeah, and you know, I think of the beatitudes, and they focus on humility. And, you know, the very first, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, theirs is the kingdom." So a confession to God, "Lord, you know what, pride, It is at the core of my sin, the old sinful nature. And I can't fix that, so I just ask you to do what I can't, make me aware." We have to humble ourselves to come to Christ and we need to continually humble ourselves to say, "And Christ do your work in me." I think focusing on the virtues that come from a Christ-centered life, you know, the fruits of the spirit, praying for those and focusing on those. I think, again Paul's words in Philippians finally brought us "Whatever is true, noble, right, pure." Friendship building, well spoken, virtuous, praiseworthy, think about these things. And then, you know, I think there was some real wisdom in old Martin Luther. He would actually pray through the 10 Commandments and he'd just say, "Lord, where is something else God, in my life besides you? Where have I misused your name? Where am I, you know, not respecting others? Where am I lusting? Where am I coveting?" Where, you know, he would work through, and then finally don't ever forget the greatest, "Lord in what ways am I failing to love you and my neighbor?" God will show you the pride in places and the places of sin in your life. When you do the work to declare your need for Him, when you put your focus on the virtues, and when you physically pray through the Commandments, and let Him do the weeding. Don't be so proud that you think you can do this by yourself.

Ben Poole
Yeah, and I think I wanna close with that before we pray out of here, but I kind of give it as a warning, but kind of just a realization. If you're gonna pray to God, which you should, and you're asking Him to reveal some things, or show some things, be prepared to listen. You know, be prepared to listen and then be obedient because He's not gonna lead you down a path that He doesn't want you on. He's gonna lead you down the right one, but we need to be able to hear, listen, and obey.

What's New at Cross Reference Library?

When Angels Fight - Leslie King was only 15 years old when she was trapped in a life of prostitution. She became one of the thousands of sex-trafficked individuals in the United States, often invisible to “regular” people who know nothing of the seedy underside of that life. Sold by men who promised love but delivered only heartache and caught in drug addiction to escape from the pain, Leslie’s life offered little future hope. Then God spoke. And Leslie answered his call, putting all her trust in God to deliver her. She got clean, got off the streets, and started rescuing other prostituted individuals. Today Leslie is a passionate and heroic advocate for trafficked women and girls in her community and across the country. More than a gritty, no-holds-barred deliverance story, When Angels Fight also includes stories from those Leslie has encountered in her work—police officers, judges, and other advocates and activists. Leslie also arms you with what you need to fight alongside her to make a difference in your own community. Walk this hard road with her, and you’ll grieve, you’ll be empowered—and you’ll never be the same. 

Twelfth Prophecy -  Life is fraught with danger in the village of Sychar in first-century A.D. But for Abigail, the Samaritan woman, the danger lies not as much from the ever-present Roman soldiers but from the rabbi and the people of Sychar. A woman of renowned beauty, whose reputation was tarnished at an early age, Abigail is pregnant … and the father is not her elderly husband, Zakane. While protecting her lover’s name, believing he will spirit her away, Abigail is imprisoned, then nearly stoned by her neighbors. She’s befriended by the beggar Leah, but even the beggars, the lowest of the low, don’t want her around. Abigail longs for love, kindness, a home for her soon-to-arrive baby … and forgiveness for her anguished soul. The answers will come from the most unlikely places. 

The Copper Scroll - On June 1, 1956, the New York Times broke a story that captured the imagination of the world. Another Dead Sea Scroll had been found, unlike any before it, describing unimaginable treasures worth untold billions buried in the hills east of Jerusalem and under the Holy City itself. In the years that followed, scholars came to believe that THE COPPER SCROLL COULD BE HISTORY’S GREATEST TREASURE MAP, one that could not only lead to the treasures but pave the way to the building of the Third Jewish Temple. But the scroll’s code has never been broken, and experts from all sides warn that any effort by Israel to rebuild their Temple in Jerusalem would unleash a war of biblical proportions. Now, exactly fifty years after the Copper Scroll was unveiled, New York Times best-selling author Joel C. Rosenberg takes you on his most exciting and heart-pounding ride yet. 

• Saddam Hussein is gone.

• Yasser Arafat is dead.

• A New Iraq is rising. 

Now White House advisors Jon Bennett and Erin McCoy find themselves facing a terrifying new threat triggered by an ancient mystery.   

As I look back, I sometimes wonder what God had in mind. My childhood wasn’t peaceful, safe, or calm as I experienced trauma after trauma. Yet I also see God’s hand.

— Leslie King

What is the Israel of God? - Ask the Pastor

You can listen to Ask The Pastor every weekday at 9:00am MST on 97.1FM Hope Radio KCMI! You can also listen and subscribe to Ask The Pastor in your favorite podcast feed. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music and most other podcast services.

This edition of Ask the Pastor features Pastors Gary Hashley and Brad Kilthau.

Brad Kilthau
And Gary, as one of these questions were sent in by our listeners, it reads this way. It says, "Can you explain what Paul is talking about in Galatians 6:16 when he talks about the Israel of God," and I'm gonna read that verse. And then I'm gonna turn it over to you, Gary, and to see what your thoughts are. But the verse reads this way, "And as many as walk, according to this rule, peace and mercy, be upon them. And upon the Israel of God." And this term, Israel of God, seems to have really got a hold of our listener who is asking about what this means.

Gary Hashley
Well to start with, we should begin with that statement about, who follow this rule. And if you look at what Paul's been talking about, he's talking about, that salvation is found in the Lord, Jesus Christ. He talks up in verse 12 about the cross of Christ, and he talks later about not boasting in your flesh. But he emphasizes the need for faith, and we know that it is faith that saves. And so the rule he's talking about is the truth of the gospel. It's not like, you know, "Do this physical act, bring an offering, whatever, and you're saved." Or you know, I'd say, "It's not be baptized and you'll be saved or take communion and you'll be saved," but it's believe on the Lord, Jesus Christ and thou shall be saved. But yeah, the part that the question entails is the last three words, Israel of God, question being, what is he talking about when it comes to the Israel of God? And part of this hinges upon another word, just prior to that, which seems like a word you don't pay a lot of attention to, it's just a connective word. I'm reading from the ESV, the English standard version, "Mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God." We've talked in the past on this program about the inspiration of scripture and that we believe in the verbal plenary inspiration of scripture. Verbal, we believe the actual words that were written down by Moses or by Isaiah or by the apostle Paul, the very words they wrote, God superintendent, that those were the words that they used. Plenary has to do with the fact that all of the words, not just some of the words, not just the ones that seem like spiritual words, but all of the words were inspired. And we always like to make sure we give this little explanation. And that is in the original theological term, the original autographs or the actual copy that Isaiah wrote or Ezekiel wrote, or Matthew wrote or Paul wrote. Well in this particular verse 16 of chapter six of Galatians, "Mercy, be upon them, and upon the Israel of God," it's just a little three letter Greek word, Kai. And the question being, how is that to be translated? Because that word technically can be used in more than one way. If you have a New International Version that you like to read from, the word you find isn't 'and' it's 'even.' So it would be read, "Mercy be upon them, even upon the Israel of God," making that the same, but my ESV and the New American Standard and others, "Mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God." So that makes a whole change in how you would understand that. Is it them even the Israel of God or them and the Israel of God? And I must say that I agree with the scholars who did the New American Standard and who did the English standard version. That the context and all makes sense, that it's 'and' be upon them 'and' upon the Israel of God. So there are those who say, "Well, you know, what are we talking about here? Are we talking about the Israel of God being everybody who knows Jesus? Are we saying the Israel of God are Jewish people who've come to truly know Jesus as their personal savior? Or are we talking about the Israel of God is the church today? And saying then that the church now is Israel, that the Israel of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the Israel of crossing the Red Sea and at Mount Sinai. And the walls of Jericho falling down and the Israel with a king like David and a king like Solomon, that they were totally thrown away by God. And the church today is slipped into that spot. And we are now the Israel of God, thus saying the promises to Israel now are promises to me, promises to you if you know the Lord Jesus as savior. So if you go along with the NIV, "Mercy be upon them, even the Israel of God," you might come to the conclusion. Then we're talking about Israel of God, are believers in the church age. And we are now Israel, but I would go along with those who say, we're talking about mercy be upon them and upon the Israel of God. And if you remember, there's a spot in Romans where the apostle Paul says, "You know, not everybody who is a blood descendant of Abraham, is a spiritual descendant of Abraham." That there are those who are Jews simply because of their genetics, but there are also those who are children of Abraham in the sense that they are also not only just genetically Jewish. But they are people of faith, like Abraham was a man of faith. So that there are Jewish people who come to know the Lord, Jesus Christ, and even today with Israel set aside and Gentiles grafted in, as Paul wrote in Romans, to the faith. Yet there are Jewish people coming to faith today, and yet someday it says all Israel will be saved. But right now there are Jewish people who realize Jesus is Messiah putting their faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. So my conclusion is, and I'm not sure where Brad's going because we didn't discuss this before we started. But my conclusion is, he's talking about those who are Gentiles, who know Jesus, them and upon the Israel of God, Jewish people who have come to know the Lord Jesus Christ as their personal savior from sin. So it makes a difference. Is it the word 'and' or is it the word 'even' Bradley?

Brad Kilthau
You're gonna find Gary, that my thoughts on this are not anywhere away from what you're sharing. I mean, we're pretty much on the same thought. Kind of, when I was reading through this and thinking about what to share with our listeners about the Israel of God, that is shared in this verse. You know, it seems like in the church, we've always tried to categorize people who come to our worship services. And one of the things I found, is that years ago the Methodist church registers once contained three columns of people who would attend their worship services. You could either be considered a seeker or one who's saved or one who is sanctified. And so they would actually make this register and put your name in one of those columns after you attended church on that Sunday. So I guess it kind of, they must have had some special insight into the heart of people that other people don't have. But, you know, there's obviously always been this thought to categorize people, and I think this is one of the things that's being addressed here in the church of Galatia, by the apostle Paul. And I think he's addressing these legalists who are trying to put something upon the congregants of the church. And the argument I think that they were trying to express here is that, they had a form of legalism that had to be done in order for a person to go into heaven. And so these Judaizers, as we would call them in Bible school, I think had two columns. They had those who were legalists and going to heaven, and those who were not legalists and weren't going to heaven. They were trying to force these legalistic things upon the people. And I think it's very clear, is when you look at verse 15 it says, "If we're in Christ, neither circumcision or uncircumcision avails anything, but a new creation." And so he was getting after these Judaizers who were always trying to put their rituals upon the Gentiles, and especially the Jewish ritual of circumcision. And so I believe this term is really the apostle Paul, who's kind of putting the leather to these guys, and he's making a charge against them for their false teaching. Their doctrinal deviation, their unworthy motive, because I think their motive that Paul's getting after here is really bragging rights. And that's really the motive of what most people would do when it comes to legalism, is they put legalistic requirements upon people, so they can brag. And I don't know, maybe the picture here is that when these Judaizers returned to Jerusalem and they got up in their missionary conference meetings and they got to stand up in front of all the people, they could say, "Well we traveled far and wide, and we've got all of these scallops to show for our efforts," or something like that, I don't know. But you know, it's really a great warning in application, I think for us as ministers and those who serve in the ministry today. And it's a challenge for us to make sure that we keep the gospel pure, but also that we keep our motives pure in the ministry. It's very tempting for those in the ministry to get together, have bragging sessions about the statistics that are going on in their church. And you know, sometimes we'll tip our hat obviously and say, "Well it was God, it was the good Lord that made it happen." But then we get to sit back and dwell in the limelight for ourselves, and we have to be careful that we don't fall into this. And the truth is, no one can really escape this temptation fully, because pride is one of those tender boxes that just so easily can go off in the heart of people on this side of eternity. Cause right now we are not perfectly conformed in the image of Christ, that will not happen until we get to heaven. And so we have to have this antidote, I think for this poison of pride, and that is, you know, self crucifixion of the flesh. We have to do that everyday and make sure that our motives are never prideful. And you know, I think it's kind of ironic that we're talking about this right now too, at this time of the year, because we have our church annual meetings that usually come up at the fiscal part of the new year. And we make up our annual reports and we got to be careful that we don't make these reports into bragging about our churches, or bragging about our self efforts, or bragging about these statistics that we have. We've got to make sure that we keep pride out of the ministry. And so I think that's what Paul's done here, is he set the stage in these verses with addressing these Judaizers in the church at this time. And he's saying, "Guys, there's only two categories, but there's these two categories are this way. There is the new creation, and there are those who are trying to add on to their old religion, adding salvation onto their old religion." We know that those are part of the new creation we're a new creation in Christ. We're totally new, and it comes about by faith alone in Jesus Christ. But there are always those who seem to want to add onto their old religion. That is, "Well, we'll believe in Jesus, but we're gonna keep our old rituals and our old religion. And that has to be done too, and they make the two try to come together." Now we have to make sure that we are part of the new creation because it's only about Christ and it's only about Him and His work. This new creation, it's not an improvement, it's not an addition to our old, but it's something entirely new. And so I think when he uses this term, the Israel of God, he's trying to point out something to these Judaizers. And he's trying to very pointedly say, "I'm talking about those who put their faith and trust in Jesus," not only as a Gentile and a Jew, which is the general church, but he's making an address to the Jews are born by nature, and a birth of being a Jew. And those who also accepted Jesus Christ as their Messiah. That's the Israel of God, Jews who are saved. And so again, he's taken a leather to those guys who are trying to obscure the gospel here, because the true is, as he shares here. There's no real peace and mercy for those who want to walk under the law, there's only peace and mercy for those who are part of the new creation and that's through Christ and Him alone.

Gary Hashley
And, you know, there are those who differ on this. I love reading Bob Utley's commentaries and he says, "It is, the church is the Israel of God." And I'm not gonna break fellowship because I don't agree with him, but I think it's not simply talking about the church. In fact, another author talks about the fact that, you know, Israel of God, that if we say this time, the word Israel of God refers to the church, this author says, "But the other 65 occurrences of the term, Israel in the New Testament refer to Jews." So why would there be 66 times? The word is there 65 times, it refers to people who are genetically Jewish, and one time that it's the church. I mean, I used to teach in Bible college that, if the plain sense makes common sense, seek no other sense. And if 65 times is talking about national Israel, those who are Jewish by blood, that is probably talking about those who are Jewish by blood here, put their faith in Jesus.

What's New at Cross Reference Library?

Kiss - Let me tell you all I know for sure. My name: Shauna. I woke up in a hospital bed missing six months of my memory. In the room was my loving boyfriend—how could I have forgotten him?---my uncle and my abusive stepmother. Everyone blames me for the tragic car accident that left me near death and my dear brother brain damaged. But what they say can’t be true—can it? I believe the medicine is doing strange things to my memory. I’m unsure who I can trust and who I should run from. And I’m starting to remember things I’ve never known. Things not about me. I think I’m going crazy. And even worse, I think they want to kill me. But who? And for what? Is dying for the truth really better than living with a lie? 

Burn - Janeal has long felt trapped in her father’s Gypsy culture. Then one night a powerful man named Salazar Sanso promises her the life she longs for—if she will help recover a vast sum of money tied to her father. When the plan implodes, Sanso and his men attack the gypsy settlement and burn it to the ground. During the blaze, Janeal is faced with a staggering choice. The impact of that moment changes her forever. As her past rises from the ashes, Janeal faces a new life-or-death choice. And this time, escape is not an option.  

Obsessed - Stephen Friedman is making a good living in good times. He’s just an ordinary guy, or so he thinks. But one day an extraordinary piece of information tells him differently. It’s a clue from the grave of a Holocaust survivor. A clue that makes him heir to an incredible fortune…a clue that only he and one other man can possibly understand. That man is Roth Braun, a serial killer who has been waiting for Stephen for thirty years. Roth was stopped once before. This time nothing will get in his way. Known worldwide for page-turning, adrenaline-laced thrillers, Dekker raises the stakes in this story of passion, revenge, and an all-consuming obsession for the ultimate treasure. 

Being scared. Horror book and film fans love experiencing that feeling. But when it comes down to people like me, and I’m practically a wimp, the idea of a bloodthirsty psychopath running the streets with a butcher knife or even making ridiculous demands of their victims, always makes me uneasy. In many of those books, the characters rarely ever have any hope or any awareness of a loving God. And that is how author Ted Dekker is different from other authors who write Thrillers. Beneath all the fear, occasional blood, and bloodthirsty psychopaths Ted Dekker makes sure to slip a deeper meaning into all of his books. He keeps his Christian values embedded in his work, but also makes it a challenge for his readers to try and look for that hope and love. In the selections Kiss and Burn the main characters both feel like outsiders in their own families. When Shauna loses her memory, she is constantly wondering if she really did want to hurt her brother in that crash, or if everyone was just accusing her wrongly. All while in the beginning of Burn, Janeal is realizing that the Gypsies make their living by conning people out of their money. In both scenarios they find themselves doubting what they believe in (or even what they might have believed, in Shauna’s case). Through their constant struggle, Shauna and Janeal hope for something better for their lives. Something to put their faith in, that won’t leave or forsake them. Wouldn’t it be great if they realized that they have a Father that cares about them a thousand times more than their earthly fathers did? Maybe they wouldn’t have felt so scared and alone for a majority of their stories, if they had known that unfailing love. In Obsessed Dekker’s challenge is for us to ask ourselves, “What obsession lies deep within each character? What are the pros and cons of these obsessions?” According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary, the word obsession means, “A state in which someone thinks about something constantly.” For example, the character Roth Braun was obsessed for thirty years over getting the journal back. The journal that gave him the power he desperately wished to wield in his violent way of life. With that in mind I have my own challenge for whoever is reading this post. Ask yourself these questions, “What is my obsession, and is it good or bad for my life? More importantly, do I think about Jesus constantly? Is what He did for me on the cross forever a reminder in my life? Am I obsessed with my faith, and does it show?” Please come on down to the Cross Reference Library and check out these heart-racing novels.

Do I have to keep the Law to keep my Salvation? (Eternal Security and the Book of Galatians)

“I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh?”

— Galatians 3:2-3 NIV

Many Christians feel they have to consistently follow a to-do list like the Ten Commandments or God will take away their salvation. They live in constant fear that they will inevitably make a mistake and God will cast them away. 

The Jewish Christians in Galatia were being tempted with this same mentality. They had grown up in the Jewish culture where they had to follow all the laws and traditions set in place in the Old Testament. And even though they had accepted Jesus as the Messiah, they were struggling with the idea that they no longer had to follow the Mosaic Law in order to be right with God. 

In Galatians 1:6-9 Paul explains the reason he is writing to the churches of Galatia:

Galatians 1:6-9 (NIV) I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse! As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God’s curse!

These verses bring up two questions: What is the Gospel Paul preached? And, how were people perverting that Gospel?

What is the Gospel Paul preached?

The answer to this question is thoroughly illustrated in the Old Testament and repeated over and over again throughout the New Testament, but Paul also answers it in Galatians 2:15-16:

Galatians 2:15-16 (NIV) …a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified.

(For more information about the Gospel see: “How can I explain the Gospel to my friends?” and, “How does God decide if we’ve been good enough to get into Heaven?”)

How were people perverting the Gospel?

The Galatians were being told by false teachers that in order for the Gentiles to truly become and stay children of God, they would need to start following the Jewish traditions which include, but are not limited to, the Mosaic Law.

Let’s take a look at how God used Paul to address this issue:

Paul starts Galatians off by giving his credentials. He reminds them that he used to be one of the best at following the Jewish traditions and laws.

Galatians 1:13-14 NIV For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it. I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers.

There was nobody more zealous about Judaism than Paul, nobody with more bragging rights. But then Paul met Jesus on the road to Damascus and everything changed (Acts 9:1-19; Acts 22:6-21; Acts 26:12-18). Paul was shown the truth of the Gospel that day and he accepted Jesus as the Messiah. Then God sent him into the world to preach among the Gentiles.

Acts 26: 15-18 NIV “Then I asked, ‘Who are you, Lord?’

“‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,’ the Lord replied. ‘Now get up and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen and will see of me. I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’

In Galatians 2 Paul begins to address the Galatians’ desires to enforce their old traditions by using circumcision as an example from the Jewish covenants (Genesis 17:10-13). He explains that not even Titus (a Gentile and fellow preacher of the Gospel) had felt compelled to get circumcised (Galatians 2:3). Paul goes on to explain that the idea that Gentiles who had accepted Jesus as their Savior needed to also be circumcised, came from false teachers.

Galatians 2:4-5 NIV This matter arose because some false believers had infiltrated our ranks to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus and to make us slaves. We did not give in to them for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you.

Paul is saying that Christ’s sacrifice on the cross gives believers freedom from their sins and from the conviction of the Law. If they allowed themselves to be put back under the rules of the Law it would be like becoming slaves again.

Paul goes on to explain that forcing Gentiles to follow the Jewish Laws and being ashamed of them for not following the Laws, is hypocritical. 

Galatians 2:11-14 NIV When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray.

When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in front of them all, “You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?

Paul was claiming that the Jewish Christians knew that salvation comes through faith in Jesus and that they no longer had to follow the Law. Yet, they were still shamefully holding the Gentiles to the standard of the Law.

Galatians 2:15-16 NIV “We who are Jews by birth and not sinful Gentiles know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified.

This, of course, leads to the following question: “If we don’t enforce the Law, are we encouraging sin?” Paul foresees this question and explains:

Galatians 2: 17-21 NIV But if, in seeking to be justified in Christ, we Jews find ourselves also among the sinners, doesn’t that mean that Christ promotes sin? Absolutely not! If I rebuild what I destroyed, then I really would be a lawbreaker.

For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!

Does refusing to hold ourselves to the standard set by the Law make us sinners? No, we already were sinners, the Law simply pointed out our sin. It is impossible for humans to follow the Law perfectly, which means following the Law was never the path towards Salvation. The Law was only there to show us how far we had fallen and to convince us we needed help. The Law was set in place to lead us to Christ. 

Furthermore, after the Law leads us to Christ, we are meant to be done with it. It has finished its job and cannot help us with our walks with God. We are meant to live our Christian lives by faith and grow in our walks with God through grace. The Law brings guilt and shame, but God wants us to use grace and faith to follow Him.

Galatians 3:1-14 NIV You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh? Have you experienced so much in vain—if it really was in vain? So again I ask, does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you by the works of the law, or by your believing what you heard? So also Abraham “believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”

Understand, then, that those who have faith are children of Abraham. Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed through you.” So those who rely on faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.

For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse, as it is written: “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.” Clearly no one who relies on the law is justified before God, because “the righteous will live by faith.” The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, it says, “The person who does these things will live by them.” Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole.” He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.

Our salvation and the lives which follow are BOTH accomplished through faith in Christ, not through works of the Law. Christ rescued us from the curse of the Law, He does not want us to bring that curse back into our relationship with Him. All He wants is our faith.

Paul explains further by pointing out in Galatians 3:15-22 that God’s promise to Abraham came before the Law anyway. And since it came before the Law it was not replaced by the Law and it is not dependent on the Law. 

Galatians 3:17-18 NIV What I mean is this: The law, introduced 430 years later, does not set aside the covenant previously established by God and thus do away with the promise. For if the inheritance depends on the law, then it no longer depends on the promise; but God in his grace gave it to Abraham through a promise.

God always keeps His promises, and nothing we do could cause God to break a promise. God is not so weak or feeble of character that we as humans can stop Him from keeping His word.

Galatians 3:23-29 NIV Before the coming of this faith, we were held in custody under the law, locked up until the faith that was to come would be revealed. So the law was our guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith. Now that this faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian.

So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

Just like Abraham before us, it is faith that makes us righteous. Being under the law made us slaves to the law, but Christ took our place by being born under the law and defeating the law. Jesus freed us from slavery and made us children of God. 

Galatians 4:4-10 NIV But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship. Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir.

Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods. But now that you know God—or rather are known by God—how is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable forces? Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again? You are observing special days and months and seasons and years! I fear for you, that somehow I have wasted my efforts on you.

Once we accept Jesus’s payment for our sins we become adopted as children of God. Trying to obey the law after becoming saved through faith, is like inheriting a tax-exempt, amazing new home which you could have never afforded, but deciding to go sleep out on the streets again until you can earn enough money to buy the house for yourself. This would be foolish and prideful. Christians are children of God and God wants us to confidently live under the “roof” and security which He has provided. Why would anyone want to go back to how life was before becoming a child of God?

Jesus suffered and died so that we could be free. If we foolishly decide to keep trying to be made right with God by obeying the law, we need to understand that we will be made responsible for keeping the entire law, and that is impossible. 

Galatians 5:1-6 NIV It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law. You who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. For through the Spirit we eagerly await by faith the righteousness for which we hope. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.

We cannot rely on both Christ’s sacrifice, and on following the law. Grace cannot be earned, it is the unmerited and freely given favor of God. Trying to follow the law, is trying to earn God’s grace. It is illogical and foolish to try to earn something which, by its very nature, is given to those who are unable to earn it. If we insist on earning our own way to Heaven and to being sanctified we are turning down God’s grace, alienating ourselves from Christ. And without Christ, we will fail. 

John 14:6 NIV Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

God’s grace, given to us through Christ’s sacrifice, is the only hope we have at being accepted by God and we attain this acceptance by faith, not by works.  

Trying to follow the law doesn’t make anyone righteous, all it can do is point out how terrible we are. Jesus set us free from the guilt the law brings. We should live our lives basking in that freedom, grateful that we will not be judged by God for how inadequate we are at following the law.

Paul finishes up his letter to the Galatians by claiming the only reason people were insisting on following the law was so that they would look good outwardly to other humans. He says they were scared of being persecuted for relying on Christ’s sacrifice and just wanted to disguise themselves to look more like the world around them. 

Galatians 6:12-15 NIV Those who want to impress people by means of the flesh are trying to compel you to be circumcised. The only reason they do this is to avoid being persecuted for the cross of Christ. Not even those who are circumcised keep the law, yet they want you to be circumcised that they may boast about your circumcision in the flesh. May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is the new creation. Peace and mercy to all who follow this rule, even to the Israel of God.

When the book of Galatians is read in context as one complete letter, it is obvious that God does not want Christians to place themselves back under the law. The law was fulfilled by Christ’s sacrifice on the cross and its only job in the lives of Christians was to point us to Christ for salvation. Trying to follow the law after we have accepted Christ’s payment for our sins will only stunt our growth as Christians. We cannot grow in grace, faith, and love if we are living under fear, shame, and judgment.  

1 John 4:18 NIV There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

Hebrews 4:16 NIV Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. 

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Recommended Reading: “Disciplined by Grace” by J.F. Strombeck, “This insightful and practical book demonstrates that the Christian life is to be lived the same way it began at salvation―all by God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ.”

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This series of blog posts titled, “Holding on to Reason”, is named after Amanda’s favorite C.S. Lewis quote: “Faith is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods.”

Click here for more things written by Amanda Hovseth.

How Were The Scriptures Written? - Ask the Pastor

You can listen to Ask The Pastor every weekday at 9:00am MST on 97.1FM Hope Radio KCMI! You can also listen and subscribe to Ask The Pastor in your favorite podcast feed. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music and most other podcast services.

This edition of Ask the Pastor features Pastors Ben Poole and Gary Schick.

Ben Poole
So last week, if you tuned in, we were talking about different ways people interpret scripture and how it came to those who wrote it down. And we kind of came to a point near the end of our discussion, talking about where the Bible came from, and how that works out into our lives. How can we trust it? Do we take a blind faith to what the Bible says about all these different things? How do we know that the scriptures are true? And so we thought, at least for this week and maybe more, we'll just see where the conversation takes us. But talking more about how we got the Bible and how that plays out into our lives. So I'm gonna hand it over to Gary.

Gary Schick
Well, and yeah, I thought it was a fun conversation last week and you know, the scripture gives us some hints. I mean, like I mentioned last week in Peter's letter, he talks about how people did not just basically write down whatever they wanted, they were carried along by the holy spirit. And we talk about where Paul writes to Timothy, "All scripture is God breathed, it comes from God." So this is what scripture says about itself, but how do we know it's true? And so I just wanted to dwell on that a little bit today because yes, we take God's word by faith, but it is not a faith without evidence. It is a well-founded faith. It is a faith that basically to my mind, it takes more faith to not believe the scriptures than to believe them. And I say that for several reasons, there is both internal evidence in the Bible that shows me that it really is truly God's word and there is external evidence. And so I just want to click off some of the evidences for scripture. First of all, if the Bible really is God's word, what would we expect? We would expect that it actually claims to be so, right? And no kidding. The Bible does claim to be so, over and over again, there are phrases like, "The word of the Lord came," or "The Lord said," and these are things that don't just happen now and then. This kind of, "The word of the Lord came," or "The Lord says," shows up no less than 3,808 times in the Old Testament alone.

Ben Poole
That's impressive.

Gary Schick
Yeah, I mean, I guess you could write a fictional book where in it you say, "The Lord said," so that doesn't actually prove that it's God's word. But if it's God's word, you would expect it to say so and tada, less than almost 4,000 times, 3,808 in the Old Testament, it says, God said. And then you have things like fulfilled prophecy. And I know there are other quote-on-quote scriptures in the world or books that claim to be scripture, but this is really unique to the Bible. Where you have, for example Micah 5:2, the Savior's gonna be born in Bethlehem and then you move onto Luke 2, Jesus is born in Bethlehem and we hear the story on how he gets there. Now Jesus has no control over where He's born. Did it just so happen that He was born in Bethlehem? And you know, that's gonna be of course the argument of people. Well, yes, there's some coincidental fulfillments. Oh no. Oh, over and over and over again in scripture, we read about these fulfillments and not just in Jesus' life. I mean, in the Old Testament, it's such a long book, I mean, it takes over 1500 years to write it. You have these early prophecies of other things that are gonna happen, and you read later on in the Old Testament how these things happen. And not just, sometimes they're within the same book, like the Lord said to the king, "You're gonna win or lose in battle today," and it happened that day. But there's other ones like, you know, when Jericho fell there was a prophecy about what would happen if anybody ever rebuilt it. And several books later, generations later, unrelated people later, it happens. And then in the life of Jesus, I don't have it right in front of me, but even for Him to have fulfilled a fraction of the number of prophecies that relate to Him, the statistics against it happening are gazillion to one. I mean, it's just impossible. And Jesus didn't fulfill a handful of prophecies about the Messiah, He fulfilled all of them. And there are many prophecies. So this one about fulfilled prophecy, that's kind of a big deal. And then you just have the, I guess you wanna say, the continuity of scripture. It really reads kind of like a story from beginning to end, and so what do you need to do that? Well, you need an author, right? I mean, whoever heard of a committee coming up with anything cohesive. And look at the Bible, we're not talking about a committee, we are talking about 40 different writers from all walks of life. Shepherds, kings, farmers, just all walks of life, they lived on three different continents, Africa, Asia, Europe. I mean, they were in different places. Three different languages over a period of 1,600 years with all the changes in people's viewpoint and understanding of how you do life over that kind of a period of time. And yet they come up with a single storyline, and it works from beginning to end. Forty writers, three continents, three languages, 1600 years. And in the Old Testament Christ is coming and in the New Testament He has come and He's coming again. And, you know, Hebrews 1:1-2 kind of talk about, you know, in the past our forefathers, you know, they got the word in various forms, but in our day, Jesus has come. And so we even see why this story has an endpoint because Jesus is the endpoint of scripture. And then God promises, His word is gonna accomplish what it promises. Isaiah 55:10-11, "My word will not come back forth," and it does accomplish. God promises His word will not pass away, Matthew 5:18. Matthew 24: 35, "And His word has not passed away." So there's a lot of internal evidence that God's word is a unique book, that it really is God's word, but then you don't even have to look in the Bible, you can just look at the Bible from the outside. You have the evidence of history, it's not just the Bible that talks about the person of Jesus. There are Roman historians who were not Christians, who reference this man Jesus, who was crucified under Pontius Pilot. His followers said he was raised from the dead. So, you know, does it say one way or another whether Jesus rose again, we could go off, just have a whole conversation about proofs for the resurrection of Jesus. The evidence is, there is early historical evidence from outside of the Bible. Jesus lived, Jesus was a teacher and a healer, He was crucified under a specific Pontius Pilot. And His followers said, "Yup, He rose from the dead." There's sociological evidence, I guess you could call it, there's some things going on in Genesis that just seem weird to us. In terms of, what do you do if you can't have a child? And so Abraham does some things where his wife Sarah gives him her maid servant, and we would go, "Wait a minute." But that was actually common at that particular time in history that Abraham was identified with. We didn't know that until they started, archeologically digging up documents from the era of the Galileans, where Abraham grew up. And oh, some of this stuff that we never could figure out why this was happening it wasn't part of God's plan, but Abraham tried some things that were sinful, but it was common in the culture. And over and over again, the archeological evidence, archeology, you know, there's people would say, "Well, of course the Bible's not true. It says there's a town there and there's no town there." Archeologists start digging with a shovel, guess what they find, they find the town. So there's archeological evidence, there's historical sociological evidence, there's historical evidence. And then there's the manuscript evidence, you know, nobody questions, the writings of Homer, Aristotle, Socrates, or Plato. We have a handful of copies and they're very late. Like Plato lived here and the earliest copies from thousands of years later. We have from the New Testament, I mean, there's a scrap of John that's from, could have been written while John was still alive. We have thousands of copies over and over again, and you can put them all together and you know, is there an error or a change in spelling on a name or something here and there? Yeah. But has there ever been found anything that makes a difference in what we believe? No, probably the biggest question wasn't about the New Testament, it was for a long time about the Old Testament, because the oldest copy that we had of the Old Testament was a thousand years after the time of Jesus. I think it's called Leningrad Codex which is over in Russia. And so people would say, "Well, yeah, that's the Old Testament as we have it now, but what was it really like before Jesus?" Well, then they dug something up called the dead sea scrolls and these things go back what, 2 to 400 years before, or 200 years before Jesus. And so all of a sudden they're reading the Isaiah scroll and they're comparing it to the Leningrad Codex, more than a thousand years later. In a whole chapter, they may find one slight variation in a three letter word, and again, the meaning has not changed at all. And there's a reason for that, the Jews, true they lived in a day when they had to hand copy everything, but they had figured out how many letters were in every book of their Bible. And so they'd get, you know, finished writing the 150 chapters of Psalms, and then they would go back and count the letters, and if it didn't match upright, they'd crumpled it up and start writing over. They were meticulous. So there's the manuscript evidence, it hasn't changed. And then there's just the Bible's endurance in the face of opposition. People have tried to outlaw it, burn it, get rid of it. This book, we still have it, and I don't know about you, Ben, but I've heard about the many lives that the Bible's changed. And I lied, I do know about you cause I know you, I've seen how it's changed your life. I've seen how it's changing my life. This is a living book, this is God's word and it is alive and changing lives. I don't just believe the Bible's God's word because it says so, I believe it's God's word cause I know so in my own life, and then there's all this other evidence besides.

Ben Poole
Yeah, and I think that's really where it comes down to is, as a Christian digging into God's word will show evidence in your life of a life changed. I know for me personally, I would not be in any way who I am today without God's word affecting my life. It's what I love about Hebrews writers says, "Word is living and active and we read it." It's like growing up and I always heard, you could read one passage one time, read it another and you gained something else. I mean, there's always more to learn because the author of the scriptures is the creator of the universe, and He knows what we need in it. And I wanted to just kind of put some numbers out real quick that I was thinking about. When we were talking about these different writers of history that are taken as, how would I put it, secular gospel truth of whatever they were writing nobody questions.

Gary Schick
Or that they wrote it.

Ben Poole
Yeah, nobody questions Homer or Plato for fact. So since Plato lived, the closest evidence of his writing was found 1,300 years later. That's the closest they can come to. There are only seven manuscripts of anything he wrote. Seven, and it is taken as truth. Aristotle, another famous historian that we read about in school growing up. Closest manuscript to his original writings is 1,400 years, there's five copies.

Gary Schick
And they probably don't match up all that well, who knows.

Ben Poole
Right, they are what they call reconstructions.

Gary Schick
Okay, so that means, so they've actually gone in and changed things?

Ben Poole
Things have changed in what was being said. Now let's just look at the New Testament. The closest we come to the original writers is 100 years. Again, could have been while John was still alive in that one piece. There are 14,000 manuscripts.

Gary Schick
Yeah, tons of them.

Ben Poole
And they are all telling the same truth. The reason I believe that there's such an issue with the disbelief of scripture, is because this is Satan's playground. If he can get you to question the authority of scripture, in a lot of ways, everything else crumbles. And that's where we have to be so careful. So this is more than just numbers and we're trying to tell you, there's a lot of actual, physical proof that the scriptures are absolutely true. But you have to in some ways, you've got to investigate and invest into this to know it.

Gary Schick
Well, so confronted with that, are you willing to let the Holy Spirit come in and change your life? And that's, I think why we don't wanna believe it because, if this is true then wait a minute.

Ben Poole
Our life has to change.

Gary Schick
Yeah, I have to line my life up to God. I can't make God fit into my box, I have to fit into His picture. And you know what? That is painful at times. But as I look at where I'm at and where I've been and where I'm headed, I'm just like, "You know, and it's gonna hurt some more Lord, but keep making me more in the image of Jesus," because I don't wanna be who I was without Him. I don't even wanna be who I was five, six years ago with Him. And it hurts, but God, God is faithful, and His word is true. And, you know, you talk about how you keep getting more out of it. The meaning doesn't change, but the applications and the way it applies, you just didn't see it before. And there is just so much depth there, because of its true author, the Holy Spirit.

What's New at Cross Reference Library?

Night - Born in the town of Sighet, Transylvania, Elie Wiesel was a teenager when he and his family were taken from their home in 1944 to the Auschwitz concentration camp, and then to Buchenwald. Night is the terrifying record of Elie Wiesel’s memories of the death of his family, the death of his own innocence, and his despair as a deeply observant Jew confronting the absolute evil of man. This new translation by his wife and most frequent translator, Marion Wiesel, corrects important details and presents the most accurate rendering in English of Elie Wiesel’s testimony to what happened in the camps and of his unforgettable message that this horror must never be allowed to happen again. 

The Martyr’s Song - “Make Me Beautiful.” That’s what Marci asks from the old woman. The woman offers the girl an unexpected gift in the form of a stunning story. At the end of World War II a band of embittered soldiers enter a peaceful Bosnian village. The cruel game of life and death that unfolds will forever change your understanding of life and eternity. Dive deep into The Martyr’s Song and see how you would respond when heaven and hell collide, when the unseen is more real than the seen, and when you view beauty through God’s eyes—and hear the music of heaven—for the first time.  

Every Prophecy of the Bible - Prophecy is much more than the events predicted in the Book of Revelation. It is not just for Bible scholars, pastors, and seminary students. Nearly one fourth of Scripture was prophetic when it was written, so obviously God intended through these predictions to reveal something about His character and His faithfulness—not just to the people who first heard them, but to us who read them today. Indeed, prophecy does much to demonstrate not only our future hope as believers in Jesus Christ but also the accuracy of the Bible, the righteousness of God, and the meaning of history. John F. Walvoord, one of the preeminent Bible prophecy scholars in the world today, explains in one volume every key prophecy from Genesis to Revelation—those already fulfilled as well as those yet to be fulfilled. He also discusses the importance of prophecy and guidelines for interpreting it. 

One of my most favorite things in the world is books! The smell, the texture, but most of all I love the way they make me feel on the inside. The way that the authors can place us in the lives of the characters they have created. They invest so much time into giving them a backstory, a conflict and a resolution, and somehow even tie it all up into a perfect little bow at the end of 200 pages or more. But what is even more fascinating is that not all of those “bows,” or endings are perfect. I guess that’s not the point either is it? What I found in each of these books this week, was how the stories of our past, no matter how horrible, will always lead us to our present. Depending on how we react to the events of our past, will determine how wonderful the present will be. In The Martyr’s Song we discover that the old woman is the mother from the story, who was put through so many horrific events in her past. She had lost so much and was put through so much pain. Since this was a book that was written by an author who writes thrillers, I was half expecting Eve to want revenge and do terrible things with it. But she was better than that and did good with her life. She moved to America, opened a flower shop, and dedicated her life to telling the traumatic story that changed her life so many years ago. Stories of the past don’t just have to be shown in fictional stories, but are often played out in autobiographies too. Night is a great example of that. Elie Wiesel walks us through his terrifying experience that he underwent in the Auschwitz concentration camps. Finally Every Prophecy of the Bible makes clear the “present” of those in the New Testament and even prophecies we are waiting to come true in our future. So come on down to the Cross Reference Library and discover these life changing books.

Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called present.

—Anonymous

Can they take my God from me?

Artist: Sue Perez

It is true that the church is the Body of Christ and that the body functions best when all members are meeting together and working together towards the goal of bringing glory to God. However, it is also vital to make sure that your own personal relationship with God is not dependent on any other human being. If every other Christian in your life were to disappear, your personal relationship with God should still have such a solid foundation that it stands strong on its own.

Just the other day, a friend and I were talking about a woman we know and care about. We were worried about her, and heartbroken for her, because it seems she has gone from one abusive relationship to another and continues to be a target for manipulative abusive men who promise her an amazing love story while starting out, but only end up giving her nightmares. And the rub is, every single one of these men were professing Christians who had upstanding reputations in Christian circles. 

In our frustration, our initial reaction was to think, “It’s amazing that she continues to trust God and believe in God when these Christian men keep destroying her life.” 

This touches on an unfortunate truth. Many Christians gauge their walks with God based off of their experiences with other Christians. 

Some kids only believe in God while under their parents’ roof. As soon as they are off on their own, it becomes obvious that what seemed like a relationship between God and them was only a relationship between their parents and God. Other people start going to church because their boyfriend or girlfriend wants them to go but their connection to God always travels through that other person, instead of creating their own connection with Him. And when the human relationship falls apart, they throw God out with the rest of it. 

Your relationship with God should be its own thing: a back and forth between only you and God. Otherwise when life gets hard and other Christians crumble under the pressure, you will crumble with them.

This may seem like a troubling and even daunting realization, but while I was sitting in church a few Sundays ago, I had an epiphany which caused me to see this from another perspective.

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I have always been a hopeless romantic. I am a big fan of the friendship turned to love trope. I love the idea of finding someone who knows you completely and will be by your side through everything in life. But, I’ve started to wonder if a romantic relationship is even worth the cost. Because in my life, and in the lives of many of my friends, the cost has been immense. 

Over the last few years many, not all, but many of the men in my life have “dropped the ball” in colossal ways. Now, I know that men aren’t the only ones destroying love in the world, but in my personal life, it has been a bit gender specific lately. 

Here’s a quick summary of the bigger examples just so you can understand my emotional and logical journey at the time of my epiphany (note: all of these men are Christians).

• My now ex-husband kept his bi-polar disorder a secret from me and became dangerously violent.

• A close friend and father of four got arrested three times within a month for dealing meth.

• Another close friend is on trial for rape accusations. I’ve since found out he used to abuse his ex-wife and has abused at least one other friend of mine while they were in a relationship. He targets vulnerable women and manipulates and abuses them.

• Another friend had to leave her emotionally and physically abusive husband.

• Another friend’s husband has now confessed to cheating on his wife multiple times.

• Ravi Zacharias, my favorite apologist, apparently used his position to rape women.

Each of these men had life destroying secrets; a part of their identity which they kept behind closed doors and thought they could get away with.

My heart was hurting, not only because of the obvious damage they caused, but also because I had thought we were all working together to spread God’s Word. It felt as if they had not only abandoned the rest of the team, but had taken a bat and kneecapped everyone. 

When stuff like this happens, people start asking the obvious question: “How can we still trust in God, when His people are doing such terrible things?” 

And I couldn’t help but wonder… “Are they right? Are the actions of my brothers in Christ capable of destroying my relationship with God? Can they take my God away from me? If I get married again, and that man also turns out to be a monster, will I start to hate God? How many more blows can I take from people I had trusted, before I am so weakened and blinded by pain that I no longer trust God?”

Throughout my life God has been my rock, my one constant companion. Because of Him, I know I will see every loved one I lost and will loose who has put their faith in Christ, again. And even though God hates divorce, He held me tight in His arms every step of the way as I escaped my dangerous marriage. I can not, and do not want to imagine what it would be like to go through this life without God by my side.

Psalm 46:1-3 NIV God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.

Matthew 11:28-29 ESV Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

Without God I would be empty: without purpose or hope. He is my everything, and everything good in my life comes from Him. Even the slightest chance that something could shake my faith enough to have me deciding to try life without God, had me terrified. 

So, I was sitting in church that Sunday wrestling with my jaded heart, wondering if trying to date again was worth the potential cost, when God opened my eyes to this life altering truth:

I don’t have to let anyone influence my relationship with God, besides me and God. Only God and I have any say in our relationship.

If I get married again and that man decides to be an atheist. My personal relationship with God can still stand strong on its own. Even if every single Christian friend I have turns out to have a secret identity that gut-punches the Body of Christ, I can still choose to turn towards God for help and comfort instead of away from Him. 

My relationship with God is its own separate relationship, it is not tied to any other relationship I have. My brothers and sisters in Christ are not God. Just because a human being has messed up, doesn’t mean God has messed up.

(Also see: “If God loves us why does He let bad things happen?”)

God is His own being and He is always faithful.

God even promises that when it comes to His side of the relationship, He will not falter. 

Hebrews 13:5b NIV God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”

No matter what other people do. They cannot take your relationship with God away from you. No matter what you go through, or how alone you feel, God will always be with you. 

Romans 8:38-39 NIV For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Yes, it is tragic when people fall away from the church because they depended on the walks of other Christians instead of cultivating their own relationship with God. It can seem daunting knowing that each person has to form their own relationship with God. But just as we can’t rely on other Christians to create and maintain our relationship with God, we also don’t have to give them any power to damage it. The responsibility is ours, alone, the choices are ours, alone. And our place in God’s family is always secure because of the priceless sacrifice Christ made for us.   

Romans 5:18 NLT Yes, Adam’s one sin brings condemnation for everyone, but Christ’s one act of righteousness brings a right relationship with God and new life for everyone. Romans 5:8 ESV But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Revelation 3:20 ESV Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.

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This series of blog posts titled, “Holding on to Reason”, is named after Amanda’s favorite C.S. Lewis quote: “Faith is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods.”

Click here for more things written by Amanda Hovseth.

Views On How The Scriptures Were Written - Ask the Pastor

You can listen to Ask The Pastor every weekday at 9:00am MST on 97.1FM Hope Radio KCMI! You can also listen and subscribe to Ask The Pastor in your favorite podcast feed. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music and most other podcast services.

This edition of Ask the Pastor features Pastors Ben Poole and Gary Schick.

Ben Poole
All right, so kind of a big question or topic that we're discussing today that maybe a lot of these words you've never heard of, and we'll try to kind of make this understandable and easy for us to walk through. So, they asked if we could take some time to walk through some of the different views of inspiration regarding the scriptures. Views like modernism orthodoxy, Neo orthodoxy, verbal and plenary inspiration. Essentially, what do we believe as to how the scriptures were actually written and what do other people believe as to how the scriptures were written? And then what does that mean for us? And that's really kind of, I think where we need to go with that is, what does this mean for us as Christians, who are Bible believing people, and how do we place our trust in that? And so Gary, I just kind of wanna open up and let you take off with it.

Gary Schick
Yeah, and that's a great question, it's huge. I don't know if we'll get through it today or not, I guess we'll just kind of keep an eye on the clock and see where it goes. But what you believe about the Bible is huge. Is it God's word? Is it not God's word? If it is, you know, how did we get it and even you know, how do we know it's true? So I didn't dig into quite all of the things there, but, I dug into a couple of them a little bit. There are different viewpoints as to the nature of God's word, and there are some big words that are thrown around. Inspiration is one of them, which "to inspire," literally means in breathe. And we get that from Paul's letter to Timothy, where it says all scripture is God breathed. Literally God breathed it out and profitable for teaching, reprove correction, and training and righteousness. So that's, I guess a starting point, and what does God's word say about itself? So I want to kind of define some of this, but then I think that's where we really need to go. What does the Bible say about itself? So in terms of orthodoxy, and I picked up some of this from a website called Got questions, Your answers, Biblical answers. So in terms of orthodoxy, the Orthodox view holds that the Bible is the revealed word of God, given by the inspiration of God. By inspiration both verbal and mechanical, is meant that the holy spirit was in full control of the biblical writer by either verbally dictating everything he was writing or using the person as a vessel through which to work. This doctrine of inspiration comes to the logical conclusion that the original manuscripts are without error or contradiction. In other words, yes, there's a human author, but they are writing what God has given them to write. And God has taken that person with their vocabulary, their viewpoint, their understanding, and gotten His words in print for us. Plenary is this concept that the Bible is complete and sufficient revelation of God, and a couple of passages that would support this are 2 Timothy 3:16--17, which I just quoted from. And also 2 Peter 1:20 and 21, which I'm hoping to get to here in a few minutes. Neo orthodoxy is kind of a semi liberal view. The liberal viewpoint would be, "You know, the Bible's written by a bunch of human authors, it's full of errors, it's basically what different people have believed over time." Neo orthodoxy kind of tries to come at least part way to the Orthodox position. It defines the word of God as Jesus, and so that would appeal to us. John 1:1 "In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God," it's Jesus. However, here's where we part ways with the Neo Orthodox. It says, "That the Bible therefore is simply man's interpretation of the word's actions, Jesus actions." And thus the Bible itself is not inspired, it's a human document, various parts of it might literally be true, but various parts might not be. And so, the Neo Orthodox you would be essentially, the Bible contains the word of God, without being the word of God. I happened to have a professor when I was in college, drove me crazy until I figured out this is really where he was coming from. We were in a class called Bible and Culture, and I was like, "Great, and we're gonna talk about Moses and the parting of the Red Sea." And I'll never forget him standing up in front of the class and saying to us, "There are true stories and truth stories. And the Bible is full of truth stories." Well, you know what? Aesop's fables are great stories full of truth, but they're not true, they're fiction. And I woke up in the middle of the night and my roommate's like, "What was going on with you last night? You sat up in bed and you're like, Ryan Arnold will tell you it's a truth story." It's just like choking on this idea. I'm sorry, friends, I have not dedicated my life to teaching people a bunch of truth stories. Yes, God's word is full of truth because it's true. And so with that, first of all, I wanna let you know what my denomination, the foresees, a conservative congregational Christian conference believes. We believe the Bible---consisting of the old and new Testament---referring to the 66 books of the Protestant Bible to be the only inspired inherent, infallible authoritative word of God written. Inspired, God breathed, inherent, without air, infallible. It won't lead us astray, authoritative, it's what we base our Christian life and practice on. Word of God, written down, as opposed to Jesus, the living word this is the written word. What does the Bible say about itself? I think that's the key. I've already quoted 2 Timothy 3:16, "All scripture is, God breathed." 2 Peter 1:21 says, "For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the holy spirit." I think it's important to remember that Jesus quotes from the breadth of the old Testament. If you look at the Hebrew Bible, it consists of three parts, the law, the prophets, and the writings and Jesus quotes from all of them. He never quotes from the apocryphal book. The books that we find in the Apocrypha that's included in the Roman Catholic Bible, but he does quote from the books that we consider the Bible of the old Testament, that the Jews consider the Bible of the old Testament, the Jews also don't include the Apocrypha. And in terms of the new Testament, we have evidence that the new Testament writers knew exactly what they were doing. For example, Paul writes 1 Thessalonians 2:13, "Therefore we never stopped thanking God, that when you received His message from us, you didn't think of it as our words, as mere human ideas, you accepted what we said as the very word of God, which of course it is. And this word continues to work in you who believe." And the Bible's a powerful book, there's so much we can go off into, in terms of what the Bible says about itself. Hebrews 4:12, it's one of my favorites, "For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two edge sword. Piercing to the division of soul and spirit, joint and marrow, discerning the very thoughts and intentions of the heart." Psalm 119:105, "Your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path." The scripture describes itself as a lamp, as a fire, as a hammer, as a sword, as bread, as milk, as honey, as meat. If we had time to look at all those scriptures, it really is complete and without error and good for us. It's not only do we base our faith on it, but we grow in our faith from it. Just so much could be said on this topic.

Ben Poole
Yeah, there really is. And I think if you're listening and part of a church that is in any way really associated with even KCMI, I think that we would all fall on that same understanding of scripture. That we believe and hold scripture to be our beginning and end of our understanding of faith. That we believe that it is perfect in and of itself, we believe that it is God's word. There's times where the writers wrote, like dictations, specifically wrote exactly what Jesus said. You can see that through Jesus' teachings, you can even see that from the gospels. Even in Revelation where John writes and records what Jesus said, to specifically the seven churches. But we also see that they didn't write just verbatim what Jesus was saying, they wrote stories. They wrote, you know, John's seeing this vision of the Revelation and he's writing what he sees. You see Luke who writes the book of Acts, and he's writing about the growth of the church. He's writing a history lesson essentially, of what is taking place. You see Paul, Peter, James, they're writing letters to churches, encouraging them. Paul says, "These people say hello and blessings to you, and I pray for you and I think of you." And so all of that though, we believe is 100% inspired through the Holy Spirit, speaking through the apostles. And sharing God's word from Genesis to Revelation that it is completely God breathed through them. It very well could have been different for each of them. Obviously, John writing Revelation had a very different experience, than maybe Paul did in writing his letters. But, yeah, I mean, this is huge and I would just encourage you to probably try and make a grasp of this, if you don't already, because this understanding can affect our spiritual walk. Because like, if you have a professor like you had Gary, who really doesn't believe. I mean, and what if we take that stance? How does that affect our faith? Well, that can make massive lifelong changes in our world and in ourselves.

Gary Schick
What it really means is, and this is where the liberals and the modernists part ways with us, that means they can pick and choose. They get to be actually the authority of God's word, not God Himself. And so, if they don't like something, you know, like, "Oh, the Genesis. That doesn't match with our views of evolution, so therefore that's just a story with truth in it, it's no longer true." And not just Genesis, although Genesis is foundational to everything. But, you know, we look at all the moral questions of our times and we see how, what we call Biblical churches have parted ways with what we call Mainline and Liberal churches. Well, what what's going on there? The Mainline and the Liberal churches are following the culture and wherever culture contradicts scripture, "Scripture's wrong, scripture's wrong, scripture's wrong. We've moved on, we've evolved beyond that. And so our understanding has evolved." Well, God said it, I believe it, that settles it, and you know what, cultures change, our viewpoints change. What people consider morally right culturally, a hundred years from now, may be radically different from what it is today. But God's word and His view on marriage, sexuality, on so many things, it stays the same. And thank God that it does, because it's a foundation you can build your life on. Jesus said, "Whoever hears my word and puts them into practice, is like a wise man who builds his house on a rock." And every other path is what the other guy built, the fool built on sand. So I'm gonna stick with God's word, I'm not saying it's always easy. You're right, you pointed out there's every kind of, I guess what you'd call genre, in scripture. There's history, there's poetry, there's prophecy, there are parables, which, you know, they aren't things that literally happen when they're parables. But that's different than when we're reading a history that is saying, this is what happened. And so, do we have to kind of understand what we're reading there to get the right interpretation? Absolutely, but the key is, God has given it. It's true and it contains truth because it's true.

Ben Poole
Yep, absolutely. I would encourage if you've never really looked into this, this kind of goes with it, but maybe a history of how we got our Bible. It's a beautiful history actually. There's so many books, I studied one when I was in college. It's simply, How we got the Bible from Lightfoot, I just looked it up on Amazon, it's the first one that pulled up. A phenomenal, just really great view, for me it helped solidify my foundation of my faith. That I can trust God's word, that what we're reading is true and accurate today.

What's New at Cross Reference Library?

Children’s Century Classics - When it comes down to getting kids excited about reading their Bibles, it can sometimes be a challenge. The Children’s Century Classics can help. With interesting illustrations and prompting discussion questions, kids can better understand the concepts that are found in our Bibles. Inside each volume, includes QR codes that can take you to bonus content online, along with the audio of the story so kids can experience the story as it is read. Starting in Genesis and going all the way to Revelation, these books help us experience the lives of the most well known people, who appear in the Bible. People like Abraham, David, Ruth, Paul, and John come to life on the pages. All of our favorite stories can be found too, like Balaam and the Talking Donkey, Daniel and the Lions’ Den, The Parables, and The Sermon on the Mount. So come on down to the Cross Reference Library and check out these engaging volumes.