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Sam. Okay, friends, Greg Kokel here, following the bird and the show, of course, to stand to reason, which is why we have a bird. That makes no sense of the title of the show. It's actually a chicken. It's not a chicken, actually. It's a rooster. And it's not even a real rooster. It's just yours truly, about what, 35 years ago, goofing around in a sound studio when I was recording for the Crawford Broadcasting Network when I first started radio. And anyway, I was goofing around and somebody else had the mic on and that little rooster deal made it into the show. And now it's a. It's an icon, I guess. I don't know. Somebody talked to me not too long ago last weekend at an event. They said, I don't get the. What's that noise? Apparently they didn't even know what was supposed to be. Sounded like a rooster. Most people get that. But in any event, that's what it was. It was me being a rooster. Now, I have some thoughts on a passage that I think is deeply, profoundly misunderstood by most people. In fact, I have only once in my life had someone talk about this passage. I think and understand it correctly. But I get ahead of myself here. I'll get to that in a moment. Four years ago. Five years ago. November 21st. Almost six years ago. No, wait, this is 26. That's almost five. Amy's doing the math for me. Oh, man. Five years ago. This is amazing. Time is flying. I can't believe it was this long ago. I wrote this piece, Tempus Fugate, right? Is that time flies? My dad used to say, tempest is fidgeting. In other words, get going. Come on, time's flying. November 21st, I wrote a piece called the Legend of the Social Justice Jesus. Now, that was a solid ground. If you received solid ground because you signed up, you would have gotten that. And if you don't receive it, you should sign up. Go to str.org and register. Upper right hand corner, no charge, easy. And then you'll get these things that I write. My team writes, we'll send it out to you. Something every month, something training that will help you. And this was a piece that I had been thinking about for quite a while because I was so troubled. Genuinely troubled. Not just kind of annoyed. Sometimes when people get things wrong spiritually, it's annoying, but many times when it use things of gravity, it's troubling. And that was the case here as I was listening to more and more what red letter Christian Types, Red letter Bible types, I guess is what they call them. They're reading the red letters like the things that Jesus said, because that's the real inspired stuff. We're Jesus followers who are going to read the red stuff. Listen, all the printing is Holy Spirit stuff. Doesn't matter whether it's red or not. But that's another issue. And I was troubled because they focus in on kind of a social gospel thing. This was like liberals of old used to focus in on this, helping the poor, et cetera, et cetera. And then in this more recent era, it has a new name. Not social gospel, it's social justice. The idea that what Jesus really cared about were not the things that Christians complain about like, like abortion and homosexuality and whatever and Jesus being the only way, but he was really about social justice. Now, I knew this was not true. And the reason I know it was not true or I knew it was not true is because I'm a student of the Gospels. Like I would like to think every Christian is every person who is a follower of Jesus. How do you follow Jesus if you don't know what he said and what he taught and what he was all about? And I'm not trying to wave my flag here. I'm just simply saying that the Gospels tell us about Jesus. And there's a lot of people who have ideas about Jesus that don't comport with the Gospels. In fact, these same people will dismiss the Gospels as second century writings or later, or you can't trust it. It's been changed over time. And then these same people will give you their opinion of who they think Jes was. Now you can't do that. It doesn't work. You can't say the writings that we have about Jesus are unreliable for whatever reason. And then give us what you think your opinion of Jesus actually is. Because then the question is, what source are you using? There's no Jesus to have an opinion about. If you can't trust, in some sense the primary source documentation that we know is Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. In any event, people are going to this and then they're getting their social gospel. What was this thing we saw a couple years ago, big deal about Jesus? He gets us. That was another thing, what I objected to, that whole series which still shows up now and again, he gets us. And while the Jesus that's being depicted there is not the Jesus of the Gospels and it's the Jesus of the left, largely. Which surprises me then when so many people who are Christians and ought to know Better watch those things. And they think these are great. I don't get that. Another issue, though, the point I'm making is there's a drift to see Jesus in this way, social gospel way, excuse me, and people who know better, pastors, etc. They will mention, and this is the adjustment that I've heard is they will say, well, Jesus did speak about those things, but it wasn't his main effort. He did talk about the poor and the outcast and all that other, but it wasn't his main deal. And the tail's wagging the dog. Well, I decided I'm going to study this. And I went back to the Gospels and I read every single word of every Gospel and I isolated every statement that Jesus made about why he came, every statement he made about the poor, every statement he made about outcasts, everything that every, in a certain sense, authorized herald of Jesus said about him, like Zacharias and the prophecy and the angels at the Nativity and the angel Gabriel and the angels for the shepherds and the angel Gabriel and everybody else who John the Baptist and everybody else who's saying something authoritative. And I was stunned to find out that this social justice Jesus is a complete legend that bears no resemblance to the Jesus of the Gospels. And so I wrote this piece and I quantified all my research and I pointed out this is exactly what he did say. Here's what he didn't say. In fact, it was a stunner to me that in the Gospel of John, for example, which is arguably the most elegant characterization of the person and the work of Christ, that Jesus doesn't mention the poor or the outcast or anything like that a single time, except for one quick reference in which he was dismissive. The poor you always have with you. Now, there's some details going on there. Jesus wasn't dismissive of the poor, but what he was comparing the poor to was him himself. And between the two, Remember, this was the occasion with the perfume. And the woman poured the expensive perfume on Jesus feet, anointing him for burial, honoring him. Judas, who was pilfering from the money box, said, we could have given that money to the poor. Jesus said, the poor you always have with you. You don't have me always with you. And so notice the contrast. But here it is, the whole book. John doesn't mention anything. Why? Because that isn't why Jesus came. Anyway, I chronicle all the detail there in that article, and if you haven't read it, I hope you will, because it is meant to exalt Christ, not the Christian who thinks he's following Christ by helping the poor, as if that was the reason Christ came. That diminishes Jesus. I'm not dissing the poor or anyone wanting to help. That is a biblical ethic. It's not what Jesus taught. Now, with that in mind, this is just a predicate to the point I want to make here. Because there's another offending verse that I do not think I dealt with in that article. I dealt with every verse. You know, all the references to where he talks about came to preach the gospel to the poor. Well, it was the poor in spirit. He wasn't preaching to people who were broke financially. That wasn't his point. He just preached whoever wanted to come could come. Well released to the captives. When did Jesus release any captive? Did he tell anybody to open up the gate and let the prisoners go free? No, that wasn't what he meant. Peter says those who are being oppressed by the devil, that was what he was talking about. And so when you see that all in the proper context, it becomes very clear that Jesus was not in his earthly ministry, wasn't interested in this stuff. He was interested in something else. Now God is interested and Jesus says God is interested in that stuff in the big picture. But when it comes to why he came to do what he did, that wasn't what he came to do. But there was another offending verse, and it's one that is constantly misused. I mentioned that. I don't know that I've ever. Except for the first time 50 years ago, someone drew my attention to the verse and offered the thought I'm going to offer you today. It didn't even occur to me. And since then, I have not heard anybody cite this passage accurately. Now, whenever anybody says that, everybody gets this verse wrong but me. Well, all kinds of red flags ought to go up. So they ought to be going up for you right now. But what matters is not the claim, but the explanation in defense of the claim. So what we have to do is go back to the text and look at the text and see what the text says and what people think it says, and then look more carefully at what it actually does claim. So this offensive text is Matthew 25. It comes at the end of Jesus ministry. There's a number of parables that Jesus tells as he is working up to this in the Gospel of Matthew, that there is the alert to be ready for his coming. He's going to come when? You don't know, be on the alert, be doing the business of the kingdom. There's the parable of the ten virgins at the beginning of chapter 25. The other was in chapter 24. Rather, there's the parable of the talents, and then there is the judgment. And Jesus talks about the judgment in the separation of the sheep and the goats. And I'm just going to read half of it, because the second half of this is the same as the first half. It's just speaking to a different audience, one to the sheep and the other to the goats. And the same point is being made. So this passage starts in verse 34 of chapter 25. And here's what Jesus says. The king, this is after he separated the sheep from the goats, from all the nations that were gathered before him. He will say to the sheep that's on his right, come, you who are blessed of my Father, and inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. Now, I'm going to come back to that in just a moment because when I talk with the team about this today, Tim Barnett brought up a point about there, verse 34, inherit the kingdom. And in fact, let me make a note so I don't forget inheritance, okay, verse 34. And then he says, for I was hungry and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger. You invited me in, I was naked, you clothed me. I was sick, and you visited me. I was in prison and you came to me. So this is the. In a certain sense, it looks like the criteria by which he separates out the sheep and the goats, these people who did these acts of kindness and goodness to all of these strangers. Strangers that actually the goodness done to them was really done to Jesus. And so in virtue of the goodness done to Jesus, actually, he gets to that point in a moment. But as you'll see, the goodness done to Jesus or to these people was done to Jesus. That's the claim. Because the righteous will answer, said, lord, when do we see you hungry or feed you or thirsty, give you drink? But when did we see you as a stranger, invite you in naked and clothe you, sick in prison, come to you? And the king answers, said, truly, I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of mine, even the least of them, you did it to me. So the goodness done to others on this take of the passage is taken by Jesus as goodness done to him. And then on the basis of the goodness done to him, they are considered the sheep who will inherit the kingdom. That was prepared for them from the foundation of the world. It's interesting that he uses the word inherit, not I will give you the kingdom in a sense which you have earned. But the implication of what follows is that this is earned. In fact, it's so powerful. And of course, many people cite this passage. I've heard it so many times over the years as this is what Jesus wants us to do. To clothe the naked, to feed the hungry, to give sustenance to the thirsty, to visit those who are in prison, to care for the sick. And we should be doing those things. That is not in question here. Writ large. The Scripture has a lot to say about acts of charity, kindness and mercy. The question is, what is Jesus talking about here? That's the question. And just to give you an idea of how this, I think, misreading of the passage, as I'll explain in a moment, has impacted people. Some of you remember Keith Green from the Jesus movement. I actually saw Keith Green perform three different times. Had a conversation with him once. He was. I actually saw him perform with Randy Stonehill before he was even a Christian, believe it or not. I mean, it's crazy, but he was great. He's a great man, great musician, lots of fun. I loved his music back in the mid-70s. And he died in a plane crash in 1982 when I was living in Thailand. It was really sad when I got the news, but he did a huge concert, Jesus Northwest 78, in what, Seattle or something, as a result of the, you know, it was a big event that was happening then. It was a Jesus thing, a massive concert. And I loved what he did. I loved listening to it, all of that stuff. But he preached on this passage. So he's given a concert and he's talking about the passage. Eddie gives a little homily, maybe 10 minutes, but he reads this and he focuses in on this. And he says the criterion that Jesus used for separating the sheep from the goats, and that's heaven and hell there, right? As you read further, the criterion he used was what the people did or did not do. Those were his exact words. They're still ringing in my head 50 years later. What they did or did not do. So what are you doing? And notice the implicit works, righteousness that comes out of this. It isn't what Jesus did, it's what we need to do. And the problem that I see with this, hope you see the concern I have for the way people read this and maybe the way you've read it. The key is in verse 40 the king will answer and say to them, truly, I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of mine, even the least of them, you did it to me. So here's the question. Who were Jesus brothers? Who was Jesus talking about when he mentions his brothers? Now, I went back through the Gospels and I looked up every single reference that Jesus ever made to brothers. And the temptation here is to read into this passage something like the brotherhood of man. And Jesus was concerned about the brotherhood of man. And we are all to care for each other and each of our brothers in the human race. And of course, this is the kind of social gospel approach, The common way of characterizing that. Now, oh, what am I thinking of here? The social justice approach. There it is. That's the way this is read. See, what we ought to be doing is like Jesus did, helping the poor. Well, Jesus didn't help the poor. Read it. It's not there. And this is what I chronicle in the article itself. But Jesus didn't do that. He didn't campaign once for the financially poor. He didn't campaign once for the outcasts. He accepted everybody. He preached to everybody. Anybody who wanted to come to him could come to Him. Now, he wasn't hands off the outcasts. He accepted them like everybody else. That was different. Right? But it wasn't about that. But here he says something very peculiar. There is no biblical teaching of the brotherhood of man. It's just not there. All of humanity is made in God's image. He is the Creator. But I've talked about in the past how there are different relationships that God has. He has a filial, fatherly relationship with his children. But everybody is not his children. Everyone is not his child. John 1, as many as received him. Jesus, to them he gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe on his name. To them, to the rest of the world, he is sovereign and they are subject, not father and children, to his own. He is a father, but not to the rest of the world. And so therefore these brethren are not the brethren. That is the brotherhood of man. Because this concept is anachronistic, it's being read back into the text from the 21st century. Who are the brothers? When I did my analysis, I realized that whenever Jesus talked about the brothers, he was talking about one of two groups. He's either talking about Jews who were his brethren, or he was talking about believers who were his brethren. Remember, what was it, Matthew 12, where Jesus is preaching and his mother and brothers and sisters come to get him because they think he's a little squirrely. And the crowd tells them, hey, your mother's in. They came to pick you up. And he says, who are my mother, brothers and sisters? The one who does the will of God. In other words, those people who are in this inner group pursuing God in appropriate ways. Now, Jesus didn't give a lot more detail there, but we find more detail in other places. It's that inner group pursuing God in an appropriate way. What is the will of the father? John 6, that we believe in him, who he has sent. That's what Jesus said. This is the will of the Father. You believe in me. So those who do the will and believe in Jesus, that's the family, my brothers and sisters. So Jesus is making reference there and in many other places to the brethren that are the brethren, those who are believers. And when you look at 1 John, for example, and here's 1 John 3, also a famous passage that many have given very broad application that I think should have a narrower application, because what he says, what John says in 1 John 3 is by this. Now watch the language. By this, the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious. Anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother. Okay, well, what does he mean, brother? There. Keep reading. For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. Do not be surprised if the world hates you. Oh, so one another isn't the whole world. He's talking about you who. He's speaking to one another. That group is being hated by the world. We know that we have passed out of death into life because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death. Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer. And you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. Whoever is the world's good and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him. How does the love of God abide in him? Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth. Now, this phrase, little children, is an endearment that he uses to describe the body of Christ. In fact, that was chapter three of one John that I was reading. And when you look in the beginning of 1 John 3, one of my favorite verses, it's so sublime. See how great a love the Father has bestowed upon us that we should be called the children of God. And such we are. For this reason the world does not know us. Because it did not know him. Do you see the distinction there? Children of God, body of Christ, the world, not body of Christ, not children of God. And all the exhortations that follow, that I just read in 1 John 3, have to do with loving other members of the body and caring for other members of the body, and who does not care for other members of the body. You have a brother, Christian brother, in need, and you don't help him. How's that love? Notice the strong emphasis here on the brethren. And that takes us back to what's going on. I think in Matthew 25, Jesus is talking here about an indicative. An indicative is basically he's describing what is, what is true of people who are genuine Christians. The sheep in this particular case, what is it that indicates that they're really Christian? It isn't what makes them really Christian. It isn't what makes them acceptable to God. It's not what gives them the wages of eternal life, as it were, what they earned. It is the evidence that they already are that. And the evidence is how we care for each other in the body of Christ. Which, by the way, is why Jesus says, to the degree that you have done this to my brethren, you have done it to me. Now, we don't learn this till later. Jesus doesn't use this particular metaphor, but Paul does, extensively. Because what is the church? It is the body of Christ. And if you want to have another passage that I think really seals this clearly, it's another passage that is often, I don't want to say misquoted, but it's truncated, it's only quoted in part. And that's Hebrews 13:3. In fact, I was aware of this first, but I didn't know where it was at. So I googled it. I just said, visiting Bible, visiting people in prison. That was all I put up there. And a bunch of verses came up, including Hebrews 13:3. And I'll tell you what came up, I'll read it for you. This is the way it came up. Remember the prisoners as though in prison with them. And those who are ill treated. Period. In other words, that's where the reference stopped. But that isn't the end of the sentence. The full verse goes like, remember the prisoners as though in prison with them. And those who are ill treated, since you yourselves are also in the body. There's that word, you're in the body, they're in the body. These are Christians in prison that are being spoken of here in Hebrews. Now, I'm not saying that we shouldn't be caring about other people who are not Christians in prison. Of course we should. But that's not what the writer of Hebrews is talking about. This is another reference to the special attention and care that we should be giving to those who are brothers and sisters in Christ, especially those who are in prison, and especially for those who are in prison for their faith. Because Hebrews was written to suffering Christians, as was 1st and 2nd Thessalonians, as was 1 Peter. I mean, a massive number of New Testament books were written to suffering Christians. Paul was in prison. Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 2 Timothy. He wrote from prison. And he talks in those letters about those that are there helping him. All of this ties together so nicely to fit hand in glove with the kind of instruction that Jesus is giving in Matthew 25. And here's what he's saying. I'll tell you what the difference between the sheep and the goat is. Sheep and the goats. The sheep are caring for each other in love because they are being oppressed and persecuted. Just like John says in 1 John, the world hates them. And so we got to be helping each other. And that's why, coming Back to verse 34 in hat tip to Tim Barnett, Mr. B. The King will say to those on his right, come, you who are blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. In other words, this is an inheritance. It is not a wage earned. It is something that is given to them they didn't earn. If you have someone close to you, a parent or grandparent or whatever, who passes on and leaves you an inheritance, you didn't deserve it. You got it in virtue of someone else who deserved it, who got it. And this is precisely what Paul tells us is the case with Jesus. Jesus has earned us an imperishable inheritance. And where do we see that? We see it all over. Book of Ephesians. I think one Peter talks about that Jesus has secured an inheritance for us, not because we earned it, but because of what he's done, and we benefit from it. And therefore, the inheritance that they receive is in virtue of their trust in the Lord. It's been prepared for them from the foundation of the world. And we know that you are in the group because of the way you treat each other. Love one another. Just like Jesus said in the upper room discourse. Gospel of John A new commandment I give to you. Love one another. And that was directed at the disciples, our chief obligation. Then, if I'm reading Jesus properly here, in conjunction with these other verses that fit and absolutely hand in glove with this understanding of verse 40 of Matthew 25 is that Jesus is saying, here's what indicates who the real sheep are as opposed to the goats. How they treat each other, how they love each other, how they care for each other. And that's the indicative. It's not the only one, but it certainly is one that he's talking about here. How they care for each other. That's the indicative that they are the sheep that the inheritance has already been prepared for. Who are the least of these My brothers? Other Christians. Especially those who are hurting. Especially those that are in want. Especially those who are being persecuted and even in many cases, imprisoned for the cause of Christ. That's who Jesus is talking about here in Matthew 25. We are his brothers All right, time for break and I'll be back with some what but calls when I return on Stand to Reason.
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As a high school teacher, I always had a red pen close at hand. When I wasn't in front of my students teaching a lesson, you could find me assessing assignments, grading essays, and evaluating exams. The red pen played a crucial role in the educational development of my students. With it, I questioned their assumptions, exposed their errors, and challenged them to think critically. You see, a good teacher doesn't merely tell his students that they're wrong. A good teacher shows his students why they're wrong so they don't make the same mistakes twice. He corrects because he cares. Last year I was scrolling through social media and frankly, I was discouraged at all the bad thinking that undergirded much of what I was reading. Then it hit me. What if someone applied the red pen to this flawed thinking and Red pen logic with Mr. B was born. In the last few months, Red Pen Logic has grown in popularity through our engaging and shareable educational graphics and videos. We are helping people, especially young people, assess bad thinking by using good thinking and we have a lot of fun in the process. So here's your homework assignment like the Red Pen Logic Facebook page so you don't miss our next graphic and subscribe at the red Pen Logic YouTube channel so you don't miss a single video. Class dismissed.
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Have you ever wondered how Stand to Reason is able to produce fresh, accessible content? Each week? We rely on generous donors so that we can provide you with the tools and tactics you need to be an effective ambassador for Christ. If you've benefited from this podcast or any of our donor provided resources, including our apps, blog posts, articles and short videos, consider making a financial contribution to Stand to Reason Today, just visit str.orgdonate to show your financial support. It has been an honor providing you with a host of free resources for more than 27 years to help you give voice to the Christian worldview. Help us continue by making a financial gift today@str.org donate. All right, time for some open mic calls. I'm off schedule today, so always good to go to your calls that you leave online for us because these are the questions I answer when we're not taking live calls. You go to str.org and under the. On the homepage there, under podcasts, we have live broadcasts. And then follow the prompts there for the open mic calls. And then we can. We're happy to entertain your call. And sooner or later, sometimes later that rather than sooner, but still happy to take your call. So let's go to Billy. He has a question about good and evil.
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Are all things good and evil?
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That's it. Oh, well. Are all things good and evil? Well, it's a little bit vague at this point. Normally, if we were actually having a conversation, Billy, I would ask you more questions for the sake of clarification, like what do you mean by that? Or some version of that question. But let me say. Well, there's a couple of ways we can go with this. Okay? There is a sense in which one could say that when God made everything, he put it together just right. You know, when people think or they talk about the problem of evil, oftentimes the way they'll characterize it is they'll say that things are not the way they're supposed to be. They're not good, they're bad. And the way they're supposed to be is good, and not the way they're supposed to be is bad. Just kind of a casual way of referring to it. But there's something captured there, and that's the notion that there is a way that things are supposed to be, and there can't be a way that they're not supposed to be the way things are. Now, unless there is a way they're supposed to be, and there can't be a way they're supposed to be without a sposer. So the notion of them being the way they're supposed to be is teleological. It identifies a direction or a goal that things are supposed to accomplish, which they don't. That's being interfered with. And things just aren't right, by the way. I agree with that assessment, but I'm just making the point that that requires some design or Pattern, goal for everything. And that in the beginning everything was working together just the way it was supposed to. And so everything could be called good in that sense. There was nothing wrong with the world that God made. There was nothing wrong with the people that God originally made to inhabit that world. It was just the way it was supposed to be. So one could say. And again, there's an ambiguity about your question, Billy. But one could say, yes, there was, when everything was good, meaning that the whole system was just functioning the way God wanted it to function. All right, now, you could talk about things being good or bad in a little different sense. And by the way, when human beings decided to disobey God, that created a problem, that created a kind of. The way I've described it is a hole in the goodness. And the reason I describe it as a hole is because I don't want people to be thinking that evil is some kind of thing, it's a stuff. Because if it's a stuff and God made all the stuff, then God made the stuff that we call evil. And that's not going to work. So if God made everything and everything God made is good and evil is not good, then God didn't make that thing, probably because it's not a thing. And I like to think of it like a donut hole. You ever eat a donut hole? You ever eat a donut hole? I don't mean those little gut bombs you get in the back of the church. I mean the whole. Well, you can't eat the whole because the donut hole is where the donut ain't. There's nothing there to eat. Something's missing. Okay? So when we say that after the fall things were not good like they used to be, that's because something now is missing that was there before. And that's what we call evil or bad or brokenness. However you want to characterize it, there's lots of different words. Unless righteousness. Righteousness is missing. Okay? Hamartia, which is the Greek word for sin, means it's a picture, Word, picture. To miss the mark, to fall short. Okay, so we get that idea. So the creation now is marred, and the whole thing is broken in that sense. So the thing that was good now does now have goodness, but it's marred. There's a hole in that goodness, and that's what we call evil. And then there are beings who can participate morally in either good or evil. And human beings are those kinds of creatures. Animals don't have that. We have no biblical reason or any other Reason to think that animals actually participate in moral behavior for which they are held culpably responsible. We can blame the animal, sometimes we put animals down, but it's not punishment. It's to create safety for others so they don't get gored by the bull or whatever. But it's not punishment because punishment doesn't apply to non moral creatures. So are there things that are just absolutely neutral? Yeah, I guess so. I mean, here's a, you know, here's a pen. I don't know if that's a good illustration. A rock is a stone. Well, it's neither good nor evil. It can be used for good or evil purpose by a human being who may be good or evil. But it's the pen, I guess it's a good pen if it does what it's supposed to do, what it's intended to do. There it is, it's writing. So I guess that's a good pen. But we're not talking about a moral quality there of the pen. We are talking about it functioning in a way that fits the inventor's purpose. And that takes us a little bit back to the beginning. I was talking about when God made the whole world. It was all doing just right. Everything was functioning the way he wanted it to function. So it was all good. Now if this runs out of ink or the tip gets jammed or something, I'd say, hey, this is a bad pen. It's not writing well, it's not doing what it was supposed to do by its maker. And so now it's a bad pen. But now we're thinking of bad in terms of functionality, not in terms of morality. So this concept of good and evil can be used, or good and bad, if you will, can be used in different ways in different settings. Think everything was good originally, then things got bad, they got broken because people made bad choices and therefore they got bad and they still make bad choices. But there are some things that are probably neither good nor bad. They just serve a purpose or they don't. And if they serve the purpose, then they're functioning properly. If they don't serve a purpose well, then they're not. Then that's bad for the purpose. But it isn't like every single thing in my view right now has moral status to God. Maybe that rock does. That's there for a reason. You know, I guess if the rock just disappeared, it would. Wouldn't probably upset any grand design. But. Hope that's helpful for you, Billy. I did like the question though. Nice, short, sweet. And to the point six words are all things good and evil. Got him. All right, we got Adam here. Now, speaking of original sin, kind of. The next caller's Adam. Okay, what's on your mind, Adam?
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C
Hi, Greg. I had a question about your discussion with amy on Romans 14:23. As I understand, Amy was stating that if someone believes something that is actually right is wrong, and if they do it, it's wrong because it wasn't done for God. Suppose you had somebody who believes a lot of biblically, objectively good things are actually wrong. For instance, they believe working is wrong because you're not depending on God for your money or marriage is wrong because you're not wholeheartedly devoted to God or even going to church. And Bible study is wrong. Say they believe that the American church is weak and too much like the world. The examples could go on further. Let's say you try and reason with this person from the scriptures and they say that reason itself is wrong. You know, how dare, how dare we judge God according to our autonomous reason? Assuming this person is regenerate, they're truly born again. How would you counsel them to move forward in their Christian life? Assuming this person really believes all of these good things are wrong? The attempt, it would seem to me, even reasoning from the scriptures would violate their conscience.
- [43:36]
A
Yeah.
- [43:36]
C
So, yeah, I'd love to hear your, your thoughts on this.
- [43:40]
A
All right. Yeah. Adam, this is a very interesting question. And the basic idea here is if there is something that we are doing that we think is wrong, and there were some examples in Scripture, eating meat, sacrificed to idols, etc. Probably more frequently now, since that's not a concern for us, maybe drinking alcohol or when I was in 1976, before I went into Eastern Europe in the Soviet Union, that was behind the Iron Curtain then, and I was going to visit Christians there, we talked to Christians on the Western side of that curtain that don't tell them that Christians play sports because they think playing sports is immoral. Because if you're playing sports, that's like, this is where people go to stadiums and they get drunk and corrals around. And this is just terrible. This is too worldly. So people can have all kinds of ideas about what's wrong that are not actually sound. And Paul does address that. It's interesting how he characterizes that in Romans 14. He characterizes that as the weaker brother, that they are weaker. There's something amiss here. Now, if we have a weaker brother, on the one hand, we have an obligation to respect the brother and encourage the brother to obey his conscience. On the other hand, we have a responsibility to weaker brothers to treat them and teach them what is actually true. And so, in the kind of strange circumstances that you suggested, Adam, we do have a weaker brother who's wrong about a bunch of stuff. And it's kind of enslaved him because now you can't even reason with him because he thinks that reasoning itself is wrong. And so he can't do all of these things that are appropriate things to do because it would be violating his conscience. And that you can't even reason with him because he thinks reason is wrong and reasoning about these things is violating his conscience. It's kind of like you've constructed like a perfect storm here. And you also stipulated this guy is really a born again regenerate Christian. I honestly don't think that somebody who is regenerated is going to have these kind of screwy ideas. Obviously, we're going to have differences of opinion about some things. But for people to say, no, I think marriage is wrong for this reason. When the scripture actually says in 1 Corinthians 7, Paul said, well, look at advantages, disadvantages to being married and single, moral obligations to both. You choose yourself. But there's nothing wrong with getting married. So if, if Paul is championing marriage as a legitimate choice and somebody's saying it's against my conscience, that conscience is not just weak, it's improperly informed biblically. And I guess what I'd want to counsel him is that he has a lot of false beliefs and the false beliefs are, I guess, directing him in a false way. Now, I think really at the heart of your question, Adam, is, well, wait a minute, maybe he does, maybe he does. But these are his deeply held spiritual convictions. And what you and Amy said based on Romans 14, is that you should always follow your deeply held spiritual convictions. And I guess what I'd want to say here is that always doesn't mean always. There are exceptions that are legitimate exceptions to everything. What if somebody thought it was wrong to obey the law and they have to follow their convictions? Well, sometimes the convictions are so wrong that you don't follow them and you don't encourage someone to follow them, even if it's based on their conscience. And this is part of the struggle of moral decision making. Look at Dietrich Bonhoeffer was executed by the Third Reich because he was part of a plot to murder Adolf Hitler. And by the way, there was a whole bunch of people that were in the Abwehr, which is the German secret service or whatever intelligence. And the Wehrmacht, which is the military and all, a lot of people who wanted him gone and were willing to kill him. And it was a big struggle for Dietrich Bonhoeffer because taking somebody else's life is a big deal and would he be justified in doing so? And he decided that he would be in this circumstance. And so he had to make this decision, put his life at risk, which he actually was executed for the efforts, because his conscience, all things considered, he felt this was the right thing to do. And therefore if that was the right thing to do, then it would be wrong to oppose that. That's kind of the way these moral decision making situations work. I don't think he was a weaker brother. I happen to agree with him in that. But there are other people that might say, you know what, you are wrong in this assessment. And here are the reasons I think you're wrong. And even though if that's where your conscience is leading you, you shouldn't do it because it is a wrong thing to do under that person's conviction. So what I'm saying is there are times when I think it's appropriate to discourage somebody from following their conscience if their conscience is seriously misinformed. So this is a kind of a biblical hierarchy, a moral hierarchy, a greater good kind of assessment where you have a moral dilemma and you have to decide which one is the right way to go. Sometimes the most important thing isn't following your conscience. Even though we strongly advocated that, Amy and I, when we talked about Romans 14. All right, there are exceptions to every rule, I guess. Thanks for the call, Adam. Okay, we've got Sonny here. Look, I got about six and a half minutes to go. Let's hear what Sonny has to say about suffering, in particular gratuitous suffering.
- [50:44]
D
Hi, Greg. I had a couple of follow up questions from your threefold response to the problem of evil, specifically one of your proposed theodicies for the inductive problem of evil. Now you use the term evil. I'm going to use the word gratuitous suffering or the term gratuitous suffering, because that's what I hear unbelievers using. They don't speak in the abstract term evil. They speak more about, concretely about gratuitous suffering, meaningless suffering. And so you had proposed as a theodicy and a defeater for the inductive problem of evil, that a omnipotent benevolent God may well have a good reason for allowing gratuitous suffering. How is that a defeater for the problem of suffering and not a tacit concession to the conclusion there. After all, if he needs to use suffering to bring about his maximally good ends, that suggests he's either unable or uninterested in bringing about his good ends. Without the use of suffering, how does that not collapse our ability to make moral distinctions about suffering? And because it suggests that there is no such thing as gratuitous suffering, it's all working towards some maximally good end. How are we supposed to use that with the understanding that suffering isn't just a means to the end, but is in fact built into the end itself? In fact, maximal eternal suffering for a great portion of humanity in hell is indeed the end itself. How. How's all this supposed to work together? Help me understand.
- [52:43]
A
Oh, wow. Okay, I got four minutes, right? And this is a tough one. I mean, it's not tough. The answer is there, I think. But the timeframes and the complication here, this kind of thing needs to be unraveled a little bit. Just some clarification. Okay, you keep using the term sonny, gratuitous suffering, but if God has a good reason for it, it's not gratuitous, it's not meaningless. That is the way the objection of the inductive problem is offered. This is just gratuitous. There's no good reason for this is what the claim is. It's meaningless, it's useless. What I offered as a rebuttal to the deductive argument which says that a good God who's powerful would not allow evil in the world, the answer is, well, it's possible he could allow it if he has a good reason to do so. If he has a good reason to do so, it's not gratuitous, it's reasonable. It is there for a purpose and a good end. And so what that is meant to do at that point is just to defeat the defeater of the deductive argument. The deductive argument only goes through if it's not possible for a good God who is powerful to allow evil for a time. But that seems possible. It seems, in principle, it's possible that he has a reason for that. That is all that's needed, given the shape of the argument, to defeat that particular challenge of the deductive problem. But now the question is, but there's so much suffering, so much of it. It's above and beyond what we would expect to have if God were a good God. There is gratuitous suffering is the way this is put. Okay, now, and your pushback. I don't need to answer Your question in order to. For my defeater of the defeater, that is the deductive argument to work. All it has to be is the possibility. You're just suggesting if there is a possibility that God used suffering for something good, that means something must be missing with God for him to accomplish the end that he has without using something like suffering. And I'm not sure why that's necessarily so. Could God have just, in a certain sense, magically made a morally perfect human being? Well, the answer is, of course he could have, or he could have fashioned that human being through the experience of suffering. Now, what I want to say here is the end is different. In both cases, it is different. And all one has to do is reflect on this to see if it rings true for you. But it does for me. You can make a morally perfect person, that is someone with no moral defects at all, or you can fashion someone of virtue through the furnace and they become virtuous through that. And that is a different thing than making it out of whole cloth, so to speak. And this is our claim that what God has chosen to do quite likely is that this is the best way to get the end he has in mind. And that's basically the argument. I don't think it any way intimates some shortcoming of God. And I think I don't have this right in front of you, but I've did two syllogisms here. If there is no God, there is no gratuitous suffering. There is gratuitous suffering, therefore there is a God. The operative principle there or line is there is gratuitous suffering. Okay, how about this one? If there is a good God, there is no gratuitous suffering. There is a God, therefore there is no gratuitous suffering. The operative line, there is, there is a God. So the question here, which syllogism do we offer? Which one are we to adopt? And the question we have to ask ourselves is, do we have more evidence that there is gratuitous suffering than there is God, or do we have more evidence that there is a God than there is gratuitous suffering? I think our evidence for God is magnificent. And if there is a God and he's a good God, then this suffering is not meaningless and it's not unnecessary. And that would be kind of the point that you were making. Anyway, there's a lot to cover there in four minutes, and I. I suspect I didn't do a completely adequate job. But I'm glad you asked the question. I hope this gives you something to think about, Sunny. All right, friends, Greg koukl here for stand a reason. Give him heaven. Bye. Bye.
- [57:42]
D
It.