Searches every word across every teaching, article, and Q&A on the site.
Searches every word across every teaching, article, and Q&A on the site.
Teacher: Pastor Paul LeBoutillier Pastor Paul: We're back with another Bible Q&A. I'm Pastor Paul. I'm here with my wife, Sue. We're in our new home in Meridian, Idaho, and we're here to bring some hopefully good answers to your questions, your Bible questions that have been sent in over the last few weeks. So what do we have here for today? Sue: The first question comes from Leonard; “Hi Pastor Paul. In light of Romans 9:11-13, do we have free will, or has everything been predestined by God?” Pastor Paul: Predestination is a topic that really messes with a lot of people's minds. The passage that Leonard is referring to, in Romans, says; First of all, it's a challenging passage. So I would encourage anybody who is confused about that passage to maybe read it over, pray about it. Consider going to my study on Romans 9, listening to my teaching on those verses and get a better sense of what is being said and what is not being said there. But most definitely the answer to the question is we have free will. When you read the Bible, when you read the letters in the New Testament, what you hear are the biblical writers exhorting their audience to exercise free will. They're telling them, turn away from sin, turn to Romans 9:10-13 (ESV) ...not only so, but also when Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad – in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls – she was told, "The older will serve the younger." As it is written, "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated." the Lord. And they're not saying, this is going to happen regardless. They don't ever say that. They always say, draw close to the Lord. You can do this. You make the decision to follow the Lord that is appealing to free will. So free will is very much a part of who we are. I believe personally, it is what makes us created in the image of God. Sue: All right. Sam says; “I am 25 and have been watching your videos since I was 22 and values your opinion as I grow in the faith. What are your thoughts on using AI/ChatGPT to go through tough problem solving and simply understanding emotions during hard seasons of life? ChatGPT/AI responds to me as if it's the Holy Spirit for every single question I ask it. I pray, study the Bible on my own by watching your videos, and of course, go to church. I just feel on my own I'll use it as a tool to try and further analyze my steps before I make decisions. It also helps me express my emotions by using it as a therapeutic type of tool as well and understand how I think the Holy Spirit is talking to me.” Love and blessings from Kansas City. Pastor Paul: Let me start by saying I can certainly understand how beneficial it is to talk things out. Pastor Paul: We are that way. You and me, we figure out which direction we're going by talking about it. And that can be really helpful. And whether you're employing the help of AI or just talking to a good friend, that's always a fairly positive thing. Sue: There is a benefit in that. Pastor Paul: But if you're going to talk to AI and you're going to discuss life and decisions and things, you have to think about it like you're getting advice from an unbeliever. Because there's no godliness here. There's no biblical worldview that is factored into ChatGPT. Sue: There's no spirit. Pastor Paul: There's no spirit involved at all. It's like just talking. So whether you're doing it with ChatGPT or whether you're doing it with just a friend, you still got to pray through things and you have to leave things the final decision to your heavenly father. And that's the point that I think really needs to be stressed. Sam talks about seeing the responses that he gets from AI as almost coming from the Holy Spirit. You got to be careful there. Pastor Paul: You kind of tickled the red alert there for me, Sam, because it's not the Holy Spirit. Can the Holy Spirit use ChatGPT to challenge you? Yes. Just like he can use an unbeliever. I've had unbelievers say things to me for which the Holy Spirit brought conviction. And even insight into a particular question that I had. But ultimately, I have to give the credit to God. So I would just say, proceed with caution. Sue: I think we've all had that friend, maybe in high school or adult years, that we watch this friend and they become whatever circle they're currently in, they become like those people. And yet ChatGPT is like that. It will become like you when you're talking about it. But that's a very unstable and somewhat dangerous friend to have because they're just going to sway with whoever they're talking to. Pastor Paul: Ultimately, test everything through prayer. Bring it to the Lord. Sue: All right. So next person says, “I have a question regarding something you mentioned – when God said, “Let us make man in our image,” and then created both male and female. I'm curious to understand if both men and women were created in God's image, why is the language of the Trinity male-centric—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—rather than inclusive of female imagery, like Mother, Daughter, or even Father and Daughter?” Pastor Paul: Quite honestly, what this person is asking about, barely scratches the surface of the male centric language of the Bible. I mean, to ask a question about the Trinity and why it's male dominated, good grief. I could think of tons of questions about why males seem to have so much preeminence in the biblical text over females. Why did God create man first? Somebody could ask, why are sons set up to inherit their father's estate and not their daughters? And we could go on and on and on. The fact is, this is one area where God simply doesn't explain himself. He doesn't. There are lots of things I've said before, and I'll say it again. The Bible tells us everything we need to know, not everything we want to know. And even though I appreciate this person's desire to understand the maleness of the Bible, God doesn't explain it. So I can't explain what God doesn't explain. So it's one of those things you're going to have to ask the Lord when you see him face to face. So that's the best I can do with that. Sue: It's not too bad. All right. Eric says; “When looking for a spouse, how important is it to agree on secondary doctrines—like speaking in tongues, prophecy, or eschatology? If we align on the Gospel and core theology, is it unwise to pursue a relationship with someone who differs from us in these other areas?” I have to start probably by giggling just a little bit because we dated very young. Pastor Paul: Yes. Sue: And we had no opinions on any of this all. We wanted was to be together. Pastor Paul: I didn't really even ask many questions about what we believed on primary or secondary. Sue: So I appreciate, I admire someone… Pastor Paul: Someone who's been asking questions. And personally, it depends. It's one of these questions that depends on the person and the personality that they have. I think there are some couples out there who could live together quite happily, having differences on what we would call non-essential doctrinal matters. I think there are other personality types out there that just couldn't deal with it. Sue: That's a good point. Pastor Paul: We've got to agree. I disagree with you. And you think this is that, and I think this is this, and we don't agree. So it's up to the individual persons. Sue: You've always said I'm a good guesser. I would guess that the fact that this person is asking these questions means that it's very important to him. Pastor Paul: It probably means it's fairly important. Sue: So probably for him, it may be pretty important that you agree on quite a few things. Pastor Paul: It's either important to him, or maybe it's important to the person he's seeing. Sue: Oh, it's possible. And don't you think also that for ministry couples, ministry- bound couples, these things become more important? Pastor Paul: Absolutely. Sue: I mean, you do not want to have a pastor or a worship leader or something that the husband and wife do not agree on what he calls secondary doctrines, or even philosophies of ministry. Pastor Paul: Which are different than doctrines. Sue: Right. So there's a great importance in that. Pastor Paul: The deeper you are in ministry, the more you need to agree. You need to be walking in agreement. Absolutely. Sue: All right. Penina says; “Thank you for the teaching. It's my prayer that one day churches in my country will teach verse by verse and chapter by chapter through the whole Bible. In my church, single mothers or couples not married are not allowed to take communion. I am not sure who should be excluded or how often we should take communion.” Pastor Paul: I frankly have never run into a situation where single mothers or unmarried couples were told they couldn't take communion. Sue: I have heard of. Even in our country, I've heard of more family-centric churches that all come and worship together and they never have Sunday school or anything like that. And the fathers are always the ones that serve communion to their particular family. Pastor Paul: So if there isn't a father doing it? Sue: So I'm wondering in this case, if there's not a father figure, like the couple's not married, so he's not the head of household yet. I'm just guessing that maybe that is going on here. That's a philosophy of ministry that we don't particularly agree with, but it is a philosophy out there. Pastor Paul: Yes, it is. I would tell Penina and anyone else who's interested, that first of all, the Bible does not single out any group or people or whatever to say these people shouldn't take communion. It is assumed in the Bible when communion is spoken about that it's the body of Christ coming together. And the only thing Paul says about communion is for believers to not take communion in an unworthy manner. A lot of churches have concluded or deduced from Paul's statements that this should never be taken by an unbeliever. And that's probably okay advice. I don't know that you even have to tell unbelievers that, but that's not something that the Bible specifically says. So there's a lot of things we've kind of added along the way. I've never run into a church where single mothers or unmarried couples couldn't take communion. I would go to the pastor and I would say, why is that? Can you give me your reasoning? And can you show me a biblical text that would support the idea of single mothers and unmarried couples not taking communion? Sue: Good idea. Pastor Paul: Because I'm here to tell you, it's not in the Bible. It's going to be something they've come up with that is more a part of religion than it is part of scripture. She often mentions though here, she's also wondering about how often we should take communion. That's up to the church. People think that we're supposed to take it whenever we come together. That's not what Paul says. He says, as often as you do this, do it in remembrance. Or actually that's Jesus who says that. So we should take communion as often as we decide to take communion. Some churches do it every service, Wednesdays and Sundays. Some churches do it once a month. It's up to the church. Sue: It's a philosophy of ministry, right? Pastor Paul: It's a philosophy of ministry. It's not a doctrinal issue. Sue: All right. Sandrah says; “We have been taught that Christians still need to celebrate the feasts prescribed in Leviticus 23 because they are God's appointed times (Leviticus 23:4). Do we have to keep watch of Israel's times and seasons to celebrate with them? It seems the early church, Paul's time, used to celebrate them, too (1 Corinthians 5:7-8). Pastor Paul: So she's citing 1 Corinthians by saying it seems the early church was celebrating them. Here's what's interesting about 1 Corinthians 5:7-8. Let me read it. She read that passage and she read Paul's words, let us therefore celebrate the festival. Sue: Or has been told that, has been taught. Pastor Paul: Or has been told that, correct. Thank you. And the conclusion is, we are to keep the festivals. But to read this passage and conclude that Paul is telling us to keep the Jewish festival of Passover is to miss the entire context of the passage, which is the issue of removing sin, which Passover is a type and a shadow of. When Paul says, therefore, let us celebrate the festival, he's referring to the meaning behind the type, which is the removal of sin. Passover, you remember, was a time that they would literally scrub their houses to get rid of all of the leaven, all the yeast, because that was a picture of sin. God told them, get rid of all the yeast, don't make anything with yeast. If you make bread, you're going to make unleavened bread and so on and so forth. Again, that was a type and a shadow of the removal of sin. That's what Paul is talking about in this passage. He's not telling the church to keep the Jewish festivals. Now, did the early church keep the Jewish festivals? Yes. Many times they did. Mostly because the early church was made up of Jews. 1 Corinthians 5:7-8 (ESV) Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Pastor Paul: And they also attended synagogue. They kept the Sabbath. Sue: There was quite a transition going on there. Pastor Paul: It took a long time. Sue: It had to have been complicated. Pastor Paul: Not only complicated, but emotional. There was a lot of emotion connected with it. It took time for the church to pull away from its uniquely Jewish roots that were connected to the Mosaic Law, which was a covenant made between God and Israel, not God and the church. So it took time. And Paul battled with legalists all the time who would follow him to various places where he had visited and they would tell the people, you got to be circumcised, you got to keep the Sabbath, and you got to keep the feast and so on and so on. You got to keep the law. People are still saying that today, but that's not what the gospel is about. So Sandrah, I would really encourage you, if you're being taught that Christians need to celebrate the feasts, you might want to consider attending a different church because you've got some bad stuff going on. There's an inappropriate understanding of the difference between Israel and the church and what was commanded to Israel and what is commanded to the church. The church was never told to do those things. In fact, Paul wrote some of his letters to the church saying, I'm concerned about you. I'm worried about you because you're keeping special days. You're keeping this and that. And he goes on to say, those are a type in a shadow. The reality is found in Jesus. So I would say that Sandrah's church is missing the boat on this one. Sue: All right. Job says; “Hey there Pastor Paul! Really encouraged by the ministry that you do, have been watching all the Q&A episodes. Love it! I have a question about speaking in tongues. I grew up in a family of Pentecostals where my mom has the gift of tongues and my dad does not. Both love God very much and have been serving in church. Do you believe that a believer will receive the gift of tongues or other gifts of the spirit if he/she desires for it? I've been praying about this for the past couple of months.” Pastor Paul: At the end of the day, I have to go with what Scripture says. I've had some feelings on this topic that have kind of gone back and forth. I'll be completely honest with you, but they're just my feelings. And those feelings are not authoritative. So in 1 Corinthians 12; Paul, you'll remember, the apostle asks a series of rhetorical questions about spiritual gifts. He says; Rhetorical questions are given without an answer because the answer is obvious. Sue: Right. Pastor Paul: And the obvious answer is no, not everybody is an apostle. Not everybody is a prophet. Not everybody has the gift of teaching. Not everybody has the gift of tongues. In that same chapter, after Paul gives a listing of spiritual gifts, he goes on to say this; So gifts we learn in the Bible are given according to the will of God, not necessarily according to the desire of someone who may be asking for a particular gift. I may want to have a gift to be able to lay my hands on someone to heal them. But if God 1 Corinthians 12:29-30 (ESV) Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret? 1 Corinthians 12:11 (ESV) All these are empowered by one in the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills. chooses not to give me that gift, I'm not going to have it. That's what this passage is saying. So this is what I'm saying. I would love to think that everybody who desires to have the gift of tongues will have it. But that's not what the Bible says. And that's what I got to go with at the end of the day. Sue: All right. Probably can I summarize by saying there's nothing wrong with asking? Pastor Paul: Agreed, 100%. Nothing wrong with asking. Just be satisfied with the answer. Sue: Very good. Our final question comes from Ken. He says; “At our evening Bible study, someone brought up “dispensation” of Scripture. It sounded interesting, but when I checked it out further once I got home, it became confusing, as it seems there are different views / feelings on dispensation. Can you provide a simple explanation?” Pastor Paul: First of all, I'm pretty sure that Ken is talking about dispensationalism, not just dispensation. And it's not about the dispensation of Scripture. Dispensationalism is a way of saying that God basically relates to humanity in different ways during different time periods. In other words, a dispensational view is one that sees history as a series of time periods or dispensations that are different from one another and in which God deals in his own specific way with humanity during that time period. So in other words, that God dealt somewhat differently with mankind during this time period from this time period and so on and so forth. That's a rudimentary sort of explanation of dispensationalism. But dispensationalism also brings out other things that I think are just as significant. One of them is the fact that dispensationalism tends to take a more literal interpretation of Scripture, rather than a spiritual interpretation saying, I think it means. Dispensationalism looks at the word and says, if there is a clear, literal understanding, then that's what we're going to go with. I like that. And then I think one of the biggest hallmarks of dispensationalism is that because it sees different time periods as different ways that God dealt with humanity, it tends to correctly differentiate between the prophecies that are given to Israel and that which is given to the church. In other words, it sees the difference between Israel and the church. I like that, too. So although I don't like titles and you know that, I've had people write to me and say, Pastor Paul, you're a dispensationalist and they want to kind of do it in a way of slinging mud. I don't go with it. I'm a Christian. I'm a born again Christian. I suppose my interpretation of Scripture does fall into certain areas that people can ultimately name, even though I don't like it. But I do believe that God deals differently with mankind in different time periods of history. I do believe that a literal view of Scripture is the best view. I do believe that we must learn to differentiate between the covenant God made with Israel and the covenant God made with the church, because otherwise we're going to confuse prophecies. We're going to read things in the Old Testament and think I've got to do this. We've seen in some of these other questions where people are saying my church says we got to keep the feasts. Why do you have to keep the feasts? It's because you fail to understand the difference between Israel and the church and what was commanded to Israel and what is commanded to the church. So this happens a lot. In fact, even a lot of Christians, I get questions a lot where a Bible verse contains the word commandment or even commands. This is my commandment. If you love me, you will keep my commandments, Jesus said. People just they assume that we got to go back to the Old Testament. We got to keep them all. And it is a fundamental misunderstanding of how to differentiate between the old covenant and the new covenant. God said in Jeremiah 31, speaking of the new covenant, it's not going to be like the old covenant. He says, I'm going to make a new covenant with you guys, and it won't be like the old one because you broke the old one. In other words, you weren't able to keep it. That's what Paul says in the New Testament. The covenant God gave Israel was given to them to show how sinful they really are and just how unable they are to perfectly keep God's law. So God's law was never meant to cleanse us. It was meant to show us how dirty we are. Sue: Right. Pastor Paul: Jesus comes along and cleanses us. Anyway, that's all part of dispensational thinking, frankly. So I would tell Ken and anyone else who's listening, don't be afraid of dispensationalism. It's just a way of viewing the Bible and viewing how God deals as recorded in the Bible with different people in different time periods. Sue: Very good. Pastor Paul: That's it. Sue: That was it. Pastor Paul: That's it for this episode. Hey, thanks so much for joining us today. Hopefully this has been helpful and encouraging to you. If you have a question of your own that you want to ask, send it to us. Use the email address questions@lifebibleministry.com and be sure and check out our website, Life Bible Ministry for all of my teachings through the entire Bible, as well as all of the past questions and answers that we've done here. And also Sue's studies for women, women of the word, which you'll find there on our website, along with all of her study guides that are used by women's groups all over the country. So until we're back with you again, God bless. Have a good rest of your day. Bye-bye.
