Today we're celebrating a new holiday. It's clear the Spindle Day, also known as empty the inbox day. It's an all mail bag all the time episode of Open Line. We've got the questions you've sent us about the Bible, God and the spiritual life, and we're getting ready to address them right now. So hang tight. We're going to get to those in just a moment. Hello, everyone. Welcome to Open Line with Doctor Michael right. Zelnick Moody Radio's Bible
study Across America. My name is Michael right Melnick and I'm professor of Jewish studies and Bible at Moody Bible Institute. And I'm here today and every Saturday to do my best to answer your questions about the scriptures. Normally, the bulk of this program is taking your phone calls. Not so today. Today it's all mailbag, all the time. The best way to be in touch with us is via
our website, Open line radio.org. If you go there, it has links to anything you might need, whether it's email or Twitter or Facebook, you can reach us that way. It also has links to past programs. It has links to various issues that that you might find helpful. It has a link to my personal website if you're interested in that. It's got all sorts of stuff for you, so take a look at that open line radio.org. Also joining me today is the person I turn to when
I have a question about the Bible. And that's my favorite Bible teacher, a colleague on the faculty of Moody Bible Institute, a fantastic writer. She contributed to the Moody Bible Commentary, and she is my partner in life, my wife, my beloved forever. And she's the person I love most in the world. Eva Redlich. Glad you're here today, Eva.
Hey, it's fun to be here, Michael.
You know, usually you just have to text the answers into me. So today, you can just jump right in and.
Write them a big piece of paper and hold it.
Up. That's right. It'll make me sound better if you do it that way. Anyway. Also joining us is the person who makes everything happen on Open Line, who put together the the mailbag for today. The person who lets me know when I'm supposed to be and where I'm supposed to be and when it's supposed to be, and all the things that she does that just keeps this program on target. That's Tricia McMillan, producer of Open Line.
Yay!
Glad you're here, Tricia.
I'm glad to be here.
You have so many questions you've put together here. Uh.
I don't have these questions. Well, you didn't make these up. I didn't. These are all questions that you, the listener, have sent us. Okay, so we've got a we've got a whole lot of them.
We're going to have to get another spindle day soon. Yes. Yeah. Well, anyway, we're going to do our best to get through these as best we can. Well, now's the time to go get your Bible. Hope you have your cup of coffee and head over to the radio. The radio kitchen table, as we say. We're going to talk about the scriptures. Okay. So, uh, let's start what's what's you've ordered them. You ask.
Them. All right. We're going to start in Genesis.
Okay. That's a good place to start.
Sylvia from Glenview, Illinois, listens to WNBA, says our Bible study is on the Temptations in chapter three of Genesis. What are the underlying categories of the devil's temptations to Eve? She's heard that the first one is, in general, the temptation of appetite. That is, that the tree was good for food. The second one that the tree was a delight to look at, is the temptation of the eyes. And the third one, the tree, was desirable for obtaining
wisdom is the coveting of the knowledge of God. She's not sure if those are accurate categories, and wanted to know what you think that the categories represent.
I think the best way to look at the categories is in first John chapter two, verse 16. Uh, where I think it's exactly related to Genesis three. It says, for all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, that has to do with desire when we talk about the lust of the flesh is God has built us with desires, and those desires get out of whack. They get distorted. And that's what's called the flesh. The desire that, I mean, desire is normal. Desire to eat,
for example. Appetite would be normal. But to desire to eat something we shouldn't eat, like gluttony, that would be the flesh. And so the lust of the flesh, it says the lust of the eyes. That's where we see something, and we want it. The desire of the eyes. Uh, and then the boastful pride of life, the the fruit was desirable to make someone wise. I want to be wise like God. I want to be really wise, is what the temptation was. And so those are the three categories. Now,
what I think is every temptation we face. And I'm wondering if Eva wants to add to this, but I think this is true. Every temptation we face is in one of those three categories, wouldn't you say?
I think so, too. Yeah. Um, and, you know, sometimes they you hear on on fortune cookies or whatever. It's like there's the world, the flesh and the devil.
Yeah. Well, that's the three. That's the that's the three areas of warfare that we face. But this is the flesh. The flesh is pride. It's a visual desire and physical desire. And all three of those things. And of course, Galatians five talks about the what comes out of that. The the fruit of the flesh versus the fruit of the spirit. So great.
Well, thank you for that. Thanks for your question, Sylvia. Our next question is from Marilyn in Florida. Listen to this one. She says, why would an all knowing God bother with a flood when he knew ahead of time the depravity of mankind would again take hold? Are we to believe that because Noah was God fearing that his progeny would be less depraved? Love your program and I thank you ahead of time for your answer.
Would Noah's progeny be less depraved? Apparently not, because we see what happens almost immediately, right?
So why even bother with a flood to wipe it out?
Yeah, well, apparently it was getting so bad that he was going to to judge the world in that way and start again. Uh. Did it. I don't know why. God in his sovereignty. Maybe he saw that it was worse even then, and it was headed for a worse self-destruction than what happened afterwards and what has continued since the days of Noah. I don't know, God knows. But the thing is, it says in Genesis six, I believe that the Lord regretted that he made man, that he
made humanity. I don't think that God really regrets things. In numbers 23 it says that God doesn't change his mind. It says God is not a man, that he would change his mind. And so it seems to me that God knew exactly what he was doing. He knew exactly what was going to come out of this. And he uses that phrase of regret for having made man, and then he's going to destroy the world with a flood. That means that he's using anthropomorphisms. That's a figure of
speech where it attributes human characteristics to God. And so God knows everything that's going to happen. Uh, he's judging the world for that. Uh, and then he's going to rebuild. And I think what we see is there's something that experts at narrative in the Bible have pointed out that there's a literary technique that's called recursion, which is a big way of saying repetition.
Over and over.
Over and over it recurs. And so what you have is God plants a garden and he places Adam and Eve in there. He tells them to be fruitful and multiply. He gives them everything that they could possibly want, and it's good. And then what do they do? They rebel and they sin. And then God rebuilt. You know, he judges the earth with the. Because it gets so bad. And you have the flood, the universal flood. And then he starts again with Noah. And what does Noah do?
He plants a vineyard. He's got a beautiful garden. And then he takes of the fruit in an inappropriate way. He gets drunk. And then in the same way, the behavior with his children, his son, uh, looks upon him inappropriately. And then, uh, ham descendant Canaan is cursed. And so it's a deliberate recursion that every time God says, okay, I'm really fed up with this, I'm going to judge it. I'm going to start again. And then what happens immediately?
The first generation, they recur the same sin. And I think that that's one of the things that we see is that no matter what God does, what do we do? We go back to our selfish desires.
And don't we also see that at the end of time in in the book of revelation, in the Millennial Kingdom, everything is so wonderful. And then there's a.
Last.
Battle, a last battle, a rebellion.
Yeah. That there's even after a perfect thousand years where the Lord Jesus has reigned on the throne, there will be people born in that thousand years. And then revelation chapter 20 talks about that. There's going to be one more battle. They call it the war of Gog and Magog. There it says. That's a good point. It's revelation 27. When the thousand years are completed, Satan will be released from his prison and will go out to deceive the nations at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog,
to gather them for battle. Their number is like the sand of the sea. They come up over the surface of the earth and surrounded the encampment of the saints, the beloved city. Then fire came down from heaven and consumed them. But even after a perfect setting like the Millennial Kingdom, where Messiah is reigning directly, there still will be a rebellion.
At the end. It's returned to Eden in the fact that he's there.
Mhm. Yeah. So yeah, it just shows us what are we like apart from God. Rebellious.
Rebellious.
We're always going to do it. So, uh, if there's anything, I'll tell you what. Let me just say one last thing about the flood. There's a structure of the way the Hebrew is written. It's called chiasm, and I won't lie. Chiasm means, uh, it has a, b, c, d e and then, uh, d c b a it's sort of half an x if you want to think of it. That's how thing. And there's a parallel a pattern a and and a and b and b. But the thing in the center is what the writer wants to draw
your attention to. So if you say a, the first part is the waters coming and the second part is the waters receding. But at the center of it all, the thing that that the the author is trying to draw our attention to is God remembered. Noah. So at the center of the flood is God's grace and God's mercy. And that's more though we think of the flood as judgment. Uh, really, what it's designed to do is show us that even in the midst of judgment, God is merciful. Isn't that great?
It's the great reminder from the book of Genesis. We keep sinning. God keeps being merciful. Well, we're going to be back with more of your questions. Don't call in. It's just an all mailbag, all the time program. Today. You're listening to me, Michael Radonich and Tricia McMillan and Ella Radonich. Stay with us. We'll be right back. Have
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go to Open Line radio.org. Welcome back to Open Line with Doctor Michael Radonich. That's me. And joining me today is my wife Eva Radonich, who is professor at Moody Bible Institute. She teaches literature education, some Jewish studies, you name it, she teaches it. She also wrote in the Moody Bible Commentary and made sure that I wrote everything she wanted in my parts to. She was.
A big job, but.
You got to include that, she'd say. Yeah. And also Trish McMillan, our producer, who has put together this all mailbag, all the time program. She's got all your questions you've sent in. Right.
We do. Our next question is from Juliana. So we've just talked about in our first segment, we talked about Genesis and the flood. Hers kind of piggybacks on that. She said her sixth grade son attends a private school within the Christian tradition. Recently, his religion teacher mentioned to the students that Adam and Eve and Noah's Ark are
just made up stories to teach lessons. When I called the head of the school, he also said that they weren't real, that it's not part of the actual actual history because they can't they couldn't have been recorded and they can't be proven, but that the message is real. I'm just beside myself because I've always believed these stories to be real, and now I don't know what to believe. Can you please clarify this for me once and for all?
Well, I'm sure you read in the Bible how it starts. Once upon a time, God created the heavens and the earth.
Or once upon a time, the heavens and the earth just kind of happened.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, it seems to me that people have a hard time with the creation story, and so they want to get around it. And the way they get around it is by saying, oh, it's it's uh, uh, what do we call it? Uh, their messages are true. But now narrative literature in the Bible, which includes the creation narrative stories of the Bible. They are defined as the representation of past events for the purpose of instruction. And what I mean, that's a definition I would give in my class.
The representation of past events for the purpose of instruction. Meaning, when we have narrative or what are called stories in the Bible, they are histories, they are true stories, and they have been designed and written down in a way so that we can actually learn from them. All things were written for us so that we can learn from them. First Corinthians ten says, and so, yes, they're true stories,
but they're designed for instruction. It sounds to me like what they're saying is like this, this question about is it Noah's Ark, right.
Noah's Ark and Adam and Eve.
Adam and Eve, that they're just trying to get the instruction from it without accepting the true history of.
It? I think, you know, part of the confusion comes with calling the Bible stories. And so we sort of think of stories like Grimms Fairy Tales or.
Yeah, but now the reason. That's why I started with my answer. There are literary clues given by authors to tell us when they're making stuff up. So if I were to write Once Upon a time, all of you would think, yeah, he's making that story up. That's a fairy tale. But the Bible doesn't ever present its material that way. It states what it states not just as fantasy. It doesn't do that. It presents it as fact. And that's why we can get instruction from it. Because it's true.
Now sometimes people say, well, it's hard to believe. Yeah, I think it's hard to believe that a donkey spoke in numbers, but it says God opened its mouth. And I believe in a sovereign God. And there's a reason why that story is put there, because in the next chapter, Balaam's going to prophesy. And if God can speak from the donkey, he can speak through the other donkey, too,
you know, and it's to remind us of that. And so the point of it is these these stories, even miraculous ones, even ones that are hard to believe, are designed by the writers of Scripture to believe them. And one of the things that I don't think to interpret the Bible, but Eve is really the master of this. She always, or I should say the mistress of it,
because I have to get my genders right. But oh please, the she was in charge of as our kids were growing up, and they had questions about these things and they were going to secular school. Of course, they weren't learning the creation story. Eva was always working with them on helping them to see the historicity and the truth of the Bible.
I think one of the interesting parts about this question about Adam and Eve will start with their, you know, it's about God being the creator. And if you took a pencil and you underlined every time God is mentioned as creator in the whole Bible, you'd have to go through several pencils by the time you finished reading. It's not a.
Whole nature.
Part of his whole nature is not an isolated event, so it's in the beginning. Those verses and it's not mentioned again, it is the theme that runs through the scripture of God being our creator.
We were talking before about Annie and her iguana.
Yes, my four year old daughter is in Awana and and our recent Bible verse was John 1717. Your word is truth and even the importance of when I'm reading to her the Bible passage, the importance of picking up an actual Bible and not just reading it off of my phone or on a printed out piece of paper, but that she sees that. And that I'm differentiating between the Bible is true and other stories that we read and pick up off of our bookshelf. But how do you?
So as a mom, you're sending your child to this school where you think they're getting the the Bible teaching that you want them to get? What do you do now when when you find out that the teachers are saying, oh, they're just stories. Even if they say, well, well, God's creator. Yeah, that kind of just weaves through the whole thing. Um, which is true. Ha! But but it's more than that. The whole the whole story is true. Not just that
message that kind of weaves through it. How do you how do you handle that?
Yeah, I think you need to. It's a good opportunity to do a little Bible study with your kids and say, okay, where where else is Adam and Eve mentioned in the Bible? Are they only mentioned here or are they mentioned other places? And look at the other places where they're mentioned. And every time they're mentioned, they're mentioned as historical.
Yeah. And in fact, someone by the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Yeah. Mentions them and treats them as historical. And so basically I would, I would, I would say, who are we going to listen to the teachers that say it's not or our Lord? I mean, obviously that's.
And you can do it without being disrespectful, building disrespect in your kids for their teacher. You know, you know, you know. Mr. Wilson is a great teacher and he has so many good things to say. But on this, I don't think he has a real good understanding of what the Bible is really talking about here.
The other thing to this is maybe a challenge. I think that parents maybe that we were sending our kids to secular school, so we knew that they're going to be hearing things that were contrary. So we just said, listen, I really appreciate your teachers. We love them. We think they're great. But on this stuff, we think that we
differ with them and we think we're right. And so, you know, don't argue or have big fights with your teachers in class, but instead, you know, just this is what what I'll teach you and what I've taught them. And then so that's one thing you can do that's an approach you can take. Or the other approach is you can say, I'm going to find a school that teaches the Bible as true and maybe shop schools. Shop schools, you know, that's another possibility.
And those are good life lessons to teach your kids to that, that the Bible is true and foundations to build upon in their lives throughout this. Well thank you. Thanks for that. I hope that's helpful. Juliana. Um, our next question is from Crawfordsville, Indiana. Um, in Genesis, so much of our understanding hinges on certain Hebrew words. Moses was educated in presumably the best Egyptian schools and tutors available. If Moses wrote the Pentateuch, as we believe, are we
arguing over a Hebrew translation of an Egyptian language? Would he have written it in Egyptian?
I think we need to remember that he spoke Hebrew. You know, he was he was the child of Jewish parents, and I'm sure his of of Hebrew parents. Right. And remember when he was everybody knows the the, the Bible story of where he was hidden in the basket and, and the Egyptian princess said, I would like to find a nurse for him. And his sister had been sent to watch to be sure that he wasn't eaten by the crocodiles or whatever. And she goes, oh, I know a nurse. And he was taken back to his own
mother to take care of him. So certainly his heart Language was Hebrew.
Yeah, I'm sure they spoke with him in Hebrew at home as he was being raised. And also, I'm sure he learned Egyptian. He was probably bilingual, right? That's not hard for us. And so I would not presume that the the Bible was written in Egyptian and then translated into Hebrew. I would not presume that, but even if it were, it's really irrelevant. Here's why. When we read in, uh, second Timothy 316, it says, All Scripture is God breathed.
All Scripture is inspired. Now, what does this mean? This means that it is the text of Scripture that is inspired, not the authors of Scripture. We often think of the writers as being the inspired ones, but it says it's the the text of Scripture that's God breathed. Now men were moved by the Holy Spirit. It says in Second Peter 121 to write what it is that God wanted them to write. Uh, it wasn't dictation. They did it with their own personalities. They did it with their own ideas.
But the Holy Spirit was moving them as they did this sort of working together. Nevertheless, it's the text of Scripture that's inspired. So even if Moses in his process wrote it in Egyptian, first had a hieroglyphics Bible, and then wrote it and translated that into Hebrew, it's really irrelevant because the scripture we have is in Hebrew. So it's the final form. What's Hebrew? That's what's inspired. And so we don't have to and this is not a
new thing. We we hear people who say, well, Jesus spoke Aramaic in the Gospels.
Which is a Hebrew, like.
It's a, it's a Semitic language like Hebrew. And the Jewish people picked it up when they were in Babylon, and they came back, and that's what they were speaking every day in Hebrew was also a language that they knew. But Jesus spoke Aramaic. Therefore, what we need to do is go to the Gospels and see and translate them back, especially Jesus words, into Aramaic, and understand it that way. No, it's in Greek, the God breathed word of God. The
scriptures are in Greek, and that's what we read. I had a woman write to me recently and say, uh, we know that Jesus heart language was Aramaic, and then she makes this logical leap. And therefore Adam and Eve probably spoke Aramaic in the Garden of Eden. Well, that's a logical leap. And then said, we have to translate the words in Genesis back into Aramaic when they named the animals. No we don't. It's the final form. The
final form is in Hebrew. And by the way, I don't believe it was in Aramaic or anything like that, or in Egyptian. But even if it were, what do we have? We have an inspired text of Scripture. We read it in that way, and then we have accurate translations and we can read it that way. For those of us who don't read Hebrew or Greek, we can still understand the Bible. We don't have to go back to a language behind the Bible, which is what sometimes people think that we need to do. That would be a,
I think, a really serious mistake. So that's it's I always say we're going to interpret the text, not the events behind the text. We're going to interpret what the text of Scripture says. And by the time a student has me for a biblical interpretation, what's called hermeneutics, by the end of the semester, they're saying, yeah, we know text, not the events, text, text. We know because I keep saying it's what we have. That's what we read. That's
what God gave us. That's the inspired Word of God. Well, you can write to us with your question. Open line at Moody Edu, you can go to our Facebook page. You can post your question there. You can tweet your question. Our handle is at Open Line Radio one, whatever you like, because we're answering an all mailbag all the time program. Today you're listening to Open Line with Michael, right, John?
We'll be right back. Many people wonder if Jewish people still need to hear the good news of Jesus the Messiah. Doctor Al Mohler's answer is yes. Absolutely. Chosen People Ministries is offering his book to the Jew first in the 21st century. In it, Mohler maintains that bringing the gospel to the Jewish people shows our faithfulness to the truth.
For your free copy, go to Open Line radio.org. Scroll down and click on the link that says A Free gift from Chosen People Ministries to receive your copy of To the Jew First. We're so glad that Febc partners with Open Line with Doctor Michael Ray Dolnick, bringing the Febc mailbag every week. Learn how Far East Broadcasting Company is taking Christ to the world at febc. Org on their weekly podcast. Until all have heard with Ed Cannon, you'll hear stories of lives changed by Messiah all across
the globe. Again, you can hear the podcast when you visit febc. Org That's febc.org. We're back. This is Michael Radonich on Open Line where you can ask any question about God, the Bible or the spiritual life. Today's an all mailbag all the time program. And joining me is producer of Open Line, Tricia McMillan and my fellow faculty member here at Moody Bible Institute, fellow contributor to the Moody Bible Commentary. And she happens to be my wife,
Eva Radulovic. And we're talking about your questions that you've sent in. Trish did a great job putting together all of these questions. But before we get to the next question, I want to tell you about a great guide that can help you answer tough Bible questions that you may have at home. The Moody Bible Commentary. It can be
used every day as you study the Bible. I had the privilege of being co-editor with Doctor Michael Vanlandingham, and it has commentaries written by 30 faculty members of Moody Bible Institute. Each individual commentary provides an introduction of the biblical book. Each one also traces the flow of thought of the biblical book and explains difficult passages. If you'd like a free digital sample of the Daniel and Romans commentaries,
just go to Moody Bible commentary.com/daniel. Then you'll see the digital versions of both Daniel and Romans from the commentary. Again, the website is moody Bible commentary.com/daniel. It's also available in your local bookstore or through various online booksellers. Now you can study the Bible with the faculty of Moody Bible Institute using a commentary you can trust. And you know
Trish every week. You are faithful. When I come into the studio, as we do Open Line, what have you done at the table there by the microphones?
I make sure you have the moody Bible commentary on the table within reach.
Yes. And a.
Cup of.
Coffee. And a cup of coffee. But mostly.
Commentary. Mostly the coffee. Sometimes Delayed.
I always appreciate that because I'm always afraid. So far it really doesn't happen very often, but I'm afraid I'm going to go completely like, ah, I better grab the commentary and see what it says. Yes, and so it's there and I appreciate you having it there. For me, it's my security blanket.
And it's here today.
Here it is right now. It's got stuff on it, but I can pull it over to me in a moment. That's right. And, you know, I think we're so bad, Iva and I, I, we both have it on our desk. Except we at home, we share an office.
It's not a big room.
It's not a big room. And yet we each have our own. That's right. Sitting on the desk. Because if I want to look something up, I don't want to wait for Iva to be done with her moody Bible commentary. So I need my.
Or. I don't want to get up and walk across the room. Six feet. Six feet. Yeah.
Well, now you can mark it up yourself. That's right. Your own things. You could sign each other's.
Yeah. You know.
Well, now you can study if you're listening, or you can get a gift for someone so they can study the Bible with the faculty of the Moody Bible Institute. And feel free to go to our online bookstore or to your local Christian bookstore and get a copy of the Moody Bible Commentary.
All right.
Our next question is from Roy in Peotone, Illinois listens to WMP. His question is out of Exodus 27, verses 20 and 21. Aaron and his descendants are given a statute to be observed for ever throughout their generations, to keep and tend a lamp from evening until morning. So it's kind of got two questions. Do you think it's possible that there may be a lamp still being tended either publicly or in secret? And if not, then why would God give a statute to forever be observed by the people of Israel?
Well, first of all, it is not being burned today. It's called the the Eternal flame. The near Tamid is what it's called in Judaism, and it was part of the tabernacle and the temple worship. And it's there is no temple. There is no tabernacle.
It was in the tabernacle. And then when the temple was built, that was all transferred to the temple.
But no more. No more. And so we don't have it. So how can it be?
Can you remind us how come? Because in 70 A.D., the temple was destroyed. Yeah.
That's it. So, uh. So that's why since A.D. 70, this has not been burning the menorah. The the the eternal flame. But it's it's called. I'm looking here at Genesis 2721. It's called a perpetual statute in the new American standard, a permanent statute in the hcsb. But what I think is interesting, it's it's a statute for forever. That's how it literally reads in Hebrew. And the word is olam. Uh, olam means forever, a forever statute. Now, the word olam is a really interesting word because it
doesn't always mean for all time. It it can mean for the period of time. For the lifetime, I guess you could say, for the lifetime of this statute. And here's what I mean. In Exodus 21, it says that a slave could decide to stay with his master, doesn't want to leave. And so he would then bring have his ear pierced. You know, that famous passage and Exodus 20 would have his ear pierced, and then he would
stay with with his master La Olam forever. Now, did that mean for all eternity he was a slave to his master? No, of course not. It meant for his lifetime. And so the same thing with these statutes. This is for the lifetime of the statute and the. The lifetime of this statute is till to the the temple was destroyed and then it can't be observed any longer.
Huh? Sorry, I'm making notes.
But the tradition is carried on in Rabbinic Judaism today. So that synagogues have a light in their in their, in their building.
But it's not a flame.
And yeah, it's not a flame, but it's but it is a it's a special lamp that burns. And it's.
A.
Reminder as a reminder of.
This, a symbolic. Yeah. Remind you. Okay. Okay.
Well, great. Thanks for that question, Roy. Our next question is from Rita in Ravenna, Ohio. Listens to Wtxf in judges nine. Why does Scripture say Abimelech killed the 70 sons of Gideon when he actually only killed 69 because Jotham escaped?
I think it's probably a literary rounding up of the number. I think it's not. It's not a mathematical inaccuracy that makes you want to say, well, if they say 70 and it was only 69, then let's don't even believe the Bible anymore. I think it is just a Referee summary statement that he killed all the 70 sons of Gideon. But actually Jotham escaped.
Yeah. Jotham escaped. And so this morning I was reading the questions that you sent a skimming through them, and I saw that question, and I read it out loud to Eva, and she said, can you say roundup?
Yeah.
That was her. I thought, well, that's the simplest and best explanation for this, that it's not sometimes we we become hyper literal. I think we should be literal. When we read the Bible, we become hyper literal. We don't allow for the normal way that we talk and the normal way that we would summarize, like rounding up to 70. That's all it is.
Okay. And I know there are a couple other uses of 70 in there. Like there's 70 pieces of silver that they gave him. And so there may be I mean, there.
Might be.
There might be some sort of 70 and 70 and.
And rounding it up.
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Okay. But I think that that what happens is that we get hyper literal. One of my favorite stories was, uh, Jesus was Eve was teaching about Jesus healing of a man to little kids once. And he said, Lord, if you say the word, my, my servant will be healed. Do you remember that?
I do.
And the little girl looked at Eve and said.
What's the word?
Because she she was so literal. She thought there was one special word that he had to say.
Word. Right?
And I think sometimes too many people come to the Bible and they treat it that way instead of reading it for its plain meaning. Simple meaning.
Okay.
Of course she's excused. She was seven.
She was seven, right? Yeah.
Um, our next question is from, um, Cynthia in Lakeland, Florida. Listens to Wcqs. I enjoy your program and admire your dedication to the word. My question is in Luke 1619 to 31. Um. It states that Lazarus the beggar died and was carried by the angels to Abraham. Why? Abraham. There's another Lazarus. This one should be a real quick thing. There's another Lazarus in John 11 one through 44. Um, John 11, who has died and was raised by Jesus.
That's a different Lazarus, correct? Why would the beggar Lazarus? So it's kind of two different things. Why would the beggar Lazarus go to Abraham and not go to God?
Yep. First thing is, it's true. There are different lazaruses. Lazarus is the name of the friend of Jesus who died and was resurrected by Jesus.
Uh, had the sisters.
The sisters? Mary and Martha. Exactly. And that's the Lazarus is a name like today we would say John. Okay. Uh, it was just a common Hebrew name.
Okay.
It was from Eliezer. Uh, in Hebrew. And so that's the first thing. Secondly, this Lazarus, when Jesus told the story of Lazarus and the the rich man. It was just that. It was a parable. It wasn't. It was an illustrative story. It is not. It's based on truth. But there was no real Lazarus character. There was no real rich man. It's a parable. It's an illustration. And we have to understand what a parable is. It's it's it's true to life, but it's not a factual retelling
of a story. And in that culture at that time, when a person went to be with the Lord, the patriarchs were there to bring comfort.
That was the, the, the image in the tradition.
In the tradition. And so Jesus just goes with that. And who's to say that that's not true, that Abraham won't be the one to bring comfort and and so I think that's why it's there. But if he was bringing comfort, he was just an instrumental comforter in the hands of God when bringing comfort. So anyway, we're going to be back with more questions in just a moment on this all mailbag, all the time edition of Open Line. So glad you're listening in. We'll be right back on
Open Line. Stay with us. Welcome back to Open Line. I'm Michael Ray Dolnick, and if you'd like to know a little bit more about me, you can go to my personal homepage. You'll find my bio there. Blog posts, also info about speaking engagements, books I've written, even trips to Israel. Just go to the Open Line Radio website that's Open Line radio.org and scroll down. You'll see a link with my smiling face that says my website. Click on that and it will take you to my personal website.
And you can see all those things that I just mentioned with me today for this all mailbag, All the Time program is Tricia McMillan, producer of Open Line, and Eva Radonich, who's generally at home during the program, texting me the answers to your questions. But today she is here, giving me the answers directly. So thank you for being here and it's.
Great to be at the radio kitchen table.
Yeah, yeah. We need we need the coffee. We need everything so that we can just get everything done. That's what we need. So and so. Eva, just hold up big signs. You don't have to text.
Okay? Okay. Good, good.
Okay. So, Trish, we got something going.
Yeah. Our next our next question is from Brad says I absolutely love spending part of my Saturday morning with you when I can. Blessings to you and the Moody family. Um, his question is about the location of your spirit right after you die. So the next several questions actually kind
of are about where that sort of thing. Um, if your spirit goes immediately into the presence of God, does this mean that when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, he brought his spirit back from being in the presence of God to his body in the grave?
Well, I think he probably didn't bring it back to his body in the grave as much as he brought it back to his body, which was then.
What was in the grave. It was ready.
But yeah, but it probably wasn't reunited until he was made alive. Yeah. And he came out in the grave clothes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But would he have been with God that it was, like now? Oh, sorry. You know, you got that bad news.
For Lazarus, right? Yeah. Lewis does. C.S. Lewis, I Wish I Had It With Me has a great poem about how Lazarus felt. Yeah. Being called back from the presence of God into into earth.
So I don't have any. I think he was in the presence of God. He was being he was there. He came back. I have no basis for what I'm going to say now. Okay. Okay. Uh, but it's possible that the Lord took away his memory of what it was like in heaven. Uh, sort of like Men in black, where they had the neuralyzer.
Yeah.
Uh, a little memory thing. Yeah.
Yeah, exactly. Uh, I just think that it would be so hard to be in God's presence and then return that I think God took that memory away. And that's why it says that the only one that that could speak about what it's like in God's presence was the Lord Jesus, because his memory was not taken away. Right? He came down from the father. He returned to him. And so I have no basis for saying that. But I think it's possible that that's what what happened?
Okay.
Okay. And that's the worst thing is I want people don't say Dolnick said. Because I don't know. I'm just guessing. Right? Yeah, that's that's what I think though.
But not based on Scripture. Just just thinking. Yes.
Just my thinking.
Yeah. Yeah. Um, Gertrude in Lafayette, Indiana, listens to Wagner has a question along these lines. Um, she's heard that there are three heavens and wanted to know if you can speak about this. And then she wanted to know, um, the little girl in Luke eight that Jesus raises from the dead. And then also Lazarus there kind of spoke, spoken about as if they're not really dead, just sleeping. Were they actually Fully dead.
Or were they sleeping.
Or were they sleeping?
Let me take the first question, which is the three heavens? I'm going to throw the second question over to Eva. Uh, so first of all, three heavens, people want to say that there are levels of heaven. I think that when Paul talks about the third heaven, he is not talking about a higher level of heaven than a lower level of heaven. I think you've got a sky that's first heaven, then you've got the atmosphere around us. That's the second heaven, and then you've got the presence of God. That's the
third heaven. So when Paul says he was taken to the third heaven, it meant he was just brought to the presence of God. Mm. Uh, and so that's that's the three heavens. Now, were they sleeping or were they dead?
Dead. Sleeping is just a it's just a euphemism to say that a person has died because they look a dead person laid out. Looks like they're just sleeping. And so I think that's it was just euphemistically A common expression that someone has had had died, but it just seemed too harsh to say they're dead. Yeah, so they're sleeping.
So, like we would say, they've passed away.
They've passed.
Away. They're with the Lord. Instead of saying they died.
Dead means separated.
Means separated. Right.
It's separating the the spirit, the immaterial portion from the physical portion. The material portion. And it's used in first Thessalonians four as well.
Right. You see it on tombstones. If you go to the old graveyards, they have, like little epitaphs and stuff. It'll say like asleep in Jesus. But it's just a, it's a, it's a, it's a softer expression for death.
Okay.
All right. Thanks, Gertrude, for your question. Faye says she's listened to a well-known preacher say that all of our loved ones in heaven know what's going on with us and what's happening in the world. And he also said that things wouldn't bother them. Um, and she's not understanding that. Do you agree or disagree? What do you think?
Well, I think it's a misunderstanding to think that God. That that people see what's going on with their loved ones. Uh, it's based on a misinterpretation of Hebrews 11.
And too many Hollywood movies.
Yes. But people get it from the Bible, from Hebrews 11, actually Hebrews 12. Uh, they they make a mistake. Uh, but they do get it from the movies more than they get it from the Bible. Uh, therefore, since we have such a large cloud of witnesses surrounding us, and so they presume that the they know that it's talking about the people in Hebrews 11. Right. Mhm. And they are a cloud of witnesses. So they presume that the witnesses are witnessing what we do on earth. And so
they say, oh look, dead people can see us. That's not what Hebrews 11 is saying. The word witness means to testify. Right. If a person goes on trial and is called as a witness, they testify. And so what it's saying is, since we have such a large cloud of testifiers, of people who testify to the value of faith, then we should also exercise our faith in the same way. And so they're there testifying to the value of faith. And they are not witnessing what we do when we die.
We don't become little gods that become omniscient. We go into the presence of the Lord. But God's admonition we're not. We don't become God. And so we can't see everything that's going on. I know a woman wrote in and she was concerned that her mother would be seeing, uh, what she and her husband are doing, and she thought she might be upset about that and felt uncomfortable with
her mother watching her on Earth. And I'm like, no, you're honestly, if your mother is with the Lord, she's a little bit more interested in him than she is in you. And that's an encouraging thing for us. So no, we're not we're they're not watching us. So.
All right. Yeah. All right. We'll try and squeeze in one last question. Okay. Michael wants to know what the Jewish faith teaches about the afterlife. Is there a heaven or hell?
I just taught that my Jewish religious thought class. Jewish.
Did you answer this question then? I will. Okay, good.
I said in class that you get two Jews. You get three opinions. That's something we all live with. The fact that I'm Jewish. You know, I changed my mind from day to day. But the. If you go to rabbinic theology, Judaism teaches that there's that the perfectly righteous go to Paradise immediately. If you're if you never sin, that must be a very small group of people. But they say there's some that go to God, to Paradise. Immediately the perfectly wicked go to Gehinnom, which is hell.
And they are. They suffer there for a year and then they're exterminated. And then there's ordinary people who go to who both have both good and bad. They go to Gehinnom and they are purged. And after a year they go into the presence of God in Paradise. And that's rabbinic theology. I don't think it's right, but that's what rabbinic theology in the Talmud teaches. Well, can you believe it? The first hour of Open Line is a fast. Yeah,
don't go away. Stick around. Because I'm most of these stations. There's a second hour of open line. And if you like, check out our web page on the break here. Go to Open Line radio.org. You'll find links there to past programs email Facebook, Twitter. There's a link to the Chosen People Ministries free resource and you can sign up for that. There's also a link that goes to my personal home page. You can go there and if you're interested you can
find out more about me. You can see books I've written, DVDs, I've done blogs I've written, speaking engagements that are upcoming. And of course, you see our current Bible study resource that you can get, or you can figure out how to become a kitchen table partner. Keep reading the Bible. We'll talk about it next week. Open line with Doctor Michael Ray Dolnick is a production of Moody Radio, a ministry of Moody Bible Institute.