Dr. Brown will open the phone lines to your questions today on a wide range of subjects, also opening up the Scriptures with some insights about Yeshua’s triumph over death, as well as catching up with some important recent news. Listen live here 2-4 pm EST, and call into the show at (866) 348 7884 with your questions and comments.
Hour 1:
Dr. Brown’s Bottom Line: There are so many issues that are confusing mentally, emotionally, what do we do, which direction; the Word of God cuts to the root of all issues and separates emotion from Truth.
Hour 2:
Dr. Brown’s Bottom Line: You know there are infinite theories about how to get to Heaven, but only one savior who died in our place and without Him we are damned and doomed!
SPECIAL OFFER! THIS WEEK ONLY!
This week, you can pre-order a signed and numbered copy of Dr. Brown’s new groundbreaking book, Can You Be Gay and Christian?, for $30 Postage Paid! (Release Date May 6th)
Call 1-800-278-9978 or Order Online!
Other Resources:
I have some questions for Dr. Brown. Why would the Abrahamic God, kindly and all-powerful, allow natural evils to torment and kill people? Why can’t he keep kids from getting cancer? How did the Holocaust fit into God’s scheme? Why, if God wants us to know and accept him so much, does he hide himself from humanity? Why would an all-loving God consign sinners to an eternity of horrible torment for crimes that don’t warrant that? (In fact, no crimes do!). The official Catholic doctrine, for instance, is that un-confessed homosexual acts consign you to an eternity of molten sulfur. And would the Christian God really let someone burn for eternity because they were Jews, or didn’t get baptized? Why does God in the Old Testament toy with people for his amusement, ordering genocides in which women and children are killed en masse, and allowing she-bears to kill a pack of kids just for making fun of a prophet’s baldness? How does that comport with the God worshiped today? When you answer those I’ll have some more for you. Thanks.
Just when I think I’ve heard it all from Dr. Brown … he comes up with something to challenge me! (I guess that’s why he gets the big bucks as a radio talk show host! 😉 )
It was his statement that the gay rights movement has it’s roots in the Sexual Revolution rather than the Civil Rights Movement.
I hadn’t really thought about this distinction since they are so linked. Gays have been traditionally denied equal civil rights because of their sexuality so the two issues are not easily separated.
But, I have to admit, it’s an interesting point to ponder.
Obviously, Dr Brown is trying to justify inequality for gays because of their sexual behavior. Inequality is much harder to argue from a civil rights perspective. It’s easier to dismiss gays if the whole thing is about crazy sex.
But is Dr. Brown correct about the history? I have no idea. The Civil Rights era and the Sexual Revolution overlapped in time so you can’t use a time-line to determine the origin or gays rights.
I think you’d have to read the writing of early gay activism.
Did the activists talk about equality or did they talk about wanting to have lots of sex? (Or both!)
Van,
I have a question for you.
Where does atheism say that genocide is wrong?
It is revealing which Bible verses Dr. Brown takes a hard-line literalist interpretation on and which ones he says are “totally a matter of personal conscience.”
Like this one:
“39 But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him and beateth him with a baseball bat.”
Van, Stay tuned your questions will take 2.5 years to answer in sufficient terms. At least your asking good questions.
Yeshua was buried in Joseph’s ‘Rich Man’s’ tomb. It cost Joseph some Yeshua identification affiliated reputation to ask for the body, with an audience with P.P.–not an easy audience to achieve, let alone get the body from otherwise. Since bodies went to next of kin, was Joseph a relative? Or simply a man of ‘secret’ faith from the Sanhedrin with political connections and clout?
What happened between being lain the tomb near its Garden, and the Resurrection? Visiting hades, to view the spirits bound in chains of restraint (fallen angels,or their offspring? per Jude 6, Gen. 6: 1-6, or Giants once on the earth [ibid?]), and, also, sharing the Good News with past God covenant believers or observers who did not have the opportunity of personally receiving the Holy Spirit of adoption? Why these possibilities?, to promise the other covenants saints completion on their own resurrection (I Cor. 15, I Thesl. 4 and 5, and Hebrews 11:39 & 40, 12: 22-24 [How else could they personally have ant salvation assurance unless they heard it from Yeshua in the time between the Garden Tomb and the Resurrection)?
The saints of old were set in ‘paradise’, where Jesus took the thief on the Cross next to Him who professed faith in Yeshua’s redemption capacity. With a great gulf determined between God fearers and those suffering in hades we have the reflection of Jesus on the rich man and Lazarus. But, they had no way to heavenly domains until Jesus’ Resurrected.
Further, in addition to the spiritual realm, we have the Apostles in initial fear and disarray. Jesus appears among them in Luke 24: 13-35, where in 36-43 and John 20 he authenticates He is the One with the keys to life. Is this after the Resurrection.
A young painter in Idaho has had visions of Jesus in heaven, now resurrected, and risen. Her remarkable painting of his face, matches up with the shroud of Turin. Do you know the difference between the images on the bottom of the Shroud and that on top?
Jabez,
Wow! Your post is very hard to follow.
In today’s show Dr. Brown played a sound bite addressing the issue of declining Christianity in America. The speaker (I forget who) said he was not worried about this because most of the loss was to mainstream churches.
I belong to one of those “mainstream” churches.
I gotta say — my curch is not empty. It is full and growing. Our new members class is big and vibrant.
I took an informal survey and about half of our new members are from Evangelical and Pentecostal churches — most of them victims of inter-Christian intolerance.
While most of them aren’t gay, they cite anti-gay intolerance as the reason they left their Evangelical or Pentecostal church.
My conclusion is that “anti-gay,” for these people, is the bellwether for a generally harsh, judgmental and un-loving church.
It was interesting to hear, on today’s show, Dr. Brown speak in solidarity with the anti-gay, Muslim taxi drivers.
A few months ago, on this site, I was severely condemned for noting that conservative Muslims and conservative Christians have a number of things in common.
Well, this would be a case in point.
It seems to me that upon Jesus’ death he went unto the Father in heaven. Wasn’t witnessing to spirits in prison something he did before he even came to be born into this world?
Hi Ray,
I think the same idea went around about a year ago and I misunderstood what you meant then too. Can you clarify where you got that idea from, please. Is it from 1Pet. 3?
A little tid-bit about the she-bears and Elisha’s Baldness.
The accusation of being a bald-head had nothing to do with the amount of hair on Elisha’s head. They were accusing Elisha of being an unclean (leprosy), unrighteous man that God could not save. It’s the same accusation that the chief priests railed against Jesus on the cross, “Come down! Save yourself.” (Matthew 27:40,42) as they believed He was smitten of God and not truly the Messiah, so Jesus refutes their accusation by quoting Psalm 22. So the accusation in 2 Kings 2 has nothing to do with Elisha’s hair count, but it was a grievous accusation against him as a prophet of God, which is also an accusation against God Himself.
50/50/50, then 42?
Context is always key and of great importance. Were the forty-two children? or childish young men, immature soldiers? Let’s take a look.
Elija’s confrontations:
2 Kings Chapter 1:
9 Then the king sent unto him a captain of “fifty with his fifty”. And he went up to him: and, behold, he sat on the top of an hill. And he spake unto him, Thou man of God, the king hath said, Come down.
10 And Elijah answered and said to the captain of “fifty”, If I be a man of God, then let fire come down from heaven, and consume thee and thy “fifty”. And there came down fire from heaven, and consumed him and his “fifty”.
11 Again also he sent unto him another captain of “fifty with his fifty”. And he answered and said unto him, O man of God, thus hath the king said, Come down quickly.
12 And Elijah answered and said unto them, If I be a man of God, let fire come down from heaven, and consume thee and thy “fifty”. And the fire of God came down from heaven, and consumed him and his “fifty”.
13 And he sent again a captain of the third “fifty with his fifty”. And the third captain of “fifty” went up, and came and fell on his knees before Elijah, and besought him, and said unto him, O man of God, I pray thee, let my life, and the life of these fifty thy servants, be precious in thy sight.
14 Behold, there came fire down from heaven, and burnt up the two captains of the former “fifties with their fifties”: therefore let my life now be precious in thy sight.
15 And the angel of the LORD said unto Elijah, Go down with him: be not afraid of him. And he arose, and went down with him unto the king.
So here we have three companies of fifty soldiers (plus their captains). The first two have no regard for God nor His prophet as previously in the chapter they are likely Baalzebub worshipers. The third captain humbles himself before God and is saved. The account then transitions to Elisha and the account of the 42:
23 And he went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head.
24 And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the LORD. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them.
The word children ‘na`ar’ in this passage carries the meaning:
1. a boy, lad, servant, youth, retainer
2. boy, lad, youth
3. servant, retainer
The word little ‘qatan’ means:
1. small
2. insignificant
3. young
4. unimportant
Later when the 2 Kings 2:24 verse speaks of children, it uses a different word for children in the Hebrew, it uses ‘yeled’ which can vary from a child to a young man as in Genesis 4:23; “And Lamech said unto his wives, … hearken unto my speech: for I have slain a man to my wounding, and a “young man” to my hurt”. Given the context of the verse and the previous confrontations just prior to this event, we can safely say that these forty-two were childish young men and soldiers due to their number. But wait a minute, 42 is 8 shy of 50, the correlation breaks down! No it doesn’t. In come the she-bears.
Why two she-bears?
I will put forth an educated deduction that these soldiers had recently come across the cubs or whelps of these two she-bears and slain them. And that these two she-bears had been hunting these soldiers prior to this event with Elisha. To establish support for this view I will show other passages which discuss she-bears to show their behavior, and God’s use of them in His Word. Let’s take a look.
2 Samuel 17:8
For, said Hushai, thou knowest thy father and his men, that they be mighty men, and they be chafed in their minds, as a ‘bear robbed of her whelps in the field’: and thy father is a man of war, and will not lodge with the people.
–These bears were out of their minds with rage against these soldiers most likely because they had killed the bears whelps.
Proverbs 17:11-12
11 An evil man seeketh only rebellion: therefore a cruel messenger shall be sent against him.
12 Let a bear robbed of her whelps meet a man, rather than a fool in his folly.
— Proverbs illustrates that these men were evil men seeking only rebellion, therefore a cruel messenger was sent, she-bears robbed of their whelps.
Hosea 13:8
I will meet them as a bear that is bereaved of her whelps, and will rend the caul of their heart, and there will I devour them like a lion: the wild beast shall tear them.
— The Hosea passage we see God compares His own actions of Justice in the descriptive actions of a bear who has lost her whelps.
The 2 Kings 2 passage, once closely examined, shows that these 42 young men came against God by accusing Elisha of being accursed by calling him bald head, a symptom of leprosy and uncleanness, and God protects Elisha by sending two she-bears who had recently lost their whelps to these young men/soldiers, proving Elisha was a man of God.
Sheila, I am more convinced that Jesus ministered unto those known as the spirits in prison (of I Peter 3:19) back when the ark was being prepared, than of any meeting with them much later.
“later” meaning after his resurrection.
Ray,
Right. I read it differently than that. It seems to me that 1 Peter 4 is saying that when Jesus died He “first” descended into Sheol and preached to those who had been long dead so that hearing the Gospel they would receive the same forgiveness of their sins through justification because of their faith in the promise of Messiah as those who were still living.
1Pe 4:4 With respect to this they are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you;
5 but they will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.
6 For this reason the gospel was preached also to those who are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.
1Pe 3:18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit,
19 in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison,
20 because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water.
I don’t see it as though Jesus preached to them at the time of the building of the ark but that they had a chance to obey and repent while God waited patiently in the days of Noah for him to complete it. If anything, it seems Noah would have been the preacher to those alive at that time, passing on the message from God.
In other words, Jesus didn’t die and descend into Sheol during the time of Noah. He died, descended and was resurrected one time only.
Do you see what I mean?
Benjamin,
That was interesting. I’ve never heard that before.
Thanks, I’ll have to look into it. You know what that means… 🙂
Sheila, It seems to me that Jesus witnessed unto those who were in bondage to sin (in and by the Spirit) at the time of Noah. I’m more sure of this than whether or not he witnessed to them at the time his body was in the grave.
Ray,
I see now. I’ll just have to respectfully disagree. 🙂
Well, to say He previously witnessed to those in sin “by the Spirit” wouldn’t be false that I can see. The idea of witnessing to the dead is given to us again here:
Eph 4:8 Therefore it says, “When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.”
Eph 4:9 (In saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth?
Eph 4:10 He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.)
See, I’m not sure He didn’t take the righteous with Him as an offering in keeping with First Fruits. Of course He is the “first fruits from the dead” but it is in keeping with the wave offering of the Feast isn’t it? To take the first of your harvest to the temple? Anyone?
Between the tomb and the resurrection, I believe he was with the thief in paradise.
What do you mean when you say paradise?
Benjamin, that was awesome- thanks for the post.
I believe the repentant thief who died with Jesus on the cross was with Jesus in heaven (paradise) at the time of Jesus’ death on the cross.
“Gays have been traditionally denied equal civil rights because of their sexuality so the two issues are not easily separated”
Are you serious? Philanderers could probably argue they havent been treated the best as well. Shall we identify them as a grievance group next?
Magnus said,
>> Are you serious? Philanderers could probably argue they havent been treated the best as well. Shall we identify them as a grievance group next?
Are philanderers denied the civil right to marry?
It’s not the same.
I think you are falling-in to Dr. Brown’s flawed logic that, of we allow gays to marry, that society must, then, accept any sort of sexual behavior.
I must have heard him argue this a hundred times but I have never heard him logically defend the claim.
Just because a society “arbitrarily” permits some behavior — it doesn’t mean they are on a slippery slope to permitting any and all behavior.
But that logic, one could argue that allowing heterosexual marriage was a “slippery slope” to allowing homosexual marriage!
As far as I know, every society has had a definition of marriage. Just because it may not follow the bible doesn’t mean it has no standards.
Greg, God instituted marriage and all cultures got their model from Him.
So if Heterosexual marriage began the slippery slope, then that would imply that God is on a slippery slope. So I think that line of thinking is flawed.
And Dr. Browns logic is spot on since as of the beginning till right now Marriage has been between one man and one woman, so redefining it now is the beginning of the slippery slope. As there has now been 3 men married overseas. More and more behavioral groups are going to rally and play the oppressed bit to get their preferred behavior approved by society.