Focal Point

Dave Drewry: Welcome to Focal Point. I'm Dave Drewry, and this is another edition of Ask Pastor Mike live, where we bring you real unscripted moments from Pastor Mike Fabarez's weekly call-in program. Today, one caller opens up about a loss that's still tender years later. And another pushes back on a piece of the Old Testament that's tripped up plenty of skeptics, the subject of slavery. Pastor Mike doesn't offer easy canned answers, just honest biblical takes on the subjects that matter to listeners like you. Stick with us because you won't want to miss where this conversation goes.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Let's talk to Karen. Karen, you're on the air with Mike Fabarez. How can I help?

Karen: I was wondering, I lost my daughter 5 years ago, and it is so just so hard. And I wonder, even though I know biblically where she is and um due to her being saved and all that while she was here on earth. Why is it so hard? Why do I Why can't I feel that I know where she is? I just It's like after 5 years, I still um want her here. I can't feel the satisfaction of knowing, like a lot of people tell you when you lose someone, oh, they're in a better place. Um you know, they're out of pain or whatever.

But it just it doesn't make me feel good knowing that at all.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Right. Well, right. And I get that, Karen, and it shouldn't You know, there's no words that should mollify the fact that death is terrible, that it is our enemy, and there should never be a thought about you thinking about your daughter dying, that you should go, oh, it's a it's it's a good thing. It's not a good thing. Uh Christ knew that Lazarus was going to be raised. He was about to raise him from the dead, and it's the passage that we have where he cries, right? Jesus wept. So Christ is willing to admit, right, that death is a bad thing, and even though it's going to be reversed, and in his case within 10 minutes or whatever it was, he's willing to cry over it cuz it's a bad thing.

So when you cry, Karen, over the death of your daughter, it's a completely appropriate thing. And according to 1st Corinthians 15, the Bible says the last enemy to be destroyed is death itself. So until it's completely destroyed, it it's going to bring you tears. And not just because your daughter has died, but between now and the time you die, there's probably going to be more people that you love that are going to die, and you're going to have more tears, and you're going to go to more funerals. And it's going to continue to remind you how much we need Christ and how much we can't wait to have the time when we don't have death anymore in our reality.

And that is what we look forward to. And as I often say from my pulpit every time I get on it just about is that Christianity is not about the here and now, it's about the then and there. If it's about the here and now, as Paul says in 1st Corinthians 15, you should pity us more than anyone else cuz what kind of what kind of reality is this, right? According to Genesis 3, right, we're going to we're going to work by the sweat of our brow. We're going to have thorns and thistles, right? All these problems that we're going to encounter every day.

We're going to have trouble in our marriages. And he said there's going to be this enmity that's going to be not only between us and the world and and Satan himself, but we're going to have problems in our marriages. And then we're going to have this thing called death. We're going to return to the dust of the earth. This is going to be a a hard thing as Jesus put it really succinctly. In this world, you're going to have tribulation. And the hope that we have is that when he said, but take heart, I've overcome the world, which means you're going to have to wait until we get where we're going.

Now, we have something to do between now and then. And that's why you can't spend all day every day crying even though it's totally appropriate for you to spend some time crying, and it's going to be periodic for the rest of your life to say death really sucks, it's really bad, and it really hurts, and it's okay for you to say it's never going to feel great and it never going to feel happy and you're never going to have somebody say, oh, it's a good thing, you know. It's not a good thing. It's always a bad thing.

And I think to say that is okay to say it's a bad thing. And a bad thing should never make you feel good, right? If you broke your leg today, you should you know, even though I can say, hey, you know, trials are are something God can use for good, you're never going to say it's a really good thing. I I have a compound fracture in my femur today. That's that's never going to feel like a good thing. It's going to feel like a bad thing. So let's just be realistic about Christianity. Let's get to a place where we're not going to have death, we're not going to have disease, we're not going to have broken femurs, we're not going to have any of these problems.

And so Christ said, take heart, I've overcome the world. And one day we're going to be in a place where the world and its sin is going to be behind us. And the best thing we can do, as Paul said, is that there's some fruitfulness in us remaining on in the flesh so that we can continue to do some good things to take some more people with us to the good place where we're going to have all of this in the rearview mirror. We don't want to take on the penalty of our sin. We don't want to be in a place where there's judgment.

We want to be in a place where there's blessing that we don't deserve where your daughter is and then she's going to get her body back and you're going to get a resurrected body and we can live together and eat together and enjoy a perfect place as it says in Psalm 16 verse 11, in his presence there's fullness of joy. At his right hand, there's pleasures forever more. That's where we want to get. So I don't want anyone telling you with platitudes and nice little slogans that you're supposed to feel good and not bad about your daughter dying.

But you cannot spend all of your time crying. You have to say, okay, I know my daughter would want me to get up and dry my tears at least long enough to live my life in a way that looks forward to and starts to get people to go with me and starts to build my life in a way that starts to aim at my life toward things that are eternal. Colossians chapter 3 verses 1 through 5. It's a great set of verses that tells us to set our minds on things above. And death of our loved ones certainly gets us there.

When my best friend died a couple years ago, I thought to myself, one thing that that death does when someone that we really love dies is it gets me just wanting to get there more, right? Cuz he's not coming back. I have to go where he is, right? So I have to continue to say, okay, get my job done here on earth, right? And And get get to where I am going. And And where I'm going is not going to be in a disembodied space state in the presence of of Christ in heaven. It's going to be when Christ comes back to set up his kingdom on earth, when I get my resurrected body, my best friend gets his resurrected body, and we get to enjoy a perfect world.

So I I want to send you two books. And if you just stay on the line, get me your address and I 'll have my team send out you two books I wrote that I think are helpful. One is maybe you already have them. If you do, just tell me. But one is 10 mistakes we make about heaven, hell, and the afterlife. And I want you to start to think about your daughter and your afterlife in much more concrete terms. And the other one is called Lifelines for Tough Times, which is trying to help us through the grief and the pain to try and feel better at least in a way that we can start to be productive even when we are hurting.

So those two books are specifically about the things you are talking about, Karen. And maybe they can help you through this. And And you can stop kicking yourself for feeling bad about bad things cuz you should feel bad about bad things, but it can dominate all of our life. It has to just be segmented to part of our life, and it's okay. It is okay for you to feel bad about bad things. And this is a bad thing. And when a preacher gets up at a at a funeral and says, hey everybody, death is just a natural part of life.

It's not. There's nothing natural about death and nothing more anaesthetic to life than death. So that's garbage. And And a preacher should stop saying that thing. There's nothing normal about death. Death is an intrusion, and the Bible itself says it's an enemy, it's the enemy of life, and we can't wait till it's behind us. It's the whole reason Jesus came is to redeem us from the penalty of death. So what you're feeling is normal and uh and And And I I feel your pain, I get it, I know it, I understand it. And uh we're going to get through this life, and your daughter is going to want you to get through this life being productive uh and grieving.

That's fine. We can grieve, but we can't grieve all day long.

Karen: Right.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: So so let

Karen: Exactly. And that's how I would look forward to those books. I don't have those.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Okay. Well, let me get them to you. And And they're not hard to read, you know, and only a couple hundred pages each. And I just want you to spend time in those books. Hopefully they'll be helpful and uh just just give the the screener there your your address if you don't mind. And we'll uh we'll we'll get those to you for free, okay?

Karen: Yes, sir. Thank you so much.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Okay, Karen. Thanks for the call and my condolences to you. I know that's really hard uh really hard to lose a child.

Dave Drewry: That was Pastor Mike Fabarez live on Focal Point. Every question you just heard came from an actual caller on Ask Pastor Mike live. Pastor Mike's weekly call-in program open to callers Tuesday through Thursday at 1:00 p.m. Central. Catch full episodes anytime on the Ask Pastor Mike live YouTube channel or find the call-in number and every detail at askpastormike.live. Now back to the program. Jafeth is on the phone. Uh you're on the on the air with Pastor Mike. How you doing?

Jafeth: Hey Pastor Mike, how you doing?

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Good. Doing well.

Jafeth: So my question today is about slavery in the Old Testament.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Okay.

Jafeth: And um it's not something that I personally really struggle with um accepting you know like I I trust fully that God is good um but I know that in a lot of discussions with people who you know don't follow Christ like um don't trust the Bible is like the inspired word of God. It's kind of I I feel like an understandable sticking point for them. And I think particularly it can be confusing cuz like like in modern times now, we'll argue very strongly um kind of from scripture for like the moral wrongness of slavery. Like it is it is absolutely wrong, it's never okay.

Um but then like it seems like in the Old Testament um it's not so much like forbidden, just regulated. Um and I can see why someone would read that and be like like why isn't this just um forbidden by God when there's kind of other things that are maybe from our perspective less serious things that are very strongly forbidden. But when it comes to slavery, it's like um there should there's sort of regulatory rules, things that are allowed that you know to what to our ears today are just like wow this is really um kind of heinous seeming.

So just kind of curious to hear your thoughts on slavery in the Old Testament.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Yeah. Yeah, Jafeth, here's why. Because everything in our ears in the 21st century West, especially in America, as soon as we hear slavery, we have an image of what that is. It's like me saying rape or or me saying you know whatever, child molestation or me saying something a murder that that we immediately go, oh, I know what that is, right? And slavery uh we don't know what that is. We don't know what it is from a ancient perspective. Uh we certainly don't know what it is. Uh and you said Old Testament, I'm willing to talk about that, but we certainly don't know what it is from a New Testament perspective, which has a lot of similarities to the ancient Near East.

Greco-Roman slavery and ancient Near Eastern slavery are very different from what we think of when we think of you know rounding up people from uh you know Africa, putting them on slave ships and selling them on slave blocks here in America, and then you know whipping them and abusing them and and and and you know sexually taking advantage of the of the female slaves. That all of that, by the way, is all completely prohibited and immoral in scripture even in the Old Testament. You cannot You cannot kidnap people. Uh you cannot uh rape people. You can't sexually abuse people.

Uh you can't steal from people. I mean all of these things are are are completely uh prohibited including everything else I said, murder's wrong. All these things are wrong in scripture. But when it comes to slavery, right, this is something uh let me read 1st Corinthians chapter 7. Now, of course, this is Greco-Roman slavery, but I'm going to say there's a bridge between a lot of similarities between ancient Near Eastern slavery back in the 15th century BC, but in the 1st century, listen to this line. 1st Corinthians 7:21. Uh were you a bondservant or a slave?

Is the word. Were you a slave when you were called? Do not be concerned about it. Let me just look at listen to that statement, right? Now, if this were, hey, were you a prostitute when you were when you were saved, right? Don't be concerned about that, right? You would never hear that. Never never never hear that in scripture, right? Were you a murderer? Were you a thief? You'd never hear that. If this were morally absolutely as a concept categorically immoral, you would never hear that. But why why was the whole uh abolition movement then based on scripture?

Well, the next line says, but if you can gain your freedom, certainly avail yourself to the opportunity. In other words, it's obviously not advantageous, right? If you can be free, you need to be a free person. And then it says whoever was called in the Lord, well, if you're called as a slave, well, you're you're a freeman in the Lord. And likewise if you're a freeman when you're called, well, you're a servant or a slave of Christ. You're bought with a price. Do not become a bondservant of men. So the whole point is don't don't avoid this.

This is not advantageous. You don't want to be a slave. It's like being in a debtor, right? As it says in the Old Testament, right? When you take a loan out, right? You're you're you're a slave uh to the to the lender. So don't do it. Don't don't be a slave. But you and I probably both have um loans, right? Loan on my house, you might have a loan on a car. And you say, okay, well, and we do it. We don't like it. But do you have to do it? Yeah, you have to do it cuz if you don't do it, right, they're going to come and and and foreclose on your house or they're going to go tow your car away.

Yeah, okay, all that's true and and I don't like it, I want to avoid it. Well, in the Old Testament even, you could make yourself a slave. Why would I make myself a slave? Because I can't afford to live. I can't afford to do this. It's like multiple marriage in the ancient Near East. Why would a woman, right, make herself a a a wife of a man who's already got two wives? Well, because she can't make it financially. And so here I got a man who can who can make it financially. And so I'm going to tie myself to him in a in a plural marriage.

Well, that was going on in the Old Testament for financial reasons. And so it was in the ancient Near East for slavery. And And there were all these rules about it, and it was accommodated, and you're right. And even in the New Testament. But I would say the same principles in 1st Corinthians 7 you also see in the Old Testament. And that is listen, be careful if you can avoid this, avoid it. And certainly Hebrews do what you can to to avoid this, you know, at all costs, right? Because you don't want to be a servant of men.

You don't even want to be indebted to men. You don't even want to owe money to men. I can quote that from the New Testament as well. I can quote it from the Old Testament or 1st Corinthians 13, right? You are Yeah, 13. Owe nothing to anyone except love. I don't want to owe I don't want to be in debt. So the principles are there, but in and of itself, right, like in the Greco-Roman world, I could be a dentist and a slave. I could be a lawyer and a slave. I could be a teacher and a slave.

And I could work in the crops and the fields and be a slave because it was the best financial arrangement I could find cuz I didn't come from money. And maybe I migrated over to a particular place to live. And And so I was a slave. If I explained that even for an hour, someone would say, well, that's a lot different than what I'm imagining. Someone with a chain around their neck and they're getting whipped by some guy of a different ethnicity. That's not what slavery was in the Bible. Not to mention that even in the text I just read, not to mention through Romans chapter 6, slavery was elevated as a great analogy of what it is for me to be owned by Christ.

We are called slaves of Christ. And you would never see that we're prostitutes of Christ or thieves of Christ, right? You never take something categorically immoral and make an analogy for how I relate to Christ. But slavery is an analogy of how I relate to Christ. So the word slave itself, it means used over I think 13 times in the New Testament because there's nothing categorically immoral to it. Is there a disadvantage? Would you rather be the owner than the slave? Absolutely, right? But But you know there's nothing categorically immoral about it. Is it a disadvantage?

Yes. Do you want to avoid it? Yes. As a Christian, I definitely want to avoid it cuz I don't want someone telling me what to do because I want Christ telling me what to do. I want to be a servant of Christ. I'd I'd rather be in charge than being told what to do. I don't even want to owe anyone any money. So this is something that I think is is apples and oranges when people think slave. And that's why people are saying I don't like this. Christianity accommodates slavery in the Old Testament. And I even read I started with a verse that I thought would even be uh against the sensibilities of someone in the New Testament.

If you're a slave when you're called to become a Christian, don't be concerned about it. They wouldn't like that verse, right? Because it say it seems like it's accommodating it. Well, the verses go on to say get out of it if you can. But right, it is accommodating to it, right? In Colossians, right? If you if you're a slave, right, be the best slave you can be, right? Don't be good just when the master's eye is on you, right? Be the best you can be, right? Just be be pleasing the Lord in your slavery. That is just a common theme in the scripture cuz ultimately you're Christ's slave.

So being owned by someone is a disadvantage, being owned by someone though is in and of itself, even though it's a great disadvantage, right, there's not something immoral about it because often times people were selling themselves into slavery or they got themselves into trouble financially and they were sold into slavery uh and professionals sometimes because they were better off to live with someone rich, they would be a professional that sold themselves, accountants, dentists, they would sell themselves to someone rich to be a servant in their in their household or in their extended family and they would become you know a a slave.

And there wasn't no one looked down on that even though it wasn't the best arrangement, just like today. If a hundred years from now, Jafeth, let's just put it this way, uh no one was was an employee. Everyone was an owner operator of their own business, right? And a hundred years from now, if we found out in the olden days, hey, Jafeth, you worked for a company, you're kidding me. They told you when to come to work, you're kidding me. You had to punch in and punch out, you're kidding me. Right? You you you had to answer to a manager, you're kidding me.

Right? I can't believe you had to do that. That's so lowly. You were actually an employee. I can't believe that. Right? That we would say, well, yeah, it wasn't ideal, but it wasn't terrible, right? Well Well, that's how it that's kind of how they would think about us saying with gaping mouths, I can't believe you're saying this about my arrangement. I'm I'm a bondservant, I get that. I'm a slave, but I I I I don't think it's immoral. I mean it's not ideal. I'd rather be the owner of the company instead of an employee of the company, but I'm I'm getting I'm getting along, I'm getting fed, right?

But no master in the ancient Near East, certainly not in Judaism, and certainly not in Christianity was ever supposed to treat their employees or their slaves poorly, ever. They're supposed to be just, they're supposed to be reasonable, supposed to treat them fairly, supposed to provide for them. And all those conditions in the Old Testament and the New Testament always apply. And And there are times, like in Philemon with Onesimus, that Paul does call Philemon to let Onesimus not be a slave, right? Just let him go. He's a brother in Christ, right? Now just join him in the church of Colossae as a brother in Christ.

And there are times where that even in the new in the in the current age, those became patterns for the abolitionist movement. Hey, let's just stop all this. And And it is better. And in our day, I 'm glad we don't have slavery. That's a good thing. Uh even though it's going on in the world today in various places. I don't know. Does any of that help, Jafeth?

Jafeth: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And I mean yeah, I'm somewhat familiar with a lot of those thoughts and agree with them and that is helpful. Kind of real quick, I was curious like how how would you respond to someone who was getting hung up on And I don't remember the exact reference, but um kind of the regulation for how are you supposed to carry out discipline to your slave? Like you can beat your slave and if he doesn't die Do you know the verse I'm talking about?

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um yeah, that's back in Exodus as I recall. Um yeah, I'm looking at Exodus 21 when a man strikes his slave with a rod and the slave dies under his hand, he shall be avenged, right? In other words, you can't do that, right? If he survives, right? Here's the passage you're talking about, right? He's not to be avenged because the slave is his money and not his property. Yeah, that's the verse I was thinking of, Exodus 21:21. So I I get that, right? And that's true. These are these are his his income.

And again this is all the rules for when they did settle in Canaan cuz they were nomads at this point in Exodus. But you're right, slavery was part of the economy of the ancient Near East. There's no doubt about that. And this was a accommodation to it just like plural marriage. There was accommodation in the Old Testament to plural marriage. And And there's no doubt about that. And does God in the New Testament accommodate to that? No. He says in the New Testament if you're going to be a pastor, one wife only. And then he says in 1st Peter 5, hey, everyone in the church should follow the pattern of the pastors.

Therefore the the implication is everyone in the church should only have one wife. And so we've reached that. Certainly in a in a Christian nation like ours, that became the law of the land unless you lived in Utah, right? Everyone had one wife. And that was that was You can only have one life until today. Now everybody's saying everything goes. But that was part of the Christian ethic is that God did accommodate that in the Old Testament. And I would say why? And I just answered it earlier, because of finances, because of the the social safety neck wasn't there, right?

We didn't have what we have today. If a woman today loses her husband and has two children, Social Security pays that woman every single month for her kids. She gets a check in the mail. You did not have that 2,000 years ago, right? What You didn't have that 3,000 4,000 years ago. That wife better find a man who's well off, right, and marry him. When Abigail loses Nabal, right, she marries David. David has the resources to take care of her. And And And And so she becomes another wife of David. Right? And that was in a culture where he was taking care financially of people.

And so slavery, even that in ancient Near East, was part of it.

Dave Drewry: Today's conversations are just a glimpse of what happens every week on Ask Pastor Mike live. Pastor Mike's call-in program open Tuesday through Thursday at 1:00 p.m. Central with full episodes always available on YouTube. Get the number and every detail at askpastormike.life. And for more of Pastor Mike's regular Bible teaching, visit focalpointradio.org or download the free Focal Point app. Recent research says nearly half of church-going adults no longer believe in moral absolutes. And most self-identified Christians won't even strongly affirm that the Bible is accurate. That confidence is slipping fastest with the next generation. And Pastor Mike has just written a book to meet that exact moment.

It's called The Bible, a Book Like No Other. And it weaves archaeology, history, and fulfilled prophecy into one clear case for why scripture really is God's word, written so a curious teenager or skeptic can follow every page, not just a seminary graduate. In this month, your gift doesn't just put this book on your shelf. It helps place thousands of free copies directly into the hands of college students, youth pastors, and the next generation who are being told right now that the Bible can't be trusted. Give a special gift today and request your copy of The Bible, a Book Like No Other when you call 888-320-5885 or give online at focalpointradio.org.

And if you'd rather mail your gift, write to us at Focal Point, Post Office Box 2850, Laguna Hills, California 92654. Every gift keeps Pastor Mike's teaching reaching homes like yours. And the surest way to make that happen long-term is by becoming a Focal Point partner, giving monthly so this ministry never has to slow down. Become a partner today at focalpointradio.org or give us a call at 888-320-5885. Well, I'm Dave Drewry. We'll be back next time with more from Pastor Mike Fabarez right here on Focal Point. Today's program was produced and sponsored by Focal Point Ministries.