“What or who is the Bread of Life?”

Steve Brown:
What or who is the Bread of Life? The answer to that question and others, on Key Life.

Pete Alwinson:
Key Life exists to communicate that the deepest message of Jesus and the Bible is the radical grace of God to sinners and sufferers. Life’s hard for everyone, so grace is for all of. us But there is a lot of confusion about how grace applies to real life. So, here’s seminary professor and author, Steve Brown and Pete Alwinson to answer your questions.

Steve Brown:
Hi Pete.

Pete Alwinson:
Hey man Happy Friday.

Steve Brown:
Happy Friday. They really are happy. We’ve said this a number of times. When we were pastors, they were never happy. Cause man, you were heading for a rough weekend. But now, we’re free. You know, thank God Almighty. I’m free at last .

Pete Alwinson:
We had to get it done. Had to get that message done.

Steve Brown:
Oh, that’s so true. Boy. I’ve been there and you used to intimidate me when you were my pastor. I mean, you used to go away for a week and plan your preaching for 40 years. . I never knew what I was going to say sometimes till I stood in the pulpit.

Pete Alwinson:
Well, but you did, right well.

Steve Brown:
Occasionally and occasionally there were bombs so big, you could see it five blocks away.

Pete Alwinson:
No, no.

Steve Brown:
That’s Pete Alwinson, by the way, check out ForgeTruth.com there is one wonderful podcast on there and it’s broadcast weekly, and you’ll be glad I told you about it. And as I’ve said often if you haven’t read Like Father Like Son, Pete’s book, it is a life changer. Pete comes in each week on Friday and we spend the Friday program answering questions. And when I say we love your questions, I really mean that. We take you and your questions seriously. If you have a question, dial 1-800-KEY-LIFE, 24 7, and follow instructions, record your question, and sometimes we put your voice on the air. Or you can send your question to

Key Life Network
P.O. Box 5000
Maitland, Florida 32794

if you live in Canada, it’s

Key Life Canada
P.O. Box 28060
Waterloo, Ontario N2L 6J8

or you can e-mail your question to [email protected] and if you can help us financially, man, we would sure appreciate it. This is a pretty expensive ministry cause we give so much away. So, when you help us, you help your brothers and sisters in Christ. And by the way, you can give on your phone, you can text Key Life at 28950 and follow instructions. Or if you’re really smart, you’ll go to Google Play or iPhone play, iPhone store and download the Key Life app. You are going to love it. It’s an amazing and wonderful app. Enough about that, help us if you can financially. If you can’t, we understand. And Pete, lead us in prayer. We’ll get to these questions.

Pete Alwinson:
All right. We’re on it. Our Great God, what a joy to stop for a minute and to come into your presence, Lord, we love you because you first loved us. We thank you for taking all of the first steps toward us, for breaking us out of the darkness and bringing us into your marvelous light, for getting us out of religion into a real relationship with you, for getting us out of ourselves and into you and into others. And so, Lord, we honor you. We pray for your grace in our life. We’ve needed it every day this week. We need it this week-end and so do our leaders and we ask that you’d be with our pastors and priests and teachers and worship directors. And Lord, all that goes into the very complex gathering of your people. Bring us all together, but Lord, may it be very, very clear that you are Lord Jesus Christ, are the one to be honored and glorified and lifted up. We give you praise now even in doing Q&A and ask for your presence with us. In your Holy Name, Jesus we pray. Amen.

Steve Brown:
Amen. Pete, let’s go to our phone lines.

Caller 1:
John’s Gospel says

In the beginning was the Word of God, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. And the Word became flesh. And when it became flesh, it didn’t stop being the Word of God. And the flesh became the true Bread from heaven.

So, is the true Bread from heaven the written Word of God?

Steve Brown:
Yes.

Pete Alwinson:
Yes.

Steve Brown:
Let’s go to the next question. Comment on that some.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. No. Jesus is the Bread of Life. He is the Manna, he is all that we need to be put in a right relationship with God. And yet he is also the one who inspires all of the written word. And so, that too, the written word is the Bread of Life.

Steve Brown:
Because Jesus is the Bread of Life.

Pete Alwinson:
Because Jesus is the Bread of Life. Yeah.

Steve Brown:
You know, I love the metaphors that are used in Scripture. That’d be a good sermon series on the description of Jesus in the Scripture. The Light of the world, the Shepherd.

Pete Alwinson:
The Shepherd, the Door.

Steve Brown:
Yeah. The Door.

Pete Alwinson:
The gate. You know.

Steve Brown:
This could go on and on forever.

Pete Alwinson:
I know. Why, why do you think so many of these illustrations are used, metaphorical expressions?

Steve Brown:
Calvin said that the Bible was God’s baby talk. I don’t think God can, an infinite God can communicate to finite people without metaphor and illustrations and things that help us understand because he is so far above us that we don’t understand.

My thoughts are not your thoughts. Neither are my ways your ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Now, that’s a real God.

Pete Alwinson:
Right. Right, right.

Steve Brown:
And that kind of God, must get the fodder down low in order to communicate to us.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. And we, that’s so good. And we comprehend things at different levels that sometimes images, if you were to lay it out in a proposition truth, I might get part of it, but an image can convey so much more, maybe even quicker sometimes.

Steve Brown:
So true. Good stuff. This is an e-mail. Is it possible to be too lenient with grace? I don’t mean indulging in sin, but rather using grace as an excuse, to excuse my bone headedness time after time in the same area of my life where there should be growth. Yeah, it’s possible. It happens all the time, but when you say it, the way you just said it in your e-mail, that’s dangerous because it has a tendency to put you back in a works driven kind of set. The Bible says that God disciplines, and every time I teach on grace, somebody comes up to me and says, yeah, but the Bible teaches about discipline. In other words they say, yeah, well, God will forgive you, but he’s a child abuser. He’ll give you cancer if you get out of line. So, all of a sudden you have to be careful when you start playing with these things. I’d rather somebody use grace as an excuse and understand it. And by the way, I don’t think you get away with that forever.

Pete Alwinson:
No, that’s right. Yeah.

Steve Brown:
I think the Holy Spirit doesn’t allow that. But I’d rather you do that, then do the other thing and try to be good enough to please God who’s already pleased.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah.

Steve Brown:
But it’s a mess because knowing, you just have to be so careful because God knows that if he gives us an inch, we’ll take a mile.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. And that’s why we have that tension between grace and works and self-righteousness, but I think we take our cue from Paul’s letters or the New Testament letters, that usually start out with doctrinal truth about what Christ has done and end up saying, well here’s what happens now.

Steve Brown:
This is the way it looks.

Pete Alwinson:
This is how it flushes out in your life. So, we get the grace energizing godliness.

Steve Brown:
It’s really true. And you know what I said about, I don’t think the Spirit let’s you get away with that forever. I think we all do that on occasion. I really blew it and I’m probably going to blow it tomorrow, but Jesus will still love me and that can be a really negative way to go. But I don’t think the Holy Spirit let’s you do that. I think the more you walk with Christ, the more tears you shed over your own sin.

Pete Alwinson:
I think you’re right.

Steve Brown:
And every real Christian I know, if they’ve been walking with Christ for a while, knows that’s true. And they want to be better than they are.

Pete Alwinson:
And it’s so true because the more you know how loved and forgiven you are, the more you want to respond in kind

Steve Brown:
so true

Pete Alwinson:
with the gift of your life

Steve Brown:
because it’s

Pete Alwinson:
and when we don’t reset

Steve Brown:
the horse and the buggy, they go together.

Pete Alwinson:
They go together.

Steve Brown:
Yeah. They really do. Well, that’s a good question.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah.

Steve Brown:
Just don’t ask it again. Alright. What does the Bible teach you about hell? There is one. And you don’t want to go there.

Pete Alwinson:
You don’t, you don’t. I, and you know, God is Holy and I think the thing, we don’t talk about hell enough as Christians because it seems so horrible. But as I was reading the book of Hebrews this morning, you know, there’s a whole lot about how God is Holy and that he’s an outrageous, raging fire. He’s an overwhelming sense of holiness. And so, we need to keep that in mind. That’s who the God of the universe is, he’s holy.

Steve Brown:
And we need to remember also that most of our teaching on the doctrine of hell, comes from Jesus.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah.

Steve Brown:
Gentle Jesus, meek and mild,

Pete Alwinson:
Right

Steve Brown:
but he always had tears in his eyes. And then the second part of this question is, are there different levels in hell?

Pete Alwinson:
And you know what, it’s hard to get very specific on that.

Steve Brown:
Cause the Scripture doesn’t speak a lot on it.

Pete Alwinson:
But a lot of indications on gradations of not only levels of punishment, but also blessings in heaven.

Steve Brown:
Yeah. Right.

Pete Alwinson:
So probably both have truth to them.

Steve Brown:
Yeah. There is, talking about getting one beating and a lighter beating from Jesus.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah.

Steve Brown:
But you can’t run too far with that.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
You can’t go the Dante way and see that in a formal, you have to be careful with it.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. Right. Right.

Steve Brown:
But, and you have to be careful with the fire and the brimstone thing too because again, we have metaphors. It’s really bad and that’s what the Scripture’s talking about. Separation from God is really bad.

Pete Alwinson:
Horrible.

Steve Brown:
And you don’t want to go there.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
I would suggest that you read C.S. Lewis’ book, The Great Divorce, which gives you a different view on that, but don’t discard it because it has eternal importance. And if you’re not a Christian, you need to listen to what we just said.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. That’s right.

Steve Brown:
I’m just checking the clock. We’re about out of time. You want to sing a hymn?

Pete Alwinson:
No. And you know, that would end this program permanently, you know?

Steve Brown:
That’s right.

Pete Alwinson:
But you could because you could read a news newspaper and convert people.

Steve Brown:
We, you know, I hate it when we have a good few seconds, but not enough to deal with another question.

Pete Alwinson:
Well, just confess your latest sin. How about that?

Steve Brown:
No, you first.

Pete Alwinson:
This argument could go on and on.

Steve Brown:
Guys, we have used up our time and it’s time to go. Thank you for spending this time with us. That means a lot. And one more thing before we go. Key Life is a listener supported production of Key Life Network.