“Should Jesus have raised Joseph from the dead?”

Steve Brown:
Should Jesus have raised Joseph from the dead? The answer to that, and other questions on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
If you think laughter isn’t spiritual, or that faithfulness to God means conformity to Christian stereotypes, then this program probably isn’t for you. But, if you’re looking for honest, Biblical answers to honest questions, welcome to Key Life. Here’s our host, author and seminary professor Steve Brown, along with Pete Alwinson from ForgeBibleStudy.com

Steve Brown:
Thank you Matthew. Hi Pete.

Pete Alwinson:
Hey Steve. Okay. We haven’t had that question before.

Steve Brown:
No, that’s a brand new one. I thought, you know, at my age, I have said in various venues that there is no question I haven’t heard. And generally, that’s true of you, too. You’re not as old as I am, so you’ve got a few yet to discover. But generally, I honestly don’t hear questions I haven’t heard many of them a thousand times.

Pete Alwinson:
I know.

Steve Brown:
But today, we ought to have a drum roll. I’ve never been asked why Jesus didn’t raise Joseph from the dead. And later we’re going to solve that, or answer that particular question. By the way, that’s Pete Alwinson. If you haven’t read Like Father Like Son, you ought to read that book. It’s an amazing book about grace. You know, we have allowed people to define us who don’t have the right to do that. Only the creator of someone has the right to name the created. And this book will tell you how you’ve been named and it’ll change your life. Like Father Like Son, as you know, Pete comes in and we answer questions on Friday. We love your questions. You can ask a question, 24 7, by calling 1-800-KEY-LIFE and following instructions, recording your questions. And sometimes we put your voice on the air. Or you can send your question to

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And if you’d like, you can ask your question by sending it e-mail to [email protected] and along with your question, and the answer to your question isn’t dependent on this, if you could help us financially, that would be great. Just in case you wondered, we’re a member of ECFA in the States and CCCC in Canada. Both of those organizations are credentialing organizations, and those that are members of those organizations are credentialed at ethical. Now, we were ethical before they came along, but we’re glad to be a part of those organizations. But we will be faithful with your gift when you can help us. And if you can’t help us, we understand, say a prayer for this ministry. Pete, why don’t you lead us in prayer and we’ll get to these questions.

Pete Alwinson:
You got it. Let’s pray together. Our Holy God, we do come into your presence today, and we give you praise at the end of this week, oh Lord, we know and we have been reminded that you are the only God, the only Savior, the one who is true and all powerful and all loving and merciful and you have shown your mercy to us. We thank you this week that we can say that Lord, you are the one who has been kinder to us than we ever deserve. Your grace and kindness abound every day. And so, we thank you and Lord, you know us, you know our needs, and we have many financially. In this economy, Lord, you know what we need. Some need jobs, some need certain bills to be cut down to size that we could endure. Lord, you know the health we need, and you know the growth that we need too. And so, we pray even looking ahead this week-end to our pastors and priests and leaders and those who will stand before us. We thank you for them. Raise them up, Lord. Give them the words to say as they lead us before your holy throne in worship. And we ask that Lord, our hearts would be touched in a deep way that we grow closer with the people of God and that we would be encouraged to go out into a world that oftentimes is cruel to know that we are your people, deeply loved by you. Give yourself honor and praise and help us to see it this week-end and live it in the coming week. And now, we commit ourselves to this time of Q&A and pray that, Lord, you’d use it. We pray these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.

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

Caller 1:
I would like to know why Jesus did not raise his earthly father? Bye.

Steve Brown:
That’s an interesting question.

Pete Alwinson:
It really is.

Steve Brown:
Why he didn’t raise Joseph from the dead.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. What’s your take on it, man? What do you think?

Steve Brown:
Well, I think cause Joseph then would have had to die the second time. You know, we go when Lazarus was raised from the dead and that’s the only place in Scripture where it says, no, there were two places where Jesus cried and he wept and, and everybody says, why is he weeping? He knows he’s going to bring him back from the dead. He doesn’t need to mourn, but yet Jesus cried. And between you and me, I think he cried cause He was saying, Lazarus, I’m sorry to do this to you, but you’re going to have to go through it again. Now, when Jesus was raised from the dead, he didn’t. I mean, that means, at that point, and before, he was eternal. But Joseph, you know, once you do it, you shouldn’t have to do it again. Phillips, the English scholar, says that not long before his own death that C.S. Lewis visited him, he said it in one of his books. He’s the translator of the New Testament, the first paraphrase that anybody did. And he said Lewis was standing in his study and he said he wasn’t ethereal, it wasn’t ghostly, he was as real as the last time I saw him. He said to me, it’s not as bad as you think and then he disappeared. Well, it is bad. Man, you and I both have stood beside more deathbeds than we can remember. And he wouldn’t do that to Joseph because he loved him. He wouldn’t.

Pete Alwinson:
You know, that’s a powerful answer and I think, have you heard the comedian that said, did the sketch on Lazarus? It was hysterical. He said, Can you imagine God going to Lazarus and knocking on his door and saying, Lazarus, I know that you have just moved into this mansion and you are also

Steve Brown:
going to be evicted.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. I mean, I hate to bring this up, but you’ve got to go back brother. But it wasn’t God’s plan and it was, I think if with Joseph in the way in one sense in an earthly way, it would have been very confusing for Jesus to call God Father. And very, very clear I and the Father are one, with his earthly father out of the way, he could really point to the true Father.

Steve Brown:
That’s so good. That’s, I haven’t thought of that. And you know, whatever Jesus did, He did it right. And there are plenty, there are probably a lot more reasons that we don’t know. But one of them, it says in the Bible.

It is appointed unto man once to die.

Pete Alwinson:
Good, good illustration. That’s right.

Steve Brown:
Except Lazarus. He’s got to do it twice. And Jesus wouldn’t have done that to his father. This is an e-mail, Pete. Will everyone be equal in heaven? Will Corrie Ten Boom have a higher status than someone who made a deathbed conversion?

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. Interesting question. A lot of times you’ll hear people say, you know, I was so bad. I’m not even going to be, I’m going to be a mile from the throne of God. You’ll be up closer than I am or something like that. You know.

Steve Brown:
It’s not true.

Pete Alwinson:
It’s not true. The way eternity is going to be established, we all have access, it’s going to be an amazing, amazing thing. I don’t know how it’s going to work out.

Steve Brown:
And you know, Jesus addressed this particular question in the parable. He said this farmer hired some people to work for him, hired him early in the morning, man, and they, and then he went out and found some others, hired them, and they came on at noon, and then he went out and found some others who only worked a few minutes before the day was over and at the end of the day the ones who had worked all day said, you know, we’re going to get some good bucks out of this. And the ones that had only worked 15 minutes said, you know, we’re not even going to buy a coat with what we’re going to get. And the farmer paid them all the same. And that addresses this particular question.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah, that’s so good. That’s so good. There’s equality before God and we’re going to enjoy him. And yes, he uses us differently and at different levels, like a Corrie Ten Boom or a Steve Brown who’s reaching more people with that voice God gave than others. But, we’re all equal.

Steve Brown:
Another. What’s the purpose of prophecy is the gift of prophecy active today?

Pete Alwinson:
You know, I see prophecy as that two-fold Biblically, foretelling the future, but also forth telling the word of God. And there’s really more forth telling, speaking forth the word of God than there is even more telling the future. I would say that the best of the prophets today are, is prophecy continuing. Well, in preaching it definitely does, as we exposit the very best repository of the prophets, which is the Bible.

Steve Brown:
And that is prophecy.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. And so, I think there’s some people who would say no new revelation is given today. I don’t buy into that. I don’t think you do either.

Steve Brown:
Oh, I don’t think so either. And by the way, in one of Peter’s letters, I think I Peter, he talks about the reason for prophecy, he said.

It was given by the prophets for your benefit, not theirs.

In other words, they didn’t know even what they were writing about. They didn’t understand. And we don’t either. So prophecy is given for the benefit of the people who live in the time that is prophesied when it’s prophecy about the future. And we have this thing that we can decide who’s going to win the lottery with some prophet that has a supernatural gift. And that’s not what it’s all about.

Pete Alwinson:
Right, right. I think there’s a lot of good teaching and there’s a lot of good exhortations that some people call prophecy. I wouldn’t disagree.

Steve Brown:
Okay. Well, we’ve settled that issue plus a couple of others. We were glad to help and hope that you have benefited by our incredible wisdom and understanding. If you believe that, you’ll believe anything. Got to go. Key Life is a listener supported production of Key Life Network.