Orthodox deacon vs Matt Slick | Apologetics Live 0013 | Matt Slick | Andrew Rappaport | CARM HD 720

Opening Technical Banter and Show Setup

This is Apologetics Live with Matt Slick and Andrew Rappaport, part of the Christian Podcast Community.

All right, we are live, Apologetics Live every Thursday night, 8 o 'clock Eastern Time, ApologeticsLive .com. There you'll have a link where you can join every week. Just before 8 o 'clock, we put that link in.

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We have, we're a little late starting. You know, Matt and I, we're both very scared, very, very, very scared. You know, Matt, you've been challenged by a guy who needs a title. You know, he doesn't even have a name.

It's kind of like Hillary. She doesn't have a last name, just the deacon. So the deacon has. The deacon. Oh, wow. Okay. I guess. And by the way, it wasn't him calling himself the deacon that I know of, it was someone else just referring to him as the deacon.

No, we actually had technical issues. Matt needs a new computer. If anyone out there, yeah, that's right. Or maybe has a couple thousand dollars laying around because they got nothing else to do and just drop it in Matt's lap for a new computer for carm because, um, I mean, you have to like reboot your computer before every show.

I mean, seriously.

Yeah. It's just, yeah, the past, uh, I don't know, a couple, I don't know, two, three, four months has been giving me trouble and I used to be a computer tech, so I rebuilt it and, um, which means, you know, wipe it all out and put all the OS and everything's fine.

All the updates and the BIOS and everything. And it just gives me a little bit of trouble. I think what is happening is it's just cause it's like four or five years old. I think after a while, you just got to build a new one.

So there was a guy who said he could do that. And I was looking for his email, he either emailed me and I couldn't find it, or he didn't email me and I couldn't find it. But if you're listening, email me, you know, and, uh,.

So a couple of years ago, it was me that needed the new computer. Uh, and it took me about two years to finally get my, my new iMac. Now I'm, I'm mine's running fine. But now it's your turn.

Yeah, I need a Windows, those really nicely built systems that plenty of RAM, plenty of this, plenty of that. It just is lickety split fast. And, you know, some people, they know how to put the right CPU with the right motherboard, with the right RAM, with the right this, the right that, and it can get all this to work well.

I just need to have an expert do that. Not me.

All right. Well, because I knew that, uh, uh, Joseph, who was in, uh, last week, uh, we want to have, uh, some more dialogue with him. Like, uh, we're going to go to Q and a, after you guys get done, but this is going to be a topic on, um, basically.

Orthodox versus Protestant Christianity. And so, um, I added him to the, uh, to the room here. If you want to unmute yourself, Joseph, make sure that that's working. Uh, hello. Yep.

There we go. Oh, okay. All right. Hi, I'm still, I'm actually still setting up. It's kind of a nerve wracking thing today. I've just been, my nerves have been totally shot.

So Matt's not alone in having a computer that doesn't like them. Okay.

I have total stress issues. I totally want to get in on the pool though. If there's people with lots of money, cause right now my transmission is just shot and totally need that.

All right. So while you, I'll tell you what, just turn your camera on when you're ready and I'll know when you're, when you want. And, uh, then we'll just add you in.

Well, do I have to turn the camera on?

Oh, no, you don't have to. Or then give me a mute. And then I don't know. Yeah. Either, either unmute yourself when you're ready or, uh, or just put a note here in the chat. You're in chat. So, um, yeah, just let me know when you're ready.

So with that, um, Matt, uh, CARM has been having, uh, I don't know if it's extended into the new year, but you guys have had a matching gifts at the end of the year. Um, is that continuing into the new year?

No, it's an end of year matching fund. So if you want to get in, you better hurry, uh, and, and, uh, go back in time about four days.

So if you can do that, great. I think we got, we got to ask the donor because you know, it's, and you can completely blame me for the, the Matt Slick live podcast. That's like a week behind. It's not completely my fault.

It is the radio station is we get them and we don't always get them all at once, but, um, I started it. It's a little bit behind, but we may be catching up and, uh, we're, we're handing those responsibilities off, uh, to Luke and he's gonna, he's picking that up.

So that might be good. This, this weekend, Matt, uh, we're going to be going down to, uh, Washington, DC to the museum of the Bible. I, I don't, I don't think you've been there yet, but, uh, we're going to be doing a, um, Christian podcast, community podcast event.

We're going to be, we got two private tours set up, which will be cool. We're going to, uh, basically be going through looking at two tours, one for the old Testament, one for the new Testament. No, no, actually what we're going to do is one for the apocrypha.

The Dead Sea Scrolls and the, um, and ancient texts and sort of, I guess that is a lot of that is old Testament. Uh, the Dead Sea Scroll part for sure.

And then we're going to do. Remember I've been in the, in, I have been in cave one where they found the Dead Sea Scrolls, literally stood in it. Now, okay.

So you were in Israel. I don't know. I, when I was in Israel, I did get to go in to see, uh, the Dead Sea Scrolls that they had on display in the very dark room and, uh, see. They actually have, you know, in some of the Dead Sea Scrolls, there were more than 150 Psalms.

Um, and so I've seen some of those. Um, they have some others that are not scripture, but, uh, so with that, I think, uh, Joseph is now good. So Joseph came in last week, wanted to discuss, we, Joseph and I ended up discussing the issue of, um, well, scripture.

What is scripture? What makes it scripture? Who gives it the authority to be scripture? And that might be a good place to pick up.

Scripture, Church Authority, and Orthodox Tradition

Actually, uh, with, with all due respect, uh, Andrew, your name is right. Yes, sir. Um, you know, I, I appreciated the talk. Um, and with, I don't want to get into a long, uh, I don't want to get into another long story about interesting stuff, you know, from my past or anything like that.

But my point is I got off that call and, you know, I'll do a quick shout out to my wife here. Because frankly, what she, what she said hurt, cause I've worked in apologetics for a while, uh, for my, for the Orthodox church.

And one thing she said is you said nothing that brought them to Christ. And I, my mind hurt when I heard that it was, um, actually a little bit painful because I realized that I had not, I had not said anything that would be helpful.

Um, it was kind of like we were just kind of talking past each other and it was a good talk. I'm not against that. But I should probably state from the outset that my interest is in seeing souls brought to the Orthodox church.

That is my goal. And that is my goal with, uh, you guys.

So, and I think the difference we're going to have is Matt and I's concern is that we bring people to Christ, not to the church, but that might be a good place to start. Great discussion.

Sure. Um, you know, as Christ established a church, we were, we did have some debates on that, actually a little bit of disagreement on that. So that's some place to start. Um, another thing that I thought about was that it probably came off as a little disrespectful to talk about the origins of the Bible.

I have watched a couple of these debates. People have been like, you know, it's been two weeks. People have been like, oh, you got to watch Matt's like debate this guy and this guy. And I watched like a whole bunch of debates with this guy and that guy.

And, uh, some have been incredibly disappointing. And Matt, you've been consistent. I like that. Uh, but some of the guys you talked to, and some of them were people I, you know, I liked, uh, I thought were really smart, but, um, you want to talk about the scripture and we should.

So that's, uh, I'm, I'm not going to talk about, you, you just, you just say what you want to talk about. I'm not, I don't care.

Okay. Um, well that's a, okay. Well, it's not an, I thought it was an apologetic show where our focus should be on, obviously, you know, I guess my first question is because of your interest in Christ, why aren't you part of the church?

I am part of the church. Well, okay.

Who's your bishop? Uh, you please define church.

Uh, well, the church would be the body of believers, um, as defined in the scriptures. We see the formation of the church and acts after Pentecost. Um, the apostles established bishops, elders, presbyters, overseers, you know, you know, the three, you know, presbyteros, Episcopos, that's me at the end.

So in any case, the point is that, um, my question is, uh, like, did you ever reach out to join them? I understand the concept of, you know, people, especially in America, they, you know, there's Bibles in every hotel you go and you say, you know, you read about Jesus, you learn about Jesus and Jesus touches your heart.

And that's, I don't doubt that. Um, but my question is, then the followup would be going to the church, getting baptized on and so forth. I guess I'm trying to understand what held you back. Did no one, I don't know how many Orthodox people you talked to.

So I have no idea if anyone said, Hey, Matt, have you come to the church or anything like that?

Or Andrew? Well, your presupposition is that the Orthodox church is the one true church. I just don't accept that. And your definition of church is, uh, is wanting as well. You just presuppose certain things.

You don't defend them from scripture. You just assume certain things. Oh, I wasn't church. The word church has different meanings in different contexts. It can mean the body of Christ. It can mean a gathering of people.

It can be a local church, the people of God and an ecclesiastical body.

Well, yeah, we spoke, uh, we, I did speak to Andrew last week about the variations on, you know, the word assembly and the nature of the church. But the church as commonly understood throughout history is the body of believers that succeed and that followed the successors of the apostles and maintain the doctrine of the faith.

So, I mean, I don't care about that. I don't care about that definition.

It has no interest and no bearing. I want what the scripture says, not what you would cite out of history. What you think it means. I really don't care. I want to see out of the word of God, because let me ask you, is your church history and tradition inspired of God?

I would answer yes. Oh, it's inspired. So, um, really? So it's equal to scripture then.

Your tradition and your, you see, that's one of the things that I thought was interesting. Cause I, one thing I don't want, and I don't, and I'm not, not trying to be rude, but I also want to say this to any Catholics who might be listening.

Please don't join in and try to back me up because I don't, we don't hold to the paradigm of the scripture and tradition or scripture alone or scripture. It's just the scripture is our book. The tradition is our tradition.

Tradition is mentioned in scripture. You know, the verse is better than I do. So I'm not going to, um, unless you want to answer questions. Sure.

Uh, so you say tradition is inspired. Okay.

Uh, that means I'm sorry, what I should be more clear. Men are inspired by God.

And you said, I said tradition. You said yes, tradition. So are you going to say your tradition is not inspired?

No, I would say that through the tradition of the church is inspired. Yes. But it's handed down by men. So, all right.

So it's handed down by men. How does that work? Does, does, uh, one guy, you know, in a building say, Hey, did you hear the one about Mary? And, uh, he whispers it near to somebody else. And that's how tradition is passed down.

How's it work? Actually, that's very close to, uh, exactly how it worked. It was not whispered or Hey there or anything like that.

It was whatever, but yeah, so this is inspired process. I would say yes. So that means it's without error. I didn't say that. Uh, wait, wait, wait. Are you saying an inspired process can have error in it?

I'm saying an inspired process will end with a result without error, but the process itself will involve error.

Oh, so we can have sinners who are saying false things be inspired.

Well, I think that you can find them in the scripture when St. Paul talks about heresy being among you.

So I'm saying you didn't answer the question. So these people who verbally give a tradition to somebody else, pass it down. Is that verbal declaration itself inspired?

Well, the ones that are true, not the ones that are true are inspired. And how do you know which ones are true? That's a, that's an interesting question because, uh, that was one of the things I thought was fun to listen to when I heard you guys talking with, uh, the Roman Catholics, uh, they always go to the magisterium, um, well, we're talking about, we're not talking about Catholics.

We're talking about you. Right. How do you know which of these oral statements are inspired, which would be inerrant and authentic and other ones are not right.

Well, basically the way the church has always done it is through a rule of faith. And so, you know, in the scriptures, we find that the apostles work together in council, um, that, you know, to make declarations there's, you know, I could point to the apostolic constitutions.

I'm not doing that yet, but that is still, that's still from the apostolic period. But more importantly, to answer your question, there's a rule of faith and the way that we determine what is legitimate tradition, what is false tradition, um, was best defined, best said in the commonatory by, uh, uh, Vincent of Lawrence, who we consider a saint, which is basically where you take that guide, what was said by the ancients previously, and if they disagree, basically you remain silent on it.

But if you, they don't disagree, then you go with what the church has always held. In other words, it's a, um, it's a reactive process. So because we know that the tradition came from the apostles first, we try to avoid innovation as opposed to trying to fit, we're not, if some guy, like this guy Arius comes out and says, well, Christ isn't the son of God, he tries to use the scriptures to prove it.

And we turn around and we say, no, we know that that's not the case. Now, granted, he did manage to get some imperial support and throw some of the saints in jail and all that fun stuff. But the point is the church understood he was wrong because the tradition, the tradition of that, the traditional reading of the scriptures would indicate that Christ was God.

Traditional reading of scripture, not the scriptures themselves. I see. So you put the scriptures underneath your tradition, you know, you supplant the word of God under your traditional foot and you have, you have your foot on the neck of scripture and you decide what is true.

It's your interpretation of scripture that decides if Jesus is God, not if the scriptures themselves declare it. John 1, 1 and verse 14 at the beginning was the word. The word was with God. The word was God.

The word became flesh and dwelt among us. There's no tradition that has to be invoked in order to understand the clear teaching of scripture. If you're going to start saying that tradition has to now interpret scripture, then you become the gate holder, the key keeper to what the scriptures really say.

And you become the authority in your church, which to me just leads to damnation, false doctrines, heresies abound. So your process is just not working. Let's get back to this issue of tradition. These people who say these things, you know, they, they're whispering from one thing to another speaking, I don't mean in a derogatory sense, but, you know, Bob says to Frank, did you hear the one about whatever it is, do they know that they're giving sacred tradition or this tradition they do?

So then that means that they know, okay, I got the corpus of this. So I'm going to try this hypothetically. Let's just say there's, um, 1000 statements in tradition that are inspired and sacred and true.

Let's just use a number. I'm not saying there is that many or not that many, just, just to get. So we have how many of these guys and where are they that are getting all this information that they're passing down?

Well, it's well, once again, because it's tradition, one thing I should make clear is that it isn't whispered. So this is the stuff that was proclaimed. I didn't mean, yeah, sorry about whisper, but yeah.

Oh, I just want to, cause I don't want to give you, I don't want you to get the impression that the church say for, cause my, my primary answer would automatically be the bishops. However, that's an incomplete answer because the people have sometimes preserved the church when the bishops have it.

So historically the tradition is the tradition regardless of who says it. So you see what I'm saying? So let's say you, for example, cause I noticed you've read a couple of church fathers, you read all of the early church fathers on a particular topic.

You would understand that level of tradition better than your average lay person and you would, or you would understand it even better. I'd say than some clergy. The point I'm trying to make is tradition by its nature does not require a hierarchical authority.

It has one because it's given in the church, but the responsibilities of clergy have often failed. Um, you know, and that's actually been the job of people like apologists, like St. Justin Martyr. Um, that's what they did.

You had to defend the faith. I don't know if that tradition is inspired of God. Um, is all tradition inspired of God? Absolutely not. Okay. So how do you know which tradition is, is inspired of God and which is not?

What's the thing that judges it?

It has to go back to whether it's apostolic in nature.

So let's say someone says, Mary went to Rome. Let's just use that. Okay.

Uh, how would you know if it's true or not? Because none of the apostles nor fathers that they taught said. Mary went to Rome.

Ah, so your measure of truth is the apostolic fathers.

Well, the apostolic fathers and, you know, the church fathers that we don't believe that the one thing that's different between us and say the Roman Catholics and Protestants, we don't believe that the patristic age has ended.

There are fathers now. So who, who are these fathers? Uh, well, uh, there are bishops in the church and the, the saintly fathers, the real ones that are going to survive time or the, you know, the holy ones, you know, saints.

So, okay. So your tradition is passed down by people. Yeah. Right. Passed down by people. All right.

Verbally. Literally what tradition means to. Traditio in Latin literally means a handing down.

Okay. So they're just saying things. Yeah. Okay. And so if they're in concert or in harmony with the church fathers, why do we need any tradition?

Why not just read the church fathers? The church fathers are relaying the tradition. It's contradiction in terms. What church fathers? They're like Irenaeus. Well, St. Irenaeus is a great example. I read an interesting thing that I thought was a very, hold on, hold on.

You're off topic here.

Irenaeus wrote his stuff. He's dead. So we have any, any modern church fathers that give you, give us more tradition?

Well, when they have their, they have tradition for today because the church is alive today, but they're not like adding anything to the first century.

I mean, you know, that, that was tradition today. Uh, so you know who these people are who have this church tradition today?

Traditionally that, or that role is held by the bishops. So I'd say my bishop would be one.

Bishop. So your bishop is, is, is one. He's a church father, a living church father, living church father, and he's the bearer of tradition. I would hope so. That's what he took an oath for.

He took an oath to do what? He took an oath to defend and uphold the tradition of the church. Ah, okay. So he took an oath to uphold, to uphold and defend the faith, the tradition of the church, you know, the whole thing.

It's always, and defend the faith, the tradition. That's what a bishop's supposed to do. You know, he guides his flock. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So in other words, you have a non-falsifiable system that's not based on the word of God, that's based on your subjective experience of your particular bishops in your particular church organization that will then tell you how they interpret what the church fathers mean selectively in order to support their views of what the new tradition is.

Well, no, there's things that are different for the first, than what you said, the first one is you, uh, you said apply them selectively. That's incorrect. They have to apply them holistically completely.

So the point is they can't make up new teachings, period. Um, you can't do that. You can clarify existing teachings and that's what happened with the Arian controversy and every other heretical controversy.

Do you affirm toll houses? Yeah. Can you show me that in scripture? Um, well, you know, you can go into some parts of scripture, uh, for toll houses. It's not actually, you know, there's disagreement on it, but I mean, you want to talk about the Telonia in scripture.

So you don't have that in scripture and toll houses are in some sacred tradition.

Well, believe it or not, there's debate over toll houses, but I think it's largely been squashed. I think most people understand that the Telonia are simply a place people pass through on the way to heaven.

Okay. So any church fathers that teach these toll houses?

Um, well, the main source that you would get for that, hold on. Cause the main source you would find in the scripture would be the angels and demons contesting over the soul. And that's literally what they do at a toll house.

That's it's literally demons fighting over. They do that in a court.

They do that in a merit moment. I mean, uh, a married couple will do that in bed. That's way too vague.

No angel. It was talking about angels and demons, not married couples or people in court.

So a toll house, could you tell everybody what a toll house is? Toll house is an expression.

It literally means a way station. Effectively. What we're talking about is when a person dies, they're judged. It's the extension of the belief in the particular judgment. I don't know if you believe in a particular judgment or not.

Um, so that's it. That's an interesting question.

Well, you know, the, you know, we're looking at your methodology here, but, uh, uh, toll houses, um, let's see, I'm trying to look through my notes.

I never, I never would have expected toll houses. That's interesting.

Well, yeah, because it's one of the more ludicrous, uh, teachings of, of orthodoxy, which obviously is not.

I dropped a link in for you, Matt, from Charlie that he posted on YouTube. Okay. Um, it's okay.

Uh, I forgot what I was going to say. Something about toll houses. Yeah. Um, I was on a train of thought. Sorry. Um, well, let's see. Uh, toll houses are certainly not in scripture. Uh, and I'm asking, can you, can you show me any place in church fathers where there are toll houses?

Um, yeah, you can find a few, you can find a few fathers, St. Gregory, St. Leo, there's a, there's a few who talk about it. And then you have some of the later fathers, uh, there was the life of Basil the new.

Um, but that's over centuries, you know? And it's, uh, again, I'm not, I don't want to, I don't want to wait a minute.

The other church fathers don't teach this. Would you say the majority don't teach toll houses?

I would say that a number do, and I never counted. Oh, come on.

Give me a couple of names. How do we know? There's many, many, many, many church fathers. Uh, would you say the majority teach toll houses?

Tough question. It's still, it's still debated and worth it. You pick something that's debated in orthodoxy now. Um, even now there's people ask whether or not that's a figurative thing, whether we're supposed to see, but they are in our prayers.

Oh, you don't, you don't know if it's true or not. It's just something that's figurative. You don't have it in the scripture and you can't nail it down in your tradition. You're not even sure what it means.

This is your, how your tradition works.

Well, I'll be honest with you. I'll be honest with you. People who go through the toll houses are either going to heaven or hell. You do believe in heaven and hell, correct? Of course. Okay. Then it doesn't really matter how you get there unless we're talking about here on earth.

The main thing, the main reason that it's mentioned, and again, this is Apocrypha, if you look in the book of the Maccabees about praying for the dead, the assumption is that the church has always held that there's salvific actions that can be taken for the dead because the dead aren't fully dead.

We're off topic.

Well, no, I'm just looking at about toll houses. I just looked through the, uh, antediluvian and post-Nazian church fathers. I type in the word toll. It didn't come up once anywhere. Okay. Now, you know, it doesn't mean that the concept isn't taught there.

It's never been something that I've seen heavily affirmed. This is dogmatic statement of the church.

It's just, this is part of your tradition. It is part of what, yeah. So I'm just working on something from your tradition and apparently it's not in scripture and it's not in the church fathers. And you're saying that a lot of your guys believe it.

I'm just testing how your tradition works and it's supposed to be inspired. It's not looking real good for you right now.

Well, that's okay. I've worked my way out of a hole before. Oh, you admit it's a hole. Let's see. There's a difficulty. In the dialogue with Trifo, I'm just going to, I jumped off the internet here just to see, uh, St. Justin Martyr.

Um, he's one of the apostolic fathers says, deliver my soul from the sword and my only begotten from the hand of the dog saved me from the lion's mouth, Psalm 21, 20 to 21. This was written so that when we arrive at the end of life, we may ask the same petition from God who was able to turn away every shameless evil angel from taking our souls.

Um, so at least one church father that was probably taught by the apostles did in fact, teach something. Okay. I'm sure deliver my soul from the sword and my only begotten from the hand of the dog. Save me from the lion.

I'm sorry. The hand of what? The dog. This, this it's Psalm 21, 21 in verse. I'm sorry.

I have a slight problem hearing. I have 80 decibel ringing in my ears. I'm not trying to be difficult.

I just want to be clear. I appreciate your, your need for clarity. I, I'm very similar. Um, what it said is, um, deliver my soul from the sword. It's Psalm 21, 20 to 21. If we, we just want to get that.

Okay. Um, so it says deliver my soul from the sword. My only begotten from the hand of the dog saved me from the lion's mouth. Then he says, this was written so that when we arrive at the end of life, we may ask the same petition from God who was able to turn away every shameless evil angel from taking our souls.

Angels can take our souls. Well, they, you know, the idea is demons take our souls to hell. That's what the tall houses are.

Yeah. And sorry. Are you saying that angels can take our souls and demons can take our souls?

They escort our souls to the right place. Yeah.

They can take them. So a demon could rob someone's soul and take them to the wrong place. No, no, no. That's not what happens. I was making sure of life.

Yeah, no, no. It's there's. No, it's not. Well, there's no purgatory. It's the, but the basic process is if you're dead one way or another, you're going to go where you kind of intended to go. Okay.

So you admit it's a problem. The toll houses, the tradition thing isn't working for you in this respect very well at all. Um, so, you know, I just don't think your tradition, you know, I can, I can grill you all night on tradition questions.

I got a lot more. I can ask you. They're tough. Awesome. Could you, I actually would like some because that you picked, I love it. I, I think that's, you probably picked one of the most controversial issues in orthodoxy today, which is ironic that that's actually a controversial issue, but that's, you know, really, so if you have more.

Questions, sure, how does such a person who is not meaning derogatory whispering, but he's a different word to speaking, to saying, well, uh, you know, he's saying a tradition, uh, to somebody else. Okay.

Um, does he know he's conveying authentic information and not just hearsay?

Well, considering it came from the apostles, you'd have to assume that he's, well, that's my point tradition. And this is why tradition comes. When we say church fathers, we mean glorified fathers, saints, in other words, so they can't be liars.

Well, hold on. You know, I mean, uh, I do not want to be taken as trying to be mocking or condescending in any way. So I keep saying that I'm not, I'm not trying to do that at all, but no, I don't want to do that.

Even if you don't mind, unless I'm mocking you personally, cause I don't like you for fun and you'd laugh. That'd be the only way. I don't like to do that with people, but, um, you know, so you have a bishop in what state are you in?

Just to be on Pennsylvania, but the bishops are in New Jersey.

Okay. So we have a New Jersey bishop. All right. And so he's alive today. So he's the one then who received sacred tradition from somebody else.

I told you sacred tradition. It carries on through the ages. Okay. Anyone can learn the sacred tradition, but it's his job to defend it.

So how does he know he got it from the lineage from the apostles? How does he know that? And not, you know, uh, 300 years ago, a guy said something that another guy heard and now he puts it in and it's not, how do you know?

Are you referring to tradition or are you referring to a succession? Cause those are two different things. Well, tradition is by succession. It's transmitted by succession. So how does, transmitted what?

I might've, I should have been more clear if you thought you were confusing tradition and succession. Tradition is a body of knowledge. Succession is the role given from the apostles to the bishops to the present day.

Those are two different. Right. And they're different. They're different things. But my point is that there's no, like, he doesn't, like the bishop doesn't get like a book that's called tradition or something and say, here you go.

And that's, I mean, outside of, uh, well, he gets a crozier and a.

Hat, but those, those objects aren't tradition. Tradition is either written or it's verbal. So you said it's not a book, so it has to be oral.

Well, actually those objects are part of tradition, but that's beside the point. I'm sorry. I didn't understand that. What? The staff and the hat are in fact, part of tradition receiving the staff and hat.

Well, there is no Bible where it says, receive your staff and hat. You're a bishop now. That just didn't happen. Yeah.

But I'm not talking about that. The vestures. I'm talking about this. You know, stuff about Mary, stuff about salvation, stuff about toll houses.