Adult Sunday School - The Roman Catholic Controversy Part 20

The Danger of Abandoning Sola Scriptura

Let's pray. Father, in your gracious Son's name, we approach you this morning thanking you, Lord, for this arrangement, thanking you, Lord, for this time that you've allowed us to gather under your protection, under your lordship.

We ask, Father, that you'd grant us peace from all of our earthly troubles and grant us in this moment attention and a desire to draw closer to you through your word and the teaching that is before us.

We pray, Father, that you would humble us in all of our affairs and help us, Lord, to keep our eyes settled upon Jesus, the one whom you have chosen as the author and perfecter of our faith. And Father, we do pray for Roman Catholics in our lives, those who we have encountered, those who we will encounter, that this information would be useful, not just as a homiletic against them, but, Lord, also, Father, for their salvation and for the glory of your gospel to go forward, that we are justified by faith through Jesus Christ.

And we pray these things unto the glory of the one true and triune God, the Father, Son, and Spirit. In Jesus' name, we do pray. Amen. Well, beloved, we are just about two lessons away from completing this book.

And so last time we left off, we left off, I think, in chapter 13, when the sola scriptura is rejected. And I'd like for us to finish off this chapter. We're going to be in page 206 until the end of the chapter.

It'll be our primary focus for this morning. And just to recap where we've been, last week we focused heavily on, essentially, what's called Mariology. Mariology is the doctrine of Mary and examining the Roman Catholic view of Mary and how they have, essentially, exalted her to a position to make her, obviously, more than what scripture indicates, but, in a sense, putting her on par with the Godhead, putting her on par with the Lord Jesus Christ.

She is given titles and positions that are foreign in scripture, so they don't exist in scripture. But they really try to, how do I put this lightly or nicely, they bastardize Mary in scripture, to the point where I think Protestants are now really afraid to even touch the subject of Mary in fear of making her more than what she ought to be.

But I think scripture does give Mary a place of honor. Any scriptures come to mind when you think of that place of honor, correct? So yes, in Luke chapter 1, obviously, you have the pronouncement from Elizabeth, from Gabriel, that this woman is blessed.

The Lord Jesus even blesses her and gives her a place of honor. I want to see if it's in John's gospel. In John chapter 19, in verse 25, it says, but standing by the cross of Jesus, where his mother and his mother's sister, Mary, the wife of Clopas and the Mary Magdalene, when Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, woman, behold your son.

Then he said to the disciple, behold your mother. And from that hour, the disciple took her to his own home. And so how this is often viewed within Roman Catholicism is that Jesus is pronouncing Mary to be the mother of the church.

OK? Because John, who is the beloved disciple whom Jesus loved, is a representation of the church. And he's not the pope, because Peter's the pope. But he's so then John would be a representation of the church.

And so Romans say, here Jesus is pronouncing Mary to be the mother of the Christian church. And so I would obviously, Protestants would disagree with that interpretation. But in fact, what this scripture is pointing to is the fact that Mary is given a place of honor amongst the early church and amongst God's people.

Pastor? Yeah. So it's interesting, because again, Peter would be the pope, would be the first pope. And in a sense, so what is the pope? The pope is the vicar of Christ. He's the physical stand-in for Jesus.

And so essentially, there's a need. Is there anyone in the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church, is there anyone higher than the pope? And the answer is no, other than Christ. And so Mary, to some sense, has to be almost subservient to the office of the pope.

And so they distinguish between the office of the pope, which is represented in Peter, and then the church at large, which would be represented more in John. See? And so that way, Mary doesn't have authority necessarily over Peter, because again, the pontiff, the vicar of Christ, still has to have some level of authority even over Mary, which is why in history, popes have declared Mary certain, given her certain titles and prefixes, but never subservient to the pontiff itself.

Isn't it interesting?

It's pretty interesting stuff, yeah. Sure, I don't understand that.

So what happens when we abandon sola scriptura, we abandon the authority of scripture as the absolute rule of faith? Inevitably, what happens is that there's a confusion of roles, and there's a confusion of words, essentially.

So how would we define prayer, for instance? What would be kind of a textbook definition of prayer? Communication with God. Or how about we just simplify a little bit more. How about just communication with the divine, with things that are spiritual?

Because can you pray to demons? Yes, you can, yeah. I mean, should you? Is it biblical? Is it right? No, obviously. But can you communicate with spiritual beings that's not God? Yes. And so what happens is that the Bible gives this definition, such as prayer, communication with the divine, which is why in the Old Testament, Deuteronomy in particular, it specifies against prayer to anything other than Yahweh.

And it prohibits communication, which is necromancy, with the dead or with other spiritual beings, because you can't do it, and it's unlawful. Kind of a, I have a lot of weird interests that bleed in with the scriptures, but aren't directly related.

Aliens is one that we talked about that last week. This idea of psychedelics, for instance, which is very popular here in the Bay Area. Psychedelics, and I was watching a podcast by Doug Wilson, and he made a fascinating connection I had never thought about, and I think he's absolutely spot on on this.

People who take hallucinogenics and take psychedelics often have what seems to be really powerful spiritual experiences. And Doug Wilson says, I don't doubt that. I think that they actually are having a really powerful spiritual experience, but they're doing it unlawfully.

And so they're entering into this space, into this realm in an unlawful way. We're only allowed to approach this space through Jesus, and yet these people are finding a back way in and communicating with spirits and things that they ought not to.

And so it would be, again, also a violation of biblical law and ethics in approaching the spiritual realm outside of Jesus Christ. So fascinating stuff. Well, the Roman Catholics do this as well. And the Roman Catholics approach the spiritual realm outside of the biblical confines that's given to us through Jesus Christ as our mediator.

And they do so through prayer to saints. So prayer, again, there's a bastardization of the language, right? So when they say, it's not really worship. It's not really prayer, right? But it is. So when they bow before an idol, they say, well, that's not really worship.

That's just us using a visible representation in order to get our minds fixed upon God. In other words, worship, right? I mean, there's no distinguishable difference. You know, you're just playing games with the language.

Same thing with prayer. We're called to pray to God through Jesus Christ. But when we pray to saints, we're not really praying to them. We're just talking to them. We're just having a conversation with them, just like you'd have a conversation with someone in church.

We believe that the Roman Catholics say, you know, those who are in heaven are not truly dead. Therefore, it's totally fine to have a conversation with them, right? Correct. Yes, they do. They use, those are common terms within the Eastern Church and the Roman Church.

More so in the Orthodox Church, where, you know, in Rome, they have no problem calling it worship and prayer. And then they just justify and say, well, we don't really mean worship and prayer. It's kind of a lower class of worship, lower class of prayer.

But again, these are ways in which Rome confounds and misinterprets basic biblical principles and precepts. And this is what happens when you abandon sola scriptura. You don't have a solid biblical basis for what you do.

And we, in particular, as Reformed Baptists, have a mechanism to protect us from such false worship, and it's called what? Sola scriptura, and there's also a principle. What's the principle? First of an R, the regulative principle.

The regulative principle, okay? Which says, and essentially, it's a close adherence to the biblical precept that God gets to determine what is and what is not worship, right? And so, modern evangelicals also fall often to this trap where, you know, anything and everything can be defined as worship, and so the word becomes meaningless, and there's no separation between the mundane and that which is holy.

And so, a lot of evangelicals fall into this trap as well. And we don't want to fall into that trap, and so we have this regulative principle which protects us and protects the integrity of God's word of sola scriptura in saying, this is what God has defined as worship.

This is what is worship, this is what is not worship. And, you know, and I agree to some degree. I mean, I was a pastor of a non-denominational church for four years, and for Southern Baptist Church for two years, and so I understand the, or three years, I understand the impulse of many evangelicals when they say something to this degree that life is about, that all of life is about worship.

And I agree with that in principle, but what that doesn't mean is that everything is now worship, but rather that all of life should point us to worship, should point us to the holy. Even the things that are mundane should point us to things that are of God.

But we don't want to confound them too much where everything becomes holy and there is no distinction between the mundane and the holy. And I think that's one of the errors of Rome as well, is that they don't make these strong distinctions within their own parameters because they don't have the regulative principle of worship.

They do have a regulative principle of worship, actually, but it's not defined by scripture. It's not sola scriptura, it's actually defined by Rome. And so they do have a strong distinguishing, unlike most evangelicals, between that which is holy and that which is mundane.

So they do have a strong distinction in their ecclesiology and in their theology, but it's not based upon sola scriptura. Rather, it's based upon church tradition, right? And so if you've ever been to a mass service, the whole idea of mass is to distinguish between the mundane and the holy.

And even within their ecclesiology, anyone know what the word ecclesiology means? Let the pastor answer, you got it? You think you know? The what? Yeah, it just means the structure, teaching, theology of the church, right?

How the church is structured. And in the ecclesiology of the Roman Catholic Church, what you'll find is everything points to Rome, right? Everything points to a hierarchy. So for instance, the priests wear garbs, which distinguish them from the church, from the laity, right?

There's a clear distinction. There's no confusion. Where if someone walked into this church, they may not know, you know, if there's no one at the pulpit, they may not know right away who's the pastor, right?

Because there's no clear distinction between the clergy, which is the teaching, you know, priests, teachers, bishops, you know, the ecclesiastical term for church leaders, the clergy. And the laity, and the laity just means the church members, right, so those who are kind of average churchgoers.

And so in Roman Catholicism, there's a clear distinction between church and laity. And everything they do is to distinguish from the laity. And so you have the priests wearing particular garments and robes.

You'll have them only doing certain rituals and things throughout the service. You'll have even a host of individuals who have the candles and have the incense being burned. And it's to distinguish between clergy and laity.

Where the Bible doesn't make such a strong, sharp distinguishing mark between clergy and laity. If you look at the Bible, the Bible says it was from among the brethren from the laity that you were to choose men of good repute to be office of deacon, pastor, elder, and so forth.

And so it's not like it's a, there's two classes. Rather, it's from among the brothers that these men of good repute are to be chosen from among. And so again, Rome goes to great lengths to distinguish between these classes in order to point to the authority of Rome.

Because Rome is the final authority. It's not the scriptures. And so again, what happens to a church that abandons sola scriptura, that abandons the absolute authority of scripture? Confusion. And it's a form of Babylonian confusion.

If you remember in the story of the Bible, all the languages were united until the Tower of Babel. And the Tower of Babel is where we get confusion, which is kind of like when you hear someone just talking and they're not making a lot of sense, we say that they are what?

Babbling, right? They're talking, but they're not making sense, right? And this is where we get that word, obviously, from Babel, which then later becomes Babylonia, the great empire that destroyed Jerusalem and Jerusalem's temple, and then the people of God are then exiled to there for 70 years, which is where we get the book of Daniel.

And so Daniel's writing in exile while in Babylon under the rule of Nebuchadnezzar, who is the king. And so there in the New Testament, we see the book of Revelation speaks a lot about this mystery Babylon.

And this mystery Babylon represents, again, confusion, a spirit of confusion. Rome is a modern Babylon. It is a ditch of confusion. It's like a black hole of confusion. And everything that centers around it really is Babylonian in origin.

Even if you look at certain things within church tradition, it really goes back to ancient Babylon. We won't have time to go into all those things today, but if you even just do a quick Google search, Roman Catholicism and ancient Babylon, and you'll see all these similarities between these two civilizations.

I say all this because the Bible gives us clear instructions. The Bible is clear and it's authoritative. Rome does not teach a clear and authoritative message. It is convoluted. And it's convoluted even in their worship.

Worship, Prayer, and the Regulative Principle

So I want you to go to page 206 in our book. Again, we're second to last chapter of this book. I just want to highlight this conversation here between a Protestant and a Catholic. So this conversation takes place almost daily between the informed Roman Catholic and the less informed Protestant.

So the Protestant would say this. It appears to me that the Roman Catholic Church allows for worship of saints. Isn't that idolatry? So very clear observation, right? You've probably observed this as well.

Seems very clear that Roman Catholics worship idols. Here's how the Roman Catholic would respond. Oh, I see you haven't really studied our church. We don't worship saints or even Mary. We worship God and God alone.

Protestant says, then what are you doing bowing before a statue of Mary or some other saint? The Catholic responds, you need to understand the difference between the worship we give to God, which we call Latria, and the veneration given to saints, which we call Dulia.

Latria is not Dulia. And since we reserve Latria, the highest form of worship, notice the language there, only for God and never give it to the saints, then we obviously are not worshiping the saints.

What's the problem with that rebuttal from the Catholic? And this is actually, I've had these conversations. This is pretty similar to most conversations that you'll have with an informed Roman Catholic on this issue of worship.

So I don't think James White is doing a disservice to the Roman Catholic position here. What do you think is wrong with that rebuttal? This is actually very similar to some of the arguments used by Unitarians and Jehovah's Witnesses in regard to the worship of Jesus.

The Unitarians and the Jehovah's Witnesses would say that in the Bible, different terms are used for the worship of Jesus, because they'll say, okay, certain words are used for Jesus in terms of worship, we'll grant you that.

But it's always in a different sense. It's always in a different context. And they'll bring out, for instance, in Daniel chapter seven, verse 14, where it talks about the Son of Man being worshiped by all the nations.

They'll say, well, actually, in the Greek Septuagint, the word that's used there is not for worship, but rather it's the word that means to serve. And so yes, all the nations will serve the Messiah, but they won't worship the Messiah in the same way that God the Father alone is worshiped.

And so they use very similar common arguments, but just in a different context, where the Roman Catholic Church would use this in terms of their idolatrous worship of saints and of other spiritual beings, the Jehovah's Witnesses would use that same line of reasoning, but to attack the deity of Christ.

The problem with it is that when we talk about the nuances of words in the Hebrew, or the Greek, the Aramaic, we have to understand that all these things are in a particular context. So for instance, where in Daniel chapter seven, all the nations are bowing before Jesus, and Philippians chapter two, all the nations and all of creation is bowing before Jesus, when in Revelation chapter five, all the creatures of creation are bowing before Jesus, what's the connotation?

There's no confusion, it is absolute. When everyone is bowing before you, that is worship. Okay? And just to expose the hypocrisy of Jehovah's Witnesses on this subject for a quick moment, Jehovah's Witnesses are known for not being nationalistic.

So much so that as children, we were instructed not to even stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. So I'd have to tell my school teacher before class, hey, back then, schools were a little more patriotic, especially after 9 -11, and so we would do the Pledge of Allegiance every day.

And so you'd have to put your hand over your heart. And just that act, to them, was considered worship. And because they don't believe in nationalism, nor do they believe in idols, so they would say the flag is an idol, and putting your hand over your heart is an act of worship, you can't do that.

And so you were forbidden from doing the Pledge of Allegiance. If the simple act of putting your hand over your heart is an act of worship to the Jehovah's Witness, how can it not be that bowing before Jesus is anything less, right?

It doesn't make any sense. And the same is true with the Roman Catholic in this sense. If you were to bow down before Jesus, and then you go and you bow down before a statue, or you bow down before a saint, or you bow down before another creature, how is that not also worship?

It doesn't make sense. Clearly, there is an inconsistency here. But again, because, again, the authority isn't the scriptures, it's church tradition, among other things, they can say, they can play loosely with the wording, and say, oh no, there's a different classification of worship, right?

And we don't give this exclusive type of worship to anyone other than to God, but there are other lesser forms of worship that we can attribute and we can give to saints, idols, and other individuals, okay?

Again, this is a departure from scripture. And really, even if you're, this is also true if you're Unitarian, Unitarians are people who deny the divinity of Jesus. This is the same problems that you'll have with Unitarianism, is that if you have lesser degrees of worship, because the Bible's crystal clear that Jesus is worshiped.

He's worshiped in Matthew chapter 14, verse 33, where they were at the Sea of Galilee, and Jesus calmed the storms, and it says that they worshiped him. He's worshiped in Matthew 28, after his resurrection.

He's worshiped also in Philippians chapter two, Revelation chapter five, there's so many places. Hebrews chapter one, verse six says, all the angels worship Jesus. And so, it's crystal clear that Jesus is worshiped.

What Unitarians will inevitably do, similar to Rome, is that they make this new category of lesser type of worship, right? They say, okay, it's worship, but it's a different kind. It's a lesser kind. It's not an exalted kind of worship that we give only to God.

So now, you fall into a category error. You make a false category in order to make this fit into your worldview, into your theology. And that is a huge danger that we want to avoid as Christians, which is why I think, especially within a reformed soteriology, in a Trinitarian framework, we have the most consistent view of worship and the most consistent view of God, okay?

Because when God says, worship me and me alone, we really think he meant that. And there's no other forms of worship that would be appropriate to anyone else, right? All other forms of worship would be false worship.

And only that which is given to God is true worship. So then, there's a categorization for the Christian. There's two types of worship, true and false. There are no varying degrees in between, okay? There's only true worship and there's false worship.

And God gets to determine what is true worship and to whom it is designated to, which is the Triune God, the Father, Son, and Spirit. And so, anything outside of those categories would be just nonsense.

Yeah, right, right.

Yeah, so I mean, again, they have an interesting view of the church, the church victorious, the church militant, the church militant being the church that's here on the earth, the church victorious being the church that's in heaven, and that we are one church.

And I agree with that, in principle, of course. We all should. But at the same time, the Old Testament's pretty clear. The Bible, in itself, is pretty clear. That, okay, what happens to us when we die?

Do we, like the Jehovah's Witnesses and other groups say, do we no longer exist? The Bible says that there is conscious existence outside of this bodily existence, right? And so, when a person dies, they don't cease to exist.

But now they're in a different plane of existence. And the Bible makes it clear that communication with the dead, physically dead people, in any form is inappropriate, okay? The Deuteronomy is clear on that.

Leviticus is clear on that. The New Testament is clear on that. And so, when we look at the text of Scripture, there is no allowing for communication to the other side except to God through Jesus Christ.

It is the only form of prayer, worship, that is acceptable to God. And so, again, obviously, their rebuttal to that would be, well, no, again, those who are in Christ are alive. They are not separate from us other than through the veil of death.

And because they're alive in Christ, and we are alive in Christ, and we're seated with Christ in heavenly places, there's nothing inappropriate about communicating with those who've gone before us, particularly those who the church has canonized as saints.

And so, what sainthood in the Roman Catholic Church looks like, if you've ever studied it and look at the process, it's not like in Protestantism, where we kind of understand that most, all of Christians are saints in Jesus Christ.

In their view, which is borrowed from ancient paganism, there are those who are saints who have reached this sainthood, which is essentially akin to the ancient demi-gods, who have attained such status in the afterlife that we can communicate particularly to them for particular things.

So there's a, you've heard of the term patron saint. Okay, there's a patron saint of love, Saint Valentine, right? And this is where we get Valentine's Day. He is the saint that you go to, to appeal, pray for the topic of love.

There's a patron saint for people who are sick. There's a saint for those who have, you know, leprosy. There's a saint for those who, you know, have cancer. And it's all these different saints who you can appeal to for particular things, okay?

Again, that's a concept totally foreign to scripture. So when you abandon solo scriptura, what do you get? You inevitably get all these extra biblical concepts and things, yes. Yeah, are you having your hand up?

Exactly, and that's very typical, even amongst Unitarian and Jehovah's Witnesses in terms of trying to categorize a lesser form of worship. And so here's a problem with that mentality. There are times in scripture where individuals of high status are given, the term obeisance comes to mind, but I hate that term, and I'll tell you why.

No, no, you're good, but it's a good thing. You know, Jehovah's Witnesses have taken the Greek word proskuneo. The word for worship in the Greek is proskuneo. And they've taken those terms when it's applied to Jesus, and they translate it as obeisance.

Now, some people don't know, but obeisance is, you know, actually comes from a French word. You know, obeisance to like bow down, to prostrate, to have your face towards the ground. And there is a category error that I think Catholics and Jehovah's Witnesses and Unitarians are making.

When King David receives obeisance, let's just use that term, and I'm using that term in the colloquial sense of meaning bowing down. When he's bowed down to, why is he being bowed down to? He's the what?

He's the king. When Solomon is bowed down to, he's the king. Obviously, in this context, who does the king represent according to 2 Chronicles, I think, chapter 16? He represents Jehovah. He's a representation of Jehovah.

The kingship of Israel is a representation of Jehovah's kingship, right? And so when a person was to bow down before the king, the king is a stand-in essentially for Yahweh, for Jehovah God. And he's ultimately a foreshadow of the king of Israel, the king of kings, Jesus Christ, right?

And so you have to kind of get, understand that. And it's not a, it is actually a, if we want to use the term obeisance or worship, it's a worship that's actually directed to Yahweh, to Jehovah God, and in these particular circumstances, these are representations, these represent Yahweh, Jehovah, in a very special sense that would not be appropriate outside of that particular context.

So for instance, if St. Valentine, is there any indication that outside of the kingship, outside of the priesthood, that you can give that type of what's called, I can't remember the term, but let's just use this term, representational worship.

There is no instances outside of those. And so when others are given obeisance, it is a sign of respect in the, in those foreign contexts. And so today, we don't typically bow down to people, but what do we do?

When we meet someone of high reputation, we shake hands, right? If you're a part of an Asian culture, like Japanese, you still practice a form of bowing down. If you belong to the British Commonwealth, you also still practice a form of obeisance by bowing down.

For instance, when you're in the presence of the king's court, or in front of the king's representatives. So like in Canada, you'd have to, when you go into a courtroom, you have to bow because the king's bench, and it used to be the queen's bench, now it's the king's bench, is that officer of the court represents the king.

And so are you bowing down to this man? You're actually, you're bowing down to him in recognition of the authority that's behind him, which is the king. Similarly, in ancient times, those who, the kings who were standing for Yahweh were given obeisance, not in recognition of their deity, but of the deity that was behind them, that is Yahweh.

Does that kind of help a little bit? Yes, in a sense, when you see the kings in particular that are given the term obeisance, and I think there's like two places, actually, for instance, like in Exodus chapter seven, verse one, let me make sure I got this right, Exodus chapter seven, and the Unitarians love this verse.

It says in Exodus seven, verse one, and the Lord said to Moses, see, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron shall be your prophet. And so, for instance, here, you have instances where even Moses, who again, all these persons, all these offices, whether it's the prophet or the king, or the priest, is pointing towards Jesus Christ.

And so, Yahweh says to Moses, I'm gonna make you like God, basically, I'm gonna make you my representative, is what Yahweh is saying to Moses. And so, essentially saying that Pharaoh must heed you, he must listen and obey you, because you're my representative, you're my stand-in in this moment.

And so, there are times in scripture where there is this representational worship, or authority that is granted, but it is to those particular offices of either the prophet, the king, or the priest, all things that are pointing towards Jesus Christ, right?

Listen, I don't know if you've ever had a difficult mother-in-law to deal with, but sometimes, bowing down might be the appropriate thing to do in the circumstances. And so, I would see that as a more cultural thing, I don't see that as an issue of worship.

Sometimes, you just have to concede to those offices. In a very similar way, I think of my father-in-law, who I really admire and respect, Tatiana's father, he's like 92 years old, and a Korean War veteran.

Every time I see him, last time I saw him, I got on my knees for him, because he doesn't sit up very much, but I wanted to show reverence and respect for him. It'd be no different than that. I don't think it's worship, and it's certainly, according to the context, not worship.

Rather, it's a more cultural issue of reverence and respect. And so, we can show reverence and respect in certain ways, which I guess would, the Roman Catholic would say, hey, that's what we're doing.

But the reason why I don't think that's the case is because the language that they use in their liturgy in regard to these instances of worship, where they will even call it and use the terms of worship, they'll use terms that are described only of God and of Yahweh to these particular saints, and very much particular to Mary, as calling her our beloved, calling her our mother, calling her all these titles and things that would not be appropriate for such created beings.

So, does anyone else have any thoughts or questions? Someone had their hand up over there. Pastor, did you have your hand up? Excellent. So, when worship is not properly defined and when worship is not regulated by scripture, and this is for the Protestant as much as it is for the Roman Catholic, then you start to fall into some very dangerous territory of falling outside of the biblical categories for worship, really.

Again, Rome has developed over the years kind of an intricate system that distinguishes, that allows Roman Catholics to distinguish between certain forms of worship. As I mentioned to you, there are only two types of worship that are mentioned in scripture, and it's true and false.

So, it's a binary choice. And unfortunately, as so much things in our current society is heading down towards a plurality, and a plurality in a lot of things, plurality of sexes. So, there's no longer male and female.

Now, it's 72 different types of sexes. Non-binary, there's, goodness gracious, I don't even know anymore. It's hard to keep up. But there's a whole host of shades of in-between. And that's essentially what Rome has done with the system of worship.

There's a whole host of shades of in-between of what is worship. And the Bible just doesn't play that game. It categorizes it very clearly. What is true worship? What is false worship? Anything that's not true worship is false worship.

And so, that's why, in particular here in our, amongst our Reformed brethren, we take the issue of worship very seriously. And so, as we should, and as we ought to. True and false. That's right. And that's good.

Absolutely. And it makes it so much simpler, doesn't it? Yeah. You know? And what did Jesus say in John 4? He talks about, okay, true worship. So, who are those who practice true worship? They're the ones who worship in spirit and in truth.

Truth is the important aspect here to focus on. What is true worship is what God has declared to be true. Okay? So, his word is that which declares what is true worship. So, it's pretty clear-cut. And so, we're all getting into the weeds of the wording that they use.

So, for instance, Latreia and Dulia. Dulia being the lesser form of worship. Latreia being the higher form of worship. Just to be, here's an interesting tidbit. So, the folks who denied the deity of Christ, so, in Daniel chapter seven, verse 14, where it talks about the Messiah, the Son of Man being worshiped, I think the word that's used there is actually Latreia.

It's Latreia. Which means to serve, but it's to serve in a religious connotation. That's what the word means. So, it's religious service. It's religious worship. And Latreia, in the Roman Catholic dogma, is the highest form of worship.

Interestingly enough, the Unitarians would say, no, actually, it's not. Unitarians would say, Latreia is just, it's a lesser form of worship than, say, for instance, the Greek term for worship, which is proskuneo.

It's a lesser form of worship. And so, it's interesting how both the Unitarians and the Roman Catholics use that term and try to make something out of it that's not. Really, the word Latreia just means religious service or religious worship.

So, it's actually a really helpful tool because the word, you can't get around it. It is religious in nature. Versus maybe some of the more cultural or civic acts of obeisance or worship that we see given to the king, for instance, or in other times in scripture where creatures are bowed down to.

Those are more civic or cultural instances, whereas Latreia is, there's no doubt, it's religious in context. And that's what the word basically means, okay? Any thoughts or questions so far? I know there's a lot of information here.

And really, it just centers around worship. It centers around this conversation of what is worship and who gives us the authority to declare what is worship. And Dulia, so in page 208, it's Dulia in the middle here.

Dulia is differentiated from Latreia, though, according to Broderick, both are forms of worship. So again, Rome would say it's worship, but it's not really worship. And why they say that is because it's worship of a different kind, of a lesser kind.

Again, that's problematic. Latreia is a higher form of worship than Dulia. Therefore, when the Bible speaks of worshiping God alone, this refers to Latreia. We are, however, allowed to give Dulia to others.

Where's the biblical evidence for that? And we're using these terms, Latreia and Dulia. The onus would be on Roman Catholicism to produce the biblical evidence for it. And there is none. So there's Hyperdulia.