Why We Need to Evangelize Roman Catholics

Why Roman Catholicism Must Be Evangelized

Next Thursday evening on Long Island, I mentioned last evening I will be debating a Roman Catholic apologist on the subject, can a non-Christian enter into heaven? It is not a debate about children who die in infancy.

It is not a debate about those who are mentally incapacitated. It is a debate about sections 841 and 1260 of the Catholic Catechism, which are primarily simply restatements of material from Vatican II, which in essence state that Muslims who follow the dictates of their conscience and follow the will of God as it is understood to them are a part of the plan of salvation and that any person in any religion whatsoever who follows the truth and follows the will of God so far as it has been revealed to them can inherit eternal life and it may be assumed that such a person had they known of the necessity of baptism would have desired to be baptized.

And so my opponent will be defending that perspective. I will of course be denying that perspective and presenting the thesis that God saves not only in Christ alone but he does not save in ignorance of Christ those who continue in an idolatrous system of worship.

Now you might say it's an odd subject to be debating especially since only a few years ago I was debating a Roman Catholic apologist on Long Island on the doctrine of justification and during the course of that debate he indicated that there are many who are sons of God today who will be in hell.

And so he was saying that you can be a Roman Catholic today and you can know the necessity of Roman Catholic baptism and a belief in the Roman Catholic Church and then apostatize from that and end up in hell.

I find it very odd that we have one Roman Catholic apologist basically saying that you can go to hell as a Roman Catholic so it's probably better just to be a Muslim. What you know I'm going to point out that rather odd contrast on Thursday evening.

How do we and why should we evangelize Roman Catholics especially given the fact that in this neck of the woods you have all sorts of folks who are cultural or nominal Roman Catholics. They might go to church twice a year.

They go on Christmas and Easter and they are what they are because that's just what you are when you're in our family and they don't have any strong attachment to Roman Catholic theology and point of fact you may know more about Roman Catholic theology than they know about Roman Catholic theology and they really don't understand why you're so exercised about the subject in the first place.

And so you have nominal Catholics then you do have your believing Catholics you have your old time traditionalist Catholics who I personally find it much more easy to talk to because they're not postmodernist they actually believe that what they believe is right and what I believe is wrong and I find it easier to talk to someone who believes they're right and I'm wrong than to talk to someone who doesn't know what right or wrong is in the first place.

Very difficult to find a common ground of discussion at that particular point in time. But then you also have the modern believing and yet somewhat modernist or liberal Catholic who takes seriously and this would involve I think the vast majority of the clergy, the vast majority of priests and nuns you might encounter though I can't find them anymore.

If I saw a dozen priests or nuns in the entire hour and a half, two hours I was in Vatican City three weeks ago I would be surprised. Traveling through Italy, seminaries closed, churches boarded up it was just incredible just absolutely incredible.

But the vast majority of Roman Catholic clergy in the world and certainly in the United States and Western cultures are going to be very left wing unless you're talking about Father O 'Reilly who's 147 years old and there are still a few of them running around.

The vast majority of the younger ones are very, very liberal in their theology and are nigh unto universalists which is why they look at you as if you're somewhat of a foaming nutcase when you start talking to them about the necessity of believing the truth about Christ it's sort of like don't you understand we're all going to get there let's just all get along as we're on our road.

We're going to be there with the Hindus or we're going to be there with the Buddhists and all's going to be wonderful and isn't it going to be great and grand and glorious and so on and so forth. And so when we talk about evangelizing Roman Catholics we sort of have to define what kind of Roman Catholics we're talking about.

And so today I'd like to primarily focus upon those who've been raised within the church, may or may not have a great knowledge of Roman Catholic theology but they've at least been exposed to the concepts of penance and the things that are involved in in auricular confession and the sacraments of the church they have some knowledge at least of the fact that they believe something different about the Lord's Supper as we would call it than they would call it in regards to the Mass.

Rome's Gospel and Why It Cannot Bring Peace

And so with that in mind why do we need to evangelize Roman Catholics? I am convinced that Rome's gospel and again I stop for just you know I get through what three words and I stop. Rome's gospel as it has been defined historically now that was fairly easy to define up until Vatican II.

Vatican II reiterates everything that Trent said. Vatican II in some way shape or form reiterates all the historical beliefs. There's more sections on indulgences in the Catholic catechism than there are in justification.

The doctrine of indulgences is reiterated and believed by Rome. Why if you can get to heaven in other ways I don't know. I find it a mass of contradiction and I'm not the only one who finds it to be a mass of contradiction and mass might be a pun there but it's difficult to see.

But Rome's gospel as it was laid out for people who know what it is and we you may or may not fall into that category it's be one of the questions I'm going to be asking my opponent. They have this wonderful concept of invincible ignorance and I don't know if I'm invincibly ignorant or not.

I don't think I am. I think I know something about what they believe and and their claims and so on and so forth. I'm going to ask if I would fall into that category but if we know that Rome claims to be the true church and if we know the necessity of baptism then we wouldn't fall into that context and therefore we would need to follow this gospel.

It seems though that that gospel is more difficult for Roman Catholics to follow than it is for a Muslim to follow their particular perspective and you all end up in the same place anyways so I really don't follow that but anyways Rome's gospel which would include the mass which would include purgatory which would include a priestly confession and the concept of of merit and growth and justification and being baptized to become justified and and the confusion of justification and sanctification all those things that historically mark what the Roman Catholic Church has taught while looking like Christ's message that is it uses the Bible that uses those words in that terminology lacks the truth that gives life and peace.

I am convinced that that is the case and that is why I evangelize Roman Catholics. Why does Rome's gospel not bring peace to the soul? Well Rome's doctrine of baptism. Baptism is called the labor of regeneration the labor of regeneration is the means of regeneration is the means by which one is brought into the state of grace and of course since that is done to the infant then you have the state of grace being justified before God being something that is accomplished sacramentally rather than the biblical belief that regeneration is the work of the Spirit of God causing a person to be born again to have faith in Jesus Christ repentance of sin etc etc.

That doctrine of baptism then leads to the conclusion that obviously a person who can a person can be baptized who ends up in hell a person can be baptized and enter into the state of justification. But it's very painfully obvious that not every baptized Roman Catholic baby grows up and embraces Christ and lives a vibrant holy life.

Many do not. And therefore the idea must therefore follow that you can enter into the state of grace but not remain in the state of grace. You can commit a mortal sin that destroys the grace the state of grace and you then become the enemy of God.

Hence you have the idea of being in the state of grace then out of the state of grace then back into the state of grace through the sacramental process of penance and confession so on so forth back and forth back and forth becomes a possibility.

And if your relationship with Christ is based upon your fulfilling all of those sacramental duties and following the church's lead on those things that is not a firm basis for relationship with anyone let alone a relationship with God that does not bring peace.

Rome's doctrine of justification very closely related to that this idea that justification and sanctification are in essence the same thing you can grow in justification. This brings us back to what we talked about last night.

What does it mean to be just before God. Why does any of us have peace with God today. What is the nature of the righteousness that is ours. Is it is it something that we can grow in. Is it something that.

And I'm not talking about growing in grace which is a biblical phrase growing in the grace life the life that is marked by grace and knowledge the Lord Jesus Christ. They talk about growing in justification that is becoming more just.

Well if justification and sanctification the same thing you can see why they believe that we can talk about the fact that we have grown in our sanctification in the sense that as the Spirit of God enlightens our minds and as we are exposed to the Word of God that we can come to understand certain attitudes and actions.

That is a new believer we didn't even realize that this would be displeasing in God's sight. But as we become a more mature believer we see the Lordship of Christ operating in all aspects of our lives including our our thought life and our speech and our tongue.

And you you be you grow in sanctification in the sense of my personal experience of holiness. Now there is of course a biblical category of sanctification that is not like this we have been sanctified we have been set apart.

But the concept of progressive sanctification experiencing that growth and grace is something we can understand. But when you take justification sanctification squish them together and make them the same thing.

That's when you end up with with a major distortion of the gospel message. And that's what happens in Roman Catholic theology her doctrine of justification. How you enter into it by baptism how you grow in justification how it is not the imputed righteousness of Christ by which you stand but it is instead Christ's death that makes it possible for you to have the grace to then merit eternal life by the good works you do in a state of grace.

Only those good works which are done in a state of grace are meritorious in God's sight. And so the whole doctrine of justification provides you with no basis for peace because the fact that you can commit a mortal sin tomorrow or tonight or today and immediately become the enemy of God you are then under the wrath of God.

That is not a position of peace. Rome's doctrine of the mass the very central aspect of worship in Roman Catholic theology the current Pope Benedict the 16th has clearly stated that the Eucharist is the heart and soul of Christian worship is the heart and soul of the Christian faith.

And what he means by that is is not merely the observation but the doctrine that Christ is physically present through the doctrine of transubstantiation with his people that this is a propitiatory sacrifice.

It is not merely memorial or representational in its nature. It is a propitiatory sacrifice. And it is the center of Roman Catholic worship and the Roman Catholic theology. The problem is you can approach that mass 10 ,000 times in your life and still die as the enemy of God.

You can approach that mass over and over and over again and still end up in purgatory upon your death to undergo sada spacio before you enter into the presence of God. And so how does that give peace if it cannot perfect.

And that is one of my major arguments against the doctrine of the mass is that it cannot be the same sacrifice as Calvary because the sacrifice of Calvary perfects perfects those for whom it is made Hebrews chapter 10 verses 10 through 14.

And so Rome's doctrine of the mass takes away the finished work of Christ and therefore does not leave you with a basis for peace. Rome's doctrine of purgatory as I just mentioned you can go to mass over and over again.

You're not perfected. You have temporal punishment for sin still left on your soul. Oh by the way that's the picture from my backyard just in case you wanted I'm from Phoenix. It's not that bad people people who've never been there actually think that a desert always looks like that.

It doesn't. Ours is rocky hard lots of cactus and stuff like that. So actually now it's just golf courses and swimming pools in Phoenix. But that's a whole nother issue. Sad issue. But a whole nother Rome's doctrine of purgatory.

People think Vatican to got rid of purgatory. No it didn't nor could it in any meaningful fashion. And still be Rome the doctrine of purgatory is still there just as the indoctrinate doctrine of indulgences are still very much there.

Obviously purgatory has been given a tremendous facelift. If any of you are maybe Roman Catholics who were converted many many years ago you had one of those old-time father Killarney priests you know I'm seeing a bunch you going.

Oh yeah man let me tell you. And and mother Angelica man she whacked me across it. Okay. I don't need to hear about getting hit with the ruler when you're in Catholic school. But you know so the folks I'm talking about the old-time Catholics that you know purgatory was was was a big thing.

And in certainly historically from the 14th century to just 50 years ago it was a very central aspect of the experience of the Roman Catholic people to be concerned about the experience of purgatory after death.

That's how you were made to feel that those those penances you were assigned by the priest upon your confession were something you should be doing because those penances are allegedly designed to remove the temporal punishment for your for those sins.

If you don't do them if you don't have the proper attitude in so doing them then those temporal punishments remain upon your soul. And when you die you need to be cleansed of those temporal punishments.

Nothing unholy enters into the presence of God. And since you don't have the imputed righteousness of Christ to claim as your own then you need to be cleansed before you enter into the presence of God.

If you'd like to hear a fascinating I felt it was it was. Of all the debates I've done with Roman Catholics there's been about 36 of those so far. The debate that I did a few years ago on Long Island with Father Peter Stravinsky on the subject of purgatory is extremely worth observing.

Watching on DVD in a church setting or listening to it on mp3 few debates illustrated the real difference between the Roman Catholic understanding of grace and the biblical doctrine of justification than that particular debate.

It truly was an amazing encounter. And I would I would recommend that so to you Rome's doctrine of purgatory stays there. It makes it very clear that when you eventually do enter into the presence of God you will enter into the presence of God due to the grace of Christ the grace of Mary the grace of the Saints and your own sufferings in purgatory.

Your suffering in purgatory is not. Despite some modern Roman Catholic apologists attempt to say this it has never been taught by the Roman Catholic Church is actually the application of the merits of Christ to you.

It is a self-cleansing and you know the old-style idea very clearly was that purgatory was a place where time exists and where you suffer for a period of time. The whole concept of indulgences and getting people out of purgatory demanded that concept.

You have the the promise for those who would wear the scapular for example that Mary would descend into purgatory on the Saturday after your death and release you from purgatory. Well if you've got Saturday in purgatory that sounds like time to me.

But the modern facelifted version of purgatory has gotten rid of time. It's almost an instantaneous thing. It's as one Roman Catholic I was debating online said it's where God loves the hell out of you.

That's what purgatory is. It's where God was it loves or hugs one of the two either hugs the purgatory the hugs the hell out of you or loves the hell out of you. But the point was that's where you're purified and it might just take place like that and poof you're in the presence of God but etc etc.

The doctrine of purgatory destroys the foundation of peace. So as I've mentioned and this is one of my earlier PowerPoints which is why the colors stink I've learned since then I have another one. I think I may I yeah yeah this is this is one of the first ones I did.

If you ever start doing PowerPoint do not do what I did in this presentation. Okay I did all the bad things that beginning PowerPoint people do but I just haven't fixed it wrong. Colors too many backgrounds and you'll notice every single one the text appears in a different way.

That's fun at first. And in fact they're really annoying ones or where you can have a typewriter sound when each letter appears. Oh that's terrible. Who designed that at Microsoft. They should be shot hung whatever it is.

It's just terrible thing. I didn't use the sounds part. But there's another one here where each letter appears like oh please good grief. What was I doing anyway. We have. I have grown in my PowerPoint sanctification since since this particular point in time grown grown a great deal.

Most Roman Catholics in the United States are nominal or cultural Catholics as I point out little knowledge of the intricacies Roman Catholic theology. But still if the person with whom you're speaking is a lifelong Catholic if they've been exposed to Catholic family members so on so forth the concept of merit and works is most probably deeply ingrained in their thinking.

It's it's the whole idea of going to the priest and doing the penances and the prayers and and just talking with grandma and grandma certainly old enough to remember the old-time Roman Catholicism will communicate these concepts rather clearly to this individual.

And hence you have to keep that in mind as you are speaking to them that they understand what you're saying within their context not not vice versa. You must know why you accept the Holy Scriptures to be the sole infallible sufficient rule the faith of the Christian Church.

You must be able to explain why it is that the gospel message is to be defined only by what God has revealed in Scripture. You must understand trust and love the truth that all Scripture is God breathed.

This is certainly the case when you're dealing with a Roman Catholic who is a believing Roman Catholic and in fact a believing Roman Catholic who desires to defend their faith. And there's plenty of them around.

And obviously I encounter them fairly regularly myself. And this is true. It was interesting in 1993 the Pope came to a Denver and I did a seven and a half hour debate over two nights with Jerry Matitix on the subject of the papacy.

And then a few months later I did a little trip where I went over to San Diego and I debated Patrick Madrid of Catholic answers on solo scriptura. And then I got in my car and drove from San Diego not back to Phoenix but up to Salt Lake City.

And there in Salt Lake City I did a radio program with two Brigham Young University professors on the subject of my book letters to a Mormon elder in studio. Mormon attorney is the host to be by you PhDs myself taking calls in Salt Lake City talk about stacking the deck.

And it was fascinating to me that the approach that the two professors took was almost identical in substance to what I had just debated on solo scriptura against a Roman Catholic apologist. That is their whole approach was how do you know that the Bible is inspired.

How do you know that the Bible is an errant. Aren't there contradictions in the Bible. How can you have the Bible defining all of these things. The Mormons were attacking that to make room for the Mormon scriptures Book of Mormon dr. Cones for a price.

Patrick Madrid was attacking that to make room for the traditions of the Roman Catholic Church and to put me in a position either one of them of being dependent upon their ultimate religious authority for my belief in the Bible.

They both approached it in essence in the exact same way for completely different purposes. And so in almost any apologetic encounter today it doesn't matter whether you're talking about the agnostic you're whether you're talking about the the humanist or whether it's a religious encounter.

Fundamental to all of it would be in fact I saw someone walking in I think you had scripture alone with you. Did you have you put it in your car or something it's in your bag. There's a I was just singing.

That's probably the closest one I could find. I wrote a book. The last book that I that I put out from Bethany house is entitled scripture alone. And the whole reason that I did it is to provide this type of foundation that you need a broad range of knowledge of what the scriptures are once you hold that up for folks their scripture alone.

I'm not sure if there are any left back there but I deal with the canon of scripture inspiration authority the Apocrypha tradition the the Gnostic Gospels a wide range of things. And it just seems to me that almost any believer today if we are going to open our mouths in our culture you need to you need to know what's in that book you need to have a foundation as to why you believe the Bible to be true because most of people were talking to Roman Catholic or otherwise are walking through the the checkout line at the grocery store where you have all those scholarly journals right right next to the the gum and stuff you know and the leading the leading news magazines of our day and you know right next to Elvis found in Memphis again you have stuff like Bible scholars discover that Jesus never said he was returning so he isn't or Bible scholars discover new New Testament book you know and we look at that and you know that that has about as much much influence on us as the Elvis story does.

But for a lot of other folks when you start talking about Bible scholars they don't have they don't have any discernment they don't care who we're talking about here and it seems them there's all sorts of stuff about the Bible.

It's pretty odd and pretty strange. And why do you believe it to be true the truth and so on so forth. So this is a truth that is true I think in any in any context whatsoever pretty picture we'll all go to sleep watching this one.

Peace With God Through Justification by Faith

The key issue in dealing with Roman Catholics on any level is the issue of peace. When I wrote the Roman Catholic controversy a number of years ago the thesis that I had in that book was when when you talk about the gospel the central aspect that you focus is the issue of peace.

The Hebrew term Shalom in 1990 1991 January of 1991 right as Desert Storm was taking place I debated father Mitchell Pacwa twice over the course of about five days and the largest Roman Catholic Church in El Cajon San Diego in the San Diego area and it was quite an honor to get to defend the the all-sufficiency of the sacrifice of Christ while standing in front of the high altar of the largest Roman Catholic Church in San Diego.

But in the debate on justification this became the central concept. Father Pacwa and I have debated five times now. And in fact if you want to hear the best debates on a debate level I would say they are the ones with Mitch Pacwa.

I respect him more than almost anyone else I've debated simply because he doesn't engage in ad hominem. He doesn't dodge the subject he doesn't play games. When you listen to a debate with Mitch Pacwa on we've done justification the mass solo scriptura the papacy and the priesthood a lot of peas in that.

I wonder if we could Pacwa and the peas we come up with some way of doing all those. When you listen to those you will hear a debate on that subject and that subject only who's doing the debating won't really be the issue.

And so I can I can highly recommend them to you in the debate on justification. Mitch Pacwa is fluent in 12 languages and he's fluent in Hebrew. And I pointed out to him that the term in Romans 5 1 we're gonna look at here Shalom peace is a very rich term and he agreed with that.

And then I asked him I really forced upon him the question how can you say you have peace with God when you believe you can become the enemy of God before you go to bed this evening there is no peace in Israel right now when everyone's running around armed and everybody in Israel is armed.

That's why interestingly enough in Massachusetts odd to point this out but there's almost no personal crime in Israel. You know why everybody's packing. You don't break into somebody's home when even the twelve-year-olds got a Newsy.

Okay you just don't do that. That's dumb. You know click click all right. So there's almost no personal crime there. In fact I'm gonna be going over to Israel in summer of next year Lord willing to teach for a month.

And the people I'm gonna be staying with the church. That's gonna be having me there. When they came over to Dallas they would not let their teenagers go out at night in Dallas because it wasn't safe enough to go out in Dallas at night.

From their perspective in comparison to being in Israel and mainly because they had to leave their guns at home. So odd odd situation they're in over there. There's no peace there. If you have to be constantly if you've got armies on your borders with loaded guns on alert 24 -7.

That's not peace. Why isn't that peace. There may not be a shooting but Shalom is a wellness of relationship. It's a positive term not just a lack of a negative term. And that doesn't exist in Israel right now because they're in a constant state of possible war.

And as I said to Mitch Pacwa you're in a constant state of possible possible war. If your relationship with God is such that by your actions you can destroy it and be an enemy of God by tonight. That's the same situation you have in Israel.

That's not Shalom. And he understood what I was what I was saying. The passage here's one of these. You know it's pretty with the font and stuff. Just don't do that. Okay when you start doing PowerPoint just okay.

Do it once get it over with and then never let anybody see it again. All right. Romans 5 1. Therefore having been just having been past tense having been justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

We look back upon our justification. Those of you who are here last night might be going. Yeah. That's one of those passages we talked about last night. When NT Wright says justification is primarily a future thing.

We look at Paul and Paul concludes his whole discussion about justification. Romans 320 to the end of chapter 4 what does he conclude. Therefore having been justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

His conclusion is not let's hope that someday we have peace with God when we are justified in the future down the road. That's not what Paul says. The first having been justified now is who's who's who's in Greek.

Do-do-do. Church history hermeneutics eschatology. I don't see an elementary Greek. Okay. Scott. Where's. Scott. Got your Greek text. Scott. Oh who has his. Oh all of a sudden everyone's denying having Greek text.

Isn't that amazing thing. I've had that happen many times especially when I have former students in the audience. You don't want to be one of my former students. You really know if I know you're one of my former students.

You leave don't even carry a Bible. Just just just never show up to anything. I'm ever doing it because I like to ask you know questions like I used to teach church history and there were certain dates that you knew you had to know on the final you had to know what year was the Council of Nicaea ad325.

You knew you had to do you know that. So if you've ever taken church history from me you just you can't forget it. If I run into you at a funeral I'm gonna ask you after the funerals over when was the Council of Nicaea.

And you better know I'm gonna be very very disappointed and I can do big puppy dog eyes look very disappointed to make you really feel really really bad. And so I remember once we were driving to Disneyland this was before the Southern Baptist said you can't do that and and we were in the in the in a van.

I had taught the one man and then he had taught a good friend of mine Greek. Okay so this is a second generation student and so I popped open my Greek text and I handed it to and I left my paper Greek text the motel.

But I can always do that because I have my palm. No I do not get paid by by anyone who does that. I open it up to Romans 5 1 and I showed him the participle found here to kaya Fentis and I said pars it.

And that man has never been the same since that particular experience. I mean to his death he will always remember absolutely freezing in front of his his own professor and his professors professor on the way to Disney it ruined his weekend and he has a twitch now and it's it's it's just a it's a it's terrible thing.

Actually he's a very very good friend of mine. So if you ever listens to this Warren I I'm sorry that I told well the worst thing was and you'll appreciate this the worst thing was we were we went we went over Disneyland then we went to John MacArthur's Church and I spoke in Phil Johnson's grace life class.

I gave the presentation I'm gonna give in the next hour when oops I'm out of time anyways and Phil Johnson. Phil Johnson gets up and my friend Simon this is Warren. We did this to my friend Simon had told Phil about it and in front of the whole group now you got to realize at John MacArthur's Church their Sunday schools or for four times bigger than my entire church.

Okay and so there's like 400 people in this room and Phil Johnson in front of them all calls Warren out by name saying I understand you have some problems with Greek. Oh man talk about warping someone.

Please don't do that to your students. Okay take a lesson from me. They'll love you forever if you don't treat them like that way. But those who are experts in the in the field will will verify for me that when you look at the grammar of the text Paul is clearly identifying not only that justification is something that has already been an experience in our lives but that it is because of that this is a this this is a condition that has been fulfilled.

This is the state that we are in. And because this is the state that we are in right now we have as a present possession peace with God. As textual variant there they have addressed a number of books we won't get into that right now but it's it's rather relevant to the point that is here having been justified.

It is something we look back upon not something we're striving to fulfill not something that we're hoping for in the future. It is something the believer can look back upon and recognize is the experience that he has had by faith in Jesus Christ.

It is by faith it is not by anything else that we can do. I'm going to emphasize that in just a moment we look at Romans 4 and I'm gonna have to oh good grief. And finally peace as I mentioned true Shalom wellness or wholeness of relationship.

The Contrast Between Grace and Works in Romans 4

Now I'm just going to I have another half hour on this and there's just no way I can sneak it in. So I'm just going to do a brief presentation on this and you know I really should actually walk far enough that direction to see which books are out there.

It might be a good idea but I've addressed these issues rather fully in a book called the God who justifies from Bethany house publishers. It sort of goes with the scripture alone book. There it's except a hardback.

Okay there's a hardback out there and obviously go into much more depth on these particular issues. The first eight chapters of the God who justifies have been identified by one Presbyterian pastor friend of mine as a very elongated sermon.

And he's right. And they are fairly passionate. Path chapters. Then starting with chapter 9. From there on it gets a little bit shall we say thick for some people it is is exegetical in nature at that point.

But I would encourage you to take a take a look at it. Is there huh. There it is. See it's notice the color thing. See you've got the the black and the red and that one's the black and the blue and they're supposed to like sit next to each other on the shelf and look pretty and stuff.

But actually I had a big fight with with to get the right title for that book for scripture alone. How did. What was the first title they wanted to do. I wanted scripture alone from the start. The first the first one they came back with.

How about what the Bible really means. Oh it's terrible. They came with about three and I kept going. Mmm. And they finally said how about scripture alone. Yeah it's really fairly easy. I don't like getting into the titling stuff.

But on that one I put my foot down said come on people that's not even close. Let's let's. Anyways let me get through Romans 4 4 3 5 direct you to the God who justifies. You can try to rip off his copy if you're if you're cheap or you know whatever it is why he's not looking whatever you want to do.

But then we need to move on to solo scriptura because that's a another really important topic as well. If I'm forced to go to a single passage if I'm on a train and I know I've only got a certain amount of time before the next stop and I might be losing this person.

And you know that's an illustration. I couldn't have used a whole lot before I start going to places like England and Italy. But now all sudden I like trains. Trains are cool. They don't. They don't do this number.

You know when you go through go through. Well they do in London. In the tube ever ridden the tube in London. Any of you. Good grief. I thought it was a Disneyland ride. I was incredible. I was used to the subway in New York is nice and smooth.