The "All About Rome" Expanded Edition of the DL

Alpha & Omega Ministries

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

Comments are disabled.

00:12

Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is The Dividing Line.

00:19

The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.

00:27

Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.

00:34

This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll -free across the

00:43

United States. It's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now, with today's topic, here is

00:50

James White. Good afternoon, and welcome to The Dividing Line on a Thursday afternoon, and today is the day.

00:59

Yes, indeed. Why is there someone outside of our office there, brother? That's interesting to be watching the security cameras and see people trespassing where they're not supposed to be.

01:11

Just looked up. I, you know, just so you know, I sometimes use the studio here where my laptop is located as sort of a second part of my office.

01:20

I have some books in here, and sometimes I'm transferring files and doing things like that. So when

01:26

I'm here at night, we put a mirror up on the wall so I can see the TV monitor. That's how

01:31

I know, for example, when birds are attacking one of the TV cameras and things like that, is that I'm seeing all this.

01:39

And so I can see something parked behind Rich's car, and we had a, you know,

01:44

I had to come down here Lord's Day afternoon to watch video and record it for the police because someone stole a car out of the parking lot during the church services of the church nearby, and our cameras caught it.

01:57

It's wonderful to live in L .A. East, and that's where we live these days. Just watch the news at night, and it's

02:04

L .A. East. Anyway, today is the day that we are testing our new phone system, and so really almost anything is possible at this particular point in time.

02:15

You may recall what happened when we sang happy birthday to Julie a number of years ago, and smoke started pouring out of the machines and things like that.

02:26

It's possible. We had some folks call in earlier and help us to start getting things set up, but we will see.

02:33

877 -753 -3341. I have certainly... Hey, what's this button do? Yeah, uh -huh, that's...

02:42

I was saying in channel, you weren't looking overly confident in that last little countdown before the program started.

02:47

It was sort of like... Captain, she can't take much more of this! But the neat thing is,

02:54

I now have the phone system on my screen in front of me, and I can click people on, and I can put them on hold, and everything else right on the screen in front of me.

03:04

Right now, I see that, and I have the channel, and I have my sound clips, and I have a

03:10

Word document, and BibleWorks is not currently visible, but I can bring it up, and all my various URLs, and we are ready to go on the dividing line today.

03:21

Yes, it looks a little bit like CSI, not CSI. CSU, C -U -S.

03:27

What's 24 again? Jack Bauer works for who again? Counter...

03:34

C -T -U. Yeah, that's... Counterterrorism Unit. Okay, thanks. I fell off the 24 track about four weeks ago.

03:42

As soon as the tomb story hit, I gave up. I just... You went into your own thing. I went into my own

03:48

C -T -U, and was fighting a whole significantly more eternally significant terrorist group, headed by Simca Yakubovich and James Cameron, man.

04:02

They make anything Jack Bauer has ever taken on look real mild. No two ways about it as far as the eternal results of their tactics, but anyhow, as anyone who has been following the blog knows, there has been a shift in topics.

04:18

Isn't it interesting how it sort of goes that way? You got a period of time where you're talking about Islam, and then

04:24

Greg Stafford pops up, and this, that, and the other thing, and since I have gotten a little better at putting these video clips together, and getting them uploaded, and things like that, most of my debates have been with Roman Catholics.

04:41

Now, I've already got clips recorded of debates in Salt Lake City with Mormons, and I've got the

04:47

Stafford DVD sitting there, and I want to get some clips out of that, and stuff like that, but a lot of them have been with Roman Catholics.

04:56

All of a sudden, the people in the various Catholic forums are talking about this explosion of anti -Catholicism.

05:04

These are debates we did sometimes 14 years ago, or something like that, or 13 years ago, or whatever. And, oh, it is just incredible to listen to Catholic apologists, because they don't sound any different today than they did 15 years ago.

05:20

Now, there's a good part of that, and there's a bad part of that. I remember when Rich and I did a radio program up in Salt Lake City a number of years ago with Van Hale.

05:31

After the program was over, Van Hale said to me, and I took this as a compliment, he said, you're saying the same things now that you said 10 years ago, and what he was saying is you've been consistent.

05:41

You have been saying the same things, you've been making the same presentations, you've been focused upon the same issues, and that I consider to be a compliment.

05:53

However, there's a difference. I certainly would hope that the last debate

05:58

I did in Sola Scriptura was better than the first debate that I did in Sola Scriptura. And Rich can testify, because he pays the bills around here, how often

06:08

I'm buying books to keep up with the current reading and research and conclusions in various areas, including

06:16

Roman Catholicism. I don't see any evidence of that. I've mentioned this before.

06:22

I see no evidence of that on the part of Roman Catholic apologists. They're making the same surface -level arguments that they were making when

06:29

I first encountered them in the late 80s, as far as seriously reading their stuff, and they haven't even gotten to the point of expressing their objections to the non -Catholic position.

06:44

You could just simply change your expressions, add one or two phrases to show that you at least know what the other side is saying and why they're saying it, but they don't do that.

06:55

They don't do that. And I'm going to play some sections from a very recent, the 26th,

07:01

I think today is 29th, so just a couple of days ago, Catholic Answers Program, to illustrate this, because they had on with Jimmy Akin, a man who's making a presentation against the twin pillars of Protestantism, Sola Scriptura and Sola Fide, and it's amateur.

07:18

That's the only way to put it. It is not scholarly, and it is not even what a person would do if they were really doing some serious reading.

07:29

And it reflects, along with everything I've said on the blog of late, it reflects upon the state of Roman Catholic apologetics, and you know what?

07:38

I don't know that there's much they can do about it, because when you're defending a false system, there's only so far you can go.

07:43

There's only so much you can do. So maybe we're just observing the limitations of falsehood itself.

07:50

You have to just keep repeating the same falsehoods over and over again. Maybe that's what's going on here.

07:56

Now, that's odd. Whatever you just did. Quit, quit.

08:01

It's working. Get your hands off the equipment. Thank you very much. Don't touch it. You'll break it. That's right.

08:07

Leave it alone. I did receive an email, and I wrote to this lady who wrote to us and let her know that I was going to be responding on the program today.

08:16

And so I want to do that right off the bat and then go right into the audio and take your phone calls.

08:21

I've mentioned a number of times, if people would like to call in and actually try to defend the

08:27

Hugh Barber hit piece on me, in light of actually having read my article in the

08:33

Council of Nicaea and what it was really about, I'd be happy to let you try to defend that kind of apologetics.

08:40

I think just letting people, I mean, watching Jonathan preaching, just spinning in circles and ending up in a lather, trying to defend that kind of abuse of the truth, you hardly even need to comment on it.

08:58

For any serious minded person, it's like, you've got to be kidding me. But if someone wants to try to come up with a way of defending it, that's great.

09:09

But I want to respond to an email that was sent to me. Sometimes I do this in a blog, but since we had the dividing line today,

09:15

I figured this is the easier way to do it. And here's what the email said.

09:22

I'm a former fundamentalist raised on Sola Scriptura, Sola Fide theology. Born again by asking

09:28

Jesus in my heart at the age of eight, I believed most of what you do about Roman Catholicism. As I grew into adulthood studying the

09:34

Bible, I came to realize that since the Holy Spirit is a spirit of truth, he cannot contradict himself. God is not the author of confusion.

09:40

It is impossible for opposing views of Scripture to be simultaneously true. I converted to Catholicism because I was seeking the truth.

09:46

I believe the Roman Catholic Church is the instrument by which the Holy Spirit transmits the truth of God through the infallible interpretations of Scripture and also the sacred traditions handed down by the apostles.

09:56

Then it says, I am not a wide -eyed convert armed with a Scott Hahn book or a Stephen Ray video.

10:01

I am a born -again believer in Jesus Christ who cried out to him to show me where I could find the reliable interpreter of his holy word.

10:07

God led me to Mass, the last place I'd ever have looked. I hope one day you will understand the necessity of yielding private interpretation of Scripture to its rightful authority, the

10:16

Church. Now there's a pretty common presentation from a

10:22

Roman Catholic convert, but let's take it apart and let me respond to it. She writes,

10:28

I'm a former fundamentalist raised on Sola Scriptura, Sola Fide theology, to which I would want to ask, what does that mean?

10:34

Does this mean the Bible alone, faith alone, but no knowledge at all about the history of these issues, etc.?

10:40

Did you understand what the Reformation was, what the issues were? Did you understand the difference between, for example, imparted or infused grace versus the imputation of righteousness?

10:55

Were you familiar with the claims of Rome regarding tradition, the nature of her traditions, the dogmas that she has based upon tradition, all these types of issues?

11:07

Or were you just simply a plain old Protestant that really didn't know much about Roman Catholicism and did not know why you believed what you believed, and hence would be very likely to be deceived as to what

11:18

Sola Scriptura actually is? In fact, we're going to see here that Roman Catholic apologists are not very good at accurately representing the positions that they are criticizing and very frequently are very good at beating up straw men.

11:30

It says, born again by asking Jesus in my heart at the age of eight, I believe most of what you do about Roman Catholicism.

11:36

Well, that would require her to have actually taken the time to read and listen to what I believe about Roman Catholicism, because I don't think that the vast majority of Protestants believe about Roman Catholicism, what

11:49

I do, because the vast majority of Protestants and the vast majority of Roman Catholics don't know almost anything about Roman Catholicism.

11:59

It's history. How many Roman Catholics, honestly, have read the

12:05

Cairns and Decrees of the Council of Trent? How many have honestly and properly studied anything about the early church councils?

12:13

Anything along those lines at all? Not that many. So, I don't know, you know,

12:21

I do get tired, to be honest with you, of having people assume things about me without actually listening to what

12:31

I have to say. I see it on the web boards all the time. How many people have called in here, well, I heard that you said

12:36

X, Y, or Z, or I heard that you believe X, Y, or Z, and I've never said anything even close to that. In fact, I've very clearly differentiated myself from those views, and yet people are so willing to go solely upon second -hand sources.

12:51

As I grew into adulthood studying the Bible, I came to realize that since the Holy Spirit is the spirit of truth, he cannot contradict himself.

12:56

God is not the author of confusion. It is impossible for opposing views of Scripture to be simultaneously true. I converted to Catholicism because I was seeking the truth.

13:03

Now this one, to me, is truly amazing. While I completely agree that God is not the author of confusion, that alone should be enough to keep one out of Rome, to be sure, how can anyone look at the massive spectrum of belief that parades under the banner of Rome today and say that there is some sort of unity there?

13:23

Go visit the campus of Boston College, talk to some of the professors there, that'll make my point for me. Go talk to some conservative

13:30

Roman Catholics, go to Boston College, and tell me these people are believing the same thing. They're not. They're as far apart from each other as the two farthest removed

13:38

Protestants are from one another. But beyond this, does our writer then see that her position, if she were to apply it in a meaningful fashion, would have precluded her from following the

13:51

Apostle Paul in the early days of the faith? Look at how many conflicts the Apostle Paul had to deal with. Because there was confusion, that is, division and difficulty in Galatia, does that mean

14:00

Paul wasn't true, that she should have run off to Rome to find Peter's successor? What about John?

14:05

When John writes 1 John, there is so much dissension in the church. There is so much difficulty going on in the church at that particular point in time.

14:12

These people have gone out from the church, and they used to be leaders.

14:18

They used to be people who were leaders in the church, and now they're denying the incarnation of Christ.

14:24

Would that not have precluded her from following John, because John's involved in conflict? And there were differences there.

14:30

This goes back to the old, hey, it's God's will that there only be one church, and everyone always knows exactly what that one church is.

14:37

And I'm sorry, but show me that in New Testament. Show me where that took place in history. Show me that in Acts, where there's no conflict, there's no apologetic, there's no opposition, there's no false teachers, nothing like that.

14:50

You show me where that is, and then I'll go, okay, obviously the text,

14:57

God is not the author of confusion, is being abused here. That is not a text that says there is going to be one church and one authority that's going to tell you what to believe, and you just walk lockstep with that church, with that particular leader, that particular interpreter, or whatever else it might be.

15:13

Yes, there is one church of Jesus Christ, but that church is always going to be having to fight for the faith once for all delivered to the saints.

15:20

And there are going to be divisions, as there were when apostles walked the earth. When someone comes along and says, hey, sign over your responsibility to me, and I'll make infallible decisions for you, your decision to follow that group is the limit of your infallibility.

15:37

You can't look at me and say, well, I infallibly know that the Apocrypha is inspired scripture. Why? Because Rome told me so.

15:43

And you made a fallible decision to follow that infallible authority, right? Well, that's the limit of your infallibility right there.

15:51

You can get no more infallibility than your own infallibility in choosing to go that direction. Other people choose

15:57

Mormonism. Other people choose Jehovah's Witnesses. And as you'll see sometime next week, the week after that, when

16:02

I post the rest of the cross -examination period from the 1997 debate between myself and Gerry Matytix, Gerry Matytix made a huge mistake.

16:11

It's right after the section that Porvoznik has put up there, which means he's watched it, which means he knows that it's there.

16:18

But he didn't post that part, of course, or talk about it or anything like that. Just part of what it means to be a Roman Catholic apologist,

16:23

I guess. But anyway, after he plays the game of did the apostles practice sola scriptura, they're writing the scriptura.

16:32

Hello. I mean, it's a total for anybody with a serious bone in their body, you're going,

16:38

Gerry, would you get on with the subject here? And, of course, Porvoznik is going, so he wins. Very shortly after that,

16:48

I raised the issue of, Gerry, you made a fallible decision to follow

16:53

Rome, and Gerry made a big mistake because his response was, well, you made a fallible decision to follow the

17:02

Bible. And thankfully, I just sort of let that one sink in for a second because the applause just starts.

17:11

I mean, all of a sudden, everyone sees exactly what the issue really is. And that's in the same cross -examination period that for some reason,

17:20

Phil Porvoznik forgot to put that part up. But anyway, and Phil, you can call, too, you know, if you'd like to defend your your comments, 877 -753 -3341,

17:32

I'd be happy to have you on the program today, Phil. Anyway, so that's a misuse of that text in regards to God is not the

17:40

God, the author of Confusion. Then we continue on. I believe the Roman Catholic Church is the instrument by which the Holy Spirit transmits the truth of God through infallible interpretations of scripture.

17:49

Notice, I stopped just for a moment. I don't want to necessarily parse an email, but notice the

17:55

Roman Catholic Church is the instrument by which the Holy Spirit transmits the truth of God through the infallible interpretations of scripture.

18:02

So scripture isn't the truth of God that's transmitted, though the official Roman Catholic position would be. But here you have this infallible interpretation of scripture and also the sacred traditions handed down by the apostles.

18:13

And now, once again, here we get into that situation where and I've documented this over and over again, we'll hear it in the clips that I'm about to play.

18:22

Where you have the Roman Catholic apologist or hear someone who's been influenced by Roman Catholic apologists and what they want to do is they want to have their cake and eat it, too.

18:34

They want to argue for the partum partum view. What's the partum partum view?

18:39

Well, you just heard it. You've got you've got scripture and you've got the oral traditions. And what's in the oral traditions is not what's in the scripture and vice versa.

18:48

There's two streams, modes of revelation, and they differ from one another.

18:55

And that functionally clearly is what Rome is trying to defend. But but when they can't defend it because you can't defend it,

19:03

I mean, it's not possible. They slip into, oh, no, no, I'm I'm affirming, you know, material and formal sufficiency.

19:11

Now, I'm not confusing these things, you know, you know, it's implicitly there in scripture.

19:17

They'll argue both directions and they'll get as far as they can with the partum partum stuff.

19:23

And then when you stop them in their tracks with pointing out how that doesn't work, oh, that's not what I was saying.

19:29

And how silly for you to think that I was over here, you know, and then 10 minutes later, you find them again quoting 2

19:35

Thessalonians 2 15 as if somehow there's a difference between the written and the oral. It's it's the the number of times they do this kind of thing.

19:43

It's just constant. I think they're stuck in it. They can't get out of it. And it's sort of the template that they use.

19:49

So we have this infallible interpretation of scripture from our email writer. Can can can she provide us with this list of infallible interpretations?

20:00

Can she trace these sacred traditions back to the apostles? Look at the dogmas that have been defined on the basis of tradition.

20:06

What are they? Well, they're the Marian dogmas and they are the papal dogmas like infallibility.

20:12

And can you trace these back to primitive church? Of course you can't. It's impossible. In fact, it was very interesting.

20:19

I was looking at the the envoy forum just a few moments ago and there is a someone posting under the name of Pope St.

20:28

Peter. And I'm assuming they're Catholic. I mean, I suppose they might not be.

20:35

I don't know. But today, just a few hours ago, they posted the following.

20:41

The dogma of the bodily assumption of Mary is an excellent example of why authority is the real issue. I'm currently reading

20:47

Stephen J. Schumacher's groundbreaking work, Ancient Traditions of the Virgin Mary's Dormition and Assumption, Oxford 2002.

20:54

And he makes clear from the historical evidence that the first investigation of the blessed mother's death was done by St. Epiphanias, who could not find an authoritative tradition on this issue.

21:04

After this, the issue is not brought up again until the end of the fifth century in an explosion of apocryphal and heterodox literature.

21:11

Schumacher translates for the first time in English, the earliest of this literature, and it's very interesting to say the least, in one document,

21:17

St. Joseph scolds the blessed mother on their way to Egypt for getting him into this mess. Afterwards, the infant

21:23

Jesus speaks to St. Joseph and commands a nearby palm tree to bend down and feed them.

21:28

This is the nature of the origins of the dogma. But does it matter? If you believe the

21:34

Holy Spirit guides the Magisterium into all truth, then the evidence or lack thereof doesn't matter.

21:41

That is why I said the more fundamental issue is the Holy Spirit and Scripture versus the Holy Spirit and the Magisterium.

21:46

That's why I sort of wonder, is this guy really a Roman Catholic? Because that's a pretty effective argument for most people against these things.

21:55

And by the way, I just note in passing that that kind of literature did exist and that kind of literature was vital in the beginning of the

22:03

Marian dogmas. And that's the very same literature, by the way, that obviously Muhammad accepted as accurate, so that Jesus speaks from the cradle in the

22:13

Qur 'an, just as he does in the Gnostic literature. And so I found that to be quite interesting, that particular quote there.

22:23

And it is illustrative of what I have pointed out in my debates, for example, Gerry Matisik's up in Salt Lake City on the subject of the

22:30

Immaculate Conception, I'm sorry, Perpetual Virginity, that the origins of those doctrines are not

22:37

Scripture. They are not even tradition. They are from heterodox and simply cultic and false sources,

22:44

Gnostic sources and things like that. Now, Raymond Brown, in his book,

22:50

The Critical Meaning of the Bible, 1981, page 40, said, to the best of my knowledge, the Roman Catholic Church has never defined the literal sense of a single passage of the

22:59

Bible. That's one of their own leading scholars. So if this lady has converted to the

23:06

Roman Catholic Church, I hate to tell you, did the folks who got you to convert tell you that their leading scholars indicate that the church doesn't really do that infallible interpretation thing very often?

23:18

And Joseph Fitzmyer, in one of his footnotes, points out that Pius XII finally thought it pertinent to call attention to the fact that there are but few texts whose sense has been defined by the authority of the church, nor are those more numerous about which the teachings of the

23:34

Holy Fathers is unanimous. That's Scripture, the Soul of Theology, 1994. Now, think about it for just a moment.

23:42

If there's no unanimous consent of the Fathers on almost anything, about the only thing I can come up with is monotheism, and the church doesn't do this infallible interpretation thing, exactly what did you gain by converting to Roman Catholicism?

23:56

I mean, your particular priest right now might be a nice conservative guy, but wait till he leaves.

24:02

The people coming out of the seminaries, most of them are not conservatives, and all of a sudden the face of Rome that you see is going to change.

24:10

And if you do some traveling around, you will discover that Rome morphs to fit the culture in which it's in.

24:17

Is that really what you were looking for when you converted to the Roman Catholic Church?

24:24

She says, I am not a wide -eyed convert armed with a Scott Hahn book or a Stephen Ray video. Well, I'm glad to hear that. I'm a born -again believer in Jesus Christ who cried out to Him to show me where I could find the reliable interpreter of His Holy Word.

24:35

Well, there is your problem. Because what you should be looking to is His Holy Word and His Holy Spirit.

24:44

Because the problem is, once you start looking for an infallible interpreter, as soon as the interpreter speaks, you must interpret the interpreter.

24:54

See, a lot of people go, oh, I've got it. I can go to Rome and get an infallible interpretation. Well, good luck getting to the

24:59

Pope to get one in the first place. But secondly, that really doesn't work.

25:06

Because once it's written, I mean, sit a group of Catholics down, some from the

25:13

Midwest and some from San Francisco and maybe Boston, and have them read the

25:22

Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent and see how many interpretations you can come up with of that written document.

25:31

Well, that's the infallible interpreter speaking. Yes, but the problem is even Roman Catholic theologians disagree over the interpretation of the interpreter.

25:41

That was the point that I make, and I'll be posting this soon, the the concluding statements that I made against Mitch Pacwa in our debates in Souls Couture in 1999 in San Diego, is

25:54

I dragged out the stack of books, all these big books from Rome, the documents of Vatican II and the

26:01

Canons and Decrees and all that stuff, and I put it on the table and said, now, are you telling me that this huge stack of writing clarifies

26:10

Romans 5 .1, therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ? No, it doesn't clarify it. It muddles it.

26:16

It muddles it. It says God led me to Mass, the last place

26:23

I'd ever have looked. Well, it's the last place you should have looked. Because as I was just saying to a Roman Catholic in our chat channel right now, he was saying that he thinks it's a little silly that I am offended by the phrase alter

26:35

Christus. And my response was, given that Rome stitches up the veil of the temple, puts a priest back in front of the people who has an offering that can perfect no one, and that I believe in the finished work of Jesus Christ and the perfection of his

26:54

Atonement, I will always be offended by Rome. And I will always be offended by those who pretend to have authorities and positions that the

27:00

Bible does not give to them. I will always be offended by that. And so why you would look to the

27:08

Mass and how you think God led you there, he didn't lead you there. I can tell you that with 100 % certainty.

27:15

The Holy Spirit of God does not lead people to places like that. Unless, of course, given, you know, the fact that you know, maybe a person, once they deny the the sufficiency of Scripture, then, you know, as the

27:31

Scriptures say, if you refuse to love the truth, then you'll be caused to to love a lie. And that's, we are talking about very, very important things in this subject.

27:45

That says, I hope one day you will understand the necessity of yielding private interpretation of Scripture to its rightful authority, the

27:52

Church. And of course, my response is that the

27:57

Church hears the words of Christ, the

28:02

Church hears the voice of Christ, and once the Church claims infallibility for herself, then she is forced into a monologue with herself.

28:14

She cannot any longer, she can no longer hear the voice of Christ. She's now stuck in the silence of her own thoughts.

28:21

She can only talk to herself because she's infallible. She can't be changed. She can't be corrected. And that's a very, very important thing to keep in mind.

28:34

And so I wanted to provide a response to that, and it was, I think, easier to do it in that fashion than to necessarily do it on the blog.

28:46

We had, we had, are we still having problems with line one, huh? Bummer. I thought we had fixed the phone lines there.

28:53

Well, we have a caller calling in, but before we get to that, let's, I promised that I was going to be looking at this particular item here, where Jimmy Akin is having as a guest on the program, someone else who's with Catholic Answers, by the name of Jim Burnham.

29:14

Jim Burnham is joining him on the program. And so let's go ahead and start with that, because I'm watching

29:19

Rich the Window, and he's having problems getting folks on the phone lines.

29:25

So we knew this was a possibility. We're not trying to play games with anybody. We have a brand new phone system, and you know, we, we were moving people back and forth.

29:35

We had folks who called in and, and test and stuff and things like that. But until you actually do it for real, that's just the way it goes, you know, you never know.

29:47

But anyway, let's go ahead and play some of these, and then we'll take some of our phone calls as well at 877 - 753 -3341.

29:56

This was, I believe, the 26th of this month, which would have been Monday of this month on Catholic Answers Live.

30:02

Jim Burnham with Jimmy Akin. Let's listen to, let's listen for accuracy in the presentation of the position being critiqued.

30:13

I need music. I need sound there. Whatever do you mean by that, Jim? Well, the Twin Pillars are the two basic Protestant ideas or doctrines that really were the the genesis of the

30:26

Protestant Reformation, and they still are the operating doctrines that guide most

30:31

Protestant thinking and theology today. And what would those be? Basically, the first pillar is the the notion of Sola Scriptura.

30:39

That's Latin for the Bible alone. This is the, the idea that the Bible alone is the sole rule for Christians in matters of faith.

30:48

Now, I stop it immediately. What word is missing? I mean, again, if, if I were to be representing

30:56

Roman Catholic theology that has been defined, I would try, you know, and I have a long track record of accurately representing it, and no one who has seriously interacted with my work, with Bill Webster, with Eric Svensson, who has read the classic stuff,

31:16

Good, Whitaker, no one is going to use that definition. Why?

31:22

Because we all have rules of faith that are not in Scripture. I've got the London Baptist Confession of 1689.

31:29

What is the word that's missing, and what's the word that, that, that helps us to focus and discuss this issue meaningfully?

31:35

Sole infallible rule of faith. Sole infallible rule of faith.

31:42

Not sole rule of faith. That's, again, presenting this idea of you've got the person with their, with their

31:48

Bible out in the woods, and that's all there is to it. That's, that's, that's not what it is. It's sole infallible rule of faith.

31:56

It's basically the idea that all essential religious truths are found in the

32:01

Scripture alone, and that we don't need church councils. We don't need a church.

32:06

We don't need anything else. We don't need sacred tradition, as you Catholics, you know, as we silly

32:12

Catholics hang on to. What do you mean, need? Again, this is the common misrepresentation that, hey, you can ignore all of church history, and you can't learn anything from anybody else, and, and those church councils just waste time.

32:25

There is a vast difference between recognizing the worth of looking at church history and learning both from the good things and the bad things in church history, and this idea of, well, we don't need them.

32:40

They, they're, they're just, they're, they're irrelevant, and we don't need them. If you, if you're meaning need in the sense of these are equal

32:47

Scripture, yes, of course, they're, they're not equal Scripture, and that is the point that we're making, and that they are to be subject to the ultimate correction of Scripture is the point at hand.

32:58

All we need is the Bible and the Bible alone. That's the, the first principle or pillar of the

33:04

Protestant Reformation, and that's not what the Protestant Reformers said. They said that the Bible is the sole infallible rule of faith, but they recognized that God had given to us the church, that God had given to us the, the preaching and teaching ministry, that there is authority when the

33:20

Word of God is preached, all those things. Again, this is the classic straw man of you and your

33:26

Bible out in the woods alone, or the bishop in Rome. The idea that there are, there can be authority in the church, anything like that, is just simply dismissed as if it's not even there.

33:35

More straw man argumentation. Now, will Jimmy Akin call him on that? Because Jimmy Akin knows better. Answer?

33:42

And, and the second pillar, no, is the idea of salvation by faith alone.

33:48

This is the idea that we are saved by faith alone, apart from anything else, like good works.

33:55

And so, you know, in fact, this was, this was something that, that Martin Luther was very, very firm on.

34:01

He said that this idea of salvation by faith alone is the, is the doctrine by which the

34:07

Protestant Church stands or falls. And, of course, that's not what he said at all.

34:14

Poor Luther. I tell you, if, if you want, if you want to get the Catholics riled up, say something about Luther.

34:21

I don't know why they think getting a quote out of Luther is just so absolutely vital.

34:28

That would, that would take a very shallow view of church history, that Luther somehow was the start of all this. And if, and if, honestly, if you're a

34:34

Roman Catholic listening to this and you think that's what we believe, hello, we teach church history, too, you know. We know about Wycliffe, and we know about Hus, and we know about Gottschalk, and we know about all this stuff back into church history.

34:47

It's, it's, it's really frustrating at times. Besides that, Luther didn't say the

34:53

Protestant Church. That, that term didn't even exist in his lifetime, as far as what he would use of it anyways.

34:59

He was talking about the church in toto, the entire Christian Church, and he saw that, that freedom of God and salvation as, as the, the, the pillar and the descriptive mark of whether a church is standing or falling, not the

35:15

Protestant Church or versus the Catholic Church or anything along the lines. And by the way, it's not faith alone.

35:20

It's by grace alone through faith alone, and there is a huge difference, and that needs to be emphasized.

35:27

He was basically saying if this idea of salvation by faith alone is wrong, then the entire

35:33

Protestant effort is wrong. So he viewed this as a pillar. Oh, he, yes, and the

35:39

Protestants themselves, many of them will, they will acknowledge these are the, the two central ideas or doctrines on which

35:47

Protestantism is based. Okay. Well, why don't we start with the first, then, Soloscript? Now, I would, there's more to it than that.

35:56

The five solos would have been, would have been nice rather than just the two, but I understand you only got an hour due to two. But that's not exactly the most in -depth and accurate representation that I would ever find.

36:06

If I gave representations of Rome's doctrines on that level, I would be ravaged for being so unscholarly and lacking in knowledge and everything else.

36:17

But we, I have another nine minutes of that, and we'll get to that because it actually only gets worse from there, not any better.

36:25

But we've had folks who've called, and we want to test the system today. So, let me mention to those who are on hold,

36:32

I'm going to try to bring you on there, and we've only tested this without live audience, and my experience is that electronic equipment works fine when it's not actually in front of a live audience.

36:46

But when you have a live audience, that's when everything goes completely crazy.

36:52

So, I'm going to do my best here, and we will see how it works. Our first caller, interestingly enough, is

37:00

Pope St. Peter from Texas, who was the gentleman that I was reading your email.

37:07

Are you on the air with me? Yes, sir, I am. Yes, sir. Let me first say that the volume,

37:14

I don't know if it's my phone or just the connection, that you're not very loud. I understand.

37:21

Well, I guess I should start by saying that I am a Catholic. Okay. And I was just, it was my first time on the

37:31

Envoy message board, just like it's my first time hearing this show, and I was just trying to give a little,

37:39

I guess, focus or direction to a thread that seems to be just based on bashing you.

37:46

Well, I understand that, but you need to understand that if I were to make the statements, because I have.

37:53

In debates, I have for example, in my debate with Jerry Matitix on the perpetual virginity of Mary, I pointed out the ascension of Isaiah and the protevangelium of James and these historical sources that Roman Catholic scholars recognize were vitally important in the development of Marian theology in the early church, and I am accused of everything under the sun for raising those issues.

38:20

And so for you to make note of that kind of literature and the importance that it had, now you're quoting a solid source there,

38:30

I understand that, but to even make note of that, you'll notice some people responded to you already and if the tables were turned and your nick was, you know,

38:42

James White or Alvin Omega or something, you would have had people jump on you from every which direction and that's part of the illustration of my point, to be perfectly honest with you.

38:52

Yeah, I understand. In fact, I was surprised that my post, which actually mentioned

39:00

Shoemaker's work, was not deleted because I would think that certain people would not want the average

39:08

Catholic to read that kind of material, you know, but it is an interesting work. I have been reading up on the about the

39:16

Assumption recently. It's one of those things that I just never studied when

39:21

I converted. I just put it all the Marian stuff on the back burners and assumed that once I did have to get around to it that everything would fit together and I'm finding that it's not happening that way, actually.

39:38

Well, when you converted, what did you convert from, if I might ask? Well, I have to say that I didn't convert from a very,

39:48

I don't know, prestigious school of thought within Protestantism. I was a non -denominational

39:53

Protestant and the church was actually charismatic. I mean, they called themselves non -denominational, but once when

40:01

I asked the pastor, he told me, well, we're basically Pentecostal. We have Pentecostal roots. And then from there, my family and I converted to,

40:12

I shouldn't say converted, but we were persuaded by our next -door neighbors, who were

40:17

Southern Baptists, that we needed to go to the Southern Baptist Church. So we began attending the

40:24

Baptist Church, and then from there, I, by myself, converted to the

40:30

Catholic Church. Oh, so the rest of your family didn't didn't go with you? No, not initially, no.

40:35

They are currently in the process of entering the church. So let me ask you, you seem to be saying in the posts that I saw, and there were just a couple of them, that the issue is authority, the issue is the

40:51

Spirit plus the Magisterium versus the Spirit plus the Church or plus the Scriptures.

40:57

And so, the question that I would have is, do you really feel that that is what is reflected in the

41:06

New Testament writings themselves, which I would imagine you would agree are the only example of Theanustos, God -breathed, inspired revelation that we have, unless you hold that,

41:18

I mean, even officially, Rome does not believe in revelation, inspired revelation outside the canon of Scripture.

41:27

She may hold her own infallibility, but as far as actual divine revelation, she limits that to the canon of Scripture.

41:33

So, do you really feel that's what the the New Testament sets up, is a

41:39

Holy Spirit plus the Magisterium, so that 1950 years after the birth of Christ, a dogma can be defined that,

41:52

I think you would admit, was unknown in the first 500 years of the Church amongst Orthodox people and was never considered to be part of the

42:00

Gospel itself? I'm probably not going to give the typical answer that a

42:09

Catholic would. I've done quite a bit of theological study on my own, and I'm currently working on a

42:20

Bachelor's in Catholic Theology. So, let me say that first,

42:27

I won't name the school that I go to, but it's a good school. It's an Orthodox school, and I'm getting an

42:32

Orthodox Catholic education, and my systematic theology professor talked about the two -source theory, and he said that, basically, he said, just leave that alone.

42:46

We don't really talk about that anymore. And I actually wrote a paper on the Reformed Doctrine of Inscripturation, and when

42:56

I was writing it, he told me, you know, when you do the Catholic side, when the Catholic critique, don't, you know, really don't mess with the

43:03

Partum -Partum theory. Just leave that alone. He said Vatican II, you know, the Council Fathers talked about it, but just leave it alone.

43:10

You know, we don't really go that direction anymore. So, that's the first thing. But let me just ask you, wouldn't your studies indicate to you that that is much more the viewpoint of the hierarchy of the

43:26

Church in the centuries after the Reformation than what you would find Vatican II today?

43:32

Without question. In fact, he told me that. He told me that, you know, after the Council of Trent, that seemed to be a dominant view, but we don't, it's just not a view anymore.

43:42

So, as far as that particular theory is concerned, it seems to be a school of thought that at one time dominated, but no longer dominates.

43:51

But on the official level, you know, on the official level, when you begin talking about tradition, well, let me answer your question first.

44:01

What I was going to say is that, based on my academic theological research, and now my official academic formation,

44:12

I have to say that the New Testament, I'm still working a lot of it out, but here's what

44:22

I understand from my Catholic perspective, that Jesus, as the letter to the

44:29

Hebrew says, is the Apostle sent from God. It actually uses the word Apostle, I believe, in chapter 3, verse 1, to describe

44:38

Jesus. And Jesus, in ordaining the

44:43

Apostles, in choosing them, and sending them out, was not setting up a different apostolicity.

44:50

He was allowing them to share in his own apostolicity. And this is in the

44:56

Gospels, I think, when Jesus sends them out with authority.

45:02

This authority is not a separate authority from himself, or he did not create a new authority to give them, but he simply allowed them to share in his own authority.

45:11

And so, Cardinal Ratzinger, in his book, Call to Communion, he said, any minister within the

45:18

Catholic Church who thinks the only reason why they could possibly say, this is my body, this is my blood, or I forgive you your sins, or lay their hands on someone, or say,

45:29

I baptize thee, is because they have this profound communion with Jesus. And that is,

45:35

I think, the core of the Orthodox Catholic understanding of what the

45:43

New Testament says about authority. And that is the basis for the

45:48

Catholic understanding of authority. Well, wouldn't that, however, in itself, militate against the later development of a papacy?

45:59

I mean... Well, you see, it's interesting that you bring that up, because one of the things that I've been really struggling to understand is that, you know,

46:07

I can see that in the New Testament. I can see this, you know, where St. Paul refers to his own office as the divine office,

46:14

I believe, in 1st Timothy 1. No, no, I'm sorry. That's where he refers to the training as the divine training.

46:21

It's in 2nd Timothy. You have to forgive me, I don't remember the chapter and verse, but where he refers to his office as the divine office.

46:28

So, this is clearly a really, this is a unique office, and it's one with the divine authority, the authority of Jesus Christ.

46:35

However, when you start trying to look into the New Testament for... Gosh, I'm probably going to be stoned for this if they ever find out who

46:44

I am, but when you start looking for the office of the Pope, or the

46:52

Episcopate, it's obviously a development. In fact, I would refer readers to Fr.

46:58

Francis A. Sullivan, who wrote a book recently called From Apostles to Bishops.

47:04

The development of the Episcopate in the early church. It's a very interesting book.

47:12

What he basically does is say, look, the historical evidence tells us that the New Testament does not give us the

47:19

Episcopate as we know it today, as Catholics know it. So, what he argues is that it was a development guided by the

47:26

Holy Spirit. And so, there's the dilemma there, because what

47:32

I find is that as a Catholic, you have to believe in the development of doctrine, and you have to believe that the

47:43

Holy Spirit guides this development, even outside of the New Testament, because it's not there.

47:50

With respect to the papacy, I would say that although later

47:55

Popes definitely had a Petrine consciousness, Peter certainly did not have a papal one.

48:01

Right. Well, but the problem that, of course, I have, and I fully understand what you're saying.

48:06

I mean, Newman said that you're probably familiar with Joseph Martos. You're familiar with these things. You've been doing your reading, and so you know that actually what you're saying is not unusual within Roman Catholic academia.

48:18

But there's a, I have said many times, there's a vast chasm between the academic Roman Catholic literature and the apologetic

48:26

Roman Catholic literature. And yeah, and I would say that most modern

48:32

Roman Catholic apologetic literature is much more close to what you would have in the papal syllabus of errors, and that the

48:39

Pope at that time would have condemned the vast majority of Roman Catholic scholarship that is writing today.

48:46

So there's been a massive change over the past 150 years as to fundamental issues.

48:51

But from my perspective, obviously, when you're talking about development and the guidance of the

48:57

Holy Spirit, you're talking about development of the very offices and organs that then provide you with the definition of development itself.

49:06

They themselves are developing and then redefining themselves over time. And I go, wait a minute, if the faith was once for all delivered to the

49:16

Saints, this is not what I see in Ignatius's epistles. I do not see him when he writes, for example, the

49:23

Church at Rome. There's a plurality of elders there. There's not one bishop there. And so the idea of that development over time, and you know historically the vital role that the donation of Constantine played in that, and the

49:38

Pseudo -Isidorean Decretals, things that we know today were false, that were absolutely necessary to the development of papal power, that edifice is still there while the streams of history have washed the foundation out from underneath it.

49:53

It's floating in midair. And so why would someone want to believe that this kind of development is something that the

50:05

Holy Spirit told us, in inspired scripture, we should be looking for instead of what we have, and that is the once for all delivered to the

50:14

Saints faith. Paul says to Timothy, you as a man of God, look that which is theanoustos, to completely enable you, to make you self -sufficient for the work of ministry.

50:22

He says the Ephesian elders in Acts 20, men will arise teaching perverse things, but I commit you to God and to the word of his grace.

50:30

There's nothing about, and look forward to these tremendous developments down the road, which become definitional as to how you're supposed to know truth.

50:42

Yeah, I think you know, it hinges on how you understand the church, and obviously for the church what we mean here, from the

50:51

Catholic perspective, is the Pope and the bishops, because if you believe that these men are the successors of the

50:59

Apostles, and that these men share in Jesus's own authority, then you will believe whatever it is they tell you later on in the future, because you really believe that these men have that special relationship with the

51:13

Holy Spirit. But isn't their position a part of the development itself? In other words, when you talk about successors of those

51:20

Apostles, if those Apostles who I know gave us divine revelation in Scripture, did not tell us to look to their successors to give us more divine revelation, and they, when they established the divine order of the church, did not have a papacy.

51:38

They had elders and deacons. Those are the two offices. I don't know if you've seen my debate with Mitch Paco on this, but I thought it was a very good debate, and I would recommend it to you.

51:49

The divine Apostles, those divinely inspired Apostles, established the church.

51:54

Who gives their successors the right to alter their establishment?

52:01

Yeah, and the same thing with the priesthood. I mean, that was a big issue to me, was, I mean,

52:07

I think you didn't admit, there is no Roman Catholic sacramental system without a sacerdotal priesthood, and yet that is the one thing,

52:16

I mean, if you mentioned Hebrews, if there was any book in the New Testament who's going to talk about priests, it would be the book of Hebrews, and yet if there were sacerdotal priests, sacramental priests with the authorities of the priests of modern

52:33

Rome in existence in the early church at that time, so many of the arguments the book of Hebrews would end up being circular and self -refuted.

52:40

They weren't there, and I would again recommend, you know, hearing Mitch Paco's response to that.

52:47

I'm not saying that Rome doesn't have a response to that. I just don't find it convincing. Yeah, and so I wasn't trying, honestly, to get you in trouble by reading that.

52:56

I just found the email, I'm not the email, the post on the web board, to just,

53:02

I don't know, be so different than what I'm accustomed to running into on those forums, because you can imagine when

53:08

I read them, it's an interesting experience to be me and to read those things, but it just sounded so different that I knew that if I had posted that,

53:18

I would have had people coming down me left, right, and center, and I hate to warn you of this, but those folks do listen to this program.

53:25

Oh, no, I'm sure. Yeah, I'm just, you know, I gosh,

53:30

I'm still on my journey, you know, I guess you could say, and I'm still, I strive for objectivity.

53:37

I've never said that, it's been six years since I formally entered the church, but I never once said that I will just believe blindly everything in the future.

53:47

I converted with the assumption that everything would fit together, that is to say, there would be this line of reasoning that would not prove it, in the sense that we can prove

54:00

God or any of His truths, but, you know, still, we don't prove the existence of God, for instance, but we still know where there's still evidence testifying to Him.

54:09

So, I converted with the assumption that that same kind of format, if you will, would be there for other doctrines.

54:17

And so, I try to be objective, and I see in the academia, the Catholic academia, that there is a there is a strive to be objective, like with Father Sullivan, where he frankly admits this is not there.

54:31

So, how can we, as Catholics, remain Catholics and still be faithful to this historical evidence?

54:38

Well, we just say it's a development, and that the Holy Spirit guided the church. So, it really comes down to Ecclesiology, because Ecclesiology, for the

54:50

Catholic, is the finished work of Christ. When you talk about, when you talk about God, something that is

54:56

God -breathed, I remember, you know, I've been following you for, you know, some years now, just because, you know, when you convert and you get into a

55:04

Catholic apologetics movement, there's really only one Protestant figure that you ever deal with, and that's, you know,

55:09

Dr. James Wine. You know, I mean, at least that's the only one that I've heard of some others, but not, they don't seem to have the prominence that you do in terms of Catholic opposition.

55:20

At any rate, one of the ways that I used to always understand or try to refute, for my own interior self, you're bringing up, well,

55:30

Scripture is God -breathed, Scripture is God -breathed, you know, and I would say, well, so is the church, because, because,

55:38

I don't know Greek, but at least in the English translation, but I'll be taking Greek this summer, by the way, but what was

55:47

I going to say? I don't know Greek, but in the English translation, Inspired? No, no, no, in the

55:53

English translation, when Jesus raises from the dead, He breathes upon the Apostles, the

55:58

Holy Spirit, so I would say, well, there's a Catholic counter. Yes, Scripture is God -breathed, but apparently so is the church, and so that brings me back to my previous point, that if these successors are linked to those

56:10

Apostles, then they're God -breathed, too, when they speak authoritatively. So you don't, do you really feel, though, that the

56:18

Apostle Paul or John or Luke would have seen the action of Jesus Christ, where, by the way, it is anticipatory and prophetic, because the

56:32

Spirit comes at Pentecost, not at that particular point in time. It has received the Holy Spirit, but they do not actually receive the

56:37

Holy Spirit at that time, but that that action means that a hierarchy that they never see, never teach about, never preach about, never write about, that a hierarchy that does not develop to its modern form for a thousand years down the road, that that means that that hierarchy is theanoustos, when there was opportunity after opportunity and, in fact, necessity after necessity, where Paul is writing to Timothy, and he says to Timothy, difficult times will come, there will be false teachers, that would be the time to say, and what that means is, the church, the pillar and foundation of the truth is theanoustos, but actually, what he says in writing about the local church, and by the way, that text about pillar and foundation is of a local church, that he writes to Timothy, and he says, you man of God, with all this deception, all these difficulties coming your way, does he say, look to the church, or does he say, look to the scriptures, which are theanoustos, which are able to thoroughly equip the man of God for the ministry of, what, teaching, reproving, rebuking, exhorting, all the things you need to do, to do what?

57:49

To keep the church healthy. There were all these opportunities, where he should have said that, if that's what was coming.

57:57

You'd have to come up with the idea that he didn't know that's what was coming. He didn't know. And there's where there's a lot of hesitancy on my part, and I really feel uncomfortable, because it seems as though you have to, as a

58:11

Catholic, say, well, yes, that's true, they didn't know what was coming in the future, and, and, but we do, we now know, we know what the

58:20

Apostles didn't know about Mary, which is, which is interesting in and of itself, when you start talking about tradition, because, you know,

58:27

I asked one very prominent Catholic apologist slash theologian, to kind of give a little more identity there.

58:35

Oh, yeah, I know it is, but we'll keep that, we don't want to get you in complete trouble. Yeah, and I asked him, did the

58:40

Apostles hand down the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, and he said yes.

58:48

Hmm. But I've asked other Catholic apologists, not theologians, who have said, no, of course not, it was a development.

58:56

But, you know, you don't really, you don't really know, but my point is, is that it seems that you have to say, yes, you know, good point,

59:05

Dr. White, but as a Catholic, I do believe that something came later that the Apostles weren't aware of, that's why

59:11

Paul didn't say it, but he just hadn't known yet. But had he been alive, you know, for two or three hundred years, or however long you want to expand it, then he would have known that, yes, in fact, there is a such thing as a papacy, and things like that.

59:25

Well, let me, we, there's another call we want to get in, and we're gonna go a little bit long here, but I want to thank you for the phone call.

59:30

First of all, I think the main reason that people are going to be upset with you is that you've demonstrated that we can actually have meaningful conversations and get things accomplished, and that I'm not nearly the mean, nasty, terrible, horrible person that some people try to present me as.

59:44

But I would also, when you converted, I have a feeling, have you ever obtained, for example, the two -volume work by Good or the

59:57

Whitaker's one volume on the nature of Scripture, some of those classical works that would give you the other side.

01:00:06

Those are not normally what you find in Southern Baptist bookstores. Let's just be quite honest in a sense. I just recently, just recently, oh my goodness, it's been a year now, but I, last year,

01:00:17

Sproul was having a huge sale, and I, and I saw the Whitaker's book on there.

01:00:22

I had no idea who he was, but it was on sale, and I bought it. Good. And I just recently received a gift from a

01:00:29

Catholic who converted to the Calvinist tradition, and it's called The Infallible Word, and it's,

01:00:35

I don't know if you're familiar with it, quite, it's by a bunch of Westminster professors. Oh, okay.

01:00:41

Murray and, gosh, I don't even remember the other names. But anyway, I'm hoping over the summer to read both of those works.

01:00:49

And real quickly, if, if we wanted to send you the, the debates with Mitch Pacwa, like things like that, would that be something you'd be willing to take a look at?

01:01:01

Oh, definitely. Okay. In fact, I'm waiting on a couple of debates that I've just ordered from your website. Your video clips have spawned this, you know, it intrigues me.

01:01:09

You want to know more. Yeah, oh, yeah. Yeah, that's, that's why we're doing it. I mean, I, I, once I figured out how to do it,

01:01:15

I'm like, you know what? Most of the folks who listen to this program have never actually seen one of the debates, and if they could see the, the, the wide variety of debates and the subjects and, and things like that, they might, might pick them up.

01:01:27

So, I tell you what, let me, let me put you on, on hold here a second. I'll get Rich, get your name, and he, he's the one who does the orders.

01:01:35

We can look it up and, and make sure that before your order goes out, or if it has already got it gone out, we'll throw a few more things in there for you, just so that you've got those resources, and keep on studying, and appreciate your call.

01:01:48

Thank you. Okay, thank you. I'm gonna try to put you on hold here. Hopefully, you don't disappear, and we're gonna go long here real quickly, folks, because Stephen in Georgia has been waiting for 33 minutes and 7 seconds, which means he gets the, the prize for patience today, but we're gonna get you in here and go a little bit long.

01:02:06

What can we do for you, Stephen? Hey, James, that's 33 minutes on a cell phone, too. Well, hey, you know what?

01:02:13

How many, how many of us have those plans where 33 minutes no longer costs us our firstborn child?

01:02:18

That's, that's a good thing. Well, I tell you, I'd only do, I'd only hold for anybody like that, but only, only for a friend.

01:02:27

You know, you guys, never have met y 'all, but just over the years, hearing you on the dividing line and everything, you and Rich have really become like, you know, my, my real, like, real friends.

01:02:39

Well, I appreciate that. And, you know, living out here, I kind of live in a reformed island, and, you know, we're at work and things like that.

01:02:47

You try to talk to people, and, you know, there's really not very many people who, who believe, you know, the way we do, and, you know, just a wash in a sea of pluralism and relativism and, and all that, and it's just so refreshing to, you know, hear and speak to like -minded people.

01:03:06

Well, great. Well, now you're in, you're in Georgia. You're down there in, in God's land, aren't you?

01:03:12

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so, you know, I work, I'm a firefighter, paramedic, ride on an ambulance, too, and so work together with a lot of people in a close environment, and we get talking a lot, and it's kind of, you know, odd, the different beliefs that people have, you know, when you throw us all together and,

01:03:34

Well, especially doing what you do, you end up having to talk about important things like death and life and God's purposes and stuff like that.

01:03:42

Yeah, it is neat that it does give you a lot of opportunities to talk about things, but it really is sometimes confounding, listening to the ideas that people have, you know, some of our other

01:03:57

Baptist friends and stuff. I would call myself now a Reformed Baptist, even though I didn't even know what that was, but...

01:04:05

Hey, don't, do not feel badly, Stephen. I didn't either. The first time I picked up a tape from the

01:04:11

Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church, I'm looking at it going, is that a typo? Who are these people? I actually had to go get a handbook on denominations and go,

01:04:18

I didn't know people like that existed, so don't feel badly. Look at me, now I'm an elder in a

01:04:23

Reformed Baptist Church. So, hey, you had a question on Matthew 16, 18. No, it wasn't so much, well, it does lead into a question, and kind of real quick, bouncing off of the last caller,

01:04:34

I was raised Roman Catholic, went to Catholic school, was an altar boy and all that stuff, left all that stuff, became a rank pagan for quite a number of years, and at about the age of 38, 39,

01:04:46

God started dragging me in His direction, and one thing

01:04:51

I never thought I would end up doing, I actually just sat down and read... first,

01:04:57

I started with the New Testament, but just read the Bible. And our last caller,

01:05:07

I don't know if he's had that experience of just reading straight through as opposed to going back and forth, you know, verse here, verse there.

01:05:16

Because, you know, when I did that and sat down, I knew nothing except for Catholicism of my youth and some of the wacko people

01:05:25

I've seen on TV once in a while, on TVN, and so that was it. To me, it was it was

01:05:31

Catholicism or those guys. And you know, Ernest Ainsley, if you remember way back, you know, that's the kind of people

01:05:39

I'd watch as entertainment, not for knowledge, but literally, you know, drink a few beers and laugh at these guys.

01:05:47

But then I sat down and read the Bible, and you know, I got to, you know, all the way to the end, to maps, and and thought, you know, this is not what

01:05:59

I was taught. And our last caller talking about development of theology, there was no such thing when

01:06:06

I was being taught back in the 60s. The idea of development is a development, you know.

01:06:13

That's true. Peter was the first Pope, and he knew he was the first Pope, and they all have those little secrets of tradition, and they teach people on a

01:06:23

Sunday, and then tell everybody, okay, now put down your pens. You can't write this down. This is the tradition we only talk about by word, and we'll hand this on.

01:06:33

And there was no such thing. But when I, you know, I was always hammered with the

01:06:39

Matthew 16, 18, the whole discourse, where according to the

01:06:45

Roman Catholics, Jesus makes Peter the head of the church. And, you know, when you read through the rest of the

01:06:53

Gospels right behind that, you hit Mark and Luke, and there's the same scene, but there is no making

01:07:00

Peter the Pope there. So that first kind of makes me wonder, well, if that's so important, why isn't it recorded by everybody?

01:07:07

But then an issue that I really never hear discussed by anybody, but what really nailed it to me, that the discourse was,

01:07:17

Jesus was talking about either himself being the rock, or Peter's pronouncement being the rock, that he is the

01:07:24

Christ. Because when you go back and look at some other things, for instance, in 2

01:07:31

Samuel 22, David says, the Lord is my rock, my fortress, my deliverer, my

01:07:38

God is my rock. In whom I take refuge. And you just find that over and over in the

01:07:43

Bible, in Psalm 18, for who is God besides the Lord, and who is the rock except our

01:07:49

God? The Lord lives, praise be to my rock, exalted be God my

01:07:55

Savior. And I never hear anyone using that as a counter to the argument that the

01:08:02

Roman Catholics use that Jesus pronounces Peter the rock of the church. Well, I have heard people raising the issue that the term rock is primarily used of God, and as his being firm and unmovable and foundation in the

01:08:19

Old Testament. I have heard that. My approach on Matthew 16, 18 is to point out that the text says, you are

01:08:28

Peter, and that is first person, that's being our second person, he's addressing him directly.

01:08:34

You are Peter, it's singular. And then it says, and upon this rock. Now, it's not upon you, but he uses epitaute, he's referring to something else.

01:08:44

You've got to look into the context for what this Petra is. I don't obviously suggest that people make a mountain out of the molehill of the difference between Petra and Petras.

01:08:57

I think the issue is, upon this rock, what is this rock? This rock is the confession that Peter had just made that Jesus is the

01:09:04

Christ, and what is the foundation of the church? But that Jesus Christ is the

01:09:09

Son of God. He is the Messiah. That is what all true Christians confess. Anyone who denies that cannot possibly be a true

01:09:15

Christian. The idea that somehow Peter himself becomes the foundation is not even the majority viewpoint of the early church.

01:09:26

In fact, the first people we find taking that viewpoint are, surprise, surprise, the bishops of Rome. That's well down the road, and that's why in 1993, when the

01:09:36

Pope visited up in Denver, we had about a seven, seven -and -a -half -hour debate with Jerry Matitix on this subject.

01:09:44

When we pointed out what the early church actually believed about this text, he was reduced to literally standing in front of an audience of people, reading from the index of a quote book, the

01:09:56

Juergens set. He was reading from the index, as if reading from the index of this book meant this is what all the early church fathers believed.

01:10:03

It was truly amazing. If you haven't had a chance to listen to that, it is well worth the investment of time over, hopefully not in one sitting, because if you do that,

01:10:13

I'm going to be very disappointed. But it's well worth taking a look at it, because it was truly amazing to watch that.

01:10:21

But I don't know about you, but I was very encouraged by the phone call we just had, and I know that there are people listening to this program who recognize that the hit pieces that the

01:10:34

Patrick Madrids and Jonathan Prejeans of the world are throwing out there are desperation, and we need to keep praying for them and ask the

01:10:41

Lord to bless them, because let's face it, you know this as well as I do. In a lot of churches today, the reason that many people in Protestant churches are not

01:10:49

Catholics is just because they don't know any better. They may not be Catholics, but they are not

01:10:55

Protestants by conviction. They are Protestants by convenience. That's a bad thing.

01:11:01

We need to pray for the stay of the church in our land, and that the Word of God would be punished in fullness.

01:11:07

So keep praying for us, Stephen. The book, by the way, I can't believe I didn't mention this till now. From Toronto to Emmaus arrives tomorrow.

01:11:16

I get my first 20 copies tomorrow, and so pray that we will get that book into the hands of people that really need it.

01:11:23

All righty, Stephen? Yes, sir. All right. Thank you very much for calling, brother. All right. God bless. Take care.

01:11:29

Bye -bye. All right. Thank you. Thanks, Mr. Pierce for getting it all put together. It seems to have worked.

01:11:34

I didn't see any smoke in there. You were not electrocuted at any point in time as far as I can tell, and it all seemed to work.

01:11:41

Thank you very much for listening. We went about 11 minutes long today, but that's okay. That's what webcasts are about.

01:11:48

We can do what we jolly well want to do, and that's why I like doing it that way. We will be back, Lord willing, next

01:11:53

Tuesday. Please pray for us. We're going out to Mesa to the Easter pageant. Pray that we will have the opportunity of distributing a lot of literature, and also pray that the

01:12:00

King James only wackos won't be out there to cause problems, because they like to denigrate the proclamation of the gospel, unfortunately, and pray for us we get that book out.

01:12:10

We'll see you on Tuesday. God bless. The Dividing Line has been brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries.

01:13:03

If you'd like to contact us, call us at 602 -973 -4602 or write us at P .O.

01:13:08

Box 37106, Phoenix, Arizona, 85069. You can also find us on the

01:13:13

World Wide Web at aomin .org. That's a -o -m -i -n -dot -o -r -g, where you'll find a complete listing of James White's books, tapes, debates, and tracks.