2024 08 18 Apologetics Catholicism 1 pt 3

Let's pray. Father, we're grateful that you are in charge.

We're grateful that you are so compassionate to us. We're grateful that you've made known your son

Jesus to us and you've allowed us to really respond in faith so that we can truly belong to you.

Thank you for protecting us from any false doctrines that would prevent us from responding in faith correctly.

Please preserve us and please use us to clearly witness, clearly share the gospel of Jesus Christ.

In his name we pray. Amen. Alright, so today we're going to talk about Scripture accessibility and interpretation.

After today, it will end the first part regarding Scripture.

That's the formal cause of the Reformation. As in, why did the

Reformation happen? Yes, it has to do with justification by faith alone.

That was Luther's main doctrine. Very important, and we're going to go over that next.

But the overarching reason why that needed to be covered is because of the

Roman Catholic Church's relation to Scripture. Because if they had

Scripture, and if they had the right Scripture, the right translation, not just the

Vulgate, and the right relation to the church hierarchy as in the elders, or they would say bishops, then the justification by faith alone wouldn't have been lost in the

Roman Catholic Church. And the reason goes back to their relationship with Scripture.

And today we're going to talk about the accessibility and interpretation of Scripture. Because you can have

Scripture, but if no one opens it, then it's pointless. You can have

Scripture, but if everyone interprets it the wrong way, then it's pointless. That's why we need to go over this.

So next slide. How do we understand how

Scripture is accessible to us? Well, we need to go to Scripture, right? If we want to know the guideline as to how we approach

Scripture, oh well, then we got to go to Scripture first, right? And I'm not saying this is comprehensive.

These are just a couple of verses, right? Just several verses among many.

Let's turn to Deuteronomy 6, 7 through 9. This is the famous text, passage, especially for the

Jews. It's called the Shema. And the reason why it's called

Shema is it starts with, which in Hebrew is

Shema, here. Well, what do they need to hear? The Lord our

God, the Lord is one. And it's that famous commandment, you shall love the

Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength. And Shema is memorized and it's also recited over and over again by the

Jews. For some of the Jews who carry the phylactery, they have that written in Hebrew, all rolled up.

And they carry it in their forehead, they take this literally. Verse 6, and these words which

I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, when you lie down, when you rise up.

You shall bind them as a sign on your hand. They shall be as frontlets between your eyes.

You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. What this tells us is that God's law, right, at this point,

Moses wrote, right, Genesis, through all his preaching, but Deuteronomy would have been written after this.

The first five books. And what Moses is saying, not just you, but your children must have access to it, and they need to be taught.

And who's teaching them? Parents, right? No, they don't need to go to a priest.

It's the parents, right? Everyone needs to have access to God's word, and it must be intergenerational, right?

Kids can understand it. Kids need to learn it. But not only that, wherever you go, it must be there.

Talk about accessibility, right? And that's before the smartphones, right?

It's got to be everywhere, right? And actually, it's a testament of our culture that when we can't have

Scripture everywhere, we don't open it. Next, Psalm 1 -2, right?

Blessed is the man who meditates on God's law day and night, who reflect on it, right?

And this man doesn't need a priest. You don't need a priest to be blessed.

In fact, Psalm 1 has nothing about priesthood. That man must go to Scripture day and night, from the beginning to the end.

That's what he is putting his mind, right, putting in his mind. He's saturating his mind with Scripture.

And Joshua 1 -8 is really the reference of it. Joshua says very similar things.

I'll just briefly flip there and read it. Joshua 1 -8.

This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it.

For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. Right? Joshua telling the

Israelites as they're about to enter the promised land, right, they're going to do the conquest. That's what they must do.

The written word of God must be visited day and night, right?

And the psalmist takes that and says that's what they need to do, meditate. Again, nothing about priesthood.

People of God must dwell in God's word day and night.

Second Timothy 2 -15. For people who did Awana, that's what the

Awana verse is, right? Be diligent to present yourself approved to God.

Now, what does that mean, to be approved by God? A worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

The goal here is to rightly understanding, interpreting, and applying

God's word. That's what it means to be not ashamed.

That's what Awana stands for, right? Approved workers are not ashamed.

Second Peter 1 -19. And so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.

The word for confirmed can be translated as more sure, more assured.

What that means is even the Bible makes a distinction between what comes from God and that's written down, and what might be held as tradition, right?

Again, we're not against traditions as long as they go by Scripture, right?

It's like there are certain traditions, right? The hymns that we sing, they're not in the

Bible, right? We judge the hymns and the veracity and the value of the hymn based upon how closely are they aligned to Scripture.

So Peter, whom the Roman Catholics would say is the first pope, had no problem saying

Scripture is a more sure, right, word.

He makes a distinction. We're going to go over later why Peter was not the pope and why the papacy doesn't continue, but this won't be during this lecture.

All right, next slide. We're going to talk about the chosen languages.

God chose three languages to get his word written down, okay?

And the reason why I want to go over this is because the Roman Catholics for the longest time had one language in which it was acceptable to have the

Bible written in, and that's Latin, right? But God did not choose

Latin, right? The first language is Hebrew, and that's the vast bulk of the

Old Testament. It's the main language that the common Israelites would have spoken before the

Babylonian exile, right? That's the Hebrew language. The second language that we find chronologically is

Aramaic, and that is the language of Assyria. It was the lingua franca of the known world under the

Assyrian and Babylonian Empire. Lingua franca, I assume, is the

French phrase for the French language, and the reason is, at one point,

French was the main language of the world because they were, right, an empire, right?

And then it became English. It still is English now, right? It is the language of commerce and flight, right?

When you're flying a plane, it's English. But Aramaic, although none of us really speak that, that was the main language because under Assyrian and Babylonian Empire, vast amount of land was conquered.

That was what they spoke, right? And then we get Koine Greek. This is different from the classic

Greek, like Aristotle. It's actually the Greek language that's spoken during, right, part of it is 1st century

AD, AD 1st century. Koine means common.

That's literally what it means. It's common Greek, and it was the most popular language of the 1st century.

Jesus would have known this language. In fact, the apostles knew this language because that's what they wrote

Scripture down in. That's the whole of the New Testament. It's written in Koine Greek, common

Greek. Now, what do these languages all have in common?

What do they tell us about Scripture? That's right.

The language that God chose, the three languages that God chose during those times in which they were written, it would have been any language that a common folk would have understood.

It would have been their mother tongue, right? Even by the choice of the language, it shows that God wanted a vast number of people to have access and be able to understand

God's Word. So that's important.

All right, next slide. Let's talk about the Protestant view. We believe that everyone needs to read the

Bible, not to be saved as if, oh, you haven't read the

Bible this morning, and I'm going to start questioning your salvation. I think that's the strawman argument you hear, right?

I believe if you hear the gospel that Jesus died for your sin on the cross, suffering the wrath that you deserve for your sin, and he rose from the dead, and for some reason a lightning strikes you, you never got to open your

Bible, you're saved, because you believe that message. So you're not saved by your ability to read the

Bible or your history of reading the Bible, but we believe that God's Word helps

Christians to grow after they're saved. And God's Word has the content of the

Bible so that if someone hears the gospel just from opening the

Bible, then they can be saved as well, right? But we believe everyone needs to read the

Bible, and anyone who genuinely seeks to understand God's Word, Bible, by the power of the

Holy Spirit, will be able to understand it. And some of you might have had times where you open up the

Bible, and you're like, what does this mean, right? And you read it over and over again, and you're kind of stuck, and then you pray to God, and then one way or another,

God makes it known to you. Maybe God might use one of your friends or mature believers around you, or you might be hearing on the radio, but God will make it clear to you if you ask

Him, right? And the beauty is the author of Scripture is living in you if you are a believer, right?

The Holy Spirit. How do we interpret?

We believe that Scripture interprets Scripture. That's the most important part.

I'm not saying commentaries are useless. I'm not saying church history is useless. But in the end, we understand

Scripture by how Scripture interprets Scripture. And the reason is

Scripture talks about Scripture. Scripture refers to other parts of Scripture.

Scripture alludes to other parts of Scripture. And in fact, like Jesus talks about what the law says, and He unpacks that.

Scripture interprets Scripture. Another rule that we follow is clear passage elucidates difficult passages.

Elucidates means makes it clear. Clear passages, we depend on the clear passages to understand the difficult passage, not the other way around.

And that's just logical. Lastly, Scripture does not contradict itself.

And that's because God does not contradict Himself. And Scripture comes from God. And this hopefully is the view of the

Roman Catholics too. If you believe that God is unchangeable, and He doesn't contradict

Himself, as He says, right, He doesn't lie as if He... then

Scripture cannot contradict itself because that's God's Word, every part of it, right? So that's the

Protestant view. Of course, books are written about this, right? So I'm just going over the general view of how

Christians view Scripture. So we don't...

Again, the straw man argument is we don't believe that everyone can interpret the

Bible by himself. We don't believe in follow your heart. It's whatever your heart says it means.

Not at all. It's what Scripture intends to say that we understand

Scripture is saying, right? But the interpretation depends on the author's intent, and that is

God's intent. And we get God's intent only from Scripture itself, not by traditions.

Although traditions, if they agree with Scripture, can be helpful, right? All right, next, we're going to go over the history of English Bibles.

And the reason is because we benefit from this history, right?

Maybe if we were a German church, we would go over the history of the German Bibles.

But we'll go over the history of the English Bibles. 1382, a theologian,

John Wycliffe or Wycliffe, I've heard both ways, he translates the first complete

English Bible. And mind you, he is an academic, as in he's a professor.

I forget, Oxford or Cambridge, both were faithful back then, unlike now.

So he translates it into English. He actually uses the Latin Vulgate, as in the

Latin Bible, right? To translate it because that was the only version that's available. And that was very, very controversial in his time, to do that.

To make the Bible, to make the word of God, available to the population.

And remember, during this time, England is still under the Roman Catholic influence, right?

This is before King Henry VIII, when he wanted to get a divorce and he couldn't, right?

So this was very unpopular. It was deadly, right?

And that's why we have like Bible translation. Programs and organizations named after Wycliffe, right?

That's because he really started it for the English version. Next, we have

William Tyndale. Also, you might have heard of Tyndale. There's a Tyndale publishing and there's a

Tyndale seminary, I believe, in Europe. Tyndale Bible, yeah.

William Tyndale translates the Greek New Testament to English. So this is even a step further than what

John Wycliffe did. And it was, in fact, illegal for him to do so in England under King Henry VIII, because he was still

Catholic. So he worked in Germany, right?

Because you would have gotten killed if you did it in England. But if you do it in Germany, it's fine because Luther paved the way and there were some princes who were protecting

Protestants. The word Protestant comes from people who are protesting.

What are they protesting? The Roman Catholic Church, right? That's where you get the Protestants from. So he found security in Germany, some parts of Germany, totally dependent on who's ruling that region, right?

All right, next. He's condemned by the English government because of the smuggled copies to England, right?

If you're translating the Bible, especially using the original Greek, original language, well, that's a crime.

And you would want to get it to those people who actually understand English, right?

So he smuggled them, but he got arrested. In 1536, he's put to death by strangling, and he's burned, his body's burned.

And really, burning of the body was like a step further than death.

And the reason is it's just... It defiles the body, right?

It's not treating the body that God has made as something that needs to be kept whole because it will one day rise again.

This is not to say that God will not be able to resurrect William Tyndale when

Jesus comes, right? That's not what I'm saying at all. But the view was the body was something valuable and worthy to keep it intact as much as possible, keep it whole.

So burial was actually more common back then. And in fact, burning of the body was a punishment for the criminals, right?

And before he gets killed, he makes the prayer, Lord, open the king of England's eyes.

And you know, by God's providence, I have no idea what

Henry VIII's heart was, but God did use him to start a church that's not the

Catholic church, the Anglican church. And there were parts of history in which the Anglican church was actually pretty solid in terms of having a high view of scripture.

What do I mean? People like George Whitefield, right? I mean, probably one of the most famous preachers of modern history, right?

Modern European history, George Whitefield. George Whitefield was an Anglican minister.

John Wesley, right? One of the most famous evangelists of modern history was an

Anglican minister, right? Now, the current Anglican churches, I would not recommend it for various attempts for them to blend

LGBTQ theology with their doctrines. But it was

King Henry VIII who started the Anglican church, right? In fact, the current

English monarch is still the head of the Anglican church, right? That's the figurehead, right?

All right, next. Now, we get the Geneva Bible in 1557 through 1560, and it was translated during Queen Mary Tudor's reign, and this was the

Catholic Queen of England. So brutal was she against the Protestants that she's called the

Bloody Mary, right? And she was also executed too, right, under the next ruler,

Queen Elizabeth I, who was a Protestant monarch.

So the Geneva Bible, and you might have heard of it, you might even have a copy, probably not from 1500s, but you have a copy because they still print that.

And these are translated by the exiled scholars in Geneva, Switzerland. Switzerland was different than England.

England was a nation state. There's one monarch ruling. Switzerland was a confederacy.

So depending on which region you are, you were safe if the confederacy that you belong to is open to the

Protestant view of Christianity, right? That's why some of the reformers were in Switzerland.

They were active in Switzerland. Zwingli, right? Calvin, right?

John Calvin, although French, was active in Switzerland. So those people were in Switzerland because of the political structure of Switzerland.

And the Geneva Bible comes from Geneva, Switzerland. Why is this important?

It's the Puritan Bible. The Puritans used this Bible. The Puritans were mainly the

English folks who said the Anglican Church is not Christian enough.

We're pure, right? And we have this, like, cringe view of Puritans, right? Oh, they have no fun whatsoever.

That's not true. They were the rebels back then. They were the radicals. They're saying, we need to stick to Scripture even closer than the

Anglican Church because the Anglican Church, they're still, they smell like Catholics. They still do the smells and the bells.

They have the priestly garments, like, you know? The Puritans, they were actually the more exciting

Christians, right? Actually, I think it's historically inaccurate to say the

Puritans were the boring, you know, stick -to -the -rules kind of Christians.

No, they said, we're not, we don't want to be even slightly Catholic like the

Anglican Church, right? And that's why they got persecuted and moved here, right?

The Mayflower, right? Shakespeare's Bible was the

Geneva Bible, right? Very influential. Again, another reason to read the

Bible, the most important reason is you commune with God and you learn more about God and yourself, right?

Another reason is the European history, and let's say, the European history is rich, right?

There are works, European works of writing, books that have survived centuries.

Well, their culture is steeped in the biblical truth.

And for any other reason, to read the Bible is to be aware of vast amount of great literature and to understand it, right?

And that's the far second or third, right? But again, just the

Bible had a huge impact on the culture. All right, next, 1611,

King James Version. And, you know, that's, we know this version, right? It was used by General Cromwell's army and the

Scottish Covenanters. General Cromwell, Lord Protectorate, he actually went against the

British monarch because the monarch was

Catholic and was a tyrant. And he was actually very, very successful.

He overthrew the monarch and gave more power to the parliament. And he used the

King James Version. John Bunyan, who knows a good, I guess the most popular work written by John Bunyan?

Pilgrim's Progress, right? Probably the second most sold book in the

English language after the Bible, Pilgrim's Progress. And King James Version, to this day, is the most popular version.

And the reason why I don't tell people this is the better version or this one's bad or this one's trash is because, although King James Version is old, the people who translated it, they had really a high view of Scripture and they really tried to keep the syntax of the

Hebrew and Greek as much as possible because they viewed that every word really came from God's mouth.

That's why it reads clunky to us. But they really cared.

I'm not saying it's perfect, right? No translation's perfect, but they really cared.

And, you know, over 99%, you know, it's really good and trustworthy, right?

So, yeah, I don't bash King James Version. I think there's beauty in that.

I think another benefit of this is King James and even

New King James, they don't update. And that might be a bad thing in one sense.

Well, we found older manuscripts, right? But it might be a good thing because they're not under the influence of a publishing company to change it.

What do I mean? Well, if the publishing company suddenly becomes unfaithful and decides, well, let's use gender -neutral things here, right?

That becomes problematic. So a good translation that you might have trusted suddenly had an update you didn't know about and all of a sudden,

God is called it, right? Even though all over the

Bible, he's a he. Not a she even, right? So, again, I think there's a beauty in that.

Again, I'm not saying King James is perfect nor New King James. It's just that it won't be updated. And whatever clunkiness or whatever things that you might have to edit, right?

The pastor can do it or anyone who's studying the word can do it, right? Well, I know this verse says this, but I think it's better to understand it if you read it with this word instead, right?

I think that in that regard, I do appreciate the King James Version. Although it is dated.

But I think that's the benefit of the datedness. You're not going to be updated, right?

All right, next. Now, the modern English Bibles, there are over 8 million copies that are printed in the

U .S. each year. And that could be way more now because the book I'm using is dated. So, it might be way more than 8 million.

Again, all these, I think, could be much better updated. The book I'm using is a couple decades old.

So, it might be way more. The Bible is available in over 244 languages.

The New Testament is completed in 324 languages, and that's because the New Testament is much shorter in comparison.

The Bible is available to over 95 % of the world, right? And I think we do have the privilege of supporting missionaries who are translating the

Bible into the mother tongue of some tribal people that would not have access to the

Bible otherwise, right? So, I think those people are just as important as those who are on the front lines and, like, sharing their gospel.

The translators are just as important, right? They're doing something. And the reason is it is different when you can read

God's Word in your own language, right? You can understand better, and it hits differently.

I've met an Uzbekistani family, right? Uzbekistan, Central Asia.

All the stands, they're together, right? Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan. You name it, right?

Turkmenistan. They were under USSR, Soviet Russia, and, you know, Soviet Russia, they tried to do away with any religion, especially persecuted

Christianity. So, these people are first -generation Christians, and they helped with translating the

Bible into Uzbekistani language, and they highly regard that, right?

Oftentimes, we see our English Bible just thrown out, right? It's on the ground.

But these people, they really cherish, treasure the fact that they can read

God's Word in the language that is their mother tongue. At least one gospel, as in Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, one of them is translated into 14...

1 ,413 languages or dialects. Again, I think this number could be much higher by now.

And I think that's a great thing, because in Mark, Jesus said His second coming won't happen until everyone hears it, right?

And I think people who are in that and people who are supporting that are part of that.

It's a monumental work, right? All right, next slide.

The Roman Catholic Church's view toward the Bible is this. They traditionally have opposed the laity's access.

Laity, they're the lay people, as in you, me, all of us, right?

Laity are anyone who are not the priests, right? If available, they only got the approved version, due or the confraternity versions.

And what does that mean? There are always a set of notes giving their interpretation on the disputed passage on that page.

It's not even footnoted. It's like right there. So this is the right interpretation.

That's how you must read it. Now, let's go over the history of the

Roman Catholic Bible. 1229, the

Council of Valencia, that's in Spain, right? They have passed the statement, we prohibit also the permitting of the laity, the lay people, to have the books of the

Old and New Testament, unless anyone should wish from a feeling of devotion to have a

Psalter, that's the book of Psalms, or Breviary, a short book of divine service, or the hours of the

Blessed Mary. That's not in our Scripture. That's not even in their Scripture. That's their own traditional writing.

But we strictly forbid them to have the above -mentioned books in the vulgar tongue.

Vulgar tongue is the native language, right? So if you're a Spanish Catholic, then you would want to read the

Spanish Bible, but not so under the Council of Valencia.

It's forbidden. The exceptions are, of course, the Psalms, Breviary, the Roman Catholic book of devotions, and it had to be only in Latin.

And remember, Rome had fallen by then, in 1229. People didn't speak

Latin to their mamas, right? Kids didn't speak Latin. They spoke their own mother tongue.

Of course, they might have been taught Latin, but still, you wouldn't expect common peasants to be speaking

Latin in any country in Europe. Persecution followed if this was challenged in any way.

Yes? All right, next slide. Then we get to the

Council of Trent. If you want to read any of the councils, the best one to read is the

Council of Trent, because that is the council in response to the Protestant Reformation.

So whatever differences there are with the Protestant Church and the

Catholic Church, this council, over a long period of time, a couple years, more than a couple years, really, tried to smooth it out.

They tried to set it in stone. This is the Catholic belief. The Council of Trent reaffirmed the decree from 1229, and they prohibited

Scripture by any member of the church unless permission is granted from his superior.

And here's the quote. It is on this point referred to the judgment of the bishops or inquisitors.

Bishops are higher than the priests, who may, by the advice of the priest or confessor, permit the reading of the

Bible translated into the vulgar tongue, and this permission they must have in writing.

Which Roman Catholic do you know writes to their bishop?

Reading the Bible in the native tongue will do, their quote, more evil than good.

So they get to decide. And this is going against what we've read earlier with what

Scripture says about Scripture in terms of reading Scripture for ourselves, right?

And, in fact, this would have been a mortal sin to go against this. Mortal sin is a type of sin in which you commit it, and if you don't confess it, according to the

Roman Catholic Church, to the priest, you can go to hell. It's a serious issue, right?

This is not just a slap on the wrist. All right, next slide.

Clement XI. I think that's the Roman numeral here.

1713. De bul unigenitus. That's Latin. We strictly forbid the laity to have the books of the

Old and New Testament in the vulgar tongue. So even by 1713, almost 200 years after the

Council of Trent, they held that view. And this was a papal bull, which means it's from the papal authority, the pope.

Leo XIII, the encyclical. 1893, so over 150 years after Clement.

The study of the Bible must be, one, has to be Latin vulgar, and two, must be according to the church interpretation only, and three, no modification of the prior statement.

Right, so they still held to that. 1824,

Leo XII. 1844, Gregory XVI. 1878,

Pius IX. Bible societies must be condemned. Bible societies were organizations that popped up with the goal of people getting access to the

Bible in their own language and reading it, right, to experience

God's presence. And all of these popes condemned these societies. In 1957, the depot of the

British and Foreign Bible Studies Society that was in Spain was closed, and they burned the

Bibles in that depot. So under the Catholic power. So that's been their history.

And I mean, the access to, the laity's access to scripture has been opposed even up to last century, right?

So this is not like some medieval doctrine that was like, oh, we got it wrong.

Of course, they won't admit that. But rather, it's been for centuries, millennia.

Now, why is this problematic? So next slide, why is this problematic that laity cannot have access to scripture?

Let's take a look. John 6, 68. But Simon Peter answered him,

Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. I mean, it's ironic that Simon Peter at this point, a lay person, right, whom the

Catholics will elevate to papacy. When Jesus asks the 12, do you also want to go away?

Simon Peter's holding on to Christ. You have the words of eternal life.

And we have the words of eternal life in scripture. We have access to the gospel that's found in scripture.

2 Timothy 3, 16 through 17. All scripture is given by inspiration or breathed out by God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.

Here, it is for anyone who's a Christian, right?

If the lay people are not given this, then they're not going to be corrected, they're not going to be reproved, and they're not going to be instructed.

Not only that, they won't be completely equipped for the work that God has for them to do, right?

That's important. The New Testament does not know of a separate priesthood.

We are all a royal priesthood. You all have access to God. And then

John 14, 23 through 24. Jesus answered and said to him, if anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.

He who does not love me does not keep my words, and the word which you hear is not mine, but the

Father's who sent me. Well, how do you love God?

Keep the word. How do you keep the word if you don't have access to that? Right?

That is troubling. Now, let's talk about the next slide, about the interpretation.

The Catholic view of interpretation is that it has to come from the Roman Catholic Church. And their inherent view is that the laity cannot understand

Scripture without the church, think the priest and higher. And remember, the unanimous consent of the fathers is their tradition.

And we went over how the church fathers did not unanimously agree with one another.

One of them retracted, right? Augustine. In fact, the hard part is no official commentary of the

Roman Catholic Church exists. So it's not like you can go to a commentary series, like, okay, how would a

Catholic read this? The lay people don't have access to that.

They don't have it. I'll give you some examples of why this is not unanimous, and some of the church theologians, the

Catholic church theologians, the ones that they highly regard, actually go against the

Catholic doctrines, such as the Immaculate Conception is denied by Anselm and Thomas Aquinas.

And they're quite important Roman Catholic Church saints. Right? Anselm is actually, like, brilliant.

He's the one who wrote Cur Deus Homo, which is Why God Man. Why did God become man?

It's like a thick book. And it's like a question -and -answer script.

And they didn't hold to that. So which tradition, then, do we follow, if you're a

Roman Catholic, to understand Scripture? Thomas Aquinas, one pope canonized him, which means he became a saint, right?

The pope has the authority to say, ah, yes, he's in heaven. You need to have two miracles.

You need to show two miracles after death, allegedly, right? Thomas Aquinas didn't show any.

So they questioned, how is he a saint? And that pope said, every word that came out of Thomas Aquinas' pen was a miracle.

Because he was just so brilliant. Well, he didn't hold to the Immaculate Conception, which means

Mary born without sin. All right, what are the results? Next slide.

There's no motivation to read Scripture. Well, if you can't really understand it for yourself, what's the point of opening the book, right?

It's kind of like opening a Latin book for me. Like, I can't understand it. Why would I open it? And this is similar to Mormonism or Christian scientists.

The interpretation depends on something that lays outside the text. The Book of Mormon is their book, right?

Whenever you study the Bible with Mormons, we've done it once. I had them over.

We were reading Galatians. They keep coming back to, just reminds me of what the Book of Mormon says about faith.

And I said, let's actually stick to Galatians here. What is Paul saying when whether an apostle or an angel who comes and preaches a different gospel must be condemned?

And how fitting for that religion. Mary Baker Eddy's Science and Health, The Key to the

Scripture, another cult, another heretical religion. All right, what are the results?

Next slide. Tremendous power in the hands of a very few. It prevents knowing

God personally. In Jeremiah 31, God shows Jeremiah what the difference between the

Old Covenant and the New Covenant will be. And one of them is the fact that,

I will read it. Jeremiah 31. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the

Lord. I will put the law in their minds and write on their hearts, and I will be their

God and they shall be my people. God, in God's word, will be personally experienced by God's people under the

New Covenant in which Christ institutes. No more shall every man teach his neighbor and every man his brother, saying,

Know the Lord, for they all shall know me from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the

Lord. What does that mean? This is not to say pastors or teachers don't teach, but rather, remember in Israel, they're marked off by their ethnic background,

Jews. If you're a Jew, you're God's people under the Old Covenant. It's by the blood.

And that's why you would get all these people in a nation of a whole bunch of people, right, who don't know the

Lord personally. But they're still God's people because they're Jews. But under the

New Covenant, everyone will know. Everyone will know me.

So you don't have Levites or you don't have priests coming into your house, let me tell you about the Lord, but the characteristic of the

New Covenant people is that they personally know God through Jesus Christ. You cannot join the

New Covenant without personally knowing Jesus Christ. That's what it's saying.

But that goes against that if the priests have to come in between. And then

Bible gets treated as a mysterious book, right? It's like if you can't understand it, then it's a mystery.

And then the church council and the papal bulls, because they interpret Scripture, they take a higher ground than Scripture itself.

And then the last slide, what we need to know is the biblical view is that God's Word is clear.

Anytime God's Word is compared to the light or the lamp, it means it's clear, just like light.

You can clearly see it. And you can see other things through it. God gives understanding,

Psalm 119, 34, and 73. It is not the church that gives understanding, it is God who gives understanding.

Scripture interprets Scripture, Psalm 119, 104. So that is actually not a

Protestant doctrine that's out of nowhere. It's from Scripture. 119, 104.

Through your precepts, I get understanding. Therefore, I hate every false way.

That's a judgment, isn't it? Through your precepts. Notice it doesn't say through your priesthood.

It doesn't say through your councils. Through your precepts. Precepts are

God's words. A new covenant.

God will write His law in our hearts. That's because of the presence of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will change your heart.

He helps you understand Scripture. A new covenant. You will not have human mediators.

I just read that. You don't have someone telling you. If you're part of the church, the real church, trusting

Christ, then you already know Christ. I don't have to go to Victor and say, hey, can

I tell you about Jesus who died for your sin? It's assumed. Because He's part of the church.

He's a believer. In John 14, 26, Jesus says the