Adult Sunday School - The Roman Catholic Controversy Part2

Good morning brothers and sisters. Good morning. It's good to be here, good to have you here to study God's Word and to study an important topic. I think it would be appropriate for us to sing this morning, considering that we will be touching a subject on a false religion, and the Gospel difference between this false religion and the true religion of Christ.

And we praise a immortal and invisible God. So if you could turn to page 35 of your hymnal and sing with us this hymn of the faith. Immortal, blessed, most highly, Thou who wouldst wish our fountains of goodness.

For the time that you've given us, we pray, Lord, your blessing over our worship this morning, both in the time we're spending now in the study, and also, Lord, later on in our 11 a .m. and then, of course, our 2 p .m., we ask God that your anointing would be strong in this place.

Lead us and guide us into all truth by means of your Spirit. In Jesus' name, amen. Last week we had a short introduction to Roman Catholicism 101, and we're going to be using this book by Dr. Katie Wright from the Catholic University to go over what are the main differences between Roman Catholicism and also Christian, Orthodox Christian evangelical faith.

The Appeal of Roman Catholicism and the Search for Order

And one of the things that we brought up in today's discussion is the question, is there a fundamental difference between Roman Catholicism and not Orthodox Christianity in the Eastern sense, but Orthodox in that, what is the Orthodox teaching of scripture?

And so we ask that you read the first chapter, and hopefully you get to do some of that. If you didn't, we'll be recapping most of what's in this chapter. But I want to start off with a quick discussion on what was read and what was presented in the first chapter.

And there was a dialogue that I'm pretty sure was kind of a made-up dialogue that James might use for the purpose of teaching and opening up the discussion on the difference between Roman Catholicism and evangelicalism.

One of the things that I find interesting is that what is proposed in this book is actually, the contents of this I think are probably more relevant as there's been a major trend in where people are reverting back.

And I think some of this is actually kind of a good thing, at least culturally and morally. But there seems to be a movement of people who are moving back to traditional, people are yearning for something that's traditional.

People are yearning for something that's established. People are yearning for something that is a return to normality. Why? Because it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that the world is evolving more and more and more.

All you have to do is turn the music on and what are you going to see? Norms of the world are being flipped upside down. Gender roles, societal norms, all these things are being flipped right over their heads.

And so no wonder there are people in the culture, people in the world, who are yearning to go back to something that's well-established, something that's traditional, something that is time-tested and proven to some degree.

And so there's been a major revival, it's certainly not the right word, but there's a resurgence of sorts to embrace traditional values and traditions. It's not something that's happening in the hundreds of thousands, but it certainly is happening in the tens of thousands in this country.

And so it's not something that we should overlook. The conversation that was brought up in the first chapter of this book is something that I myself have encountered even not that long ago. We had a gentleman in our church, which is why I had to miss you, but we had a gentleman there who I ended up adoring.

The Lutheranism just wasn't—so you're from Lutheranism to Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox. And I remember just finally convincing him to have lunch with me. And then I asked him, like, what's the transition?

I mean, here's our core Calvinism, you go to Lutheran and then Eastern Orthodox. Like, that transition just doesn't seem to make sense to me. And I said, you know, you're just now a stone's throw away from Rome.

You know, you're just in the cusp of being a Roman Catholic. And so that conversation with him was really interesting. One of the things that was illuminating in that conversation was the fact that he was yearning for something more traditional.

He was yearning for something that was more established and had a traceable historicity in the overall narrative of Christianity. Now, Roman Catholics have a great claim on this. Whether it's Valerian, we will go into that in the future, but the claim is certainly there.

What is one of the major claims of Roman Catholicism when it comes to their historical basis? That's a pretty big deal, right? Like, don't you want to be part of the church that Jesus started? Don't you want to be part of that same movement that Christ said?

This rock I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. That's a pretty big deal. Ascendancy direct to Peter. Say that again? Ascendancy direct to Peter. And how does that manifest in Roman dogma?

And then they can connect from Peter to Francis to David. Ascendancy direct from what happened to Peter. One of the major claims of Roman Catholicism is that they claim to have their basis, their roots, stretching all the way back, not just to the first century, not just to the second century, but to Jesus Christ himself as the one who established the church.

And when you look at the church really more as an institution, and the church according to our understanding of the biblical verse is an institution, but they go a little bit further in that this is an organization that has a human principle head.

And this human principle head is indeed, according to their understanding of dogma, is the vicar of Christ. And we went a little bit into that last week. Where are some of the titles for the pope? You told us last week what vicar actually means.

Yeah, vicar means like visible representation. It's not just representative of a kind of in a legislative sense that we represent. This is a more tangible representation. And so if we were Roman Catholic dogma, Roman Catholic church, or Roman Catholicism, the pope is Christ nailed in flesh.

Are they saying the pope is Jesus? Certainly that's not what they would say. It feels that way. So here's the challenge that we're going to encounter today in our teaching. Is on one hand you have some pretty clear statements from Roman Catholicism in their teachings, in their catechism, in the statements of previous popes.

And then you have their supposed answer. For instance, one of the things that we're going to examine deeply is the veneration of Mary. And they'll say, well, we don't worship Mary. We just venerate her.

Does anyone know what the word to venerate means? Essentially it's a form of worship. It's the same thing. He asked what veneration is. So they say, well, we don't worship Mary. We just venerate Mary.

And when you look at what the word venerate means, it means to prostrate. It's a religious sense of veneration meaning to worship. There's no tangible distinction really when we're talking about veneration.

And they'll say, well, there's no difference between, for instance, how you treat a flag. So you would treat a flag, an American flag, with great respect. You wouldn't put it on the floor. You would fold it a certain way.

You would give it a certain amount of respect. And that's essentially what we are doing with the Virgin Mary and other saints. We're just treating it with a certain level of dignity and respect. But nowhere in Scripture are we commanded to give a certain level of dignity and respect that amounts to us bowing down, praying to, interceding with or for such individuals.

And so really what it comes down to is Roman Catholicism makes these certain claims that are actually pretty clear on their own dogma. But then when it comes to their interpretation of it, they're very loose with it because they know they have some serious problems to contend with.

Any questions so far on this issue? And I don't want this to be all, so just to put it out there, I don't want this to become Catholic bashing. We're not here to bash Catholics. We're actually here to truly try to understand Catholic teaching, dogma, understanding in light of Scripture.

Because, again, Roman Catholicism is the largest religion in the world. So essentially you've got to think of this as our largest mission field. Roman Catholicism is our largest mission field. So we want to have a bright understanding of it.

And it's also our largest, by the way, mission field here in the Bay Area. It's the largest religion in the Bay Area. So those who are practicing a religion, that's the largest religion here. By the way, we have a very interesting shrine.

We have to park there because it's in Santa Clara. What's the name of it? Our Lady of Peace. Our Lady of Peace? Yeah. Every time I go to the In-N-Out over there, all nuns there. I don't know how they keep their garments clean after eating a burger there.

But where is that one? Are we this close? Yeah, it's pretty close. Yeah, it's where In-N-Out Burger is, that little marketplace there. Yeah, it's between that street. Great American Parkway. Yeah. Great American Parkway.

And it's a huge deal. I've seen lots of people packing up that church and coming and going from there. Is there a significance to the location? Like you saw an image of Mary there? That's a great question.

I have no idea. Does anyone know the answer to that? I know there was a little chapel like that back in El Doro County where I lived in Wisconsin. It was the tiniest little shrine. Apparently, I think that one was important because someone had seen a certain vision of a certain saint there.

And boy, what an interesting concept. That statue is probably one of the five stories higher. Oh, it's huge. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so that's another thing as well, right? So the issue of idolatry that's clearly linked to Catholic Catholicism.

So they have clear practices. Everyone can see. Everyone knows. But then they interpret it to be a little different. This is what Catholic apologists tend to do in that they will try to change the meaning of what you see.

So here's one thing. You bow down before an image. Clearly condemned in Scripture. I say, well, really what's happening is not worship. Rather, it's just a visible representation of a spiritual truth.

And it's not the image that we're bowing down to. Really, in our hearts, we're bowing down to Jesus, which the image represents. Okay? That's a word salad for idolatry. All right? You can flip it. You can interpret it however you want.

But the clear action is idolatrous. That sounds very like the orthodox justification for the icon.

Oh, so don't they say much of the same thing? Absolutely.

Absolutely. There's essentially no major difference in practice between the iconography of worship as pre-served thoughts and Catholicism. To be honest, we'll turn to the first chapter. Again, we're going through early Catholic controversy, if I got a lot of you right.

I'm just going to highlight a couple things here that I think are relevant. We're not going to read through all of this. And I hope that you've read some of this in your free time this week. I do ask that you try to read at least a chapter a week.

We're going to try to cover as much material as we can. Some weeks may take longer to go through a chapter just based upon the material and the conversations that we have here on Sunday morning. But I want to ask you the question, what is so attractive about Roman Catholicism according to the first chapter?

As a matter of fact, the first page of YouTube. What are some things that are attractive about Roman Catholicism? There's a word I'm looking for. It starts with the letter L. Say it again, Pastor. Liturgy.

Anyone know what the word liturgy means? Worship? Worship? Or specifically order of worship. All right. Etymologically, the Greek word. That's right. That's right. And so the liturgy, it's the worship or order of worship.

What's interesting about that concept is that most evangelicals don't really have a well-defined liturgy. Right. Right. And so, you know, distinct from us, actually, because as a reformed church, we have a very well-defined view of what worship is and what liturgy is.

But if you ask any mainline denomination or any mainline evangelical what worship is, they'll say, well, everything is worship. Right. Right. So, you know, walking your dog down the street, that's worship.

You know, singing, you know, a metal song is worship. Anything and everything is kind of worship. And that's actually a pretty pagan view of worship. And so when you go from evangelicals, it says anything and everything is worship to something like Roman Catholicism, which says no.

There's well-defined orders of worship. This is what worship is. This is how we do it. This is how we stand up. This is how we sit down. This is what the scriptures read. This is why we do it. There's an order to it that's very attractive to people who are looking for order in their lives.

Anyone here ever heard of Jordan Peterson? No? No? Jordan Peterson wrote a book, Twelve Rules for Life. And what kind of made him a rock star in today's world, especially online, is that he proposes a sort of order for men.

It's very attractive. It's very attractive. There's a lot of good things he says and things I don't agree with. Obviously, he's not a believer. But what Jordan Peterson is selling is an order for men to live by.

Rules. Rules. Order. These are all things that in the world that is losing order, in a world that is losing rules, that the rule of law is being trampled on, that norms are being trampled on. There are a lot of people who are looking at these orders, these rules, this liturgy, and they find it very attractive.

Any questions so far? So, when we look at Roman Catholicism and what makes it attractive, I really do believe the liturgy has a huge role in it. I follow some people on social media who are kind of like these young conservatives who, in large numbers, are turning to Roman Catholicism.

In large numbers. And it's their way of making a statement culturally to a secular world. We want to return to some order. Again, the rules are becoming less and less orderly. There are those who are going to fight back against that by turning to an orderly religion.

And Roman Catholicism is a very orderly religion. Has anyone ever attended a Roman Catholic service before? No. It's very orderly. There's rites and rituals. There's a liturgy that is followed wherever you go in the world that is practiced universally by the church.

So, that's very attractive. I'll give you another example that's a little different, but the Jehovah's Witnesses also have a very tight liturgy. They don't use that term, but a very tight liturgy. Matter of fact, today, every Jehovah's Witness, King of all, that meets will be studying the same Watchtower magazine, regardless of whether they're here in California or Bangladesh.

Every King of all, every place of worship for Jehovah's Witnesses will be singing the same songs or will be hearing the same instruction. That's kind of impressive. That's very orderly. In fact, Jehovah's Witnesses say this is a proof of them being the true religion because no other religion is as orderly as they are.

They're claiming liturgy, orderliness, as a facet of true religion. Very appealing. Very enticing. Why is that not sufficient? Who agrees with me? I actually think liturgy is very important. I think that's really important.

That there's a well-defined understanding of what worship is and what worship is not. That's important.

If we can be consistent, we can be consistent at all. That's right. Amen. Amen.

Consistency is important. If we're consistent at all, we'll be consistent. That's all it comes down to. Who do you say Christ is?

Who is Jesus? I was thinking, I mean, the aesthetics is not what's important. The aesthetics don't have to be ancient, but the teaching actually does have to be ancient.

So you're claiming there needs to be this direct lineage to ancient teaching or understanding?

Well, I mean, that's how we were formed Baptists, because we kind of tie ourselves to history.

Historical claim. I know you're not saying it's a baptism. We work very hard to work out our order, so to say. That's what we call it, the order of worship. Scripture is prominent. We lead towards preaching.

We make an order of it, so that we kind of know what to expect. I would actually say that the same flaws that these individuals are seeing in evangelicalism are the same flaws that we point out as a reformed community.

And it's also one of the strengths that we have in the greater evangelical community, that we can make a similar claim for obedience.

Because this is a spiritual mission, right?

Paul says, do all things decently in order. Paul laid out the liturgy. Paul laid out what order of worship is in Scripture, 1 Corinthians 11, 12, 13, 14. And so we can go to the basis of the authority of Scripture and say, hey, we have a pretty good claim here as well.

And ultimately, that's what it comes down to, is the authority of Scripture to define liturgy. I showed you guys last week, I don't know if it's... The Roman Catholic catechism is about this big. It's a set of teaching, and they're very in-depth.

You're seeing the catechism that we use is pretty nice as well. But, man, the Roman Catholic thing just worsens. And the reason why is because they have to define every single article, not just of their faith, but of their practice.

And if you know anything about Roman Catholicism, the practice almost outweighs the beliefs. And so they have to justify and meticulously lay out every order of practice in Roman Catholicism. And I think one of the appealing things about Roman Catholicism as well, apart from the liturgy, is the familiarity of Roman Catholicism that it brings, because it has been the dominant religion over the past millennia, really.

So somewhere in your family, you probably have people, family members, ancestors, who were Roman Catholic, especially if you come from European descent or Latino descent. You probably have people, family members, ancestors, who worship God or are into a Roman Catholic understanding.

And so those things are really appealing. It's really, for a lot of reasons, like a return to the roots. But the liturgy itself is not sufficient to establish the truth of religion or the truth of the Church.

Rather, it's the authority, and the authority of the Roman Catholic Church. Would it be fair to say it's not the Bible? I think that's fair to say. Why would that be fair to say? We're not just speaking about Catholicism.

Why would you think that would be fair to say? Ask the question again. What is the authority? Well, the authority of the Roman Catholic Church is not the Bible. Is that fair? Because what overrides that?

The Pope and the Magisterium. That's right. As manifested in the Popery. Certainly the traditions. One of the things that we saw from this conversation between Bill and Scott, which is a kind of mock discussion that James White puts in the first chapter of the book, is that this gentleman who converts to Roman Catholicism, he starts to say essentially, well, the evangelicals start to say, how could you convert to Roman Catholicism?

There's so many things in there that even if we talked about beforehand, it was blatantly false. And do you remember what was the Roman Catholic's rebuttal to the evangelicals in the conversation? I understand.

Well, we never really learned it. That's right. Essentially is, well, you know, the truth of the matter is, I didn't really understand Roman Catholicism. And clearly, neither do you. A really well-versed Roman Catholic, the joke that was shared in this, how do you know, how can you tell the difference between a Roman Catholic and when he closes the Bible, the dust comes out of the Bible, right?

And it's just, it's this idea that they don't really go to the Bible. And most Roman Catholics, and I've seen this, having lived around the Roman Catholic communities, where we have a church, no one has a Bible in hand.

And so Roman Catholics don't really have the Bible very well-versed, but the ones that do are really impressive. Most of you know my faith background. I used to be one of Jehovah's Witnesses. And at the age of 13, I started to do this online forum discussion on a website.

And I posted a blog essentially promoting Jehovah's Witnesses. And one of the first responses I got was from a young Roman Catholic named Andy. I'll never forget this guy. And my encounter with Roman Catholics were all pretty much the same.

I was a Jehovah's Witness, I opened the doors. Most Roman Catholics didn't know the Bible. They couldn't tell you what the Bible taught. And so I knew that Roman Catholics, by and large, were not very well-versed in scripture.

But this one Roman Catholic, Andy, was just demolishing my arguments. And he was just a little bit older than me at the time. And I was really impressed that this young guy knew his Bible so well. And he was so smart and witty.

And he obviously went to a Roman Catholic school, obviously very smart, well-versed. And he just—usually the Jehovah's Witnesses are the ones able to make a pretzel out of the average Christian. But this guy really put me in some precarious theological drown when he was talking about the Trinity, for instance, and just throwing serms around me, you know, in regards to Trinity.

Other important teachings as well. This is a smart Catholic. And I actually credit him, to some degree, for helping me eventually come to faith in Jesus Christ because he was the first person outside of my own frame to really challenge me in any meaningful way.

And so there are those Roman Catholics who really know their thing. And one of the things that you'll often find from Roman Catholic apologists, especially on YouTube and other places, is that you'll find that they're quick to say, you have a superficial knowledge of Roman Catholicism.

You have a raw view of Roman Catholicism. We don't worship Mary. We don't pray to the dead. We don't believe in works salvation. They'll be quick to really go to all these lengths to try to credit what you have as your preconceived notions.

And to some degree, they have some credence in that, as Protestants, by and large, we don't actually have a full knowledge of understanding Roman Catholicism. And so I do want to challenge you with this.

Maybe you do have some preconceived notions about Roman Catholicism that aren't actually 100%. And so it's only fair to examine as best as we can what are the claims and teachings of Roman Catholicism so that we can better witness them.

And just as we would do with any Jehovah's Witness or Mormon or even an atheist who's trying to explain their worldview to us, we have to allow people to share their worldview, their frame of reference with us, so that we can best effectively reach the person.

Because what's the worst thing that we can do is misrepresent someone or something. The person is going to be a truth teller. And so what this doesn't mean, however, is that we have to know the ins and outs of the world religion.

Okay? We don't need to be historians when it comes to world religion in order to be able to speak truth in regard to Roman Catholicism or any given religion. Anyone here knows what agency government deals with fraudulent money.

Service deals with fraudulent money. And for which book it was, it was very well-written by someone who worked in the Secret Service who was a Christian and wrote a great book. I can't remember the name of it.

Anyone know that book? But he essentially started off his book by saying this in defense of the Gospel, in defense of faith. It says, you know, in the Secret Service, he learned how to identify false bills by first examining what a true bill is supposed to look like.

Okay? And by knowing what the true, genuine artifact looks like, then we can deduce and rule out other counterfeits. This doesn't mean we have to study, you know, every counterfeit. But rather, if we truly know what is a true bill, what is a true genuine article, then we can go backwards and say, okay, this is wrong.

This doesn't match up with this. And so I think that's a great analogy for us to work on in regard to how we should examine other religions. What this book is going to help us do is really examine the Gospel as the heart of the issue.

The Gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ, his death, burial, and resurrection, is at the heart of Christian orthodoxy. And how does Roman Catholicism ultimately divert from that? Because I believe that, as James Weitzman will point out in future chapters, that Roman Catholicism does indeed diverge from the Gospel.

Okay? That's a very strong statement, and I made this statement last week as well. Roman Catholicism is not reflective of biblical and true Christianity. And so there are those in the UNO community, especially over the last 30 years, who have tried to kind of pose the empty road.

We should not be a part of those efforts to pose the empty road, to try to integrate true worship with that which is blatantly false. One of the reasons we did this, and we examined last week what our Confession says about the Roman Catholic Church, and in particular what it says about the Pope.

And as you are understanding, who is the Pope? He's the Antichrist. Specifically, the man who follows this. 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. And I think last week we made a pretty good case for that. And coming weeks, we'll continue to examine that a little more in depth.

I'm not sure that that will be the same argument that James White will now take. I think he did loosely at this point, when he was writing this, adhere to the Second London Baptist Confession. I'm not sure where he's at with that now.

But he loosely associated with that Confession. So I don't know what his stance would be on that aspect of the Confession. But I think that that is a valid point of view, and I think it's the true point of view in regards to the matter.

Any questions so far? All right. Let's examine a little bit of this conversation. I want to highlight to you something that was brought up in page 22. Now, at the very top of it, Scott is an early Catholic.

And he says, I believe everything the Church teaches, though you aren't very accurate in your understanding of what the Church does teach. Neither was I. I can assure you. Look, Bill. I had all the same ideas you have now.

But I looked into what Rome really teaches. I would assume that not only did I have a lot of misconception about the theology of the early Catholic Church, but I found out they have a tremendous foundation for their own beliefs in the Bible.

And what really convinced me, Bill, was that I couldn't defend what I had always believed against the objections raised by the Apostolic Church. Now, this is something you'll see common, not just among Catholics, but with anyone who kind of deconverts or converts to another religion, is that you'll have kind of this coming-to-light moment, where there's an aha moment.

Like, hmm, I looked into something, and lo and behold, my misconceptions were actually wrong. Now, go figure. A lot of times our misconceptions can be wrong. It doesn't necessarily mean that that given thing is true.

It just means that we were wrong about what we perceived about that given thing. It doesn't necessarily verify the veracity of the claims we made, rather that we had a misunderstanding. And so that itself isn't enough.

But what's interesting of all what I would call deconversions, which is something that is kind of a thing that's happening a lot in evangelicalism today, where you have these prominent people in Christian culture.

What's that Christian rapper from that time? Not the lovely guy. Lecrae, yeah, Lecrae. Lecrae was kind of a he was associated with guys like John Piper and other pretty solid guys. And now he's going through something called deconversion, where he's deconstructing his Christian faith.

And this is becoming more and more prevalent in evangelicalism. Again, we have to remember what the Bible teaches about deconversion. Deconversion is not actually a thing. It's just called apostasy. You know, when someone leaves the faith it's a deconversion.

But I use that phrase because it does describe the unraveling of a process. And so when someone deconverts from evangelicalism into a faith-lying group of Catholicism, what ends up inevitably happening is that there's this process in place in which there's this misconception.

Misconception is proven to be incorrect or inaccurate. Therefore, that person begins to tumble even deeper into the theology or mythology of that given faith and starts to say, wow, okay, Bob was wrong about this.

Well, this is actually really interesting. And if Bob's wrong about this, what else am I wrong about? That question is really really important. Because if you were wrong about one thing, the brain automatically goes into a place of injury and starts to say, what else was I wrong about?

And this is actually kind of a good thing in a lot of cases because it's good for the brain to go through a process of critical thinking and analysis. Right? This happened to me as a Jehovah's Witness.

As a Jehovah's Witness, I examined the history of my faith and the doctrines of the Watchtower and I saw, ooh, well, I've been lied to about a lot of things. And I'm looking at the information and I'm thinking, well, if I was lied to about this, what else was I lied about?

What else is not true? And so that's actually a really good thing to go through. And I encourage that process. But again, what is the foundation and basis of the authority of scripture? Not just the claims, because what's intriguing about Roman Catholicism and the Eastern Orthodox Church is that they made some pretty heavy claims, but are they backed up by scripture?

Now, this character here, Saf, is going to show where some of the deconversion talking points came from. So he'll ask questions like what? Well, I believe, Saf says, that the doctrine of Sosa Keturah, that everything has to be spelled out in the Bible or it's not to be believed.

Is that a fair, accurate assessment of Sosa Keturah? No. So, looks like Scott has a misconception about Sosa Keturah. He's confusing it with Sola Keturah, but not Sola Keturah. Anyone know the difference between Sola Keturah and Sola?

Yes. The Sola Keturah throughout important creeds or confessions of the Christian faith, we believe in Sola Keturah. We don't draw the creeds and confessions of the church. Right? We subscribe to the creeds.

We subscribe to historic confessions such as the Second Lenten Baptist Confession. So we don't throw out these important creeds or things of history. Rather, we look at them through the lens of the authority of Scripture.

So the Bible is the foundational document. Versus Sosa Keturah would say, no, we throw out anything that's not of the Bible. We don't subscribe to any creed. Anytime anyone says we don't have any creeds but the Bible or no creeds or Jesus is a popular phrase, that's a creed.

So.

Yeah, do you have another question? Yes. Isn't there actually a danger if we throw out the creeds because then are we denying that Jesus has been building his church?

Yeah, it's very true. We can't, we don't make the claim, we're not making the claim as evangelicals or as reformed community that we have no link to the early church. We certainly have a link to the early church.

We certainly have a link to the movement that Jesus started in the first century. And the creeds help identify us as part of that same lineage of faith in Christianity. And so the fact that we hold on to the creeds, the fact that we hold on to biblical confessions is proof of our lineage going all the way back to the first century.

You know, the final question is, why? So, Scott has a misconception here, but we'll gloss over that. He says, where does the Bible teach solus scriptura, Bill? You guys always assumed the Bible was sole rule of faith, but where does the Bible teach that If you can't support that from the Bible, then you have a self that you can believe, don't you?

And then Bill came out as most evangelical, so you can't give a very good response. And he says, yes, that's correct, Scott says, but if you look at the passage carefully, Jesus said to reject human traditions, not divine traditions.

So Bill's trying to say, well, let's just say some more badly that Jesus says not, you know, you make no avoid the word of God by the traditions of men. And Scott says, as a good apologist, he says to reject human traditions, not divine traditions.

This is something that Roman Catholics are really good at doing, the ones who know their doctrine well. They're very good at pointing out, well, kind of like the words out, Jesus was talking about human traditions, not pharisaical traditions.

We're talking about traditions that were passed down from Jesus. We're talking about traditions that were passed down by the apostles. And he says, what Scott says here, he himself held men accountable to extra-critical traditions.

For example, in Matthew 23 -2, he told people they need to obey the person who sat in the seat of Moses. Now where in the Old Testament do you find a teaching about Moses' seat? Bill says, I have to look it up, but I can't think of any place.

Scott says, I looked, it isn't there. And what a false command to the Thessalonians, hold fast to the traditions we pass on to you, whether by word, or mouth, or by epistle. I've never heard any discussion of holding fast to traditions that have been passed on orally, or any Bible study you and I have ever attended, did you?

So he goes, and he says, look, the scriptures itself teaches that we're to hold fast to the traditions. That's all we're doing. We're actually following the Bible, that's what really happens, that we're following the traditions we believe people would have or would have passed down from generation to generation.

That's a pretty good argument. You know, to a person who doesn't know the Bible, or Christian faith, or the history of the Christian faith, that might be pretty good grounds to maybe concede to this person who's giving these apologetic rebuttals.

In regard to the traditions, his rebuttal to the words of Christ that make no more of the words out of the Scriptures than that. We're to stop going home. I mean, just think about critically that statement, or that line of thinking you were taking.

Okay, well, there are traditions that are recorded in Scripture that are passed down, then how? How then were they passed down? If it wasn't in Scripture, how were these traditions that were to keep passed down?

Was it verbally? How do we know that? Who's reliable source of authority for that? If it's not Scripture that's the authority ultimately for passing down things, then where do we go? If you go through your church fathers, the early church fathers, I always say this, the pre-Nazi fathers, it's almost like a YouTube comment section.

You have every single thought and idea floating around in front of the church. You know, you have constantly infighting and various different weird theological things that were being shared in the early church, and so are they the authority?