Roman Catholic Theology 02

The Authority of Scripture and the Nature of Theology

I begin with a word of prayer. Father in heaven, I thank you for the opportunity to again be about the business of studying. We know that your word calls us to study, to show ourselves approved unto God as workmen who need not to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.

We pray today as we consider the reality of the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, as we continue to expand on what it is that they teach and where it is we differ, and believe they have lost the gospel.

I pray that you would give us clarity in our minds, clarity in our hearts, and ultimately Lord that you would teach us, that your Holy Spirit would be the teacher today and simply use me as a vessel to bring information and help us to understand it.

I pray Father for each person in this room that they would come to a better understanding of the truth through this class in Christ's name. Amen. Well, in the breakdown on the Roman Catholic theology portion, and by the way, the reason why we're starting Roman Catholic theology is because the way this book is broken down is the first few pages are different types of theology and basically what makes them distinct from one another.

It just so happens that the very first one is Roman Catholicism. After that it's natural theology, Lutheran theology, Anabaptist theology, Reformed, Arminian, Wesleyan, Liberal, Existential, Neo-Orthodox, and Liberation theology.

And then it even goes into Black theology and Feminist theology. So there's a lot of variations that the book causes us to look at from the very beginning, kind of looking at the distinctions of these various systems.

And that's why I encourage you to get a copy because there's a lot of places where you can take notes and make reference on your own because you may one day deal with somebody who comes from the Liberation theology movement and you may say, well, I've never heard of anyone like that.

You ever hear of that guy who was the president's pastor who was shouting out obscenities, you know, and people made such a big deal about what he said when he said GD America, GD America. And while I didn't like him saying that, of course, it does fit in the bounds of their theological system.

So I mean, that's something that must be understood is there's a theological system there that's producing the ideas that he is espousing and why he's not being shouted down from the pulpit, you know.

And so understanding things like Liberation theology, things like Feminist theology, what is Feminist theology? Well, we're going to eventually get to that and be able to understand it better. But we're starting with Roman Catholic theology, the vast majority of people in the world who would identify themselves as Christian, identify themselves as Roman Catholic.

I would say that Roman Catholics are not Christian based on their theology. That is not to say that a Roman Catholic individual cannot be saved, but as I've always said, he is saved in spite of what he's taught, not through what he is taught.

The Roman Catholic system is a system of idolatry, it is a system of works, it is a false system, it is a false religious system. So I mean, I've always stood on the same line, you know, we've talked about this many times.

I haven't wavered on that position and don't intend to, because I think it's clear. But what we're looking at in the way that this chart breaks down is we have the nature of theology, which we started with last week.

And basically, in the Roman Catholic system, theology is evolving. And this is an interesting thing that I actually saw yesterday. I witnessed it with my own two eyes. It was a conversation between Chris Armzen, who is the Iron Sharpens Iron radio, he is the host of that radio show, I've been interviewed twice by them.

He was having a conversation with a Roman Catholic, and I got to watch it because it was happening via social media, so I was able to read both sides. And Chris kept pointing out, in the Council of Trent, you condemned us, very clearly, with anathema.

What the Reformers taught was condemned with excommunication and a curse. You are accursed if you believe that you're justified by faith alone. You're cursed if you don't believe that Jesus Christ is physically present in the sacrament.

You are cursed if you do not believe in the successive position of the Pope as being in the seat of Peter. You're cursed if you don't accept the Apocrypha. These are all things that were part of the anathemas of Trent.

So the Trent anathematized us, meaning they put us under the curse of the church. So Chris's point was, because the guy said, you're being so condemning of the Pope. And Chris wasn't. He was actually being quite, I would say, quite a kind, but he said, but you're condemning the Pope.

How dare you condemn the Pope? And Chris made the point, he says, but you've condemned us. At Trent, you've cursed us through Trent. And the guy, he's like, but that's, you know, 300 years old, he said, things have changed.

And so Chris's response, very clear, he says, but where have you recounted or recanted Trent? They haven't. They have not recanted Trent. They haven't even recanted the failures that brought about the Reformation.

What was the greatest failure of the Roman Catholic Church that brought about the Reformation? Selling of indulgences. That's exactly right. That was what really sparked the fire in Martin Luther when he saw these people having to be having to purchase their salvation through the purchasing of indulgences.

So Martin Luther, that sort of fed the fuel of the fire, which was the Reformation. You know, they still sell indulgences today. You can still purchase and receive indulgences today. It's not over, folks.

The Reformation continues. Semper Reformando. We continue always reforming. So anyhow, the nature of theology in the Roman Catholic system is it's evolving. I talked about that last week and if you would like to get the tape, I am recording these for folks who missed, if you want to hear what we said last week.

Real quick question.

Is that all? I mean, is that the majority of the Roman Catholics are still selling them or is that just a? It's still being sold by the Pope. Okay.

That's what I would guess. Yeah. So it's still available. There was an indulgence offered for following him on Twitter. Look it up. Huh? Yeah. There was an indulgence offered if you were following him on Twitter, which there's ridiculous stuff.

It's stuff and you say, oh, that's so silly. I'm not making it up. Yeah. Next thing on the sheet, on our list is revelation. We got, I think we got this far last week. The Bible, including the Apocrypha, is recognized as the authoritative source of revelation as well as tradition and church teaching.

We did get to this part because we talked about the fact that Rome elevates the two together. It says you have scripture, but you also have tradition and church teaching and these two things are equal.

They reference a passage in the writings of Paul where he does reference the traditions which have been passed down to you and they'll say, see, there's traditions that are not in scripture. The problem is the Apostle Paul in that same text references the fact that these are the traditions which you have known, which are in scripture.

These are the things that you have learned and that we have not hidden. These aren't things that were hidden in the magisterium or hidden among the elders. These are things that were well known by the people of God.

These traditions are not the things such as Mary worship or the mass or things like that which have been called tradition by the church. And this is one thing that I will go to the mat on. You'll hear Roman Catholics say, well, we believe these things because we are part of the 2 ,000 year old church.

Roman Catholicism goes back to Peter, so it goes back to the very first leader of the apostles, goes back to the early church. No, they don't. The history of the teaching, as I said just a moment ago, is evolving.

You know when the mass, as it is understood today, was made part of the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church that Jesus Christ literally is brought down from his throne by the priest and made a perpetuatory sacrifice again for the sins of the people?

It wasn't until the 1200s. In fact, John Wycliffe, John Wycliffe made the argument that we shouldn't accept the mass because it is a relatively, according to his words, a relatively new doctrine. John Wycliffe lived in the mid -1300s.

Now I'm not saying that earlier Christians didn't believe in real presence. And this is, I'm going to talk about this when I do a community meditation day. Real presence is the idea that Jesus is really present in the bread and the cup.

Lutherans believe that. They believe in something called consubstantiation, that he is actually present, but they don't believe that he's being re-sacrificed. You see, that's where Rome makes the fatal error, is they believe that Christ must perform the work of propitiation again for your sins.

That's where the fatal flaw in transubstantiation is. So just keep that in mind. In fact, I'll read it. Rob loves this quote. This is from The Faith of Millions, which is written by Father John O 'Brien.

I'm reading off what his title in the book is. He's not my father and he's certainly not a holy father in any way, but this is what he wrote. And I want you to hear, this is the understanding of the Roman Catholic Church in regard to the Mass.

Quote, When the priest pronounces the tremendous words of consecration, he reaches up into heaven, brings Christ down from his throne, and places him upon our altar to be offered up again as the victim for the sins of man.

It is a greater power than that of monarch or emperor. It is greater than saints and angels. Greater than that of seraphim and cherubim. Indeed, it is even greater than the power of the Virgin Mary. While the Virgin Mary has the human agency by which Christ became incarnate a single time, the priest brings Christ down from heaven and renders him present on our altar as the eternal victim for the sins of man, not once, but a thousand times.

The priest speaks, and lo, Christ, the eternal, omnipotent God, bows his head in humble obedience to the priest's command. Of what sublime dignity is the office of the Christian priest who is thus privileged to act as ambassador and vice-regent of Christ on earth?

He continues this assertion ministry of Christ. He teaches the faithful with the authority of Christ. He pardons the penitent sinner with the power of Christ. He offers up again the same sacrifice of adoration and atonement which Christ offered on Calvary.

No wonder that the name which spiritual writers are especially fond of applying to the priest is that of Alter Christus, for the priest is and should be another Christ.". This is not rejected by Roman Catholics.

This is the teaching. It's a heretical system, it's a false system, and it's blasphemous. So that is the understanding of the Mass, and like I said, that is a, when we say relatively new, of course at the time of Wycliffe, you know, around 100, 150 years old.

This is from the 1200s. This is not from the early church. We could stand around and we could debate real presence. I don't believe in real presence. I don't even necessarily believe in spiritual presence, which is what most Calvinists believe.

And let me just explain the difference. Lutherans believe in the fact that the physical aspects of Christ are made present in the bread and the wine, and upon their ingestion they become Christ in us, and essentially there's a realness to them.

Luther really argued he did not want to give up real presence. He was the one at the Marlboro Colloquy who was arguing against Zwingli. They were arguing. They had 15 points of doctrine. They agreed on 14, but they could not agree on the 15th point of doctrine, and that was Zwingli said there is no real presence in the table, and Luther said, Hoc est corpus meum.

He just kept shouting, trying to shout him down like most politicians. He was saying, this is my body, this is my body, and kept repeating and kept repeating, and finally it was just a stalemate. They couldn't agree.

So Luther believed in the physical presence. Calvin taught a spiritual presence view, basically that Christ is spiritually present in the elements. I'm not going to condemn such a teaching because I believe Christ is spiritually present with us always.

I do believe there's a special unity that comes with the believer when he receives communion because there's a time of introspection, a time of communion with one another and with Christ, so I'm not going to argue spiritual presence, but Zwingli's view, which is the one I tend to at least hold to, is that the supper itself was intended to memorialize the work of Christ, and that's what we see in the text.

They do this in remembrance of me, and thus it would become a memorial not intended to be Christ with us physically or even spiritually because he's always with us through the Holy Spirit, but that it would be to us an opportunity for repentance, an opportunity for renewal, an opportunity for communion with him.

So that is the position that I would teach, but again, I wouldn't condemn my Calvinist friends if they believed a different view on the spiritual presence. To me, it's so similar that there's not that big of a difference.

If you look at the difference, here's where I guess I would differ is Christ is at the right hand of the Father, and the idea that he is physically present or spiritually present in the elements is to me a question of proximity.

Well, what does that mean if he's at the right hand of the Father? Well, he's omnipresent, so he's everywhere, but at that point, then you give up the idea that he's specially present in the bread if he's omnipresent.

So there just becomes this proximity argument, which to me is sort of superfluous to argue back and forth. Ultimately, do we believe that communion is important? Absolutely. Do we believe that a person should be repentant before they take communion?

Obviously. Do we believe that people have died as a result of not being repentant, taking communion? Well, Scripture says so, so we know that there's a special nature that it has, but I digress because I've been digressing, but I'm going to get back to this, because this takes us to the next part, and that's salvation.

The Mass, Real Presence, and the Reformation

Salvation in the Roman Catholic Church is not what probably most people think of when they think of salvation. Most people, at least, and let me back that up, there's no such thing as most people on this issue.

When you talk to a Baptist, okay, I don't know how many of you came from Baptist churches, but I graduated a Baptist seminary, so I can at least speak for what kind of Baptist. Well, the good kind. When you talk to a typical Baptist, a Southern Baptist, you ask them, when did you get saved?

That's always the question mark, indicating what? That salvation is something that happened, right? Salvation is a past tense thing. You got saved, right? And typically what that means is they were lost, this is their lifetime line, this is their death, we ask when did they get saved, let's say we're here talking to them, is there a point before this where you received Christ, and they say, yeah, I got saved right when I was 15 years old, right?

Okay, so that's what we mean when we say we got saved, right? That's typically, was there a time you didn't know Christ, and now there's a time you do know Christ, at what point did you get saved? How many of you ever ask somebody that?

How many of you ever ask yourself that? When did I get saved? You know what I'm saying, this is a pretty common lingo, this Christian talk 101, right? In the Roman Catholic system, this doesn't make sense.

The idea of getting saved is not part of the system because salvation is something you're going towards, not something you're coming out of. It's not something you're living in, it's something you're going toward.

So for them, justification cannot come until here. You cannot be justified until your life is over. This is why purgatory makes sense, because if you die and you have sins that are venial, remember in Roman Catholicism there are two types of sins, mortal sins which take away the grace of justification, and venial sins which simply interrupt your fellowship with the church.

If you have venial sins going into your death, then they have to be purged, that's the term purgatory, it comes from the word purged, and you go into purgatory to have your venial sins purged. If you die an immortal sin, having not had absolution from a priest, you will then lose the grace of justification and you will go to hell.

Yes? I was listening to that debate today and the guy said basically the sin that you'll die for, and he didn't differentiate between venial and mortal, but I think he was talking about a mortal sin is simply that because you forgave him.

Yeah, but how does, in the Roman system, how does one receive absolution? Through the priest, and that was my point, and I don't disagree. The requirement of the mortal sin, yes you can be forgiven of a mortal sin, you know, Roman Catholics, you can be forgiven of any sin, but you must receive that forgiveness through the church, and now here's another difference, and this is, again, not on your sheet, this is something that, these things kind of come to me in my mind as reminders for you.

Keep in mind in the Roman Catholic system, the church is understood as different than in Protestantism. What is the church? The body of believers in for us. In Protestantism, the church is us. We are the ecclesia, the called out ones.

In the Roman Catholic system, the church is the hierarchy, the magisterium, they are the church. Okay, they are the ones with the authority. The church is not the individual believers, it is the popes, the bishops, and the magisterium who make up the church, and thus you must go through the church to receive your absolution.

The church then becomes the emissary of grace, the mediator of grace. In fact, that's, we'll read the sheet here. In, under salvation it says this, saving grace is communicated through seven sacraments, which are means of grace.

Now, I have to clarify something. You will hear me at times, very, very rarely, you'll hear me use the term means of grace, because I'll say things like, well, you know, prayer is a means of grace, or worship is a means of grace.

And what do I mean by that? What I mean is these are vehicles through which we grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. They are tools that God has given us whereby we grow in our faith.

And thus, in that sense, they are vehicles, and thus means, of grace, such as scripture reading is a way that we grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. So you may hear me say that. You may hear, if we have a Presbyterian come and preach, like Brother Steve Jennings, he preached last year at our Bible conference.

He used the term means of grace. Somebody came to me, wait a minute, isn't that what the Roman Catholics teach? They asked, and I was happy to be able to differentiate. Here is the seven sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church and how they understand the means of grace.

Here it is. Baptism, which of course for them is sprinkling, normally of infants, but they do sprinkle adults who come into the Roman Catholic Church as adults. So it's not all infants. Just keep that in mind.

I want to be honest. Confirmation. Confirmation is, of course, after a child reaches a certain age, they learn the catechism, whatever, they're confirmed as true members of the church. The Eucharist. The Eucharist is the mass.

Eucharisto means good gift. It comes from eu, which is the prefix meaning good. Charis is the Greek word for gift. So Eucharist means good gift. Eucharist, not a bad word, but it's been grabbed and stolen.

Sort of like the word sacrament has, you know, I don't mind the word sacrament. From the Latin, it simply means ordinance, which is the same word that we use. Something that Christ has commanded us to do, but it was stolen and sort of twisted by Roman Catholicism to mean a mysterious thing.

Now sacramentum often is identified with mystery rather than with ordinance or something that we've been called to do. Getting back to here. So we have baptism, confirmation, Eucharist. The infant is baptized when he gets to the age of understanding where he can learn the catechism, he's confirmed, and then he receives his first communion, the first Eucharist.

That's all part of that becoming a Catholic. How many of you grew up Catholic? Didn't you Roy grow up Catholic? Did you go through all that? Seventh grade. No. When you went through confirmation, did you take communion at that point?

No, we took communion in second grade. Really? Yeah. We took communion in fourth grade, and I was in fifth, we were going to be confirmed, and I was this close to going to confirmation before I moved back to Jacksonville.

This was in Daytona Beach down in Up here with all us heathens, we got you. This was something I was going to say, I can't think of it now anyway. Go ahead.

Okay. I have a question, and I just wanted to add, a friend of mine that had a child and she was ill, a baby, and is that the reason that they had her baptized in the hospital because they knew she was going to die?

Yes. In Roman Catholicism, the eternal destination of the infant is determined by their justification, which comes through baptism. They do believe in baptismal regeneration or baptismal justification, so that's what they talk about, losing the grace of justification, because if you're born a Roman Catholic, you're justified at birth with the water.

Then when you're confirmed, and then you begin participating in the mass, your sins can take that away, something you already have. It gets taken from you because of your sins. So, yes, the idea that a child would need to be baptized is based on the idea that they are born, the idea of original sin, which we believe in original sin, of course, and that a person is born in sin.

So if that child is not, if that baby is not baptized and it's

I don't know, I'm going to tell you right now. I do not know the official Catholic teaching on that, but I'm sure that it has changed. It's evolved. I'm sure that that's evolved, if nothing else, and I don't want to make a proclamation, this is what they believe, because I don't have any writings on that.

I would assume that the reason for the necessity of baptism, especially of a sick child, is because of the peril of the soul without it, but I can't say that they would condemn a child or anything like that.

I imagine they would not. I just was curious, because it was such an adamant thing and so important that they get.

Someone there to, you know Well, it confirms, again, the belief that it confirms grace upon the recipient, because it is the means of grace. This is where the difference in language. When they say means of grace, they don't mean a vehicle by which we grow in grace.

What they mean is this is actually how grace comes. This is the conduit. This is the IV stick, and grace is in the bag, and this is how it drips into you. It's through this thing. There's a Latin phrase that was introduced, ex opera operato.

Ex opera operato means the thing working does the work. That sounds kind of funny to us, but what it essentially means is that the actual sacrament itself contains the grace that it signifies and is distributing the grace that it signifies.

So, baptism contains the grace of justification, distributes the grace of justification. Everybody understand what that means? I know ex opera operato can be kind of weird, but essentially it just means the thing doing the thing that you see doing is actually doing.

It's not as if it pictures. Like when I baptize Jackie this morning, I'm baptizing Miss Jackie Ward. I'm going to baptize her in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. I'm going to put her underneath the water.

I'm going to hold her until she bubbles. I'm just kidding. I'm going to put her under the water. I'm going to lift her back out, and that will be a symbolic representation of the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, and it will be to her a symbol of her entrance into the new covenant, because the new covenant is symbolized by dying to self and rising and living for Christ.

So, to her, it will be a beautiful testimony, and it will be an opportunity to represent God's promise, which is given to the believer, but it will not be grace to her to bring about any change in the state of her soul, and that is where the difference is.

You know, when Presbyterians or Lutherans... Well, I'm going to say different because Lutherans are different. When Presbyterians baptize a baby, they do not believe that it's changing the state of their soul, at least...

Some do. Some do. There's a... And you might know this better than I do. The federalism... Federalism? Federal. Federal visionism. Federal visionism is an offshoot of traditional Presbyterianism, and it really has some wild ideas, and one of the things is that it does produce a change in the soul of the child, which is something that the traditional Presbyterians do not.

So, getting all that to be said, the point of this is the sacraments are baptism, confirmation, Eucharist, penance, which is, of course, going... Asking for forgiveness. Asking for forgiveness, doing the Our Fathers, doing the Hail Marys, those things, doing whatever you're told, and anointing, and that...

All of these are not for everybody. You have to remember, because not everybody is necessarily called to certain offices, and certain offices are anointed, and anointing also deals with healing, so keep that in mind, because marriage and orders are also sacraments.

Matrimony being a sacrament, but not everybody gets married, so it's not as if you have to have all seven to be considered saved, or not that that's even really lingo in the Roman Catholic system. You don't have to have all seven to be a recipient of grace, but that there are seven whereby you can receive grace, and matrimony is one of them.

Here's where it gets important. The church administers the sacraments through the ordained, hierarchical, ordered priesthood. The traditional view was that there was no salvation outside the church, but recent teaching has recognized grace may be received outside the church.

Remember the evolution we talked about. I mean, you listen to Pope Francis now. What does he say? He says, yeah, even atheists can go to heaven, even in their unbelief, as long as they're good. You know, essentially, and I'm paraphrasing here.

I'll be happy to get the actual quote, but essentially his reference was that faith is not necessary for justification, that a good atheist essentially is as good as anything else. That is certainly a far difference from Trent, who anathematized anyone who did not hold to the very letter of Roman Catholic dogma.

So things have changed, and today I'm going to be preaching on the papacy. I'm going to be preaching on the heresy of the papacy because of the situation that we're in. What's that? I'm sorry. Good stuff.

Yeah, well, I had my sermon written. I normally write my sermons between Monday and Wednesday. I spend the three days studying, writing, and everything. But Wednesday night, it just kind of overwhelmed me, the fact that I was looking at all this stuff on social media.

I'd been kind of locked out of it, but now I'm seeing what everybody's saying about the Pope and all these people. Rick Warren calling him our Pope and dressing up with TV jakes to go see him at the White House.

I'm like, ah, gag me with an entire place setting. But I'm just, I mean, it's an entire place setting, not just the four, the whole thing. But I see this, and I think how many people are absolutely confused and would just say, well, they're all just different types of Christians.

And so I just was challenged in my own heart. I went back to the drawing board, you know, scrapped my notes. I'm going to use them next week. And I rewrote a message today called The Heresy of the Papacy.

And you can see the direction I'm going by the title. I was going to call it Christ is the Head of the Church, because that's actually the text that we're using is Colossians 1. I think it's probably an indication of what the condition of the Protestant church is anyway, especially the misinterpretation of Matthew 7.

Everybody's so afraid to judge anything, even though there's biblical judging that we're required to do, that they're afraid to call out anything as error. I agree, and I want to add one thought to that.

The other side of the coin, and this really kind of struck me, and it's in my message, but just as I was thinking, why is it that there's this push among Protestants to declare Roman Catholics believers?

Because that's a group then we don't have to evangelize. It takes the onus off of us to then have to share our faith with them. Well, they're Christians. They're fine. If I don't have to worry about you, well, then now we can be football buddies, or we can be Star Wars buddies.

I'm trying to think of things you like. We can go sit at the Wendy's and eat and talk and not ever mention Jesus, because, hey, you're a good Roman Catholic, I'm a good Protestant, and as long as I can confirm your salvation, You mentioned that this week there's another Baptist at me, and we have a Hindu and a Roman Catholic, and as we're having conversations, because we go down to First Baptist to eat lunch, the Roman Catholic's in there, and I'm always using the term biblical Christianity, Roman Catholicism, and things like that, and she keeps looking, but it's trying to witness to the differences between the churches.

Yeah, biblical Christianity is not... In fact, my wife made me change a phrase in my sermon. I read my sermons to my wife. She's my best critic, and she will be honest with me, much more honest than most people.

Well, maybe not more than you, Rob, but she's more honest than a lot of people. Our wives tend to be our best critics, and I read to her in the sermon I had written, a good Roman Catholic is a bad Christian, and she said, no, a good Roman Catholic is not a Christian.

So she corrected me. My wife corrected me, because I was pointing out the fact that if you follow all the teachings of Roman Catholicism and you follow the teachings of the Pope, you're ultimately practicing idolatry, and that's not good Christianity.

That was my point, because she caught it. She was driving, and I was reading. I had my computer. It was actually on the way to the hospital. I was going out to Orange Park to the hospital. My wife loves to go with me because we get to talk in the car.

I was just thinking what you said, though.

If the churches aren't teaching biblical Christianity, then the Christians in the pews, they don't really know that there's not a difference. Unless you know. Absolutely. So, I mean, that could be a reason as much as not wanting to, because if you know, then you do want to evangelize a Catholic.

If you really know. Yeah, and that's the whole thing.

Theology is not being taught. I had a probably two-hour conversation with a lady Saturday or Friday evening. It was just on Reformed theology, and she was in a Pentecostal church. A buddy of mine that I met at a Bible conference, he wrote me a message.

He said, would you please answer some questions for this lady, because I can't answer her questions. I said, well, I hate going into conversations midstream, especially in social media, because it's rarely beneficial.

But if you've exhausted what you know, and he's a great guy, but he just doesn't have as much experience. I said, if you've exhausted where you are, I'll answer her questions. And she comes in and begins asking me questions, and I began answering her questions.

It was about free will and things like that. And ultimately, it got to the point where I kind of challenged her on a few things. I said, if what you're saying is true, then Jesus is not telling the truth here.

Jesus said this, and you're saying this, ultimately. And she got very upset with me. And I said, all I'm doing is asking you to look at the text. I'm not telling you what it says. I'm telling you to read.

This is very clear what it's saying. Well, I don't understand it the way you do. It's words, lady. It's not as if, you know, if I say I'm going to punch you in the face, you can try to understand that however you want to, but if you wait too long, you're going to get punched in the face, because their words make meaning.

They have meaning, you know. They don't have Bible study. That's the thing. You know, all through, you know, when I was growing up and stuff, they, you know, we had the Bible. We all had Bibles, but they never encouraged us to read it or study it.

Eight years of Catholic school, I cracked it one time. That's right. Well, one of the things I noticed, I saw it this week, and it's something that really struck me, because especially in a Baptist church, when you hear it, read it past, what does it mean to you?

And I saw the question. It's not what it means to you. It means what does it mean? What did God say? And, you know, that's an area that people go into, because, I mean, so many of your Bibles, what does this mean to you?

Yeah, you'll never hear me say that in a Bible study. I've challenged on that this week. I've stopped saying that. Yeah, I don't ask people, what does it mean to you? If anything, I'll say, what did it mean to Paul?

What did it mean when Paul wrote it? What did Paul mean? Because that's the goal, is to know, you know, if the Holy Spirit is speaking through this apostle, and he is the author of this book, what did it mean to him?

What did it mean to his audience?

I don't care what it means to me. What does it mean to them? When he said, God forbid, what was he reacting to? You know, in Romans 9. Oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Can I have the time?

Oh, it's 20 after, thank you. All right, we finished one more block. This book is going to take eight years. But I hope it was beneficial to you. Next week, we'll look at how the Roman Catholic Church views the church and Mary.

We'll try to finish those two next week, and that will get us through this, and on to natural theology. So let's pray. Father, thank you for an opportunity to learn together. I pray that it's been beneficial for your people, and ultimately glorifying to your name.

And we pray through Christ, amen.