August 31, 2004

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The world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is
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The Dividing Line. The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.
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Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.
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This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll free across the
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United States, it's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is
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James White. Well exactly where did August go? It's the last day of August, we're just about into September.
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I don't mind that at all, believe me I don't. I like cooler weather, it's going to be 108 today, but hey, you know it's dry,
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I can't complain too much, and it's actually getting down to like 83 at night, 82,
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I actually got down to 70s last week, that was sort of cool. But anyway, I'm sort of looking forward to, it's an incredible, incredible fall, heading up to Toronto in a couple of weeks, two weeks from this weekend
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I believe, actually no it's one week from this weekend. And then two weeks after that to the
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Dallas area for the Southwest Founders Conference. I bet you we're going to have some interesting discussions there,
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I have a feeling. Anyway and then we're heading to Edmond, Oklahoma two weeks after that, two weeks after that in Chicago, and the week after that is the debate, the conference, and the cruise.
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And I don't have anything right now between the cruise, which ends in mid -November, and the beginning of the year, because last year we sort of missed
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Christmas, it just went pshh, and sort of, because the cruise was between Thanksgiving and Christmas, so both just sort of went pshh, and so we're not going to do that this year, we're going to have the holiday season, because I love the holiday season, and so that's what we're going to do.
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And I know some of you don't, and you know what, I'm not going to argue about it today. Anyway, 877 -753 -3341, a little bit of a blog explosion the past couple of days, again, on a number of different things.
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We have things up there, finishing up, almost done with the review, it's taken two months, but almost done with the review of the material in Christ, Our Righteousness, that's all up there, and then we put up some stuff sort of explaining why we did that, and I think it's important to understand that, so that's there on the blog.
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And then late last night posted, I was listening to the debate between Doug Wilson and Dan Barker while lifting last week, and found that just fascinating, especially since I had encountered
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Dan Barker before, not just, well, we actually had him on the dividing line now, think about it, many, many, many moons ago, we were on a radio station called
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KHEP, which I don't think KHEP even exists, at least none of those call letters, it might,
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I don't know, I think it, didn't it go country or something for a while, forget what happened to that, but anyway,
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Dan Barker, there's a fascinating fellow, some brief comments on him on the blog as well, and some of you may be asking, so when is the debate in Salt Lake, we're not doing a debate in Salt Lake in October, this'll probably be the first, in fact, come to think of it, this'll probably be the first October that the man behind the curtain in control of all things hasn't been in Salt Lake in ages, we may have to set guard over the house to keep him from just automatically heading toward the airport or a car or something, because it's just been that long, someone in the channel, when's there gonna be an
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Edmund Oklahoma, well, there's this thing called AOMN .org, and there's a thing on the side that says calendar, and you go to the calendar, and you click on the calendar, and it tells you, and then you can click on it, and it tells you what's going on, and who you can call, and it's fun stuff like that, so you can go there and find out, see, that's how that works, we actually try to keep that up to date now, which we didn't used to do, and it became a joke, because people would go to the calendar page, and it was more of the history page, this is what people did two years ago, it really was that bad, but we have lots of folks who complained about that, and so now we actually try to keep it up to date, so, anyway, go to the calendar page, and you receive
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NVB in Edmund Oklahoma, wherever that is, so, let's get on with the program, if you'd like to be calling in at 877 -753 -3341, but before we do that, of course, we need to continue, we need to continue our response to Dave Armstrong.
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Yes, indeed, well, you know what,
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Dave Armstrong found out, that we had begun reviewing his appearance on Catholic Answers, he made the comment in his blog, that I must have seen that on his blog, well, you know,
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I even said that, yes, we definitely did do that, and he's recently announced here, on August 24th, a place where we almost certainly discovered that I had been on that show, yes, in fact, that's what
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I said, if you want to go to his blog, the response posted
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Saturday, August 28th, to the comments we began making last Thursday, is absolutely classic
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Armstrong, very long, very verbose, not a bit of substance, just,
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I have 500 pages on my website, and I have discussed every possible thing on the planet, many times, and you have been refuted, and just all this stuff, and it's really funny, but not anything in regards to what was actually said,
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I'm not even going to respond to this stuff, because I've responded, in fact, I think, toward the end, in fact, that is what
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I will do with White's reply, currently under consideration, it is not worthy of reply, it consists so far of the same old platitudes, circular arguments, and half -baked anti -Catholic polemics and misrepresentations of the
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Catholic position, I've refuted all these viewpoints time and again in various papers and books of mine, which, many of them he sells as word documents, why spend more time on it,
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I have infinitely more important things to do than that, let White reply to the few dozen rebuttals I have made to his gibberish and vapid rhetoric and polemics, if he is serious about substantive debate, every time
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I have and demonstrated that the man has no clue what he's talking about, that's all we get in response, but in case he missed it, why then respond to this, because of the fact that the arguments he presents are the standard things that people hear, in fact,
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I got an email just this morning, some folks down over in California, they're saying that, you know, that Protestants talking with Roman Catholics, evidently very traditionalist
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Roman Catholics, and so the Roman Catholics have gotten hold of Jerry Matiticks, and they're going to fly
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Jerry Matiticks in to debate, quote, someone, end quote, they don't know who, they're just going to bring him in, and this is how
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Matiticks functions, we've talked about this in the program before, he runs around, and he goes to these little out -of -the -way places, and he debates pastors, and, you know, a lot of times,
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I'm sorry, but pastors should be wiser than this, and they, you know, maybe they're just former
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Catholics or something, they've never run into a Catholic apologist before, and Jerry Matiticks comes in, he uses the same arguments that Eric Svensson and I have run over him with before, we've refuted them, they're not sound arguments, but he keeps repeating them anyways, because he figures we're not going to be there, and so he goes into these places, and he beats these people up, and I'm the great victor, and talk about cheap victories, but that's what he does, and so I get this email that says, you know,
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Jerry Matiticks is coming in less than a month, and now we're looking for someone to debate him, it's just like, well,
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I'll tell you what, you know, if they're really serious, because see, when we do a debate, it's not just I that goes there, but like, when we do the videotaping, like up at Salt Lake or something like that, we have to have a team of guys that go up there, and we have equipment to transport, and bags, and things like that, and you've got to have a venue that you can videotape in, why?
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So that the debate can be useful to a wider audience. You're not there just to quote -unquote win a debate, you're there to actually produce something that's going to be beneficial for a long period of time.
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Why else do this kind of thing? And so, anyway, you know, I said, tell you what, get back with these folks and say, look, let's not worry about the 27th, if you want to actually have a meaningful debate, then let's schedule for some time next year, let's work it in some place,
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I'll debate Jerry on papal infallibility, purgatory, that kind of stuff, we haven't debated those subjects in the dozen or more debates we've done, so I'll debate
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Jerry in front of that audience there, and we will videotape it, and we'll make it worthwhile.
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So let's do something like that. Well, that's why we respond to Dave Armstrong, is that the stuff that he said on Catholic Answers, other than demonstrating that the
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Dave Armstrong who speaks is very different than the Dave Armstrong who writes.
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And there's a reason why Dave Armstrong will not debate, he couldn't, he's not capable of doing it. There are people who are not,
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I understand that, but see, the problem is Dave Armstrong has always tried to make this argument, well, you know, there's actually a great superiority to written debates, and no, there's only one reason he won't do an actual debate, because he could never survive cross -examination, it wouldn't, it's not possible, he couldn't do it.
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So, you know, it's been disingenuous all along to be saying it the way that he's been saying it, but what's more, the stuff that he throws out there, it is really the standard stuff that people will throw out in chat channels when you're talking with your
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Catholic friends and reading a little Catholic Answers and stuff, and so that's why we're responding to it.
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Not because, you know, Dave Armstrong is, oh, these are the best arguments we've come into. No, these are just your standard lay -level, not really good arguments, they've been refuted many times, and he says, well,
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I've refuted them many times, okay, well, we'll listen to the two and see who actually handles whom.
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You'll notice last week we made a number of objections to the things that were being said, pointed out a number of misconceptions on Mr.
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Armstrong's part, and we will continue with that, picking up about five minutes and 55 seconds into his appearance on Catholic Answers this year.
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Let's go ahead and pick it up. Alright, you also mentioned that Jesus and Paul accepted non -biblical oral and written traditions.
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How do we know that? Well, in Matthew 2 .23, the
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Bible says, He shall be called a Nazarene, but you can't find that in the Old Testament, and I think in the
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New Testament it says it was passed down by the prophets, so you have a prophecy which is considered
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God's Word passed down orally rather than through the Old Testament. Well, that's a fascinating assertion, one that, again, wouldn't survive real well even on the basis of Roman Catholic biblical scholarship, because Roman Catholic biblical scholarship will recognize, first of all, it's probably a conflated citation from a couple of Old Testament passages, but even at that, there'd be no way that you could document or demonstrate that this is somehow an extra -biblical tradition that is actually
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Scripture, but never written down, passed down through some external system, a magisterium of the kind.
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And that's going to become even more clear here in a moment when he tries to go to one of his favorite passages, that being
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Matthew 23 and Moses' Seat. This one, Dave really thinks, is just his silver bullet, and what you're going to hear, and we discussed this briefly last time, what you're going to hear is you're going to hear, well, you see you've got these external traditions, these oral traditions, passed down through the
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Jewish magisterium, through the rabbis. Well, let's think for just a moment, because they're not going to spend much time on this, and that's why a debate situation wouldn't be really good for Mr.
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Armstrong, because he'd actually have to answer these questions, but who gets to tell which of these oral traditions are actually binding or not?
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The magisterium of the day clearly was not what you looked for.
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Why? Because we already looked at Mark 7 and Matthew 15, we already saw that the Corban rule has the exact same kind of pedigree in the assertions of the
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Jews as being an external tradition, and Jesus condemned it. He said that we were to compare all of those to Scripture, not to the magisterium, because if you did that, then you'd have to believe what the scribes and Pharisees defined as being the content of this tradition, and Jesus clearly said that the
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Corban rule was not divine in origin, even though the Jews claimed that it was. So how do you know?
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What is the operational factor in knowing what is or is not revelation from God on the same level as these alleged traditions that Mr.
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Armstrong would like to present to us? Secondly, when did the Jewish magisterium cease being infallible?
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If these were infallible things that were passed down by the power of the Holy Spirit outside of written Scripture, which then becomes the model for Rome's teachings, then when did the
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Jewish magisterium cease to be the infallible guardian of these things, and Rome become the infallible guardian of these things?
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When did that happen? Where is the discussion of this in Scripture? I can't seem to find that kind of thing whatsoever.
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So as we hear this, we're going to see this kind of development, this kind of, well, I'm going to throw something out here, and I'm really not going to give you enough substantiation of it.
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This is sort of how you get the choir excited, but you don't really win debates.
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You're not going to actually convince anyone who is not already convinced.
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All you're trying to do here is to encourage the already convinced. And that is what a lot of Roman Catholic apologetics is all about.
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And so that tradition, there's no way to avoid that. Because a lot of times
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Protestants make the argument that Jesus thought the Old Testament was authoritative. Well, of course he did. But there's more to it.
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There's also the oral tradition. Which, as we saw in Matthew 7 and 15, Jesus subjected to the higher authority of Scripture.
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Another one. Go ahead. Yeah, go ahead, please. Somebody do something.
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OK. Matthew 23, Jesus talks about Moses' seat. And says the scribes and Pharisees have authority based on that.
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You can't find that in the Old Testament. Now, let's look at this, because I just love how folks will just throw out statements.
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You know, somebody was saying, for example, they saw a rather well -known media person on a morning show talking about the
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Swift Boat vets. And this person just simply dismissed what they were saying as having been refuted.
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Without ever bothering to mention, you know, what it was that refuted it. And that's sort of like what we have here.
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Matthew 23, Jesus spoke to the crowds and to his disciples saying, The scribes and the Pharisees have seated themselves in the chair of Moses.
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Therefore, all that they tell you, do and observe, but do not do according to their deeds. They say things and do not do them.
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They tie up heavy burdens and lay them on men's shoulders. But they themselves are unwilling to move them with so much as a finger.
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But they do all their deeds to be noticed by men. For they broaden their phylacteries and lengthen the tassels of their garments.
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They love the place of honor, banquets, so on and so forth. Matthew 23 begins, of course, the tremendous denunciation of the scribes and Pharisees.
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So it's odd that Mr. Armstrong would find in the beginning of what is clearly a denunciation of the scribes and Pharisees, an actual evidence that somehow they were the ones to whom were entrusted this oral tradition and interpretation authority, so on and so forth.
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But notice what he just said. He said that they were given special authority. I guess what he means by that is that because they had a place in synagogue worship, which was what the chair of Moses was, this was actually a physical seat from which the law was written.
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And it was a development in the synagogue. And by the way, if you remember your intertestamental history, the synagogue develops because of the fact that the
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Jewish people are driven out of Jerusalem. They need to have a central place of worship. And so the synagogue develops for those
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Jews who are now separated from temple worship when the temple either doesn't exist, it's been burned down, destroyed, whatever.
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Or they themselves now are too far away from Jerusalem to be a part of that temple worship.
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And so the synagogue develops. And in the synagogue, you have the seat of Moses because the law of Moses is read from that position within the service.
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It is a place at the front of the synagogue. You can see these in archaeological digs and so on and so forth, where a person would sit.
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And because of their position in the worship of the people of God, then they were to be given deference to. All Jesus is saying here is, we're not overthrowing synagogue worship.
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We're not just going to say, well, because we have this new message, then we're just throwing that out. What Jesus is talking about is the hypocrisy.
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They sit in Moses's seat. They have the law of Moses in their hands, but they don't do what they say.
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They say one thing because they're reading the law of Moses. And the authority there is the law of Moses, not the Pharisees. I mean, they're just about to be called whitewashed tombs and sepulchers and all the rest of the stuff.
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But they have the law in their hands. They read the law, and this gets turned into, and this shows how desperate the
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Roman position really is to try to find stuff like this. This gets turned into a proof text for some type of extra -biblical, authoritative tradition in this seat of Moses.
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Well, it certainly didn't come from Moses. Synagogues didn't exist back then. This was obviously a much more recent development.
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This isn't coming from some divine source. This was how synagogue worship took place at that particular point in time.
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That's all it's being referred to. But this all of a sudden develops into, well, they're given special authority and so on and so forth.
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Let me back this up a little bit so you can get the whole context of it again. So now with a little background, you can see what's actually being said.
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Also the oral tradition. Another one. Go ahead. I love this.
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Yeah, go ahead, please. No, you go ahead. No, please. Matthew 23, Jesus talks about Moses's seat.
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And says the scribes and Pharisees have authority based on that. You can't find that in the
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Old Testament. But it is in the oral Mishnah of the Jewish tradition. It teaches a sort of succession from Moses on down, teaching authority.
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Yeah, and let's remind ourselves something. When was the Mishnah put together, Mr. Armstrong? 250 years after Christ?
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And that same Mishnah, does that not also have the
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Korban rule in it with the same kind of pedigree? Yep. See, that's where, you know, the live thing makes a big difference.
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And briefly, 1 Corinthians 10, 4, Paul refers to a rock that followed Jesus through, or the
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Jews, I mean, through the Sinai wilderness. That's not in the Old Testament. It's in rabbinic tradition.
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And 2 Timothy 3, 8. Oh, so rabbinic tradition is now revelation? Who gets to say?
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Well, Rome does. Well, who gets to say? So when there is a reference to anything, anything at all, that becomes scriptural.
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It becomes revelational. Illustrations. You take that to its logical conclusion. And that means the pagan poets that Paul cites,
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Jude's citing of Pseudepiglifo writings. All of a sudden, they become containers of revelation as well, don't they?
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And see, they don't want to take that to its logical conclusion. But as long as it can be used to befuddle the simple -minded into thinking that they should follow whatever the
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Pope has to say, that's good enough. Talking about Janus and Jambres opposed
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Moses. And that's not in the Old Testament. Exodus 7 and 8, where that's talked about.
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They're not mentioned in there. Again, does that mean that those names, which were a part of the tradition of the people of God, does that mean that those names, as an illustration, as an identifying mark, that that becomes some sort of extra -biblical tradition that has to be passed down outside of Scripture that makes
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Scripture incomplete in and of itself? Since Isaiah didn't mention Janus and Jambres, Isaiah was dependent upon some other source?
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These kinds of things, they've just been repeated so often. And especially these types of guys who will not do the debates.
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And then again, I was just thinking about, other than just a few, those who do don't seem to listen to the responses either.
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So I guess it doesn't really make any difference there. But we press on. All right, next point.
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We need to move along here as we are rapidly approaching our first break. You say that the
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Jerusalem Council, we can go back and look at that as some sort of an indication of,
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I guess, what oral tradition or the fact that other sources in the Bible were used as authoritative.
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Yeah. Okay, Acts 15, 28, and 9, the Council members are saying,
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It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than to abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood, from what is strangled and from unchastity.
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Now in the next chapter, you see Paul, Timothy, and Silas are traveling around. And it's
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Acts 16, 4. They deliver to them for observance the decisions which have been reached by the
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Council. Apostles and elders. Also, the fact that they mentioned the
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Holy Spirit. It's exactly like Catholics claim that our councils are guided by the
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Spirit, and that would be our infallibility. So I found that interesting. I find it very interesting as well, because Mr.
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Armstrong, hello, Mr. Armstrong. Acts 15. Apostles are there. The Holy Spirit is speaking.
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The New Testament is being written. Hello, this is a period of inscripturation and revelation.
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The only way to make that relevant is to say you still have apostles and still receive revelation, but you all believe the canon's closed, so that doesn't work.
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This isn't some extra biblical tradition. This is the tradition of the Bible itself.
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It's revelation. Again, see why, you know, as long as you don't allow anybody to cross -examine you.
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Remember Proverbs 18, the first one to present this case, always seems right until his opponent comes along and questions him.
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That's what live debate allows to take place. All right, your next point, it just simply says here, and I'll ask you to explain.
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It says Pharisees, Sadducees, and oral extra biblical tradition. What's that all about?
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Okay, the Sadducees were pretty much the theological liberals of that time, because they rejected the future resurrection and the soul, the afterlife, rewards and retribution, demons and angels.
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All of this was accepted by the early church and also the Pharisees. And the Bible refers to Christian Pharisees in Acts 15, 5,
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Philippians 3, 5, but never refers to the Sadducees as Christians. Now, the
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Sadducees rejected all oral teaching and believed in soul scriptura pretty much.
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I'm sorry. So that's what's interesting. The ones who were the theological liberals believed in soul scriptura, and the
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Pharisees in the early church believed in tradition. So it's a strong contrast between the two groups.
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Wow. Sorry, but you've got to be kidding me.
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Philippians 3, 5 refers to Christian Pharisees. What does Philippians 3, 5 say? Paul circumcised the eighth day of the nation of Israel, the tribe of Benjamin, the
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Hebrew of Hebrews, as to the law of Pharisee. That means the
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Pharisee became a Christian. What in the world does that have to do with anything? I don't know. I couldn't figure that one out other than, hey, look, the
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Sadducees were bad. The Pharisees were good. Really? Didn't we just skip Matthew 23 in the process here?
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I mean, if we're going to try to make these parallels, shall we go into the Pharisees and start making parallels to Rome?
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I mean, this is a kind of argumentation that just leaves you going, what are you talking about?
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It would be hard to cross -examine that one, actually. That would be a little bit tough. Interesting. Well, point number seven on your outline here,
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Old Testament Jews did not believe in sola scriptura. Is that similar or related to that previous point?
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Yeah, I have a verse from Nehemiah 8, 1 -8, where Ezra's reading the law of Moses to the people, and it says, it has 13
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Levites who assisted him. They helped the people to understand the law, which was also mentioned earlier in 2
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Chronicles. Nehemiah 8 -8 says, they read from the book from the law of God clearly, and they gave the sense so that the people understood the reading.
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In other words, they didn't understand it just from reading it, which is a lot of the rhetoric about sola scriptura.
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You just read the Bible, and you know what it's saying. Also, I got to stop right there.
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Can you believe this? Okay, we're during a period of inscripturation again. Okay, so relevant sola scriptura is what?
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And you see the misrepresentation. Well, there were people that helped them to understand. Remember, these people were being reintroduced to God's law.
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Remember Josiah? Remember what happened there? They found God's law. It had been eclipsed for so long for the people, this dark period of apostasy.
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They don't have access to it, so it's being read to them. And so the people of God do what the people of God do today.
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We teach. That's what elders are for. This is another example where these folks don't understand biblical ecclesiology and the function of elders in the church today doing very much what the elders were doing at that time in explaining to people.
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It wasn't that they had been sitting there for six months reading the scriptures, and they couldn't figure them out. They're just now hearing them.
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And so the application, explanation is being made to them. That's what we do with people who haven't learned the
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Bible before. We explain it to them. How that then becomes a basis for, and by the way, the
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Bible's not enough. You need the traditions that no Christian believed for the first 1500 years of the church, and you need the
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Pope in Rome. Talk about a massive leap that again would never survive cross -examination, now would it?
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The Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8, it says he was in his chariot reading the prophet
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Isaiah. Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked, do you understand what you are reading?
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And he said, how can I unless someone guides me? So I think that it gives an indication of how people viewed the scripture.
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It wasn't a self -contained unit that didn't need authoritative teaching alongside it.
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Wow, let's jump, leap once again, Ethiopian eunuch reading from Isaiah and God sends someone to help understand.
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Leap from that to, well, that means you need to have the infallible magisterium of the church and the traditions of the church, which would not have even been accessible to the
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Ethiopian eunuch at that time. And in fact, for the next 500 years, there are going to be things that Christians never even mentioned and never even believed.
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But now Roman Catholics have to believe because of the binding authority of the church. There's your leap. There's your jump.
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It's the massive holes in this kind of argumentation. And yet anyone who has a connection to the
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EWTN radio and things like that knows that when you listen to what these people put out as converts, every single one of them says, and I, I just can't defend that soul of scriptura.
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And then you start hearing them talking about, and do they, did they even know what it was? Was it accurately represented?
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In no way, shape, or form. It is truly an amazing thing.
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And so we certainly appreciate Mr. Armstrong's appearance on Catholic Answers.
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We will continue next, next time we're together with our review of Dave Armstrong on Catholic Answers.
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Let's go to our break. 877 -753 -3341. You'd like to call in and open phones.
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Doesn't have to be on the subject soul scriptura. Can be justification, things like that. Join us. 877 -753 -3341.
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Justification, the heart of the gospel. With pastor and co -author of Holy Scripture, the ground and pillar of our faith,
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David King, the president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Founders Conference, Tom Askle. New Testament Research Ministries founder and author of Evangelical Answers, Eric Svensson.
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The founder of the Spurgeon Archive and executive director of Grace to You, Philip Johnson. Nationally renowned reformed
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Christian artist, Steve Camp. And the founder of Alpha and Omega Ministries and author, Dr. James White.
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Join us at the Los Angeles, California LAX Sheraton Ballroom on November 6th, 2004, beginning at 845 a .m.
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Seating is limited, so order your tickets now at aomin .org. That's www .aomin .org.
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Answering those who claim that only the King James Version is the Word of God. James White, in his book,
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The King James Only Controversy, examines allegations that modern translators conspired to corrupt scripture and lead believers away from true
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Christian faith. In a readable and responsible style, author James White traces the development of Bible translations, old and new, and investigates the differences between new versions and the authorized version of 1611.
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You can order your copy of James White's book, The King James Only Controversy, by going to our website at www .aomin
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.org. Convictions once held and died for among Bible -believing Protestants are now being reconsidered with the advent of the recent
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Auburn Avenue Movement. Is there currently a common basis for dialogue between Roman Catholics and Protestants?
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Were the signers of ECT correct in their ecumenical efforts and all of the reformed scholars who opposed them in error?
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Does Trinitarian Baptism make one a member of the New Covenant? Are Roman Catholics our brothers and sisters in Christ?
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Join us in Los Angeles, California on November 5, 2004, for a full three hours of moderated debate between Dr.
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James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries and Douglas Wilson of the Auburn Avenue Movement and New St.
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Andrews College, as these topics are debated between two of the most respected representatives of the opposing viewpoints.
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Additional information and tickets can be ordered at aomin .org. That's www .aomin .org.
35:06
Wait a minute. You may not know this, but I had
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Windows 1 .0. Oh, that's right. No, I did get a copy of yours on that. That was a nightmare. Wasn't that the most...
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That was a nightmare. After about 30 minutes of going, it's really cool because it's got a clock up here and this down here and this up here, and then you realize that's all it does.
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What is the point? On an amber screen. Amber screen, no color.
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Here's an idea when you write a program. Have a point! Oh, yes.
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I remember that. But then I decided that, well, let's face it. I got pretty good with those batch files and stuff like that.
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So as I said to you one day, who needs to run more than one program at a time? Who needs more than 640K
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RAM anyways? And then I drug you into the Windows cult. Yes, yes.
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I showed you the way. Oh, see what's happening in channel? All the Mac guys are, hey, we got
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Macs. It's just an automatic response. They just have to do their Windows bad, evil.
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Who owns Apple now? I forgot. Well, the
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Borg, definitely. It's been assimilated. Oh, I just tried to play the
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Borg wave, but you turned it down. Go ahead, do it again. We are interrupting your communication.
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I can't figure that out. The Borg were difficult to understand. I mean, for a superior species like that, they could have done a little better with the voice.
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But anyhow, let's go ahead and start taking the massive number of phone calls. The phone lines are melting.
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Oh, that's just because it's 108 degrees outside. Let's go to Arkansas again and talk to someone who needs me to spell calendar for them.
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C -A -L -E -N -D -A -R.
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So, Frank. Hi, Frank. Hi, Dr. White. How are you today? Not bad. Why do you have to give me a hard time about that?
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Because you asked, because right there in channel. So when's he coming? And it's like, you know,
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I spend all this time putting this schedule up there. Does anyone care? No one cares. Fine. I'm a doofus.
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You know, I'm a doofus. So just treat me like a doofus. I mean, when you have people working there, I mean, do you just let them show up whatever day of the week they want?
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Yeah. Or do you? Oh, you do. OK, well, then that then you're pretty liberal boss. He is. He is from Arkansas. And so some of them, some of them names are pretty long, you know,
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Thursday and Wednesday. And that Wednesday thing puts a D in front of the
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N. And I never have figured that one out. Oh, man.
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In that context, my question sounds even more stupid. Yeah, well, you know, actually, we're going to pick up the level here just a little bit.
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OK, I think I have an idea what you're going to be asking about, though. Well, you know, in the last couple of weeks, you know, given given that I do participate in the entry level form of apologetics in some other forums, you know, the question has come up several times as to why.
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I mean, I know why the Catholic Church disqualified that little girl's communion, because it was a rice wafer, not a wheat wafer.
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I mean, I understand their reasoning there. But, you know, as a Protestant, how do we as a person who is actually, you know, a
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Protestant and not just some kind of, you know, flaky evangelical, how do you how do you respond to that?
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I mean, if if if this little girl was just as an example, and I don't mean to really put you on the spot, but I will if this little girl was in your church,
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Dr. White, would you allow her to take communion as rice bread?
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Well, you know, the whole reason they did it, a lot of folks didn't hear about this. So I suppose I should mention because a bunch of folks are going, what on earth is that guy from Arkansas talking about?
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There was a story that came out, I don't know, early last week at some point about a young girl who has some sort of genetic situation to where she is not able to assimilate wheat and hence and Frank just left.
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Did we all get that? Could we record that? The door opened and closed and Frank is now gone. Either that or someone just snuck in and Frank is about to be mugged.
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One of the two, I'm not sure which. Anyway, so if I recall correctly, and I only read one story on it, if I recall correctly, the local priest had actually allowed her, didn't he?
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Right, her parish priest had performed the rite with the rice cake, with the rice wafer, and the bishop got wind of it and said, well, foul.
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Right, right. And obviously what the guy probably should have done, you know, the way he probably would have been able to get away with it is if he had gone to the bishop first and stuff like that and probably it was just because he was doing this on his own.
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Obviously... Free will and all that. Yeah, obviously from our perspective, the biggest problem here is the whole idea of what the mass represents to begin with.
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And if you have someone in our church, if we had someone who could not partake of the bread that we pass because of the fact that they have that kind of a thing, then you would make room for that.
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You would allow them to participate because the issue is not wheat or rice, it's what the whole thing is reminding us of.
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And so, to me, the question that crossed my mind when
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I saw this was, wait a minute, doesn't priestly consecration trump whether it's wheat or rice?
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I mean, don't you have the same thing going on? Can't God transfigure rice into what it's supposed to be?
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The whole thing just, again, takes us back to the historical reality that prior to the turn of the first millennium, you did not have these kinds of concerns.
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The reason being that the understanding of the real presence was spiritual in nature and it was with the change that takes place in about the 11th century and the appearance, the term transubstantiation, that all of a sudden you get all these concerns about, well, what happens if we drop something and the rat comes and gets it before we can get it and the rat runs away with the consecrated host?
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Then what happens then or what happens if you spill the cup? Does the priest have to lick it off the ground? And all this stuff that we find absolutely amazing.
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But the historical documents are filled with it. Why wouldn't that have been there in the 3rd century, the 4th century, the 5th century?
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Because they didn't have the doctrine of transubstantiation. When they spoke of the reality of the presence of Christ's body, they meant that in a spiritual way.
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They felt that was more real than if it was this grossly literal physical thing. And so that to me is really where the issue is joined there.
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Sorry about that. A little WD -40 would do you some good there. Because of what it represents. And of course, it is sort of sad when you think about it.
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I mean, for the really believing Roman Catholic who believes that this is how you have life in yourself, then what's this little girl supposed to do?
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Right. The church has got to make some kind of provision in that kind of a situation.
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So it is interesting that, once again, you face one of these situations where the traditions of men that developed over time, causing tremendous problems in light of modern practice.
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So I'm not sure if that's what you were referring to. Yeah, that really is. And you kind of hit on all the bullet points there for me.
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Do you think the Lutherans would have the same kind of problem? I mean, you know, with their... I don't think so. I don't think so.
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I mean, I could be wrong, but I don't believe so. And in fact, something tells me that this is going to get overturned as it goes up the ladder, or if it does go up the ladder, or something like that.
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Because, you know, I understand the issue of... There's nothing wrong with the church saying, we're going to do this in a standard way.
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I mean, that's fine. No problem. But when you understand the theology and what this is allegedly representing, there's got to be some provision made here in situations like this that could not be foreseen.
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So, but again, sadly, I have to probably point out in passing that there are very, very, very few who would have a meaningful commentary on what the
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Roman Catholic doctrine of the Mass is all about. I mean, even in the discussions regarding Cary. Yes, yes,
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I agree. You know, there's a whole bunch of discussions regarding Cary partaking, who clearly is the most pro -abortion senator in the
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United States Senate, and voted constantly against the ban on partial birth abortion, and all the rest of that stuff.
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Did we lose Frank? Yes, we lost Frank. Bye, Frank. Nice. I told you somebody was coming through that door.
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Does anyone ever listen to me? No one listens to me. But there went Frank. Bye, Frank. Nice to have talked to you.
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But there was... Sadly, I saw two things. There was no discussion of the reality of what that sacrament allegedly means in Roman Catholic theology from a meaningful theological perspective in response to the
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Cary issue. But the other thing that really bothered me was that there were Protestants who used that as an opportunity to slam
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Roman Catholicism. And I think that was the wrong way to do it and the wrong time to do it.
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Rome has the right to do what Rome does. In other words, if someone were to support a lawsuit that says
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Rome cannot withhold the Lord's Supper from pro -abortion senators, doesn't that mean that at the very same time, we are saying that the government should have the right to tell us who we can give the supper to?
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I mean, we practice a guarded table at our church. We ask that people answer some questions.
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Basically, the questions we ask is if they are trusting in Jesus Christ, their salvation alone, if they have been baptized, and if they are under church discipline by any other church.
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Because if you don't ask that question, then someone across our valley can be disciplined by church, and they can just pop over to our church and just skip the reality of that discipline.
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We don't allow that. We want to honor the discipline of our sister churches. So, we practice a guarded community, and I can guarantee you something.
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This is not even a question. Even if John Kerry did not believe in all the teachings of Roman Catholicism, John Kerry would not be a member of our church.
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The positions that he holds on moral issues would preclude him from, in good faith, saying,
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I believe what you all believe about the law of God and the purpose of God. That person would not be a member of the church that I'm an elder in.
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And there's really no question about that. Well, if we sit back, and because it's
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Rome that's being attacked for having standards on those issues, don't we realize how stupid that is?
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That we're setting ourselves up for the exact same situation, for what's going on with the ACLU, sending people into the very services of the church to try to utilize the law that Lyndon Johnson had added to the
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IRS code, that in essence says that if you make political statements, endorse certain political individuals within the context of the church, you lose your status.
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And hence, the government gets to control your finances through taxes, in essence. And it's fascinating.
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Liberals want the separation of church and state only insofar as you muzzle the church, but they would love to have the state control the church through the power of taxation.
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They would love to have that happen. And I think eventually it will. But I think a lot of these edifices, these massive, massive towers...
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I'm going to go ahead and... It's a private call, but I'll have to call them back after we're off the dividing line.
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That's what we'll have to do. Unfortunately, there wasn't any number there. So I'll call them back later. Boy, my battery's really going bad.
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It rings once and it's down to one line. That's when you know your battery's pretty well shot, is it's at three bars, it rings, and it drops to one by ringing the thing.
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That's a bad thing. That was the ACLU calling. Does that... You said John Kerry. Bye. We've got you now.
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There's a breathless, breathy voice on the other end going, ah, you know. Anyways...
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I'll get you, my pretty. Could we let the professionals do that?
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I mean, we might actually have that in here someplace. In fact, turn my melting .wav.
48:37
I'm melting. Actually, I think we do have the witch melting somewhere in our sounds file.
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I really need to go through all of them so I can find all of them. Barry Lynn on the phone. Hi, Barry!
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What did you want to talk about today? Anyway, no one's... 877 -753 -3341, 877 -753 -3341.
49:02
Frank says that a customer tracked him down the background. You know, I'm a little concerned about Frank and his bottom line.
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When I go into a Christian bookstore and I have to go into the back room to track down the proprietors on the phone, the dividing line, that's probably not a good thing.
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Not a really good thing at all to be involved with that. But anyways, as I was attempting to say before I was most rudely interrupted by the phone calling me, we're sort of setting ourselves up when we go, oh, well, they're going after the
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Roman Catholics. So that's good. No, it's not. The fact of the matter is Rome has the right to set her own rules.
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And if you want to have the right to set your own rules, then, you know, don't be hypocritical.
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Don't turn that thing around and do that kind of thing. 877 -753 -3341.
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I'm going to go ahead and what I'll do here is find where to go. Oh, there it is. Anybody else have the same problem
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I have? Your computer now has so many programs on it and so many subdirectories and so many gigabytes of space that finding things can take forever.
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It really can take a long, long time. I mean, it's nice.
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I mean, but with the network connection here, I've got, I don't know how many hundreds, well, thousands. I guess it'd be thousands of gigabytes that are at a fingertip here.
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And sometimes one little file just goes disappears into that. So what I'm going to do here is since we don't have a second caller here,
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I wrote down, I put on my, oh, did you hear that? Yeah, very good. 10 minutes and 58 seconds, which would be about right there.
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And I'm going to go, you got this. You know where I'm going. I'm going to go ahead and go back to go back to here.
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Here we go. Let's see. Here we go. Now, go away or I'll taunt you a second time.
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That's a good short introduction to going back to good old Dave Armstrong. Right. So very quickly here, the last three of the 10 points, number eight,
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Second Timothy 3, 16 and 17. This, of course, is going to be put in or inserted into any discussion about this
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Sola Scriptura topic. This is often the Protestant proof text as you, proof text rather, as you like to point out.
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Okay, folks, here we go. Here we go. I'm looking forward to this. We only have six minutes left. How do you address exegetically
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Second Timothy 3, verses 16 through 17? Let's hear what
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Dave Armstrong says. Yeah, well, I can't do that real quick, but I know
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I sent you this and I told you to go through these, but we're coming up on the break and I can't do this very quickly.
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So text rather, as you like to point out. Yeah, well, I can't do that real quick, but I compare it to a passage in Ephesians 4, 11 through 15, where it talks about the gifts were given, that there's apostles, prophets, evangelists equipped for ministry, building up the body of Christ, etc.
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It's a long passage. And so what I did was I compared that, that it mentions all these things for the sufficiency of the believer, but it doesn't mention
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Scripture. So if the argument is that Second Timothy talks about the
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Bible makes the man equipped for every good work, the other passage doesn't mention
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Scripture. So I say they should both be interpreted together. In other words, it doesn't have to be mentioned in every passage.
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You don't have to mention Scripture every time. And the other one doesn't have to mention tradition.
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It doesn't rule out that there is a tradition. Well, there you go.
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How do you respond to that? Well, you know, Ephesians chapter 4 does talk about the gifting the body. And it talks about the gifts that the guys give.
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Speaking of truth and love, we are to grow up in all aspects unto him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.
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So thus I say, and affirm together with the Lord that you walking along with Gentiles also walking to clear their mind, etc., etc. The problem, of course, is that this is quite seriously one of the things
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I've said about Mr. Armstrong and about many Catholic apologists from the very beginning. They don't do exegesis, and they don't know how to.
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Of course, I could argue that they're not allowed to, in the sense that when you depend upon an infallible magisterium and you don't believe in sola scriptura, what really is the motivation for doing in -depth, consistent exegesis anyways?
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But that is not a relevant commentary on 2
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Timothy chapter 3. Because when you go to 2 Timothy chapter 3, the context is
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Paul writing to Timothy in light of false teachers who are going to grow worse and worse, just as in Acts chapter 20 when he says to the
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Ephesian elders that after I leave, I know that men will arise from among you speaking perverse things. In both contexts, we have the issue of doctrine and teaching.
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And Paul is saying to Timothy, look, Timothy, as the man of God, doing what? Doing what the man of God must do.
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Teaching, doctrine, didaskalia. Timothy, where are you going to turn for teaching?
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You're going to turn to that which is theanustos, to the scriptures, to reprove, to rebuke, to train in righteousness, to do the ministry of the man of God in the church.
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Timothy, what's going to be your source? Timothy, it's going to be that which is theanustos.
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And because the scriptures are God -breathed, then you as the man of God will be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
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Now, to say that the scriptures are sufficient to equip you for every good work, and hence to establish sola scriptura, is not the same thing.
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And this was part of Armstrong's misrepresentation at the beginning. It's, you know, you out in the woods with your Bible. The truth of the matter is, is that there are many tools, there are many things that are available that God has given to the church for her ministry and her work.
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But that does not address the source of the teaching and the doctrine that is to be the man of God's in the ministry in the church.
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This is a clear confusion of categories. And the only result would have to be that we'd have to deny that the
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Holy Spirit is relevant, or have to deny the church has authority. All these dead -end roads they want you to try to go down, which none of us believe, but they try to make it look like that's the only option that you have.
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That's not the case. Mr. Armstrong cannot show us where tradition in his use, remember we mentioned last time, just simply the word tradition doesn't define what it means.
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You have to provide it in its context. You have to understand what it's saying in its context. We know the word tradition is used in positive ways, but what is it referring to?
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Is it referring to something that Rome only possesses through this external oral tradition?
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No, that's not the case. We saw that last week. But where will
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Mr. Armstrong find tradition in the Roman sense? And that might include both the oral and the written.
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Where is that said to be theonistos and sufficient? Oh, well, in Vatican II, maybe.
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Yeah, that's the only way you're going to be able to do it. You're not going to be able to establish this in a text description.
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Why don't they just be honest and say, you know what, the Bible doesn't teach this. The Bible teaches that we're the infallible church and we teach this.
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And so let's just go on from there. Well, the Bible doesn't teach the Romans infallible church. That forces you into all the historical issues of the papacy and Babylonian captivity church and all the rest of that neat fun stuff.
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And Matthew chapter 16, what the early church actually taught about that. And that's just one of those other very strong points for us.
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I mean, I'll tell you, listen to the debates we've had in the papacy. And they have been very, very strong because history just doesn't help you out a whole lot when you are in the position that Mr.
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Armstrong's in. So that actually takes us up to a point where actually
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I'm considering playing the commercial on this one because it was fascinating. The stuff that was talking about regards tradition and the things that they make available.
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We'll think about that next week. Not next week, Thursday evening, seven o 'clock Eastern Daylight Time, 4 p .m.