Equal Scales and Honesty in Apologetic Argumentation: Even When Criticizing the Bishop of Rome

and greens welcome to the dividing line it is Tuesday it's actually yeah this is actually the scheduled time

I think we probably threw everybody off no one no one would expect us to actually do this when we're supposed to do it but here we are and we should have pretty much regular schedule this week and then not really so much next week because I leave

Tuesday once again starting to get to know the flight crew on that flight to Heathrow by name flying to Heathrow and then unlike you know

I'm trying to remember have each year have I sort of stayed over I know

I did one year because we did something with unbelievable I stayed there in London and had a day or two or something like that then flew on to South Africa yeah but we'd planned for that so we kind of worked that into the well

I know but the point is this time it's just like shoot you through you know the point is I had a little time to adjust rather than just do the nine nine time zone type thing and a good you know right at 24 hours 22 hours well if you include all the time sitting on the runway more like 24 hours of travel down to South Africa my concern and my hope for prayer on the part of the regular listeners and supporters got a lot of listeners who are not supporters but supporters of the ministry is the the debate with Graham Codrington I think

I've been saying Condor Lee it starts to see Codrington but anyway the debate on homosexual issues

I'm not exactly certain what we're doing yet need to figure that out very quickly I expressed concern because for a while we're just gonna do homosexual marriage we can't do homosexual marriage from a

Christian perspective until you deal with homosexuality and in reading Graham's materials there's just so much that has to be challenged just must be challenged it's just pure revisionism and it's some of the best revisionism out there but that's still what it is and it's a fundamental overthrow of of the biblical perspective on on law and morality and ethics and marriage and everything so I'm not exactly sure what it's gonna end up being but hopefully it's gonna be useful and and helpful because we can't get anybody here in the

United States evidently to do it and so the point is that's the next night I mean

I get in what sometime on Thursday maybe

Thursday morning maybe I'm not really not certain it's the next night and I'll be honest with you the first day you can sort of get it through it's the second day it's toughest so nine hour nine time zone leap and then that debate

I'm not gonna be at my sharpest there's just it's just not possible so I'm gonna need to have some supernatural assistance shall we say so if you want to pray for that and then we have some

I'll be at Antioch Bible Church where I've been each time I've gone before and then down to Durban and the debates down in Durban with Yusuf Ismail and Ayub Karim and exciting stuff going on South Africa still need your assistance to help make all that happen but that starts next

Tuesday so might I be able to sneak a program in on Tuesday all depends on how packing is gone and everything else not likely but you know we'll see we'll see if things go smoothly

I mean I haven't even bothered putting my bags last trip just throw a few more things in take you know

I've already washed everything I'll just stick with what I got I guess it worked for Zurich and Kiev work

South Africa do it's gonna be hot in Johannesburg up to about 90 something and and then

Durban won't be as warm but looking forward to seeing everybody down there and your prayers for that time very very much appreciated as we are heading down to South Africa and this will be the third year we've had this great privilege to be able to do that on the 28th which this actually says

I don't know there's two dates here one's 27 I guess it was posted on 27th and it's the program for the 28th sometime last week

I began seeing on my Facebook feed a series of comments from people about the

Pope now of course all sorts of stuff going on about the Pope you know all sorts of discussion of things he was saying and the incessant promotion of socialism and things like that he very clearly is a socialist but the thing that came up was the statement that the

Pope said the cross was a failure humanly speaking and I saw that and I went oh what do you think he's saying because I know a little something about Roman Catholic theology of you know gone around the block a few times with a few

Roman Catholic apologists over the years written a few books on the subject and I know how the

Pope speaks how the papacy speaks in general I know Roman Catholicism teaches

I have criticized it for its my very first book was on this it was called the fatal flaw for crying out loud it came out in 1990 so what are we up to now you know 25 years of criticizing

Rome on this very subject but Rome doesn't say the cross was a failure

I mean because of the mass because the

Eucharistic sacrifice because of the concept of the idea that that the

Eucharistic sacrifice is limited in its effect because the whole sacramental system and the doling out of God's grace and the controlling of God's grace

I mean it's all a blasphemy against the finished work of Christ and and you know the point is we have to make that point properly and biblically and a lot of our

Arminian friends struggle for example to give I think the strongest biblical refutation of the concept of the

Eucharistic sacrifice because they don't have a clear consistent biblical doctrine of atonement to begin with they when you look at it you know if you're a synergist and you look at Hebrews 9 and 10 and Christ enters into the heavenly place having obtained eternal redemption if you're a synergist well attained the possibility of eternal redemption but not really having obtained it because as long as you're a universal atonement proponent all

Christ does is make men savable he doesn't actually save them so the the synergistic

Arminian has collapsed on the central issues to begin with and as such

I really believe that reformed theology provides the consistent only consistent biblical strongest critique of their own

Catholic system I was certainly thinking about that a lot as I was teaching through that section again in Zurich just week before last just how awesome that material is there in Hebrews well really 7 through 10 that that whole section the

F a pox ha pox the once -for -all sacrifice it's just it's beautiful and I think that reformed theology properly understands that makes application of it and hence can make a very very strong criticism of the

Roman Catholic position which I've been trying to do now for a quarter of a century beginning in those first debates in August of 1990s have been over a quarter of a century with Jerry Matta ticks back then yes

Catholic answers he was with you just thought I remind you of that anyway so once I finally got chance to listen to what was said

I was just like this is this statement is a non -issue it's it's it's searching for something and and if you have to look for something to criticize the papacy

I don't know if you've done your homework I mean you know

Francis is going around and he's celebrating mass and he's giving indulgences and so on there's there's plenty there we don't need to be making stuff up we don't need to be going to stuff that really isn't an issue that can be plainly and easily understood in a way that because Rome doesn't go around saying well the cross is a failure oh yeah

Jesus want to do something else and just just blew it that's not what they say they say it was a success that it did what

God intended it to do the problem is that it doesn't actually perfect anybody that's the issue and in fact if you miss that if you go after this other statement to make you are distracting from the real issue you're missing the point you're given the other side ammunition you are working against yourself it's just so what

I did is I posted something on Facebook it's fairly short it was fairly short but I basically said come on people there's plenty to criticize this guy for you you don't need to be making stuff up to criticize the guy well after I posted that in Twitter I saw somebody asking

JD Hall if what JD had just said was aimed at me and so I had to go do the go click on this and then see what it's in response to and so on so forth and that's when

I was eventually found the link to an article that was posted by pulpit and pen on the subject of this statement and in essence saying see the

Pope says the cross is a failure here this proves he's the Antichrist and so on and so forth and I'm like so since there were people actually defending this understanding

I took the time to write a second longer thing on Facebook basically saying come on people look at what

Rome teaches try to understand the concept of Eucharistic sacrifice this there is a way to understand this that is far more fair and it just seems like for some people being fair to a false teacher is irrelevant and I'm like wait a minute we're we're

Christians doesn't matter if it's false teacher you still have to fair that's that's just simple truthfulness that's just being honest with the material but for a lot of folks no no no no no no no that's your your for some folks it's frightening some folks seem to think that if you call for demand fairness in handling the claims and teachings of a false teacher you yourself are compromising to which

I just go where did you get your definition of truthfulness we have to that there are all sorts of effective apologetic arguments that I can never utilize because I would be compromising my commitment to Christian truth to utilize them they may be very effective they may have a great emotional impact upon somebody someone might be making hay with those arguments over in such -and -such a place but it's still simply not an option for a

Christian believer if we have the proper commitments to the issue of truthfulness integrity if we claim to be following him who is the truth we we have to bend over backwards even if people don't do that to us even if people mistreat us even if people are constantly saying untruths about us and and misinterpreting every word we ever said and of course that happens to me all the time it happens

J .D. Hall all the time too and so for me I am especially sensitive to it because I experience it all the time

I have people constantly say well you said such -and -such I said what all right here you said such -and -such look at it how could you possibly rip that out of that context and read into it whatever you jolly well want to read

I wouldn't even talking about that yeah but you said it okay so if I am going to say that's an improper thing to do that I really really have to labor to not do that to other people

I'm a human being I've done it inadvertently against my own my own proper commitments and so I wrote this thing and said look folks and this time

I when I wrote this when I wrote the first one hadn't didn't know anything about what JD had written didn't know anything about the pulp and pen thing

I think he assumed that I was talking about him I wasn't because I didn't know about it once I read it wrote the second one yeah then

I'm like no no no no come on guys this is this is just not not the way to do it well

I came into channel yesterday we had a fairly lengthy conversation and channel about the subject didn't really get anywhere

I was providentially hindered from doing anything further about it yesterday for various reasons and so I think it is it was is helpful and will be useful to listen to what

JD had to say and and I'm gonna offer a correction and I'm gonna offer a different perspective and I think that I'm being consistent and some people might say but but you're defending the

Pope I'm defending the Pope in the sense that he was not uttering blasphemy at this particular point in time okay he does lots of other times

I mean he other than his loopy liberalism and his socialism and stuff like that I was the one last week talking about hello people this man claims to be

Holy Father this man is an altar Christus this man claims to be Vicar of Christ he's giving indulgences let's talk about what indulgences are let's talk about the tsarist meritorium but you see that takes reading lots of stuff knowing lots about Roman Catholic theology and the sacramental system and I'll I get it this is easier you can play a sound bite and go wow listen to that Antichrist speaks um there are some really sharp

Roman Catholic apologists now most of them are in hiding right now but that they are out there they're feeling little put upon beat up no you know tired of having to spin old

Frankie every day just about but there's some sharp people out there and I just have to notice that a lot of folks who are jumping on the bandwagon here don't have a lot of experience in dealing with these people in fact don't seem to have ever debated them at all and so I offer correction as one who has about a quarter -century experience dealing in this particular area in this particular subject and a few books under the belt and and just trying to say you know what we need to make sure that our criticisms are accurate because there's some sharp people on the other side that will benefit greatly from inaccurate criticisms on this particular subject so let's take a listen to what

JD had to say and I'll respond to it among his words were the following and I'll just go ahead and play the clip for you and if at times our efforts and works seem to fail and not produce fruit we need to remember that we are followers of Jesus Christ and his life humanly speaking ended in failure the failure of the cross now

I would love to see the original because again this is live translation and got a lot experience in that area but let's just let's just go with what's there when

I hear that trying to listen to him within the context of Roman Catholic teaching

I hear him saying that we experience difficulties and trials and failures in this life we follow

Jesus Christ remember that his life ended in what was humanly speaking a failure the death on the cross and I go okay first Corinthians chapter 1 death of Jesus on the cross is considered foolishness to the world it's a stumbling block to the

Jews because they never expected the Messiah to suffer in such a way the whole idea of dying on a cross is so reprehensible from the world's perspective humanly speaking dying on a

Roman cross is not the demonstration of the Messiah's ascendancy to power I mean this just it seems rather obvious to me this is not a papal encyclical this is not a papal bull it is an address being given if you know anything about Roman Catholic theology that means it's it's not official it's not on the subject that we're even talking about here it's actually said in passing so there is no basis for making a mountain out of a molehill here and when you do all that time you're spending doing that is time you're not spending focusing upon the real issues in regards to the teachings of the papacy and things like that all right so there you go so let's go on and that's why we call you an antichrist right there that's that that does it well the post has now okay do

I think the Pope's an antichrist well he's not the antichrist he is an antichrist because antichrist story is found in first John and plural a lot of people forget about that because they're more familiar with how

Lindsay and blood moons than they are of the text of New Testament there are many antichrists and anyone who teaches a gospel opposed to the true gospel is an antichrist and so Roman Catholicism Islam Mormonism Jehovah's Witnesses all of that would be representative of a system that is anti Christos and if you're the head of that system then you would be an anti Christos one of the anti Christ but that would be the truth of the of the prophet of the

Mormon Church to or the head of the governing body of Jehovah's Witnesses or or whatever else if you are promulgating a message that is specifically opposed to Christ then you would fit there now historically there have been all sorts of understandings of what the antichrist is and for example

Luther had a spiritual antichrist and a physical antichrist the spiritual antichrist of the

Pope the physical antichrist was the Muslims okay all right well no one who doesn't want to get laughed at is going to suggest that in any way

I am soft on the papacy I mean you know

I could bury any of that in so much documentation and debate that it just isn't even funny but being opposed the papacy does not give you the right to misrepresent the papacy and even if you think the

Pope is the Antichrist your commitment to Christ demands truthfulness in what you state concerning even what the

Antichrist says okay that's that's my thesis do with it as you will 1 .1

thousand shares and anytime we get over a thousand shares or even even 500 shares we'll have some we'll have some blowback and pushback from from all different angles it's just that's just going to happen when you have a website that's as well read as the pulp and pen you know what let me get on my soapbox here for just a moment because again this entire show is kind of my soapbox

I want to know how they determine you know the top 20 Christian blogs because I've seen that two years in a row we outrank 80 % of them that are listed by Christianity Today or different organizations we outrank 80 % of them on Alexa we have more and I look at their analytic analytics it's usually a combination of Alexa ranking

Facebook shares we beat 80 % of them still don't make it on the list maybe they don't consider us a Christian website but whenever you have a website as well read as pulp and pen is and you know you have a post with that many shares you get you get pushback just it's going to happen here's what

I wrote of course for the Church of Rome the cross is a failure the crucifixion must be made again at every mass only effectual when combined with the works of men now

I just stopped of course the Church of Rome the cross is a failure that's not what they say that is a in a it is a critique that we can make once we lay the proper foundation in an understanding the sacramental system of the

Eucharistic sacrifice and having established of the proper intention of the atonement union of the elect with Christ there's just a lot of it

I fatal flaw there's a chapter on it in the Roman Catholic controversy maybe two chapters don't remember it's that's been well 20 years now too but you can establish those things but Rome does not say that and the

Pope said humanly speaking he did not say we are saying this he said humanly speaking so it's just plain as the nose on my face that this is not dealing with what the

Pope intended to communicate at that point in time we've already left that we've already gone somewhere else and I question the propriety and the wisdom of doing this why not take this time to read from Vatican to to read from Trent to read from indulgent

ER endulgent ERM doctrina something like that I just I don't see where this is supposed to go or is where it's supposed to be helpful the

Bishop of Rome ended his homily with oh by the way I am playing this at 1 .2 again I don't know why I keep telling people that but just in case well

I guess you know what the Planned Parenthood stuff these are edited videos yeah I sort of feel like okay

I'm editing this I'm playing it at 1 .2 he's Magnificat saying let us come in to our lady the work we have been entrusted to do the

Pope ended in other words with an appeal to a dead woman our self -righteous works and for this beloved it is

Catholicism in a nutshell but for we Protestants let us end with this lift high the cross the love of Christ proclaim till all the world adore his sacred name come brethren follow where our captain trod our

King victorious Christ the Son of God led on their way by this triumphant sign the hosts of God in conquering ranks combined that's simple and as we saw the post increase we had criticism some criticism came from a man that I very much respect and that is

James White and it came from other corners let me stop here for a moment and this is irrespective of James's criticism first of all let me say this okay charge that pulpit and pen misrepresented okay

I for some reason it wouldn't stop and I had to click someplace else and now

I guess figure out where we were it's first time this program has ever done that to me but I I kept hitting stop stop stop stop and it wouldn't stop again my this my initial comments had nothing

I didn't I didn't know I I I mean this came out on Sunday I think this happened but on Saturday I don't remember maybe on Sunday too

I don't remember but my initial comments sorry didn't have I didn't know that JD had gotten involved with this particular criticism didn't know

I was just seeing stuff on my feed made the comment and then other people started making a connection and so I came to it late so let me see if I can find where we were a man in our church has recently stopped identifying with Christ Wow oh

I see what happened it scrolled backwards how did it do that I have no earthly idea

I've never had that happen before among his words were the following and I'll just go ahead and play the clip for you okay now that's where we started that's good we're in the general neighborhood here so if someone wants to make the charge that's that's out of context that's not if you look at the entire transcript you'll see that first of all let me say this any charge that led on their way by this triumphant sign the hosts of God in conquering irrespective of James's criticism okay should be right about that simple and as we saw this increase we had criticism some criticism came from a man that I very much respect and that is

James White and it came from other corners let me stop here for a moment and this is irrespective of James's criticism first of all let me say this any charge that pulpit and pin misrepresented the

Pope is preposterous now I'm a little concerned about this because you can play the clip you can quote the words but if you ignore the context you're still misrepresenting it

I mean there is a theology of Rome there was a topic of the talk and none of it is supportive of the reading that JD's giving it and many others gave it it's just not supportive of it

I'm sorry so you can quote all you want you can still misrepresent someone even though you quote them accurately so I don't

I don't get that part I am saying that if you are saying that it was the

Pope's intention to communicate that the Roman Catholic Church's perspective is that Christ failed on the cross that's not what the

Pope said and no fair reading of his words will ever give that to you so I you you can quote all you want but if you then run off and read all sorts of stuff into it that and then you don't provide a substantiation for that in the immediate context and demonstrate from the talk this was in this is what he wanted to communicate this was his intention then you're still misrepresenting him we linked the entire transcript of his words we posted his words then on video then we posted not just a link but the words pertinent to this quotation in transcript form on the website if you look at the entire transcript you'll see that he changed subjects he was done speaking about the failure of the cross at that point so there was absolutely no context that was there that we did not give so let me say a couple things about that charge first of all it is impossible to take someone out of context when you provide the context and you provide every bit of context that was present that's not true

I'm sorry that's just not true you can quote the entirety of the context and then ignore it you can read stuff into it which is what's being done which is what a number of people have done in this particular instance it doesn't you know you can say

I've got the entire book right here okay but if you're not accurately representing what it says what the intention of the author was how many times have people held up one of my books and what they were saying was absolutely positively ridiculous so I'm sorry doesn't matter how often you quote it if you're not accurately representing it you can still misrepresent the thing that's

I mean that's that's obvious so if someone wants to make the charge that's out of context that's not a context well what context was absent from our presentation in other words what could we have added of the context to be free of the charge of taking it out of context well maybe some knowledge of Roman Catholic theology maybe something to demonstrate this was what he was talking about in the talk maybe something that would explain why given that he's he's talking about our experience of failure and difficulty in this life that that's not the context of humanly speaking

I mean it just again it just seems like such a long reach here and there's no reason for this there just isn't any reason to go here given there's so much stuff already that we could be talking about and should be talking about and almost nobody else was talking about that to be spending time on this it's a sort of a shame and the answer is nothing we provided all of the context in his own words in three different ways for you to judge for yourself if someone wants to claim misrepresentation

I would say how and the answer is not that you misrepresented him not that you changed his words around not that you edited the video no only that you didn't come to the same conclusions in terms of what he meant that the cross and Jesus is a failure in human terms or humanly speaking is the way that he phrased that humanly speaks matter of fact let me make sure

I get that right yeah humanly speaking we're followers of Jesus Christ in his life humanly speaking in it and failure that the failure of the cross okay yeah we are saying that the conclusion you came to misrepresents the intention of the

Pope and that it is inappropriate to say that what the Pope intended to communicate was that the cross is in the perspective of the

Roman Catholic Church speaking as the head of the Roman Catholic Church a failure I mean that would be so that would require such a massive context that's nowhere in this talk that once again simple concern for accuracy honesty and really getting to the main points this is this is the issue it seems that for a lot of folks in the discernment area today they they get fixated on certain things and just can't step back far enough to start getting the big context and the big context and dealing with Roman Catholicism is focusing upon the nature of the gospel the nature of the work of Christ and that's not what he was talking about here so why are we spending time on this well

I'm doing it because I was specifically mentioned this program and I think that it's necessary even given the relationship the

JD and I have had in the past to just honestly air this and say we disagree here's why and I think

I'm right and if JD thinks he's right then let

JD demonstrate that he knows more about Roman Catholicism than I do and that there's something in the context here that all the rest of us have missed but there isn't anything in the context here to provide sufficient basis for making the accusation that was made well you're defending the papacy no

I'm not I'm defending simple honesty and argumentation and as I said to JD in the chat channel yesterday dude you have been attacked falsely so many times on by this very methodology that you of all people should be the most sensitive to doing this in return

I've defended JD against some wild -eyed accusations that people have made and you all know what that was all about the canner situation and so I just think if you're gonna if you're gonna demand that the people be fair in their treatment of JD Hall then

JD Hall needs to be fair in this treatment of other people whether it's the Pope or not and that's that's

I think what really causes a lot of people problem well it's the Pope for crying out loud yeah so so what you think that Paul felt it would have been incorrect for him to lie about the

Judaizers even though they're false brother standard of truth standard truth we can't go there we just can't go there some would say as they have well listen that's a correct statement because humanly speaking it did end in failure well listen there's 37 ,000 views of this on YouTube 37 ,000 views a lot of people have seen it if you look at the comments a lot of people would take it the exact same way that we did that was the weakest comment of everything in this who cares

I mean really argumentum ad populum you're gonna you're gonna appeal to YouTube comments there there is a reason that I don't even have

YouTube comments because what have I called them I is internet ignorance aggregators how many people commenting on this have a scintilla of meaningful knowledge of Roman Catholic theology including the

Roman Catholics almost none this is not a meaningful argument and it needs to be withdrawn and I would say apologized for because this hey have you ever seen how many how many people commented on know that Armenian servant that means it must be right really okay all right well

I when I heard that when I was like hey fill an airtime there but you can't make it a meaningful argument which is humanly speaking it's not a caveat that diminishes the rest of what he said now when people say that's not what he meant though that's not what

I am NOT a stinking psychic believe it or not I do not share the incommunicable attribute of God of omniscience

I don't know what was happening in his brain I don't live in the Pope's brain I assume that's where Satan hangs out because he is the

Antichrist I don't hang out in his brain well okay um some might possibly suggest this introduces an element of bias on your part

I mean I just would ask you to reverse the roles there and you might understand why

I say that but you're assuming you know because he's the one who said humanly speaking in the human context and unless you have something else in his teaching where he has decided to overthrow the entirety of the

Roman Catholic tradition on the subject of the cross then you just don't have a basis for saying what you're saying he was making a parallel in regards to how the world humanly speaking viewed the death of Christ to expand it beyond that there's no need to there's never a need to there never was and now to say that somehow we have to engage in mind reading only demonstrates that we shouldn't have gone here in the first place nobody should have gone here in the first place there wasn't any reason to case proven

I can guess but here's what I'm not going to do I'm not going to assign to the

Pope of Rome let me repeat I'm not going to assign to the Pope of Rome Orthodox motives in his theology which would be a first time ever when was the last time he was

Orthodox so when the Pope says there is one true

God he doesn't really mean there's one true God and when he says

God exists as father son and Holy Spirit he doesn't really mean these father son

Holy Spirit he actually believes in a quadrinity because Mary needs to be put in there and and when he says the

Jesus rose but he doesn't really see the see the problem here this this is what happens when anti -catholicism goes awry goes too far where it becomes we don't have to worry about the accuracy of what we're saying about somebody because they're in this group

I'm not I don't believe that the Pope was even addressing an issue where we have disagreement if he was talking about the efficacy of Roman Catholic sacraments if he was talking about what the

Roman Catholic Mass accomplishes I sort of doubt this guy actually holds to a historically

Orthodox view from the Roman Catholic perspective of the mass

I'll be perfectly honest with you because I have a feeling he's minimally an inclusivist and he could well be a universalist but he's not talking about that that's not what this is about you can't you can't squeeze this theological blood out of this rock because he's not talking about any of that stuff that's the problem there's not enough here to even begin going there he's got all sorts of other why aren't we talking about statements he's made other places on other topics we're not we're talking about statement that just simply did not say anything that was objectionable but we've decided to throw it in there anyways unfortunately the chief complaint is well wasn't

Jesus's death on the cross wasn't it a failure humanly speaking

I'm gonna quote dr. white here the whole point of 1st Corinthians 118 excuse me that's the whole point of 1st

Corinthians 118 let me back up let me get the whole paragraph his meaning was obvious James says it was not coded it was not difficult to discern even the slightest fairness on the part of any person listening would yield his intention okay well you may be smarter than me thank you for knowing what's going on in the

Pope's head and again I'm so glad it's Orthodox this time around Katie come on that's ridiculous

I don't know what's going on the Pope's head but I know what he said and I know what the context is about and I can recognize when somebody is reaching

I can recognize when somebody is dealing with someone unfairly and since you have been treated unfairly you need to learn to do the same thing because if you don't you don't have any basis to complain when somebody else then does the same thing to you it's simple even scales and yeah

I've stood in large Roman Catholic churches and put this to practice

I've stood in mosques and demanded even scales so I'm I'm not a perfect man and I'm not infallible and I don't have the ability to read people's minds but I can at least tell everybody we need to use the same standards for everyone and in this case you and many others didn't do that you're using one standard for him that you would never accept if it was applied to you and in fact have not accepted when it has been applied to you there's my argument

I think it's pretty straightforward I think it's pretty clear he said that Jesus death from a human perspective all caps was a failure and it was that's the whole point of first Corinthians 118 isn't it from a human perspective

Jesus death at the hands of the Romans was the very definition of a quote -unquote failure I've had to explain this over and over and over again to Muslims who reject the death of Christ for this very same reason there simply was not anything in the statement as offered that was objectionable let me repeat that there simply was not anything in the statement as offered that was objectionable nothing it is a non -issue zip empty and then a more or less a fair -minded well articulated rebuke of not arguing fairly etc so let's look at first Corinthians if we should or if we could and we should first Corinthians chapter 1 verse 18

I want to make sure that I don't take anything out of context and I don't say anything that it's not there isn't that fair and if we do that with the

Pope can we do that with the scripture for the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing but to us who are being saved it is the power of God now foolishness essentially means moronic it's stupid when someone who is not a believer hears the message of the cross their attitude is doesn't that say a lot of words hey when people do that they roll their eyes and go stupid it's that's foolish it's foolish to those who are perishing but to us who are being saved it is the power of God now not to exegete not to take anything out of context not to misapply the meaning of Paul to the church in Corinth at which point does

Paul mention here as James's proof text would say or so we would assert that the cross of Christ and he put it in quotes is a failure

I don't see well let me uh let me point that out to you because obviously

I was referring to this entire section and if you identify the core teaching of the gospel which is of course what halagas to staru is as Maria as foolishness then you are saying his death was non -redemptive his death was empty his death was foolish and hence his death was a failure

I think everyone understands that even the Pope put it in that context and it goes on and of course

I intended everyone to think of the whole section of this discussion in 1st

Corinthians chapter 1 goes on to talk about the reality that that in the wisdom of God the world to its wisdom not come to know

God and that the what the world calls foolishness is in fact from God's perspective wisdom and he talks about the fact that for the

Jews when we preach Christ crucified to the Jews that's a stumbling block why because the death of Christ would be considered a failure to the

Jews because the Messiah wasn't supposed to die anyone who dies upon a

Roman cross is not succeeding they have been defeated they have been destroyed they have been humiliated the preaching of the cross is to them they're perishing foolishness it's a stumbling block to the

Jews it's foolishness to the Gentiles but to those who are called both Jews and Greeks Christ the power of God the wisdom of God and even the assertion verse 25 for the weakness of God is stronger than man what's the weakness of God well it's it's that message about the crucified

Messiah but its strength is not found in the physical realm it is found spiritually and what is accomplished therein so I think my point was sort of obvious and I think that the

Pope's point was pretty obvious at the same time that's why I said there wasn't anything really objectionable there we are tilting at windmills we're not we don't have anything here that is really worthwhile but is a failure

I don't see quotation marks around the word failure or the word failure in first Corinthians 118 the

Bible nowhere speaks of death and the cross as a failure perhaps the stupidity foolishness we don't get it it's kind of dumb doesn't make sense not as a failure that's the first thing

I would say if there's any taking something out of context if there's anything that is misrepresentation the only thing that has been misrepresented is this interpretation of first Corinthians 118 so I am guilty of misrepresenting first Corinthians 118 because I point out as the

Pope was pointing out that the parallel he himself was making was that from humanly speaking the cross was a failure and because the word failure the word doesn't appear then the concepts not there and the humanly speaking part

I'm sorry that at this point I was just going now we're getting desperate seriously

JD come on is is it is it possible that you know you might have just made a wrong statement and it would be okay to go all right all right doesn't doesn't seem that you're willing to do that because foolishness may start with an

F and so does failure but those words don't mean the same things I will allow that to stand as its own statement

I think I know that you know don't think it's relevant to the issue but I think I know that now secondly the second reason why

I insist that this is not a non -issue this is nothing not it nothing's there nothing here's why

I say that's not the case when we see what the Pope meant in the illustration that he was trying to provide we understand that he wasn't speaking in the hypothetical his point was listen we as Christians sometimes fail to quote the

Pope again the cross shows us a different way of measuring success ours is to plant the seeds God sees to the fruits of our labors and by the way of course you know what he's talking about he's been talking about environmentalism he's been talking about taking care of immigrants especially the illegal variety social justice type you know the poor and so forth and if at times our efforts and work seem to fail and not produce fruit we need to remember that we are followers of Jesus Christ and his life humanly speaking ended in failure the failure of the cross what the

Pope is arguing is that it's alright if our work seem as a failure because Jesus Christ and his life humanly speaking ended in failure the failure of the cross it wasn't as though the

Pope is saying some people saw Christ's death in the cross is failure but that indeed it was at least humanly speaking not speaking from a worldly perspective now when dr.

Ryan says listen now I'm I just stop here and just go what I mean really

I I don't it was difficult for me to even follow what was being said there because you're trying to get him to say something that he just didn't say see this is what happens when you try to load a passing statement with far more weight than the context will allow it just it comes apart it comes apart he was making a passing statement about how

Christian works and if you want to talk about we have a Christian works for him or different Christian works from irrelevant people come on get fair for a second his point was that Christians from a human perspective often fail even when trying to do good deeds but you know what we follow

Christ we follow his example and from the world's perspective man

I'll tell you standing up there on Calvary's Hill he did not look like the model of success we all understand that that's why the

Spirit of God has to be the one to make the message of the cross come alive in people's hearts because otherwise foolishness absolute foolishness from the world's perspective that dead body on the cross is failure from our perspective it's very power of God but the

Pope wasn't talking about all the theological ramifications that people want to try to read into his statements and if you can't see that I don't know what to say to you

I don't know what to say to you but I will tell you this whatever you do whatever you do don't go debate

Roman Catholic apologists if this is how you argue please please pretty please with sugar and honey on top that's what my mom used to say because they will shred you they will take you apart they will make you look silly because they don't have your best interest in heart you know

I do they don't so please don't take this into the into the debating realm with with a

Tim Staples or a Jimmy Akin or a Patrick Madrid or a Scott Hahn or any others that we can name because they will make you pay for refusing to put a meaningful context around such statements besides that Francis has given us a plethora of contextualized statements that we could be looking at a plethora of odd things who am

I to judge he says well this just wasn't one of them this is just one that somebody decided to glom on to and I don't think

JD started this I could suppose could be wrong close he was following I guess he could have been following everything the

Pope is that I started doubt it somebody else I assume glommed on to this and dumped a huge weight of theological argumentation on a statement that was never intended to communicate any of it any of it and so here we sit and we've spent the entire hour talking about it and I hope that you understand why

I did this not because well I want to get into a fight with JD Hall it's last thing in the world I want to do but consistency consistency is the hallmark of truth if inconsistency is a sign of a failed argument then consistency is the hallmark of truth and as Christians we must fight against the temptation to drop that standard when we're dealing with people that were absolutely convinced are in falsehood we can't do that Jesus didn't do that we cannot follow after that way of thinking it's simply absolutely impossible and so the whole reason

I've done this is not to defend Francis no one who's watched this program could ever honestly say all right

I just think you're getting soft on the papacy that's ridiculous it's absurd what I am saying is when you pick on stuff that's irrelevant when you pick on stuff that does not carry the water you think it carries you actually diminish the meaningful arguments against the papacy you make us all look bad you make us all look bad when bad arguments are put out there then that diminishes from the force the time of expression and the force of the good arguments that's what has caused me to invest this time in this is

I am concerned that we remain focused upon the main things and the plain things and not get dragged off into stuff like this don't get dragged off into stuff like this that's why

I've taken the time to this I didn't I didn't know how long it would take but it took up the whole hour but again trying to be consistent even when it's friends that are