WWUTT 2565 Q&A Evangelizing Roman Catholics, Complementarianism vs. Patriarchy, Pastors Casting Vision

What is a good and loving way that we can evangelize to Roman Catholics? What is the difference between complementarianism and patriarchy? And is it good to cast vision for your church? The answers to these questions when we Understand the Text.

This is When we Understand the Text, a daily Bible commentary to help encourage your time in the Word. Tell all your friends about our ministry at www .utt .com. Now back online, here once again is Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky.

You're welcome.

Yes, the website was down for a little bit.

Uh-oh.

I'll mention that here in a moment, but first, beginning with Psalm 104, the very end of the psalm, I will sing to the Lord as long as I live. I will sing praise to my God while I have being. May my meditation be pleasing to him, for I rejoice in the Lord.

Let sinners be consumed from the earth, and let the wicked be no more. Bless the Lord, O my soul. Praise the Lord.

Mm.

Babe.

Yes?

Welcome back to the program.

Thank you.

We did not have anything last week, anything during this week, because we were just spending the time recuperating.

Yes.

So, thank you for letting us have that time.

Very much, yes.

Even after I was feeling okay, I felt like I was working from behind.

Uh-huh.

I was just trying to record.

Catch up.

Yeah, record podcasts after the day would have passed that they should have aired already.

Yeah.

So, I just decided, all right, I'm going to take this next week off, work ahead. I'll get ahead on everything, and now here we are.

Yay.

We're back.

We're back.

Including the website.

Yes.

Because as you mentioned, the website's back online.

Uh-huh.

It was down for a while. Somebody actually left a comment on the Facebook page, like, what in the world happened to the what site?

Aw.

It's like it's selling a mortgage to me or something, like it's a lending website. Well, that was my fault.

Uh-oh. Whoops.

So, we've moved the website, as I mentioned was going to happen, and I had to come up with a template. Well, at first, I could not get the domain to work, because it still had the domain assignment of the previous website that we were on, and our host for our domain was not letting me delete it.

Oh, okay.

So, I had to figure that out, but I needed a placeholder for the website, so when I typed the website address in, it would actually take me somewhere, and I could see that it worked.

Right.

So, I just grabbed a template and stuck it in there.

Uh-huh.

So, the name what would come up, but the rest of the website would be just whatever was on that template.

Okay.

And it was like a mortgage lending site or something.

That's hilarious.

I mean, you could have applied for a mortgage. You weren't going to get anything.

Right.

But that was...

You would have been denied.

You would have been denied.

What is taking these guys so long? I need to buy this house. Who knew that what was getting into so much stuff?

Well, we're not expanding that much.

Yeah, right. Ministry isn't growing like that. But you can go to the website now. I still haven't worked out dropping the World Wide Web part, so you have to type in the.

Oh, I gotcha.

Www .wwtt .com. I'm working on that, trying to get that figured out. And the site's still under construction, but at least you've got the basics, the podcast, the videos. If you click on Contact, you can email us when we understand the text at gmail .com or send us a voicemail.

The voicemail link is back on there, it's just not on the front of the page yet.

Yay.

But if you click on Contact, you can click on voicemail, record us a message from either your phone or your computer, and then we respond to those messages right here on the Friday Q &A.

Yes.

Well, babe, Lent has started.

It has.

We don't do that.

No.

But I did ask this poll question, who was going to be participating in Lent? It's not just a Roman Catholic thing, even some Protestants do it.

Yes.

So I'm going to read you the results of that poll question a little bit later on.

I'm curious.

But our first question does have to do with Roman Catholicism.

Okay.

So this is Zach from Surprise, Arizona. Hi, Pastor Gabe. I sent this as a voicemail before the holidays, but the chaos of your top stories in 2025 through all of that, it never got answered. Not sure what happened, but here we go again.

I don't even remember this question in the voicemail, so I totally missed it. What are some key points to hit when speaking with Roman Catholics? There is a couple at our church who we've recently become very close with.

The wife is a believer, solid as they come, but her husband professes to be a Roman Catholic. He attends a Reformed Baptist church, hears the gospel on a weekly basis, but still holds a strong conviction of the infallibility of the church, veneration of Mary and the saints, and even transubstantiation.

I've seen the divide this has had within their marriage and in parenting their young daughter, and I'm curious if you have any pointers as to how to have these discussions with him. We love this family deeply, and we want to help him see his error and come to a true saving knowledge.

Grace and peace to you and your family and your church. So this is real complicated, Zach. I want to tell you, yeah, here's a great formula that you can follow to evangelize to a Roman Catholic, but these conversations are always different.

They are.

I don't know what you're going to start on, like what's going to trigger the conversation anyway. What topic are you going to begin on? Do you need to swerve it to a different topic? Is he going to be the one to bring it up?

Are you going to bring it up? So there are various different ways in which you could enter this kind of conversation, but here's two things that you need to have ready before you enter into this kind of conversation.

First of all, you need to know your doctrine.

Yes.

So you need to know.

That is helpful.

Exactly. You need to know what you believe as a Christian and what the Bible says, especially having certain passages of scripture memorized. Things like Romans 4, 5, to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.

Romans 5, 1, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, for by grace you have been saved through faith and this is not of yourselves.

It is the gift of God, not a result of works so that no one may boast.

Right.

Also a good one. And that's just some examples, but you need to know what you believe and be very well grounded in it.

And if you can't remember the whole verses, maybe just remember the references and pull.

Them up.

Or you can have like notes, like I have a thing on my phone that says that you can take notes on it and then you can write the references there or even a link there and then it automatically takes you to help you get there faster.

Right.

So just some thoughts.

Because the thing that's going to be the most convincing will be what the Bible says.

Oh, yes.

It's going to be a lot of his tradition versus a lot of your knowledge of scripture. And scripture is going to win out on that. If it comes to his conversion toward recognizing the errors of Roman Catholicism and the truth of what the Bible says, you need to rest mostly upon what scripture says.

But also understanding the basics of your own doctrine. So as Protestants, we believe in the five solos of the Protestant Reformation. So according to scripture alone, which is our highest authority, Roman Catholics are going to believe that tradition is just as authoritative as scripture.

In fact, scripture comes from their tradition. That's what they're going to argue. We wouldn't even have the Bible if it wasn't for our tradition. Some Roman Catholics will go there. Understanding that we're saved by the grace of God alone, by faith in Jesus Christ alone, to the glory of God alone.

Right.

I combined two solos in there, but yeah.

I was thinking so.

Yeah. Yeah.

By faith alone in Christ alone.

There you go.

Would be separating them out. But anyway.

Yeah.

Understanding the basics of what we believe, what we understand about our doctrine. Because of course, the Roman Catholics are going to add things to that. It's never by faith alone. It's faith plus works.

Right.

So number two. So number one, you need to know your own doctrine. Number two, you need to be aware of some of the main tenets that Roman Catholics believe. So it would be wrong to say that a Roman Catholic does not believe in Christ or the cross.

Right.

Of course they do.

Of course.

In fact, you can hear the message of the gospel in a Roman Catholic church.

Yes.

That's not the problem.

Right.

The problem is all the other things that come on top of that. So that the gospel gets lost or hidden or minimized. And so when your friend is talking about certain things like grace, he's going to say that he believes in grace.

But is it grace alone or is it grace plus works? Is it faith alone or is it faith plus all these other things that I have to do to merit or maintain or work my salvation? Is it in Christ alone or is it also Mary and the saints or what my priest says or what the Pope says?

Is it by scripture alone or is it all this other tradition on top of that as well, as I kind of mentioned?

Right.

So those are some things you need to be aware of regarding what Roman Catholics believe. You need to know your own doctrine. You need to know what they believe. And there's some good resources that you can go to to look that kind of thing up for the gospel.

Costi Hinn's ministry.

Yes.

Has some great things on there about Roman Catholicism, especially when it comes to transubstantiation. So for those who are not aware, transubstantiation is the belief that the bread and the cup literally transform into the actual flesh and blood of Jesus.

Right.

In the mass, in the Roman Catholic communion.

Right.

I did a video on that not long ago. So if you go to the what channel and you look for the video that I did, which was called a shocking admission by a Catholic priest. So that whole video goes through transubstantiation and what scripture actually says in response.

To it.

Because often the Roman Catholic response is going to be, well, Jesus said, this is my body.

Right.

Jesus said, this is my blood. So who am I going to believe? I'm going to believe you or am I going to believe Jesus that it really does become his body and it really does become his blood? Well, they're missing some things that scripture says about that.

And so that video will take you through those things as well. If you're looking that up.

Yeah.

A couple of things that I wouldn't mind putting in.

Okay, sure. Well, you are a former Catholic.

Yes.

So, okay.

Yes.

So the first thing is just like there are many different beliefs under, say, Baptist umbrella.

Yeah.

You know, it's good to ask them for what they believe rather than telling them they believe.

This.

And if you kind of have to get it to a point where you have them admit to, oh yeah, I pray to the saints or I pray to Mary. And then you can explain that as, okay, well, they're not able to, you know, go from that standpoint rather than, well, you pray to Mary and the saints and you worship them and that sort of thing.

Because they don't look at it as worship, even though that's essentially what they're.

Doing.

Right.

They don't even look at it as prayer, even though the Roman Catholic catechism literally says that they pray to Mary.

Yes.

Yes.

And so these are like the layman talking points that Roman Catholics will constantly fall back on.

Yeah.

And then the other thing is I don't recommend attacking all the points at once, maybe just like one or two to begin with. And then eventually as their eyes start opening up like mine did, it was very like, it was just enlightening to be like, oh, well, that's not true.

Then what else is not true? And they'll start looking and being hungry for what else is, what else did I misunderstand? You know, and what else does the Bible say that we were misled kind of thing. And so that really gets them not feeling under attack.

And especially since you love them and their family, it's good to do it in a non-hostile.

Way.

Yeah.

But it's very easy to offend because this is what we've known all our lives. This is what our whole family does. This is generations and generations of doing this. And so how are all these people wrong, you know?

And so it's good to come about it from a loving perspective.

Right. Yeah.

You're not going to get very far if you jump right into it. Going, well, the Pope is the Antichrist.

Yeah.

That doesn't really fly very far.

It's not going to get you far in that conversation.

Unless it depends on which Pope you're talking about. But I digress.

Yeah, because your grandfather, who was Roman Catholic, he didn't like Francis.

Through and through he was Roman Catholic. And he up and left the mass during one of the times that the priest was quoting the Pope. And he was just like, nope.

Not that guy.

Left.

Well, at that time, you had two Popes to pick from because you had Benedict and Francis at the same time.

Right.

And he was just not having it.

So anyway, and coming back to scripture, as I said, again, and one of those things that if your Catholic friend is talking about certain things that they believe or even what Jesus said about something or whatever, ask the question, like, where is that in the Bible?

Mm hmm.

So praying the rosary, for example.

Yeah. Okay.

You pray the rosary. You're praying to Mary. Where does the Bible tell you to do that?

Mm hmm.

So that's a way that you bring it back to scripture. Now you're putting it on them to have to establish who is the authority regarding this teaching.

Right.

Is it because the Pope said it or is it because the scripture actually said it?

Mm hmm.

Jesus said it this way in the Bible. And so we're supposed to pray like this.

Right.

And part of that prayer does not include praying to his mom.

Right.

Or even asking his mom for prayer.

Hailing to her.

Yes. Exactly. So anyway, just kind of some pointers there. Hopefully we'll help you out in that conversation. But I'm glad that you desire to want to help your friends see the truth.

And thank you for writing back. We appreciate that so much. So sorry for interrupting.

Yeah, definitely.

Yeah. Right. Sorry.

I don't know how we missed the voicemail.

I don't know.

Because usually I see the voicemails even faster than I see the emails.

Yeah.

But not that one. This next one comes from Rick. He says, Good morning, Pastor Gabe. Long time listener. First time emailer.

Aw, yay.

I hope this finds you and your family well. In the hope of making things easier to find, I'll list my question for your show in the next paragraph and provide some context for the Preacher Boys podcast in light of your comments on the February 6th episode that I just finished.

So this was the last Q &A that I did. I did it without you.

Uh huh.

But it was somebody who emailed in and said that I had responded to the Preacher Boys. I guess it was on X. It was a comment that I left on X. And then they actually responded to me in a video.

Oh.

But I didn't know which video it was. I did find the video that I responded to when I left that comment on social media, but I did not find the video where they said something to me. And I asked the person if you could find it and they said no.

It was between January something and January something.

Oh, that.

Okay.

I didn't want to watch 10 videos to try to figure out where that was. So anyway, I had just talked about how the Preacher Boys podcast, well, one of the things that I said about it was they keep that name or that title to be subversive.

So they're really not interested in preaching the gospel or anything like that. They're called the Preacher Boys podcast because they want you to think, oh, there's something credible about that. In the meantime, they're going to pull the rug out from under you and go, nope, we're not actually evangelistic at all.

Oh, okay.

So just like the New Evangelicals, which is not really an evangelical site, they're totally liberal and opposed to everything Christian, everything biblical Christianity, pro-LGBTQ and all this other kind of thing.

Awesome.

And then there's the Baptist News Global, which is not Baptist, it's hardly even news. It's more like a gossip rag and they're just liberal on everything. Anyway, so that was what I mentioned about the Preacher Boys podcast.

Well, Rick here gives a little bit more context into this podcast and where it came from. So before getting to his question, he says, the Preacher Boys podcast was started by former independent fundamentalist Baptist Eric Skwarczynski, I think I'm pronouncing that right, back around 2020.

At the time, he was a professing Christian, also reformed, if my memory serves me correctly based on interviews that I heard him give on various podcasts and was exposing the sexual abuse that was in segments of the IFB movement.

The term Preacher Boy is used in those circles to refer to a younger man that is serving to later become a preacher, not necessarily a pastor. He seemed to be using that name to appeal to those who likewise left or had questions about things in the IFB and was exposing the evil that was going on in corners of that.

Circle.

Yeah, a lot of bad stuff going on in the independent fundamentalist Baptist movement. There's some good churches out there.

Definitely.

That are IFB.

Yes.

I have some personal friends who are IFB preachers.

Yes.

Yeah, a lot of abuse.

But then there's also the other spectrum.

Yes, right. There's a lot of abuse that happens there too. In October of 2021, Rick goes on to say, Eric announced that he had deconstructed. It seems as though his target is bigger than the IFB these days, though I admittedly haven't kept up with his material as much since he publicly renounced his faith.

It's truly a heartbreaking story. While he could have changed the name to make it clear he's not a Christian resource, I don't think his choice in name was necessarily deceptive.

Okay.

I appreciate that, especially given the origin of the show. Thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to read my email. God bless you in your ministry, in your local church and the work that you do.

For what? Well, I appreciate you listening and being a first time emailer.

Definitely. That's so fun.

That's great. So here was this question. Rick had a question attached to this as well.

Okay.

What is the difference between complementarianism and patriarchy? Which one do you think is most faithful to scripture?

I think it depends on who you're talking to.

It really does.

What their definition is.

Yeah.

Now, I know that I've got lots of reformed friends who will say that there is a vast difference between complementarianism and patriarchy. They will say, this is usually the whisper that you hear, especially among reformed Baptists, especially among very radical reformed Baptists, but they will say that complementarianism is really just soft egalitarianism.

Okay.

So it is allowing women to have a certain kind of leadership role. They just can't have the highest leadership role. As long as there's still a guy in charge, a woman can have all these other kinds of roles, even preaching roles, as long as she submits the authority of the guy.

Okay.

As long as there's still a man in authority, and that's the way that they will argue complementarianism is playing out.

Okay.

Whereas patriarchy is just straight up the man's in charge. It's patriarchy.

Of everything?

I guess.

Yes.

Okay.

Men are, by their nature, supposed to be the leaders.

Right.

So they need to hold those governing roles, not just in the church, but even in government, not just in the home, but even in society. So that would be like a hard patriarchy sort of a perspective.

Right.

Okay.

Now, what's the difference between the two of these? I'm going to argue that there's not any difference between the two of them. It's like you said, it just depends on who you talk to.

Definitely.

There are ways that I feel like the word complementarianism covers certain things that patriarchy doesn't. At the same time, I do acknowledge that complementarianism really just came about because people were tired of the word patriarchy, and patriarchy become too offensive.

And so can we help people to see this concept better without coming back to this term patriarchy? Which, like I said, there's some things that the term patriarchy itself just really doesn't cover. So you could argue that patriarchy covers men need to be the pastors in church, but not really, because patriarchy in and of itself is just talking about the family structure.

Right.

Like when we talk about the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, we talk about founding fathers, or so to speak. We're making some sort of reference to patriarchy. That's a hierarchy in the home, is generally the way that word applies.

It's not so much in the structure or the leadership of the church, nor does it have to do with the way we would operate in government institutions, even in society. So you can see in patriarchy a model, it starts in the home, and then you can kind of move out from there in other places where this structure would apply.

As God has created men and women for certain roles, men are supposed to be in those leadership positions, even in governing positions, even when it comes to law enforcement. You don't want women on the front lines in battle.

You want men to be in those positions. And when you start giving women guns or swords or whatever else, and you're having them fight, we're actually less protected than when men are the ones that are fighting.

So people will argue that this all kind of falls under the umbrella of patriarchy. But admittedly, I just don't think patriarchy as a term really goes that far. I'm not opposed to using it. I'm certainly not a person that thinks, well, that word's just too hard, it offends too many people, and so we need to stop using it.

You're not really one to pull punches.

Yeah, I'm not. I think that's pretty well established. I'm not going to pull punches. You look at somebody like Russell Moore. So Russell Moore used to be the president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Or the ERLC.

Yes. What a mouthful. Now, one of the lead editors. He's not the editor-in-chief anymore of Christianity Today. He's moved into another position. I can't remember what it is. But anyway, we've seen this trajectory of Russell Moore over the years become a lot more egalitarian.

Right.

And confessionally, he's probably going to say that he's complementarianism, but he's really not.

Yeah.

He's very much on the egalitarian side now. He's pulling his punches.

Right.

Definitely.

But there was once

But he has for a long time.

Oh, yeah. I mean, he's been on this trajectory for a while. But there was a time about 20 years ago, and you can still look up this article, in which Russell Moore wrote about complementarianism. And he said, let's be realistic, complementarianism really is just patriarchy.

So at one time, even he acknowledged that. And those who are liberal, who are on the feminist side of things, when they hear the word complementarianism, they think patriarchy.

Right.

Sort of like, oh, yeah, you guys are just masking patriarchy, and you're introducing it with a new word. So when it comes down to it, I really don't think there's any difference between the two. You're going to have some people that are going to argue against it.

And mostly, they argue against complementarianism because there are some of those, especially among the Southern Baptist Convention, who are trying to manipulate the word to allow for women preachers.

Yes.

It's a minority in the SBC, but it's still happening.

Yes.

Where they're taking

And it's irritating enough that it draws your attention.

Yeah, right.

So you think that everybody is.

Right.

I mean, even J .D. Greer does this. So J .D. Greer, who was president of the SBC for three years from, when was it, 2018 to 2021.

I think so, yeah.

Yeah.

18 was when he was elected, 21 because there was no convention in 20 due to COVID.

Right.

So 21 was when he eventually left office. He got to hold it for three years.

And he was the one that called it in 2020. But I digress.

Yeah, sure. So he could hold on to it for one more year.

Yes.

That's right. Anyway, he holds this soft complementarian position. So he'll say, as long as a man is in the pastoral role or in the elder's roles or in the overseer position, a woman can preach and teach as long as she stays under the authority of that overseer who has to be male.

And he has endorsed the books. Like he's written blurbs of books that have been written by women pastors. So he clearly does not have any true solid conviction over who's qualified to be a preacher and who's not.

He's also canceled church for many, many reasons.

That's true.

And condemned others who still met during 2020. So I mean.

He's been Black Lives Matter.

Yeah. Yeah.