The Infancy Gospel of Thomas and James 2:14-26

Greetings, welcome to the Dividing Line. All I see is a big red screen, so I'm not sure if I'm on or not, but that's okay. Hey, there we go, nice pixelated thing of me moving really slowly and looking really weird.

Didn't test that part out. Hey, we're gonna start off anyways with story time with Grandpa Jimmy again. That was really popular last time, but I'm not gonna spend a whole lot of time, no, it still looks bad, reading Gnostic Gospels.

Thank you, Travis. Story time with Grandpa Jimmy, there it is. I was quick. Someone, I mean, I only put that up about five minutes ago, so that worked, there you go, that looks good. A bunch of people asked me what I was reading when I read the Protevangelium of James, which is really the story of Mary, but Protevangelium of James.

This is the Jesus Seminar version. You may recall, well, you probably don't recall, actually, but a long, long ago, they sort of had their heyday. They put out the scholars' version of the Bible, well, of the Gospels, and this is the scholars' Bible, and Ronald F. Haack is the author.

It's a fairly idiomatic translation, so it's not filled with these and thous. It flows fairly well, and it's a Greek-English interlinear, so you have Greek on one side, English on the other, lots of notes.

It's fairly, you know, it's scholarly work, and it's worthy of having, but it only has those two works, and so today, we are going to read the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, and instead of 25 chapters, it's only 19 chapters, but they're a little bit longer chapters, so it's about the same length.

They're about the same, probably half an hour, a little bit more reading, and once again, this is to be differentiated from the Arabic Infancy Gospel, which is where the Quran got the stuff about Jesus speaking from the cradle.

This, I know, at least, I'm actually, I've invited the wife out for dinner and a movie tomorrow night. We're gonna go see Young Messiah, and I sort of have to, because the promo that I saw had Jesus opening his hands and these birds fly out.

Well, that's first story in here, first story in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, and the Jesus of this gospel is just despicable. That's the only way to put it, it's despicable. Now, a bunch of people after the last program sent me a bunch of links about how this guy was converted while making this movie, and they've tried to be extremely respectful, and they've taken all the Gnosticism out.

Okay, I hope so. I'll try to keep an open mind, but for me, the real question is, why make this in the first place? Because there's so little information that's actually given to us that we know is true, and isn't it fairly obvious that it's the Spirit's intention to keep it that way?

Why do we keep saying he should have told us more? There's a, I don't know. I feel like there's a sense of arrogance, but who am I, right? A lot of you don't like me anyways. So let's, for those of you riding bikes, running on treadmills, oh, wait a minute, I'm not supposed to say anything personal, I'm sorry.

It seems we have a number of people on Twitter that are the producers of this program, are the directors of stuff, and I didn't know. I had a guy yesterday, I shouldn't be talking about personal stuff.

It's sort of like they're paying me to be their instructor, and I've been shluffing off, and I didn't know that we had people like that out there that actually could control the content of the program.

So sorry. Anyways, but if you happen to be one of those people who is working out at the moment, you will get to read the entire Infancy Gospel of Thomas, the same way I read most things, and that is by listening, and, you know, oh, it's a personal thing.

Well, you know what? I don't have to care. I forgot, I don't care about those people who think they control the program. You know, some of the fondest memories I have from my youth was when the family would turn out the lights, and we'd all cuddle up together and listen to the radio.

Those, remember the Shadow? Oh, yeah, yeah, those are still classic, and we've lost that. I'm sorry, but I think an hour spent listening to classic old-time radio where you're actually using your imagination worth 10 ,000 hours in a first-person shooter game, 10 ,000 hours in a first-person shooter game, really do, because you used your mind.

You listened. You created the vision through what you were hearing in your mind. I think listening is a really important thing. So time to do some listening. Let's, this one's weirder than even the Protevangelium of James.

Probably same time period, but clearly less biblical content or impact. I guess we'd put it that way. All right, here we go. I, Thomas the Israelite, am reporting to you, all my non-Jewish brothers and sisters, to make known the extraordinary childhood deeds of our Lord Jesus Christ, what he did after his birth in my region.

This is how it all started. When this boy, Jesus, was five years old, he was playing at the ford of a rushing stream. He was collecting the flowing potter, potter? Collecting the flowing water into ponds and made the water instantly pure.

He did this with a single command. He then made soft clay and shaped it into 12 sparrows. He did this on the Sabbath day. And many other boys were playing with him. See, we could have music, dun, dun, dun, something like that, you know, the Sabbath day thing.

But when a Jew saw what Jesus was doing while playing on the Sabbath day, he immediately went off and told Joseph, Jesus' father, see here, your boy is at the ford and has taken mud and fashioned birds with it, and so has violated the Sabbath.

So Joseph went there and as soon as he spotted him, he shouted, what are you doing? Or why are you doing what's not permitted on the Sabbath? But Jesus simply clapped his hands and shouted to the sparrows, be off, fly away and remember me, you who are now alive.

And the sparrows took off and flew away noisily. The Jews watched with amazement, then left the scene to report their leaders what they had seen Jesus doing. I take a brief break from the story to point out that that story ends up in the Quran as well.

The son of Annas the scholar, standing there with Jesus, took a willow branch and drained the water Jesus had collected. Jesus, however, saw what had happened and became angry saying to him, you are a reverent fool.

What harm did the ponds of water do to you? From this moment, you too will dry up like a tree and you'll never produce leaves or root or bear fruit. In an instant, the boy completely withered away. Then Jesus departed and left for the house of Joseph.

The parents of the boy who had withered away picked him up and were carrying him out, sad because he was so young. And they came to Joseph and accused him, it's your fault, your boy did all this. Later, he was going through the village again when a boy ran by and bumped him on the shoulder.

Jesus got angry and said to him, you won't continue your journey. And all of a sudden he fell down and died. Some people saw what had happened and said, where has this boy come from? Everything he says happens instantly.

The parents of the dead boy came to Joseph and blamed him saying, because you have such a boy, you can't live with us in our village. Or else teach him to bless and not curse. He's killing our children.

I think I would have said a little bit more than that personally. So Joseph summoned his child and admonished him in private saying, why are you doing all this? These people are suffering and so they hate and harass us.

Jesus said, I know that the words I spoke are not my words. Still, I'll keep quiet for your sake, but those people must take their punishment. There and then his accusers became blind. Those who saw this became very fearful and at a loss.

All they could say was every word he says, whether good or bad has become a deed, a miracle even. When Joseph saw that Jesus had done such a thing, he got angry and grabbed his ear and pulled very hard.

The boy became infuriated with him and implied, it's one thing for you to seek and not find. It's quite another for you to act this unwisely. Don't you know that I don't really belong to you?

I almost feel like saying this next line. Don't make me upset. Ha ha ha.

Anyway, I don't know about you, but I'm not reading this story to my granddaughter. That's for sure. This, yeah, it is. A teacher by the name of Zacchaeus was listening to everything Jesus was saying to Joseph and was astonished, saying to himself, he is just a child and saying this.

And so he summoned Joseph and said to him, you have a bright child and he has a good mind. That's the first thing I'd say. Sorry, a little commentary here. Hand him over to me so he can learn his letters.

I'll teach him everything he needs to know so as not to be unruly. Joseph replied, no one is able to rule this child except God alone. Don't consider him to be a small cross, brother. When Jesus heard Joseph saying this, he laughed and said to Zacchaeus, believe me, teacher, what my father told you is true.

I am the Lord of these people and I'm present with you and have been born among you and am with you. I know where you've come from and how many years you'll live. I swear to you, teacher, I existed when you were born.

If you wish to be a perfect teacher, listen to me and I'll teach you a wisdom that no one else knows except for me and the one who sent me to you. It's you who happened to be my student and I know how old you are and how long you have to live.

When you see the cross that my father mentioned, then you'll believe that everything I've told you is true. The Jews are staying by and heard Jesus marveled and said, how strange and paradoxical. This child is barely five years old and yet he says such things.

In fact, we've never heard anyone say the kind of things this child does. Jesus said to them in reply, are you really so amazed? Rather, consider what I've said to you. The truth is that I also know when you were born and your parents and I announced this paradox to you.

When the world was created, I existed along with the one who sent me to you. The Jews, once they heard the child was speaking like this, became angry but were unable to say anything in reply. But the child skipped forward and said to them, I've made fun of you because I know that your tiny minds marvel at trifles.

When therefore they thought that they were being comforted by the child's exhortation, the teacher said to Joseph, bring him to the classroom and I'll teach him the alphabet. Joseph took him by the hand and led him to the classroom.

The teacher wrote the alphabet for him and began the instruction by repeating the letter alpha many times. But the child clammed up and did not answer him for a long time. No wonder then that the teacher got angry and struck him on the head.

The child took the blow calmly and replied to him, I'm teaching you rather than being taught by you. I already know the letters you're teaching me and your condemnation is great. To you, these letters are like a bronze picture or a clashing symbol, which can't produce glory or wisdom because it's all just noise.

Nor does anyone understand the extent of my wisdom. When he got over being angry, he recited the letters from alpha to omega very quickly. Then he looked at the teacher and told him, since you don't know the real nature of the letter alpha, how are you going to teach the letter beta?

You imposter, if you know, teach me first letter alpha and then I'll trust you with the letter beta. He began to quiz the teacher about the first letter, but he was unable to say anything. Then while many were listening, he said to Zacchaeus, listen teacher and observe the arrangement of the first letter.

How it has two straight lines or strokes proceeding to a point in the middle, gathered together, elevated, dancing, three-cornered, two-cornered, not antagonistic of the same family, providing the alpha has lines of equal measure.

After Zacchaeus, the teacher, had heard the child expressing such intricate allegories regarding the first letter, he despaired of defending his teaching. He spoke to those who were present, poor me, I'm utterly bewildered, wretched that I am.

I've heaped shame upon myself because I took on this child. So take him away, I beg you, brother Joseph. I can't endure the severity of his look or his lucid speech. This child is no ordinary mortal. He can even tame fire.

Perhaps he was born before the creation of the world. What sort of womb bore him? What sort of mother nourished him? I don't know. Poor me, friend, I've lost my mind. I've deceived myself. I, who am wholly wretched, I strove to get a student and I've been found to have a teacher.

Friends, I think of the shame because although I'm an old man, I've been defeated by a mere child. And so I can only despair and die on account of this child. Right now, I can't look him in the face. When everybody says that I've been defeated by a small child, what can I say?

And what can I report about the lines of the first letter, which he told me about? I just don't know, friends, for I don't know its beginning or its end. Therefore, I ask you, brother Joseph, take him back to your house.

What great thing he is, God or angel, whatever else I might call him, I don't know. While the Jews were advising Zacchaeus, the child laughed loudly and said, now let the infertile bear fruit and the blind see and the deaf in the understanding of their heart hear.

I've come from above so that I might save those who are below and summon them to higher things just as the one who sent me to you commanded me. When the child stopped speaking, all those who had fallen under the curse were instantly saved.

And from then on, no one dared to anger him or for fear of being cursed and maimed for life. A few days later, Jesus was playing on the roof of a house when one of the children playing with him fell off the roof and died.

When the other children saw what had happened, they fled leaving Jesus standing all by himself. The parents of the dead child came and accused Jesus, you troublemaker you, you're the one who threw him down.

Jesus responded, I didn't throw him down, he threw himself down. He just wasn't being careful and leaped down from the roof and died. Then, and I can just see Marvel using this, then Jesus himself leaped down from the roof and stood by the body of the child and shouted in a loud voice, Zeno, that was his name, get up and tell me, did I push you?

He got up immediately and said, no Lord, you didn't push me, you raised me up. Those who saw this were astonished and the child's parents praised God for the miracle that had happened and worshiped Jesus.

A few days later, a young man was splitting wood in the neighborhood when his ax slipped and cut off the bottom of his foot. He was dying from the loss of blood. The crowd rushed there in an uproar and the boy Jesus ran up too.

He forced his way through the crowd and grabbed hold of the young man's wounded foot. It was instantly healed. He said to the youth, get up now, split your wood and remember me. The crowd saw what had happened and worshiped the child saying truly the spirit of God dwells in this child.

When he was six years old, oh, that's just, that was just when he was five, wow. When he was six years old, his mother sent him to draw water and bring it back to the house, but he lost his grip on the pitcher in the jostling of the crowd and it fell and broke.

So Jesus spread out the cloak he was wearing and filled it with water and carried it back to his mother. His mother, once she saw the miracle that had occurred, kissed him, but she kept to herself the mysteries that she had seen him do.

Again, during the sowing season, the child went out with his father to sow their field with grain. While his father was sowing, the child Jesus sowed one measure of grain. When he had harvested and threshed it, it yielded 100 measures.

Then he summoned all the poor in the village to the threshing floor and gave them grain. Joseph carried back what was left of the grain. Jesus was eight years old when he did this miracle. Now, Jesus' father was a carpenter, making plows and yokes at the same time, at that time, I'm sorry, at that time.

He received an order from a rich man to make a bed for him. When one board of what is called the crossbeam turned out shorter than the other and Joseph didn't know what to do, the child Jesus said to his father, Joseph, put the two boards down and line them up at one end.

Joseph did as the child told him. Jesus stood at the other end and grabbed hold of the shorter board and by stretching it, made it the same length as the other. I thought this would be your favorite story.

Wouldn't that be cool? Because you're the one that always says, measure twice, cut once, right?

I've been cutting all day long and still it doesn't fit. Okay, all right.

His father Joseph looked on and marveled and he hugged and kissed the child saying, how fortunate I am that God has given this child to me. Yes, it's the kid that bumps off all of his playmates and they bump them in the shoulder.

How fortunate I am because he can make, you know, that's sort of like making one leg longer than the other. You know, he made them even, that's great. Wonderful. We're getting toward the end, believe it or not.

This is chapter 14 out of 19, we're doing good. When Joseph saw the child's aptitude and his great intelligence for his age, he again resolved that Jesus should not remain illiterate. So he took him and handed him over to another teacher.

Then the teacher said to Joseph, first I'll teach him Greek, then Hebrew. This teacher, of course, knew of the child's previous experience with the teacher and was afraid of him. Still he wrote out the alphabet and instructed him for quite a while, though Jesus was unresponsive.

Then Jesus spoke, if you're really a teacher and if you know the letters well, tell me the meaning of the letter alpha and I'll tell you the meaning of beta. The teacher became exasperated and hit him on the head.

I predict bad things. I'm not even sure this would be a G-rated story. Hmm. So the teacher became exasperated and hit him on the head. Jesus got angry and cursed him and the teacher immediately lost consciousness and fell face down on the ground.

The child returned to Joseph's house, but Joseph was upset and gave this instruction to his mother, don't let him go outside because those who annoy him end up dead. Yeah, that would be an interesting quote.

You know, if he'd like to demonstrate the relevance of these works, this would be Infancy Thomas 14 .5. Infancy Thomas 14 .5, don't let him go outside because those who annoy him end up dead. There you go.

That'll. After some time, another teacher, a close friend of Joseph's said to him, send the child to my schoolroom, perhaps with some flattery, I can teach him his letters. Joseph replied, if you can muster the courage, brother, take him with you.

So he took him along with much fear and trepidation, but the child was happy to go. Jesus strode boldly into the classroom and found a book lying on the desk. He took the book, but did not read the letters in it.

Rather, he opened his mouth and spoke by the power of the Holy Spirit and taught the law to those standing there. A large crowd gathered and stood listening to him and they marveled at the maturity of his teaching and his readiness of speech, a mere child able to say such things.

When Joseph heard about this, he feared the worst and ran to the schoolroom, imagining that this teacher was having trouble with Jesus. But the teacher said to Joseph, brother, please know that I accepted this child as a student but already he's full of grace and wisdom.

So I'm asking your brother to take him back home. When the child heard this, he immediately smiled at him and said, because you have spoken and testified rightly, that other teacher who was struck down will be healed.

And right away he was. Joseph took his child and went home. Joseph sent his son, James, to tie up some wood and carry it back to the house. And the child, Jesus, followed. While James was gathering the firewood, a viper bit his hand.

As he lay sprawled on the ground, dying, Jesus came and blew on the bite. Immediately the pain stopped. The animal burst apart and James got better on the spot. After this incident, an infant in Joseph's neighborhood became sick and died and his mother grieved terribly.

Jesus heard the loud wailing and the uproar that was going on and quickly ran there. When he found the child dead, he touched its chest and said, I say to you, infant, don't die but live and be with your mother.

Immediately the infant looked up and laughed. Jesus then said to the woman, take it, give it your breast and remember me. The crowd of onlookers marveled at this. Truly this child was a God or a heavenly messenger of God.

Whatever he says instantly happens. But Jesus left and went on playing with the other children. A year later, while a building was under construction, a man fell from the top of it and died. There was quite a commotion.

So Jesus got up and went there. When he saw the man lying dead, he took his hand and said, I say to you, sir, get up and go back to work. And he immediately got up and worshiped him. The crowd saw this and marveled.

This child's from heaven. He must be because he has saved many souls from death and he can go on saving all his life. Last chapter. When he was 12 years old, his parents went to Jerusalem as usual for the Passover festival, along with their fellow travelers.

After Passover, they began their journey home. But while on their way, the child Jesus went back to Jerusalem. His parents, of course, assumed that he was in a traveling party. After they had traveled one day, they began to look for him among their relatives.

When they did not find him, they were worried and returned again to the city to search for him. After three days, they found him in the temple area, sitting among the teachers, listening to the law and asking them questions.

All eyes were on him and everyone was astounded that he a mere child could interrogate the elders and teachers of the people and explain the main points of law and the parables of the prophets. His mother Mary came up and said to him, child, why have you done this to us?

Don't you see we've been worried sick looking for you? Why are you looking for me? Jesus said to them, don't you know I have to be in my father's house? Then the scholars and the Pharisees said, are you the mother of this child?

She said, I am. They said to her, you more than any woman would be to congratulate for God has blessed the fruit of your womb for we've never seen nor heard such glory and such virtue and wisdom. Jesus got up and went with his mother and was obedient to his parents.

His mother took careful note of all that happened and Jesus continued to excel in learning and gain respect. To him be glory forever and ever. And that, obviously the last chapter is taken directly from the canonical story of Jesus in the temple at 12 years of age.

And obviously it is included there to try to give some semblance of credibility and weight to the story that was told before him. And obviously in the time period, starting in the middle of the second century or so, as Christianity became widely known amongst many people, there were many people who were untaught.

There were many people who did not have access to the scriptures. And especially once you had situations where you had the rise of nominalism, people who are Christian in name only, when you have the conversion of entire cities, when you have eventually the conversion of the Roman Empire under Theodosius in the late fourth century, that's not how conversion takes place.

And you can have an army walk under someone who's sprinkling water on them. That just means they're gonna get rust spots on their helmets. I mean, that's all that does. It doesn't create Christians. And so the history of the church is filled with people trying to get answers to questions that I personally believe truly regenerate believers don't even bother to ask.

They won't ask because they are content with the word of God. They're content with what God has revealed. And they're not going to pry into things that God has not revealed. And so these, some might ask, well, how did these become so popular?

And they did become popular. Well, you look at the medieval period when there was a great decline in literacy and the vast majority of people in the medieval period didn't know the difference between what was in canonical scripture and what was in popular stories because popular stories were far easier to tell and remember than to actually make reference to a written text.

And so in the early church, these types of stories by their popularity were far easier to communicate than say, well, the text of second Corinthians or something like that. And so people who wanted to have an easy way to remember things, that was the way to go.

And that's how it worked. That's how it functioned. And obviously there was a major discernment issue with many people. That's not overly shocking, overly surprising. It was a difficult transitionary period after the apostles in the sense that the church is now facing all sorts of questions and controversies, having to answer pagan critics.

And it was a period of the apologists and reminds me a little bit of the fact that the early Anabaptists were really not able to develop a in-depth systematic theology because they just wouldn't live for very long.

And the same way during this period of time, you had people who would be thrust in the position of having to defend the Christian faith that didn't even have an entire New Testament canon. And very often they would have brought with them traditions and understandings from Greek philosophy, whatever their background was, that really weren't all that compatible with the sound biblical position, but it's all they had.

And these types of stories would flourish during periods like that. And so I guess what we probably need to do sometime in the future is read the Gospel of Thomas. It's only 114 verses. Probably won't even take as long as it took to read that.

And then there are a few others we'll probably get to. As you can see, most of them are pretty short. They're not long. I just like exposing people to these things because I think one of the main reasons that stuff like this ends up having power over people that the Bart Ehrman folks, trained folks in the local community colleges throw this stuff out at our young people.

And since they've never heard of it before, they have no way of interacting with it. And always the question is, wow, why didn't they tell me that about that in my church? It's not overly edifying stuff, but there's a lot of stuff in church history that isn't overly edifying.

But being ignorant of it is dangerous. It's just downright dangerous. There is the infancy gospel of Thomas. Hope you enjoyed that exciting section. Now, I will not tell you, Uncle Jim, will this be the last audio book you produce or we get more Gnostic Gospels?

How many are you planning to read? Well, Bobby, well, Timmy, actually it's Tim, well, Timmy, I don't know. There are a lot of them out there, but we'll just have to see. Because we don't want to do too much advertising for the hairy tics, if you understand what I mean.

Did you just read the infancy gospel of Chuck Norris?

In the YouTube chat, there is a number of different names being offered up as to the possibility of who you were really reading about. Oh, okay.

Infancy of Donald. I'm having to listen to you through the wall because I didn't put my earpiece in, but I heard you. Yes, infancy of Donald. Infancy of Donald? Infancy of... Donald Duck, I'm sure. John Cena.

We would never do politics on the program.

Various and sundry people, so it's people's... Imaginations are already running wild with the imaginative book. I'm sure they are. Yeah, we'll see.

I have, you know, here is, this is back from when we were doing the family tomb of Jesus stuff. Here is the gospel of Mary of Magdala, Jesus and the first woman apostle. It's Karen King's odd thing here.

And some of these start getting, the Gnostics weren't the most moral people, so they start getting a little weird. But you've got the gospel of the Ebionites and the gospel of Judas and the apocryphal acts of the apostles.

And I'm just looking at just what I've got sitting right here, right next to me. So there's all sorts of stuff like that. And I have a three volume set in the other room from Nag Hammadi of all that stuff in the original languages and translations and critical editions and the whole nine yards.

So we'll see. The point is we've now read two of the three most famous. And I put a little, I started a little WordPress blog over the weekend a little personal one. And I used, this one should have gone on the Alpha Omega one but I did a short little test article about the protevangelium of James and made some observations about it there.

And if you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you might wanna get that URL. It's really easy to remember. It's Chesed, C-H-E-S-E-D, Chesed, which is the beautiful Hebrew term for loving kindness, covenant faithfulness, mercy, grace.

All those things are wrapped up in Chesed. Chesed 297, 297 is the number of times the root appears in the Hebrew Old Testament. .wordpress .com, I think. And anyway, so I'm gonna throw some personal stuff on that.

Just assuming that eventually we're all gonna get bounced off of that stuff out of social media anyhow. And I don't think it's gonna matter who gets elected as to when that's gonna happen. It's just the way it is.

But I made some comments there. Anyway, I need to press on here because there is more that we need to do. And I forgot to fire up desktop presenter here. My apologies for that. The reason that I make that comment is that I wish to send to you QuickTime Player I was directed to this video this morning and I wanted to play, I don't know, I may play the whole thing.

What? Oh, I may play the whole thing. But especially this first part, I want to play. And I haven't seen old Tim for a while. When was our last debate? It was about, in public, it was about 2000, wasn't it?

I think it was around 2000. And so it's been about 16 years and old Tim's got snow on the roof there. Really, really does. Tim Staples, Catholic Answers. And they get a call about justification by faith.

And I want to play at least, he's going to give five verses. And let's just listen to the whole thing. Let's, how about we just listen to the whole thing? Yeah, let's give you a sense. Nothing new here.

And that's the whole point. It's this, you know, on one level, that's understandable. The issues are still the same, though I'm not sure the issues are still the same with the current Pope, but the issues are pretty much, you know, the same.

But at the same time, as I will provide criticism of Tim Staples' verses and his explanation of them, um, there just isn't any advancement in recognizing what the other side has to say. When you listen to the other side, I mean, if you listen to what I say about Islam today and compare it with 2006, you will see movement.

I understand Islam better now, which allows me to express my objections with greater clarity. You just don't see that amongst the most popular, and Tim Staples is an extremely popular Roman Catholic apologist.

It, you just, you just don't see it. Um, so anyway, someone in the channel is going, was Tim Staples the guy on Jeopardy? You didn't see that, did you? Did you? Oh yeah, it was Gerrymatics, I know. That was, um, I don't know, it was just weird.

That was just, I actually, I DVR'd it, and played it, and just sort of sat there going, I don't know, I didn't see that coming. You know, walking into the Catholic Answers offices so long ago in San Diego, standing between Patrick Madrid and Gerrymatics' desks, talking to them there, I just never saw the Jeopardy thing coming.

I didn't, but anyway, let's listen to this call and to the answers, and then we'll go back over it.

My grandmother, my grandmother, who's not Catholic, went this weekend to my father-in-law's Sunday school class, and he's Baptist, and he taught on justification by faith alone. And so my grandmother was upset by that, and the fact that she was taught that no, her works don't matter.

And I can think of verses where Jesus commands us to do things as evidence that our works do matter, but I didn't know how to articulate that to her.

And encourage her. Get a pen handy, and a seatbelt if you're driving. You've called the right guest on this, Mary. By the way, Tim's not joking. Pen and piece of paper would be a great idea. Okay, I have it.

All right, Mary, I'm just gonna give you about five texts that I think will be helpful because they helped me many years ago. Number one, Mary, is you wanna bring out James chapter two, verse 24, and put it just as James says it, we see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone.

And ask him the question, what would the Bible have to say to get you to believe that it's more than just faith? Exactly, we're gonna hit those other four. Okay, we'll get the other four after the break, but James 2, 24, we see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone.

Mary in Houston was there. Mary, are you still there? You still there, Mary? Mary in Houston? I am, yeah. Okay, great, so your Baptist father-in-law was teaching justification by faith alone, and Tim was cranking through five biblical passages that totally contradict.

First one was James chapter two. Two, verse 24, and I wanna warn you, Mary, that the response will be, well, James is not actually talking about works justifying, but works proving that someone already is justified.

But what you do when you say that is, no, you just said that, that's not what James says. James says, we see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone. So in some sense, you have to say, our justification is, you know, our works are included in the process of justification.

So that's number one. Number two, you wanna show, not just in James, but in books like Galatians and Romans, which are the ones that Luther classically used, you know, Romans 3, 28, a man is justified by faith apart from the works of law.