More on the Slick/Sungenis Discussion

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Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is the Dividing Line.
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The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.
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Our host is Dr. James White, Director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an Elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.
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This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll -free across the
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United States, it's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is
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James White. And good afternoon. Welcome to the Dividing Line. Just a little bit of housekeeping announcement here.
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We're going to be moving the program on, next Tuesday's program will actually be on Monday. At this time, the afternoon time, as when we'll be doing the program,
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I have a conflict on Tuesday. I figured it's better to move that particular time.
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And for those of you interested, keep your eyes open tomorrow or the next day for a new installment in the look what you can find when you dig into public documents saga in regards to the
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Ergen -Kanner scandal and the evangelical cover -up thereof. Further documentation, specific documentation as to the exact day of the arrival of the
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Kanner family in the United States of America. We now know exactly when it was, official government documentation.
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No question whatsoever that the material found on Ergen -Kanner's bio page for many years claiming to have come here in 1978 or 1979, whichever one, whichever iteration it was, was a complete fabrication.
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Not a misstatement, a complete fabrication. But anyway, keep your eyes open for that as well.
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It will be coming up on my blog at first. It's obviously the privilege of those who do the hard work to do those things.
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But just let you know, keep your eyes open. Information forthcoming.
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All right. We return to the subject of the encounter between Matt Slick and Dr.
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Robertson Jennis that took place a week ago Monday. I realized there was another encounter on yesterday and I listened to, was that yesterday?
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No, on Monday. I'm sorry. And I did listen to that. And I, unfortunately, it was not recorded properly.
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And so it was a little frustrating because the Janet Mefford show would show up and a few other things like that while trying to listen to the debate.
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And so that was a little frustrating. So I doubt that I will go through all of it.
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But there was some important material on James chapter 2 and the argumentation from Romans chapter 4.
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So when we finish this first encounter, what I want to do is I want to go through James chapter 2 and deal with Robertson Jennis' assertion that the appropriate translation of the definite article found with the word faith in James 2 .14,
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that faith, he says, is a completely wrong translation. He is completely wrong about that. And I will demonstrate that from actual
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Greek scholarship that is far beyond anything that Robertson Jennis could muster in defense of his assertions.
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And then we will look at all of James chapter 2 in light of the material that I provided in The God Who Justifies.
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And then we will also look at the attempt on the part of Robertson Jennis and others to turn justification into a process based upon looking at Abraham and them, something he hit
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Matt with that pretty much did not get responded to because it is an interesting argument.
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But that's because he actually sort of pulled one over on Matt at that point.
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But the general statement drawn from David's experience in Matthew—I'm sorry, in Psalm 32,
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Psalm 31, the Septuagint, and the argumentation that Robertson Jennis brought forth, and that we'll be dealing with that as well.
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It did seem to me that there was an agreement to go for part three at the end of the program.
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I'm not sure if that's going to happen or not. But be it as it may, we are approaching very important issues here, issues that have wide applications.
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So hopefully this will be of assistance to you. So we continue on with where we left off last time, which is, if you are listening to the same file
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I am, about 10 minutes and 24 seconds into the file as it was provided with Robertson Jennis saying this.
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Homo ucios and not homo ui ucios, as the Aryans had held. Who's going to decide that?
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The Bible doesn't decide it for us because the Bible doesn't get into those issues. The church has to decide it because God gave the keys of the kingdom to the church to decide these very issues for us.
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So yes, we're quite proud of the fact that it's not the individual Joe on the street that determines these things for us.
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It's not Matt Slick. Now let me just stop right there. Here you have the classic. It's either the ancient church.
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And of course, that's part of the entire question is, is Rome the ancient church?
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And I would argue that it is not. In fact, you would find no one in the first centuries of the
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Christian era who believed as dogma what a modern Roman Catholic has to believe as dogma.
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Nobody believed those things. There is no evidence that the apostles taught the things that Rome has dogmatized on the basis of alleged tradition.
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And so, you know, that's part of the argumentation. But here's this.
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You've either got the ancient church in all of its glory or you've got just Matt Slick or you under a tree with your
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Bible. The idea that there has been a people of God, the idea that the people of God are defined by their confession of faith in Christ, by their belief in divine revelation, the idea that there is a church and that the church has authority, just not infallible authority based in a single bishop in a single city, the idea that you have the body of Christ and that you have local churches and that there have been local churches that have remained faithful to the message of the cross all through church history.
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All that's just we don't even deal with that. Very, very common. And very rarely do people challenge it.
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Because why? Because very few Protestants have much of a biblical concept of ecclesiology to begin with. The idea of what we talked about last time,
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First Timothy and its statement that the church is a pillar and foundation of truth. You better believe it is. But that's the local church.
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That's not the Church of Rome. There was no church at Rome at this point in time that could have fulfilled that particular thing, that Timothy was the bishop at Ephesus.
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And I mean, it'd be pretty easy to try to make arguments, as Rome does, to turn a lot of people into popes using the argumentation they do.
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Well, let's put the church in Ephesus and make that the center of the church. No. It's the local church that has bishops, which are the elders.
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That's the same office. The deacons, where the ministry of the word takes place, and the people gather together for the worship of God through the proclamation of his word.
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That is an option that just is almost never even mentioned by Rome's apologists.
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They always want to make it this either or. Either the big ancient church in the mists of time, or you under truth your
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Bible. That's it. And hence, it is a strawman. That's going to determine it for us. It's the church that gives us.
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And the church was given that authority by Jesus Christ himself. What makes you think the
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Roman Catholic Church is a true church? Because we have the pedigree. We can go back all the way to the beginning.
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We have popes in every century. The succession was passed on, and there's no break in it.
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Now, that is just an incredible example of wishful thinking. And I would simply recommend anyone pick up,
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I believe it's J. Andy Kelly's Oxford Dictionary of the Popes, and just start reading. I mean, this isn't a guy with a big chip on his shoulder.
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And just start reading. And see how many blank spots there are in the history of the papacy.
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How many times there was no pope at all for quite some time. How many times there were anti -popes.
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How many times there were popes who were compromised. Doctrinally, even
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Robert St. Genesis said in our debate on papal infallibility in Clearwater, Florida, that heretics could be popes.
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But you then have such obvious things as, for example, the pornography in the 10th century.
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Oh, and it's called that because the entire office of the bishop of Rome was bought and sold to men who were murderers, who had lots of illegitimate children, lots of consorts and women.
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It fell to its lowest point at that time. And to look at that and say, well, yeah, unbroken, unbroken, doesn't matter if the guy's running around with multiple women and killing people and having kids everywhere.
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It's unbroken. But then you have the real obvious fact of the
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Babylonian captivity of the church. The papacy left Rome, folks. It went to Avignon, France.
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And even after many decades in Avignon, because it was under the control of the
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French prelates at that time, when someone tried to bring it back to Rome, you ended up with two popes, two papacies.
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And both had cardinals and bishops in their service and both anathematized the other.
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And then you had the councils come along and try to fix this and end up creating three bishops of Rome, three popes.
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That busily anathematized each other. And it takes another council to come along and finally reunify all of that.
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And this took decades. And you just have to engage in the most wishful thinking, not only going back to the very beginning of time.
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There was no single bishop of Rome until 140 AD. For 100 years after the ascension of Christ, nobody had in their mind there needed to be a single bishop in Rome.
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Nobody had that in mind. Where was this apostolic tradition about even the papacy? It wasn't there.
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This is just wishful thinking. It's wish fulfillment. It's not reality. And so when you hear people say, 2000 years, we've believed the same thing.
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You immediately know you're dealing with someone who is significantly more concerned about the promotion of the privileges of Rome than about the truth itself, because it just isn't true.
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You can't look at the historical documents and come to these conclusions. It's just not there.
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Sounds real good, especially when it's said by someone who is very confident in their statements.
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And a lot of Protestants just go, oh, I didn't know that, because don't spend much time reading early church documents.
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But when you do, you just look at this kind of assertion and go, you are kidding, right?
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But unfortunately, they're not. Your church started, I don't know when, maybe in the 1600s, 1700s.
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So you have no pedigree. Is a pedigree necessary? Yes, it is. Why? Because you have an unbroken chain of authority.
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If you have somebody come along and say, well, we're going to start a new church because we don't believe your church is the true church, and we're going to start this church 1700 years after the other church was started.
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Well, anybody with common sense knows that you can't have a church just starting out all by itself with its own authority and then claiming to be the true church.
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Why not? Because you have no succession. You have no pedigree. Well, what you're telling me is that... Now, of course,
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I just stop here. This whole concept of succession develops in the early church primarily for two reasons.
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There are heretical groups, and each wants to trace their authority back to the apostles.
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And especially as the canon is developing over time, just as it did in the Old Testament, it does in the
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New Testament. And we can get into the issue of that if it comes up. But as the canon is developing, then there has to be some kind of foundation.
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People are looking for a foundation to try to refute heretics. And so this idea of succession, well, we can trace our beliefs back through such and so who goes back to such and so who goes back to such and so.
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This is where the concept of succession comes from. I would simply suggest to you that the only meaningful succession that has any kind of historical or logical validity is to teach the same things the apostles taught.
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And we only have one place to go to find out what they taught. Every... I remind you of what
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Mitch Pacwa admitted and did so honestly in our debate in 1999 in Sola Scriptura.
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I asked him, and I would ask any Roman Catholic, name me a single word, a single word or maybe a phrase or maybe a sentence that Roman Catholic authority has defined that Jesus or any of the apostles said that does not contain the scripture.
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Anything. Tell me how Rome has infallibly defined anything
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Paul taught the Thessalonians or anything Jesus said to the disciples outside of what's found in scripture.
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It hasn't. And so when this issue comes up, what you do is you say,
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I believe in apostolic succession, and I believe I'm standing in apostolic succession because I insist upon teaching only what the apostles of Jesus Christ taught.
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Nothing more, nothing less. And what would that force you to believe? Sola Scriptura.
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Because that's the only evidence, the only God -breathed, inspired record of apostolic teaching that we have.
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Period. End of discussion. It's right there. That's where the challenge needs to be made.
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You know, you're telling Roman Catholicism, it's like I talk to a Mormon, a Mormon will just make certain assumptions, begging the question, say, well, this is true because Joseph Smith said it's true.
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No, no, a Mormon has Joseph Smith as his authority came along in the 1800s. Yes, I know that.
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He has no pedigree either. Well, I'm just telling you what they will say, OK? Oh, I know, but we don't say what they say.
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Well, you're saying basically the same thing. You're saying you have a pedigree. They claim a pedigree that goes back to John the Baptist.
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Well, Matt, just use your common sense. If somebody came along after, you know, John Adams was the president, he came along 50 years later and says, well,
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I'm going to be president now. Let me just stop for a moment. Sometimes the conversation does wander off into some rather esoteric areas.
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But there is a commonality between LDS claims of ultimate authority and those of Rome.
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I mean, you know, folks love to make the argument that, well, solo scriptura has resulted in all this division.
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The reality is when you compare churches that believe in Scripture only with churches that believe in Scripture plus an infallible external authority, the unanimity of opinion amongst the solo scriptura folks is considerably greater than that exists amongst people who say
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Bible plus an infallible authority. And both Rome and Salt Lake believe in Bible plus an infallible authority.
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It's just their infallible authority in both instances completely trumps the actual meaning of Scripture. But if you want to see the blind leading the blind, watch a debate between a
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Mormon and a Roman Catholic, because if the Roman Catholic is going to be consistent. Now, if he is willing to go ahead and be sort of a
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Protestant, then he can use good arguments against the claims of Mormonism. But if he's going to be consistent, and he's going to follow basically what
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Bob St. Genesis has been saying so far in this encounter, and that is, well, I believe it because Rome says it. Upon what basis would
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Bob St. Genesis really have much to say to a Mormon who says, well, I believe it because the prophet says it.
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Because we've already heard Bob St. Genesis say, well, I don't need to give you Bible verses. I've got the magisterium.
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Well, the Mormon can say, I don't need to give you Bible verses. I've got a prophet. And the prophet, in fact, which we do have a lineage, we actually are really big into this laying out of hands thing.
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That's going to come up in a moment. St. Genesis is going to falsely teach that a pedigree requires laying out of hands in the
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Old Testament. It did not. But the Mormons certainly believe that. And in fact, you can go up to Salt Lake City and you can go and you can look at the artwork they have there in the
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Visitor's Center in Salt Lake City. And I believe it's the South Visitor's Center.
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It might be the North, but my recollection is in the South. They have, in fact, I clearly have recollection of this picture hanging in the
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South Visitor's Center. No. North Visitor's Center.
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I had my directions mixed up there. In the North Visitor's Center, they had a painting of Moses passing or Aaron passing the priesthood on by laying out of hands to the next person.
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Won't find that anywhere in Scripture. Ain't there. But they're real big on this succession thing. They're real big on this pedigree thing.
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And they just simply say, hey, the church was reestablished by angelic visitation with divine authority in 1829.
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And then the church itself, April 6, 1830. And that's what my ultimate authority says.
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And Bobson Genesis' ultimate authority says otherwise. And you just get ultimate authorities fighting with ultimate authorities.
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And you really can't examine either one at that point. What are we going to say to him?
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Well, I'm sorry, Joe, you can't be president because you don't pass succession. You weren't elected in the succession of presidents all the way from the beginning.
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Well, it's very simple to figure out. There it's very simple to figure out, but it's very simple to say that's not historically the case.
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There is not an unbroken succession of popes. There were popes and anti -popes and the Babylonian captivity and all sorts of problems with all of this.
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But just to close your eyes that and say, yeah, well, but it's what I believe really leaves you in the same boat as the
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Mormons at that point. Well, the president is elected by vote, whether or not someone's assassinated or dies. Can you name any kind of hierarchy of authority that has ever existed in the history of the earth that doesn't go by the succession of the pedigree of the office that's passed down, that's transmitted through the centuries?
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That's a very confusing question, but that's easy because he's going to make the argument that, well, this is the
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Old Testament. This is how it was done in the Old Testament, which it wasn't. In the priesthood, it was. But how often was the priesthood the mechanism whereby
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God led his people? Very rarely. The vast majority of the prophets, some of them were priests, but they very frequently had to condemn their leaders.
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The prophets themselves did not pass down the office of prophet to somebody else.
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So unless you're talking about kings, and we can talk about all sorts of problems with the royal lineage in the
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Old Testament, the priesthood is based on lineage.
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It's based upon who your daddy is. But the idea that you have to have this pedigree, that's common
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Jewish thought. It's not common Christian thought. Can you name me one? Well, it's a complicated kind of a question you're asking.
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Do you know what I'm asking you? Yeah, I do. I don't think your question is very well put. The issue of the United States presidency is not that it's a succession of presidents, and that you have to have one laying hands upon the other to have an authoritative system set up.
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That's not how it works. Well, how did they do it in the Old Testament? The system of the Constitution just simply says, by vote, and then they swear in, and that's it.
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How did they do it in the Old Testament? The presidents? No, the leadership in the Old Testament. Well, depending on which era, in which context, people were appointed by God, raised by prophets.
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They all did the same thing. They passed down their authority from generation to generation, from priesthood to priesthood.
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Did they do it by laying on of hands? Yes, they did. Okay. No, they didn't.
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That's just a bogus claim. The only laying on of hands in reference to the
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Old Testament priesthood was the priest laying hands upon the head of a sacrificial animal.
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That has nothing to do with anything else. So the priesthood is genealogical.
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It's the tribe of Levi, the descendants of Aaron, et cetera, et cetera. But that did not mean that, for example, the prophets had to come through a similar kind of line.
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And, of course, Jesus, the king of kings, doesn't come that way either.
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Now, does he? Uh, nobody laid hands on Jesus' head and said, you're king of kings.
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And nobody laid hands on John the Baptist and said, you're the forerunner of the Messiah. Blah, blah, blah, blah. It's just bogus.
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Uh, it should have been challenged, wasn't, but, but, uh, there, there, there you hear it, uh, straight from Roberts and Jennings.
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And so you have to have that authority, you're saying? Yes. Otherwise, you're not a true church. Right. So if someone who receives
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Christ, they have the authority to call the children of God really aren't in any authority at all? If they don't have any membership in the
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Roman Catholic Church? Well, we're not talking about that right now. We're talking about whether you have authority or not. I have authority.
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Yeah. Where'd you get it? From Jesus. Yeah. Yeah. Did he talk to you or something? Well, actually he, uh, let's just say he manifested himself to me while I was, um, um, receiving him and he actually came in his presence.
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Can you prove that to me? Why would I have to prove it to you? At this point, I was a little disappointed because, uh, if someone says, what is your authority?
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Um, I'm, I'm going to say the authority that any elder in the church of Jesus Christ has, and that is the authority to stand as the ambassador of Christ in ministering the word of God to the people of God and in obeying the command, uh, that is laid out in the office of an elder and what that elder is supposed to be able to do and rightly handling the word of God and contradicting those, refuting those who contradict sound doctrine, uh, that my authority, uh, comes from, yes, we are given authority to be the children of God, but the authority we have is that which comes from scripture.
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It's, it's the nature of scripture being Theanostas. When I stand before the congregation of, of believers, again, this coming
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Lord's day, as I did last Lord's day and open the word of God, that authority is not some personal possession of mine.
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That authority comes from the fact that we are obeying Christ and having the biblical organization of the church and engaging in biblical worship, opening the word of God and God blesses that proclamation.
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And the person who stands in that way does so as the ambassador of Christ. And that's how
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God meets with his people. Uh, that's, that's where I would have gone. Um, and, and I would just simply point out once again, uh, that, uh,
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Robertson, uh, he is not a priest, he is not a bishop.
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He is not a part of the teaching magisterium of the Roman Catholic church. Uh, to my knowledge, he has never been invited by the, the papacy to sit upon, uh, a papal biblical commission or anything along those lines.
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Um, and so it, it seems odd to me, uh, some of the approaches that he, that he takes.
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Uh, but I think it needs to be kept in mind, uh, when evaluating, uh, the statements that are being made.
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Well, if I'm going to believe what you have to say, Matt, I need some proof that Jesus gave you the authority.
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I didn't say he gave me the authority. Oh, well, okay. Where'd you get it then? I have the authority by the virtue of being a
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Christian, as many as received him, to them he gave the right or the authority to be called the children of God.
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And we who are kings and priests, douloi, slaves of Christ have that authority. You can't be called a
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Christian. I am a Christian. Who has the authority to decide whether the assumption of Mary is a doctrine or not?
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Well, certainly not the Roman Catholic church. Well, how do you know that? Because it violates scripture. Um, uh, okay.
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But I, I don't, I didn't understand how that was a response to your, uh, because it violates scripture, which violates scripture, the
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Roman Catholic church or the bodily assumption of Mary. Uh, and I'm not sure if St. Janice understood that either because we're coming up on a particular claim that he makes here.
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No, because there's no place in scripture that says the assumption of Mary is the wrong doctrine. There is no place in scripture that says the assumption of Mary is a wrong doctrine.
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There is no place in scripture that says that Joseph Smith's King Follett funeral discourse is the wrong doctrine. Therefore, it must be true.
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No, that's absurd. Uh, so the only thing I can understand at this point,
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I can't believe anyone would actually argue that way. So the only way I can understand what St. Janice said there was he understood selectively saying, because the doctrine contradicts scripture.
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Um, and so he'd need to make some type of an argument as to why the bodily assumption of Mary contradicts scripture, which isn't difficult to do in the sense that it is the exaltation of Mary far beyond, uh, what any creature should, should ever experience at the, at the cost of the soul lordship and worship of Jesus Christ.
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Uh, but they really haven't gotten to that point yet. So, uh, you know, and, and never really do get to that point.
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That's one of the problems. Well, there's no place in scripture that says it's the right one. And the Bible says we're not to exceed what's written.
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Where? First Corinthians four, six. This is going to begin a long discussion of first Corinthians four, six.
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The only reason I'm going to go through it, I don't use first Corinthians four, six as a proof text in regards to soul scripture.
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I just don't. Uh, I think there are much more profitable directions to go.
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Uh, you to, to demonstrate solo scripture, you do so from the nature of scripture and challenging the
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Roman Catholic to come up with anything that has the same nature as scripture that would allow it to stand on the same foundation, uh, as scripture as an infallible rule of faith of the church.
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You demonstrate the scripture is infallible rule of faith of the church, and then demonstrate they can not show you any other infallible rule of faith of the church.
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That's what solo scriptura is all about. Uh, this is not a text
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I use, but the main reason I'm going to go through this is because of some of the claims that Robert St.
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Genesis makes, as I mentioned last time in not by scripture alone, uh, where you have a number of people, uh, submitting papers, uh, there is a lengthy portion where once again, like I said, if, if Bob St.
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Genesis had a good editor, his materials would be much shorter than they are. They, they tend to be somewhat repetitive.
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And sometimes the, the same footnote, which takes up half a page is repeated multiple times in the same book, which exact same material.
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I mean, just the same footnote repeated. It's, it's weird, but, uh, it does give the, the impression of a very large size book.
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And, uh, in his section, he spends a lot of time first Corinthians four, six, and it's worthwhile going through it because it gives you an idea of, of the basic approach.
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The basic approach of the Roman Catholic apologists is this cast doubt and aspersions upon the clarity and perspicuity of scripture.
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And having done so hope that the other person will by default, except Rome's authority, even though Rome itself has not infallibly interpreted that text of scripture.
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And you can use a lot of different ways of doing this. But one of the main ways I wanted to get into was his assertions in regards to, uh, the textual data, the textual information, uh, concerning first Corinthians chapter four, verse six, because he makes some amazing statements there.
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So that's why we're going to go through, uh, this section. No. Yes. It doesn't say that. Yes, it does. No. Yes, it does.
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I want to read it to you. Yeah. You read it. I, you know, I read a book on this, Matt. Good. And you should know.
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First Corinthians four, six, we have 20, 30 pages in our book, not by scripture alone. It doesn't say what you say it says.
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Now these things, brethren, I have figuratively applied to myself and Apollos for your sakes. Us, you might learn not to exceed what is written in order that no, no one of you might become arrogant and be half one against the other.
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Have you ever studied that verse, Matt? Yes. You know, there's like eight possible interpretations of that verse and eight possible translations of it.
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Has the Roman Catholic church officially interpreted that verse? No. Then you don't have any authority to tell me what it is or isn't now, do you?
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I'm just telling you that. Now that was an excellent point. Uh, we need to stop there and go ding, ding, ding.
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Um, it, it, it is very true. And in fact, it's, it's fascinating. Uh, I was directed to a, uh, a
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PDF on Bob's and Janice's website just today. Uh, James Swan pointed out to me.
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And in fact, I think he put an article up on his blog as well. You might want to take a look at it, uh, where Robert's and Janice, uh, takes on the current
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Bishop of Rome, Benedict the 16th and his interpretation of Galatians chapter two and the encounter between Paul and Peter.
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Now I would probably agree, uh, with what's in Janice has say here. I, the irony is however, that some
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Janice ends up concluding, uh, that this encounter between Paul and Peter, uh,
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Peter was actually flirting with, uh, perverting the gospel itself, which was exactly my point in the debate that Rob's and Janice and I had against Robert's and Janice and Scott Butler at Boston college in 1994,
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I believe it was. Um, so it's interesting to see him, uh, saying that, but the point is here is a guy who, who does not blush, uh, but to disagree with the
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Pope, uh, on the exegesis of a particular text. Now I know what the response is.
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That's perfectly within the right of any Roman Catholic to do so, uh, because the
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Pope was not speaking ex cathedra. He was not speaking infallibly. It's just his own personal opinion.
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Um, the whole issue of infallibility is a fascinating thing. And again, I would just recommend that you, uh, get the debate that I did with Tim Staples on infallibility and then the one with Robert's and Janice on infallibility, which took place in the same year.
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I think it was 1999, uh, if I recall correctly. Um, and listen to both of them and allow the
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Roman Catholics to refute each other because they defended the issue from different perspectives and they are not harmonious perspectives.
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I just, just listen to them, listen to the debates and, uh, let them, let them go from, um, from there.
33:45
Uh, but, uh, again, I find that you can't tell me that you have a dogmatic interpretation of that verse because you have no authority to tell me.
33:53
Uh, well, so we just heard
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Robert's and Janice say, you can't tell me that you can give us an interpretation of this verse because you don't have any dogmatic authority.
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Nobody, Robert's and Janice included, can give us an infallible list of interpretations of the
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Bible provided by the Roman Catholic church. So evidently we shouldn't touch scripture because if you need to have a dogmatic authority for interpretation,
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St. Janice doesn't provide a dogmatic authority for his interpretations of scripture because he doesn't have one.
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Uh, and even what the current Bishop of Rome says isn't good enough. So why demand of someone else what you yourself cannot provide?
34:42
That doesn't make a lot of sense. But what I did was I just quoted so we're not to exceed what's written. And you said, yes, we are. No, I didn't even do anything except quote it to you.
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I quoted it to you and you did, you denied it. What? No. What version are you reading from? New American Standard.
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Which one do you want? Well, you read another, go read the King James Bible. It has a completely different translation.
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Completely different. Completely different. Okay. Uh, who both will bring a version that has a completely different translation.
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Therefore, judge nothing before the time until the Lord come, who both doth bring to light the hidden things of darkness and will make.
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Oh, that's the wrong verse. Verse five. Sorry. Four, six. Make sure I'm in the right chapter because this computer program sometimes wigs.
35:19
Hold on. And these things rather than I have a fig. I have any figure transferred to myself and to Apollos for your sake that you might learn in us not to think of them above that which is written.
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Yeah. You see how different it is? Why don't think about what's above that which is written. What does it mean to, to not think above what is written?
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Now, I, I personally don't think that there is a whole lot of difference, uh, in, in the translations.
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Syngenis belabors the attempt, uh, to say that there, this text is just, just absolutely non -understandable.
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But I did want to spend just a few moments before he makes his claim. He's about to make the claim, uh, based on his, uh, deep study of the text that this is an extremely corrupt section of scripture.
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And that there are, I think the term he uses is plethora. We'll find out here in a moment. But a, a plethora of textual variants.
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And so, you know me, uh, and, and textual critical stuff.
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Um, I, I don't believe that I've ever seen, uh, any, any books written by Robert Syngenis being used, uh, in textual critical studies.
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But, uh, it's, it's, it's an area that I've done a little work in. And so I decided to take a look at it.
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And you will discover in verses five and six, um, there is one variant listed in verse five, primarily a
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Western reading. And I'm looking at the Nessie Island 27th edition. I also looked at, uh, the
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CNTTTS, uh, material, the Center for the Study of, uh, New Testament Textual Manuscripts or something along those lines.
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It's a very, very exhaustive listing that I have in Accordance Bible Software.
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And in verse six, it has a long section because what that particular source does is it lists every manuscript variant there is, even when it has absolutely no possibility of being original.
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So if you have one 14th century manuscript that spells a word differently, it will be listed.
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And so it's easy to look at something like that and, and, uh, overestimate the level of corruption, but that didn't come out when
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St. Janice wrote his book. That hadn't, that wasn't even out yet, I don't think. So, um, he'd primarily be using the
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Nessie Island text as well. And so when you get to verse six, the, uh, there are, are two, uh, primary, there are two variants listed in verse six of First Corinthians chapter four.
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And they have to do with the key phrase, however. And the, the key phrase is, has to do with, uh, ta me hupere ha gegrepti.
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Hina me ais hupere to henos, and it goes on from there. So ha gegrepti, using a feminine there.
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Uh, there is a variant between that and a masculine.
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And, uh, you have the masculine in Western and in the majority text, then you have the feminine, and this is just a single letter, by the way.
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Remember in the unsealed text of the original New Testament, this would have been a single letter, the difference between an omicron and an alpha, which looked very much like, uh, in many ways, you know, especially, this is really easy to understand because alphas and omicrons would frequently end words, iotas, things like that.
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Vowel substitutions in an unsealed line. Remember, there's no space between words.
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Um, alphas very frequently beginning words because it's, it's a, a prefix in Greek language, et cetera, et cetera.
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A lot of variants that have to do with those kinds of things. Anyway, so you have that.
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And then, uh, you have the textual variant where the
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Nestle -Aland does not contain a word, whereas the majority text and some
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Vulgate manuscripts, the Syriac, the second hand of Sinaiticus, possibly, uh,
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C and the second hand of D, a few other manuscripts, earlier manuscripts, uh, contain the word phrenin, to think.
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Now, in my opinion, as one who's done a little textual study, uh, phrenin would seem to be a later insertion, uh, meant to smooth out, uh, the phrase itself.
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Uh, so those are the two variants. There really isn't anything else that the editors felt were, was major enough to even be noted.
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And like I said, uh, if you have the, uh, CNTTTS, uh, material, you will find other variants, uh, but none that, that would have any possibility of being, uh, original.
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Now, that is not in any way, shape or form a major, uh, cluster of variation or anything like it.
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Uh, but listen to what, uh, Syngenis says here and compare that with the, the factual information that I just provided to you.
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What does it mean? Because they were puffing up themselves and they were puffing up people in the, in the
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Corinthian church. That's why they said, I'm a Cephas, I'm of Apollo, I'm of this. Paul says, don't do that above, above what is written.
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What was written? What he gave him that was written. Which was? But it doesn't teach Sola Scriptura.
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It just says, don't put us above what I wrote to you. Do you know, do you know what, just curious, do you know what Sola Scriptura is?
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Yeah. It's the belief that Bible only is your authority. Nope. Let me just stop right there.
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He will eventually get to the, the textual thing. Either in this section, they get back to it. They do many minutes on, on, uh, on this particular verse.
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I was surprised. I was sincerely surprised when I heard, uh,
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Bob Syngenis give that definition of Sola Scriptura. Maybe he was just getting disgusted with Matt.
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I don't know. But that, that's not even close. I mean, he's, he's interacted with some of my books, so he knows, he has to know that Sola Scriptura is the belief that the scriptures are the sole infallible rule of faith, the church, that we do not say the only authority.
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It is misrepresentation on a, on a, on a very basic level to give that kind of a definition.
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Maybe he was just being, you know, lacking care at this point because he didn't, didn't feel like it mattered.
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I don't know. But the definition of Sola Scriptura is important because if you say, well, the
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Bibles are only, only authority, that's just patently absurd. It's patently absurd.
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It leads to thinking that we don't believe the church has any authority, and maybe that's what he wants to promote. Uh, that we, that we would be inconsistent to have, uh, subordinate authorities, which we have.
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I mean, Matt would look, obviously, favorably upon the Westminster Standards. I would look favorably upon the
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London Baptist Confession of Faith. And so to say, Sola Scriptura, the Bibles are only authority when we clearly have subordinate authorities, uh, would put us in a position of patent self -contradiction.
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So I was a little surprised by that. And Matt's going to pick up on that and say, well, final authority.
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Well, that's true. It is final authority, but why? Because it's the sole infallible rule of faith for the church.
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We have other rules of faith, but not infallible. They are subject to Scripture. And why is it the sole infallible rule of faith?
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Because it is the only thing the church possesses that is theanoustos.
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It is God -breathed. It is God speaking to his people. We do not have anything else that is theanoustos.
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And if you're going to deny Sola Scriptura, then you better be able to demonstrate there's something else that is theanoustos, that is in possession of the church today.
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You can call your tradition whatever you want. You can say, well, the apostles taught oral doctrine that was the
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Word of God. But since Rome itself admits that they cannot define a single word, the
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Jesus of the apostles said outside of Scripture, then the only theanoustos revelation we have from God is that which is in Scripture.
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That's where the challenge has to be made. And over and over again, St. Genesis is going to slip very easily in and out from, well, there was oral preaching in the church, too.
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That's the same thing Rome possesses. And that's where the challenge has to be made.
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Because historically, that's where the rubber meets the road, shall we say. Okay. Tell me what you think it is.
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No, I know what it is. And what it is, is that the Scriptures are the final authority. It doesn't mean we don't look at tradition or councils.
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It means that it's the final authority in whatever it speaks. It's the only authority that, you know, I mean, when
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I say only, I'm talking about it being the supreme authority. You bet you better. But you need to say that.
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And it amazes me that someone who would write a book or contribute to a book on this subject would be, and knows, especially as a
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Westminster grad, for crying out loud. These are things that on a basic level should have been discussed a long, long time ago.
45:38
Well, that's not the word you used. Contextually, you know. Authority and only and supreme are different.
45:44
But so the Bible tells us we're not to exceed what's written. Okay. No, it doesn't say that.
45:49
When it's written in the King James Bible, it doesn't say that. Well, why do you just go to King James? Well, isn't that the, you know?
45:56
Well, no, I just stopped. I stopped it right there. Isn't that the, isn't that the what? Standard Protestant translation was he about to say?
46:05
I was like, whoa, really? But then I started thinking, well, you know, he did work for Harold Camping and the
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International Church of Christ. Are they? I'm not sure. It's been a while since I've studied the
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ICOC. But are they King James? I don't know. I don't know. Interesting.
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Very, very, very interesting. I'm just telling you, Matt, that there are eight different translations of that verse.
46:34
Well, if it's for you to make a claim that this is teaching sola scriptura, you're going to have to do your homework.
46:40
No, I didn't say that. Which is examining all the Bible verses in the Greek. Do you know the Greek language? Yeah, I had four and a half years of Greek.
46:47
Okay. Did you ever examine the Greek language of 1 Corinthians 4 -6? Oh, yes, I have. Okay. I'm looking at the
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Greek right now. Did you ever examine the textual variants? No, I don't think I have. Okay. They're multitudinous.
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Okay. Multitudinous. Multitudinous. Two. But I guess that makes for a multitude.
47:08
They are multitudinous. That was the term. Plethora became multitudinous.
47:13
I'm sorry. But he expands upon that. Okay. This is one of the most difficult passages in the
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Bible because there are about 10 different variants between verses 4 and 5.
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10 different variants between verses 4 and 5. Let me do my old man thing here.
47:34
Put on the reading glasses again. Verse 4,
47:41
I'm not sure what this has to do with verse 6, but verse 4,
47:48
Nessie Allen does not list any variants for verse 4. Verse 5,
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D, F, and G, which is a common Western alliance there.
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And D is, well, D is like the new living
48:10
Bible of the ancient world. Codex, anyway, that's another issue, has one variant listed.
48:18
And that is the relative pronoun has before hascai fotisai.
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And that's it. I'm looking at it. So a multitudinous textual variance.
48:40
That evidently, now remember, the Nessie Allen text has Roman Catholic prelates on the board.
48:47
This isn't just a, well, that's just a Protestant Greek text. Not the case.
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Not the case at all. It is a joint text, Protestant and Roman Catholic. And its editors do not seem to be tracking with Dr.
49:06
St. Genes on his claims about the textual critical information at 1
49:13
Corinthians chapter 4. And what you're going to need to do is go study those variants and study all the translations of them before you make any hard and fast conclusions about what it's teaching.
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Now, this sounds really good. I mean, if you're just driving down the road, listen, because this is a radio program, you've tuned this in.
49:35
It sounds like this Roman Catholic guy has done his homework. And I remember, you know, I've told the story before,
49:43
I'll tell it again. I remember the first time I listened to Jerry Matytix do his high speed,
49:51
I don't have to breathe between words presentation of the Marian dogmas, and especially his demonstration that Mary is the
50:00
Ark of the Covenant. And I remember listening to that. This is so long ago, it was on a cassette tape.
50:07
Yes, this was back in the 90s. I'd go for my rides and just like I do now, but I'd have a big old bulge in the back pocket of my jersey, because I had that.
50:22
Remember the Walkman? You know, and you put the big old batteries in there and you put that cassette tape in there and mine had auto reverse.
50:29
So I didn't have to pull it out and reverse it. That was really cool. But I remember listening to a cassette tape.
50:37
Yeah, Walkmans were battery hogs. They did. Sometimes if I was going to be listening to a long one,
50:43
I'd have to bring another set of batteries with you. That was fun. And now I've got an iPod Nano, which does not take up nearly as much space and it's not nearly as heavy.
50:51
But anyway, and carries a whole lot more on it. That's for sure, with eight gigs. Can you imagine what that translates into in the number of cassettes that you can now carry?
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Yeah, boxes of cassettes that you could carry on your back now. Anyway, I remember listening to that presentation and I was just blown away because I had never heard it.
51:14
The confidence and this verse says this and this verse says that. But I went home and I got showered up and I put the cassette next to the computer and I fired up BibleWorks.
51:28
Back when it was like BibleWorks three point something or two point something or whatever. And I started looking at every single verse.
51:37
And folks, that's what the people driving down the road aren't doing. And I started looking through each of these verses and I started finding error after error, miscitation out of context.
51:51
Just, just, this is the word that Luke used for this. And then, and so I'd go back in the Greek subtegent and I'd find out, well, it wasn't.
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And it was a real revelation as to how, well, it's, it's,
52:06
I was listening to Jerry Mattox this morning, his debate with Eric Svensson. This was also back from the 90s, late 90s.
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And I was, again, blown away. I just had to come to conclusion, this cannot be done randomly or by accident.
52:20
This is a purposeful, deceptive mechanism. These are the very men being described in scripture as those who with flowery speech deceive the hearts of people.
52:31
I'm listening to it right now. And you just, you hear this and you go, but then you start looking it up and you find out, well, wait a minute, he's just, he's just not right.
52:49
This is just, this is just false. How do, but how many people can even check that out?
52:56
How many people who heard this radio program as it aired could have opened up a critical edition, the
53:04
Greek New Testament and gone, oh, what's he talking about? Um, yeah, there's a variant with Franine.
53:11
There's a variant between masculine and feminine on, uh, on a pronoun, uh, relative, but, um, not really a big major deal.
53:24
And yet it sounds so convincing. It isn't when you dig into it, but it sounds convincing.
53:31
I don't have any problem doing that. And I know that you should do it, but you can't say the Roman Catholic church has officially interpreted it.
53:37
Now, that's a good point that Matt makes here is that, uh, St. Genes raises the specter of textual variation, but can
53:45
Rome tell us? Rome did once, you know, uh, as when I mentioned this in, in chat channel, the first time had a number of people, uh, say, well, hey, at least you've got an infallible
53:56
Vulgate translation, right? Well, no, Rome doesn't believe that anymore.
54:03
But, um, ask Pope Sixtus about that. Uh, and then of course they had to pull it back because that had so many errors in it.
54:12
And then, you know, at the Clementine Vulgate comes out after that. And, uh, you know, for a while,
54:17
Rome really played with the idea of coming up with the official text and for a long time defended the
54:23
Vulgate over against the original Greek. I wonder why he's arguing the original Greek should have gone to the church's Vulgate, right?
54:31
Uh, yeah, there's a lot of inconsistencies here. Your guess, so to speak, is as good as mine. So why don't we just look at it together?
54:37
You're the one who offered the verse. Yes, I did. And I quoted it and you denied it. No, I didn't deny it.
54:43
I didn't deny the fact that you, that you know what it's talking about. I'm not. Well, what's in it? St. Genesis didn't deny the verse.
54:48
He just denied that anyone knows what it means. But isn't this strange that the man who represents the church that claims to be infallible really cannot tell us what the verse means.
54:58
He can only tell us, well, it doesn't mean that. Or, or it could mean eight different things.
55:03
Uh, but this is, remember, this is the church that can give you infallible certainty, but only on the things that it wants to give you infallible certainty on, you see.
55:16
And the things we need to have infallible certainty about it for some reason, uh, really can't do that.
55:22
I know what it's talking about. It says you might learn, that you might learn the not beyond what has been written.
55:31
Get drop tie. That not what has been written, don't exceed, don't learn or go beyond what is written.
55:37
That's what the literal Greek says. Okay, let's do this, man. Let's, let's go in the back door on this one. Was Paul teaching oral, oral teaching to, or oral inspired teaching to the
55:47
Corinthians at this point in time? Now, this is very, very interesting. And you need to listen to this.
55:56
And looking at the clock, uh, we're about out of time. Uh, but this will be a good place to pick up with, uh, on Monday, remember
56:06
Monday afternoon, this time, uh, the late time, the normal Thursday time on Monday is when we will pick up with this.
56:15
But this is a very important thing. If you, if you, as a
56:21
Bible, believing Protestant want to be prepared to deal with the best that Rome has to offer, then you need to deal with the issue of the relationship between scripture and tradition and a recognition of the fact that there is a period of time during which the scriptura itself was coming into existence.
56:47
And the relationship between the authority of the oral proclamation of the apostles during their lifetime and the situation the church faces after the apostles are gone in recognizing the authority of Christ.
57:03
See what Rome wants to do is Rome wants to say, ah, there was an oral proclamation and it was authoritative.
57:10
And therefore we continue to have that authority as if their traditions contain something that the apostles themselves were teaching at that time.
57:19
They're trying to borrow from apostolic authority at that time and translate it into the current time.
57:27
And in so doing undercut the actual teaching of the apostles in the inspired scriptures.
57:32
That's what's happening, but it's done very subtly. You're going to hear that. We'll pick up with this exact question the next time on The Dividing Line and look at First Thessalonians 2 .13,
57:45
Second Thessalonians 2 .15 and the relationship of scripture and tradition. And again, if you want a full discussion of all of this, volume one of the three volumes set,
57:56
Holy Scripture, the pillar and ground of our faith. David King did an excellent job in going through all of this.
58:03
The Roman Catholic apologists all got up in arms when those books came out and then they found something else to do.
58:13
They knew that they just couldn't even begin to deal with the argumentation provided there.
58:19
So get that. It's available on our website. We'll pick up with that next time on The Dividing Line, Monday afternoon, four o 'clock, the afternoon, regular time.
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We'll see you then. God bless. The Dividing Line has been brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries.
59:21
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59:26
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59:32
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