Sunday School - The Roman Catholic Controversy - Part 6

All right, brothers and sisters, we were in chapter 6, 5. Chapter 5 was this reading of the soul scripture of God. So you guys, particularly, what are some things I set out to read for you this week? And then we'll go more in depth into the teaching.

Any things I set out to you guys, this week from chapter 5 of Roman Catholic Controversy by James White?

One of the things I wasn't sure I was repeating, I never heard when they were talking about rules of faith and the development of faith. And then on page 60, it kind of defines it. It says, and I've never heard that expression before.

I'm afraid to hear it.

We should just read it. We're going to go more in depth into that. It's a really interesting concept to bring up in the life of soul scriptura.

Anything that maybe was new to you.

In regards to soul scriptura, that maybe you didn't consider before, or maybe you didn't know before? Because sometimes people have a basic misunderstanding of what soul scriptura is supposed to be or what it means.

What are the things that soul scriptura does not? Emmanuel?

Me, by Bible, under a tree. Say it again? Me, by Bible, under a tree. Yeah, that's right.

Does this mean that you are now the perfect, infallible interpreter of God's word? All it just needs is you and the Bible, and that's enough. That's not soul scriptura. Anyone else have maybe a concept or a thought that is new to you?

I talked about something that's apparently exhaustive, not just secure. Answer. Yes, sir? I'd like to point out that the Bible does not include all truth. It doesn't even necessarily include all spiritual truth or, I don't know, religious-related truth.

Like, the other Catholic would point out, oh, Jesus quotes this document, but where is this document? We're missing it. And I remember early in my Christian life, a Mormon tried that on me, you know? He said, oh, well, they mentioned this book, and this book isn't included in your Bible.

You know, the Bible. Yeah, sure. Yeah, it was some historical book. And it kind of threw me through a loop.

It's like, where is that book? How come we don't have it? What else are we missing, you know? Yeah, the scripture refers to common thoughts of, I think, at least five times, to books that are undiscovered, really.

But there's the, what does the Chronicles reference? The reference is the Book of Wars. I don't think we've talked about the Book of Wars. We've talked about another account of Solomon. There's a lot of things in the scriptures that point to other things that aren't, we haven't discovered, that are covered.

Even the scripture, the New Testament, quotes often from Greek writers. And so, it's a very interesting thing. Anyone else have any thoughts or questions in regard to the Greek text, Adam?

I guess, kind of piggybacking on what you just said, I remember, I read a commentary from Crossway about the Greek Septuagint, and one big point to help with the fight is that just because the people exploded, does that also take something that was done with the Anastas, and make it in Anastas?

Mm-hmm, that's right. What it does is that, what's inspired it.

Is the point that the biblical author's making. That's right. And at the time in which that creates it all, quotes Greek philosopher, Hippolytus, right? And he says, you know, we are Acts 17, and we're all as awesome, right?

He says, even Hippolytus would agree with this statement, right? Because, again, Hippolytus is one of the great pioneers of creation. Similar, I think, when it says, in 1 Corinthians 15, chapter three, he's quoting from Greek philosopher when he says, that one of his foes took care of him.

And so that's very important. Pastoral church, that has all the use in the church, but the source of the church is in itself in Christ, isn't it? Just one question.

I was really surprised to hear that the Roman Catholic church says that the Bible is not sufficient, and, you know, that they have to have traditions. That, yeah, that really was surprising.

Yeah, so if you remember last week, we talked about how other churches do similar things, right? So you have Roman Catholicism, kind of, obviously the biggest, one of the biggest world religions. But then you also have, from a more micro scale, you have the Mormon church, you have the Jesus Witnesses, who all claim that the scriptures are not sufficient.

Who all claim that they are the ones who can interpret scripture. So the Adventists as well, they believe that LGY is the inspired interpreter of scripture. So there's always a caveat. So we believe God, this is the word of God, we believe the Bible is God's word, but we have, you know, you can't appreciate it apart from our interpretation, you can't appreciate it apart from our literature, you can't appreciate it apart from the Pope or the Councils or this or that.

And so, and that's where we begin to crash, have a crash course with sola scriptura, and what does sola scriptura mean in the context of Reformation, and the things that are being made by the Roman. Any other thoughts or questions before we go a little bit deeper?

The Biblical Origin of Sola Scriptura

Let's jump into the lessons, and again, today's lesson is a talk on sola scriptura, and really clearly defining what sola scriptura is, and means, and the implication it has for the believers. First and foremost, where does sola scriptura originate from?

If you think it's a trick question, maybe it is. Where does it originate from? The Reformation. The Reformation. You would not be totally wrong. That's technically true. Where does it really originate from?

Where does it really originate from? Bible. Thank you, it's the Bible. Come on, guys, wake up.

The Bible is the key, or the origin, of sola scriptura. How do we go through this? God's Word says, 1 Timothy 3, verse 16, what does it say? All scripture. All scripture, what? God reads. God reads, fine.

In the definition of a teacher, a brewery, the Bernoulli, he said, a magistrate is somebody who exercises the man of God to be fully competent, fully competent. You know, we always hope that the first part of verse 16, verse 17, is key, too, because it says that it makes the man of God fully competent, which is to say, or another important translation of the word competent, it is sufficient.

Makes the man of God fully sufficient for every good deed. God's Word is totally sufficient for the edification, teaching, rebuking, or instructing of God's people. Sola scriptura originates from scripture.

Scripture is self-authenticating. Scripture is divinely inspired. It is God-breathed, and it originates from the heart, from the mind, from the very breath of God. God breathed, and He speaks His words, or as it's reported for us here in Old Scripture, therefore, the Roman Catholic claims, the claims of the Gentiles, the claims of the Mormons, that say scripture is not sufficient are contradicting head-on with the absolute writings of the Apostle Paul and the absolute understanding of the New Testament and the Old Testament.

And so, when we ask, when the question is raised by our Roman Catholic friends about sola scriptura, we say, first and foremost, it originates in Holy Scripture. Now, it is also true that the term sola scriptura, Latin for what?

Scriptural. Scriptural alone, originates primarily in the early years of the Reformation. And so, the Reformation started around the 1500s. I'll say, still points of interest, still part of this Reformation history and tradition.

But primarily, the issue when sola scriptura came on the scene was an issue of authority. What is the authority for the believer? Is it Rome, the Pope, and its many councils, which are often so commonly agreed, or is it the Scriptures?

Now, remember the context. Most of the common people did not have access to the Bible. Most of the common people, the laity, the church folks in the pews, had never even seen the Bible before. And it was punishable by death, if you were caught with the Bible in a modern language, whether German, English, French, whatever the language was in the time of the country.

And because the Bible was kept in what language prior to the time of the time? Latin. Latin. And I was, I think, being called upon by this last week. It wasn't until the 1950s, basically, until they began to relax some of those issues or the regulations of the government and stuff, right?

Any other questions you wanna give on that? No.

I mean, what I mentioned last time is even some of the death penalty stuff, I'm aware of situations in the late 1800s where that was happening. Or, you know, I don't know why they're not in Latin. That's right.

And so it's not, yeah.

It's not ancient history. Yeah, this is fairly recent stuff. Yeah. But it's not ancient history, you know, 400 years ago. This is pretty recent, been the last, you know, 200 years. What was the reason?

What was the reason? Yeah.

For keeping it in Latin? Or, yeah. Why would they put something like that that had a translation of Roman Catholicism?

You know, part of it was because the concept of Roman Catholicism, especially at the time, was they wanted to guard their doctrines and dogma from being corrupted. So the idea was, if this goes into unlearned hands, then unlearned people will begin to corrupt the understanding of the purity of the gospel.

And that's why they have a strong distinction between the clergy and the laity. And the clergy had to go to seminaries, the priests had to go, you know, it was really only in the seminaries that most of the Canadian priests had access to Bibles.

Most of the priests, people don't know this, but most of the priests in the churches in the medieval ages did not have Bibles themselves. The only place they actually had to have access to Bibles was at the seminaries, and they would have to memorize it because they were so nervous about the Bible getting into their own hands.

And again, they feel, if you ask a Roman Catholic today, they feel vindicated in that because they say, well, look at, all you guys have Bibles, and what do you got? 48 ,000 different denominations of Christian in the Protestantism.

And so they feel vindicated saying, look at all the divisions you guys have. Everyone has a Bible, everyone has their own interpretation. That's what we're trying to avoid, which is why they kept it so under lock and key, and also kept it in Latin under their language so that only the priest could properly interpret the Scripture for them.

And so do you think that protection of the Bible came from like a righteous place, like they had good intentions, or was it just like a bad interpretation of like, you know, them as like protectors of the Bible?

Yeah, just like anyone in a place of authority, like our United States Congress, they all do things out of the best intentions, but they usually end up ruining everything, and everything is in touch. And I think any place of authority where people think, oh, well, I have to do this because if not, you guys are just gonna make such a mess of yourselves.

And when they take out the role of the individual, they take the role of, and this is, spiritually speaking, the individual priesthood of the believer, then, you know, when you collectivize everything, when you collectivize everything, everything ultimately rises to the top.

And so those who are in authority, those who are in power, this is, you know, just a common power structure of humanity, so when you look at other power structures of communism and things like that, power always is supposed to be for the people, and it rises to the top always.

And so the same is true of the religious dogma. People who are at the top tend to consolidate power, and they do so in regards to protecting, you know, the average Joe. So it's just, it's part of the human nature, so when you look at the history of humanity and all the forms of government, all the forms of social structures that we've made, religious, non-religious, it always ends up being the same because we're all in the same bone condition.

Any thoughts or questions on this, Silvana? It is kind of depressing,.

But thank goodness we have the gospel. The gospel is the answer to all these issues, whether they're social, political, spiritual, the gospel is always the answer. And that's the heart of social purpose, that scripture is sufficient, the gospel is the answer, and we'll always bring it back to the gospel.

Does that make sense to you? Like the gospel really is the answer to all mankind's problems. Why are there wars, why are there famines, why are there issues at home, why are there issues in our workplaces?

All through the gospel is the gospel of reconciliation. It's the answer to all of our problems. And so that's what we need to continue to preach and educate ourselves with. In relation to social scripture, not only do we recognize that this is something that is based in scripture, it has a historical precedent in the early Reformation church, but also I want to explain to you what social scripture is and not based on reading this book.

So first of all, one of the things that James White makes here, page 56, is that social scripture is not a continuum but the Bible contains all knowledge. Now, at first, that statement can make you feel a little bit appropriate.

You know, if you have maybe a conception of social scripture that was maybe done 100 percent accurate, you'd be like, what do you mean that the Bible doesn't contain all knowledge? Or it almost seems like we make lesser the Bible by stating like that.

But this is such an important picture. The Bible is not a science textbook, right? So it doesn't have all the answers to scientific truth. It doesn't have all the answers to mathematics. There's very little math, you know, in scripture.

In fact, if Jesus seems to multiply fish out of nowhere, I haven't figured that out yet in geometry or in mathematics. So how Jesus and how God does certain things and functions goes beyond what we would know as science or knowledge.

It's like supernatural, supersedes natural order. There's a lot of things that scripture doesn't give us the answers to. It says that the Lord got rid of them from the earth in six days. We don't know how he did it.

We just know he says he did it. And so how the Lord, who creates all the world and brings forth things out of nothing, we don't have those answers. But we rely on scripture as reliable truth. And I would say it's the foundation for all knowledge.

It's not that the scripture contains all knowledge, but it gives us a foundation for all knowledge. Because without it, we could know nothing. Now, there is a really interesting documentary by Jordan Peterson on the Bible that you can find on YouTube.

And again, Jordan Peterson is not a believer. He's not a professor. He's not someone who I would go to as a source of authority. But I appreciate the passion that he brought in this documentary about literacy and the scripture.

And when he does it, he goes to the library, the student library in West Virginia, in Washington, D .C., and he goes through the history of the Bible. And it's kind of magnificent. I mean, the history of the Bible, there's still comparison to it in literature.

And when he does it, he points out that without the Bible, without the Bible, we would not have our society. Without the Bible, we would not have modern knowledge. Basic things that we take for granted, like literacy, mathematics, science, biology, all have basis in the scriptures.

And without it, we wouldn't have any basis today. And so really, when I say that the scriptures is the foundation for all knowledge, I really mean that. Without the scriptures, we would not have many of the things that we understand today that take for granted.

Any thoughts or questions on that? Absolutely. A lot. That's right. I mean, even the things that we don't even think about, for instance, yeah, even the way that we handle financial matters, for instance, right?

So I think I just surveyed several weeks ago. You have, for instance, in the Bible, Sheets of Cycles. For 70 years, it's called Sheets of Hebrew. You have 70 years cycles, and it leads to a Jew, right?

It's a canceling debt. And in 70 years, it's usually a debt cycle, which is why, on your credit score, if you default on something you're willing to pay, then you just think it's your credit score, or small little things like that, that take for granted.

You wouldn't think it actually has a basis, a foundation in scripture. And so, yeah, very fascinating. But I would encourage you to watch that documentary. I think it's called Law, Laws, Literature, something like that, from Jordan Peterson.

Really fascinating look at the history of the Bible. Now, the second thing he points out is that Solstice Road is not a claim to the Bible. It's an exhaustive catalog for all religious knowledge.

What did he mean by that, in particular?

What did he mean by that? What does James White mean? That scripture is not an exhaustive catalog for all religious knowledge?

Yeah, there are some religious knowledge that we have to derive from the good natural consequences of scripture, but it doesn't necessarily spell out for us.

That's true. Which is why we preach it, all right? Preachers are meant to exegete the scriptures. What does the word exegete mean? To interpret. To what? To interpret. To interpret, essentially, how to draw out of the text, and to eliminate the text.

So, we're called to exegete scripture, to bring it to light. And so, the preacher would be unnecessary if the scriptures were exhaustive or anything, because then we would be known to point to religious stuff.

And so, scripture is not meant to be exhaustive in all religious knowledge. If, for instance, we don't have an exhaustive statement of the Trinity in scripture, you know, we don't have an exhaustive, you know, the closest we would get would be 1 John 5, verse 13, or 12, or is that seven, I can't remember.

But it's what's usually purchased at the honey of the common, which is, through the very record, we have the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, these three are one. Yet, most non-religious don't have that, because it's not in the oldest manuscripts.

So, we don't have an exhaustive treaty on the hypostatic union of exhaustive doctrine on many things in scripture, but we draw it out of the scripture. We exegete, we see what the scripture says, so we draw these things out, and we say, okay, well, if this and this are common, then it means this.

And that's how we come to interpretation of scripture. I also wanna point out that there's a science to interpretation, right? So, we don't just look at scripture and say, well, that's how you interpret it, and I interpret it differently.

I think that we can mostly come to a pretty fair and common understanding of scripture by following some very basic principles of interpretation. And there's a science to look at pastors, and preachers, and theologians, and learned seminarians, what's taught to us is the basic fundamentals of interpretation, which is hermeneutics and exegesis.

Hermeneutics is the way in which we interpret scripture. It's the lens by which we interpret it that we harmonize the scripture. The exegesis is that we draw out of the scriptures. So, there is a science to this.

This is not a lot we're just guessing. And I think that's the way in which we can find common ground with a lot of folks, is if we just have these basic conversations. One of the things I did with my mom, which is a Josephowitz, maybe a week or two ago, is we got into a conversation of scriptures, which is always interesting, she's a Josephowitz, and she was telling me how the end of the year, and all this stuff, and this is always a good day, a good day, a message, and she was pointing to a scripture in math, in math, to report all of this work, and said, Mom, I think that already happened.

She's like, what? She couldn't believe what I said. And I'm not a preterist, I'm a partial preterist, so I don't take preterism to the nth degree, but what I did say to her is I think that this scripture's been fulfilled.

How do I know this? Because Jesus said that it's related to the temple, and so I took her through it, and I said, well, let's just draw a logical conclusion. Let's say you were sitting here on the Elm of the Discourse, and you heard Jesus say that this generation will finally pass away, and you'd be thinking to yourself, I can't look at these guys in 2023.

They're gonna have a tough time. Like, just put yourself in the audience, right? Put yourself in the shoes of someone who's listening to Jesus at that moment. You would not draw the same conclusion, right?

If you heard Jesus say this generation, you'd be thinking, oh, this generation. And we wouldn't be theorizing, because generation 1914 and the generation of 2023, or this and that, like, we wouldn't go there.

Scripture, scripture, scripture, is a plaintive interpretation of scripture, and you should do the true interpretation of scripture. And so, you know, just put yourself in the, just like we were talking, you know, in high school, put yourself in the place of the audience at the time in which Jesus was crucified.

That would help a lot of the false doctrine, and I'm gonna be clear, a lot of false doctrine. It's very, we just did that most of the trip. Any other thoughts or questions on this? It's a bit exhaustive in our understanding.

Of which narrative details, you know, there was more to John's congregation than we're in depth. It wasn't, it didn't seem that he was talking about the implications of scripture. I was waiting to talk about necessary implications later.

But I would like to hear him kind of formalize his beliefs on that, given that, I mean, this book was written a long time ago, but recently, he's, sorry, James White has started talking about, you know, he calls himself like a reformed biblicist.

No, I'm talking about a biblicist. Yeah, so a biblicist is someone,.

Usually it's used as a derogatory term.

For someone who only takes the things.

That are very explicitly stated in scripture.

And doesn't look at the logical implications of them, like the fact that, you know, God is Trinity. Jesus is God, and the Father is God, and there's only one God, et cetera. But, yeah, given that he's started talking about, like, reformed biblicism, and things that other people are taking logical implications to for, I'd love to see him outline, you know, what, where he considers the boundary of faith.

But, yeah, that's what I thought. No, that's a good one, yeah. He also has a whole book on Sola Scriptura, by the way, which is pretty good.

And a reformed one, he touched on that a little bit, too, on his talk when I was there, and so that's interesting to be able to do that, for sure. One of the things he says here, again, that the Bible is the complete rule of faith.

It's still the complete rule of faith, but it doesn't mean to be exhausted, right? So, we don't have to get completely used to it. The Scriptures are sufficient. Think of what sufficiency means. Does it mean completely already competent?

Not necessarily, but it means that it is sufficient for the task at hand. And what's the task at hand, according to 2nd Timothy, chapter three? It's to demand God to be fully competent in whatever you're doing, right?

And so. And in it, too, he's talking about it's sufficient for salvation. Absolutely. All we need to know.

That's right. All that we need to know for life in God is, right? And so, it's sufficient. God's word is sufficient. But at the same time, it's not meant to be the exclusion of whatever works, whatever good things we do.

We're reading a book that's not Bible, it's a psalm, right? And by reading a book that's not Bible, is that to be a Sola Scriptura? Absolutely not. Now, what we do is that we look at, so here's like what Jehovah's Witnesses do, for instance.

They'll have a book, which one of the books published by Watchtower Society, and they'll interpret the Bible, this is their own lands, and they'll interpret the Bible through this book, right? So the book has supremacy over the Bible because they say you have to believe what this book says in order for you to understand this book.

Now, the Christian is the opposite. The Christian, this is the supreme rule of faith. And so, we use this book first as our main guide, and we understand that this book is not perfect. It's not made by infallible men.

So, we hold this as the priority than this, and we never say this interprets this, which instead, this is the supreme rule of faith, and this will dictate what I receive from this. Does that make sense?

And so, it's similar to the Roman Catholic view of the Watchtower Society, of the supremacy of the popery, and supremacy of the councils and traditions over the supremacy of scripture. And so, they are interpreting scripture.

Through the lands of the councils, and the posts, and other dogmas,.

Instead of allowing scripture to be the supreme rule of faith. Does that make sense? The third thing that was brought up was that some of the scriptures that are not afforded the church to teach God's truth, it's kind of like what I brought up earlier, why do we need creatures as pastors, right?

It's not that we're just reading scripture. I mean, part of our liturgy here at our church is that we have what sometimes we refer to as dumb reading, right? We will just read scripture. Now, we kind of have to do some of our liturgy to do that, reading scripture.

But if there are some militancy in the movement taking the view, like, oh, all you gotta do is just read it, just read it, and that's it, that's sufficient. But we're not called to just read, we're called to exegete, we're called to preach, to draw on the texts of the precious truths, and make it not just applicable to the life of the Christian today, but also to draw on its original meaning.

For the people of God, right?

And so that's a super important concept that we can't forget, and that draws us back to the authority of the church, because the church doesn't have authority. The church has distrusted the words of God.

And I think those things can't be overlooked. Anything that stood out to you in that section that could be of importance? She began, I want you to turn to the scriptures in 1 Timothy, and I want you to turn to chapter four, start at verse six of chapter four of 1 Timothy.

Again, Timothy is a pastoral epistle, a letter from a multitude of young pastors, and after one of the qualifications of a docier, or a pastor, or an elder, and Paul teaches for deacons, he begins to impart to him some of the divine mysteries of faith, namely the incarnation, the intercession, and the renewal.

But he then begins to warn the young Timothy of the dangers ahead of him, the dangers that are, you know, poised to the church in particular, that many will depart from the faith and will go themselves to deceiving spirits, teaching demons.

He goes on in verse six to caution young Timothy by saying this, if you put these things before the writer, you will be a good servant to Christ Jesus, and be trained in the words of the faith, and of the good doctrine that you have followed.

Have you nothing to do with the irreverence of the ministers? Rather, train yourself for godliness. For while a body trains in some value, godliness is a value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.

The same is trustworthy in deserving who will accept us. For to this end, we toil and strive in keeping our hopes set on the living God who is the savior of all people, especially those who believe. Now, we will notice verse 11.

Command and teach these things. So Paul's admonishment to Timothy is not just to receive these truths and store them in his own heart, but rather, it's also to command and teach these things to others, which in part, Paul is demonstrating there is authority vested in the overseer, authority vested in the preacher, authority vested in those who are bringing the word of God to the people of God.

And we strive and we told to that end to bring forth this message. He says, let no one despise your youth, but set the leaders, an example, a speech of common love, a period of faith, and a period, it's like the devotion of public reading, of scripture, to interpretation, to teaching, that I'm glad to give to the gift of the camera, was given to me by Dr. Pompsey with the counsel of the Holy Lady of Antioch.

Practice these things, immerse yourself in them. I love that concept there. Practice these things, immerse yourself in them so that all may see your progress. This is a very important text. Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching.

Persist in this, for by doing so, you will save both yourself and your hearers. And so clearly there is instruction here from the church and from those who have invested authority through being qualified as a pastor, an elder, or a student, in bringing forth this message.

And so again, this scripture does not negate or deny the authority of the church or of the qualified persons to bring forth God's word. Any thoughts or questions on that? Does that mean that the pastors are meeting close?

Some kind of act that way, I've noticed. Some pastors act like they are a little tiny close of their own little empire. And I think that there is, I was talking to my dad yesterday, who's also, he's a former Jehovah's Witness, but he still believes in it.

He's in a relationship with a woman who is Pentecostal. And he was telling me how the church pastor there was very upset with her because she was supposed to donate her dollars to the U-Bus, and she didn't want to do it.

And sometimes pastors, if you cross circles and fundamental circles, act like they're little tiny folks, like little tiny tyrants, and they haven't paid their doses, so now they're going to be punished.

And it's just, sometimes prophets and charismatics and Jesus Acts, you know, posts, and Catholics, and it's good to guard ourselves from false teaching, as well, which is one of the expectations that Paul gives to me, is to guard ourselves from false teachers, whether, wherever they may be.

Now, if you ever watch James White, the name of a Roman Catholic, you'll find that the Roman Catholics will often make interesting statements. I forget which priest it was, but he was being a very prominent priest once, and he asked the question,.

Are there some popes who are now, and the priest said yes.

And he says, some popes have taught damnable heresies. So, he says, yes, technically, then, some popes may be in the Lord. Is that who you want as the head of your church? Is that who you want to be the monarch of the Christ, who is the representative of the Christ's Church?

Clearly not. This is why we have to have social clearance basis, because by it, we test all things and hold fast to it, which is good, including those who hold positions of authority in the church, and we hold them accountable to the Lord God.

Does that make sense? So, God's word is like freedom, and then pastors, preachers, bishops, you know, overseers, everyone is subject to scripture. An overseer is, in a scripture, he uses three, maybe four terms, since it's our high penitential office.

You have pastor, elder, pastor means shepherd, it's a maternal faith, and then you have overseer, which is where we get the word bishop from, in Old English. Some people have thought that individuals are different tiers, or different offices, and we do see, maybe a question from the early church, where you did have a distinction between elder, pastor, and also overseer or bishop, and then you have archbishops, and then you have what the Roman Catholic have, which is you have priests, bishops, archbishops, and then carvals, and then you've got the, so they have really made a huge conference about that, but I think that overseer, pastor, it's the same, just different terms for it.

And then you have deacon, which is servant, because we see archbishops just, right, so there's clearly a distinction between servants, the word deacon has, it means servant, but also, if you look more into the theology of the word, it actually means someone who's brought, who's dragged through the dirt, so if you see your deacon in a church, and he's not out there very often, just make sure you drag him through the dirt, and get him back to the original meaning of the word,.

So, you were gonna say something?

Yeah, in I think verse nine of what you were just reading a second ago, like how would you interpret that verse in regards to like that question that we had at the, at the forum a couple weeks ago, which was like everyone is scared.

I think it's verse nine where it says, because we have our hopes set on the living God, who is the savior of all people, especially those who believe, so how do you interpret that in regards to that question that we had, whether everyone is saved or not?

Great question, and so, God is a savior to those in it, for instance, you'll hear me say this, and perhaps my own kids when we're preaching, that Jesus is Lord, regardless of whether he's human, he's Lord, right, Jesus is king, whether or not you acknowledge that he's king, he's savior, whether or not you regard him as such, he's still a savior.

Now, there's a general sense in which he's a savior, king, lord, that's true of everyone, regardless of whether you're a human or a devil. But notice that the emphasis, especially of those who believe, so it's not like Paul's saying, okay, there's a two-tier salvation where there's people who are saved and kind of saved.

Scripture says in Hebrews nine that what he saves is what he sees to be our most, that we are saved from everlasting salvation. And so, there's a general way in which, just like we have the Mormon here, we've had that discussion of the Mormons, there is a general sense in which God is the father of us all.

There's a general sense in which Christ is the savior of us all, but especially towards those who believe, and then there is a particular sense in which people who are under the worship of Jesus are particular sons, particularly saved, particularly, you know, obviously placed in a position that non-believers are not, because they're not inheritor of the promise of the king.

And so, I would just say that this is a text that demonstrates that God, Christ, is the creator, savior of everyone, but in particular to those who believe, so that salvation is still particular to those who believe.

You cannot be saved apart from the same faith, Jesus Christ. So that takes into account more of what all the scriptures say on that, but it could be, it could be seen, many have used this text, like Elisha's kind of brought up, to kind of sell universalism, and say anyone can save, anyone can, you know, you don't have to believe in God because you save everyone, but no, that's not, I think, the text is trying to draw.