MSL: April 3, 2024

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The following program is recorded content created by The Truth Network. It's Matt Slick Live!

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Matt is the founder and president of the Christian Apologetics Research Ministry, found online at karm .org.

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When you have questions about Bible doctrines, turn to Matt Slick Live for answers. Taking your calls and responding to your questions at 877 -207 -2276.

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Here's Matt Slick. Hey everybody, welcome to the show. It's me, Matt Slick. You're listening to Matt Slick Live. I hope you're going to have a good time listening today, by God's grace.

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And if you want to give me a call, as usual, all you have to do is dial 877 -207 -2276.

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I want to hear from you. Give me a call. And if you want to, you can email me a question or a comment at info at karm .org.

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Info at karm .org. So just c -a -r -m dot o -r -g.

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Put in the subject line, put radio question or radio comment. And you know, I was thinking about this yesterday, that if you'd be so kind, when you email people, when you talk to people, whatever, spread karm.

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Spread the karm website out, you know, so that people can know about it. And you know what?

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I just thought, I wonder if it would be good if people would like cards, and I have business cards from karma. What if they would like to ever have some?

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So they could pass them out. That's an idea. I didn't think about that until just now. Anyway, so I wonder if we could work on something like that.

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If you want to do that, give me an email. Let me know. I don't know. Anyway, just talking. So tomorrow night,

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I'm going to be in a debate on total depravity, and more information will be coming on that on karm .org

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forward slash calendar. And then a week after that, we're tentatively scheduled for me to debate. I think he's a

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Muslim. This has been going on for a while, and we're finally nailing it down. Does the Bible teach that Jesus is divine?

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Then two weeks after that, I'll be speaking here in Idaho and Meridian on spiritual warfare, the nature of truth, and they said they want me to get deep.

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So yes, I'm going to be getting some deep stuff on the nature of truth, the essence of truth, and what we know, what we believe, how we know things, grounding theory of the

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Trinitarian essence, necessary precondition for all intelligibility. I'll get into that. But I'm going to make it simple, and I'm going to put it in PowerPoint slides.

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So I'll be doing that. And I like PowerPoint. I used to teach it.

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So I know tricks inside of PowerPoint, how to make things look smooth and blend and morph together.

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And it's a lot of fun. I got a lot more to learn, but it's fun. All right. Hey, why don't we just jump right on the phones here?

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Let's get to Justin from New Hampshire. Justin, welcome. You're on the air. How are you doing?

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Hello. Hello. Hello, man. I'm doing okay. Hi. How are you doing? Doing all right.

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So here's my question. So just for a little context, I recently left a church because they're permitting women deacons.

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Okay. And I went to the elders. I confronted them about it, and they held their position of that women are to be permitted.

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So that's their position, whatever. Like I did what I could. But one person from that conversation reached out to me and agreed with me.

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So as I was trying to reason with them, you know, going through scripture, of course,

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I just want to make sure I'm being accurate in what I'm seeing in 1 Timothy 2 -3.

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So I guess my question is this. So Paul writes out that women are not to teach or exercise authority over men, right?

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Right. Mm -hmm. Right. So would it be reasonable to say that the office of deacons is an authoritative role?

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In a different way of elders? Well, that's worth a discussion.

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The office of the deacon is someone who administers church funds, church stuff for the needy.

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That's basically what it is in service. And so it says deacons must be husbands of only one wife.

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Right. So there you go. And deacons in the Greek is diakonoi, which is the masculine plural.

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So it's not neuter plural. It's not feminine. It's masculine. So deacons must be husbands of one wife.

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And it's the same kind of a thing that's said of elders. So I think you're right for confronting them with it and saying this is what the

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Bible says. And you're not going with Scripture. That's what's happening.

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Right. Absolutely. And that's where I stood. I'm just trying to, like, reason through it.

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And I had one more question just about... So Paul writes that the men who are considered to be deacons must be tested.

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And then he kind of transfers into the family structure of what I see, at least. He goes, wives must be in talking about their character and then what it looks like for the children within the household.

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Would it be reasonable to say that a qualification for a man to be a deacon, that there needs to be a certain way in which he needs to run his household and what his family needs to look like?

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Yes. And so the family must be in order. Now, here's a problem here.

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Because what if a man, as a godly man, raises his family according to the principles of Scripture?

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They attend church regularly. He's done what he's believed is right before God and taught the children,

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Bible study with the children, etc. And then they grow up and they leave the house and then they become, let's say, atheists, let's just say.

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Well, now what? Is he disqualified? Well, now we get into the gray area because right.

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How long? How long do we hold this? Well, if he did it in his household properly, that's what we know that the

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Scriptures teaches for sure. If they go where wayward, what if they become a Catholic? Well, then is he disqualified because they're in a false religion now?

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So this is it's a tough one. But normatively speaking, deacons are supposed to be men also.

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And women hold that office, which is what Paul teaches in the pastoral epistle. So, yep.

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I gotcha. I totally agree. I'm not like this. I'm just, you know, trying to figure out, like, you know, being consistent throughout the whole

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Scripture and being able to explain, you know, why. Because, you know, some translation says says women versus wives, stuff like that.

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Why the context? Yes. I don't know. Well, maybe you could help me out, actually, with this.

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What would be the correct wording? Wives versus women.

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Sorry. Women within the context, you know? Well, it's it's not there's

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Greek words. There's gunai, gunaikos, or their derivations are cognate to the same word. There's anthropos, anthropoi, anthropai.

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And they have. And that would. Anthropos means man. Gunaikos generally means woman.

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But it's often used in the context of a wife. So it says deacons must be the husbands.

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And that's the word Andres, which is not the word Anthropos, which is just the singular form of the word man.

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Anthropos. And so we have Andres. And that generally what it means is a husband.

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That's what that's what it means. So basically, so a deacon must be the husband of one wife.

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And it says me as gunaikos. And then we get to the word gunaikos, which is also it can be used as a woman and wife.

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So there are different places where the word occurs and it occurs in Matthew 14, 21.

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There are about 5000 men who ate besides women and children. And that's the word gunaikos.

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So we have the it's called a semantic domain that the word has a range of meaning in different contexts.

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So what it's saying here, we could we could say deacons must be men of one woman.

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We can say they have to be husbands of one wife. Well, then we got to ask the question, well, what if he's married?

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He's got one wife and then she dies. Now, is he disqualified? Because now, technically, he's not a husband of one wife.

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So that's a problem. Well, the context here is, is no, he's not to be a polygamist.

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He's not to have many wives at the same time. That's what the cultural context is, which is why he's saying that, because it's the order of the created order of Adam and Eve.

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One woman, one husband, that kind of a thing. That's what's going on. Even in that, though, wouldn't it be that what you just said, that when a spouse dies, they're released from that covenant anyways?

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So like, yeah, well, yeah, they're no longer scripturally speaking. Yeah, that would that would biblically be able to go around.

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I don't want to say go around, but you know what I'm trying to say, though, like that that doesn't disqualify you based on that, because Jesus clearly explains that you're released from that covenant.

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That's the issue of marriage. But back to the deacons thing. OK, this is important because it must be good managers of their children.

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And that's plural. But what if you only have one child? OK, so you don't want to take this super literally, but we don't want to violate what is clearly taught.

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And just as the elders are to be on their musical nightclubs surrounding musical nightclubs of husband and one wife.

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So, too, the deacons are to be that. And so are the Episcopal or the bishops. So this is what it's saying in the church.

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And Paul says in verse 15, you know, that he's giving instruction on how people are to conduct themselves in the household of God.

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And that's it. So you were right to confront them. And they are wrong for going against scripture.

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Yeah. OK, cool. Thank you. So, like, just so I'm clear, my. So if I'm going to stand on anything is based on the deacons being by nature, they have to be men because they have to be husbands of one wife.

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Like women cannot be husbands because. Right. Exactly. Exactly.

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OK. Unless you want to ask them if they're going woke. You could say, are you guys going woke in the gender confusion stuff?

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That's a good question. Yeah. And just, you know, I found a church beforehand. So I'm in a good, solid church, thankfully, right in town.

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Like, I didn't even know that they were around and they don't hold that position of deacons can be women.

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So, like, the Lord certainly used this circumstance to get my family into a church that is more faithful in this area.

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But, yeah. So, you know, praise the Lord. Right. Praise the

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Lord. Right. All right. That's correct. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you. I appreciate it.

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All right. God bless. Take care. God bless. Bye. OK. Thanks. All right.

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Good call. All right. Now let's get on the line with John from Alabama. Hey, John. Welcome.

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You are on the air. Thank you, Matt. It is a joy to speak with you. I've been listening to your program for six or seven years, and this is the first time

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I've called in. I just wanted to thank you for your ministry. I have a question first. I have a question, but first I just wanted to comment about a unique way that your ministry and this radio program has blessed me.

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And actually, I was incarcerated at a federal prison in North Carolina for about three years.

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And it was there that your broadcasts are broadcast on a statewide network there in North Carolina.

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And it was fantastic because I was a believer prior to being incarcerated and straight from the word of God.

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But prisons are really breeding grounds for the occult. And in the interest of unity and in the interest of keeping the peace and keeping everything, you know, even books like Kingdoms of the

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Kingdom of the Cult were forbidden to be inside prison facilities.

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Right. So the truth of having your network, your broadcast shine through, was so illuminating for many

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Christians, including myself. So thank you for what you do. Praise God. Well, praise God, you know, and just praise

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God. And two things. One, I did nine years of prison ministry, going to different prisons for nine years.

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So I've been under the gun. I've been in low level security, been on the yard, been down, you know, different levels.

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And I've always enjoyed the fellowship with the believers in there. And so I get what you're saying.

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And I know what the literature issue and the radio. Well, when we get back from the break, we'll talk about that radio really quickly.

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And then we'll get on to your questions. So hold on. OK. Hey, folks, we're right back after these messages.

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We'll get to John from Alabama right after the break. Please stay tuned. It's Matt Slick live.

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Taking your calls at 877 -207 -2276. Here's Matt Slick.

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All right. Welcome back to the show. Let's get back on with John. Hey, John, you still there?

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I am. Thank you, Matt. All right. You're welcome. And I just wanted to say that you should, if you haven't already, contact the

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Truth Network. And just give them an email and say thanks for, you know, for having the radio there and going into the prisons and how it helped people.

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They would love to hear that. And it's good, you know. So, you know, if you had that opportunity, if you haven't already done it,

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I'd recommend you do that. I will do that. Thank you. Yeah. OK. Good. Yeah. So you were going to make a comment before the break.

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I apologize. No, that was it. About the radio. OK. That was it. Yeah. OK. Yeah. My question is, it's interesting.

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I was incarcerated for 15 years and now that I've gone back into society and I've been released about a year, it's interesting because I see where the

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Protestant church, in my opinion, was and I see where it is now. And obviously growth of megachurches and all that.

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And my question to you is, as a church I currently attend, it's just really great growing fellowship and expository preaching, preaching verse by verse through books of the

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Bible. Yet I have friends and family who, you know, attend other well -meaning fellowships.

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And it seems like these occur more frequently now than I remember in the past.

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But it's non -denominational churches who have maybe shorter sermon series that are taught on Sunday mornings.

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There's no Bible studies on Sunday mornings. It's all community groups through the weeks, which

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I get that. But I just, I have a worry, a fear that with these shorter kind of topical sermon series, that I'm not sure people are getting the

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Word of God in fullness, in context, like happens through expository preaching.

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How big of a deal do you see the difference between those two ways of kind of feeding the flock?

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And in what way, if you were attending a church that taught the

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Bible in an expository manner, in what way would you kind of,

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I hate to use the word pitch, but pitch that to those who don't as maybe a different way or a better way of attending church and of being fed the

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Word of God? Okay, so, all right.

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I'm going to say this carefully. I don't want to say it without wisdom. But in my opinion, this is my opinion, a lot of churches are not preaching the

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Word of God. They're preaching methods, motivational stories, stories to get you interested and prepare you for a segment of Scripture.

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Too many of the churches that I've come across and been told about expand the congregation numbers with gimmicks, great music, great programs, etc.

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And I think a lot of them measure their success by that. And, you know,

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I often want to challenge them. This may sound arrogant, and I don't mean it that way. Not like I'm anything great, but I want to, you know, it's like, what would happen if they gave me the pulpit for three months?

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You know, get a big church. And then I preached, and I preached expositionally from the Scriptures and preached theologically from the

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Word of God uncompromisingly. How many would stay? I'm not saying a good preacher or a bad preacher or whatever.

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What would happen if someone were to get into these churches that do this motivational stuff, this program

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Christianity, and preach Jesus Christ crucified. You need to repent of your sins.

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You need to trust in the Lord Jesus. You are called to be disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ. You've got to pick up your cross daily and follow after him.

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If you're an adulterer, you've got to stop. If you're watching pornography, you've got to stop. If you are living with someone, you need to repent right now, you know, and go through all this and say, the fires of hell await those who rebel against a true and living

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God. And I preached like this occasionally and then taught on the Trinity, taught on the deity of Christ, the hypostatic union, the vicarious nature of the atoning sacrifice, what justification is, how it relates to sanctification, holiness, who and what

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God is. This is the foundation of all truth, the biblical stuff. What's the Word of God in its inspiration? Why you should be studying it?

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What's communion? What's baptism? And do all these things through the teaching of the Word of God.

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How many would stay? It's just a question. I don't know. I don't know. Would it grow? I don't know. But when you gather people with honey, you keep them with honey.

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And I'm not saying be mean, but I think that what preachers need to do is preach to the elect, not to the unbelievers.

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And what I mean by that is God has elected people for salvation, Ephesians 1 .3.

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And if I taught that from the pulpit, how many people would walk out? But if I were to quote Ephesians 1 .4,

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if I were to quote Ephesians 1 .4 and say, he chose us in him before the foundation of the world. This is what

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God did. And you preach to those people, the ones called by God for the equipping of the saints, because that's what the preacher is supposed to do.

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Equip the saints for the work of ministry. And that's Ephesians 1 .8 through 11 and 12.

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This is what the pastor is called to do. So when you talk about this issue of expositional versus, so to speak, motivational, man, you just don't know how much

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I've thought about that and how frustrated I am with the churches that teach the seven steps to a better marriage, the seven steps to how to tie your shoelace better.

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And I'm just tired of it. Matt, if I may, if I may jump in super quick. I have a feeling.

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It's just a feeling. This isn't anything that's written down or anything that's written down in Scripture.

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But I have a feeling that part of the motivation of that is I liken it to finances.

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And I liken these churches to finances and people who live paycheck to paycheck. Because I feel like a lot of people in these congregations live

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Sunday to Sunday, and I'm not sure how they're how capable the church is.

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Their individual churches have made it for their faith to be maintained. Well, that's an interesting turn of topic.

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Finances, faith maintained and things like that. I'm not sure where you're coming from with that.

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But there are churches that teach that faith and finances are related and that the more you believe, the more you're supposed to give.

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That's manipulation. That's not where I was going with it. I was just using the allegory to say that people, it's as if,

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I wonder people at these motivational churches, if they lack the motive, if they don't get the motivation on Sunday morning, how likely it is for their faith to grow over time, whether someone who is in the congregation of a church that preaches an expository message – let's say it's something where they're a worker and there are false allegations against them.

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I'm making something random up. They might have the wherewithal to say, oh, hey, this happened to Paul. In the

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Old Testament, this happened with false allegations to Joseph.

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And they're like, hey, I can see myself in the Scriptures and see what these people did, and then

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I can move forward. And I think that gives a more wholeness to their experience as a believer, rather than kind of a motivational, you can do it, you can overcome it, because you have the

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Holy Spirit. I agree with you. We've got to break. You're talking the difference between motivational, popularist teaching versus expositional from the

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Word of God. And when we get back, I'll talk about one more thing before I get to the other colors. Okay, so hold on, man.

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Hey, folks, we'll be right back after these messages, please. Stay tuned. It's Matt Slick Live!

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Taking your calls at 877 -207 -2276. Here's Matt Slick.

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All right, everybody, welcome back to the show. As soon as the producer reactivates John, we'll get him back on the air.

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And there we go. All right, John, you still there? I am.

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Thank you, Matt. All right, so briefly, the Bible says this in 2

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Thessalonians 2, 3. Let no one in any way deceive you, for it will not come unless the apostasy comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed as a sort of destruction.

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So that means the return of Christ will not come back until the apostasy comes first. So the apostasy is the church falling away from the truth.

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So I'm of the opinion that, for the most part, Protestantism will go apostate.

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Catholicism already is. Eastern Orthodox already is. And so in part,

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I think, it's because of one simple thing. People aren't trusting the Word of God for what it is.

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It's powerful, and it's inspired. And that people are more concerned, or I'm asking, are people more concerned with numbers and success and programs rather than preaching the

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Word of God? And I've said this before to people. What if a pastor were to take his sermon, not her because women aren't to be pastors, and take his sermon and go out to a forest where there's nobody around except the squirrels and the chipmunks and whatever, and preach the sermon to God, that God's the one listening, and that the sermon must be catered to glorifying

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God and preaching Christ and Him crucified because otherwise it's moralism. And then they would take the exact same sermon and go the next day and preach to the congregation.

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Would it change? That's a question I've asked. You know, certainly when you see people in the congregation,

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I preach many, many, many, many times. And when you see people reacting to something you said, it influences you because if they're nodding and a bunch of people, then you know that the

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Spirit's opening their hearts and their minds to that truth. If their eyeballs shoot up or they're not sure about something, you have to spend more time on it.

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I get that. But the view here is the fidelity to the

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Word of God because we have to answer to God as preachers and teachers. And if we don't, then

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I believe that that would be supporting the upcoming apostasy. Okay?

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Thank you so much, Matt. Thank you for your ministry. Amen. Praise God. Glad you're out of there and you got the opportunity to serve

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God now. So praise God, man. Okay? Amen. Thank you, Matt. God bless you. You too. God bless. And you know,

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I just thought of something. I know that there are people in prison who hear me, and I'm just waving to you.

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And if you're there incarcerated and you're hearing me, I want you to know I've been in prison countless times.

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You know, in prison ministry over nine years in many different prisons. And I've always enjoyed the guys.

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I've always enjoyed the fellowship. And I've been Level 4 even. I think Level 5, but Level 4. And so I've got stories.

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But you know what? I've always enjoyed the dedication that the men have to the

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Lord Jesus Christ. There's always fakers. We know that. But there's a lot of men in there and women too.

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And I've never done a woman's prison. But a lot of men who truly love

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God and are repentant will serve out their time and then want to go serve God. And I praise

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God for men like that. And here's another thing about people in prison. A lot of people don't know this.

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That when you become, in some areas, I've been told this many times in different prisons. I've been, I won't tell you where.

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And I've had many men tell me that once you profess Christ in prison, you'll be tested. And that they're going to test your faith to see if you're going to compromise.

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And you'll be tested. And you hold fast, you hold steady. And they're going to look for that.

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And then once they know you really are serious about it, then things tend to get better overall.

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And I'm saying this very generically. But once you've really committed to Christ, and everybody knows it, then that's just how it is.

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And people respect that behind bars. And I've got some interesting stories.

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I'm going to tell you this one story. I'm going to tell you one story. And it's one of the most memorable stories for me.

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And I was in a certain prison in California. And I was preaching.

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And I had lost my son just months earlier. And so here

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I am trying to connect with these guys in prison. Many had been in there for many years. And we're in the chapel.

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And I'm up on a stage, about three foot high stage. And I'm preaching.

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And I'm trying to connect with these guys. By saying, I know what it means to suffer loss. We have different kinds of loss.

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You've lost your freedom. Some of you lost families because you're in here. I've lost a son, but I'm free.

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And I understand there's differences. But I know what it means to suffer loss. It means a lot to you.

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And it's hard. And so I was trying to relate this. And these two

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Mexican guys with tattoos that look like they were the leaders of gangs.

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They got up. And they went to the center aisle. And they started walking right towards me.

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And I had a button in my pocket. All I had to do was hit this button. And it was an alarm. And then the guards would come in and rescue me.

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And I remember these two men walking up towards me, looking at me. And I'm thinking, is it going to happen?

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Are they going to jump me? Because by the time the guards get to me, I'll be broken in 14 pieces.

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And so I was preaching and was aware where the button was. And was ready to hit it if they were to have reached up and grabbed me.

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And so here's my thoughts, right? This is what I'm thinking. And I'll never forget this. These two men walked right up to where I was, turned to my right, their left.

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I'm never going to forget this. And then, during the sermon, these two men got on their knees and put their elbows up on the stage and prayed during the rest of the entire sermon.

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That people would, and I talked later, that people would receive the gospel message and the truth and come to Christ.

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I never, I will never forget it. And it certainly taught me a lot of things,

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I'll tell you. Anyway, okay, there you go. Let's get to Bob from Nebraska.

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And then I want to get to Dave from North Carolina about Richard Dawkins' statement. That'd be interesting. Okay, Bob, you're on the air.

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Hey, thanks, Matt. So yesterday we were talking about, you know, whether, you know, what

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Christ was talking about in the upper room. So I asked you if, you know, your sins, past, present, and future are forgiven.

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You referenced Colossians 2 .14. And certainly as a Catholic, I agree with that. And then

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Christ's forgiveness comes to us personally when we accept him as our

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Savior and trust in him. And that's your understanding of it. And then you also understand that you can't lose your salvation, right?

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And so then we kind of got to John 20, 21 through 23. And I read it to you and you said, yeah.

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And you said, well, that's not actually what the Bible says. You said that he was not giving the apostles the authority to forgive sin.

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He was telling them that their sins had already been forgiven. I think you said that the

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Greek translation is different. And so let me explain if I could.

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It says, if you forgive the sins of any, their sins have been forgiven.

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That's what's significant because have been is what's called the perfect tense. And it's called parsing when you analyze it, what part of it of the sentence it is.

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And this is the perfect passive indicative. The perfect passive, perfect tense is

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I have been walking. The pluperfect is I had been walking.

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The perfect tense means it's a past action with continued effect and action in the present.

31:52

I have been walking. I still am. That's what that is. So if you forgive the sins of any, their sins have been forgiven.

32:00

Now, wait a minute. What's he saying? Is he saying that by the authority of the apostles, that if they forgive, then their sins are forgiven?

32:10

No, no. But he did. Yeah. Right. But if here's a question

32:15

I ask Catholics, I say, if they go to John 20, 23, now say, so your priests have the authority to forgive sins.

32:23

And they'll say, some say, yes. I said, if they forgive sins, is God obligated to follow what the priest did and forgive them?

32:30

That's a question because where is the authority? Is it in Christ or is in the priesthood?

32:35

And there's no New Testament priesthood like this, which is another topic. Yeah. So the church teaches that it's in Christ.

32:42

So that's who forgives the sins. Yes. But you've left out part of John 20, verse 23, and that is, whose sins you retain are retained.

32:53

So what sins were retained by Christ on the cross? If we take your Greek translation as consistent throughout.

33:02

It is. That's what the Greek says there. It's also the passive, perfect passive. It's the same thing.

33:07

They have. So, yeah. So what what sins would have been retained then by Christ? Well, when you say retained, it doesn't say retained by Christ.

33:17

It says retained. So got to be careful not to modify the word. But this is what it actually says in the

33:23

Greek. OK, so if you forgive their sins or retain their sins, they have been. It's like saying they already have been.

33:30

It's what the equivalent is. They already have been forgiven. They already have been retained. In other words, with the with the apostles, it's not talking about apostolic authority being passed down.

33:38

That has nothing to do there. What is talking about is the people who had this authority to represent

33:45

Christ just as I can. I'll say to people, if you've done this and you've repented and you've trusted

33:50

Christ, your sins have been forgiven. That's all I'm doing. Oh, hold on. Now we've got a break. OK, so hold on.

33:56

Hey, folks, be right back after these messages talking to Bob and then hopefully to Dave about Richard Dawkins statement.

34:02

I'm looking forward to that one. Hey, we'll be right back after these messages. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877 -207 -2276.

34:15

Here's Matt Slick. All right. Welcome back to the show. Let's get back on with Bob.

34:22

Hey, Bob. You still there? Hello, Matt. Hello, Matt. So I can't remember exactly where we were when the commercial break came.

34:30

But basically what I was going to point out is that if we use your Greek translation, understand John 20, 21 through 23, and we also keep in mind other verses, such as Matthew 18, 15, 18 through 18, and then

34:43

Matthew like 16, 19, we see a consistent granting of certain authority from Christ to certain humans that happen to be the apostles and the authority to bind and loose the authority to settle disputes.

34:55

And then, of course, on Easter, this authority granted on in the upper room, which if we use your

35:04

Greek translation, it says that Christ has already forgiven the sins on the cross. And if we if we move that to the second half of that sentence, which it's basically the same, then

35:15

Christ is, under your interpretation, retaining sins on the cross, which I don't think you believe.

35:23

I don't know if that means to retain sins on the cross. He bore our sins in his body on the cross. First Peter 2, 24.

35:30

And on the cross is where you cancel the sin debt. So this idea of him retaining sins on the cross doesn't make any sense to me.

35:36

But when you go to. It doesn't make any sense to me either. Well, I think you're not understanding the issue or I'm going to say what you're saying.

35:44

But in Matthew 16, 18, you talked about this issue. I know that the Roman Catholic Church says that the authority was in the apostles and it is passed down.

35:53

Nothing in Scripture says that. Not a thing in Scripture says that. And when it says that, you know, you're

35:59

Peter upon this rock, I'll build a church. Peter in the Greek, there's Petros. And upon this rock Petra, I'll build my church.

36:06

Petros is masculine. Petra is feminine. So if it's built upon Peter, then why is it that Jesus says upon this rock

36:13

Petra, I'll build my church? Well, it's a reference to himself. And we know that because in First Corinthians 10, 1 through 4,

36:19

Paul talks about Jesus being the rock Petra that followed the

36:24

Jews in the wilderness when they got out of Egypt. So, well, but I didn't mention 16, 18.

36:32

Yeah, I met. I mentioned Matthew 16, 19, which is where he says, I'll give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven.

36:38

And whatever you bind on earth shall be mounted in heaven. And whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. So that's where the consistency is between John 20, 21 through 23 and Matthew 18, 15 through 18.

36:51

Because there's this authority that Christ is obviously giving to human beings. Nope.

36:57

You have to understand something. You're using a bad translation and you have to get into the

37:02

Greek. So I'm telling you, this is what it is. Take a look at the Greek. I'm just translating it from the

37:08

Greek. It's not a translation. Yeah. It's not a Greek translated. It is the Greek. So in Matthew 16, 19, if you will give, excuse me,

37:18

I will give you singular, the keys of the kingdom of heaven and whatever you, that's a singular word in Greek, bind on earth, shall have been bound.

37:26

It's the future perfect passive. Perfect is very significant because Greek is very precise.

37:34

Shall have been bound. It will have been bound. Well, what's going on? And if, if the apostles,

37:41

I have no problem with the apostles having special authority because Christ gave it to them, but it doesn't pass down.

37:47

It's not passed down because they had the authority to do miraculous things right then and there.

37:52

And you go to Matthew 10, you can read through Matthew 10. He said, give you authority to cast out demons, to do this.

37:58

This is how you're going to know they can heal and all this stuff. They had that authority and they did it on command. And if your apostles or your descendants of your apostles have the same authority as you want to say here, then how come they can't do the same thing

38:08

Peter did? They don't. Well, they don't have that. I think you're getting a little bit off base because I'm simply using the

38:16

Matthew chapters as support for what Jesus is doing in the upper room on Easter, on the first Easter.

38:23

And that is to give the, the apostles the authority to basically retain or not retain somebody's sins.

38:32

And that's, you know, every translation I look at says something like, you know, the

38:37

English standard version says, if you withhold forgiveness for many, it is withheld. The new international version says, if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.

38:46

And so every, every translation would be based on the Greek. Yeah. And so go ahead.

38:57

If, if, if I lead someone to Christ and they trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as their savior and I say, your sins are forgiven,

39:03

I'm not pronouncing, uh, my action is not making them forgiven. I'm pronouncing what's already has occurred.

39:10

That's what's going on in the linguistics here. That's all that's going on. Yeah. And furthermore, like I said, the apostles certainly had authority granted to them that we don't have you and I, and you know, we don't have that, but nothing in scripture says it was passed down.

39:27

You have to find in scripture. Where does it say apostolic authority was passed down?

39:32

You've got to find that in scripture. It's not there. Well, I mean, it's in the, it's in the, uh, uh,

39:39

Pauline letters. So he's talking to Timothy. Um, he's talking to other people that he's bringing into the church in the, you know, in the

39:47

Episcopate basically. And so you look at those, you have the laying on of hands, you have, uh, the making of deacons, which are the first priests.

39:56

Um, you know, so you've got, um, you've got examples of that. But again, all of that is often respond to that.

40:03

So, well, you raised it. So, and I'm just refuting what you're having to say, but you're talking about the issue of laying my hands on people.

40:10

That does not mean apostolic authority to be able to do miracles and forgive sins is now passed down. It means the issue of ordination and the recognition of the calling that God has given to them.

40:20

See nothing in the, in the new Testament says that apostolic authority is passed down.

40:26

And you can't just say the, here's the problem. The idea to forgive sins and not forgive sins is non verifiable.

40:34

It's non falsifiable. You can't see it. You can't touch it. There's nothing you could say it.

40:40

Well, how do you know what happens? Well, because we say so it's, it's not my saying it's meaningless, but I mean, there's no way to verify anything, but the verification that Christ gave the apostles was in Matthew 10.

40:53

I give you authority to do this. And he gave him that authority and it was manifested in raising the dead on command, casting out demonic forces on command.

41:05

Now, if this apostolic authority is given from the apostles down to the people down through your, so to speak, claim to be true church, then why is it your apostolic successors don't have the exact same authority that Christ gave them?

41:18

Because it's not manifested that way. Therefore you don't have it. Okay. Simple. Well, you know, we can talk about that.

41:27

I'll, I'll certainly provide you with some good basis for that, but that's not the, that's not on point with the reason that I called you back today, which is

41:35

John 20, 21 through 23. So in my humble opinion, I think you're understanding it.

41:42

Um, and your understanding of the Catholic, um, sacrament of reconciliation is flawed.

41:47

And I'll just kind of give you some, some points here. Christ explicitly lays out the church's role in the forgiveness of our sins today and tomorrow as well as yesterday in John 20, 21 through 23.

41:59

It's the sacrament of reconciliation and it's Christ's plan that other humans and I'll call them priests for sake of argument are specifically tapped to play that role.

42:09

And, uh, you know, we think that these priests, um, have the authority to inform a person that their sin has not been forgiven.

42:20

Uh, so that's the sin that is retained until, until the person, uh, repents and turns to Christ and asks for the forgiveness of the sin.

42:30

And that, of course, as Catholics, we believe that you can lose your salvation. And that's why we have the sacrament of reconciliation.

42:36

And that's probably why you don't. Um, but this role in which you and other non -Catholics, yeah.

42:44

Um, so this is a role that you and other non -Catholic elders and ministers do not participate in and other non -Catholic

42:52

Christians don't even attempt to utilize. But it's all due to a misunderstanding, which goes beyond John 20, because you must misunderstand the church teaching on confession.

43:04

On my radio show, you want to start teaching Catholicism. I'm not going to let you do that without me responding to everything that you say.

43:09

I believe Catholicism is apostate and that anyone who believes in official Roman Catholic theology is on their way to hell.

43:15

That's what I firmly believe. You and I want to have a discussion, because I think you're intelligent and polite. We could have a discussion off air in a room.

43:22

We could have a nice discussion, point, counterpoint. I think we could do that. Yeah, I'd love, I'd love to do that. But I think the nut of it all is that it's not the priest as a human being that forgives the sin.

43:34

It's Christ that forgives the sin through the sacrament of confession and reconciliation because of, it all goes back to that, that, that Good Friday, his sacrifice on the cross.

43:46

And so on those types of things, we agree. And you just get hung up on the fact that, oh, I'm not going to go to another human being and confess my sins.

43:54

As Catholics, we don't believe we're going to another human being to confess our sins either. Yes, you are.

44:00

You do that when you go to a confessional. It's a human being you're talking to and you're confessing your sins. I mean, wow. Well, what the priest is, is he's in person on a

44:07

Christy. Okay. I want to talk to the guy about Richard Dawkins. So we've only got like five minutes left. All right. All right.

44:13

Well, thanks, Matt. Okay. I appreciate talking to you. Seriously, contact me. We'll talk. All right. All right.

44:18

All right. All right. All right. Now, you see, there's a good example right there. He's a Catholic guy and we disagree, but he's polite.

44:25

And I like that. I really do. I value that. All right, Dave. You've been on for 42 minutes waiting.

44:33

Hey, man, sorry for the long wait. What do you got there? Hey there, Matt. Yeah. I read something very interesting over the weekend.

44:41

And Richard Dawkins on Breitbart claimed that he is glad that England is a

44:48

Christian country as opposed to an Islamic country. And I just sent you an email, info at carm .org.

44:58

There was a link to that article where he spoke. Well, good.

45:03

I'll check that out because that tells me even I want to debate him on Christian theology.

45:09

I read his book and it was pretty bad. He didn't understand Christian theology. But at least he's aware of how evil

45:16

Islam is. And that's good. Yeah. So good. He's aware of it. Because, you know, if Christians, true

45:24

Christians are with you, you're safe. You'll be protected. But true Muslims with you, you can't guarantee you'll be safe.

45:33

I was glad that he did that. I'm not a Christian by the way, but I'm glad he did that because I feel the same way.

45:41

I feel better living in Christian America than I would in the

45:47

Islamic country. Yeah, I agree with that. And I believe that I'm happier in the

45:59

Christian country. Now, maybe in the 1500s I may not have been, but I know in the here and now

46:05

I'm glad that America... In the 1500s? People argue whether it's

46:11

Christian or not, but it's more Christian than it is Islamic. And I'm so glad for that.

46:18

In the 1500s it was Catholic Christianity that was in control, which is why everything was so dangerous. But look at this.

46:25

What nations are Protestant in their heritage versus which ones are Catholic in their heritage?

46:31

And look at the economic, social differences between them. It's a really interesting observation.

46:37

Which is most of Europe Catholic in their heritage? A lot of them were. Spain is

46:42

Catholic. Portugal is Catholic. And then they moved into South America, which is

46:47

Catholic. But the Protestant based systems, it's not an absolute rule, are far more successful and safe.

46:58

One more thing before I go. I've read a lot in my life, and I have no formal education.

47:09

And a lot of these words I read, I don't know how to pronounce them. And I know how to pronounce apologetics, because I hear it all the time.

47:19

But there's a word that was in one of your articles that says apologia. Oh, apologia.

47:25

It's just a Greek word. It's the Greek word apologia. Apologia. Okay, well, thank you very much,

47:34

Matt. There's the music. But that's out of 1 Peter 3 .15. It's just in the Greek. When you're reading it and pronouncing it in Greek, you come up to the word defense.

47:41

And it's apologia. That's the word for defense. Okay, thank you. It became apologetics. Okay. God bless.

47:48

Thanks. Hey, folks, we're out of time. Ryan from Pennsylvania and Jason from Michigan. Sorry about that.

47:54

Call back tomorrow. And by His grace, we'll talk to you then. Another program powered by the Truth Network.