Theological Discussions Was Mary Sinless w Jeremiah Nortier

The Apologetic Dog

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00:40

What's going on, everyone? Welcome to another episode, second episode of Theological Discussions.

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Tonight I have a special guest, and I'm sure you guys will be blessed by him. And by the way, this is a discussion, a live discussion, so feel free to comment.

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And if you have a question for my guest, then I'll highlight it. We're also on YouTube, so feel free to share the video as well, okay?

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So I don't want to waste too much of your guys' time. I want to go ahead and introduce my guest right now. Let me see if I can do this really quick.

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All right, Jeremiah, how's it going, man? Hey, pretty good, Arturo. Thank you so much for having me on.

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Awesome, awesome, bro. So before you introduce yourself, I just want to let people know why I have you on here. It's kind of a random topic just to kind of throw in there for my second episode, you know, was

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Mary Sinless. But the reason is because I've been waiting for Marlon to have a debate on one of the

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Marian dogmas. And he probably did. I just missed it. But this is the first one that I've seen. And bro, you did an excellent job.

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I definitely recommend people to check it out if you can. You know, I linked it on my

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Saint Satisfied page. And make sure when you're on there to subscribe to Marlon's channel,

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The Gospel Truth. That brother has been working so much, and he works so hard. You can tell that he's a man.

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He takes it seriously. So Edwin from the Proverbial Life just commented.

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If you guys don't follow his page, follow his. He has some good stuff, too. Robert Boylan, I think that's how you pronounce it.

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Might be a friend of yours, right? Yes. Yes. We're definitely friends. Awesome.

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There he is. Hey, I think I recognized him from the comments from the debate. Was he on there?

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Okay. Robert is a Latter -day Saint. And so we have a point of agreement. We both think that Mary was a sinner in need of a

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Savior. So we joined forces for the debate. Awesome. Awesome. Maybe one of these days, man,

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I do want to talk about Mormonism. And I'd love to have Robert just chime in. He'd be an excellent resource.

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Yeah. There was one time where, man, like the discussion of Christ being created or something like that.

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A Mormon brought up a good argument, and it stumped me for like a week, bro. I was pulling out my hair.

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I was like, oh, no. And I messaged Jeff Durbin and everything. I was like, I need to answer this guy. But anyway, that is for a different video.

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Yeah. So, man, before we talk about your debate and all that, can you go ahead and just introduce yourself and let people know what you do, any ministries you have, podcasts and all that?

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Absolutely. Well, hello, everybody. My name is Robert Teer. My testimony is that I was saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ when

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I was 14 years old. And I don't have one of these amazing testimonies that just blows your mind that I was saved from drugs or anything like that.

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But I grew up in church and I grew up in church and I was 14 years old and I knew the gospel.

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But it's so hard to explain. I was just so convicted over my sin before a holy, righteous and just God.

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And I realized that I was just a fan of Jesus. I wasn't a follower. So looking back, that's when the

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Holy Spirit just regenerated, regenerated me, convicted me of my sin and my need of a

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Savior. And so ever since I was 14, it's just been a journey now of sanctification.

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And so the Lord that I adore from Scripture, I'm passionate about. People ask me, why do you talk so much about Scripture and the

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Word? It's like, that's a part of who I am. And the Lord calls us to contend for the faith.

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And I'm convinced that we ought to talk about the truth and love. And so I serve in northeast

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Arkansas. I don't mind sharing the town that I'm from. It's Jonesboro, Arkansas. I serve at a new church plant called

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Twelve Five Church. That's the word 12, the number five church .com. It's the website.

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You can find this out. But it comes from Romans 12, verse five, that you had this diverse body.

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But we are one in Christ ultimately. And I just love that because we're in this together. So if you want to check out twelvefivechurch .com,

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that's the website that's been newly launched. You can find some of my content, some of my sermons, my teaching series, past episodes of debate on my

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YouTube channel, just YouTube Jeremiah Nortier. And that should be able to take you directly to my page. But as Arturo and I have been talking about,

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I have a heart for apologetics. Now, here's the thing. All Christians are to give a defense for the hope that lies within us.

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And that comes from first Peter 315. But that verse begins with sanctifying

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Jesus, the Lord, in your heart. So you always need the word stored in your heart, treasured up in your heart.

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That's how the man of God makes his way pure, by storing up God's word in your heart.

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And I just think about if I'm equipped with the word, and that's why we stand on Sola Scriptura.

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We stand on the word as the ultimate authority of our lives. God's going to equip us. And so when we're doing that, we're trusting

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God as we are preaching the gospel to people. It's the gospel that's ultimately the power of God unto salvation.

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So we're just heralding truth and trusting God with the results. But all Christians are called to give the hope that lies within us and apologetic with gentleness and respect.

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So it totally ruins our witness that you might be able to articulate some verses, some theological concepts.

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But if you do it out of a heart of meanness, and you're really condescending to people, then that totally goes against what we're trying to say.

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We're supposed to show them love and give them respect. And listen, it's the Lord that must grant them repentance, leading to a knowledge of the truth.

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So just as the Lord's servant, be gentle, be kind, showing them the truth, teaching them, but ultimately trust

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God. So Arturo, that's a little bit about myself and how I got plugged in with Marlon.

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I just reached out to him and loved what he was doing. And kind of like you were saying, there's not a whole lot of debates going on like with Roman Catholics and things like that.

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I actually messaged him one time and said, hey, I would love to see a debate with a Church of Christ on water baptism.

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And he said, that's great. Maybe you can do that. But would you like to debate a Mormon in the meantime?

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And I said, sure. And so the rest is history. And I've been able to do three debates on Marlon's channel.

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Awesome, man. Yeah. And I haven't looked at your other debates yet. I'm watching that, but I definitely want to now, man. And again,

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I just came across you this week and you did an excellent job with that debate. So, and like I said earlier, and by the way, if you have any questions about how he maintains his beard, feel free to question him.

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Perfect beard there, man. It's intimidating. I wouldn't want to debate him. So, but hey, by the way, check it out, man.

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Look at this. Oh, that's my wife. That's my better half. For sure. She puts up with me.

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How do I pronounce your last name again? Nortier. It is French and pronounced

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Nortier, but in the South they say Nortier. All right. So, Ms. Nortier, thanks for joining us.

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It's pretty awesome that your wife is a supportive man. So, okay. By the way, guys. That is one of the biggest blessings that you have is a supportive wife that loves the

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Lord and is committed to her role in marriage because she's trying to support me as unto the

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Lord. Awesome, man. So, and speaking of wives, my wife is in California right now.

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I'm in Tennessee. Disclaimer, I have my three -year -old here. I put him to bed earlier than I normally do.

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So, he might get up and join us and I might just do something to distract you guys. I don't know. We'll see.

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But I already gave Jeremiah a heads up about that. So, anyways, man. Yeah. So, this debate, man.

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So, this debate happened last week, right? It happened on Monday. So, it's still super fresh.

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Yeah. Okay. It's still up here in the dome. Yeah. So, and it was about whether or not the mother of Jesus, if she was sinless, if Mary was sinless.

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And this is interesting, man, because I've been for quite a few years, I've been interested in the Marian dogmas.

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I think it's an interesting place to talk with Catholics.

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It's something to make them think whether or not these dogmas should be believed.

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I think it has somewhat of a leverage to discuss, I guess, Sola Scriptura versus tradition or church authority.

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So, and that debate, you did focus a lot. You focused a whole lot on Sola Scriptura. You kept emphasizing over and over again that my standard is scripture and this is where we differ.

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So, in that debate, man, just to kind of get into it, man, what were some of the highlights for you?

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Because we're all watching you and you did a great job, but what were some of the parts where you just kind of felt like you did a really good job at explaining something and also kind of making them think or maybe just refuting one of his points?

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Was there a highlight that or a favorite part in that debate that you had? Yes. There's one in particular that I'll just put on hold for a second because the reason why

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I structured my opening statement the way that I did is because whether Christians are debating or interacting with atheists or Latter -day

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Saints, Jehovah's Witnesses, and I would put Roman Catholics, these are different worldview perspectives.

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The way that we view the world is categorically different than these other worldviews and with Roman Catholics, the way that we interpret scripture is ultimately different.

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We have different authorities. Protestants, we're going to let scripture interpret scripture by employing this inescapable hermeneutic, the grammatical historical method of interpretation, which we might can touch on, but I wanted the audience to realize that this is not a debate about ultimate authorities.

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That's an assumption we both carry to the table, and so I wanted people to understand

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I'm a historical Protestant. Scripture is the highest authority. It's the scripture that equips the man of God for everything that he needs in godliness, and that's what 2

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Timothy 3, 16 and 17 tell us, but Rome has a different structure altogether, so I wanted people to understand.

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Listen to how a Roman Catholic and a Protestant answer the question differently.

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One's going to rely heavily on the Word of God to make the case, and the

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Roman Catholic can say, yeah, we're leaning on scripture, but we're also leaning on the authority of the tradition that's been passed down and the magisterium, ecumenical councils, popes speaking, ex cathedra, so on and so on, so I wanted people to listen for the test of consistency and which one is being consistent, which one is going against popes from the past, which one of us is utilizing scripture to clarify itself, so I think that came across clear, and so to me that's definitely a praise to God because I want people to realize

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Protestants are about the Word, and you got these other systems that say that, but who is consistently applying the

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Word and letting it consistently explain itself, so probably the biggest highlight was when

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Matthew asked me for my citations about the early church fathers and the popes, and the reason why that to me was important is because I love

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Dr. James White. I've listened to most of his debates. A lot of that went into my preparation, and I encourage people to go check out

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Alpha and Omega Ministries, look up Apologia Studios, TV, Church, him and Jeff Durbin, but I watched one of his debates with Robert St.

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Genes, and Robert St. Genes, or Jerry Magnetics, let me back up, Jerry Magnetics asked him for some citations about popes disagreeing and some citations about early church fathers, and James White was not able to give him a citation.

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He said, it's all in Latin, and he can get it to you later, and I thought, I want that ready to go.

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I want to show them that the early church fathers were in disagreement on these things, especially the way that Pope Pius IX in 1854 defined it, and so I was prepared, and I didn't want to waste my opening statement doing that, but I wanted to be prepared, and the first thing you saw in my rebuttal was giving citation after citation after citation, and to me,

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I just, I praise God to have that resource ready and available, and I want to say

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Robert Boylan, he's getting ready for a debate against a

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Roman Catholic coming up soon. Maybe he can link some information below about that, and so he helped me with citations, and he wrote a book, and he needs to put the name of his book also in the comments, but his, he had two chapters in his book talking about how

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Mary was a sinner, mother of my Lord, I think, which the two chapters, chapter two and three, was what was super important to me, an exegetical case from scripture and showing us what the early church taught, so Robert along with men like James White and Tony Costa definitely helped me be prepared and to expect what a

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Roman Catholic was going to bring to the table. You can hear me, right?

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Can you hear me okay? Yeah, I can hear you. I just had to, I muted my son. No, no, you know, you're fine. My son got up, and I had to mute it really quick, so okay, so that's great, man.

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Wow, so okay, so I guess where I should start is this. I have people that I invited to my page who might have, who know about, you know, that they profess faith in Christ, and go to bed.

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Sorry, man. We're live. You're fine. Go to bed, go to bed. Give me a second, okay?

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Give me one minute. All right, that dad life, bro. My wife, my wife teaches preschool with three -year -olds and four -year -olds.

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She has the best stories every home when she comes to work. Yeah, I know, man. Yeah, my son, he's super needy, too, so yeah, but so I have these friends who are basically, they profess faith, but they kind of see everyone who professes faith as Christians, Catholic, you know, and like no offense to our friend

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Robert, you know, but even Mormons, you know, like obviously we have disagreements. We can disagree. He might not think we're saved and vice versa, but at the same time, we can respect each other, right?

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At the same time, these are critical matters, man. Like these are serious issues, but they don't see it that way.

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Like what's the biggest deal about seeing Mary the way how the Catholic Church views

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Mary? Why is that so important to even debate, to argue about, you know? So can you talk about that a little bit?

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Yes, now the debate was specifically on was Mary sinless, and I'll go ahead and say this.

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I really am good friends with the guy that I debated, Matthew Broderick, not Ferris Bueller, but great guy to talk to and get to know, and he was like, hey,

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I'd love to debate you. I know you're Protestant. We disagree on a lot. I'd love to do it, and he said, I said, well, what's one of your favorite things to talk about?

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He says, my favorite doctrine in all the Bible is Mariology, the Marian dogmas, and it struck me.

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I thought, oh wow, it's not Christ. Now maybe he would, you know, go back and say, well, it's kind of all package deal, and I get that, but my initial thought was that's probably a good reflection of Roman Catholics that really believe what

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Rome teaches is they look to Mary. They talk about their heart's desire is to give veneration to Mary.

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They will say that they're not worshiping her, but they venerate her, and the line is blurred.

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The way that they pray to Mary, the way that they talk about Mary, that she's the mediatrix of all graces bothers me because I think it's inescapable that they, in fact, are worshiping

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Mary, and Jesus Christ alone was without sin, so this is at the heart of the gospel.

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Mary was a sinner in need of a Savior the same way that we all are, so I think it really takes away from Christ to say that she was without sin.

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Does that make, you know what I mean? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's great. Okay, so yeah, and I agree completely, man, and this is kind of the reason why

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I asked Marlon in the past. I was like, bro, you know, I want to see this debate, you know, and he asked me if I wanted to debate.

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I'm like, no, I'm not the guy you want me to debate or to represent you. If you want me to lose the debate, then yeah, throw me in there, but thankfully there's guys like you, bro.

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There's guys like you who are clearly gifted in that area, and one thing

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I do want to talk about later on is just the kind of character you have. You know, I think

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Christian character is important. Do you mind talking a little bit more because you talked about that earlier, about Christian character and why it's important.

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Can you talk a little bit more about that, man, about why it's important to you to just demonstrate that, and we talked before our interview started, and I loved it.

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I kind of wish I hit record, you know, or go live now as you're talking because everything that you're saying is what

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I'm for, man. I definitely think character is a huge deal. Unfortunately, as Calvinists, you know, we're known to be mean.

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We're known to be even grouchy or not loving. I don't know, but can you just explain that a little bit, man? Absolutely.

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This is a gospel -mindedness. You have to keep in mind that while we were sinners,

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Christ died for us. God has demonstrated his love for us in such a way that it should change our heart, so with me being

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Reformed, I look at an unbeliever, and me and my wife joke about this, but an unbeliever is going to unbelieve, so why should

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I expect them not to act like an unbeliever, and that could apply into an atheist context or someone that's outside the bounds of what it means to be a

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Christian, and I want to show them the love of Christ, and Christ first loved me when

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I was a rebellious sinner towards him, and so in Bible study at church, we talked about the parable of the merciless servant, the unforgiving servant, and it doesn't make sense for a professing believer to turn around and not be loving to our fellow man.

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We've been forgiven of so much of the sin that all my sin, past, present, and future, when someone wrongs me or mistreats me or says something snarky towards me,

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I can take that. I can absorb that and then just show them love in return. Now, I want to share the truth with them, but it must be in love, so there's so much scripture,

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Arturo, that just commands Christians to be gentle, to be kind, teaching, absolutely, but Christians are supposed to season our speech with grace, and I can't quote the proverb off the top of my head, but it says that the righteous man ponders how he ought to give an answer.

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He studies how he ought to give an answer, so I can be super harsh and give a direct answer that's kind of condescending and directly to the point, or I can talk about things that I like, what they said, and then try to channel it in a biblical way, and every time

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I'm answering, I want them to hear my heart in the matter. People are good about discerning your body language, your tone of voice.

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They know if you care about them or they care more about you making a point and showing them to be wrong, and I want to show them that they are wrong, but in a way that they understand

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I care about them deeply and their soul, and I want to present to them the truth from God's Word.

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Awesome, man. Okay, so good stuff, bro. Good stuff. All right, so I had a question, actually, for—what was his name again?

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Matthew. Matthew. Yeah, I had a question for him, and it wasn't highlighted, so I was kind of thinking what you thought about it, okay?

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So there was a point where he said that Mary wasn't guilty of personal sin, but she was guilty of having a sinful nature.

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Was that right? Is that kind of— I think he misspoke because the Immaculate Conception is the process of God saving

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Mary preemptively from a sinful nature. So this goes back to why

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I wanted to do this debate. A lot of Protestants, for one, think the Immaculate Conception is referring to the virgin birth of Jesus.

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It has everything to do with Mary, nothing to do with Jesus, the Immaculate Conception, and every time

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I've talked to Protestants and we talk about the debate, was Mary sinless? They're like, she was a sinner.

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How can anybody believe that? And I'm like, that's what Rome has taught for a long time, and so I thought it was a good time to educate

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Protestants, people that do stand on the Word of God as the ultimate authority. It is kind of a no -brainer because we're so quick to jump to Romans 3 .23

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like we should for all of sin and fall short of the glory of God, but we got to make a case for what that means in its context and show how it does include

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Mary as a sinner. So if he said that,

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I think he misspoke because most Roman Catholic apologists would deny that Mary had a sin nature.

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She was preemptively saved from that. That's interesting. Okay. All right.

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Well, that's good to know, man, because honestly, it threw me off a little bit because I was like, what law did she break that made her guilty of having a sinful nature?

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When you use the word guilty, I was like, well, she was guilty of something. So what law was that that she broke? And I was really hoping that he would answer that because I kind of was trying to stay on that, but there's a lot of questions.

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So that's a good thing to point out, man. Okay. So they actually believe that she didn't have a sinful nature then.

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I didn't know that. Now check this out. Notice in my opening statement,

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I wanted to hypothetically grant their system to show how it's internally inconsistent.

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There's internal contradictions on their own terms. One of those contradictions is that Popes in the past have not taught that Mary was without sin, that they taught that she had original sin.

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Now, early church fathers taught that Mary had personal sin as well. And the whole point is all of these church fathers, archbishops, canonized saints, and even

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Popes, they're contradicting what Pope Pius IX taught in his 1854 encyclical, dogmatizing that if you deny that Mary was immaculately conceived and that she, in fact, was not free from all taint of original sin, which would include kind of her whole life, then you are to be dogmatized, anathematized, cut off from the church.

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Now, they try to say that's only for Catholic Christians, but you don't see that in the terminology.

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And Robert and I kind of go back and forth on this one point. I understand how their dogmas and anathemas only reach forward, but I actually think they are redefining terms from the scripture.

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So what I was getting at is Roman Catholicism's history is inconsistent with what it teaches, and I think it actually implodes on itself.

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All right. There was a point in the debate where he did ask you about that. He asked you, like, okay, where did you find your citations?

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Because everything that he saw could not be verified. So what was that all about?

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Because honestly, that kind of threw me off a little bit. And so, yeah, can you answer that?

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Yes. And I would recommend people go to Tony Costa versus Robert St.

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Genesis debate. And Tony Costa also debated another Catholic apologist,

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William Albrecht. I might be saying his last name wrong, but they get into the citations. And I also want to say, go to Alpha and Omega Ministry, James White's ministry, where they have the seven popes, and really you can dispute if there's really eight.

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Now, maybe not be a pope, but the person that kind of filled this one pope spot, they did the scholarly work showing which homilies, which sermons these popes went into it.

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Because I'm not a historical scholar, so I have to rely on men like James White and all of his resources. And I don't think he'd be mad at me for saying this, but I think he learned his lesson in his debate against gerrymantics.

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He really made sure to get his homework in. But this is my point towards Matthew. I said, the guy that you recommended me to listen to,

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Robert St. Genesis, he bit the bullet and said, yeah, there is all this citation that's been documented and rightly shown that early church fathers taught that Mary had personal sin.

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So that contradicts Pope Pius IX saying that this doctrine has always existed in the church, kind of like, oh yeah, we had these early seeds.

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And it's like, well, some of your big hitters, even Thomas Aquinas denied that.

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So you got to be careful. And so of course they have to reshape their argument and say, well, you can have disagreement on these things until 1854.

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And then I'm like, yeah, but when you go back to the Jerusalem council in Acts 15, they made a dogma.

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They said that we're saved by grace, that circumcision is not necessary for salvation.

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However, that was still an anathema even before Acts 15 in the

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Jerusalem council. That would have still been true in Acts chapter two, where if a Jew heard the preaching of the apostle

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Peter, that you're to repent, which I think means to repent and believe the way that Jesus taught in Mark 115, and to be baptized.

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Obviously that would have been the major barrier for a Jew to really count the cost is to be baptized in the authority of Jesus, which is the

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Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. So yeah, if a Jew said, yeah, I'm going to believe this gospel that Peter is preaching about Jesus, and also believe that you have to be circumcised to be saved, they would have missed the gospel of grace then and been anathema.

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And so my point is the way that the Jerusalem council, it's not that they didn't anathematize it starting then.

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Their anathema crystallized what was already anathema, and they basically said, look,

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Judaizers, quit bothering the Gentiles with circumcision. You don't need that.

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And so that's what I was trying to get at is I think Rome is being inconsistent with this terminology, even on its own terms.

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So I saw that Robert said something, but I didn't read it. Oh yeah, sorry about that. No, I just, it blows my mind that he's a

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Mormon and he's saying this. It is incredible. He's a sharp dude. I totally, absolutely.

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I'm going to send him a friend request. This guy is, I could tell that he's someone that I want to get to know a little more.

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So for sure. But yeah, I just wanted people to read what he said on there. He just really, I saw

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Turretin Fan. I'm like, really? Like this guy reads Turretin Fan? Yep. Yep. And Turretin Fan, I think was the guy that helped

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James White get the citations for the seven popes. Really? Wow. Okay, cool.

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Nice. Yeah. Yeah. So we do have our first question here from a friend of mine.

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Let's see what he says. Quick question. Why would the Lord our God choose Mary to give birth to our Savior knowing she was a sinner?

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Yeah. Yeah, that's a good question of why God would choose her versus a different woman.

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I don't think we can answer those types of questions. It's no different why God would unconditionally elect one person over another, right?

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God in his most divine wisdom before the foundation of the world,

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I believe in a Trinitarian council, the way that Ephesians one kind of lays that out. So the triune

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God saw that it was fit to create Mary and carve out for her life to be used in such a way.

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And I try to point people to Psalm 139 where I love the psalmist language of all the days of our life are essentially written in a book before we've ever lived one of them.

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So God chose Mary not because of anything good within her. You will hear

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Roman Catholics say she cooperated with God's grace. And we're saying, no,

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God monergistically works out all things after the council of his will.

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He doesn't consult man or look down through the corridors of time to see who's going to be more obedient, more wise, and a better vessel over somebody else.

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It's totally opposite. God is sovereign over his creation. This is his plan of redemption that he's accomplishing.

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Awesome, bro. That's great. Yeah. And that's good. Yeah. I've actually, so that when

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I read that question, it made me think about some of the discussions I had online with Catholics and they kind of say that they, they say, well, why would

30:33

God use a sinner? I mean, like, that'd be like defilement, you know? And, and, and the response I normally,

30:38

I normally get is, well, if she was sinless and wouldn't that mean that her mother would also have to be sinless as it goes on and on, right?

30:46

So I'm glad you brought that out because this is where a lot of canonized saints denied the immaculate exception for that exact argument.

30:55

Now I had that as a question to ask, but it was lower on the list because I know their immediate response.

31:01

They're aware of this regression going all the way back, all the back to essentially Eve. How they respond is, oh, well, this is a special grace of God that saved her from falling into the ditch of sin, into the ditch of Adam's sin -tainted headship.

31:17

This is how they interpret Mary's Magnificat, where she says, God, my savior. Because as popests, we say, see, she needed a savior from her sin.

31:26

Now they're aware of this. They say, you can save people in one of two ways. You can fall into a ditch and someone can come along and save you and pull you out.

31:33

That's kind of salvation as we know it. We've, we've fallen in this ditch and we're sinners and we need

31:39

Jesus to help us out. They will say, God protected her from falling into the ditch.

31:44

So she was saved preemptively. And I made a contextual case to show that she's not different than the rest of us.

31:51

But that's, that's kind of where we're getting at is that Mary is, is not different than the rest of us.

31:59

So what was, what was the initial question? I lost my No, no, no, no, no. Yeah. Yeah.

32:06

So their, their answer is she say she was saved by special grace of God. And I'm saying, great.

32:12

Just apply that answer to Luke 1 35, how the Holy Spirit shined through Mary, overpowered

32:19

Mary and created Jesus humanity, pure undefiled.

32:24

He had that special grace. We don't need Mary or her mom or anybody else to have a special grace. Just apply that principle and that answer to the incarnation and you're good.

32:33

That's good. That's good. Yeah. Cool. You know, I think I find this comment by Robert pretty interesting.

32:40

Let me know what you think about it. Can you see that? Yes. In Roman Catholic theology, Mary's immaculate conception and personal sinlessness were contingent, not necessary.

32:51

So Mary did not have to be sinless even in Roman Catholic theology. Can you explain that a little bit?

32:57

Yeah. You know, he's saying it didn't have to be that way. And this is where Robert and I have really good discussions because I told him, even when we, you know, a

33:08

Protestant talks to a Roman Catholic or a Latter -day Saint, we have to talk worldview versus worldview.

33:16

And so I like how he's pointing out that it's not necessary. My worldview is the only thing that I know is necessary.

33:23

So we're talking about epistemology, right? And you've had Eli Yala on, and this is one of the giants

33:28

I look up to in this realm, is the only thing that we could know for certain of what is necessary is what God has revealed to us.

33:34

That's why I stand firmly on the Word of God. So he might can elaborate more of what he's getting at.

33:40

But yeah, I can see how Roman Catholics say, well, it's not necessary. That's just how God tells us to do it. Well, then we're back into the world of exegesis and hermeneutics and letting context give us the answer.

33:52

All right. Okay, cool. Sweet. All right. Robert, man, how can you just kind of join us, bro?

33:58

Seriously, come on. Come on. Anyway. So yeah, anyway, so I guess the next thing

34:06

I was going to ask you, and Robert, feel free to, you know, follow up with what

34:11

Jeremiah just asked. But I want to ask you a question that I think might be helpful to those of us who are probably new to engaging

34:20

Catholics. What do you think is probably an argument that they commonly use against Protestants when it comes to Mary, that they kind of know that the

34:32

Protestant will kind of stumble over? And, you know, so for example, like obviously like her being a virgin, right?

34:39

Well, we point to the passages that say that, you know, that Christ had brothers, but then like, oh, no, well, if you go to the

34:45

Greek, that could be used as cousins. And that's just like, oh, what, you know? So when it comes to all the

34:51

Marian dogmas, what do you think that they use more often because it's kind of easy for them to stump a

34:57

Protestant? Yes. So it's interesting. I think there's four Marian dogmas. Robert can feel free to correct me at any point.

35:04

But everything funnels out of this immaculate conception view. It kind of goes back to Luke 128, which we can talk about here in a minute.

35:12

And so from that, think about this. If Mary was immaculately conceived and sinless, well, then the child that she produces is going to be free from the stain of original sin.

35:22

So what I'm positing is by necessity, she can't have any more children because they'd be born without the stain of original sin.

35:29

So they have to go against the common language of the New Testament, which clearly shows us that Jesus has brothers.

35:36

So me and Matthew have talked about this. Well, he said that word doesn't always mean brothers. He's right. But the natural word for brothers is used.

35:44

And there's a Greek word for cousins that's not used. So they have to go against the grain to kind of protect this weirdness of if she had more children.

35:55

And I can't remember the verse off the top of my head, but it says that Mary did not know intimately her husband,

36:03

Joseph, until they had Jesus. So that implies that they didn't know each other like a married couple until after the fact.

36:11

And there's verses that show that he's the firstborn. It implies there's more to be born. But they have to go against the grain,

36:17

I think, because they've opened up a can, right? They've opened up this can of worms of, oh no, she had more kids.

36:23

So they'd be immaculately conceived. And it gets kind of to this weird realm.

36:29

But I think how they can trip up Protestants is by appealing to these vast parallels.

36:37

So something that Matthew said in his debate was that Luke used six parallels that are just inescapable.

36:44

You can't miss it. You're going to stand before God. So this is an emotional appeal. You're going to stand before God, and he gave you the six parallels, and you're going to say it wasn't convincing to me.

36:53

Well, this is where exegesis, hermeneutics, context means everything. And by the way, there are true types and parallels.

37:01

But let Scripture inform us of what those are. One of my main arguments is that Adam was a type of Christ.

37:07

How do I know that? The Apostle Paul told me in Romans chapter five. So I think a

37:13

Protestant typically doesn't know how to interact with that so much. And another line of reasoning that sounds confusing, or how do you respond to this, is

37:23

Luke 128 talks about how Mary is the favored one of God.

37:29

Oh, favored one. Or they translate full of grace. And so the line of reasoning is if she's full of grace, then there's no room for moral defect.

37:39

And the thing that Matthew kept bringing up, and I don't think

37:45

I did a good job debate. When you go back, you wish you had done things so differently.

37:51

He kept appealing to Genesis 3 .15. He made the point that enmity always means polar opposite ends.

38:01

So check this out. He's saying you got Satan over here, pure evil. And then Mary, the woman, is at enmity with Satan, so she must have been without sin.

38:11

This is bizarre, because that's not what that word necessarily means, much less the context doesn't demand that.

38:18

And then it does contradict other portions of Scripture. I wish I could have went back and said, okay, let's talk about this whole enmity thing.

38:27

What you do get, the interpretation that's consistent with the entire Bible, is that the line of Eve that is leading up to this virgin birth.

38:37

Because I agree that the seed is an allusion to the virgin birth.

38:43

I don't necessarily think it's only talking about Eve, but she's definitely the starting point. The offspring of the woman.

38:50

Now check this out. Mary is a woman of God. She is submitted to him, and she, by that definition, is at enmity with the devil, who is directly opposed against the saints, the holy angels, and God.

39:06

That's the enmity that's being talked about, not this weird argument that Satan is the embodiment of evil, and then

39:13

Mary then is the other end of the spectrum. You can make that kind of case with anything you want.

39:20

So it's some of those things, I think, that will trip up a Protestant. Right. Okay, so that's good.

39:29

Let me see if I can highlight Robert's question here, or comment. I mean, five doctrines, the fifth one.

39:36

Yeah, I thought there was four. So there's actually five, then? Well, there's five dogmas. There's four dogmas, but the fifth one, that's...

39:45

Yeah, that's good. I'm glad he brought up the co -redemptrix and mediatrix. So this is where the idol—so we were talking earlier about why this is important.

39:55

I believe Rome has idolized Mary. They worship her. This is where I wanted to be charitable,

40:02

Arturo, in the debate. I didn't want to say sola ecclesia, which I think the

40:08

Roman Catholic Church is the ultimate authority, but they don't use that term. So I wanted to be charitable in that.

40:14

So I wanted to use a term that they would accept, the tri -part structure of Rome. Another thing

40:21

I wanted to avoid is saying, y 'all worship Mary, y 'all worship Mary, you need to repent.

40:26

I believe that in my heart, but I wanted to say laser focus on the debate topic, but this is getting into they believe that she's co -mediatrix.

40:36

Jesus is the mediator, the one mediator between God and man, right?

40:43

Now, I honestly—they reject this, but I think this is the natural implication of their position.

40:48

They are deifying Mary. It's as though she is the fourth member to the Godhead. They reject that language, but here's the misleading terminology they use to talk about Mary.

40:59

They say that she is the mother of God. When you go to Luke 1, Elizabeth is saying, the mother of my

41:06

Lord. Now, I agree with that verse because that verse is telling us we understand the context of the incarnation, right?

41:16

She is the mother. This is maybe where Robert's going to push back a little bit on me. She is the mother of Jesus' humanity, and I know you can't divide the two natures of Christ, but it's misleading to say that she is the mother of God on a few accounts.

41:30

She's not the mother of the triune God. They would say, no, no, that's not what that means. I'm like, the trinity is

41:36

God, and you're saying she's the mother of God, but it fails there. Also, Mary did not eternally exist, so there's just no meaningful way.

41:47

They're trying to push an agenda. That's why they say that she's the mother of God. Really? She's the mother of the incarnate

41:54

Lord. She's really the mother of Jesus' humanity. Right, right.

42:00

Even about that, even on that, I'm actually okay with saying mother of God because I understand what the creeds were talking about.

42:13

I'm going back on the creed, which council were alluding to that, but I remember there was a

42:21

Catholic I was talking to, and he was trying to throw me off guard. He's like, well, Jesus is the mother of God.

42:27

Do you agree with that? I'm like, yeah. He's like, oh, so you agree that much? I was like, yeah. He's the hypostatic union, and I had no issue with that.

42:35

What's bad about that, though, is that they quickly want to just resort to uplifting

42:40

Mary instead of Christ. The whole thing about mother of God was not to elevate Mary, but it was to point to Christ and His divinity.

42:49

That was the whole purpose of it. Go ahead. In that context, that's where I'm saying terms, as long as they're qualified and are explained and defined,

42:59

I'm all for that. If mother of God means exactly what you said it means, then I'm okay with that.

43:06

Plus, if you're trying to develop a friendship with a Roman Catholic, to me that's one of the things that you can maybe explain and get some of that common ground for the gospel and things like that.

43:21

Emphasizing very quick, she is not the mother of the triune God. She did not eternally exist.

43:27

She truly was Jesus' earthly mother. I'm with you. That might be a point of middle ground that as long as it's explained properly, then yeah, that's good.

43:39

You're right. Robert is pushing back. We've talked about that.

43:45

Me and him agree. That's a misleading term that they will tote so much doctrine and everything with that.

43:58

You're just like, okay, we just need to dial it all the way back. Exactly, man. That's pretty cool, man.

44:05

I want to quickly let people know, because this is going to be recorded and posted so anyone could come back to it.

44:12

I definitely want to just give Marlon another shout out really quick. I want to share my screen really quick.

44:19

Let me see if I can do this. Clearly, I'm not an expert with StreamYard, but let me see.

44:25

Screen share. Let me see if I can go ahead and just share.

44:35

There you go. Look at that. Here, let me remove that banner. Yeah, guys, this is Marlon's page,

44:42

The Gospel Truth. Check it out. The debate that we're talking about right now,

44:48

I could find it really quick. Let's go to videos. Yeah, right here.

44:54

Most recent one right here. Just check it out. Watch it. It's not that long. It's about two and a half hours long.

45:02

I definitely recommend it. Like I said before, obviously, it's going to be an ad, pure flicks, but go ahead and subscribe and like the video.

45:12

That helps out Marlon. I never really mean it, man. If he watches this video, I want to let him know, man, that he's been a blessing.

45:19

What he's done with this channel just has been so encouraging for the saints.

45:26

I have a brother who he loves just listening to him. He loves coming on here and hearing out the debates while he works.

45:34

He's a mechanic. This brother also, he's edified me in the past. We truly believe that debates, it's a good way to challenge yourself and to learn and grow.

45:45

I just quickly want to do that for Marlon. Hopefully, one day

45:50

I could have him on here and we talk about it. I had to tag

45:55

Marlon on Facebook. Oh, yeah, yeah. I tagged him earlier in my other post.

46:01

Again, I'm really new to the streaming thing. Hopefully, down the road,

46:06

I'll be better at it. Yeah, man. Great, bro. Now, I guess what

46:12

I also wanted to get into was I can imagine that you did a lot of research for your debate. There was not much that you can,

46:19

I mean, you're still limited on time. It's probably things that you wanted to express and talk about that you couldn't really talk about.

46:25

Is there anything that you can think of now that you wanted to cover, just didn't get a kind of repeat?

46:35

Because all the debates that I researched, everything kind of comes back to Luke 128.

46:45

I want to pull that up real fast because, like I said, this is kind of the launching point.

46:52

Matthew did go to Genesis 315, which we would know as the

46:58

Proto -Evangelium. It's the first gospel promise, which is wonderful. But I was really prepared for Luke 128, and Robert Boylan really helped me kind of understand not only the

47:12

Greek word, but also the Greek tenses of this. I speculate this, but I think

47:18

I scared Matthew away from wanting to go to this verse because everything that I researched, all their cookies was in this basket.

47:27

And so I thought if I could really make a strong case that what's being applied to Mary is a simple greeting, that they're looking in way more into this like they are in Genesis 315 and a number of other places.

47:42

But context is always going to help us determine our conclusions. But the way that Mary was full of grace is the exact same way that all believers are, the same way that Stephen is in Acts chapter 6, in the same way that all believers before the foundation of the world are.

48:02

And I noticed that one of his arguments, I just thought it was strange, and it's my ignorance of Roman Catholicism teaching, but he brought up how baptism, the timing of baptism is kind of crucial.

48:15

Well, yeah, Stephen was full of grace after his baptism, and I'm thinking maybe

48:20

I'm just ignorant on that part of their teaching, but look how Ephesians 1 is utilizing it to talk about before the foundation of the world, the father is predestining a bride for the son.

48:34

Mary fits in that. The timing, if you place it before or after baptism, before Jesus had flesh, it's not going to make a strong, it's not even going to come close to making the case that Mary was without sin.

48:48

So I wanted to say that this was kind of one of my biggest arguments, and I don't know if Matthew completely understood, and I'm not saying that to be mean, and I might have scared him away from Luke 1, which

49:01

I'm over here thinking, this is where we all go to to make our conclusions about Mary, right?

49:08

So I'll pause on that, but I might have to just think on it for a moment as far as other objections.

49:17

I never really, something else that I wish Matthew would have took the bait, so to speak, is

49:23

I don't know if you remember, I made a big deal about the death in an article in Matthew chapter 5 about how you have this universality of sin from Adam to Moses, but then there is the one who is to come in a context where all mankind have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and there's none righteous.

49:43

So this one to come is uniquely distinct, different, set apart from Adam and all of his posterity, all of his offspring.

49:51

So I was making the case, I wanted Matthew to at least agree with me. Can we agree that there's universality of sin from Adam to Moses?

50:01

He really, I don't know if he understood what I was getting at, but I thought he could be like, fine, and we'll even put infants out of the category, even though I don't think they escape being made sinners.

50:12

But even for the sake of argument, let's just not talk about infants. If I could have got him to say yes, then it's like, okay, then how do you explain the one who is to come that's uniquely distinct from Adam to Moses and everybody in between?

50:26

So I didn't really get a chance to develop that out like I would have liked. Yeah, okay, and what was it again?

50:34

You said it was Luke 1 .28, so this is where they go as a proof text, right, for them?

50:41

The proof text. So walk me through this one, because I'm actually... Here, I want to see if I can make it full screen for people to see easily.

50:51

Can you see this? Can you see? Yes. Okay, so you said it's verse 28, right?

50:56

Yep. Okay, yeah, so okay. So that verse says, and he came to her talking about Gabriel, right, the angel, and he came to Mary and said, greetings,

51:09

O favored one, the Lord is with you. Now, you got a greeting. You have the

51:14

Greek word for O favored one. That's one Greek word, and then the Lord is with you, which is another good phrase to show the

51:21

Lord was with Gideon. The Lord was with the Apostle Paul, and even at the last part of the

51:27

Great Commission, and lo, I am with you even to the end of the age. The point there is that's language used that God is with the saints the same way, like he's with his people, showing that Mary is not distinct and unique in any way, but what they do is in the

51:43

O favored one, they try to say, well, she was full of grace because, this is the interesting part, because of the perfect passive participle.

51:54

Now, when you look up Greek tenses, moods, the person, and I'm not a Greek scholar.

52:00

I really am interested in studying more in the Greek. James White is a wonderful example, and that I want to recommend.

52:06

Stephen Boyce is a man that's been on Marlon's channel, and he's at City of Light Church, and he has his own page.

52:13

Wonderful Greek scholar, and I just recommend learn the Greek. Learn the Greek. Don't listen to the

52:18

King James onlyists. Realize that God has given us his word and preserved his word, but he did not speak in 1611

52:26

King James Elizabethan English. The word was preserved in Greek, so study the

52:31

Greek. Realize that you get precision when you go there, so I want to encourage people to study the original language, not run away from it, but our

52:40

English translations are wonderful, but they want to make a big deal about the perfect passive participle, and so they will carry that point when we go to Acts 6 verse 8, which just simply calls

52:55

Stephen a man full of grace who did mighty works and wonders, and he was essentially a deacon of the early church, a servant of God, and just like that 6 verse 8, and Stephen full of grace and power was doing great wonders and signs among the people.

53:14

Now they will say full of grace there is not the the same Greek construction as we find back in Luke 1 28.

53:23

Now they're right. It's not the perfect passive participle, and it's not the full Greek word that's used in Luke 28 for obvious reasons.

53:31

It's a narratival text. An angel is greeting Mary. It's gonna change things.

53:36

It's gonna use the feminine person part of the word. There's reasons why it doesn't have the same construction, but they will say

53:44

Acts 6 8 only uses the root word for oh favored one, and so I'm just saying that's fine.

53:53

The fact that it does use the root word tells us that the same thing is being expressed, but they'll say nope.

54:00

Perfect passive participle. It fails, and you can almost say fine. Let's go to Ephesians 1 6 where this

54:09

Greek word is the full Greek word used in Luke 1 28, but it's being applied to all believers of all time to ever exist because they're being marked out before the foundation of the world, but then they'll say but it's not the perfect passive participle.

54:27

So here's the point where we're like okay let's let's do some internal inspection on their own terms.

54:33

If the perfect passive participle is going to give them what they want, let's just go to that Greek word and see if it means sinlessness, which it doesn't in my debate.

54:45

It just means someone who's receiving grace, and that's a huge point. Mary was a recipient of grace.

54:50

She doesn't mediate grace or dispense grace to other believers. She received grace the same way that we did.

54:56

That's why we go on to the text to see that she was referred to as one that's received favor from the

55:02

Lord, favored one. So my point is we can go to a different Greek word that doesn't mean sinlessness.

55:11

So like if we were to go to Matthew 25 34 where it just says blessed are you, and this is the plural you, blessed of my father to inherit the kingdom before the foundation of the world.

55:25

Well that uses the perfect passive participle too to express receiving this blessing from God, but they don't conclude that all believers to inherit the kingdom are so blessed in a way that excludes us from sin.

55:40

So my point there is, and James White used that in his debate against geromatics. I thought it was an excellent point.

55:46

It demonstrates we can use other words that don't mean sinlessness, apply them with the same logic, but it has the perfect passive participle, but in that context it's to all believers, but it's absurd to think that it means that the believers are without sin.

56:01

So I thought that was good. Now this is where Robert Boylan actually helped me go one step further, and I don't think that Matthew quite understood where I was going with this.

56:12

So Roman Catholics have a different canon than Protestants. They have this judo canonical canon, which we would call apocrypha text.

56:22

If you go to Sirach 18, verse 17. By the way, my dad was like, why did you say

56:27

Sirach? I'm like, it's a different book in their canon. And yeah, Robert kind of pulled this up.

56:35

Okay, Robert, if you want, you can pull up. Oh yeah, he's talking about the perfect passive participle not being present.

56:42

Yeah, in Sirach 18, 17. So this Greek word means full of grace, the same way that it's being applied to Mary.

56:50

Same word that's also in Ephesians 1, 6. But in Sirach 18, 17, it has the perfect passive participle, and it's being referred to a generic person that ought to give alms, and is not anywhere in the context expressing that they are without sin.

57:08

It's a generic person. So it demonstrates an internal critique. They are making a case of special pleading with Mary.

57:14

That's just not how we do exegesis. I said a lot, but I'm sorry. No, no, it's good, man.

57:20

Like I said, it's going to be, it's recorded. So I'm going to have to go back myself. And yeah, no, but that's really good, man.

57:26

Yeah. And I was, I was tempted to kind of go, I have a, I have the blueletterbible .org

57:33

website. So here's the thing. I actually took a, well, it wasn't like a college or seminary class, but my former pastor, he held a,

57:43

I guess it was a course and he was teaching

57:50

Greek and we used Mounce's, is it

57:56

Bill Mounce? I think that's his name, Bill Mounce. So we used his books and everything. And at the time

58:02

I was working like three jobs and my son right here, that's kind of, you can see in the background sometimes he, he was just born and I just didn't have the time to finish the class, but I learned just enough to know that without proper training,

58:16

I can't really utilize this website as much as I would like to, you know, and this is why earlier

58:22

I was kind of tempted to not show it, but I was like, but this is where you can, it's really cool because it does show, you know, yeah, the parsing, like it's, it's really neat.

58:31

And, but again, if you don't, if you're not familiar with the Greek at all, then it's going to be kind of difficult for you to catch onto these things.

58:39

Right? Right. Can you pull up Matthew 25, 34? Is that the verse?

58:45

I believe so. Yeah. 24. Yeah, that is. So if you would scroll down, I want to show you something cool because I love this website.

58:52

I recommend it to people. And I realize a little bit of Greek is dangerous, right? But I want to see,

58:59

I want to detect patterns. I want to be able to, you know, be more familiar until like, we're talking about getting more skilled in this.

59:07

So scroll down a little bit. Let's see. Come ye blessed. Okay. So go with, with you blessed, go all the way to the far right where it says

59:18

VRPP. Click on that. So let's scroll down a little bit.

59:23

Perfect passive participle. And you can go look at it. So you're seeing how, you know,

59:29

Blue Letter Bible will parse it out for you. And you can see, ah, this has whatever this means. It has the perfect passive participle, right?

59:36

You know, you know, that's all Greek to us. But when a Roman Catholic makes a strong case for the perfect passive participle, um, with Luke 1, 28, well, hey, are they going to be consistent in saying if that's the distinguishing factor with Mary and all saints in Ephesians 1, 6, well, we can demonstrate.

59:54

I'm just saying it takes some time and research and being poured into by other teachers like James White and men that are skilled in this, where we can begin to learn principles.

01:00:05

And I'm just like you did. I'm just saying, and I want to equip Protestants, people that may watch this and realize, ah,

01:00:11

Blue Letter Bible has this, you know, capability. Yeah. Nice, man.

01:00:16

Nice. Yeah. No, it's really good. Yeah. And it's funny. I never actually clicked on that before. Um, I was like, that's cool.

01:00:23

I used to have to like, uh, what I'll do is I'll go up here and, and either, you know, like I do this whole thing and I try to look at these little, you know, whatever information it gives me there.

01:00:34

Uh, but yeah, this is pretty neat. I actually, thanks. You know, I, I, I could use this a little more now.

01:00:40

So, uh, yeah, man. So let me, so if you want to keep using that program, this was something else in the debate that I wanted to develop more, but, um, time is short and I, obviously

01:00:52

I'm dealing with another person that really wants to maybe steer away of a strong argument, but if you could look up, um, in Luke 1 verse 48,

01:01:02

I want us to look at the Greek word, humble estate. So when I was getting ready for this debate, I was fresh.

01:01:08

I was still learning a lot. And I thought, you know what? One thing though, I'm going to know Luke chapter one, like the back of my hand, because I know that's what everything kind of funnels back into and being

01:01:18

Protestant, being sola scriptura, another shameless plug with my shirt here. Yeah. I want to understand context, context, context.

01:01:25

You got to think context is multifaceted. You've got to begin with words that have meaning, right?

01:01:32

And they have a syntactic domain. They can't just cherry pick which meaning of the word you want to use.

01:01:37

It has to be informed by its immediate surrounding context. And then your conclusions from the immediate surrounding context have to be consistent across the old and the rest of the new testament.

01:01:49

This canonical context, the apostle Paul, he did not cease declaring the whole counsel of God, right?

01:01:55

We read in Acts chapter 20. So as I was reading through this, I was looking for clues in the immediate context to help me build a case.

01:02:05

And when I first looked at humble estate, I thought, okay, this is probably generic humility. Like the old testament says.

01:02:11

You said 48, verse 48? Yes. Yes. You're right. Yeah. Verse 48.

01:02:19

And so I was thinking, okay, this word probably means a generic humility. Maybe in the old testament where it says

01:02:26

God gives, God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. And you know, James in the new testament quotes that.

01:02:32

And you know, first Peter quotes that. So maybe that's how I can approach this is that she was showing humility like everybody else.

01:02:39

So to my surprise, I went to this word. So if you would click on it, G5014 right there.

01:02:47

So this kind of pulls up the Thayer's Greek lexicon along with the Strong's Concordance. Scroll down a little bit.

01:02:54

Keep scrolling. Keep scrolling. So do you see the outline of biblical usage? This is key because if you scroll down a little bit more into the

01:03:03

Thayer's Greek lexicon, and sometimes you got to like, it has a lot of information there. That's awesome.

01:03:09

That's the thing that we want to really focus in on is that Thayer's Greek lexicon, but Blue Letter Bible has done a wonderful job.

01:03:17

So if you scroll back up, they've given you the highlights of that in this outline of biblical usage.

01:03:23

So understand this is how this tool really helps me understand words along with the Strong's Concordance. Now, when you look at it, it means lowliness, right?

01:03:32

A lowly state. And it gets into how typically it's used. It's a spiritual abasement leading one to perceive and lament of his moral littleness and guilt.

01:03:45

I thought, ooh, this is stronger than just a generic humility. This is someone who feels moral guilt of sin.

01:03:53

And I thought, ooh, this is a strong term. And then my thought was, I wonder if in the Old Testament, this is used.

01:04:00

So this is how we do this on Blue Letter Bible. So when you go up to the King James up there, the

01:04:06

KJV, the little down arrow, we want to go to, you don't have to click on it. I just want people to see it.

01:04:12

The LXX on the right. So this is the Greek Septuagint. This is the Greek translation of the

01:04:18

Hebrew scriptures. So what we do is we scroll down and highlight the

01:04:23

Greek word for humble estate, and we copy it, and we paste it into the LXX.

01:04:29

And we can see how much that word is actually used in the Old Testament. So what

01:04:35

I found was Psalm 25. This is a Psalm of David. And he is lifting up his soul to God the same way that Mary does.

01:04:44

And throughout this Psalm, he confesses his personal sin. And he says, the

01:04:49

Lord has looked at his affliction. But in the Greek Septuagint, it's the same word for humble estate, that his moral abaseness before God.

01:04:58

And I thought, oh man, I'm building this strong apologetic to show that Mary is using terminology the same way that other saints did, that were expressing their sinfulness before God Almighty.

01:05:11

Nice, bro. I want to make that a clip. I want to just repost that. That was awesome.

01:05:16

I love that. That's really good. Yeah, there you go. So Robert, he said a few things.

01:05:23

Let me just go one by one here. Okay. He's like, this is why the better apologist will claim at best it is implicit or a hint of the—I don't know why

01:05:33

I can't say that. Icy. Immaculate conception. Yeah, sinlessness.

01:05:38

And that is explicit in oral tradition. And then he continues on, which itself flies in the face of the earliest patriotistics, including even

01:05:46

Ephraim, who was always abused. And then he also said, Luke 2 to 48 is better than 148.

01:05:55

Mary uses the language of false accusation of Jesus, of betrayal, deception. And then lastly,

01:06:02

Luke 148, some might argue that Mary is the best non -divine example of being humble, etc.,

01:06:10

how she is the model of the perfect disciple for Vatican. So that's actually the point that Matthew tried to say, and I just vehemently disagreed because I'm saying no.

01:06:22

Scripture has given us a working definition of how other saints have used that word.

01:06:29

You have to utilize a different system to make a case how she's different than the rest of the saints that have used that word to express their spiritual abasement, not just this extreme example of humility, but one of true moral abasement, guilt before God.

01:06:47

So yeah, it definitely funnels back into the same underlying issue. What's your ultimate authority? Is it

01:06:52

Scripture? Or is it going to be this trifold sola ecclesia?

01:06:58

I'm going to lean on the popes and the ecumenical councils and so forth. Right. Awesome.

01:07:05

Cool. Well, yeah, thanks for that, man. I mean, yeah, I'm definitely going to just relisten to what you said a little while ago, because again, the

01:07:13

Marian dogma is something I've been wanting to study for a while now, and I'm thankful that you had that debate and that you're on here and talking about it.

01:07:21

So yeah, so besides that, man, I mean, I guess what

01:07:26

I try to do in these theological discussions and just with Saints Edified in general, right, and I think you mentioned it earlier when you first opened up, but a lot of times as Christians who love theology and apologetics, it just stays in your head.

01:07:44

It doesn't really flow out from your heart at all. So my thing is when

01:07:49

I talk to a Catholic, I'm not just trying to prove I'm wrong, right? I just walk away like, yeah,

01:07:55

I beat that guy, you know, whatever. But I want to be able to say, look, your religion is actually keeping you in bondage.

01:08:03

You're still in sin, and it's so bad that you even have the mother of our

01:08:09

Savior elevated to his level. But when I reflect on this on my own,

01:08:15

I just thank God. I thank God that Mary wasn't another

01:08:21

Christ. I mean, I hate to put it that way, but I thank God that we just have

01:08:26

Christ and that's all we need, and he was the only unique one, right? So all

01:08:32

I have to say, man, is that my question is how do we as apologists, you know, those who love to evangelize to Catholics, how do we step back for a moment and be like, all right, so now that we know all this, and when we get into the

01:08:44

Greek, how does this encourage us? How does this lead us to prayer and worship? And how does this theology lead to doxology is what

01:08:52

I'm saying. Yes, I think that's an excellent question. Okay, so I've been in that cage stage mentality before.

01:09:00

I feel like a lot of Calvinists got to learn the hard way. But one of the passages that began to really change my heart in the matter, how

01:09:08

I deal with other people, for one, it's just walking with the Lord, knowing him through his word, communicating to him through prayer.

01:09:15

I always teach that God has clearly spoken to us through his word. He's not going to speak to you in a still small voice.

01:09:21

He's clearly spoken to us in his word. So get acquainted with the Lord that saved you. And this is one of the passages

01:09:27

I think we alluded to earlier, 2 Timothy chapter two, verses 24 and 25.

01:09:35

I love this. This is what I always pray that God would use a broken, sinful vessel like me for.

01:09:43

What was the verse again? 2 Timothy 2, verses 24 and 25.

01:09:52

Okay, cool. All right. Yes. Okay, good. Which says, and the

01:09:58

Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome. And I automatically pause right there to think about, okay, what's the point that I'm interacting with somebody?

01:10:07

Is it just to argue for the sake of argument? Shame on me if that's the point. If I'm going to dispute and get into arguments over genealogies, which

01:10:17

Paul is telling Timothy later in the letter, don't do that. That's not the whole point of this. Words are important.

01:10:23

Words have meaning, but are you quarreling and arguing for the sake of argument? So the

01:10:29

Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome, but kind to everyone. Now I take that right here.

01:10:35

That's sanctifying the Lord in your heart, like first Peter three talks about. You're being kind.

01:10:40

You're showing them the love of Christ. Able to teach. Now this makes me think about 2

01:10:48

Timothy 2 .15 about the man of God must handle the word with precision.

01:10:56

I mean, we're trying to rightly divide and handle the word of God here. This is important. We want to teach people the truth, right?

01:11:03

And this is where Saul's scripture, the word of God is the ultimate standard and authority in our life.

01:11:09

Like it has to be. And I believe scripture teaches us. Jesus even said the scripture cannot be broken.

01:11:16

So I'm just saying I have so many little thoughts when I come to one verse and guess what? It's other scriptures that are coming to supplement them.

01:11:23

But the Lord's servant must be kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil.

01:11:29

That would include their condescending tone. They may, you know, just persecution comes in all many types of ways.

01:11:35

Be patient with them, right? Correcting his opponents. Now this is interesting because if we could post somewhere 2

01:11:44

Corinthians chapter 10, I believe it's three, four, and five, where it talks about that we war not against flesh and blood.

01:11:54

We are in a spiritual warfare and there's strongholds that have people captive. And so just in that verse is right there.

01:12:01

Verse three, for though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but of divine power to destroy strongholds.

01:12:11

Now this is the part where I read this in the context and I thought, wow, this changes how I want to interact with people.

01:12:17

To me, this is apologetics on fire. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God to take every thought captive to obey

01:12:31

Christ. Apologetics, giving a defense for the hope that lies within you, not being captivated by the elemental spirits of this world because we understand all the riches and treasures of knowledge and wisdom are found in Jesus Christ and him alone.

01:12:47

So my point is, going back to our other major text, we correct opponents with gentleness, with Christian love, the same way that our

01:12:57

Lord first loved us while we were rebellious sinners towards him. Now this is where my reformed theology comes out of me, this next part, that God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of truth.

01:13:14

Guess what? I can't convince anybody of anything. God is the one that must grant repentance, but he may use the means of me representing

01:13:22

Christ, showing them the word of God, the truth. That might be that means that he grants someone repentance.

01:13:30

Right, right. Awesome, bro. Awesome. I love that passage too.

01:13:36

I remember the first time I came across that. It was actually, well, the first time it popped out to me, I should say, correcting his opponents with gentleness,

01:13:45

God may perhaps grant them repentance. I just remember feeling like there's a time when

01:13:50

I first became a Calvinist and you just think like, okay, God's word is harsh and it's truth.

01:13:58

Just accept it. I must also be that way too when I go and evangelize. But then I read this and this popped out and it just convicted me, man.

01:14:06

So I love the fact that how you brought this up. So yeah, brother, it's funny. I'm always hesitant to show

01:14:13

Robert's comments, but I'm like, I'm going to show it. He said, he's like, one does not need to hold to sola scriptura to reject it.

01:14:22

So yeah. Robert knows that I love him dearly and we can, so he doesn't hold to sola scriptura and he has been very gracious towards me.

01:14:36

So I want to at least let him know that I appreciate our friendship, how it's very cordial. I think that's in virtue of the word of God instructing us how we ought to behave.

01:14:49

I love how Robert and I can conduct that. So be on the lookout. Robert and I are going to do some interactions online.

01:14:58

I hope one day we can have a stadium packed out and we have a good lively debate and it's going to be lovely.

01:15:05

That dude is really smart. I tell him that all the time and I mean that, but I'm captivated by the sovereignty of God.

01:15:13

Sometimes you just can't explain things. So he's good at the Greek and I told him he has a lot to teach me, but he knows

01:15:22

I'm going to utilize that for sola scriptura. Yeah. It's cool because there's a one -ist

01:15:30

Pentecostal that I know, a modalist. What got me into studying theology in the first place was that I was saved in the summer of 2005.

01:15:43

So it was the summer before sophomore year is when

01:15:48

I got saved. I did not grow up in church or anything. I started going to school and I just kept thinking, man, I'm going to meet anyone

01:15:54

I can that has the Bible or who are Christians and we're going to fellowship during lunchtime. And I came across apostolics and immediately they just wanted to argue with me.

01:16:04

And they're just saying stuff like, were you baptized in the name of Jesus? And pretty much told me that I'm going to hell still.

01:16:12

And I just knew it was so night and day, man. I remember that night. I wish I can remember the date, but I don't remember the date, but it was a summer about two weeks after 4th of July, Wednesday night.

01:16:21

I walked into church, not believing in God anymore, man. My faith in Him existing was almost gone.

01:16:29

They wanted to be there. I walked out of there. It changed completely. I saw everything. I saw the trees, the sky,

01:16:38

God created it all. And it happened at the very end of the sermon. The majority of the sermon, I was just thinking about other stuff.

01:16:45

And then somewhere in the middle of that sermon just hit me hard, the gospel. And so for these guys to tell me that I wasn't saved,

01:16:53

I was like, what? No, I am. And so I started studying and I came up, I believe in the

01:16:58

Trinity and salvation by grace through faith. And so these one is

01:17:03

Pentecostal guys, they were relentless, man. They just, every single day in school.

01:17:10

So now as years go by, it's hard for me to come across a one is Pentecostal and not just feel the have a discussion.

01:17:17

But usually what happens is that it gets very emotional. It gets very like they get amped up and I can't even talk. And so I'm telling you,

01:17:23

I'm not a debater. I'm not going to raise my voice and out talk you. I just can't.

01:17:29

That's not how God made me. I'm very calm, very laid back, very passive. I'd rather just walk away.

01:17:36

I was like, if you're not going to talk, I'm done. And well, I came across one man. His name is

01:17:41

Clayton. I can't remember his last name anyways. No, no, no, no.

01:17:46

It's a, it's a one is Pentecostal guy. His name is Clayton something. Yeah. And, and he's,

01:17:52

I think what Robert is to you, I think this guy is like, he's also really good in Greek, very, very kind.

01:17:58

At times he'll tell me like, I actually agree with you by the way, you know, like, I don't know what those other ones are saying about this or that, whatever, you know?

01:18:06

And so, so it's kind of, it's kind of neat how we have friends of different faiths, you know? And I, I also know a

01:18:13

Muslim, a Muslim friend, very knowledgeable as well, you know, and it'd be kind of neat, man, just to kind of have a discussion, like you said, like a, you know, especially because we respect each other, you know, and it's just pretty neat, you know, not me.

01:18:26

I say we, as in like, like you're going to represent the reform camp. So yeah, man, that's awesome, bro.

01:18:33

I mean, yeah. Let me see what he said. One more thing, justification and baptismal regeneration.

01:18:40

Yeah, that's a huge departure that we have, but like you said, interfaith dialogue is important, and Robert and I, we say that's definitely what we have, is we have an interfaith dialogue, and we can be loving and respectful, and learn from each other, sharpen each other, right?

01:18:59

You know, I have a problem, and I'm going to drop a name out there, but pulpit and pen, sometimes they come across in a way that makes me feel uncomfortable, because it's almost like to, you can't have this interfaith dialogue.

01:19:14

You have to have the Baptist finger pointing, I'm saying repent, and you know, and it's like, man, we can talk about some of these tough issues, and at the end of the day, you know, be kind and respectful, and all these things.

01:19:28

Hey, you've been mentioning the Trinity. Let me do a shameless plug real fast of James White, and once you get this downloaded in the

01:19:38

Dome, then I want to recommend this book, The Trinity and the

01:19:43

Vindication of Christian Paradox by B .A. Bostroman. He basically makes the case that the

01:19:49

Triune God is a necessary truth, because we are made in that God's image, so it's kind of this

01:19:56

Trinity understanding that James White really helps us with the scripture understanding, and then if you take

01:20:03

Always Ready by Greg Bonson, and then you combine the two, you get Brant Bostroman's book on the

01:20:09

Trinity, so. Nice, man, nice. Recommend them. Yeah, I sometimes joke with Jeremiah that the only thing reformed about me is my beard.

01:20:20

He has a nice beard. Props. Cool, man. So, yeah, man, you know what, so we're almost at about an hour and a half.

01:20:29

This is where I tend to kind of aim these theological discussions. I definitely will, you know, I look forward to,

01:20:37

I remember you sent me a link to a podcast. I haven't checked it out yet, so is that your podcast? Is that your podcast, that link you sent me before?

01:20:46

Let me see if I can get it up really quick. Yeah, while you're pulling it up,

01:20:51

I engage on a podcast called Why Theology, and me and awesome buddy of mine,

01:21:00

KJ, he's also in Arkansas. He's younger than I am, loves theology, loves teaching, and we just come together, and we try to talk through a lot of our theological concepts from the word.

01:21:14

Love that. We go through the 1689. We talk about, and this is the thing, I love the confessions, but I think every confession is up for refinement, and I may, we talk about points that him and I disagree with because our ultimate standard is the scripture, so even these confessions, you know, were pinned, put together by infallible or infallible man, so always going to scrutinize everything that we read, but it doesn't bother me to totally recommend the 1689 to people and say, it's great.

01:21:48

I agree with 99 % of it, and we talk through some of those issues, so anyway, yeah, if anybody's curious, you can find that podcast on iTunes where KJ started that channel way before I started coming on board, so he has a lot of great content leading up to that.

01:22:07

Oh, cool, okay. Yeah, and I put usually the episodes on my YouTube page as well.

01:22:14

I'm ashamed of my YouTube name because I made it in high school, but it's Zero Jerry Curl Zero, but if you just YouTube Jeremiah Nortier, you'll find it.

01:22:29

That's hilarious, man. All right, cool. Robert would heavily disagree with that episode, but that's okay.

01:22:37

Yeah, no, yeah, so that's awesome, man. Awesome, cool, so perfect.

01:22:43

Yeah, so I don't listen to Spotify, but this will be found on any platform, right?

01:22:48

I could just search up on any platform, and that episode in particular is on my YouTube page as well.

01:22:54

You know, you got some people that are just like YouTube only, solo YouTube, so I try to put that content on there as well.

01:23:03

Cool, cool. All right, yeah, well, I just subscribed, you know, and so yeah, man, awesome.

01:23:09

I look forward to hearing you out, man, and brother, thanks again for joining me. This is my second episode on here, and for those of you, because I'm actually going through the

01:23:19

Westminster Confession of Faith, like topical, and see, like I love my

01:23:25

Baptist brothers, you know. I don't leave you guys out, you know, so I definitely want you guys to, you know,

01:23:31

I don't mind calling you Reformed, by the way, so I know some Presbyterians make a big deal about that. I don't, so it would definitely

01:23:37

Reformed, so. Did you say something? You'll be proud of me. I went through R .C.

01:23:43

Sproul's Truths We Confess, so he breaks down the Westminster Confession. I love,

01:23:48

I recommend the Westminster to people. I'm like, hey, it's a wonderful confession. Now, you and I both being

01:23:55

Reformed in Scripture as the ultimate authority, we may find things that maybe they could have expressed the passability or impassibility of God better, so I'm just saying

01:24:05

I love these confessions that we read throughout church history, and R .C. Sproul, some people ask, you know, kind of more of my testimony, how

01:24:13

I got into theology, church history, apologetics. I refer to three main figures in my life.

01:24:18

There's definitely more. John MacArthur helped me see my need for the

01:24:24

Word of God. That is central to my life as a Christian. I recommend grace to you, ministries, listen to MacArthur, expound upon the

01:24:34

Word of God. You can see my Johnny Mac collection over here. Then R .C.

01:24:41

Sproul, who was a Presbyterian, he really helped me see the importance of church history.

01:24:49

I mean, this man loved, I mean, so sharp, understood Latin, understood a lot of these things.

01:24:55

I'm like, man, there's such a treasure to see how Jesus has been building his church for the past 2 ,000 years.

01:25:04

Then James White, it's like he took the best of both worlds and then applied it in terms of apologetic.

01:25:11

Then obviously men like Todd Friel that have kind of these street ministries, parachurch ministries that encourage you to get tethered to a local church, but then go to the streets, contend for the faith, share the gospel.

01:25:23

I love it. Men like Ray Comfort, too. I mean, these are monumental giants, going back to R .C.

01:25:30

Sproul, that God has just blessed my life with. Yeah, definitely, bro. I mean, I really have a strong distaste to when people try to exclude from Baptists or Baptist Brothers, especially because of the history that happened.

01:25:46

I mean, it's just a sad history. I mean, again, it's a church, you know, we're fallen, but I think now then, especially, you know, like during our, how things are now in the world, we have to unite, like we have to be united and Christ prayed for that, you know, before he gave his life, you know, that we should be one, like he and the

01:26:06

Father are one and there's no greater unity than that, you know what I mean? So, I definitely thank you for being faithful, man.

01:26:14

And here, let me share just two more comments. He's cracking me up. So, Free Will, you used your

01:26:20

Libertarian Free Will. Oh, man. So, it's funny how us, go ahead.

01:26:28

I would tell Robert, I didn't use my Libertarian Free Will to reject it. I used my creaturely

01:26:34

Free Will that God ordained to you do that. So, there we go.

01:26:39

Yeah. And then, and of course, we'll end it with Miss Nortier, right?

01:26:46

No, no, not Nortier. Yeah. Oh, you're good. You're good. All right. It's like my last name too, man. Like in Spanish, it's

01:26:53

Hurtado, but in English, it's Hurtado and people always mess it up. So, yeah.

01:26:59

What's that word again? What's that word again you said? Hurtado is my last name. Hurtado.

01:27:04

Oh, okay. I've been sticking to just Arturo. I'm like, I can handle that one. Yeah. Hurtado is my last name.

01:27:12

It's funny because it actually means like stolen, but like in a kidnap kind of way. So, I don't know what happened there.

01:27:18

I don't know. I don't know. It makes sense because I tried to do research on my family and it stops at a certain point.

01:27:23

So, it makes sense. I don't know. But yeah. So, anyway, man. That's cool. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks once again, bro, for joining me.

01:27:31

And I'm sure I'll invite you again. Whenever you want to come up with a topic that you're just like deciding you want to vent out, just let me know.

01:27:39

Hit me up. And I'm definitely down to do this again. And again, this is just a way for believers, anyone else who are just interested in the

01:27:47

Bible, just to kind of step away from the politics of what's going on right now and just go back to the

01:27:52

Bible and be encouraged by scripture. So, yeah, man. Thanks. All right.

01:27:58

We'll definitely do this again sometime soon, Arturo. For sure, man. All right. So, guys, don't forget.

01:28:04

Let me just share it one more time. White Theology. You can go to his page. You can search his name.

01:28:11

Hey, click it real quick. I want to show them the last episode KJ and I did. We did one on the

01:28:16

Trinity. Yeah, right here. And my articulation of that is deeply from the scripture.

01:28:26

And James White is one of the people that has really helped me have a robust understanding of how to articulate the

01:28:32

Trinity and to defend it from the scripture. And so, I recommend his book, once again, The Forgotten Trinity, and to fall in love with the depths of who

01:28:41

God is and how He's revealed Himself. And we'll begin to develop an apologetic that's rooted in the triune

01:28:48

God that made us in His image and saved us. So, I'm just saying, be encouraged by the doctrine of the

01:28:54

Trinity. Don't run from it and say it's too mysterious. No, God has revealed much about who He is and how He is eternally existent.

01:29:01

Awesome. Yeah, for sure, man. I'm definitely gonna listen to it. I want to listen to it for sure. So, all right, bro.

01:29:08

Thank you so much, man. Thank you once again. I'm definitely gonna have you back on. It's not even a question at this point. It's been a blessing, bro.

01:29:16

But yeah, just hold on and I'll end it right now, okay? Sure. All right. Well, everyone, thank you once again for tuning in.

01:29:26

I have a podcast as well if you guys are interested. I'm working on a new series.

01:29:33

It's gonna be on Assurance of Faith from the Reformed Perspective. So, if you guys are interested in that, just subscribe and check it out.

01:29:42

Also, too, you can listen to a recent series I did on scripture. I used the first chapter of the

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Westminster Confession of Faith. Check it out if you like. But yeah, and hopefully, later on, I will have guests like Jeremiah to join me on the podcast as well.

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So, if you guys want to support in any way, you could visit our Patreon page. Also, visit the website, sincetified .com,