Theological Discussions Was Mary Sinless w Jeremiah Nortier

Welcome to another episode, second episode of Theological Discussions. 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 to comment, 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? 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.

All right, Jeremiah, how's it going, man?

Hey, pretty good, Arturo. Thank you so much for having me on.

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 Mary Sinless.

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

I definitely recommend people to check it out if you can. You know, I linked it on my Saint Cedified page. And make sure when you're on there to subscribe to Marlon's channel, The Gospel Truth. That brother has been working so much, and he works so hard.

You can tell that he's a... Man, he takes it seriously. Edwin from the Proverbial Life just commented. 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.

Yeah, it might be a friend of yours, right?

Yeah, yes. Yes, we're definitely friends.

Awesome, there he is. Hey, I think I recognized him from the comments from the debate. Was he on there? 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 Savior, so we joined forces for the debate.

Awesome, awesome.

You know, maybe one of these days, man, I do want to talk about Mormonism, and I'd love to have Robert just chime in.

He'd be an excellent resource.

Yeah, there was one time where, man, like the discussion of Christ being created or something like that, a Mormon brought up a good argument, and it stumped me for like a week, bro. I was pulling out my hair.

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

Absolutely. Well, hello, everybody. My name is Robert Teer. My testimony is that I was saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ when 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, but I grew up in church, and I grew up in church, and I was 14 years old, and I knew the gospel, but it's so hard to explain.

I was just so convicted over my sin before a holy, righteous, and just God, and I realized that I was just a fan of Jesus. I wasn't a follower. So looking back, that's when the Holy Spirit just regenerated me, convicted me of my sin and my need of a Savior.

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

It's like that's a part of who I am, and the Lord calls us to contend for the faith, and I'm convinced that we ought to talk about the truth and love. I serve in Northeast Arkansas. I don't mind sharing the town that I'm from.

It's Jonesboro, Arkansas. I serve at a new church plant called Twelve Five Church. That's the word twelve, the number five, church .com. It's the website. You can find this out. But it comes from Romans 12 verse 5, that you had this diverse body, 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, 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 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, 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, and that comes from 1 Peter 3 15.

But that verse begins with sanctifying Jesus, the Lord, in your heart. So you always need the word stored in your heart, treasured up in your heart. That's how the man of God makes his way pure, by storing up God's word in your heart.

And I just think about, if I'm equipped with the word, and that's why we stand on sola scriptura. We stand on the word as the ultimate authority within our lives. God's going to equip us. And so when we're doing that, we're trusting God as we are preaching the gospel to people.

It's the gospel that's ultimately the power of God unto salvation. 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, an apologetic with gentleness and respect.

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

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

So,.

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

I actually messaged him one time and said, hey, I would love to see a debate with a Church of Christ on water baptism. And he said, that's great. Maybe you can do that, but would you like to debate a Mormon in the meantime?

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

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, I just came across you this week, and you did an excellent job at that debate.

And like I said earlier, and by the way, if you have any questions about how he maintains his beard, feel free to question me. Perfect beard there, man. It's intimidating. I wouldn't want to debate him.

So,.

But hey, by the way, check it out, man. Look at this.

Oh, that's my wife. That's my better half, for sure. Oh, yeah. She puts up with me.

Cool. All right. So,.

How do I pronounce your last name again? Is it Nortier? It is French and pronounced Nortier, but in the South, they say Nortier.

All right. So, Ms. Nortier, thanks for joining us. It's pretty awesome that your wife is a supportive man. So, okay.

That is one of the biggest blessings that you could have, is a supportive wife that loves the Lord and is committed to her role in marriage, because she's trying to support me as unto the Lord.

Oh, awesome, man. So, and speaking of wives, my wife is in California right now. I'm in Tennessee. Just a disclaimer. I have my three-year-old here. I put him to bed earlier than I normally do, 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, but I already gave Jeremiah a heads up about that. So, anyways, man, yeah. So, this debate, man. So, this debate happened last week, right?

It happened on Monday. So, it's still super fresh. 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. And this is interesting, man, because I've been, for quite a few years, I've been interested in the Marian dogmas.

I think it's an interesting place to talk with Catholics. You know, it's something to make them think whether or not these dogmas should be believed. I think it has somewhat of a leverage to discuss, I guess, Sola Scriptura versus tradition or church authority.

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

Because, you know, 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?

Was there a highlight 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 I structured my opening statement the way that I did is because whether Christians are debating or interacting with atheists or Latter-day Saints, Jehovah's Witnesses, and I would put Roman Catholics, these are different worldview perspectives.

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. 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.

That's an assumption we both carry to the table. And so I wanted people to understand, 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 Timothy 3, 16 and 17 tell us. But Rome has a different structure altogether. So I wanted people to understand, listen to how a Roman Catholic and a Protestant answer the question differently.

One's going to rely heavily on the Word of God to make the case, and the 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. 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 Protestants are about the Word. And you've got these other systems that say that, but who is consistently applying the Word and letting it consistently explain itself?

So probably the biggest highlight.

Was when.

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 Dr. James White. I've listened to most of his debates. A lot of that went into my preparation.

And I encourage people, go check out Alpha and Omega Ministries. Look up Apologia Studios TV Church, him and Jeff Durbin. But I watched one of his debates with Robert St. Genes, and Robert St. Genes, or Jerry Manitics, let me back up.

Jerry Manitics 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. He said, it's all in Latin and he can get it to you later.

And I thought, I want that ready to go. 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, I just, I praise God to have that resource ready and available. And I want to say Robert Boylan, he's getting ready for a debate against a 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 he had two chapters in his book talking about how 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 Roman Catholic was going to bring to the table.

You can hear me, right? Can you hear me okay? Yeah, I can hear you. I just had to mute it. 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.

Well, 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. Sorry, man. We're live.

Hey, you're fine. Go to bed, go to bed. Give me a second, okay? Give me one minute. All right, that dad life, bro. My wife. Okay.

My wife teaches preschool with three-year-olds and four-year-olds. 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 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? At the same time, these are critical matters, man. Like these are serious issues, but they don't see it that way.

Like what's the biggest deal about seeing Mary the way how the Catholic Church views Mary? Why is that so important to even debate, to argue about, you know? So can you talk about that a little bit?

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

He says, my favorite doctrine in all the Bible is Mariology, the Marian dogmas. And it struck me. 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 Rome teaches, is they look to Mary. They talk about their heart's desire is to give veneration to Mary.

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

And Jesus Christ alone was without sin. So this is at the heart of the gospel. 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.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's great. Okay, so yeah, I agree completely, man. And this is kind of the reason why 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.

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. There's guys like you who are clearly gifted in that area.

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

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. I kind of wish I hit record, you know, or go live now as you're talking, because everything you were saying is what I'm for, man.

I definitely think character is a huge deal. Unfortunately, as Calvinists, you know, we're known to be mean, 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. This is a gospel-mindedness. You have to keep in mind that while we were sinners, 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 Reformed, I look at an unbeliever, and me and my wife joke about this, but an unbeliever is going to unbelieve.

So why should 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 Christian. And I want to show them the love of Christ.

And Christ first loved me when 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 men.

We've been forgiven of so much of the sin debt, all my sin, past, present, and future. When someone wrongs me or mistreats me or says something snarky towards me, 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, Arturo, that just commands Christians to be gentle, to be kind. Teaching, absolutely. But Christians are supposed to season our speech with grace, right?

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. 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 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.

They know if you care about them or they care more about you making a point and showing them to be wrong. And, you know, I want to show them that they are wrong, but in a way that they understand. And I care about them deeply and their soul, and I want to present to them the truth from God's work.

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

Was that right? Is that kind of...

I think he misspoke because the Immaculate Conception is the process of God saving Mary preemptively from a sinful nature. So this goes back to why I wanted to do this debate. A lot of Protestants, for one, think the Immaculate Conception is referring to the virgin birth of Jesus.

It has everything to do with Mary, nothing to do with Jesus, the Immaculate Conception. And every time I've talked to Protestants and we talk about the debate, was Mary sinless? They're like, she was a sinner.

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 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 like we should for all of sin and fall short of the glory of God. But we've got to make a case for what that means in its context and show how it does include Mary as a sinner.

If he said that, I think he misspoke because most Roman Catholic apologists would deny that Mary had a sin nature. She was preemptively saved from that.

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

Like 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 catch, stay on that.

But, you know, there's a lot of questions. And so that's a good thing to point out, man. Okay, so they actually believe that she didn't have a sinful nature then. I didn't know that.

Check this out. This is where, notice in my opening statement, I wanted to hypothetically grant their system to show how it's internally inconsistent. 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. 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 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.

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

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.

All right. There was a point in the debate where he did ask you about that. He asked you, like, okay, like, where did you find your citations? Because everything that he saw could not be verified.

Right.

That's kind of what—so what was that all about? Because, honestly, that kind of threw me off a little bit. I was like, okay, hopefully he has, like, some kind of, like, scholar or something. So, yeah, can you answer that?

Yes, and I would recommend people go to Tony Costa versus Robert St. Genesis debate. And Tony Costa also debated another Catholic apologist, 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. Now, it may not be a pope, but the person that, you know, kind of filled this one pope spot.

They did the scholarly work showing, you know, which homilies, which sermons these popes, you know, went into it. Because, you know, I'm not a historical scholar, so I have to rely on men like James White and all of his resources.

And I think he might—I don't think he'd be mad at me for saying this, but I think he learned his lesson in his debate against gerrymatics. Like, 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, 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.

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

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

They said that we're saved by grace, that circumcision is not necessary for salvation. However, that was still an anathema even before Acts 15 in the Jerusalem Council. That would have still been true in Acts chapter 2, where if a Jew heard the preaching of the Apostle 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.

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 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.

And so my point is, the way that the Jerusalem Council, it's not that they didn't anathematize it starting then. Their anathema crystallized what was already anathema. And they basically said, look, Judaizers, quit bothering the Gentiles with circumcision.

You don't need that. 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. 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 Mormon and he's saying this. It is incredible.

He's a sharp dude.

I totally, absolutely.

I'm going to send him a friend request. I could tell that he's someone that I want to get to know a little more. So for sure, I just wanted people to read what he said on there. Really, I saw Turretin Fan.

I'm like, really? Like this guy reads Turretin Fan?

Yep, yep.

And Turretin Fan, I think was the guy that helped James White get the citations for the seven popes.

Really?

Wow. Okay, cool.

Nice.

Yeah, so we do have our first question here from a friend of mine. 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?

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

God in his most divine wisdom before the foundation of the world, I believe in a Trinitarian council, the way that Ephesians 1 kind of lays that out. So the triune God saw that it was fit to create Mary and carve out for her life to be used in such a way.

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

You will hear Roman Catholics say she cooperated with God's grace. And we're saying, no, God monergistically works out all things after the counsel of his will. 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.

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

Awesome, bro.

That's great. So that when 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 say, why would God use a sinner? I mean, like, that'd be like defilement, you know?

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

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

They're aware of this regression going all the way back, all the way 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.

This is how they interpret Mary's Magnificat where she says, God, my Savior. Because as Protestants, we say, see, she needed a Savior from her sin. 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. That's kind of salvation as we know it. We've fallen in this ditch and we're sinners and we need Jesus to help us out.

They will say God protected her from falling into the ditch, so she was saved preemptively. And I made a contextual case to show that she's not different than the rest of us. But that's kind of where we're getting at is that Mary is not different than the rest of us.

So what was the initial question? I lost my train of thought.

No, no, no, no, no. Yeah, basically that is a regression.

So their answer is she was saved by special grace of God. And I'm saying, great, just apply that answer to Luke 1 .35, how the Holy Spirit shined through Mary, overpowered Mary and created Jesus' humanity pure, undefiled.

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. That's good. That's good.

Yeah, cool.

You know, I think I find this comment by Robert pretty interesting. Let me know what you think about it. Can you see that?

Yes, I can.

In Roman Catholic theology, Mary's...

Immaculate conception.

Okay, and personal sinlessness were contingent, not necessary. So Mary did not have to be sinless, even in Roman Catholic theology.

Can you explain that a little bit?

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

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. So we're talking about epistemology, right? And you've had Eli Yala on, and this is one of the giants I look up to in this realm, is the only thing that we can know for certain of what is necessary is what God has revealed to us.

That's why I stand firmly on the Word of God. So he might can elaborate more of what he's getting at. But yeah, I can see how Roman Catholics say, well, it's not necessary. That's just how God chose to do it.

Well, then we're back into the world of exegesis and hermeneutics and letting context give us the answer.

All right.

Okay, cool.

Sweet.

All right.