I'm an Orthodox Christian and, okay, I just, I'm like, wondering what's, like, what's your view on on salvation?

That's a really good question. Glad you asked it. My view on salvation is that we all need it because we're all wretched sinners who should be in hell. And the only way we can be saved is through what Christ did on the cross, received as a complete free gift by us through faith alone and not by good works. And Jesus pays for all of our sins, past, present, and future sins, if we are trusting in Jesus. Otherwise, if we're not, we end up in hell.

So we're saved by God's grace?

Yeah, absolutely.

And how do we, how do we obtain that grace in order to say?

I would say it's a free gift because grace, by definition, is undeserved kindness or unmerited favor.

Mhm. So that would mean then it's not based on me doing stuff, like having to be good enough or keep God's law enough or whatever it is. It would have to just be a free gift, and I receive it then just by faith, ex-trusting in my mind that Jesus has already taken the punishment for all of my sins.

Okay. Um, it, so you agree with, um, well, some?

Yeah, yeah, I do agree with that, that we're saved by God's grace. And in order to get that grace, we need to have faith.

But, um, so no works are required in order for our salvation, right?

Correct. Yeah, because it's a gift, you know what I mean? So if I say to you, "I've got a gift of $20 for you, but you have to wash my car to get it," yeah, would that be a gift?

Um, no. No, I wouldn't say so.

Yeah, right. And so, since we know eternal life is a free gift, Romans 6:23, we wouldn't have to do good works to get then, would we?

What about that verse where it says, and I think it's in the book of James, correct me if I'm wrong, but it says, "Works without faith, without works is dead." How would you explain that verse?

Yeah, so James is talking about two different kinds of people who profess to have faith. Either those who really do, or those who don't and they're just faking it. How do you determine who the real believers are and who the fake ones are?

By what they do. Yeah. If someone claims to believe, but it never changes them in any way, that would just be evidence they're not really having true faith and therefore not really saved. But those who do have a faith that does begin to change them, it produces good works. That is evidence to other people that that person is saved.

So, a way by showing that we have true faith is by our good works, right? To other people?

Yes, not to God. We don't have to prove anything to God. God knows everything. But to other people, how we evidence our faith, it's by our actions.

Okay. And you believe that we don't need, like, religion? We don't need to be part of the church? We just need a relationship?

Well, not, not quite. I, I don't use that phrase. Christianity is not a religion but a relationship. I don't use that phrase. I think it's an unhelpful phrase because I think Christianity is a religion. Religion just simply means a set of beliefs about God. And of course, we do believe in God, so we have a set of beliefs. But also, yes, we have a relationship with God. We have peace with him through our Lord Jesus Christ. But I would say anyone who does trust in Jesus to pay for their sin is part of the church because the church is not an institution.

Mhm. The word "church" in the New Testament is the Greek word *ecclesia*, which means the called-out ones. So those who have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ to save them, they are the church. And the church may happen to meet in all different kinds of areas across the world. But anyone who trusts in Christ, from the moment they believe, they are part of the church, even if they've never stepped foot into a church building in their entire life.

That's interesting. Um, what about, like, the traditions the early Christians would do? You know, 'cause, like, the Bible, um, didn't exist until, like, way after Jesus died, and obviously, um, Christ's ministry still continued after his death. And these Christians just, um, used traditions. They wouldn't solely use the Bible. And like, Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians 2:15, it says, "Stand firm to the traditions you have been taught." So I know most Protestants don't follow any of these traditions anymore. How, how come we don't?

It was on Second Thessalonians 2:15? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good question. So, verse 15. So it says, "So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by a letter." So notice it doesn't say *all* traditions, but traditions taught by us. Us being Paul, Sylvanus, and Timothy, the ones who wrote these two letters of first and second Thessalonians. And he defines it as either spoken word or letter. Okay? So Paul was in Thessalonica only for three Sabbath days before he got persecuted and had to flee the city. So three Sabbath days, no more than a month, he was in Thessalonica, if you read that in the book of Acts. Yeah. Now, we have a small bit of the words that Paul said while he was there on those three Sabbath days. Obviously, we don't have everything Paul verbally said. Uh, but we at least have that. So that's spoken word. And there's no other words he said that we have in our possession today that we can go to that's outside the Bible. And in terms of letters, well, we've got first and second Thessalonians, which are the two letters he's referring to. So then, there is actually no traditions that Paul gave to Thessalonians that's that we don't have contained in scripture. But we have elsewhere. We don't have anything. It's all just contained in, in, in scripture.

Okay. So we just solely need to follow what the Bible says and just nothing else, right?

Yeah. I think it makes sense because Jesus says that he says, "Man doesn't live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God." And, and the only word of God is the Bible, right?

Yeah. It's everything that we need. I don't think you're lacking anything. Let me show you this. 2 Timothy 3:16: "All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be—keyword—complete, equipped for every good work." So scripture is enough to make you complete. You don't need anything beyond scripture.

Okay. Um, one thing I did want to, like, talk about, like, the use of icons, you know? As I said, I'm an Orthodox Christian, and, you know, we use icons a lot. Is that, is that bad? Or, like, I know people call it, like, blasphemous or something.

I think one thing is, we don't know what these saints or even what Jesus looks like. We have no record, no drawings from the time. So any sort of pictures people have, they're just an artist's impression of what they thought Jesus might have looked like or the saints looked like. But it's not really what Jesus or those people looked like. The second thing is, having a picture of Jesus or a picture of a saint is not inherently sinful. But it becomes sinful when it's used with, used in connection with any sort of worship. And so, such as when we go up to, if it's a picture of anything, what it's a picture of anything, even if it's a picture of your grandma, and you go up to that picture and you bow down to it, and you pray to it, and you kiss it, that I would say is idolatry. So even if it's not a saint, but it's just a picture of anything, a picture of your grandma, or a picture of Buddha, or a picture of your cat, whatever, you're going up to it, kissing it, bowing down to it, and praying to it. That those are things that should only be done towards God. Because everyone would look at that and say, "Hey, that's like worship what you're doing there to that picture." Hence why I don't think we should do that with pictures of saints or even of Jesus. Because when you kiss the picture of Jesus and you bow down to it and pray to it, thinking that the picture is Jesus, it's a violation of the second commandment to not make a graven image of God.

Could you pull up that verse so you can show me, like?

Sure. Exodus 20, and the Ten Commandments. It says here, "You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them, bowing down to them or serve them. For I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments."

But isn't, isn't that verse like talking about icons or pictures? Well, of graven images of other gods, and not necessarily of other humans. But notice what it says: "Do not make a graven image or carved image of anything that's in the likeness of anything in heaven above," nothing above us, "nor on the earth, or in the water." That's basically anything. Don't make a graven image of anything that you're going to be using to bow down to. Okay. Hence why, did you know, the first, the earliest Christians actually considered icons as not to be used in worship, and they considered it sinful?

Yeah, but, um, also, I know that St. John of Damascus also, like, kind of refuted those claims as well. And I know he, he fought hard for the faith of Orthodoxy. That's why it's kind of hard for me to to leave the faith because all these, um, saints and martyrs that died, that gave up their life for the Orthodox faith, like St. John of Damascus, for example. I know, um, the emperor at the time, he put this new law that, um, iconography was, you know, bad because he thought it was blasphemous and everything. But the fact that St. John Damascus gave up his own life and made a solid argument about it, it's just, it's kind of hard for me to, you know, believe otherwise because, you know, reasons like that as well.

That's why I understand. I understand. It's just that there are a lot of people who have given up their lives for different beliefs that they had. And those beliefs weren't necessarily biblical beliefs or right beliefs to have. So, for example, you think of Arius. He was somebody who was condemned by the Council of Nicaea as being a heretic. Yeah. Uh, he denied the deity of Christ. And yet, he was still convinced of it, and he got shut out. And many have been killed, even by the emperor, at different times for beliefs they, sincere beliefs that they didn't want to give up on. But it doesn't mean that those beliefs were actually true.

Yeah, but, like, well, in the case of Arius, the heretic, Arius, that was a belief that he came up with himself out of pride, you know? On the contrary to the belief of iconography with St. John Damascus, that was something that, that was a belief for a long time, you know? And I think that that's, that's that would be kind of different. When I'm, I'm trying to understand, I'm not trying to debate.

No, this is good. No, it's great. I'm glad you're asking. Yeah. It's just that if John of Damascus came up, I don't think he came up with the belief of of bowing down to images and so on from the Bible itself, because the Bible never encourages us to do such a thing.

Well, yeah, yeah. That's why, um, we Orthodox Christians, we don't believe that everything we do is in the Bible. Because we don't think, we do believe the Bible was infallible, but we don't believe it's the only infallible source because we also think the church is infallible. That's why us believing all the veneration of our icons, bowing down to them, like in other countries, you would bow down to, um, your friend, you know, out of show of respect, or you would kiss their hand while you were showing respect. And it's just veneration is just another word for respect. That's, that's how I view it.

I understand. But how then do you actually interpret this second commandment when he says, "Don't make yourself a carved image of anything that's in heaven or on earth or in the water. You shall not bow down to them or serve them"?

Yeah, I believe that that verse is talking about other gods. You know, and the heaven above just means the sky, and earth beneath just means, you know, obviously the earth. Is it, or is it just saying any likeness of anything? Not any god, but just anything that is in heaven? So like, if someone was just to make a, a likeness, an image of say, the moon or the sun, and they would to use that then as something that they would bow down to, that would still be a violation of the second commandment.

Okay. Um, I can't remember right now, but that's kind of interesting that you point that out. That was something I would definitely have to ask to, that's my priest or something.

Yeah, that makes, that's good. And, and just in terms of like, holding on to a second infallible source, you say, okay, you've got scripture, that's the one infallible source. And you say, okay, we'll hold on to what the church says. But who in the church? If the church is simply the people of God, who in the church? Because even amongst early church fathers, they are anything but unified. They hold all kinds of different interpretations about basically every passage of scripture.

Yeah. Um, so then you can't really have a second infallible source of information if that second infallible source of information is actually inconsistent.

So inconsistent? How?

Well, just in terms of how they interpret pretty much any scripture. Um, I, I did a quick search or to find out, okay, give me different interpretations that church fathers had about different verses. And you get like, okay, Justin Martyr thought this, but then this other church father thought that, and they're like, opposite interpretations about the same verse.