Orthodox Christian Presses Me On My Protestant Theology (Part 2)

And someone has to make an active intellect of what is the one true church.

>> Yes. Yes. Your personal interpretation of the data.

>> Like we believe in material sufficiency of scripture. Everything in scripture.

>> You just believe stuff on top of that.

>> No, no, no. We would say that the scripture, what do you mean on top of it?

>> But there are gaps in time of apostolic succession missing from the history books.

>> I wouldn't agree with that for orient.

>> Come on. I I wouldn't agree with that. If I believe that these things are part of the gospel, they're part of the essentials. It would think I think it would be actually cruel of me to gatekeep that from people that don't believe in it.

>> So you guys think that neither the Orthodox or Catholics have valid sacraments?

>> Like we would just leave it up to to God. Maybe God in his mercy, right? But we would say that if you know where the Holy Spirit is, we don't know where it isn't. So can God, you know, in his own way save, you know, the random Baptist grandma in like Kentucky that is following Christ the way she knows?

Bruce Lawn. Welcome to part two of my conversation with Morett. I had a great time with him and one of the things that I really appreciate about him is after we had this conversation, I asked him the question that I've been asking quite a few people, hey, if one of the dogmas of the Oriental Orthodox Church or any church that claims to be the one true church is falsified, does that then falsify the claim that they're the one true church? And to his credit, he acknowledged that he believes that if a dogma of a church claiming to be the one true church was proven wrong, that would falsify uh whatever church making the claim. Yes. So I think I ask that because often these conversations the odus is put on uh the Protestant or the evangelical to you know verify all of our claims when really we don't make the same claims as being the one true church. We believe there are true churches within all streams of Christianity. Uh this is the CS Lewis m mere Christian approach where he sees Christianity as a hallway inside of a building and there's a broader home and there's different rooms for different people sometimes based on the seasons that they're in. And so I had a great conversation with Morett. But I want to pose this conversation as something that me asking him to verify many of the dogmas that they claim to have. Uh whether that's uh needing a priest to uh have your sins absolved in his presence. We go over that in this clip. Uh I don't know if we get into intercessions of the saints, but I think that's another dogma that a lot of these quoteunquote high church holds. So if one of these dogmas is proved to be false beyond a reasonable doubt from scripture in the first 100 years of church history, I think that then should logically invalidate the claim that this is the one true church. And uh I think the oriental orthodox tend to be a bit more lax on some of this stuff, but they still make the exclusivist claim that they are the one true church. So anyway, hopefully you enjoy this conversation. Let me know your thoughts and who you think I should have on next. I really want to get someone that's an Anglican or Lutheran on to kind of show the juxtaposition of their views uh with regards to Catholicity and the quoteunquote one true church claims.

>> When you look at the early church priests, all these schisms, especially in the east, it seems that everyone had the consensus of that ecclesiology being the the the way you view the church. So um especially in the 3rd century there was a big controversy about how do you receive the heterodox? How do you receive people who come from heretical backgrounds into the church?

>> And so you have people like uh you know pope Steven for instance of Rome?

>> In that time who said well, you know, even though they're all heretical, their baptism is valid, so all we have to do is kind of just lay hands on them and he was he was just bringing in people of all types.

>> Are you talking like Aryans or who are you talking about that were heretical?

>> Um, so in that time the Aryans weren't even a thing yet. So we're talking about 200, third century. Sorry. So this would be like the uh Novations, even some of the Gnostics, like that, those kind of heretics.

>> Okay.

>> So Pope Steven would say like, yeah, we can just accept them no problem. Uh

>> And you have on the other hand, a man called St. Cyprian.

>> Okay.

>> And St. Cyprian makes a very, very powerful case for his view of the church, which is if we see that the church is the body of Christ,

>> Christ himself cannot be divided, and therefore the church cannot be divided. And so the argument he makes, and there's also another saint in that time called St. Familiarius of Caesarea.

>> Both of them in their writings make it very clear, Christ cannot be divided. Uh, the the quote, there's a quote St. Cyprian has where he says,

>> The prophet Ahijah, he says, to show the division of Israel, rent his robes into two.

>> Mhm.

>> This is to to prophesy that Israel would split into two separate kingdoms.

>> But he says the robe of Christ, however, could not be divided because it was woven from one cloth. And in like manner, Christ's body can also not be run into two. So he says the church is one. If anyone schisms from the church, it's not because the church divided, it's because they left it. And so because of that, he says, we have to understand that there has to be a fullness of grace and a fullness of truth found in one body, one institution.

>> Okay?

>> And St. Cyprian's understanding of the church as being one and this his kind of Christocentric, you know, Christological comparison between the body of Christ is indivisible, the church is indivisible, gets accepted pretty much has universal uh acceptance. You see this later on with what's called the Council of Arles, which ends up basically taking the Cyprian view. And you also have the Second Ecumenical Council, which also takes this view as well. So the fathers are pretty resolute on this understanding that St. Paul himself says that he'll offer up the church unblemished when Christ comes. So the idea being that the church won't have any fractures, divisions, blemishes. And they're they're reading this um also from Ephesians 4:4-5 where it says one body, one faith, one spirit, one baptism, all of those things. So we would agree with that kind of stricter ecclesiology that the church is one. It can't be divided. There has to be one true church and the other, it's not worth saying that everyone else outside is like damned to hell. But there has to be one place where we say the truth in its fullness is proclaimed because Christ says, "I am the way, the truth, and the life." So whatever church was established by Christ can't have any lack or detraction in truth.

>> You have to profess the true perfect doctrine.

>> And so there can only be one doctrine, right? Like you can't agree to disagree on what 2 plus 2 equals. There's one right answer and everything else is wrong.

>> Of course, there can be spectrums. Like I could say that 2 plus 2 is 5 is a closer answer than like 2 plus 2 is red. You know, one's a number, one's a color.

>> But there still is one true answer. That's our

>> No, I I I I understand which sounds similar to like you said, Eastern Orthodox agree. Now, but here's the thing that's frustrating to me as a Protestant.

>> Yeah.

>> Uh, and and this is why this would be good for you to clarify.

>> Yeah. This idea of apostolic churches, okay, or the ancient churches, uh, I think is absolutely nonsensical, right? Because you guys all claim to be the one true church.

>> Every single one of you guys. So, what you just described there earlier, you used the word salvation, right? Uh, when we were talking about these distinguishments. So, how essential are these disagreements to someone's salvation?

>> So, we don't, and you know, St. Paul talks about this in 1 Corinthians 5. We don't judge those outside the church, right? We don't judge those outside.

>> But what I was trying to say last time is your Christology will affect the way you view salvation is my point. So salvation can't follow if you don't profess Messianism in the sense of your your your system by which you're able to understand how Christ saved you. It's going to be inconsistent unless you have the Meite view, is what I'm trying to say. I'm not saying that people outside the church are for sure damned. However, we would say the normative way in which a person is saved is through Christ's body. Right? Christ saves us through his body. There's one body. St. Paul says that body is the church. So he would say the normative way in which a person is saved is through the church.

>> However, I think it's St. Irenaeus that says, you know, we know where the Holy Spirit is, we don't know where it isn't. So, can God, you know, in his own way save, you know, the random Baptist grandma in like Kentucky that is following Christ the way she knows? Yeah, he can. And and this is what you see in Cyprian's ecclesiology. He's rigorous. He's very strict. The church is one. The church uh Yeah.

>> Double check to see if if actually said

>> Because I always hear from the Orthodox.

>> Yeah.

>> Uh, but but they don't

>> Drum roll

>> St. Irenaeus where is we know the quote we know where the Holy Spirit is but we don't know where it isn't. It's often attributed to or with St. Irenaeus teaching where the Holy Spirit is. This expression, the Holy Spirit is definitely present within the church, but his work is not limited to visible boundaries. St. Irenaeus uh emphasized that the Holy Spirit is found. I can't. Are they saying this is an official quote?

>> Um, cuz it's like the uh, you ever heard the the the the Protestant quote, unity on the essentials, charity on the non-essentials, right? And then like they quoted to Augustine, but Augustine never said that.

>> Okay. Okay. Okay.

>> Uh, keep keep going. Let me verify the quote though.

>> To be honest, I went down on that hill. I mean, he probably maybe he didn't say. I'm not sure. Uh, but we would agree with this though because we see the Holy Spirit fills all places and we know that the Holy Spirit can work in different ways. His grace is

>> Not a direct quote.

>> Yeah. Not a direct quote.

>> Okay.

>> So it's probably just a rephrasing of some teaching. I think it says it here. It's a it's a rephrasing from Against Heresies, book 3, chapter 24.

>> Where the church is. Aha. There we go. Now we found it. Where the church is, there is the spirit of God. And where the spirit of God is, there is the church. I mean, I mean, that's that sounds like a Protestant quote if I'm going to be honest with you. Where the church is, there is the spirit of God. And where the spirit of God is, there is the church. Hopefully you would agree that the spirit of God is with Protestants when we're seeing miracles and salvations and lives transformed. So this is where I think it's important for us to clarify what we mean when we say the Holy Spirit is where and where he isn't. We would say as Orthodox that the Holy Spirit has different operations and activities. St. Paul says this himself. He says there's one spirit, but that there are diverse operations, different activities. So, we would say that the Holy Spirit fills all places and works on many different people, including those who are outside the church.

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>> An example I like to give to very to very much clarify this is uh Apollos. Apollos, if you remember from the book of Acts, was the Holy Spirit using him to be able to proclaim the gospel when he was preaching to the Jews, absolutely. But it also says that he was not educated properly on the proper manners. And it says that Priscilla and Aquila and St. Paul came in and they instructed him, and then it says later on, he was received by the brethren.

>> This is my view of people outside the church.

>> People that are evangelists and they're they're proclaiming the gospel, but they also don't have the proper instruction on on on things which I would say are important.

>> Mhm.

>> So would you so so okay, so when I've heard when I've heard kind of this like the holy like God's using people, God's, I believe God's using because I've I've asked my Oriental Orthodox, I won't say who it was, flat out, like, man, do you think God's using what what I'm doing here? He's like, "Of course, God is using you." And then I I pull on that thread and they'll be like, "Well, I think God's using the Muslim, too." And I'll be like, "Okay." So, is God using?

>> It's not in the same way.

>> Okay. Okay.

>> Because there is, like we said when we talked about wrong answers, 2 plus 2 is five is wrong. But it's also very different from 2 plus 2 is elephant. Right? So, there's a great, there's a like a spectrum of where the grace of God is. Okay.

>> And we could say like

>> There's a spectrum where the grace of God is.

>> Yeah. In of where in a sense of it its operation, its activity. For instance,

>> One of the activities of the Holy Spirit is simply preserving a person in existence.

>> Okay.

>> This, like the whole world itself is sustained through the grace of the Holy Spirit.

>> So in this sense, even animals, you know, have God working on them, working through them.

>> Yes.

>> But I'm not going to say that's equal, for instance, to the way he works on a human being. This is a different gradation.

>> Sure.

>> And then even amongst humans, the way God works on an atheist will be different versus the one who believes in some god. So on and so forth. So I'm not going to say that the way God works through someone that actually believes in Christ and believes in, we can say like the nine Christianity, the Trinity, the Christ

>> Christians.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah. Is the same way that he's going to work on a Muslim. Not

>> Well, I appreciate that, my brother.

>> However, and this part you might not like, we would say then there's also the fullness of grace where the Holy Spirit works in his utmost in all of the activities. And we say that can only be found in one body. That's

>> Which I understand the claim. Yeah. Where the claim becomes nonsensical. And again, I'm not, I don't know if you're saying this in your book, Right? Uh, Defending the Ancient Faith. Uh, your response to Stu Stewart and Cliff, right? Um,

>> What bugs me is I've sat with enough folks from Catholics and Orthodox. You're my first Oriental Orthodox guest, but I've had these conversations offline.

>> Yeah.

>> Is that they're all making mutually exclusive claims, truth claims that cannot all be true. Okay.

>> And they will acknowledge that.

>> We're all making mutually exclusive truth claims. Yes. But on a street level, and again, I this is why I'm asking a clarifying question. It's presented as

>> Hey, you need to pick an ancient church. You need to pick a high church, bells and smells, right? And I go,

>> Hold on, you, you, those statements are nonsensical because all of them claim to be mutually exclusive. So there is no apostolic churches and non-apostolic churches. There's churches that all claim to be the one true church and then they kind of view each other differently. So for uh uh uh Catholics, they won't they won't call us a church, but they'll call us ecclesial communities. I don't know what you would call us, but you guys all would agree that we don't have a valid Eucharist. Some of you guys, I'm not sure who views the other one true church as having a valid Eucharist.

>> Catholics. The Catholics do. Yeah.

>> So, so, so does that make sense though in terms of like when people start talking about ancient churches and I'm talking about, hey, I grew up Oriental Orthodox and I'm Protestant now, and then I get the comment, come home, come home

>> To Orthodox, come home to your roots. And I'm like, my roots aren't even Eastern Orthodoxy, they're Oriental Orthodox. Right? So do you see how the the claim and the framing of some of this sort of stuff becomes nonsensical because they're all mutually exclusive? They're all saying, no, no, no, they're wrong, we're the one true church.

>> So let me let me explain this idea. So in one sense, you're right. Right? We can't say apostolic churches in the fullness because there can only be one church that has the fullness of the apostolic deposit.

>> Amen.

>> However, this is where I think we're going to disagree.

>> Which is remember how we talked about the spectrum and and and degrees.

>> I would say that these apostolic, quote unquote, apostolic churches like the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox are closer are closer to us because we have the lowest common denominator that we hold in common with them that we don't hold in common with people that have the Protestant view. And what I mean by this is, for instance, when we speak of especially low church Protestants,

>> There isn't any material succession, there isn't historical succession, a laying on of hands, this one continuous institution or authority that we can trace from the apostles to now, whereas these other churches hold to that.

>> Okay, but hold on, let me interrupt you there.

>> Yeah.

>> But there are gaps in time of apostolic succession missing from the book, from the history books.

>> I I wouldn't I wouldn't agree with that for orient.

>> Come on. I I wouldn't agree with that.

>> People could look that up on their own. There's there's hundreds of years missing that they had to then go back in and fill in in terms of the written record of apostolic succession.

>> So to to my knowledge, I've I've had an opportunity to look at the list, for instance, of the different bishops of Alexandria from the time of Mark.

>> And we don't see that those kind of gaps. We we have

>> There's no gaps. You're saying there's not a?

>> Yeah, it's continuous.

>> I I I've I've I've looked at it. There's I've seen gaps. Now, but but to your point, let's just let's just say I were to grant that, which I don't grant apostolic succession. But let's just say I did. Uh, the Anglicans claim apostolic succession. Would you say they're a gradient closer than the Lutheran who also have a degree of apostolic succession or claim to have a degree of apostolic succession? Though they they would define it different. So I would have to to give you like take a look more at these high church Protestants compared to like non-denominational. And I'm not I'm not even sure like, did they do it the same way for instance, the other apostolic churches profess? Because for us, our understanding of of this material succession would be by means of the laying on of hands, bishop to bishop.

>> They claim that. Yeah.

>> Okay.

>> Glenn Scrivener is a great source on this, by the way. I don't know if you know who Glenn Scrivener is. He wrote The Air We Breathe. He's a he is an Anglican evangelical pastor.

>> Interesting.

>> And yeah, he just sat down with um uh uh Alex O'Connor. They had a great. I just had him at my son. Yeah.

>> We would have to look at that because, for instance, with the Lutherans, one of the questions I would pose is

>> Was was Luther ever a bishop? Did he impose himself as bishop? Who ordained him as a bishop? I've never heard of Luther being ordained as a bishop. So where would the apostolic succession come from?

>> Mhm.

>> So so they so the Anglicans are different in that they came out of like a different arm of Catholic. Somebody's going to I'm going to the whole Church of England.

>> So that's where I think that's how they call it.

>> Because you mentioned the Lutherans. I was like, I don't understand what

>> They they have a I forgot what their workaround is, but I don't think they hold to it in the same way. Uh, because they they have a different uh category of it, but they do hold to many of similar, like their service is going to be very similar to a Catholic church.

>> That's the thing though, for me, it's not a big deal of like what the external rite looks like, the bells and smells, as you said, that's not the issue. The issue is on like these core, like we said, lowest, like lowest common denominator things. So like the early church, you can call like, you know, the proto proto church had things that we all agree on, like, for instance, apostolic succession. We agree it has to be bishops, two or three bishops ordaining one person, by the mouths of two or three witnesses, all things shall stand.

>> That idea of the laying on of hands, continuous unbroken chain, we all agree on. And we don't see that agreement, for instance, with Protestant circles, particularly low church.

>> But even amongst the high church, like Lutherans, I don't see that continuous.

>> I just gave you an example with Anglicans.

>> With Anglicans, I have to take a look at it.

>> Yeah. Anglicans are a little different. I'll profess ignorance on that. But for instance,

>> But but again, I I think I think but Anglicans would hold uh a Protestant view of ecclesiology where we would not say there's one true church. That there's branches of different churches and yet the spirit of God has been preserved and these uh differences, as sad as they are, and man, wouldn't it be awesome to one day be unified under the gospel of grace, right? Uh, that there's uh diversity. And Luther wrote about this as well, and so did John Calvin, where man, they, the East has true churches, Catholics still had true churches, from the Protestant framework, we believe that there's believers uh who have real churches. We just think they've erred in certain essential doctrine.

>> Okay. So this is the answer I would give to people that propose that kind of ecclesiology. One of them is we got to go back to what St. Cyprian says. If they have the valid sacraments, including the body of Christ,

>> And these other people that are not in communion with them also have the body of Christ.

>> You have two people in opposition, not you know, accepting each other, but they both profess to have the one Christ. So now he becomes divided. This is the argument.

>> So how can the one Christ be divided? If we're professing his mystical body to be present in multiple branches that are all warring against each other, how does that preserve the unity of Christ?

>> Yeah. And my answer to you would be in the same way you guys all claim to be the one true church.

>> But we would never say that we recognize each other like we don't recognize these other people as having sacraments. We we would say sacraments are found in one place. We hold a Cyprian view.

>> Okay. Hold on. So so back up. Unpack that for me. You would recognize other apostolic, apostolic churches have sacraments?

>> No.

>> Oh, you guys believe the only, you're the only one that has sacraments. Oh, interesting. Okay. I I never knew that.

>> So, we're consistent with ourology.

>> No, no, I appreciate that. That's actually really helpful. Um, well, hey, I I grew up taking the sacraments, so I've had the valid sacraments.

>> Sure.

>> Multiple times in my lifetime, according to you. Um, so, so like within that, so no one is getting the sacrament.

>> So, again, we hold this.

>> Wild. Okay, keep going. This is good.

>> By the way, we're not the only ones that believe this. Who else believes it?

>> If you press Eastern Orthodox, they'll say the same thing.

>> Okay, fair enough. Yeah. So maybe maybe I'm hearing a lot of stuff from Catholics.

>> Maybe like with a Catholic, you could definitely debunk their ecclesiology that way. Like they say you believe in one, and then they all have sacraments. Yeah. A division.

>> So you guys think that uh neither the Orthodox or the Catholics have valid sacraments.

>> Like we would just leave it up to to God. Maybe God in his mercy, right? But we would say that if you want an assurance of validity,

>> You have to be consistent with your

>> Hey, say it with your chest, bro. Okay.

>> You have to be consistent with yourology. And this, let me mention a second thing here.

>> Yeah.

>> To the people that also believe in this idea of like branch theory.

>> The other issue I'll put forward is who gets to decide which are the branches and which aren't.

>> This is also a really important thing we have to ask.

>> Who gets to say that these are the the valid branches and these aren't? For instance,

>> Uh, would you say the Jehovah's Witnesses are part of this this branch?

>> No.

>> So So who gives the authority?

>> Oh. Oh, I I would say uh creed or Christians. The Nicene Creed.

>> So So then like what made you say that? Like who gave you the like who gave your body the authority to be able to say

>> I think well no one gave me not me, but when I say you, no no, when I say you, I mean like your institution.

>> No, that's a great question. So so cuz because I think the deeper question is one of epistemology, like how do we know these things of what is true and what isn't true and how do you come to conclusions of of

>> It would be it would be deeper than just that, but you'd have to basically

>> Have a formal recognition that these branches officially are valid, which which would require an act of binding. Right. Well, we could we could also pull the, we know where the spirit of God is, we don't know where the spirit of God isn't quote. Like we could also say

>> But that goes back my point is the branch theory.

>> If you push it hard enough,

>> Goes back to like there's these true churches, but we're the truest of the true cuz we get to determine which ones are true, which ones aren't. You see my thing?

>> No, no, no, not at all. I would say there are true churches in all the streams of Christianity that hold to the first uh uh the Nicene Creed.

>> But who set that standard is my point.

>> Who who set that standard? So So I think scripture sets the standard.

>> Yeah, but scripture through an interpreter, right? You can't just say scripture.

>> No, because I would say there's there's main things and plain things in scripture that one can clearly understand that Jesus is an eternal being, right? They can understand the the the Trinity. Like there's a there's even though that word is not in the scriptures, one can read and get a very plain reading of the scriptures. And so the Nicene Creed, I think, is a is a gauge that they're clarifying something that we we clearly have in scripture and they're they're putting very simple language to it. So that's where I would draw the lines personally. So I would say I wouldn't put the Mormons in that

>> Category. But but listen, like so this is my take, right? You're taking the Nicene Creed again, like we as Orthodox, we love the Nicene Creed.

>> But you're applying it now as the metric and standard, right? So if you believe this, you're in. If you don't believe this, you're out.

>> Mhm.

>> And the question I'm trying to press here is, who gave, let's say, your institution. I don't know, uh, what particular institution you're in. Who gave that institution the binding power to be able to say, we're using this metric? And and you were you said scripture? And I said, well, scripture through through an interpreter. And you responded, well, there's things that are clear, there are things that aren't. And again, I would press the question, which institution determines these things that are clear and these things that aren't? Because for instance,

>> One as Pentecostals might say, well, you know what? For us, it's very clear that God's one person.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Right.

>> I love that you brought up that example. Okay. So, so, so one, uh, you're you you keep saying institution where I think that's not quite the framework that someone who's Protestant necessarily holds to. Two, here's the framework. If you want to know the framework, my my framework uh is quite simply this, scripture as the north star, right? And then yes, we look at church history and we look at experience, right? And we use our reason. And that is how we come to conclusions of faith. And and I don't I'm when I say uh hey, I think these folks are out or my my church would say these folks are out. Uh, we aren't uh an institution to have any sort of governing power to condemn anyone to hell. We're saying, hey, based on the scripture first, then church history, right? Tradition, experience, and reason. This is how we come to matters of of faith.

>> And by the way, the Oriental Orthodox Church has the same thing. When we say, for instance, these churches are out and we're the one true church, we're not sentencing anyone to hell. We don't have the, you know, the Nicaea 2 definition of anathema is like eternal separation from God the way Easterns have it. We don't have that either.

>> I want to I want to come back to that. Don't let me forget. That's that's a good one.

>> Okay. But like that's not our understanding of we're not damning anyone to hell either. But the point is, you said we don't hold an institution, which okay, if this is just like your personal opinion, that's fine.

>> But I've talked to various confessional Protestants

>> Who would say like, my branch, let's say they're Presbyterian. My Presbyterian church has said these are the branches that like we would include in like World Communion Sunday or whatever. And I'll be like, okay, well, who gave your institution the ability to say these are in and these are out? Setting damnation aside,

>> Who gives the institution the power to set those boundaries? And eventually they have to concede, well, I submit to their binding power. And then I would say, well, guess what? You're implicitly saying they're the truest church, right? Whatever body gets to decide these are the branches and these aren't the branches has to have like the truest binding authority. So it's not that rigorous ecclesiology. I think the thing that for me irks me is a lot of people try and and put forward the branch theory as in like, well, we're not exclusivist. Well, you have to be to a certain point. You have to set boundaries at a certain point. Like, for instance, would you say that One as Pentecostals are in the church?

>> No.

>> See, so there has to be a point where you set boundaries. And that's the argument I'm trying to make.

>> Yeah. But but do you understand how I came to bound? How I came to the boundaries that I

>> You're saying through scripture. And we would say we're doing the same.

>> No, no, no. Not just through scripture, through also through church history and tradition.

>> We would say through and through experience and through reason.

>> We would say the same thing. We say the same thing. But

>> Here's another thing I would out here.

>> Uh, just so that it doesn't seem like it's just personal interpretation versus personal interpretation.

>> Because a lot of times I've seen people try and put forward that assertion as well. Well, Protestants are using their interpretation of the Bible. You guys are using and and the councils and you guys are using your own personal interpretation. The reason why this this idea of an institutional epistemology, meaning you find the institution and then the institution determines what you intellectually assent to, is so important is because

>> If a person is trying to inquire, you're trying to find the true church, right? Once they found that true church, all they have to do is simply submit to that church as being the pillar and foundation of truth, as St. Paul says in 1 Timothy 3:15.

>> And so after that, you just believe as the church teaches.

>> Mhm. If you're an individual and your epistemology is not via institution,

>> You have to basically for yourself construct an entire systematic uh theology.

>> And the way you would construct the institution that is correct is from your standpoint through apostolic succession.

>> Apostolic is one component. Like we can concede here that a person has to use their active intellect. There's no doubt about that. You have to use reason. But what the reason why I'm saying it's a false equivocation is for me, all I have to do is use my active intellect.

>> Okay? So, I looked up the apostolic succession.

>> Yeah.

>> Okay. And so, I'll throw it on the screen here for you. And I and I know I wasn't I know I wasn't tripping when I said this. According to this, and again, we could argue about it. Historical documentation gaps exist in the earliest centuries, especially first and second due to sparse records, uh making complete linear tracing impossible, though theological, liturgical, and sacramental continuity uh is argued instead. So there is no uh non-stop apostolic record that is preserved according to a basic search and a basic research of the topic.

>> I think I would have to take a look at that. I know it says it's citing Catholic Answers here. Maybe they're they're saying that about their own church. Okay.

>> Um, and I would also have to take a look at, okay, what does it mean to have liturgical continuity? Because liturgy implies you need priests and bishops. You see how complicated this goes though? Like you're like, find the right institution. But even in the searching of the right institution, you still hit the same roadblock where you go, hey, I now I have to have all this ecclesial conversations and what is the one true church and is it the Catholics? Is it the Orthodox? And you're giving me a hard line of like, man, it's Ephesus. Whoever agrees on Ephesus, that's who got it right. And then I'll sit with an Orthodox person and they will take just as strong of a stance. I mean, I did I had I had Father Harris on. I think I talked about this with Father Josiah. They had just as strong uh conviction on this where I would go, h like, that sounds interesting and it sounds significant, but I don't know if it's significant enough to have entire schisms over, you know what I mean?

>> So let me explain my thing. I was trying to say this uh prior.

>> There is no doubt that a person has to exercise their own active intellect. There's no doubt about that.

>> But the idea is to what extent. This is where Protestant epistemology goes against like, for instance, Oriental Orthodox epistemology. For us, it's simply discerning where the true church is. Well, and I'll get to like what that means as well.

>> But it's about discerning where the true church is. Once you found that,

>> Because we believe that the church is the pillar and foundation of truth.

>> And the gates of Hades cannot prevail against the church.

>> We would say what that church teaches, I believe.

>> So, for instance, just to give like, I don't know, my random grandma that's in Ethiopia.

>> Does she have an understanding of like Ecclesiology, Eschatology, Soteriology, Trinitology? No. But in so far as she submits to the church, she believes as the church teaches.

>> So all our active intellect has to do is find that institution, submit to it.

>> Yeah. But but that removes the need to critically think about some of these things and wrestle.

>> You can choose to. You can choose to, right?

>> You can you can you can submit to a church and still wrestle through things.

>> No, I'm saying if you want not wrestle, but if you want to learn about them, you can. But for St. Paul, the church is a pillar and foundation of truth. So you find once you find the church,

>> There's no need for you as an individual to go and find a truth for your own.

>> If you're

>> Someone. But do you see, you see what I'm saying though? I'm saying someone didn't did all the thinking for you.

>> Yeah, but that's the thing though. St. Paul, it says that like I I don't really know what else to say.

>> Which which verse are you talking about?

>> 1 Timothy 3:15.

>> Okay, let's look it up because that's that's that's an important. You're saying St. Paul said

>> The church is a pillar and foundation of truth.

>> Okay. But he doesn't say uh you're you're going to never have questions and never have discussions and never have disagreements on hey, we're trying to wrestle through uh the you know, the sovereignty of God and how free will and predestination work together, like people are going to wrestle through these things. You know what I mean?

>> Arguing arguing things is one thing.

>> But having different beliefs, different faiths is another thing because the truth has to be one. You can't agree to disagree because one of the sides has to be true.

>> Yes. According to the rules of logic. I'm I'm sorry with you. What was the passage? 1 Timothy 3:15. Okay. Um, yeah. So, but but you don't think there's uh there's there's there's a mystery to some of these aspects.

>> 1 Timothy 3:15.

>> Oh, is that the wrong one? Yeah. Yeah, it's right there. Yeah, it's right there. Yeah.

>> Okay. Sweet. Let me pull this up. Okay. Okay. So it says, uh, if I am delayed, you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God's household, which is

>> The church.

>> Which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth, beyond all question. The mystery from which the true godliness springs forth. He appeared in the flesh, was vindicated by the spirit, was seen by angels, was preached among the nations, uh was believed on the world, was taken up to glory. That's about Jesus in the gospel.

>> Yeah.

>> And so when I looked up that word mystery, which is

>> Mysterion.

>> Mysterion.

>> You should go down.

>> I'm going down. Yeah.

>> I'm going to I'm going to go slow.

>> There you go.

>> Okay. Uh

>> Initiate, learn the secret.

>> Initiate, learn the secret. Yes. So what I'm getting at um and then we could also see how often the word is used. Mystery. Mark 4. I think this is the site where you referenced it. Yep.

>> Romans, the mystery.

>> Uh, I don't want to use

>> I don't want to be ignorant of this mystery. So it's been it's given to them.

>> It's Yeah. So So

>> So it's not about intellectual ignorance.

>> No, no, no. And forgive me if I was unclear on that. What I'm not saying is is there's intellectual ignorance about a conversation like free will, right? I think that there's a beautiful mystery of the tension of human free will. We all get choices. We're all agents. And somehow God in his providence and in his glory works all things for good. I don't quite understand how all of that works. I don't think I need to understand how all that works. Uh, and I think if you find an institution, like you take a Calvinist systematic theology, and they'll walk me through it, and they'll have answers for everything. And then I think some of it goes a little dark sometimes in terms of the character of God ultimately kind of being the causal force for evil in a way, but I don't want to misrepresent the Calvinist. But uh, and then I could hear your guys' framework for it, right? But I'm saying at the end of the day, I still have to wrestle through how it all works together. And some of it is, man, I just have faith that the Lord is good and this is a mystery and I don't know exactly how it's going to work out in the end, but man, I I believe in the character of God. I believe in the first principles of God's nature and therefore I'm comfortable with not knowing how this exactly works together.

>> No. So on an individual level, you don't have to be a PhD in theology to know everything. Okay, good. But my point is that the one church cannot have multiple differing views on matters of faith.

>> Because the truth is one. It can't be two or three. Two plus two is four. It can't be five or or three.

>> And so when we speak of the mystery, that doesn't mean that oh, we will never know, so we'll just agree to disagree. The deposit of faith is given to one body, and then those initiating the body are given to it. And so

>> I understand you. I understand what you're saying. What I what I was trying to say earlier was I still think that works against you or or not against you, cuz I don't quite understand if you land here, but against the whole like apostolic church as this one kind of central figure that you would say is on the gradient.

level closer, but yet still very different, yet very exclusive.

So, yeah, we're exclusive, but like, like I said, like it doesn't sound like a unified apostolic voice is what I'm getting at.

No, we're not one church, and we, we understand that. We want to be, we're striving for union. We have ecumenical talks, but we're not. But what I'm, my point is, we have more in common with them than with Protestants.

But that is that your critique of Protestants is your critique of the other apostolic churches. That is my point.

No, no, no. Because our, so my only critique against Protestants, my, my, it's not that my only critique against Protestants is they're not the true church. That's not the point.

It's on top of them not being the true church, there's these other doctrinal things that we disagree on. These really basic, lowest common denominator things that we agree with the other churches.

Well, but, but, but there are some Protestants. Let me just give you an example. I'll throw out some things on you. You could reject them or not. There's Protestants that hold to real presence in communion. There's Protestants that hold that it's only remembrance. There's Protestants that hold to baptismal regeneration. There's Protestants that don't believe in baptismal regeneration. You could find a gradient of Protestants that doctrinely will agree with you on all sorts of things.

Which is why we would say that there's also a gradient within Protestantism, right? That's not mutually exclusive to my point.

Yes.

We can say that Protestants as a whole are further away to orient orthodoxy than Roman Catholics. Then we can also say within Protestantism there is confessional uh Protestants that have a high view of the sacraments that are closer to us than, for instance, low church Protestants. So it's not a mutually exclusive thing that you're that you're talking about here. But the main thing that I'm saying is epistemology-wise, you need an institution to tell you what to think.

I really want to flush this out. Okay. So we just covered, as we said, First Timothy 3:15, Matthew 16, the gates of Hades cannot prevail against the church. So once I find an institution, I can have epistemic assurance that whatever it teaches, I can submit to.

As a Protestant, however, if you don't believe in that kind of ecclesiology, and you're saying, "Well, no, I have to find out the theology all for myself through my personal interpretation of scripture."

No, no, no, no, no, no. That's a straw man. I said that that scripture becomes the north star, and then through the lens of scripture, you find the right.

Through, no, no, no, through, through the lens of scripture, and then church history and council, you can leave the council.

And then, and then, and then experience and reason that you can come to conclusions of matter of faith.

Okay, this isn't really a critique of scripture. We can include the councils too, too. I'm not trying to straw man here. Okay.

But the point is, you just said personal interpretation. No pro, no Protestant is opening the scriptures.

Personal interpretation. Okay. Personal interpretation of scripture and the councils. Okay. Like we, like because at some point you have to make your active intellect, and someone has to make an active intellect of what is the one true church.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Your personal interpretation of the data.

Let me flush why it's not equivocated.

Okay, help me out.

Yes, let me get to the point. Just, just bear with me, and then you can respond to it.

So, like we said, uh, someone that wants to like that has institutional epistemology of an orthodox, yes, they have, they exercise an active intellect, they find the institution, it stops there. A Protestant, just bear with me here, okay? Has to exercise their active intellect in interpreting scripture and also conciliary decrees and whatever. But then they have to use that in order to find their stance and their, their, their understanding of every single differentology and theology. So you have to have your own understanding of triadology, your own understanding Christology, your own understanding of sacraments, eschatology, ecclesiology. So effectively, the barrier, the bar of what it means as a Protestant to find the true faith, it's very, very high. You have to basically be a PhD in theology because maybe you got the triology right from your investigation in church history, but you got the Christology, theology, all of that wrong. As someone that has an institutional ecclesiology, my epistemic assurance is way higher because either I got the church wrong, okay, I was wrong, or I got the church right, in which case I got everything right. So, it's 50/50. Whereas for a Protestant, it's like one out of 75, cuz there's every single ology, right? Your soteriology, your eschatology, all of that. You have to get all of that right on your own. You see what I'm trying to say? It's that's why I, I wouldn't equivocate.

Thank you for clarifying and breaking that down. I actually really appreciate that. So, here's, here's I think where we would differ. I just don't grant the presupposition that the average Protestant is spending all this time worrying about all these ologies in the same way that the average Ethiopian grandma is spending all this time thinking about Christology. Uh, she has an institution she believes in. The average Protestant believes in saved by grace through faith alone, two good works, and the scripture is our north star, and that is what we're looking at. And they can go and explore and go through phases and, you know, try different Bible studies, but they're they're not, uh, they're not trying to get to the bottom of this riddle they have to solve.

But, but you see the difference though. The reason why the grandma, the Ethiopian grandma or whatever doesn't, it's because she doesn't have to. She has an institution which she believes.

Why do you think the Protestant has to?

Because you do. You guys grant that you believe in an institution which, which the gates of Hades cannot prevail against and is the pillar and foundation of truth.

I, I do. Do I grant?

Do you have epistemic assurance that the church can't err? Like, say you're part of the Presbyterian denomination.

Do I? Well, I'm non-denominational. So, you're asking the wrong person.

Okay. So, so it's the same thing. I ask.

But I don't even need what I think. Same thing to non-denominational. In fact, it's probably worse, right?

I think, I think what you're missing is I don't need institutional authority or institutional certainty.

In which case, you don't have any epistemic assurance that you've gotten these other things right. How do you know you have the true faith?

Sure. Sure. Sure. Because of the scripture.

So, we, we say the same thing, right? But the difference is, for us, scripture is in tandem with this epistemic assurance given to us by scripture because scripture points to the church. I'm quoting scripture for you, right? We believe in material sufficiency of scripture. Everything in scripture.

Believe stuff on top of that.

No, no, no. We would say that the scripture, what do you mean on top of it?

Like, like, like people, like when I talk to Catholics and Orthodox, and again, this is a great clarifying Christian. You believe the scripture is the final authority?

Book-wise, in terms of, in terms of material, material sufficiency. There's just other stuff you believe along with scripture, like the councils, and I'm assuming maybe some of your patriarchs and church.

All these other things you would say are interpreting scripture and extrapolating it. But the, the idea is the epistemology here, right? As a Protestant, since you don't believe in the inability of of of institution, this idea of this epistemic assurance that the institution will get it right. You live your whole life not knowing if you actually have the true faith. You're not sure if you got your eschatology right, or your ecclesiology right, or this and that. So, so, so I understand from your framework what you're saying. Yeah. Here's what you, and perhaps you don't understand from the Protestant framework that I'm seeing.

Is we're seeing.

In terms of evangelism.

Yeah.

Tons of evangelism done primarily by Protestants. Yeah.

Okay. In terms of like, who's, who's outsourcing the most amount of Bibles, who's sharing the faith the most, who's doing the most amount of street preaching, who's seeing the most amount, and this might be a loaded word, revival in America. It's by and large Protestants. Uh, on top of that, you go one click over, who's seeing the most amount of uh, global revival? Who's planting churches in places where it's difficult to plant churches because they can't send institutions to do all this sort of stuff? It's usually going to be Protestants, right? Um, on top of which, we're seeing tons of Muslims come to faith because they're having dreams about Jesus.

Well, I don't see how this ties into the point I'm making.

I'm going to get there. Okay. So, so what I'm saying is, we're seeing revival. We're seeing people come to faith. We're seeing marriages, families restored. We're seeing miracles happen, right? That for me to say, how can I be sure? I'm sure because I got the, I know I got the root of Jesus right according to scripture, and because I'm seeing the fruit of Jesus all throughout my life. I'm seeing miracles. I'm seeing people restored. I'm seeing the tangible hand of God in my own life. And so to say, well, you don't have no assurance. U, I would say I do have assurance. It's just not anchored in an institution.

No, but so what you're talking about is great, but the point that was being made here is about epistemic assurance of doctrine.

How do you know that you have the true faith? Is my point. This is not an issue of like, how do you know God's working through you? That's more vague and general. And then, but on a more like, cold hard facts basis.

The point is being made, do you have epistemic assurance that you have the right faith, the right?

Because of scripture?

Yeah. I, I understand that.

Okay. Let me, let me, let me, let me frame it to you this way. If I'm looking at church history and I'm looking at scripture,

Yeah.

Can you grant that church history should submit to scripture?

Yeah.

Okay. So, when I'm looking at church history, and again, I don't know enough about what you guys believe on the topic, like, um, one must confess their sins to a priest in order to be absolved before going to heaven.

Okay. But I'm seeing in scripture, confess to one another. I'm seeing in, in First John, uh, it, it, confess to Jesus. I brought this up to Trent Horn, so you're not the first person I brought this up to.

Okay.

And I'm seeing a repeated emphasis to confess to one another. Mhm.

I'm seeing that Jesus is our only mediator. If I see a tradition outside of that and saying I have to go to a priest to confess before I die, or I may not go to heaven, I would say, hey, that's cool. I'm not mad at you if you want to confess to a priest.

I'm not mad at that. You do you.

But the scripture is what everything has to submit to. So, I'm just giving you a very basic example of something that I would say is a pretty important issue is if someone dies and, God forbid, they didn't get to do a final confession before a priest, uh, I think they're solid and they're going to heaven based on their faith in Jesus according to the scripture.

So, we, we could also use the scripture to defend confession.

To, to a priest as the final means of salvation.

So, you want me to to go through it with you?

Just give me a, give me a verse, chapter, verse.

I'll give you two verses.

Okay.

The first one is James 5. I don't know the exact verse. I think it's verse 13, something around long there. You can pull it up. Confess your sins to one another. Yes.

It's before that. Let's, let's go there. James 5.

Uh, if you can scroll down, it'll be like around verse 1, 2, 3.

You're talking about the verses right before that where it talks about bringing the elders together to pray for you.

So, so you're going to say in the context of the elders coming together?

Okay, keep going. Verse 13. Yeah.

Verse 13.

Uh,

13. Yeah, that one.

Is anyone among you in trouble? Go here. Uh, let them pray. Is anyone among you, um, happy? Let them sing songs of praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. Amen. And the prayer offered in faith will make the person well. Amen. The Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to each other.

So, it's really important for us to, to, to go back to, I think it's at verse 14 where it says, if anyone's sick, they have to call for the elders. And the elders here, the, the Greek word is presbyteros, which is the idea of where we get the word priest or elder. When they pray over them, one of the things that James says is going to happen is, says, if they have sinned, they'll be forgiven.

So he points to a causal effect between the presbyteros, the presbyter is the priest praying over the man, and his sins being forgiven. And this ties into another verse, which is John 20:22-23.

Where we can flip that one out too, if you want.

But, but do you see that the context of this is different? I understand that this is talking to bring the elders together to pray for them, anoint them with oil. I'm assuming you guys anoint people with oil when they're sick.

It's called the anointing of the sick. We believe in that.

And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well. The Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven.

So the prayer of the elder over the person leads to three things.

One, it leads to their healing.

Leads to their being raised up, and it leads to their sins being forgiven.

So there is a causal effect between the prayer of the presbyteros of the presbyters and the person's sins being forgiven. And let's not just take this as a standalone verse.

John 20:22-23.

Oh, no. No, but, but we can't, we can't move on verse 16, which says, therefore, confess your sins.

To the, to the presbyters.

So, no, no, no. We can, we can completely. Confess your sins to who? To each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person, not a priest, not a presbyter, not an elder, not a deacon. The prayer of a righteous person is a powerful and effective tool and a powerful and effective.

Okay, but let's talk about the power of absolution. If their prayer, if their sins are forgiven.

Who is that predicated to? Is it predicated to just anyone, or is it to the pres, to the presbyters?

Are you saying in order for to have your sins forgiven, you need to.

No, just based on this passage, it says if they have sinned, they'll be forgiven. That effect.

It's predicated to who? It's predicated to the elders. It says that when the elders pray over them, if they have committed sins, they'll be forgiven.

You see, so we can, we can make an argument about is confession done amongst the people? It was in the early church. Okay. That's not an issue whether it's done openly or in private.

We would say that the confession can be done in communally. It can be done privately. But the power of absolution, if their, if their sins are forgiven or not.

James says that that happens when the presbyteros prays over them. Not when anyone prays over them. When the presbyteros prays over them.

The way I'm reading this, and again, maybe I'm wrong. The way I'm reading this, this is particularly sin and sickness with the laying on of hands by the elders.

There's no laying on of hands. It just says praying over them. But we can even grant laying on hands. It's not a big deal. But it says, but who is doing the laying? The, the presbyter.

The presbyter. Yeah. Yeah. And we believe that in presence, we believe that elders laying hands on people.

Can forgive their sins.

Can, can forgive their sins. What does it, where does it say it can forgive their sins?

It says, if they have sinned, they'll be forgiven. It's verse 15.

Verse 15 says, "And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well. The Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven."

So, if they have sinned, they'll be forgiven.

But it's not, it's not because the, the presbyteros is declaring them forgiven. It's because if they confess and they get hands laid, laid on them, they will be forgiven. It, it says if the elders pray over them.

It says that these things happen.

Yeah, I, I think, I think we're maybe we're just reading this very differently.

I think this is pretty direct. It says the prayer of faith, that prayer of faith that the elders pray over them. But it says, "Let them pray over them." Verse 15 says, "And the prayer of faith does these things." What does it do?

Let's, let's, let's slow it down.

Let's slow it down. Okay.

Is anyone among you in trouble?

Let them pray.

Let's just skip to verse 14. Is anyone among you.

Is anyone among you happy? Verse 14. Is anyone among you sick?

Mhm.

So, this is about being sick.

Yeah. Okay. Not about needing to have your sins forgiven. Let's f about being sick.

I'll grant that. Go ahead.

Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. I would say yes and amen to that. We do this. We lay hands, uh, in terms of the elders of our church, and we anoint people with oil.

Okay. So the elder just, we're going to slow down even again. Okay. The elders are going to come, and these elders are.

Someone's sick. The elders are going to come.

Okay. And they're going to pray over them.

And they're going to lay hands and pray over them and anoint them with.

So now what's going to happen is the question. What's going to happen when the elders pray over them?

Okay. And it says, "And the prayer offered in faith."

Of who? Whose prayer?

It just says the prayer.

But come on, let's let.

It says the prayer. So.

It says, "Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them." So who's doing like, let's, we have to be intellectually honest.

I would say intellectually honest. This is a group of people that's coming over and and praying over them. I would say the elders in the church.

So the presbyters are praying over them. So it's their prayers. Okay.

Yeah. I would, I would say it's their prayers, right? And this prayer offered in faith.

Will make the person well. Okay.

The Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, sorry, the Lord will raise them up. Period. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. So, so that if is also doing a lot of work there.

Yeah. So, yeah, they've sinned. Okay. Obviously, a person wouldn't be forgiven if they didn't commit sin. But if we're going to be intellectually honest, what it's saying is these elders come, they pray over them. Said prayer will heal them and also lead to their sins being forgiven.

That's, that's what we're, we're teaching.

Therefore, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful. We believe in public confession, but, but the main.

So, so in your context, I'm just trying to get clarity. In your context, you, what you think this says is that if someone is wrestling with sin, if someone is, I don't know, under on deathbed or, uh, does something wild like they, they commit a crazy sin, but they don't confess their sins to a priest before they die.

Yeah.

Are you saying that their salvation is now in jeopardy?

Okay. Before I answer that, can we first agree that James, uh, 5:15 says that when the, the elders pray over them, that their sins are forgiven?

I think that James, the beginning of James is absolutely saying the elders. I'll grant that. And then it sounds like there is a confessing your sins of one another. So.

Verse 16. Verse 15.

Yeah. Yeah. So what I'm saying is, I think verse 15 and 16 all flow into each other. And this seems like the eld. So let me, let me, let me perhaps this is my own bias in the way I'm reading it. Right. So if someone's sick, the church is going to come together. The elders are going to lay hands and anoint them with oil. Everyone is going to pray.

That, that is the way I'm envisioning this happening. This, and again, I just.

Say that though. That's Jesus. So, so what I'm saying is, I'm granting that perhaps I'm reading my own experience into how I've seen this exhibited into into scripture. But what, what, what's difficult to do, I think for anybody that's being intellectually honest, is detangle verse 15 from verse 16.

No, because.

So, so at one point the elders are praying.

Because, because.

And they're confessing their sins to the elders, but then in the very next verse, you're saying they're confessing their sins to one another.

What, what I wanted to focus is simply on the absolution part because the idea that a lot of Protestants struggle with is, can a person's prayer, someone praying for me, lead to my sins being forgiven? And what you see in verse 15 is it never mentions everyone that's in 16 when it talks about confession, like me saying I did this, I messed up, I did that, which in the early church, like I will concede to you, they publicly confessed your sins for everyone. But the absolution, the power to forgive one's sins, that's attributed to specifically the prayers of the elders. And that, like, you really can't deny that verse 15 says the prayer offered in faith. Verse 14, the one doing the prayer is the elders. So I don't think this requires any kind of theological reading into reading out of elders come and pray.

Yeah. I, I, I don't, I, I'm just being honest. I don't see that in verse 15. I see that a prayer offered in faith will make the person well. I don't see it as saying.

Who's the one offering the prayer? Verse 14.

Yeah. Yeah. No, we, we, we ran over the context together. But brother says, "Let them call the elders of the church to pray."

To, to pray for them if they are sick. But this is not saying that.

And the prayer offering will make the sick person well. It's there's no, there's no, there's no. It's fine. We can agree to disagree. I'll let the viewers make their decision based on what that looks like.

Sure.

And there's no denying when you connect this to John 20, it's very clear because John 20:22-23.

Christ breathes on the face of the apostles and says, "Whatever sins you forgive are forgiven."

Yes. I'm familiar with that passage.

Okay. So the idea of like, you mentioned earlier on, Christ, you mentioned 1 Timothy 2:5. There's one mediator between God and man. Amen to that. We, we accept that. M.

How do you square that with Christ saying that the apostles can forgive sins? In the same way that we have elders in a church today in Protestant churches that you may not view as real churches, but they're, they're elders, they have real authority, and they, they do all sorts of stuff within the context of leading, uh, the church.

You think they can.

I think sometimes they could stand as a mediator with regards to telling somebody their sins can be forgiven. But I'm not saying that is necessary in order for someone to actually have their sins forgiven to go to church. That's why I asked you that question earlier. If someone sins, and again, I don't know if you guys have grave sins or your degree of sins. But if someone sins and they are on their deathbed, do they need a priest there to absolve them of their sins, or can they confess their sins to one another?

So, our understanding is, uh, if we're talking about absolution, absolution can only be given by a priest. If a person can't find a priest, can God condescend? Absolutely. It's just the same thing like what St. Ambrose talks about when a person wants to get baptized and they don't, they're not able to. There is the, the possibility and the belief that God can condescend to whatever boundary.

This is not the normative means.

Yes. But going back to John 20, what I really want to press on is you said you believe that the elders in your church can actually forgive sins.

I feel like a lot of.

Let me, let me, let me ask you that verbatim.

So, what I'm saying is the, the elder in the church, if you, like, let's just say you're coming to me and you're conf, I'm not an elder in my church, but let's just make believe, and you're saying, man, I did this, and I just feel so broken over it, and we're having this conversation, and we go, well, man, what's the difference between this and worldly sorrow? And we're having this conversation, and I'm like, man, I think the Lord forgives you. Well, that's, that's, I'm saying as a, as someone can stand as a conduit to remind them of what the scriptures say, not necessarily absolve them of their sins. He doesn't say.

But, but I will, but I will grant that I do think an elder in the church.

Can forgive sins.

Has a has a higher degree of authority.

No, but this is not about authority.

Let me, let me, let me play. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Let me play. Has a higher degree of real authority. They have real authority over people's lives. They have real spiritual authority. But let me grant this, that when it comes to, can they forgive sins in the same way that Jesus can forgive sins or that God can forgive sins? Is that, is that the question?

No, that's not the question. The question is simply just.

Can they stand as a conduit to say the scriptures say you're forgiven, so therefore you're forgiven?

Can.

That's not what John still not, that's still not the.

That's not what John 20 says.

Rephrase the question so I fully understand what you're saying.

Can they forgive sins? As simple as that. Now, can they remind them that the scripture says they're forgiven? Can they forgive.

The way God does?

So, for us, there isn't a distinction because we would say that Christ is the high priest. Anyone that does give absolution, they're giving Christ's absolution. It's Christ.

We would, we would. Yes. So you think a person.

In, in a technical sense, if Christ is the high priest, and where then that's the same thing as me saying you're forgiven in the in the presence of God.

No, let me press you on another thing because in that same passage, it also says, whatever sins you hold are are held. You want to go back to that one.

You're talking about John.

John 20:22-23.

Yeah. No, I'm familiar with the passage. So you're saying.

So, do you think an elder, if they say, you're, you still held in your sin, you're still in your sin, that that person is still held in their sin? Do you believe that an elder.

I think, I think an elder can definitely declare if someone is not, uh, repentant. Let me give an example. 1 Corinthians 5. Someone's sexually immoral. Paul says, "Cast a person out from among you." We've had folks in our church that are acting out, and we're going, and we've had to tell people, not at my current church, but a church I was at before. We've had to tell people, "Hey, you aren't under the submission of the leadership here. You are," I'll just give you a vague example. Um, someone is divorcing their wife without grounds.

Mhm.

No, no biblical grounds to divorce their wife. They're divorcing their wife. They're going to, they just feel like they, they want to be done.

Yeah.

And we've had to tell people, not me, but the elders had to say, "Hey, you can't keep coming here. You're not submitting to the leadership. You're excommunicated from this church."

Mhm.

That's real spiritual authority. In a technical sense, are we saying their sins aren't forgiven? I guess when you can make that argument. I guess one can make that argument.

So, that's why it irks me like when you mentioned 1 Timothy 2:5. I basically just got you to say what we're saying, which is that a priest has the power to forgive sins, not as an independent authority competing with Christ, but because they're participating in the authority of Christ. Christ gave that authority to them.

So, so, so again, but we would agree that there's real authority in the church. We would agree that pastors and elders have real authority.

Yeah, I know. But you are the one that brought up confession saying like, "Oh, I don't think that squares with the Bible." I am talking about confess your sins to one another in the context of eternal separation from God. That's what I'm talking about. Very specific when I said if someone is on their deathbed and they don't get to you. And so you granted there's a there's a normative means and a non-normative means.

So you concede to it being the normative means.

No, no, no, no, no. I'm not conceding that it's a normative means because of this. If someone's in a small group, let's, let's just, this isn't in my world. Someone's in a small group. Uh, they're coming and they're confessing their sins in a small group. There's no elder there. There's no pastor there, but they're saying, "Man, I saw this girl at the dag on, um, grocery store and man, she had on some yoga pants and bro, I lusted after her and I objectified her and I ended her with my mind and bro, I'm confessing my sins to you right now." Hypothetically, this didn't really happen. Was a clip of this.

Uh, God forbid that person who just made that confession, something happens to that person on the ride home, they're speeding and in a road rage, road rage incident, they die.

Yeah. That confession, I would say, is valid.

So we would say that the confession itself is not valid, but that doesn't mean that they're going to hell because as we said, God condescends to, like, let's say a person's on their deathbed and they weren't able to get baptized. Mark 16:16 says, "Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned." You know.

Are they going to heaven?

We don't know, though. That's the thing. You can't ask me, are they going to hell or are they going to heaven, right?

Do you have any sort of assurance for anyone if anyone's going to heaven?

No. We don't believe in that.

So this is where we, and you, me, and you would differ.

Yeah, we can differ on that. Absolutely. But going back to the idea of, if you ask me, is that confession valid? No, it's not because.

James teaches us that you can confess publicly, but the absolution has to be given by an elder. This is that's what we believe James says.

And again, and I think anyone can go do their own research on this. Jump into James. I think that I think you have a, if I'm being honest, I think you have a stronger argument for John and then trying to connect that to apostolic succession. And then I would say, well, then there's a big missing gap from apostolic. I think that's a better argument. I don't think this is a great argument for you guys.

I think it is. I think it's a very strong argument. I think if anybody reads this, it sure sounds like you don't need a priest to confess your sins to.

It makes it very clear. It says that the elder prays over them and that prayer offered in faith heals them and forgives them their sins. And then he says, because of that, confess to one another. Confess in the assembly, in the ecclesia, because.

It doesn't say because of that. People could go read this on their own. We say therefore. Therefore, we, we people can circle back and read this. Okay. So.

I don't know what the word therefore means. If it does, that means how would you define therefore?

Uh, you got to figure out why therefore is therefore. That's what we used to say in.

I mean, I don't know. I don't know if that's the best response.

So, so let me, let me just say this.

So, in this, in this entire conversation, right, uh, we can go back and forth on scripture. We can go back and forth on verses. Someone still has to then figure out the figuring out what is the ecclesial authority or or or the proper ecclesial institution to get epistemological certainty.

Yes. On the Protestant has to get independently figure all these things out for himself. I, I, I don't think we do because I don't think these are the things that keep up the average believer at night to think about and I think.

They might. So that's that's a different question. The question of whether they care or not is fine. But we're talking about epistemic certainty that let's not complain.

Does faith require certainty?

I would say, yeah. Faith is the evidence of things unseen. It's evident. It's evident.

But is it certain?

I'm certain. I'm certain in my faith.

You're certain in your faith?

Yes.

If you're certain in something, having doubt because that's the opposite of certainty is doubt. So, you're saying that you have doubt in your faith?

I think there, I go through seasons of of doubting aspects of my faith. Yeah.

But you think that's, but you think that's perhaps because of a weakness? Is that, is that a good thing? Would you say that's a good thing?

Uh, no. I was going to say it's a good thing, but like when someone's, uh, enduring suffering and they're struggling, right? Uh, sometimes you could, you could wonder when someone's seeing something terrible happen. You, someone can have, uh, doubt.

But that's different. Emotional doubt. And we're talking about epistemic certainty or uncertainty. Meaning.

How, like, how do I know I actually got these things right? That's the question we're asking, right?

Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think all of that creates, in my, in my humble opinion, unnecessary ecclesial anxiety.

No, but that's the thing. That anxiety is only the case if you're out here by your own. If you're someone that's actually wanting to find epistemic certainty, the best way you can do it is by means of finding one institution. And then.

Once you do that, all you have to do is just find that institution that you believe is the church.

From that.

1 Timothy 3:15, Matthew 16, we've already covered this. We're going to insert right now. Sure.

That's how you, you get your.

So what I'm saying is then within this pursuit of finding, uh, uh, um, institutional epidemic, uh, certainty, you're saying that reading through, um, all of these councils.

You don't have to do that.

I got to at least go to Ephesus, according to you. Yes. I got to go through, uh, these, and then the, the, the Eastern Orthodox, they're going to tell me other councils I got to check out. The Catholic is going to tell me other.

Here's the thing. You know what we would all agree on though?

Is we would say the first split would be at, would be at Chalcedon, right?

Wasn't there a split before that? Wasn't the, uh, Syrian Church of the East? Wasn't there a church?

They didn't end up splitting until 612.

Okay, my bad. Okay.

So, the first split is us.

Okay.

So, it forces you to first examine the Oriental Orthodox Church.

So, since we have the claim of being the true church, we say that's divine providence. You check Ephesus. If you think Ephesus is right, come join us. If not, go ahead and examine another thousand years of councils and all that. And I would say, probabilistically, I would agree with you there. The, the chances of finding the true church are slim to none.

So that, I think.

Was there never any other big, big, or smaller splits before that?

I mean, you, you want to talk about the Arians? Sure.

No, no, but that doesn't count. It wasn't.

Any actual institution today that's pre, that's that's prevalent today. It's us. A lot of people try and claim the Assyrians because they don't accept Ephesus, but they didn't issue any condemnation of Syriac teaching until 612.

Or, uh, 451 church. I could have swore there was a different one before that council. Council. Armenian. Anyway, it doesn't matter.

That's the first split.

Okay.

And like, I really want to get fact-checked here because I already know for a fact it's true.

So you said there was a split, but they didn't recognize it till the 600s. Maybe that's what I'm getting.

Yeah. The Syrian Church of the East ended up, you know, following the stories and all that, but their condemnation of Cyril and all of that was in 612 after.

Okay. I could have swore there was one before that, but it's neither. Okay.

But the point my point is here.

I get your point. If you could figure out the, the, the.

All you have to do is figure out Ephesus. If you. But like for the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox, their position is way harder to defend because you have to go through another thousand years, like, like I said, like the Photian schism and the Palomite sentence and 1054. And then you can even add, like, and I'm sure I've seen you add, like True Orthodox to the mix and set of a constantines and all of that, right?

You don't have to do all that if you want to discern Oriental Orthodoxy. Just check Ephesus.

Check Ephesus. No, I like that. So here's, here's to kind of bring the conversation full circle.

I think in that initial conversation you had with Stuart and Cliff. Yes. Right. Why I think those conversations are seldom helpful is because you're talking about people who are living in a totally different, uh, gifting, right? So, they're living in the gifting of apologetics and of, um, dealing with, uh, uh, uh, evangelism. Like Cliff and Stuart are evangelists, right? You're a freaking Harvard grad with a high IQ, clearly, and you're, and you've lived in this world of church history and specifically your own stream of Christianity, but even in the way that was set up, right, where you got, you got, you got him to, you know, you got him to kind of crash out a little bit on the, on the, uh, the Third Vatican Council. Is that what he said?

Yeah. Vatican 3.

Uh, Vatican 3, which, which I, you know, I'm friendly with Stuart and Cliff. Uh, more more Stuart than Cliff. Uh, but this is one of those things where, um, it's like having a conversation with somebody and then you get into like philosophy, right? This just happened with the God Logic and Jacob Hansen debate. You should watch it. It's great. Uh, is.

That the Mormon guy?

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Uh, they're talking about the scriptures and they're trying to have a conversation about scripture, and then Jacob Hansen is baiting, like, all this philosophy and the, and, you know, classical theism, and he's trying to get God Logic to trip up on that, right? And so I think with regards to this, like, church history conversation, right? Again, I, I still think it's disingenuous to frame it as like these apostolic churches versus these non-apostolic churches who are just kind of all over the place when there's not a whole lot of unity, and then to have that engage with someone like a Stuart or Cliff. They're like, that's not their wheelhouse at all. Like, they're, they're not there.

Let me, let me explain my my understanding. So again, with the whole apostolic, I don't want to get, you know, do like go in a circle, but again, partially agree with you, like, yeah, we're not all like one big happy family holding hands singing kumbaya, but I have more in common with them in terms of the things that we just listed.

Compared to, for instance, a non-denominational.

Okay, so that's the point I was trying to make there.

With regards to Cliff and Stuart and the whole thing that we had.

I have deep love for them, and they're, they're on fire for Christ. They're trying to bring people out of atheism and Islam and all these other religions. No one's denying that they're doing an amazing work there. Okay.

However, that doesn't mean that we should also correct them when they're wrong, especially on things which I think are really important, like the Eucharist and baptism.

Because John 6, the Eucharist, Christ doubles down when the Jews grumble. He uses, you know, the first time he speaks of to eat the flesh and drink the blood, he uses the Greek word esto, which just means to eat. It can potentially be used lexically to have a metaphorical connotation. When they grumble, he doubles down and uses the word trogo, which means to gnaw and to chew. A very carnal word.

And later on, his own followers and disciples question about it. And he tells them.

The flesh profits nothing. The spirit gives life. The words I give you are spirit. And it says that from then, many stopped following him and walking away. Christ doesn't say, well, wait, come back. We can compromise on this topic. He turns around.

Just symbolic, right? You could just turns to the 12 and says, "Do you also want to go?" So I think this, like, you know, Cliff likes to say like, major the major, minor the minor. I think this is a major.

So it's out of love that I'm doing this. It's not to prove him wrong. I think he's already doing great work. I think he could do even great work if he corrected these really important things.

So, so hold on, just, just, just, just to stay on the Eucharist. So then someone like Gavin Ortlund. Yeah. Or someone like myself that believes in real presence. Yeah.

Right. Uh, would you then distinguish our position?

So you guys believe in spiritual presence, correct?

I believe in real presence. I don't know how it works in terms of the substances and all that sort of stuff, but I believe there's something real present there. I'm not a Catholic, and that I believe the, they don't say the molecules change, but they believe in transubstantiation. I don't quite go there.

But do you believe in, like, the Calvinist doctrine of spiritual presence, that his, that his body is not physically there, but through the Holy Spirit, you have some spiritual partaking, nourishment of Christ?

So, this is where I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to have a copout. I would say I don't know. Okay. But I believe that there is something real happening when I take the.

So that's, that's why I was trying to be very charitable with Cliff and Stuart. If you saw the, like the, I don't know if you saw the video, but I didn't want to take it to philosophy. Like he was trying to push transubstantiation. I didn't want to get into like the Aristotelian distinction of substance. And I just told him, "Do you believe you're eating Christ's body and blood?" And he said, "No, that's my issue."

So if you tell me you believe that you are, you believe it's Christ's body and blood on the table.

Then we're good.

Yeah. I believe in real presence. Do I believe that's the literal body and the literal, literal? That's what I'm saying. We got to be, what is literally.

I don't know literal is, but do you see the distinction? My my thing is, cuz I don't want to get into this, get into the niche like, you know, like what's it called, lose the fort, the trees for the forest, whatever it's. But do you believe as John 6 says that we must eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of Man? Then we're good. Okay, my issue is like, for instance, the. You still don't believe I have a valid communion. No, that's but that's another distinction, right? That's that's another topic, though. But I think first starting with this is really important, the Eucharist, because like, even the Calvin doctrine, I take issue with, because the idea that it's spiritually there, but there isn't an actual, I'm physically consuming his body and blood, leads to an issue because the word didn't become just spirit. He also took on flesh. So I can't just have spiritual communion with Christ. I have to have physical communion with him as well. Now, we can agree that this is a mystery. We don't need to get into the mechanics of it. But as long.

Mystery. Yeah. We we call it that in Ethiopian Church. We call it the mystery of the Eucharist. But we have to believe that it's his body and blood that we're consuming. And so that was an important thing that I wanted to to get him to understand with love. It's not to say, "Oh, you're going to hell." Oh, but it's like it's out of love. Like seeing the things he's doing inspires me to want to lead him in the right direction, to rebuke him, maybe not as a brother, okay, maybe as a nephew, because he's a little older than me, but to rebuke. And of course, I'm young.

Rebuke uncle. Right, exactly. Right out of love, because St. Paul even says to Timothy, "Let no one despise your youth." Yeah. So that's the understanding. Same thing with baptism. Baptism is such an important thing. John 3, Christ says, "Unless you're born of water and the spirit, you can't see the kingdom of heaven." And then the next two verses down, "you can't inherit the kingdom of heaven." Mark 16:16, you can go on. Mark, Acts 2:37-39. I think people should be baptized, for the record. It's so important. I don't think salvation is happening at baptism, but I think people should absolutely be.

Do you believe in baptismal regeneration? No, I don't hold to baptismal regeneration. So I think that's like a major, like a really, really. That's a major for you. I think to deny that is to deny like the gospel. I think.

Wow. Yeah. You think to deny baptismal regeneration is to deny the gospel? Because if Christ's commandment says, "Unless you're born again of water and the spirit, you cannot inherit the kingdom." Chris, can you grab me a beverage before you leave? And then, um, do you want something else to drink? I got water. Okay, cool. Um, okay. Uh, go on. I'm sorry. I didn't mean. I think it's not to deny the entirety of the gospel, but you're denying a part of the gospel. A part, the baptism is part of the message that Christ gives. It's part of the good news.

Okay. So these are things which, if if I believe that these things are part of the gospel, they're part of the essentials. It would think I think it would be actually cruel of me to gatekeep that from people that don't believe in it. I I I I I understand how you think it would be cruel of you. What I'm what I'm getting at is if someone is there to do an apologetics conversation. Yeah. And then the conversation derails into church history and these topics. But we didn't get into church history. If you look at the video, we were looking at scripture. He unfortunately got into church history. He want he wanted to. But if you saw me, my whole goal was I didn't want to get into that. I want to get into the scripture.

I think you're still missing what I'm saying. It s it seems like from the outside looking in that these are evangelistic apologetic type events that then turned into a discussion, in-house conversation, which we can have, and I love having them, right? And that and that's what I mean. Now, for you, you wrote a book about it, and I'm sure you've, I don't know how your online platform is going, but you now have an audience because of this moment, which I'm pumped for. Right. Like, I think God works all things for good. What I'm getting at is like these conversations that then uh derail into church history, philosophy, epistemology, uh often derail, I think, from the intent of something that was h the conversation someone was having. So, does that make sense?

This is what I would say. I would say even prior to me getting up there, um, he was that floor wasn't just for non-believers. It was also for people he had a. Okay, that's fair. That's that's one. Number two, also prior to that, there was a famous video that you were a part of, the Avengers podcast. And what did I say in that video? What did you say? You don't remember what I said in THAT VIDEO? I DEFENDED ALL OF Y'ALL. OH, YEAH. OKAY. I SAT HERE AND DEFENDED all you guys. I got no thanks for it. I'm I'm I'm being hyperbolic and joking. But no, I really did. And here's something that George, I think, conceded is I told George to take all that out. I tell I said, "Bro, you got to take all this out. This is not a good idea." And uh and he afterwards was like, "Bro, I should have listened to you." Yeah. But I don't know if he ever said that. But my my point is, I think it's unfair to say like I shouldn't be, you know, trying to to show my view to him when he's on a on a video that got millions of hits.

I don't I don't think he should have done that either. Well, okay. But I I think this is I think these are great in-house conversations. What do you mean by in-house? Like right now we're having a conversation which which is going to air, right? You call that in house? In-house meaning you're in my house. I see you as a brother in Christ. Right. Right. You I don't I'm assuming you see me as a brother in Christ. You don't you don't think I have a valid communion. You don't think I have a church. We know there's no doubt we have severe disagreements, but I don't have hate towards you, nor do I am I going to damn you.

Do you see me as a Christian? Yes. Do you think I'm going to heaven? I don't know. I'm not I don't know if whether I'm going to heaven, but that's not like specifically a you thing. Okay. So So in-house meaning that within the confines of of Christian dialogue, we're having these conversations in house. And and generally speaking, uh I think these conversations are are awesome. I think they're great. Uh we just had one at uh the Bless Summit. We had Trent Horn. We had Josh Nato. I wish I could have had you there. We had uh next time. Yeah, maybe next time. And Gavin Orland and we had the same exact conversation. We got into confession. You'd actually really like it. Um, and I said the same thing to them. Guys, you keep trying to present yourself as Catholics and Orthodox as this unified front when you know there's deep deep deep disagreement and very strong feelings on both sides. And I said that to them live. So anything I've said to you, I've said to other people. So I I'm saying I think these are good conversations. And again, that conversation that we had, uh I was there saying, "Hey, no, I was defending you guys. as I was defending the Catholics. I was defending the Orthodox. I was defending that Orthodox. I think I talked about growing up where Orthodox. Um, however, it aired. I don't think it should have aired. I don't think it was a good look. I don't think it helped anybody. I don't think it brought clarity to anything. And and at the time, I felt like the oddball in oddball out for like defending what you would call, I guess, the apostolic churches or whatever category. So, I'm with you. I don't I don't think that any of that should have been said.

But, don't you think then that warrants someone on that side giving not an accusation? I I really try my best to to approach it lovingly. I don't know what your thoughts are on the thing, but I think it warrants someone from one of those traditions coming and having a talk with said people, you know.

I think um I Yes, I I'll grant that to you. I think you're you're right. I don't remember what Stuart or Cliff said in that conversation about the Eucharist. I remember George, you know, George talks about it, but there's other clips um in there, like in the one-on-one interviews with him and George where they've talked about baptism as just not being regenerative or the Eucharist as being symbolic. They've talked about that. Okay. So, I think it warrants a response, especially if this is a video reaching a lot of people who view him highly. I view him highly. I'm going to be like, look, I really want to get him to believe these things which I think aren't part of the gospel. So, you have to see from my perspective, this is not.

I got you. That's fair. That's fair. Okay. So, I'm trying to there's so many things I I want to be talking about, but we're running out of time. Okay. So, in in in terms of that moment, uh what followed and did you ever communicate with him afterwards? Unfortunately, no. But I would love to communicate with them because like I said, I love them. Like what they're doing and I'm I'm sure they brought so many people into into the fold into Christianity. They're doing amazing work. Which is why I feel like like even God willing in the future if we could have one of these in-house discussions, I would love to. Maybe you can set it up. Who knows? But like I don't have any animus feelings towards them. It's because I feel so strongly about these things as being part of the gospel. I want to bring them into an agreement on these things. But yeah, we never sadly had a, you know, a part two.

Um, yeah, that that that that's interesting. It was it was definitely a cool moment. Like I was like I saw that I was like a Steuart like what heard Vatican Council and then you you you rightfully so called it out. I think uh I lost my train of thought. I think in in in the broader conversation with these dialogues, yeah, I just my heart would be that there wouldn't be honesty that there isn't this beautiful ecumenical unity amongst apostolic churches and I think that's a slight of hand that happens that personally bugs me because I've actually sat and talked to both Catholics and Orthodox and how much I don't know if animosity is a strong enough word to say, but there is some real strong disagreements and even with the Orthodox towards orient. That's my only pet peeve there.

Look, I agree with you. We don't we're not like one, like I said, I like to always use this phrase, holding hands and saying kumbaya, right? No. But what you do have to grant is we agree more with them than we agree with, let's say, a non-denominational. You think that the disagreement is equal? No, that's no. So, you have to but I would say you probably agree a lot with like a um a Lutheran or. Even a Lutheran or or a um Anglican. Yeah, I would say you probably agree a lot with with certain pockets of Protestants than you would imagine. Um, yeah, I said that before. I'll probably agree with them more than like saying non-denominational, but that's my point. There is like a spectrum and I think when you talk about Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholics, again, we had a whole section onism, Ephesis, Cal, right? So, no, and and I wanted you to do that cuz I wanted you to really drive home how important this is for you guys. It is important. So, the next time someone goes join an apostolic church, join an ancient church, that's not how it works, bud. That's not how any of this works. But we would still say though that these churches that we're talking about even though we disagree with them fundamentally on certain things, we have more in common with them than for instance say a Protestant because we agree more on a lot of things like sacmentology. So theology, I'm not hearing a pop. Hopefully that's not messed up audio. So let me just say this. The reason why non-denoms are not super in the weeds on this sort of stuff is like it's super important to you. Uh you you you need this uh institutional certainty. I would say primarily, and this is going to sound super controversial, just fre just just forgive me up front. I think the heart is I rather be out there reaching the lost and doing the evangelistic work than to talking about thousands of years of church history. And and to Cliff and Stewart's point, I want to major on the majors and minor on the minors. That would be the view we would take is that this stuff is fascinating. It's super interesting to talk about. Uh there are a lot of exclusive claims being made by everybody and a lot of what you said the certainty and all that stuff. Uh it's the very same things I've heard from fundamentalist Baptists that think they're the only ones and they have this absolute certainty and everyone else is out and the Catholics are going to hell. They just take what you guys say and just rev it up a notch and just go, you know, hey, they're all out. They're that that's a false church or break.

So they believe in their church as being the true church Christ founded. Yeah, I could I think one of those chart charts has the uh the Baptist. I could go back to it. No, that's fine. Let me quickly speak to the evangelism point because you made it before and I think it's important to respond. The talks that we're having right now for instance, like we're talking about the Eucharist and baptism. Those are majors for us. So the idea of majors and majors and minors, the minors we can agree on that, except for us, those are majors. That's one. Two about evangelism. This does not substitute in any way our understanding of evangelism. This isn't evangelism. This is us defending the faith. The name of the book, I don't know if they can see it, but the name of the book is defending the ancient faith. Right? So defense is one thing. Evangelism is another thing. And we also believe in evangelism. I think a lot of people don't understand that. The only reason why the Oriental Oral Orthodox Church hasn't been as widespread in their evangelism is because of persecution. We're busy getting killed. And there is a privilege that Protestants have. I know. You would know face up, right? Armenian Armenian genocide, what's going on and all that. So it's not cuz we want to be closed off. It's because we've been closed off by by Islamic persecution. We're getting killed off. But even despite all of that, we are doing mission work. Mhm. If you go and really want to investigate what the Coptic Orthodox Church, the human Orthodox Church is doing, we have mission churches in in Thailand, in Jamaica, across Africa, we're in the States now. We're trying to evangelize and spread. So, the idea, which I really I I don't like this idea that we're out here just sitting waiting for people to come join our church. We're out there. Mhm. The reason why we're not as widespread is because we haven't had the privilege of being in the west where there isn't persecution and being able to thrive and prosper the way Protestants have. We're busy getting killed off. Okay. But we do believe in evangelism. This is not a substitute for it. So I just want to clear.

No, that's good. That's good. Yeah. And obviously I'm Armenian. So you know more than anyone the genocide the Armenians face. The Armenian genocide, the the programs of Baku, which is why I came out as a refugee. That's that's that's that's fine. Um, I'm not disagreeing with that. And I think that's a fair point. I think it's like, hey, we do believe in evangelism. We just uh we just haven't had the opportunity to evangelize. And but we we are evangelizing right now. Again, it's just you might not see it. It's not openly. It's not on CNN and political, but we are like there are right now actively people going out in mission churches across Africa, Zimbabwe, and in these random like, you know, not random, but you know, these different remote places in Thailand, in Asia, Indonesia, China, Japan, we have mission churches, and we're trying our best to bring people to Christ. So it's not just that we're going als with you guys but just the online type of rhetoric around this seems so insular. I think that's true and you you can say that about certain Eastern Orthodox apologists, whatever the case may be. But I would encourage the viewers who maybe have never heard about oriental orthodoxy to take a look at the work we're doing to take a look at people who have been converting mill like thousands upon thousands of Muslims single-handedly to the faith. I would encourage you to take a look at people uh even here in the states who have a love for the homeless. I don't know if you're familiar with people like Father Lazarus whose entire dedication right now is to giving to the needy. The Orient Orthodox Church is a very persecuted church as Christ himself was persecuted. But despite all of that, we're trying our best to evangelize and help the needy. But that also includes in addition to evangelism. It's not a substitute for it, defending the faith. Where we see where we see things are right, we proclaim them as right. Where we see things are wrong, we proclaim them as wrong. And part of those majors for us is baptism in the Eucharist.

Yeah. So before we come around to baptism in the Eucharist, let me just share a bit of my experience and then you you could poke this poke this apart, which I'm sure you'll do a great job of. So, I come to the United States. I'm a refugee. No context of God at all. Yeah. I get into uh the Armenian uh apostolic church, part of the way into Orthodox Church. Yeah. And I remember um it was dope to see all these different Armenians from all over in church every Sunday. Now, the the hard part for me was that a couple things happened. one the I become an alter boy and I remember being an alter boy but I never remember maybe one Sunday school cl maybe one Sunday school class of anyone explaining anything to me. It was like, hey, you're going to hold this thing and you're going to wear the robes and I always wanted to do the incense thing, you know, the yeah. I always wanted to do that. Never got to do that. Um, and there was never an explanation of what any of this stuff meant. I just saw Jesus on the cross. It was very graphic. Dope dope iconography in hindsight as a kid. Uh, and there was never explanation of any of this stuff. So what what what happens is I'm not I I never heard the gospel. I was in a church for five or six years. Never once anyone explained to me the gospel. And and a couple traumatic things happened. Number one, uh, my mother and my father split. And my mother, this is her version of it, claims they were technically still married. My dad got remarried in the church. So that devastated her and you know, divorce and remarriage and all that sort of stuff. I don't know the official teachings on it, but she really made it a fuss for me to say, hey, this isn't supposed to happen. Second thing that happened was I remember I remember getting sexually assaulted as a kid by other alter boys that were 14, 15, and I was like seven or eight, uh, repeatedly, and it finally made its way up to the and nothing was said or done about it. If anything, the older boys spun it and made it appear as if I was the aggressor as a seven-year-old. And then my entire reputation got smeared in the local community amongst Armenia. So then I was already like, "Oh, hell no. This this is y'all tripping." Then I remember in fourth grade, right after I got sexually assaulted, I got my ear pierced. Mhm. And I remember coming into church with my ear pierced. And uh, he the myar set me down and confronted me about the piercing while never actually dealing with any of the other stuff that had happened. There was never an acknowledgement of like, "Hey, I'm real sorry your dad left. That sucks. Oh, by the way, I remarried him when maybe I shouldn't have." Right? There's never an acknowledgement of He knew what what happened to me with the kids. And he confronted me about my ear piercing. And then when I was in high school and and I finally moved, we moved away. I came here. I went to an evangelical church. The lowest level rock and roll. You're going to think it's super cringe, yada yada yada. But I heard the gospel. I heard this like God that loves me enough that he lived the life I couldn't live and died to death I should have died on the cross in our place, in my place for my sins. And all I had to do was believe and I get a new heart and a new desire to serve him. And I did that and all of a sudden it was like the light bulb went off. It was like the scales fell from my eyes and I was all the baggage and all the junk and and and I went from this experience in the Orthodox church like hating God like like literally one of the youngest walk 11 years old arrested claiming to be an atheist. I was literally saying I'm an atheist. There is no God. If there is a God, he doesn't care about me. To then saying, hey, I think uh I think there's a God to then saying there's something to this Jesus character to oh, I think Jesus is God. Like it was it was it was a two-year process.

Come full circle. I'm now in church. I'm now reading my Bible. I'm I'm I'm waging war on my sin. The sin I used to love. Sexual immorality, porn, I hate still wrestling with it, but I hate it. The the things I used to I used to hate. Church, God, the Bible, Christians, I now love. And I go to my dead and I'm excited. It's my freshman year of high school. I remember because we went to ACR. Armenia.

Does Ted Hawk mean like priest? Yeah. It's like a Yeah, it's like our priest. It was a guy. It was a head guy of our church. Okay. And I remember sitting down like like I got born again. I accepted Jesus. And he was so nonchalant and just did not care and told me, you know, the most important thing is the Bible and church history in church tradition. And I was like, okay, but like help me make sense of of this thing that I'm because I'm still I don't know that that I'm Protestant. I don't even know what Protestant is. Like I don't even know the word. And so those are the things that tainted my perception of the oriental orthodox, specifically the Armenian Orthodox. And I'm not putting all that on you, but what I'm saying is I think foundationally, man, um, like as a kid, never hearing the gospel and never understanding like what does it mean to be saved? What does it mean to place your faith in Jesus? And then on the on the on the other side of placing your faith in Jesus that you talk about uh institutional certainty. Yeah, which I respect. I have certainty that I'm going to heaven. like I'm certain that I'm going to heaven because of the regenerated work and the new heart that I have on the other side of placing my faith in in Jesus and surrendering my life. And yes, I do believe we should get baptized and I do believe we should take the Eucharist and I do believe we should produce good works, but I just don't think that those are the things that save me. I think those are the things that reveal that I'm saved. So that's like my experience with all this sort of stuff and and people always joke like, "Man, you need to come come back to the to the ancient church." And it's like if there's anything I would come back to, it would be oriental orthodoxy strictly because of ethnic identity. It would be no no theological reason for it at all. It would be strictly because of ethnic identity cuz I I love the connection to the um to the to the Armenian aspect of it. And I still go back sometimes. I still go back. I take my son uh they they rebuilt the church from uh John Adams where it was at to now it's in Delmare. Beautiful church. And I still get the emails and I and I love it. I think it's fire. But I think that there's a there's a certainty that you guys have on the institution, which I'm like, that's fair. But there's a certainty I have of like, hey, my life has been radically born again, and it had nothing to do with church history, and it had nothing to do with tradition. It had to do with an an a magnificent God that encapsulated me and and made and made me born again. Now, maybe you would say, well, you know, it's really cuz you were baptized when you were a kid and then it finally came full circle and yada yada yada. Uh, but anyway, I just wanted to share like that that that that's my experience and I know that's subjective and I know that's anecdotal, but that is where I go man, like all that is really fascinating, but like bro, I'm a different person and it had nothing to do with church tradition or institutional certainty.

So to just talk about that for a second, uh, yeah, so there isn't any institutional certainty, but that what I was saying, what what I meant when I talked about institutional certainty is when we're able to submit to a particular institution, then we have the full set of theology there, the full set of faith, what we need to believe, what is the correct practice and faith, the deposit that St. Paul talks about. And so I can say because I'm part of this institution, I believe as the institution teaches and I have epistemic certainty. Certainty meaning certainty in my way of knowing. What you're talking about is not epistemic certainty. It's talking about you're confident. You have a confidence that you're going to be saved. That's not talking about the epistemology, the way of knowing. Because then I could just press you on, well, how do you know that you're saved? And then we could get back into scriptural interpretation. Which is why the idea of saying I have certainty that I'm saved independent of tradition is I don't think like a logically consistent statement because if I pressed you on the epistemology, well, how do you know you're saved? You would cite for me scripture, and that has presuppositions of tradition, cuz scripture was compiled through tradition. Scripture speaks of tradition. St. Paul speaks in Second Thessalonians about holding fast to the traditions you've received. So I feel like making blanket statements like that, I don't need tradition to know I'm saved. Well, the epistemology does rely on some kind of tradition, you know.

I I'm not saying that tradition is of no value. What I'm saying is I don't need to know church history to know that I'm saved. Yeah. But but my point is the idea that you mentioned of like tradition or these things like that. I think everyone thinks of tradition as the vestments and the holding the cross. That's not what tradition means. Tradition in Greek is parados to hand down. So if you believe in any kind of scripture or any kind of even creed you're speaking of like Nica, that's tradition. The idea of certainty here, if we press it in terms of epistemic certainty, like how do you know I'm I'm going to heaven, you would you would cite scripture, your interpretation of scripture, and that itself is tradition because scripture itself is part of the paradosis, that's the Greek word for tradition, to hand down. Um, you were mentioning things like na, if a person doesn't hold it to the things you taken from scripture but as articulated credly in na, they're you know, they're out. That is also another, you know, usage of tradition. So I think a lot of non-denominational have this view of like, I don't need tradition. I don't need, uh, some people will even say I don't need religion. I don't know if you're on that in that group. But probably maybe like like you mentioned the word tradition there. Well, I'll be like, well, everyone everyone has to. We all have traditions. I wish. Exactly. Exactly. So that that that's the thing I want to push back on.

That's fair. The other thing you mentioned about your anecdote, which I think it's just generally like such a disheartening and horrible thing that you were talking about, and it's true, like the the church has people that abuse its power and there's people that mess up really really bad, and we believe that they'll have to take account before the judgment seat of Christ on the final day, that day of wrath. So there's no doubt about that. But I think that doesn't invalidate our position as a whole. I'm not discounting your your story. Your story is when it's horrible. And I think that whatever priest was behind that should definitely have some kind of um of of there has to do something about that guy. Okay, that's to to say the least. And there's no doubt like that that was a failing what happened in that parish. But to say that that means that the church itself should be discounted, I don't think is a fair position, especially because.

And that wasn't my argument. Okay. Okay. But just in case viewers take it that way, because there are abuses that happen even in Protestant churches, because we've heard of pastors that have got involved in scandals and so on and so forth. Yes. Yes. Yes. And I would never use that to try and disprove the Protestant position. Because we're we're trying to talk about the church as a whole. Trying to believe believe the best of each other. Exactly. Exactly. So that's kind of what I would just say on that matter.

Yeah. No, that's fair. I think I think the the broader point I was trying to make, and forgive me if it didn't come off this way, is primarily around the articulation of the gospel as seen in scripture. Mhm. So, it's not that I don't care for church history or tradition. That's why you're here, right? Like, I I I find these conversations fascinating. I'm particularly talking about um the weight of it all with regards to someone that's a young person coming to faith, they're born again, and uh that the gospel just not being something that was emphasized in our context. Yeah. That like I would agree with you that if a parish is not teaching youth the gospel, what the Lord did for them, that he died on the cross for their sins, so on and so forth, they're failing. Okay? And I would again, we can argue that there are probably maybe not as often, we can argue there are certain Protestant churches maybe that get carried away with the American anthem and theatrics and all that, and they're not preaching the gospel either. So there could be abuses on both sides even with regard to not preaching the gospel properly. But the question is, does the church as a whole historically from what we see in terms of the oriental orthodox position, does it believe in preaching the gospel? And the answer is yes. We believe in scripture as being materially sufficient for our understanding of the divine revelation. Everything that we have to do cannot be in opposition to scripture. You know, there isn't anything that can trump what scripture has to say on the matter. Like so we do believe in the gospel. And even the things I'm telling you about like about baptism in the Eucharist, maybe you can talk about that, are things that I believe as the church has taught are things which the gospel as found in scripture preaches. Like when I was citing the Eucharist, I was giving you John 6. The baptism, John 3. We can go through all these different verses. So, uh, the things that you're mentioning like there was a lack of Sunday school education. There was a lack of the preaching of the gospel. I'm agree. I'm going to agree with you. That's wrong. Now, I have I can condemn that without condemning the Orient Orthodox position.

Yeah, that's fair. And I and I wasn't my broader point again wasn't to condemn the church. I still have a strong affinity for the church, but specifically uh the lack of articulation of something I would say is really essential, which is the gospel. So from your standpoint, how would you guys define the gospel? Like, what is the gospel?

The gospel. So if I like it's hard to just put it in one sentence, but just the overarching sentence is God the Son came and took flesh for our salvation, was born, walked among us, died on the cross for our sins, rose on the third day, ascended to heaven, will come again to judge the living and the dead. That's the gospel. But we can we can kind of go into it and be like, well, how did he save us on the cross or uh, and all that, and then we can get into things like, well, he gave us his body and blood. He says, "This is my body broken for you. This is my blood spilled for you." And that's the Eucharist. Uh, he the water and blood that came from his side on the cross. That's regeneration by means of the water of baptism. We can we can talk about these things, which is why I said baptism, Eucharist for us is part of the gospel because how is a person crucified with Christ? As St. Paul says, we would say through baptism. So that's what I mean when I say it's part of the gospel.

Yeah. So how does one become saved? So we would say. Because you guys don't. Do you guys? Because. We don't believe in one time, but we believe it. But is there a a a legal justification that happens? We don't separate the legal justification from the ontological making right of an individual. Okay. So if someone you bump into someone on the street, you're going down, you start they they they spark up a conversation. You tell them the good news, which is what you did. Jesus came, died for your sins, rose on the third day. Um, and they go, "Okay, what must I do to be saved?" We would I would respond with what St. Peter said in in Acts 2. "Repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of sins." Okay? So the it starts with the person accepting. Okay. The gospel. But then we also have to be baptized because it says, "He who believes and is baptized will be saved." Mark 16:16, Galatians 3:27, St. Paul says, "As many as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ." So that's also part of this idea cuz because we don't have this idea of uh imputation in the reformed view that a person has first the legal on paper being made right with God and then afterwards comes the sanctification. For us, the two are one and the same. Mhm. So a person is baptized, they put on Christ, and then day by day, as Christ says, they take up their cross daily. They receive that daily bread, which we would say is his body and blood because he says, "I'm the bread that came down from heaven." And they deny themselves daily and subject their bodies as St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 9:27, so that they don't become disqualified. That's what St. Paul says. So that's our understanding of.

Yeah. I'll give you the final word. I I mean, I think uh it was a great conversation. Uh hopefully again, like I said before, the viewers can take something out of it and uh I think that's all I hopefully we can maybe talk continue, maybe have another conversation in the future. Um, like I said, the book is available on Amazon for anyone that wants to get it. Also uh my page is called the burning bush podcast on YouTube. So we do talk about this these things all the time. Right now we're doing a study on on Romans. Uh so which is I think a really interesting epistle because a lot of people have a Protestant reading of Romans. So, I think it would be valuable for Protestants even if they want to see the Orthodox understanding of Romans as well. So, yeah, pretty much it.

All right, guys. We're out of here, dude. Appreciate you going slow. We might have to break this up into two episodes. This was crazy long. All right. Peace.