Praying to Saints: Biblical or Necromancy? Christians vs Catholics | The Bible In Context Show

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Blessings in Jesus, everybody. Welcome back to another open mic live show here at Philippians 19 Ministries. Joining me today is going to be Chris Quintana. And we're going to be discussing is praying to Mary and the saints something we find in the Bible? Is it something we as Christians should be participating in? And we're going to be looking at a lot of the apologetic arguments that Roman Catholics use. We'll be going through Catholic Answers and we have also the Beginning Apologetics booklets that they have and that they issue out. We've used these in the past. This is actually when I was a former Catholic, I would study these books as well trying to defend the Catholic faith before saved by God's grace and mercy by hearing the gospel and coming out of Roman Catholicism.

And so the intention of today's live is to really critique the theology of Roman Catholicism. It's not a personal attack against any individual Catholic. I know it's hard sometimes when the things that we believe in are critiqued. It stirs up a lot of emotion and things in us, but that's not the intention of today. We're simply looking at the theology. It's not an attack on any individual.

Both Chris and I are former Catholics, so we are familiar with not only the theological issues and errors of Roman Catholicism, but also the sociological things. We know kind of what happens behind the scenes dealing with family members and other traditions that are embedded within Roman Catholicism. So, we're going to be going through a lot of different passages. It's not going to be an exhaustive video on all the things to debunk, but our hope today as an open mic is to have other Catholics kind of join us in live. So, we got a link in the comments if you'll see down below the video and the chat. There'll be a link there pinned to the top. If you're a Catholic, a Roman Catholic, and you want to share an objection or kind of go talk a little bit and have a dialogue, then you can click that link. You'll go into the studio, we'll bring you up. So, hopefully we have some Catholics that can join us here today.

Chris, why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself to everybody and say hi.

>> Well, hi and uh thanks for the invite, Patrick. Appreciate it greatly. Uh my name is Chris Quentana. uh like yourself, I come out of Roman Catholicism and uh that was kind of my upbringing as a child and then into my uh into my adolescence and young adulthood. Uh left it about 40 years ago uh for much of the same reasons that you had mentioned and it was actually after that that I started to examine what we're doing today. You know, take a look and say, let's put the the beliefs that I held up to a biblical scrutiny and see where see where the the truth is. That was my pursuit.

>> Amen. So when it comes to Roman Catholicism, there's this idea that we shouldn't pray to the dead. And so often times non-Catholic Christians will tell Catholics that it's forbidden to communicate to the dead. We shouldn't pray to the dead. And they'll say to us, well, well, yeah, but they're more alive in heaven. They they have they're more alive than us in heaven. They're not dead. So that's their first typical objection. So I think what we want to do is is define dead. Who gets to define dead? And how do we know the definition of what dead is? So, you know, first thing, you know, when it comes to defining words, we have to define them the way the Bible defines them. That's the source of truth. If it contradicts the way the Bible defines it, then it really doesn't matter what I say or what anybody else says, what Rome says. What matters is what the Bible teaches. And so, there's a few different things when it comes to what dead is. But in a nutshell, dead is separation. Death is a separation. There's physical death and there's spiritual death. And so having that separation is what death means. So what we're talking about are are communicating with spirits who are physically present here on earth or who are physically not present here on earth. And so when we look at this uh this warning against communicating with the dead, we're talking about those who are physically dead. Those who are no longer physically present here on earth. And we see that I think probably best in Isaiah. And let me pull up a couple passages so we can look at that. Some popular ones, no doubt. We'll look at Bible Gateway here. And let's see.

So the first thing I think we could look at is 1 Chronicles 10 where he says, "So Saul died for his trespass which he committed against the Lord because of the word of the Lord which he did not keep and also because he asked counsel of a medium making inquiry of it and he did not inquire of the Lord. Therefore he killed him and turned of the kingdom to David the son of Jesse." So the the two contrasts here is one is he inquired of another spirit and but the biggest problem is he did not inquire of the Lord. He went somewhere else but the Lord. And then we have another passage I want to bring up. I think it's here in let's look here. It's a smaller print. I see. Let me see. All right.

The one passage we have is to to show you the definition for dead too is I think a key one in the New Testament is 1 Thessalonians 4. And when we look at things here, verse 16, it says, "And the dead in Christ will rise first." So he talks about us as dead in Christ. Obviously, those who are now separated from us in Christ. And so a big thing we'll look at here hopefully soon too is this idea of communion of the saints. The Bible calls us separated in Christ. In fact, it even calls Jesus as somebody who had died. In verse uh Revelation 11:18, it says, "And the living one and I was dead and behold, I am alive forevermore." So Jesus shows that he died. Now death does not mean annihilation or cease to exist or lack of consciousness. There are those in hell or Hades that have consciousness and that are alive. And the same thing would go for those today. What do you have to say to that, Chris?

>> Yeah, and I think if if we're not trying to make a case for it from one side or the other, from what, you know, our side or their side, you can look at any of the places in the scriptures where it talks about us praying for one another or anything else. There's a dialogue. The person's right there in front of you. I can, we're right here looking at one another over a screen. I could look to you and say, "Patrick, would you do me a favor when we're done with this? I got some things I'd love to have you pray for, and I could tell you what those things are." There's a there's a dialogue. It's reciprocal. It's a two-way street. In this case, what we have is you don't even know if anybody can hear you. There's nothing that that tells us that they can hear us. Yeah, they're alive as far as God is concerned, but to us, they're just like everyone else. There is no dialogue. None whatsoever. It's all on one directional. If we're going to pray to them, we cannot get an answer.

>> Exactly. And I think you know when we go to the typical typical places where we we're warned in the scripture like Deuteronomy 18 and Isaiah 8 where it talks about not consulting the dead. We're we're referring the passage there is not referring to the spiritually dead. It's referring to those who are physically dead.

>> So those who are physically separated from us. And so this this contrast to say that well Christians are more alive in heaven. Therefore we can communicate with them. uh that that doesn't make sense. That doesn't line up. That also doesn't teach that they can hear us or that they can they can hear all the different people in prayer or any other concept of of praying or interceding. So that really that that entire argument falls falls flat. The the the contrast to the Old Testament and the warning is those who are dead. And so you know our parents died. Everybody who's gone before us died. Stephen was killed in the book of Acts. James was killed in the book of Acts. They died. If we know the apostles are dead, death exists. Death is a separation from us here on earth. And so that's the that's the first thing I think why it's important to define death because we're not saying that they don't have consciousness or that they they aren't alive in the spiritual sense. We're saying that they're they're dead in the sense that they're separated from us.

>> Sure.

>> So,

>> And ultimately, if you think about it, this is always why it's good in the way that we study through the Bible. We should always have the follow-up questions. If something is a directive in the text, why why should I not consult with the dead? Well, because you don't even know who's answering back. So that's why you hear the Old Testament refer to them as familiar spirits and things like that. So if there's a spiritual side of things, which there is obviously there's good and bad on that side of it, you know. So who are you communicating with? And since you can't look them in the eye, how do you know the source of what you're hearing in reply?

>> Right? So that's the that's why the prohibition is there. If you have the direct line to God, if you will, I can I can speak with him directly or direct my prayer to him in the authority and because of the invitation of Jesus to do so. I know who the intended recipient is and I know that whatever answer I get back, I already know to whom it was addressed. So I have to question who's answering. But when it comes to people that you cannot have dialogue with, then I'm left to have to take someone else's word for it that I'm able and I have somehow license to do this.

>> Yeah, it's true. Like there's no very there's there's no obvious biblical proof of any of this, which is kind of what we're going through here today. But it kind of breaches that common sense. So many of the different arguments and you know as as being in apologetics like you and I are and then being former Catholics we know the arguments that they make and so like one of them will be you know it's the same way that you would ask a a fellow Christian here on earth to pray for you it's just the same thing that they're doing and are Christians who are more alive more righteous than us in heaven and we're asking them so they change the terminology they say well we're just asking but so we're saying you can't communicate with spirits It's not physically present on Earth. Period. Full stop. That's the statement. We're not talking about praying to the dead and trying to play games with the word dead and defining dead. We're saying you can't communicate with spirits not physically present here on earth, whether they're in hell or whether they're in heaven. The the thing is is we don't communicate with them for like reasons like you said, Chris, because we don't know that they can hear us. So, if you and I ask each other to pray, you hear me. I can confirm you heard me. You validate that. And then you agree to it. we have a a a communication, a dialogue. Okay? But when I ask Mary or St. Thomas or what any of these people that are supposedly allegedly in heaven, then you're asking, okay, well, how can they know that I asked them to pray for me? And do they respond back to let me know? And then then we have the problem with half of these people. How do we know who's in heaven and who's not? And I've even heard apologists like Trent Horn, a leading Catholic apologist, say that you could actually talk to your dead loved one because they were in heaven and ask them to pray for you. And now some Catholics disagree on that, rightly so, whether that's something you should and shouldn't do. But the reality is that's where this goes to. That's the logical conclusion. If I can talk to Mother Mary, then why can't I talk to my mother who's passed who was a Catholic especially? She could be in heaven. She might not be in purgatory if we do the right amount of masses. If she did the right program while she was here on earth, she might be out of purgatory. And so I could pray to her. But then then that begs the other question, right? Then how do we know that the person that is in heaven's not still in purgatory? Cuz the Catholic Church, as far as I know, hasn't come out with a statute of limitations on how long they could be in purgatory or how long it takes for for somebody to atone for their own sin in purgatory because the blood of Christ on earth wasn't enough for them, you know? So it starts to get really really tricky in that you and I think you know and it's it's silly that it's it's just silly that we even have to have these kind of conversations on because the Bible's so clear. Prayer is always ever and only directed toward God alone period all throughout. If if prayer was going to be directed toward the saints then Stephen who is a martyr who which I'm pretty sure the Catholic Church teaches that if you die as a martyr you become a saint. Like I think that's one of the one of the categories. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure you're at a high standard. So there's a good chance by Catholic theology Stephen's not in purgatory at that time, right? I mean, he saw the Lord in heaven, right? Uh Jesus at the right hand of the father, which is where he is, not in the way for every day, but that's where he's bodily is physically at the right hand of the father. And so Stephen died, you don't see Paul, who is likely present there, or any of the other apostles saying, "Stephen, pray for us. Pray for us, Stephen." or when James died or you know early on when James died, we don't see the apostles saying and pray to pray to James or ask James and Stephen the righteous who've gone before us the martyrs to pray for us. There's none of that language in the Bible. None of it. And if it's was such an important theme as it is in Roman Catholicism, you would expect for it to show up somewhere at least once, but it doesn't. Right? And so I think that's an important point to make.

>> So, we got something to say.

>> Yeah. And I think we ought to throw this in now so that people can kind of just think through this as we're going through the rest of the information. When it comes to the the person who has more authority to speak on the matter than anyone else, I think we could all agree would be Jesus. So early on in his ministry, the Sermon on the Mount, chapters 5, 6, and 7 of Matthew, at the beginning of chapter 6, there are three things that he points out in that chapter of of where he says, "Don't be like the hypocrites. And here's how you're supposed to do what you do. Don't let it be seen by everybody. Make sure that it's between you and God." And that one that that's when it comes to your almsgiving, your outward giving of things, prayer, and then ultimately fasting. The only one that he really spends a lot of time to elaborate on is prayer itself. And again, Jesus being the perfect only absolute authority that the church could ever recognize says, "And when you pray, pray like this as a model." And it's Our Father who is in heaven. Now, if he wanted to give us a blueprint for prayer, he can include saints at that point. He could include Mary. He could include any number of things. Instead, it's only this. It's Our Father and then the rest is addressed to the Father and through the Father alone and by later teachings of him and through the apostles we find out that the authority by which we approach that throne is because of Jesus and his agency.

>> He's the one who has made it possible that we can come directly before the throne of God book of Hebrews. And nowhere in any of these passages do you find a provision for anything other than that model. So this is why we talked about it on the last time that you and I were together on things of this magnitude. They're so very very important. You would figure that there is stuff that's ironclad and not speculative. And there are things that we could talk about all day long that the Bible makes absolutely locked up. There's no question about it. That seem to be way down the the scale on importance. And yet we have absolute conclusive proof about those particular, you know, beliefs. But this one here, there's really nothing settled aside from prayer to God in the name of Jesus.

>> Exactly. You know, and I think a good place to go too, Chris, is to kind of look at what the Catholics actually say about prayer for themselves. So, we don't get accused of misrepresenting them, which is typical of those people who disagree with your theology. They'll claim that you misrepresent them and that you hate Catholics. But let's settle that real quick. Like we do not hate Catholics and anybody that says that is slandering and they're misrepresenting and they're bearing false witness which is sin. Both Chris and I have a love for every person. Want everybody to come to a knowledge of the truth and hear the true gospel and have the true freedom that's in Christ Jesus alone. And so critiquing someone's theology is not hating on them. We're all called to use sound doctrine not only to exhort but also to correct false doctrine as we see in Titus 1:9.

So let me look at this here in the Catechism paragraph 265. It says, "In the new covenant prayer is the living relationship of the children of God with their Father who is good beyond measure, with his Son Jesus Christ, and with the Holy Spirit." So that's uh and then it goes on and says, "Prayer is Christian in so far as it is communion with Christ and extends throughout the Church, which is the body. Its dimensions are those of Christ's love." So there's the first definition. Then we have paragraph 2558. It says a number of things. Then it goes, "This mystery then requires that the faithful believe in it, that they celebrate it, that they live from it the vital and personal relationship with the living and true God. This relationship is prayer." So that's our prayer. And then 2590, "Prayer is the raising of one's mind and heart to God or the requesting of good things from God." And so that's that's the first step of of what prayer. But then now it starts to get a little interesting because now we have some stuff about Mary. And I think you can't really talk about prayer to the saints without especially focusing out Mary because this is the largest part of Roman Catholicism is their Marian doctrine. So we have in the Catechism 2675 where it says, "Beginning with the Mass's unique cooperation with the working of the Holy Spirit, the Church has developed its prayer to the Holy Mother of God." So they're centering now prayer to the Mother of God. This is specifically in their language prayer. They're not asking Mary for something, they're praying to her. It goes on in 2676, "This two-fold movement of prayer to Mary has found a privileged expression in the Ave Maria, the Hail Mary." And then 2679, "Mary is the perfect model of prayer, a figure of the Church. When we pray to her, we are adhering with her to the plan of the Father." So the Catechism is quite clear. There's prayer being offered to Mary, prayer to the saints. So one hand it's prayer to God and in the next hand now it's prayer to Mary. So now it starts to get interesting and I think this is what makes it complicated when we are defending the biblical position against the errors of Roman Catholicism is because they sometimes speak out of both sides of their mouth. They'll have one part of their Catechism which will seem to contradict what we say and but then the other part of the Catechism then then supports what we say. So, it just depends on what they want of to look out. I think one of the the greatest tragedies of Roman Catholics is their inability to read anything in context and take things out of context.

So, now Chris and I were talking before we went live. We talked about the Rosary and I think that's a important part about this because Roman Catholics will pray the Rosary. As a Catholic, I prayed the Rosary often as well. And and now we're seeing a lot of Protestants, quote Protestants starting to think, "Oh, we can pray the Rosary. There's no harm in it." The problem is is multiplefold. But the first thing I want to say is the Catechism defines it as this. It says in Catechism 971, "This is all free online. You can get the Catechism any and online. The liturgical feasts dedicated to the Mother of God and Mary in prayer such as the Rosary are an epitome of the whole Gospel. Express this devotion to the Virgin Mary." So they're defining the the Rosary as the the epitome of the Gospel. And you'll hear other people online often say, "Well, the Rosary is the Gospel on beads. How how is the Rosary the Gospel? How where is the Gospel in the Hail Mary?" I I don't see it. It's not even in the Our Father. And and again, like Chris has said, the Our Father is not a prayer to pray. He didn't say pray this prayer. He said pray like this. It's a model prayer to how to organize our prayer. It's not a pray this prayer type of thing. And so the same thing then with the Hail Mary. Sure, it it pulls from certain Bible verses in the beginning, right? Where you say, "Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus." Sure, but where does the "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us now and at the hour of our death" come from? That's not Bible. So, they'll they'll they'll say, "Oh, they're Bible." But they're telling you half-truths and not the full truth, which is a tactic of the devil. He always makes truth with error. There's always real cheese in a rat trap. This is a tactic of Satan when he's trying to tell you things because yeah, there's some truth in that as far as going to the Bible verses, but every cult quotes the Bible. Satan himself did in the wilderness against Jesus. Used Bible verses against him. So simply quoting and using Bible verses doesn't validate a religious practice is something that God would have for us. What are your thoughts on that, Chris?

>> Well, I think any making it as simple as possible is probably our best route. Who's the recipient of the prayer? So, if I'm going to go ahead and pray to a saint, I am praying to that saint for their mediation. Now, if they want to use a different word, I don't care. Use whatever you want. I'm submitting a prayer to someone to then go to directly to the Father with it. If it's Mary, if it's a saint, whatever it may be, they're the address of my prayer.

>> Which means that anytime that I do that, I am absolutely cutting out the one direct route that I know that I have. That is me to the Father in the name of Jesus. So it makes no sense practically. It certainly has no precedent in the scripture. And you always want to ask yourself, who's the recipient of my prayer? And do I have license to do that? That's the issue. That's the question that everyone should be able to ask and then answer through the text. And I think that's why if you're going to be really honest, you'll find that there's really nothing in the text that tells me that I'm supposed to do that. Now, uh the idea of confession and prayer for one another, you find that in James chapter 5:16 where it talks about confessing your faults one to another and praying for one another, which is great because notice that the idea there is one another. I don't need to pray for saints that are in heaven, quote unquote, because their whole the existence in heaven is a settled matter. I have nothing to pray for them about. So if the idea of praying for one another, it has to then be again reciprocal. I if I'm going to pray to St. Jude, right? Uh do I say, "Well, since I've asked you to pray for me, St. Jude, is there anything you'd like me to pray for for you?" The absurdity of that is just I mean it's off the charts.

>> Right?

>> You would never think that. So we should just let's conclude one thing here and and people are free to disagree with this but anybody who didn't know Catholic dogma didn't know anything about Catholic teachings on prayer if they were to read through the text of the New Testament would anybody think for a moment that we would be petitioning anybody in heaven but God alone from the text just by itself? And there's a very obvious simple answer to that.

>> Mhm.

>> But that doesn't keep the church from adding layers of of mediation and bureaucracy, I guess you could say. But it also I'd have to ask the question, when were they conferred with the power to hear millions of people all at the same time?

>> So, you know, um that's an interesting thing because they're still ultimately going to do the same thing that I could be doing myself by going to the Father in the name of Jesus.

>> Yeah, that's a great point. I think that I mean that's a huge point bringing up this idea of how can Mary specifically Mary but any of the saints be able to hear millions, hundreds of thousands if not millions of people praying to them at the same time in hundreds upon hundreds of different languages and then her to be able to hear them requires her to be omnipresent. That's why God can hear our prayers because he's omnipresent. To deny that is to be inconsistent with logic and and the Bible. But not only does she have to be omnipresent, but now she has to be omnipotent. She has to well not omnipotent but omniscient. She has to be all knowing because then she has to be able to understand those prayers and then take them and prioritize them and bring them to God so that he can then answer them. Right? She becomes a mediator in that sense to take our prayers to them. Bring any of the saints would in that in that line of thinking.

>> Yeah. And let let's throw one more piece in with that. all the while receiving more as she's gathering those up to present them to the Lord because they're happening 24/7 365.

>> Right?

>> So that means that her entire existence is consumed with answering the prayers of of people.

>> Yeah. That doesn't sound like heaven to me. That sounds almost like hell.

>> Like work.

>> Yeah. So, but you know, and I think origin and again Celsius says it pretty pretty clear here. He says, I'll quote him. He says, "And being persuaded that the son himself, the moon and stars," he's against Celius talking here, "and uh pray to the supreme God through his only begotten son." He says, "We judge it. Improper to pray to those beings who themselves offer up prayers to God, seeing even they themselves would prefer that we should send it up our request to God to whom they pray rather than send them downwards to themselves or a portion our power of prayer between God and them." So Origin's making the case here and he's got I got a lot of different quotes if we need to, but he's talking about praying to God. It doesn't make sense. If I have access in Christ, the Holy Spirit, God dwells within me, praying for me, prayers that I can't even utter. Jesus Christ is at the right hand of the Father interceding for me. I have access to the throne of grace to obtain mercy in my time of time of need. I have that direct line of communication to God. Why would I go to anybody else? Why why would I seek St. Thomas or this past Pope or Mary, wh why why would I need to? And it's weird because Catholics will then create this idea that yeah, but if you want to get something from uh from your friend or from a person, you just go to their mother. If you go to their mother, you're going to get it. And that's what Catholic devotion teaches is that you go to Mary and he can't deny any of her requests. He can't deny her. And so if you go to the mom, you'll be sure to get it. But what does that say about your friendship? Right? That's like if if Chris and I are like, "Hey, I want to tell you something." That's like you going to my mom to get me to do something for you. That's weird. That's not a friendship. That's not a love relationship for Leo, right? That's that's something different. And so the same thing that's that's a false a false connection that's made in a in a familial sense going to a family. That's not how it works in the spiritual sense. We have direct access to God. The apostles understood it that way. The early church understood it that way. The Bible teaches it that way. it it makes no sense to say I have to go to these others. And I think the reason that is implied that way is because it keeps you dependent upon Roman Catholic theology, Roman Catholic institution, which is a lot of intimidation, a lot of guilt and a lot of entrapment. You have to stay within the Catholic institution to get the Eucharist to receive Jesus. You have to stay in the Catholic institution to communicate with the prayers of the saints and and Mary. You can't go directly to the boss of the of the club. You got to go to these other people, the handlers. Yeah. you start to paint the you start to see it a little bit in that way. We were kind of going, you know, talking about how in a lot of ways you see this mafia mentality, especially among the Italian Catholics and among the Hispanic Catholics. You see a mafia mentality. You talk to my mama. I mean, they've even accused me online of of blaspheming Mary, which is just shows you where they put Mary next to who's the only one we blaspheme, God. Right? So, I mean, that's a that's a real connection or real issue there. And they say in this booklet, since we don't have any Catholics, if you guys don't want to join the don't join the live, you can always ask here in the in the chat, too. You can put some questions down.

>> Someone in the chat that's pretty much, you know, making the the the same apologetic uh questions that we've had talking about Mary being, you know, uh filled with glory and uh you know, the the the u the greeting from Gabriel. Um, so there's someone in there that that does the the typical Catholic apologetic stuff. While you're looking that up, I do want to make sure that that uh people get a chance to consider something that you had just mentioned. And that is that if you really want to get to to Jesus, why not go through his mother? And uh that's kind of an interesting idea, but stop for a second. Like everything that we're talking about here, work it through logically and tr mechanically what's being said there. If the the idea that Jesus is somehow answerable to his mother, then how does that not rob him to some extent of his deity and elevate hers? Because if if he is still even at this point subordinate to her somehow and that she can move upon his emotions or whatever else or that she has some kind of authority over him, I mean, work your way through that. That is not that's certainly not biblical and it really makes no sense if we genuinely understand who Jesus ultimately is.

>> So, and then it makes her again we're it elevates her and it de-emphasizes him to make such a statement like that that he's somehow subject to her somehow someway.

>> Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. And and in Catholic devotion that's kind of the thing. We'll probably look at some of that too here in a minute from the Glories of Mary where you have a a canonized saint who captured all the early church writings, a lot of the early church, right? Not all of them, but he captured a lot of the different saints and and writers and what they were saying and their prayers to Mary. And you'll see some of that connection here. But I wanted to look at, you know, how we talk about the communion of the saints. So, I'm looking at the apologetics book. Anybody can find these online. their Catholic arguments. You can go to Catholic Answers and find theirs. It's just not hard to see what they argue. But communion of the saints is one of the things. And one of the passages they use here is is the vine. So now, you know, when we're talking about the Eucharist and things, it's like, oh, that passage is irrelevant. It's all it's all symbolic. And then, you know, so that that's how they prove John 6. And then when we go to prayer and communion of the saints, now it's literal. It's no longer symbolic. And then now it's literal and they can use it. So they'll say here the communion of the saints and they'll use John 15:5 where they quote, "I am the vine, you are the branches. He abides in me and I in him. He is that bears much fruit. For apart from me, you can do nothing." So we're all connected to Christ. We all have that communication that that communion in Christ. And so there's with a lot of these things, there's a little bit of truth in that. Yes, we are all one body in Christ, but that does not mean or even necessitate this idea that we are now able to communicate with everybody in Christ. If that were true, then I could pray to Chris who's in Christ. I could just pray to him. I don't have to call him. I can just pray and he should be able to hear. Like, if you take it to its logical conclusion, Catholics won't do that because they're not consistent with their theology in that way. But that would that would what you would have to say. We're in we're in the one body. What makes them more in one body than us? It's the same body. And now you start to get confusing because now it's one body. Or is it one body? Because when it comes to defending the Roman papacy, they'll say, well, the Pope is the head of the church on earth. But he's the head of the church itself in heaven is Jesus Christ because he's the head of the church. So when it's defending the papacy, they'll divide the body and say that there's earth and there's heaven. But when it comes to communion of the saints, they'll say, "No, there's no separation of those on earth versus those in heaven. We're all communicating." So there's inconsistency in their theology and apologetics in that. What do you say to that, Chris?

>> Yeah. Well, I'm I'm so glad that you brought this one up because this this again shows why it's so very important for context and everything else that's in this dialogue, right? So, let's just give everybody that chapter 15 is Jesus in the upper room. Last supper is the time when he's saying these things.

>> And that very same that same back and forth, the same dialogue, he's telling them about what he's about to accomplish. But notice what he does in that in verse 15. "No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing. But I have called you friends for all things that I have heard from my Father, I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and I appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit would remain that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give to you." Same dialogue, same discussion, same everything. And he ends up setting up what is the model >> I we're there's a friendship that is here servant not servant and master but friend therefore because of that I make a way for you to come to my Father directly in my name now if ever there was a place where he could say or at some point in future they can come to you in the same way that they can come to the Father through me this would be the perfect place for him to set up that office if you will of prayer recipient. Instead, he narrows it in that same dialogue. So, it's that I'm sorry, you can't have it both ways. He either either is or he is not. And we either have that relationship with him or not. And yet, he he argues against their view in just 10 verses later.

>> Yeah. Exactly. Like you've pointed out multiple times in the Bible, prayer is always ever directed to God. When we see the intercessory of the saints, it's always those on earth, right? The church gathered to pray for Peter or like in Acts six, you see them coming together for prayer in the word, the apostles. It was it was them them, right? In Acts two, they come together and pray. It was them visibly there. They're not praying to anybody else gone before us. This was never even practiced among the Jews even throughout the Old Testament. So, it's just it's it's odd it's odd hermeneutics to then imply this. And it also just it shows a disconnect in our relationship to God, which I think is really what's a threat here. If I can go directly to God himself, go and speak and communicate to Jesus, then why do I need to go to anybody else, right? Because if you think about it, if God can hear my prayer, which he can, and he can answer my prayer, then him Jesus interceding on behalf of me is better than any intercessory prayer of all those in heaven times a million infinity. He's God, right? And so what they'll say, "Yeah, but you ask your your loved one here on earth to pray for you, don't you? So that's hypocritical not to ask them." Again, the communication here is the is the key. I can't communicate with them to intercede for me. And God has commanded and told the church to pray one for another, to bear one another's burdens to fulfill the law of Christ. In Galatians 6:2, he tells us to intercede one for another here on earth, those of us. Intercessory prayer is a part of prayer. It's not the only prayer, but it is a thing that of prayer. There's different kinds of prayer in the Bible. And so that's one of the aspects of prayer. But to say that to they use this old English term that I pray thee tell like I've seen some of the priests say on social media where they'll say, "Well, we're not praying to them. We're asking them to pray." This is this is not true. Growing up Catholic, I know that's not true. We never prayed for Thomas to or we never asked St. Anthony to pray for me till I could find stuff. I literally prayed to St. Anthony to find things that were lost because when you did, you found them. And interestingly enough, you would find things, right? So you you you receive information from them or results from them is and and you credit them for that. That's what Roman Catholicism does. What about you, Chris?

>> Well, I'm kind of sad that he has that office because if there was actually a saint who should see to finding of lost things, that should be my job. I mean, I lose more stuff. It's more so the older that I get.

>> All kidding aside,

>> this goes to exactly if we want to identify whatever saint you want to identify or if it's the idea of Mary or anyone else, the recipient of the prayer is the issue. And then I I really do strongly encourage anybody try to try to make the case who is the recipient of it and where do I find in scripture that that the recipient is ever anybody but God? Anywhere in the text.

>> Anywhere. And in the places where we are given direction of how to do these things, it is always onedirectional. Us to the Lord in the name of Jesus. There are no other examples, none whatsoever. And so what we have in Catholic doctrine of praying to saints and to Mary is antithetical to what we see in the text. And the only way that we can find it um in any way acceptable is if we accept what the church says about it.

>> But nothing in the text.

>> Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's it's interesting when you tell Catholics that they pray to Mary and they or pray to Mary and the saints, but specifically Mary, they'll say things like, "No, we don't. You're misrepresenting the Catholic position. We don't pray to Mary." And then they'll bring in the argument of worship and things, but it's odd because I don't know why they just won't be honest. Like, if that's your faith and that's your belief, own it. Just speak the truth. That's your religion. Just right. pull up any of those those um uh websites that'll say how do I pray to St. Jude? How do I pray to St. Anthony? How do I pray to >> they they have them there. They're wrote, you know, they're >> you can memorize them. They're they're there for you. And again,

>> the recipient,

>> I should probably pull up and I could I could give a couple of examples, but

>> there's a few examples in the Glories of Mary. It's compiled by Alfonso Leguari and he's a canonized saint within Roman Catholicism. The book itself has been approved by Archbishop of New York and there's some different like translations for it, but it's a Catholic devotional book. It's not this man writing his information. It's him collecting all the different writers. And so, he's got a lot of things in here and I'll I'll I'll list off some quotes, but I mean, it's lengthy. It would take me probably 2 hours to go through all of it. So, we're not obviously going to do that. But I want I want you to see the the language that he uses because the same language that we use when we're speaking and communicating our heart and our heart posture to God is the same language that these men, these saints, these Roman Catholics are doing to Mary specifically. And so that's where we get into the uh the blasphemy and and them seeing her as equal to God. So let's look at a few of these. So we have prayer of St. Bernard. It says, "Open thy heart then, oh Mother of Mercy, to our sighs and prayers. We fly to the to thy protection. Appease the anger of thy Son and restore us to his favor." And so, one of the things you'll see throughout a lot of this devotion is they paint God and Jesus as a picture of being distant, cold, and distant. He doesn't want you. And Mary is this loving mother, and she's there, and she's holding out her hand to help you. She'll cool off the wrath of God for you and she'll bring you back in. And she's very loving and tenderhearted. That's that's the language you're going to see with Mary throughout a lot of this. It says, let's give another one here. It says, "The day in which thou didst appear in the world may truly be called the day of salvation, the day of grace." Talking about Mary. And then he goes on, "Oh blessed lady, help our weakness. And who is more fit to speak to our Lord Jesus than thou who does enjoy so near to him the sweet conversation? Thy Son listens and thou will obtain from him whatever thou demands." And it goes again with our language. They paint Mary as this picture of somebody who God hears her prayer and he can't not answer it. He has to. This gives her a power and authority over God. Catholics I've seen try to twist this a little bit and say no, God gives her that power. Like they so God could do something therefore he does argument is null and void to begin with. God tells us in Isaiah he shares his glory with nobody.

>> Right.

>> But he goes on he says, "Yes, my lady, this is a prayer of St. German Geranus. Yes, my lady, my refuge, my life, my help, my defense, my strength, my joy, my hope. Make me to come to thee."

To paradise. I know that being the mother of God, thou canst obtain this for me if thou wil. Oh Mary, thou are omnipotent to save sinners. Thou needest nothing else to recommend us to thee, for thou art the mother of true life.

So just so we're clear, this is blasphemy, calling Mary omnipotent. Remember God, the triune God is has the four incommunicable attributes. A big word. Go look it up. Incommunicable attributes to God alone. These are attributes to him. Omnipotent is his alone. He does not share that glory or that divine power with anybody. Period. Omnipotent is all powerful. All powerful. Okay. Something Satan would love to get his hands on.

So, but it goes on. Let's see another good one here. Just a few more maybe. Pray. Prayer of St. Ma Matthius, rejoice, oh mother and handmmaid of God. Rejoice, rejoice. Thou has for a debtor him to whom all creatures owe their being. We are all debtors to God, but God is a debtor to thee. So God is now a debtor to to Mary or yeah to Mary. So this is just interesting.

Oh, so Chris, we got somebody who wants to join the studio. Let's see if we can bring them on here quick. Hello. Can you hear us?

Hey brothers, how how you guys doing? Can you guys hear me?

I can hear you. Why don't you introduce yourself and and tell us how long you've been a Catholic?

Uh I'm not a Catholic, brother. Uh I know you said uh Catholics only. I just uh wanted to ask you if it would be okay if I can uh share one thing. Take about a minute on this subject and uh if I can do that.

Okay, go ahead. We'll see.

Okay. uh one of the I think you were reading it right now but there's a lag but uh uh you know one of the issues that we have is for Mary or any of the saints to hear the simultaneous prayer of billions of people you say hey that would require some type of omniscience um I don't know if you uh responded but the counter that Catholics give is that they don't believe that Mary or the saints are omnicient and they will explain that omniscience means to know every single thing that there is to know about every single thing there is. And so based on that uh definition, they will say no, we never claim that Mary or the saints are omnition. And I think uh a good way to to get around that from the get would be to uh qualify how we uh what we mean by omissions. And I think uh we can uh simply just say that when uh we say Mary or the saints must be omnisient in some type of way. What we mean is that they know and are able to hear uh everything there is to hear in regard to prayers directed to them. So once we qualify like that uh in my experience uh I've even brought this up with a popular Catholic name William Alrech there is no response that they have and this is an argument that Trent Horn has on the Catholic Answers website >> and it's it's Domissions. So basically in a nutshell they would say that uh nope we we don't claim uh Mary knows everything there is to know so we don't believe she's omnicient. My response to that was uh you know Mary is omnicient in the sense that she uh does know everything uh there is to know concerning prayers directed towards her. So those are my thoughts. Uh it's more than a minute but I just wanted to share that with you brother.

Yeah I appreciate you calling in Danny. All right. Thank you guys.

All right. God bless.

God bless.

All right. He made a good point and I think you know the the Catholic apologist to when we say that Mary's omnisient and that she has this ability to to know all these things or she would have to be omnisient to do this. We don't say that she's omnisient but is is is also the aspect of of being omni omnipresent, right? And I think that's the key that they leave out. They'll try to argue and swindle their way with the the knowing aspect and say, "Well, she doesn't have all knowledge, but she has almost all knowledge or she has knowledge that's considered godlike." And so, I think but the the main factor though is the omnipresence and that that she can literally be able to hear all these or be present somehow in some respect spiritually to be able to hear all of these prayers from all these people and then having that knowledge to go through that and share that through. So I think you know when Catholic apologists start playing with words like that that's the that's the idea >> and really you know if people don't if they're not really comfortable trying to figure out the different omnis. So if they if they they're struggling with that a little bit, the easiest way for us to try to make this understandable to not only ourselves but to people that we're asking how can she do this if we don't know the technical term of it to at any particular time find your your part of the world that's during the daylight times when more people are awake that are Catholic and she may be receiving prayers from millions of people all at one time. She's, you know, collating those things. She's getting them ready and then she's handing them off to the Lord. All the while getting stuff handed to her instantaneously by the millions. Okay, great. God can do that. But when were we told that she was able to do that? And why would we believe that anybody but God alone could do such a thing? That's something that really is the purview of God alone that we would think of from the text. And unless the text gives us some kind of an indication otherwise, then ultimately we are still going to be having to stand on somebody's opinion because you can't make the case for it any other way.

Yeah, I think that's a a key a key component, right? Where does the scripture teach anybody is going to have that level of knowledge or being able to be that present anywhere. And so it's again, it's God could do it, so therefore he does do it. And when it's in favor of them, >> right? when it's in favor for their theology, that's where they'll they'll go, right? It's that mentality of rules for thee or rules for me but not for thee.

Yes.

And so it's it it's it doesn't it's not consistent with scripture. Um

I was going to read there might be a couple more of these quotes from what we were reading from the glories of Mary in the sense of just showing you that the way they they build it up. You have one from St. Anselm. He says, "It is enough that thou will save us." speaking of Mary. For then we cannot but be saved. Speaking of Mary. And then one says of St. William, Bishop of Paris, "Oh mother of God, I fly to thee. I implore thee not to cast me off. For the whole church of the faithful calls thee and proclaims thee the mother of mercy. Thou are so dear to God, and thou always graciously heard." He says, "Does the church falsely and in vain call thee her advocate and refuge of the unhappy? No. Let my sins never prevent thee from exercising thy great office of mercy which thou advocate mediatrix reconciliation uh most secure a refuge of sinners. So we could probably go on and on but that's going to bore the audience. But that's the idea is that you read the glories of Mary. It's free available online and you can see this this this heart posture towards Mary is the same heart posture that we have towards God when we're praying him. were using the same words that and titles and positions that are given to God in the Bible alone and they're giving them to Mary often just Mary and sometimes the saints but Mary specifically which the Bible never does. Let's see. Let's look at a couple of the Catholic objections. I don't know if we have anything in the comments specifically asking anything yet.

Yeah. Yeah. There was a there was a a post on X where Trent Horn said salvation is from Roman the Roman Catholic Church >> which is basically outside the church there is no salvation. That's the the typical I I can never say it correctly in Latin but it's the extra ecclesia passage or extra ecclesia statement but outside the church there is no salvation. Yeah, they'll say that, right? But then they also have their passage. What in catechism? What is it? 846 847 where they'll say, well, it's possible to be saved if you follow the your own conscience to do the will of God as best you can. You could be saved, right? Or or God is not bound by the sacraments even though the their own writing says that if anybody says that the sacraments are not necessary for salvation, they are anathema. You speaking out of two sides of your mouth. Like you got to take a step back guys and look at this from a logical reasonable aspect here. They're saying one thing and then not. And I think one of the greatest tragedies to Roman Catholicism was the internet is for the longest time they could claim that the early church said this and the early church writers said this and we would all be pretty much ignorant of it. We, you know, most of this stuff was in libraries for decades and centuries. It's only in the recent what last couple decades that a lot of it's been putting online. maybe even in the last decade, right? That a lot of it now exists online. We have communication of it on things like YouTube and social media, but we have now publications of the early church writers. So, we ourselves can go read them and see what they actually say and see if they're in context. And now the the Catholic Church is having to put together things like, "Oh, that's not what they said," or "You're taking that out of context. That's not what he means." Or they'll skip around and do all these things. But now that we have the internet, it's kind of like in the in the reformation period where they had the printing press. So now they could print the Bible in the language of the people and then spread it with people faster so they could read the words and leave this institution. Now you have the internet with the access that we have which is causing us to have a better knowledge and apologetics towards the errors of Catholicism because a we know what they teach, b we know what the early church in history was teaching and then we can learn our own theology better from that as well and say look these are the problems with Roman Catholicism.

Well you case in point I just mentioned extra ecclesium and somebody puts it up there extra ecclesium uh nalos. Um, so that's the that's the statement. And people nowadays would want to say, "Well, that's not what they really meant." Well, wait a minute. It was actually said and it was actually part of the of the the catechism at at one point and it was made as a as a statement, I should say. And so there was like outside of the Catholic Church, you cannot be saved and there is your Latin term for it.

Now they're trying to walk it back a little bit because it's so exclusive. So it's like the the argument is their side of it and it's an argument in their own house. We never would have agreed to this to begin with. That is them. We would say that outside of the church itself, as in just the universal church, those born again, if you're not born again, you're not saved, >> right? >> It has nothing to do with what denomination you belong to. You're either saved or you are not. And outside of Jesus and whatever you want to define as church, that was not their statement. Their statement was the Catholic Church that if you go outside or attempt to go outside of the Catholic Church, there is no salvation.

That was why it was used.

Yeah. Yeah. The Bible teaches obviously something much different, right? We abide in the doctrines of Christ or we have not God. Second John 9, you know, and and the body of Christ, the universal church is what we abide in, not the Roman institution and all its later inventions and doctrines. I think on this subject too that everybody's mostly heard of the hollow app. It's uh how to and I have a part of their blog here on how to pray to saints. It says this. Number three, speak and pray openly with them. Lastly, talk to the saint as you would a friend. They know what it's like to be human, to struggle, to laugh, to love, to sin, and to seek forgiveness. We can turn to them as our friends, journeying in faith with us. Share with them what's on your mind and prayers you're reading and and any wisdom or comfort and need at the moment. This is from the the appab. So again, this is showing what they do for prayer and and speaking to the saints just casually and having conversation. This is communicating. This isn't asking them for intercession. This is communicating with them. Let me see if I could put that in the chat here.

Yeah. Which ultimately is simply it it means I mean it should be pretty obvious that is one-sided.

You can go ahead and talk until you're blue in the face. You're never going to get a a verbal response. though every place we find and we've gone over this a little bit but every place that we find in the text it's among people that are reading that particular epistle that's written to the church >> about praying for one another the intercessory and all the rest of it that's an open letter from either Paul or one of the other writers James writing to a particular church and it was an instruction for those people in that church to be praying it gave no no impression whatsoever that this extends beyond this existence here to people that we cannot see nor can we have dialogue with.

Right? There's one common objection Catholics will often bring up online very proudly and that's in Revelation. And they'll say, "You can see there are prayers in the book of Revelation." And they'll typically go to Revelation 5:es 8-14 and then Revelation 8 3-4. Both of these situations you have this incense of prayer and it looks like uh there's prayer present. So, and this is typical of, you know, when you study Catholic theology and apologetics, they see a word and they they they lock in on that word and they look there's the definition for everything. So, if you see the word fire, therefore it's purgatory, right? Or if they see the word here, incense or prayer, therefore it it means everything else we mean. Or they do this with the word tradition. There's the word tradition, therefore all Roman Catholic traditions for all time are now sanctioned in the Bible as equal authority to the scripture. Right? This is a Catholic uh Catholic issue. So, Catholic Answers claims for Revelation 5:8, it says, quote, "And because they are seen receiving these prayers, we can reasonably conclude they were both directed to these saints in heaven and that they were initiated by the faithful living on earth. The saints in heaven receive and present our prayers so we can ask them to pray for us." And I often I made a post on X not too long ago about how Roman Catholic theology is largely based off of assumptions, right? That infants were present to be baptized as an assumption. Here we have another assumption that because there there's saints that have these as incense that therefore it means that they're hearing our prayers. But there's no teaching here or in Revelation A that individual saints hear our individual prayers and are taking those individual prayers to God. It it completely removes the context of it. It's the whole Go ahead.

Oh, I'm so sorry. I thought you were done. Go ahead.

No, I was to say the whole whole context is God receiving the prayer, not the saints, >> which is an important thing. Yeah, because right here it says I'll just read the whole verse. Now, when he had taken the scroll, he being Jesus takes the scroll that no one could touch, nobody could read, they couldn't open, มัน loosen its its seals. They couldn't even understand the writing of it. And then Jesus takes it. He's He's worthy. So when he does this, the four living creatures and the 24 elders fell down before the lamb, each having a harp and the golden bowls of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. But who are the saints? They assume it is the Catholic saints. But we understand that all throughout the New Testament, saints are mentioned that are not sanctioned by the church. It's just simply the believer.

Because you have Old Testament saints before there was a church. It's supposed to be the same understanding. These are the people who have trusted themselves to the Lord for his his work in their lives. An Old Testament believer still referred to as a saint would understand saintly being something completely different in the church than it would be to be a person under the law. But still, nonetheless, both are dedicated to the Lord based on what God has revealed to them at the time. So these saints, the the prayers of the saints, there's nothing that indicates that this is some select group, but more the general sense, the saints, the people who have offered up their prayer to God. So the the idea that it it it's speaking somehow of these saints that we are told to pray to who cannot answer us >> are somehow now handed those prayers off to someone else. Now in this case, not even to God. is from us to them, them to one of these creatures, then ultimately to God. We just added another layer of mediation here at this point or more more one more layer in the chain of custody, >> which makes no sense biblically. Makes no sense, >> right? Yeah. The only way you could possibly try to do that is to bring in the old covenant into the new covenant, saying there's a priesthood of men to go through to get to to God, which is what Catholics do with a lot of things. And I think when you look at verse six there in Revelation 5, we see the lamb standing as if it was slain having seven horns and seven eyes. You see this symbolism, right? So if we're to take literally that these are literal prayers that are being offered to these particular saints that we have to also take literally that Jesus is literally a lamb with seven horns and seven eyes, >> right? and and it removes the symbolic imagery of Revelation, which I think is a huge point here, too. When you're looking at these two passages in Revelation 5 and 8, they're not so much teaching doctrine. They're giving a description of powerful poet poetic type imagery, giving symbolism to what things matter and and what they're pointing because we know intercession throughout the scripture was always done or in uh what what am I saying? The prayer was always incense. Prayer is seen as incense throughout in Ro in Psalm 141:2, we see that it says, "May my prayer be counted as incense before you, the lifting up of my hands as the evening offering. It's to God." The incense the psalmist is describing is the incense is to God. And so again, in both of these situations in Revelation 5 and 8, you see the prayer is going before God. And you could even make the argument that in Revelation 8 here, the context of these prayers of the saints is likely what is already being mentioned from the fifth seal in Revelation 69-11, those that were praying in heaven. So it's not necessarily even the saints that are on earth.

And you know, so there's no there's nothing in any of these passages that communicate the teaching of the idea of prayer being to the individuals from people on earth. It's not there. That doesn't mean that there there can't be angels or or Christians in heaven interceding or praying for people on earth. That's not the question. The question is, can we communicate to them our needs and desires in a communication way like we communicate with God and then them pray for us for those specific things which of course we would say is is not there's a a comment on here Chris I think let's see this is a typical type of of question we get lawful good if you want to come on live lawful feel free to hit the link pinned at the top over there but it says so the church produced the scriptures but has but has doctrines that are only found in traditions. So, we follow the tradition and can't understand the scriptures without the tradition, but the scriptures. So, this doesn't really have to do too much with praying to the saints here, but I think this is a common objection of Roman Catholics in large where they'll say that we have to trust the Catholics because there's things outside the Bible that we don't have access to. Right. Um I don't know if this individual is a Catholic or not, but they're they're bringing up a Catholic argument here, >> right?

Yeah. It's the typical thing. Well, who are you to tell us what it is? is because we gave you the Bible, >> right? >> Which means that for basically what we're getting at is that for roughly 300 years from the time of their councils, you know, to to the beginning of of what would be the church, somehow God wouldn't actually tell us which Bible or which books were in the Bible.

That's that assumes that it took a council at the end of the 4th century to give us what was actually the text. There were plenty of places I mean even if you just piece together what is the New Testament from the writing of the people that they called the the church fathers you pretty much get an entire New Testament and there were there were lists of the books that were predating those councils. So under just any kind of careful examination that whole idea falls apart. But again, the idea of traditions whether or not they should be agreed to, we talked about this a few days ago. But when Jesus says in uh again the sermon on the mount in uh in chapter six, he goes through a whole litany of these things. You've heard it said, but I say to you, >> so he was correcting the error of the traditions of the of the religious leadership at the time. >> So when he says, you know, you've heard it said, you shall not murder, but I say if you've done it in your heart, you've committed the act. So he's getting back to original intent and he's undoing the tradition. >> So the tradition are not always spoken of favorably in the text.

Yeah. In fact, I think all the most if not all the times Jesus mentions tradition, it's always in a derogatory way. When Peter mentions it, it's a derogatory way. Paul mentions it five times. Two are a derogatory way and three are mentioned in in in better light. But those traditions are often what's already been taught in the scripture in the text. And so

Yeah, because he doesn't he doesn't even say what they are.

So are we to assume somehow that there are traditions that we don't already have in the text? I mean that that whole idea is just silly things. It's it's pretty much the instruction of the teaching.

So traditions are nothing more than what's handed down one to the to the other, which is what all of the writings are, >> right? Yep. Yeah. And that's the that's the actual meaning of the word in the Greek, which is handed down.

Yep.

So I think that makes sense. There's another passage. So after Revelation 5 and 8 and and showing that they don't really teach anything about intercessory prayer, sometimes you'll have people go to um I think it's yeah, Hebrews 12 and they'll say, "Well, we have such great cloud of witnesses surrounding us." And so these cloud of witnesses are the uh are the saints that we can now communicate with. Again, this is like stretching something as far and as thin as you could possibly stretch it to mean something. But I think the the key here is in in Romans 12:1, it begins with therefore. Remember, there's no chapter breaks in the original Greek. The writers weren't writing books in chapters. They were writing letters or or long writing. So there's no chapter break here. The therefore is connecting this what he's about to say in in 12:1 to the previously mentioned passage throughout chapter 11, which is what we call the hall of faith. Often these are those who have gone before us. These are the cloud of witnesses, the ones that we can look at and and see with the scripture and God has revealed to us as the people who were the faithful who've gone before us and went through these different things and struggles and trials. And we can find those individuals mentioned and go to their books and areas where they have more on them in the Old Testament and see the bigger picture, too. Just because their names are mentioned in in in chapter 11 doesn't mean that full stop. A lot of them we can look back and see some more in depth to that. But that's what it's talking about. That's the it's those it's not pe it's not the saints that are in heaven that are communicating around to us when you look at the text. I mean, what do you say to that?

And they're put there as an encouragement to us. It's like we're not the first people that have had to deal with this. Look at the guys that came before us, the men and women who came before us. That's the whole reason for making mention, not that they're now endowed with some kind of supernatural power to intercede on behalf of the church. That's all stuff that's added to by tradition >> from the church. But the again like you say the context is very very clear. We are surrounded by this great cloud of witnesses. So soldier on. You're not the first person that's gone through this stuff. There are others that we can look at as a great w uh witness and testimony.

Right. Exactly. I think and it's you know, it's it's it gets even clearer as we keep moving through the different passages that there's not a single Bible verse that explicitly teaches in the New Testament that we could pray to people other than God. It's just it's not there and it doesn't it doesn't make sense for us to even want to entertain that idea. And I think the question just comes back down to well, we're asking them to intercede for us. But like we read through the glories of Mary and other prayers from popes to Mary and you'll see that the that's not really what they're doing. They're not saying Mary join me in prayer as I seek the father. Right? They're not saying stuff like that. They're they're asking her for protection to be a refuge for sinner to then go to Jesus on your behalf because he's too mean and angry and he's not going to listen to me. That's that's that's sad. That's pitiful. If that's your relationship to God Almighty is that he's mad at you and he's angry, then you have a different religion. You have something completely contrary to biblical Christianity. Jesus came to us. He came to us. That's why he came to the cross and torn the veil so that we don't have to go through something to come to him anymore. We can seek to go to his throne right there. In fact, he still came to us in the sense that he dwells within us. Literally dwells in us. Like the Catholic Church is all big on, oh, the presence of God is in the Catholic church. It's at the tabernacle. You know, whenever we walk into mass, you walk in and you put the holy water and you do the sign of the cross and then you walk down the aisle and you go to your pew. Even if you're on the outside, if you're a brave one, you go down the middle. But if you're shy, you go on the outside of the pew and then you and you know you genulect and you pray and you go in say you're genulecting before Jesus either on the cross or him in the actual tabernacle in the Eucharist. You know that they put him in there and and that's that's the mentality that you're doing. It's this reverence this pious act actions of what the individual is doing because they believe that the true presence of God dwells within a temple of made of hands which God completely denies in the scripture. He does not dwell in a temple made of hands. He doesn't dwell in a a wafer or in the tabernacle box behind the altar of Roman Catholicism. He dwells within the believer. We become the temple of the Holy Spirit. This is basic 101 Christianity. This is not this shouldn't be complicated. But Roman Catholicism complicates it because they have to have something that keeps you dependent upon them. And so this is that's that's my strong opinion and I know it's many opinions of others. But what do you say to that Chris?

Well, I can looking back because you're talking about doing it, walking down the aisle, gentle collecting and, you know, making the sign of the cross, doing all that stuff. I can remember it like it was yesterday. And ultimately, again, you do those things not because you find anywhere in the scripture. But yet, you'll find people that will will read what the church has to say about those things, read the passages just based at what they're being told at face value, and then agree with them. But for us, we would look at that and say, "But but where do I get that from? Why should I believe that? Is that is that something that I can prove ironclad that what I'm doing is the way that it's supposed to be or am I just doing that because I'm told to and I'm not supposed to question it.

There in lies the problem. Everything that we're discussing right here, we're only having this discussion because the church says one thing that we cannot make absolute proof from the text, >> right? You know, another passage they'll always go to and they'll they'll use this one because it's easy to quote on social media and they'll go from Matthew 22:32 where it says, "God is a God of the living." And so, we don't pray to the dead because God is a God of the living. Don't you know, read your Bible, right? Like that's that's the that's the rhetoric. And and I think it's important to address that in a sense because there's something important here that's happening in the context, especially of the Jewish context. And it's it's a it's a it's a little bit more deep. It's a little bit more meaty. So you guys just kind of hang in there. It's we're not everything is not so simple as going like, "Oh, no. Here's the response. Here's the response." You want to understand the full context of what's happening in Matthew 22. And and if you really want to see Jesus fired up, read Matthew 23. But he's talking about here in this context, you have Jesus consulting the Pharisees, okay? Um that that have this belief on the resurrection. The Sadducees did not. The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection of the dead, and they didn't believe in angels. So now Jesus is going toe-to-toe with the Sadducees, okay? A very high level religious class here. And so you have a Jew talking to other Jewish people. And so he's responding here to the Sadducees because they're ignoring this idea of angels and praying. And he's going to refer to the Abrahamic covenant as proof that be he's kind he's showing the resurrection of him, the Messiah, is going to come. There's going to be the resurrection of of believers as well. And so he's drawing that contrast. And he could have gone to places like Daniel 12:2, Isaiah 26:19, Job 19:25. But he chooses a reference specifically out of Exodus 3:es 6-7. Why? Because the Sadducees believe that doctrine only came from the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament. So Jesus knowing this didn't go to the other books of of poet of the writings and prophets. He went to the law itself and he quotes out of Exodus because he knew that they would have to contend with it. If you read it, you can kind of see the Pharisees happy because now they learned some new new rebuttal to the Sadducees when they would go toe-to-toe on all these different things as well because the Pharisees accepted the entire Old Testament cannon which Jesus tells us was from the blood of Abel until the martyrdom uh later on of uh what's his face? I forget him his name off hand. But Jesus gives us the the the thing Zecharias the prophet. So he goes on and but here's he's talking about more so God keeping his covenant with with the Abraham a covenant keeping his covenant with the people that there would be a future resurrection right he's talking about having in verse 32 a living relationship with the patriarchs Adam Isaac and Jacob and so that's why he's bringing in Exodus 6 there now if Catholics are right and this means that God is a God of the living then by that same definition then God is no longer a god of those who are in hell you see if we're to accept that God is a God of the Then what about the people in hell? Is he no longer their God? That that doesn't make sense because when we define dead, remember it's separation either physically or spiritually. So the people in hell are just as much alive consciously as those who are in heaven to that degree. We know that they're alive and have conscious awareness because of a couple reasons. One is we see the story where Jesus talks about the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16 and there's conversation. There's people down there talking. They're aware of things that are happening. But I think even more uh you know condemning to this argument by Catholics is what you find in 1 Peter 3:18 and 19 where it talks about Jesus died and his spirit goes down to the righteous side of Shel or Hades down there the Abraham's bosom and he gives a proclamation of what was done securing the final judgment of those in hell and he's talking to them and they're understanding him. There's communication to people who are down there. So th this idea that God is a God of the living and trying to use that Jewish connection of him talking about his living relationship with the patriarchs and there being a future resurrection and fulfilling the promises of the Abrahamic covenant in the future to make it seem like those in hell aren't also alive in a sense then it's just it's inconsistent hermeneutics. It falls apart. You have Jesus making a Jewish point to Jewish leadership of which the Pharisees were very happy that he did.

Yeah. Let him take the heat for it. Well, you know, if I try to put it in very earthly a very earthly understanding, that's just something that we can all really understand. You live in Alaska. I live in Texas. If tomorrow I moved next door to you and we were ascending attending the same church, and every time that I saw you, we were, you know, exchanging pleasantries and saying, "Hey man, can I pray for you? What can you pray for me?" We'd have that back and forth. If one of us was to die, that relationship changes fundamentally the moment that one of us goes. So there's no longer the ability that I can look at you and you can look at me and we can pray for one another. It just doesn't happen because of the separation that you're talking about. Am I alive to God? Or if it's you, are you alive to God? Absolutely. But you're not alive to me.

Not in the same sense as you were when I saw you at church last week.

Right.

So the we just should be able to understand if we're going to think through these or make a belief, you really kind of have to just work all the way through it. make sure that there's not some logical fallacy in it, which clearly in this case there is. Confessing your faults one to another. Okay? Like we s, you know, early on when we were starting this whole thing, that's a two-way street. It's reciprocal. There's back and forth. There's dialogue. What we're talking about here in this entire discussion that we're having, it is absolutely onedirectional. There's there's no there's no two ways. It's just one way and that's it.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think this idea of seeking communication from spirits not present here on earth is where we get necromancy which is forbidden in the old old testament all throughout.

And it's brought into the new is this idea of communicating with anything that's not present on earth because ultimately you don't know who you're communicating with. And I mean you know we could go into so much more depth on this too is that that's how spirits deceive with familiar spirits. That's one of the things that if you talk about people who've come out of the occult, who've come out of of being a medium and spiritist, they'll talk about how they would they would counterfeit other people, past loved ones, and they would present themselves as being as somebody who's going to be a spirit guide or an enlightenment to you and give you information. And a lot of Catholics are susceptible to that. And and a lot of them will say, "Oh, I you know, I talk to Jesus or I I talk to Mary and she comes to me." I mean, don't even get us started with the Marian apparitions where apparently Mary comes down from heaven. Now, she's not just in heaven hearing her prayer. She comes down in heaven and does these different apparitions like the beginning of the rosary where she appears to Dominic and says to him, you know, don't pray the Psalms anymore. Pray these prayers and pray them like this. And she promises them like 15 different promises. Basically, those who pray it will not perish and other blessings and graces that they give. This is a demonic spirit pretending to be Mary. And see that word right there? When I call that spirit a demonic spirit pretending to be Mary, the mafia comes out there. You talk about my mama, you can't believe you talked about the holy mother. Hear me clear, people. We're not talking about the humble Jewish servant, the mother of Jesus. We're talking about a demonic spirit counterfeiting Mary. Roman Catholics have created for themselves another Mary. Just as the Bible warns that there'll be another Jesus, another gospel, and another spirit that will be present, you have here another Mary. When you take something and say and you add attributions to them, titles and characters that they don't have or that they're not given by God's divinely inspired word, you've created for yourself a artificial person. This doesn't exist. That is not the the Mary of the Bible. And so when we see these apparitions and these demonic activities that we see that are happening, that's something else, something entirely different. And when you seek that familiar spirit and then start to pray to that familiar spirit and communicate to that familiar spirit, you've now crossed over to necromancy. You've now communicated with the dead, something Saul, King Saul was put to death for. God hates that. He doesn't want you to do that because it deceives you. It leads you away from the truth of his word. Right? Those who abide in the truth of his word will be set free. We're set free by the truth of God's word, not by these other people claiming to be something else. It's just it's just wild that that's even something you have to to communicate to people. But I think there's especially among maybe women is they find this attraction to Mary and they say, "Well, she's a good example of how we can be Christian." There's a lot of good examples of women in the Bible itself that teach us how to be Christlike. And a lot of being Christlike actually crosses the barrier for men and women. There's a lot of similarities to how we are to act and our heart posture to God, our communication with others. There's some differences, yes, but the majority of it is the same how we are to act as Christians, whether you're a female or a male. But a lot of people are attracted to the Roman Catholic idea of Mary because they think, well, I can go to my mother because I wouldn't go to my father, I would go to my mother. And so they start to put her up there next to the father in that way, right? But they God is not male in that sense. God is all of it. He He knows all of our needs, all of our hearts. We don't have to approach him like we do our earthly our earthly father who can only understand you know fathers are stricter more disciplined so to speak and then a woman is more accepting and nurturing mentality right so they they think that that's how God is and then now we have to have a mother to go to which starts to show you the psychology of Catholics in this they think that they have to go to Mary they can't go to God directly they have to go to somebody else

what do you say to that Chris

yeah and I again I thinking through practically How does this actually function? I think people, it's funny, we we would look at the pagans doing this. Even the Catholics would look at the pagans, oh, you're talking to your dead relatives. Well, that's that's you can't do that.

But when it's our it's our dead people. It's okay for us to talk to them because the church says so.

But isn't this the stuff that God said, I don't want you doing as the pagans do? That why the prohibition for all of that because of where it led those people to. So people need to realize that the reason why God said don't do this, the pagans were already doing that, >> they do it all throughout the world today. So look at how many cultures and religious traditions of those cultures, Hinduism, Buddhism, especially in Buddhism, you find that a lot of going to ancestors and expecting that you can get some kind of reciprocal. I'll pray to them, they'll do this. Great. that any Catholic would look at that if they're really going to be honest about it would say, "Well, that's something that that doesn't it shouldn't work because there's really no God in Buddhism that, you know, it's not God is impersonal as far as that's concerned." But you're really doing the exact same practice as a Catholic as what they are, but it's somehow sanitized because the church says it's okay.

Yeah.

Yeah. Logically, it doesn't it doesn't stack up, >> right? It's logically inconsistent and hermeneutically inconsistent. Yes. And you know, and the objection they use for necromancy in this Catholic apologetics booklet that I keep showing is is this is this is how they argue it. This is the it says, let's see, where do I want to start it? Necromancy means summoning uh forth spirits from the shadowy underworld, the Old Testament sha, in order to converse with them by asking the saints in heaven to intercede for us. Catholics are not conjuring roaming spirits or communicating in any spiritualistic way. So prayer to the saints has nothing to do with necromancy. Okay, I'm glad they cleared that up. But it goes further. Nor are the saints dead. The saints in heaven are alive with God. Quote, "He is not the God of the dead, but of the living." Quote, that's the only context they give, by the way, of that verse. They don't go to the context. They just assume you're going to take what they say. So what we just said about Matthew 12 and the God of the God of the living, not the dead, right? That's why they'll leave it. And so Catholics will come online and they'll just quote that. Oh, I read it in my booklet. That's what it means. instead of going to look at the context which I said in the beginning of today's live that one of the problems with Catholics is they don't know how to read in context I'm not being rude I'm that's been my experience and that was my experience as a Catholic and not only is this the problem with reading the Bible but also reading the early church writers because now they have the they now they have to read the early church with the presupposition of Roman Catholic theology so when they see things they have to look there's the Catholic church when Ignatius says there's the Catholic church that's the Catholic church today instead of understanding that he wrote in a different language and it's a transliteration of Catholicos and he was speaking when it's translated not transliterated it means universal he's talking about the universal body of the church but you know that's just one example that they

Give here. And so that, that's the kind of theology and apologetics that they're taught. They're not given the context of why it's broken down. Maybe that's not the intention of the entire book, but that's where most Catholics will leave it. You know, and I think one of the things I always like to tell people on this subject too is Jesus said, "Whatever you ask the Father in my name, He will give you." Whatever you ask the Father in my name, Jesus said. He didn't say, "Whatever you ask the saints to ask me for, you I will give." Jesus clearly states, "You ask Him, right? Ask the Father in His name." And then He says, and then then we know from John 2, in Mary's last words, if Catholics want to listen to Mary, her last words says, "Whatever He says to do it." And Jesus says to ask the Father. This is pretty clear. If she's cut and dry, it should end the entire debate of any kind of communication. Regardless of what people, fourth century and onward, may or may not have read or written about praying to these people or not praying to these people, there was a lot of paganism and and different ideologies and philosophy that started to enter into the church. Just like the Apostle Paul warned the Ephesian elders in Acts 20, that there would be some among yourselves and some that would come in to seek disciples after themselves, teaching heresy. Right? The early church of Paul and the apostles' day was already corrupting at the very moment when the apostles themselves were there. It was corrupting. That's why many of the epistles had to be written to correct these problems in the church, inspired by God, because He knew these would be consistent, repetitive problems, right? With Corinthians and Acts, or Corinthians 12, with the whole tongues debate and tongues conversation. He had that laid out specifically so that we would know, because that would be something God knew would be a problem for the future. And same thing, you know, mentioned with the seven churches in Revelation, you got what, five of them He has to issue stern corrections to.

Yeah. It's wild. Just decades after His resurrection. And at the end of the day, with what we're, what we're discussing here, if we were having to stand before God, like right now, instantaneously, and give an account for how it was that we prayed, and if the whole topic came up about praying to saints, praying to Mary, all that different stuff, we would have to end up, the Catholics would have to end up saying, "Well, I prayed the way that I did because the church taught me to pray that way." Not because the Bible said so, but because the church said so. So, really, ultimately, we, we get to the point of, what is the ultimate authority? And we already know the answer. From a Catholic's point of view, they would say, "Well, what the church teaches through tradition is of equal weight to the scripture, because the church was given the authority to, you know, pretty much take the reins after Jesus left." So, this is really what we're having to, to contend with here. Are people who would say, "There isn't daylight between the scriptures and what the church teaches, because we are the sole authority," even though what they're teaching is contradictory internally with what the text has to say. I think people need to be honest enough to look at it in that light.

Yeah, I think that makes a, that makes it pretty clear, you know. And you'll have Catholics that'll say things like this, you know, "Who gave you the Bible?" You know, and again, this is just low-level apologetics online. "Who gave you the Bible?" And you have, there's a lot of terms you have to define there, right? In the sense of, what's the Bible? The Old Testament canon. Who gave us the writings of the Old Testament canon? They were agreed upon by the Jews. Jesus even used that when He talked about the blood of Abel to the death of the prophet Zacharias. He was showing them from the canon there in the scripture when He's talking to them specifically. And so that's a, that's a more in-depth theological conversation as to that. But at the end of the day, the moment that pen touched the paper and the ink wrote, that was inspired by God. It's not that Catholics gave us the inspired books. Some Catholics even say they wrote the books of the Bible. You know, I know this is going off on a rabbit trail, but this is, this is typical language. So when we refute them, which we just did with all the passages we just said, "It's not there, you can't do it," they'll go, "You know what, we gave you that Bible. So you can't trust anything else." That's where they go. That's so they have to go there. So really, the only argument that you could honestly have a Roman Catholic comes down to sola scriptura. It comes down to the argument of, what is truth? And this is the same with any cult, with Jehovah's Witnesses, with Mormons. What is our basis of truth? Because if we can't agree on what our basis of truth is, we can't have a conversation, 'cause you got truth I don't got. And so your your truth is going to contradict my truth because it's the truth that you have. So if we can't agree on an absolute source of truth, we will never agree on anything because you have your own truth. That's where Gnostics come in. Gnosticism, which was a major threat of the early church. They had special deeper knowledge, deeper mystery into what the truth was.

The question though, we have to ask, and I bring this up multiple times, is if the apostolic traditions were on equal authority as the divinely inspired written word, meaning they were also inspired by God to have equal authority, they're divinely inspired traditions of the apostles. Well, why weren't they written down? And if they were written down, then why aren't they included in our Bible, in the divinely inspired written word of God? Because they're not there. Why were they always passed down orally? Jesus knew the danger of passing down traditions orally, because He was contending with its problems right there with the Pharisees, because they had the their, which would later become down as the Mishna. They had their oral traditions and oral teachings that made the word of God void. It didn't make the oral and written and oral teachings of God. It made the word of God void. And He quotes out of the actual Old Testament to showing you where it made it void, because He's putting the emphasis in Mark on the actual written word. And so I think, you know, that's the connection.

See, in my discussions with people who make that argument, "Well, we gave you the Bible," then okay, then let me go ahead and just ask some follow-up questions. Why did you guys sit on those books for centuries before actually slapping a label on them and taking taking credit for like it's your work product? That's what I want to know. Well, how about an opposite or how about an alternative understanding? Because now people were starting to propose, especially because of Gnosticism, additional books. So the church then takes it on to say, "Let's just go ahead and codify what's already in place." And that is that these are the books from the original writers who were there as eyewitnesses and all the rest. Let's dispense with the rest of the nonsense and we'll just say that these are the ones agreed upon. And even at that, the church that is supposed to be infallible couldn't even really agree on everything.

Mhm. But we don't have a problem with it looking back because of who the authors were. But again, so if you want to be the ones who tell me, "But we gave you the Bible." Well, what took you so long? Because those things, the last of them were written before the end of the first century, and you guys were telling us that you gave it to us at the end of the fourth century. So why were you so derelict in your in your duties? Why? That's what I would want to ask a follow-up. And what did you guys possibly do that wasn't already known? Those those Bibles were already in print and circulate. Yeah. So, what did you actually end up giving us? It's actually God's work product, not yours.

Yeah. And I think, you know, history's it's not as clean as that when they make mockery of stuff. I know we're going on a tangent with this because they'll say, "Martin Luther took out seven books," and then, you know, you'll have people will say things like, "The Septuagint had the Deuterocanon and things," but these people don't even know what the Septuagint is. They don't understand that it was a translation of writings. And I think we all also want to make sure that we, we make this case. All of the the apocryphal books. So the the books of the Apocrypha are between Malachi and John the Baptist. So they belong to the Old Testament that of that era of history. So there's nothing that it's going to tell us that is about church doctrine or theology, because that's be those writings are from before that time. So they fit historically in what we would consider Judaism. And you can find internally that there's some stuff that's found nowhere in the Old Testament, especially purgatory. That's the best proof text that there is in in Catholicism for purgatory is found in the in the writings to the of the Maccabees. And that's in the Apocrypha. But nowhere do you find that in the Old Testament, any of the 39 books about praying for the dead. You find that in the time when God was not dealing with the the nation in the same way that He was up to Malachi and didn't really speak through a prophet that we know of until John the Baptist. So the idea that those books that are what we call the the the apocryphal books are really not even from church history. So why we would look at them and reference them as some kind of authoritative writings over the church is just nonsense.

Yeah, it is. And it's interesting because they'll say, like like you said, with purgatory, that's all throughout the Old Testament. And then they'll say, "Maccabees 12," and that's where they'll leave it. But I I point out to them all the time that the the prayer that they were praying for was the sin of idolatry, which Roman Catholics see as being a mortal sin, which sends somebody to hell, not to purgatory. And that's to begin with. But the other problem here, and I think the bigger problem, like you mentioned, is these are Old Testament things. We don't get and derive New Testament doctrine from what the Jews did in the Old Testament, good or bad. We get our New Testament doctrine from the apostles who had got the commandments in Acts 1:2 directly from Jesus and then inspired to write those commandments to us in the New Testament. That's what we follow. So it's, it's irrelevant to what happens in the Old Testament. It doesn't give us doctrine. It only does to a Catholic because they mix up the whole entire covenant and they say, "Well, we have to have priests. We have to have sacrifices. We have to have all these things that they had in the Old Testament brought into the New Testament." So that's why they think it makes sense. But if if Maccabees 12 is to support purgatory, it proves too much, because again, it's idolatry, they're in hell, not in heaven. And, you know, it it's very clear, if we're going to take that logic of doing what the Jews did because they did it, then we should probably follow the wisest man of the Old Testament, King Solomon, who built temples to his wives, temples to demons. And so if you guys aren't familiar with that, go look it up. But, you know, that's kind of that's where we're at with that. So, you got any uh last words on the on the subject, Chris?

Yeah, I guess, um, and and it is something that we've kind of hit on a number of times. Again, if if we all have to stand before God someday, we ought to be able to to say, "What did I use as my authority?" And so, if people are going to say, "Well, the church taught this, therefore I believed it, even though I couldn't prove it." Okay, we're talking about a major thing here. So once again, everything that we find in the text is about the church, the person-to-person. I can see you at church. "Hey brother, would you pray for me?" And we do that. That's all the intercessory stuff that goes on here. Once that person no longer is able to stand in front of you, it's no longer bidirectional. It's omnidirectional. Goes one direction and that's it. There's no reciprocation. There's no praying for one another. It's only I'm telling or I'm asking you to pray, but I have no idea if you're able to hear me, let alone how could you possibly understand how to do this when there's millions of us doing the same thing. Again, there's no precedent for it. What we have for precedent is that Jesus Himself taught us how to pray: "Our Father in heaven." No mention of saints, nowhere in any of those dialogues. We talked about it for anybody who got here late in John 15. One of the ones that they like to use, the vine and branches. So because we're we're part of the that that vine, uh, then we have the ability. Well, further on He gives the, if you will, the pattern: "Ask anything in my name, when you come to the Father, and that will be done." So, um, once again, no no no mention of saints, no mention of Mary, and no place where we can find that they've been elevated to the ability to hear and answer prayer.

Amen. Yeah. I think that's, I mean, that's the cue. What is the authority on what you believe? And if it's going to be the word of God, then the word of God speaks loudly, and it always communicates prayer directed to God. So, you know, and I think I think that's the the general consensus here. That's why we've spent the last 90 minutes talking about the importance of prayer is to God and not these other people, because prayer is an intimate relationship. It's prayer is our relationship with God, not specifically anybody else. It's our, it's our, it's a type of spiritual intimacy that we get to have with God because we pour out our needs and desires and heart towards God, you know. So, I think that's a, that's a cue. Chris, I think we have maybe one person in the studio. We'll take one, maybe one call here before we close it out for the live. Let's see.

Can you hear me? Yeah. Can you hear me? Yeah. Why don't you introduce yourself and tell us how long you've been a Catholic? So, I'm Sean. I'm a cradle Catholic. Um, and I've been reading my Bible and watching YouTube here for the past few weeks because I'm recovering from surgery. Um, and so just kind of happened to find your stream, listened to some of it on two times the speed to kind of catch up to where you were at, and then I thought I wanted to chime in. So, um, one of your premises seems to be that, um, if it's not in the Bible, then it's not part of the Christian religion. Would you say that's accurate? No. I would say that the Bible defines doctrine and things that we have to abide in for faith and morals. But I think there's things that we can do as Christians that aren't necessarily in the Bible, but it's not something that's going to contradict what it is for our faith and morals. Okay. So, are you saying then that the doctrine of praying to the saints does not have to be in the Bible in order to be true? The doctrine of praying to the saints is not is not in the Bible. It's taught, it's even taught against as we look at praying or communicating with spirits not physically present on earth, as we saw from the Old Testament how we define death in the beginning of the video. Okay. But I guess that wasn't exactly what I asked. What I asked was, does it, um, are you saying that the fact that prayer to the saints isn't in the Bible, um, that does that in and of itself exclude prayer to the saints? The fact that it's not in there. Yes, that would be it would exclude it. Okay. But you just said that the fact of something not being in the Bible does not exclude it being part of the Christian religion. So, I guess now I have to ask you, how do you reconcile what you just said with the other thing you just said? So, Sean, I think maybe you're misunderstanding me. The the praying to the saints is not given to us as a command in the scripture. It's not a doctrine taught to us. And so then what happens is now it becomes a tradition that's extra-biblical that's read into the scripture, which it doesn't do. And so therefore, we're saying that prayer as a doctrine is only ever directed towards God. That's the doctrine. And so when you say that we can communicate or pray to sp to Mary and the saints, I'm not saying that because it's not in the Bible. I'm saying the Bible clearly says that prayer is only ever directed toward God. So there's the contradiction of this later doctrine to God's word. Does that make sense? Okay. I Yes, I do hear what you're saying. You're saying that the Bible actually contradicts it, which I disagree with. But again, that doesn't address what I'm what I'm saying, which is like basically, um, the basically the first thing you said was that, um, prayer to the saints is not anywhere in the Bible. Uh, and I agree that it's not explicitly in the Bible anywhere to my knowledge that I've been able to find. Um, but that kind of sounded like a sneaked premise, like it's not explicitly in the Bible. Therefore, like that was the first thing you said. You didn't start out by saying that it contradicted the Bible. You started out by saying that it's not in the Bible. And so, I mean, Well, I think that's You see where I'm going? Yeah. I think that's because we look at the scripture first to derive doctrine. So first we look at the scripture, we don't see it. Why do we derive doctrine from the scripture? Well, because the Bible teaches us that the sum of truth is thy word. So we have to go to the thing that's scripture. Yeah. But why why do you say that we have to look at the Bible first? Well, I think the scriptures, what is the only thing that's mentioned as God-breathed as inspired is the scripture. Would you agree? Um, I don't know the answer to that question, but Well, Paul does, and he wrote it in 2 Timothy 3:16. All scripture, not all teaching or all tradition, but scripture specifically is what's divinely inspired by God. So, I feel like that's a great spot for us to begin when we're looking at God's authority on doctrine. Hang on, hang on, hang on. What you just said was really interesting. 2 Timothy 3:16. Yeah. Um, so where in 2 Timothy 3:16 does it exclude tradition being, um, being God-breathed? Where does it exclude it? By the very fact that it says "all scripture," it doesn't say anything else. So the only thing mentioned there, and throughout the entire New Testament, as having the authority of God's word as being inspired, is the scripture. So not only in that particular letter, but the rest of the New Testament, nothing else is given that type of authority. But that doesn't exclude it. See what I'm saying? Like if I say, um, let's see, if I say, "All of the round bales that are in my barn are from the neighbor's hayfield." Um, that doesn't mean that I don't have other round bales somewhere else, right? Sure. You're using an argument of the word "all," right? Where God came to to save all, right? So there's this idea that "all" now has to be defined by the context. And so when the scripture says that "all scripture," now the context and the burden of proof is to see if there's anything else that has that type of of reach. That's why we're saying we go to the scripture first because Well, no, you made you made a Well, I mean, you made a claim just now. You said that, um, the fact that it says "all scripture" excludes everything else. Whereas you just admitted that "all the round bales that are in my barn are from the neighbor's hayfield" doesn't that doesn't exclude the idea that I might have other round bales somewhere else. You see what I'm saying? Yeah, sure. If you want to say that, then then go find those other those other ones and bring it to us. If there's something else that's inspired by God, then go get it in the New Testament and find it. I'm just asking you to support your claim that "all scripture" excludes tradition. That's all. Well, my claim is that the only thing mentioned in scripture of being divinely inspired is the scripture itself. Teaching or all teachings and all traditions are not said there. The scripture is the only thing mentioned, as Peter tells us, right? As men were moved by the Spirit, they wrote under the Spirit and under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, as the prophets and and apostles wrote. I feel like we're talking past each other because the claim that you just made was that "all scripture" excludes anything else. Can you give me, like, I just gave you an example of a sentence where "all" does not, "all of something" does not exclude something else. Can you, can you do something similar that supports your claim? Sure. So you have the books of the New Testament and you have the books of the Old Testament. Now my claim is that the only thing mentioned is scripture as being divinely inspired, being God-breathed. The only thing mentioned. So then we have to say, if there's anything else, it has to be in the scripture to be mentioned as anything else having as having authority, and there's nothing else that's mentioned there. If, because the argument Roman Catholics teaching will make is that now the traditions have authority because we said so. So who gave them authority to say so? So are you, so okay, are you, are you dropping the argument that the word, that the, that this, that what it says in 2 Timothy 3:16, "all scripture inspired of God, etc."? Are you dropping your claim that that excludes tradition, that that, that 2 Timothy 3:16 excludes tradition? 2 Timothy 3:16 does not mention tradition at all. It mentions scripture. Okay. But you said that it excluded it. Just because it doesn't mention it, how does that Excludes it? Excludes it because it's not mentioned. It also doesn't mention anything as far as teachings either, any oral teachings of that day. It only mentions that the scripture, that which was written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, that becomes authoritative to the church. Well, okay. Okay. So, how does my example about the hay, how does that not exclude, in that case, if what you're saying is is true, that that then how does that not exclude that I don't also have other hay somewhere else? Well, because we can go look for your other hay, just as we can go look at the other writings of the New Testament. Okay. So, okay. Wait, wait, wait. You just said something really interesting. So, you're saying it doesn't, there's nothing in the sentence that excludes that I have hay somewhere else, right? You have to go look for it, right? That's called comparing scripture with scripture. Okay? So, in other words, there's nothing in 2 Timothy 3:16 that, that, uh, excludes tradition. There's nothing in 2 Timothy 3:16 that allows tradition. Let's say it that way. The burden of proof. That's a different. That's a different thing. Well, no, because you you haven't supported your claim that that particular verse excludes tradition. It literally doesn't have it in there. That's what I'm saying. Well, the other round bales, the other round bales aren't in the sentence that I gave you either. Yeah, but you're using a a secular logic to go for a theological interpretation. We don't compare scripture with your barns and worldly theology. We compare scripture with scripture to see which truth. But I think you're making a good point, Sean, that the the idea of that we just presented Bible facts to the topic of discussion here, praying to the saints and Mary as being unbiblical. So instead of being able to say, well, no, those passages do allow it, you have to discount the the word of God, you have to now say the word of God is really not that valuable. It's not able to equip you for good works and doctrine. Now, we have traditions and we need to rely on those traditions to give us truth. You see how it starts to get on a slippery slope? Because then who gave the church that authority? But if you can't support the claim that you made about the verse, then how then how can I accept your conclusion? Sean, I supported it. It's you who won't accept that. So, it's not the same thing. I supported my claim. It's just you don't want to accept that claim because then it would annihilate Roman Catholic traditions, would it not? Um, sure it it would if it was true, but you haven't supported the claim. That's just not true. Yeah, I think we're missing something here. You actually brought up, I'm sorry, Patrick, you you mentioned something that I think actually really kind of settles this. It's the Bible that tells us what hay is. So if you say you got other bales of hay, great, bring your hay here and we'll see if the Bible agrees with you that you have hay, unless you can produce that hay and and let the Bible decide whether or not it's hay. It isn't until you can prove it that way. So this is once again the idea that we have the Bible's put in place first. It has the it has the first, it's the first to weigh in on any of this stuff. So we have Jesus teaching us how to pray, "Come to the Father," and it comes through Him that we have as the standard. So that means that anything that follows after it, even if it's tradition, has to hold true to what's actually already in print. It has to be able to be proven scripturally, or else it becomes then opinion. Jesus corrected all kinds of traditions that were already being passed down that were, He was dealing with them negatively because they were contradictory to the scripture, and He set it straight. So the idea that we can just slap a label on anything and call it tradition, if we don't have a way to scrutinize that tradition, then we actually at that point then have no standard. Can I read, um, can I just reread the verse real quick? Sure. I'm my, I, I have my Bible here. Uh, it's a Douay. So it says, "All scripture inspired of God is profitable to teach, to reprove, to correct, to instruct in justice." And then it goes on, "that the man of God may be perfect, furnished to every good work." It doesn't say "everything except scripture." No. It doesn't say "nothing but scripture is inspired of God." It says that "all scripture." Yeah. See, here's the problem, Chad. Verse 16 tells you what hay is. Now, you're saying you've got hay elsewhere in your, in another part of your field. Great. Bring us the hay so that we can look at it and see if it is in fact hay. So, are you, let me make sure I understand you. You're saying that verse 16 tells us what scripture is. Is that right? No. Tells you what hay is, using your analogy. Okay. What is the analogy comparing it to though in the verse? Is it comparing it to scripture? Is it comparing hay to scripture? You're saying that tradition is scripture. It has the same weight and authority. Are you not? Um, no. But can you answer my question? Well, yeah, that's what I'm doing. But you're saying that that tradition, I just, I just want a yes or no. Like, what? Like, okay. Or just tell me. Okay. You're pointing out that it is an analogy. Sure. It's an analogy. What is being compared? Because in an analogy, you're comparing two things. So, I'm, I, I, I'm saying I'm comparing the hay to the scripture. Is that what you're saying? No, I'm saying that the scripture would tell you what the hay is. It's the, it's the scripture can identify your hay. And you're saying that, okay, great. There's the premise. Well, I've got hay somewhere else. We call it tradition. I would say, bring us your hay and we'll determine if it is, if it matches up with what we already have. No, no, that's not the analogy. So the analogy is, "All scripture inspired of God is profitable to teach, etc." So replace the word scripture with hay. "All, let's say, all hay in my barn is from the neighbor's field." How does that exclude that there is any other, um, Well, you would say, anything else that is inspired, anything else that is inspired of God, or I guess the, I guess a better analogy would be, how does, how does that exclude that there's anything else in my barn? Well, because Sean, you're using an analogy that makes no sense. And because if you said, "All of it," you know, "all of it," then that's English. We would say "all of it." You would otherwise you would say that the majority of, most of, or some of, with the exception. Okay. But what if I, what if I also have a tractor in my barn? Yeah. So, are you a farmer? Um, you know, the connection here too is, if I said, "Hey, here's this bag of money. You can have all the money in there," and you took all the money out of there. And then I said, "Hey, I didn't say you could have all of it. I just meant you could have a part of it because not all of it was for you to have." We're playing word games here with semantics. What we know is that the scripture, the written word, the scripture that we have, which Roman Catholicism believes and teaches as well, is divinely inspired by God. And so, if the scripture is divinely inspired by God, step one, but it's also able to be profitable for teaching so that the man of God may be adequately equipped for every good work, then what is lacking in scripture to adequately equip me for good work that Roman Catholic traditions have? It's not there. I think you're running away from my question, which is, if I say "all scripture is inspired of God," then how does that exclude that there is anything else inspired of God? Well, because that passage right there teaches us that "all scripture" is inspired. So, first we take it at its word. Then we can challenge that as a Berean and look at all the other inspired written word texts that we have and see if there's any exception to that clause. And when we do, we don't see it. He doesn't say that "all scripture plus some tradition." He specifically, the Spirit has him write "all scripture." Not "all teaching," which would include tradition and the written word, but he mentions the written word, that which is scripture. That's the, that's the statement. Okay. Um, okay. So, are you just, just to be, just, okay. We're going off of what it says here. So, I think I'll have to leave pretty soon here because we're just, you're not answering my question. But I'll, I'll let me try again. If, uh, if you agree. If I say, if I say, "All of the hay," um, let me, let me phrase it slightly differently. If, if I say, "All of the hay," um, that is, uh, "All of the hay that is in my barn is from the neighbor's field." Does that exclude, does that mean that the only thing in my barn is hay? If you're speaking clearly, yes, because otherwise you would have misspoke. You would have lied because all of it wasn't there. You wouldn't be being very clear in your language. So then you would have just misspoke, which the Holy Spirit didn't misspeak here when He says "all scripture." So you are saying that that would exclude having a tractor or tools or anything else in my barn just because? You said hay. You said hay because I have hay in there. Yes. No, you said "all hay." "All of the all of the hay from my neighbor's field is in the barn." Can I have anything else in the barn? Sure. But only the hay that's in there is your neighbor's. I'm not sure. But Sean, you're making analogies that don't make any sense, Sean. And I don't know. I'm not sure what what your agenda is trying to do. That is the, the reality is, do if you're a Roman Catholic, you believe traditions are an equal authority to scripture, right? Okay. I'm trying to abstract from what both of us believe. We could be talking about what this verse means as atheists. We could just be talking about what it means just just from what it says, right? We're talking about logic. We're talking about what it says. Um, you're you're saying that the word, you're saying that "all scripture is inspired of God" excludes that anything else can be inspired of God, but inspired of God. But the fact is, that's just not how the English language works. Anybody could look at that and see that it doesn't say what you want it to say. Right? And so then what I'm saying then is going into all the other scripture, you don't find anything mentioned of that. The only thing mentioned not only in that text, in that sentence, but in the entire New Testament, and all the barn, the only thing mentioned as being inspired by God is the scripture itself. Nothing else. So therefore, it alone is inspired by God because it stands alone as the only thing mentioned in the entire divinely inspired written word. That's what we're saying. Okay. Well, if nobody ever mentioned that I have a tractor in my barn, that wouldn't change that I have a tractor in my barn. If nobody ever mentioned it, it would still be there. Yeah, I think you're missing the point, Sean. But I appreciate you jumping on. We've had a good little lengthy conversation on it, but check out the check out the rest of our teaching. We have one on tradition, too, on our series "Catholicism Revealed," if you just found the channel. Okay. Well, if you Right. Like I said, I, I might be back. We might, I might even jump onto another live again if Yeah, we'll do one in the future on tradition and and Bible and stuff. Maybe that'll be a better one to jump on since we're trying. We're getting off off task here. All right. Well, yeah, kind of be, but I mean, that was kind of a sneaked premise. If you listen to the very first couple of sentences that you said, if you rewatch the live, you'll see that was kind of a sneaked premise. And so, I just kind of wanted to throw that out there that the Bible doesn't say, not even 2 Timothy 3:16. It doesn't say that, um, tradition is not divinely inspired. Nowhere does it say that, you know. So, All right. Sounds good. Thanks, Sean. Yep. Appreciate it. Thanks for having me on. Bye. Bye.

All right. So, that was a a lively a lively talk there. And I think we just kind of went off on a tangent, but excited to have Catholics on live, no less, that have the courage to come on and have the conversations. That's not always easy either. So, yeah, we went off on a little tangent there. And I think that's why, like we said, Chris, the the the main precedent to all of this is what is your authority on truth, right? Because if it's not the divinely inspired written word, then you don't have an authority on truth. It's just, it's it's somebody else's with the word. And it goes into that conversation. Wouldn't you say, Chris? Yeah, see, and and ultimately what he was trying to get to is if he could if he could get us to agree that traditions can be just universally accepted in addition to what's in this in the text, then we can start to look at the contradictory bits of of intercessory prayer going to saints. But I think what's so important for people to just understand, if the Bible was silent on on the model for prayer, then let's have the discussion because it's not something that's already put in place. Which is why I was trying to say, but the scripture says, "Here's how we are to pray." We have models. We have everything that's there, and none of it's contradictory. It's all speaking with one voice. God is always the recipient of prayer because He alone has the ability to field them all at the same time and answer them all at the same time. And there's no need to go around Him to ultimately get to the same location. Right? So if that's what the scripture teaches, then why do I care if somebody proposes an alternative to that? Because ultimately they're going to run headlong into something that's contradictory to their belief. Well, pray with people that are no longer standing right in front of you. I can't find a biblical reason for that. But I can find a biblical reason for why I pray the way that I pray, because I have not only Jesus's model. I have the vine and branches that we looked at today. I've got all those different things, but nowhere do I have anything that gives me any sanction to pray to anyone but God alone. That's settled. It's in the scripture. All of that is written and it's inspired by God. Period. Now, everything after that is simply an after-the-fact tradition. Right? So, the problem is that that tradition runs contrary to what we already know to be true. Therein lies the problem.

Amen. And I think a lot of people like to quote out of 2 Thessalonians where they see tradition mentioned and said, "We have to follow it." But I think it's important to see how he closes his letter in 2 Thessalonians 3, starting in verse 14. And he says, "If anyone does not obey our instruction in this letter, take special note of that person." He's putting the emphasis of obedience on that which is written, not that which was taught orally, but that which is written specifically. And then he says, "And do not associate with him so that he might be put to shame. Yet do not regard him as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother." This is a serious thing, the act of obedience to the instruction that was in the actual letter. Not everything that was taught, passed down orally, but specifically that which was written. So, Yeah. And so I, you know, it's funny because they have one standard for us and not another one for them. So his point is, you can't prove to me in the text that tradition isn't, you know, isn't going to be able to speak on on praying and and the model for prayer because if we could get to the agreement, okay, we can look at your tradition. Well, great. My tradition tells me to pray to saints. Mhm. Okay. But it doesn't, it never seems to work in in the reverse with with them when they have this discussion. Right? Prove to me that we're supposed to pray to people who have no longer who no longer have an earthly existence. It doesn't exist. So they never hold themselves to the same standard. And that's what's troubling. That's frustrating.

Yep. Exactly. Well, I think this has probably gone on for about two hours now. So, our goal was an hour and we ended up doing two again. So, You're not good at math. You and me, Patrick. Yeah. I think, you know, we could go on all day and talk about all these things because we're passionate about seeing people know the truth and and finding God's word and knowing the truth. So, I think that's what hopefully we left everybody with enough information today, enough context to be Bereans, to be like the Jews were. They didn't just take the colossal reputation of the Apostle Paul coming to Berea and and accepting what he said to be true because of miracles they heard him doing and things he was saying. They still went to the already revealed divinely inspired written word of God, and they searched out the scripture to see if what he was saying was true. They used the scripture as their barometer of measurement to see what he was saying for true. The Jews understood it then. The early church that began as a Jewish messianic congregation understood it then as well, that you go to this inspired written word to be our measurement to see what is true. Not what the rabbis are teaching or what the rabbis think or what was passed down by the Pharisees, but what the scripture itself actually lays out. So hopefully that gives everybody something to do there. If you're new to our channel here, Philippians 1 Ministries, make sure you tap the subscribe button so that you can get notification when we put out these live o open mic shows that you can get notified when they're happening. And if you want to know more breakdown through Catholicism, we have a series in a playlist on our channel called "Catholicism Revealed." It goes through a lot of the different topics of of what Catholics are saying and different apologetics and different things that we've done with other Catholics on there. So, you're definitely going to like that. And if you don't already follow me over on Facebook and Instagram as "The Bible in Context," make sure you go do that as well. We put out a lot of different reels and posts over there. And you can find Chris Contana over on Old Path Theology on YouTube. So, make sure you go check out his channel. He does different teachings throughout the Bible as well. So, hit that subscribe button and check out uh everything else we got going on for you. But otherwise, I appreciate everybody for showing up. I appreciate you engaging in the comments as as best we could keep up with you. And we love everybody. We want you to continue to grow in a knowledge of God's word. We want you to seek truth. So, stay prayerful, stay in His word, and continue to press on in Jesus. Everybody, until next time, we'll talk again real soon. [Music]