Ten Problems with Eastern Orthodoxy

Tick tock, time to rock. Good evening, good morning, good afternoon to everyone who's watching from all over the world. Your friendly neighborhood philosopher here, Dwood Wood with me now. I've got the champions of the Ortha Bros.

>> Something like that. >> Yeah, I was think I was thinking I I joke like that, but everyone might not know we're we're joking. We have two uh we have two Orthodox uh two Orthodox brothers with us. um Nick and Ben. So, let let me matter of fact before before uh before um before we jump into anything, let me just give everyone the uh quick background here.

So, um found out found out recently, guys. May maybe I can find it here. So, okay. So, here was here was the tweet that uh kind of started things off. I mean, things were going off before this. Um, people were criticizing Avery for raiding a stream which then raided another stream and they were talking to a guy who was I don't even know the situation. Do wait, do you guys know the situation?

>> Uh, very very briefly, very briefly. Basically, uh, my understanding is there was a clip account of Avery's that, um, was advertising another guy by who goes by JP. Um, and his channel is basically dedicated to refuting orthodox. Like he he does these live streams where all he does is talk to people that are inquiring into orthodoxy and just debates them. And so, uh, Jay saw that as Avery, uh, promoting, um, promoting a, you know, anti-Orthodox channel. And I believe that's what kind of started this whole thing.

>> Okay. Yeah. And uh um so yeah, I just I'm not I wasn't quite I wasn't I know it was uh so Avery's channel, God Logic, raided when he was done, raided um God Logic 2, which is Life's channel and then Life um raided uh JP's channel. I'm I'm still I'm not completely clear. I'm not completely I wasn't completely clear on what I know it was something to do with ether Easter eastern Orthodoxy over on uh uh JP's channel that got a lot of people um upset and stuff and then anyway people were pointing a finger at Avery and then um then it turned into let's see then it turned into a different kind of criticism.

So, the Orthodox Muslim, that's uh Libyano, he said, "My two cents on what's going on with the Orthobros and Avery. Avery is not interested in your true church. As a matter of fact, he doesn't give a flying donkey's ass about any church being true. He wants to appeal to as many Christians from all denominations to make as much money as possible. This is why he's friends with Sam, yet friends with Sam's archeneemy, David Wood. That's me. He's friends with the Ortha Bros, but also friends with anti-Orthros. This guy is a grifter. Wake up." and Jay said uh bingo.

So after that, so my question my question at that point was is that just Jay? Is it just Jay who thinks that or is that like common a common view among the orthobros or is it even a common view among orthodox? So, um started asking and then uh Andrew came on and Andrew was saying he Andrew wasn't calling um Avery a grifter, but he kind of defended he he defended the reasonleness of the inference that if you're not sort of arguing with different uh different groups and arguing over what the true church is and so on, then you can infer that someone is just trying to cast the net as wide as possible to have as many people on your side for donations. And so, um, and looking at the reactions afterwards, it seems there are a lot of Ortha bros who defend that inference. Yes, Avery is a grifter, but I saw a lot of Orthodox um Christians taking the taking the opposite position and saying you should you shouldn't be saying that stuff and you definitely shouldn't be um sort of uh affirming affirming the criticisms of the DA guys. So, looks like common pretty common view among orthobros. Um I don't see any reason to think that it's common among uh other Orthodox guys.

So anyway, um my interactions with the orthobros is anytime you raise any sort of criticism, they respond in two ways. One is just like child like middle school insults, you're gay, this and that over and over again. They kind of bombard you with it. And then why aren't you debating the true church? Why aren't you debating Jay Dyer on the true church? And I've always made it clear I've never been interested in this uh in this issue. Uh, but I'm told if you don't if you aren't debating what the true church is, you're probably a grifter. So, I'm I'm biting the bullet on this one. Fine. I'll I'll start learning so I can debate this in the future. But, I'm starting from basically nothing. So, I got to give myself a crash course here in the near future. And I didn't just want to start watching people's videos on this topic because I don't if I don't know if I don't know if I can trust someone. I don't know if the information they're presenting is accurate. So, I figured, hey, if I'm watching a video or something, might as well just do that live and then asked people if the information is correct. So, I told the orthobros um earlier when I posted that I'd be covering going through this. Um I posted, hey, you guys want to come along? I'll ask you guys any anything I'm not clear on. Hey, is this correct? Or something like that. And so I said that and then uh Nick Nick volunteered to uh Nick and Nick Nick and Ben volunteered to join me and go through all this and uh tell me what's right and what's wrong and um defend their position on anything that people might be uh might be confused or concerned about.

>> So that's the background guy. So what you guys want to introduce yourselves and tell everyone what you do?

>> Sure. Uh I'll go first. My name is Nick. You guys might know me. I've been on this channel before. I also go by Fearless Truth here on YouTube. I mainly deal with pimics and defending the Trinity and defending Christianity against Muslims and people who disagree with think the Trinity is illogical. Anyone who really disagrees with that. Um, I've been on God Logic's channel, good friend of mine on there. I'm Eastern Orthodox. So I'm looking to hopefully give you guys a good understanding of Eastern Orthodoxy for those of you who either had a bad taste in your mouth about it, number one, or number two, you maybe haven't heard about it and you want to understand what true orthodoxy is and what the true Orthodox teachings are. I hope to be here to be able to help you with that.

>> Yeah. Uh Benjamin Michael. I formerly went by Orthodox Luigi. Um and I do Orthodox apologetics. I do political commentary. I run my show every Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday over at uh real Ben Michael on YouTube. And then the same handle over on X and Instagram just defending the Orthodox position and also the Orthodox worldview on uh things like geopolitics, immigration, and foreign policy, things of that nature. And so likewise with with Nick, I'm here to defend, you know, what the actual Orthodox position is. The steelman, I would consider myself to be an Ortho bro. And I think across all Orthodox Christians, we all agree that this issue does matter. Um whether it be Orthobros or Orthodox Christians, we all believe that we are the true church and we want people to join the true church and we do we do really think that these distinctions matter and that's why we that's why we care about this issue. Um, so that's why we're here to talk about it.

>> All right. So, guys, when I uh I told uh Nick and Ben before we were getting started that I was going to watch a video, uh they named a couple of people they thought the video might be from and they actually knew uh they they actually um they actually predicted accurately.

>> We deal with this. We deal with this a lot. So we're we're used to this.

>> Okay. Um, now before beforehand, I'm just saying this because I heard I've heard different I heard different things just today on this from um from Orthodox people. But um yeah, so before we start watching the video, let me just ask about this. So this is from Orthodox Shahada. He says, "Apologetics Road Show. I praise Jay Dyer for calling out your BS and the BS of others like you. Firstly, you are not a Christian. We are not siding with Muhammadans anymore than we side with you. We side with Christ and his church to which neither you nor the Muhammadans belong. Secondly, the historical understanding of who is given the appellation of Christian has always been restricted to those who are permitted sacramental participation within the boundaries of the Orthodox Church. that we orthodox refer to nonorthodox as Christian is only a means to distinguish you in a broader and general context from Jews, Muhamadans, Buddhists, Hindus, etc. So, so basically people like me can be called Christian in the loose sense of just uh you know I don't believe what these other guys believe but not not an actual Christian in a in a stronger sense. And then thirdly, the Protestant trash that you consider Christian routinely attacks the Orthodox on various issues, be it the saints, the theottoacos, the ecumenical councils, etc., etc., etc. Those with whom you seek as allies against the Muhammadans are just as much attacking and waring against orthodoxy as the Muhammadans themselves. Fourthly, you support the state of Israel, which is an enemy of the Orthodox Church and Christianity. So spare us your guilt tripping. You and your kind are an enemy to orthodoxy just as much if not more than the Muhammadans. We don't owe you any of you anything. We are not allies. We will readily and gladly take you on as we take on the Muhammadansidins. And uh the uh tagged apostate prophet crucible and god logic in that one.

So um kind of two issues. the the minor one is um you support the state of Israel and he says which is an enemy of the Orthodox Church. I mean I support the state of Israel the same way I support the like Canada or the UK and that I don't want any of them to be overrun by jihadis. So I support any nation to not be overrun by jihad jihadis. Other issues might be different, but I don't want anyone conquered by Islam because it's really hard to come back from that. Um, but would this be this fourthly here? Is that like an an official like church position on the state of Israel or is that like just like common belief or something?

>> Well, um,

>> you want to talk about it, you go.

>> Yeah. Yeah. So, as far as like a like a formal teaching, I would say I mean we definitely are not uh Z. We definitely not Christian Zionists. That is a formal teaching. Um, there's not going to be a formal teaching on the nation state of Israel. However, there is a common there is a common sentiment throughout the Orthodox Church, whether it be the hierarchies all the way down to the ley that is in opposition to a lot of the a lot of the Israeli uh especially the greater Israel efforts. Um and particularly the bombing of you know uh nations that are that have Christian populations in them. um and these directly affect um Orthodox Christians uh in the Middle East. And so uh it's close to home for a lot of us. And so we we do not we do not support uh generally speaking the general sentiment in the Orthodox Church is that we do not support um the the greater Israel efforts of BB Netanyahu and the the nation state of Israel. And we officially uh condemn Christian Zionism as a as a heresy. So we we do not hold to Christian Zionism. believe that um the church is the new Israel and that the nation state has nothing to do with the nation of Israel in the Old Testament. That is a formal teaching.

>> All right. And the um the other issue uh let's see oops um the other issue um you are not a Christian. We are not siding with Muhammadans anymore than we side with you. We side with Christ in his church. Um and then the historical understanding of who has given the Appalachian Christian has always been restricted to those who are permitted sacramental participation within the boundaries of the Orthodox Church. So I've heard this is where I've heard that there are differences like like what are you got you got different orthodox, right? You got like Romanian Orthodox and like Russian Orthodox and stuff like that. I've heard that different people have different positions on that that some of some of them are more kind of ecumenical than others. and grant that people outside of the Eastern Orthodox Church can be Christians. Uh but I've heard others say no, you have to be part of this church or you're not a Christian. What is you guys?

>> Yeah. So, I mean there's not going to be like uh any sort of like exact designation. So, we believe that obviously the fullness of Christianity is only going to be found in orthodoxy. Now, as to what we decide to be uh what we consider Christian, um well, that depends. Uh there's actually a quote um Luigi think that quote you sent me earlier is that a is that one solid?

>> Yep.

>> Yep.

>> For this one. I think that'd be good to read. I read this earlier on my live. Uh so this is by St. Ferrett Staint in our church. He says, "Everyone baptized in the name of the Trinity is a Christian. Whatever confession he may belong to, the true faith is one, the Orthodox. Yet all Christian confessions also continue to exist by the longsuffering of the Almighty. The gospel is the one and the same everywhere and for all. though it is not understood and explained by all in the same way. The errors of those who have fallen away from the Orthodox Catholic Church are not to be reproached to those who from birth have not been brought up in one or other confession. Simple souls believe in simplicity according to the teaching entrusted to them without being troubled by religious controversies inaccessible to them. Their spiritual guides will answer to God for them. Learned theologians are found among all Christian people and devout people have been and will be found in both the Greek Catholic Orthodox and the Roman Catholic Church. True religious tolerance does not harden itself at the wall that divides Christians, but grieavves those in error and prays for the union of all. I think that last sentence is very important. I'll read it again. True religious tolerance does not harden itself at the wall that divides Christians, but it grieavves for those in error and prays for the union of all. And so I think that's a very good representation of how we believe that we want all people to be unified, but we want we want all people to be unified in truth though, not in falsehood. Um, but again, this is requiring nuance, right? Someone might not even know about the Orthodox Church. Okay, you David for instance said you really haven't studied the Orthodox Church, right? Um, now would I consider you to be a Christian or not a Christian because you haven't studied the Orthodox Church? I don't think I would consider you not to be a Christian because you haven't studied the Orthodox Church and you're not aware of it. You're not knowing these things. Um, as well as Avery. Avery, right? I I I consider him to be a Christian as well. And so, uh, these are things I think that require nuance when we talk about them.

>> Yeah. I would just just to caveat off that real quick though. Um, I would also say, so I would I would I would concur with with pretty much all of that, but I would say that in the most formal sense, what Orthodox Shiada is saying is true. That in the most formal sense, only the Christians are the ones that are that are within the body of the church. And this is very clear with the ecumenical councils because they're anatizing those that are guilty of heresy and they're saying, "Look, we're cutting you off from the source of salvation." So those that are outside. So according to the ecumenical councils which even a lot of high church Protestants accept that there is a formal sense in which you are in the church um and that is what makes you you know formally a Christian. So so I would I would agree with with kind of what orthodox was saying there that hey we can refer to you guys as Christians. I think a lot of you are genuine you know like my parents my parents are are are Protestants. I think they're genuine. You know they love Christ. Um but I do believe that they need to become Orthodox. I believe that orthodoxy is the source of salvation. And so in the most formal sense, only Orthodox are Christians, but we can refer to um others that follow Christ as Christians sort of like in a colloquial sense.

>> Yeah, exactly.

>> Okay. Well, I you just said salvation is through the Orthodox Church. I think that's what lots of people are like wondering like. So, can a person who like has never even heard of the Orthodox Church, thinking in terms of salvation, can a person be saved if he's never heard of the Orthodox Church, like he converts somewhere else?

>> Yeah. Yeah. Because we there there's a a view of ignorance, right? Especially in the example you gave, they have no clue about the Orthodox Church. Well, they're not going to be condemned about something they didn't know in the first place, right? And so, again, there there's a famous quote in the church. We say that we uh we know where the Holy Spirit is. We do not say where the Holy Spirit is not. Right? So, we don't say whether or not the Holy Spirit is working somewhere else. We do know the Holy Spirit is working in the church. Now, again, if you've never heard, it's a common, you know, objection atheists like to give, right? Where they're like, "Okay, well, what about someone on an island who's never heard of God? We believe God will judge them righteously. We're not going to say whether or not they're going to go to hell or heaven. I have no I don't even judge myself. I don't even say I'm going to heaven. I I think that it's the Lord's it's the Lord's thing to judge, right? It's the Lord's ability to judge. So, I don't judge you. I'm not going to say you're going to hell. I'm not going to say you're going to heaven. The same thing with me. I'm not going to say I'm going to heaven. I'm going to hell. I think that's for God to do and ultimately we have to leave it up to him. The best thing that we should do is to preach Orthodox Church to those who don't know so they can receive proper salvation, the proper sacraments. But for those who don't know, I have full faith in God that he will judge them with the utmost justice.

>> Yeah. For those that are ignorant. But to be clear, like we we still we still preach um we teach that all the all to become Orthodox. We want all to join the church because we truly believe this is the true church. Um and every other church is not truly the body of Christ. And so we we still truly believe that you must become Orthodox. Um because Orthodoxy is the source of salvation. The body of Christ is the source of salvation. So um that's sort of the other side of that nuance. There's a lot of nuance to this question and those are sort of the two sides of it.

>> Yeah. Um, now so we we were um this is the last time this the last sort of follow-up here but um so we're we're talking about someone who's like in a in a state of ignorance. So suppose someone like grows up in um Protestant church or Catholic church or something like that. Um believes that Jesus died on the cross for sins, believes Jesus rose from the dead, believes um that Jesus is Lord, believes in the Trinity, believes in the scriptures and so on. And then someone who's Eastern Orthodox explains why this is the true church. and the person says, you know, um I I just I just I I don't see it. I'm not convinced by your arguments. Um as as uh as Nick was pointing out, you can't say you can't say, "Oh, I this person is safe." For for all you know, behind the scenes, this guy's a biggest lying scumbag on the earth. But just generally is it is is do you consider that within the realm of possibility that someone could believe in the doctrines of the New Testament but not be convinced by the arguments for um for the Eastern Orthodox Church and still have salvation?

>> Well, yeah. I think it depends, right? Because obviously, for example, Jehovah's Witnesses would say that they believe in the doctrine of the New Testament. they believe in all the doctrine of it, right? Mormons would say they believe in the doctrine of the New Testament. Now, do we believe they saved? Well, it's a very interesting dilemma. How do we know whether they're saved or not? Um, and so again, it this is why we said how things require nuances because there's there's also like degrees of things, right? We don't consider Mormons to be on the same level as Protestants. We consider there to be some sort of distinction there. And so I think that it varies from case to case by person as to how we know whether or not they've actually heard of the true church or not. This is why again we believe that Christ is the ultimate and fruitful judge and that he perfectly judges all things and we don't particularly make that judgment. But we will say if you want assurement of the sacraments and you want to be assured that you have these things then you must join the church. So, so is that along the lines of, hey, you have assurance if you're in the church outside possible, but you're not really we don't we don't really know. That's kind of up to God. That that sort of thing.

>> Well, we would say that those that were within the church are have assurance in so far as we have assurance that we're part that we're within the body of Christ. Um that we're within the church, that we're partaking in eternal life, you know, via the sacraments. But but we would reference 1 Corinthians 4 where St. Paul says that he makes no final judgment until judgment day. Basically, he says in that passage, I don't even judge myself. I I don't put myself in the judgment seat. We wait for the final end when God will be the perfect judge. And so, this the the trouble with these type of questions is it feels like we're being put in the judgment seat and you know, we're we're not the judge. Like, we we put no limit on God's mercy. And a lot of Protestants will usually draw a hard line with, for example, like the Doctrine of the Trinity. Um, but then you start pressing on them on this and like oneness is Pentecostals. Let's say if there's a one is Pentecostal, just a grandma in a one is Pentecostal church who loves Jesus and she spent her whole life loving Jesus and she never understood the doctrine of the trinity like what about her? Can she be saved? Well, a lot of Protestants would say no because they have this hard line and we just don't have that that hard line because we don't put a limit on God's mercy. Um, but we would say that the normative means in which God has prescribed you to be saved is through his church, through his sacraments. That's how you achieve eternal life is through the church.

>> Yeah. Because if you don't, just to touch on that, if you don't have the church, the question becomes where exactly do you draw that line? Is it do you believe if you believe Jesus is is crucified and rose from the dead, you're saved? Okay. Well, then Mormons are saved. Then Jehovah's Witnesses are saved. Is it that you believe Jesus to be the Messiah to be saved? Okay. Well, then Muslims are now saved. They believe Jesus is the Messiah. And obviously, nobody's going to say that, right? But the the problem is trying to figure out where that line is drawn. And that's why Christ instilled a church. So we don't need to draw that line. It's you you should be a part of the true church. That's that's what it's supposed to be. Without that, I think you have a very hard time drawing a line.

>> All right. So, we'll go ahead and uh start the uh start the video and um we'll we'll address I think it's 10 points. And someone someone just said to uh someone just said you guys need to debate needs God on this. And uh that's the that's the video we're watching. So

>> it's funny.

>> It kind of it kind of is, guys. It kind of is.

>> Yeah,

>> it kind of is, guys. So, um yep, you're those of you in the chat who said that, you you're about to get what you asked for. Sort of. Uh but we'll take a couple super chats here at the beginning. People think David is attacking Orthodoxy without realizing he's probably inviting Eastern Orthodox people onto the panel for him to learn more about it. Everybody has preconceived notions. Um, Mike Winger cannot be a nerd because his last name is the name of a cool band. I'm banned, aren't I? You should be for uh talking about Mike Winger. David is late because he is converting to orthodoxy. This is the proof. That's from inspiring philosophy.

>> Inspiring philosophy. Another grifter. Uh, grifting properly defined isn't merely about money. Low tier one word definition assumers. It's overhyping promises to such as just say D's prayer and you into the church. also non-historical. One more and then we'll jump into the video. I have a problem with someone who doesn't represent the Christian walk in the slightest, having the audacity to consider someone else not a true Christian. Um, all right. Um, and we'll kind of go through we'll kind of go through super chats um between points for anyone who's who's asking you guys questions and stuff. But all right guys, so this is needs God was not familiar with him, but in all the arguing in all the arguing yesterday um back and forth on X uh saw this video pop up. So uh I watched about two minutes of it. Seemed like a nice friendly guy. Um I the first point he was bringing up was icons and so I was like okay he's actually covering um a lot of the issues that uh that people bring up and so I figured I'd focus on those. Looks like he's going through the uh the main issues that people would bring up. So we'll go and check check this out. Have you heard some people are saying there's a trend of people converting to the Eastern Orthodox Church. Is that something to celebrate? In this video, I'm going to give 10 reasons why people should not convert to Orthodoxy. Don't miss any of this because some of these points may surprise you a ton. By the way, I love Orthodox people. I have nothing against them personally and I do pray for them. These are the standard official teachings of the Orthodox Church that I find problematic.

>> See, he loves you guys. That's why I thought this guy was cool.

>> Yeah, we love him, too, man. We love everybody.

>> All right, so here we go.

>> Are you ready?

>> Here we go. Number one, praying to saints and icon veneration. The Orthodox Church says it's a fine practice to pray to the saints. Create pictures of them, which they call icons, place them in their churches and homes, and then bow down to them, kiss them, and pray to them. But we don't see that practice in the days of the apostles, nor in the Old Testament. There are no records of the apostles bowing down to a picture of Abraham, kissing it or praying to it. In fact, to do that would be a violation of the second of the ten commandments, which says, "You shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them." What is forbidden is not the images per se, but the bowing down to or serving of these images. For there were God prescribed images of cherubams and in the tabernacle curtains there was palm trees and things like

>> Oh, that's interesting because when he was when he was uh when when people when people kind of are too forceful on this point about not making any any sort of images I always think like what about the cherubim and stuff like that. It can't it can't just be an alltime blanket rule. Um, so okay I'm glad I'm glad you pointed that out. That that's true too because if you actually read Joshua chapter 6 or Joshua chapter 7 6 to8 Joshua actually bows down to the ark as well which has icons on it which is interesting. He said you can't bow down to them ever. So according to him Joshua would have to be uh committing some sort of blasphemy there. All right, let's see. Let's uh well, I'll continue the point here

>> that representing the Garden of Eden, but it'd be wrong for a person to start bowing down to those images of those palm trees or those cherubam and to pray to them. Having pictures in church was actually not a universal practice in the early church. It was largely not done. Even some regional councils like the council of Alvivera forbid it saying canon 36 pictures are not to be placed in churches so that they do not become objects of worship and adoration. Yet in Orthodox churches this is practiced in the confession of dostheus which is accepted by the Orthodox church. It says now we adore the saints and the holy icons. The second council of Nika which is also accepted by the Orthodox Church and even is considered infallible by them made a decree quote we salute the venerable images. We place under anathema those who do not do this. It goes on to describe requiring both saluting and kissing the image and have a strong desire towards it. And how that council defined what an anathema is. It says quote an anathema is nothing short than complete separation from God. So something that is forbidden in the Bible and not a universal practice of the earliest Christians. This council which the Orthodox Church accepts says you are separate from God if you do not salute and bow down and kiss these images. That's completely undermining God's word. Number two, can we Okay. Yeah. Can we maybe address some of these? So couple things.

>> Yeah. So a couple things a lot to unpack here. So, first of all, um, so the the first council he references is a local council. Um, and the reason why it's just never good to cite a local council as inherently authoritative is because there was plenty of councils that were heretical. So, for example, uh, in the end of the 4th century, there was councils that were Aryan councils that deemed that Christ was a creature. They had hundreds of bishops present. And so, for us in the Orthodox paradigm, that which is binding is that which is found in the ecumenical councils. and that's going to be Nika 2, which is the one that he uh referenced. U there's a couple uh passages throughout uh both the New Testament and the Old Testament that would demonstrate that just because someone is bowing doesn't mean that it's inherently going to be worship. Um, so actually in Revelation 3:9, um, it says this, says, "Indeed, I will make," and, it's, uh, Yahweh speaking, "I will make those of the synagogue of Satan who say they are Jews, but are not, but lie. Indeed, I will make them come down and prostrate before your feet and know that I have loved you." So, he's saying that he's going to make, you know, these uh this this reprobate people, he's going to actually make them uh bow down to the saints. So if that's worship just to bow down, then it would mean that God is actually prescribing idolatry here. Um the same thing happens like uh Nick already referenced in Joshua 7. And then also in 1st Samuel 25, Abigail uh bows before David. So it's very clear that just because uh someone might bow uh does not mean that it's inherently going to be worship and therefore idolatry because the the commandment in question needs to be read in its entirety and it's saying that you cannot worship um these these images u and that so bowing can be worshiped but it's not always worship um and then finally uh he erroneously stated that the early church did not do this. That's false. Um we have found in the Roman catacombs there are images even with intercessory prayers written uh and then also um St. Dionius who is literally found in the books of book of acts. He explicitly writes uh in favor of the veneration of icons. Um and Craig Trullia has a great great paper that's been peer- reviewviewed that defends his authenticity. And then Michael Garton has an excellent book that lays out all of the early icons um really from the first century dating all the way up till Nika 2 and I believe even later than that. So uh yeah. So a lot to unpack there. I hope that I hit all them all the wickets.

>> Yeah, a couple. Oh gohead.

>> Oh yeah. Yeah. I just had a uh and then and yeah and then Nick maybe you can uh touch on this and then uh whatever you're going to bring up. Um, so as far as as far as icon so you kind of have two issues. One that I don't know I don't know if you call it so you're saying you wouldn't you wouldn't regard this as worship what you're what you're doing with icons. It's not worship.

>> Yeah. So there's a there's a uh a distinction called the the latria dullia distinction. It's distinction between veneration and worship. So we would say that worship is only given to God. Uh veneration which is just honor is given to all of the saints and uh the saints via the icons and the angels as well.

>> And when you are um like people describe it as praying to saints other people as uh seeking intercession of saints or something like that. How do you how do you describe

>> that?

>> Yeah. So we would say that we can call it prayer, but it's it's a distinct type of prayer um that is different than the way we pray to God. So um we would we would say it's an intercessory prayer. So all that means is like it's akin to you know me asking Nick over here to pray for me. Um because we believe that the saints are alive and so and it talks about this throughout the scriptures u talks about how the the prayers of that which is more the a person who is more righteous than you. So like in Job 42 for example, Job actually offers a sacrifice on behalf of his wicked friends. And because Job was righteous, uh the sacrifice is accepted. So we believe that someone that is more righteous, their prayer is actually more powerful. And it talks about this in James 5 14-16 as well. It actually explicitly says that the prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. Um, and so yeah, we would just say that because the saints are alive, as we see throughout the book of Revelation, they're alive. They're conscious of things happening in the world. um it's really no different than us just asking you know someone to to pray for us except in this case um it is a righteous saint uh that we're asking. So it'd be kind of like you know for you uh David or all the Protestants watching it be like if you saw Paul walk around like you would probably walk up to him and you would ask him for things um and guess what it would be baked into that request that whatever you ask of him is coming from Christ. So, we all understand that like the things we ask for from saints. It's all coming from Christ. Um, but we don't have to clarify that every time we say it. Uh, sometimes we do in our prayers, but it's baked into the request just like it would be if you ran up to Paul who was walking around and asked him for something.

>> Now, um, I have um I don't even know like if this is an official Catholic position, but I'm I'm wondering uh I'm wondering what what your guys' position on this because this is way back in college. Um, I was uh um in in a philosophy class and there was um there was a priest in the philosophy class and uh he was I don't remember how we got on the subject but I asked um if you're talking to Mary I said do you believe that she's like omniresent or that she's omnisient like how would she be hearing all people's whatever people are saying to her around the world and he said that what he believes is that if you say something, he didn't think that that she's omnisient or omnipresent or something like this. He believes that God actually conveys what you're saying to her and then if she wants to intercede for you um she can. So, do you guys believe something like that? Because you just you just mentioned that you believe the saints are aware of things that are happening on earth like are they aware of what everyone is saying or does like God convey that or something?

>> Yeah. Yeah. So like in the same way in the gospels it talks about how the angels in heaven they rejoice at anyone who repents. Well it doesn't mean that the angels are necessarily omnipresent right. It just means that God is able to convey that to them. So in the same way like when we when we ask for intercession of these saints um again this is going to be God just conveying to them these prayers or allowing them to hear these prayers rather. Um, and so we see this with both the angels and the saints in heaven that God allows them both to hear that. We don't think there's any sort of like you know omnipresent in the sense that God is or something like that.

>> And uh just just one quick uh one quick uh additional thought on that. So you have two issues. You have um uh asking saints for intercession talking to saints or something like that. But then you have the the addition of the icon. So what's the I mean you could you could talk to you could talk to a saint and God could convey that message without the icon. So what what's the purpose of the icon? Is that like to keep you focused on it or something?

>> Yeah, that's one of the primary focuses. So what we would say is that we would reference icons as actually being windows into heaven. Um and we would actually say that the second council of Nika is christoologgical um in the sense that when Christ took on flesh uh he actually consecrated uh matter. And so icons are a reflection of that. Um because matter is itself been consecrated. It's actually holy. Um and and so through that then that's where we we get icons as sort of our visual representation, our window into heaven um to make our intercessory prayers and then our prayers to God as well because we have icons of course of Christ.

>> All right. Then Nick, you had other stuff to add.

>> Yeah, I was just going to simply say that I was going to say the same exact thing is that they're windows to heaven. And so in the same way like it's it's out of you know honor and remembrance of these people. In the same way you might have uh you know a picture of your relative in your house. Obviously, it's not going to be to the same degree because you're not going to be um you know, honoring them in that same way. But we are honoring these people as they have fallen. We're honoring them. They have fallen. They have uh did what Paul says, which is endure until the end. And so, since they've endured until the end, we honor them and we believe that they can actually uh help intercede for us. And we see this all through the gospels as well that the the people that have passed away are actually still able to communicate in some sense. We see this in the story of Lazarus and the rich man where the rich man tells Abraham, he says, "Hey, uh, can you go down and tell tell these people for me? Tell them to stop doing what they're doing." And so, they're aware of what's happening on earth and they even want to intercede. Now, obviously, the rich man, he was in Hades, so he wasn't, you know, in any sort of righteous state. So, he wasn't obviously going to be receiving prayers or anything like that. U, but we see that when we die, we're not dead, right? We're still alive in heaven. And for those who obviously died and are not Christians, they would be in Hades. But that's, you know, a distinction we make.

>> Um the uh um do you guys know his name? His channel's needs God. Do you do you know his name? I don't want to call I don't know if

>> I think it's Ryan.

>> I think it's Ryan. Ryan. You're right. You're right.

>> So um Ryan was citing uh Vatican 2 and it sounded there like If you're not see What did I say?

>> You said

>> my brain is fried, guys. Um, so Nika 2. Nika 2. It sounded like you're cursed or anathema or whatever it is if you don't do this with the icon. So, is that correct?

>> Yeah. Yeah. So, so anathema means that you're cut off from the for for us when we when the councils talk about anathema, it's that you're cut off from the source of salvation. Um, and so if basically if you were to deny icons um and you would be cut off from the source of salvation. Again, the normative means and again the reason why is because what the council argued is that those that were doubting icons were they were denying the incarnation. Um that was the justification. And so for us to deny icons is to deny the incarnation which is why it's rightly Nika 2 whereas Nika 1 direct directly dealt with the incarnation. We would say that Nika 2 follows from that. Um, and so that's why it's something that you you must hold to in order to be within the the bounds of the church. How would uh like what's the connection there? Like you can obviously believe God entered creation as Jesus of Nazareth and died for sins

>> without believing in in an icon. So

>> yeah, so a lot of this a lot of this goes back to different paradigms. So um because this is something that was prescribed very early on in the church. So we would say again we would reference St. Dionius who was literally a disciple of St. Paul and he's explicitly writing that it's impossible to fully grasp the heavenly which without something material um in order to to grasp it. So in other words um it's basically impossible to to truly grasp the fullness of the incarnation without iconography. That's essentially what the church's teaching was from the earliest days. And so a lot of this goes back to differences of of church authority. So um we would say that the church prescribed this as a method um and it is in the best interest of the Christian because this is edifying. It furthers their Christian life and so if you deny it then you are missing out on the fullness of the faith. Um and yeah I would say just say this this sounds difficult to understand from a Protestant perspective but you have to understand these are different these are different paradigms. We start with the church authority and what they prescribe for your salvation. Um whereas the Protestant obviously does not start with that starting point. So it sounds like to it sounds crazy to a Protestant that's just hearing it for the first time. But once you start to unpack the writings of the fathers on the topic of icons, this stuff starts to make sense. Once you start to unpack the arguments of the iconic class and why they rejected icons, it starts to make sense as to why, okay, this is this does seem like something that's necessary to grasp the fullness of the incarnation.

>> Yeah. Yeah, we have to understand too like the the people that believe this are the same people that are literally put together the Bible in the first place, right? And so this is not like us just taking from just random people, right? We believe that the people that believe this, the the the teachings that we take from are the same teachings of the people that put together the Bible. And so to us, it makes no sense to hold to someone's teachings about them putting together the Bible, but not put together their other teachings or not hold to their other teachings.

that they make. For us, it's okay if, if we're going to hold to their teachings, we're going to hold to the teachings, um, in its entirety, in the sense of in the consensus of them. But, um, so take someone because you mentioned like how this would, uh, this would sound weird to Protestants. So take someone like, um, Ryan here, and I'm guessing his thinking would be along the lines of, if you're, if, if you're saying this is like, you're cursed if you don't do this, seems like it should have been kind of a, a, a big issue to not just, oh, here's how, here's how, here's a possible defense of this, like in the New Testament, as far as like, uh, people being aware of what's going on earth or, or something like that. But like, um, seems like it should be emphasized, like, oh, if you got the Ethiopian eunuch and he's converting or something like this, it should be, oh, make sure you get these icons because it's not going to work very well if you don't have. In other words, you should kind of see that like all, all over the place. Though, is it, is it something that like happened later, but then once it happened, it was essential, or was it already essential? And every time, like, when, when thousands of people convert at the preach, at the preaching of, of Peter, then, you know, it's not mentioned, but all the, you know, these people would have been told, hey, get your icons.

Well, well, we believe that it was always. You can go ahead, Luigi, if you want.

Okay, yeah. I was just going to say, I mean, I would, I would say that that's an argument from silence. I would say there's a lot of things that, you know, aren't mentioned in various those passages that I, that I would still say, you know, are. So, like, for example, like when St. Paul says, you know, to be saved, you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead. Well, there's a lot of things that the Protestant is going to extrapolate upon that verse, such as like the doctrine of the Trinity and maybe Sola Fide and all these other things. But that's not what St. Paul says in the verse, right? He just says, you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead and you're saved. That's it. But that's not what most Protestants believe. So there is an extrapolation on these doctrines, um, that we see that, that, you know, within church history, um, and we see these things become, you know, more defined. We wouldn't, we would reject any sort of development. But what we would say is that the doctrines got more defined as they became called into question. Um, so like in the same way that, uh, with the First Council of Nicaea, um, the church always believed that Christ was uncreated and consubstantial with the Father. But it wasn't until it got called into question that then they had to call the council to actually address this heresy. So we would say that we would actually argue that the reason it took so long, that's actually evidence of it being a regular practice for so long because it took that long for it really truly to be called into question, um, at a large scale. That's how universal it was, uh, in the early church, that it took, uh, you know, over 700 years for it to even be called into question as a doctrine because that's how, that's how much the churches were doing it. And you actually see this even in like the Jewish synagogues, the, uh, Dura Europos, which had a, there was a synagogue and a church in the same town, um, that was found from around the 3rd century, 3rd century, fourth century time frame. And it's just like completely decked out in icons. And so you can see this is, and again, I referenced the Roman catacombs earlier. So we would say that this was a very early practice, literally like the, at the same time that the apostles would walk around, this was already being done. And then as soon as the apostles, um, you know, were received into heaven, um, you know, when they were, uh, there, the everybody already recognized that they were to ask them for intercessory prayers, which is why they're writing them below their icons in the Roman catacombs. So we would say that this was, this was very early, a universal practice. Um, anything else to add on this point?

I think you did perfect.

All right. Uh, again, we'll take a couple super chats in between to see, um, mainly looking for things that are that are relevant to, uh, the discussion here, everyone. Um, but we have, I don't know how much this pertains to the topics to be covered, but 1 Corinthians 1:11-31 seems relevant and stands out to me.

Yeah, that's the, uh, some people say they follow Paul, some say they follow, uh, Apollos and Cephas and so on. And, um, that that is kind of a like a, I wasn't, I wasn't thinking about that, but there seems to be a lot of emphasis in the, the writings of Paul, like, I mean, obviously certain lines you can't cross, but apart from that, he seems to be really calling for unity and saying, don't, don't get divided over these things. So even fine if someone says, hey, I don't think I'm allowed to eat meat. Okay, well, fine. Well, I think I'm allowed to eat meat. Well, that's good, too. Well, I think this day is more important than others. Well, that's cool. Um, I think all days are alike. He seems fine with that. And he's saying, let each, let each one be convinced in his own mind. It, it seems like he was pretty comfortable with having a variety of views on there, which that does sound different from if you disagree with us on, on these issues, then you're, you're outside the church. So you guys have any thoughts on that?

Yeah. So, I mean, I would say that there, so first of all, there is diversity within the Orthodox Church as far as there's certain cultural traditions that we would say have been baptized in the various jurisdictions. So, for example, there might be some cultural traditions that are unique to like Romanian Orthodoxy that are not found, you know, in Antiochian Orthodoxy or something of that nature. So there is diversity, but there's unity on the core dogma. So while St. Paul does acknowledge that freedom, he simultaneously was very harsh on the Judaizers. He tells them to castrate themselves. He calls them dogs. And so he was very harsh on the Judaizers. That was like a very strong line for him. And he felt that that was something that cut you off from the church. And, you know, we see this being the same, the same, um, decree from Acts chapter 15. So, uh, I would say that there's, there's, uh, at the same time that he's allowing freedom and the diversity that we have in the Orthodox Church, there's also this hard line of core dogmas that he, that he required you to believe in order to be a Christian.

But on the, on the issue of the Judaizers there, it seems like he's saying, um, if you come out and you claim that in addition to the gospel and the work that Christ has done, you're saying and there are all these other things that are required. That seems to be what he had a serious problem with.

So, yeah, particularly the Old Testament.

Particularly the Old Testament practices is what he's condemning. Um, so he's not condemning because, because he, you know, he references, you know, in, in, in his letter to the Thessalonians, he, he references the traditions that he's passed down that were both written and oral. So he's acknowledging that there are these other traditions that he hasn't written down that have to be held to. So he's not just condemning like other things that, that, you know, that are part of the Christian life. He's condemning particularly the notion that you have to abide by the Old Testament law to be a Christian. That was the heresy of the day. You know, that and Gnosticism were really the two biggest heresies of the day. So, um, all I'm saying with the point is that there was a hard line for him where this is the cutoff, and he was very harsh on those outside of it.

Uh, now you mentioned traditions because that's an, uh, they're kind of two interesting threads on this. So, you have Paul talking about the traditions that have been handed down to them, but also you have Jesus, um, when he's going off on the the Pharisees, he says, you know, you nullify the word of God for the sake of your traditions. If, if there was a conflict, if there was a tradition that was in conflict or contradicted what's written in the New Testament, I'm guessing you guys would say that the church isn't going to do that.

No, we don't believe the church is going to contradict scripture or anything like that. We believe that there's anything that, uh, people might believe contradicts scripture, we believe their interpretation will be wrong. If we go by the interpretation of the church fathers and the church themselves. So, no, we don't believe that they would ever contradict scripture, though.

Um, hey, sorry I'm late. Can I had the thing with the van and the lumber? Can we start over? They're just making fun of me for being late yesterday when I had a problem getting some lumber into my van. The Orthos are doing serious damage to the Orthodox movement. Jay Dyer and his small group of friends need to stop. apologize and get offline and do something else. Um, I am Eastern Orthodox and I like these optics. Dr. David, what? That's good. Yeah, perfect. Because of the Orthos, they give us Eastern Orthodox a bad name. Yeah, I've been hearing that a lot. I've been hearing people saying that they've been warned. But guys, we got an Ortho here. He seems pretty nice. So, it can't be all bad.

Yeah, I love the Ortho.

Ben's one of the good ones, guys. Ben's one of the good ones. One of the good ones.

Listen, we, our boys are, our boys are zealous. Okay. Our boys are zealous.

Yeah.

Nick and Luigi, do you believe God logic should stop doing ministry like Jay Dyer said? Why or why not? That's a good question.

Orthodox.

Yeah, I would agree. I think that, yeah, I think that he should become Orthodox. I think that's the best thing that he could do. Do I think he should totally stop his ministry? I mean, when I was, I'll give you an example. When I was, uh, before I was in the Orthodox church, uh, when I was a catechumen, and I spoke to my priest about this and I was like, hey, you know, I'm doing, I do, you know, apologetics and stuff like that. And how do I, how do I go about that? And his recommendation to me was, he's okay, well, listen, that's okay, but there should be some nuance here. Don't teach anything about the Orthodox church. Don't teach anything about, uh, the, you know, the true interpretation of scripture, etc. Now, if you're wanting to go against some other religion and say, "Listen, I think that these are some false religions or whatnot." That's totally fine. Just watch what you say about the church, etc. So, I think there's also nuance in terms of that as well.

Oh, yeah. This is unrelated. I mean, it's related to the overall, um, you know, trying to get understanding here, but, uh, not related to what we were just talking about, but you, uh, because you brought up when you were a, when you were a catechumen. So, um, when I was talking to Andrew Wilson and I said, AP is Eastern Orthodox, and he said, "No." And he said, it's not until you're actually, so when you're a catechumen, you're not, you're not part of the church yet. You're not part of the church until you're baptized. But I just, I just asked, like, what if, what if tradition is contradicting scripture? And it seems like this, this, uh, you know, process of conversion of even becoming a Christian. I mean, it seems like it can take a year or two. I don't know if there's some actual time limit or something like that. Whereas in the book of Acts, it seems like, okay, do you believe, do you believe this? Okay, you're, you're with us now. And like, like for, for Protestants, it would normally be, okay, once you believe in the gospel, then you're a Christian. And then after that, they'd have discipleship where you learn to be a disciple. Whereas there, it sounds like you're kind of doing the discipleship and learning first, and then you're converting after that. So, what, what are your thoughts on that?

So if you read Acts, I believe it's the 11th chapter. Uh, we actually talk about this. We see someone who is in fact a believer of Christ. Uh, they believed in Christ. They believe in his death, burial, and resurrection, etc. But they don't have the Holy Spirit. And Paul's like, "Okay, wait, what were you baptized into?" And they said, "And John's baptism." And he said, "Okay, wait. You need to be baptized into Christ's baptism, right? The new baptism in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit." He baptized them. And then that is when they received the Holy Spirit. Right? We would say Christians would have the Holy Spirit. And so even though they believed in Christ, they didn't have the Holy Spirit. There was something that was missing. It was baptism. It was a sacrament. And so we think that that's very important is that you have to have the true sacraments. Now, an example in the modern day world is there was a video that went viral. You might have saw this guy who was getting baptized in a church and he, uh, he was ready to be baptized and the the pastor said, do you confess your sins to Christ? And he said, I am Jesus Christ. And then he said, okay, well, wait, now we have to get you out of the tub. So a proper version of one of the reasons why we do catechumen classes is because we want to make sure you know what you're getting into, right? Not joining for the wrong reasons or not joining for a reason that you're unknown of.

Those are two reasons. Also, another thing to mention is, uh, catechism classes, they, they can take a different period of time for each person. It depends on how much you know. If someone has no clue what they're doing, they're coming into the church and they don't know why, it's obviously going to take them longer. If someone knows what they're, what they're coming into, it's going to take them a lot of a shorter of a time. And so, it, it varies from person to person.

Yeah. And also when the gospel went out into the world and there was all these different heresies and all these different ideologies around the person of Christ, the church immediately, uh, extended the catechism period to be to match more what it is today, actually longer than it is today. So that, just like Nick was talking about, so that people were educated on, you know, what, you know, who is truly the person of Christ, the second person of the Trinity, you know, things of that nature, to actually give them time to, um, to be educated on these topics because there was all these different heresies that were running rampant, uh, as soon as the gospel went out into the nations.

So, is it more of a thing that was needed later? Because I'm thinking of like the Ethiopian eunuch. He's like, oh, okay, well, you, you, yeah, I believe the gospel, here's water. What, what's preventing me from being baptized? Okay, baptize him right there. It wasn't some, you need to go to the, to classes and and read all these books. So, is it just there was, there was going to be less confusion at that point and less heresy? So they didn't need to clarify as much along the way?

Well, that, that, and they literally had the apostles like walking around with them, you know, who, who are, you know, have divine revelation being revealed to them, right? So they had a unique, uh, privilege of having literally the apostles right in front of them, you know, teaching them the truth pretty much, you know, directly from God. Uh, so I would say that that's what makes the first century unique to, um, sort of the development in the church in the later centuries.

Um, then we have, "All right, everyone, get your belly aching out of the way now. Let's get this road show going." Then, "Hey, David, did you hear? The Pope says Christians need to work with Muslims to revive humanity. Not sure how Muslims could ever do that on an individual scale." If it was a Muslim who was doing something good, I'd support a Muslim doing something good, but yeah, I don't think, uh, large scale would, uh, would, uh, be very effective. No one will ever prevail against the one true church that Jesus established. You are either with it or against it. Repent and be baptized. And that's one, uh, that's an Orthodox. David will become, David will become a Christian, God willing. Interesting. Um, all right, you guys ready for this, uh, second point?

Yep. Let's do it.

Yes.

All right. Ready for your minds to be blown? I do not know what his second point is. Let's see.

Hey, look at those icons he's got in the background there. Back on, man.

Okay, so here we have. Oh, he put it on the screen. Denial of penal substitutionary atonement. Here we go.

Denial of penal substitutionary atonement. Eastern Orthodox people reject the idea that Jesus took the punishment for our sins. That's right. You didn't mishar me. The Orthodox do believe that Jesus died on the cross, but they don't believe that in doing so, Jesus took the punishment from the Father for our sins. Instead, they talk about Christ's sacrifice simply being a victory over death and corruption, but not that he bore the wrath of God. This is hugely problematic, I would say, because it's really ripping out the core of the message of the gospel because God's justice needs to be satisfied. Either we take the penalty for our own sins in hell, or Jesus can take the penalty for us on the cross. There is no option of God just not punishing if he is to remain just. Their reason for rejecting this doctrine is that they think it somehow would break the Trinity if the Father poured out his wrath on the Son. Yet the criticism isn't valid because Jesus willingly went to the cross and the Father wasn't hating the Son while on the cross. Instead, he was punishing Jesus for the sins of all who would believe. And most importantly, it's actually what the Bible teaches. Isaiah 33:10 says, "Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him. He has put him to grief." The Father crushing his own Son here to make atonement for our sins. Earlier on in that same chapter, it says, "But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed." Notice that he got what we should get. The chastisement. Some translations even have punishment here. He got the penalty for what you and I should get. This is the heart of the gospel, and tragically, the Orthodox Church rejects it. Number three.

Yeah. Uh, I, I keep getting distracted because, uh, just because interacting with the, uh, some of the, uh, some of the Ortho bros for the past couple days. I'm just thinking if they were listening to this guy, they'll be like, "What? He's not even calling people gay. He's not a real man. We can't listen to anything he says." But anyway, uh, yeah. So, so, so he, he's quoting, uh, he's quoting the prophecy in Isaiah 53 there. Um, so, yeah, what, what's your guys' view on, uh, atonement and forgiveness of sins and what Christ did? And then how, what would you think about like something like Isaiah 53?

Yeah. So, we absolutely take from Isaiah 53. We do believe that he was the man who was put on the cross for the transgression of our sins. Now, when we talk about PSA and us denying PSA, there's a difference in how we deny it. Okay? Because there's different forms of PSA. I want to be clear about that. The form that we deny is the form that is said by people such as R.C. Sproul, which says that, uh, God is the most, or Jesus was the most densely concentrated form of wrath ever existed. Okay? We don't believe that Jesus was ever a densely, for a densely concentrated form of wrath. We also don't believe the Father poured out wrath on the Son in the sense that he gave the Son all his wrath and it was the Son was the, the purest form of evil. We don't believe that because again, this would make an issue with the Trinity, even though he says it wouldn't. It does make an issue with the Trinity because, uh, even though Jesus would have agreed to go to the cross, you would have the Father, okay, who is sitting there and saying, okay, well, you're evil now. You have been put on the cross. This is now considered to be evil. I'm giving you all evil and I'm pouring out my wrath. Well, is the Father's wrath not the Son's wrath? So now I'm interested, how exactly is the Father pouring out wrath and the Son, but the Son is supposed to be the same God and have the same wrath, the same love as him? Makes a divide in the Trinity. Turns into an issue.

Yeah. And I, I would just say, like, this is one of many cases where, like, there's nothing wrong with the actual terminology. There's nothing wrong with talking about penalty. There's nothing wrong with talking about substitution. There's nothing wrong with talking about atonement. We affirm all three of those separately. Like, we believe that, you know, there was a penalty of death, particularly that Christ, that Christ took on, which was the penalty of death. That's, that's the wages of sin, right? The wages of sin is death. But, you know, what's interesting is it's clearly not one for one because, um, you know, we deserve, what we deserve is the lake of fire. We deserve eternal damnation. But that's not what Christ faced. So this is where, this is the part of PSA that we fundamentally reject as well, on top of everything that Nick just said, is, um, you'll see some of the reformers actually interpret the descent into Hades as Christ like paying the penalty. When we interpret the harrowing of Hades as him, you know, like it talks about in, in Peter, um, you know, St. Peter talks about how he, he descended and he actually preached to the souls there, um, in Hades. So, we would say that that was really a fundamental aspect of his, his descent. Um, and that wasn't, that wasn't that wasn't necessarily part of his, uh, paying of our penalty. Um, that was basically satisfied by, by virtue of death, which is the wages of sin. All right. Anything else to add on that issue?

No, I think if I was, uh, I think again, if you want to look into the PSA that we deny, uh, what I would look into is quotes by people such as Charles Spurgeon, um, and R.C. Sproul. If they want to know exactly the PSA that we deny, that is the PSA that they, those two people specifically talk about, which, once again, is, uh, saying that he's a densely concentrated form of evil, stuff like that. Of course, Christ was never a form of evil. So that's what I would look into if people want to learn more about that.

So you're rejecting a particular version of what, what he's, he's pointing out?

Yes, because we do believe that Christ is a substitute for us on the cross. There, there's no issue with that. We believe that totally. Uh, we, what we don't believe is their formulation of it.

All right. Um, so we'll jump on to the next one. Christ is risen. Great to see a good faith conversation.

What's that?

Uh, indeed he is risen. That's our response to that. Sorry.

When Orthodox say Christ is risen, we typically say truly or indeed he is risen.

Uh, great to see a good faith conversation. Shout out to my Orthodox brothers, Nick and Ben. Much love in Christ. Can we all agree Jay is bad for, uh, Eastern Orthodoxy as an inquirer?

I think Jay has brought, I think if you went into any church,

Yeah, bro. Like, literally 90% of the new converts there will say that he played a fundamental role. So, a lot of people complain about his, you know, his rants online, but you can't, you can't deny the, uh, the throughput, if you will. So, there, there would kind of be like, like me, David seems like a jerk to lots of Muslims, but also lots of Muslims have left Islam. So, not for everyone.

Whether or not he's not a jerk, like he has, he has brought a lot of people to the church.

Yeah. Well, and in, like, I will say too, even people that don't like him, who like meet him in person, they like, they start liking him after they meet him in person. So, I mean, it's, you know, one of the things about online is online sucks, you know. Um, and it's really, it's really easy to have animosity build up online. Um, but it's, it's a little bit harder when you're, when you're talking with somebody directly in person. So,

Oh, I agree. That's actually,

He's a good guy.

Yeah, that's pretty normal. There, there are lots of, there are some guys that I like get along when we're sitting down, when we're sitting across a table from each other and stuff like that. People do act differently when there's, you're not, you don't actually have the, have a human being in front of you. You're looking at a screen or something like that. Um, Dwood, you need to follow the one true clock. You're late. Uh, Christianity requires Gnostic aerial toll houses.

Uh, he actually talks about toll houses. We can get into that. Um, we can get into that later because he talks about that in one of his videos. Yeah.

Oh, okay. So, that's in here. Oh, so you guys are familiar with this video?

Oh, good.

Yeah. Good.

This video made its rounds when it first came out. It made its rounds in the Orthodox circles.

Okay. Okay. That's cool. You see, Rasul Dawood is not late. Balah has made it appear so. We are frozen in time. And when Allah got up from the muddy pool with the sun, the prophet got on stream in Mecca. This is all true. Um, I believe all denominations are unbiblical, including Orthodox. Even I'm not siding with Islam against people who believe in Jesus. Common sense, guys.

Crazy.

Bro's just a world-class hater.

Yeah.

Hates everybody. Let's see. Whenever Andrew told you, "Shut up, you sat like a dog." Powerful. Powerful.

And Avery is the opposite of a grifter. Lebaniano. Yep.

All right. So, ready for point three here?

Let's do it.

Let's do it. Faith plus works for salvation. Decree 13 of the confession of Dositheus says, "We believe a man to be not simply justified through faith alone, but through faith which works through love." That is to say, through faith and works. Faith and works. Paul literally says in Ephesians 2:9, "Not as a result of works, so that no one may boast that we're saved by, but by grace through faith." Good works are a fruit of salvation. We're saved for good works, but not by them. Romans 4:5 says, "And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness." Notice it doesn't say to the one who works and believes. It says to the one who does not work but believes. That's the one whose faith is counted as righteousness. The very next verse says the same thing. Just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works, not along with works, apart from it. So it can't be faith plus works. It must be faith, not works, that makes us right before God. An Orthodox priest, Father Spiritan, said salvation is a free gift, but we must work and repent in order to enable ourselves to receive God's grace. That is like saying this apple is a free gift from me to you, but you must work for me to get it. As soon as working is required to receive the apple, it is no longer a free gift. So if salvation is a free gift, as Romans 6:23 says it is, then that necessarily means that we don't have to work to receive God's grace. Grace means undeserved favor, anyway, undeserved kindness. As Paul says in Romans 11, "But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works. Otherwise, grace would no longer be grace." We do the good things to say thank you to God for his salvation, but not as a necessary thing to do to obtain it or keep it. Now, before James 2 pops up in the comments from someone, that's what I was thinking about. James agrees that simply believing is what made Abraham right before God. James says, "And the scripture was fulfilled that says Abraham believed God and was counted to him as righteousness, and he was called a friend of God." So on what basis was Abraham counted as righteous? Simply by believing God, trusting his promise, he was called a friend of God. So James doesn't go against faith alone salvation. He affirms it. He just makes the point that true faith will result in good works. And not everyone who claims to be someone with faith is a person with faith. Their works evidence if they are. And that faith that Abraham had made him willing to sacrifice his own son Isaac some 30 plus years later. That sacrifice wasn't making him more right before God. He already was from the moment he believed. And that's the same with us. The good works we do do not increase our right standing before God. We are already right with him the moment that we believe in what Christ has done for us. Number four.

All right, guys. So, that's a pretty, pretty common objection, um, normally against, normally from Protestants against Catholics, but faith in, faith and works. Faith and works, guys. What are your thoughts?

Yeah, so a couple things. Um, first of all, the his analogy is not very good, in my opinion. I would say a better analogy would be like if someone gifts you a car, um, like it's still, you still have to like maintain the car, but it doesn't cease to be a gift, right? Like, just because you're maintaining the car and you're take care, you're taking care of the car doesn't mean that that car ceases to be a gift. That's obviously nonsense. Um, our exegesis of Romans 3 and 4 that he was citing is that simply that St. Paul is using Abraham as a case study to demonstrate to the Jews that, hey, actually Abraham didn't even have the works of the law, and yet he was still saved. And so we would say that Romans 3 and 4 is contrasting works, uh, done in faith with, um, works of the law. As far as James 2, a lot of people sort of miss the best argument that's found within James 2. It's actually the last verse of the chapter. It's James 2:26. He says this, "For just as the body without the spirit, little s, is dead, so also faith without works is dead." So St. James is using the analogy of your body and your soul. And he's saying, in the same way that your soul gives life, it energizes your body, so also your works energize your faith. And we all experience this actually, I would say, on a, on a really a daily basis in our walk with the Lord because when we're walking in righteousness, we actually feel our, our faith strengthening. We feel closer to God. We're walking in righteousness, right? And it's because our works are actually energizing. They're strengthening our faith. And so, uh, I would say that a lot of Protestants will acknowledge that, um, that faith produces works, but that's not language found in scripture. Instead, the language found in scripture, according to this analogy from St. James, is that, um, works energize your faith. They animate your faith. Um, so that's what I would have to say about that. I don't know if Nick has anything to extrapolate.

Yeah. I mean, even from the Bible, we see multiple instances. If we go to John chapter 15, it's an amazing chapter for this. Um, he says in verse 5, "I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me and I in him bears much fruit. For without me, you can do nothing." But if anyone does not abide in me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered, and they gather them away and thrown them into the fire and they are burned. Now, who is this parable talking about? It's talking about people that are in Christ that do not endure, as Paul says. They don't continue on in the faith. And what happens? He very clearly says, if you don't stay within me, you will be thrown into hell. Also, if you read Matthew 12, uh, verse 36 to 37, it says very clearly that by your words you will be justified and condemned. Well, wait. If, if works have nothing to do with it, it's about your faith. Why? Why is your words condemning you or justifying you? It's very weird to say. Uh, also, if you read Matthew 25:31-36, uh, there were people on both sides of Jesus, and one was, both of them believed in, in Christ, and they both believed in the salvation of him. One of them went to heaven and one of them, one side didn't. And Jesus, he talks about why that is. He says, "What did you do when I was hungry? Did you feed me? What did you do when I was thirsty? Did you give me drink?" So the difference between those that went to heaven and those that didn't in that passage in Matthew is what they actually did. So again, these works are very clearly making a distinction, uh, between someone's salvation and someone's not. If you read Romans chapter 6, verse, Romans chapter 2, 6 and 7, as well, he said the reward of works is eternal life. So again, these works are not supposed to be separated. If you read St. John Chrysostom, one of the greatest fathers of our church, he speaks about faith as synergized, as Luigi said, uh, with your works themselves. He says that faith is not something that's apart from works. It is, we have what's called a working faith. A faith that continues to work. And so we can see all throughout the Bible, it's very clear that this, this is what the apostles taught.

Uh, let's see. Is this difference in Ortho and Protestant a salvation issue? From a Protestant point of view, not strictly, but from the Ortho point of view, yes, because we are not the true church. We kind of talked on that earlier.

Um, let's see. Second Cope live, second Cope live stream. David, debate Jay Dyer, Dwood. I can't tell if you're joking or not.

Hoping.

This is, this is me learning to prepare for debate. And it, I have to say, guys, uh, I, I point, I'm not talking to you guys. I'm talking about to the guys who are watching. Um, for those who insist you must go debate before studying, I already don't trust you. I don't trust because that's a DA, that's a DA guy move, right? Like they look, they look for someone who doesn't know the DA script to run their arguments, and if you know the DA script, they don't go anywhere near it. Um, if you want to debate, you, and you think that that Jay's got the knockdown case or something like that, you should be, uh, encouraging me to bring forth the best there is. Right. Okay. Well, I got to learn that stuff. I got to learn that stuff first. Uh, what are your thoughts on the new Anglican Archbishop?

Don't know anything about it. So, David is trying.

A woman.

Yeah, that's what he was.

Oh, wait, wait. In, oh, yeah. In the UK.

Archbishop of Canterbury. Yeah.

Yeah. It seems sad.

Yeah. I haven't followed that, but seems a little weird.

Yeah. A little fun fact, we actually were in talks with, uh, uh, the Anglican Church entering the community with us and like in the 1980s, and the only reason why they didn't is because they demanded that they, that they could have, uh, female bishops. That's, that's what they just like refused to bend the knee on female bishops for some reason.

David is trying to trick his audience to walk the Orthog Garden path, huh? Yeah. Look at that. Dwood, we would, uh, have having an Orthodox guys on to break things down. Uh, Nordine said, "I asked you yesterday about the Saitama image because I thought you put it there because it illustrates the sinful nature of men. So I asked you to be sure." No, that is not the point of, uh, Saitama. Nick, Nick, Jay's position when he corrected you after your debate with Jake was that you should affirm the eternality of Theophanes, fire, pigeon, etc. Why? Well, when me and Jay talk, I mean, Jay already said that I was correct on what I said. He was just expanding on it. Uh, and it wasn't about the eternality of Theophanes. It was about the uncreatedness of Theophanes. So,

Um, there we have, uh, I always thought Nick was a Roman Catholic.

He sounds pretty, he sounds, wow, for that. Do I got to be more vocal?

You just come across as Roman Catholic to people, man. This is what I get for trying my best to not do as many interfaith discussions. Leave it to the other guys, man. I guess I got you now or something.

No, you have to be constantly debating the Roman Catholics or you're a grifter.

Yes, I will.

David, please continue to learn about Eastern Orthodoxy from actual Eastern Orthodox people, not low tier slop. Wait, who are you calling low tier slop? Are you talking about?

I hope nobody's not talking about these guys. They sound pretty knowledgeable.

Yeah.

Uh, let's see. I don't know if, I don't know if someone made that like, uh, like before they were watching or something like that. Jim Bob, Jim Bob made a reaction video about you and the debate. I commented, he replied, and I commented back telling him about your reaction and this stream. I'm not familiar with Jim Bob. Uh, as a Mexican, as a Mexican Protestant, I'm so excited to learn about Orthodox theology. It seems so easy to find info about Catholicism, but not so much about this. Vamos.

Yeah. Yeah. A lot of people don't know about Orthodoxy because like, like four or five years ago, it hasn't, hasn't had a very big presence in America compared to like Protestantism and,

Well, a lot of that was because Orthodoxy for a very long time was under the oppression of the Ottoman Empire. And so because of that, didn't get to spread like Catholicism had got to spread. And so then when we finally moved to America and some of the other countries, a lot of the issues that we were having is they, they wanted to come and bring their traditions here, but they didn't want to, you know, kind of like bend the knee and speak English in some of the churches. So in some of the churches they brought here, they were only speaking their ethnic language. And so nobody would come to the church because they're like, "Okay, you don't even speak English. Why would I come? I can't listen to it." And so now, you know, as of like, you know, a few decades ago, now the churches are really finally starting to, uh, start like, you know, making their services in English and do all this so that everyone can come and, uh, be welcome there and listen and understand everything.

And one more. Let's see. The characterization made about JP's channel as only trashing EO is idiotic. He covers a lot of other topics. He has only talked about Eastern Orthodoxy lately, covering Jay, who has gone psycho. I'm guessing you're just being like hyperbolic or something like that when you say.

Yeah. Yeah. The, the point is that pretty much the last couple weeks and when the raid happened, like that's what his channel has been pretty much dedicated to is is content around Orthodoxy. So whether or not it was something other than that beforehand, I'm just talking about in recent history.

Yeah. I mean, is, I, I had my first interaction with him like two days ago and then he made a weird live about me. I was like, all I did was ask him for a debate. I was like, okay, sure.

And here we have the Protestant Orthodox Alliance. Can't be stopped. That's right.

All right, you guys. Ready for point number four?

How's it doing?

Yes.

All right.

Unbiblical beliefs about Mary.

This is another big one for lots of Protestants.

Orthodoxy believes four things about Mary which are foreign to the pages of scripture. Firstly, they believe that she lived her entire life completely free of sin. Even though Paul says, "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." And Mary described herself as rejoicing in God her savior. Only sinners need a savior. Secondly, they believe that she was an ever virgin for her whole life despite being married to Joseph. The scripture says that Joseph knew her not until she had given birth to a son and he called his name Jesus, until which implies that afterwards Joseph knew his wife like Adam knew Eve and conceived a son. Thirdly, they believe that her body was assumed up into heaven just like Elijah in the Old Testament, but without any scriptural support saying that that happened. And fourthly, they also give her titles like Queen of Heaven, All Holy, Mediatrix, the World's Salvation, elevating her status, I would say, far beyond what is biblically warranted. And this focus on Mary has led to unbiblical practices such as the frequent recitation of prayers directed to her and hymns sung to her during the Orthodox liturgy, singing praises to her. For example, one of the most common Orthodox hymns sung about Mary is called the Athist Hymn. Here are some of the lines. "Rejoice, O Bride unwed, the world's salvation. Rejoice, deliverer from the mire of sin." And they're speaking about Mary here, by the way. "For while never experiencing marriage, you held, oh virgin, the God of all in your womb and gave birth to an eternal Son who grants salvation to all who chant hymns of praise to you." What salvation by singing hymns of praise to Mary? He goes on, "Most Holy Theotokos, save us. Rejoice, Bride of God, all blameless maiden who saved the world from the flood of sin." Uh, no, she didn't. Jesus did. "Rejoice, tabernacle of God, the Logos. Rejoice, holy one, holier than the holies. Rejoice, key to the doors of paradise. You are the only hope of the hopeless." No, Jesus is not Mary. "Rejoice, the gate of salvation. You all laudable Mother who gave birth to the Logos, the holiest of all who are holy. While accepting this offering now, deliver everyone from all calamities and deliver from future punishment those who cry out." Wow. No, friends, Jesus saves us from the punishment, not Mary. She's not the hope of the hopeless. She's not the deliverer from the mire of sin. She's not the world's salvation. Jesus is. The fact that this hymn is a regular part of the Orthodox Church liturgy should be enough reason for anyone to not want to join the Orthodox Church. I respect Mary. She had a very special role. But these things about her in these hymns in the Orthodox Church elevate her at a status that the Bible never gives her and therefore robs glory from God. The entire church service should be focused on the Triune God with no songs or hymns sung to anyone but God. Number five.

All right, that's a that's a pretty big one there.

Yeah. Back.

I'll touch on a couple and then I'll let Ben touch on the other couple. Uh, so firstly, the hymns was because we believe we're saved through her. What does that mean? It just means that God incarnated through Mary, right? Mary was the person who Christ chose to come through. Okay. Um, also he, he said that we believe that Mary ascended to heaven like Elijah. Well, that's just not true. He hasn't looked into Eastern Orthodox theology. Then we believe in the Dormition, which we believe that she died and then her body was assumed. So it was not like Elijah. Elijah did not die. Okay. Mary, we believe did die. Okay. She was a human. She did, in fact, die. And then he.

harps on. Oh well, you know, he's, she's called the Queen of Heaven. How, how dare you call her the Queen of Heaven? That's terrible.

Okay. Well, this is not understanding cultural context. In ancient cultures, people were called the queen if they were the mother of the king. Okay. Well, who's the mother of our, our King Christ? It's Mary. So, given that, she is of course the Queen of Heaven. It's just a, it's just a title that's given to someone that's a mother. There's no problem with it at all.

Yeah. A couple things, uh, to add onto that. So, first of all, as far as the prayers, um, you know, prayer, these prayers are, are often hyperbolic. So, for example, like I could be like, uh, I love my wife more than anything in the world. And I could say that, and people aren't going to think that I'm making an idol out of my wife. And so, there's, there's things that we can say that are clearly hyperbole. And I would say a lot of the prayers, um, to the Theotokos and to other saints as well, um, are hyperbolic. Like, nobody is saying, like, if we say something like, you know, she, you know, is the savior of the world, for example, that's through, that's because of Christ. It's because of the power of Christ. And we, we call, uh, Mary Theotokos, which means, um, Godbearer. And what's interesting about Godbearer, that term, is that the cross also is actually a type of Theotokos. It's a type of a Godbearer. And yet, Protestants seem to have no problem giving veneration to the cross. There's all kinds of worship songs that talk about, you know, bowing, you know, to thy cross and things of that nature. And so, it seems like Protestants have no problem, uh, you know, when it comes to the cross, which is also a Godbearer, just like Mary is. But when it comes to, you know, the, the, the woman who was chosen to literally give birth to God, I mean, it's a biblical concept that she's the mother of God because it's found in Luke, uh, 1:43. Um, Luke 1:42 through 1:43 says, "And she cried out with a loud voice and said, blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And how is it happened to me that the mother of my Lord would come to me." Um, and you also see like, you know, high veneration, high praise of Mary in this passage. Uh, it says this, and Mary said, "My soul exalts the Lord. My spirit has rejoiced in God my savior. For he has regard, he has regard for the humble state of his bondslave. For behold, from this time all generations will call me blessed." So, she says, all generations will call me blessed, for the mighty one has done great things for me, and holy is his name. So, we in no way are taking away from the glory of God in our veneration of Mary, just as if you were to venerate the cross, you aren't taking away from the glory of God.

Finally, um, as far as veneration of Mary and her intercessory prayer and how powerful it is, if you look at the wedding at Cana, and if you just read the plain reading of the text, I mean, Jesus, when presented with, I mean, uh, being asked, being requested to do this miracle, to change water into wine, he says, "Woman, why are you asking me? Now is not my time." But because of her request, if you read the plain reading of the text, because of her request, her intercession, he, he does go through with the miracle. And a lot of people misinterpret. They're like, "Oh, why didn't he call her his mother?" Well, woman is actually, there's actually typology here to her being the new Eve. So, just as, um, Adam, you had Adam, and then Christ is the new Adam. Uh, you had Eve, and then Mary is the new Eve. So, uh, and there's actually typology found in that verse there. So, um, so, yeah, that's basically, uh, basically a rundown on on the issue of Theotokos.

Now, um, for someone who, you know, yeah, you, you obviously have, you know, the passage, um, the annunciation and in Luke and so on. But for, for lots of people, it's like, um, it's along the lines of, I'm talking about like for me, but I'm, I'm just assuming lots of people have the similar reaction when they hear, you know, like these, these, uh, the lyrics of the hymns that are being, uh, sung and so on. But, you know, when we read like the Gospels, uh, let, let me, let me just give you two, two passages real quick, and then you guys can, can comment. Um, but, uh, so here in, um, in Luke 11, while Jesus, so Luke 11:27, while Jesus was saying these things, one of the women in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, "Blessed is the womb that carried you and the breasts at which you nursed." So, talking about, blessed is the mother who bore you. Blessed is the womb that carried you and the breasts at which you nursed. But he said, "On the contrary, blessed are those who hear the word of God and follow it." And then another passage, um, that would, would pop up into people's minds here. So, this from Mark 3. Then his mother and his brothers came, and while they were standing outside, they sent word to him, calling for him. And a crowd was sitting around him. And they said to him, "Behold, your mother and your brothers are outside looking for you." Answering them, he said, "Who are my mother and my brothers?" And looking around at those who are sitting around him, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of God, this is my brother and sister and mother." And so, it's basically, you know, we hear about the, the veneration of Mary in both the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church. And we're looking at the Bible and going, I mean, these were perfect opportunities to show that level of veneration. And it seems like Jesus was kind of downplaying more. Um, and so, what, what are you guys' thoughts on that kind of issue? I'm just saying that because I'm, I'm assuming lots of people are thinking along the same lines as me.

Well, you notice anytime that he quote unquote denies these things, I don't think they're denials. He's using it for a theological teaching. He's using it for a greater purpose.

Um, and so, I, I don't think that he, like, for in the example you gave about, uh, the, he says, "Oh, you are all my, my mothers and brothers." Well, he didn't deny that Mary's mother. It would be the same thing like when the Muslims always try to bring up Mark when they come to Jesus and say, "Call him good teacher." and he says, "Why do you call me good?" Well, he's not denying being good. He's questioning it for a greater theological purpose. And so, it's going to be the same thing here with Mary, where he's not denying these things, but he's using it for a greater theological purpose to explain to the people things that they need to know.

Um, oh, go ahead.

Well, I was just going to say, um, we don't want to pit, like Luke 1 against these passages, right? And so, we already know from Luke 1, you know, that she is blessed. You know, she said, you know, she'll be called all generations. Every Christian would agree.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So, so the point is that, um, when Jesus is talking about this, he's just making, I think he, I would argue as well, that he's really preparing, you know, people for this message that, uh, the gospel, it's no longer, like St. Paul ends up explaining in Galatians 3, right? That it's not about, uh, flesh and blood. It's actually about, uh, you know, Abraham's one descendant, which is Christ, right? And so, I would say that he's sort of preparing the way for this message, um, to his audience, which is mostly Jews, that, hey, it's, it's the, the, the purpose, right, the purpose, the, the chosen people, um, are going to be no longer based on blood, but based on those who are the true servants of, of Yahweh. And so, I would say that those, those passages are, are primarily theological, um, uh, in that, in that respect.

Uh, just, just one more follow-up. I don't know if I, I don't know if I missed it, but, um, is, is Mary, do you believe Mary was sinless?

Yes.

So, we believe, yeah. So, we believe that she was free of personal sin, but that she would have had ancestral sin, which means that she had the inclination to sin, but did not personally sin. This was because she was the new ark, and she literally had God inside of her in a different way than anyone could ever have. It's like literally bearing him. And a lot of people, a lot of people like to say, "Oh, that, that would make her divine." But, um, the, the response to that would be, "Well, what about angels that are, you know, um, who are righteous, you know, who are sinless?" You know, seems like Protestants have no problem saying that angels can be sinless, even though they have free will. So, what's the problem with saying that, you know, certain human beings can also be blessed with that grace?

So, um, as far as, as far as human beings are concerned, uh, when we read, "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," you would say that, um, Jesus is obviously excluded, and then Mary, is anyone else, or is it, are those the only two non-human, I mean, non-sinners in humanity?

Yeah. So, I mean,

I was going to say that'd be the one too, but, yeah. Yeah. Go ahead.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, yeah, we would say that our, our, our exegesis of that verse, like you, like you just pointed out, is like, look, like, if you, if you take it to its literal meaning, like it would mean that also Christ sinned, which is obviously false. Um, and so, yeah. Yeah. We would say, uh, in its, in the formal sense, uh, as far as formal teaching, only Mary has that, that, uh, that teaching on top of, of Christ. Yes.

All right. Couple questions here. Arthur, bro, pride is under judgment. Constantinople is Istanbul. Hagia Sophia is a mosque. They were enslaved. Their patriarchs chosen by the sultans. They should have humility instead of pride. So, I guess this is saying that, um, you guys falling, I mean, Orthodox, so much of the Orthodox Church falling to Islam was because you guys were under judgment. I, I've never, I've never thought about that. You guys have any response?

Yeah, this is, this is a common, uh, yeah, this is a common, common thing we hear from Roman Catholics. It's actually ironic because, uh, Florence actually fell, excuse me, uh, Constantinople actually fell right after the patriarch of Constantinople entered into a false union with Rome at Florence. So, it's actually ironic. We would actually agree that it was a judgment against the city, but it was a judgment for entering into a false union with Rome. Um, we would also say that there were many times that, uh, Rome itself fell. For example, there was an entire century, uh, called the Avignon Papacy, where the entire papacy was brought, uh, to Avignon, France. Um, and so, someone could make that same argument in that context. Usually, these arguments come from Roman Catholics. That's why I'm addressing the Roman Catholics in this. Um, and then also, I would say that there, that, you know, temporal, I would say that temporal, um, chastisement can be a form of judgment, certainly. Um, and I would also agree that that is in the context of the Latin language, in which many, many Roman Catholic theologians have said has an inherent grace to it, and yet it has completely died out. It used to be, you know, the most common, uh, tongue internationally, and now it's completely died out as a language other than being spoken in, uh, in their churches, and even that's very rare. So, that's temporal chastisement right there. But no one seems to want to say that that means that they're a false church. And then even though Nordine here, even though it's fiction, Saitama's smile illustrates demonic mind manipulation. Come on, you're reading too much into a, a little picture of a, of a cartoon. For Orthodox, it seems Jesus and the resurrection mean nothing without their, uh, church. It's all about the institution over the incarnation.

Well, the thing is, uh, no, that of course that's not the case. We believe Jesus' resurrection mean everything. The point is, without the church, you don't even know about Jesus and his resurrection. That's the point. Without the church, how do you know whether to take the Gospel of John as scripture or the Gospel of Thomas? How do we decide which? How do we decipher what is the actual correct canon? So, the church is the one that decided that. The reason you have the Bible, you have the reason why you have the four Gospels and not five Gospels and not three Gospels, because guess what? The church decided it. So, you're taking something the church decided, but you're rejecting other things. It's arbitrary.

Then we have greater Israel is a baseless hoax. And Romans 11.

Romans 11 talks about God having plans for Israel. That that would be kind of a separate, separate discussion, guys, because that's, uh, that would be more to unpack here.

Sorry, I do have one last point I forgot to make on this topic of Mary as well. Um, before we move on, um, the, as well, the, there's something called the Protoevangelium of James, um, which is a very early, uh, very early text that literally lays out the life of Mary. And in there, it talks about things like her perpetual virginity, um, and it talks about her life in the temple and things of that nature. So, it's not like we're just pulling this out of our rear end. This is actually a very, very early, uh, part of church tradition. In fact, it was in, uh, the, the same traditions found in the Protoevangelium of James that talk about these doctrines, um, was actually used for very, very early divine liturgy, the worship service, uh, in the first and second centuries. So, this isn't just type of stuff that we're just pulling out of our rear end. It actually is found very early in church tradition, tradition.

And then we have there are no sects in the New Testament and got some passages there. No titles or succession. Uh, what are your thoughts on that?

Well, that's not really true because we have different churches in Revelation whom God speaks to.

And so, some churches are doing things that are wrong that other churches are not. So, there was definitely quote unquote sects in the way that like there's a difference between the, between the, the false and the true church. Um, but, yeah, obviously there's not as many as there are today because there was typically seen as one big church or one centralized church. That's why it was called the Orthodox Catholic Church. They were just one church.

And then we have, uh, from, from the guy who started all of this in motion recently, JP, who says, "So, if you study it and don't accept it, you're not a Christian."

Well, yeah. If you, if you, if you study, if you actually know about the Orthodox Church and you reject it, that's an issue. So, this is the same thing like if someone is ignorant of Christ, doesn't know who he is, obviously it's going to be counted differently than someone who actually knows about Christ and rejects him.

And one more, much respect, David, for hosting a discussion to learn about the faith, even before you even understand it. You give this title. Nonetheless, this is good. All right, you guys ready for, uh, number five here?

Yes, sir.

Yes, sir.

All right. Here we go.

Rules or practices that contradict the Bible. So, let me give you two examples where Orthodox tradition goes against scripture. In the Orthodox Church, they allow priests to marry, but they forbid marriage for bishops, which contradicts apostolic teaching. Paul explicitly states that a bishop should be the husband of one wife, showing that bishops are clearly allowed to get married. Even Peter was married. The scripture speaks about Peter's mother-in-law. And when Jesus entered Peter's house, he saw his mother-in-law lying sick with a fever. Peter was married. Paul describes how he's even allowed to get married if he would like to. "Do we not have the right to take along a believing wife, as do the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas?" There's no forbidding of marriage in the Bible for any role, apostle, bishop, elder. In 1 Timothy, Paul goes on to talk about how some people in the last days will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons. Now, what are these teachings of demons that he's talking about? Well, an example of it is in verse three when he says, "These people forbid marriage." So, to forbid marriage for a certain class of person, such as bishops, according to Paul, would be a doctrine of demons. Another example of a rule or practice the Orthodox Church has is that they insist that a person must not eat or drink anything from the time that he goes to sleep the night before he plans to take part in the Eucharist. Now, that's not something the Bible says. So, if your church service is at 11:00 on Sunday morning, you can't eat anything or drink anything for breakfast or through the night. You must abstain from it all. But that's not something the Bible says. Instead, in 1 Corinthians 11, Paul, when he's giving instructions about the Lord's Supper, he actually says, "If anyone is hungry, let him eat at home, so that when you come together, it will not be for judgment." Because some in the Corinthian church were seeing the Lord's Supper as just a regular meal. Some were eating all the bread. Others were even getting drunk off the wine. So, eating at home before the Eucharist is what Paul instructs, rather than fasting since the night before, so that you aren't hungry when you partake in it. And so you can focus on what the bread and the cup represent: Christ's body broken and blood poured out for us. These two examples undermine Orthodoxy's claim to faithfully preserve apostolic teaching by teaching traditions that are contrary to it.

All right. So, two kind of issues there. Um, the Eucharist and fasting before it, when Paul says, "Better to, uh, eat at home so you're not, uh, gobbling, you know, gobbling things up too fast."

Um, and the, uh, and the marriage issue. Yeah. If you could, if you guys could break down like, like what you believe on the, uh, on the, on the marriage and issue and stuff like that.

Yeah, I'll let, uh, I'll let Ben do that. I did want to mention one thing though about the, the verse he gave where it says, uh, they forbid to marry and commanding to abstain certain food. So, he's saying, okay, well, he's making a conflation here where he's saying, okay, well, since they are forbidding to marry for certain people, um, well, that means that they're doing a doctrine of demons. So, he's conflating anybody that does this with who he's talking about. So, it also means if you, if you, if you're a personal trainer and you command your client to abstain from certain foods, you also must be following a doctrine of demons. But that would be a conflation. Obviously, he's not talking about that. Obviously, he's talking about a specific group of people here. Okay? And again, to say this, the church is crazy. We can go into why. Um, but it's a conflation to say because you do one of these things, you're acquainted with one of them, then by definition, you're who he's talking about. That just is nonsense.

Yeah. And then, uh, another, uh, aspect of that too, is so we would say that the church operates in, in, in dispensations in regards to ecclesiology. And what I mean by this is, uh, another example outside of the marriage issue is that of the office of the patriarch. So, once the, once the church, you know, began to reach the nations, um, we, we have these other offices such as like archbishop and patriarch that were granted as sort of a particular dispensations to resolve, um, again, the, the growth of the church. And so, even though there was a dispensation in the first century for a bishop to be able to marry, as the church grew, and this was, this was true for the case of, of, of a while until, until the church determined that the office of bishop, um, because of, of its demand, um, was something that had to be done, um, with celibacy. Now, uh, we've always permitted, uh, that priests are allowed to be married if they wed, uh, prior to their ordination as priests. So, that's something that makes us different than, um, the Roman Catholics on that front. Um, and then as far as the Eucharist, I mean, I think it's very clear that St. Paul here is being, um, hyperbolic and saying, "Hey, if you want to treat it like a meal, then you should just eat before you come." Um, you know, he's saying that that basically they are, they are, they are treating this, um, you know, very carnally. Um, and so I think that that's hyperbole being used there. I mean, the, the tradition of, of fasting before the Eucharist, uh, is very, very ancient. Um, and so I definitely don't think that that counters with, uh, with the early church practices, what St. Paul is saying there.

All right. Anything else on that one?

Good.

All right. Uh, salvation through holy orthodoxy, idolizing an institution above Christ. I think you would say.

Christ says it is an institution in Matthew 18. So.

Um, how do Mormons believe the New Testament doctrines? Uh, yeah, we'll save that for a different disc unless you guys wanted to say something real quick.

They, he's referring to what I said earlier. I know.

Um, and yeah, the entire point was just that they say they do, right? So.

Here we have the gospel is the source of salvation according to Romans 1:16-17. The Orthobros don't know the gospel, especially the new ones, according to Father.

Don't ask me. I'm terrible at pronouncing Orthodox names.

Terrible.

Yeah, I don't know who he's referring to there. So.

Can we all pause and pray for the Lord's guidance and peace on this conversation? Let him guide us to, let him guide us all to giving him the glory. I'm sure plenty of people are praying along the way. Replacement theology is satanic and God, Jesus are Zionist. Jesus is literally returning to Israel at the second coming and Israel will have its, uh, full borders. Again, that all that will have to wait for some future discussion on, on this topic.

A lot to unpack there, man.

Hey, another quote from Gavin Ortland. So, "Today, when Orthodoxy is framed as merely the fullness of the church, we should recognize this as an innovation."

Yeah. So, I mean, I would say a couple things to this. Um, first of all, with the schisms, uh, you know, there's, there's, there's new territory that the church is having to address. You know, like Protestants, for example, are like a unique category, right, um, of these people who are like, you know, they profess to know the, the Trinity, right, um, but they didn't have like a formal schism from the church. And so, like, there's certain things that are like new to the church. And so, of course, that means there's going to be, you know, new, potentially new terminology. That doesn't mean development of any sort of doctrine, it just means that the terminology becomes more precise as, uh, new things develop in the external world.

And we have 1 Timothy 2:5, "For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus."

Um, I don't know. I don't know if that was, yeah. I don't know if that was a response to like the church or to, or to.

Reference to intercession. So, I hope that he doesn't ask his friends to pray for him then.

Yeah. Or the Holy Spirit. Like, if by this definition, the Holy Spirit isn't a mediator. It's just obviously ridiculous.

Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, hey, it's JP Uncut again. Uh, he says, "These guys view Protestants a few points below Mormons." Yikes. We are diet Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses to them. We might be saved, we might not. Are we, are we, are we, did you even say we're saved? So, that's.

How does he feel about us, JP? Are we saved?

Yeah. Let us know, man.

Here's what he thinks.

Yeah. Yeah. JP, are, are they diet Mormons?

Hey, man. What are we?

He's saying it's bad that we call you that. I hope you ain't calling us that. I, I heard him say we're a cancerous. I don't know.

All right. We, uh, hey, there's the toll houses. I see it. Toll House. I don't even know. I have, I have absolutely no clue. When you guys say Toll House, I was, I thought like, I think like cookies, right? Toll House cookies back in the day. Um.

I presume he's going to give a very bad view of what toll houses is, if I remember correctly.

So, that's what it's actually something's actually called toll houses.

Yeah, it's, uh, it's about what happens after we die. So, did that, is that, did that get named after the cookies or the cookies named it after?

I think the cookies might have got named after it, man.

Yeah, I think it might have been. Yeah.

Okay.

Not quite a chicken egg. Not, not quite a chicken and an egg scenario here.

All right.

All right. Here we go. Toll houses, everyone. Number seven, cookies.

Houses after you die. This is a concept that many Orthodox people accept. And it's this concept that after death, believers will go through toll houses, which are spiritual checkpoints in the air where the soul is confronted by demons and angels. At each toll house, the soul is tested for specific sins it committed during its earthly life, such as pride or greed, slander, or lust. The demons would then accuse the soul of its sins, while the angels advocate for the soul, presenting evidence of repentance, virtues, and good works, weighing up good versus bad deeds. This concept of a post-death trial by demons and angels is completely absent from the pages of the Old and New Testaments. The Bible teaches us that believers are immediately with the Lord upon death. And the idea of toll houses introduces fear and uncertainty, really contradicting the assurance of salvation we have in Christ. Orthodox fathers also teach that the prayers and good works of relatives here on this earth can actually benefit those in the afterlife, potentially even releasing them from punishment for their sin. The souls of those involved in mortal sins depart into Hades, and there endure the punishment due to the sins that they have committed. But they are aware of their future release from there and are delivered by the supreme goodness through the prayers of the priests and the good works which the relatives of each do for their departed, especially the unbloody sacrifice benefiting the most. That's the Eucharist, which each offers particularly for his relatives that have fallen asleep. It is understood that we do not know the time of their release. We know and believe that there is deliverance for such from their direful condition and that before the resurrection and judgment, but when we know not. This is clearly something contrary to scripture. In the story of Lazarus and the rich man, Jesus speaks about the rich man in Hades who was in torment and wanted Lazarus to come to him and cool his tongue there. But Abraham said to him, "And besides all this, between us and you, a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able and none may cross from there to us." See that? None may cross from being in that torment to being with the people of God. This shows the permanent nature of it all. But those who end up in punishment, they're there forever. It's too late for them. Your deeds now cannot affect those who have departed from this world.

I have to say all of that was, I mean, not the, not the story of, uh, you know, the rich man, Lazarus, but, um, all, all the rest of that was completely new to me. I, I'd heard about, you know, I knew about icons and, and some of the other issues, but that was completely new. So, what's, what do you guys think about that one?

Yeah. So, I can take this one. So, a couple things. Uh, first of all, there's a sense in which we understand the toll houses to be allegory. We don't, we don't believe this is like, uh, something that, like, we know the specifics of. Like, we have saints that do that who talk about it, usually in an allegorical sense. Um, but what we do know for a fact is that your soul will undergo, uh, testing, um, after you die. Um, and, you know, we would reference, like, one of the passages that we, that we read during our funeral service is, is Psalm 91, where it talks about, you know, that he shall give the angels charge over you. Um, because we believe that the angels are actually going to be advocates for you during this time of testing. Um, and then also, this is rooted in, there are second temple, uh, Jewish, um, traditions here. This is grounded in, in St. Justin Martyr and then St. Cyril of Alexandria are two saints that, uh, extrapolate upon that second temple Jewish practices. So, we would say, um, this is, there, there are aspects of this that are found, uh, the idea is found in scripture, but we would say that, uh, primarily in oral tradition that comes from the second temple, uh, period, and then into very, very early church fathers, like St. Justin Martyr, and then St. Cyril of Alexandria.

That's great. I like.

You good with that, Nick?

Yeah, I mean, I think the only other thing I would add on is when he talked about the bringing up the rich man of Lazarus. So, we don't believe people pass over from Hades to Abraham's bosom. But, yeah, we don't deny Hades. Yeah.

No, no, no. But we believe our, our prayers could obviously help them for judgment day because nobody's been judged yet. But, yeah, no, nobody's going from Hades to Abraham's. That's a strong straw man of what we believe.

All right. We have, uh, David, please read Rock and Sand by Father Josiah. You guys familiar with that one?

Yes.

Yeah, that's the one I mentioned earlier. It's a good book.

How long is that?

I mean, it's like, uh, probably like, what, maybe around 200 pages or so?

Okay.

I think it's more than that.

More than that. It's pretty long. Yeah. It's, it's, it's all about Orthodoxy and Protestant polemics. A bio-Orthodox priest.

Yeah. Yeah. It's dedicated to. Yep.

Okay. Okay.

Yeah. It's 300 pages.

Okay. I was close.

Yeah.

That's about the max range of a book that I would, uh.

A lot of times when I read, I just, I go through and I'll read like the table of contents and read specific chapters that I found pertinent.

You got to do, you got to do the audiobooks, man. You got to do the audiobooks. If you see, if you guys had said 60 pages, I'd be like, I'm on it. I'm on it right now. If you said 120, I'd be like, "Okay, okay, I'm going to do it." Right.

Read on the Incarnation of Athanasius. That one's pretty close to 60 pages. So.

Um, hey, look at this. Is dude on the right a groper? It gives off the vibe. That's, uh.

He's definitely Luigi was on the right.

But hey, that that's just like when.

They said, "Uh, hey, we thought we thought, uh, we thought Nick was Catholic, man."

"That's great."

Quentes has me blocked on Twitter. That's all you need to know.

There you go. So, David should, hey, I actually thought about this while you guys are talking about it. Uh, so David shouldn't study Eastern Orthodoxy because if he does, then he won't be a Christian if he rejects it. So, David must be ignorant to be saved or accept orthodoxy.

"It's too late for you. You've already started, so it's too late now."

No, that's like saying that's like saying that someone on a on a we shouldn't. This is an atheist argument literally to say, "Okay, well, someone on a..."

"Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Someone on an island, should we not talk about Christ?" No, we have to. Who were commanded to them.

"Yeah. So guys, that would be that. Yeah. For everyone that the parallel there would be you you would have lots of people who say, 'Okay, you've never heard the gospel and so on. God's going to judge you based on kind of what you knew, like did you, you know, even did you understand you're a sinner and you you know, you you you need forgiveness or something like that, maybe he judges you by a different standard than if you you know, you actually had the gospel clearly preached to you. So, wouldn't it then be dangerous to go preaching the gospel to people because then then they're really in then they're really in trouble if they reject it?'"

"Yeah."

"Um, let's see. Isn't the isn't this the exact type of legalism that Christ abhored?"

"No. No, not at all. He he talked about the legalism of specifically making uh like Old Testament traditions into like laws uh and like replacing the laws with them. Uh, this is not Jesus clearly put in an institution of a church and the apostles very clearly said that the church is the pillar and ground of all truth and so if the church is the pillar and ground of all truth, we had better adhere to it."

"Yeah. Yeah. And Christ himself still held to uh oral traditions. An example of this is the seat of Moses that he references that's found nowhere um in the Old Testament. It was established during the time of of Ezra with the uh synagogues. So Jesus himself still held to held to traditions. And um, he actually when he talks about how the Pharisees are abiding by the, you know, the law such as like fasting, but they're neglecting the greater parts of the law such as charity and compassion. He actually says that they should have done the latter without rejecting the former. So he doesn't reject the necessity of these type of things like fasting. He just says, 'Hey, there's no point in fasting if you're just going to be mean to your neighbor.' That's basically what he's saying."

"Well, hey, we got a where is it? Someone said Ryan, Ryan is in the chat from Needs God. That's interesting."

"I don't see him, but someone said he's there. Oh, yeah. See, it's Ryan."

"Comment saying he is."

"Hey. Yeah. So, Haggio Mindset says, 'David.' Ryan is in the chat. Hey, Ryan. We come have a talk sometime, Ryan. We're uh we're we're all we're all we're all studying this."

"We'd love to have a I would love to debate him on Solos Scriptura on a neutral platform."

"Oh, yeah. That's that's actually that's actually what I was thinking cuz there's there's so many there's so many topics here that like if you wanted to actually do, you know, do a serious debate on, you kind of have to like focus on like one issue and have a have a..."

"...have a good debate on that. So uh so Ryan..."

"If he's in the chat, if he's in the chat, I will debate him. I will debate him on Solos Scriptura on a neutral platform. I would debate it right here on David's channel if he wants to have us on. Hey Ryan, uh he um uh Ben's ready to debate Solos Scriptura if you want and he just said he'd do it on this platform. I'd be happy to do it and I would be totally totally neutral on that."

"He said Ryan is on live stream but happy to come chat. Send the link. I think he's saying that he's on he's on his own live stream right now and it's maybe like someone that's..."

"I don't know what he I don't know."

"Yeah, we wouldn't have time to do it now. We wouldn't have time to to to have Ryan jump in now, but uh because we we're but we are we are going through all of Ryan's points here. So, we're getting an overview of his issues with Eastern Orthodoxy. But yes, Ryan, if you want to uh if you want to um jump on in the future, um send me a message and uh I'd be happy I'd be happy to set it up and I'd be interested in uh in the arguments."

"Yeah. Yeah. And if you want to debate, Ben, uh, feel free to just, uh, you can either DM me or my email is in my bio, my YouTube, Fearless Truth, and we can get that set up."

"Much respect, David, for speaking with Orthodoxy directly rather than from a silo. If Christ is truth himself, not merely a list of doctrines, then what Protestants reject dog then when Protestants reject dogmas tied to his person and church, in what sense are we confessing the same Christ? And one more. Salvation is through the cross and the blood of Jesus Christ, God in human form, not through any organization. That's the gospel, folks. Salvation through a group is the same heresy as Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, etc."

"Except the church is the body of Christ. So yes, salvation is through Christ."

"Will not prevail against, by the way."

"All right, we ready for number eight here?"

"No."

"All right, here we go."

"No assurance of salvation. Eastern Orthodoxy teaches that no one can be absolutely certain of their salvation."

"Yeah. The Protestant um is is looking if you died right now. Well, I think yes. I hope that if I died right now, if I dropped dead right now that I would inherit the kingdom of heaven. That's my hope. We have to live knowing that our salvation is not a guaranteed story. Are you saved? is the question we receive. The answer is I hope so. And yet the biblical gospel says that we can be. It says in first John, I write these things to you who believe in the name of the son of God that you may know that you have eternal life. God wants us to know that we have it. The reason why Orthodox people say they cannot be 100% sure is because what they're resting upon for their salvation is not simply the finished work of Jesus on the cross, but it's also their obedience. They see baptism as a requirement for salvation. Taking the eukarist gets more forgiveness of sins. Confession to a priest, fasting, praying, and other works like that. Orthodox Archbishop Satius said this, 'The initiative and effort of Christ is not enough. Man must cooperate as well.' That's not biblical. Christ did enough. Did he only do 90% of what was needed to get you to heaven or did he do 100%? And if he did 100%, how much is left for us to have to do to get to heaven? Must be nothing. We just believe his promise and be we benefit from it. Think of it this way. If God was to make a promise to you, how certain could you be that it would happen? Clearly 100%. To say anything less would be to call God a liar or unreliable. And that's what he's promised. Jesus said, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life.' Let's say my wife said to me, 'Dinner will be ready at 6 p.m.' And I said, 'I'm not really sure it will be.' That's basically to tell her, 'I don't think you're reliable.' And people can be unreliable, but Jesus can't be. So to say that I can't be 100% sure I'm going to heaven, even though he's promised it to those who believe, is to really say that you don't believe in him, you don't trust him. is to call him unreliable because salvation is a promise that God makes to you. It's not a promise that you make to him. This is an important distinction. There's only one side making the promise here and it's God. We aren't promising to be obedient enough as a condition for salvation. Although obedience will be a result, instead he's promising, 'I've laid my life down for you and I will take you safely to my heavenly kingdom if you would trust that I've done it for you.' So, do you trust? Do you trust that you will not perish but you shall have eternal life? Trust him and you can be sure of your salvation. Number nine."

"So this uh this is uh connected connected to the issue of uh faith and works. But uh how do you guys respond to all this?"

"Well, first of all, I thought it was kind of funny when he said um Christ has done everything. There's nothing you have to do. All you have to do is believe. It's like, okay, so Christ so so you still have to believe. There's still something that you have to do. But for some reason, they say that, you know, when we talk about working out your salvation with fear and trembling, as St. Paul says, you know, they like to say that that, you know, our version of that violates, you know, this being a gift, but somehow believing in it doesn't violate it being a gift. Like again, like if if a gift is dropped off at my doorstep and I walk to my doorstep to get it, like it doesn't cease to be a gift, right? It's just obviously nonsense. Um, and couple things. So, he he referenced a few different things here like assurance of salvation, like whether or not you can fall away. Um, you know, I referenced a few passages like in uh in the Gospel of John, Jesus explicitly says that you can be in Christ and if you do not bear fruit, you're cut off and thrown into the flame. And he says this explicitly. So, we would all agree that if you're in Christ, you're saved. Well, Jesus says that if you're in me, but you do not bear fruit, you're cut off and thrown into the flame. So clearly there's a level of participation here that's necessary. Um, as far as 1 John 5:13, fun fact, it was actually the first ever Bible verse I memorized. Um, and that verse, it is a beautiful verse and it talks about, you know, our our walking in eternal life. And, you know, the the Greek is actually more accurately those who continue believing. And so, yes, if we continue believing, yes, we have eternal life, right? If we continue walking, you know, within cooperation with God, yes. Um, however, we always recognize the possibility that like Jesus warns of that we might fall away, that we might cease to be faithful. We might neglect the gift of God. That is always a possibility. And then finally, uh, I referenced this passage a few times, but I want to read it because it's 1 Corinthians 4, and it really speaks to this question of ultimate assurance. And Paul says this. He says, 'But to me, it is an insignificant matter that I would be examined by you or by any human court. In fact, I do not even examine myself, for I am not aware of anything against myself. However, I am not vindicated by this. But the one who examines me is the Lord. Therefore, do not go passing on judgment before the time, but wait until the Lord comes, who will both bring to light the things hidden in the darkness and disclose the motives of human hearts, and then praise will come to each person from God.' So, St. Paul talking about himself and others. He's saying, 'Look, we don't make any final judgments until the Lord comes and he gives his final judgment.' So yes, we can have assurance that we are walking in the body of Christ, that we are partaking in eternal life via the Eucharist. Yes. But we do not have ultimate assurance of how judgment day is going to go because there's always the possibility of us falling away."

"Yeah. And to piggyback off of that, it's funny because he he mentioned if you believe then you are saved. But he also mentions in Mark, he says those who believe and is baptized will be saved. So okay, well, it's saying it seems to be now that it's you also have to do something else, which is baptism. This is Christ is Mark 16:16. And he mentions all you have to do is believe. Okay. Well, what does James say about this in James chapter 2 that we already read? Well, he says you believe that there's one God. Good. Even the demons believe and they shudder. So hold on. A belief is all you need. Are the demons saved? Because the demons believe in the one God. They know who the true God is. When Jesus came to them, they said, 'Are you coming? It's not I didn't think it was your appointed time yet.' They knew exactly who Jesus was. They knew exactly who God was and they believed in him. Does that mean they're saved? Of course not. And so, we can see all throughout scripture as he mentioned John 15 that it's a working faith. It's a faith that continues. There's things you have to continue to do. If not, why would Paul be saying we need to endure until the end? There would be no need. All we have to do is believe. We don't have to endure anything. It's fine. I just believe it and whatever happens happens. Do whatever you want. But that's not the point that Paul wanted to make."

"Um, I'm not Eastern Orthodox, but I don't like this guy. Lol. Why pick him now? I got to convert to Easter. I think he's talking about Ryan there. So now everyone's being so..."

"Oh, yeah."

"So we've got Nick's Roman Catholic. Um, Ben Croer and we got poor Ryan's. Poor Ryan's making people convert because they..."

"hate on everyone."

"Actually, we put this out. We point this out because a lot of the apologetics from Protestants actually ends up driving people to orthodoxy. It is kind of ironic how that works."

"Yeah."

"Uh, let's see. Sacraments are also unbiblical. Colossians 2, Philippians 3. Jesus sanctifies the body, not vain. Ritualistic worship. You guys think about that."

"I don't know. That's just a mean. How are sacraments not all sacraments?"

"Protestants acknowledge two sacraments. Protestants acknowledge that communion and baptism are sacraments. So I don't know what I don't know what they're talking about."

"Of course, Christ is salvation. Every every sacrament is is is a method in which God has prescribed through Christ for us to achieve salvation through his grace. So yeah."

"Yeah. Of course, it's Christ."

"Yeah."

"Uh, here's one actually. Uh, I I thought of this. Um, I thought of this when you guys were were were talking earlier, but I forgot to I forgot to mention it. So, when you brought up um Joshua bowing down, uh Joshua bowed down to the presence of God in the ark, not the icons. Context matters, Nick. Whenever people bowed to angels, they commanded them not to. So, yeah, you have you have kind of two issues there. One on the uh on the presence of God in the ark. Then it would seem like if you're talking about the icon, the parallel would be, well, I'm not I'm not I'm not it's not the..."

"Yeah."

"...it's what the icon re It's what the icon like represents that I'm bowing to. But what about the uh..."

"...people bowing down to angels and the angel going, 'Uh, what are you doing? I'm just a I'm just a fellow servant.'"

"They're bowing down in worship. So, like I point I pointed out to several passages uh Revelation and uh 1 Samuel where Abigail bows to David and then in Revelation where again God prescribes prostration. He literally says to these reprobate people he says he commands them to fall down and prostrate before the saints. So if that if if prostration if bowing is inherently idolatrous then God is commanding idolatry here and Abigail is committing idolatry by bowing to David. So the problem with when various passages when angels condemn it, it's because they were bowing in worship. We're not saying that bowing can't be worship. Bowing can be worship at times, but our argument is that bowing is not always worship. And we see this throughout the scriptures."

"You are you are correct on that one. You even have you even have the you know the same word proc being used of uh you know in a in a in a worship sense and in a in a non-worship sense um sense of like respect and so on. Um, all right. This two-parter here. So, according to Orthodoxy, is everyone who belongs to the church considered a born-again Christian? And if so, are children included in that?"

"And what if someone and what if someone in the church suddenly commits a massive crime? Are they suddenly not a Christian and never were? Genuinely want to know how that's supposed to work. We would just say, you know, um if someone apostatizes, uh if they commit some like moral atrocity and they refuse to repent, um then, you know, that that would just mean that they, you know, they severed themselves from the source of salvation. Um and I can't remember what the first half of the question was. Oh, yeah. About children, right? So, uh, yeah, so St. Peter says, 'The promise is for you and your children.' Um, we would reference passages uh in the book of Acts that resemble uh Abraham and and and all of the men in his family becoming circumcised. Um, we would say that that translates then to baptism. And we see this in the New Testament with households being baptized. Um, and so yeah, we would say that infants um and children are full participants in in the life of the church. And we are actually the only church other than the Oriental Orthodox, we are the only church that still uh normatively uh communes infants. I think some Anglicans do. Um, but at the institutional level, as far as mainline, you know, churches, we we're really the only ones."

"All right, here we go. Number nine."

"Denial of the guilt of original sin. Eastern Orthodoxy rejects the concept of original sin. Now, they still agree that Adam's sin affects all humans in that we all die as a result of his sin. But they deny the guilt of Adam's sin carrying over to all humans and that only a person's own sins make the person guilty before God. But the biblical position is that Adam represented us in the garden. He acted on our behalf, which actually makes us guilty then for his sin. Similar to a person who hires a hitman to take someone out. Both the person and the hitman are responsible for the same action because the hitman represented him. And so Adam represented us in the garden. And so Adam's sin in the garden is what we inherited because he was doing it on our behalf. Romans 5:12 says, 'Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, Adam, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.' So we all sinned in Adam. Verse 19 also says, 'For as by the one man's disobedience,' so Adam's disobedience, 'the many were made sinners,' so made sinners because of Adam, 'so by the one man's obedience, which is Christ, the many were made righteous. Even think of how David said he was conceived in iniquity, conceived in sin. That wouldn't make sense if we weren't born guilty. And so what original sin is, is simply a picture of the gospel that we get treated as if we did Adam's sin. And so Christ got treated on the cross as though he did ours. And so it's actually an amazing picture of the gospel. Number 10."

"Original sin, guys. Original sin."

"Yeah. So basically, so he's first of all, he's just wrong on that. We do believe it. We uh typically it's called ancestral sin is what we call it. You can call it original sin though. It's fine. But uh so what we believe is we do all have a fallen nature from Adam. We we believe that entirely. uh we believe that uh that we have what's called the inclination to sin. So we're not guilty of Adam's personal sin. So when Adam sinned against God, we're not personally guilty of that, but we carry the effects of that. The effects of that is the fallen nature. And so we totally agree we have original ancestral sin again, which is the inclination to sin, the fallen nature, etc. But we deny the personal sin. Uh, so that would be a straw man on just what we believe in the first place. Anything else on that, Ben?"

"No, no, he covered it."

"Okay. All right. Um, just a couple more real quick. Uh, the Holy Senate, what is this? The Holy Senate was an Ottoman puppet show. Sultans handpicked patriarchs for cash, turning Christ vicors into tack taxable disposable civil servants."

"Sherman, bro. They're just talking about the suppression of the Ottoman Empire. We're under the suppression of the Ottoman Empire. I don't know how that proves anything, though. Um, let's see. The True Mendoza says, 'Salvation doesn't come from mere ascent to propositions, but an ontological change via participation with God's energies and works.'"

"Amen. Yeah. This also speaks to our our understanding of salvation as a process. So, it's interesting because Protestants will ask us like, 'Are you saved?' And what's interesting about the term saved is that it's used in both past, present, and future tense in scripture. So, obviously, we all acknowledge it's used in past tense. It's used in present tense and St. Paul says to work out your salvation in fear and trembling. So you're working it out. And then in 1 Corinthians 1:18, he says to us who are being saved. So it's a process that's occurring is we're actually being saved. Um, and there's multiple passages that reference um that we will be saved. Um, you know, like Jesus talks about this that those two who endure to the end will be saved. So we have been saved, we are being saved, and we will be saved. The issue is that they teach you need works to maintain your justification, which is a false gospel. And saying baptism is necessary for salvation, is no different from adding circumcision to Galatians. Circumcision in Galatians."

"I mean, that's crazy. I guess uh I guess Jesus was mistaken when he said, 'He that believes and is baptized shall be saved.' I guess he uh he's doing something wrong there."

"Yeah. And and you have to be in order to be saved, you have to be buried with Christ. And St. Paul says that how we're buried with Christ is through baptism, right? He says, 'Having been buried with with Christ through baptism.' So baptism is how we are buried through Christ. You and you with Christ. And you can't be saved if you're not buried with Christ."

"Um, have Joshua Shuping on please. Exe Eastern Orthodox priest. You familiar with him?"

"Yes. Yes. There's a lot of content out there. Uh, both his original content and then responses from our people as well. And one more. If you don't know the difference between veneration and worship, how do you know you haven't simply been venerating God this whole time? I don't think I don't think the claim is that they don't know the difference between veneration worship. It's it's sometimes sometimes you bow in veneration, sometimes you bow in worship. Something along those lines."

"Yeah, we know."

"There's a Go ahead, Nick."

"I'll just say we know what venerational worship is. Yeah."

"Yeah. Yeah. Like I think when it comes to informal worship, it's a matter of intention. Um, but there in formal worship formal worship only occurs in the divine liturgy in the temple. Um, so so the informal worship can be you know, like just like your own daily prayers to God, for example, and that's just going to be a difference of intention. So like your intention is is a is a worshipful intent vice um your intention towards the saints is just for honor. Um, but formal worship is only um uh just as it was in the Old Testament except now it's it's across all nations and with the Gentiles um in in in the church with the divine liturgy."

"And giving Protestant Jiza to Eastern Orthodox Nick. Ben is cool too. Oh, hi Mike Winger. God bless you guys. Definitely better examples of Orthodoxy than the online Ortha bros."

"All right, last one. Number 10."

"Everyone ready?"

"Exclusivity. Exclusivity of salvation. Here we go."

"Exclusivity of salvation. The historic Orthodox claim is that they claim to be the one true church and that there's no salvation that they know of apart from being part of that particular church. Here's a quote from Archbishop Soritus. 'Everyone must become a member of this church to be saved. Everyone without exception.' While Christ established his church, which is simply the people of God, believers, the Bible emphasizes faith in him, not affiliation with a specific institution as the basis for our salvation. And when the Orthodox Church claims this, it really just causes people to be anxious about which church to become a member of because there's other churches that also claim that about themselves. The Orthodox Church is not unique about this. You have the Eglesian Christo church also claiming to be the only true church and salvation only by being part of them. But the reality is there is only one church founded by Jesus and it's not uniquely the Orthodox church. It's not the Catholic Church. It's not the Protestant church. It's the people of God. It transcends particular denominations or institutions. It's genuine believers in Christ who don't rely on their works at all to save them, but Christ alone. And if that's you, you're part of Jesus' church. This can clear up that anxiety you may feel. Ignore those people who are claiming that you be part of their particular institution to be saved. That's not biblical. You don't see the apostles saying that. And as you seek for a local church to attend, simply check to see not how fancy their robes are or how pretty their buildings are, but are they consistent with biblical teaching? Do they hold the Bible as their ultimate authority or not? Do they believe that we're saved by grace through faith and not by works? That's the test on how to find a good local church. But as we've seen in this video, the Orthodox Church doesn't meet that criteria. So don't consider converting to Orthodoxy. Simply be a Christian. It's what the disciples were called and find a good local church that teaches what lines up with scripture. So there's some irony here because u you know he said uh he said you know uh that orthodoxy oh there's all these other pl all these other churches that claim to be the one true church. It's like well, okay, the criteria he just gave is that which aligns with scripture. Well, there's all kinds of churches that claim to align with scripture and he just made the assertion that we don't align with scripture. So like his own reputation of the one true church can be applied likewise to his own criteria in finding a church. Um, and I would also just say that, you know, as far as his definition of, you know, the body of Christ and things of that nature, one of the things that really helped me in my bridge from Protestantism to to to orthodoxy over Roman Catholicism, for example, is um the Acts 15 council and how it was done. So, if you think about the Acts 15 council, you had people on both sides of the aisle, right? You had people who still believed that the Gentiles needed to, you know, be circumcised and partake in, you know, the the Old Testament law and things of that nature. And then you had things on the other side of the aisle. And both sides are presenting their biblical case, you know, and both sides had had scripture on their side. And so the the Holy Spirit guided that council to a binding decision. And then everybody just submitted to that council's decision. And if you didn't submit to it, you were just no longer in the church. You couldn't you couldn't run off and start your own Judaizing church. No, you just were no longer in the true church. And so we've simply carried on that continuity, that continuity of the consent of all that that Acts 15 has that we have in all our councils. So it's not just one dude. It's not just the pope. No, it's the consent of all. Um and then in as regards to uh the exclusivity, um, you know, Nick read that that quote earlier from from another saint and this one's from St. Theopon the recluse. He says, 'Why do you worry about them?' Talking about Roman Catholics and Protestants. They have a savior who desires the salvation of every human being. He will take care of them. You and I should not be burdened with such a such a concern. Study yourself and your sins. I will tell you one thing, however. Should you, being Orthodox and possessing the truth in its fullness, betray orthodoxy and enter a different faith, you will lose your soul forever.' We have another saint who said something similar. He said, um, 'I don't know if Roman Catholics are saved. All I know is if I were to become Roman Catholic, I would not be saved.' So, um, so there's a level of ignorance here as far as, uh, you know, our knowledge of other salvation. We preach that the Orthodox Church is the one true church and so you must join it to, you know, join into the source of salvation, but we do not put a limit on God's mercy. So, yeah, that's it."

"Yeah. And he mentions, uh, oh, well, they say that only their church receives salvation. You should be wary of that. I mean, it's no different than you saying only you you need to be a Christian to receive salvation, right? There's there's only one truth at the end of the day, and that's what we're trying to get people to come to. And he says the the church is just the just the people. That's it. Well, if the church is just the people, and that's it. And it, you know, Paul says that the church is the pillar and ground of all truth. But two of these people in the body disagree on interpretation of scripture. Which one is the grounding of truth? We have an issue here. This is why the church is supposed to be an institution which grounds the truth, which is there to actually uphold the truth together as one."

"All right, guys. Any uh any final thoughts you want to share with anyone? I uh I'm here's the thing. Um, we've been we've been uh going for uh about two and a half hours or so. Um, I'm probably going to stick around and um, I don't think I could get through all the super chats because they're still they're still coming pretty quickly and stuff. So, I'm going to stick around for a bit and answer super chats, but you guys have been here for a while. So, if you guys want to want to cut out, you can totally cut out. But, uh, uh, final thoughts on anything."

"I mean, we appreciate you letting us come on. Um, I'm hoping that we gave people a better light to orthodoxy, understand that, uh, Orthodox and Protestants, we can have fruitful discussion together. We can still be friends. We can sue streams together. Stuff like this. It doesn't have to be something where we we all hate each other. It never has to be that way."

"Yeah. And then um I I'll just plug myself while I have the chance. I just started my YouTube cho uh uh show at real Ben Michael over on on YouTube here. So I appreciate you having me on, David. And I'd love to come on and do a debate if Ryan or some other Protestant wants to debate uh Solos Scriptura."

"So that that's an uh open invitation because I don't know if Ryan wants to debate it, but uh I have um I'm friends with Anthony Rogers, Tony Costa. They're uh they're Protestants who like to debate um um, you know, Catholics and Orthodox and stuff like that, but I've never been interested in it, but uh I'm I'm if you're interested, I'm I'm sure they'd be willing to debate that at some point."

"Okay."

"Yeah, sounds good to me."

"All right, guys. Uh, what's going on? You cutting out?"

"Yep. Subscribe to Fearless Truth on YouTube, guys. God bless you, man. And subscribe to my boy David. Send him super chats, man."

"Yes, yes. He's the biggest grifter of them all."

"Biggest grifter."

"And once again, David, I think uh I think a lot of the population in the Orthodox Church will be happy that you did this and the way that you did it. I think this was good. So, thanks for having us on."

"All right, guys."

"Yeah. God bless."

"All there, man."

"All right. Now, we could talk crazy trash about the Eastern Orthodox now that those guys are gone. Y'all ready? Uh, all right, guys. So, uh, tons tons tons and tons of super chats. I'll probably go for another, uh, 20 or 30 minutes. I'll try to I'll probably try to it's going to suck if I get to some that were like specifically for them, but it's kind of too I need someone like sitting beside me like picking out like for when especially when someone, you know, might cut out because I I don't like keeping people on for like four or five hours. Uh, I will sometimes, but um, kind of need someone beside me uh picking out the most relevant questions for the people when they're on there. But yeah, maybe we'll maybe I'll try to maybe I'll try to set that up in the future because uh anyway, trying to hold a conversation and organize stuff and read some super chats, but is when they're coming really fast, you can't kind of can't sort through them. So, just go through them one at a time. Anyway, I'll hang out for for a few and uh check out some of these. Um, mandatory duck faces when kissing icons. Nick, I clipped you claiming James is God's cousin. Wait, what? Um, I'm Serbian Ortho and American Ortho converts are usually far-right nut jobs and Islam simps. Orthodox world has suffered so much under Islam and Islam sing would never pass in Balkan Ortho countries. Yeah, that that's why that's why it was just so weird with the uh with the Orthobros defending um, you know, agreeing with well, two things. One, you know, trying to go after um other, you know, other Christians, even if you don't believe they're Christians or something like that, but going after people who are kind of wrecking Da. That was weird. I was like, I didn't know that was would be a thing ever from anyone in the Orthodox community, like trying to toss a monkey wrench into people going after Islam. Uh, but also like agreeing with the guy. Anyway, that's a it was a weird situation. But yeah, I I mean, the Orthodox they they were kind of front lines for a long time like Protestants were kind of in a different different part of the world and so on that that weren't nearly as affected by Islam. And and by the way, that's actually part of why you go to like Eastern Europe, you go to Eastern Europe, they still they still remember the Ottoman Empire and the repeated Ottoman invasions. And so they're not uh they're not as warm towards Islam as like Western and and even central European countries that uh that didn't have to didn't have to deal with that sort of thing as much. Um, the ark was God commanded and tied to his covenant presence, not an image to venerate. Joshua bowed before the Lord at his appointed place. Icons are not the same, so it's a false equivalence. Um, is icon veneration mandatory in the Eastern Orthodox Church? If so, how is it not worship? Um, well, something being mandatory doesn't have to be worship. You can be, you know, you can you can say this is a rule. You have to do this without something being worshiped. But um the uh Nika 2 that they were talking about, it certainly sounded like it and it sound like they agreed that it is it is required. Where is praying to the praying to dead people in the Bible? I I've pointed this out before. See here here's my view. It's like if I don't if I don't see it in the if I don't see it in the Well, let me put it this way. If it contradicts scripture, I'm just I'm not going to trust it. Um, so if you say you've got the true church and something just contradicting scripture, I would say, okay, uh, then I got a problem with your view that you are the true church. You have other things where it just doesn't, you know, I I can't I can't rule it out, but I don't I don't see it in the Bible, so I don't trust it even though I don't rule it out. Um, like um talking to saints in the B. I mean, think what you just said right here. In their defense, in their in their defense, where is praying to dead people in the Bible? Well, they don't believe they're dead, right? They don't believe they're dead. They believe they're alive. So, they believe they're asking living saints for intercession. And as it was pointed out, because this is what I I can grant the possibility, right? I mean, if if I ask a saint because the saint is way better than me. I ask a saint to intercede for me like the initial the initial question in my mind would be like, well, how's this saint hearing me? Does is does he hear everything or something like that? Because that would that would start sounding like like they have a divine attribute. But if you're saying no, um God conveys that message to the saint and then the saint decides whether to um intercede for you or something like that. Um, again, we understand that I can ask another person for prayer. I can say, 'Hey, uh, will you pray for me?' Because the objection is, well, why are you asking the saint to intercede when you could just talk to God directly? Well, I mean, if I'm asking my friend to pray for me, man, I'm really struggling right now. Could you pray for me? I mean, I could be talking to God directly there. And even biblically, even biblically, you you can ask people to pray. Um, so anyway, it's a situation like that where I can grant, okay, that could be how things work. Biblically, I don't I can't think of any any reason to think that that's how things work. So, that's an area where you'd have to say you'd have to acknowledge the church authority first, right? So, before I would ever do that, I'd have to acknowledge I'd have to say, 'Nope, this is the true church and they are correct on these things and therefore I have to do them.' But yeah, I don't see it. I don't see it um from the Bible there. And Jesus did away with the old law. Um, he authorized the Lord's supper and baptism. The only sacraments actually in the Bible. Um, would these people make fun of Jesus and the apostles for kissing on the cheek or knights for kissing a hand? This is a sign of respect and still used to greet in the Mediterranean. Yeah. I was in France. I'd lived in the Bronx. I I we lived in the Bronx for like I don't know 13 years or something like that, but I've been in the Bronx for like 10 years and stuff and then I went to France for a debate and stuff and um when this when this when I when I when I was leaving this guy went to kiss me and I just like naturally reacted like whoa, get the what the like from from the Bronx man, kiss me. So anyway, I had to I had to uh I had to show him how to how to hug it out. Yeah. So, yeah, people Yeah, people still do. People still uh do that. Let's see. Please slow down the chat. Oh, darn. I wasn't thinking about that because I did, but it's a 30-second delay. But yeah, there were so many people sending chats. Yeah, I guess I should have put it on like a minute or something like that because it was uh there was a lot of people there. False gospel speaking to the dead. Total heresy. Um, Israelites in Jeremiah 7 use the assurance of the temple to live corrupt lives. The Jews use being descendants of Abraham as assurance. I'm aware this happens in Protestantism. Could it also happen in Eastern Orthodoxy? Uh, if you need to be part of the one true church to be saved, was Jesus' sacrifice not enough to save? Yeah, I'm still I mean, not seriously initi like if if you say I didn't become I didn't believe in the gospel and become a Christian when I was in jail, I would have a I'm just going to have a serious um problem with that. But it seems like they were talking about the nuance and so on um and people not not being familiar with the Eastern Orthodox Church and so on. Yeah, it would it would be incredibly difficult for me to think that I didn't um I didn't become a Christian. I'm saying for those for those who say you're not a Christian at all except in the loose sense of just to distinguish you from like a Hindu or an atheist or something like that, but you're not any sort of uh actual Christian. For those who are say for those who say that yeah, that's really weird cuz it's like, okay, so I I mean, I can believe that Jesus died on the cross for sins, rose from the dead, that he's Lord, believe in the Trinity, believe in scripture, and am still not a Christian. And then Nabil, who left Islam, believed in the gospel, got baptized, that he wasn't a Christian. For those who say yeah, that's I'd have a serious I'd have a serious serious issue with uh with that. Um, is that what the original readers uh James the original readers James sent his letter to would have thought about the prayers of a righteous man? I think that was for them. I'm not they're not here now. Uh, the earlier ecumenical council of uh hyia outlawed icons. Then Empress Irene, who had her son blinded, called Nika 2 and changed it. It's pseudo Dionius. That's some we're we're going to keep uh digging into these issues. We'll hear from critics of Eastern Orthodoxy and uh from proponents of Eastern Orthodoxy. Um, it's just I don't know. It's a situation. If uh if we have to if we have to be debating this um hope to hope everyone is informed about the arguments for and the arguments against and uh that everyone can be informed on the issue and that way everyone will know well everyone will just just be able to make an informed decision on these issues and if someone wants to debate it, it'll help for people who, you know, to know what the main uh what the main issues are. Let's see. Jesus is the perfect image idol. As a Protestant, who are you worshiping, God or man? Or the God man without separation or confusion? Perfect union. Uh, icons can't be icons according to the Greek. It has to be the direct derivative of the prototype. That's why Jesus is the icon of the invisible God. Yeah. And their their icon in the Greek that's uh that's image. Lazarus and the rich man was a parable. I thought everyone knew that. That's that's what I was saying. I didn't want to raise that as an objection. Um, but I've always I've always just interpreted that as a parable, not as Jesus describing an actual uh an actual situation. Ryan is doing chats in one hour and would love to have you. Um, this super chat was left a long time ago. So, um, but I'd be happy to do that. I'd be happy to do that in the future. Be happy to do that in the future. And if Ryan wants to debate Solos Scriptura, Ben uh said he's willing. And if not, um, I got I got other I got other uh friends who are interested in this stuff. For the generic sort of branch theory. Christians in the chat calling this cultish understand that your forebears as Protestant reformers were equally anti-ecumenist as was the Jerusalem Council. Ecumenism has the has historically been seen as heterodox. Dionius venerating icons comes from the writings in the 500 AD, not the first century. Yeah, I am interested in like how far you can actually trace it back and how universal it was, right? Like it was everywhere if it was everywhere and goes way back because again, it's uh this is just this is just always the case with like like Seventh Day Advent for instance, 7th Day Advent the Sabbath has to be on Saturday. Well, I'm sitting here thinking like, okay, you could be right. For all I know, you could be right. It it may have been wrong to move to Sunday to you know."

honor the day Jesus rose from the dead. Um, but if the idea is that they make it like central, like this is like the main thing, like so much it has to be 7th Day Adventist, like, got to be in our name, that's how important it is, and they always lead, they always like lead out with that. It's an issue, like, okay, even if you were correct, it doesn't seem to be as big an issue as you would make it out to be. If it were that big of an issue, it seems that I would kind of be seeing that pretty frequently. And it's this, it's just always, and I don't know if this is just me, but it's always in my mind that if you say this is really, really, really, really, really important, and I don't see it being emphasized, and the times when it kind of comes up in scripture, it's kind of, you know, it's okay if you want to do it this way or that way. It's kind of, yeah, it's kind of it's kind of tough.

It's another situation where it seems like you'd have to accept the authority of, um, of that group first, because you're not, you're not just getting it from from the Bible there. The icon magic windows to Jesus. Why? So they are in heaven hearing voices all the time or getting interrupted all the time. Help me. No, help me. Um, yeah, I wasn't familiar with that, uh, that windows, windows to, uh, to heaven thing.

Should the church submit to scripture or scripture be twisted to fit the church? Not to be mean, but I see a lot of twisting here. Um, yeah, we will, uh, in the future, we'll take, I mean, there are some obviously very crucial passages and so on. So I think we'll take, uh, in the future, we'll have to take a take a closer look at some of the passages and see if God heard prayer to relay the prayer to the saint. Does that not undo the whole point of asking a saint to intercede?

Do you believe God is more likely to answer prayers if a saint also asks? I think they do believe that. I think they do believe that that some saint interceding for you would be more effective. But also think about it. I mean, I mean, again, if you were if you were asking your friend to pray for you, which is totally biblical, asking someone else to pray for you. Um, didn't God hear that? Didn't hear God? Didn't God hear you asking your friend for prayer? And yet, if you're asking someone for prayer, you still think that God, God might listen to that prayer, right? So anyway, again, my position is I don't have a reason to think that this is something that I need to do, talking about, you know, asking saints for intercession. And so I, I, I get kind of how it would work, but again, it's it's a situation where I, I would have to, since I don't see it in scripture, I would have to accept the authority of the church to come to that conclusion.

How can Eastern Orthodox claim to be the same church passed down from Peter when doctrine and practice developed over time? Couldn't any modern church claim continuity the same way? Yeah, I am, I am interested in because they believe that their doctrines and practices, as far as I can tell, they believe that their doctrines and practices all, like, go back. Even if you don't read about them in the Bible, they were there. They just didn't talk about them because they weren't challenged until later and then you'd hear about them. But, uh, yeah, I'd like to see how far back they can legitimately trace certain things.

We have the Orthobros are scared that Ryan might join. I don't know. Then, no, they're they're willing to debate. So, I don't think, uh, I don't think Ryan's scared. I don't think they're scared. And so, I think, uh, I think we can have some debates here or somewhere else.

If only God knows, if only God knows the heart of man, how do you define a saint? The best one can do is assume who is or who or is not a saint, especially one worth praying to. Ah, so I, I guess what you're saying there is if you're saying we don't really know a person's heart, that's only known to God, then people you may regard as saints might not even really be saints and you might actually be, uh, have an icon or something like that. And you didn't know that person, uh, wasn't the saint you actually thought about. Yeah, I don't know about that.

David asked them about the toll houses. Yeah, we got to the toll houses. So, this was before that was before the toll houses. The gospel is surprisingly simple. It's people that make it complicated. That is that is my view. Um, I was raised in an Orthodox church, very involved. Still see beauty, but I never knew God. Went to a non-denominational church as a teen. I met Jesus and never looked back.

Buddy says, "To be clear, I'm responding to the specific mentions from the chat about their exclusivity claims. I'm not Eastern Orthodox, but accuracy and representation is important in these nuances. I want equal treatment and characterization of my beliefs as well, being fair."

And Christ is called icon in Hebrews 1. His mediation makes visible the the invisible via the incarnation. This extends to all in heaven, including the saints. I'm not sure about that one. No evidence. Show evidence church was doing this. Yeah, I'm wondering about some of this. Scholars say Dianus's docs were fifth, sixth century. Yeah, I have, I have no idea on that. So, but we'll, we'll get to it. We'll get to it in the future, guys. We've got, uh, we've got time.

Christ is risen. Uh, thank you for having this conversation, David. Uh, did you hear the live stream about Tucker Carlson by Raymond Ibrahim? He gave an interesting perspective on the persecution of Christians by Israel's, uh, nope. Not familiar with that. Wait, wait. Tucker was interviewed by Raymond Ibrahim or Raymond, I would guess Raymond Ibrahim was interviewed by Tucker, right? Interesting.

Uh, similar to venerating icons, Orthodox Jews put a carved letter, the first letter of Torah, on the doorpost of their houses. They kiss their hand and touch it on entering or exiting the house. Uh, you put anathema on Protestants but then you say, I don't know if they are not saved, they are Christian. The true church is Eastern Orthodox. Sam probably. Yeah. Someone just said Sam would say yeah. So Sam is some, I don't know what Sam, Sam is some version of Catholic now. Yes. If I suddenly declared war on the Eastern Orthodox Church, Sam would suddenly, uh, become Eastern Orthodox. So rejoice, Eastern Orthodox. If I come down officially against you and declare war, then you will get Sam on your side.

At heathens, historical knowledge and philosophically looking at worldviews helps. Also icon related. By denying icons, you essentially deny the incarnation. Shout out St. John of Damascus. The word became flesh. Yeah, I still kind of don't, I still don't understand, um, that one.

If the saints are alive, are they also omnipresent? If not, how do they hear your prayers? Yeah, I asked that. I'm guessing you, uh, you, you brought that up before I mentioned it. Look up what happened to Sir Lucarist, the venerated heretic of Eastern Orthodoxy.

How is the worship veneration distinction meaningful if both involve How is the worship veneration distinction meaningful if both involve reverence, prayer, devotion, and even similar physical acts? Creating a new term doesn't seem to solve the issue. Oh, so you're saying that, you know, they're calling it veneration, but it's just they're doing the same thing, but just calling it something else. Um, yeah, I need more description of exactly like what they do.

As a Roman Catholic, I will say you, you Eastern Orthodox guys got us beat in drip. They do. They do. Church fathers got stuff wrong also. You kidding? Um, we got Mark 9, 1 Corinthians 4, Galatians 1:8 might make a parsimonious case from the Bible that the trinitarian groups are the body of Christ. Protestant, Orthodox and Catholic. Take a look at Gavin Ortland's icon veneration is clearly an accretion and then follow the scholarship beyond the apologetics on this topic. Yeah, Gavin Ortland keeps coming up. Um, I'm guessing he's been doing some work on this for for a bit.

Get someone knowledgeable on this cast. Please turn off Ryan. It's so hard to watch. Why are you guys hating on Ryan, man? You guys just don't like him because he's, uh, Australian or whatever. Ben just lied about JP on this stream. Not sure how good he is. What? When he said that JP sits around, he clarified. He said it's just recently. By the way, everyone, I'm going to be on JP's channel tomorrow. It's going to be on JP's channel tomorrow. And, uh, learning, learning some more.

I reject Eastern Orthodoxy's three strikes remarriage system allowing people to live in adultery max two times. Jesus called remarriage adultery and even some Eastern Orthodox fathers banned entirely. No way to reconcile this thoughts. I'm guessing that was like thoughts, uh, their thoughts on the issue. Um, roll up, roll up by an icon, save your soul. You can trust and obey Jesus without following the correct, uh, literary. True Christians are in Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox churches. See unspoken sermons by George McDonald. That would be the view of that would be the view of lots of people that there are there are, uh, Protestants that there are true, that there are true Christians among in Protestant churches, in Catholic churches and in in Orthodox churches. And even though you would believe that people would be wrong about something, um, that if you believe in the in the true gospel, then you would be a Christian.

Ryan Negot.net said he's happy to come on the to the live stream and defend anything he said in the video. Uh, yeah, tell him, tell tell Ryan to message me because I'd be happy to have him on. And, um, again, Ben said he's willing to debate. And I don't know that, um, I don't know that Ryan would be interested in debating that specific topic. Sometimes you have people who want to like, I debate Muslims. It doesn't mean I'm, I'm interested in every topic that, uh, that a Muslim might want to, um, debate. But if he's interested in debating that, can, can set that up. But either, either way, totally, totally welcome to come on and break things down. Let's see.

Should have mentioned not all Obs are bad. GL. God bless you all. What are Obs? I'm bad. I'm bad with initials, guys, because I start trying to think of every combination of words that could that could, uh, Oh, orthobros. There we go. Okay, I got it. I got it. Should have mentioned Why, why you abbreviate orthobros? Should have mentioned not all orthodos orthobros are bad. God bless y'all. Nick and Luigi. Oh, there's a question for them. Yeah, I won't even, uh, won't even check that out because they're not here.

And FYI, Jehovah Witness and Mormons don't have the gospel. Bring anyone else up, please. Yeah, that would be the that would be the kind of like distinction. And it's that if you look at what seem to be the fundamentals, the foundational issues of the gospel, various cults always reject one or more of the foundational, um, the foundational doctrines. Jesus' death for sins, his resurrection, his divine nature, the trinity, something. They're rejecting foundational issues. But the issue becomes, okay, if different groups adhere to all those foundational issues, but some of them say there are these extra things, then kind of have to, kind of have to take a close look, which is what we're doing now.

Scripture is a consequence of the holy tradition. Some, someone just left a super chat said Ryan is Australia's Mike Winger. Uh, no. That's a good one. Where is that? Um, yo, that's funny. Ryan is Australia's Mike Winger. Poor guy. Poor guy. Poor guy.

All right, guys. I'm just, uh, I skipped to Let me skip to the a few of the most recent ones and then we'll have to, we'll have to cut out. Let's see. Um, Sam gave the image of a coliseum of the saints cheering on Christians running the race with Jesus at the finish line. Um, wasn't Ryan implying that if you don't accept Eastern Orthodoxy after his true church, you aren't Christian regardless of your conversion? Was I missing something? What do you mean, Ryan? That, that's what it, that's kind of what it sounds like. Um, Andrew Wilson and some symbols there. Dwood, we need, we pro, we Protestants need you as a bishop. Don't convert. Dwood, uh, Dwood, I don't think will ever be in any leadership position in any church.

Our God is the God of the living. Matthew 22:32. But talking to those who have died is forbidden in scripture. Leviticus 19:31. David, you should watch Gavin Ortland's video on icon veneration. It is a clear accretion and the early church fathers reject it. It's not. I might check that out since everyone keeps bringing up, uh, Gavin Ortland. All right, I screenshotted that because I will check that one out.

Christians cook for each other. Christians cook for each other, not each other. That's a funny line. Uh, barriians didn't need a nice council. Just saying. Oh, I mean, that is interesting. Yeah, they kept, they kept stud, they kept, they kept searching the scriptures to see if what Paul was saying was true. Which here it sounds like that's a, that's a problem. That's a problem because you need someone telling you what the scriptures mean. So, hey, that's a, that is an interesting point. I will keep that in mind and ask about that next time I'm, uh, having that conversation.

I was always sure that I was a Christian, the best I could, the best as I could by Christ's grace until I was told I wasn't a Christian by the one true church. I rolls for days. No saint in heaven has any idea as to what's going on here on earth. That's God's job. That's God's job to worry about this place. How can we live in bliss if we're worried about people here? Dumb ideology. Prayers for Australia, please. The courts are deciding if we know what a woman is today at 2 p.m. Tickle versus Giggle case. Given the direction you guys have been going, I think I already know what that decision is going to be. God bless David Wood. You convert me years ago to the true church. Uh, watching the orthos justify the points in the video has educated me further on orthodox theology and thus pushed me further away from it. It seems their church has been led by tradition more than the Bible.

And last one, isn't science a tradition of the church, too? It seems silly for orthos to lay claim to the canon to me personally. Yeah, it would be interested to see, um, yeah, I'd like to see a debate on that whether whether Ryan's interested in debating that on that or not. But, uh, yeah, going back to, uh, the scripture and canonization and so on and then, uh, lots of stuff, lots of stuff there because, you know, you do have traditions, but then you have if you have traditions that don't, don't sound like something you're getting from the Bible, but they're considered authoritative. These are some interesting issues, guys.

All right. So, sorry for, sorry if I didn't get your to your super chat, guys. Um, there are still, there are still a ton that were coming in really fast. So, um, thanks for watching. Um, again, I'll be on JP's channel tomorrow. Um, not even sure what we're talking about, but I'm guessing since this has been the topic recently that, uh, JP will share his thoughts on this issue and might have a fun video for you guys tomorrow.

Um, I found the video. I found the video, which I did not know existed until last week. Last week, I found a small camcorder tape of Nabil's baptism. It said Nabil's baptism on the side of it. I had, I had no recollection that such a tape existed. Nabil didn't, my wife didn't. Um, someone must have been recording it and then gave us gave us the tape. Um, but it also had footage of like, uh, one of my my sons as babies. So, it must have been our tape and then someone recorded it and we just were never paying attention to the fact that this was Nabil's baptism was being recorded. Um, I wasn't even sure that that that was on there because again, we had no idea. We had video of Nibil's baptism and I had no way of playing this little, um, camcorder tape. I didn't remember having a camcorder, but we must have because there's lots of footage of my kids as babies, but, um, yep. So, I had to take it to a place which converts, um, old tapes and stuff to video files. So, I checked out the video file today. It's, uh, it's not, it's not the highest quality, so I'm guessing we didn't have a very good, I'm guessing we didn't have a very good, uh, camcorder, but we've got Nabil's baptism video. So I pro, I'll probably post that tomorrow. Probably post that tomorrow. So that should be cool.

And last one here. As a first opinion in orthodoxy, it sounds like New Testament teachings blended with some Judaism doctrines and gentile Greco-Roman beliefs. Yeah, we do need to find out where some of these things come from. Either they go all the way back to the apostles or they come from later. But, uh, Eastern Orthodox, the Eastern Orthodox, um, seem to believe that all of this, all of their teachings and practices go back to the apostles. So, that is interesting.

Uh, then catching up on the stream, new idea for Mexican Greek fusion restaurant. Come on, man. Come on. You know, you don't come on. That's messed up.

All right, everyone. Catch you all tomorrow over on, uh, JP's channel. And, uh, if everything goes well, should, uh, be able to post Nabil's baptism video tomorrow. All right, catch you all later.