Responding to Eastern Orthodoxy: Online Conference

Oh, oh, humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so that at the proper time he may exalt you.

Casting all your anxieties on him because he cares for you. Oh, and after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen.

Oh, be sober minded. Be watchful. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resisting firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

Sorry, I'm I was muted. Sorry about that. Rookie mistake. Uh, so now that no one has heard anything, um, I want to welcome everyone to Revealed Apologetics. Uh, my name is Eli Ayala. This is the unorthodoxy of Eastern Orthodoxy conference. I'm glad that you're here.

Now, um, we're going to be covering a wide range of topics. This, uh, live stream, God willing, will, um, with no technical difficulties, we'll be going on all day. Uh, it will begin officially at 1:00 p.m. So, we're almost there. Um, I will be the first speaker. Then after each speaker, we'll have a 10-minute intermission before moving on to the next presentation. And so if everything goes according to plan, this event will conclude with our panel discussion or panel Q&A where all of the speakers will be up here together taking your questions for about an hour. That will end around, God willing, 10:10 p.m.

Now, a couple of things before we get started. I want to issue a challenge. Okay? I want to issue a challenge to those who are participating in the comments section. And I want to challenge you to interact with one another respectfully. Okay? If you disagree, then disagree. Disagree with arguments and, um, you know, you can present your line of reasoning, things like this. There's absolutely no need for unnecessary insults. That's for both sides, by the way, whether you're Eastern Orthodox or Protestant or even Roman Catholic or whoever. Okay? And the reason I'm saying this is not because, um, you know, I'm overly sensitive or, um, because my feelings are going to get hurt if you say mean things in the comments. Obviously, in the comments, you're free to to express yourself. That's fine. But rather, when people engage in ways that aren't conducive to like meaningful discussion, it actually, and this is my real concern, it actually hurts clarity and it hinders, uh, meaningful communication. And so, it prevents people from thoughtfully considering the issues being discussed on both sides of the issue. So, I would ask you guys, uh, to interact respectfully with one another. Um, if someone is disrespectful towards you or if people are saying things that are inappropriate, you know, don't lower yourself to that level. Don't you don't have to feel obligated to respond to every, you know, comment here on, uh, YouTube. Sometimes the best response is simply to kind of ignore and move on.

So, my hope here is that this conference will be educational. Um, it'll be an educational opportunity for everyone involved. Obviously, there's going to be people who agree and disagree. That's anticipated. It doesn't hurt my feelings. I anticipate this knowing that, uh, people are going to disagree, right? But the goal here is to learn, um, hopefully to think critically and to challenge ideas where they need to, um, be challenged. So that's my challenge for everyone in the, uh, the comment section. Okay. So hopefully we can do that successfully and, um, we can go off without, uh, without a hitch.

All right. So I'm going to be the first speaker now. We're going to start in 2 minutes, but just to give you guys a heads up, I'm going to be addressing the issue of the Eastern Orthodox use of presuppositionalism. Okay. Um, many of you guys who follow my channel, this is the first time you're here and you're wondering what's Revealed Apologetics all about. We focus very heavily on apologetic methodology. And so I come from a, a uniquely presuppositional approach. Um, I follow along the tradition of reformed Protestant perspective that is typically associated with, um, people like, uh, Cornelius Vanill and Greg Bonsson and things like this. And so you're going to find a lot of material on this channel pertaining to, uh, presuppositional apologetic methodology. All right. So, if that interests you, uh, make sure you subscribe and get that notification, the notifications when, pardon, when my videos come out and things like that if that is something to be, uh, that you're interested in. All right? If not, you're just visiting, you're saying, "Hey, I'm just interested in this topic," that that's fine. Uh, that's fine as well. Um, you know, um, I think, uh, this will be beneficial to you, uh, nonetheless. All right. All right.

Well, um, I'm going to open up with a prayer and then I'm going to jump right into my presentation. All right. Heavenly Father, we come before you in the name of Jesus. Lord, we thank you so much for the opportunity to have, uh, platforms like this where we can kind of, um, get in front of a bunch of people and and share, um, what we take to be the truth and to, uh, just explain and express, um, your word and, um, encourage people to defend the faith and to interact in a way that is, uh, conducive to communication and is honoring to you. And I pray that that is what happens here, whether it's through my presentation or the interactions in the comments. Lord, I pray that your hand is over this entire, um, conference and the speakers and the people listening as well. And I hope that this conference is is is a starting point for people to kind of see the important divide between kind of a, a broad Protestant, uh, perspective and an Eastern Orthodox perspective and then kind of move forward in meaningful communication in a way that is honoring to you. That is my my prayer today. Lord, we thank you. We love you. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

All right. So, uh, I'm going to begin my presentation, uh, now. Okay. So my topic is the Eastern Orthodox use of presuppositional apologetics. Right. Before I start, by the way, if each speaker ends a bit earlier before their time slot is done, we will take some questions in the chat, okay, to fill the time because each speaker has a scheduled time. So, one thing I do ask of you guys, if you have a question, please, please, please preface your question with "Question" because I I am anticipating a lot of interaction in the comments. Um, so we need to be able to differentiate those. Okay. All right. Okay.

So, I'm going to begin here. The Eastern Orthodox use of presuppositionalism. So, in recent years, um, however many years, I don't know how far back it goes, but Eastern Orthodox apologists have, um, increasingly attempted to appropriate the language and structure of presuppositional apologetics. And this is especially true, uh, among internet apologists, you know, typically influenced by people like, um, Jay Dyer or others within, like, those circles. And what we see are, um, these gentlemen who are very heavily influenced by, um, you know, uh, transcendental argumentation. Uh, they they often engage in critiques of neutrality. Uh, of course, there's there are discussions, um, at nauseam, of course, uh, over issues of worldview analysis. All of these things, by the way, are super, super important, and I'm actually glad, um, that many of those discussions happen at that level. Um, but again, there seems to be, uh, when you hear Eastern Orthodox presuppositional apologists utilize the method, there seems to be a lot of things to, um, commend. You know, after all, the Eastern Orthodox presuppositional apologist will reject autonomous human reasoning, whether they can do that consistently given their systems, another issue. But I can appreciate the attempt to reject autonomous reasoning. Uh, they deny, uh, the possibility of neutrality. Um, they affirm, I think correctly, that all reasoning is worldview dependent, and they will insist that, and I'm so happy that this is the case, right, they insist that ultimate authority must terminate somewhere beyond the subjective experience of man himself. I agree with those things. So in these respects, there appears to be, uh, what I take to be substantial overlap with the reformed presuppositional tradition typically associated with Cornelius Vantill and Greg Bonson. Now, that being said, I do think there needs to be a very, very important distinction, um, where there's going to be very similar language that a Protestant presuppositional apologist will use and an Eastern Orthodox presuppositional apologist will use. But we have to remember that the terminology that's used is, um, um, rooted in the paradigm. Okay? So, for example, when we use the word "church," uh, that needs to be understood within a particular paradigm, a particular worldview. When they speak of, you know, uh, no neutrality and and these sorts of things, all of these things need to be understood, understood in a in a consistent way with the broader paradigm in which someone is communicating these particular, uh, points. But on the surface, on the surface, we see what appears to be, um, similarities and agreements between the Eastern Orthodox presuppositionalist and the Protestant reformed presuppositionalist. But I want to point out, and correctly, I think, the Eastern Orthodox presuppositionalist would agree that those apparent agreements are superficial because there is a much deeper disagreement between the two perspectives. And the nature of that disagreement is not merely over issues of, um, you know, denominational identity, church history, uh, sacramental theology, all things that are are super important. But the the key distinction between a reformed presuppositional perspective and an Eastern Orthodox presuppositional perspective really has to do with the very foundations of human knowledge itself. It concerns that that very ultimate question. What is the ultimate epistemological authority? Okay? What is the necessary precondition for intelligibility, for certainty, and the knowledge of divine truth? Indeed, truth itself. All right.

Now, keeping that in mind, for the reformed presuppositionalist, the answer to that question is is pretty straightforward. It is the self-attesting triune God speaking in scripture. God's revelation is ultimate because God himself is ultimate. Scripture possesses authority intrinsically because it is the very authority of God in scripturated. And so the church, on our view, uh, derives its authority from God's revelation and exists beneath it as a created, important, but a created subordinate reality. Now, this is not the case for the Eastern Orthodox perspective. Uh, for the Eastern Orthodox, specifically the ecclesiological presuppositionalist, as I've, uh, come to call them, to refer to them, given their the nature of the role of the church, that, you know, the role that the church plays within their epistemology, for the Eastern Orthodox ecclesiological presuppositionalist, the church itself becomes the necessary interpretive context through which revelation is identified, authenticated, preserved, and properly understood. Good. All right.

Now, while the Eastern Orthodox apologist would deny that the church is independent from Christ or autonomous from the Holy Spirit, here's, here's, here's my concern. The practical and epistemological effect is that certainty becomes grounded in the authoritative life and interpretive continuity of the church. And that difference is not a side difference. It reflects, um, and I think the Eastern Orthodox presuppositionalists would agree. Okay? It reflects two fundamentally different epistemological starting points. That's very, very important. Okay? So this is why, uh, when Protestant, um, uh, folks interact with Eastern Orthodox folks who are, as Vanill would say, epistemologically self-conscious. Okay? Um, there can be lots of talking past each other because, um, the people engaged in the discussion are not epistemologically self-conscious. They're not always aware of the presuppositional worldview issues that undergird and ground the nature of the disagreement. So I think that's very, very important to keep in mind. The reformed presuppositionalist, within reformed presuppositionalism, it begins not with the church. It doesn't begin with tradition. It doesn't begin with councils. It doesn't begin with autonomous human reason, but with the ontological trinity as the necessary precondition for all intelligibility. Okay? For us, God is absolute. God is self-contained. God is self-sufficient. He's not derived or interpreted or validated by anything beyond himself because all things exist, as the scriptures say, all things exist through him and for him. And so every fact in the universe is necessarily God interpreted from the very beginning. And so human beings, on this view, then don't approach reality as neutral observers. Okay? I would say that we are covenant creatures living within God's world, thinking God's thoughts after him as imagebearers. Now, the Eastern Orthodox presuppositionalists will use very similar language, but again, it would have to be contextualized because we're operating from different foundations. Okay?

Now, that's again, the foundation is going to be, uh, um, very important here because it's kind of like, it's kind of like when the Mormon knocks on your door and they affirm the Trinity, they're going to use the language that we use, but they don't mean the same thing. Like, for instance, when you're talking to say, a Roman Catholic or an Eastern Orthodox, we will use sometimes similar terminology, but but our traditions give different meaning and understanding to th to those terms. So, we want to be very careful.

Now, in light of everything that I that I've just said, uh, so far, okay, this immediately raises the question of revelation. Okay? I want you to think about this. If God is the necessary precondition for intelligibility, okay, how does fallen man come to know him rightly? You see, the Bible's answer, and by extension, someone like Cornelius Vanill, Vanill's answer was never that autonomous reasoning could ascend upward toward God through neutral philosophical lines of reasoning. Rather, God himself must reveal himself. Revelation is therefore not supplementary to human knowledge. Indeed, we would argue it is foundational to human knowledge. And this is why scripture, uh, occupies such a central role in reformed, uh, Protestant, broadly speaking, reformed epistemology. Scripture is not merely a, a historical authoritative document. It is that. I'm not, we're not denying that, of course, but it's not merely that. Nor, nor is scripture merely a record of divine experiences within the covenant community. Okay? It is that. But it's, it's not merely that. Okay? Scripture is God speaking. It is divine revelation in scripturated form. And as the Nicene Creed confesses, it is the Holy Spirit that spoke by the prophets, right? And so its authority, okay, its authority does not arise from the church's recognition of it. Rather, its authority arises from the fact that God himself speaks therein. Okay? Now, and consequently, in light of this, the church is created. It is nourished. It is corrected. It is governed by the word of God. The church is not the ontological or epistemological source of revelation. The church is the creaturely recipient of revelation. The church is, and this is key, the church is ministerial, not magisterial. It bears witness to the truth. It proclaims the truth. It defends the truth. But it does not stand above truth as its ultimate validator. And this is precisely why the reformed tradition and the Protestant perspective has historically insisted upon the the self-attestation of scripture and I would argue the perspectuity of scripture as well. Unfortunately, I cannot, uh, get into that now because that'll take me off, uh, my specific presentation here. But just know playing in the background, we have the issue of self-attestation, given the nature of scripture and the perspectuity of scripture, which is often denied by both Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox. That's why you need the authoritative infallible structure. So that is playing in the background. I'm not ignoring that fact. Okay.

Now, for us, scripture possesses divine authority immediately because it is what? It is the speech of the self-attesting God. Just as God cannot appeal to a higher authority beyond himself, so too God's word cannot depend upon a higher authority for its validation. Okay? Um, again, to then, this is given the nature of God, and scripture speaks of this when, uh, when we're told in scripture that when God made a promise to Abraham, he swore by himself because there was nothing greater by which to swear by. And hence, for us, certainty terminates ultimately in God speaking, not in the institutional church as defined by the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church and these sorts of things. All right.

So, these are important kind of, uh, foundations to lay before we kind of get into the central, uh, distinctions here between the two approaches to presuppositional apologetics. I I want to be very, uh, careful here. A lot of people don't seem to understand the connection. And what I appreciate about the Eastern Orthodox presuppositionalists is that they understand this. They understand that one's apologetic flows out of out of a consistent application of one's theological commitments. And because we have different theological commitments, okay, there's going to be different foundations. And so while we might use presuppositional lines of reasoning, it's going to be different when you get to the center of, you know, the the distinctions here. Okay.

Now, to fairly critique the Eastern Orthodox position, we need to first carefully and accurately represent it. And here I want to, I want to walk very carefully because, um, I know there's nothing that I'm going to say that's going to have an Eastern Orthodox person say, "Yep, that perfectly represents my view." I know that the things that I have said or or will say, someone will find some nuance disagreement with what I'm saying. So, if for whatever reason I mis, uh, um, how can I say, misrepresent the Eastern Orthodox view on some point, um, just know that it's not something that I am intentionally trying to do. I am completely open to correction and I want to learn, uh, to be more accurate in representing these issues. So, nevertheless, in my imperfect attempt to steal man the Eastern Orthodox presuppositional perspective, um, at least even in my imperfect attempt to do so, at least you can see, and this is my goal, that you can see the key fundamental difference in our foundations. Okay? So hopefully that comes out in in in the presentation here. Okay.

So, so again, so the Eastern Orthodox apologist is, um, as I understand them, is not ordinarily arguing that the church is is is a merely human institution inventing truth in some autonomous fashion. Okay? Nor are they, you, they don't usually conceive of the church as something existing, uh, independently of Christ. Rather, the Eastern Orthodox conception of the church is, um, what word can I use? It is profoundly, uh, participatory. Okay? I think that's the right word. And sacramental. The church is understood to be within Eastern Orthodoxy the living body of Christ, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, preserving the holy tradition across history through apostolic succession, consilier continuity, issues relating to the councils and so forth, liturgical worship, and sacramental life. Okay? Okay.

And so it's very important to understand from the Eastern Orthodox perspective that scripture cannot be isolated from the life of the church because scripture itself arose within the church's historical life. Okay? So the church recognized canon. The church preserved and, uh, preserved the apostolic faith. The church defended orthodoxy against heresy. The church transmitted the interpretive tradition through the fathers and ecumenical councils. And accordingly, the Eastern Orthodox apologist argues that scripture detached from the church becomes vulnerable to the following problems. Okay? It, the church becomes vulnerable to issues concerning fragmentation, private interpretation, doctrinal error, uh, these sorts of things. And to be fair, okay, there is a genuine force to that critique. Now, granted, I do think that there is a huge logical leap from the observation of fragmentation to, um, you know, a logical leap as to what they conclude about the nature of Protestantism and, and, and the reformed tradition and these sorts of things. I don't think that the conclusions they draw even remotely logically follow, but it is a genuine, uh, there is a genuine force to the critique that Protestants often must have a response to, and, and they do. Okay? Now, of course, I'm not going to be offering those responses here because that will be the purview of other presentations. Okay? So, I want to, I want to stay focused, but as you guys are fully aware, there are a lot of issues involved in these sorts of, uh, discussions. But here is where I think a critical issue comes out that needs to be addressed with respect to the Eastern Orthodox, uh, perspective. Okay.

In attempting to secure certainty through the church, Eastern Orthodox apologetics and the broader theology, I take it to be, relocates ultimate epistemological authority from God's self-attesting revelation to the church as the authoritative interpreter of revelation. And so the church becomes not merely the witness to truth on this view, but the necessary precondition for identifying and possessing truth rightly. And this is where we as Protestants, and especially within the reformed presuppositional perspective, are going to want to press on this issue because we obviously take issue with that. And of course, even within the reformed, uh, presuppositional tradition, along the lines of Greg Bonson and Vanill and all the rest, they would take issue with that as well. Now, the central issue is not, and this is important, the central issue is not whether the church is authoritative. Okay? We accept the authority of the church. Okay? And I don't mean that as a side issue. The church is genuinely authoritative. Now, what does that mean? Well, it doesn't mean what Eastern Orthodox take it to mean. Okay? But that's, but that's to say that, you know, we have different views of the role of authority. Okay? Nor is the issue whether we believe whether tradition exists and things like that. We believe tradition is vitally important. And I'm not saying that as a side issue like it's important with a lowercase, you know, "i." Oh, yeah. It's important. No, no, it's vitally important. Okay? Um, and of course, we'll make the proper distinctions and, and we'll compare, you know, the authority of scripture as the infallible, um, uh, rule of faith and practice for the church. And then tradition, of course, we would take as something that is subject to the authority of scripture. Okay? But we take tradition to be very, very important. The real issue, though, is whether the church becomes epistemologically ultimate. Okay? That's the key issue here in this particular dispute between these two systems of thought. Okay? The the real issue is whether the church becomes epistemologically ultimate. Now, once the church becomes the necessary precondition for identifying revelation, authenticating revelation, and definitively interpreting revelation, the church begins to occupy the role of ultimate epistemic authority. And at that point, the Eastern Orthodox presuppositionalist encounters what I take to be a transcendental problem that I don't think they can consistently resolve. Okay? And what is, what is the problem? Well, the problem is that the church is not ontologically ultimate. The church is creaturely. The church is historical. The church is derivative. And the church is dependent. The church exists because God speaks. Okay? And the church does not exist prior to God's revelation as the condition that makes revelation possible. Just as the pastor does not ordain himself. So the the, uh, the apostles didn't ordain themselves. But the apostleship that they had was ordained by God, making them apostles. And so too with the church. The church does not ordain itself. Rather, it must be spoken into existence by the word of God. And so this means that the Eastern Orthodox system, um, as I see it, collapses into ecclesiastical self-attestation. Ecclesiastical self-attestation, and this will take us to the issue of circularity. Okay? Okay.

Now, this is obviously something that is within the the prominent purview of presuppositional thought because, um, we believe in foundations with respect to the ultimate foundation. Um, you're not going to be able to avoid circularity. But again, the orthodox apologists will critique Protestants on circularity, as, as I've seen it many times. You know, we'll be asked, "How do you know scripture is authoritative?" And of course, the the the unsuspecting Protestant will say, "Well, because scripture says so. Scripture teaches its own authority, right?" But again, that is, that's circular. That's true. That that properly identifies a level of circularity. But the orthodox position faces its own circularity. Okay? How do you know the true church? And of course, the orthodox, uh, individual will confidently tell you, well, because the church preserves the true apostolic tradition. Yeah, but how do you know which tradition is truly apostolic? Well, that's easy because because the true church says so. Yeah, but how do you know the church cannot fundamentally be mistaken? Well, easily because the church teaches that it's spirit-guided and ineffectual. Now, again, to be clear, all ultimate authorities involve a kind of circularity. I do not fault the Eastern Orthodox, um, perspective for being circular at the ultimate foundation. Vanill himself openly acknowledged that ultimate foundations are circular. And I would even argue that it is the teaching of scripture that given the nature of God's authority, okay, we have to assume his authority. That is our foundation. So I'm not faulting the Eastern Orthodox view for having a circular foundation. The issue is is not whether one reasons in a circle at that foundational paradigmatic level. The issue is whether the circle is vicious or transcendentally necessary. Okay? I'm going to say that again. The issue is whether the circle is vicious or transcendentally necessary. Now, God's self-attestation is not viciously circular. Why? Well, because God is the ontological absolute, right? There can be no authority higher than God by which God is validated. God necessarily speaks with self-authenticating authority because there is nothing above him. But here's the thing we want to keep in mind. The church is not God. The church is a created entity. Important, vitally important, but a created entity nonetheless. And therefore, once the church assumes the role of ultimate validator, a creaturely institution effectively functions as the final court of epistemic appeal, and this creates a transcendental issue. Okay? It's a transcendental problem. Now, let's take a look at this line of reasoning to highlight the problem, as, as I see it. Point one, the ultimate epistemological authority must terminate in what is ontologically ultimate. Point two, only the self-existent triune God is ontologically ultimate. Point three, the Eastern Orthodox Church is a created institution whose authority is derived from God. Okay, within the paradigm, right? Point four, what derives its authority from another cannot itself be ultimate. Think about it. No authority that is ontologically derivative and whose identity must be established before it can function as an authority can itself serve as the ultimate epistemological foundation. Point five. Furthermore, the Eastern Orthodox Church must first be identified as the true church before it can function as an authority. Point six. Therefore, the Eastern Orthodox Church cannot be the ultimate epistemological authority. Seven. Therefore, oh, let's go here. Seven. Sorry. Seven. Therefore, any form of ecclesiological presuppositionalism that treats the church as the ultimate epistemic foundation is unsuccessful. I would argue that the proper terminus of authority then is the self-attesting triune God speaking in his word. And this is precisely where the reformed, uh, position differs fundamentally. The reformed worldview terminates not in a creature, not in an institution, not in a council, and not in an interpretive community, but in the self-revealing triune God himself speaking through his word. Scripture then is self-attesting. Why? Because God is self-attesting. The authority of scripture, therefore, is grounded not in ecclesial, ecclesiastical recognition, but in divine ontology. Okay.

Now, that's very, very important. Now, there's another problem that I think Eastern Orthodox presuppositional apologists often underestimate. Okay. The Eastern Orthodox model insists that certainty is found in the church. Okay? But this immediately raises the unavoidable question, and it's a simple question, but it is an important question, and that is the very act of identifying Eastern Orthodoxy as the true church requires a whole host of things, doesn't it? It requires theological reasoning. It requires historical investigation. It requires doctrinal evaluation. It requires interpretive judgment prior to submission to the church's authority. One must assess, they must, you must be involved in assessing claims concerning apostolic succession, you know, claims about ecumenical councils, doctrinal continuity, issues pertaining to sacramental legitimacy, and all these sorts of things. Okay? But this means the individual must already employ standards of rational and theological evaluation before concluding that Eastern Orthodoxy possesses ultimate authority, or, and this is so important, or he has to stand in a hypothetical position outside of the church as the judge to see whether all of these things are true. Hence violating the Eastern Orthodox ecclesiological presuppositional framework itself. Hence falling into the very categories of neutrality that they reject. Okay? In other words, the church cannot function as the absolute starting point because one must first determine which church actually possesses the authority that is being claimed. Okay? And hence Eastern Orthodox presuppositionalism, what they do, they subtly depend upon the very individual evaluative processes that it criticizes Protestantism of, namely the issue of private judgment. Okay?

Now, the reformed position avoids this problem because scripture, as God's own revelation, possesses intrinsic authority immediately by virtue of divine authorship. You see, the church recognizes scripture because God speaks therein. The church does not confer authority upon scripture. Okay? That needs to not be, uh, uh, confused. So, at the deepest level, the debate between the reformed presuppositionalist and the Eastern Orthodox, okay, ecclesiological presuppositionalism, is a debate about where ultimate authority terminates. Let me remove this here. Okay, sorry, that was the end of my my slide specifically.

Okay, now, where does certainty terminate? Okay? Does certainty terminate in God speaking, or does certainty terminate in the church as the infallible interpretive context of God's revelation? That's a key important question. Okay? The Eastern Orthodox position makes the created institution, the church, the authenticating authority over the uncreated word. And this, in my estimation, reverses the proper order. You see, from within the reformed perspective, okay, the reformed tradition insists that only God himself can occupy the role of ultimate epistemological authority. Okay? Why? Because scripture is God's own self-revelation. It possesses, it alone possesses the qualities necessary to function as the final self-attesting standard for truth. And so I would admit, and I'm not undermining this at all, I would admit that the church is glorious. The church is authoritative. The church is indispensable. But the church is still the bride. The church is still the bride, and the bride can never become the ultimate epistemological ground of the bridegroom's voice. All right.

Now, again, a lot more can be said there, but I think this exposes the insufficient foundation of, uh, the Eastern Orthodox paradigm. Okay? I think they put, uh, the wrong thing at that authoritative level. Not because the church is not authoritative, but ontologically, the church that lacks the the capacity to be the sort of thing that can be the transcendental foundation for everything else. Okay? That is my my my issue with the foundation upon which Eastern Orthodox presuppositionalism, uh, relies upon. All right.

Now, a couple of things, um, that I want to address before kind of, uh, speaking about this a little bit more. In light of everything that I've that I've just said, the Eastern Orthodox listener, which I would imagine there's there's many listening there. And welcome. You are welcomed here. I don't mean that in any superficial fashion. I'm glad you're here. Uh, but you might be wondering, well, Eli, okay, you say all of this stuff, right? You talk about the ontological trinity as the ultimate. You talk about God's revelation as ultimate and all these sorts of things. But Eli, here's my question. How do you know what God's revelation is apart from the church? Okay? Eli, we don't believe the church created the canon in in that kind of superficial way. The scriptures are inspired by God, not by the church. Nor do we believe the church stands over scripture as though it were some higher authority. Rather, scripture, the Eastern Orthodox, uh, will say scripture, holy tradition, and the church are inseparable aspects of the life of God's people under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Okay? And so, Eli, we all know that the New Testament didn't fall out of the sky bound in leather, as we typically, you know, will describe these events with a with a table of contents and all the rest. Okay? The books of the New Testament were received, preserved, proclaimed, and recognized within the life of the church. And so it was through the worship, teaching, preaching, the sacramental life of the church that these books, books of the Bible, were identified as the inspired word of God. So, Eli, when you appeal to scripture as your ultimate authority, you are already relying upon the church that preserved and handed those scriptures down to you. Okay? How then, Eli, can you reject the authority of the church while simultaneously relying upon the canon that the church received and transmitted? Aren't you cutting yourself off, Eli, from the very context through which the scriptures are known? Now, I hope I steal the position, okay? Uh, and I'm sure someone will disagree and make a caveat, but you get the point, okay? You get the point of what I'm I'm trying to say.

And so, my response to that would be, and there's going to be fuller response to related issues in other presentations. And so if you think I I'm not dealing with it, um, as in-depth as you would like, um, you know, I'm anticipating these topics being covered in the other presentations to some degree. But my response would be that I fully agree that God used the church to preserve, proclaim, transmit, and recognize the scripture. Okay? The question is not whether God used the church. Of course he did. Okay? The real question is whether the church's role in recognizing scripture makes the church the ultimate authority by which scripture is known. And I understand someone might be asking, well, what do you mean by the church? Yes, the church needs to be defined. That's going to be a topic of one of our speakers. He's going to talk more about the the the identity of the of the of the church. Okay? So, um, that's going to be addressed. Okay?

Now, I gladly affirm that God worked through his people in history. I do not reject that. The church received apostolic writings, copied them, they circulated them, they read them in worship, they used them to, uh, defend against heresy, these sorts of things. They passed them down from generation to generation. None of that is in dispute. None of it. Okay? The question is whether recognizing divine revelation is the same thing as grounding the authority of divine revelation. And I would argue that it's not. You see, the church didn't make inspired books inspired. We know that, right? The church didn't make apostolic books apostolic. The church didn't make God's word become God's word. Okay? The church recognized these books because why? They already possessed divine authority by virtue of being breathed out by God. Okay? So, the church's recognition of scripture no more creates scripture's authority than a jeweler's recognition of a diamond creates the value of the diamond. The recognition is important, but the recognition is responding to something that's already there. And so I want you to keep those, uh, points in mind.

Now, this brings me to another question. Okay? It's an important question. All right. How do we know that the Eastern Orthodox Church itself possesses infallible authority? Okay? And this is where some key issues are going to to to come out. The Orthodox typically challenge Protestants by asking how we know which books belong in the canon. And that's a fair question, and the issue of canonicity will be addressed, not by me, by one of the other speakers. Okay? I'm just saying this in passing so that you don't think I'm sidestepping the issue. I'm, uh, again, I'm not doing all of the work of this conference. We've divied up the responsibilities and so forth. So I hope you can appreciate that, um, uh, you know, to some degree. Okay. So the Orthodox, uh, challenge Protestants by asking, how do we know which books belong in the canon? Again, that's a fair question. But what's interesting is that the same issue arises when we ask about the authority of the church itself. Okay? What establishes the authority of the church? Now, I'm going to stop here. I am not committing a two-quoque fallacy. Okay? I know what a two-quoque fallacy is. I know the context in which it's come. I'm not saying, well, Eastern Orthodox guy, hypothetical guy, I have this problem, but how do you solve the same problem? That's not what I'm saying because I don't think we have the problem that Eastern Orthodox think we have. Okay? So, I'm not, but if I were to hypothetically grant that we have the problem that they think we have, then how does, how do they avoid what seems to be the same problem? That's what I'm getting at. So, I'm not committing the two-quoque fallacy. I'm very, very aware of that fallacy and the context in which it is, uh, presented. Okay.

So, they will challenge us, you know, how do we know which books belong in the canon? Okay? But then we ask the question, okay, what establishes the authority of the church? Now, I want you to think about this. I'm going to slow down here. I want you to think about this real carefully. If scripture's authority as God's word, if scripture's authority cannot simply be accepted because scripture claims to be God's word, all right, then why should the church's authority simply be accepted because the church claims to be the true church? I'm going to repeat that question again. If scripture's authority cannot simply be accepted because scripture claims to be God's word, then why should the church's authority simply be accepted? Okay? If I ask why scripture is authoritative, the orthodox answer is going to point me to the church. Okay? But if I ask why the church is authoritative, where do we go from there? Okay. Well, we can't ultimately appeal to scripture because the because the orthodox position places the church in a foundational role in identifying scripture. Nor can we appeal to historical reliability because historical reliability is not the same as infallibility. Eventually, and I think the Eastern Orthodox presuppositionalists would agree, the chain of authority must terminate somewhere. And that's, that's the whole point. They would agree every worldview has an ultimate authority. Every worldview has a final court of appeal. The question is not whether there will be an ultimate authority. The question is where that ultimate authority terminates. For you see, the reformed Christian ultimate authority terminates in God himself speaking in scripture. For the Eastern Orthodox perspective, ultimate authority, um, terminates in the church as the authoritative guardian and interpreter of divine revelation. And this is where I believe the fundamental difference comes out at that foundational level. Okay? Watch this. The Eastern Orthodox position does not explicitly place the church above scripture. I'm aware of that. Okay? Most orthodox Christians would rightly reject that characterization. Nevertheless, okay, nevertheless, the church functions as the necessary epistemological authority through which scripture is identified and interpreted. And that's an important observation to make. In practice, you see, this means that the church becomes the lens through which scripture is known. Okay? But biblically speaking, they've got the cart before the horse. Okay? Is that how the saying goes? The cart before the horse. I think I got that right. Okay. The ch for us, the church exists because God has spoken. Okay. God's speech does not possess authority because the church has recognized it. Okay? If God's revelation requires another authority to authenticate it, then that authority becomes the ultimate authority. But again, by definition, God has no higher authority, which is what the Bible teaches. Okay? And so his revelation possesses an intrinsic self-attesting authority because it proceeds from the self-attesting God. The church hears the voice of her shepherd because the shepherd's voice already possesses divine authority. The church does not grant that authority. The church recognizes that authority. So my my disagreement here is not that the church recognizes the canon. We affirm that. My disagreement is that the Eastern Orthodox presuppositional apologist makes the church the epistemological foundation for identifying divine revelation. Whereas I believe divine revelation is self-attesting because it proceeds from the self-attesting God and is recognized by the church because of that authority, not the other way around. Okay.

Now, again, this issue of, um, ultimate authority really is where is where the crux of the debate is, and this is the reason why, for example, um, there's there's a lot of talking past each other between, uh, Protestants who hold to say, sola scriptura and the self-attesting nature of scripture, and Eastern Orthodox and, and these sorts of things. You know, a lot of people will say, you know, what's the difference? But I've asked, I've been asked this question a bunch of times, what's the difference between Protestant Christianity and Eastern Orthodoxy or Roman Catholicism? And really, the, we can, we could list out those differences, you know, like, you know, the, the praying to saints and, and, and these sorts of things that Protestants typically balk at. But really, the issue of authority. We have a different fundamental ultimate self-attesting authority. All right? That that's the difference. Okay? If you just pull away the, take away the rug and get to what's underneath the rug, it is the difference between the nature of our authorities. All right? Very, very important because because all right, um, the authorities upon which we stand, okay, will dictate how we proceed to engage in all of these other, um, these other issues. All right.

Now, let's get specific. Okay. What exactly is the problem with Eastern Orthodox, the Eastern Orthodox apologists using presuppositional apologetics? Well, well, the problem is this. Okay. A consistently presuppositional approach must be grounded in a sufficient transcendental authority. Okay? I'm going to say that again. A consistently presuppositional approach must be grounded in a sufficient transcendental authority. In other words, if we're asking what must be true in order for knowledge, truth, meaning, certainty, revelation, and interpretation to be possible, then our answer cannot terminate in something created. It cannot terminate in something historical, changeable, derivative, or dependent. Okay? It must terminate in the self-contained, self-attesting triune God. That is the heart of the presuppositional approach. Presuppositional apologetics is not simply saying, "Hey, everyone's got presuppositions, man." Okay? That's true, by the way, but that's not, that's not the gist of it, right? Or we're not simply saying, "Well, you know, neutrality is a myth." That's true, but that's not the whole heart of the, uh, the apologetic. Those things are true. Okay? But the deeper point is that the Christian worldview alone provides the necessary preconditions for intelligible human experience. And the question is not what authority do you personally trust. The question is what ultimate authority must be true in order for anything to be known at all. And this is where the Eastern Orthodox use of presuppositional language, I, I think, runs into some problems. Okay? The Eastern Orthodox apologist wants to say something like this. Okay, you Protestants have scripture, but you only know scripture through the church. Okay? You only know the canon through the church. You only know right interpretation through the church. Therefore, the church must be the necessary context for scripture, doctrine, certainty, and all the rest. Okay? Now, that sounds very presuppositional. It sounds like they're asking for the necessary precondition for knowing divine revelation, these sorts of things. And that's the right question. But when we press the argument carefully, we see that the Eastern Orthodox position is not actually grounding knowledge in the self-attesting triune God speaking by his word. It's grounding certainty in the church, a created entity, as the infallible interpretive and identifying authority. Okay? And here's my, here's my critique. The church, as the church, as a created entity, is not a sufficient transcendental authority. Okay? As I said before, and I don't mean this as a, a passing side comment, I believe the church is glorious. Okay? I believe the church is Christ's body. I believe that the church is indwelt by the spirit, and I believe with scripture that the church is the pillar and buttress of the truth in the sense that she upholds, proclaims, guards, and confesses the truth. I affirm that. But the church is not God. Okay? The church is not eternal. The church is not self-existent. The church is not, as I said before, ontologically ultimate. The church doesn't have a say. Okay? Those are attributes of God. Okay? The church depends upon Christ. The church depends upon revelation. The church depends upon the spirit. It depends upon the word. Depends upon God's prior act of speaking. And so if the Eastern Orthodox apologist says you need the church in order to know scripture, my response is you need God's self-attesting revelation in order to know what the church is. Okay? And again, not a two-quoque because the issue will be addressed, and I do not agree with the characterization that the Eastern Orthodox typically think the position that we are in as, uh, Protestants and, and, and so forth. Okay? So the church does not define the word into existence. The word, okay, is the foundation and creates, defines, governs, and judges and corrects the church, even as the Bereans use the word of God to test whether what Paul was saying is true. Okay? And so this means that when Eastern Orthodoxy tries to use, um, presuppositional, uh, apologetics, it will smuggle in, and this is my critique, a creaturely authority, a genuine authority, but a creaturely authority at the very point where only the creator can stand. It places the church in the position of epistemological necessity. And once it does that, what happens is it begins to confuse a ministerial authority with a transcendental authority. Okay? A ministerial authority serves the truth. I don't deny that. But a transcendental authority grounds the very possibility of truth. Okay? We could admit that a ministerial authority receives.

It guards, it proclaims, it teaches revelation and so forth. But a transcendental authority makes revelation, knowledge, interpretation and truth itself possible in the first place. That's why it can function as a transcendental foundation. The church can be a ministerial authority and I believe that it is. But it cannot be the transcendental ground of Christian certainty. And this is where the Eastern Orthodox position, I think, becomes either arbitrary, inconsistent, and in a sense absurd. And I mean that respectfully. And of course, obviously, there going to be people who disagree. But, you know, um, as the saying goes, hear me out.

Okay. Um, all right. So, first, I think it becomes arbitrary. If the orthodox apologist says the true church is the final authority because the true church says so, then the position becomes arbitrary. Okay. Why? Why that church rather than Rome? You know, why this communion rather than the oriental orthodox? You know, why this set of councils rather than another set of of councils? You know, why this particular line of historical continuity rather than another competing claim of apostolic continuity? Okay, at some point the orthodox apologist is going to have to give reasons. And they do, by the way. I'm not saying that they don't. They do give reasons. Okay. But what reasons uh will they give? Okay. The uh the the person will have to appeal to history, which they do. uh they appeal to doctrine, they appeal to councils, they appeal to the writings of the church fathers, they're they will appeal to liturgy, continuity, apostolic succession and all these things, right? But the moment they do that, okay, they are no longer simply submitting to the church as the starting point. Okay, they are evaluating the church by prior standards of judgment. And and when they do that, the person is standing outside the church's authority in order to determine whether the church's authority is valid. Guess what? That's private judgment, right? That is precisely what the Eastern Orthodox apologist criticizes the Protestant of. Isn't that right? So, if I just affirm this is the true church, okay, I accept it just on its authority claim, that's arbitrary, right? But then once you start trying to demonstrate it, then you have to appeal to these other standards, which makes you step in neutral categories because of course the Protestant is not going to agree with your interpretation of history and all the rest. Okay? And so again, the issue becomes very problematic. The Orthodox apologist says, "You Protestants rely on private judgment to identify scripture." But then what does the Eastern Orthodox apologist do? He turns right around and uses his private judgment to identify the true church. Okay? Or the person who is inquiring as to what the true church is must stand outside that authority to judge it. Okay? They evaluate historical claims. They evaluate doctrinal claims. They evaluate rival communions. these sorts of things, the canon of councelss, you know, which tradition is authentic, these sorts of things. Okay, which ecclesial body has preserved truly the apostolic faith. Okay, but if that kind of reasoning is illegitimate for the Protestant, why is it legitimate for the Orthodox? It seems to me that there is a um a double standard going on there. Okay, and I mean that uh respectfully, of course.

Secondly, I think the position becomes inconsistent. Okay, Eastern Orthodoxy wants to deny Eastern Orthodox presuppositionalism wants to deny neutrality. Um, it wants to say uh that autonomous reason uh cannot stand above divine revelation. I agree with that. I agree. Okay. But but that in order to identify the Eastern Orthodox Church as the true church, the inquirer must be placed in the position of a neutral evaluator weighing competing ecclesial claims. Okay? How else would they know who the true church is? Okay, they need to ask is Rome right? Is Eastern Orthodoxy right? Are the oriental orthodox right? Which councils are truly ecumenical? Right? Which fathers should be given the decisive authority? Which historical narrative is correct? These are all important questions. By the way, I'm not faulting people for asking those questions. Okay? But what is the standard by which that person will make the judgment as to what the true church is? Okay? If he says the church tells me, then he's arguing in a facious circle that has not yet been justified why this body is the church and not another. But if he says, well, I examine the evidence and conclude that orthodoxy is the true church, then his personal judgment is functioning prior to his submission to orthodoxy, that's inconsistent. Okay? And so the Orthodox apologist criticizes the Protestant for supposedly standing over scripture, but then he has to stand over the competing claims of the churches in order to determine which church um he should stand under. Okay? And again, that that's just an inconsistent methodology.

Now, thirdly, the position tends towards a kind of absurdity as I see it. And again, I do mean this respectfully. I don't mean this in a superficial way. I mean just as I reflect upon what I hear people arguing and so forth, I think I think there is a certain level of absurdity to the position. If the church um is the necessary precondition for identifying uh revelation and um you know interpreting revelation, okay, then revelation is no longer a self-attesting authority in that final sense. God's speech in in in this case would become dependent upon an ecclesiastical act of recognition in order to be known as God's speech. Okay. But if God's word needs another authority to authenticate it, then that other authority functionally they don't say that it's a higher but it functionally becomes a higher authority than God's word. That's absurd. A created entity functions as a higher authority to the actual authority, the onlogical triune God. You see, God does not need the creature to authenticate his voice. The sheep hear the shepherd's voice. They don't give the shepherd his voice. Okay? They recognize his voice because it is already his voice. Okay?

Now, in light of all of this, someone might say, "Well, Eli, you know, your problem is you're you're ignoring the historical process." Okay? God used the church. And and my response to that is, "I'm not ignoring that. I fully affirm that God um revealed himself in history. I know I believe that God used prophets, apostles, you know, pastors, councils, all these sorts of things. I affirm all those things. But an important point to keep in mind is that God's use of an instrument doesn't make the instrument infallible and ultimate. Okay? God uses the church, but that doesn't mean the church is ultimate. And I think that distinction is vitally important. Okay? The fact that God uses the church historically doesn't mean the church becomes the epistemological foundation for revelation. God can use means without making the means um ontologically or epistemologically ultimate. God can use human instruments without transferring kind of a a divine ultimacy to those instruments. Okay? And so from a broad protestant perspective and specifically reformed perspective, we're not anti-church. Okay? I want to make this clear. We are anti-didolatry. Okay? the the the reformed perspective refuses to allow a created institution, even a glorious and spirit indwelt institution to occupy the place that belongs only to the selfattesting triune God. And this is why the reformed presuppositionalist must say to the Eastern Orthodox apologist, your system cannot bear the weight that you're placing upon it. The church cannot be the ultimate epistemological precondition for knowing God's revelation because the church itself must be known. The church itself must be defined judged by God's revelation. The church is not the light by which the word becomes visible. The word is the light by which the church is seen for what it is. Okay. So these are vitally important uh issues. Obviously there's much more that can be said. I cannot say it all here in this uh presentation. Um, but these are vitally important topics. They are pertaining to the um uh the foundations, our ultimate foundation.

Now granted, not everyone within the reformed uh Protestant perspective are presuppositionalists. And of course um I would not count such friends uh uh my evidential friends and my classical friends and things like this. I would not regard them as not Christian. Although I would call them to a greater consistency as I see it. We could have that disagreement within kind of um uh kind of internal disagreement. There are aspects of doctrine that um the apostle Paul says let every man be convinced in his own mind. So with respect to those non-essentials, I think that um those are areas that we can disagree and we could we can challenge um we can challenge each other in regards to those important topics. Uh but um you know uh uh I think these foundational issues are just so vitally important that um oftentimes when there's speaking past one another it's because we're ignoring those those those things that are happening underneath uh the hood. Now granted if you disagree with what I've just said which I I anticipated that okay hopefully at least we can see the difference in the foundation. Okay. And then the Eastern Orthodox is free to kind of expound and correct what they take to be the proper understanding of their authority and so forth and what that entails and stuff and and things like that. So I have um no problem being corrected and and re-evaluating how I see their authority structure. But but my critique would still stand given that the fundamental difference is the the difference in understanding the nature of the church and the role of its authority.

All right. All right. Well, that concludes my presentation here. Um, up next we will be having uh Joshua Shuping. Okay, I'll put this up here um on the screen. Not that we'll remove this. Okay. Uh Joshua Shuping will be uh joining us. Um, and he his time slot will be um around 210. 2:10. All right. Well, I hope that this has been enjoyable and and somewhat engaging and um you know um and I hope that that the next presentation will be will will be useful to you as well. All right, thank you guys so much for your time. I'm going to hop off the screen going to keep this up on the screen um until it is Joshua's time to to join us. All right, thank you and God bless. Bye-bye.

And taking the 12. He said to them, "See, we are going up to Jerusalem and everything that is written about the son of man by the prophet will be accomplished. Before he will be delivered over to the Gentiles and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon. And after flogging him, they will kill him. And on the third day, he will rise." But they understood none of these things. The same was hidden from them. And they did not grasp what was said.

"I am the Lord. I have called you in righteousness. I will take you by the hand and keep you. I will give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon. From the prison, those who sit in darkness."

As he drew near to Jero. A blind man was sitting by the roadside begging. And hearing a crowd going by, he inquired what this meant. They told him, "Jesus of Nazareth is passing by."

"I am the Lord. I have called you in righteousness. I will take you by the hand of keeping. I will give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison, those who sit in darkness."

And he cried out, "Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me." And those who were in front rebuked him, telling him to be silent. But he cried out all the more, "Son of David, have mercy on me."

"I am the Lord. I have called you in righteousness. I will take you by the hand and keep you. I will give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison, those who sit in darkness."

And Jesus stopped and commanded him to be brought to him. And when he came near, he asked him, "What do you want me to do for you?" He said, "Lord, let me recover my sight." And Jesus said to him, "Recover your sight. Your faith has made you well."

"I am the Lord. I have called you in righteousness. I will take you by the hand and keep you. I will give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon. From the prison, those who sit in darkness, sit in darkness."

And immediately he recovered his sight and followed him glorifying God. And all the people when they saw it gave praise to God.

"I am the Lord. I call you in righteousness. I will take you. I am keep you. I will give you as a covenant for the people, a life for the nations, to open the eyes that are blind. To bring out the prisoners from the dungeon. From the prison, those who sit in darkness. I will give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations, to open the eyes that are blind."

"Say to the daughter of Zion, 'Behold, your king is coming to you.' Humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt the full of a beast of burden." And as they were untying the colt, its owners said to them, "Why are you untying the colt?" And they said, "The Lord has need of it."

"Say to the daughter of Zion, 'Behold, your king is coming to you. Humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt the f of a beast of burden.'" And they brought it to Jesus and throwing their cloaks on the colt they said Jesus on it. And as he rode along they spread their cloaks on the road.

"To the of Zion, behold your king is coming to you. Humble and mounted on a donkey, on a cult, the fall of a beast of burden." As he was drawing near, already on the way down the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, saying, "Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest."

"Say to the daughter of Zion, behold your king is coming to you. Humble and mounted on a donkey. On a cult, the fall of a beast of burden." Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, "Teacher, rebuke your disciples." He answered, "I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out."

"Say to the daughter of Zion, 'Behold, your king is coming to you. Humble and mounted on a donkey. On a cult, the full of a beast of burden. Humble and mounted on a donkey, on a full of a beast of burden.'"

"If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging symbol. And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge. And if I have all faith so as to remove mountains but have not love I am nothing. If I give away all I have and if I deliver up my body to be burned but have not love I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind. Love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice at wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things all hopes all things endures all things. Love never ends. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away. As for tongues, they will cease. As for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we come."

Okay. All right. Well, welcome back. Uh we are at 207. Before we officially get started, I'd like to introduce uh Joshua Shuping who is going to give his presentation. Um, let's put him up on the screen. We'll be here together for a moment. Hello. How are you?

By the grace of God? Alive and well. How are you, Eli?

I'm doing wonderful. Thank you so much for being here and thank you so much for participating. Really appreciate it. Um, I Do you have anything you need to set up first before we kind of uh get started since we're going to officially start at 210? Got two minutes. Do you have any slides or presentations that you want to uh to put up there?

No, unfortunately I'm not that sophisticated.

Okay. So, it's just going to be you. That's perfectly fine. No, no worries. Um, so uh we're at 208. Um, if you'd like, we could wait the last two minutes or you can start now if you'd like. I I want to make sure we keep within the the bounds though, so maybe we should wait a little bit.

Um, all right.

Whatever. Yeah, as you wish. Okay. All right. So, let me get myself out of here and you can start whenever you're ready. Okay.

Okay. By the grace of God. Thank you, Eli.

All right. It's my pleasure.

Greetings in the name of the Lord. Uh my name is Joshua Shuping. I'm a former Eastern Orthodox priest. Um I serve as a confessional Lutheran pastor in the LCMS. Um I spent uh about 12 years in the Eastern Orthodox Church. I spent four years at St. Vlad's Seminary. Uh I got an MD and a THM there. Uh and then I served as a priest for uh five years in the Eastern Orthodox Church. I was ordained uh in Roor. Uh and then I finished my time serving in the OCA. And so uh I'm happy to share uh what I understand about Eastern Orthodoxy and what I uh consider to be uh their errors. And I know it said on the uh front that I'd be discussing canon issues. I am going to touch on those, but really what I wanted to uh kind of discuss is what I'm basically calling 8 + one headings for critique of Eastern Orthodoxy because I believe that um it's very easy to get lost in the weeds of Eastern Orthodoxy. Uh there's so many things that could fascinate the attention. And so I kind of want to uh help uh direct people to some areas of concern that they might have regarding uh Eastern Orthodox uh theology and practice. uh so that as they you know read this or that or listen to this or that um whether it's an inner uh you know uh an internet uh or YouTube uh personality or priest or even a bishop um they can uh start to discover uh how to really discern uh where to go to find authoritative uh information uh if such a thing even exists uh in the Eastern Orthodox Church. And so I'm going to read from my uh text that I have here with some some comments. And and so um we're going to discuss some uh key areas where a person who wants to get a clearer grasp of the profound errors of Eastern Orthodoxy ought to look. Um and I would say this is worth noting because many people enamored themselves uh innocently even virtuously uh of Eastern Orthodoxy by reading let's say Athanasius or the Capidosian fathers or John Croastam or Sirill of Alexandria thinking that modern Eastern orthodoxy is simply a continuation of what these fathers thought. They'll they'll often read these fathers and think, "Oh, that's representative of Eastern Orthodoxy uh not really realizing that many things have happened uh since the fifth fourth and fifth centuries. Uh that there's been a departure from from those fathers or they might even think that those fathers aren't the fathers of the west. Also um our great magisterial reformers uh they were deeply steeped in the the church fathers and very much saw themselves as in continuity with those church fathers. Or a person might go to uh an Eastern Orthodox liturgy and they'll be told, "Oh, this is just how the apostles worship. This is unchanged worship." And they won't realize that that's actually a pretty late uh like a medieval um liturgy. it was uh most of the hymns uh are not are not Petristic. Uh they come from the Petristic or just after the Petristic era sometime around John of Damascus. Um, and so uh they'll a lot of the uh the vestments that the that the priest or the bishop or the deacon will wear um the architecture all the icons a lot of that is medieval. And so they'll be told by someone that oh that's just how the apostles worshiped and they won't know any better uh to to to go into the history or to look into the arguments and to and to the developments of these things. And and so it's important that a person uh has to really understand a lot of things in order to engage with Eastern Orthodoxy because it's a it's a 2,000-year-old tradition with many developments that happened after uh and around the seventh ecumenical council uh that inform and shape their thought profoundly. Um and so it's important that a person doesn't just read uh the the fourth and fifth century church fathers or even uh or go to a liturgy and think that it's all just the same. And some people might even read apostolic fathers like Clement or Ignatius or Polycarp and they might mistakenly think that modern Eastern Orthodoxy is an extension of what these fathers taught also. Um and yet these uh early apostolic fathers they don't really obey uh Eastern Orthodox uh rhetoric. uh for example a wonderful statement that uh is in the letter of Polycarp to the Phil uh Philippians. He writes in uh chapter one uh I guess we what we might call verse three though you have not seen him you believe in him with an inexpressable and glorious joy which many desire to experience knowing that by grace you have been saved not because of works but by the will of God through Jesus Christ. And so we see that we're saved by grace and not uh by works. We're going to look later and we're going to look at some of the developed statements of the Eastern Orthodox Church and show how they actually do say you are justified uh by works. We'll find this other beautiful statement by uh Clement in 1 Clement uh chapter 32 uh verse three where he says or or uh verse 4, excuse me, where he says, "And so we having been called through his will in Christ Jesus are not justified through ourselves or through our own wisdom or understanding or piety or works that we have done in holiness of heart, but through faith by which the Almighty God has justified all who have existed from the beginning to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen. So there we see not an Eastern Orthodox sentiment but actually a reformation sentiment uh because the reformation was actually the restoration or the the the it was the the rediscovery of the apostolic teaching. And so where you have the Eastern Orthodox often talking about having an Eastern Orthodox Frooma which is a fancy Greek word for mindset. uh we actually see that the reformation um and especially the confessional churches they were uh uh returning to the apostolic fonima the apostolic mindset and so it's very careful to realize how our protestant traditions uh are are actually uh rooted in the early church and in the the the scriptures themselves because they were overcoming these uh developed departures that are found both in the Roman Catholic and in the Eastern Orthodox churches. And so even when it comes to issues like salvation uh the Eastern Orthodox are confused. Uh it would be hard to get a very clear answer. They might say that salvation is theosis or the transformative work that we undertake in order to become divine by grace. And so though not becoming divine of course by by nature but but by grace by participation they'll even say that union with God is not the beginning uh of salvation uh but really only it's its end goal but the whole idea of the the reformation was to to note that we begin with salvation. It's salvation is something that that enters into us through the gospel. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation. And so that as uh as the gospel creates faith in our heart, that's the beginning of eternal life itself beginning in us. So we're not hoping to one day only be saved. We we have been saved. We are being saved and and we will be saved. So when you hear Kalistos wear try to try to co-opt that that statement that's he actually borrowed that from from what I understand from a Protestant uh and from his Anglican uh past. And so in this rhetoric that the Eastern Orthodox are often kind of trying to espouse, we'll find that they often talk out of both sides of their mouth. Uh uh or as the Eastern Orthodox might talk about the three-fold scheme of salvation, which is purggation, illumination, and unification, which again union with God is seen as like kind of the end product or the end goal. But that's actually derived a lot from Plutinus in the 3rd century and neoplatoninism. uh pseudoius uh in the sixth century developed us even more along neoplatonic lines but casting it all in in Christian language but when you closely read Dianius pseudoius he has no real interest at all in the cross death or resurrection of Christ the atonement doesn't figure so this was just kind of the neoplatanizing of Christianity that happened in the Eastern Orthodox church uh especially in around the sixth century and following and that's why we're going to see icons coming in marology all uh excessively high marology coming in where the toll house theory starts coming in. And so uh we'll just kind of get right down uh to it and talk about the uh first area. So we have 8 plus one. The plus one is is in a sense going to be our prologamina. It's going to be identifying the sources of author of authority uh for Eastern Orthodox doctrine. And so, of course, they have uh the written tradition uh the Bible, but they're not really clear about the canon of scripture. So, they don't really know exactly uh uh which books ought to be in or ought to to not be in. So, when you get to 1644 and 1672 uh in various councils, the Jerusalem Council of 1672, we're going to look at that a little bit more as we go along as well. It affirmed the the wider the Roman Catholic essentially cannon of scripture. you know, including all the extra dudaro canonical or apocryphal books. But just a couple centuries later, you have Filerette in Moscow, a Russian Orthodox giving the conservative Protestant cannon. And a lot of people don't realize that that the Protestant cannon was really just the more conservative cannon. It was the the list of 66 books that the church fathers had almost all universally agreed were certainly scripture. So the Protestant cannon and uh uh really the petristic criterion for the the canon would be ecclesia ecclesiastical reception. Augustine makes this kind of clear um that one should prefer those writings accepted by the consensus of the church. So it's a it's the church consensus. It's not a church council or at least by the majority and those writings accepted by the more authoritative churches such as churches that boast of an apostolic connection. You can read about uh the biblical canon lists of early Christianity in a book by Gallagher and me and uh interestingly enough Augustine uses the uh considers the apocrypha part of the canon but most did not most of the early church did not include the apocrypha as part of the canon. So, so the church doesn't receive its canon based on the fiat of a council uh but by an ecclesiastical uh reception by the by the trustworthy witnesses of of these early uh church churches. Uh and the term apocrypha itself which the Eastern Orthodox accuse the the Protestants of being malicious in using that term. Um, Jerome is the one who used the term apocrypha but in a positive sense. you find in the early canon lists uh sometimes a negative association with the term apocrypha and a positive of the apocrypha. Rufinus uh used the term ecclesiastical books uh to distinguish out these uh from the the proper canon that the protestants uh uh have received. And so the term duderoko cananan duderokan was actually a term coined uh just for information sake by a Roman Catholic named Sixstus of Sienna uh in the seven in the 16th century. He died in 1569. So the so the term uh dudero canon is actually of Roman Catholic origin but the terms apocrypha and ecclesiastical books those are of uh of petristic origin. But those uh early church writers and theologians who used uh basically what the Protestant cannon is uh would include Molito of Sardis originius of Cesaria, Sirill of Jerusalem, Athanasius of Alexandria, the Cinnid of Laia, Gregory of Nazanzis, Hillary of Poier, Jerome Rufinus and Epipanius. do not include the dudero canonical books in their canon lists and match more consu uh closely the conservative cannon that the reformers received. And so just as the as the early church like Gregory of Naz Nazanzis received the the cannon of scripture uh so the the Protestants received it in the same way. Um, which of course brings us to the question of solos scriptor in the the in the fathers. But uh we'll define soloscriptor as the that scripture is the highest and only authority only infallible authority in the church. But we have to ask why. Um and that's because soloscriptor is the speech of God. And the speech of God is by nature the most authoritative speech. Therefore his word the lord's word is uh necessarily the highest authority and the only infallible authority. This is actually confessed in the creed. uh when we confess the that we believe in the Holy Spirit uh the Lord and giver of life who proceeds from the father and the son who with the father and the son together is worshiped and glorified and here's the key phrase who spoke by the prophets. So in the creed we confess that the that the scriptures are the speech of God and as the speech of God they also have a two-fold authority both divine and apostolic as St. Paul says the church is founded on the the prophets and the apostles. And so we see that the scriptures have this two-fold authority. It's divine and apostolic. And so no bishop and no group of Christians has an authority that's equal to or greater than either God or his uh designated speakers, the apostles and prophets. So this is one of the the principal reasons why the the church which uh uh which in its authority is comprised of of of you have whether you look at bishops, priests and leoty or bishops, priests, deacons and ley or or just elders and leoty uh none of that none of those configurations actually creates or generates or sustains an authority that's equal to God's authority or equal to uh the apostles authority. So just by nature the scriptures have the highest authority. The Lord's word is always uh the the ruling word. And so uh we might see St. Athanasius uh say in a letter vainly then do they the heretics run about with the pretext that they have demanded councils for the faith's sake. So here's solos scriptor in the in the fathers because as St. Athanasius says here for divine scripture is sufficient above all things. So here the this great father of the church is saying that that that the scriptures are above councils. It's not to say that councils are are by nature useless. Um, uh councils are are are valuable. They do have value if they accord with scripture. St. Gregory of Nissa in the 4th century he writes, "We make the holy scriptures the rule and the measure of every tenant. We necessarily fix our eyes upon that. What was that? Holy scriptures. And to prove that alone which may be made to harmonize with the intentions of those writings." So here we see this kind of alone language with scripture. And here again St. Gregory of Nissa he says, "What then is our reply in a letter to Eustaceius? He he says, 'We do not think that it is right to make their prevailing custom the law and rule of sound doctrine.'" Now it's this the the prevailing custom of Eastern Orthodox churches to venerate icons. So they make that their custom the law and rule of sound doctrine which is against what Gregory of Nissa teaches. "For if custom is to avail for proof of soundness, we too surely may advance our prevailing custom." So he's not putting his custom the the the custom of his local of the or of just church practice as such as the rule. And if they reject this, we are surely not bound to follow theirs. "Let the inspired scripture," he says, "then be our umpire." So the scriptures are the umpire and the vote of truth will surely be given to those whose dogmas are found to agree with the divine words. So here we see solar scriptor in in the church fathers. So when people say oh I'm going to read the church fathers and and then come to the conclusion that that just supports eastern orthodoxy they're not reading the the church fathers very well or very closely. There's often also a lot of anacronism projecting these later developed ideas of like a Gregory Palamos or of John of Damascus about icons back onto early fathers like Gregory of Nessa or Basil of Cesaria.

The church for the Eastern Orthodox is another uh one of their sources of dogmatic authority. The Jerusalem Council of 1672, one of their universally received councils and therefore of universal authority, they they actually define and decree too, they say that "the witness also of the Catholic Church, that's them alone, is we believe not of inferior authority to that of the divine scriptures." Okay? So they're saying the church is not of inferior authority to that of the divine scriptures. So church divine scripture church's word god's word equal authority for one and the so same holy spirit being the author of both it is quite the same to be taught by the scriptures and by the catholic church so but if the question of what becomes the catholic church or if the if there is a question over who is the catholic church we can't just ask the cath you know whoever claims this so we have to have an umpire so we go back to Gregory of Nissa to to defeat the eastern orthodox claim the the modern Eastern Orthodox claim. Moreover, "when any man speaks from himself, he is liable to error and to deceive and be deceived. But the Catholic Church is never having spoken or speaking from herself, but from the spirit of God, who being her teacher, she's ever unfailingly rich." And then the Jerusalem Council of 1672 adds, "It is impossible for her to in any wise error or to at all deceive or be deceived, but like the divine scriptures is infallible and has perpetual authority." So he's making the claim that the church can never be deceived. So but since we have so many claimants of the church either they're none of them are deceived and yet they have mutually contradictory claims or you would have to presuppose one of them to be right which is as Eli well pointed out would be a viciously circular argument. So the church for them is is infallible and that's of course a claim that can't be proven. Because whenever you look at the church you see this council come up this that then that council being rejected. So you have a council the church al both creating a council and rejecting that council. And so was it when was it right and when was it wrong? Right? Because if the church can not in any wise error it's infallible. How could it create a how could it come up with a council that's considered false? Right? So we have in the seventh ecumenical council that actually was preceded by a council and followed by a council that rejected the seventh ecumenical council. So if the church can't in any wise error then it couldn't have done that. George Florovsky said that this very council that we're looking at the Jerusalem council of 1672 was a time period when the Eastern Orthodox Church was in a Latin or Western captivity. But if the church is if it's impossible for the church to in any wise error, it couldn't fall into a Latin captivity or a western captivity. But even so, they say that the church is of infallible authority. So, it's one of their claimed sources.

Another is unwritten tradition. They're going to say that these unwritten traditions uh carry so much super authority with the Eastern Orthodox Church. And so they'll often cite St. Basil on this as evidence because St. Basil writes about how pra about how there is unwritten tradition in the church and that it is authoritative. But when you read this, it's from his treatis on the holy spirit chapter 27. When you actually read that section, you find that he's not talking about dogma or doctrine. He's really talking about rights or ceremonies in the church. And so for example, one of the ones he says is making the sign of the cross. Right? So when he says the sign of the cross is apostolic and therefore we we must do it or we ought to do it, he's not creating a per se dogma like you know um like Mary like the immaculate conception like the apostles weren't whispering the immaculate conception into the ears of the churches around them. so we want to be able to distinguish between doctrine considered properly and then unwritten traditions of practices and ceremonies and gestures. He he includes another one facing east at prayer is another one of the kind of things that he says is an unwritten tradition. So when the Eastern Orthodox try to say that unwritten tradition is you know is a source of authority they they make that that concept do way too much heavy lifting because then they try to talk about like the dormission of Mary and that Mary's body was miraculously transported to heaven after she died and but and then they'll try to say that that's all a part of unwritten tradition but that's not how Basil uses that that concept at all.

Another one, another source of authority for the Eastern Orthodox Church, of course, is the fathers. But you'll find that they'll also say, "We don't go by what any one father says." So then they end up going right into the problem of private judgment that they accuse Protestants of. They cherrypick the fathers often. So some might like Maximus, the confessor, and Isaac of Nineveh because they think that they're universalists. And so you have the famous contemporary Eastern Orthodox theologian named David Bentley Hart promoting universalism, promoting originism, right? Because he likes those fathers. And then you have all the fathers who teach in the Eastern the the later Eastern Orthodox churches teaching toll houses as we'll see below. And so even but some people say, "Oh, we don't go by what these fathers say." So you'll find that they'll, you know, there'll be this like kind of like silent little just series of of different kind of configurations that people make of of which father's doctrines they like and want to practice. And so as they accuse Protestants of of this issue of private judgment and being their own pope, you'll find that Eastern Orthodox actually just kick the can down the road and create the same or worse problem with the church fathers.

Another source of authority for them is councils. in decree 12 they define this at the Jerusalem council of 1672 they say in like manner the church is taught indeed by the life-giving spirit but through the medium of the holy fathers and doctors and then it writes it specifies whose rule is acknowledged to be the holy and ecumenical cinnids for we shall not cease to say this 10,000 times so here you see this this idea of the ecumenical cinnids being the source of absolute authority equal to God's Um, and therefore, not only are we persuaded, but do profess as true and undoubtedly certain that it is impossible for the Catholic Church to heir or at all be deceived or ever to choose falsehood instead of truth. And so, when they say that the ecumenical councils are infallible and cannot heir or be deceived in any way, we see that it just immediately puts them in a very awkward position because they claim in the seventh ecumenical council that the apostles taught icon veneration. And so that claim cannot both be true and false at the same time in the same way. Either it's infallible and the apostles taught it of which there is no evidence and lots of contrary evidence or or we have a real big problem. Either way really.

Another one is another facet of the councils to consider is that councils that are not ecumenical can also be of universal authority. And this is by what we would call uni what we could call universal reception. So for example the encyclical of the holy and great council of the orthodox church that met in cree in 2016 which had 10 of the 14 autophilis churches over 150 bishops. So this really represents the mass view of Eastern Orthodox hierarchy. So this so it's not like a cherrypicking sort of piece of of information. And this is when they all gather together, this is representative of their view. Or they say that it's not representative of their view and therefore 10 of the 14 autophilis churches are teaching falsehood, which also should be false. It should not be able to happen. But either way, paragraph 3 states the consiliary work of the church cons of the Eastern Orthodox Church continues uninterrupted in history through the later councils of universal authority. Note that the later councils of universal authority and then it names them such as for example the great council in 87980 convened at the time of St. Fodius the great I call him the great schismatic because of his schismatic nature and attitudes and actions. Then it says podius the great patriarch of Constantinople and also the great councils convened at the time of St. Gregory Palamos which of course are universally received in 1341, 1351 and 1368 through which the same truth of faith was confirmed most especially as concerns the processions of the Holy Spirit, excuse me, the procession of the Holy Spirit because of course they anathematized the filioquay and as concerns the participation of human beings in the uncreated divine energies and furthermore through the holy and great councils convened in Constantinople in 1484 to refute the unionist council of Florence because the east has a has a bad habit of of of entering into agreement in a council and then backing out afterwards in 1638, 1642, 1672 and that was the council of Jerusalem in 1672 and 1691 to refute Protestant beliefs. So here we have them testifying themselves at the highest possible levels 10 out of 14 of their patriarchets. We know also that Russia who was not involved in that council has already published that they agree with the council of 1672. So there's no way to get around the universal reception of the Jerusalem Council of 1672. And if it's received by that church, that means the bishops admit and acknowledge its dogmatic truth and authority. So if they accept it as a true council on dogmatic teachings, that means they accept that dogmatic teaching as true. So they can't both accept it as true and then treat it as false. So they back themselves in a corner this way.

Another source of authority for the east is liturgy and himnity or himnography. It's important to know that the Eastern Orthodox liturgy and himnity is is all fixed at this point at in like the the high middle ages. It all became essentially fixed. And so it took on like the nature of being a teacher to the church. So the hymns of the church have dogmatic authority, binding, teaching authority. They, in other words, they would never claim that they're singing falsehood. So when they sing it, it's either true or false. So if they're singing it as true, that's their confessing it as true. They don't they they can't change or update their hymns. Their hymns are all fixed and considered holy. and and actually the ecumenical patriarch states of the octoacos one of the their hymn h him books that the whole Christian dogmatic doctrine is encoded. So in other words their hymns are are encodings of their dogmatic teaching that particular quote comes from a a large book called the departure of the soul that teaches the eastern orthodox doctrine of toll houses. So that was kind of like that prologamina like what the sources of authority in the Eastern Orthodox Church are. So that if we kind of get down to these eight issues, this 1 plus 8, we're going to be able to see like these kind of key areas and and how they're kind of beholden to these particular positions. One of course is the seventh ecumenical council of Nika 2 which is in 787 which no one disputes as being ecumenical in the Eastern Orthodox Church. We would call it a pseudocinid because of all the politicking involved and and it was essentially just politically enforced by violence. But in that council the seventh ecumenical council they teach forced image veneration. I would call that Judaizing.

Because they make it a criterion, a criterion of salvation. If you don't bow to the icon, you are considered anathema. So we'll give the definition of veneration that they give in the council. This is from the acts of the second council of uh Nica, translated by Richard Price, uh where the East says that images are to be venerated, and it gives the the Greek term *proskynēin*, that is kissed. Some might translate as greeted. That's how Price translates it in his work, as greeted. But it means kissed. Uh, these two are the same. In other words, to venerate and to kiss are the same. *Proskynēin* in the ancient Greek, they explain, in the ancient Greek language means greet and kiss. And the addition of *pros*, they say, adds an intensity to love. Um, so they're commanded. So the veneration is necessary, and it means to kiss and to love these icons, to venerate these icons. Um, that's stipulated. And uh, they'll often kind of abuse a quote from St. Basil on the Holy Spirit here where it says, uh, where St. Basil said that the honor paid to the image passes over to the prototype. But here he's talking, St. Basil, of course, is talking about the Son of God, the Son of the Father, who was a living image of the Father, who is the prototype. He's not talking about dead, lifeless images. Because if you do a biblical theology of images, God's critique of them is that they're dead. They have noses but do not smell. They have eyes but do not see. They have ears but do not hear. And whoever worships them becomes like them. And so that's the curse of image worship. It's, it's not, it's not merely that God says not to do it. He, he reveals why not to do that elsewhere in, in the biblical theology against idolatry. And so when, when Basil's talking about the honor paid to the image passes over to the prototype, he's not talking about worshiping, venerating, the necessity, or even apostolicity of venerating images. Far from it. And, but the Eastern Orthodox Church says that whoever venerates the image, venerates in it the hypostasis of the one who is represented. Um, but of course, that's not a biblical teaching. And, and for the first four centuries of the church, it's just universally agreed upon amongst the fathers to, to write against the, the, the use of pagan imagery or, or the pagan use of imagery. And they, they know about the icon theory and, and they reject that icon theory that the Eastern Orthodox later adopt.

Now, um, we've given the definition of veneration, to kiss and to love the thing you're venerating, this, this painted, uh, object. And then they also give a definition of anathema, because people will say, well, anathema just means whatever I want it to mean. But we're going to let the people who define, who, who apply the anathema, define the anathema. They, they say that people who don't venerate the images are anathema. And in that same context, in that same council, they define anathema. So people who try to get around this particular definition, uh, it's, it's wild and crazy. But, uh, an anathema, a quote, an anathema is nothing other than separation from God. In other words, it's not medicinal. It's not medicinal to be separated from God. An anathema is nothing other than separation from God. That's from the acts of the second council of Nica, letters from Tarasios and the council to the emperors. They define it. An anathema is nothing other than separation from God. Okay? So it's an anathema if you don't venerate or kiss an image. You're separated from God if you don't venerate an image. Now, an anathema is nothing less than complete separation from God. That's the way, uh, it's translated in the Nimpostnim Father set. The Imperial Sacra read at the first session also describes, quote, the canonical censure which is anathema as sending one to the fires of Gehenna. So that's what an anathema does. It sends one to the fires of Gehenna. It assigns one to the fires of Gehenna. In session six, the council speaks of those who refuse to bow down and kiss icons with affection as godforsaken and God-hated heretics. So people who are anathema, it's not medicinal. It's not the church applying a medicine to call them to love. It's saying that these people are godforsaken and God-hated heretics. Uh, and that's not only the view of the seventh ecumenical council. An Orthodox canon law book, the reference book that's published in the 21st century, confirms this understanding of anathema. And it says, quote, that anathema is, quote, the most severe ecclesiastical sanction, unquote, where, quote, the guilty person is cut off from the church and from salvation. It's a cutting off. The anathema person isn't just a handing a person over to God. It's a handing a person over. It's assigning a person over to the fires of hell. It's cutting them off from the church and from salvation, according to their own canon law books. And that's, uh, compiled by Father Vilei Mihi from the Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2014, page 49. He continues stating that, quote, anathema is parallel to the death penalty in secular society, as spiritual death is seen by the church as analogous to physical death. So we cannot get around that anathema is a cursing. It's a separation from God. It's assigning them to death. It's, um, sending them to the fires of Gehenna, cut off from salvation.

And so they say, well, another question then becomes, they say, well, anathemas are only inward-facing. They're only directed towards, uh, Orthodox Christians. It's not saying anathema towards people who are outside of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Only God knows those. Well, here's what the Synoticon of Orthodoxy actually says about those outside the church. It says, "To all heretics, anathema." And then it says, "To Baram and Ascendinus, and then it adds, and to their followers and successors, anathema." So they've already anathematized, uh, the founders of this heresy. But it also anathematizes their successors. In other words, in perpetuity, these people who are outside the church are cursed. It also says, uh, in the Synoticon of Orthodoxy, "To all the followers of Eutyches, to the Monothelites, the Jacobites, and the Artzyburites, and generally to all heretics, anathema, anathema, anathema." So again, notice it says to the followers. These are people who are already have been separated from the church, have already been excommunicated, um, these, these heretics, and yet it's, it's still anathematizing their followers. Um, interestingly enough, this also gets into connection with Islam because Islam is outside of Eastern Orthodoxy, but they, uh, Muhammad and all of his followers are also an anathematized. Uh, John Meyendorff, in one of his lectures, he writes that Byzantine, quote, Byzantine polemical literature has largely determined the official canonical attitude of the church towards Islam. Okay. An attitude, an official canonical attitude which is reflected in the rites of the reception of Muslim converts to Christianity. One such very ancient rite contains a series of 22 anathemas against Muslim beliefs. The convert is required to anathematize Muhammad, all the relatives of the prophet, each by name, and all the caliphs until Yezid in 68683. The fact that no, well, I could say there's, uh, that that document has its own history. Uh, other, other anathemas, he continues, are directed, quote, are directed against the Quran. So the Quran is also anathematized. The Muslim conception of paradise where all sorts of sins will take place since God cannot be ashamed. Polygamy is anathematized. The doctrine of predestination, the Islamic doctrine of predestination, which leads to the idea that God himself is the origin of evil. The Muslim interpretation of the gospel stories and the Quran's treatment of the Old Testament. The anathemas repeat many of the arguments used by polemicists. The Arab worship of Aphrodite called Chabar Kabar, and the theory that man is issuing from a leech are mentioned, and the convert to Christianity is required to renounce them formally. The emperor's 22nd anathema was retained in the ritual, but now it read simply, "Anathema to Muhammad, to all his teaching, and all his inheritance." And this text was actually preserved in later editions of the Euchologion, which is a formal, dogmatically binding, uh, ritual text in the Eastern Orthodox churches, the Euchologion. So, are anathemas only inward-facing towards Eastern Orthodox Christians? No. They face people outside of the Eastern Orthodox Church. They even face, uh, uh, they are even directed towards Muhammad. So, uh, this isn't saying that we don't anathematize, uh, Islam, but it's to say that when the Eastern Orthodox claim that the anathemas aren't by the Eastern Orthodox Church directed to anyone outside of the Eastern Orthodox Church, that claim is proven false from their own tradition, from their own Euchologion, as John Meyendorff, the well-respected, uh, priest and scholar in the 20th century, early 21st century, um, has just demonstrated. Uh, so that was one, that was their forced image veneration, being very clear about that. There's seven others. There's these eight issues to be clear about. Here's the second one. The second one is the rejection of the gospel, which is to say, forensic justification. They take out the forensic, uh, aspect of justification and therefore take out the assurance. Uh, we don't deny the transformative nature of salvation, obviously, as confessional Protestants. But we affirm that the forensic, uh, aspect of justification is also a necessary part of it. Uh, the Eastern Orthodox, however, they define, uh, justification, and here also defining faith in Jerusalem, 1672, in decree 9, they say, "We believe that no one can be saved without faith." And then they define faith, right? So they define faith not as fiduciary, not as entrustment, right? So they say, "By faith we mean the right notion that is in us concerning God and divine things, which working by love, the right notion, the right ideas, working by love, that is to say, by keeping the divine commandments," so they specify it, "by keeping the divine commandments, justifies us with Christ." In other words, it's our action of believing the right ideas plus our works. That's what justifies us, uh, before God. And without this faith, it is impossible to please God, they say. And they reject furthermore that Christ's righteousness justifies us. Decree 13. In other words, it's our own righteousness that justifies us. Not Christ's righteousness, but our righteousness. "We believe a man to," they say, "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. But the idea that faith can fulfill the function of a hand that lays hold on the righteousness which is in Christ and then can apply it unto us for salvation. We know to be far from all orthodoxy." So you can't lay hold of Christ's righteousness. You can't cling to the cross, according to the Eastern Orthodox Church. Can't plead the blood, uh, so to speak. No, it's, it's far from their understanding of, of the truth. Um, which is obviously they have lost the apostolic front. And then they say, um, "For faith so understood would be possible in all." So they don't even understand what saving faith is at all. "For faith so understood would be possible in all, and so none could miss salvation, which is obviously false." But on the contrary, we rather believe, and here's the key phrase, "It is not the correlative of faith." It's a technical term. The term correlative of faith means what faith trusts in. So faith trusts in the righteousness of Christ. Faith trusts in God, in Christ, in the righteousness of Christ. And so when, when they say it's not the correlative of faith, they're saying it's not God. It's not the righteousness of God. It's not the righteousness of Christ that justifies you, but the faith which is in us justifies through works with Christ. So it's your action. They turn faith into a work, and then they, it's your, your faith plus your working that justifies you. So instead of faith receiving justification, instead of faith receiving Christ, faith becomes a kind of, of, of having the right idea that you just apply some labor to, and if you apply enough labors, you can justify yourself with Christ. Uh, and they even say that in themselves, meriting these, these works together with this kind of faith, in themselves, meriting through the divine promises, this, this, uh, salvation. Um, so that's a, a big problem, their rejection of the gospel, being very clear about, uh, the role and value of forensic justification, because that's what gives us the assurance that we are loved, and that we, because we love because we were first loved. It's not that we love, but that Christ, that God first loved us. So if, if we're, if we're not confident that we are forgiven, we still have an anger, then we still, uh, fear having an angry God against us. We, how are we supposed to love that God who's rejecting us, and not saving us, but making us work for our salvation? That's, that's not a God of love. That's a God of, of judgment. And we'll see how that actually works out in their doctrine of toll houses. Um, so the third, uh, area, that was the second area, their rejection of the gospel of forensic justification, which is an essential part of the gospel. Also, their rejection of penal substitutionary atonement or vicarious satisfaction. I'm going to treat those words here as interchangeable. So, we'll define the term that the E, uh, of, of penal substitutionary atonement, because the EO use straw man fallacies. And it's really sad because so many even former evangelicals seem to go into the Eastern Orthodox Church as if they've themselves believed the straw man. So then they, when the East rejects the straw man, they're like, "Hey, they're rejecting what I believed." I don't. We should be very clear about what penal substitutionary atonement means. Um, because it, it, it doesn't refer to God, uh, being, uh, mutable or, or impassioned, or anything like that, uh, because we affirm proper, uh, theology as confessional Protestants. So, firstly, the term penal in penal substitutionary atonement is the root of the term penalty. In short, the penalty of man's disobedience to divine law is suffering and death. The term penal thus simply refers to the proper consequence or penalty of sin. The just consequence of sin being suffering and death. One can likewise say the penalty of sin and suffering is death. A penalty of sin is suffering and death. The term penal is therefore a word which describes the dire situation or predicament which was transmitted to all our kind like some pollution from disease. The curse of a just condemnation that fell on all mankind. Curse likewise refers to the mark of death. Uh, to be cursed thus means to be marked for death, bound to death as a consequence of one's action. So that's what the term penal means. It's, it's the idea of penalty. It's the idea that God has law, and that because we have opposed and rebelled against God's law, he is right and just, uh, to punish lawbreakers and rebels. The term substitution means rather than having man eternally bound to the consequence of his disobedience, which is to say suffering and death, Christ instead submitted himself, via man's, via injustice, to man's just suffering and death in order to remit man's just suffering and death, to provide a new, uh, starting point for man unto eternal life, or in St. Maximus the Confessor's words, another beginning, or a second nativity, rebirth, being born again. So Christ substituted his life-giving death with man's just death, so that this penalty, his just death, could be undone. That's the substitution. Christ substituted himself for us. Um, the word atonement, of course, refers to, uh, the work of Christ to restore man to a right relation with, with God. In other words, to union with God. Uh, where, where there was curse, now blessing. Where there was sin, now there's righteousness. Where there was death, now there's life. Where there was suffering, now there's joy. That's what the atonement affected. That was what Christ's work did. We can also look at the word vicarious satisfaction. By vicarious, uh, means not only for us, but also in our place and on our behalf. Uh, by satisfaction, of course, is meant the, that eternal justice was satisfied by Christ's sacrifice, and this is an eminently patristic doctrine. We can even find St. Cyril of Alexandria, he describes the wrath of God, because, you know, so many Eastern Orthodox will want to say God has no wrath, God is not wrathful. But St. Cyril describes God's wrath, and he says that the torments of the ungodly are called the wrath of God. He says that in his commentary on John, volume 1, book 2, chapter 4. In other words, he says, quote, punishment is often called wrath in the holy scriptures. In other words, when justice meets injustice, that's called wrath. When the power of God's goodness meets the, the, the evil in man, that evil experiences God's goodness as wrath, as punishment. Even though God hasn't changed, it's man who has changed in his relation. So the wrath of God is the just punishment with which sinners are met with by divine decree. It doesn't imply, or conceptually allow for a passion. God is impassible. It doesn't allow for a passion to be ascribed to God, nor any kind of anthropomorphism. Christ, in Cyril's words, appeased the wrath of God, having become a sacrifice for us, telling us Christ himself comes to undergo, in some way, punishment for all. This is Cyril of Alexandria, that one of the chief voices of orthodoxy, not only in Eastern Orthodoxy and the West, and in Western Orthodoxy, but also in Oriental Orthodoxy. So he writes that Christ himself comes to undergo, in some way, punishment for all. He was crucified in the place of all and for all. So he was crucified in my place. Christ was crucified in your place. In other words, the place you and I deserve for our sin. He was crucified in that place. And not just you and me, but for all. That's again, in, in John, Cyril's commentary on John, volume 1, book 4, chapter 2. That is clearly penal. It's penalty. All right? It's a punishment. It's not an unjust punishment. It's a just punishment. In other words, it's a penalty in so far as it's punishment that Christ endured. And it's clearly substitutionary because he died on behalf of, and in place of all. It's also an atonement, and a legal atonement at that, because it lawfully reunites man to God. Quote, "For that which is brought to the divine altar was sanctified or called holy according to the law." St. Cyril adds, so in short, quote, "We are justified since Christ has paid our penalty." That's what Cyril says. He, we are justified because, or since Christ has paid our penalty. We have payment language concepts. We have penalty concepts. And so the idea that there is a penalty is a patristic concept. It's not a word concept fallacy either. It's just the concept of penalty and that Christ paid that penalty. St. Cyril also says, "All people on earth since we have fallen into the nets of sin have become subject to the accusations of the devil, which are legal. We were all living a gloomy and miserable life. The inscription contained a record that stood against us. The curse that the divine law imposes on transgressors and the sentence that went forth against those that went astray from the ancient commandments." So here we have St. Cyril talking about the curse that the divine law imposes on transgressors and sent on transgressors and the sentence that went against the ancient command. So it's all, it's, it's there's a necessarily forensic dimension to the atonement. Cyril continues saying, "It is like Adam's curse which extended to the entire race, in that everyone broke God's decree. There's original sin. Everyone broke God's decrees. God was not only angry with Adam when he fell, but he was also angry with those after him who dishonored the decree of the creator. The law's condemnation of transgressors extended from one to all. The law's condemnation of transgressors extended from one to all. We are therefore cursed and condemned by God's decree due to the transgression of Adam and to the transgression of the law laid down after him. But the Savior wiped out the record against us, nailing the inscription to the cross, which signifies his death on a tree which he underwent for the life of those who were condemned." And he says, "He paid our penalty for us." Commentary on John. So clearly penal substitutionary atonement is patristic. Um, and so when they, uh, try to make this claim that it's not, we see that it's very phony, or at least very uninformed. Uh, we could give, uh, almost endless quotations from Cyril of Alexandria and others along these lines. Um, but we also see that, interestingly enough, because we've said that the hymns are authoritative to the Eastern Orthodox Church, they actually do sing about penal substitutionary atonement concepts. Conceptuality in their own hymns. They say they sing, "Come all ye peoples, and let us venerate the blessed wood of the cross, through which the eternal justice has been brought to pass." So here they sing about how the cross brought eternal justice to pass. That's in the Festal Menaion, Great Vespers of the Universal Exaltation of the Precious and Life-giving Cross, September 14th. They also say in that same hymn, "By the blood of God, the poison of the serpent is washed away, and the curse of a just condemnation is loosed by the unjust punishment inflicted on the just." And so here we see this just condemnation being loosed by the substitutionary, penal substitutionary suffering of Christ. Um, they'll also try to, contemporary, uh, Eastern Orthodox people will kind of in this phony way try to, uh, charge penal substitution with Nestorianism, and they'll try to say that this somehow divides the two natures of the Son, as if Christ's suffering and dying were impossible to him. They're essentially denying that Christ could suffer and die when they make this claim, that Christ couldn't suffer the penalty of the just wrath of God. Because the just wrath of God is the agony, suffering, and death that he, that he suffered on the cross. That is the cry of dereliction. It's the agony, suffering, and death that he suffered for sin. All of the spiritual weight of sin was on him. So when they say that Christ, uh, couldn't, uh, suffer in this way, they're essentially denying the suffering and death of Christ, which is, which is terrible blasphemy, uh, if, if they have any idea what they're saying. For just as Christ can suffer hunger, he can suffer thirst, he can suffer fatigue, he can suffer sorrow, anger, he can suffer agony, all in the context of his human nature and without dividing or confusing the natures, just so he can experience this alienation from the Father in the context of his human nature, which is the pinnacle of suffering and death. During Christ's cry of dereliction, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" His experience of alienation, quoting the Psalmist, because the Psalmist was making a prophecy of him, during Christ's cry of dereliction, it was authentic. He wasn't just quoting it because it was, you know, just something to quote. He was quoting it because it actually was his, uh, experience being prophetically communicated in David's time. So during Christ's authentic cry of dereliction, his experience of alienation is relative. It's relational. It's an existential experience, not a metaphysical term. We're not saying there's a metaphysical cleavage between the Father and the Son, or a metaphysical cleavage between the natures of Christ. Um, because if there was a metaphysical cleavage between the Father and anyone or God and anyone, it would mean non-existence. So when we talk about the cry of dereliction or the ali, the experience of alienation from God, even for those in hell, it's not a metaphysical cleavage. It's not a metaphysical, um, separation, because a person cannot exist unless they're made to exist by God every moment. So in this context of his human nature, Christ experienced complete, total agony and, uh, complete and total suffering, which is what, uh, the alienation he experienced was.

Number four, the fourth one, we just talked about the third, the East's rejection of penal substitutionary atonement. Here we have the rejection of the Filioque, which is a patristic doctrine. Again, not only do the Western fathers teach it, fathers mentioned in ecumenical councils, Greek fathers also teach it. We don't have all the time to go into there. There's a YouTuber named Dwang, D-W-A-N-G, he's a Roman Catholic YouTuber who does excellent, uh, work that anybody can access on the, uh, Filioque in both the Western fathers and the Greek fathers. But the point I want to make here is that the church was one church prior to the schism. And so while the church was one church, we do have Western fathers teaching the, the, the Filioque. So if the Western half of the church, which is one church, is teaching the Filioque, because it's one church, that means the whole church is teaching the Filioque. In 15, in 553, at the Fifth Ecumenical Council, it affirmed Augustine's orthodoxy. And we know he taught the Filioque. If, if he didn't teach the Filioque, then no one taught the Filioque. Uh, and the Sixth Ecumenical Council also named him equally alongside the greatest fathers and teachers in the church. So Augustine is considered one of the doctors and teachers of the, of the Eastern Orthodox Church also, according to their own universally binding and authoritative councils. So they contradict themselves when they keep trying to play off Augustine as some kind of heretic, but he wasn't. But it wasn't only Augustine that was mentioned. We also had, uh, several others being mentioned. Uh, we have, uh, like Athanasius, we have Hilary, who taught, was another Western father who taught the Filioque. Gregory of Nyssa taught the Filioque. Ambrose certainly taught the Filioque. Uh, Cyril of Alexandria taught the Filioque. Leo, Pope Leo, he taught the Filioque. We know that he did. Um, and so we have these fathers mentioned in the ecumenical councils who famously taught the Filioque, taught the, the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son as from one principle, because two persons don't make two principles, just as three persons don't make three gods. Two persons spirating the Holy Spirit are one principle, just as three persons are one God, the Holy Trinity. Um, so, uh, we have, uh, Augustine, and others in the West teaching it, and the East affirming their, their orthodoxy, them being doctors and teachers and fathers of the church, a most illustrious doctor, he's called. Um, and yet in the anathemas given in the Tomos of 1616, they anathematize the Filioque, right? They say, "First, whoever does not confess with heart and mouth, and indeed, whoever calls himself a Roman, Romanos, in other words, a Greek Byzantine, a child of the Eastern Church, and a child of the Eastern Church. So whoever does not confess with heart and mouth that he's a child of the Eastern Church and is baptized in the Greek Christian manner as we are, and then does not confess that the all-holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone essentially and hypothetically, which was, uh, made up by Photius, the great schismatic. Even Sergius Bulgakov in the 20th century affirmed that that was made up by Photius." David Bentley Hart called, uh, Sergius Bulgakov, one of the great thinkers, Orthodox writers and thinkers of the 20th century. But anyway, Photius aside, whoever does not confess that the all-holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone essentially and hypothetically, and that he proceeds from the Father and the Son temporally, whoever does not confess thus, but says that the hol, but that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, let him be outside our church. Let him have no communion with us, and let him be anathema." Right? And so here we have them anathematizing the very doctrine that their own fathers teach. Whether that's Augustine, whether that's Ambrose, whether that's Hilary, whether that's Leo, uh, there, these people are, their doctrine is anathematized, according to the anathema given at the Tomos of 1616. And so if that's the case, then the Eastern Orthodox is self-contradicting. But if these anathemas from the Tomos of 1616 are wrong, and all the other anathemas against the Filioque are wrong, then the Eastern Orthodox has fallen into error. But if that's impossible, then they contradict themselves again, and so they can no longer be considered the one true and only church.

The fifth one that I want to get to, I'm aware of time here, is sectarian ecclesiology. Uh, we just did number four, rejection of the Filioque, um, uh, which cuts them off from not only the Western Church, but also from their own Eastern fathers who taught it, like Cyril and Gregory of Nyssa. Here we're at the fifth one, sectarian ecclesiology, because they will hold that no one else other than them in their institution is a Christian, except maybe in a colloquial sense. Um, someone recently said who's Eastern Orthodox, you might call you a Christian if you're not Eastern Orthodox in a colloquial kind of way. Um, you know, just like someone might say that a person's virtuous behavior was very, was very Christian of them. They'll say, "Oh, you're Christian in some sort of vague, just kind of social sense." And they say, and we've already said that they've communicated and anathematized anyone who affirms the, the Filioque. So all Western Christians, as we all affirm the Filioque, because we, we, we believe the biblical and patristic doctrine and confess it in our, in our magisterial confessions, we're all heretics and anathema anyway, according to them. You're either anathema or you're a heretic, and therefore anathema.

Eli, you come in.

>> You have one minute to finish your thoughts. You can do that. That's fine. Then we'll wrap it up.

>> Okay.

>> Okay. My apologies for being so wordy.

>> No worries.

>> So, we just mentioned the fifth one, sectarian ecclesiology, where they say no one is even a Christian if they're not under one of their bishops. Uh, we also have the sixth, will be Palomite Hesychasm, which is all rooted in Mary. So six and seven, which, uh, Palomite Hesychasm and the seventh, Hyperdulia, go together, where they say that Mary, in their formal, dogmatically binding teachings, is the propitiation of the whole world. That Mary is the one who propitiated the Father's wrath. They say, "Hail, acceptable incense of intercession. Hail, propitiation of the whole world." Uh, and they mean it, as they say, because as Gregory Palamas, whose teachings were all, uh, affirmed by the Seventh Ecumenical Council, says that she alone forms the boundary between created and uncreated nature, and no one can come to God except through her. Um, nor can any gifts of God be bestowed on angels or men except through her. And that leads to the final one, number eight, toll houses. Uh, we won't be able to talk about those, but those are all affirmed by all of their modern saints for the last three, 400 years, and by their contemporary bishops and patriarchs. And with that said, I'll, I'll, I'll rest my case.

>> All right. Well, thank you so much, Joshua, for that. I really do appreciate it, and I appreciate your participation. And, uh, just to let folks know, um, the second session is over. We're going to go to an intermission, but at the end, all of our speakers will be back to take questions for about an hour. So if you have questions, and, um, just make sure you preface your question with "Question" if you do it too early. Now, we're not going to get to it, obviously, but, um, just letting, uh, folks know that they could ask their question later, and of course, you want to indicate, um, which speaker you are asking the question to as well, or if you want all of us to interact with a question. All right. Well, Joshua, thank you so much. I appreciate it. I'm going to remove you from the screen for now, and, uh, we're going to put up our, uh, our kind of our screen here as our next speaker is Dr. Tony Costa. All right, guys. Thank you so much. I'm hoping, I don't know as I'm not following, but I really am hoping people are acting respectfully in the comments. Um, you know, again, I'm just going to reiterate, if you disagree, disagree, and you could argue that you're free to do that. But let's try to keep it respectful so that there can be clarity of argumentation and reasoning and all these sorts of things. So, I'm hoping that's happening. If it's not, uh, well, you know, it is what it is. So, uh, there you go. So, we'll continue up again at 3:20, and I'll see you in a bit. All right. Okay. Our next speaker is Dr. Tony Costa. Let me get him on the screen with me here. Is he there? No, he's not there.

>> Are you there?

>> I'm here.

>> There you go. I just see a black screen.

>> Okay. Um, let me see. Let me see.

>> Pardon?

>> Okay.

>> Let me just check my video here.

>> There you go. Uh, we'll do this here. All right.

>> Okay. Um, it shows that my video is on. Okay. So, not sure. You might want to maybe, uh, get out of the link and then come back in through the link. Maybe sometimes it resets the settings and things like that. You want to try that?

>> Uh, let me try that. Yeah, we'll do that. Be right back.

>> All right. All right. So, while, uh, Dr. Costa does that, um, those of you guys who are familiar with this channel, Dr. Tony Costa has been on the show quite a bit. Um, very good friend of mine, a solid, uh, brother and, um, um, I'm looking forward to what he has to share here. I don't look, I don't think his camera is working. Let's see here.

>> Let me try this.

>> Yeah, your camera seems to be off. Let's see.

>> That's strange.

>> Uh, let me just check something here. Okay, maybe there we go. I think I, here we go. I think I'm coming.

>> Okay. There seems to be something hopping on there. Okay.

>> Okay. Technical difficulties. It happens.

>> Yeah. Let me try this.

>> Nope.

>> Let's see if your, your slides will be here. Just people won't be able to see you.

>> Yeah.

>> Um.

>> Um.

>> Do you want to keep, I mean, you're technically supposed to start in one minute, or actually, actually now.

>> Um, I don't know. Will, will we need to see you like if we make this presentation?

>> I got all spiffed up and, you know, I, I combed my hair, put on a nice shirt. Um, let me see. I just find this very strange that that it's doing this.

>> I don't think I've ever seen this before.

>> Very strange. Um, okay, let me, yeah. Yeah, sorry, brother. I, I don't know why.

>> Uh.

>> That's okay. If you were going to use your slides, I mean, they weren't going to really see you to any great extent because the slides would, would be larger. So, as long as they could hear you, I guess it's fine.

>> Right? Okay. Okay.

>> Now, we do have the Q&A, so maybe you can, uh, later on in the evening, maybe you can try to, uh, fix it by then or whatever. Otherwise, we'll just be hearing the mysterious voice who may or may not be Dr. Tony C.

>> Yeah. The, yeah. The, uh, the one that you cannot look upon.

>> That's right. That's right.

>> All right. Okay, brother. Well, I'll just go with, uh, just the audio and we got the presentation. So, uh, that should be fine. Uh, am I able to move the slides or?

>> Um, well, can you do, try to do it on your side? Can you do it on your side?

>> Let me see. Uh, let me see.

>> Because if you can't, I can stay on with you and you can just indicate and I can move them for you.

>> Okay. Yeah, I can't seem to move them.

>> That's very fascinating. All right, I'll stay on here with you.

>> Okay, brother.

>> And, uh, you know, at least they can look at me in a small little box. I don't know if that would be helpful at all, but.

>> Okay, very good.

>> All right, you can start whenever you're ready.

>> All right, very good. Okay, thanks again everyone for, uh, for joining us today on this very important, uh, discussion. And I apologize for the technical problems. Is not sure why, why this is happening, but I'm going to be discussing the early church fathers and Eastern Orthodoxy, a critical evaluation. And we often hear from our Eastern Orthodox friends that the Eastern Orthodox Church is the church of the fathers, that it is the church that goes back to them, and that they are the pillars, if you will, after Christ, uh, of the Eastern Orthodox Church. But I hope to show in our presentation today that the church fathers have been, um, a target of, of many claiments. Uh, that is to say that everyone wants to own them as their very own. Uh, the Roman Catholics will tell you that the early church fathers were Roman Catholic. The Eastern Orthodox will tell you that they were all Eastern Orthodox. Uh, the Oriental Orthodox Church, uh, will tell you that the church fathers were Oriental Orthodox theologians, that they agreed with them. And the Ancient Church of the East, the Assyrian Church of the East, also makes the same claims. Now, as Protestant Christians, we see the church fathers as the church fathers. They are part of the patristic church. We value them. We, we love the fathers. We don't see them as infallible either individually or in concert or in, um, consent, as we usually hear from our Eastern Orthodox friends. We regard them with high esteem. We see them as fallible men who love the Lord Jesus Christ, who, uh, were defenders of the faith and stood up against heresy, uh, in very critical points in the church's, um, infancy, in its first 300 years and following. But as Protestant Christians, we look at them, um, as valuable resources or sources of information in the church. And the reformers themselves, many of them studied the, the fathers like John Chrysostom and, and Augustine and Ambrose and Clement and so forth. And many of their ideas, they actually attributed to the church fathers. So what I want to do in our discussion here this, um, this afternoon is go through the fathers and some of the claims that Eastern Orthodoxy makes about them. So, just to be clear, the early church fathers, I don't think they were Baptists. I don't think they were Reformed Baptists. I don't think they were Presbyterians. Don't think they were Anglicans. They were Christians. They were faithful Christians, uh, who stood at a time, uh, when the gospel had to be defended and preached. And so for that, we recognize them and appreciate their, their work. So, we go to the next slide.

>> Sorry about, sorry about that. Sorry about that. Let's see here. Let's do this and then we'll do that. There we go.

>> Okay. So let's begin first of all with, with the question of authority. Let's begin with the question of authority in the church. And of course, authority always has to do with, uh, where we derive our right to claim, uh, what we believe and to proclaim as well, what we believe. So, one of the critiques we always hear from our, uh, Eastern Orthodox friends is that the early fathers, uh, were not for Sola Scriptura. They, they didn't believe in Sola Scriptura. But I want us to look at some very important quotations here from some of the fathers on the question of Sola Scriptura. Uh, they did not use this terminology. This terminology does not appear in the Bible, just as much as the word Trinity does not appear in the Bible. Um, but the concept of Sola Scriptura, I believe, and so have many historic Protestants, and even some of the fathers, particularly Augustine, believed in scripture alone. So, here we have Irenaeus, 2nd century church father, in his book Against Heresies. He says this: "We have learned from none others the plan of our salvation, then from those through whom the gospel has come down to us, which they at one time proclaimed in public, and at a later period, by the will of God, handed down to us in the scriptures to be the ground and pillar of our faith. For it is unlawful to assert that they preached before they possessed perfect knowledge, as some do even venture to say, boasting themselves as improvers of the apostles." Close quote. So, here the, uh, Father Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyon, makes it very clear that we've learned about our salvation and what that entails, uh, through the gospel that has come down to us in the scriptures. And of course, the apostles proclaimed this orally, publicly, and then by God's will, they wrote it down in scripture. And so, what they orally proclaimed was the same as what they wrote in holy scripture and passed on to us. And so, notice how Irenaeus warns against those who boast that they are improvers of the apostles, that they have said something, uh, on an equal level to the apostles in terms of scripture. Uh, Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, um, in the beginning of the second century, points out, "I do not, as Peter and Paul, issue commandments unto you. They were apostles. I am but a condemned man." Close quote. So, the church fathers themselves understood that they were not apostles. They did not have the authority of apostles to write scripture or to give divine revelation. They clearly distinguished themselves from the apostolic office. Even if some would argue that that they, um, held a position of apostolic succession, they never claimed to be apostles in, in terms of issuing divine commandments that we see through the apos, the apostolic authority in the New Testament. If we get the next slide, we also see this, for example, in Athanasius, the great defender of Orthodoxy. Athanasius, Contra Arianos. And if you remember the story of Athanasius, just as a side note, Athanasius was the proponent who called for the view that Christ was *homoousios*, that he was one nature, one essence with the Father, against the heretic Arius of Alexandria, who claimed that Christ was a creature, the first creature that God had created. And it's important to note that Athanasius was actually opposed by the church under Constantine, whom the Orthodox believe to be a saint, St. Constantine, and his mother, St. Helena. And it's interesting that Athanasius was actually exiled. He was, uh, attacked. He was taken for dead, at least exiled five times by the church. The church exiled and attacked Athanasius while she embraced Arianism. And in fact, Arianism did indeed take over the empire after Athanasius, excuse me, Constantine passed. His son, Constantius, he took over the throne. And the religion of the day was Arianism. And yet, there was this one man, this one Christian bishop of Alexandria, Athanasius, *Contra Arianos*, against the world, holding to the truth of the gospel. And so, there you notice he was a reformer of sorts, standing for the truth of God's word against an ecclesiastical, magisterial church that had gone fully Arian. Notice what Athanasius says here: "Vainly then do they run about with the pretext that they have demanded councils for the faith, for faith's sake. For divine scripture is sufficient above all things." So here we see the sufficiency of scripture. But if a council be needed on the point, there are the proceedings of the fathers. For the Nicene bishops did not neglect this matter, that is the scriptures, but stated the doctrine so exactly that persons reading their words honestly cannot but be reminded by them of the religion towards Christ announced in divine scriptures." So the bishops of Nica, who would eventually give us what would be called the Nicene Creed, their statements and their words were true because they comported with what the divine scripture said. But please notice that Athanasia, Athanasius holds the view that scripture is all-sufficient. It is sufficient above all things. If we can get the next slide. Athanasius, in his 39th Easter Festal Letter, says this: "These, that is the scriptures, are fountains of salvation, that they who thirst may be satisfied with the living words they contain. Now, please notice this: In these alone is proclaimed the doctrine of godliness." If there were ever a Sola Scriptura statement, here it is. "In these alone, the scriptures, is proclaimed the doctrine of godliness. Let no man add to these, neither let him take aught from these. For concerning these, the Lord put to shame the Sadducees and said, 'You err, not knowing the scriptures.' And he reproved the Jews, saying, 'Search the scriptures, for these are they that testify of me.'" Interesting how Athanasius quotes there from Matthew 22, that the Lord condemned and shamed the Sadducees because the source of their error was that they did not know the scriptures. The ignorance of the scriptures, as Jerome, the Latin church father, said, "Ignorance of the scriptures is ignorance of Christ." But please notice again that it's in these alone, in these scriptures, that we have the doctrine of godliness proclaimed. We can get the next slide. Basil of Caesarea says this in his Moralia: "The hearers taught in the scriptures ought to test what is said by teachers and accept that which agrees with the scriptures, but reject that which is foreign." So notice here how Basil, one of the Cappadocian fathers, he points out here that what we are taught in the scriptures should be our test by which we test teachers and accept what they say if it conforms with scripture, but reject whatever is foreign to the scriptures. So whatever is

Foreign to the scriptures, whatever teachings are presented that are foreign to scripture, Basil of Caesarea says that they should be tested by scripture and rejected. In his second quote, letter 189, "Therefore let God-inspired scripture, decide between us, and on whichever side be found doctrines in harmony with the word of God in favor of that side will be cast the vote of truth."

So notice how Basil of Caesarea refers to scripture as God-inspired. This is taken from 2 Timothy 3:16, "scriptures of theosttoas." And notice that whatever position we take must be taken if they are in harmony with the word of God. And that, of course, has always been the Protestant approach, that we should test every doctrine to see whether or not it comports with the word of God, not with tradition on equal footing with scripture, but on the word of God. And again, this is not to say that we eschew tradition or reject tradition, but that we view tradition as inferior to scripture. That the word of God must be the test. The litmus test is the scriptures themselves.

We can go to the next slide. John Chrysostom. "Wherefore I exhort and entreat you all, disregard what this man and that man thinks about these things and inquire from the scriptures all these things. And having learned what are the true riches, let us pursue after them that we may obtain also the eternal good things."

So John Chrysostom here, very much like Basil of Caesarea. Notice that he is in agreement that we should disregard what a person thinks or disregard what this person thinks and inquire from the scripture. In other words, Chrysostom is calling on Christians to test what people say or think about God, about Christ, whatever it may be, by the scriptures. And this again is what we find in the New Testament. You'll notice in Acts 17:11 that the Jews of Berea are commended by Luke because when they heard Paul preaching, it says they consulted, they checked the scriptures daily to see whether these things were so. And it's interesting that Luke remembered them, that he even recorded about their noble action and not just taking Paul's word for it. They didn't just say, "Well, Paul is an apostle and I'm going to take his word for it because, um, he represents the infallible church." No, they tested what even the inspired apostle Paul said by scripture, and they were commended for doing that. And we seem to find a very consistent thread here among the church fathers in the same line of thinking that scripture should be the source by which we judge everything.

Go to the next slide. We have here, first, a quote of Theophilus of Alexandria, his epistle 96. He says, "Quote, 'It would be the instigation of the demonical spirit to follow the conceits of the human mind and to think anything divine beyond what has the authority of the scriptures.'"

Notice once again, Theophilus of Alexandria, much like Basil and John Chrysostom, points out here that we should not be those who follow the conceits of the human mind, and we are not to think of anything divine that goes beyond the authority of the scriptures. And so, whatever it may be, not just Eastern Orthodox teachings, Roman Catholic, or even Protestant teachings, liberal teachings, and so on, that we should not think of anything divine if it goes beyond what has the authority of the scriptures. Notice Theophilus' emphasis on the authority of the scriptures because it is the speech of God. There is nothing that supersedes the speech of God, not even the fathers of the church. No one, not even the church itself, supersedes the speech of God. The church is the body. Christ is the head. Without the head, the body ceases to exist. It cannot exist without the head.

Cyril of Alexandria. "All things therefore that have been delivered to us by the law and the prophets and apostles, we receive and acknowledge and confess, and beyond these we seek not to know anything. For it is impossible for us to say or at all think anything concerning God beyond what has been divinely declared by the divine oracles of the Old and New Testament."

Again, if this does not communicate the concept of *sola scriptura*, describing what we mean by *sola scriptura*, that it is the speech of God, the ultimate authority for the church, and that it's composed of the law, the prophets, and the apostles, and everything that we acknowledge, everything we confess about God and Christ and salvation. If we go beyond any of these scriptures, we know not anything. And isn't it interesting here that again, Cyril of Alexandria, in agreement with the other fathers we've been looking at, is telling us that the scriptures contain everything we need to know for salvation. They're not an exhaustive account, but they are a sufficient account. And so when he says that we're not to go beyond these, very, very, the language is very similar, and probably Cyril has this in his mind, 1 Corinthians 4:6, where the apostle Paul writes that we are not to go beyond what is written. "Do not go beyond what is written." And so that seems to be encapsulated here as well.

If we go to the next slide, um, St. The canon of scripture is another issue we want to address here. And when we talk about the collection of the scripture, particularly the Old Testament, this is an area where Eastern Orthodoxy is literally all over the map. There are differences of opinion among Eastern Orthodox theologians and scholars about what exactly constitutes the Old Testament canon. Now, Protestants don't have a problem here because we acknowledge that the Old Testament is the canon, the books that were given to the Jews based on Romans 3:2, that God gave his oracles to the Jewish people, and Romans 9, that God gave them the temple worship, God gave them the covenants, and from them, according to the flesh, the Messiah came, who is God over all. And so when it comes to the Old Testament, the Roman Catholic Church will have seven additional books from the Apocrypha, they call it Deuterocanonical. The Eastern Orthodox Church will have different lists, different lists that are not in agreement with each other. And yet, when we look at the early fathers of the church up until the 300s, 400s, we find that fathers like Cyril of Jerusalem, Athanasius the Great, and John of Damascus, they reckon the Old Testament books to be 22, in agreement with the Jews, with the Jewish Hebrew canon of scripture. And they reckon them as 22 because they come to us from the original Hebrew text, the original Hebrew Bible. And so why would Athanasius and Cyril of Jerusalem, John of Damascus say this? Well, these were fathers that were familiar with the Hebrew Bible, much like Jerome was in the West. And you will find that the fathers who were familiar with the Hebrew Bible will almost unanimously reject the Apocryphal books as non-biblical.

If we go to the next slide, and if someone says, "Well, that's just a that's just a Protestant view that you've gotten from the Jews and so forth." Even in Eastern Orthodoxy, if you look at the Longer Catechism by St. Philaret of Moscow, in 1823, this Longer Catechism was put out. And under question 32, it asks the question, "Why should we attend to the reckoning of the Hebrews?" That is, the Old Testament canon. Answer: "Because, as the Apostle Paul says, 'unto them were committed the oracles of God.' And the sacred books of the Old Testament have been received from the Hebrew church of that testament by the Christian church of the New."

So, interestingly enough, you will notice that even St. Philaret of Moscow, in the beginning of the 19th century, he quotes the very passage that Protestants quote from Romans 3:2, that God gave his oracles to the Jewish people. What constitutes the sacred books of the Old Testament? And notice how St. Philaret mentions the Hebrew church, that is, the people of God in the Old Testament. They gave the Christian church of the New Testament, of the New Covenant, the canon of holy scripture.

If we go to the next slide, we see then that when we look at the canon of scripture, the Old Testament, the majority of the church fathers in the Eastern Church, in the Eastern Church, rejected most of the Apocrypha as canonical. And so we see this, for example, among such men as Melito of Sardis, Athanasius, Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory of Nazianzus, Epiphanius, and of course, John of Damascus, who is believed to be the last of the church fathers. And again, why were these men convinced about the Hebrew canon? Well, because they engaged themselves in the study of Hebrew.

Now, what I wanted to do here is, very quickly, I wanted to share a video here. Um, and, uh, can you see that, Eli? Can you see that video? Can you see it on the screen?

>> Let me see this here. Okay. This one here.

>> Yeah. All right. So, let me just play this just a minute or so. There's an Eastern Orthodox, um, theologian here, um, talking about the Old Testament canon in the Eastern Orthodox Church. So, let me just bring this up.

>> What we find is, and it made the professors uncomfortable, there has never been a definitive statement in the Eastern Orthodox Church on the canon of scripture. There has never been an ecumenical council that approved only one list. The Seventh Ecumenical Council approved six or seven lists. The Council of Jerusalem approved a list in response to Cyril Lucaris's Calvinist confession of faith. But then the Senate in Moscow also approved a different list. And so we find that it's an it's it was never brought to any closure. Why isn't that important to us? As Orthodox?

>> Okay. So, okay, let's, we're back. So, as you can see, um, we agree with what was just said. Why is this not important to us? And again, to kind of piggyback on what, um, on what, um, Pastor Josh Shuping said, if the church cannot err, and the church can be trusted, why, why are these, why are there contradictions in the councils in various local synods about the Old Testament canon of scripture? Why is there this, this confusion and this disunity? Protestants don't have this problem. And of course, the Roman Catholic Church, at least since the Council of Trent, 1546, doesn't have this problem. But this continues to be a pressing issue with our Eastern Orthodox friends.

If we go to the next slide, and so once again, looking at the canon. So, what are some of the contradictions? Well, the early fathers directly contradicted this layout. So, Athanasius, and even St. Jerome in the West, who gave us the Vulgate, the Latin Vulgate, both of them excluded the Deuterocanonical books or the Apocryphal books from their primary list of canonical scripture. They viewed them as useful for instruction, but not for establishing dogma. And so when people charge Luther, for example, with removing books from the Bible, Luther did not remove the Apocrypha. He set it aside. You can find it in Bibles in Lutheran churches today. He set it aside as books that are useful for instruction, but they're not scripture. They're not binding on the conscience of God's people. You cannot establish dogma from that. And what do we know about Athanasius and Jerome? Well, both of these fathers knew Hebrew, particularly Jerome. He knew Hebrew and he refused to include the Apocryphal or Deuterocanonical books in his first edition of the Vulgate, but was later forced to by the Pope, the Bishop of Rome. Conversely, early apostolic fathers like Clement of Rome, a very early father, he quoted the non-canonical books, for example, like the Shepherd of Hermas, as scripture. So already at this very early period in Christian history, there were Christian fathers that thought books like the Shepherd of Hermas were scripture. Some thought that the Didache should have been part of scripture, and therefore, as we can see here, the fathers were not in a unanimous position here to establish what they believed was the exact canon of scripture. And so when we hear this claim that without the church, we couldn't have the canon, the church is what gave you the canon, the Eastern Orthodox Church can't even settle on the Old Testament canon. And so how can we trust them with the canon if they can't even get the canon right?

Go to the next slide. When it comes to the New Testament canon, um, early apostolic fathers like Clement of Rome, already Polycarp and Justin Martyr, they did not have a finalized New Testament canon. And that, of course, is because we didn't have Xerox machines. We didn't have photocopiers that you can just photocopy every book in the New Testament. These were all written by hand. And some of them did not have access to the full New Testament canon we have today. And once again, they frequently quoted books like the Shepherd of Hermas, the Epistle of Barnabas, as scripture. And today, the Eastern Orthodox Church, as well as the Roman Catholic Church, Protestants, they have finalized, they have a finalized, strict biblical canon of the New Testament. We all agree on the 27 books of the New Testament. But we clearly exclude these books like the Shepherd of Hermas and the Epistle of Barnabas as scripture today because we do not regard them as canonical. But some of the early apostolic fathers did. When you look at someone like Polycarp, who is presumed to have been a disciple of the Apostle John, why would John think, why would Polycarp think that the Shepherd of Hermas was scripture, or the Epistle of Barnabas was scripture?

Let's go to the next slide. So, let's move on to icon veneration and what some of the early fathers said. If you look at the early fathers of the first 300, 400 years of the church's history, you will find that there is a very strong anti- very strong iconoclast approach to the use of images and icons in the church. And so Clement of Alexandria is one of them. He was a very, very vocal opponent of the use of images in worship. And so here in his book, the Stromata, he says, "What is made is similar and the same to that of which it is made, as that which is made of ivory is ivory, and that which is made of gold is golden. Now, the images and temples constructed by mechanics are made of inert matter, so that they too are inert and material and profane. Works of art cannot then be sacred and divine." Close quote.

So notice here that Clement of Alexandria is pointing out here that whatever you make of ivory is ivory. Obviously, whatever you make out of gold is golden. And he speaks about the temple's images constructed by these pagan mechanics, those who make these images and so on. And notice how he refers to it as inert matter, that is, matter that has no life in it, it doesn't move and so forth. And then he says, "So they too," that is, those who compose them and make them, "they too are inert and they are material and they are profane." So this is somewhat like what we read in Psalm 115, that these idols of the nations, they have eyes but cannot see. They have noses but cannot smell. They have mouths but cannot eat and so forth. And it goes on to say that those who worship them become like them. But isn't it interesting that here at the end, Clement says, "Works of art cannot be sacred and divine." Close quote. That is exactly the opposite of what we see in the Second Council of Nicaea of 787, that these icons of Christ or Mary or the saints are in fact sacred, that they're holy icons. Clement of Alexandria would have no tolerance for this type of idea or language.

If we go to the next slide, Clement of Alexandria again, "Moses ages before enacted expressly that neither a graven nor molten nor molded nor painted likeness should be made, so that we may not cleave to things of sense, but pass to intellectual objects. For familiarity with the sight disparages the reverence of what is divine, and to worship that which is immaterial by matter is to dishonor it by sense."

So notice the language here, that Clement cites Moses and the language here, of course, is pointing back to Exodus 20, to the Ten Commandments, to the second commandment in particular, that notice he refers to the graven or molten. So these would be three-dimensional statues, objects. But notice he goes on to say, "nor a painted likeness," that is to say, a two-dimensional painting like we find in icons, for example, that they should not be made. And his whole point here is that we should not cleave to these things. We should not hold to these things because to behold these things, to use these things in worship, or let's even call it veneration at this point, to do that disparages the reverence of what is divine. And so to worship God by matter, or using material things like icons or these material mediums, is to dishonor God himself. And so when the Israelites built the golden calf in Exodus 32 and then they said, "This is the God who brought you out of the land of Egypt," you will notice that God's wrath came upon them. And they could have turned around and said, "Oh, no. We're not worshiping this, Moses. We're we're only venerating it. We're venerating the calf as a picture of God's power, of his omnipotence." And notice that that language is not the language that Moses would have tolerated to begin with, that whatever they were doing to that golden calf, and even calling it the God who brought them out of the land of Egypt, was an act of idolatry, gross idolatry. And so idolatry is basically the worship of created things. It's bringing God down from heaven and putting him into a material box, whether three-dimensional or two-dimensional. And so you could see from the language of Clement of Alexandria, this type of action would never be tolerated in his day.

Let's go to the next slide. When we look at Hippolytus, he says, "And the Carpocratian heretics make counterfeit images of Christ, alleging that these were in existence at the time during which our Lord was on earth and that they were fashioned by Pilate." And so these folks made the claim that there were images of Christ. And notice what they do is they use the argument much like our Eastern Orthodox friends do, that these images, the use of these images or icons were already in existence in the time of Christ on earth. And they claim that these images in particular were fashioned by Pilate, by Pontius Pilate. And notice Hippolytus completely rejects this claim that these types of images were present in the first-century church. He rejects this and refers to these heretics as those who make these counterfeit images of Christ, again, disparaging this type of practice.

If we go to the next slide, we see Origen. Now, before someone jumps and says, "Origen was a heretic," yes, he was condemned as a heretic centuries after his death. It was not until you get to the, it's not until you get to the Second Ecumenical Council of Constantinople in 553 that you find an official condemnation of Origen. But during his lifetime, he was never called a heretic, was never condemned as a heretic. But at least what Origen does is he attests to what's going on in the church. So in his important work, Against Celsus, he says, "It is not possible at the same time to know God and to address prayers to images. You can claim to know God and then pray to images." But that's exactly what we see among our Eastern Orthodox friends. The second quote, "For these different tribes erected temples and statues to those individuals above enumerated, whereas we have refrained from offering to the divinity honor by any such means, seeing that they are adapted rather to demons."

So what, what Celsus is actually saying, the pagan Celsus, is he's saying that these Christians are actually, they're actually atheists because they don't worship images of the gods. And what Celsus is complaining about is that Christians don't really have a real God because the God they worship is invisible, and they don't use images and statues as the pagans do. Thereby showing, through enemy attestation, which is a very strong form of argumentation in the historical critical method, if your enemies are attacking you, then most often than not, their attestation is true.

So we go to the next slide. The Council of Elvira. This was a local council. It was not an ecumenical council. But still, in 305 AD, in canon 36, it states, "It is ordained that pictures are not to be in churches. So that which is worshiped in the door shall not be painted on walls." So it's very clear at this local council that pictures were not to be placed in churches, and the reason for that is so that the people would not be tempted to worship them. "That which is worshiped in the door shall not be painted on walls." And so pictures of God, or even depictions of the Trinity, depictions of God the Father, of Jesus Christ, was something that this council basically rejected and condemned as something that is impermissible and that should not be done in the churches.

Let's go to the next slide. Here we have a quote. This is from the famous Protestant historian, Jaroslav Pelikan. And he says this, and this is a long quote, so it'll be continued in the next slide. He says this, "asking what place it was and learning it to be a church, so excuse me, this is actually Epiphanius, my apologies. This is Epiphanius asking what place it was and learning it to be a church. I went in to pray and found there a curtain hanging on the doors of the said church, dyed and embroidered. It bore an image either of Christ or one of the saints. I do not rightly remember whose the image was. Seeing this and being loath that an image of a man should be hung up in Christ's church contrary to the teaching of the scriptures, I tore it asunder and advised the custodians of the place to use it as a winding sheet for some poor person. They, however, murmured and said that if I made up my mind to tear it, it was only fear that I should give them another curtain in its place. As soon as I heard this, I promised that I would give one and said that I would send it at once."

We go to the next slide, the continuation. "That I would send it at once, since there has been some little delay due to the fact that I had been seeking a curtain of the best quality to give them instead of the former one, and thought it right to send to Cyprus for one. I have now sent the best I could find. And I beg that you will order the presbyter of the place to take the curtain which I have sent from the hands of the reader and that you will afterwards give directions that curtains of the other sort, opposed as they are to our religion, shall not be hung up in any church of Christ."

And so here, Epiphanius, one of the church fathers, tore down a curtain that bore an image. He's not sure if it was of Christ or of the saints, but notice how he indicates here that such curtains with images on them should not be hung in any church of Christ.

Now, if we go to the next slide, here we have Richard Price, Professor Richard Price. He is an expert in the councils, the early Christian councils, the seven ecumenical councils. And Richard Price says this, "Quote, 'The iconoclast claim, that is, the claim of those who are opposed to icons and images, that reverence towards images did not go back to the golden age of the early church fathers, still less the apostles, would be judged by impartial historians today to be simply correct. The iconophile view, that is, those who love icons, of the history of Christian thought and devotion was virtually a denial of history in favor of a myth of a religion that had been perfect from the first and needed no addition or subtraction.'"

So, Professor Price here points out that the view that the adoration of icons, that this view did not go back to the age of the early fathers or to the apostles, is simply correct, and that those who would deny this are basically in a denial of history and favoring a myth.

Let's go to the next slide. Here we have Jaroslav Pelikan, a Protestant historian of church history. "That antipathy appeared also in another fourth-century writer who figured prominently in the debates of the eighth and ninth centuries, Epiphanius of Salamis, the one we just saw about the curtain. He maintained that the devil has now again drawn away the faithful into ancient idolatry. He opposed the introduction of images into Christian places of worship, for he was sure that when images are erected, the customs of the pagans do the rest. Anticipating an argument that was to be used in support of the images much later, Epiphanius declared in his last will and testament, 'If anyone should dare, using the incarnation as an excuse to look at the divine image of God, the Logos, painted with earthly colors, let him be anathema.'"

So what, um, Epiphanius has just done here, folks, is he's just anathematized John of Damascus, who used that exact argument that since the incarnation took place, and therefore all of matter has been divinized by the incarnation of God in Christ, and therefore it's okay to venerate matter through icons. Notice that according to Epiphanius, anyone who believes this or says this, let him be anathema. So now you've got Epiphanius now anathematizing John of Damascus, who was still to come. He was not alive yet at this time. So strong and explicit was the rejection of images by Epiphanius, the famous standard-bearer of Orthodoxy, that the iconoclasts were able to make good use of these writings to support their case from patristic tradition. Close quote.

Now, if we go to the next slide, we can check what some other, these are Eastern Orthodox theologians. Now, so Andrew Louth is an Eastern Orthodox scholar. He says this, "Neither the eighth-century doctrine of the necessity of making and venerating icons nor the fourteenth-century Palamite distinction between essence and energies can really be found in the fourth-century fathers." Close quote. So notice how even Louth here admits that these doctrines of icon veneration, or the essence and energies of Gregory Palamas, none of these can be found in the fourth-century fathers. They didn't hold to this. They didn't teach this. So much for this idea that all this goes back to the original church, it goes back to the apostles and so on.

Let's go to the next slide. We have other Orthodox scholars like, um, Laurent Clenwick. "One will not find in the early church any clear exposition of the current Eastern Orthodox theology of icons." Close quote. He's being honest about this. These scholars are being honest about history here. There's none of this in the early church. And then, of course, Kallistos Ware, also known as Timothy Ware, a famous scholar who wrote the book *The Orthodox Church*. "Not until the period following Justinian, during the years 550 to 650, did the veneration of icons in churches and private homes become widely accepted in the devotional life of Eastern Christians. By the years 650 to 750, the first attempts were made by Christian writers to provide a doctrinal basis for this growing cult of icons." Close quote.

So even Ware admits that it's not until you get to the Justinian period, of the Emperor Justinian, not until you get to the sixth and seventh centuries, that you find that this idea of veneration of icons becomes accepted. In other words, they're not there in the early church. The apostles did not teach this, nor did the apostolic fathers, the early church fathers, or the Nicene fathers.

If we go to the next slide, you may have heard some of our Eastern Orthodox friends that would say that St. Luke the evangelist was the first iconographer. He was the first person to paint an icon. And they will tell you that St. Luke was the first to draw an icon of the Theotokos, of the Virgin Mary. And this idea is a complete myth.

Béatrice P. K. Panka. She is an Orthodox historian specializing in Byzantine art and history. Notice what she says. "The myth of Luke painting the Virgin Mary was invented in order to support the legitimacy of icon veneration during the Iconoclast controversy, that's in the 8th and 9th centuries, by claiming the existence of a portrait of the Theotokos, that is, the Mother of God, painted during her lifetime by the evangelist Luke. The perpetrators of this fiction fabricated evidence of the apostolic origins and divine approval of images."

So notice how Panka herself points out that this is nothing but a fiction, and this was fabricated. It was made up to trace the use of icons back to the apostolic age by having Luke, St. Luke, produce an icon of the Virgin Mary, when this very claim is bogus. There's no historical support for this whatsoever. And so much like the Roman Catholic Church had to come up with myths or hoaxes like the Donation of Constantine, that he conferred Rome or the Vatican Hill to the Bishop of Rome, so we have it here in the Eastern Orthodox Church, these ideas, these hoaxes, that Luke was the first iconographer. There's no truth to that.

Let's go to the next slide. When you look at some of the theological errors and differences in the fathers, we find in fact that the fathers were not unanimous in a lot of issues. And that's to be expected in the Protestant view. The fathers were fallible. They were not inherent. They were not apostles. They were not inspired the way the prophets and the apostles were. And so you are bound to find some theological differences and errors in the fathers.

So, one of them is the idea called apocatastasis. Apocatastasis means in Greek, it means restitution, restoration. It's used in the book of Acts where Peter talks about when Christ comes, he will bring about the restitution, the restoration of all things, pointing to, of course, the eschatological end, the new heaven and the new earth, the new Jerusalem. But some of the fathers took this idea of apocatastasis, universal salvation, to mean that God is going to bring about the reconciliation of all creatures. So this was taught by prominent fathers like Gregory of Nyssa, and then of course Origen, who was later condemned as a heretic. Both of them taught or leaned toward apocatastasis. This ultimate reconciliation, not just of all souls, but even Satan would be reconciled to God. Now, mind you, the church later condemned, or what they called originism, that is, the teaching of Origen, at the Second Council of Constantinople, AD 553, and they explicitly rejected universalism as a dogma. They taught the reality of eternal damnation, which is held by Roman Catholics and Protestants alike. But what is interesting about this is that Gregory of Nyssa got a pass here, and Origen of Alexandria, while they both explicitly taught universal salvation, Origen ended up being branded a heretic, whereas Gregory of Nyssa, one of the Cappadocian fathers, was made a saint and an authority in the church. He taught universalism as well. But of course, Origen went off and taught things like the pre-existence of the soul, and he had some other unbiblical ideas as well. But it's interesting that they venerate Gregory of Nyssa today as a saint, despite the fact that he contradicts the doctrine of eternal punishment, or the doctrine of hell.

If we go to the next slide, the afterlife. There were there was disparity here. The intermediate state. Early fathers held a view, a variety of views on what happens to the soul immediately after death. And Eastern Orthodoxy today has a highly developed, a very specific tradition regarding this. This includes liturgical prayers for the dead, the widely held tradition of the toll houses, where the soul goes into this ascent, this ladder of ascent. It goes up, and as it's going up this ladder of ascent, the demons come and accuse them of their sins and accuse them before God. And then the angels come to show their good works. And then, of course, the final appeal is that the soul should call on, um, on the Theotokos, on the Mother of God, and that by appealing to her, she would be gracious to them and save them and give them pardon, which is very interesting, because that sure sounds a lot like faith alone. You're now putting your faith alone in Mary to save you as you are on this toll house ascent against the demons, and by putting your full trust in the Theotokos, in the Mother of God, having full faith in her, she will save you. That's the hope that she will save you by faith alone, because your works are being used there as an excuse against you. So notice that what the early fathers taught about the afterlife is very different than what many in the Eastern Orthodox Church, especially what the toll houses teach. Now, some of them will say the toll houses is not really a central doctrine, but it is taught by the Eastern Orthodox Church. It is taught by its bishops. Many of its mystics taught it as well. And so to simply lay it aside and say, "Well, it's not really important." Well, there was a lot of ink spilled on this topic, on writing about this topic, so much so that you could still see it in various icons in churches or even in the homes of many Eastern Orthodox members.

If we go to the next slide, Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyon, on Apostolic Tradition. He actually taught that Jesus was 50 years old when he died. Now, remember, Irenaeus is second century, mid-second century. Notice what he says here about this idea that Jesus was 50 years old. He says, "All the elders testify, who in Asia associated with John the disciple of the Lord," that's the Apostle John, "that John had conveyed to them this information, that Jesus was 50 years old when he died. For he remained among them up to the times of Trajan. Some of them who saw not only John but the other apostles also, and heard the same account from them, bear testimony as to the statement."

So what is Irenaeus doing here? He is telling us that the idea that Jesus was 50 years old came from the apostles. It's apostolic. Now, here's the question. Does any Eastern Orthodox theologian, scholar, or Roman Catholic scholar or Protestant scholar, do any of them believe that Jesus was 50 years old when he died? And the answer to that is a resounding no. None of them believe this. They would believe at most that he was 33. But notice that Irenaeus is saying already in the middle of the second century, he's telling us that he got this from the apostles, from John, who conveyed it to Polycarp. So if this comes from the apostles, then why doesn't anyone believe this today? And this is the first time we hear about this appeal to apostolic tradition. And it's when people say we should trust the tradition of the apostles. Apostolic tradition couldn't even get this right about Jesus. He actually thought Jesus was 50 years old. And yes, he's talking about recapitulation. He's talking about the cyclical views of cyclical time in Greek thought. But that's not the point. He says he got it from the apostles. And that is a bold-faced error. It's wrong. Irenaeus wasn't a liar, but he was clearly mistaken here.

Let's go to the next slide. Mary, was she sinless? Many of the fathers, the Eastern Orthodox Church says that Mary was sinless by her own will. But the early fathers, like Irenaeus, for example, at the wedding at Cana, when Mary was urging Jesus to perform the wonderful miracle of the wine, "was desirous before the time to partake of the cup of emblematic significance. The Lord checking her untimely haste said, 'Woman, what have I to do with you? My hour has not yet come,' waiting for that hour which was foreknown by the Father." Notice he says that he was checking her untimely haste.

Now go to the next slide. You'll find Origen. "What ought we to think that while the apostles were scandalized, the mother of the Lord was immune from scandal? If she had not experienced scandal during the Lord's passion, Jesus did not die for her sins. But if all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, but are justified by his grace and redeemed, then Mary too was scandalized by this moment. And this is what Simeon is prophesying about: 'Your soul will be pierced by the sword of unbelief and will be wounded by the sword point of doubts.'" Notice Mary here is being explained or shown to be in the sin of unbelief. And she doubted. She doubted. And unbelief, of course, the Bible tells us, is a sin.

Let's go to the next slide. And again, here Basil of Caesarea, "According to the word of the Lord, it is said, 'All you shall be offended because of me.' Simeon therefore prophesies about Mary herself, that when standing by the cross and beholding what is being done and hearing the voices, after the witness of Gabriel, after her secret knowledge of the divine conception, after the great exhibition of miracles, she shall feel about her soul a mighty tempest. The Lord was bound to taste of death for every man, to become a propitiation for the world, and to justify all men by his own blood. Even though thou, even thou thyself, who has been taught from on high the things concerning the Lord, shall be reached by some doubt." So, in other words, Mary doubted as well. And this is the sword that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed. He indicates that after the offense of the cross of Christ, certain swift healing shall come from the Lord to the disciples and to Mary herself.

>> Beth, brother Tony, um, can you hear me? Okay.

>> I can.

>> You've got five minutes. So it's 4:15. Just want to give you a heads up.

>> Yeah. Yeah, I got the time here. Yeah, we'll go to the next slide.

>> Sure.

>> Uh, of course, Ephrem the Syrian also talking about the Cana story, um, about the hour has not yet come. She learned from him that he was to perform a sign here when he reproached her because she doubted him. Again, doubting God, having unbelief, these are things that are considered sin. They're signs of faithlessness. And again, we have no issue with this. Mary was not sinless. We don't believe in the Immaculate Conception as Protestants. We don't believe that she lived a sinless life. We believe that she was human like all of us. Christ came to save her as well.

Let's go to the next slide. Uh, again, John Chrysostom says the same thing. I won't read the whole thing as my time is limited here. Um, but notice how Christ cared for the salvation of her soul. He rebuked her on that occasion, "Woman, what have I to do with thee?" And so here again, we see this idea that Mary, like the rest of us, also needed salvation. She was not sinless.

So we go to the next slide. Um, again, Ambrose points out as well that, um, of Mary, that she was, uh, of all who are born of women, the Lord Jesus alone is holy. He has been spared all stain of earthly corruption, born in a manner that is without precedent. His divine majesty has preserved them free from sin. So if he's the only one who is holy, he alone is holy and without sin. This would make, of course, the exception of all others, including Mary.

If we go to the next slide, um, Theodoret of Cyrus says the same thing here. "So Christ our Lord himself teaches us. At one time calling himself Son of God, at another Son of Man. At one time he gives honor to his mother as to her that gave him birth, and another time he rebukes her as her Lord." And so a very different picture emerges here. Not that Jesus gives into Mary's demands or he always gives his mother's requests, but on the contrary, he is her Lord and he is the one who is in full sovereign control.

Go to the next slide. Again, human imperfections. Some early third-century writers attributed minor human flaws to her. Origen and Tertullian suggest that Mary experienced moments of doubt and hesitation at the cross. This, of course, was later rejected by the Eastern Orthodox Church. Yes, Mary was called Theotokos at the Council of Ephesus, Council of Chalcedon. However, this title, when it was given to her, was given to her to protect the incarnation, and it was Christological, not Mariological. She was called Mother of God to maintain that, contrary to Nestorius, that she was indeed the Mother of God the Son in the flesh, that is to say, that she gave birth to a person, and that person was God the Son. And so even though it's a title that some Protestants don't use, there's nothing biblically incorrect about that title because she truly was the Mother of God the Son in the flesh, the one she bore. And so this was a defense of the incarnation of Christ, that he's one person with two natures. Nestorius argued that Mary was Christotokos, the Mother of Christ the man. The church says no, she is the Mother of God the Son incarnate, the person of God the Son. And of course, this idea eventually becomes elevated with Gregory Palamas in the 13th century. You have this extreme hyperexaltation of Mary where she becomes a necessary conduit to salvation, and she becomes the link between heaven and earth, and she cannot enter heaven. No one can enter heaven, rather, without her consent and permission. And this shows how far Eastern Orthodoxy has departed from the Mary of the Testament and the Mary of the early church fathers. Thank you so much.

>> All right. Thank you so much, Tony, for that. Sorry your camera situation didn't work. That is what it is. But I do appreciate your presentation and, uh, looking forward to seeing you or hearing you during the Q&A panel at the end.

>> Yes.

>> All right. Well, if I go, I shall come again.

>> All right. Thank you so much, brother. Take care.

>> All right. So, that concludes Dr. Tony Ka's presentation. We're going to have another intermission, 10 minutes. Um, and our next speaker will be Samuel Farog, talking about the nature of the true church. All right. Hope you guys are enjoying. Um, just a couple of things. Um, if you have a question, there's a reason why none of the speakers are addressing your questions because this is the time for presentation. So, towards the latter part of the conference in the evening, they'll all of us will be on the screen together and you can have your question. Just make sure that you preface your question with "Question" so that we could differentiate it from the, um, the comments and the, let's just say, the lively, the lively discussion happening in the comments section. So, I do want to encourage people, if you are interacting in the comments, and there is some inappropriate interaction there, you have a choice. You do not have to interact. You can let those comments stand. I typically don't touch my comments. I do remove comments with language. That's just my rule there. But for the most part, I let it stand. And so, you don't feel the need to have to respond to everything. All right. So, with that said, I'm just going to put up our little screensaver here, and we will start up with, uh, Brother Samuel Farog at 4:30. All right. Thank you. All right. Hopefully I'm not muted. There we go. Make sure I do this the right way. Um, I've had the YouTube channel for quite some time. You would think I would know. Uh, for those of you who watched, who caught the first couple of seconds of my presentation, I was like on mute, so I did like a rookie, a rookie mistake there. But, um, all right. So, we are coming in on our next speaker, Samuel Farog. And I am hoping that I pronounce, invite him on the screen with me. Have I been pronouncing your name correctly?

>> Yeah. No, you've been doing a good job.

>> Okay. So, it's Farog. Okay. Um, so Samuel Farog is going to be our next presenter. He's going to be talking about issues pertaining to the true church. And do you have any, um, slides that you

"Yeah, just reading off my notes."

"Okay. So, there's no kind of background thing that you need me to do?"

"No, I'm I'm old school like that."

"All right. Hey, there's nothing wrong with that. Everyone's got their own style."

"All right. Well, thank you so much for uh participating. Do you have um pardon, do you have a YouTube channel or maybe a book you'd want someone to check out? Maybe you can take a maybe a minute uh to kind of share a little bit about that."

"Sure. Um exposing the word ministries. Um, and you can just search my name. Um, I do have a book, uh, Eastern Orthodoxy through the lens of soloscriptor and also a teaching series on American Gospel, a 10- part series. Actually, episode nine just came out and, um, episode 10 should be coming out soon after that. Um, and it's Eastern Orthodoxy through the lens of, uh, scripture."

"Um, so yeah, you can check those out. And then I've had many, um, debates, interviews related to Eastern Orthodoxy for anyone who's interested."

"Yeah. So, you just did a recent debate with Ale, was it Alex Saurin?"

"Correct. Yeah."

"Alex Sin. Okay. So, folks can check that out, too. I think it is on modernday debates. It was a very a very fun interaction, lively and you guys got to cover a lot of important topics. And what what I appreciate about those debates and like things like this is that these are never uh like the end all beall. They are the foundation for digging deeper into some of these issues which which I'm glad people are talking about these topics because I think they're very important. So uh okay well um I don't want to take any more of your time. I'm going to dip out and you can start. Um, you're going to go for an hour and then, um, actually, let me do something real quick to make sure I have my next uh, let me see here. Just give me one second. So, we're going to remove this and then we're going to get that up there so we can get our next speaker up there. Let's see here. So, we've got Ryan stuff up there. We're going to put that down. That's for the next one here. Okay. All right. So, I'm going to remove myself and uh you'll be up there on the screen and you can start whenever you're ready, brother."

"All right. Thank you, brother."

"All right. My pleasure."

"Beloved, I would like you all to consider this note from the MacArthur New Testament commentary on First Timothy. Vincent Lombardi, the Hall of Fame coach of the Green Bay Packers football team, was notorious for his emphasis on fundamentals. His team won championships because they could block, tackle, and execute better than anyone else. It is said that once frustrated by the team's poor performance, he held up a football and said, 'Gentlemen, this is a football.' Like coach Lombardi, the Apostle Paul knew well the importance of going back to the fundamentals. He penned this letter to Timothy because the church at Ephesus was starting to drift away from the basic truths of the Christian faith. Like the Ephesians, we need to regularly be reminded of the foundational truth of the faith. Beloved, the Eastern Orthodox Church has been seducing many of late with claims that it is the one holy, Catholic, and apostolic church that has never changed. However, a careful study of God's inherent and infallible word and a proper understanding of church history reveals that Eastern Orthodoxy has clearly drifted away from the basic truths of the Christian faith. So, in our session today, we will evaluate the claims of the Eastern Orthodox Church and compare it with the foundational truths found exclusively in scripture. So, please turn your Bibles to the Epistle of 1 Timothy. We will conduct our study in chapter 3 and focus on verses 14-15. Our message this afternoon is titled, 'What is the true church?' examining Eastern Orthodox claims. So this afternoon, we'll cover three main points. The background, the scriptures, and the church. Before we consider our text, I would like you to ask you to please all join me in prayer. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for allowing us to have this opportunity where faithful brothers can come and share your truth. And Lord, we pray that for those who are listening, they will listen to the truth that's found within your word. That the purpose here is not to attack somebody or tear them down, but to reveal what does the word of God say, especially when there are those who claim to represent you, but they are touting all these falsities. So Lord, I pray that for everyone who is listening that they can see your truth and Lord, guide my mouth to speak your truth and may all glory go to your name in Jesus powerful name. Amen."

"So our text today is again Luke for 1 Timothy 3:14-15. And the text reads, 'I hope to come to you soon, but I am writing these things to you so that if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of truth.' So let's take a look at our first point. I want to first take a look at the first half of verse 15, uh, sorry, verse 14, the background. 'I hope to see you soon.' I want to pause right there. Beloved, in order to properly evaluate this text, we need to practice proper hermeneutics and pay attention to the context. These verses serve as a bridge between the guidelines that Paul had just given in 1 Timothy 2:1 all the way to 3:13 and a warning about false teachers that will follow after this. So Paul had given instruction about biblical prayer, Jesus being our only mediator, the behavior of men and women, and the qualifications of church leaders. Now let's quickly read that passage so we can see exactly what Paul is instructing and also pay attention to what he is not saying as the Eastern Orthodox Church loves to practice isogesis and add biased opinions into the text of scripture. So again our text is 1 Timothy we're going to start from uh 21 all the way to 3:13. 'First of all, then I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God, our savior, who dwells, whose desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God, the men and God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time. For this I was appointed a preacher and an apostle. I am telling the truth, I am not lying. A teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth. I desire then that in every place that men should pray, lifting up holy hands without anger or quarreling. Likewise also the woman should also adorn themselves in respectable apparel with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, but with what is proper for women who profess godliness, with good works. Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man. Rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve, and Adam was not deceived. But the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing if they continue in faith and love and holiness with self-control. The saying is trustworthy. If anyone aspires the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. Therefore, an overseer must be above reproach. the husband of one wife, soberminded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent, but gentle, not quarrelome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well with all dignity, keeping his children submissive. For if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God's church? He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. Moreover, he must be well taught by the outsiders. He must be well thought of by the outsiders so that he may not fall into disgrace into a snare of the devil. Deacons likewise must be dignified, not double tonged, not addicted to much wine, not greedy for dishonest gain. They must hold to the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience. And let them also be tested first. Then let them serve as deacons if they prove themselves blameless. Their wives likewise must be dignified, not slanderers, but soberminded, faithful in all things. Let deacons each be the husband of one wife, managing their children and their own households well. For those who serve well as deacons gain a good standing for themselves, and also great confidence in faith that is in Christ Jesus.' Now, keep in mind those instructions. Remember what was said and also keep in mind the things that weren't said. That is important as we progress in our study today. Now, the Apostle Paul was hoping to visit Timothy soon. But just in case he was delayed, he was writing to him, his young associate Timothy, so that he might know how one ought to behave in the household of God. And likewise, we as followers of Christ today will know how we ought to behave in the household of God by looking at God's word. As the New American commentary on First Timothy says, Paul had written these words with the full intent of making a personal visit to Timothy in Ephesus. However, his travel plans were always subject to the will of God. Paul never knew where a new day would take him. His actual hope was that he might come soon and personally give the instructions, but the possibility of interruption led him to put them in writing. His writing was not due to his previous forgetfulness to mention these words to Timothy. Nor was Timothy so incompetent that Paul jotted off this note to prevent him from acting carelessly. The letter could serve as a confirmation of advice already given to Timothy on Paul's departure earlier from Ephesus. It would butress Timothy's authority before a testy congregation. A critique of Timothy and Ephesus could argue, a critic of Timothy and Ephesus could argue that Timothy had misunderstood what Paul had directed him to do. No one could easily argue with a written word from the apostle. Paul clearly saw the need to not only teach orally, but to record those oral teachings in writing, in written form, so that we are not in confusion about what God has commanded us to do. And it is the word of God that will be our focus next. And that takes us to our next point, scriptures."

"I want us to now take a look at verses the second half of verse 14 and the first half of verse 15. 'But I am writing these things to you so that if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God.' Now, having provided Timothy with specific instructions on prayer, worship, and church offices, Paul now starts his reason. Paul now states his reason for writing this letter. In this very significant verse, Paul states his intention for writing first Timothy by providing one by providing one of the key to the New Testament description of the church's identity and mission. In other words, Paul clarifies and provides instruction on proper conduct in the church. Furthermore, Paul describes the church as God's family, especially with reference to authority and responsibility within the church and the home. The stress is on God's authority over the church and the behavior of the people in the church. To be clear, beloved, this is not a reference to any building, but to the people who make up the true church. And the content of the Christian faith that they need can be found recorded in scripture. You see, the church of the living God is a pillar and buttress of the truth. There is no denying that. But where does that truth come from? Look at Paul's words carefully. Paul says that he is writing these things so that we may know what truth is. That writing that he is referring to is scripture. It's to the letter that he's writing in for to Timothy here, but also to all of scripture. Look at what Paul writes just a little later in the epistle in 1 Timothy 4:13-16. 'Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of scripture, to exhortation, to teaching. Do not neglect the gift you have that you have which was given to you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you. Practice these things. immerse yourself in them so that at so that at all so that all may see your progress. Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.' So the true church of the living God should have doctrines that are informed and built up or built upon from the scriptures as its sole foundation. Now survey the New Testament and you will see that there is no rigid liturgy, no hymns to Mary, no intercession of saints, no icon or relic veneration, no icon stasis, no elaborate vestments for clergy, no New Testament priests outside the priesthood of all believers, no monasticism, no altar of any bloodless sacrifice. There is nothing recorded by the Holy Spirit that would give any evidence that the Eastern Orthodox worship service is biblical. As 1 Timothy 4:7 says, 'Have nothing to do with irreverent silly myths. Rather, train yourself for godliness.' Instead, scripture presents us with simple a simple church service oftentimes in homes as recorded in Romans 6:5, 1 Corinthians 16:19, Colossians 4:15 and Filimon 2. Christians in the early church also agreed with this too. We see this in the evidence from the different writers in the early church. In about AD 150, Justin Martyr said in his first apology, 'And on the day called Sunday, all who lived in cities or in the country gathered together to one place, and the memories of the apostles or their writings of the prophets are read as long as time permits. Then when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs and extorts to the im imitation of these good things. Then we all rise together and pray. And as we as we before said, when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought, and a president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgiving according to his ability, and the people as sent saying, "Amen." And they who are well to do and willing give what each thinks fit.' So what do we see, beloved? We see scripture is read. We see that scripture is expounded upon in a sermon by what's called here to president who is equivalent to the office of overseer, pastor or elder, which was always meant to be a single office. We see prayer and what many scholars see also there included as songs being recited. We see communion in a time of giving a clear and beautiful picture of faithful and biblical worship. Walk into any faithful biblical church and you will see the very same thing. What is vital to know is that unlike the Eastern Orthodox practice, even the Christians of the early church say nothing of a rigid liturgy, hymns to Mary, intercession of the saints, icon and relic veneration, an icon stasis, elaborate vestments for clergy, New Testament priests outside of the priesthood of all believers, monesticism, and an altar for any bloodless sacrifice. In this letter to Timothy, Paul warns of false teachers who will depart from the true faith and create their own doctrines as it says in 1 Timothy 4 1-5. 'Now the spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons through the intercessory of liars whose consciousness are seared who forbid marriage and require absence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For everything created by God is good and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving. For it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.' Beloved, let us build our faith and doctrine with the biblical blueprint that is laid out for us. Let us build upon the Old Testament prophets. Let us build upon the New Testament apostles. Let us build upon Jesus Christ himself. As Ephesians 2:19-22 says, 'So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are follow fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God. Build on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure being joined together grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.' Furthermore, let us take a look at what is recorded in Hebrews 3 1-6. 'Therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus the apostle and high priest of our conscience, who was faithful to him who appointed him, just as Moses also was faithful in all God's house. For Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, as much more glory as the builder of a house has more glory, more honor than the house itself. For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God. Now Moses was faithful in all of God's house as a servant to testify to the things that were to be spoken later. But Christ is faithful over God's house as a son. And we are his house if indeed we hold fast our confidence and are boasting in our hope.' Beloved, Jesus is the head of the true church. That is an absolute truth. But now we have to look at the role of the church. And that takes us to our third and final point and where we're going to spend most of our time in our message today. The church."

"I want us to now take a look at the second half of verse 5, which says this, 'which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth.' Beloved, the church is God's possession. And the church is both a pillar and a buttress which upholds the truth of God's revealed word. Taken together, those two terms pillar and buttress emphasize the certainty and firmness of the truth that is revealed in the scriptures. Pastor John MacArthur puts it this way. The truth is that divine revelation including the truth of the gospel the content of the Christian faith is it is the sole responsibility of every church to solidly immovably unshakably uphold the truth of God's word. The church does not invent the truth and alter it only at the cost of judgment. It is to support and safeguard it. It is the sacred saving treasure given to sinners for their forgiveness and to believers for their sanctification and edification that they might live for the glory of God. The church has the stewardship of scripture, the duty to guard it and the most precious possession on earth and to guard it as the most precious possession on earth. Churches that tamper with, misrepresent, depreciate, regul re relegate to a secondary place or abandon biblical truths destroy their own reason for existing and experience the impotence and judgment. Furthermore, as the ESV study Bible says, identifying the church as the pillar and buttress of truth is a way of saying that God has entrusted to the church the task of promoting and protecting the gospel. But architectural imagery presents the church's responsibility of upholding the gospel before a watching world, probably with the view of repelling the attack of false teachers. This picture of the church is striking. The role of advancing the gospel is divinely given to the church, not at least not in the same way to any other body. Beloved, Paul is not imputing infallibility to the church or stating that the authority or later church leaders is equivalent to the authority of the apostles. However, the Eastern Orthodox Church has a very different understanding of this verse. They claim to be the ones who are infallible. They claim that they are the only ones who have fully received a deposit of faith from the apostles. They claim that their practices today are the very same practices of the apostolic church and they are free of any accretions. They claim to be the ark of salvation. They claim to be the ones who possess the fullness of the faith and they claim that they themselves are without error and that it is impossible for them to ever commit an error. So we have to ask ourselves, are all these claims that the Eastern Orthodox Church boasts about truly valid? Not in the slightest. The Eastern Orthodox Church is not nearly as ancient or as faithful as it claims to be. The current practices of the Eastern Orthodox worship are a terrible byproduct of a state-run religion and a flood of nominal Christians. That is Christians by name alone in the Christian world. First, we must look at Emperor Constantine who reigned between AD 306 to 337. His conversion to Christianity in 312 led to the Edict of Milan in 313. Now, this made Christianity legal. But again that was not all. The edict also made Christianity very appealing. Oscar Sarsu says in his book in the shadow of the temple formerly it put Christian faith and all faiths on equal footing but it can escape no reader of the edict that it signaled out Christianity as the only religion named and the whole purpose of the edict was to favor Christianity and give full restitution to the church after the persecutions. It soon appeared that the Roman emperor in many ways was a problematic ally, especially when he insisted upon being not only in some sense the supreme ruler of the church, at least in external affairs, but also the one whose responsibility it was to secure unity and peace within the church. Soon after 320 AD, Constantine began constructing several large church buildings. But since all the world was now supposed to attend service in the church, the barrier between the crowd in the church and the holiness of the service at the altar had to be emphasized in a new way. The service became something done by consecrated priests, the chosen ones, with the crowd, the people watching from a distance. Ceremonies from the imperial courts were introduced into worship, such as carrying candles and sensors in front of the bishop or priests. The fact that these parallel ceremonies described in the Bible for the tabernacle or temple was not by accident. Accordingly, the net result of this development as regards liturgy was that Christian worship from being modeled mainly on the simple pattern of the synagogue worship, the worship of the priestly people became more like Old Testament temple worship with the high priest, bishop, priests, presbytors and Levites, deacons conducting the service with the lay people attending. So now many were converting to Christianity not out of a surrender to to Christ but for political reasons. If you wanted to succeed in the empire then you had to follow the emperor's lead even if that meant leaving your own religion in order to join the religion that he subscribed to. And unfortunately this only worsened over time. Emperor Theodosis the Great, who reigned between 379 and 395 AD, took matters to a whole new level with his edict of Thessalonica in 380. He made Christianity the official religion of the empire. But that wasn't all. Christianity also became the only legal religion of the empire. If one wanted to continue to be part of the empire, then one needed to be a Christian. As Sarsu says, now all of a sudden the world was supposed to belong to the church. Ideally, all Roman citizens were supposed to be or become Christians. Orthodox Christianity was by law made the only legal religion in the empire. The repercussions of course were many and longlasting. So with the mandatory requirement that citizens of the empire became Christians, even more nominal Christians entered the visible church. the power and authority of the church increased. This eventually led to the doctrine we see in the Eastern Orthodox Church where they claimed to be just as authoritative and infallible as the word of God. In 1672 is the confession of the Cytheus in decreed to it says this. 'It is impossible for her, the Eastern Orthodox Church, to in any wise or to at all deceive or be deceived, but like the divine scriptures is infallible and has perpetual authority.' This radical view that the Eastern Orthodox Church is just as infallible as the scriptures has led to the acceptance of a myriad of unbiblical doctrines. Scripture teaches not to participate in idolatry. Yet, the Eastern Orthodox Church mandates icon veneration, which is clearly a later development. For at least the first 300 years of Christianity, we have no mention or evidence of the veneration of icons. And in fact, it is the veneration of images that are always unanimously spoken against. Then in the fourth and fifth centuries, we start to see the emergence of saint portraits which led to unbiblical practices which were always rebuked by church leaders. So it was not until the sixth or 7th century that the veneration of icons became more widely practiced and it wasn't until the 8th century that the practice was actually made dogma. As historical scholars Leslie Brewbaker and John Halden wrote, 'Holy portraits did not carry the same range and as of meaning in late antiquity as they did in the Byzantine Middle Ages, and their significance changed profoundly over the course of the sixth, 7th, and 8th centuries. By the year 800, the icon could serve as an intermediary between the viewer and the holy person represented. That was not the case around the year 400. Not even around the year 600. It was only in the 7th century that all of the features we now associate with holy portraits fell into place. And only in the eighth and 9th that they were codified.' Scripture teaches that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was a faithful woman of God. Yet the Eastern Orthodox Church elevates Mary beyond script what scripture says about her with their Marian veneration and Marolitry, the idolatry of Mary. In the Acist hymn to the most holy Theoticus, the Eastern Orthodox Church call Mary the propitiation of the whole world, the restoration of men, the forgiveness for many who have stumbled. They say that she taketh away the filth of sin and that she is the salvation of my soul. In the entry of the most holy Theoticos into the temple, it says this of Mary that she is the acceptable sacrifice, the you lamb of God without spot and dove without blemish. They say that she possesses a body that was never subject to the taint of sin. And the Orthodox sing to her that through through thee we have we are reconciled with God. And in the mother of the light prayer book, the following is said to Mary in their prayers. 'Heal my miserable soul because I do not dare ask nor do I have anyone to entreat on my behalf the loving God to heal my many sins and incurable wounds.' The Orthodox also say that you have the ability to bring about whatever you wish and they also say that you can do all things and are able to bring about whatever you wish in heaven and on earth merely by the power of your will. She is called the mediator of the whole world. She's called the salvation for mortals. And she is called the redemption of sinners. And the Orthodox even say, 'I do not dare to draw near with boldness to your son, but instead I pray to you that I might obtain salvation through your intercession to him.' Gregor Palamos says in his 53rd homaly in paragraph 37, 'She Mary alone forms the boundary between created and uncreated nature. And no one can come to God except through her and the mediator born of her. and none of God's gifts can be bestowed on angels or men except through her.' Scripture teaches that aseticism is of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh. Yet, the Eastern Orthodox Church's highest leadership is only made available to those who partake in monesticism, which is a later development. However, the practice of the monks are far from anything that resembles biblical Christianity. In the latter of divine ascent by St. John of the latter. Take a look at step five paragraph 8 which says this. 'Others sat on the ground in sackcloth and ashes hiding their faces between their knees and striking the earth with their foreheads.' The extreme abuse of one's body does not stop there. Just take a look at what it says in step five paragraph 19 that says this. 'From the number of their prostrations, their knees seemed to have become wooden, their eyes dim and sunken deep within their sockets. Their faces were pale and wasted. They were quite indistinguishable from corpses. Their breasts were livid from blows and from their frequent beatings of the chest. They spat blood.' And step five, paragraph 25, which says this shocking statement. 'And some prayed to become possessed by devils. Others begged the Lord that they might fall into epilepsy. Some wished to to lose their eyes and present a pitiful spectacle. Others to become paralyzed only that they might not experience suffering hereafter. And I, my friend, found so much pleasure in their grief that I forgot myself and was wholly wrapped in mind and could not contain myself.' How can you ever call yourself a believer and pray to be possessed by a demon? This is completely ludicrous and truly painful to hear. Yet the author of this work, John of the Ladder, also known as John of John Climactus, could not contain his pleasure in seeking his fellow monks pray and and and seeing his fellow monks praying that demons would possess them. This is a complete insult to Christ, a mockery of what faithful Christianity looks like. This is not the practice of the apostles and the early church. Now, some Eastern Orthodox will say, well, this was hyperbolic language or um you know, this was just for extreme situations. But the reality is if you actually read all of the latter of divine ascent, this was not meant to be hyperbolic. This is exactly what John the Ladder witnessed. And John the ladder even at the end of that step says that this should be a model for what others do. Now look with me at the Holy Spirit inspired wisdom that is recorded by the Apostle Paul in Colossians 2:16-23 which says this. 'Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come. But the substance belongs to Christ. Let no one disqualify you, insisting ones as aceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind, and not holding fast to the head from whom the whole body nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments grows with a growth that is from God. If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations, do not handle, do not taste, do not touch, referring to the things that all perish as they are used according to human precepts and teachings. These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in pro promoting self-made religion and aestheticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.' Let me repeat that again, especially that last verse. 'These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and aestheticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.' So we can see beloved that any outlandish claim by the Eastern Orthodox Church that it is the that it is infallible and is infallible just as much as scripture is. Well, it is that exactly an outlandish claim by a bunch of modern-day super apostles. See, as Paul also contended with uh these false religious leaders during his time when he was writing to the church in Corinth, take a look at what is recorded in 2 Corinthians 11:1-15. 'I wish you would bear with me in a little foolishness. Do bear with me for I feel a divine jealousy for you since I betrothed you to one husband to present you as a pure virgin to Christ. But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough. Indeed, I consider that I am not in the least inferior to these super apostles. Even if I am unskilled in speaking, I am not so in knowledge. Indeed, in every way, we have made this plain to you to see all things. Or did I commit a sin in humbling myself so that you might be exalted because I preached God's gospel to you free of charge? I robbed other churches by accepting support from them in order to serve you. And when I was with you and was in need, I did not burden anyone. For the brothers who came from Macedonia and supplied my need, so I refrained and will refrain from burdening you in any way. As the truth of Christ is in me, this boasting of mine will not be silenced in the regions of Aaya. And why? Because I do not love you. God knows I do. And what I am doing, I will continue to do in order to undermine the claim of those who would like to claim that in their boasted mission, they work on the same terms as we do. For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds.' Beloved, to accept another gospel is to be accursed by God. To accept another gospel is to be cursed by God to hell unless one repents and genuinely believes. So this is no small matter. When we're talking about the Eastern Orthodox Church, we're not just talking about another Christian denomination. We are talking about an apostate church that teaches a completely different gospel that cannot save. That is why in this in Paul's letter to the Corinthians, he says that he has a divine jealousy or a godly jealousy for the Corinthians. That jealousy is inspired by zeal for God's causes and thus is similar to God's own jealousy for his holy name and his people's loyalty. Now these false apostles that Paul was dealing with in his day were very skilled orators much like the online personalities in the orthodox apologetics world. They are very charismatic speakers and have a track record of deceiving many especially again of late. But we must remember it is not our skills in speaking that God is concerned about. Beloved, when Paul says that he is unskilled in speaking, he is acknowledging his lack of training in rhetoric, his lack of training in rhetorical skills so prized in Greek culture. And there seems to be little change in things that are prized in our time as well. However, God often uses that which is weak in the world to shame the proud. God often uses the least likely of candidates to accomplish his will. So look with me at Moses of what was said in Exodus 4:10. 'But Moses said to the Lord, "Oh my Lord, I am not eloquent either in past or since you have spoken to your servant, but I am slow of speech and of tongue."' And even of Paul himself, look what is recorded in 2 Corinthians 10:10. 'For they say, "His letters are weighty and strong, but his bodily presence is weak and his speech of no account."' You see, beloved, Paul was a preacher of the gospel, not a professional orator, and he lacked the formal training in rhetoric. Furthermore, he had no intention of engineering an audience's favorable response with rhetorical devices because that may mean that they have been convinced by the power of his rhetorical skills rather than converted by the power of the cross. See, Paul wanted to be genuine in his teaching. So beloved, do not get sucked up with the oratory skills of any supposed super apostle, but instead trust in the power of God's truth. Many who have flirted with and have recently joined the Eastern Orthodox Church have appealed to the great early fathers and they were amused by them and their great use of philosophy. But I would push back with the wisdom of a true apostle of Christ when we look at what Paul has to say in Colossians 2:8. 'See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit according to human tradition according to the elemental spirits of the world and not according to Christ.' Although Paul said that he was unskilled in speaking, he also adds this which is very important. 'I am not so in knowledge.' That means whatever deficiencies Paul may have as an orator, he had none in terms of biblical knowledge. He had the truth. You see, beloved, that right there is what matters. God's truth. Biblical truth that is founded upon the word of God. Not something that is built on sand, that's built on the traditions of men, that's built on oratory or on oral uh tradition. No, something that is solid, that is inherent and infallible because it is God's word. Now, consider these wise words I once came across that really stuck with me. Satan is most effective in the church when he comes not as an open enemy, but as a false friend. Satan is most effective when he comes not to persecute the church, but when he joins it. Satan is most effective not when he attacks the pulpit, but when he stands in it. These are things that we must be paying attention to. Beloved, never forget this reality as Ephesians 6:12 says, 'For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.' As the New American commentary on first Timothy says, some have felt that the description of the church in 1 Timothy 3:15 gives greater prominence to the church than to the truth. Paul's in intent Paul's intention, however, was not to exalt the institutional church, but to call its members to active united witness. Each local church has in its power to support and strengthen the truth by its witness to the faith and by the lives of its members. Counterfeit churches are rampant in our time. They may have a trinitarian view of Jesus. But the churches like the Eastern Orthodox Church serve as spiritual descendants of the Pharisees and the Judaizers. For they claiming to be successors of the apostles add requirements to scripture. Again remember the Judaizers they agreed with what Paul had to say but they added some requirements. So that itself by adding requirements to scripture is to make a false gospel a gospel that cannot save. Now the Eastern Orthodox Church they add requirements to the biblical view of justification. They require icon veneration in order to be saved. They require the veneration of Mary and the saints in order to be saved. They require belief in Mary's perpetual virginity in order to be saved. They require belief in Mary's assumption into heaven in order to be saved. They require belief in a true presence in commun in the communion elements in order to be saved. And the list goes on and on and on. Even when you look at Eastern Orthodoxy on their main doctrine, the doctrine of theosis, they they look to all these different elements in order for them to be saved. It's truly a worksbased system. With theosis, it's to understand it from a Protestant perspective, it's like sanctification and glorification except they are missing biblical justification. And on top of that, they have incorporated works in it. They need Mary for example to to to participate in one's u process of theosis. They need the monk's prayers to to help in the process of theosis. Taking the elements and participating in the sacraments has a person receive power and that's how they see grace. They see grace as a power. All these things all these teachings do not come from scripture. These are additions to scripture. In fact, based on their dogmas in the Eastern Orthodox Church, we can conclude based on all the things that they believe that one is saved by the church alone, through the church alone, in the church alone, according to the church alone, all for the glory of the Eastern Orthodox Church alone. So in order to be part of the Eastern Orthodox Church, one must hold to solar ecclesia, the church alone. However, that is a counterfeit to what we see in the scriptures based on the word of God. We see this in the reformation when when there is a the Protestant Reformation when we go back to scripture. And again, that's why it's so important to pay attention to the pattern of reformation that we see all throughout scripture and that we see in church history. You have King Hezekiah and King Josiah and Ezra and Nehemiah and and Jesus and the apostles and John the Baptist. And then with the Protestant Reformation, you have a history of reformation that when certain people add requirements and they add man-made traditions and they elevate them to higher levels than they should, there needs to be a reformation. And that's why that came out of that reformation based on the word of God. We know this that one is saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, according to scripture alone, all for the glory of God alone. You can see that clearly through scripture. You do not need to add or infuse any tradition in there. That is the problem when it comes to how the Eastern Orthodox Church uh go about in their hermeneutical styles is that they will read biblical text and they will infuse in it outside sources so they can get to the meaning that they that they want to get to because they are not just looking at scripture. They're also looking at their traditions. They're also looking at the councils. They're looking at their hymns. They're looking at infallible documents. But that's not what Christ told us to do. So we have to stay focused on what Christ has commanded us to do and the model of hermeneutics that he has shown us during his earthly ministry and what we have seen from his followers. So I want us to take Paul's rebuke of the Galatians that that he was speaking to as they were being seduced by the false teachers that they were uh that that they were speaking with as a warning and something that we must remember and also warn others who are being seduced to. Galatians 3 verse 1-3 says this, 'Oh foolish gent, oh foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Christ that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. Let me ask you only this. Did you receive the spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish having begun by the spirit that you are now being perfected by the flesh?' As early church father Aronyaeus says regarding false teachers like the leaders of the Eastern Orthodox Church, 'When however they are refuted from the scriptures, they turn around and accuse those same scriptures as if they were not correct nor of authority and that they are ambiguous and that the truth cannot be extracted from them by those who are ignorant of tradition. For they alleged that the truth was not delivered by means of written documents but orally.' So even understood that when false teachers were put in a corner when people were using God's word they usually reverted to these kind of tactics where they basically said well not everything is contained within the word of God. But really in order to come to that conclusion is to say that the Holy Spirit who is God 100% God who is perfect completely somehow produced a book that is lacking information we need to be saved. That does not fit with the character of God at all and it doesn't match with whatever with everything that is said in scripture. Beloved, put your trust in the truth of the word of God and not the traditions of men. A faithful church is a church that surrenders to the truth found in the word of God. So I would like to have to have close with this illustration as this message comes to a close. So please consider this. There was a pastor who talked about a sterling silver tea set from a family member that was that gave it to him and his wife as a reminder of her love for them. It's quite old and beautifully made and it sits on a stand in their dining room. There's only one problem. They can't use it. The woman who gave it to them had it chemically coated so that it wouldn't tarnish and hot water will ruin the finish. That pastor saw an illustration with that sterling sterling silver tea set and he said, 'God is not looking for sterling silver tea sets. He's looking for rough and tumble clay pots, the kind that can be used every day. He's looking for the kind of pots that don't need to be tucked away in a china closet, but can be sent out in a crash banged world carrying within them the life of Christ. The church was never meant to be a"

China cabinet where precious pieces would be safely stowed out of harm's way. The church was meant to be a working kitchen where well-worn pots were filled again and again to dispense their lifegiving contents to a thirsty world.

Beloved, if you take a look at the Pharisees during Jesus's time, they were so concerned with outside appearances, with how they were perceived. But when it came to those who were in need, who who truly needed them, they weren't there. They didn't have a true heart for evangelism. And why? Because they were so inwardly focused.

Look at the Eastern Orthodox Church. You see the very same thing. You see an inward focus. Why? Because it is a works-based system. In the confession of Dyius, it even says that their works are meriting. They have to merit their works. Yes, they say that Christ made salvation possible, but they believe in a synergistic relationship with him where they have to cooperate with God. So they're constantly working, constantly working, and they never have any assurance of salvation whatsoever.

And that's a big problem because even if we look at the letter of first John, John the beloved wrote that epistle, that letter for people to have an assurance of their salvation. Because in his church, there were people who were leaving who at one point seemed to be true believers. And many people then started to question their own salvation to understand and they started to question how can somebody who was once saved now walk away. And John made it clear the reason that they walked away is because they were never of us from the beginning. But for those who truly have the Holy Spirit within them, they are truly born again and they would never leave the Lord.

But in the orthodox understanding, there is no assurance of salvation whatsoever. So one has to constantly focus on self and there's a lot less focus on other people and to evangelize. Now there are some efforts in evangelism within eastern orthodoxy but it is quite minimal compared to what you see with with the biblical Christianity those who actually have the holy spirit in them. So that's why it's important that when we are making this evaluation we are paying attention to what are the actions what are the byproducts of what we're seeing from these people.

Beloved, Jesus tells us that we will know them by their fruits. When he's warning against false teachers, he teaches that a person's true character and inner spirit are revealed by their actions. Beloved, if you have this Holy Spirit in you, you will produce good works. But if you don't have the Holy Spirit in you, that means that you are still a slave to sin. that you are not going to be able to have that self-control that you need by having God in you. And at the same time, Jesus says that we will be identifiable as his disciples by the love we have for each other.

Only one only needs to look at the actions of the Eastern Orthodox community online to see that as a whole, they are not serving the Lord. Again, I'm not saying every single person act carries themselves in that way, but as a whole, what are they truly motivated by? If you don't have the Holy Spirit in you, you're going to act like the world. And if if as a church they're acting like the world, that is a huge identifier that they are not truly promoting a gospel that saves. What is the point of saying that you're part of the one true church and then carrying yourself in a manner that's completely contrary to everything that Christ has taught.

So that's important for us to pay attention to and one only has to take a look at all the unfounded claims of the Eastern Orthodox Church to see that they have abandoned the truly infallible truth found in the word of God for the fallible supposed wisdom of their holy traditions. One of the biggest points is icon veneration. It is clear the consensus of the fathers which they claimed that they practiced. The consensus of the fathers for hundreds and hundreds of years in church history were they were all against the veneration of icons, the cultic use of of images. Yet they say that their tradition has never changed. It has always been that way. But that's not true. So history makes it very clear it's not true. Plus when we look at the word of God, we can see that that is also not true at all.

So we have to evaluate these claims that are made by the Eastern Orthodox Church and compare it to the word of God and compare it to what we see in church history and see is this really the one true church. Are they truly unchanging completely? You know if you even look at when it comes to um baptismal regeneration and all these things there are many issues again throughout church history regarding that. It's important for us to evaluate church history and to look at what it says in the word of God. And when we see a contradiction, we have to make a choice. Are we going to follow an institution? Are we going to follow an organization or are we going to follow Christ? Are we going to follow the teaching of the apostles?

You a lot of times many early fathers are um are quoted from but who used to practice like that? It was the Pharisees. The Pharisees when they were teaching they oftentimes quoted old rabbis and the older the rabbi they would quote the more authoritative their teachings would be and they would say that all the oral traditions well it came directly from Moses that was the tradition of the elders is what it was called. Take a a reading of Mark 7 and you will see this. But what did Jesus say when he was talking to them? That you have chosen the tradition of the elders and elevated it above the word of God, above God's truth. That by accepting these traditions of men, you are now making void the word of God.

So beloved, this is why I will implore you, read the scriptures and also at the same time read the works that are written by those in the Eastern Orthodox Church. Read their documents so you can see how they teach. Latter of divine descent is a great book. Read it all the way through and see what are the practices of the monks. You that was only a sampling of what I had read before. There's talks there of monks who are uh verbally um abusing other monks and physically abusing them and other monks who are made aware of this and they'll continue in that abusive practice. Why? because they are trying to manufacture persecution in their in their in their uh life in in the aesthetic life that they have. And again, why? because they are practicing something that was never commanded in scripture. Menicism did not come about until afterwards, much later in church history, actually as a response to the nominal Christians that entered the visible church. So, a study of church history and a study of what it says in God's word is very revealing.

So let me leave with these words inspired with a little twist by the reformer and Christian martyr William Tindell. Lord, open the Eastern Orthodox Church's eyes.

Beloved, let's pray. Heavenly Father, I pray that for anyone listening to this this session right here or any other session that they'll be listening to throughout the day, Lord, that if they do not yet have a saving relationship with you, that Lord, you will knock down any horse blinders that they have, that you will soften their heart, that they will see your truth, because ultimately this is not about what any of us have as an opinion. It's about your truth. And Lord, we want to surrender to your truth. So Lord, soften their heart. Help them to see your truth. Remove those horse blinders from their eyes. Just like the Damascus road experience that Paul had when you removed those horse blinders from his eyes. Soften their heart, Lord. Give them ears to see, eyes to see. Lord, I appeal to your name's sake. And for those who have already put their trust in you, who are your followers, Lord, I ask you to strengthen them, equip them, give them the heart to minister to those who are lost. Let their heart break for those who are in sin, who are in an apostate church. Help them so they can minister with love and remind us Lord of who we were before we were saved so that we do not boast about anything and realize that anything that is good within us is all because of you Lord. Thank you Lord for this opportunity that you have given us this opportunity to speak of your word and for all the people who work so hard to put this all together. Lord may your faithful followers continue to share your truth and may hearts change for your glory. All glory to you in Jesus powerful name. Amen.

>> All right. Thank you for that. Um so we've got uh two minutes before we're going to go into our intermission. Do do you mind taking a question?

>> Yeah.

>> Um because I I can't um I'm not searching the comments now because when we do the Q&A then we'll then we'll take some questions. So um but there's a lot of this in the chat. Maybe you could address it um because it is a common thing. It's not something we've never heard before. There are a lot of uh Eastern Orthodox folks saying, you know, you know, how can you how can you say that you have the true church when there's so many different denominations? Or when someone says, and this is interesting because the question often seems to assume a faulty presupposition. They'll say, well, which church should I go to?

>> Yeah.

>> you know, and then of course you have um you know, you have all the different denominations and things which kind of assumes a particular understanding of the church baked into the question which we would probably take issue with. So, how would you interact to those two questions and then and then we'll come to our intermission.

>> Yeah, absolutely. And that's a great question and that's where you're right. It's it's about that understanding that what we see as the true church are for those who who actually truly believe in the Lord. They are the bo part of the body of Christ. And just because a person's part of a different denomination, um just because they have different distinctions does not mean that they don't they're not part of the same church, the the universal church. So you can have I'm a reformed Baptist and someone could be a Presbyterian or an Anglican or a Lutheran. And if they all believe in the gospel and it's it's a genuine faith um we're talking about a faith where you have the true knowledge and and the the faith in your heart, a true saving faith, right?

>> That you are actually united in the gospel and that's where the true church is. It's just like when Paul was addressing the issue when they were saying some people follow Apollos and some people follow Peter and some people follow me but we should remember we are following the Lord. So there's a difference between distinctions that we may have that may be technically part of different denominations but we're actually united in Christ.

>> Right? So so the assumption is when they say which church should I go to that's presupposing some visible institution. So that already presupposes the Eastern Orthodox paradigm of what a church is. So that's the the faulty presupposition or the question begging presupposition in the question. Would I be correct there?

>> It would be it would be equivalent to asking um um Christ, oh or or or Paul or somebody, who should we follow? Apollos, Peter, uh you who should we follow? And Paul would say that's the wrong question to ask. It shouldn't be about who's following Christ. So absolutely the question that's um at fault because a person's presuppositions are read right into it.

>> That's right. Very good. Well, thank you so much for your presentation and I always appreciate a nice uh prayer at the end. Someone said in in a in the comment, how do these people talk for an hour? Uh I don't know how long uh if they do sermons in Eastern Orthodox Church, expository sermons and stuff like that, but it's it's called preparation. Uh and if you're preaching on a regular basis, it's it's quite easy to follow your notes or to you know read your transcript or you know um so it's uh you know it's not that it's not as challenging as one might think but yes an hour of uh of talking can be long but u hopefully this has been beneficial to folks. So again if you're just popping in I know that people are popping in and popping out. Um if you've never visited Revealed Apologetics be sure to subscribe if you find this particular content um useful. Obviously, we don't always talk about Eastern Orthodoxy. Um, obviously, there's I talk a lot about apologetic methodology and Christian philosophy and things like that, but if you find that information um, useful, you can subscribe. And in the description of this video, I have the YouTube links to all of the speakers uh, YouTube channels if you want to go and check out their things um, as well. All right. Well, thank you, Samuel. I really appreciate your presentation and I'm just going to prep everyone for our next speaker and um we'll take it from there. Thank you so much. I'll see you during the Q&A.

>> All right. Thank you, brother. Appreciate it.

>> All right. God bless you. Bye-bye.

>> All right. Well, that was Samuel Farog and our next speaker is going to be Ryan Hemlar of needgod.net and he will be speaking on the topic Eastern Orthodoxy and the doctrine of justification by faith alone. Now, one of my biggest fears of doing something like this is um having to interact with and correspond with um you know uh multiple people in different time zones and things like that. So, I'm always worried like I hope the speaker knows when they're coming on and then I got to get them in and all the rest. So, um um I hope that you guys so far things have been going off without it without u without any problems. Hope you guys are benefiting from this and I would encourage to continue to interact in the comments in a respectful manner if that's possible. Um sometimes I doubt that that's possible for some people but um hopefully um people will be able to interact in in a meaningful ways as they interact with the material presentation sharing their own views and interacting with you know opposing positions and things like that. All right. So, I'm going to remove myself and then we will start up hopefully if everything works out according to plan at 540 with Ryan Hemlar. I thought like a child I like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. Love is patient and kind. Love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice at wrongdoing away with the truth. Love all day. Believes all day. Hopes all things endures all things. Love never ends. Now we see in a mirror dimly but then face to face. Now I know in part. Then I shall know fully even as I have been fully known. Now faith, hope and love by these three. But the greatest of these is love. Love is patient and kind. Love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant or rude. does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice at wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things all hopes all things endures all things. Love never end. Love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful. It does not come to the truth. Love all things, believes all things, hopes, all things, endures, all things. Love never ends. Oh. Oh. Oh. Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him. because he cares for you. Oh, and after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen. Oh, be sober minded. Be watchful. your adversary. The devil prows around like a roaring lion. Seeking to All right, we're going to remove this and invite Ryan who is our next speaker. Ryan Hemlar who um has the YouTube channel uh needed God.net. Many of you may be familiar. He has been making his rounds um on other channels doing interviews and things like that. And he has lots of interesting interactions with all sorts of people uh Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, atheists, and I'm sure you can go down the long uh list. So Ryan, very very happy to have you with us all the way from Australia. Am I right?

>> Yes, that's right. Yeah, great to be here. It's just past 7 a.m. where I am here in Australia.

>> Okay. So, do you have you have your cup of coffee already?

>> Yeah. Got get got ready. You initially had me scheduled for 5:00 a.m. So, I'm glad that we got to schedule 7 a.m. and

>> Well, we wanted to wake you up at the time Jesus would wake up when it was still dark out and he would pray, you know, so we wanted to get you up there uh super super early. But no, I'm glad things worked out.

>> I did wake up at 3:00 a.m. this morning, right when you started your uh session. It was great.

>> Okay. Well, well, wonderful. Well, I'm happy to have you here. You're going to start in one minute. I just want to remind people um again and I I feel like um a broken record, but in the interactions in the comment section, I mean, again, if you disagree, disagree respectfully, okay? Don't feel the need to have to respond to everything. If you think someone is being disrespectful, um I think all of us are adults here and that we're able to interact in a meaningful way. The point is not making someone look stupid. The point is clarity and communication, right? If if we're not going to cater to that, then what's what's the point, right? Um so I just want to um encourage people to to keep that tone in the comments section. All right. All right. Well, without further ado, Ryan, I'm going to put your notes up here and then we're going to see if we can do that format thing that we had the other day and I'm going to remove myself.

>> Is that what you were looking for? That's what we're looking for.

>> Yes, that looks good. Yeah, thank you for that.

>> All right. Wonderful. Well, um I'm going to remove myself and you can start and you have an hour and uh if you happen to end early, we'll take a couple of questions from the chat. Otherwise, you have the full hour and looking forward to uh hearing your presentation.

>> All right. Thanks so much, Eli. Appreciate that. Okay. Yes. Good morning, good evening, good afternoon, wherever you happen to be in the world. We're talking on the topic of justification by faith alone. Peace. peace, wonderful peace. We want peace between families. We want peace between communities. We want peace between countries. But most importantly, we want peace with God. But how can we have peace with God? Out of all the topics in the world, being right with God is the most important. Why? Well, as Jesus himself said, what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? What shall a man give in return for his soul? Even if you're a trillionaire right now, if you forfeit your soul and end up in hell, you gain nothing. So this talk is not about trivialities. This is about eternal importance. Something of intern eternal importance. So in this talk, I'm going to be looking at what the Eastern Orthodox Church teaches is the way to be justified and compare that to the biblical doctrine of justification. And we'll also be looking at common ways people mess up justification and how our view on this doctrine affects our personal assurance.

So let's look at the Eastern Orthodox view. The Senate of Jerusalem in 1672 is a council that is universally accepted by the Eastern Orthodox Church not only historically but even to this day. And this is shown by the fact that this 1672 council was listed among the councils of quoteun universal authority at the recent pan orthodox council of 2016. And so this senate of Jerusalem of 1672 agreed to the confession of dissius which was in response to the confession of Sirillaris who was an ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople in the early 1600s. He was an Orthodox patriarch who sided with a lot of Protestant doctrines and his confession caused a firestorm of backlash. And so this confession of Dytheus is a response to Sir Licaris and it's the authoritative position of the Eastern Orthodox Church today. Let's dive into it.

Decree three of the confession of dyia says but to say as the most wicked heretics do and as is contained in the chapter of Sirill's confession to which this answers that God in predestining or condemning did not consider in any way the works of those predestined or condemned we know to be profane and impious. For thus scripture would be opposed to itself, since it promises the believer salvation through works, and to teach him how he may cooperate with it if he will and do what is good and acceptable and so obtain salvation.

So, do you hear what it's saying? It's saying that the scripture promises believers salvation through works and that if he'll do what is good and acceptable, then he'll obtain salvation. Notice that they don't even hide it in the Eastern Orthodox authoritative confessions. They say a believer obtains salvation through works by doing what's good and acceptable. And this would give a person a huge reason to boast before God. And it's in direct contradiction to Ephesians 28 through10, which says, "For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them." Notice how good works are what we're saved for, but not by. This is something that the Apostle Paul stresses not just here, but also in a lot of his letters.

The confession of Dytheus goes on in decree 9 to say, "We believe that no one can be saved without faith. By faith we mean the right notion that is in us concerning God and divine things which working by love that is to say by keeping the divine commandments justifies us with Christ and without this faith it is impossible to please God." So they speak on the necessity of faith but then seem to have a mental assent kind of faith. They say right notion concerning God and divine things. That sounds like just having right facts in your brain. But that's not what faith is defined biblically. Faith is not just knowing some facts about Jesus that he died and rose from the dead. The devil knows those facts to be true. It's about trusting in Jesus, seeing that his work on the cross is completely sufficient to save you and so therefore being assured of eternal life. As Hebrews 11:1 says, "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." Jesus has promised eternal life to anyone who believes. So trusting in Jesus is being fully convinced that you're going to heaven only because of what Jesus has done for you and not based on any of your commandment keeping or good works.

But what did we see decree 9 saying? faith which working by love that is to say by keeping the divine commandments justifies us with Christ. So they think keeping the divine commandments along with some right facts in your brain justifies us with Christ. That's literally salvation by lawkeeping and that's not a free gift. Imagine if you were drowning and a lifeguard says I'll save you but only if you swim half the distance yourself. At that point, your rescue is partly dependent upon your own effort. If justification depended on lawkeeping alongside faith, then salvation is no longer resting entirely on Christ's finished work. It's basically to say that Christ is not enough. And compare that to Titus 3:5. He saved us not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit. Or Romans 3:28 28. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. Notice it wasn't by lawkeeping that he saved us. It was purely by faith.

In fact, Paul had to consider all his lawkeeping as filthy rags in order to gain Christ. We see this in Philippians chapter 3 when Paul lists all his achievements, things that he could boast in. He lists circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews, as to the law, a Pharisee, as to zeal, a persecutor of the church, as to righteousness under the law, blameless. Look at all these achievements. And yet in order to gain Jesus, he has to count all these things as loss. Let's have a look in the next verse. But whatever gain I had, I count it as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law but that which comes through faith in Christ. The righteousness from God that depends on faith. You see the middle highlighted part here. He said he had to count all these things as rubbish in order to gain Christ. Meaning if he didn't count those things as rubbish, he wouldn't have gained Christ. So, we come to Christ empty-handed and we just take hold of the righteousness available to us through faith.

And so, if decree 9 is saying that keeping the divine commandments justifies us, the Apostle Paul would greatly disagree. And that's a very major person to disagree with, particularly as he's writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. But I've got some more of the confession of Dyius to show you coming up. But I do have to ask this important question. Do we even keep the divine commandments? If we're honest with ourselves, the answer is a clear and resounding no. Think about the amount of times you've had a lustful thought. Being angry or rude, jealous or prayerless, proud or lazy, failing to do the good you ought to do, and repeatedly doing the things you shouldn't do. That's exactly what Paul described about himself in Romans 7:19. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. So if even the Apostle Paul, the one who was considered the hardest working apostle, failed to do things he knew he should do and did things he knew he shouldn't, then we're really kidding ourselves to think that we keep the divine commandments. James 2:10 says, "Whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it." So just breaking one of God's laws makes you guilty of the entire thing and it makes you a transgressor. If someone kept every law in society, but then they just do one crime, what are they? A lawb breaker. So if someone kept every law of God, but they do one sin, let's say they told one lie, what are they? A lawb breaker in God's eyes, criminals before him. And you wouldn't consider that person someone who's kept the divine commandments, but you consider them as someone who's broken them. And so if the way of salvation was what the Eastern Orthodox Church teaches, none of us would make it. Galatians 3:10 says, "For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse. For it is written, cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law and do them." He's saying if you want to rely on the law, you need to keep everything it says. And if you don't, you're under a curse. He goes on to say, "Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law. For the righteous shall live by faith, but the law is not of faith. Rather, the one who does them shall live by them." So the very error that Paul refuts in Galatians is what the Eastern Orthodox Church thinks is the way to be justified. The Galatians were adding lawkeeping for justification. So does the Eastern Orthodox Church.

When a criminal breaks the law and is found guilty, they have that crime on their record, a mark against their name for life. And since we've broken God's law, we have a mark on our record. As Colossians 2:14 says, a record of debt. And no amount of future obedience to God's law gets rid of that debt. That record. It's like driving through a red light and you get a fine for that. But then you say to yourself, I'll drive through the next 50 green lights. It doesn't fix the fine you've got. It doesn't remove the record of your offense. And so, what is our solution? It's Jesus. Colossians 2:13 says this, "And you who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses by cancelling that record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross."

This is why the biblical doctrine of justification by faith alone is so beautiful. We can't keep God's standard, but Jesus has on our behalf. God is not infusing a bit of righteousness into us and then we have to cooperate, work well enough to keep it pure, keep it good, otherwise we're lost. No, God counts us as righteous. Not with a righteousness that's our own, not some sort of subjective change in us, but a legal declaration of not guilty, positively righteous. Justification is God's verdict upon the sinner. It's a courtroom term, not a medical term. It is not God gradually making us righteous. It's God declaring us righteous because of Christ. Yes, we also do believe in regeneration and sanctification. Those are ways that God does change us. Regeneration is God giving us a new heart with new desires. And progressive sanctification is God making us gradually more and more like Jesus every day. But justification is not the gradual growth in holiness. It's a pronouncement of not guilty.

How can God justly do that if we are guilty of breaking the divine commandments? Because we do know that scripture says, "He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous are both alike an abomination to the Lord." But if God is justifying the ungodly, as Romans 4:5 says, isn't he doing exactly that? He's justifying the wicked. He is, but it's not wrong. And before I tell you why, I just want to notice in this verse in Proverbs 17:15, this verse debunks the idea that justification is a subjective change of morality in the person or some sort of infusion of righteousness. I raise this because the Eastern Orthodox Church will say that justification mainly is transformative, making the individual a better person. But if justify meant to make someone inwardly righteous or morally good, this verse would make little sense because what would be wrong with transforming a wicked person and making him good? In fact, that's exactly what God does in the process of sanctification as taught throughout the New Testament. But that is not the point of Proverbs 17:15. The verse is not speaking about an inner transformation. Rather, it refers to the act of declaring a wicked person to be righteous or declaring an innocent person to be guilty. Both actions are detestable to God because they are legal judgments that misrepresent the truth. Therefore, both justify and condemn are being used in a judicial sense. And this is the same sense that Paul is using the word justify in the New Testament.

Biblical scholar Leon Morris said this. It is sometimes argued that the verb normally translated to justify, do means to make righteous rather than to declare righteous. But this agrees neither with the words formation nor with its usage. Verbs ending in O in referring to moral qualities have a declarative sense. They do not mean to make and the usage is never for the transformation of the accused. It always refers to a declaration of his innocence.

So how can God justify the wicked, declare them innocent if they're guilty of sinning? Because Christ, the righteous, got condemned on their behalf. 1 Peter 3:18, "For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous, which is Jesus, for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God." We're the unrighteous in that verse. The law puts a person under a curse because we can't keep it and it demands perfection. But Christ became the curse for us by hanging on that tree. His death satisfies the justice of God and allows wicked people to be counted as righteous. So the redeemed person is not getting justice. He's getting mercy. Friends, you don't want justice. That's you and I going to hell. We want mercy, don't we? And in order for God to remain just and the justifier of the one who is faith in Jesus, God put Christ forward as a propitiation by his blood. What propitiation means? It means a wrathabsorbing sacrifice. God's wrath, his justice was satisfied by Jesus being offered in our place. It's like a fine. Let's say you had $1,000 you must pay for a crime you did. No amount of writing letters to the government. No amount of saying, "Look, I'll be better from now on." will ever remove that fine. It must be paid either by you or by someone else who could choose to pay it on your behalf. And Jesus was the one who volunteered to pay our hell debt, take our punishment. A lot of people think if I pray enough, regret my sins enough, ask for forgiveness continually, or just be better from now on, that that'll remove the punishment they deserve for their sins. It will not work. It doesn't remove past wrongdoings we've done, just like in the fine example. And so this makes me think of the hymn Rock of Ages which says, "Not the labors of my hands can fulfill your Lord's demands. Could my zeal no rest bite? No. Could my tears forever flow. All for sin could not atone. You must save and you alone." Doesn't that sound far more amazing than decree 9? Oh, and wait up. Decree 13 is coming up.

But this doctrine of justification by faith alone is not just for those in ivory towers. This is for you and for me, the ordinary person, the one who realizes his own inability to save himself. And so we flee to the savior who's done everything to save us. Now there were two things that Jesus accomplished on the cross for believers. Firstly, our sins were imputed to Christ on the cross. And secondly, Christ's righteousness is imputed to us. He took what was ours and we receive what is his. Therefore, when God looks upon the believer, he sees someone clothed in the perfect righteousness of his son. It makes me think of 2 Corinthians 5:21. For our sake, he m he made him to be sin who knew no sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. That's saying Jesus was treated on the cross as though he did every one of our sins so that we could be treated as though we lived Jesus's perfect life. Think about that for a moment. He's treating us, yes, us, as though we have never sinned. And he's treating us for all eternity as if we did all the righteous things Jesus did. Wow.

So why can I, a sinful creature, stand accepted before a holy God? It's not because my faith is so strong. Is it because my works are so splendid? No. My church attendance is on point? No. My participation in the divine life is consistent? No. It's Jesus. He's my righteousness. The believer in Christ does not live wondering whether he's done enough, obeyed enough, or loved enough to remain justified. His confidence rests entirely outside of himself in the finished work of Jesus. The Eastern Orthodox Church will usually say justification is a process, not something that happens in an instant. But Paul speaks about justification as something that's happened already for a believer. And it happened at the moment of faith. Look at Romans 5:1. Therefore, since we've been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Notice it's past tense. We have been justified. Not present tense. We are still being justified. And it happened at by faith.

For Paul, the timing of justification and it being instantaneous is really important because without it happening in an instant, his argument falls apart. In Romans 4, he uses Abraham as it his exhibit a to show the instantaneous nature of justification and that it's by faith and not works. In Romans 4:2, he says, "If Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness." Notice if justification happened how the Eastern Orthodox Church teaches it, it gives a person a reason to boast. And not just for Abraham, but for anyone would all have a reason to boast if our works played a part in justifying us. But Paul describes Abraham believing in a moment in Genesis 15:6, believing a promise that God gave to him and at the very moment being counted as righteous. Now an eastern Orthodox person may protest by saying, "But Abraham had three chapters of works prior to Genesis 15. So clearly he's being justified by his works." Even though we do see Abraham doing works in those chapters prior, we don't see him being counted as righteous on the basis of those works. It was only once he believed the specific promise of offspring as many as the stars of the sky in Genesis 15 did God count his faith to him as righteousness. We have to go with what the text says. So justification for Abraham didn't happen in Genesis 12 when he was told to leave his homeland. In nor did it happen in Genesis 17 when he got circumcised or 22 when he was told to sacrifice his own son. It was in Genesis 15. To support his argument on why it is not on the basis of any works Abraham did, Paul asks this question in Romans 4:10. How then was it counted to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised. If justification was a lifelong process for Abraham, then Paul's question makes no sense because it was completed prior to circumcision. And Paul never speaks about it as an ongoing thing, as if it started but not completed until glorification. No, it's done the moment Abraham believed.

But what about James? I can almost hear my Eastern Orthodox friends saying that. Don't worry, James agrees with justification by faith alone by the fact that he quotes the same Genesis 15:6 passage in James 2:23. So even according to James, at what moment was Abraham's faith counted to him as righteousness? The moment he believed God. But what about what it says in verse 24? You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. Is he contradicting Paul here? No, not at all. When James mentions justification, he's talking about it in the sense of before people. Verse 18 makes that very clear. Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. People can really see Abraham as a man of faith by his willingness to sacrifice Isaac on the altar, which happened 30 to 40 years after Genesis 15. But was he only justified before God when he did that action? No. Since justification for Abraham happened before his circumcision, which is Genesis 17, which is clearly before Genesis 22, the sacrifice of Isaac chapter, James 2 is also making the point about how not all kinds of faith save. If someone just says they have faith, that kind of faith can't save. Look at verse 14. What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? A faith which is merely an empty profession doesn't save because we believe the God who justifies a person has already regenerated them and begins to sanctify them. So you'll begin to see them you'll see them begin to walk in good works. Not perfectly and they'll still stumble into sin but as time goes on you'll see changes in their behavior. So yes, good works certainly follow justification, but they are a fruit of being accepted, not the cause of being accepted. They're an evidence of justification, but not the basis of it. The ground of our justification is Christ alone, and the means by which we receive it is by faith alone. Salvation is not a joint venture between Christ and the sinner. It is a gift purchased by Christ, accomplished by Christ, and received by faith in Christ.

Let me give you an example. If your friend baked you a cake, they did all the work. And so, who deserves all the credit for making it? Your friend. You simply receive the benefits of their work by enjoying the cake. But since you didn't help bake it or contribute to its creation, you have no reason to boast. But if on the other hand, you and your friend cooperated together to bake the cake, then both of you share the glory for baking the cake, you both have a reason to boast about what you've accomplished together. It's synergistic, you might say, which is language the Eastern Orthodox Church uses. But God doesn't make salvation that way. Salvation is not a joint project between God and man, where God does his part and we contribute ours. Rather, Christ accomplishes everything necessary for our salvation, and we receive the benefits by faith alone. If our obedience, our commandment keeping or our cooperation formed any part of the basis upon which God would justify us, then we would have some reason to point to ourselves and say, "I help secure my right standing before God." But scripture shuts the door on that completely. The sinner comes to God empty-handed. He brings no righteousness of his own, no merits, no deeds. He simply trusts in Christ who has already done everything required. The gospel that is therefore not Christ made salvation possible, now finish the rest. Christ is not merely a contributor to our salvation. He's its author and finisher. We receive the benefits, but he receives the praise. And because salvation rests entirely on Christ's work, the believer can have assurance. If salvation depended partly on us, we could never know whether we had done enough.

Now Paul speaks about the exclusion of boasting in Romans 3:27 when he says, "Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded." Notice he says, "Our boasting is excluded. There's no reason for boasting because our works or obedience played no part. Because if they did play a part, even just an inch, then we would have a reason to boast. Remember Romans 4:2, if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about. But some will say, look, I would never boast about my works before God, but I still think my works are needed for my acceptance before him. But saying I don't boast in my works while believing your works are necessary for your acceptance is like saying I don't take credit for building the house while insisting that the house could not have been built without your contribution. If your works are part of the reason why God accepts you, they become part of your ground for boasting. And Paul says he can only boast in Christ what Christ has done. But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. So if you think the difference between you ending up in heaven compared to going to hell depends on any of your works, you've got a reason to boast. And Paul says that God set up salvation in such a way that no human being might boast in the presence of God. So saying it's 99% Jesus and 1% your works is to not believe in a message of salvation by grace. In Romans 11:6 he says, "But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works. Otherwise, grace would no longer be grace." If it depend on works, it's not grace anymore. So then what does it depend on? If it's not works, faith. Romans 4:16. That is why it depends on faith in order that the promise may rest on grace. Sometimes you'll hear people wanting to redefine faith to make it sound like works. We just can't do that. Faith is not something we do. It's a conviction we have. Remember Hebrews 11:1, faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Just like if you're resting, are you doing something? No. It's the opposite of doing something. You're not doing something. You're resting. And that's what faith is. It's the opposite of trying to merit your own salvation. It's the stopping of doing, the stopping of working to rest in the finished work of Jesus. And that's why

It says in Romans 4:5, "And to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness."

See, the person is not working, just believing. Believing is the opposite to working. Well, later on in the same chapter, Paul describes Abraham's faith and what it meant that he believed God and it was counted as righteousness. Verse 21, it says that Abraham was fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. That is why his faith was counted to him as righteousness.

So, what does faith mean here? Well, clearly it means to be fully convinced that God will keep his promises. It doesn't mean works. Faith in itself has no intrinsic worth. What matters is the object of our faith. As in, who is our faith in? And we don't place our faith in faith. We don't think because of our great faith we're saved. That's placing faith in our faith. The saving power of faith is not in faith itself, but in the amazing savior upon whom it rests. Faith is simply the empty hand that receives what Christ has already purchased. The value is not in the hand itself but in the gift being received.

And faith is not obedience. Some people say that it's impossible to have trust in somebody if you don't obey them also or obey them first. But that is just fundamentally incorrect. If someone promises to cut your grass, can you trust that they will do it without obeying them first? Of course you can. Now, if you do trust the person's promise and say they cut your grass as a free gift, it'll likely lead you to want to do good things for them. Just like if we trust in Jesus, it does result in us now having a desire to obey Jesus. But those good actions are a result of us having faith in Jesus but are distinct from what faith in Jesus truly is.

Now others will say that we enter justification by faith and then we keep it by our works. But hold up, that's not a free gift of righteousness anymore. That's like being offered a gift of $50 on the condition of having to follow that person's rules into the future. That's not a gift. That's a performance-based contract. Instead, Paul says in Romans 5:2 that we enter and we stand in grace by faith. So, yes, we should flee from sin and yes, we shouldn't continue in sin that grace may abound, but future sins don't destroy the work of justification in a person. Future sins simply make God's grace abound for the believer. As Romans 5 says, "Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more." So when the sin count of a believer increases, in turn, it means God's grace increases because Jesus had to bear that sin on the cross.

So that is precisely why a believer knowing that sin doesn't separate them from God can walk away from that sin saying, "Sin, you don't have dominion over me. I'm not enslaved to you anymore." And by the Spirit's power, they have a greater resistance to giving into sin. So justification by faith alone doesn't make us sin more. It makes us sin less. I have to say this because this is a charge that's often leveled against those who hold to justification by faith alone. They say, "If it's not based on your works or obedience at all, then why not sin, sin, sin?" To me, that's interestingly reveals the heart of those who push back with subjection. To me, it sounds like they have a love of sin themselves and that the only reason why they're not trying to sin is mainly because they're afraid they won't attain salvation if they did.

But for believers, in justification by faith alone, God has opened our eyes to the disgusting nature of sin. We realize what it costs Jesus to save us. And so, we don't seek to add to the cost. We simply obey out of gratitude and love to God for all that he has done for us. Yes, we aren't perfect, but God is growing us.

Now, some people will object by saying, "If a person really has faith in Christ, but they still stumble into sin, it means that they don't have faith in Christ." But that's just not the case. For example, tomorrow if a Christian tells a lie, have they stopped trusting in Jesus for their salvation? No. Someone can still trust Jesus, his promise of salvation, and yet still stumble into sin. Those two things are not incompatible.

This, I think, will help many people who struggle with assurance because they often base their assurance on their current progress in sanctification rather than what God has declared or pronounced in regards to you: not guilty, righteous, not condemned. Nothing can change that. Not past sins, not present sins, nor future sins either, because 100% of the punishment we deserve was taken by Jesus on the cross, leaving us with none left.

God has pronounced a verdict on the believer already: not guilty. Just like if the Supreme Court makes a verdict, is there any higher court that can overturn that judgment? No. And so if God has justified a person, can that pronouncement be overturned? Well, there's no one higher than God. He's the standard. So, can anyone or anything condemn a person whom God has justified? This is the question that Paul asks in Romans 8. "Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn?" If the judge himself has already pronounced a not-guilty verdict for a person, would any charge stick against them? No. So, if the judge is not going to condemn the person, no one can condemn the person.

And we don't just have the Father on our side. We've got Christ Jesus who died, was raised, and is continually interceding for us. Any chance a believer might be condemned then? By whom? Who is there who could possibly do that? God is stronger than all the forces of the evil one combined, stronger than all creation, stronger than ourselves, stronger than any sin. And if the only one who could condemn us has justified us, we can say with the Apostle Paul, "What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?" If God is for you, Christian, nothing can be against you that will really matter in the grand scheme of things. Sure, the world, the flesh, and the devil will be warring against you, trying to make you stumble, but none of those three enemies can condemn you.

And if God has not even spared Jesus for you and that he gave up Jesus for you, he's died for you, what will God not do for you? Would he give up Jesus for you and then fail to keep you? Would he fail to bring you to glorification if he's justified you? No. Because verse 30 says, "Those whom he justified, he also glorified." And even verse one says, "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." And to top it all off, he concludes the chapter by saying that nothing can separate a believer from the love of God. Not even anything in time because he mentions the present and the future. Nor anything in space because he mentions nor height nor depth. Not anything in the spiritual realms because he mentions nor angels, nor rulers, nor powers, nor anything else in all creation could separate a believer from the love of God. I don't see how Paul could be any more exhaustive in this list to make that point.

So if somebody thinks, "Oh, but my future sin can separate me from God's love." That's covered under the present and the future. It's also covered under anything else in all creation because you're in creation. So that includes you. God's verdict of justified for a believer has been rendered. Nothing can undo it. And the God who justified us is the God who will keep us in the faith as well.

Now, some people may object with, "Look, God won't kick you out, but you can walk away." But that flies in the face of scripture. Yes, there are people who profess to be Christian and then walk away from a profession of faith, but that isn't the same as a person possessing faith in Jesus. In 1 Corinthians 1, it says Jesus Christ will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. So according to this verse, what is God going to do for the believer? Sustain them to the end. And what's the result of that? Well, on judgment day, they are guiltless. So clearly that means not condemned. In Jude 1 it says that believers are beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ. He keeps us. In verse 24 of the same letter, he says, "Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy." He keeps and he and you're presented blameless before him.

For an Eastern Orthodox person, they can't say there's no condemnation for them because they can't know if they've sufficiently kept the divine commandments. As soon as a person brings in an extra requirement on top of faith to be justified, it brings uncertainty for the person and it distorts the gospel of grace.

Now, let's go to decree 13 of the confession of Dyus. And just a reminder, this is an accepted authoritative confession in the Eastern Orthodox Church. Decree 13 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." Wow. Here we see the Eastern Orthodox Church explicitly rejecting justification by faith alone and opting to teach justification by faith and works.

Now there are three options we have. Justification is either by faith alone, that is to say faith and not works, or it's by faith and works, or it's by works alone. The Eastern Orthodox Church rightly rejects option three, as do we. It's not by works alone. But they also reject option one, which is clearly the biblical position. We've already seen how scripture teaches to the one who does not work but believes. That's the person whose faith is counted to him as righteousness. But even the verse following that one I just cited, Romans 4:6, backs it up further by saying, "Just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works." So is righteousness counted along with works or apart from it? Scripture couldn't be clearer. It's apart from works.

To deny faith alone is to deny is to basically say that Christ is not enough. Faith alone means trusting exclusively in Jesus to save us as opposed to our works in addition to that. And to say that faith in Christ isn't enough is to say that the merits of Jesus are not sufficient. Let me give you an example. If someone gives you a ticket to a concert, but you say, "I can't trust or rely just on that ticket alone to get me into the concert. I need to do 10 handstands at the gate, and only then will they let me in." That is to say that the ticket is not sufficient. And so if someone says, "I can't just rely on what Jesus did for me on the cross, paying for my sins to get me to heaven. I need to do this good work or that good work to be led in and pass maybe the demon toll houses," as many Eastern Orthodox Church folks believe in, is to say that the work of Jesus on the cross is insufficient to save.

Or another example, if a friend says, "I will provide you skis for your skiing trip as a gift to you." But you say, "I don't think that their skis will be enough, so I'm going to make my own." And so you attempt to make your own skis, which obviously those skis are going to be terrible and not sufficient to ski on. And so when your friend sees you with your own failed homemade skis that aren't even straight, and he sees that you aren't willing to take them off your feet, he says, "Fine, I won't give you mine." Notice you then fail to receive the gift because you didn't think that your friend's skis would be sufficient. And so if we try and get justified by partly our works and partly by faith in what Jesus did, Jesus won't give you his righteousness. He will see your lack of willingness to recognize your own inability and will say, "I won't save you."

Remember how Paul said he had to consider all his achievements, his own righteousness as rubbish in order to gain Christ? So if you think your works play a part in justifying you, Christ won't save you. Remember the people in Matthew 7:22, on that day many will say to me, Jesus said, "Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name and do many mighty works in your name?" And then will I declare to them, "I never knew you. Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness." Look what these guys are trusting in to justify themselves. Faith and works. They still call Jesus Lord, but they also point to their works. "I've prophesied. I've cast out demons. I've done mighty works." They're bringing one of their own skis. They've got one of their own skis on one foot and they want Jesus' ski for the other. And Jesus rejects them. He won't give them his skis as long as they're clinging to any of their own. He examines their ski and he sees as worthless. He sees them as workers of lawlessness. Because if we trust in any of our deeds for our justification, he judges us entirely on our deeds, our righteousness, and he finds it laden with sin. Because you only have to do one sin to be a worker of lawlessness. Because as 1 John says, all sin is lawlessness.

The people in Matthew 7:22 are holding on to decree 13 of the confession of Dytheus because they still call Jesus Lord, have some kind of faith. It's just not faith alone. And so they're rejected. Don't be like them. You never want to hear the words, "Depart from me." So yes, do good works. Just don't think that your works, your acts of obedience play any part in your acceptance before God.

And another good biblical example of the problem of bringing your own ski, your own works or righteousness to be justified is found in Galatians 5. Paul says that this church was departing to a another gospel. Now, what was this other gospel? We know that Paul pronounced an anathema upon those who are preaching this other gospel. Were they saying trust in Buddha instead? Nope. Were they saying it's all about works, no need for faith in Jesus? No. The Galatians were affirming the necessity of faith in Jesus, just not the sufficiency of faith in Jesus. Just like decree 13, the Galatians were thinking that faith in Jesus was not enough to be justified, but that works also required to make it effective or real. For the Galatians, it was only one work that they were requiring, circumcision.

Now, circumcision is not a pagan thing. It's in God's own divine law. So, it's a good thing. But a good command of God becomes a bad thing if it's made as a requirement for salvation if God doesn't say that it is. So in the letter to the Galatians, Paul has to refute this false gospel by saying three times even in the one verse Galatians 2:16 that we are justified by faith and not by works of the law. Paul's issue wasn't a Galatians that's Old Testament stuff. We're in the new covenant now. No. And it wasn't, "Oh look, you're going to dissuade the Gentiles from becoming Christians, so don't add circumcision." No. Nothing of that sort. In fact, Paul wasn't even against circumcision. He himself was circumcised. He even got Timothy circumcised in Acts 16 to prevent Timothy from being an obstacle in the preaching of the gospel.

So, what was the issue with adding an extra requirement to the gospel to be justified? The issue was it was them seeking to be justified by what they did. And Paul says that's not grace. As we've already seen in Romans 11:6, it's not grace if works are required. And that wouldn't just be works of the Old Testament law. There would also be works of the New Testament law as well. For example, if a church today made the work of preaching the gospel to the lost be an extra requirement to be justified, we can say that's not grace, that's law, New Testament law. Because preaching the gospel to the lost is something we are called to do. Just not for justification. Not to secure our salvation, but to help others come to know Jesus.

If you seek to be justified by New Testament law, you have to keep the entire thing. Just like those in Galatia wanting to be justified by one Old Testament law, circumcision on top of faith in Jesus, Paul says you have to be justified entirely by the law. Galatians 5:3, "I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law." Remember, lawkeeping puts you under a curse. Not because the law is bad, but because any law demands perfect conformity to it. Even in our society, the government doesn't say it's okay to break 10 laws, but the 11th law you break, now you're guilty and you deserve a punishment. No, the government's law expects you to keep all of them. And that's why breaking the law even once is enough to be a lawbreaker and deserving of punishment. And same with breaking even one New Testament law. It makes a person a lawbreaker. And Jesus said in Matthew 5:48, "You therefore must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect."

So my Eastern Orthodox friend, do you want to be justified by faith and your works? Well, then you're obligated to keep the whole thing. Because Christ won't make up any shortfall. Because either you have Christ exclusively without your works contributing or you don't have Christ at all. That's Galatians 5:2. Look, I Paul say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. Remember, these guys weren't thinking circumcision alone for justification. They thought it was faith plus the work of circumcision. Yet by adding one extra law on makes Christ be of no advantage to them. And if Christ is of no advantage to them, where do they end up? You would be hell. Because without Christ, you're toast. But as I said, to have Christ, you need to rely on him alone. And don't think your works contribute. Otherwise, as Galatians 5:4 says, you're severed from Christ. Severed means cut off, sliced from Christ.

Now for the Eastern Orthodox Church, what kinds of works do they require for justification? Well, firstly, it's baptism. Let's look at decree 16. It says, "We believe holy baptism which was instituted by the Lord is conferred in the name of the Holy Trinity to be of the highest necessity. For without it, none is able to be saved." Doesn't this sound like the same error Paul was addressing in Galatians and the apostles faced at the Jerusalem council? We see some men there who were saying, "Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved." The similarities are stark. For the Eastern Orthodox Church, they're saying unless you're baptized, you cannot be saved. And not just for adults. They even think infants are condemned without baptism. Have a look. Decree 16 goes on and therefore baptism is necessary even for infants since they also are subject to original sin and without baptism are not able to obtain its remission. And since infants are men and as such need salvation needing salvation they also need baptism. And those that are not regenerated, since they are not they have not received the remission of hereditary sin, are of necessity subject to eternal punishment and consequently cannot without baptism be saved.

It's the same issue addressed at the Jerusalem Council. It was just a different law they were adding on, but the same underlying problem. And the apostles comments at that council were not, "Guys, guys, it's not circumcision anymore that's required for salvation. It's baptism. Come on, get with the program, guys." No. At that council in Acts 15, they tell us how people get saved. Listen to what the Apostle Peter says. "Brothers, you know that in the early days, God made a choice among you. That by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. And God who knows their hearts heart bore witness to them by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us. And he made no distinction between us and them having cleansed their hearts by what? Baptism? No, by faith." Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke upon the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? What's the yoke? The yoke is lawkeeping for salvation, which is what the Eastern Orthodox Church are doing. Putting a yoke on people, saying divine commandments is how what you need to do to be justified. Peter goes on, "But we believe that we'll be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus just as they will."

Now, for the Eastern Orthodox, baptism is not the only work they require. It's also continued participation in the divine life. That means receiving the Eucharist, confession to the priest, following the divine commandments, acts of mercy. And they call this process theosis. Theosis is described as becoming partakers of God's divine energies such as his love, glory, and goodness, and being progressively transformed into his likeness. Salvation is therefore said to be synergistic on their view, meaning it involves both God's grace and human cooperation, and cooperation means to work alongside. Now we would agree that God is transforming us from one degree of glory to another. God's making believers more like him every day. But our right standing with God isn't based on our working with God's energies. It's based on the righteousness of Christ received by faith. Faith is the lever, the only instrument by which we receive Christ's righteousness.

If we continue on in decree 13, the confession of Cyius argues strongly against that idea. It says, "But the idea that faith can fulfill the function of a hand that lays hold on the righteousness which is in Christ and and can then apply it to us for salvation, we know to be far from all orthodoxy. For faith so understood would be possible in all. So none could miss salvation, which is obviously false. But on the contrary, we rather believe that is not the correlative of faith, but the faith which is in us justifies through works with Christ. But we regard works not as witnesses certifying our calling, but as being fruits in themselves, through which faith becomes efficacious, and as in in themselves meriting through the divine promises, that each of the faithful may receive what is done through his own body, whether it be good or bad."

So remember how we talked about faith being the empty hand that takes hold of Christ. This decree says no to that because basically if it was that easy just depending on Jesus trusting him alone everyone will be saved is what their argument is, which doesn't really make any sense because even though Jesus's yoke is easy and his burden is light, most people don't want it because it requires humility to come to the end of yourself and not trust in your own actions anymore to trust on Christ. So if faith isn't the only way to hold lay hold of Christ's righteousness according to this decree, what was it says it is the faith which is in us justifies through works with Christ. So faith justifies us through works. So our works are the means of obtaining justification according to this decree. It explained that works are not an evidence of salvation, which is what we would hold, but that the thing that makes faith become efficacious and as in themselves meriting is the works. So your works make your faith effective and those works then merit your salvation. But grace by definition means unmerited favor. So if a person needs to merit through their works the grace of justification, it's a contradiction in terms. You can't merit something which is unmerited.

This is the fundamental issue here with the Eastern Orthodox view on justification. It's something you need to merit since based on your works and that gives you a reason to boast. And as we've seen, it runs contrary to the free message of grace available in the gospel to anyone who believes. And so, as you've seen from the official authoritative statements of the Eastern Orthodox Church, their view on justification runs counter to the Bible. It runs counter to the free offer of the gospel and crushes any hope of assurance of salvation. John says, "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." The Bible says we can know that we're saved. The Eastern Orthodox Church says we can't. How could you if it depended upon your works in any capacity?

So my hope is that for those in Eastern Orthodoxy will consider the beautiful gospel message that they've heard in this talk today and decide to trust that Jesus is enough to save without their works. That Jesus took 100% of the punishment they deserve, leaving them with none left. So they can know they have eternal life and then works and obedience will flow out from that. My Eastern Orthodox friend, what do you need to count as loss in order to gain Christ? Remember Paul had to list all his achievements, all the things that he had done, his religious ceremonies, his background, all as loss to gain Christ. So do you. There is no safety in architecture, no safety in long fancy robes, there's no safety in long beards. Only safety is in Christ which is not found by being part of an institution. It's by placing your faith in Christ alone. Please don't be like the Pharisee in the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector who said, who Jesus said about him, "He trusted in themselves that they are righteous." And the Pharisee then proceeded to list all his good deeds, but instead be like the tax collector who didn't think he had any good deeds against his name, but relied on the mercy of God. And he went home justified rather than the religious man who thought he had participated in the divine life. And I hope anyone considering Eastern Orthodoxy will be dissuaded from joining it because to believe their view on justification would make them come under the anathema of Galatians 1:8 and sever them from Christ. And so I'll finish with these words from Galatians 2:21 where Paul says, "I do not nullify the grace of God. For if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose." Thank you for listening.

All right, thank you so much, Ryan, for that presentation. Um, we go like there we go. Thank you for the presentation. Uh, we are now going to go into a 10-minute intermission and our next speaker up is Anthony Rogers. All right. And so again, um, at the end after Anthony Rogers is David Wood, and then after David Wood, we have an hour of Q&A with every with all the speakers. Um, so please save your questions towards the end, um, and, um, hopefully we can get them answered and, um, that will be sufficient for, uh, those who have very specific issues they want to be addressed. But Ryan, thank you so much. Looking forward to having you back on for the Q&A panel and, um, I appreciate your participation. Thank you so much.

>> Thanks so much, Eli. Appreciate it.

>> All righty. All right. Let's remove there. Okay. And then I'm going to put this up here. Uh, let's see. Anthony Rogers. There we go. All right. And I'll see you guys in a bit of suffering by your brotherhood throughout the world. And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. And taking the 12, he said to them, "See, we are going up to Jerusalem. And everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished. For he will be delivered over to the Gentiles and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon. And after flogging him, they will kill him. And on the third day, he will rise." But they understood none of these things. The same was hidden from them. And they did not grasp what was said.

"I am the Lord. I have called you in righteousness. I will take you by the hand and keep you. I will give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness."

As he drew near to Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging. And hearing a crowd going by, he inquired what this meant. They told him, "Jesus of Nazareth is passing by."

"I am the Lord. I have called you in righteousness. I will take you by the hand and keep you. I will give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison, those who sit in darkness."

And he cried out, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!" And those who were in front rebuked him, telling him to be silent. But he cried out all the more, "Son of David, have mercy on me!"

"I am the Lord. I have called you in righteousness. I will take you by the hand and keep you. I will give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison, those who sit in darkness."

And Jesus stopped and commanded him to be brought to him. And when he came near, he asked him, "What do you want me to do for you?" He said, "Lord, let me recover my sight." And Jesus said to him, "Recover your sight. Your faith has made you well."

"I am the Lord. I have called you in righteousness. I will take you by the hand and keep you. I will give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon. From the prison, those who sit in darkness, sit in darkness."

And immediately he recovered his sight and followed him, glorifying God. And all the people, when they saw it, gave praise to God.

"I am the Lord your righteousness. I will save you and keep you. I will give you as a covenant for the people, a life for the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison, those who sit in darkness. I will give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations, to open the eyes that are blind."

"Say to the daughter of Zion, 'Behold, your king is coming to you, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt the foal of a beast of burden.'" And as they were untying the colt, its owners said to them, "Why are you untying the colt?" And they said, "The Lord has need of it."

"Say to the daughter of Zion, 'Behold, your king is coming to you, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt the foal of a beast of burden.'" And they brought it to Jesus and throwing their cloaks on the colt, Jesus sat on it.

All right, welcome back. Uh, once again, my name is Eli Ayala. I am the founder of Revealed Apologetics. Uh, this is my YouTube channel and, um, I hope you guys have been enjoying, uh, these, uh, wonderful lineup of speakers, um, sharing their, their presentations with us. I'm very, uh, excited to, uh, present my, my good friend Anthony Rogers. Many of you, uh, will know he's been on this channel many times before. Um, and he has engaged in all sorts of, uh, awesome debates and various interactions with Roman Catholics and others and Eastern Orthodox and a wide range of different perspectives. And so, um, I'm, I'm sure you guys are very much going to benefit from, uh, whatever he's, he's got to share with us. So, let me just invite Anthony on the screen with me. How's it going, brother?

>> Hey. Hey. It's going great.

>> There you go. Loving the, the, the beard. I always love your beard. I can't grow a beard. Um, you know, I, I have like a mild case of, of alopecia, so it doesn't grow in all the way, but very

>> I have a love-hate relationship with the beard. I get hot pretty easily, don't like being hot, and so in some bouts with the heat, I end up shaving it off quite extemporaneously. But then there are other reasons why I let it grow back.

>> Okay.

>> All right.

>> And it grows back fast. So, I never worry.

>> By the way, Anthony's beard presentation is in a different conference. We'll talk a little bit about, uh, what, what makes a beard a reformed beard? That, that's a good, uh, that's a good, um, topic to talk about.

>> All right. Well, Anthony, um, do you have any slides you'd like to use? Will or you will just, or will you just be, uh, speaking?

>> I, I do not have any training wheels like all the other speakers. I'm just kidding. I, I actually normally do for my own presentations on my channel, but

>> No worries. All right. So then, um, I'm going to allow you to start here. I'm going to remove myself from the screen and, uh, uh, just real quick so folks could know, Anthony is going to be bringing a defense of Sola Scriptura, and I would imagine within that he will be responding to various, uh, Eastern Orthodox, uh, objections. Um, I, I believe that's his topic. I, I'm sure he has other things he wants to say, but, uh, I'm sure, uh, we will benefit from all of that. All right. Well, uh, there you are. I'm off the screen and, uh, you can start whenever you're ready, brother.

>> Okay. Thank you so much, Eli. And thank you for all of you who are listening. I do pray that people will listen, both sides. I pray that Christians will listen so that they might be encouraged and all the more armed as they fight the good fight. And also that those who are of an Orthodox persuasion will be able to honestly, uh, think through what I've said. If they disagree, then at least having listened to me, they'll be responding to what I've actually said rather than something else. Now, in this talk, I'm going to do a number of things. First, obviously, I am going to present the position, the Reformation position on Sola Scriptura, which includes a number of things such as the fact that scripture is the ultimate and inherently authoritative and self-authenticating word of God. Also that scripture is materially as well as formally sufficient. That is, it tells us everything we need to know for life and godliness. And it tells us that all in a way that the average person can read it and understand it. And I'm also going to talk about the fact that scripture as such as the self-authenticating word of God is the ultimate or final norm and regulator of all faith and practice. Along the way, I'm going to be comparing and contrasting this with the Orthodox position. I'll, as best as I can, be presenting this from Orthodox writers, which I've read through, uh, quite extensively. I'm not claiming to have read everything, of course, but, uh, I have read the, the literature and I'll be seeking to be accurate in, uh, presenting what they say. And so I hope that people that are complaining as people normally do about somebody supposedly misunderstanding or misrepresenting them will take, do note of the fact that I'm actually quoting EO sources and whatever issues are remaining in the time that I have left. I am never a great judge of time. I'll try and deal with some of those things after that. But again, I'm going to cover these several issues that I just mentioned: the Orthodox position and the biblical position of the Reformation, and, uh, deal with objections and so forth along the way, but then also leave some other objections for towards the end.

All right. So first I want to begin by talking about the inherent authority and self-authenticating nature of scripture, which is part and parcel of the Reformation view that scripture alone is the infallible word of God that all men must listen to and hearken to in order to frame their lives and determine their faith and so forth. Well, in a modern Orthodox work written by Chrostamos and Oxentius, the authors say, and note this carefully: "Not even Christ should be understood and looked upon as an authority to which the church is subordinated." Now, I hope you caught the audacity of that comment. Again, this is not me imputing this to the East. This is something called from Orthodox writers. Let me read it again: "Not even Christ should be understood and looked upon as an authority to which the church is subordinated." This is the church that claims you need to go to them in order to properly interpret scripture, being thus lifted up in its heart, believing that it has, as it were, ascended above the heights of the clouds, above the stars of God, and even above Christ himself. The Orthodox Church believes that scripture, the word of Christ, is her creation, her offspring, her dutiful subject. And whatever authority scripture has, it has from her. Father Steven Ritter, an Orthodox cleric, expressed the entailment in this way: "The canonical scriptures discerned and chosen were given birth in the midst of the church and the child scripture is not greater than the mother, the Orthodox Church." Similarly, Kalistos Wear said, "The Bible must not be regarded as something set up over the church. It is from the church that the Bible ultimately derives its authority." Georgees Floroski said, "The book, meaning the Bible, stands by the testimony of the church and moreover," he says, "it was established and authorized by the church." For such reasons, it cannot be said from a Protestant perspective and a God-glorifying perspective that the Orthodox Church accepts and submits to scripture for what it truly is: the inherently and supremely authoritative and self-authenticating word of the self-contained Triune God.

In light of these claims, it must be striking, even to those only slightly acquainted with the Holy Scriptures, not to mention those who've made the scriptures their delight in meditation, that these same scriptures, which the Orthodox Church supposedly produced and authorized, teach that Christ, who was hyperexalted to the right hand of the Father, far above all rule and authority, is the head of the church and head over all things for the church as his body. The church, if it truly be the church, is in principle that which is in subjection to him as a body is to its head. It likewise must be striking, or ought to be, in light of the claims of Orthodoxy, that if she produced scripture and is not subject to it, that scripture would speak ever and on of the word of Christ as that which brings the church into being and of Christ's word as the solid foundation on which God's house, the church, is built. Paul expressed this when he said, "Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ." That is, a person becomes a believer, one of those living stones that's being built up into an edifice, a great temple in the Lord, precisely because they heard the word and by means of hearing the word received faith. The same word that preaches to believe communicates faith by the power of the Spirit. So the word necessarily is prior to the church. The Lord Jesus said that the house that will stand is the house which is built upon his word as upon a rock. Accordingly, the church, if it be the church, is that which is both created and normed by the word of Christ.

A final striking thing to note in light of Orthodoxy's claim to have produced scripture and to have bequeathed authority upon it and to authenticate it by her own infallible authority is that scripture sets itself forth as that which is God-breathed, that which proceeded from the mouth of God, and therefore as that which is inherently authoritative and self-authenticating. This is simply an entailment of the fact that it comes from God. It is His word. God himself is the source of all authority and scripture proceeds from Him as His self-attesting and fully authoritative revelatory word which does not and could not possibly stand in need of receiving any authority from any creature. Nor could it possibly depend upon the authentication of any man or group of men to whom it comes. For God does not need any man's testimony, which is to say He doesn't need any man or any group's authentication. This is indicated, for example, when Jesus said that His words will judge every man on the final day. Christ's word is not, uh, that over which any creature may sit or is going to sit in judgment. Rather, His word is that by which all people will be judged. In fact, this word judges all men, all ideas, all systems, all would-be claiments to infallibility, every high and lofty thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God.

Now, no doubt many men, uh, the world over and throughout world history have, uh, responded to this in unbelief and have presumed to sit upon God's word in judgment. But human judgment neither adds to nor can it take anything away from God's word. When men in their unbelief seek to falsify His word or pretend to be propping it up by their authority, they only show themselves to be false. For God is truth itself. He's true apart from any man's testimony. He's true even if it makes every man a liar.

Now, one other thing should, uh, be said here. Shouldn't go unmentioned in this connection. The Orthodox Church, in claiming to be infallible, also claims to be unchanged and unchanging and so to be now what it has always been and to say now what it has always said. That is, it claims to be in complete continuity with the early church. In fact, it claims to just be the early church, such that she speaks now what she has always spoken. And yet, uh, even as we've seen in the case, uh, of scripture's, scripture's authority, its self-authentication, so here anyone familiar with the fathers must surely be thunderstruck by the vast gulf, not only of time but of fundamental thought, that separates modern Orthodox teaching from that of the ancient church. One father after another taught that because scripture is from God, it carries full authority within it and stands by its own authority, contrary to the statements of Orthodox theologians I read previously. Scripture carries the authority of God whose word it is and it does not depend on anyone's demonstration or testimony. Athanasius of Alexandria, for example, said, "Holy scripture is self-authenticating because inspired by God." This, the matter couldn't be stated any more clearly. This is exactly the Protestant position. Hilary of Poitiers said, "Let us acknowledge that God has full knowledge of himself and bow with humble reverence to his words." Notice this is clean contrary to the spirit of the quotes I read previously. Hilary speaks of bowing with humble reverence before the words of God. And then he goes on to say, "For he whom we can only know through his own utterances is the fitting witness concerning himself." Clement of Alexandria likewise said, "The scriptures which we believe are valid from their own omnipotent authority." The, the same Clement said again, "He who believes then the divine scriptures with sure judgment receives in the voice of God who bestowed the scripture a demonstration that cannot be impugned."

Now to give just one more of a seemingly endless list of examples, Salvian the Presbyter, speaking about the fact that God's ways of governing the world can't be called into question by any man. Salvian said, "I do not need to prove by arguments what is proved by his very words." When we read that God says He constantly sees all the earth, we have proof that He sees it since He says so. When we read that He rules all creation, we have proof that He rules it because He so affirms. When we read that He orders all things by His immediate judgment, His judgment is clearly proved by His own testimony. All other statements made in human terms need proofs and witnesses. Whereas God's speech is its own witness since the words of perfect truth must be perfect testimony to the truth.

Now I ask you, in light of those statements that I read earlier, which is the position of scripture and of the ancient church? Is it the position of men like Oxentius and Steven Ritter and Kalistos Wear and Florovski that I quoted earlier who said that, uh, Christ is not over the church as an authority, that scripture is the beautiful child of the church, that scripture receives authority from the church, that the, the church props scripture up by its own testimony and authorization? Or is it rather the position

outlined, say, in the Reformation confessions, like the Westminster, where it says in its very first chapter, the authority of holy scripture, for which it is to be believed and obeyed, does not depend upon the testimony of any man or church, but holy upon God, who is truth itself, the author thereof, and therefore it is to be received because it is the word of God.

I tell you to everybody with clear sight, the answer is obvious. The word of Christ is overall, and everything else is subordinate to it.

Well, what about the material sufficiency of scripture? The idea that scripture contains the entire deposit of faith, the whole counsel of God that is necessary for men to know, uh, and believe for salvation, for godly living, and to worship God in spirit and in truth.

Well, according to Orthodox priest Josiah Trenum, in his ironically titled book *Rock and Sand*, a book that is very much against the church being founded solely upon the rock words of Christ. Uh, but according to Trenum, not to mention countless other Orthodox authorities, the doctrine of *sola scriptura*, complete with its claim of material sufficiency, is the source from which innumerable heresies flow. Imagine that. It's, it's not merely that scripture alone doesn't give one the whole deposit of faith, which Protestants believe, but it's that heresy flows from this principle. Going only by scripture, Trenum says, a multitude of heresies come in its wake. That doesn't sound like a very high view of scripture.

By contrast to Trenum and countless Orthodox theologians, Jesus said that heresy comes from the evil heart of men. The, the kind of heart that lifts itself up above Christ and his word, that refers to scripture as, as its dutiful child. Jesus doesn't say that heresy flows from believing all and only that which can be demonstrated from his inscripturated word.

Well, in any case, we again have to be struck by the fact that spokesmen for the one true and unchanging church that supposedly produced the Bible are directly contradicted by the Bible. They say that they have the fullness of the faith in order, uh, to have perfect knowledge requisite for salvation. Uh, they say that in order to have all this, uh, to live the Christian life, to properly worship God, we need to gather such things from sources other than scripture, or including scripture, of course, but not scripture alone.

Well, to the contrary, in, in God-breathed scripture, David said that God's law word is perfect and converts the soul. Perfect, meaning complete. And it's complete in this respect: it is able to convert the soul. Paul told Timothy that scripture is able to make him wise unto salvation. So, it's sufficient to that end. John said that the things that he wrote in his account were written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and believing you may have life in his name. And so, according to scripture itself, that which flows from it is life and salvation, not soul-damning heresy. And it flows from scripture sufficiently. What John wrote in itself is sufficient to communicate the life-giving good news of Christ.

Clearly, the Orthodox Church isn't living up to its boast. It cannot possibly be what it, it claims to be: now, the unchanging and uncorrupted church of Christ that produced the Bible. If it produced the Bible, then it did a terrible job of producing its own theology. The Bible's theology contradicts the Orthodox Church at every turn. And, and once again, the, the Orthodox Church, which claims to be following the holy fathers and to be speaking together with them with one voice, contradicts the fathers on this issue as well.

According to Irenaeus, for example, after describing the teachings of the Gnostics, said in a well-known quote, "Such then is their system," referring to the Gnostics, "Such then is their system, which neither the prophets announced, nor the Lord taught, nor the apostles delivered, but of which they boast that beyond all others they have perfect knowledge. They gather their views from other sources than the scriptures." Notice Irenaeus is saying this is their view. It's not the view he's advocating. It's the view he's writing against.

The same Irenaeus goes on to say, "When they are refuted from the scriptures," and ask yourself if you've seen this modus operandi, "When they are refuted from the scriptures, they turn around and accuse these same scriptures as if they are not correct nor of authority and assert that they are ambiguous, unclear, and that the truth cannot be extracted from them by those who are ignorant of tradition." In other words, the Gnostics that Irenaeus was opposing, they taught that if a person goes only by scripture and does not interpret scripture in light of extracriptural traditions, such a person will not have the fullness of the faith.

Okay. Now, before somebody, and I, I know this is the knee-jerk reaction, accuses me of cherry-picking, uh, you know, this, this is the consistent presupposition running throughout the writings of Irenaeus, and it's recognized by those who can hardly be accused of having a Protestant bias. Uh, for example, French priest Maurice Georgian, in a study of how Irenaeus read the Bible, said, quote, "It is scripture in its entirety, conserved without forgery, a complete account of the truth, admitting no addition or subtraction, which for Irenaeus prompts the apostles' cry of adoring admiration." He's referring here to the cry in Romans 11:33, "Oh, the depths of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God," and so forth. This is the teaching of Irenaeus, according to this priest.

The Catholic scholar Martin Healey, again, no, uh, uh, person with a bias towards Protestantism, said, "This view has in its favor a long line of theologians from Irenaeus through the Middle Ages."

Well, to give just one more example from the fathers with respect to material sufficiency, Cyril of Jerusalem again famously said, "I'm not bringing up any surprising quotes here, although I could easily do so, but, you know, in a well-known statement, Cyril of Jerusalem said, 'Concerning the divine and holy mysteries of the faith, not even a casual statement must be delivered without the holy scriptures, nor must we be drawn aside by mere plausibility and artifices of speech. Even to me, who tell you these things, give not absolute credence unless you receive the proof of the things which I announce from the divine scriptures. For this salvation which we believe depends not on ingenious reasoning, but on demonstration of the holy scriptures.'"

And once again, to head off at the pass the claim that I'm simply cherry-picking based on a Protestant bias. This is freely acknowledged in the scholarship and by non-Protestant scholars. Edward Arnold, a Jesuit scholar, no, no less a member of that order that was created to oppose the God-sent Reformation. He said of, of Cyril, "Cyril subscribed to a form of *sola scriptura*, stating categorically that every doctrinal statement must be based on the scriptures."

And so here we have evidence from the scriptures themselves, and to boot, testimony from august men like Irenaeus and Cyril, whose bona fides as purveyors of the truth of Christ can't be called into question.

Well, in spite of the fact that scripture teaches its own sufficiency, and in spite of the fact that this was taught by many early fathers and many others all the way up through the Middle Ages, Orthodox exponents tell us that scripture is not sufficient but needs to be supplemented by tradition.

Scripture does indeed talk about tradition, that may be freely granted, but it never speaks of tradition as in any way undermining scripture's material sufficiency. In, in a bit, I'll talk about formal sufficiency and clarity, and whether or not that is, uh, uh, a necessary, uh, problem that brings in some extracriptural tradition. But here I'm talking about the content of the faith. Is it necessary for there to be some extra-scriptural tradition to supplement it in order to have the whole deposit of faith?

Well, I said scripture does mention the word tradition, but interestingly, if we look at the noun, first of all, it's used 13 times in the New Testament. Eight times by Jesus, always negatively. That is, Jesus always uses tradition in a negative way and pits holy scripture frequently over and against it, over and against the oral traditions of the religious leaders who believed that their putative traditions from God were from God, whereas Jesus denounced them being contrary to the scriptures as nothing of the sort.

There are five other uses of the noun, notice I'm being very specific here, of the noun tradition, and they all occur in Paul. Now, two of these are negative, as in the case of Jesus' usage, but three are positive. But what is it that Paul means by tradition? Well, in 1 Corinthians 11, Paul uses the word tradition, but in the context, he's referring to emulating his previously discussed practice mentioned in 1 Corinthians 10 of becoming all things to all men in order to win people to Christ, which is simply an application of the scriptural teaching to love your neighbor as yourself and lead them to Christ.

The same thing is true in another usage of the noun in 2, uh, Thessalonians 3:6. There Paul says that people are not to be unruly contrary to the traditions they were taught. Rather, they are to imitate the apostles who showed them in living color that an able-bodied person who refuses to work is not to be financially aided by the church. This principle that Paul lived out and set before them by his example is a squarely biblical principle. In both of these cases, the positive uses in Paul, uh, Paul's speaking of putting the scriptures on display in his life and setting it before them as an example. This is what he means by the traditions. There's nothing in any of this that even slightly runs contrary to scripture.

Well, the only remaining use of the noun for tradition is found in 2 Thessalonians 2:15. And what Paul says in this case can only appear to support Orthodoxy or Roman Catholicism or Oriental Orthodoxy or the Assyrian Church of the East or any one of the other claimants to this secret tradition. It can only seem to support this notion of tradition when completely abstracted from its context.

When Paul says to stand firm and hold to the traditions, he's writing to the Thessalonians. That is, to stand firm and hold to the oral and written teachings from him. He shows that the gospel that was preached and taught to them orally is the same thing that was put down in writing. In fact, we know exactly what Paul orally preached to these Thessalonians prior to writing his two epistles to them. Luke tells us in Acts 16, ex, or 17, exactly what Paul taught them. Here's what Luke tells us Paul did again prior to these two epistles. Here's what Luke writes: "According to Paul's custom, he went to them," them being the Thessalonians, "and for three Sabbath days reasoned with them from the scriptures, explaining and giving evidence that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead."

So, prior to writing to the Thessalonians, telling them to hold fast to what they heard from him, as well as to what he wrote them, Paul was with them for just three Sabbath days. And he preached to them. What did he preach? The, the things that the Orthodox Church tells you you need to go through for six months or a year or even three years before you can even get baptized in their church. No, he preached to them the very gospel that was already announced in the previous scriptures, the same gospel found in apostolic sermon after apostolic sermon in the book of Acts. There's no mystery here. There's nothing, uh, that is, uh, supplementary to what we have in holy scripture. It's one and the same gospel.

As for the verbal form of the word, and I'm not going to go over all of these, it would take too much time, but it generally refers to the act of handing someone or something over. And again, it's almost always used negatively in scripture, such as Judas handing over or betraying Jesus into the hands of lawless men. When the word is used in a positive way for teaching, that which is handed over is once again the self-same gospel that we know from scripture. The same thing that all the apostles preached in the book of Acts and of which we have countless examples.

In Luke 1, for instance, the same author as the author of the book of Acts, Luke says that he's writing down that which was handed down by those who were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. And because he thoroughly investigated everything, Luke says, "We may know from his written account the exact truth of what happened." These are Luke's words. Because he has written down that which was handed down, we can know the exact truth of what, what happened. And the exact truth, as Luke proceeds to show in the course of his gospel, is that just as the scriptures foretold, the Christ, the Lord Jesus, first suffered and rose again on the third day and entered into his glory. And now repentance for the forgiveness of sins is being proclaimed to all nations. So, that which was handed down, according to Luke, is precisely that which was already foretold in the scriptures. And that which was preached faithfully and repeatedly by the apostles. They preached from the scriptures. What they said was according to the scriptures. It didn't go beyond the scriptures.

As Paul said in Acts 26, this is towards the end of his, uh, ministry, at least as Luke gives it to us. This is what Paul says towards the end, in the, in the 60s: "Having obtained help from God, I stand to this day testifying to both small and great, saying nothing but what the prophets and Moses said was going to take place, that the Christ was to suffer, and that by reason of his resurrection from the dead, he would be the first to proclaim light both to the Jewish people and to the Gentiles."

Well, to take just one more example of the use of the verb, listen to what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15 about tradition, that which is handed down. Paul says this: "I this I delivered to you. This I tradition to you as of first importance. This I tradition to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures." Here, that once again, that which Paul delivered orally in his preaching is the gospel, and this gospel is always and ever according to the scriptures.

Well, it's little wonder, therefore, that fathers who spoke soundly on this matter, like Irenaeus and Cyril, did not think that the oral teaching of the apostles was something that undermined the sufficiency of scripture.

Well, uh, in, in addition to the fact that scripture just doesn't teach the, the view of tradition that is necessary for, uh, ecclesial groups like the Eastern Orthodox communion, uh, when we look at what they actually say about tradition, we find problems galore. In the first place, and I'm not going to go into detail into all of this, I've got a lot to get through, but in the first place, if you read the writings of people on tradition in Orthodoxy, you see that they define it in a variety of ways, right? This is what accounts for why in some cases, when you say, "This is what's meant by tradition," they say, "Oh, that's wrong. You don't understand." It's because you are using a, a definition that they use in one context but not in another. Uh, but the fact is, they don't all speak the same thing when it comes to actually defining tradition. There, and there are even debates over how to distinguish where tradition ends and mere custom begins. There are debates over how strictly the tradition must be conserved and observed and how much wiggle room it allows for what's called *acracia* and *economia*.

Now, but without getting into all of that for the sake of time, you can be sure when the Orthodox Church speaks of holding true tradition, what they call having the mind of the fathers and the life of the spirit in the church. No matter what they say it is in theory, it is definitely not in reality the handing down whole and entire, without adulteration or innovation, that which is according to the scriptures, that which the apostles taught and practiced.

Take just one example, one important example: the, the rite of baptism. Note how clearly the scriptures are at odds, fundamentally at odds, with the Orthodox Church, and not in some obscure way. In the Orthodox Church, and I'm just looking at one aspect of this, those who profess faith are forestalled from receiving baptism until they have received extensive indoctrination. The average wait today is from six months to a year. In the past, it was up to three years. In scripture, however, always, always without exception, those who profess faith are immediately baptized upon profession of faith and then subsequently catechized or given further instruction.

For example, when the 3,000 people repented at the preaching of Peter on the day of Pentecost, they were baptized on the spot. Of those who heard the word in Samaria, in Acts 8, it's written, "When they believed, they were baptized." When they believed. When Philip preached Christ to the Ethiopian eunuch, he believed and was baptized post haste. When Paul was converted to Christ on the road to Damascus, he was baptized just three days later, as soon as he could reach Ananias. When the Philippian jailer believed, it says, "Immediately he was baptized." Those are literally the words of Acts. "Immediately he was baptized."

The practice of forestalling baptism then is not apostolic. What makes this non-apostolic all the more egregious is that Orthodox, uh, says salvation is tied to baptism. And so withholding it amounts to withholding salvation. And there are several other conditions that are required in order for this baptism to even be valid, even if it's administered in the Orthodox Church by an Orthodox priest. If you go on the Orthodox Ethos website, for example, there's an article on there called "A Full Orthodox Baptismal Service is Needed for Salvation." And what it's referring to in there is that there are some Orthodox priests who have neglected some of the added things that they are supposed to do in baptism, not taught in scripture, uh, and they've neglected it. And so the, the article is saying that this, uh, is invalid, that this person has not been fully baptized. This has nothing to do with the teaching of the apos, the apostles.

And not only is Orthodox tradition at variance with scripture, it also departs from the practice, in many cases, the practice of the early fathers. Consider, for example, the issue of icons. In fact, I, and I know they would dispute that, you know, all sorts of things regarding this, but hear it from one of their own, Kallistos Ware. Kallistos, not a Protestant, not a Catholic, but an Orthodox theologian. Kallistos Ware said, "Early Christian art as found," he's talking about art here, notice, not yet icons. "Early Christian art as found, for example, in the Roman catacombs showed a certain reluctance to portray Christ directly, and he was most often represented in symbolical form. With the conversion of Constantine and the progressive disappearance of paganism, the church grew less hesitant in its employment of art. And by AD 400, it had become an accepted practice to represent our Lord, not just through symbols, but directly."

Notice he's still not talking about icons and icon veneration. He's still just talking about art. He's saying it didn't even, uh, find widespread acceptance and practice in the church to even make pictures of Jesus. But then he goes on to say, "At this date, however, there is at yet no evidence to suggest that the pictures in church were venerated or honored with any outward expressions of devotion. They were not at this period objects of cult," that is religious worship, "but their purpose was decorative and instructional."

Even in this restrict, I'm still quoting Ware, "even in this restricted form, however, the use of icons aroused protests on the part of certain fourth-century writers." So, according to this statement of Ware, the early Christians did not make images of Jesus. When some did later make such images, they did not yet venerate them. And then, even then, some objected to the, to the very making of them, even for decorative purposes. This is a far cry from the teaching of Orthodoxy today, which not only teaches that such images may be made, but even that they must be made and they must be venerated upon pain of anathema. So, according to Orthodoxy, a person's very salvation is contingent upon doing something that was so far from the mind of ancient fathers of the second, third, and fourth centuries that they didn't even make such images, much less bow down to them or threaten others with damnation for not doing so.

Well, another example of how the East has departed from the fathers in her rejection of material sufficiency, the material sufficiency of scripture, can be seen in the broader aspects of her worship. This is what many people think is a practice that has just continued, unabated, unchanged, and, and so when they go into the Orthodox Church, they're entering into an ancient, centuries- and millennial-long practice.

Well, according to John Whiteford, uh, this is exactly what is true. He, he's an Orthodox priest. He said, "Notice, the Bible does not contain within it a teaching on every subject of importance to the church. The New Testament gives little detail about how to worship, but this is certainly no small matter. The same church that handed down to us the holy scriptures and preserved them was the very same church from which we have received our pattern of worship. If we must trust this church's faithfulness in preserving apostolic worship, then we must also mistrust her fidelity in preserving the scriptures." End quote.

Now, I adamantly disagree here with his assertion that scripture's fidelity depends upon the faithfulness of Eastern Orthodoxy. But I would agree with this: If the Orthodox Church claims to be infallible, which it does, and if it claims to have handed down whole and entire, without adulteration, without innovation, that which the apostles enjoined and the early fathers practiced, and this is necessary to get from them to supplement the supposedly insufficient scriptures. If this is all false, then they cannot be trusted when it, when they make claims about other things being tradition. And here there is no end of what can be said about the innovations of Orthodoxy. In fact, hear it again from one of their own scholars. John Morris said, and this is a long quote, pay attention to it. John Morris, an Orthodox individual, said, "Once monasteries and cathedrals follow different orders of worship or typicons, none of the ancient fathers ever did the *Karon* or *proskomedia* as we do them today. Both services are a product of a long development that only reached its high point in the 14th century. Orthodox worship only achieved a degree of uniformity and much of its present form with the publication of the *Diataxis* by Patriarch Philotheos of Constantinople in the 14th century. The holy fathers never celebrated the Divine Liturgy behind a modern iconostasis. The iconostasis is the product of an evolution that also reached its climax only in the 14th century. None of the early fathers used incense due to its association with the cult of emperor worship. The church only began to use incense, this pagan practice, due to its, or after the end of the persecutions." I'm still quoting. "No ancient Orthodox bishop dressed like a Byzantine emperor during the Divine Liturgy as Orthodox bishops do today. The Patriarch of Constantinople did not begin to wear the *sakkos* modeled after the dress of the emperor until the 11th century. Other, other bishops adopted it later. The Patriarch of Constantinople did not begin to wear a miter, which evolved from the imperial crown, until after the Byzantine Empire in 1453." And then the punchline is, and again, these are his words, not mine: "The list of changes that have taken place is endless."

Well, so much for Orthodoxy's attack on the sufficiency of scripture and their claim that we need to have recourse to them, to their preservation of supposedly extracriptural teachings from the apostles that they have not changed but have preserved entire and have not innovated upon or adulterated.

A third component of *sola scriptura* concerns scripture's clarity and self-interpreting character. This too is roundly attacked by the Orthodox. And yet, once again, it's the teaching of scripture and many fathers. The same scriptures that the Orthodox Church allegedly gave us teach their own sufficiency, contrary to that church that claims to be infallible and needed to interpret it.

Okay. The, the teaching of scripture is clear and self-interpreting. Well, in contrast to this, the confession of Dositheus, the Council of Jerusalem in 1672, in its second question and answer, explicitly repudiates this. And even says in one of its other answers that the rank-and-file believer shouldn't read scripture. Rather, they have to wait until they're given permission, and even then, they should avoid certain things in the Old Testament and so forth.

Well, Protopresbyter Michael Pomazansky says regarding this, uh, he says, "Sacred tradition is necessary because some truths of the faith are not entirely clear and precise." He also said, "Sacred tradition is necessary for the correct understanding of separate passages of sacred scripture." So, scripture, according to them, is not clear on some truths of the faith, and scripture passages are unclear.

But what does scripture say? Well, first of all, just think through the fact that scripture is the very word of God. How in the world does anybody have the temerity to say that the God who made man and who made man's mouth and ears doesn't know how to communicate to the ears of men from his own blessed mouth? This is the same God who said to Moses, who made man's mouth and so forth. This God revealed himself. When, when God spoke the universe into existence, do you think that some voice came back from the void saying, "Could you speak more clearly?" When God said, "Let there be light," there was light. The God of scripture doesn't speak garbled words. He speaks clear words. And his words, like himself, are light. Scripture says that it is light, as God is light.

Think of Psalm 119, for example: "Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path." Think of how David, in Psalm 19, that shepherd boy, how he said, "The law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple." Notice the simple, that is, those who aren't too smart. It makes them wise. "The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes." You want your eyes enlightened. Let's suppose that you are an adult. Let's suppose that you are a Nephite. Let's suppose that you're not the smartest of people. Quite contrary to what it says in the confession of Dositheus, oh, then you shouldn't be reading scripture. Scripture says that it enlightens the eyes. Who are you going to believe? David the psalmist in holy scripture, or the confession of Dositheus? The choice should be obvious. Clearly, scripture is clear.

Now, I could go on and on talking about how this is demonstrated. I could show this from the teaching of the prophets. I could show it from Jesus. I could show it from Paul. Uh, but let me deal with a couple of main arguments that are often made against this, so that these might be sufficiently put to bed.

One of the things that we often hear from Orthodox people is that Acts 8 disproves the idea that scripture is clear because there it says that the Ethiopian eunuch was reading Isaiah 53 and he didn't know who it was referring to, and Philip came along and explained it to him. So, if you look at, for example, the confession of Dositheus again, it says this verse proves that scripture is unclear and an infallible church is needed to disambiguate it. Kallistos Ware says the same thing in an article in the Orthodox Study Bible. Uh, over and over again, Orthodox authorities make this claim.

But notice this claim is self-refuting. Where it says this text shows that scripture is not self-explanatory. But Acts 8 tells us that Isaiah 53 is about Jesus. And so, in this very case, we have an example of the self-explanatory, self-interpreting, self-clarifying nature of scripture. The very thing that's at the heart of the Protestant principle that scripture is clear. That is, that wherever it might appear ambiguous to us, it's disambiguated by the blessed Holy Spirit, the light-giving Spirit. It is disambiguated by him elsewhere, usually in the immediate context, but certainly somewhere.

Well, even worse for Orthodoxy is the fact that if we pretend that this verse proves the need for an infallible interpreter, then it would show that this is only true prior to a person's conversion and not after it. For once Philip pointed the eunuch to Jesus, who believed, received the Spirit, and was immediately baptized, the same Philip was taken away from him, leaving the eunuch with faith, the Spirit, and the scroll of Isaiah. So if the verse proves the need for an infallible church to interpret it before conversion, then it takes it away after conversion. Surely that's not what Orthodoxy wants to maintain.

The simple fact is, the eunuch's failure to understand was not due to any obscurity in the words of Isaiah, but to the eunuch's ignorance of their historical reference. That's what's going on in the verse. He understood the words of Isaiah, but didn't know who the text was referring to. And so once Philip told the eunuch who, uh, what had been recently accomplished in Jerusalem, it was only too obvious that the text was talking about Jesus.

And once again, the Orthodox Church is at variance with the fathers here. Even as I already demonstrated it from scripture, Justin Martyr rightly said, "As soon as a person hears about Christ's crucifixion, he will affirm that Jesus is the one and no other that Isaiah is talking about." In other words, Isaiah is so clear that all you have to do is hear the good news that Jesus died and rose again, and you'll say, "Oh, that's who Isaiah was talking about." Similarly, Irenaeus said, "Since the man was already acquainted with Isaiah, all it took was for Philip to tell him that Jesus was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and without any great labor, he was easily able to persuade the man to believe in him." In fact, all the fathers, to a man, said that Isaiah 53 is a clear text. And for that reason, it was one of the most celebrated examples of clear prophecy concerning Jesus throughout the ancient church. In fact, if you can find a single father saying, "This text is not a clear prophecy about Jesus," please show it to me. And I can show you 10 to the contrary of every, everyone you think you could bring up. And I don't think you can really bring up any. But over and over again, in the commentator, Cyril of Alexandria, uh, Eusebius of Caesarea, you name it, whoever wrote a commentary said this verse was clear. Contrary to the confession of Dositheus, contrary to that allegedly infallible confession, contrary to that church which claims that it's always speaking the mind of the fathers, poppycock.

Well, another verse that is often employed to attack the sufficiency of the word of the God of the universe to speak clearly to his creatures is 2 Peter 3. Over and over again, this text is appealed to because there Peter speaks of some things in Paul's writings being hard to understand. And so this is appealed to to prove that scripture is unclear and you need to go to an infallible group that has set itself up as the arbiter of scripture, the authenticator of scripture, and so forth.

Well, there are many problems here. First, when the Orthodox appeal to 2 Peter 3:16 to prove that scripture is unclear, they are unwittingly assuming scripture's clarity, at least at this point, right? But if scripture is generally unclear, on what non-arbitrary basis do they assert that this text is an exception such that they can make simple appeal to it? If they say that it isn't unclear and that this interpretation is true because, you know, this is their infallible interpretation of it, then, then they're begging the question, for this verse is supposed to show that scripture is unclear and demonstrates the need for an infallible interpreter to disambiguate it.

Well, a second problem with this appeal is that Peter's statement is not about scripture in general, but about certain things found in Paul's writings. Paul's writings are part of scripture, but they don't make up the bulk of the Bible. They don't even make up the bulk of the New Testament, believe it or not. In terms of word count, Luke's writings alone make up more of the New Testament than Paul's do. Go, do, go do the math.

Third, Peter doesn't say that it's even generally the case that Paul's writings, and hear this especially, Peter doesn't say that it is even generally the case that Paul's writings are hard to understand. What Peter says is, "There are some things in Paul's writings." And "some" does not mean all or even most. And so, ironically, this verse actually shows that most of what Paul wrote is clear.

Fourth, since Peter, that simple fisherman, is here writing about the same thing Paul wrote about, if you don't understand Paul on those points, then listen to Peter, as he brings these things down to your level, right? If, if Orthodox Christians can't read the Bible and understand it, if their church says that their spiritual sight is dull and so forth, go listen to Peter before you listen to them.

Fifth, the Greek word translated as "hard to understand" here is only used here in the New Testament. And when we look at how it was used before Paul by Aristotle, Diogenes Laërtius, and Vettius Valens, they don't take it to refer to the words of someone, but to the concepts being conveyed. Surely Paul speaks of many lofty concepts, such as the Trinity, the hypostatic union, predestination, right? All of which can be difficult to grasp. But that doesn't mean that he doesn't clearly teach those lofty truths. Okay? So this isn't even talking about an obscurity of the words and the need for somebody to infallibly interpret them. It's talking about grasping the significance and import of them. Okay. This, by the way, is exactly how the word was understood by early fathers like Epiphanius and Cyril of Alexandria. And this is why it shouldn't be surprising that early Pauline commentators like Theodore of Cyrus, Marius Victorinus, and Ambrosiaster all said that Paul's writings were fundamentally clear. In fact, just to quote one, one that I didn't mention, Ambrose. Ambrose said of Paul, "In most places, Paul so explains his meaning by his own words that he who discourses on them can find nothing to add of his own. And if he wishes to say anything, he must rather perform the office of a grammarian than that of a discourser." In other words, he could just make observations about the grammar, the syntax. He couldn't really say anything in order to elucidate Paul that Paul hadn't already said in elucidating himself.

Well, in light of what's gone before, I ask you, should anyone really trust the EO Church to interpret the Bible for them? What we've seen is they're in conflict with the Bible and the early church when it comes to the self-authenticating nature of scripture. They're in contrast to the Bible and the early fathers when it comes to the material sufficiency of scripture. They're in contrast to the Bible and the early fathers when it comes to the formal sufficiency or clarity of scripture, as I just showed. The, the fathers taught over and over again that scripture interprets scripture. In fact, if I had time, I would love to go through a whole slew of fathers and of patristic scholars commenting on those fathers, showing that this was their view as well when it comes to the clarity of scripture and the self-interpreting nature of scripture. But alas, I see that I'm running out of time. I've got about five or six minutes. I'm going to be quick here on this fourth, uh, main issue when it comes to *sola scriptura*, and then, uh, try and cover quickly some, uh, remaining objections that are often made here.

Uh, I want to address the fact that scripture is the final norm and regulator of all faith and practice. If scripture is the inherently authoritative and self-authenticating word of the Triune God, the self-contained Triune God, if it is materially sufficient to tell us everything we need to know for faith and salvation, for godly living, for the right worship of God, if it is formally sufficient, if it's clear, fundamentally clear with respect to the main doctrines of the faith and what a person needs to know and believe and so forth, and if it's self-interpreting, if all this is true, well, then it follows as a matter of course that scripture is the final authority. God is the final authority, and scripture is his word. So this word is the final authority, and it is that without the need for the contradictory traditions of Eastern Orthodoxy. It is that all by itself. It, it, it isn't necessary for the Orthodox Church to prop up this word in order for it to serve precisely this God-given function. Okay.

Well, I want to deal with some objections, as I said, and I'm going to run through these, uh, quickly. One of the things that people will often say in objection to all of this that I, you know, besides all the things I already brought up and addressed. One of the things that's often said is, "Well, *sola scriptura* is false because *sola scriptura* is not even taught in scripture." And this is said, for example, by Josiah Trenum in his book *Rock and Sand*. But *sola scriptura* is the view that scripture is self-authenticating, which I have shown. That scripture is materially sufficient, which I have shown. That scripture is clear and self-interpreting, which I have shown. And that scripture is the ultimate norm and regulator of all faith and practice, which I have shown. So this claim is bogus.

Another claim that's often made by the Orthodox Church is, "You can't know what the canon of scripture is without us." Well, in the first place, even if the Orthodox Church had said what the canon is, we still couldn't trust them, for all the reasons I've already given. At every turn, they can't get it right on fundamental issues. But the fact of the matter is, there is no group of people on earth that's in a worse position to run the argument, this argument, than Orthodoxy. Since you cannot give, this is the old dictum. It, it's simply true. You cannot give what you do not have. And Orthodoxy does not now and never has had a canon to give anyone. Okay. This fact, which is surreptitiously ignored by online EO apologists as they run around trying to bully and badger people, is easily demonstrable, demonstrable, and openly admitted by Orthodox sources.

For example, on page 11 of the introduction to the *Orthodox Study Bible*, it says, "The Orthodox Church has never officially committed itself to a single text and list of Old Testament books." Eugenia Constantinou, an Orthodox scholar, wrote, "The most unusual aspect of the canon of scripture among the Orthodox is that no official canon exists at all." Steven D. Young, in his book on the Apocrypha, said, "Eastern churches recognized the reality that the canons of both testaments were never established by an authoritative act." Eugen Pentiac, professor at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology, said, "The issue of canon has remained unsettled." Petros Vassiliadis said, "The undivided church," notice, "has not solved the issue of and therefore not imposed upon her members a canon of the Bible." Miltiades Constantinou said, "Eastern churches are *autokephalos*, that is, each church can make autonomous decisions, including decisions regarding the biblical canon." As I said, no group of people on the planet is in a worse position to attack *sola scriptura* in this way than Orthodoxy.

And, uh, there are other things I really wish I had more time that I could go through regarding the problems of Orthodoxy. But let me just say this one thing as I'm winding to a conclusion. Notice that quote from Petros Vassiliadis said, "The undivided church has not solved the issue of and therefore not imposed upon her members a canon of the Bible." Well, here's something from Alexander Schmemann, a very, uh, popular, uh, Orthodox authority. Father Alexander Schmemann, and he talks about the problem, the, the canonical problem that exists currently, especially in America, when it comes to the Orthodox Church. The canonical problem concerns the issue of jurisdiction, proper jurisdiction, hierarchical authority, and, and administration and so forth. And, uh, and he says, listen to him. This is again, not me. This is what he says. He says with respect to this that it, he says, "We must openly proclaim that the situation in which we all live is utterly unconical, regardless of all the justifications and sanctions that everyone finds for his positions." He mentions that there are three Russian jurisdictions, which shouldn't be, two Serbian jurisdictions, which shouldn't be, two Romanian, two Albanian, two Bulgarian, a split among the Syrians, the animosity between the Russians and the Carpatho-Russians, the Ukrainian problem, and on and on. And then he goes on to say this, again, this is Schmemann, this is not me. He says, "But for the," he says, "the divisions belong to the very structure of the, the divisions belong to the very structure of the church." He says, "We must openly admit this." And he says, "For nothing can justify the bare fact that our church is divided."

Eastern Orthodoxy is not what it boasts to be. And it certainly isn't superior to Christ and his word. My sincere plea to all Eastern Orthodox is, submit to the Christ of scripture. Submit to his self-attesting, self-word, and believe the gospel that you heard just a moment ago from Ryan. That is your only hope in life and in death. That's my hope. I pray that it will also become yours. God bless.

>> All right. Well, thank you so much for that. Um, Anthony, that was excellent. I hope you guys are again enjoying, uh, and learning a lot, whether you agree or disagree. Um, hopefully the positions are being laid out clearly, and, um, this can be a foundation for further and more in-depth discussion in your personal interactions, things like that. So, thank you so much, Anthony. Um, we're going to remove you from the screen, and we're going to go into a 10-minute intermission. Our next speaker is David Wood. Um, so I don't know, Anthony, if you can reach out to him to make sure he's on time because I know he's a super busy guy. I don't know if you or maybe brother >> I messaged him earlier. Perfect. Um, >> All right. >> Yep. I hope so, too. Okay. Otherwise, we could just come up and tell jokes, you know. Just kidding. >> All right. I'm gonna, I'll text you. Okay. So, I'm gonna remove you there. Thank you so much, uh, brother. And then we're going to jump into an intermission. All right. All right. Thank you guys. All right. Let me just put this up real quick. And there we go. Okay. All right. 10 minutes and we'll be back. We'll start with, uh, David Wood, um, covering the topic "Navigating the Orthosphere: Identifying Their Tactics and Their Rhetoric." All right. So, uh, that'll be in a few minutes.

As he rode along, they spread their cloaks on the road. To the daughter of Zion, behold, your king is coming to you, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden. As he was drawing near, already on the way down the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, saying, "Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!"

"Say to the daughter of Zion, Behold, your king is coming to you, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden."

Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, "Teacher, rebuke your disciples." He answered, "I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out."

"Say to the daughter of Zion, Behold, your king is coming to you, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden."

"Humble and mounted on a donkey, on a foal of a beast of burden."

"If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge. And if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. Love is patient and kind. Love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on"

its own way. It is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice at wrong. My rejoices with the truth. The love bears all day, believes all day, hopes all day, endures all things. Love never ends. Now we see in a mirror dimly but then face to face now I know in part then I shall know fully even as I have been fully known now faith hope these.

All right. Uh, it is 7:58 p.m. Eastern. I just want to let folks know our next speaker is David Wood. And after David Wood's presentation, he's going to be going from 8:00 to 9. And then we'll have one more 10-minute intermission. and then we'll be joined with all the speakers, myself and everyone else who has presented for uh a panel of sorts of Q&A. So, at that point, you want to really get your question in. Um maybe you want to wait. I can't I'm I'm doing this kind of by myself, so I can't search through all the comments. You know, there's been a lot. So, if you have a question, you know, be ready to type it out when we have everyone up on the screen there so that you could ask your question. We can try our best to uh to address them. Make sure that your question is prefaced with the word question. um you could ask uh a question to all of us at once if you want us to engage with it or if you have a specific question for an individual speaker um then just please make sure you make that known so it's easier to address your question.

All right. Well, without further ado, I'd like to invite pardon like to invite David Wood on the screen with me there. How are you doing, David?

>> Pretty good. Uh how do I get my uh PowerPoint on here?

>> Uh there should be a present option for you and then it'll pop up here and then um One second. It said my file is too big. Uh

>> oh.

>> Okay,

>> hang on. Let me see if I can save this as something smaller.

>> Sure. Yeah, absolutely.

>> Or wait, I guess I could just uh make it full screen and share my screen, right?

>> You could do that as well. Yeah.

>> Okay.

>> Very good. While David's doing that, um again, if you guys are just joining in, this is Revealed Apologetics. Uh my name is Eli Ayala and this is the unorthodoxy of Eastern Orthodoxy conference. David Wood is going to be addressing the topic of um let me see here navigating the orthosphere identifying their tactics and their rhetoric. Um and of course I don't have to get into detail um of what that's all about. I'm sure everyone kind of is familiar with some of the issues that have been going around online and maybe you've experienced some of it in the comments section. Okay. Um, again, I still I still encourage people to interact respectfully uh even in the midst of disagreements. Um, and um, just wanted to throw that out there one last time.

All right. Um, and so we'll just give David a few moments to kind of uh, get his notes figured out. I see something populating here. Let's see. Boom.

>> See if I go.

>> We got that. Okay. And then

>> that looks fine. If you want to go through, you can control it, right? I believe so.

>> Yep. To go to the next slide. Let's see what happens.

>> Okay, there you go. So, all right. So, I'm going to remove myself so you can get started and I will I will magically pop on the screen with you when you have like 3 minutes, two minutes left just to let you know we're we're closing and then um and then we'll take it from there. Okay.

>> All right.

>> All right. Thank you. I'm going to disappear and you can start whenever you're ready.

>> All right. Just realized I forgot to share it. So sharing it right now and think we're good. Um got that. All right. All right. That is officially shared. Well, uh good evening, good morning, good afternoon to everyone who's watching um wherever you're watching. Uh as some of you know, I'm pretty new to all of this. um never been even slightly interested in debating issues between um different denominations of Christianity. Not that it's not important. I've just always been focused on other things. So focused on apologetics, uh dealing with atheism and with Islam and so on. So always been interested in those kinds of things. And I've known for a long time my brain is kind of like a like a small I don't know like juice glass like that they have in the in the hotel uh breakfast areas and um anyway if it gets gets pretty full and if I try to pour something else in it then some other things spill out. So kind of only focus on the things I deal with a lot over and over again. And um yeah, these kinds of debates and discussions were never part of that. As far as uh Orthodox uh Eastern Orthodox Christians, um up until very recently, I can't think of any negative interactions I've ever had with Eastern Orthodox Christians. Then we got the rise of the Orthobos. And again, I was uh new to Eastern Orthodoxy, but I wasn't new to the Ortha Bros because I've been dealing with uh a group that's sometimes called the Da Da Bros. These are Muslims who um use very very similar tactics, very very similar tactics to what you see from the Orthobros. So, it's new to Eastern Orthodoxy, but not new to the tactics being used by the Orthros. If you didn't know better and you saw the tactics they use on X and elsewhere, you might think that they just copied the tactics of the DA Bros. But I don't think that's actually the case. I don't think you have to copy these other tactics. I think these are just c they're just certain things that work in certain environments on social media. Um, in other words, uh, the social media algorithms favor things like favor things that that lead to more engagement, more clicks and responses and, uh, sharing and so on. But guess what? The kinds of content that, uh, produce lots of engagement tend to be, you know, that can be things that enrage people and then you have people on both sides start arguing because someone posted something. This produces a lot of engagement and this circulates uh, very rapidly. So anyway, there are certain things that uh the internet kind of puts forward if you're using certain tactics. And so I I think this is just always going to um groups with these kinds of tactics are going to get a kind of short-term um advantage. Uh notice I said short term there because there's there's a kind of a short-term gain, long-term loss, but we'll be getting uh we'll be getting to that.

So, um, yeah, just just recently uh started interacting more with the Orthobros because they started going after basically anyone outside the true church and complaining when you're doing pretty much anything. So you could be just evangelizing Muslims and they'll start complaining that you're not sending the Muslims to the true church and therefore you're actually harming the Muslims and therefore the only people who should actually be doing evangelism whether it's to uh just random people or um if you're focusing on a specific group like atheists or Muslims or something like that, the only people who should be doing that are um Eastern Orthodox believers, which is which is kind of a tough pill to swallow because I think Eastern Orthodox Uh Christians make up about 1% of the US population. So they they'd have a lot of work to do. A lot of work to do. Um if they're going to be taking care of all of the evangelism. And the other thing that uh that we see is that um you're not allowed to go out and and do pretty much anything unless you debate them on the true church first. So you have to be debating them on the true church or you're just not interested in truth. And so, uh, they're basically they're basically calling for a lot of things to come to a grinding halt, a grinding halt on the internet. And it's just a weird situation like who who these guys think they are. And uh, well, they're they're the uh they're the true church. They got the true church. And so, um, we're outside the true church. And so, we uh, we we've got this issue. And long story short, guy who uh has never been interested in these kinds of discussions. I now have um two debates lined up with Jay Dyer. One on um ven icon veneration and the other on what is the true church. So never been interested in this, but now we actually have to debate it because it's uh just being just being demanded. And I'm pretty good at ignoring these kinds of things when they're coming after me, but once they start going after everyone around me and so on, then it's like, okay, then someone's got to do it. So, I might as well I might as well um jump in uh jump in here.

So, um I've seen them. I've seen them for the past couple years. I know they've been they've been a thing for a little while. Um but uh just started focusing on them last month with some issues that that rose up and quickly started noticing um some of the some of the things that made me really really not trust their group when you start looking into their tactics. Um they rely on what you might call middle school manipulation tactics like tons of name calling just calling you names. They'll call you you disagree with them. and they start they'll call you gay or they'll call you a woman's body part. I thought about putting a bunch of screenshots of what they say on the screen, but I don't know if uh younger people are watching and so on. It could be pretty graphic. And then of course, if you call them out on this, you say, "Hey, I just disagreed with you on on what this means here and you're calling me this uh lady body part and so on," they'll they'll start calling you more lady body parts. Anyway, that's um that's why I call it's like like middle school manipulation tactics. Um which if it was one person doing it, that would be one thing. When um a a kind of online mob starts doing it, um that can that can get really uncomfortable for most people. Then there are other people who kind of uh you know like arguing and they they might be fine with it. Um they look for what you might call pockets of ignorance. This is another similarity with um some of the DA bros. We we've been making fun of the DA guys for years because they don't want to they don't want to engage with people who know what's called what we call the DA script. Namely, they just seem to memorize certain arguments and if they if you veer off if you veer off that that script, they they kind of don't know what to do. And the result is that lots of Muslims no longer want to interact with people who are knowledgeable in certain topics. They're looking around to find people who've never studied something so that they can run their DASA script and the person doesn't know how to respond. And that's very similar to what I've seen over the past just couple months with the Orthobros that they'll come to me and say, "Hey, you have to debate the true church and you have to debate uh this and you have to debate that topic and you have to debate that." I said, "I've never debated these things and I've never studied them." And say, "Oh, you got to debate it." And I say, "I I've never looked in." Okay. Even if I agree to debate, I'm going to want to study this for a while. They say no debate now or you're a coward. And it's like, what what are you looking for? You're looking for someone who admits he's never studied this topic and you want to debate him. And even if he says, "Hey, I'll debate you. Let me prepare." You start making fun of the idea of preparation. And what does that mean? It means you don't you want you want unprepared people who haven't studied. And that's just that's always suspicious to me.

Um, they use silly debate tricks instead of offering um substance. I'm not talking about always. I'm talking about when they get into a conversation, they're looking for something to uh they're looking they're using some trick instead of actually giving anything remotely resembling a uh careful thoughtout response to whatever you're bringing up. Um, they complain no matter what you do. So if you ignore them, they'll complain that you ignore them. Then if you pay attention to them, they'll start uh playing the victim card. Why are you attacking them? Um, they don't want people exposed to any criticisms of their position. So um I had a number of uh Eastern Orthodox um representatives on my channel with me to explain various things. As soon as I would uh have on a critic of Eastern Orthodoxy, they would they would complain. And it's just very suspicious to me. Wait a minute. I sat there with your guy and let him lay out his his case on this issue, but as soon as I have someone who's going to criticize that, you guys uh start losing your minds. And why is that? I mean, if you want someone to form if you want someone to to come up with an informed position on these issues, why wouldn't you want people to be aware of your positive case and whatever criticisms there are against it? um when they're evaluating someone's motivations, like when they say, "Here's why this person did this," they tend to, if it's a nonorthodox person, they tend to go with the worst possible explanation. You're evil, you're a grifter, you're doing it for for this or that reason. And when one of their group does anything, they would go with the best possible um motivation as their explanation for why the p why the person did this. And then of course there was uh something very odd which I've labeled the church of the red herring. Um, meaning no matter what you criticize them for, no matter what behavior you criticize them for, they pivot to, "Well, you can't say anything until you debate the the true church." In other words, you can say, "Hey, why'd you dox that person? you just doxed that that person disagreed with you and called out some of your behavior and you doxed the person or you started uh posting nude photos of that woman because she said something you disagreed with and you criticize any sort of behavior and they go well well you can't say anything because you're not you're not the true church. And so, uh, anyway, this those are just initial reactions, but it seems, uh, seems pretty pretty disturbing to me and, uh, seen this from lots of lots of groups and it, uh, just very very quickly started seeming culty to me. Um, and I didn't know why when I had a discussion with Andrew Wilson, who's one of the uh, he's kind of the the muscle. He's kind of the muscle for the Ortha Bros. But uh when I I called this a cult to Andrew Wilson, he got really sensitive and I didn't know why. Um but he got really sensitive. Then I found out, oh, other people, including people who've left the Ortha Bros, um have been calling uh this a cult and calling out the cult behavior of the group. So, we're actually going to uh read some passages here in a few minutes. There have been a number of articles um on the Ortha Bros over the past few years, both you know from from like the New York Times um and other other uh media outlets, but also from individuals who um have seen some problems with the group and some who've even left the group. So, we're going to check out uh we're going to check out some of uh we'll check out some passages from those uh from those articles.

But let's see this additional issue that I had I had no idea about this. I mean, I knew that they believed that you have to uh be part of the true church to give you um to speak authoritatively on how to interpret certain passages and so on. But I wasn't aware of the level of contempt that many of the Orthobros, again I'm I'm distinguishing between Orthobros and regular um Orthodox Christians. Um if this if whether this is this common among regular Orthodox Christians, I do not know. I know it's very common among the Orthobos. So this is uh Jim Bob here. carries in Northro and he says Protestant archaeologist and the Protestant archaeologist has um found a manuscript of page of the Bible and so the little cartoon here made by Jim Bob says going to get this ancient manuscript back to the lab to interpret itself. Now I mean think about the underlying assumption. The underlying assumption is that the Bible is just hopelessly unclear. I don't know what Jim Bob here thinks that someone would be discovering in a manuscript. I mean, if you if you discovered a new manuscript, guess what? We've got thousands and thousands of manuscripts. So, you just like figure out what what page of uh what page of the Bible you're dealing with or something like that. But uh according to Jim Bob, you find a new manuscript. And the the idea that you could interpret or understand what is in that manuscript is something laughable to them. Like you couldn't understand it. You couldn't understand a page of the Bible if you got it without your church telling you what it means. And so I saw I saw this over and over again. Um, but I responded, uh, I said, "It's weird how they think the Bible is so hopelessly unclear and so thoroughly confusing that it can't be understood without a church telling you what it means. Why is the church so clear, but the Bible so unclear?" So, their view is, yes, the church will tell you what it means, and the church will be perfectly clear, but the Bible itself hopelessly, hopelessly unclear. And I just don't know why the Bible would be so unclear and the church so clear. But plenty of people responded. Uh so Glove here says the Bible is so clear that after everyone reads it, they come away with the same doctrine. So making fun of the idea that people read the Bible and do now if if you read the Bible, you know, it's remarkably clear. There are passages that people disagree on and so on, but uh yeah, so people don't always come away with the same doctrines. you would definitely come away with same doctrines on Jesus death for sins and his resurrection and his divine nature and so on. Um there may be there there are often various um um various explanations for these doctrines and so on. But um they're mocking the idea that people come away from the Bible with different doctrines and therefore the Bible ju it's it's just it's just sloppy and incoherent and can't really be understood and that's why you need the church to tell you what it means. And I said notice he's mocking the Bible because human beings don't always come away from it with the same doctrines. So the solution is to go to human beings and ask for doctrines because the Bible is so hopelessly unclear it can't be trusted. And uh again uh this seems to be all over the place in the Orthro community just mocking the clarity of the Bible. And the takeaway, the real takeaway, the real takeaway is, as far as I can tell, like why would you even read the Bible? Not saying they don't read the Bible. I'm saying if I really believe that the Bible is just this hopeless, incoherent mess that can't be understood. I never got that impression from it. But if if what they're saying about the Bible is correct, and you can only know what you're supposed to believe, what doctrine you're supposed to adhere to by going to your church, why in the name of common sense would you waste 10 seconds reading the Bible? it's only going to confuse you. So, you'd be better off just going to your church and saying, "Tell me what to believe because I can't go to that Bible because it's just going to confuse me." So, I have to say that's a bit disturbing because if we're if we're going to be debating if we're going to be debating various issues and they have just a ton of contempt for the Bible, how what what's what's the authority on on which we're we're debating here? You can't simply rely on the authority of your church. If we're debating whether your church is the authority, I would assume that we're using the Bible as something we agree on to debate whether this doctrine of your church is correct. But if you have this level of contempt for the Bible and you think it's hopelessly unclear, what what is the standard by which we're judging anything? So anyway, these are some of the issues I have to uh wrestle with and figure out and get some clarification from uh from the orthros on.

All right. So, um, this is something that's going to not not this guy in particular, but this this is an example of a young man because this comes up over and over and over again. We have lots of people right now um converting to Eastern Orthodoxy and a ton of them are either um converting to Eastern Orthodoxy uh because because of the Orthros online um or for some other reasons. And the the general things that you see as far as new people coming into the Orthodox church and it's it's like it's unprecedented. We're going to read some passages, but um historically historically Eastern Orthodoxy is a tiny minority of Christianity in places like the United States. Um and and it's usually it's usually tied to your background. Like if you were Greek and you moved to the United States or you were Russian and you moved to the United States, then you know you you'd probably be Orthodox if that was your background. But it's not something that that that spread far and wide. Whereas now they have uh over the past several years lots of people converting to Eastern Orthodoxy. And the trends that you tend to see, you see some people who um are fed up with something either in the Catholic church or in uh Protestant churches. Um they're fed up with something. They think it's uh too uh too wishy-washy or too feminized. And so they start looking towards Eastern Orthodoxy. Some people are drawn towards the more traditional uh more traditional um church services. And if if you if you run into someone who's saying, "Hey, our way of doing things goes all the way back to the apostles themselves." Well, if you're you know, you're you're traditionally minded, uh that's that's where you'd want to go. So, some people um come to the Eastern Orthodox Church because of that. Uh but lots of people it's uh because of what's going on online. And what you find is you'll have uh some some young guy like the the one on the screen here. And um basically the issue that's arising for lots of people right now is everyone feels like they're being attacked right now. And uh this this wasn't the case like 20 30 years ago. you, you know, 20 30 20 or 30 years ago, you wake up, you eat breakfast, you go to school or to work or something like that. You come home, you watch some TV, you spend some time with your family, you uh do something with a hobby or something like that, you go to sleep, you don't feel like you're being attacked. Whereas now, as soon as you wake up and you check social media, you check X or whatever, you're you're fe you feel like you're being attacked by a bunch of people. And the tendency when human beings feel like they're being attacked is to join some group that has roughly similar ideas. And that way you're not you don't feel like you're completely isolated and being attacked by everyone uh everyone else. Now you've got a group that has your back on all these issues. And so what you have with uh some of the young orthobros is you have people who have ideas, lots of uh like very commonly right-wing ideas and so on right now. And of course you're going to be criticized for that online. But if you start going in the ortho direction, join up with them, then you've got a group that can defend you. But there's a cost because once you join the Ortha Bros, turns out you aren't allowed to question them on anything lest you be kicked out of the group. And you don't want to be kicked out of the group because now you're joining a group not for fun as you would if you didn't feel like you're being attacked. But if you feel like you're being attacked, then you're kind of joining a group for your protection and security. And you definitely won't don't want to be uh kicked out of that group. And so you have to

>> Okay, David, I don't know if you could hear me. I do apologize. There was kind of a little freeze up. This is the first freeze up out of the entire live stream. So, I think we're okay. I'm just going to remove myself and then put your slides back up and see if you can just continue where you left off. Okay.

>> Okay. All right. Let me see here. Let's get your slides up there and then I'm going to remove. We all good?

>> Yes, you could start whenever you want.

>> Okay, I went ahead to go to the next slide. Um, but um, yeah, so uh I I just did want to point out that this is this is not something that is unique to the orthobros here. This is affecting tons and tons of people. tons of people are feel like they're being attacked and so are joining groups. And then once you join the group, whether that's a political party or um anything else, then you have to line up with your group on everything or you have to worry uh you have to worry about being kicked out. And so, um, kind of rough situation for lots of, uh, lots of people right now, but you have to you have to go along with everything the Ortha Bros say if you want the protection of the Orthros, as we'll see.

All right. So, this is um this is New York Times article. Orthodox church pews are overflowing with converts. We're going to look at a couple things about u people converting to Eastern Orthodoxy and then we'll we'll sort of zero in on the orthobros. So going to read a bunch of passages. I'll try to read some of these uh kind of rapid fire because I want to get through a a bunch of them to give people an overview. Something is changing in an otherwise quiet corner of Christianity in the United States. One that prides itself on how little it has changed over time. Priests are swapping stories about record attendance numbers. older members are adjusting or not to the influx of new attendees. Parishes are strategizing about how to accommodate more prospective converts than existing clergy can reasonably handle on their own. They don't even know what to do with all the new converts. They don't have enough uh clergy across the country. The ancient tradition of Orthodox Christianity is attracting energetic new adherence, especially among conservative young men. They're drawn to what they describe as a more demanding, even difficult practice of Christianity. Echoing some of the rhetoric of the so-called manosphere, new waves of young converts say orthodoxy offers them hard truths and affirms their masculinity. Orthodox Christians in the United States are younger and more male than many other Christian groups here. More than 60% of them are men. And that's a huge difference between um um other Christian groups. Matter of fact, I think they say that more than 60% of them are men compared with 46% of evangelicals. According to Pew Research Center, Orthodox Christians are also much younger with 24% of adult adherence younger than 30 compared with 14% of evangelicals. The gaps are the same as those between Orthodox Christians and Catholics. So, um, so the converts to the Orthodox Church, they're swaying massively in the direction of male and young. They're younger and they're more male. Some converts report approvingly that Orthodoxy has a more masculine feel than other traditions. Priests who must be male and can marry often have large beards and big families. Orthodoxy asks practitioners to make sacrifices like fasting rather than offering them emotional contemporary music and therapeutic sermons which critics describe as the typical evangelical megaurch experience. And uh we'll see a little bit about this here, but that's kind of all over the place. there are tons of young people who just don't like the megaurch experience and they're looking for something more traditional and starts going on to um this this this is a it's not a terribly long article but they eventually get into some of the um negative sides uh especially connected to the orthros says certain corners of the orthodox internet are not just conservative or traditionalist but openly racist and anti-semitic with several far-right figures converting converting in recent years. In the south, there is a strain of neoconfederate orthodoxy that marries white supremacy and orthodox practice. Matthew Heimbach, who organized the notorious Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in 2017, had been exccommunicated from the Antiochian Orthodox Church, but joined another branch. The Orthodox Christian writer Rah Dreer warned recently that anti-semitism is spreading like a virus among religious conservatives of the Zoomer generation, including among the Orthodox. In interviews, parish priests said they see it as part of their jobs to acculturate orthobros with extreme views to parish life, which they insisted was far removed from the violent rhetoric online. But critics say that top-notch church leaders rarely condemn even the most noxious rhetoric from high-profile Orthodox Christians. Um, we won't talk about this much, but this is an issue to think about. You have um the church leaders are aware of what's going on online. They're aware of what's going on with the Orthros and some of their views they're spreading. lots of uh issues with misogyny uh and other issues. They're aware of these issues and they have a couple reactions. Some of them actually have spoken out against it. Others still see it as something positive, not necessarily the views espoused, but hey, if it's getting young people into church, if this is some if what's going on on X is somehow bringing new people into the church, well, you know, that that's still a that's still a good thing. Um and some of them have a kind of hopeful attitude for the future. They think that well even if someone has some um even if someone has some problematic views even if someone has some problematic views that they got uh online well then by being in the church by being in the church we'll kind of you know weed those views out of them over time. So, it's not really it's not really a terrible problem. People are going to uh find out they're going to see the error of their ways over time. And we'll we'll we'll see some similar things as we uh as we go through here. Uh but this this uh I put this one up just because it's interesting because this is from a French this is from a French uh media site on trends in the world. So, this is um leen orthobros. by Orthodoxy appeals to young American men. We'll look at just a couple passages here. And Brodzky appears in his modest West Virginia bedroom. Behind him hangs an Orthodox lurggical banner adorned with a cross and Greek inscriptions. The 21-year-old shows us his personal space lingering at a small altar topped with Orthodox icons. The senses play a vital role in Orthodoxy, he explains. You see the icon. You smell the incense. You listen to the ancient chants. It was during a sleepless night that Andrew discovered the Orthodox faith. One night when I couldn't sleep, I was listening to a playlist and suddenly Orthodox chants started. I had never heard anything like it. He recounts. When I entered the church for my first liturgy, I felt exactly the same thing. It was as if I was exactly where I was meant to be. Andrew exemplifies a trend that has been emerging in the United States for the past few years. A student of psychology and theology, a conservative and single, he shares several characteristics with new converts to orthodoxy. Young men seeking a more traditional and masculine form of Christianity. That's something that comes up over and over again. The it's a it's masculine. Baptized Catholic and then Protestant, he found his path in orthodoxy after a spiritual quest that began on YouTube. That's another important uh feature of these trends is that it starts on social media. Channels like Orthodox Ethos and Ancient Faith Radio or the videos of Father Spiridon Bailey serve as a gateway to this tradition, a digital phenomenon that is part of a quest for religious authenticity. According to several articles published in the New York Post and the Telegraph in late 2024, American Orthodox parishes saw an increase of nearly 80% in conversions in 2022 compared to prepandemic levels. Even more significant, 60% of these converts were men, whereas most Western Christian denominations include more women. On the ground, testimonies from priests confirm this trend. The last four to five years have seen a surge. This is happening massively all over the country, says Father Josiah Trenim, who runs St. Andrews Orthodox Church in Riverside, California. This phenomenon, however, should be put into perspective. According to data from the Pew Research Center, Orthodox Christians represent only about 1% of the American population or approximately 1.8 million adherence. Historically, Orthodoxy in the United States has always been primarily linked to immigration from Orthodox countries. Greece, Russia, Ukraine, Romania. In Western Europe, historian Jean Francois Mayor observes that some scattered signs of an unusual increase in young people interested in orthodoxy. The sample size is insufficient to draw conclusions, but he senses that something something may be emerging. So, it's this is uh he's talking about Western Europe, so not just the United States. Another recurring factor is the feeling that western churches have become feminized. This criticism criticism targets Protestantism which allows women to become pastors and postvatican 2 Catholicism. They believe that Vatican 2 feminized the Catholic Church, explains Sarah Ricardi Schwarz. This search for traditional masculinity is accompanied by tensions. The anthropologist recounts a telling incident during a conference in Boston. Women carried icons in a procession. A video was published and one of the women received hate messages and death threats. Women, especially younger women, are disillusioned. So this is the flip side. Women, especially younger women, are disillusioned with the Orthodox Church today because they see incredibly misogynistic men arriving. The anthropologist also observes Orthodox women by training are leaving the church in the face of this wave of new converts with problematic rhetoric. And that's becoming an issue in the Orthodox church that there aren't enough women to go around for the young men and the young women in the church aren't are very frequently not interested in the orthobro types. So, the young women are dating men outside the church and the me the young men inside the church can't find women to date. So, they have an ongoing issue that they're uh they're going to have to deal with there.

Um, now this the last one, but I wanted to check out uh a bunch of passages from this because this is someone this is Noah article from Noah Jefferson. Uh, I think about three years ago he posted this, but um he was one of the orthobs. He was part of the community. He was one of the moderators for their Discord server where a lot of this was going on. So, we'll check this out to get an insider's view, an insider's view of the Orthod community. This is a long article. We're going to check out some passages, but I would encourage you to check out the article by Noah Jefferson for more detail, but he says, "My name is Noah Jefferson. I am a convert from Protestantism to holy orthodoxy and hold a master of theological studies with a concentration in Orthodox and Eastern Christian studies from Trinity College University of Toronto. I am publishing this article only after receiving permission to do so from my archbishop, parish priest, and spiritual father. Uh he had to put that there because that would be one of the things people uh the orthobros would object to. Who gave you permission? What who who gave you permission to speak about this thing? even though they speak pretty frequently uh without any sort of uh authority. My journey to orthodoxy is likely very familiar in some ways. As a non-denominational Protestant, I become disillusioned and dissatisfied with my grabbasket theology ahistorical understanding of Christianity and especially my isolated sectarian non-atholic understanding of the church. The awakening of my theological consciousness in my mid- teens occurred during a brief stint of my family moving to a communal Protestant community. One of the reasons for this being to try and live like the church of Acts. So that would seem like a good idea. Let's uh go live like the church of Acts. Needless to say, the experience was not a good one, and the community's oppressive atmosphere only forced my needing to move from an unconscious to a reasoned faith with the question of the church as my primary focus. During my bachelor of theology degree program, I became convinced by Orthodoxy that the Eastern Orthodox Church is the true church and its faith, the true faith, through my own research and the influence of an Orthodox friend of the family. As I lived a rather isolated rural lifestyle, having been homeschooled until college, my interaction with orthodoxy was initially primarily digital. That is again very important feature. People are learning about Orthodoxy, the Orthodox church online instead of just from an Orthodox priest. And so where are they ending up when they're doing these studies? They're ending up very frequently talking to the Orthobros. I was motivated to seek out the church in my real life and so took trips to a wonderful Antiocian parish. However, due to the great travel distance, visits were necessarily infrequent and no legitimate catechesus was possible. Thus, the internet continued to be my catechist for quite some time. Another very important feature there um 1% as I mentioned about 1% uh of uh people in America are Orthodox Christians and that means that you don't have a ton of Orthodox churches. You have them, you know, in in major cities and stuff like that, but some people are just, you know, wherever they are, they're they're 10 hours away from the closest Orthodox church. And so what do they do? They go online. They go online to interact with other um with other Orthodox Christians and that leads them to the Orthros. My formation by these influences, however, took time as distance still only allowed, by the way, I'm not reading straight through, so this kind of jumps I'm kind of jumping around here. So, um this isn't following this isn't always following what what was just said. My formation by these influences, however, took time as distance still only allowed relatively infrequent visits to my parish. And unfortunately, on June 13, 2020, I learned of and joined. And notice he says, "Unfortunately, unfortunately, on June 13th, 2020, I learned of and joined the Orthodox Christian Discord server run by Jay Dyer, Father Deacon Ananias Saurin, and his moderator team, which came to include other or other online Orthodox influencers such as David Erhin. At the beginning, I was not part of this circle, of course, as I was simply looking for interaction with other Orthodox who had the same love for theology as myself. And it appeared to me that I had found such. So, found a nice little online Orthodox church, Orthodox Christian Discord server. I soon made friends, and as a right-wingleaning individual at the time, it was easy to acclimate to and become desensitized to the slurs and vulgarity used against those they considered degenerate, to identify with the theological views continually presented as orthodox. In other words, whatever they're telling you is orthodox, then you start identifying with those views as the orthodox views. and to adopt the same attitude towards the nonorthodox as this apologetics community did. Of course, even when foolishly operating under a rigorous bent and acting in a manner that, while accepted and encouraged by the community, I am now ashamed of, I was still highly educated and sensitive to the right practice of theology. And so, I was soon asked to join the moderator team for the server. Naively, I accepted. Again, it says naively here. I'm a bit of a naturally nervous person, socially awkward and naive. Yet, I had made friends, or so I thought. So, for many months, I had overlooked the distortion of orthodoxy, not to mention neglect of common human decency and integrity, which I found around me. However, as is my way, my spirit came to a sort of boiling point, for lack of a better phrase, and I could no longer take it. The orthodoxy I had learned in my education from the great theologians of the 20th century in which the orthodox theological tradition and identity was not in tension with but was enriched by ecumenism was something I could not compromise or suppress for the short-sighted purposes of an online apologetics ring. However, as soon as I voiced my concerns, I quickly found out that I was not part of a theological club in which free thought was tolerable, let alone in a group of friends. I was in a cult. And he says this throughout his article, uh, talks about their cult tactics and how they behave like a cult. Um, eventually he, uh, so again, just filling in the the the gaps there. Uh eventually he realized he didn't want any anything to do with this and was ashamed of the articles that he'd uh posted on some of the sites and so on. So he says, "I emailed the editor of Petristic Faith to request the unpublishing of my articles from their site as I no longer wanted to have any association with their ministry whatsoever. However, instead of simply removing my articles, articles that are owned by me and not Petristic Faith, after receiving my request, Petristic Faith editor Chase Mud asked why I was requesting such. And I answered honestly, but in hindsight, perhaps foolishly, with the following. So, this is his response. To put it bluntly, besides the ill treatment I've received from several affiliated with the site on another platform, I do not agree with the version of orthodoxy it pushes. A mixture of radical right-wing politics, sectarian ecclesiology, esqueological frenzy, and an evangelical funy mindset transposed onto orthodoxy, presenting online cults of personality under the guise of traditionalism, and whose only use for theology is as ballistics against the other. So why do you guys learn any theology? To weaponize it, so that you can attack other people. I do not believe the views continually expressed on this site are representative of the orthodox hierarchy or the best theologians of our time, let alone the ancient fathers. Nor is any serious theology being or going to be done here. Consequently, I have no desire to have my name associated with this platform. Um, important that he mentions that they're not doing serious theology there. And that's something that um even before I started uh really interacting with these guys last month, I noticed um I talked to an Orthodox priest uh I think it was last year. Yeah, it was last year and it was just he offered me a ride to the uh he offered me a ride around then offered me a ride to the airport and so on. He was talking about thing. But I learned all kinds of uh I learned all kinds of things about uh the Orthodox church there. I can't think of anything I learned from the Ortha Bros. Um, it seems like 90% of what I I had seen from the Ortha Bros was just uh insults and attacking anyone who happened to disagree with one of their heroes um their online heroes over something. My above email was sent privately to Petristic Faith editor Chase Mud on January 29, 2023 in order to have my articles, which are my property, removed from the Petristic Faith website. However, after a week, my email still had not been answered. And due to what transpired next, I assume my private request to the editor was circulated among the clergy board, which supposedly runs the site, according to Father Deacon Ananas, until it was given to Jay Dyer, who on February 6, 2023, entered the Discord server I was now a member of, and doxed my real name for all to see, while also labeling me a gay formite. No doubt in the spirit of so-called petristic rhetoric. After the above interaction, Jay Dyer messaged me privately with more insults and the threat that he would dox me far more publicly by stating, "You decided to become a weasel and passively passive aggressively subvert. You're a scumbag and I will publicly live stream and discuss your email and who you are. Or you can leave us and or you can leave us and me out of your BS." In other words, don't uh don't complain about uh about uh anything they do or say. The owner of the server I was frequenting, who shall remain nameless, as I have no desire to see said owner doxed harassed or publicly attacked on social media by Jay Dyer or his circle. You can't even bring people up, then messaged me and said that Jay Dyer threatened him in the past as well. In further discussion, he relayed that Jay Dyier and his cronies act like a mafia over the online orthodox community and that another online apologist who will also remain nameless whose academic credentials,

theological knowledge, and ecumenical approach I cannot praise highly enough. He had to censor his own content dealing with ecumenism because he unfortunately is very reliant on Jay Dyer's circle for monetary revenue and does not wish to become the new target of their cyber gang. So now you have even very knowledgeable, um, Orthodox Christians, educated, they can't say something that puts them against the group because they're becoming, they're becoming dependent on the Ortha bro community.

What is this online environment? It is virtual. So it is not real. What danger could come from there? Yeah, keep thinking that.

Sadly, the above may be the view of many in the church hierarchy when it comes to the new digital age we all find ourselves in. And such a view is undoubtedly dangerous to hold, as it is common knowledge that schismatics and rigorists have not only been able to successfully disseminate their ideas through the internet, especially anti-ecumenism, but have been able to do so far more successfully at times than the hierarchy has been able to spread a reputation of such, let alone the obverse truth. In other words, uh, the orthobros circulate an idea. Even if it's wrong, and clergy or something want to respond to it, they don't have the reach of the orthobros. And so you can't refute or undermine it. You don't have the reach.

Unless action is taken and taken expediently and authoritatively, the dire or dire state of affairs we all find ourselves in will undoubtedly only become far, far worse. I can guarantee you.

The Orthodox Christian Discord server, founded by Jay Dyer with the support of Father Deacon Ananas Sorum and now run by David Erhen, is a server said to be centered around Orthodox apologetics, but it especially functions as a vast forum for katakesis. Thousands of inquirers and catechumans flock to the server to learn everything they need to know about Orthodoxy, including what the Orthodox mindset is. And they learn this by being directed to the videos of the inner circle of apologists who run the server and by conversing with the moderators who are expected to promote the viewpoints of those who run the server. So again, you have a tiny fraction of the population of the US who are Orthodox Christians, not nearly as many Orthodox churches as, uh, Protestant churches or Catholic churches. Tons of people who are therefore learning about Orthodox Christianity online. They end up with the Orthobos here. And when they're asking questions, they're being sent to the videos of the Ortha Bros and the materials of the Ortha Bros. And they're being educated by the Ortha Bros.

There are also clergy who become members of the server and who are given a special status to differentiate themselves from other members, but they are also expected to tow the line. And so, for the most part, they hardly ever interact with members. From what I observed when I was a moderator, the clergy are used by the server for status. Routinely, it will be claimed that an online influencer or his server has clergy backing by pointing to their presence in his server. So, if you can get a priest on your side, uh, in the server, the priest doesn't have to do much of anything. Now, the priest has the community there to, um, to help popularize whatever, uh, he's saying, but the, whoever has the priest in their server can then say, "Hey, this isn't just us. We have clergy backing here."

So, who exactly are the ones determining the faith formation of thousands of Orthodox converts? Again, we've seen tons of young Orthodox converts in the US and now apparently in Western Europe. Lots of the stuff going on though is online. So, who are the people determining the faith, determining the faith formation of these converts? There are two men, Jay Dyer and David Erhen. Jay Dyer runs a YouTube channel which has for its main content geopolitical analysis decrying the Western Atlanticist elites, film analysis steeped in conspiracy theory, and Orthodox apologetics which can be summed up as neo-Palamism, picks, uh, mixed with presuppositional apologetics originating from 20th-century Reformed theology, put in the service of a rigorous ecclesiology opposed to ecumenism and an apologetic method in which one can refute all other worldviews without studying them by simply identifying certain flaws in their presuppositions while asserting Orthodoxy gives the only coherent and justifiable worldview. So you can say anything you want. You're not part of the true church. You don't have the proper foundation, and therefore what you're saying is incoherent. Dyer has a sizable, enormous in Orthodox circles, social media following. 39,000 Twitter followers, 107, 107,000 YouTube subscribers, and is also a frequent guest and host for the infamous Alex Jones Infowars show. David Erhen is Dyer's protégé, a young man in his 20s from Turkey and the man who currently runs Jay Dyer's Orthodox Christian Discord server. Erhen also does geopolitical analysis through his YouTube channel, for example, supporting Russia in its war against Ukraine, but most of his work is apologetic. Apologetics against Oriental Orthodox and the Assyrian Church of the East, lambasting them as heretics and attempting to undermine the agreed ecumenical statements between our churches in the eyes of the online community. That was one of the, uh, big problems that Noah had here. He's, uh, more ecumenically minded than the orthobros allow. Erhen is also known for, known online as a misogynist, having early in his YouTube career even made a video asserting that women are not made in the image of God according to the fathers and consistently engaging in misogynist rhetoric on his social media platforms.

These two laymen, Jay Dyer and David Erhen, are dictating the catechetical formation of the next generation of Orthodox, not only converts but also cradle-born. So, people who were born into the Orthodox Church, these guys are the ones educating them. The moderation team on the Discord server they run is expected to think like them and enforce their views to be a part of the inner circle from which they may create more apologists to spread their personal version of Orthodoxy. Those on the server who express a different vision of Orthodoxy are ridiculed and expected to change their tune, and if they do not do so, are banned and ostracized. Effectively, such a cyber-banning is an excommunication in the minds of members. If you're kicked out of the group, if you're kicked out of the group, you are apparently excommunicated. Says, "In fact, upon being banned from Jay Dyer's server, I was personally, I personally was messaged by someone sincerely wondering if I had apostatized from Orthodoxy." So, he gets kicked off the server, and people think he's left the Orthodox Church because that's all some of these young people know as Orthodoxy. It's this Discord server.

The users of this server do not know sound Orthodoxy from false. They are simply attracted by the assurance the online influencers give them through winning debates, sympathize with the moral struggle against degeneracy that is familiar to them, coming especially from moralist evangelicalism, identify with the right-wing nationalist atmosphere, and rally around their apologists as internet celebrities who use the same language and online mannerisms of right-wing meme culture as they do. Thus, in effect, such is intellectual Orthodoxy to them. Theology is simply the weapon. Comes back to he comes back to this. He mentioned this earlier. Theology is simply the weapon of this cultic mindset, and any expression of Orthodox thought which would challenge this innately hostile beast, like affirming the validity of heterodox sacraments, is deemed by its gatekeepers as confusing inquirers and something to be banned. Something which would erode the sectarian us versus them version of Orthodoxy. Orthodoxy they are inculcating in a whole online generation to be aimed at anyone they please, not to mention aim them into their wallets. Unsurprisingly, with such a massive influence in a relatively small online community, it goes beyond its initial bounds and exerts pressure on others. Uh, it's a long quotation here. We only got a few minutes left, so I'll zoom through this. Thus, other Orthodox communities on Discord are pressured to agree with the stance of Dyer and his influencer posse. And any which do not are labeled with the usual dog whistles to make it clear they are to be avoided. And God forbid, and God forbid you gain respect for your theological knowledge or develop a following and therefore appear on their radar as if you do. Dyer's posse will monitor your posts to determine your compatibility with them. An ability to be molded. You have to be moldable. If you're not compatible with them, you are labeled as to be avoided. And if you're influential enough and disagree with them on something or allude to them in a way they don't like, you will be contacted, likely by Jay Dyer himself, demanding that you reconcile, by which is meant submission and taking back any comments made. As one who is part of their group and foolish enough to let them know who I am, I know full well how they threaten to dox you and smear, and smear you online unless you stay silent.

So he goes on, um, uh, it, it is in no uncertain terms a dangerous cult led by seemingly mentally unstable charismatic leaders, complete with shunning and moral justification for treating the one shunned in otherwise morally reprehensible ways. It is therefore a church within a church, and a whole generation is being catechized into it. One could say it is very Gnostic, despite the misuse that term receives, and thus subversive. Uh, again, I'd encourage everyone, uh, who wants to learn more about the orthobros to, uh, to, uh, read that entire article. Again, it's pretty long, but he goes into, uh, a lot of detail and he, he talks more about it than what I've just covered, uh, right there. That was just some highlights. But, um, uh, with these last couple minutes we have, um, want to talk about kind of what's going to happen. And I already noted parallels with the, uh, with the Daaba Bros, with the Da Bros. Well, there's another huge parallel with the Da Bros that, uh, that should, that should cause Eastern Orthodox leaders to, um, to take more note of this than they've been doing. What happened with the Daaba Bros was, you know, historically it was Muslim scholars or their handpicked, um, their handpicked spokesmen who would represent Islam back in the day. And I remember these times, um, if you wanted to debate a Muslim 25 years ago, you had to go to a Muslim organization and they would pick their, um, their debater, and then you would agree on a topic and so on. Eventually got to the internet, and anyone who could get a following online could could start debating Islam and represent Islam in online debates. Well, all of a sudden, you started getting people who didn't have the scholarly background, and they started, uh, saying all kinds of things, but they kept getting more and more popular because they're online. Eventually, you started having the Muslim scholars trying to respond, but the Muslim scholar who has very few followers on whatever social media he has, uh, is completely eclipsed by the Muslim, uh, Da Bro who has one, 1.3 million people on his. And so they just couldn't, they couldn't compete. The scholar objects and says, "What you're saying is wrong." And then this person, this Da Bro, and his fans could just completely overwhelm the scholar. And now the scholars are completely helpless because the Da Bros, they got the streets. Well, something similar is happening now with the Orthobos. Lot, again, lots of, uh, Eastern Orthodox leaders are happy that new people are coming into the church, but who's leading these people? And, um, who's more popular? Well, it's the online people. And so as these, uh, as their online orthobros do more and more things to upset and, uh, horrify people, these these guys are are losing their ability to crack down. And so they're in a very awkward situation where short term, yeah, you're going to get more people interested in Eastern Orthodoxy, but long-term, you're creating a generation of people that is actually, uh, going to have more of an impact on the young Orthodox community than you do. And when you start realizing they're pushing these young people in a direction that you don't want them to go, there will be absolutely nothing you can do about it at that point because they'll just say you're jealous of their influence.

>> All right, thank you for that, David. I appreciate that. I just want to let folks, uh, have a heads up. We are now going to go into our last 10-minute intermission, and then, uh, we will be joined by all of the speakers. I'm going to make sure I touch base with everyone. I'm sure everyone is populating the backstage so that we could all be on together. And so, um, now we will, in 10 minutes at 9:10, we will open up the floor to, um, questions. Um, please, um, I'm, if there is any, um, foul language in the questions, I'm just going to skip it. So, if you want your question asked, I mean, you, you, you got to ask nicely, right? So, um, I will try my best to, to go through all of the, the questions that are prefaced with question. So, please, um, um, do that. Of course, uh, not that I care, but if you do do a super chat, um, the color actually helps me distinguish it from, uh, from the other, uh, questions in the chat. Um, but nevertheless, that's we're going to be doing in 10 minutes. So, please stay tuned and, uh, we will be right back. And thank you, David, for your presentation. Um, we'll see you in a few moments. Going to remove you there. If you could just remain backstage. Thank you. All right. And I'm gonna leave.

Though we speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things, things that belong to salvation. For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name, and serving the saints as you still do. And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end. So that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul. A hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself, saying, "Surely I will bless you and multiply you." And thus, Abraham, having patiently waited, obtained the promise. We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul. A hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. For people swear by something greater than themselves, and in all their disputes, it is final for confirmation. So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath. So that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who fled for refuge have strong to hold fast to the hope set before us. We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul. A hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. I have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul. A hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.

We hold a light we cannot hide. In darkest hearts, his word must shine. For how will they believe it if we never speak it? So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. Your word is truth. Your gospel is power. My courage in the darkest hour. You go before me to the lost. The debt you paid at the cross. For I am not ashamed. The righteous shall live by faith. There is a journey that's deep and wide to tell of Christ the crucified. Planting seeds in every heart, trusting God to do his part. How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news. I walk the path through shadows night to lead the blind to see the light. I cannot change a heart of stone. That work belongs to God alone. But I will speak and I will stand until his glory fills the land. There is a joy that's deep and wide to tell of Christ the crucified. Planting seeds in every heart, trusting God to do his part. How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news. When we have reached the golden shore, and time and tears are known no more. What joy to see the faces there, the fruit of God's truth we share. Will enter in through heaven's gates with friends who trusted in His grace.

All right, it is 9:08. I want to give some time to, uh, for folks to get questions in. Um, I have to go through a lot. There's a lot of activity. I've never had this active of a comment section. So, once I see a question, it magically disappears. Uh, look at the Brady Bunch. Look at this. Hey, for all of the ortho, Orthodox people, come on. Seven ecumenical councils, seven speakers. That, that's, come on. You got to give us something for that. Okay. All right. Um, all right. So, remember, if you have a question, please preface your question with question. Okay? I'm going to try my best. I can't go up to the top to search for them. So I'm going to have to go work my way up. There are a couple that pop in automatically. Um, I think super chats go straight to the starred section, but even that is, there's a lot to scroll through. So, um, let's begin, guys. It's 9:09. It's not a big deal if we start one minute early. Um, the first question is a good question. Let me see here. Uh, let's see where was that. Okay, here we go. So, here's a question. Uh, what do you think are the best works to read to form strong, robust arguments against Eastern Orthodoxy? Also, where do you believe it started going wrong for the apostolic churches? And anyone could chime in if they have thoughts on that.

>> Well, I'll share that. Um, uh, Joshua Shupin's book, Disillusioned, is really phenomenal because, um, Joshua really shows the attraction to the church very well and then highlights the, the, the most problematic points and, um, I found very helpful even the sources that he has given to be great sources to look into it further. So, I, I highly recommend that that book.

>> Okay, any other thoughts?

>> Well, that's, uh, far too kind of you to say, uh, pastor. Um, uh, but I, I would definitely recommend reading source material, uh, from formal canonical sources. Not cool priests, not clever theologians. None of that. Actually read the canonical documents. Read their actual hymns. Read the things that are formally approved. Read, read the things that are said in council. Otherwise, people will try to pull wool over your eyes for sure.

>> Yeah, I appreciate you saying that because I know a lot of, I think, Dr. Costa, Anthony, and others, uh, quoted from material. I highly recommend people go back and read the context of that material. So, um, obviously, it's interesting like while you guys specifically, Anthony and and brother, uh, Costa, brother Anthony and brother Costa, sorry about that, um, when you guys were presenting, that you guys are being accused of cherry-picking, but I don't, or quote mining, but I don't know what else one would expect if you're going to use a quote to validate what you're saying. You're not going to read the entire source. The material's there. That's not, you know, quoting something, um, and not offering every aspect of the context, or just enough context that would satisfy every single Eastern Orthodox that's hearing it. That's not quote mining by simply offering the quote. The sources are there, and no one here is discouraging you from reading those, those sources. No one here on on the panel is afraid for people to study church history. I mean, that's just it. That's a common caricature, but, um, it's obviously not, not the case. So, those are my thoughts there. Anyone else on this particular question?

>> Just with respect to that, you know, if, I mean, this is a classic example of not being able to win for losing. If we had not quoted official Orthodox sources, then we would have been accused of making things up and strawmanning them. But if we then quote them, we're going to be accused of taking them out of context. But if we quote them with more context, I mean, how much more? And then what's left for us to say in response to it? Right? If, if I, I quoted from the article of of Schmean, it would have taken me the whole hour to read the whole article. But go and read it, right? You can go read it. It's online. That's where I got it.

>> Yep.

>> So, yeah, go, go, go read the sources. I tried to be as accurate as I could be, and I know that's true of the other guys here as well.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Um, and, and I have no problem being corrected on something. I mean, no one, no one is trying to hide from anything. If, if you feel like you've been misrepresented and it's, you know, something that's clear like, hey, got this part wrong. Make this distinction. I don't think anyone here is going to be like, well, you know, it's like, well, if you're right, you're right. If you're wrong, we're gonna disagree and we're gonna have to agree to disagree depending on the issue. So, any, any other thoughts on this particular question?

>> Um, the second part.

>> Oh, go ahead.

>> I just want to say one thing. Um, it'd be helpful if we all muted if we're not speaking, just so there's no feedback.

>> There we go. That, that's good.

>> Go for it, Joshua. The, uh, the question as to where it, it went wrong in these, uh, quote unquote apostolic churches, at least of of the East. There's a couple places that are very significant, uh, to look at. One was their relatively uncritical absorption of Pseudo-Dionysius in the sixth century. Um, they really believed that he was the first-century Dionysius that Paul converted in Athens. They really, really believed that. So, even though there's zero attestation to any work by him until the sixth century, uh, everybody just kind of in the East, at least in the Greek-speaking East, more or less picked it up within a generation. They all thought that his writing, uh, really was that, and he was very much Neoplatonizing the. There's a recent attempt by, uh, some non-scholars to try to prove that it is the original, uh, Dionysius, but, uh, there's, there's just really no evidence for it. He, he developed his ideas out of a, uh, a famous, one of the last great Neoplatonists, Proclus. And so, um, um, once you start kind of understanding how he's mapping some of this Neoplatonic thought into Christianity, you find that Dionysius has very little to no interest in the atonement, in the, his incarnation, death, uh, resurrection, and resurrection of Christ. Uh, I don't even think it mentions the cross a single time in any of his, in any of his works, certainly not in any depth. Um, but then you see that he's starting to bring in concepts like the, which is kind of like a sort of like mystical Neoplatonic way of understanding ritual and how it relates to the gods. And here he's kind of mapping that into Christianity. Um, you have after Dionysius, you have this kind of mushrooming of excessive, uh, devotion to Mary. You have, uh, an excessive devotion to icons. They start mapping in these older pagan arguments that defended imagery. Now they're starting to use it to defend images of Christ, even though the earlier church never used those arguments and didn't venerate icons. Um, and then you also have their toll house doctrine kind of becoming, uh, more, uh, prevalent at that time. That it's essentially a works-righteousness transformation model, and that you essentially have to become holy enough, uh, through theosis in order to get past the demons. And so that, that would be one key point in history. Another key point in history would be the, uh, Photius the Great Schismatic in the 9th century and his rejection of the Filioque. He set the East at odds internally with their own Church Fathers. Uh, and they've been trying to scramble really ever since to kind of cover over that that gaping wound.

>> Thank you for that.

>> Yeah. Can I just add something? I mean, what what Pastor Joshua said there, it reminds me of the Donation of Constantine. That was another hoax that was propounded that Constantine had deeded Vatican Hill to to the bishop of Rome, and thus the Vatican belonging to the to the to the bishop of Rome. And then you got the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals that even Thomas Aquinas fell for it. He thought they were genuine, and it wasn't until later that these things were coming out that they were actually fraudulent. But our Eastern Orthodox friends, they still continue with this, this, uh, uh, these these false documents as if they're first-century documents. Just look at the, the so-called, uh, St. Luke being the, the first iconographer of the Virgin Mary, that he was the first to draw an icon of the Virgin. That has been refuted even by, uh, Orthodox scholars as well. And so our, our aim is truth. We, we want the truth. We want to be honest students of history and theology and not give ourselves over to apocryphal sources, spurious sources. You know, Pastor Joshua, you're, you're very well aware that they do believe in, in the apocryphal story of the Protoevangelium of James, where Mary, as a child, was given over to the temple, uh, to, to be taken care of. And this is a story that is widely recognized as apocryphal, that, and it made its way into the Quran as well. Um, and so there's all these elements that we find in Eastern Orthodoxy and even in Roman Catholicism that, that just seems to again, uh, show us that they're willing to, they're willing to accept, uh, these very questionable, dubious sources, uh, or, or for example, uh, Joseph, the story of Josephus, uh, being very akin to the story of the Buddha, looked like a reformulated version of the Buddha, and apparently it became a legend, which, uh, our Eastern Orthodox friends continue to venerate these saints. But anyway, I just thought I'd add my two cents piece into that.

>> Yeah, thank you for that. All right, we'll take another question. Um, this is a question here by Justin Foster. Thank you for your question. If Orthodoxy is false, which church should we join? Then tell us please, if it can be found with any believer, then why should I leave Orthodoxy? Now, uh, before anyone answers, I, I'm sure you can recognize there is a presupposition behind this question that assumes the church must be defined in a particular way. And so, again, this is the reason why a lot of us will talk past each other because we're using words, but we're not meaning the same thing by those words. Okay? This person is like, which church should I go to? That visible institution, that visible institution. You see, there is a presupposition, uh, with respect to what the church must be. So I think it's important to identify that when answering questions like this. But does anyone have, uh, any thoughts as to how you would, uh, direct a person with a genuine question like this?

>> I might just start off by saying what Paul said with the Galatians. He said he pronounced an anathema upon those who were preaching this false gospel. So he's not really saying to them, keep on listening to these false teachers. Instead, he's saying, "Who has bewitched you, Galatians?" It's the gospel is such a serious issue. And so, in regards to the last part of that question, why should I leave Orthodoxy? If the gospel message they preach, as we've seen in the talks that we've done today, is a message of faith plus works for justification, that is a gospel that cannot save. And that should be a reason for why someone should want to leave Orthodoxy. But not think that salvation's in a different institution, say, go to Rome or go to somewhere, some somewhere else, but see that salvation is in Christ, trusting in Him, and you are part of the body of Christ. You're part of the church the moment you put your trust in Jesus to save you. And therefore, when you try and find a local body to attend, a local gathering, find one that teaches that gospel message faithfully, that was saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, and a church that doesn't put its own traditions on the same level as sacred scripture.

>> Anyone else want to address that question?

>> Okay. All right. We'll move on to another question here. Well, this is a super chat here. Someone says, like Jesus says, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them. Check your fruits in the comments section, everybody, and judge yourselves if they defile you. I want to ask a question for David because your your topic specifically dealt with like orthobro like tactics. Now, what I find is when you quote scripture and you quote a principle of scripture, okay, instead of an orthobro saying, "Oh, well, here's how I would understand this," or "Here's why I think you're misusing that scripture." They will often accuse you, and we know that there's like a whole vocabulary associated with this whole, this whole movement, right? They'll accuse you of piety signaling just for saying, "Hey, hey, we should be Christian and we should be Christlike when we're interacting." Because you know what Jesus says? Oh, piety signaling. Oh, tone, please. It's a very odd. Have you, have you experienced this that regardless of what you say, you're accused of some kind of like attempt to act more righteous than the other person? Is this a common tactic?

>> Yeah. I, I don't even bother to try and like call them to communicate, uh, better, but I've seen this with like tons of other people, which is why I didn't even bother. So, um, I mentioned this when I was speaking. They'll call you, uh, gay or a lady body part or something like this. If you object, they'll just start mobbing on you with the same sort of thing. Like there's, uh, um, yeah, you go in two directions. Either you're soft and weak and, uh, feminized, and that's why you can't handle talking like real men. Um, or, yeah, you're just kind of, uh, you're pulling, you're pulling the, uh, the behavior card on them, and they're not, they're not having that. But

>> Yeah, so they're kind of, they're kind of stuck with that. But that's, it's kind of like a feature of their community, like you're apparently expected to to communicate like that. How would you suggest someone, because a lot of these interactions, um, I've never met an ortho bro in person, but I, and I don't interact with them online as much because of this, because it's kind of like, uh, regardless of what you say, it's going to be like twisted in a certain way. But people who are interacting with these folks online, what would you suggest to them in terms of practice? Like, um, should people try to engage despite that, or should they just ignore it, or what would you suggest, uh, would be the perhaps kind of the wisest route to that?

>> That's going to depend on the person. If you if you think, oh, um, you know, I'm trying to get a point across to this person, he's going to be using all sorts of, you know, uh, silly, low-level manipulation tactics where, um, I'll do lots of name-calling until you, uh, submit to me or stop, stop objecting to me or something like that. If, uh, you know, if, if you're fine with that and you still want to try and get, try and get the point across, you might want to go that route. Uh, if you don't, if you just don't, I, I do there, you know, I have a limited amount of time in my life and I have, you know, I can communicate with anyone right now. I do not want to communicate with this guy. I just say it to him. I just say, okay. Um, I'm not interested in communicating like this. And, uh, if you ever change, let me know and I'd be happy to continue the conversation.

>> Yeah. Because what I, and maybe someone else could chime in too. Um, if, based on your experience, when we point out this kind of behavior, what, what an odd thing that I see is that you're accused of thinking they're just big meanies. Like, oh, no, like, oh, you're, you're so afraid because we're, we're so mean and blah. For me, as I'm a teacher, so I teach middle school students. Uh, it, for me, it's not an issue of like, you're being mean. Like that's not the, like I don't have a softy kind of, uh, personality like, oh my goodness, here are my feelings. For me, it just hurts communication. Like, like, if I want to have a conversation with someone for the purpose of someone else to learn, name-calling and these tactics just don't cater to that. Um, are there any thoughts on that?

>> Oh, yeah. I have, I have one more, one more kind of thought based on what on what you were just saying because, uh, I'm considered a jerk because, you know, I point out, you know, I'm considered mean towards, uh, mean towards, uh, like Muhammad and so on. So I'm considered mean. Um, so I don't have, I really don't have a problem with, uh, people being, uh, where I have a problem is when it's used as a manipulation tactic. Like it's, you, like lots of people just don't want to have abuse and insults showered on them. The Ortha bros know that it's become part of their, it's become a feature of their community because some person comes along and says, "Hey, I'd like to object to this doctrine." And the person gets just showered with insults and abuse and

>> And lots of people, oh, I, I don't want to be part of that. Well, there goes the objection. There goes the person who had the objection. So that's, that's when I don't like it when it's, uh, you can't, you can't really engage or defend the point and so you substitute with with that sort of thing. That's, that's where I, that's where I'm not interested in.

>> Okay. Any last thoughts?

>> Yep.

>> I think it's not just that it interrupts communication. That's a good point. But it's so opposite to what Christ would want for us, right? He says, "Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks." And continually throughout the letters, it says, like, show perfect courtesy towards all people. Of Titus 3:2. And the grace of God trains us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions. Yet so often when you call out those in the rows with their bad behavior, bad language, they justify saying, "It's okay. It's okay. Stop whining," they might say. And it's that we want to take the commands of God seriously, right? We, we are the people who don't think that our works play any part in saving us in, like, getting us to heaven. And yet, it's interesting. We actually care about the commands of God more, interestingly enough, than those who think that their obedience plays a part in making them right before God. I just thought that's quite ironic.

>> That's a good point. Um, even, even by saying that, before we get to this next question, even, even while saying that, you'll be accused of piety signaling just for, just, someone was insulting the music in between. And I'm thinking to myself, hmm, it's actually quoting scripture. Like, it's like, like what? Like it doesn't matter what you say to a lot of these people. Not all of them, but to a lot of these people, it doesn't matter what you say. Um, even for what I'm saying now, I'm sure if there's someone live streaming this somewhere else and responding to it, I'll be accused right now of whining just by talking about it. So, we lose no matter what.

>> Get some chance, man. Get some chance next time.

>> Oh, yeah. My bad. My bad. Okay. So, here's, here's the next question. In your quote of St. Irenaeus, and this is for for Tony Costa, it appears he supported Sola Scriptura, but in Against Heresies, Book 3, Chapters 2-3, he teaches apostolic succession and tradition. What is your response to that?

>> Yes. Uh, so he, he definitely does believe the scriptures alone. He, he does believe that unlike Peter and Paul, he is not an apostle. He cannot give divine commands. But at the same time, yes, he did teach that the apostles had ordained, um, elders to carry on the message, and he does appeal to tradition. But if you remember in my, in my statement, I quoted the fact that the same Irenaeus that said that he depended on apostolic tradition is the same man who said that Jesus was 50 years old when he died. And he claims that he got that from the apostles going back to John through Polycarp, for example. So he said John, the Apostle John taught Polycarp, and and Polycarp taught it to Ignatius that Jesus Christ was 50 years old. This is one of the first times in the, in the Patristic writings where they make an appeal to apostolic, uh, tradition. So here's my question. Do you know any Orthodox priest, archbishop, theologian, or any Roman Catholic? You can ask Pope Pope, uh, uh, Leo the 14th, uh, if he believes Jesus was 50 years old. I don't know any, or Eastern Orthodox scholar, priest, bishop, any Roman Catholic scholar, any Protestant scholar that would say that Jesus Christ was 50 years of age. So my whole point is this. If Irenaeus can get this wrong already in the middle of the second century, how can we trust anything they say comes from the apostles? Because I don't know anyone seriously in the Orthodox camp who believes Jesus was 50. And I understand that Irenaeus was using this idea of the, the, the Greek concept of the life stages and how 50 is considered to be this mature manhood, but he claims he got that from the apostles, and that is that is blatantly false. And so, do I, do I denounce Irenaeus? No. He was a human being. He was fallible. He was not an inspired writer. And therefore, I'm able to look at this and say, "Okay, I get it. Um, he really believed that the apostles did this and taught this." But when we go to scripture and look at what the gospel tells us about the life of Jesus, it doesn't square up. And so what this does, in fact, is it actually, I think, proves our point that scripture alone is is self, uh, uh, authenticating, and that scripture is the speech of God, and that scripture corrects everything else, including the fathers. And so we don't claim the fathers to be infallible. We don't claim the fathers to be on the same level with scripture. They never made that claim. And so I think we need to look at this objectively and understand that yes, Irenaeus made claims to apostolic, um, uh, succession through the elders of the church. But at the same time, he also claimed that this apostolic tradition proves that Jesus was 50 years old. And that's simply not the case. And so I think we just need to look at this and realize that was wrong. We can also, uh, note that when Irenaeus does appeal to traditions, they're public. And he even says and specifies that that these traditions, uh, that the apostles gave are identical to what's given in their, in the New Testament, in their letters, and in the writings of the evangelists. So he's never appealing to a secret oral tradition where there's these, this like secret deposit of of oral beliefs, you know, about this or that that are just kind of like going on, uh, uh, parallel to to to the New Testament, uh, documents that can't be found in the New Testament documents. It's all publicly recorded, uh, teaching. So there, we couldn't set the tradition against the New Testament. It's, it's the same content. Um, and when he and when he refers to, uh, uh, leadership in the church, he's, he's again just talking about the public succession of ordained teachers, ordained elders. Uh, again, he doesn't have like a superstitious concept of of, uh, of a succession of bishops. It's just, or, or elders, or presbyters, or, or episcopacy, whatever it is. He doesn't have a mystical kind of, uh, magical concept of that. He's just talking about how these men do not ordain themselves, and we can follow this public train, uh, this public chain of of teachers all the way back as a matter of public record. First, in principle, it's a, it's a public thing. So again, even, uh, though he appeals to apostolic succession and tradition, uh, none of those would then become of equal weight to scripture because again, as Tony well pointed out, scripture is God's speech, and Irenaeus is very clear that scripture is his primary presupposition, uh, for all things, for for all knowledge.

>> Yeah, those are great points too. And also Dr. Costa, not to speak for you, but you're not trying to use Irenaeus to show that he was a reformed Baptist. It's okay for you to demonstrate that, um, on the one hand, Irenaeus is teaching something correct, and on the other hand, hey, he was, he's teaching this other thing, and I think that that's not warranted in scripture. So, it's not a, like a, you know, unless he agrees with everything you do as a reformed Baptist that Irenaeus is this terrible person, right? I, I like what Dr. White, um, um, often says, you need to let the church fathers be the church fathers. Um, and I think that's a very, very helpful, uh, thing to to keep in mind. All right, here's, are there any other thoughts there?

>> Throw something in here real quick. Uh, so John Bear, who is an Orthodox priest and scholar, somebody that I actually think has a lot of good and valuable insights on various issues. I've read a good number of his books, listened to his lectures. He actually wrote a book on Irenaeus as well as many other works. But here's, here's something that John Bearer said with respect to the idea of apostolic succession, and I think it ties in nicely with what, uh, has already been pointed out. Bearer says, "The Gnostics also claimed direct links with the apostles." And Bearer, an Orthodox priest, goes on to say, "Moreover, apostolic episcopal succession does not really prove anything. It is possible to have apostolic succession but lack apostolic faith." So he goes on to say a number of other things, but there, there's no necessary conflict between Irenaeus affirming Sola Scriptura or various things essential to Sola Scriptura and also believing that there was a succession of leaders in the church.

>> Good. Thank you. And thanks for the question. Um, any other thoughts before I move on to the next one?

>> Oh, by the way, I think you, yeah, I think you switched mics.

>> Oh, do I sound different here? Let me see.

>> It's picking up like through your computer now, not through your microphone.

>> Oh, interesting. Let's see.

>> Think we can hear the kids in the background?

>> Oh. Oh. Oh, boy.

>> How about now?

>> Oh, good. Sounds better. Okay. Noise cancelling.

>> All right. There you go. Praise God for technology. All right. So,

>> I would just add one, one little thing there that the idea of Sola Scriptura becomes the foundation and the, it's what makes possible tradition because it can be corrected and established, uh, on the basis of scripture. So, it's, it's God's word that establishes the, the apostolic succession of teachers, and it's God's word that establishes, uh, in any rightfully practiced traditions. So, Sola Scriptura isn't, uh, uh, canceling out these sorts of things, but it becomes the necessary presupposition for all, uh, proper ordination and, uh, tradition in the church.

>> Well, what if they say, okay, uh, you know, the word of God does all the things, but it's our church that gave you the word of God. That's a common, uh, comeback there. How would you guys interact with that?

>> Well, I, I addressed that at length in my presentation. Number one, if they mean they gave us the canon, well, that's certainly false. I quoted a litany of Orthodox theologians and others to the contrary of that, that they do not, in fact, have an agreed-upon canon. There's simply nothing that will support that. And in fact, I quoted, uh, an EOS source saying that different Orthodox bodies, different jurisdictions have their own canons, as, uh, autophilus churches, they establish their own canon. So, if we want to say they have a canon, yeah, they have many, and, you know, but, but that's not actually very encouraging, is it? To say we need to get it from you. But then besides that, the testimony of scripture itself is that scripture is from God. Scripture, Jesus said to Satan when Satan tried to get him to swerve from his course, he said, "Turn these stones to bread." And Jesus says, "Man does not live by bread alone, but by every

word that proceeds out of the mouth of God." And notice in the very course of giving this reply, he's quoting scripture. And he quotes scripture moreover throughout in in rebuffing Satan and having the victory over Satan during that time of temptation in in the desert. Moreover, Paul says that scripture is God breathed, which means that God is the origin and source of scripture. And also, we're told that it is scripture itself that brings people to faith. The the church is made up of people who believe. And according to Paul in Romans 10, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ. And this is why I said in my talk that the word of God creates and norms the church. We are not Christians apart from the word of God. There is there is no Christian apart from that word that generates faith. So and you might think of it as analogous to God creating the world. God spoke and the world came into being. Imagine the the the foolishness of saying of of the creation turning around and saying, I don't know, to some other creature. You wouldn't have the word of God by which you exist or or something like this apart from us. It doesn't even make sense to on the one hand say it's the word of God and say we're responsible for it in this kind of sense. The only sense that's relevant to claiming you now have to also come to us to get the infallible interpretation of it.

>> Okay. Thank you for that. All right. Next question is, can anyone name a single source in the first 10,000 years that held that the church does not consist in a single visible institution?

>> So, so first of all, I mean, I would go back even further to the prophet Elijah, and this is where the reformers went. Elijah after his bout with Ahab and his wife Jezebel. That wicked woman by the way who hated Elijah because he was an iconoclast. She was an icon. We've also seen this in later church history of women being behind this sort of practice and its introduction into the worship of God's people. Uh Elijah was

>> quit attacking women, man. You're sounding like a poor.

>> No, it it's simply anybody here that's familiar with the history would would uh mention the significant role that certain women played in the whole iconic class controversy. Wicked queens. I mean, I'm not saying all queens have been wicked, but Jezebel certainly. So, she hated Elijah. Elijah squared off with the Baal worshippers on uh the mountain and uh once he bested them and they were executed in agreement with the law of Moses, he then fled. He knew that he was in trouble and uh then he goes and has a bit of a pity party on Mount Si and the Lord appears to him and Elijah says, "Lord, I alone am left. I'm the only one." Right? There's there's no visible church. I don't see anyone I don't see anyone professing this same faith. They've all gone the way of Baal. They've all followed Jezebel and so forth. And here's what the Lord says. The Lord said, I have reserved for myself 7,000 who have not yet bowed the knee to Baal. And the whole point is that God is saying, I know my own. There are those that where are they? Don't Where are their names? Where do they meet?

>> Well, God knows. And that's the point. Like when you go to the New Testament, that's the whole point. At one point Paul says uh you know that our you know the blessedness is ours is that we know God and then he says rather that we are known by God. That is our chief glory that God knows us even if the world doesn't recognize us. And besides that, there have been plenty of period or times in other uh periods of church history, and I could mention others in in the Old Testament and so forth, but even in church history where everybody has to agree that to all appearances, the visible institution was in shambles. You have holdouts in great periods of history that look just like what happened during the time of Elijah. The Orthodox Church would point to somebody like Mark of Ephesus, right? What are they going to say about that? Where was the visible church then? Right. Uh so there is plenty of precedent and most importantly there's biblical precedent for this distinction.

>> Yeah. Could I just add something as well? So I agree exactly with Anthony, but we look at King Josiah. Something very similar happens in the days of King Josiah where Israel is in complete apostasy. All the majority of the kings of Judah and Israel, they knew not the Lord. They did what was evil in the sight of the Lord over and over and over. He had only very few faithful kings like Hezekiah and Josiah. And if you remember in the story, we're told there that they were renovating the the temple. And Josiah was only an 8-year-old child on the throne, a very very young king. And um they discovered the book of the law. And when they brought it uh to him and he read it, he wept and he realized how far Israel had fallen from the Lord. And if you remember what happened was when the word of God was brought to Josiah and it was read before him and he read it. Um what happened was if I can quote the the the the reformed um Latin phrase post tenibbrris looks after darkness light the light of God shone through his word. And what did that bring about? It brought about a reformation. Josiah brought about a reformation where he got rid of the high places got rid of all the pagan priests and so forth. And then he celebrated a Passover so great that there was no Passover like it since the day of the judges. And it's about looking about 300 years plus. And but within that whole time period had God abandoned the remnant among his people. No, he had not. So God knows his people. He has a remnant. And when we look at Christian history, look at Athanasius. He was up against an emperor who went Aryan. The whole church. Jerome said it was if the next day the whole world went Aryan. um the the Byzantine um empire would be led at first by Constantine and then his successors who would push for Aryanism and where was the church during that time? Well, Athanasius was really virtually alone with a very few fighting against these heretics and also I think there's a bit of equivocation in the question. They're talking about this church and they're looking at the church as a visible building with mortar and brick when we all know that the church the eklesia are the assembly. It's a word that means assembly doesn't mean a building. It's not an edifice. It is a living organism made up of the people of God from every nation, every tongue, every kindred who have been baptized by the Holy Spirit into the one body. We've all been spirit baptized into the one body. And so the issue here is they're looking for this visible building with with with steeples and so forth. That is not the church. That is not the church. The church is and has always been the people of God. God has been with his people uh through thick and thin and they're always the minority. They're always the faithful remnant. So we don't believe that we are restoring the gospel. We're not Mormons. We're not Jehovah's Witnesses. We're not a cult. We are organically connected to the church, the historic church, but we have been uh we are connected with her through her dark epochs, her her um states of apostasy. God has always had a witness in the world. He's never left the world without a witness unto himself. And so again, the church is the people of God. It is the temple of the Lord that he is building up, a spiritual temple and not some building that that mimics the Old Testament temple with a holy of holies and a bar that the the people cannot pass through except the priests. That is not New Testament, New Covenant ideology or theology here. That is squarely Old Testament uh uh ceremonies, the incense, everything about it uh is all Old Testament. And so they're going back into the shadows. Back into the shadows that Christ has set aside and and he has built up his covenant community, the new covenant people of God, the spiritual temple to the Lord, living stones. Um so that's why I think this question, it's a loaded question, but I think it's filled with a lot of equivocation at the same time.

Now, uh, before Joshua, before you you chime in, I just have a quick, uh, clarification because I know a lot of people, um, will be familiar with the visible and invisible church distinction. Um, is this something that Eastern Orthodoxy rejects? What is the basis for that rejection? When, when, when, when, when, when, when, when, when, when, when, when I hear people make that distinction, you know, a nice Orthodox person be like, "No, no, no. This is the proper way to understand it." The Orthobro will roll their eyes as though this was the dumbest thing you've ever said in the entire world. Invisible, visible church, that's dumb. you know, how can we um explain to an Eastern Orthodox our understanding of the church and perhaps kind of the historical precedent and biblical foundation for understanding the church in that particular way? Um that can be for Dr. Costa, that can be for Joshua, can be for anyone who wants to to chime in and then and then we'll uh we'll move on to another question. um they they they typically won't accept that that distinction between visible and and invisible except for the church that's in heaven. uh trying to find the little section in uh Dissytheus where where they talk about uh uh the church on earth and and this uh this distinction in in Dytheus in Jerusalem 1672 they they do address this question. um but I' I'd like to kind of turn the question around a little bit. Where in the first 500 years of the church do we see the church fathers defining the church as a single visible institution? What is meant by institution here? Uh I think that's kind of a key question. But but actually to give a quite literal uh answer to it a single source how about two? um well one it's one it's by origin who wrote the fil uh who who wrote an argument against Kelsus in the 200s but this particular argument was picked up by Basil the great and Gregory the theologian in the 4th century and republished and it's in chapter 16 of the original filia which is instead of being spelled with a K it's spelled with a C but it's chapter 16 con concerning those who slander Christianity on account of the heresies in the church book three and then he says then as if he would like to blame the word for the evils of heresy associated with Christianity he reproaches us saying having grown in numbers and being widely dispersed they are further split and divided everybody wants to have his own party and then he goes on amazingly in the next couple paragraphs to justify that yes there are multiple sex sects in the church and he doesn't say that they're all false. He in fact says that just as in in medicine there are different schools of thought because these are very important questions uh you're going to uh that that people are wrestling with as they interpret try to wrestle with scripture uh that these pe these different doctors or these are going to create different schools of medicine. He says there's different schools of philosophy uh uh because they're wrestling with the profound questions about the the meaning and nature and purpose of life uh and human action and our relationship with with the ultimate nature of things. And then he goes on to say that that's the exact analogy in the church is that there are multiple uh uh different uh competing uh ideas and schools of thought in the church and that but that doesn't mean that they are uh um not that there that that this idea of one institution is is a ne in other words he's saying that the idea that the church must be a single visible institution is false and that's that's quoted by the two of the great capidosian fathers in the 4th century. So that's a pretty it's a pretty good source for that.

>> Okay. All right. Thank you for that. Any more thoughts on that before we move on to the next one?

>> Just quickly just going to mention we get the visible verse invisible church distinction from the Bible itself in the sense that the Bible uses the word church like in Ephesians 5:25 to say that Christ gave himself up for the church in the singular and that's referring to all believers those who have their faith in Christ. But then you'll see like in Galatians at the beginning of Galatians it says to the churches of Galatia. And so there it's talking about the different assemblies gathering together. And in the visible assemblies you can have the true among the false there. You have the wheat among the tears. You have the parable of the nets which gathers all kinds of people and that's sorted out in the end. And so I think we get the distinction right from the Bible itself. M but that only works if you have the authority to interpret the Bible, Ryan. Okay, I'm just kidding. Uh all right. Okay, so here's our next question here. Do you think the Ortho Bros are actually saved believers in Jesus Christ or are they false brethren? Now, this is a big question that's come up especially with respect to some of the discussions that Gavin Ortland has been having actually kind of defining the gospel and these sorts of things. Now, now for me, um I take uh the the doctrine of justification by faith alone to be central to the gospel. This has been a very really challenging I mean I'm open to correction in terms of like how people define the boundaries and like maybe I'm under but I don't understand how someone can explicitly reject justification by faith alone and still be embracing the the gospel. It seems so so central to me. So obviously we can make the caveat and I'm sure um if I don't say it now someone will make the caveat. Well, I don't know the state of someone's heart and all these sorts of things and I understand that it's true. I mean someone could be in their heart of hearts trusting in Christ and Christ alone and we can't really judge that in a sense. But in terms of justification by faith alone because for me when someone asked me this question that my mind goes straight to justification by faith alone as being central to the gospel. Um, how would some of you guys answer that question? Would it be similar in line with with me? I think a denial of justification by faith alone is a denial of a central gospel foundation or is there um, you know, some nuance that we need to be considering? And granted, even if you disagree with the strong line that perhaps I take, I wouldn't count that as counting you outside the camp of Christ. So, so even disagreements over this answer doesn't prove what I know is being anticipated by by others. Well, look, they're all divided. You see, within Protestantism, there's a realm of of of of there's categories in which we can disagree over important issues, but we're still agreeing on essential features. So, the areas that we disagree over, we might disagree over are vitally important, but there is a realm of allowability in terms of what we can disagree. So, so what are your takes on on that? Anyone could chime in. Uh, feel free um to share your thoughts there. I I'd say quickly that solid is a line in the sand. I don't know how anything could be more clear than what Paul says in Galatians. In fact, to to be quite frank, the error of the Judaizers seems like child's play to me compared to the sorts of things I see in Eastern Orthodoxy. I'm not saying that the Judaizers after saying you must be circumcised wouldn't have said all sorts of other things have to be done too. The old saying goes once an elephant gets its nose in the door it's not content until it comes all the way in. And once they get you buying into the idea that you have to be circumcised to be justified, well get ready for the the rest that's coming down the pike. But in orthodoxy my lens uh I was going to quote some of the canon laws uh of the Eastern Orthodox Church and to say that it's Judaizing is just you know it's it's pretty obvious but I want to say before letting somebody else jump in on this somebody said in the chat that this is a innovation of the reformation and I just want to quickly respond to that the the idea that solid is an innovation of the reformers. First, it's in the Bible and that's what is most important. But it's just false to to say that this can't be found in the fathers. One of my favorite quotes is from Theodoret of Cyrus who said, this is a short pathy and pungent statement. He said, "I own myself wretched, a thrice wretched. I am guilty of many errors. Through faith alone, I look for finding mercy in the day of the Lord's appearing." And the reason that statement from the is so significant to me is because he's not only saying that it's through faith alone, but notice that he's talking about the day of judgment. Often what gets thrown into these discussions is okay maybe at the inception of salvation, faith is alone, but then after that you need to merit and all the rest in order to finally secure your place in heaven. And and this of course is not a denial that we do good works and this is a necessary and natural outflow of faith and so forth. But it it is to deny that it is initially by faith and then subsequently by merit. But but notice he's talking about being justified through faith and this being his only hope on the final day. So he's he's trusting that it is through faith alone from first to last from now to eternity till he stands before the judgment seat of Christ. And and this sort of thing these these sorts of quotes are a dime a dozen in the fathers. I I think what can be challenging for people too is when you draw that line in the sand, we think to like people we respect in history. It's like, well, this person didn't hold to it. Surely this per and we tend to kind of allow our experience and our like people that we respect for good reason to a certain extent and that will cloud that clear dividing line that I think scripture lays. So, like, well, if I hold to this, then that means I have to think this other person over here, who I highly respect disagrees with it, that they're that they're lost. And I think that can be challenging for people, at least existentially. Although I don't I don't think biblically it's it's difficult in terms of seeing justification by faith alone as kind of a a central um feature. And there are people who disagree uh even within kind of the Protestant broad protestant perspective as to what is the uh who are the proper objects of evangelism. For me, I see Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox as objects of evangelism. Not objects of ridicule, not objects of like hatred or anything like that. And and I'm not offended when an Eastern Orthodox looks at me and says, "I don't believe you're saved." That doesn't offend me. I'm happy that someone can be clear and say, "Hey, this is where I stand. This is where you're stand where you stand." And if we both claim to honor the Christ of scripture, then we could engage in that interaction in a Christlike way and by God's grace make headway. It's not pointless because you have two people who disagree. It's pointless that we have these conversations. I think we need to be more open about our positions. And of course, there's differences within there that as well. Uh and not be so um you know, easily insulted when someone says, "Well, I don't think you're a Christian either." Okay. Well, where do we go from there? that's where that's why we need to have these sorts of conversations. Um, so that those are my thoughts there. I don't know if anyone has any uh thoughts uh to add on to and maybe we'll take one more question and then we'll wrap things up because I think the next one will probably take a few more minutes. Any other thoughts there?

>> Maybe I'll just mention we we care about Orthodox people. We want to make that clear. We have no hatred for them. We want them to be saved. And I think one of the worst things we could do, almost showing hatred towards them, is to say, "We think you're already good. We already think you're right with God, even though you hold to a gospel of faith plus works for justification." That's not loving them. That's actually in a way hating them, wishing them well as they head off to hell. You see, Paul didn't do that. He the firmest words he said were against the people adding work to salvation. The only council that happened in the Bible was one that dealt with this issue, adding any acts of obedience on as a requirement to be made right before God. And it was already settled. It was settled in that very first council. But it's interesting the Eastern Orthodox Church want to ignore the first council. They focus on the other the councils that came after the Bible, but they miss the conclusions that Peter and James, the other apostles, came to at that council. And so what faith alone really means is trusting in what Christ has done alone to save as opposed to thinking what he did is insufficient. I need to add something that I do cooperate well enough. And that gives you reason for boasting as I talked about in my in my talk. And so that's why my encouragement just for Eastern Orthodox people is would you want to know right now that if you died you're going to heaven? Isn't that what you most desperately want to know? That you have peace with God and going to heaven. And hopefully that is what they want. Well, you can have that right now if you just trust in Christ alone to save you that he's paid the price and there's no condemnation then and God will keep you all the way to the end.

>> All right. Thank you for that. We'll do one more question. We got two more minutes left. Um uh are there EO dilemmas like the Islamic dilemma that priests cannot separate church's position from orthobros? I don't know if I understand the question. Church views on non-EOC Christians as unsaved and those who knowingly reject Eastern Orthodox as worse. Is there an Eastern Orthodox dilemma? It's kind of a convoluted question. I I mean that respectfully. It's hard to kind of parse out what they're asking, but anyone kind of is able. The scripture is prospicuous. This question is not. So there you go.

>> It seems to me it might be pointing out like does does can you can we find Eastern Orthodoxy or representatives of Eastern Orthodoxy speaking out of both sides of their mouth where you go to this priest and you get one answer. You go to this priest, you get another answer. or you go to this, you know, internet YouTuber giving another answer and then somebody else giving another answer. This one going to this father. This one looking at I mean I've had people, you know, come up and tell me, you know, oh even though you argue against the Eastern or I I've had like traditionalist Eastern Orthodox people come up and say, "Even though you're arguing against my position, you're representing it fairly." You know, like we do anathematize all these people. We do teach toll houses. And then I have people who are supposedly Eastern Orthodox scholars say, "Oh, we don't have to believe that these councils or those councils and and then they play the private judgment card that they can kind of pick and choose and they say, "Oh, well, really the cannons are only for the monks." And and and you'll find like all of these. So is if that's what's being referred to as an Islam as a Islamic dilemma as an Eastern Orthodox dilemma it it it certainly is because you can have David Bentley Hart preaching and teaching in his books universalism. You can have people publishing Sergius Bulgakov and Sophiology which is you know just like wild Gnosticism. You can have people teaching toll houses rejecting toll houses. You have people saying oh we don't really mean Mary saves. Other people saying well of course Mary saves. um you can have it all. So it seem if that's what it's referring to, there's definitely those kinds of dilemmas, but they don't necessarily frame it or understand themselves in terms of dilemma. So they because they want to say, "Oh, no, everything's equal and good and we all we're all orthodox here. We're all happy. Nothing to see here."

>> But but but at the same time too, and Anthony, you can I'm just going to make a a side comment. There is nuance to the Eastern Orthodox position. So we do want to be careful as to within their own system what they allow in terms of freedom in one area and uniformity in another area. So this is why it's important to ask questions. You want to let them speak for themselves. Also look at their sources and things like that. So um we want to keep that in mind. Go ahead Anthony. So I would point people back to my talk and I'm I'm assuming other things were said too along these lines but being familiar with what I said the one of the things that I was doing in in the talk on solos scriptora was showing the internal contradiction within orthodoxy where it on the one hand claims to have produced the scriptures and I I gave quotes for that So, the people that want to say, "I'm misrepresenting things." If that's not the claim, well, then okay, then we've got our Bible back, right? We didn't get it from you. You didn't produce it. Okay? So, you you're stuck with that, right? But I gave quotes for this. They claim to have produced the Bible and claimed to have authorized the Bible and even to give the Bible its authority. Again, all these things I provided quotes for Kalisto, Florovski, you name it. Well, the problem becomes then that the Bible they supposedly gave us and authorized and gave it authority and so forth turns around and says it's the word of God that is self-authenticating and by virtue of coming from God is inherently authoritative doesn't derive his authority from anywhere. That's a whopper of a contradiction and looks every bit like the Islamic dilemma. The Islamic dilemma for those who don't know is the fact that the Quran says the Bible's the word of God. But the Bible contradicts the Quran. And so the the dilemma is if the Bible is what the Quran says it is, then the Quran is false because the Bible contradicts the Quran. And if the Bible's not what the Quran says it is, the word of God, then the Quran is false because the Quran, you know, says it's the word of God and it isn't. So I think this is every bit like an Islamic dilemma. the church gave you the Bible, gave it authority, it's subject to the church. Then you go to the Bible and it doesn't seem to be subject to the church at all. In fact, it seems, you know, that every epistle begins to the church, not from the church. It's being written by Christ's delegated spokesman. It's not from the church, it's to it, and it's to submit to it.

>> Yeah. I was uh I was thinking along the lines that Anthony was uh was thinking on. um not not in terms of like the the orthobros or disagreements within the Eastern Orthodox Church, but uh if you wanted a parallel to the Islamic dilemma, Anthony already pointed out, it's basically the the Quran, contrary to what your average Muslim believes, the Quran affirms the inspiration and the preservation and the continuing authority of the Torah and the Gospel. And yet, it contradicts the Torah and the Gospel on basic doctrines like Jesus being the son of God. It says it says the opposite of what the Bible says. And so two possibilities either either the gospel either the gospel that we have is the inspired preserved authoritative word of God in which case Islam is false. Or if the Bible isn't if the gospel isn't the inspired author uh inspired preserved authoritative word of God then Islam is still false because it affirms the inspiration preservation and authority of the gospel. So either way Islam has to turn out to be false. So you could kind of pick any issue where the Eastern Orthodox Church or one of its infallible um councils is saying something that is the opposite of what the New Testament says and you you'd say you'd run the argument. You'd say this church affirms this text which says the opposite of what that church says. So if the text is correct then the church is wrong. But if the church is right, then the church is still wrong because it's affirming texts that contradict the church. So either way, either way, they'd have to they'd have to be wrong. So that would all just depend on whether you can show that the church teaches something that's uh the opposite of what scripture says. But we've heard we've heard plenty of ideas about things that might be today.

>> Yeah, if I can just add something. I think that here's the irony.

>> Just just to interrupt real quick. I miscalculated. We we're going to 1010. So, we actually have five minutes left. So, don't

>> Okay, I'll leave the five minutes. Okay. So, no, I'm just kidding. So, so the the point here that I wanted to make is the irony here is that David was talking about the Islamic dilemma and the questions related to that. The Quran shows more respect for the Bible and its authority and its binding on the conscience of the Jews and the Christians than the orth than the Eastern Orthodox Church does. It's incredible. The Quran says the Torah is from Allah. It's from God. It was given to the Jews. It is a criterion. It's a fulcan. And the gospel was given and the the zabur, the psalms were given to David. And Christians should judge by what Allah has revealed in the gospel. And it's just ironic, isn't it, that a false religion like Islam that denies the deity of Christ, the triune God of scripture, denies the death and resurrection of Christ, has more respect and has more admiration for the scriptures than the Eastern Orthodox Church has. And that that to me is just mind-blowing.

>> Yeah. Uh Tony, I I've noticed uh something similar. Um, and keep in mind I'm I'm mainly going from the Orthobros here, not from uh Eastern Orthodox priests or something like that. But um uh the actual position of the of the Quran, again, contrary to what Muslims believe is uh because when when you bring up the Islamic dilemma, they'll go to all these passages in the Quran about Jews and Christians distorting the scripture. When you actually look at what those passages are talking about, it's that we're we're misinterpreting our scriptures and we're relying on what we've been taught about our scriptures and not relying on the scriptures themselves. And so the Quran, now keep in mind, the Quran's completely incoherent on this because the author of the Quran doesn't know what's in our text and it confuses all kinds of other things with what with what is actually in our Bible. But what it's actually saying is you Jews and you Christians, you you have all these all these beliefs and doctrines and so on that go against Islam because you've been led astray by people who taught you wrong and you need to go back in your scriptures and get those things right and just go with your scriptures. And so the Quran is actually promoting uh is is is promoting like solos script Torah for for Jews and Christians.

>> Okay. two ready-made examples would for the just you know someone had doesn't isn't going and listening to all of the the fine lectures that were given today. One would be that the apostles taught icon veneration. Uh the seventh ecumenical council states in according to them infallibly that the that the apostles taught and practiced icon veneration um that Luke was the painter of the first icon. Another one is that in their hymns uh they sing that Mary lived inside the holy of holies in the centermost portion of the of the temple in the holy of holies from the time she was three years old. um and that's another one of their formal uh hymns that they sing.

>> Interesting. All right. Well, we have uh two minutes left. I don't know how much more we can get into without going over our time. Do you guys want to try to get one in or do you want to close it out? No. Okay. All right. Uh I think we'll close it out here because it's it's one one minute left. Gentlemen, I would like to personally thank you for agreeing to participate in this. Um this is a lot of fun. My my legs are numb. I you guys have been dipping out. You got doing your own things. I've been here since the beginning with some minor. I need to I now need a wheelchair to I'm gonna look like Professor Xavier from Professor X from X-Men to wheel myself out of my room. But um it has been a true blessing. I I got to listen to all of the speakers and it's just an honor to participate uh with with each of you guys especially taking out of your um your already busy schedule. Some of you guys doing debates already embroiled in all sorts of things going on on the internet. Uh so I really do appreciate you guys taking the time to prepare and to be able to share. And you know what I really appreciate and I'll kind of close with this. I don't want to go much longer, but I love how many of you will go from teaching and in in em inbedded within your teaching is a heart for preaching as well. Um, and I think a lot of people will will take those things apart. They're not mutually exclusive. You guys are giving scripture, but you're also making arguments within that. Just because you say it passionately doesn't mean you're no longer arguing. You're just quote unquote preaching. So I do appreciate really the heart of of the gospel and just your desire to uh to share the truth. So thank you gentlemen he ate that.

>> I do appreciate Oh we can't end with a dad with a dad joke. Well actually tomorrow's father's day so appropriate time to have dad jokes.

>> Eli Eli on behalf of everyone if I can speak on behalf of everyone. Thank you so much for organizing this. Thank you for just giving up your whole Saturday. you know, you're you're a dad, you're a husband, and and so just thank you so much because you really you really worked very hard to put this together. And so, thank you again. May the Lord richly bless you.

>> Well, I thank you very much for that. Is my pleasure. And and for everyone in the comments and watching, thank you so much for taking the time to watch. Whether you agree or disagree, you are welcome. Um I, as I always encourage, try to interact with respect in a way that honors Christ. And of course, not everyone's going to do that. It is what it is. But I encourage folks to show the light of Christ in everything that they do. That's it for this live stream, guys. I'm going to close it out. And uh until next time, take care and God bless. Bye-bye.