WEBVTT 1 00:00:06.000 --> 00:02:51.000 What did the pope just say? And if I bring my microphone back in, is it heresy? Um, okay, let me start with a few things I want to say on the beginning here. Uh, I'm not a Catholic, and I'm not trying to, like someone who smells blood in the water, jump on Catholics, you know, in a petty way. That is not what I'm trying to do here. Um, but the things that the pope says, that Pope Francis says are certainly of great importance, especially to Catholics. But they also are relevant to Protestants, too, because this person, at least by the world, is being seen by, you know, to many as a vicar of Christ. And that is relevant. But the things that he just said are, um, very disturbing. So that's the first question for today's ten questions. I'll take the other nine from the live chat. You guys can put your questions in now. We'll gather them. I will share with you, to the best of my ability, my limited ability, a biblical answer to help you think biblically about everything. What we want to think biblically about right now is a clip I'm going to show you from Pope Francis. Now, what I've done is I've taken this clip and I've cut out most of his comments that are, that are not in English. Okay. And I've just given you the english translation. Um, but I'm going to share with you this in detail. This happened just recently in Singapore at a youth event. Okay. This, the, the setting is a bunch of people, Muslims, some, yet Catholics, some, uh, Sikhs, Hindus, other different religions gathered together. And the pope has an opportunity to speak to them with an inter religious dialogue. What he says is genuinely disturbing and not just to me. I've never seen so many Catholics upset with Pope Francis, although it has happened. He's had a lot of controversy in his time. Let's try to handle this reasonably carefully. Not, uh, overreact, but not under react as well as many are prone to do. Here are the comments. Think about them for yourself and then I'll share with you how the Vatican changed what he said and then changed back. It's kind of weird what's going on, but there are a number of things that the pope has said that have been, I would say, use the word disturbing over his time. We're going to share several of them, not just this one. Here we go. Getting started, right? As soon as I find the Sp. Here we go. So the guy to his right is the guy who's going to be the interpreter. You're going to hear from him. I just share with you. So, you know, he's actually speaking there. He's talking, but, you know, his italian language is not known to most of us, certainly people watching my channel for the most part. So here's the interpreter, and there's a debate over what he said and how it should be interpreted. We'll get into that. 2 00:02:51.000 --> 00:03:01.000 One of the things that struck me about all of you here is your ability to engage in inter religious dialogue, and this is very important. 3 00:03:01.000 --> 00:03:15.000 Okay. Initially speaking about inter religious dialogue, which I also think is important, and we can all get behind, so far, there's nothing to complain about. We want to have discussions without violence between different religions, all on the same page there. But then he goes into some other stuff. 4 00:03:15.000 --> 00:03:27.000 Because if we start to fight amongst ourselves and saying, my religion is more important than yours, my religion is true, yours is not, where will that lead us? 5 00:03:27.000 --> 00:04:25.000 The implication of this statement by any normal person is, don't tell people your religion's true and theirs is wrong. Just talk about how they're different, but don't assert one is more correct, one is better than the other. Um, that, of course, is not a catholic idea, not on any understanding of historic Catholicism, and it's certainly not a biblical idea. There's definitely Jesus who's the way, the truth, and the life. When he dialogues with the woman at the well, she's like, should we worship on this mountain or that mountain? And Jesus doesn't even give any ground to her. And the Samaritans and where they've chosen to worship, he's not like, ah, they're just different ways. He says, like, yeah, you guys don't even know what you're worshiping. The salvations of the Jews. And Jesus says this to a woman who is having an interreligious dialogue. He's asserting the truthfulness of one over the other. Let's, uh, listen on, though. It gets worse. 6 00:04:25.000 --> 00:04:28.000 Yes, it's okay to discuss and to. 7 00:04:28.000 --> 00:04:36.000 So just, you know, there. He asked them to respond, and they said destruction. And he affirmed. Yes. Saying one religion is more true than the other leads to destruction. 8 00:04:36.000 --> 00:04:44.000 Because every religion is a way to arrive at God. Sort of a comparison. An example would be there's sort of like, different languages in order to arrive. 9 00:04:44.000 --> 00:06:07.000 At God, every religion, and please notice the phrase, because this becomes controversial in a second. Every religion is a different path, a different way, like a different language we speak in order to arrive at God. The arrival point is God. That, uh, by any normal interpretation, would just be heresy. Would just be an actual heresy. Now, uh, there. There are those who might be watching thinking, whoa, that's so nice, though. It's very nice. Mike, you're just being rude and mean. And I'm just saying, well, you're being very shallow in your thinking if you say this because you have not considered the implications. Now, imagine a doctor who comes into your room and you've been diagnosed with some deathly disease. And the doctor says, you know, you may hear from some people that you just have to eat a lot of carrots. You may hear from some people you just need sunlight or a vacation, and your disease will go away. Others will say, you need the surgery or maybe this chemotherapy. I want you to know these are all valid paths to arrive at a cure. That doctor would be very friendly and also very harmful to people. He'd be horribly misleading people. This is. This is the thing. The stakes are very high when it comes to the nature of God. Sin, how we deal with that, eternal life, judgment, um. Um, those things. The stakes are very high here. We. We don't have the Disney mentality of being able to say, everyone can just have their beliefs affirmed. As if that even makes sense. Um, so let's listen on. 10 00:06:07.000 --> 00:06:14.000 But God is God for all, and if God is God for all, then we're all sons and daughters of God. 11 00:06:14.000 --> 00:07:30.000 Um, we're all sons and daughters of God. This is directly against scripture, which says that we're children of wrath, Ephesians two, three, we're children of wrath. That's what we're children of. But we become adopted, and we become children of God through Christ, given the Holy Spirit. When I put faith in Jesus, he is the seal of God, by which, according to Romans eight, I call out Abba, Father. So that based on scripture, based on Christianity, true Christianity. And Catholics would agree with this, largely. They'll assign it to baptism, the moment of baptism. And I'll say, oh, it could happen at that time, but, uh, ultimately, it's just the moment of when you get saved. Um, but that there is this adoption that must happen. So to stand in a group of youth where you've got a muslim here, and you're telling them you're a child of God and your religion is like a different language, but we're saying the same thing, and you're arriving at God. To most people, this seemed okay, like total heresy. Uh, now it's not. He's not teaching from the chair of Peter. He's in a chair, but he's not from the chair. He's not declaring it as a matter of faith. And morals, that's binding upon all christians. It's not necessarily what would be considered by a Catholic an infallible statement of the pope. But no statement of the pope in a setting like this is unimportant. Put it that way. Let's, uh, let's listen on my God. 12 00:07:30.000 --> 00:07:35.000 Is more important than your God. Is that true? There's only. 13 00:07:35.000 --> 00:07:44.000 Yes, it's true, but the implied answer is no, it's not true. There's no God. That's more important. Now, I was going to say there's only one God and listen to what follows. 14 00:07:44.000 --> 00:07:56.000 One God in each of us is a language, so to speak, in order to, uh, arrive at Goddesse. There are different paths. 15 00:07:56.000 --> 01:30:00.000 Understood. Understood. Muslim is a different path to arrive at the same God. Hinduism, different path to arrive at the same God. Um, biblically speaking, Hinduism is not a path to God. It is a path away from God. Now, you might think I'm being rude or mean to say this. Uh, these are just facts of reality. Like, it's not something I'm being mean about or rude about. If you stand there saying you're the successor of Peter, saying that you represent Christianity, that you are the head, the visible head, remember, Jesus is the head of the head of the church, but you're the visible head. So you're like the Jesus stand in for the christian world. That's the claim of the papacy. And then you say that, look at romans 121, though it says about Hinduism. Although they knew goddess, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him. But they became futile in their thinking. Their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Idolatry. Hinduism is an idolatrous, polytheistic religion. You know, multi armed, multi breasted deities and things like this. That is considered a judgment from God, not a pathway to God. It is literally a path away from God. That's the nature of idolatrous religions, is they are a path away from God, not a path to God. That's why when Paul in Athens, he goes to an idolatrous group of people and he's very amicable, he's very much trying to build a bridge with them, which many would think the pope is trying to build a bridge here, but he doesn't do it the way the pope does. He sees. Look, I see you have an altar to an unknown God. You can read about this in the book of acts. I think it's acts 19. Um, he goes, I see you have an altar to the unknown God. Let me tell you about this God who you worship without knowing. Now, if you stopped there, you'd think he's saying it's a path to God, that this altars, those who are worshiping this altar, will arrive at God. That's not really what Paul's saying, because he goes on to explain to them that God is. And, uh, he attacks their idols. He goes, God is not like any of these idols. All of your representations of God are silly, and you should turn from them and repent of God has overlooked your ignorance. Imagine him saying this, the pope saying this to this crowd of, like, Hindus and Muslims and stuff. Imagine God has overlooked your ignorance of his truth. But now he commands you to repent and trust in Jesus. That's what Paul does. He starts with a bridge, but then he bridges them to the exclusivity and truth of this God, of the Bible and of Jesus Christ. That is not what the pope did. Now, there was then controversy about that, obviously, a lot of controversy from within Catholicism. I've never seen so many Catholics. I watch many hours of this footage, so many Catholics coming against the pope. Um, and even the. There are now, because Pope Francis. Some of you guys don't know this. Pope Francis has been so controversial for his entire pontificate that, um, there have been more and more people, uh, you know, having problems with him. Uh, his actions have inadvertently led to the rise of the sed of acanthus movement. I say rise. It's already existed, but it's risen in prominence and in popularity of more and more people saying, not only is this pope wrong, he's not even a real pope. In fact, everything went wrong in Vatican II, the last ecumenical council. That's where everything went off rails. And, um, we need to get back to basically reject that council and say the church has been, um, subverted by liberals and stuff like that. This movement's growing because of his controversies, but I've never even seen his defenders because, okay, the controversies have led, in roman catholic social media circles to what's called a pope's planer. I know that sounds like a weird word. I'll tell you what it means. A pope's blainer is. It's an insult term, okay? It's not meant to be a compliment. It's meant to be those who continually, uh, over and over again throughout the past ten plus years, they will take a quote from Pope Francis, something that seems clearly problematic, and then they will explain how it somehow kung fu it somehow works with catholic theology. And because this has gone on for so long, and this is not the first, 2nd or 12th thing that Pope Francis has said that's been concerning to people, they've gotten a reputation for themselves as pope's blainers. So some of these guys even are saying, hey, um, you know, Trent Horn, Michael Lofton, if you guys are familiar with these guys, they're even saying like this, uh, is on the surface this is not acceptable. And he has to come out and basically say, I didn't mean what it looks like. I meant like he has to say that. That's the nicest thing I've heard any Catholics say about this. Which by the way, props to you guys for that. Okay, that's not my criticism of you. Props to you for saying that. For saying this is unacceptable. Um, and maybe we have slightly different reasons for thinking it's unacceptable because you look at, um, this whole body of what you consider to be sacred tradition. Um, and I will go right to the scriptures. But we do agree that this is unacceptable. But I do think the pope meant this. Now, the Vatican tried to spin it. I'm going to put a chart on your screen here. This chart is going to be about how the Vatican attempted to spin, um, this. And let me just put it up here. Okay. The original translation of what Pope Francis said. If you look at the video, you listen to the translator, and this was confirmed by other translators who watched the same video who speak the original language. And they said, this is exactly what he said. Uh, the pope says because every religion is a way to arrive at God. Notice the word arrive at God. The Vatican released their own translation shortly after this event took place on their website. I will provide a link to it below. And it said, religions are seen as paths trying to reach God. And you can feel that they're attempting to like, kind of bring it down to decrease the importance of it, to decrease how, basically, this seems like insane. I'm going to get myself on screen here, so at least it's a little bit more interesting to watch. We'll see if I can do this. Well, um, that's what they did to tone it down. But that is, that was not an accurate translation, as it turns out. In fact, the Vatican then like a week later, changed and made a new edition where they simply said, all religions are paths to God. So you have three versions. Pope's original thing. Everyone seems to say it was translated, right. Every religion is a way to, quote, arrive as in your destination. You actually get there. It successfully brings you to God. And then religions then tone it down. They're seen meaning it's a perception and could be wrong as paths trying to reach God, meaning they may not succeed. Okay, that was. That was somebody in the Vatican going, let's make this more orthodox. Um, and then pushback came, and they changed it back to all religions are paths to God, but they got rid of the word arrive at God so that, again, people can try to massage it more. There's another statement in there that was changed by the Vatican. The original translation said, there's only one God, and each of us is a language, uh, so to speak, in order to arrive at God. We're a language to arrive at God. When you use the analogy of languages, this is really, really shocking to people because you're like, wait, if I say something in Spanish and then I say the same thing in English, there's fundamentally no difference. If. If Islam is just a language that arrives at God, as I in Christianity, I'm, um, a language that arrives at God, then there's fundamentally no difference. That's what this analogy relies on. So they massaged it. This, the Vatican edition, the first one said, there's only one God. And religions are like languages that try to express ways to approach God, meaning this is what they're attempting to do, not what they're successful at. Then after pushback, somebody went in there and tweaked it some. Some, you know, m mysterious Vatican person. Um, and they changed the translation to there's only one God. And religions are, like languages, paths to reach God, still softer than the original, but not, um, not acceptable by any christian definition. This is not new, okay? This is not new. This is not just a weird, fluke controversy. This is actually Pope Francis has been sort of seemingly talking, uh, talking two different languages, you might say, in his pontificate. And there's times where he affirms Jesus is the only way, and there's times where he says other things that utterly contradict that, at least on the face, face value. Hence the pope's blainers kind of massaging these things and trying to understand them. And maybe they're right in some cases, and maybe they're wrong. We shouldn't be so, um, blindly obedient that we just pretend everything's okay that he says, nor should we be so anti pope that we immediately assume the worst of everything he says. We want truth, and truth requires integrity and the way we handle stuff. But he does say that we're children. We're all children of God. We all arrive at God, we're different languages and we shouldn't say, effectively shouldn't say one religion is more true than another. Okay? All of that stuff amounts to ultimately heresy. Then what just happened? I mean, just happened, um, three days ago. So this is all new. Three days ago, the pope says to an inter religious group, another young group of people who are of different faiths or different religions gathered together. I will read to you the quote. He says the following. I invite you to learn together, to discern the signs of the times. Contemplate the difference of your traditions, like a richness, a richness God wants to be. That is, the different religions that we see are something God wants. He wants religions to be existent and different. That's a radical statement. Okay, that's like that. It's. It sounds like it's God's nothing. God will allow it his permissive will. But here it's saying God wants it. It's a richness, it's a positive thing. Let me read on. I read the quote on, it says, unity is not uniformity. And I'm quoting here, the diversity of your cultural and religious identities is a gift of God. So Hinduism, worshipping multi armed false gods that Roman says is God's judgment on people because they chose to reject God, so he gave them over to this. That is a blessing, a gift from God, and it's willed by God, and it's a richness. This is the pope, he's just doubled down on this stuff. Islam, which part of the core of Islam is rejecting that God has a son? That. So Jesus is not God's son. Jesus did not die on the cross and rise again. That's a core belief in Islam is rejecting christian doctrine. This is a gift from God, a richness that God blesses you with. It's a gift from him. He wants you to have it. Um, I'll put a link below in the description for the Vatican translation of this, as well as the video, which you get. You'll get, it's not in English, but I'll put the video there as well. So all this will go in the description after the stream. You can see these things on it, you can verify. This is nothing new. Okay. The pope has said many disturbing things over the years. Let me give you other examples. When asked about homosexuals being priests, he said, and this was super famous, he just started his pontificate. The previous pope had said, hey, if you're gay, if this is, then you shouldn't be a priest. That's what he'd said. And then Pope Francis asked about this topic. He says, who am I to judge this? Of course, this is why they call him the people's pope. The. The world. The. The woke direction of the world. Okay? If you're offended by me saying the word woke, you're probably kind of woke, but the woke direction of the world, at least trying to understand where I'm coming from and don't just get mad at me. Um, they loved this, okay? This was something they very much loved. But believers who were serious and even serious Catholics, okay, even serious Catholics who would agree with me so much on this stuff. We agree on so many things. Catholics and me, okay. They would all go, that was. That was weird. Who am I to judge? Like, this is a great opportunity for you to talk about turning from these things to God. How Romans also says that this is a judgment from God. He gives us up to the undead, to the lust of our hearts, to impurity, to the dishonoring of our bodies, and that, um, he could have taken that opportunity. Now, people try to explain this. He's just talking about, if you have tendencies, you're tempted with homosexuality. There's no judgment against you. It's whether you engage in it or not. So you see how his comments are often worked on later by others, but he isn't always. Usually doesn't say anything about it later. So then I think this leads to. And here's my thought on the strategy of Pope Francis could be wrong. My total opinion here, this is less certain than other things I'm about to share with you. Uh, that Pope Francis is seeking to cast a giant umbrella for the church. He just wants Catholicism as big and wide as possible, and I think he sees diversity within Catholicism as a good thing. I think he believes in honoring the traditions he's been raised with, so he'll give lip service to them. But he wants to somehow maintain, not reject, maintain all of the catholic tradition he's received while saying contradictory things that will extend that umbrella into other people so that there's more lgbt type inclusion, there's more, um, acceptance of Islam and Hinduism and interreligious stuff where we're just affirming to the world. It looks like you're just saying, everybody goes to heaven, you're fine. I think he's trying to respect the traditions and do that. Now you're going to say, Mike, that's not possible. There's logical contradictions there. Yes, there are. I didn't say he's being logical, I think. But I think that's what he's trying to do. From my perspective, I just take him to mean everything he says. When he says Jesus is the only way, I think he means that. Then he says Islam leads to God. I think he means that, too. How could he mean both of those at the same time? I've read enough liberal theologians to know that they can have all kinds of weird beliefs behind the things they say. For instance, theoretically, the pope could think Jesus is the only way. That is my christian tradition. That is a belief that will truly lead you to God. That Jesus is the only way. Absolutely. And Islam will also lead you to God with the things that they're. It's like a different language saying some of the same kind of things. Yes, it's contradictory, but it would make sense of everything he says. He's a pluralist. Um, let me give other examples. So he asked about hell. The pope says, this is my belief I'm not putting on everybody else. So it's not a teaching he asked anyone to accept that's important. But he says he likes to think. These are his words. Likes to think of hell as being empty. Okay. That's not a true catholic position. No, serious. And when I say serious, catholic, really, what I mean is, no Catholic who's trying to be consistent in their own views of church history and councils and papal proclamations and the history of the church. None of them can say they think. They like to think of hell as empty without being in la la land. Um, but he says this because, again, I think he sort of has bubbles. Catholicism wouldn't teach that, but I like to think of it as being empty. So I'm going to recognize this and also say something contradictory to it. Uh, one of his major, major controversial things is to say that he, um, wants to have the church. In fact, this is written out. This is like an order going out to all the priests to say that they can bless same sex couples. They can now bless same sex couples. Now, that's never happened before. The idea of blessing same sex couples is very controversial. He didn't say you could bless people with same sex attraction. That would be. That would be uncontroversial. Okay, I'll bless people with same sex attraction. There's, um, plenty of christians with same sex attraction blessing a same sex couple inherently. To the world. To. And I say the world. I mean, to people in general, to the populace will carry the meaning when they stand before a priest as a couple of. And they're in the name of them being. And he blesses them. This will have an. It'll have an affirming consequence in the lives of the individuals, that which would be ungodly. Right. When we shouldn't be affirming sin, we should be calling them into the light and the life that God's called them to live, not in rebellion to him. Uh, some say, well, this is no different. The pope spleners, perhaps you might say, this is nothing. We bless everyone. Everyone should be blessed. We bless everyone. But they ignore the context of blessing a couple versus blessing a person. One Catholic, uh, guy, James Martin, who is well known because he's about as. He's kind of. He's kind of affirming, can I put it that way? Very controversial, uh, this guy. Lots of lore on him that I don't have time to get into. Um, but he's met with the pope many times and did anyway, lots of controversy there. You could look into James Martin, pope controversy, and you'll see a whole bunch of stuff at. Anyway, he says the Vatican declaration on same sex blessings, be wary of. Nothing has changed. Response to today's news. It's a significant change. In short, yesterday as a priest, I was forbidden to bless same sex couples at all. Today, with some limitations, I can. James is the, um, guy who's seeking liberal progress in the church the way that the. And when I say liberal progress, I'm talking about theological liberalism, okay? That's not the same as political liberalism. They overlap, but they're not the same thing. They have different agendas. Theological liberalism usually draws, um, a pathway to their agenda. First, just loosen the grip that the local Christians have on whatever theological principle. Just loosen the grip. That's our success. Loosen the grip and then start supplanting the grip with, like, individuals, congregations, events, um, and statements that will actually be. They'll be contrary to it, but because we previously loosened it, we're going to get there. And eventually you get into, like, the United Methodist Church or something. Um, that's where James Martin, I think that's his trajectory. I think he's looking at just charting a slow path, uh, towards evolutionary change, towards, like, religious liberalism. And he's not the only guy. And Catholicism has been dealing with this for a long time now, um, in different ways. And so have Protestants. Okay? That's not new. So have Protestants. Right? There's plenty, um, who reject real protestant principles of sola scriptura and really holding fast to the word of God, like the United Methodist Church or many of the mainline protestant denominations, which I'm not part of, um, and would not be for the most part because most of the mainline ones are. You're just wrong about. About some major important issues. At any rate, here we go with, um, this idea of blessing same sex couples. This brought hundreds of Catholics to push back and write and petition and make a huge, huge stink about it, rightly so, about this being a problem. And there's more, though. Here's another controversy. I won't even get into all that stuff. Here's another one. Um, the pope had this event, and I'll put a link to a video of it. Um, I think it's the video that I've got the link for. I hope this is the video. You know, I'll put a link to it down below. But there was, ah, a kid who came to the pope during this event. It was publicized, it was televised. I think it was 2018 when it happened. And this child comes to the pope and says, you know, pope, I want to ask a question to you now. There's cameras everywhere. You got to figure they knew what he was going to ask. I assume as much. The pope, the kid asks, my dad's an atheist, but he had me baptized in the catholic church. I want to know, where is he now? He died. And this, I would never publicize a kid like this. I wouldn't draw that attention to the kid. I think it's inappropriate. Um, it's also too challenging to handle what should be a private counseling moment in front of such a giant audience. It's disjointed, and it creates a situation where you want to minister to somebody slowly and carefully, but you have to affirm certain theological things, or else you will mislead and harm others, large groups of people, and it creates conflict, difficulty. At any rate, I get how hard this was, but they did this to themselves. They put this kid up there. The pope told the kid, what about his atheist dad? Now, what does Catholicism say? What is. What does the Bible say, for that matter? The guy's an atheist. He has no faith. He cannot have grace. He knowingly rejects the existence of God. That's all I need to know now. It's bad news. It's terrible news. I definitely don't want to talk to this kid about it. I would avoid the conversation when he's crying in front of me. He's like eight years old or something. Like, um, this is. His brain isn't even ready for this. Um, but I can't change reality. Like, you know, when his dad died, it's not like, you know, the guy who told us told the kid, your father died, they didn't want to tell him this, and it was horrible news, but it's. But it's not like they could just make up whatever they want. Your dad's fine. You'll see. He'll be home waiting for you when you get home. That would have been very nice and friendly. Everybody would. Oh, the kid would have been happy. But you would have lied to him because you were intimidated by the emotional constraints of the moment or something. He tells this kid, the pope. What does he tell this kid? He says, your father is in heaven. You can pray to your father. He is with God now. And why? Because he's a good person. Because he had you baptized. That is not catholic theology. That is certainly not biblical Christianity. Here, me and the mean Catholics, we agree this is not true. Let's look at his reasoning for a second. Hey, kid. Your dad got you baptized. He was obviously a good father. He got you baptized. You know why? He probably. Let's be realistic. You guys know any catholic families? The guy got his kid baptized because his mom was going to freak out forever if he didn't. He's like, look, you're an atheist. You don't even believe this stuff. We're getting our son baptized. Mom is the reason why this kid got baptized, not daddy. Let's be real. That's what probably happened in this family. Mom is the catholic, dad's the atheist. Dad's like, fine, whatever. Just. If you just leave me alone, I'll let him get baptized. That's probably what happened. And the pope's like, he's got a ticket to heaven. Cause he got you baptized. Even though he rejects why. Cause he is, quote, a good person. He's good. He tells him, you can pray to him. Now, this is weird. Cause this almost touches on major catholic theology or kind of touches it. In catholic theology, you typically expect to go to purgatory when you die, not heaven. When you pray to saints, the reason they can receive your prayers is because they're in heaven, not, uh, purgatory. So according to Catholicism, a saint is like the special category of Christian who has made it to heaven. We know for sure they're in heaven. Maybe other people are. We don't know it. These are the ones we know are in heaven. They can hear your prayers, which is not something you should be doing. But, you know, supposedly you can do that. To say that this kid, his dad, is with God and he can pray to. Not for his dad. To his dad sounds very much like an affirmation that this dad is a saint. I have not heard a Catholic respond to this. I'm curious if they would. Um. But that's what it's. That's implied. Now, when the pope makes saints, that is an ex cathedra statement. It always is. To my understanding, an ex cathedral statement. For those who don't know, that's when the pope is speaking, and he's like, I. With the power of whatever, you know, our doctrines and theology and Catholicism. I say this infallibly. This is something that binds on every christian in the world. It's absolutely true. It's as true as everything in the Bible. That's what happens when they say someone's a saint. He says, pray to your dad. That requires him being a saint. I'm not saying it became an ex cathedral statement, but it definitely is adjacent, put it that way. And it's disturbing. Not a biblical thing. You could see why the world likes this pope, right? But a lot of those serious minded Catholics are like, oh, gosh, what is going on? There's other things that wouldn't be relevant to us as Protestants or those who are not Catholics. For instance, the pope has said, uh, he's come hard against the latin mass, which is doing the mass, the Sunday morning ritual in Latin. He's come very hard against that. That's something that goes back 50 years, maybe longer. They've been doing this for a long time, but the last couple popes were. Were actually more supportive of it. And then he's come hard against, like, hard against it, and even seemingly, uh, what I've heard reports. I haven't done all my research on this particular issue, but heard reports of, uh, them disciplining priests who do the last. The mass in Latin. And this is like a big point of. Of contention. Wouldn't matter that much to a Protestant, but it's actually a very big deal to Catholics. But I'll move. I'll move forward. What's the next thing? Everyone's a child of God. This is something that he has said many times. He said it in the recent statement. I played the clip for you. He's also said it in, uh, 2014. He said Muslims were children of God. Even Vatican II, the most liberal Catholics, uh, council that there has ever been, did not do that, didn't say they're children of God. It was controversial when Vatican II, this ecumenical catholic council, the most recent one, it was controversial when Vatican II affirmed that Protestants were separated brethren. That was hugely controversial. I was like, first time a dogmatic statement came out, to my knowledge, that said something like that, whereas previous dogmatic statements seem to imply you're all going to hell pretty clearly, if you ask me. Look at the council of Trent. Um, the Vatican II stuff. Didn't even say that. But he says it in 2014, muslims are children of God. Um, even earlier in 2013, he said it, that atheists can be redeemed. The. Now, you could massage that one. I'll put a link down below afterwards to the atheist can be redeemed 2013 quote. Maybe he was only saying an atheist can turn from their sin and trust in Christ and be redeemed. That wouldn't be controversial at all. Or maybe he was saying atheists can be saved. The fact that he tells a kid later that his atheist dad is in heaven, that seems to imply something pretty negative about it. So this is, um, what I would call liberal creep. I realize how that sounds. The slow creep of liberalism. You have unorthodox statements mixed in with orthodox affirmations. The unorthodox ones tend to go out to large populist crowds. The orthodox ones tend to be in the. In the quiet conclaves of the faithful, where only the more serious Catholics will even be aware of those. So that you're sort of creating this umbrella that's large. I want to keep those real conservative Catholics. I want to embrace the non conservative, even non Catholics, and just kind of be everybody's papa, is the idea. So what are my takeaways with all this. These disturbing things the pope says? That is not all of them, by the way. I just don't want to spend all day on it. We've already, uh, talked way too much on this. I gotta go to your guys questions. But my takeaways are this, um. It's often claimed by Roman catholic apologists, I see it all the time, all the time, constantly, that Protestantism is this horribly divided. There's 60 trillion denominations, 70 quadrillion tuple denominations out there, and they're. They all disagree on every single thing out there, and they're completely in conflict. And yet Catholicism stands as a pillar of perfect unity and truth. That is honestly how it's presented most of the time. Neither of those things are true. Protestantism is not as divided as all that. There's. Sure, there's division, right? But Protestantism doesn't claim to be the kind of thing the Catholic Church claims. So we do not respond to a claim of division the same way that they have to, because their claim is about their organization and ours is not. At any rate, um, the Catholic Church is not as unified as Protestants generally, here and new protestant converts will have this rose colored version of the Catholic Church when they convert to Catholicism. They think it's so unified and it's so uniform, and we just have this super consistency, such a safe haven for doctrinal truth and stability. And I think that this helps show that that claim should be at least altered. Like, it's not quite accurate, it's not quite true. The selling the salesman, you know, doesn't match the thing that you get that shows up at your door once you actually order the product. Now, plenty of Catholics, the serious Catholics, as I say, they will say, mike, we're not surprised by this. We know there's been controversy throughout Catholicism forever. We've had terrible popes. We've had crazy stuff. We've had popes that dug up and put the body of a former pope on the. On, uh, trial. You know, we've had popes where they went to a council that was ecumenical. And then we later declared that council didn't even count. That was a fake pope who's an anti pope. We've had. We know about all these controversies, but. But my point is, just then, don't give a salesman version to Protestants. As if. As if these things are not true. I think that's misleading, um, because that's not how you present it to us. It's not. The next thing I'd say take away is, um, the pope is seen as a infallible interpreter. And the clarity. So the unity of the catholic Church is not necessarily what you think it is. Okay? Billion protestant dominations and one amazingly unified catholic church. This is not reality at all. The next thing would be, um, the clarity that you get in the Catholic Church, you have total clarity. Because the idea is that this bible we've got, there's a new bible I recently got. Uh. Um. It's just not clear enough. And so what you need is an interpreter who will make it clear. And so the catholic church becomes your interpreter. The pope, that is the head and the chief interpreter, he's going to present to us clarity so that we can all have doctrinal unity, so we can ask our hard questions and get clear answers. And this is simply not true. Um, I know that, um, the bishop, uh, Robert Barron. I'm pretty sure Robert Barron is a name. Robert. I think it's Robert. Anyway, um, in a video, he's like a very public kind of celebrity catholic bishop. And he's been on, like, Ben Shapiro show, and he gave like, a weird version of the gospel there that doesn't comport with Catholicism either kind of like, he's kind of a little bit like the pope, maybe, um, maybe not as extreme, but a little bit. At any rate, he says, you know, the beautiful thing about having the pope is that when we have these struggles about doctrine, what should we believe? We ask the pope and he makes it clear to us, and this is not how it really works out in real life. As you see, the pope says things, and then there's all these debates, inter catholic debates. What did it even mean? The Catholic Church prints at one version, prints another version, changes it again. We don't know what the pope is saying. He usually won't interpret scripture. Almost never. There's very few official interpretations of scripture in Catholicism. And what you have is a series of documents that people debate on. What does Vatican II even mean when it says, I'm a separated brethren? What does that mean? Am I saved? Am I not? Well, what did trent mean when it said, the thing is, you've got the Bible, and then you have the supposed clarity of catholic tradition, which is this large, ever expanding volume of words, and then you have the theologians debating over what that tradition even means. The clarity is not as clear. There's places where it's clear, but it's not as clear as you might think. For instance, the death penalty. Catholicism teaches, right, the death penalty didn't, don't they? Isn't that like a thing? The Bible teaches it for sure. I have a video on the death penalty. You could look it up. I defend that the death penalty, properly done, is a very biblical thing, and we should do it. We should have it in our, in our societies for right reasons and right ways. But actually, the pope has come out hard against the death penalty, part of his sort of liberal views. And now the catechism of the church is like, hey, it's not really permitted anymore. This is a doctrinal change where if you could go back in time, you'd have Catholics arguing with Catholics about the death penalty and its appropriateness. Now you could say, well, it's just development over time. Okay, fine, it's development over time. The Catholic Church has developed a lot over time. That's kind of the problem that Protestants have with it. One of the, one of the issues, okay, that being said, I don't want to overreact, but, um, um, by his words, the pope doesn't seem Catholic to me. And you could just say, well, that's fine, he's an anti pope. We don't respect him. Um, but let's not pretend that this doesn't along with every other controversy of the pope you've had over the years, it doesn't put a chink in the armor of the perfection of Roman Catholicism, because it really does. All right, let's go to question number two. And this one. We've got all ten questions for today. By the way, this one comes in from Dan L. Who says, does sinning cause physical illness? Does, uh, refraining from sinning stop physical illness? John nine three and John 514 seem to say both are true. Is this contradictory? Um, thanks for your ministry. Okay, let's go to those passages. The first one is John 514. Put on your screen. Afterward, Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, see, you are well. Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you. So here's a guy who. Jesus heals him, and then he's like, hey, don't sin, because something even worse is gonna. There's probably a particular sin. I think this is implied. A particular sin the guy was doing, and it could get worse. Maybe he had an STD and that had led to his issues, and now he's healed, and he's like, don't go back to that stuff. Could have been something else. Maybe he was dying of alcoholism. Could be something else. So in this case, his sin caused physical ailments. Um, the other one is, uh, John nine three, where it says, jesus answered, it was not. Oh, yeah, let me back up. You'll need some context. As, uh, he passed by Jesus, he saw a man blind from birth, and his disciples asked him, rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? This is a rabbinical debate. Like, hey, we think all affliction comes back to specific individuals sins, not sin and the fall in general. But there's, like, a specific person who did something and caused that, almost a karmic view of things. Jesus answered, it was not that this man sinned or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. So his parents didn't do a particular sin that resulted in their kid being born blind, and the kid did not do a particular sin in the womb or something that resulted in him being born blind. It was that he was born blind simply as. As far as God was concerned, so that he might heal him later and show his amazing glory. So how do I reconcile the supposed contradiction? I think I affirm it's both are true. Some sin leads to physical illness. Right. Some physical ailments are not related to sin, or at least particular sins. Yeah, they're related to the fall. So you could trace it back and say, uh, you know, this snowball effect of sin led to this particular ailment. I would not have these ailments. I'd be in perfect health. But you don't have a blanket answer. It's particular to scenarios. So an example of someone who sleeps around and gets an STD, that's a sin related illness. Let's say someone is born with a genetic condition. Not know, not, as far as we can tell, traced to some particular action of humans that brought on this issue. Then we say, well, that's. That's just, you know, the fault. Yeah, it has. It's related in a generic sense, but not in a specific sense. You're not like, this is your fault that you're experiencing this. So, um, does sin cause physical nuance? Yes and no. It just depends. Some sin does, some sin doesn't. There's plenty of us that have sinned. You know, you stole something and you got no physical illness as a result. There's others who you did something wrong and boom, something happened consequence wise right in your face. All right, let's go to question three. Teenage gringo. As a question, um, I'll just remind you guys, uh, my goal here is to help you learn to think biblically about everything, to process all the struggles and issues and questions of life to the best I can through the lens of scripture. What does the Bible say about it? And as we focus on a common text, we should come up with good and right and consistent answers. That is my view as a Protestant, as a. As a Christian who believes in the Bible, is that God gave us this, that we might be thoroughly equipped for every good work as. As it tells us all scriptures, God breathed. And it is given what? That we can be thoroughly equipped for every good work. All right, teenage gringo, you got a question? Hi, Mike. In what ways or in what situations might Matthew seven six be applicable today? Alright, uh, let's look at Matthew seven six. Try that one more time. Jesus says, do not give dogs what is holy and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you. So this is, um, metaphorical. Jesus is not talking about physically literal dogs or pigs. He's not talking about, um, pearls. Literal pearls. But you could see the analogy for those who aren't familiar with the verse. You know, when you give what's holy to dogs, it's like taking, let's say you have the Passover meal, you're a jew, you have a passover meal, you're preparing it, and you're like, this is our holy, special meal. Even as a Christian, if you, um, partake of the symbols of Passover, the blood in the bread, the blood in the body, uh, the cup and the bread, these symbols represent Christ. They're incredibly valuable. It is a holy thing. If I take that and I toss it to a dog, this bread, and I throw it, the dog's going to eat it up with no awareness of what it is. And there's a sense in which this animal is going to, like, it's insulting the way that they treat what is holy here. Um, if I take pearls, precious pearls, valuable pearls, I could give to my wife, and she might go, wow, those are beautiful. Thank you, honey. And I toss them to a pig, the pig will not even notice them. It will just trample them underground. And you know what? A pig might think that I was being mean because the pig saw me throw something at it and didn't see it as this valuable, precious gift. It saw it as an attack. So it turns and attacks me back. That's the analogy given. So what is the holy thing or the pearls? It's when I do. When I bring good truths to other people's lives, and they respond by either ignoring it, like the dog not even knowing what it is, or like the pig actually getting mad, because they view me sharing the gospel as if I have. As if I have attacked them personally. Um. Um, the context of this is interesting. Um, so he says. He's talking here about helping your brother. Um, well, I'll just read the first five verses. So it's Matthew seven, one, judge not that you be not judged. Most people, they like this first part. Um, and then they get rid of all the rest. They always quote Matthew seven wrong. So judge not that you be not judged. Jesus is not opposed to all judgment. There's a particular kind of judgment he's getting against here. For, uh, with the judgment you pronounce, you will be judged. I just offer judgment on the pope's words. I will be judged the same way, and I'm totally comfortable with that. My words will be measured against the word of God, and if they are found wanting, I'll be called out. And that's appropriate and proper. Okay. But judging harshly would be twisting the pope's words to go against him, and then I'll have that done to me kind of thing. Um, for with the judgment you pronounce, you will be judged. And with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye. How can you say to your brother, let me take the speck out of your eye when there's a log in your own eye? Okay? So, hey, you can't help other people unless you deal with your own issue. 1st. 1st, discern yourself, your issues, then come forward. You know, as a protestant, uh, before I talked about the pope, I was like, okay, don't. Don't do this as a polemicist. Do this as someone who's helping people. Think biblically. Don't have a log in your eye where you're doing what you see. Catholic apologists often do, where they're just everything to a hammer. Everything's a nail. Everything is an attack on protestantism. Everything's an attack on it. I don't even. I can't for a second yield ground that. That there's something that might be positive or helpful here. Um, at least it often comes off that way. So, you know, I want to make sure to pull the spec out of my eye. And then he says, you hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye. Then you'll see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye. How does all that relate to verse six? Here's the thing I see. Jesus is like, hey, when you're approaching people who have problems, first deal with your own issues, then approach them to help them. But there are some people, and you must use discernment, who, if you do even try to help them, they will merely rage against you. It's okay to simply leave them alone. This applies today as well. There are people in comment sections who you see say something, and you think, I want to share and push back on that. And they're like the, you know, here's where you're wrong, friend. Here's the thing you got. And then just now, they're just obsessed with you. 50 comments later, they're just raging it like the swine that got angry. You gave them something true and good, and they just got mad at you for it and came against you. I will get catholic video responses to this that will perhaps do that to me today. I'm just being honest with you guys. That's not. Not super, uh, um, bridge building, perhaps, to say that. I think it helps you learn, though, to mention it and just highlight, yeah, this is a reality. There's plenty of this. People who cannot recognize the value of the things that are before them. Um, and they get mad instead, you know, don't worry about it. Jesus kind of gives this parallel when he tells them, you know, go house to house, and if they don't receive you, just shake the dust off your feet and go somewhere else. There's a sense in which I will share the gospel, but upon you showing me that you really are reacting this way, I can move on and go somewhere else. I'm not just going to keep on doing it over and over again. That's how I would apply it today. And it could apply to other things, too. When you have relationships where trying to correct people only leads to further conflict, these are two qualifiers. One, it only leads to further conflict, and two, they never receive correction. They just get mad when those things are in place, stop correcting them. They're on their own. You don't. It's not your job to just start fights, but you don't just assume that's true of people. But it is wisdom to just often back off. That's how I would apply it. You guys can think about it for yourselves. Daniel Myers has a question. In psalm 51 five, David says that in sin, his mother conceived him. Is he saying that he was in sin since his conception or that his mother was in sin when she conceived him? So was David born in adultery? Let's read the passage and let's see how much we can glean from that psalm. Chapter 51. I'm going to start at the beginning of the chapter, okay? To the choir master. A psalm of David. When Nathan the prophet went to him after he had gone into Bathsheba. So he has this. The context of this is major sin, right? David cheated. He committed adultery with Bathsheba. Then he conspired to have Uriah, her husband, killed, like he told them. Um, when you guys go to the battle, everyone pull back except Uriah. So you have a secret signal. Everyone knows to pull back. Uriah doesn't. He get stuck alone with the enemy. He gets killed by the enemy. This is effectively murder, right? Murder in the whatever degree it is. Second degree, third degree, whatever they call it. Um, he had him killed. So he's now repentant. He's broken. This was like the lowest moment of David's life. He says, have mercy on me, o God, according to your steadfast love, according to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions, something that wasn't possible by the law. The law had no offering for the kind of sin David had just done. There was no offering presented for murder like this. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. He still appeals to goddesse, for I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you alone have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. But you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach with. Teach me wisdom in the secret heart. Let me read on. Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness. Let the bone. This is this. The poetry here just breaks my heart. Let the bones that you have broken rejoice. Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities. Created me a clean heart, o God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence and take not your holy spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and uphold me with a willingness spirit. He wants a willing spirit, willing to obey God, and he's praying for that. Then if he's restored, he's like, then I will teach transgressors your ways and sinners will return to you. Deliver me from blood guiltiness. O God. O God of my salvation. And my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness. This is so beautiful. O Lord, open my lips and my mouth will declare your praise. For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it because the law had no sacrifice for murder. You will not be pleased with a, uh, burnt offering. So all he can offer God is this. The sacrifices of God. A broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart. Oh, God, you will not despise those. Jesus had to be the sacrifice for David, and ultimately was. He knew he couldn't find it in the law, so he just appeals to God for mercy. He can't even find in the law. And ultimately Jesus provides it and he goes on, um, do your good pleasure in the. Do, do to Zion. Do good to Zion in your good pleasure. Build up the walls of Jerusalem. Then you will delight in right sacrifices in burnt and whole offerings. Then bowls will be offered on your altar. So, um, the verse that you brought, brought out. Okay, this is often quoted out of context, actually kind of controversial verse. Um, but the idea is this. Yeah, I was brought forth in iniquity, in sin. My mother conceived me. Was that his mother's sin? The entire context of the chapter is all about his sin, not anybody else's. It seems that verse five has to relate to his personal sin, not just someone else's. It might be that he is here talking about his sin nature, that he's referring to the fact that from the moment of my birth, there is something in me that goes astray. From the beginning of my conception, I had a problem with sin right away. It doesnt say I sinned. Um, but he says I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin. My mother conceived me. Its not as though he took an action in the womb, right? But hes saying that theres a sin problem with me from the moment of my conception. But he does say in sin did my mother conceive me, which some would think refers to like her committing adultery or something like that. But that couldnt be the case because we know about Davids family. David was the youngest son, right? There's nothing in there about them having different moms. He's just the youngest son to my. We'd be adding a lot of information to the life of David. If we say something like that and I hesitate, it may sound good to you, you may like it. But you've got to guard your heart against Bible interpretations you like. You have to have them grounded in the clear teachings of scripture. At least to my knowledge. There's no reason to think that David had a different mom than his other siblings. It would seems like it would be likely to point it out. The author, Samuel, would make sense if he was to point out first and second Samuel that David had a different mom. Because it would highlight the problems he was having with his brothers. But not to my knowledge at least. Unless I'm maybe making some big blunder in my memory of the text, which can happen. So always take the scripture over me. Um, but yeah, that's how I would take it is that David here is talking ultimately about some problem with himself, not something his mom did wrong. That's how I take it. And I think that, um. Um. Yeah, I guess I won't go to all that this relates to doctrines of original sin and things like that. But I would take it as he's saying something sinfully wrong with me from the beginning of my life. Um. You are holy. I am messed up. I always have been. That's kind of how I take it. Okay, let's go to question number. What is this? Number five. No, I went down and set it up. Wait. No, that was right. Number five. Okay. Yeah. Don Miglio. Um, why isn't Calvinism more strongly condemned among non Calvinists. The doctrine essentially teaches that God will punish people for something completely out of their control, which makes God seem unjust. Um, okay, well, I'm a non Calvinist and I don't strongly condemn Calvinism. I disagree with it, but I don't strongly condemn it. And there are some who do. There's plenty who do. Um, I see regular requests. Mike, you need to strongly condemn Calvinism, and I understand where you're coming from. Okay, I'm not. There's not some cowardice on my part. I will strongly condemn all sorts of things. Um, if I think it's appropriate, I'm just gonna do it to look strong and be like, oh, look at Mike. He's a strong man youtuber. We like Mike. Strong guy. There's plenty of guys doing that online who are just whatever they do that do it strong, whatever it is, talk big, strong man. Okay. Be strong when you. When you need to be, generally, don't be more strong than you have to be. That's part of what meekness and self control is. So why not? Well, partly, if you look at the struggles and issues that the church faces throughout time, it is often a struggle against. The struggle is. I want to make sure I word this right, but the struggle is works. Um, trying to work their way into the mind and theology of Christianity such that you start to think you are earning your salvation in some sense. Not fully, but usually it's. Usually it's a mix. I got grace and I got works and I combine grace and works, and that is what will get me my salvation. So my works are part of what merits or earns my salvation. Calvinism is a stronghold against that. Even if you don't agree with all the theology of it, it is an absolute stronghold against that view. Absolutely is. Because it's going to be firm. Firm, firm as I am on what romans eleven six says, this is. Okay. Romans eleven six is a great memory verse for those who enter into these debates. Um, that's. I wrote romans 611. I'm like, wait, what? When did the Bible change? Okay, here it is. Um, that salvation comes by grace. Okay? But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works. Otherwise grace would no longer be grace. This, to me is huge clarity. Those who combine grace and works as a way of getting salvation, I have God's grace, but I also have my good works and together I get salvation. Maybe God's grace gives me the jumpstart, gives me into salvation and my works get me to keep salvation and accomplish my final salvation, such that I have first grace, then works. But ultimately my final salvation is accomplished by grace and works, um, and there's, and there's an essence I'm earning. This is where he's like, look, if it's by grace, it's not on the basis of works. Otherwise grace would no longer be grace. If you're getting it by grace, it's not works. If you get it by works, that's not grace. You don't get to mix the two. It's oil and water. The two do not mix. You pour them together, they separate immediately. They're two different things. That's the idea. Calvinism is a stronghold against this. And every Calvinist I know, every serious Calvinist I've ever known, um, takes the scriptures incredibly seriously. And we agree. Our theologies about, say, moral issues. Me and Calvin sit down and talk about, like, marriage or abortion or, um, what it means that the word of God is inspired or something. We have so much we agree on, we don't know we disagree. Until we finally get to the topic of Calvinism, we start talking about the issues. I view Calvinism as a safe theology. Okay? I really do. I view it as a safe theology. I disagree with it, but I view it as a safe theology. Those who are like, but Calvinism makes God the author of evil. This is one of the big objections to, to it, and I understand that objection, and I think it's more of a, I'm gonna say, things are gonna bother people here. You ask for clarity. You do not need to agree with me on this, but if you wanna understand my view, at least you don't have to agree with it. I think that issue, saying that God's the author of evil on Calvinism is more of a pr problem than a theological problem. Let me explain. If Calvinism shows that goddess has ordained every evil act according to his meticulous control, now, not all Calvinists would even say that. Plenty would disagree. But let's suppose that this is the case because some say, no, that's, every Calvinist has to say that. That's what it means. Let's suppose that that's the case. Um, I am not, and that that's real, that God really does this. I would never look at God and go, here's my fist shaking at you. God, you did something I disagree with. You're the author of evil. I don't like you. I despise you. Would I ever say this? Would I ever hold this? If I found out that God had ordained every evil thing that happened, not based upon some mixture of him planning and ordaining a, a set of events that leads to his glory in the end, but rather also ordaining, no, this, this horrible thing will happen, and that horrible thing will happen. I'm going to make it happen. If that was the case, which again, many Calvinists don't even hold, um, I would still not raise my fist to God. I would say, lord, I don't understand this, but you are God and I trust you. That would be my theological position. It would be a PR problem because if you start to run around telling people God's the author of every evil thing that's ever happened to you, God simply wanted that to happen. It's as easy as that. Then it's going to be a major pr problem because a lot of people are going to stumble over that and they're going to end up rejecting God, uh, because of it. That's a PR problem. I don't think it's a theological problem before God. Meaning, um, that you would. A problem in the sense of it, meaning, uh, I'm not going to trust God. Now, the other issues related to Calvinism, I think, again, are theological. If I thought Calvinism was true, I would just be a calvinist. There's plenty of people, though, who think if I became convinced Calvinism was true, I would reject Christianity. That I think is a terribly dangerous perspective to have God, you will have my theology or I will reject you. Instead of going, Lord, what's, what should I believe? I'm going to trust you. God's the ultimate authority. You don't argue with him. There's my thought. I have biblical objections to Calvinism. I think that it ends up in mostly being a bulwark in many important and essential areas like grace and theological truths and stuff like that. But, uh, of course, I do disagree with things like, um. Well, basically every, every element of tulip are, you know, the total depravity. I have a slightly different view of that and I did. Are humans depraved? Absolutely. Do they need grace? 100%. Um, am I going to earn or work their own way to God or just come through their own free choices? Notice my phrase, just come through their own free choices. No, none of those things are the case. But I, but tell depravity, don't agree with limited atonement. Totally disagree with. Think that that's demonstrably false. It's one of the easiest doctrines to demonstrate is not true. I'll put a link below about limited atonement. I don't put in lots of links today. You can check it out. So, yeah, there's the reasons why. I hope that answers your question. Um. Others would disagree if I'm wrong, and I hope God helps you see it. And helps me see it. Okay. Question number six. Yes. Okay. Uh, diraj, uh, Kavuri. I probably pronounced your name wrong. Sorry about that. Is God prideful? If our purpose in life is to glorify goddess, does that mean we were created only to praise God? I know he's worthy of praise, but he is seeking praise by creating us. Um. This is a challenging topic to explain to people. Um. But let me say something that might sound strong, and then maybe I can explain it. I haven't thought of how yet, but let me just say it, and I'll try to explain it. Um. This could seem to be the strong thing. Nothing's wrong. Let me say it even stronger. It's good for God to seek his own glory. Is that true? Is it good for God to seek his own glory? I think it probably is, yeah. Let me give you another strong statement. It is good for parents to seek for their children to love them. To seek for their own love. Is that good? It's actually unhealthy if they don't. If a parent doesn't teach their kids to love them, the parent, and respect and obey them, the parent, the parent, is actually failing. Yet all of those things could be seen as selfish. Teaching your kid to love, obey and respect you, how horribly selfish that is. But because of, um, the relationship between a parent and a child, it's actually wrong if you don't. God is so glorious and perfect that for him not to seek his own glory in creation would be an injustice to the nature of reality itself. It would be ungodly. Just as it is wrong for me to not give God credit for the good he has done in this world, to not give God glory for how amazing he is, it would be wrong for God to not seek it in some way and to seek to help me have. You know, because here's the thing. I want God to have a relationship with me. I want God to create me for relationship with him, because knowing him would be so amazing. But I wouldn't want him to seek his own glory or to seek for me to worship him. I was like, what kind of relationship do you want? Well, I want to be equals. Oh, okay. So you're just quoting Satan now. Like, I just want to be equal to God. You're not equal to God. Like, that's nothing that's not reality. That's a delusion. That's a lie. That's living a lie. Truth and goodness show that it is entirely appropriate for God to seek his own glory. Now, the way he seeks his glory is itself glorious. Jesus, who demonstrates God's glory more than anything, shows God selfless, taking on the burdens and pains of others, coming in relation, coming to suffer for us, die in our place, and then rise again, that he might unite us to himself. This is God's glory. So God seeking his own glory isn't just, uh, seeking to be puffed up or something like that, but rather seeking truth and right relationship with humans. Just like it is right for me to love and respect my parents. It is right for me to worship and honor and glorify God. That is a healthy relationship for us. And anything that devalues that is, is based on a lot. Let's go to question number seven. Jonathan Tool says, pastor Mike, thank you for helping me think biblically. I'm very grateful to hear that, Jonathan, for all you guys. I never get to meet you guys. You know me, but I don't really know you. Um, I'm really grateful for the ministry and the impact that the word of God has in your lives. It's so simple and so good, and I'm grateful. Um, so you say, how important is Bible typography? For example, the way the king James version arranges paragraphs makes context harder to understand than the ESV? Um, yeah, it is important. Um, it's difficult to say how important it is, but we're talking here about, um. Let me see if I can find an example. Um. Give me a second, because I'm actually looking for an example. There was a spot I read recently where there was like, the chapter difference, the chapter in verse, um, separation actually made a significant difference, and I'm trying to remember where it was. So I hope you guys will bear with me for a second. Uh, I thought I could find this. This is. This is me asking you to be patient. Okay? I don't know. I'm not, I'm not. It's not where I was thinking it must have been a different, different book. Um, but there are times where the chapter and verse distinctions that we read in the scripture, um, a verse cuts and becomes a new verse in the middle of a sentence. Um, there's even times where the beginning of a chapter really belongs in the previous chapter, in the previous section. And so this kind of typology, this kind of, if that's the right word for it, I don't know, a, ah, type setting. I don't know what you call this. The separation of paragraphs and sentences and all that is valuable and important. Um, if you find that the ESV is more helpful for you there. Good. Uh, one thing you can do is just read things in multiple translations. That can also be very helpful where you're not just doing one translation, but you're reading multiple translations of the Bible. You're at least referencing them. Um. Oh, here, I think I found it. Okay. First corinthians, chapter ten into chapter eleven. The phrase be imitators of me as I am of Christ. Does that belong more to the previous section at the end of chapter ten or the section at the beginning of chapter eleven? Which one is it more closely akin to? Well, in, um, the King James. Here we go. This is King James. Now. Um. Wait, am I. Yeah. Um, in chapter eleven, it starts here. There's a clear distinction, like visually and thoughtfully, you're thinking, oh, there's a separation between ten and eleven. And eleven kind of starts this new section. But if you actually do what the ESV does here, I mean, who knows? Maybe this is a place you were thinking of. It helps you to think of. Be imitators of me as connecting to what he just said here. Just as I try to please everyone in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage, that's clearly talking about more be imitators of Paul. He's talking about the example he just gave. He's giving examples, a bunch of things that he does in chapter ten that he asks you to imitate. Then in verse, chapter eleven, verse two, he starts talking about something new. The King James here does not have the better separation. It just doesn't. Um, and the ESV helps bring that out. One thing you can do, though, not that you have to switch to the ESV because of this one single example, but one thing you can do is when you read the Bible, try to pretend there are no chapter differences. Try to pretend the verse numbers aren't even there in your head. Train yourself to not see those things. Don't think. New chapter, new idea. Paul did not write chapters, right? He wrote a letter. He didn't write verses. He wrote sentences. And the chapter and verses are just there to conveniently help you find places in the Bible they're not supposed to be. These are the separations. As though, I mean, that's not how people write. You don't write in chapters. When you write a letter, you're just writing, you know? And so it's helpful um, in your head to ignore those numbers. Just act like they aren't there. Okay. M let's go to the next question, which is, I keep doing the wrong one. All right, question number eight. Anonymous question. Says, with all the tensions and things going on over in Israel, how should we be responding to those we're surrounded by who hate Israel? They don't seem to understand why we stand with Israel. Um, the. I have not been keeping up to date on this stuff. Not that it's not valuable or worthwhile. I feel bad that I haven't been keeping up to date on it. So I can't give you guys political commentary on these things. I'm just not up to date on it. It's valuable. It's worthwhile. It's just I only do so many things right. I tend to spend my time studying things that are. I feel like other people aren't talking about enough, rather than what everybody's talking about. So often it makes me feel disconnected from the things you all are debating. Um, but basically what you're talking about here is, uh, in general, how do I handle topics that are hugely divisive, that people are quickly angry about, and I feel like they don't even understand my positions on. And, um, in general, you ask yourself questions like, one, is it worth even talking about this issue right now? That's an important question to ask. Just because you're hot under the collar doesn't mean it's always a good time to talk about a topic. Number two, is this a good setting? Is this a good environment? Is this a possible place for dialogue? And if you have a lot of attention, you could think, I don't want to fix everything in this conversation, but simply move the ball forward. Can I move the ball forward? And so, for instance, if you're encountering a scenario, I'm just giving Mike's wisdom here, for whatever it's worth, I'm not giving you scripture. Uh, the Bible does weigh in on this to a degree. It's like handling conversations, tough conversations with people. Let me, let me give you scripture first, then I'll share some more on my thoughts. Um, it says, as much as it is possible with you, live peaceably with all people. So try to live peaceably with people you disagree with on these topics. That's a general rule. Um, but also, living peaceable does not mean being afraid to take a stand on what's true and good. Um, um, proverbs talks about this, uh, suggests that, you know, if you answer, let's say someone's being a fool about the topic of Israel and Palestine. And it says, you know, if you answer a fool according to his folly, he's gonna. He's gonna get mad at you for it, or you don't answer. If you fail to answer a fool according to his folly, you know, you're not gonna help him. And it shows this, like, catch 22. I give a horrible paraphrase there, but this catch 22 in proverbs, basically, you want to answer a fool according to the folly to help them. You don't want to do it because it might just backfire on you. Meaning it's challenging. You handle each scenario individually. Yeah. On this issue of Palestine, Israel, in my opinion, people are firm in their convictions, and they don't generally listen to those they're disagreeing with. So I would start by listening. Um, it prompts things if you ask questions. So what's your view on this? Like, say it comes up and you say something about Israel, and they go, well, free Palestine. And you go, well, hey, um, what do you mean by that? And you genuinely listen. Like, I'd like to understand your perspective on this because I think we maybe have different views on it. And you just start listening. Listen, listen, ask more questions, ask more questions. Ask more questions. You will earn conversational currency by taking in their view and understanding it. What do you mean by that? Well, what's your view on this? Okay, I see what you're saying. So what do you think we should be done about these things? Oh, you will then learn to earn currency for them to more likely listen to you if you have something to share. But you'll also learn how to approach it, because when you see their perspective and why they view it that way, you might be able to answer it. Or you can say, can I tell you why I have my view? And you've built a conversational, hopefully calm environment for that sort of discussion to move the ball forward. But you guys, probably most of you know more about this issue than I do because I have not been paying attention to it. To my own shame, of course. I'm probably, yes. All right, question number nine. Paulo Magalhes says, catholics always say, jesus changed Simon's name to Peter. However, previous verses, and you give four examples, refer to Simon. Refer to him as Simon Peter. Jesus says, you are Peter. Not from now on, you are Peter. Was Simon always known as Peter? This, ah, is actually kind of a debate, um, whether Simon was always known as Peter. And I'll share with you guys a couple verses on this. Let's, um, go to the Bible here. So you brought Matthew 1616 up, Simon. Um, Peter replied, you are the Christ, the son of the living God. And then right there at that moment, he says, blessed are you, Simon bar Jonah, for flesh and blood is not revealed. This to you, but my father is in heaven, who is in heaven, and I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church. Um, now, I've taken a view where Peter's not being given the same thing the Catholic Church says here, but it doesn't mean that he's not being said. Nothing's being said about him. That's incredibly important. It's just not going to give you all of the doctrine of Catholicism hanging on this one idea when it comes to the papacy, which is what they do in Vatican one. Actually, they hang so much on this verse that it's actually silly. Oh, sorry, let me go to more. But let me say this. It's not relevant to the debate between Roman Catholics and everybody else. It's not relevant whether this is Peter's new name or if Jesus is just using his name, Peter Petras, you know, as a way of drawing attention to this other teaching. I don't think it weighs in on that debate. So let's say Peter already was called Simon Peter. It doesn't change the meaning of this verse. Jesus's meaning is not going to be any different. You're going to interpret based on other factors. Um, and you'll see things like, he's given the keys, okay, but all of the disciples are given the keys later on. And so is Peter, like, he's, like, his confession is the rock ultimately, or is Peter the rock, or is it Peter? If he's confessing, is the rock, along with whoever else is confessing, the apostles all. Lots of discussions there. Um, and then you get apostolic succession, which doesn't exist in any catholic sense in history. I know, I'm just saying things to make people, not to make people mad that. Um, but I'm just making clear there are these other issues. Those are the things that you have to debate, not whether it was Peter's name right then at that moment or not. Um, also in John 20 115, you mentioned this. This is, of course, at the end of John's gospel. Um, but he has mentioned Simon Peter. He's also called Simon there as well. And, um, then you've got Matthew 418. Very early in Matthew's gospel, he's walking and he says Simon, who is called Peter. Right. Uh, but it doesn't say he was called Peter. I mean, okay. By the time Matthew's writing, Simon is also called Peter, and people know him as Peter, so he maybe just writes it that way. Luke five eight. Does this help us? When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus knees saying, depart from me. Um, I don't know if we have an account of someone verbally calling him Peter before Jesus calls him Peter. I don't know the answer to that question. That's what I would look for. Not the author calling him Simon Peter so that the reader knows who it is. Because he could use the name Peter at any point. The author can. But did someone talking to Peter use the name Peter before Jesus said, you are Peter? I don't know the answer to that question. It's interesting. I will tell you a couple more things, though, about. About history. Um, so Simon was one of the most popular names for a jew in Israel, and they had something called disambiguation. This is the fancy word used for it, like, among scholars. Okay. And I'm not making stuff up, right. I had to study this for some other things I was doing. So I've learned about names of people in the gospels. Simon is a common name. Judas, uh, is a common name. James is a common name. When you have common names, you have often disambiguators, uh, or a disambiguation of the name. So you'll get Simon bar Jonah, Simon's son of Jonah, because we've got three simonse. So we're going to call that one Simon bar Jonah. Hey, we've got more than one James. We're going to call this guy James. The less. We've got more than one marys. So we'll be like Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of these guys, or those guys. You know, there's lots of marys because Miriam was a very common name for women. That's the disambiguation thing. It's one of the things that offers evidence for the historicity of the gospels because they disambiguate the right names. Inside Palestine, inside Israel. Please don't read political terms into those. When you read historians, you get the word Palestine a lot, so you end up saying it even though you're talking about completely unrelated topics. Um, but inside the lands that God gave to Israel, put it that way. Um, uh, the names that were commonly used and required disambiguation fit the names in the gospels that actually have disambiguation. Simon, Peter, that sort of thing. Um, uh, then you've got outside the land of Israel, you have those same names that are really common in Israel. They're not common in Rome and other places where people often will pretend that's where the gospel really was written. They just made up historical fiction about Israel. No, no. These people didn't even know what frequency of names people named Simon were in Israel. It's just another piece of evidence in a mountain of evidence to suggest the authenticity of the gospels. Really cool stuff. So, yeah, um, why do I say all that? So Simon was a really common name. He was also a fisherman in Galilee, probably interacting with Jews, but also gentiles. So he's a jew with a very common jewish name, would often go with some kind of disambiguation, Simon, son of Jonah, um, that kind of thing. Or perhaps he would be, um, able to say, hi, I'm Simon. And someone else says, uh, Simeon. It's hard for me to say as a greek speaker. And so he goes, I just call me Peter. It may be that Peter was just that name. This is almost definitely true or basically definitely true of Paul the apostle. His name was Shaul. Right. But you're not going to get Greeks to say that very easily. So he also goes by Paul, which is like a greek version of Saul or Shaul. And so you've got these. He had two names that were just mirrors of the, of each other in different languages. Peter, I don't know, don't think it has any theological significance. I would lean towards thinking Peter was given this name by Jesus, but I've, I've not actually done a study on that, to answer your question thoroughly. So I'll say, yeah, interesting, but not theologically significant. Number ten. There we go. I keep hitting the wrong button. Truth, um, has a question. Uh, excuse me, truth. Dental education channel has a question. Um, I don't want to know about my teeth. Please don't educate me. Gross. Um, hi, Mike. God bless you and your ministry. Thank you very much. Um, how do you interpret Genesis 224? How could Adam come with such a statement? Because he had no earthly mother or father. Let's look at it. All right, I'm going to back up a little bit and we're going to read some more. Um, so, uh, God's going to create Eve for Adam here. And so the process begins in basically verse 18. It says, it's not good that man should be alone. I'll make him a helper fit for him. Now out of the ground, the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And, uh, here we go. Whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all the livestock and to the birds of the heavens and every beast of the field. This is partly an exercise of dominion, Adams, like, um, he's in charge, you know, he has dominion over the earth. God's sovereign over all things. But, but Adam has dominion over the earth itself, the creatures and everything. So the man gave names to all the livestock and the birds and all that. But for Adam, there was not found a helper fit for him. Okay, so they're coming kind of two by two. He sees they all have a couple, but there's no Adams alone. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man. See, God already knew he was going to do this, but he's trying to teach Adam something. Hey, look, everybody's got someone to match them. You see, the male giraffe and the female giraffe, right? But you're alone. So now you know what you're missing then the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he was. While he slept, took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man, he made into a woman. She's not born from the earth. She's not just created out of nothing. She's created from Adam. And there's theological significance there. Um, and the man said, uh, this at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. That's what Adam says. Verse 23. You may have been thinking, Adam continues to talk in verse 24, but actually it's the author of Genesis here. So we're talking like Moses is writing, and he says, therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and they were not ashamed. So this is actually theological commentary, the bible, the holy spirit, inspiring commentary on the event that just took place with the creation of Adam and eve. And so, yeah, your bone of my bones. Your flesh of my flesh and you were taken from man. There's this great parallelism that's right here in verses 23 and 24. Eve, uh, was taken from man, and in marriage they come back together. And so that husband and wife is the joining of two that are meant to be together. This, it's a beautiful and amazing thing. It's neat. It's romantic, actually. So you leave your father and mother. That's. You leave one family unit, and you join to create a new one with your wife, and you become one flesh. And, um, beautiful stuff, but just a simple, honestly, um, simple little mistake or thing you overlooked, which is you thought verse 24 is something Adam was saying when it's really something that is being said about the event with Adam and eve. Yeah. Verse 23 is the only thing that Adam says right there. And neat stuff. Um, yeah. So Adam doesn't mention. Now, on the flip side, um, here's a cool theological question. How much did Adam know in the garden? Was he like, really. We picture him being created, and there's so many questions we don't have answered about genesis. Right. They're just there legitimately. There are so many questions I have about Genesis that I don't know the answers to. How long were they in the garden? What age? What apparent age was Adam when he was on day one? What was his apparent age? Not his actual age. Right. Because day one, what was his apparent age? I don't know. How much knowledge did he already have? Did he have the knowledge of language? Well, if he has the knowledge of language just inherently, and God creates him that way because he wants all mankind to have knowledge, so he just creates Adam with knowledge. Perhaps that's exactly how it happened. Um, it would seem so. Right. But what, um, I'm saying is the text doesn't tell you the answer to that question. That's a question you have to ask, and you sort of try to figure out through implications and stuff. So as Adam's created, if he's given knowledge of language, then language itself. Words are not just sounds. They have meaning. They have concepts behind them. So if I have the concept of, um, bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh, if Adam has the concept of bones and flesh, that means he had the idea of some of the basic makeups of what it is to physically even have a body. If he says she shall be called, then he understands there's a her, and there's a hymn that there's a female and there's a male, that there's an other and there's a self. These are philosophical concepts, even that Adam understood at that point in time. How much did Adam, um, know in the garden? How much knowledge did he have? How smart was Adam? Was he brilliant? Was he, like a hyper genius, like the pinnacle of mankind? And we kind of got dumber later on? I don't know the answers to these questions, but I'm curious, and I kind of wish I did. Um, so, anyway, maybe I've. Hopefully I've provoked healthy thinking and, uh, not imagination, because we never make things up with scripture, but a type of, um, full thinking about scripture, where you read a passage and you ask lots of questions about it, and then you don't make any assumptions, and you just let the text be there to. To exist in the midst of those questions, and you'll understand it that much better. Questions are probably the most important tool you have now. Second most important tool you have in studying the bible. The first most important tool you have is reading things in context. The second is asking questions, and commentaries are further down the list. All right, so, uh, thanks, guys. That's been the, uh, video for today. Share your thoughts with me, please. Uh, I'm actually eager to. And if you're catholic and you've stuck with me this whole time, I'm actually grateful that you have. I. In my integrity, I have disagreements with you. What, uh, I mean is I, um, believe that they're sincere. I'm not trying to. I'm not shilling anything. Have you noticed I have not asked you for money? Go watch the last hundred videos of mine. You will notice I have not asked you for money. Go to my website. You will notice I'm still not asking you for money. This, um, is not a shill. We are, uh, just trying to seek truth and honor Christ to the best of our ability. And I know that many of you Catholics are trying to do the same thing, and we obviously disagree here, and both of us can't be right. But I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on the things that I shared. Was it valid? Was it legit, that I handled that well? So, yeah, let's pray. Father God, we thank you for your holy word, for the truth of scripture that does not change. We thank you that we are able to go back to the word of God that we, and even as many Catholics I've seen, do this. We can hear what say the pope has said, and we can go and say, no, scripture says this, therefore, you're wrong. And, um, even though he's not trying to speak infallibly there, it's beautiful. And we're grateful that we can go back to the word of God and we can get clarity, and we can get truth, and we can distinguish between what is right and wrong in the tradition. Um, I'm grateful for that. Lord, we pray for insight and wisdom. Help us to evangelize our neighbors. Help Christians. I pray to be bold. Everybody listening to this, everybody watching this later on, we pray you'd help them to be bold in their christian faith. Unashamed, unafraid. Not worried about being misunderstood, not worried about being talked about behind their backs or even excluded because they're going to be evangelistic and trying to not just tell people where they're right and wrong, but trying to get people over to Christ. And we pray for courage more than anything else in that, in Jesus name, amen. No, um, you can't, don't call me right now, whoever you are. Alright, guys, see you next time. Um, by the way, there's no video. I want to do the next hebrew study. I appreciate your patience. Quick update on that. They will not be every week. They will not be every other week. Um, they'll just be as. When I can get them done. I don't want to get into details. I've been dealing with health issues for quite a while now. I'm not in danger, I'm not gonna die or anything, but, but, um, it radically reduces my work capacity and I have a lot of things I'm trying to accomplish. So everything is, everything's happening slowly because I have several things on my plate. So I bite away at them as much as I can. I'll get those videos out as soon as I'm capable, but I'd rather take longer to do it and do it well, then rush it. Because I could teach it tomorrow and just rush it, but I'd rather have it last for years and years and decades, God willing, blessing people as I teach verse by verse through Hebrews. Yeah, lord willing. So that's it. Um, yeah. Take care. It.