The following program is recorded content created by the Truth Network. If you want to give me a call, as usual, all you have to do on this lovely day, let's see, it's the last day of April actually, April 30th, 2025. If you want to give me a call, you can, 877-207-2276. And also, if you want to email me, you can do that as well, it's easy.
Just put an email in at info at karm.org, info at c-a-r-m dot o-r-g, put the subject line radio comment or radio question, and we can get to them. Let's see, today's Wednesday, nice Wednesday. We had a little bit of rain here, I love rain, I do, I think rain is just the best. I really like it. Our daughters, my wife and I, our daughters really like rain too, but she's not a fan of it. All of us are like, come on, mom. But at any rate, it's been rainy here a little bit, I love it. Oh, it's so nice, refreshing, it's a blessing from God.
And if you want, give me a call, 877-207-2276. Okay, so I released an article just a little bit ago. A guy posited an argument for papal Roman Catholic oral tradition authority in syllabistic form. It was apologism, not a syllogism. Syllogism is two premises and a conclusion. This had four, so it's a polysyllogism. And so anyway, I dealt with that. And it wasn't well done. So I just published that.
That's not a big deal. I'm working on some of the articles as well on the Roman Catholic Church teaching a false gospel, false priesthood, false Mary, and doing that. So last night I had an interesting discussion online with a gentleman, intelligent, articulate, well-read in philosophy, better read than I am, of course. But I've argued philosophical arguments many, many, many, many times over the years.
And so I'm familiar with a lot of stuff. And so he was a Roman Catholic. And it was really interesting, one of the more interesting conversations I've had in a long time, in that he wouldn't go to scripture, he wouldn't go to God's word. He would only go to the authority of the Church and philosophy.
And it was an interesting combination for me to see someone do that. And the Bible says, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. And so his interest was not the authority of God's word but the authority of the Church.
And then the logic used to demonstrate the authority of the Catholic Church. To me, it was really, really, I enjoyed it. I did, I enjoyed the conversation. And not because I thought his arguments were sound, they were not. I enjoyed it because I'm always interested in faulty arguments where people really seriously try and present something as though it is correct. And it simply wasn't because his conclusions were contradicting scripture, but that was irrelevant.
The issue is, what is the truth? The truth is based on the philosophical machinations of people through history that he has studied. And it was an interesting, like I said, a very interesting discussion for me. And I tested him on a few things to see what he knew. And yeah, he knows some stuff.
And he used some phrases I thought were inaccurate, but that's another topic. We can get into all that kind of stuff. All right, not a big deal.
If you want to give me a call, the number, again, 877-207-2276. And I am also working on some other articles that have really kind of caught my interest recently. I've got a bunch of questions that I raised for what's called the recapitulation theory of the atonement. Now, for you guys out there in radio land who aren't eggheads like me, who don't really get excited about wacko views, because I do. Oh, man, it's like, ooh, ooh, more heresy.
Ooh, I like it. So for me, it's a lot of fun. I mentioned it yesterday on questions that I've asked of Eastern Orthodox people on the recapitulation theory of the atoning work. And somebody, a non-EO person, actually a Mormon, responded. I'm like, of course. And so this Mormon helps the EO all the time, Eastern Orthodox, helps them all the time to try and make their theology work.
And to me, it's like, okay, all right, go ahead and give that a try. So we had a lot of discussions, and anyway, I'm looking at a couple things, trying to find some articles that I was working on so I can talk about those as well, because I'm working on a lot of stuff. And I'm developing a list of questions on the priesthood. And so I think I've got 12 questions so far on the Eastern Orthodox priesthood.
And the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church are so closely related that basically asking the questions of one is almost identical to dealing with the questions of the other. And so I'll be doing that. But also, I'm trying to find this one thing that's working. Yeah, here it is.
I found it. So, you know, every now and then my brain will take off, you know, and I'll start thinking about something. And it just kind of intrigues me. And so what I'll do is I'll let the thoughts go.
And then I'll take notes, you know. And so I started thinking about the nature of Scripture itself, because one of the things the EORC do is claim that their church is the true church. I always get tired of it. You know, our church is the true church.
I always get tired of it when groups say that. And so they like to talk about the issue of Scripture, how we know what Scripture is, who's got the best interpretation, and things like this. And so I got into thinking about it.
And I wrote down a bunch of stuff, and I'm not even halfway done with kind of analyzing and figuring, not even probably a quarter of the way done. But here's some things about the Scriptures that I've, you know, not discovered, but just written down and thought about, because the Scriptures are self-attesting. The Word of God isn't true because someone else says it is. It's true because it comes from God. The Scriptures claim to be inspired.
I've got verses for all this. And since it's inspired, God-breathed, then it is from God. And one of the things that's interesting is that Scripture assumes its own truth. Scripture just assumes that it is true.
John 17, 17. Jesus says, Your word is truth. And I was thinking about that, because when I look at the Word of God, it does not defend itself. It just speaks from its own authority.
God doesn't defend himself. He just speaks authoritatively. This is what the truth is. He doesn't answer it to anybody.
He's not subject to our idea of logic and things like that. He just simply speaks truth. And that's what the Word of God is. And another thing I found, as I was looking through stuff, is the Bible tells us, the Scriptures tell us, not to exceed, excuse me, not to exceed what's written. And that's in 1 Corinthians 4, 6. Don't exceed what's written.
And that makes sense. Because if it is inspired and it's true, then it's the standard of truth. And don't go beyond what's written. In other words, what that means is you can't contradict it.
And, of course, we can draw plans for how an automobile works. That's not what the Scriptures are talking about. When I said don't exceed what is written, don't exceed what is there that God has put down.
When he addresses something, that's what we're going to do. And so it becomes the authority. 1 Corinthians 4, 6. And then the Scripture says other things about itself, which I thought was interesting as well.
For one thing, it says that it is true or it is correct and is a light. And also it does say that Scriptures are the living and powerful. The Word of God is living and powerful. That's Hebrews 4, 12. But also Peter talks about some things that Paul wrote that are hard to understand. So some aspects of Scripture are difficult to understand. And also Scripture cannot fail. And that makes sense too because it's from God. And it's what Jesus said in John 10, 35. And also Scripture gives wisdom that leads to salvation.
It's to be obeyed. And it warns us against false prophets as well. But what's interesting that Scripture does not do, it does not provide a list of which books are Scripture.
And I thought that was really interesting. It doesn't provide any list of what is Scripture. It just is Scripture. See, God determines what books are Scripture and the Christians recognize it.
It does not need to be validated by anybody. Christians just recognize it. They say, yep, we can tell you by our authority that's the Word of God. That doesn't make any sense that we're subjecting God himself in his Word to our authority.
That's ridiculous. Another thing is Scripture does not tell us how to interpret it. And it assumes that people can understand it. In Acts 17, 11, the Bereans were more noble-minded because they checked what Paul and Paul said against Scripture. Nothing in there says they weren't getting the right interpretation. It just says they were noble-minded. They could understand the Scripture. And Romans 14, 5, talking about the context of eating habits and worship days, says, let each man be fully convinced in his own mind. So we see right there it assumes that people can understand it. And also it says in 1 John 2, 27, it says the anointing which we have received from him abides in us.
We have no need of anyone to teach us. So there is this issue in Scripture of it coming from God. Now, I've been thinking about this very aspect. And I think it's because it's from, well, there's this issue.
I've got to tie it in. Jesus says, my sheep hear my voice. And the Scriptures then are the voice of Christ. And so if it's the voice of Christ, we follow his voice because Jesus says in John 5, 39 that the Scriptures are about him. And so that means we have to understand the Scriptures in light of who Christ is. And the Scriptures are about him. Everybody bears witness of him. And so if, and here's the thing.
How do I word this? That if my wife, for example, calls me, I know her voice. And I know it's her.
I don't have to go to anybody to verify it's her. I just simply know it is. And likewise in Scripture, we don't have to go to anybody to verify it's the voice of Christ. We just know it's the voice of Christ.
This is a spiritual thing. And this is kind of presupposed in the whole issue of what Scripture is. I think this is really interesting. And also along this line before the break here, Scripture does not state we need an authority to interpret it.
It doesn't do that. I think it's interesting stuff. I've been researching and thinking. But anyway, why don't you give me a call? 877-207-2276. We'll be right back. Please. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick. All right, everybody.
Welcome back to the show. What's kind of interesting is as I'm discussing the issue of the Word of God, I have a chat room open that I sometimes go into in the evenings and have discussions. And I glanced in there, and somebody put in that I think about the Book of Mormon. And that's kind of apropos because it's the Book of Mormon Scripture.
And of course it's not. One of the reasons is, and I put some links in there to the Book of Mormon. And some articles on CARM that I've written and gone through showing the problems and the changes in the Book of Mormon. And so this is an interesting topic because what do we say about other groups that claim that they have additional Scripture? Like Mormonism claims to have additional Scripture.
Now, what's interesting is Jesus says in John 10, 27, 28, My sheep hear my voice, and they follow after me. Whenever I read the Book of Mormon or the Koran, either one of those, to me, not just a subjective opinion, but to me, it sounds exactly like somebody trying to sound spiritual and pretend they're godlike. That's what it sounds like to me.
Both the Book of Mormon and the Koran, to me, say the same thing. That it just sounds like a guy trying to sound spiritual. That's what it sounds like to me.
I don't know. I've had other people say the same thing. They read them.
It just sounds fake. Well, anyway, that doesn't mean it's true or false. But I was looking through the Book of Mormon, which in History of the Church, volume 4, page 461, it said of it that it's the most correct book of any book on earth. It's more correct than even the Bible. And what I find interesting in the Book of Mormon is that it said there's only one God. Yet Mormonism says there's many gods. It says a trinity is one god, yet Mormonism says a trinity is three gods. It says God is unchanging, but Mormonism says that God is increasing in his knowledge. It says God is spirit, but yet the Book of Mormon says he's in the form of a man. The Book of Mormon says hell is eternal, and yet the Book of Mormon says hell is not eternal. It condemns polygamy in the Book of Mormon, yet polygamy was taught and practiced.
And so there's lots of stuff like this. I see inconsistencies in the Book of Mormon and in the Koran. In fact, one of the things in the Koran I will go to that demonstrates it's not true is Surah 4, 157, where it talks about someone being made to look like Jesus and who is crucified. And Allah is the one who changed someone to look like Jesus to make it look like he was crucified when he really was not. And so this is an act of deception by Allah, and that means that Allah is a deceiver because by his direct hand he directly performed an action.
By his will and his work and his action he deceived. And so this is one of the ways of demonstrating that things are not true. Like the Book of Mormon has been changed like 4,000 places, at least 4,000 places.
It has lots of problems and lots of issues and stuff like that. But I'm always intrigued, and this is what's really fascinating to me, is that, for example, the Book of Mormon, I'll tell you a quick story that I experienced once. The Mormons follow the Book of Mormon.
They follow the voice of that shepherd. The Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, Pearl of Great Price. But the Bible, you can't really trust it because the eighth article of the Mormon church says the Bible is correct only insofar as it's correctly translated. So they cast doubt on it, and then they listen to the voice of someone else.
You can't have both of these sets be true. The Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price as a set. And the Bible. Because the Bible contradicts those, and clearly it does. And so what they do is they cast doubt on the Bible, just like the devil did in Genesis 3 when he said to Eve, well, did God really say? That was his word.
God talked to Adam, and Adam gave the word to Eve, and then Satan said to Eve, well, did God really say that? Well, you know, it's doubted. The word of God is doubted.
And whenever you do that, you're opening yourself up to others. So they go after the voice of another shepherd, the Mormons do. Just as the Muslims go after a voice of yet another shepherd, because they do not follow the voice of Christ. And so how do we know we have Christ?
How do we know that we are following the true shepherd? Well, it's very simple. You just go to what he said.
I think it's pretty easy. You go to what he said. And so you believe what he said, and what he said is recorded in the Gospels. But in the Quran, no, you can't trust it because it's been corrupted, blah, blah, blah. And just as the eighth article of the Mormon Church says, well, it's basically corrupted.
It has to be translated right. And they're the ones who have the authority to do that, just like Islam. Allah has the authority. He gave the authority to Muhammad, and he'll tell you what the truth is.
I am fascinated by these false teachings and stuff. But Jesus, he says things like, come to me. Oh, we're heavy-legged, and I will give you rest.
Let's just take that for example. He says, come to me. He didn't say go to Mary. He didn't say go to Muhammad.
He says, come to me. So we could test, do you go to Christ? Now, what does it mean to go to Christ? Because Jesus says in John 14, 14, ask me anything in my name, and I will do it. And he has all authority in heaven and earth, Matthew 28, 18 and 20. And he could forgive sins. So if he had all authority, and he forgives sins.
And he says, come to me, Matthew 11, 28. Well, then we should do that. Here's one of the tests I ask people when I'm talking about this. I've talked to Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, because they have a different shepherd. I've talked to Mormons, and this doesn't really work as well with Islam.
And so I'll not use this approach and include them in it. So the approach I will use with those who believe, to some degree, that the Bible is true, is I'll say, well, is Jesus God in flesh? And they'll say, well, yes. Even though Mormonism says he's a god. But nevertheless, yes.
Okay. And so did Jesus say, ask him anything in his name, and he will do it? John 14, 14, yes.
Did Jesus say, come to me, all who are heavy laden in the eye will give you rest? Matthew 28, or 11, 28, yes. Does Jesus have the authority on heaven and earth? All authority, yes.
That's Matthew 28, 18. Well, then does that mean he can forgive sins? If he has all authority, yes.
Okay, now here's a question. If you believe that he's God in flesh, he has all authority. All authority on heaven and earth. If you come to him and ask him and he forgives sins, then can you go straight to Jesus, pray to Jesus, just as they did in the Bible, and can you ask Jesus to forgive you of all of your sins? Jesus, not the Father, not the Holy Spirit, not the Father, through Jesus, the person of Jesus. Because Jesus says, come to me. That's what he says in Matthew 11, 28. So what do these churches teach? They ask this of Catholics, and they say, well, yes, you can do that.
You can go straight to Jesus and ask him to forgive you of all of your sins. About 90, 95% of the time when I ask them to do that, if they say yes, and I say, well, then are all your sins forgiven? And this is where the wheels come off the cart. You can hear the squeaking, the bearings seize up, and the wheels fall off and then the scraping on the ground of the theological ground as the problems are evident. And I say, well, then why do you need your priesthood if you go to the one high priest, Jesus Christ, and go to him?
And the answers they give me are ridiculous, but they just don't want to go straight to Jesus. Hey, we've got a break. Give me a call. Nobody's waiting. 877-207-2276. Be right back. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276.
Here's Matt Slick. All right, everybody. Welcome back to the show. And if you want to give me a call, as usual, 877-207-2276.
877-207-2276 is the call-in number for the radio show, which I just typed into a chat room. So we'll see. I told him the chat room I was typing in during the break that I'm discussing the issue of coming to Christ and who has a true Christ. And one of the things I've developed over the years is this argument of the true Jesus has prayed to, he's worshipped, and he's called God.
Now, the EO and the RC will both affirm that. Mormons won't. But when I talk about the issue of coming to Christ, and particularly the priesthood office of Christ, he's a high priest after the order of Melchizedek. And he lives forever to make intercession for us, Hebrews 6, 20, and 7, 25. And he's in heaven.
Because if he's a priest on earth, he wouldn't be a priest, and that's Hebrews 8, 4. So what I have to ask these guys is if you pray to Jesus, and he has all authority in heaven and earth, and you look to him and you ask for the forgiving of all of your sins, will he? I've actually had different answers for different EO and RC. One of the answers I've gotten is, well, maybe. Maybe. Depends on something. Well, it depends on what? And it depends on how good you are, or it depends on if you've been baptized, or if you want to get baptized, or if you're in submission to their particular church, or if you're sincere, or if all kinds of stuff. And for those who say, well, yes, he will forgive you, I say, okay. Because I'll say, look, you mean it. You're confessing. It's not a mockery here.
It's a real thing. You're asking Jesus. And I say, will he forgive you? And then they grudgingly say, well, yes. Some of them will say, only the sins up to that point.
I'm just like, man, they work hard at just bondage, being in bondage. Wait, what do you mean? Only up to this point. What do you mean? Because I know what they mean. I say, what do you mean? Tell us.
What do you mean? Well, you see, when you ask Jesus to forgive you of all of your sins, they're all forgiven only up to the point of when you've asked. And then if you commit any more after that, you've got to go to the priest.
I'm like, aye, aye, aye. Well, then why don't you just ask again? Ask Jesus to forgive you again. Because God set up the priesthood in our true church, blah, blah, blah. And we have the apostolic succession. We have the authority passed down, et cetera, et cetera. And so therefore, we're only doing what God told us to do. Go to the church for the forgiveness of sins. I'm like, where is it to say that?
Second hysterectomy? It's just not there. And then what they'll do is they will then cite scriptures in support of what they do, you know, of their position. And they'll often respond with, did you hear that? Did you hear that? Seriously, did you hear that? Hear what? You know, like a verse being ripped right out of context.
You didn't hear that, huh? And they don't like it when I talk like that, but that's usually what's going on. Because, man, oh, man, they are just shredding scripture.
They're shredding it because they assume something. And then they say that's just what the truth is because our church tells them to. So, you know, for me, I get a kick out of all of this.
It's in a sad way, you know. I'm made to kind of enjoy the interaction with theology because I love the word of God so much. I love my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and my dependence on him is complete and true. And I don't need anybody else or anything else other than Jesus. I don't need a church. I don't need a baptism. I don't need a prophet.
I don't need any new revelation. I just need what Jesus has revealed in the word and my trust and faith in him. That's what I need, and that's what will keep me right on the day of judgment. But what they'll teach is you've got to go through the sacraments. You've got to go through the priesthood. You've got to do this over and over again. You have to just participate in all the things that you have to participate in in order to make sure that once your sins have been forgiven, once you've got to continue to keep yourself right with God. And that's one of the things I say. What do you have to do to keep yourself right with the infinitely holy God of the universe?
Anyway, so they give me all kinds of answers, and I deal with them a lot. Let's get to Caleb from Kentucky. Caleb, welcome. You're on the air.
Hi, Matt. Thank you so much for taking my call, brother. Hey, sure. No problem, man.
That's right. What do you got, buddy? Yeah, so my question is I actually just recently became a five-point Calvinist, watched a while your content and some other brothers in the Lord, and I just recently I've been devouring the book of Hebrews. It's absolutely amazing the parallel with Christ as our high priest and whatnot. And my question to you was I know the authorship of Hebrews is debated, so I just wanted to know what your – I highly respect your opinion, and the question was do you know the authorship of Hebrews? I don't know who wrote it. Different authors have been posited.
I can only give you what my opinion is, and that's not gospel in any way. I suspect that Paul wrote it, and the reason I say that is that Paul, unlike the other epistles where he signs them or he says I'm Paul, et cetera, this one he does not, and I suspect, just my opinion, that the reason he did not put his name to it is so that when it was received by the Hebrews, they wouldn't automatically reject it because it came from him. The Hebrew – excuse me, the Greek is a sophisticated Greek. It's more harder when you study Greek.
It gets into more – it's like English. You can say I went to the store, but you can also say when I was considering going to the store yesterday, and then I finally went, I then understood the goal of going down to get that coffee, and one of the best – I went to the store and got coffee, and so Hebrews is like the second part. It's just more complicated, and I think Paul was intelligent enough, and he knew the language well enough to be able to do that kind of a thing.
That's one reason. Another reason I think so, and this is really kind of mystical, is I'm into numbers in the Bible, you know, so it's called gematria and stuff like this, and 13 is the number of sin, 39 is the number of mercy. Jesus, I think it is, or Jesus Christos in Greek, the letters add up to 888. There was eight people in Noah's ark. They were circumcised on the eighth day. Jesus was raised on the first day of the week. That's the eighth day, and I see patterns like this, and I've always kind of affirmed them.
Well, along those lines, Paul, without Hebrews, he would have written 13 epistles, and that's kind of a problem, so I say 14 because it makes sense. It's just stuff like that, you know? Yeah, yeah, thank you so much. That was very edifying to hear that answer and to look into that and stuff. I know, like you said, that's your opinion, but yeah, I highly respect that, and that's really interesting, and thank you so much for taking my call. Okay. Now, just so you know, Tertullian, who was right around the late 100s and early 200s, said that Barnabas was the author, and Clement of Alexandria said it was Paul, who wrote it in Hebrew. It was translated by Luke into Greek.
So, you know, there's just different theories, okay? Right, right, right. Thank you so much, Matt, for taking my call. You're welcome. God bless, buddy.
God bless. Bye. Okay. All right.
That was Caleb from Kentucky. If you want to give me a call, the number is 877-207-2276. Let me get back to this issue of the voice of Christ. I've been thinking about this a lot. People have asked me, why is it you believe the Bible is true? And I've given them this answer before where I said, I don't know why. I just believe it is. I don't know why I do. I just do. Well, how do you know what the books are that are true? I don't know how. I just accept that the Bible is true, and when I read it, it just rings true.
That's all I can tell you. And they don't like that answer. What they want is for me to develop a syllogistic reason or logical this or that so they can attack it. And I'm not trying to avoid their cross-examination.
I just tell them this. I say, I don't know how I know. And I'm not saying my knowledge is infallible or my belief is inerrant.
I'm just saying, when I read it, oh, yeah, it's his word. And I remember when I first became on fire for the Lord. I still remember this. I was in my early 20s, and I got saved when I was 17 and kind of, you know, just kind of hopscotched around the theological scene, the secular scene, and stuff. And I don't even know how old I was.
Maybe 19, 20, 21. I don't remember. You know, I'm 68, so I can't remember back that far as far as exactly what happened and when. But I remember, I remember suddenly being enthralled with the word of God. And I mean enthralled.
And I would read it for four hours a day, for weeks. It was just, it was just, I couldn't get enough. And everything was soothing to my soul. I was in the voice of God, the presence of God in his word. And it was all good, all the time.
But when I would read the Book of Mormon or the Quran, not the same thing. Anyway, hey, give me a call, 877-207-2276. Be right back. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276.
Here's Matt Slick. All right, everyone, welcome back to the show. If you want to give me a call, we have nobody waiting.
Slow day today. 877-207-2276. All right, what I think I'm going to do now is just get to some radio questions and get to some of that stuff like that. Let's see, does Matthew 19-6 teach that God chose my wife for me?
Couldn't help but think that when I read it. Well, let me go to it. Let's see, Matthew 19-6.
All right, here we go. Matthew 19-6, there are no longer two but one flesh, therefore what God has joined together. Let no man separate. What that's in reference to most probably is not him saying, you pick this woman right here. But that in the marriage ceremony and the vows that are made, God is there and he is joining you. It's a spiritual thing.
That's probably what's going on in that sense. But in another sense, does God ordain what wife you'll have? The answer is yes. Now, there's a direct ordination. There's an indirect ordination. God can certainly desire for you to marry a certain woman and arrange it by his direct hand. He can also just allow you to marry a woman that may not be the best one for you, hypothetically.
Like let's say a man who's a Christian wants to marry a woman who's not a Christian. Well, he's not supposed to do that. God's not going to arrange for him to do that. He may permit him to do it, but he doesn't arrange it. So there's different ways in which you can understand the idea of God picking and choosing and doing that.
Let's get another question here. I just found a website today wanting to read to understand the seven churches revelation. And the scriptures always puzzled me. He who overcomes will thus be clothed with white garments. The white garments are representative of righteousness.
There's also in the ancient jurisprudence when a person was found guilty of a crime and then afterwards they had fulfilled the requirements of payment for restitution due to that crime. They were given a white stone. And the white stone, the stone painted white, was put out in front of their abode. And that was a signal that they had met the requirements and they're innocent now.
They're okay. So anyway, the idea of white symbolizes purity. So he says he will not erase his name from the book of life and confess his name before the father and the angel. Some say, well, that means he will not erase your name from the book of life.
It means you can be, not necessarily. If he just says whoever overcomes a gift of white garments, he'll not erase your name is not logically necessary to say that it's potentially possible for it to be erased. Now this is just a logic issue. And so this is one of the arguments. The other argument is, well, if it is possible to erase the name from the book of life, does it mean you lose your salvation? Well, that would depend on what the book of life is.
Is the book of life eternal life or is the book of life that you exist and you are alive? And so these are the kind of things that are debated in theological circles about this kind of thing. And so I hope that helps. Let's get to another one. I had a dispensationalist tell me that Romans 9 was only meant for Israel. I went over that just a few days ago.
So let's go here. Matthew 23, 1-12 in this verse. And do not call anyone on earth your father, for only one is your father who is in heaven. So this idea is used in the context of denying the idea of calling a priest in the Catholic Church father or the Eastern Orthodox Church father. Because what they mean when they say father is they have a priesthood authority over you. And so don't do that and don't call them father in that sense. There's only one father.
He is the supreme king and he's the one who has authority over you. So that's why we're not to do that. And I won't call any Catholic priest or Eastern Orthodox priest a father. I don't do that.
I refuse to. And I remember I was in a discussion once with an Eastern Orthodox pastor. And he said he wanted me to call him father so and so. And I said, well, my understanding of scripture doesn't permit me to do that.
Is there something else I can call you? And he said, you can call me father. And he was really arrogant in my opinion because he didn't allow me my conviction before God's word. He just assumed I was wrong and I had to submit to what he said.
And I remember this conversation. And so I said, no, you don't understand. I can't do that.
I don't believe it's the right thing to do biblically. So can I call you pastor such and such or whatever? And he said, no, you call me father. And I actually said, look, dude, I'm not doing that. I called him dude. He did not like being called dude. And so I went so cowl on him, you know, I just said, look, dude. And he got ruffled over that. But hey, you know, I told him at least two times it's against my convictions to do that. According to scripture, what else can I call you to show you that respect that you want?
But he wouldn't. Oh, I remember that. I never forgot.
Oh, man, I still remember that. All right. Here's another question. Hey, Matt, can you talk about the Sabbath and if we as Christians need to keep it or observe it? Yes, you do.
No, you don't. No. The Sabbath officially is Saturday from Friday night sundown to Saturday sundown. And so under the Old Testament economy, the Old Testament covenant, the people of Israel were to keep that Sabbath. But of the Ten Commandments that are given where the Sabbath is included in Exodus 21 through 17, one of the Ten Commandments is not restated as valid in the New Testament, and that is the Sabbath. The Sabbath is not restated in the New Testament as being a requirement. It's not there. But it does say they met on the Sabbath and things like that. And people will say, well, see, there it is. That proves you've got to keep it.
No. It just says they met on the Sabbath. It doesn't say thou shalt keep the Sabbath. It doesn't say that. And that's what we're looking for because, you know, it'll say things like, and the scriptures have said, you know, you shall not lie.
And this is true because blah, blah, blah. But it doesn't do that with the Sabbath because Jesus is our Sabbath because he's our rest. Matthew 11 and 27 talks about this, 11 and 28, excuse me, more specifically, that he is our rest. So we're not obligated to keep it in that sense. We can't work. We can't drive. We can't this.
We can't that. So it says in Romans 14, 1 through 12, particularly verse 5, it talks about the issue of Sabbath days and it says, Let each man be fully convinced in his own mind on which day is to be holy and not holy. So if we're obligated to follow this Sabbath on a Saturday as the right day, then that statement, let each man be fully convinced in his own mind on what day would not have been included in there. Now some say, well, it was transferred to Sundays where you have to keep the Sunday Sabbath. So I say to people, you keep it according to what you believe God wants you to do.
And so I don't want to put anybody under the law. So I just tell them what I do on Sunday. I go to church and I refrain, you know, mostly from working on car because that is work to me. But I have no problem going out and going to a store and buying some food. I have no problem doing that or going out. In fact, on Sunday nights, Sunday nights, Sunday nights, that's right, it is Sunday nights. Every other week I drive over to a friend's house and he can't drive. And so we've got to get something to eat and stuff.
It's kind of a ministry thing. Plus, he's a good company. He's a good guy too. And so I hope he's not listening. He'll know I'm talking about him.
I don't want to get a big head even though he's a good guy. See, I just said it again. Anyway, so on Sabbath, can I do that? Of course I can do that. I'm not obligated and restricted in that sense. And so if someone says you are obligated and restricted, then they're being legalistic because they don't have that obligation in Scripture. So I say do what you believe is right that God's calling you to do on that day.
I do think it's wise to have that day be set aside for some holy stuff like going to church and maybe spending more time with whoever, whatever, and doing stuff like that. That's what I say. All right. Quick and slick answers, huh? Let me do another one. How about this one? Good morning.
My name is so-and-so. Can you briefly go over the difference between Calvinism and Arminianism? Or if you want to go super in-depth, I'm okay with that too.
We don't have time to go super in-depth. So basically, I'll do it like this. Calvinism teaches that God chooses people for salvation not based on anything in them. Arminianism says that God knows what they will choose in different circumstances and works with them and grants them faith, and then he chooses based on that. Calvinism would say that the unbeliever is a slave of sin.
He cannot do anything good. He is not able of his own free will to be able to choose God. Arminianism would say that's basically true except that God will then give them what's called prevenient grace to enable that person to be able to be neutral to make that choice. Calvinism would say Jesus only legally bore the sin of the elect, where Arminianism says Jesus legally bore the sin of every individual.
And we can get into the ramifications of that. It also teaches what's called irresistible grace, Calvinism does, which means at the point of regeneration that you cannot resist the grace of God, where Arminianism kind of goes along with that in that it's being born again as the work of God, but there's a little bit more nuanced issues there that you can resist God and you can thwart his will for you. And perseverance of the saints, generally Calvinism says that God, when he saves you, you're saved.
That's it, you cannot lose it. Where Arminianism, some Arminians hold that you cannot lose it and others hold that you can lose it. And in a nutshell, Calvinism or Reformed theology focuses on the sovereignty of God, the greatness of God, the work of God. Where Arminianism acknowledges the sovereignty and greatness of God, but elevates human ability and human free will.
Far more than Calvinism would. So Calvinism teaches what's called compatibilist free will, Arminianism teaches what's called libertarian free will. Compatibilist free will is the position that freedom of choice is compatible with God's knowledge and decrees and sovereignty. Where Arminianism would have problems with that because it would say the libertarian free will means that he's not restricted by his sinful nature. And that the free will choices are not compatible with the absolute predestination and sovereignty of God.
That God will give to us the measure of our own sovereignty and he works around it and with it and through it. So one of them, if I could say this, Calvinism is more God-centered, where Arminianism is more man-centered. Where Calvinism will talk about the sovereignty of God, Arminianism is the sovereignty of man. Calvinism is the election of the work of God, Arminianism is, yes that's true, but God considers your choices, your actions because he enables you to make those choices.
Arminianism, in my opinion, scratches an itch about what is perceived as fairness and where Calvinism causes the itch against what others sometimes see as fairness and stuff like that. So I can go on quite a bit and I've been defending Reformed theology for about 34-35 years and I know it well and I hold to it, but if you don't that's okay. Just like the guy on the radio here earlier, you know, 10-15 minutes ago says he became a five-pointer. I went, oh okay good, you know, that's good. I'm concerned, do you love Jesus? Are you trusting in Christ? Do you believe he's God in flesh, died in the cross, rose from the dead? Do you trust in what he's done and received him by faith?
That's what I'm concerned about and that's what is important. That's the gospel and we all need to be united in the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's what saves us, not Reformed theology, not Arminianism. We need to put our faith and trust in the Lord Jesus, trust in him in all ways, in all ways, for all ways.
All right, hey there's the music. May the Lord bless you and by his grace be back on here tomorrow on Thursday and we'll talk to you then. Have a great evening everyone. God bless. Bye.
