Ex-Catholic REVEALS Why He LEFT the Catholic Church!? (ft. Dr. Frank Turek) | Live Free with Josh Howerton

Good works are the fruit of your salvation, they're not the root of your salvation. The same grace that saves us also sustains us and it transforms us. Charlie Kirk did great things, but he's not in heaven because he died for his Savior. Charlie Kirk is in heaven because his Savior died for Charlie Kirk. The question is not, are you a Baptist or are you a Presbyterian or are you a Catholic or are you a Protestant? The question is, do you believe in Jesus for salvation? Well, hey, Live Free Nation, before we jump into the episode, this podcast is recorded right here at Lake Point Church in Dallas, Texas, but the Live Free Nation is spread all over the country and all around the world, so if you've been watching and thinking, man, I wish I could be part of something like this, we want to invite you to take a simple next step, and that is join us for Church Online. Every weekend, we stream our services live on YouTube, Facebook, and our Church Online platform, and it's more than just watching a service. There are live hosts in the chat, prayer teams ready to stand with you, and people all around the world worshiping together in real time. Whether you're exploring the faith, coming back to church, or just looking for a place to start, Church Online is a great way to jump in and experience what God is doing here at Lake Point. We would love to see you in the chat this weekend, and now, enjoy the podcast. Well, hey, welcome back to a bonus episode of the Live Free Podcast. My name is Carlos Arazu, and today I'm here with Pastor Paul Cunningham, and today we have a special guest. This right here, Paul, is somebody who has spent decades faithfully defending the Christian faith. Yes, he has. He's been on college campuses, high profile. He's been on the church for a long time. Thank goodness. Hey, bro. Hey, we're going to do one more point. We're going to wrap this pod up. Hey, you got the hat? I got the hat right here. T-shirt. I mean, you got the whole thing. You're fit right in. I wore the T-shirt in honor of Josh, the hat in honor of Josh. Well, the T-shirt in honor of Charlie and Josh. Yeah, man. Josh will be back next week, right? This is not a permanent thing, is it? No. Okay, all right. We hope so. Although, we'll have you back later this year. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's going to be fun. Hey, Frank, first of all, thank you for being here, man. It is my pleasure. I listen to every—actually, I watch every Live Free podcast. Oh, wow. Great podcast. One of my favorites. Probably my favorite podcast out there. And you're neck and neck with Father Mike Schmitz in the ratings. You guys out there, you guys need to start telling your friends about the Live Free podcast because we need to overtake—we need to overtake Father Schmitz. We're going to talk about Catholicism. We are. Maybe this is the episode. Maybe this is it. All right, let's do it. By the way, Frank. The first time I heard about you, I was in college, and it was during the New Atheism movement. It was kind of like picking up. And one of the books that was extremely helpful for me was this one, Stealing from God. Basically, I grabbed it and made it like a textbook of mine. And so, man, you've blessed my life deeply. I just want to say that. Oh, thank you, brother. Man, and one thing that I appreciate from you—we were talking about this during lunch—is you're not just obviously a brilliant man, but you're also compassionate. You're a very patient man. And if somebody doesn't know, you can just literally go find Frank on any video, and your patience just oozes out naturally. But you have a heart of a father who loves people, and so that's rare. Patience. You haven't seen me drive. But hopefully, no, hopefully I try and answer a person, not just a question. That's good. And that's what you want to do. You don't want to win an argument and lose a person. There you go. Amen. So that's what we try and do on college campuses. In an age of outrage and people just wanting to crush each other and win arguments, I think you're a voice that is— A blessing, and it's a good thing that we have people like you. Thank you, brother. Hey, for people that are wondering, that awesome hat that Frank is wearing, every single episode we do a giveaway, so comment FREEDOM to participate in this week's giveaway, and we're going to be selecting some. Today, we're going to be talking about the main differences between Catholicism and Protestantism. That's us, by the way. We're going to be addressing the biggest objections Catholics have against Protestant theology. We're going to be reacting to some recent headlines about the Catholic Church, and we're going to be talking about the main differences between Catholicism and Protestantism. The Pope and Islam, and answer the question, is it true, like official Catholic teaching says, that Christians and Muslims worship the same God? And so, yeah, it's going to be fun. And they don't. All right. Good night, ladies and gentlemen. That's all we needed. That's right. Hey, but before we do, Frank, I want to start asking you something a little bit more personal. I want to ask you this. You were very close to Charlie Kirk. Actually, you're wearing that shirt in honor of Charlie, and a lot of people might not know that. I don't know this, but you were there with him the day Charlie got assassinated. And so, I want to ask you, can you share just a little bit of what that experience was for you, and kind of just how that's shaped you, and kind of where you are at today? Sure. Charlie and I go back to January of 2020, when he emailed our ministry, and he had been watching some of the Q&A that we do on college campuses, and he found them helpful, these Q&A videos. And so, he wanted to meet. And when we met, he said, hey, could you mentor me in Christian apologetics, evidence for the faith? Now, it can be difficult to mentor someone smarter than you, because Charlie was brilliant. But the only thing that exceeded his intellect was his humility. So, the few things I knew that he didn't know, he wanted to know. And so, he would invite me to every TPUSA event, and we would meet privately quite a bit. And last summer, summer of 25, we met on 4K. And we had two occasions in Phoenix to sit down and go through the most difficult questions that each of us get on a college campus, mostly related to Christianity, but also related to political issues and cultural issues as well. And so, the third time we met was August, and he said, hey, I'm going to be coming back from Japan on September 7th, I think it was. He said, can you come back out that day? And I said, I want some prep time before the very first event at Utah Valley University on September 10th. We could spend a couple of days together. And then, why don't you just come with me to the first event? So, sure. So, came out, and we spent some time Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. The event was on Wednesday. In fact, we went on a long walk. We would not only meet during the day, but on Sunday. And in the evenings, he would say, hey, after Eric and I put the kids down, why don't you and I go on a long walk, and we'll just talk about whatever issues we could. And so, let's see, Monday, September 8th, he and I went on a walk through his neighborhood with a 300-pound-armed bodyguard behind us. And the three major issues we talked about that night were the government, politics, Islam in particular. How can we be better at convincing people that here's the great evidence that Jesus rose from the dead, so they actually trust in Christ? And the third thing he wanted to talk about was how can we get our generation, his generation, he was 31 at the time, to embrace marriage and the family? Because while men appeared to want to embrace marriage, women didn't, according to the survey. So, those are the three major issues we talked about, walk-in, for about 90 minutes. Now, in retrospect, I realize that Charlie was talking about the three institutions that God created, government, the family, and the church. He was a big forward thinker, a big picture thinker that could dive down into the details. So, he was talking about the central issues, really, to Christians and to civilization. He wanted to be better at those issues. So, the next day, we had a meeting, a Zoom meeting with a couple of people in Israel and a couple of people in the room and another person, an expert on Israel in the United States. And we were asking them, and Charlie was asking them, tell me your perspective on what's going on with Hamas now and the Israeli situation. Tell me, I want to be better able to answer questions when I get questions on this. So, contrary to popular opinion, some popular opinion, that Charlie was giving up on Israel, that's not true. He was trying to prepare himself to know the facts and be better able to answer those questions. This is the day before he was murdered. We're in this meeting. I'm in the meeting with him. So, the next day, we get up, we fly up to Utah, and he actually—we had to stop to do a— he was going to do a— he was going to do a presentation to a group of restaurateurs because his cousin was a restaurateur and said, Charlie, could you come speak to my group of restaurant owners? And so, we stop at this place. He walks in. He does an hour talk on entrepreneurship. Get back in the car. We head to the university. Wow. I mean, Charlie could talk about anything about success, right? So, on our way in, we get some footage from the venue from up high. Originally, I thought it was drone footage, but in retrospect, there was a walkway above us that somebody was just—had their phone, apparently, over the walkway. And it showed this huge crowd. This was like maybe an hour before we were due to be there. And he's showing me the video. video and I go, I said, Charlie, I don't like this place. There are too many buildings. He just kind of shrugged it off because he knew in order to reach people and love people, he had to put himself in harm's way to a certain extent. In fact, love involves sacrifice and you can't wall yourself off from people completely. So he didn't. And so we pull up, the crowd is just going crazy. We're about 50 yards from the crowd when we pull up in this SUV and he gets out. There's a whole group of kids from TPUSA wanting to meet him. He stops, says hello to them, takes pictures with them. And when we walk on over to the venue, as people are just screaming, there's a point when he looks at me and he goes, welcome to the big leagues. Because look, I do college events. That's how he. That's actually why he reached out to me, but I'll attract a few hundred. And by the way, you've been doing college events for. Like 20 years. 20 years. Long time. Long time. Yeah. He's done them for five or six years. He's not even doing a presentation and there are thousands of people waiting to hear him just answer questions. So then he starts flipping hats. Somebody hands me a row of hats. I'm flipping hats. In fact, Trinity, I'll send you some pictures. You can put it up. You can show people. We're just flipping hats. And then he says, okay, it's time to go. He sits down under this tent. I'm about 20 feet from him, 25 feet from him off his right elbow. I'm just parallel to him outside the tent. And I'm FaceTiming my wife. And then I FaceTime my son and daughter-in-law who are big Charlie fans and saying, can you imagine? This is amazing. These people are just screaming. It was a Trump rally times two with no Trump and people just screaming for Q&A. And someone gives me a hat. So I have a hat on, a white 47 hat. And the first question is about Mormonism. We knew we'd get a question on that. We were talking about it on the way in the car. We're in Utah. Of course, we're going to get questions on Mormonism. And Charlie's very gracious. We have big theological differences, but I have Mormonism. I have Mormons on my staff and I love them. I want them to know the true gospel, that kind of thing. Second question is about transgender violence, particularly should transgender people have access to guns because of the uptick in violence perpetrated by transgender people. And so this kid is asking Charlie this question. When I hear that, I'm like, oh, my God, I'm going to get a question. I'm going to get a question. When I hear the pop and I see Charlie go back. And so I take us to take a step toward him, but his security team is on him already. And so just like everybody else, I'm thinking, are there more shots? So I duck. It's all on video. Somehow someone has it on video. I duck and and then they grab him and they take him on the other side of the tent. And so I run alongside from the the left side of the tent, if you're looking at it. And I run with them as they're carrying Charlie to the SUV that we came in on. And I I always thought somebody was going to take a shot at Charlie at some point. And I said to myself, if I'm ever there, just do whatever you can to help. You know, I mean, he's like a son to me, you know. And so I just get in the back of the SUV. I just came in the back hatch. I'm the only non-security guy in the SUV. And so they have Charlie laid out across the back seat. Rick is holding his head on my left. Brian has his mid-body, so to speak, in his legs. Justin's driving. Dan is in the front with his phone for directions to the hospital. Go, go, go, go. Of course, we're all trying to stop the bleeding. And he's not looking at me. He's looking past me, like right into eternity. His eyes are fixed. He's not there. And at one point, I started to try CPR on him, but he's not responding. As we're, this is not, it's not an emergency vehicle. There's no lights, nothing. We're just, his feet are hanging out the right door because he's so tall, we can't close the door. But to this day, I don't know how Brian stayed in the SUV because we're yanking and banking all the way to the, to the hospital. And at one point, there's an ambulance coming this way toward us. And we're like, should we stop? No, no, just keep going. Just keep, just get him there. And so we scream into the, the emergency room, carrying him into the emergency room. And we lay him down. Where is everybody? It's like, they didn't know we were coming. You know, I don't know how, but within two minutes, the team descended on him. And of course, Rick and I, as the whole way there, and we get, we're praying out loud, like, come on, Charlie, come on. Meanwhile, the whole time, I had put my phone in my back pocket. Without hanging up. I just didn't even think of it. You know, like, as soon as he was hit, I just put the phone in my back pocket and started running. And my son and daughter-in-law are hearing the whole thing. They're hearing the whole thing in the car on the way over. And so the team descends on him and they say, we have a heartbeat. So Rick and I are going, he looked dead. I mean, he looked, yeah, maybe there's hope. We're praying. Mikey shows up, his assistant, 23 years old, well beyond his years in maturity. He's on the phone with J.D. Vance. He's already called Erica, sent a plane to get Erica. And then maybe a half hour, we're kind of standing out in the hall. The nurses were great. They'd like, come in here, get cleaned up, you know, because blood everywhere. And then we're standing in the hall, just waiting. We're in scrubs now. And this doctor comes into the hall and he says, he's dead. Not sorry. We tried everything. None of that. Just with all the tenderness of a brick. He's dead. I need to talk to Erica. Mikey's on the phone going. Wow. Wow. I need to tell Erica so she doesn't hear about it in the media first, right? All this. How did they get a heartbeat? The doctor later said, if you have a healthy person like Charlie, even though he's dead, you can restart the heart. And we later learned that Charlie was killed instantly. He didn't feel anything. And the doctor said, if he had been shot in the operating room, we couldn't have saved him. Wow. Wow. So it wasn't like, oh, you didn't go fast enough. There wasn't an ambulance there. None of that. Yeah. Right. So, you know, everyone's in shock, obviously. This probably happened, Utah time. The murder happened somewhere around 12:15, 12:20. Erica probably got to the hospital around three, maybe. And then by 6:00 or so, after Erica had time to talk to the doctors and see Charlie and she came into the hallway, I saw her, she saw me, we embraced. And she said he was doing what he wanted to do. And he loved you. Please. And she said, don't let his legacy die. And so it's not just me trying to carry it on. There's so many others as well. And what's happened since then, I mean, we went, it's amazing they could pull together a memorial service like they did. There were 75,000 people in the room and about 30,000 or 40,000 in the arena next to us. There were a hundred million people watching online. Yeah. You had the opportunity of speaking in the memorial service. Yeah. Yeah. Some people would say this was probably one of the largest evangelistic moments in modern history where the gospel was shared. I think it was in all of history. And when you have the president on down talking about Jesus and even government officials like Marco Rubio, who knew? Oh my goodness. Yeah. Who knew Marco with the gospel? Who knew Marco with the gospel like he gave it? They were all great in that regard. And my only goal in the five minutes, look, Winston Churchill said this, something like this. If you give me an hour to speak i need five minutes to get ready if you give me five minutes i need a week so i labored over that for a whole week how could i honor charlie but also give the gospel so i just tried to say charlie kirk did great things but he's not in heaven because he died for his savior charlie kirk is in heaven because his savior died for charlie kirk so rubio gave the gospel hegseth gave the gospel everybody in some way gave the gospel that day and at last i heard as of november of last year 1.2 billion people have seen some of that memorial service wow yeah wow god can bring good from evil that's right that's right i mean it's uh it speaks to charlie's legacy as well of somebody who pointed to christ and and what he did with through his life um first of all thank you for sharing that frank yeah i appreciate that uh man after uh i remember uh you know everything came out and uh i saw a couple videos and all of a sudden everybody's talking about it on social media and uh there was one video where uh you were in it and people started saying different things about you know everybody's got a theory about what's actually going on uh what's happening and one of the videos was about you and i remember seeing it and i've seen that video before but i didn't know it was you um all sorts of conspiracy theories started to come out of that social media again uh all these other influencers like candace owens and people had thoughts of who was involved who was not involved what actually happened how do you process those claims and uh what do you think people are getting right and wrong about some of these conspiracy theories out there yeah the conspiracy theory was that i was signaling the shooter because i adjusted my hat in fact the fbi even asked me about it they tracked down every conspiracy theory they're they don't tell you they're doing that but if it's possible they'll ask you they called me were you signaling the shooter yeah i was telling them to steal second base i mean how stupid is this right yeah i mean any shooter didn't need me to tell them who charlie kirk was and couldn't even see me in the scope anyway so it doesn't make any sense but with these conspiracy theories let me just put it this way um jesus and the apostles said that satan is a murderer liar and slanderer who seeks to steal kill and destroy notice we had a murder on 9 10. what have we had since then lies accusations and slander seeking to steal kill and destroy that's right this is completely demonically influenced it's one thing to have a theory it's another thing to have evidence for that theory dreams and time travel are not evidence okay i could make a case that candace owens killed him it's plausible i don't have any evidence for it though and it's completely ridiculous for me to say she did it but that's essentially what she's saying that somehow tp usa is involved eric is involved somehow it's it's sinister it's demonic to say these things in fact in the old testament exodus 22 22 in the old testament economy um god says if you abuse a widow or the fatherless i will hunt you down with the sword and kill you this is what god says in deuteronomy 19 it says if you falsely accuse someone of a crime and you're found out you get the penalty of that crime so if you accuse somebody of murder falsely you're the one that will be executed man that would shut down the internet now wouldn't it if we had the old testament law in place here yeah yeah so this is what god thinks about running down widows and orphans and of course in the old testament you always had to have at least two witnesses where are the witnesses there are no witnesses in fact the witnesses and the evidence that we have show unless something crazy comes up that the person who killed charlie was tyler robinson yeah and he killed him because he didn't like what charlie was saying about transgenderism and he was involved in a transgender relationship so that appears to be the evidence now it still has to go to trial but to suggest without evidence that people who love charlie the most were involved in murdering him is against what the scripture says and it's demonic in my view amen well i'm like with that in situations sometimes i'll have to stop and ask myself okay if i were god and obviously these are hypotheticals but i'm like hey in situations like this like if i were god what would i want to happen right now what would i be trying to do right now it's like as we already shared i mean from that service you had a billion people watch gospels given clearly like that's what i would be wanting to do is take something that was so dark and evil but use it for good use it for the salvation of people but then i asked myself the second question is okay if i were the enemy if i was satan what would i be trying to do right now yeah and if i saw that much attention being put on jesus in the gospel i'm like hey let me use that but now let's put our attention on other things and speculations and things like that and slander and get people obsessed with that and get the attention off of jesus and off of the true legacy of charlie and so then when i asked him like okay generally a good thing in life is to partner with god not with satan generally generally speaking it's like those are just these situations i say that because um because maybe even the people watching listening to this have maybe gotten caught up in some of that stuff and i just to just like what you're saying frank is like man i i just would encourage you if you have put it down now it's like don't get caught up in that stuff stop partnering with what satan actually wants to use this situation for instead let's get back to what charlie's true legacy was and that's his faith in jesus and let's partner with what god wants to do from it exactly yeah i mean second timothy 216 this is paul speaking to a younger disciple timothy he literally says avoid godless chatter translation say irreverent babble worthless talk foolish talk because those who indulge in it will become more and more ungodly this is something you know again we're in the social media space a lot obviously you know we try to listen to what's out there but there's a there's wisdom in trying to figure out hey at what point does it become uh godless chatter or irreverent babble and at the end of the day man you wanna you wanna be mindful of what you feed your mind you wanna be intentional on how you use your time wisely and some of these conspiracy theories are just not worth it if you're a christian um and for sure uh frank i think you know one huge takeaway obviously we could keep going on and on about charlie's legacy and so much uh one of the takeaways for for us i think uh from charlie's legacy is that we realize man what is often called the quote-unquote the culture war can be a platform for the gospel not so much a distraction from it and i think we we see that in his life and literally after in many ways after charlie's assassination uh we have seen a spiritual stirring in our nation yeah and uh we're seeing as a church we're seeing people come to church you know everybody's talking about a reawakening of faith people are seeking truth um people are picking up their bibles again asking the right questions about how do you have the relationship that charlie had with jesus and so man this is why i wanted to have this conversation with you as well as we transition towards talking about catholicism um whenever whenever i talk to people in the lobby paul uh honestly probably the the thing that people ask the most is is on catholicism hey what do you what do you what do you make of it uh statistically today 20 of u.s adults identify as catholic and at the same time uh many people you'll see this on social media they're seeing an increase in adults converting to catholicism in the last several years 2023 data shows gen z american adults being slightly more likely to identify as catholic than protestant which is interesting i want to hear your thoughts on this in just a second in 2025 we had the election of the first american pope based on what we know now at least three of white sox fans so i'm a cubs fan so oh you are well yeah some call him bob from chicago yeah that's right okay based on what we know now at least three of the likely nominees for president in 2028 are catholic overall there just seems to be an increase in catholic voices apologists uh and more and so here's what i want to ask uh frank what i want to do is basically i want to hear your story i know you converted from catholicism uh we're going to distinguish hey these are the main differences between catholic theology and protestant theology we're going to rapid fire some quick objections and then we're going to talk about the pope and then we're going to wrap it up yeah sound like a plan it's a plan let's go we got uh but before we do you're i you're somebody that's fun to hang out with frank i got a couple memes uh that i think are gonna feel appropriate this is uh yeah it says here that's a nice door you have there it would be a shame if somebody nailed something and then we have another one over here nice doctrines you have there it'd be a shame if somebody examined them by scripture that's what we're gonna do today let's do it frank uh you converted to catholicism oh from from from catholic i grew up that's right that's right from new jersey yeah yes and i was catholic that's right i was catholic because it's the law look you're either catholic you're jewish or you're skeptic if you're from jersey so i went to catholic high school the whole deal uh and i always believed in god because i knew there had to be a first cause and i knew god was moral i knew the moral law was pressing on me this is what paul which of course says in Romans 1, In Romans 1, he talks about creation, so there must be a creator. In Romans 2, he talks about conscience, so this creator must be a being that is moral. And I always knew that this kind of God existed, but I just didn't know who Jesus was. I never got that in the Catholic Church, from my perspective anyway. Some Catholics will say, we just weren't listening. No, I actually was listening, and I didn't quite get it. It wasn't until I was in the Navy, which stands for, by the way, never again volunteer yourself. I was in the Navy, and I met the son of a Methodist minister, and I had so many questions for him. He finally said, look, you just need to get Josh McDowell books, Evidence Demands a Verdict and More Than a Carpenter. These were books written before you were born, back in like the 70s. Paul was probably born. No, I was not. That's a joke. Sorry, go ahead. Way back when. Paul, why have you never been to Israel? That's what I want to know. That's a great question. Wow. And I'm here now because Pastor Josh is like somewhere overseas on some sort of tour. Did he call you and tell you to ask me this? No, but I just want to know, how come he doesn't take you there? This is a great question, because I haven't been to Israel, and then he got to go to Greece. And you haven't been to Greece either? I've not been to Greece. I'm making a list of places where he hasn't been, and one day I will pull those out. I think there's like one. He probably hasn't been to Bayonne, New Jersey. Would you like to go there? Listen, if you want to take me, I'd be glad to go there. We could take a picture. and ask him, have you been here? But yeah, keep going, keep going. All right, so where were we? Okay, so I met the son of the Methodist minister. I had so many questions for him. He said, get these Josh McDowell books. I read these books and I realized that Christianity was true. And then when I got out of the Navy, I met Norman Geisler, who at the time was sort of the Michael Jordan of apologetics or the Tom Brady of apologetics or updated. And he was starting a seminary in Charlotte, North Carolina. And so in 1993, my wife and I and our three sons, five and under, moved to Charlotte. There was no online. There was no internet. You had to actually go to the place to learn from the guy himself. And so we did. And that was in 1993. We moved there, didn't have a job. Three kids under the age of five. Somehow God worked it out and we went to seminary there and he and I wrote a couple of books together, Dr. Geisler and I. The first one was called Legislating Morality. You always hear you can't legislate morality. The truth of the matter is that's all you can legislate. The only question is who's morality. So that's what that book is about. And then secondly, we wrote a book called I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist in 2004, which by the way is about to be updated. It's coming out in October, the new update. Hey, last time you were here, we said that it surpassed a million copies. It's close. I'm sure, okay. We need to change that right now. Yeah, it's close. Live Free Nation. We're going to deploy our Live Free Nation. Well, just like Gavin Newsom, my mom bought 900,000. Okay, so. So if you have not yet, we're going to include this in the description of this video on YouTube and Spotify and all the things. So I hope, Frank, that by the next time you're here, you can tell us, hey, we made it. It went over a thousand. There you go. A million. A million, a million, a million. There you go. So we wrote that book. And then in 2006, I started crossexamine.org to go to colleges, high schools, and churches to present the evidence that Christianity is true. So I was brought up in the Catholic church, but I thought that after doing research that there were some doctrines in Catholicism that I didn't think were correct. And so I'm a Protestant now, non-denominational, evangelical, Lake Point kind of church. Live free. Let's kick this pig. That's right. There you go. That's right. Okay, so for the normal person asking, we got two brilliant men around here. And I want to know, what is the main difference between Catholicism, Catholicism, and Protestantism? Well, the source of the main difference is authority. Yes. Who is the right authority? Is it just the scriptures, sola scriptura? Or is it the scriptures plus church councils, plus church tradition, plus popes? That's the source of the difference. And maybe we could start there, and then we can get into probably justification is what we should talk about the most, because that is a key difference, I think anyway, between what Protestants believe and what Roman Catholics believe. But before we get there, can I just preface this in a couple of ways? First of all, some of these issues are nuanced and complicated. Yeah. And we're not going to be able to cover the waterfront in this podcast. So the book that I find most helpful on this is a book written by my co-author. This is it. It's called Roman Catholics and Evangelicals, Agreements and Differences. It's over 30 years old, but it's still, I think, the standard work on the topic. It's even endorsed by Roman Catholics. Not that they agree with everything, but they say it's a fair book. And it's by Norman Geisler and Ralph McKenzie. So this is 500 pages. If you really want to get into details, this is where you want to go. I'm reading it. You got it too. I got it too. So I'm working on it, and it's a good book so far. It's great. I will say this too, that conservative evangelicals have more in common with conservative Catholics than they do with liberal Protestants. Yes. Okay? Yes. So the biggest issue between Catholics and conservatives or Catholics and Evangelicals is more along the lines of, do you really believe the Bible's true or not? Because I have more in common with a conservative Catholic than I do with a liberal Protestant. Liberal Protestants are like him singing Rotary Clubs. They don't even really believe the Bible. So let me say that. And, you know, most of the venues at which I speak, if it's a church, it's obviously a Protestant church. And there, or even on a college campus, from Protestants, I'll get this question. Do you think Catholics can be saved? And my answer is, I even think some Baptists can be saved. Okay? That's right. Because it's not where you go to church, it's whether or not you've accepted the free gift of salvation that Christ has provided. You've repented of your sins, and you've accepted that. But there is some nuance here that we want to get into. Yeah. So let me just mention what we agree on. We agree on a lot. In this book, by the way, Roman Catholics and Evangelicals, because there's a lot of details, but here's some of the things we agree on with, with Roman Catholics and Evangelicals agree on. We agree on God, the nature of human beings. We agree on Christ. Roman Catholics believe that you need grace to be saved. And you need a savior. We agree, of course, on all the New Testament. We'll talk about the differences in the Old Testament. We agree on ethics. We agree on last things. So we agree on a lot. What do we disagree on? Here are some of the major issues. Who is the authority, soul of scripture or not? Justification, the Apocrypha, fundamentalism, Mariology, and purgatory are some of the things we disagree on. That's right. All right. So how do we then unpack this? How do we know who's right, if anyone, on this? And, I don't know, Paul, why don't you start us off since you're. What's it, Paul, Chad? Chad G. Paul C. Chad G. Paul C. There you go. Start us off. What is soul of scripture, Paul? Start us there. I'm glad you said, because I honestly, what makes it hard sometimes when you're talking to a Catholic, and same thing I'd actually say with Eastern Orthodox believers, is that they'll often define soul of scripture in ways that I'm like, "Well, I actually don't think that's what soul of scripture means," because they think, "Oh, so you think the only authority is the Bible." I'm like, "No, I believe the only infallible authority is the Bible, and it's the final authority." So to your point, it's like, for example, I agree with Catholics on the Council of Nicaea. I think in order to be a faithful Christian, you have to believe the thing that is in the Nicene Creed is true, and it was a reflection of the Bible. But that's the point, is that when I go and read the Nicene Creed, in order to establish its truth, I have to be able to go back to scripture and say, "Okay, scripture is the final authority over what this says is true," not over whether the bishops actually there thought it was. At the end of the day, I'm glad the bishops said what they said, but I have to go back to the Bible to establish what they said is true or not. And so that being said, to what you're saying is, a Catholic would say they believe that the Bible is infallible, just that it's not the only source of infallibility. And in fact, they would say, "You need an infallible interpreter of that." We'll talk about that later, but keep going, keep going. Exactly, which is kind of a funny thing, because there's no thing. Which would be another source of infallibility. Yeah, but you don't need an infallible interpreter of that interpreter, you just need the one. But you can kind of see where probably you and I are going in the same place, you gotta be careful, you gotta be careful, you're gonna jump it. And so, yeah, so that would be the big difference, is we would say, "Hey, we have to establish every doctrine, including the ones that we just said we agree with, but we would say, 'Hey, we establish those based on whether we see it in scripture, and if for some reason later the church comes up with a doctrine or develops a doctrine, we would say, 'Hey, we establish those doctrines, and we don't see that taught in scripture,' then we're not gonna accept it, because scripture is the final authority." Is that so far you're agreeing? Yeah, yeah, and the other angle on this I would take is I think sometimes Catholics think that sola scriptura means that we think we get all our information from the Bible. No, no, you can't. No. That's impossible. Yeah. I mean, you need to know logic, you need to know grammar, you need to know, even though I often talk about, say, the first verse of the Bible, which says, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." What does that assume? It assumes you know what a beginning is. It assumes you have some idea of what God is. It assumes you know that there's some cause and effect between God creating the heavens and the earth. It's making so many assumptions. So God has given us two sources of revelation: his word, yes, but also his works, which we also call natural revelation. That's right. You have natural revelation before you have what we call special revelation, his word. We have his works before his word. And when we say sola scriptura, we do not mean we get all our information from the Bible. That would be impossible. What it means is, when it comes to faith and practice, the Bible is our authority, not popes, not church councils, not church tradition. They may be informative. Yeah. They may agree, but if there's a disagreement, it's the scriptures that are supreme. Exactly right. So you're saying that they could have some authority, but that authority is under the highest authority of scripture. I forget who has said this, but the idea of like, let's just use the Nicene Creed. You know, 1700 year anniversary was last year, classic formation around what we believe specifically around Jesus and on the Trinity. And the Nicene Creed has more authority than me, but the Bible has more authority than it. Yes. That's the point of Sola Scriptura. And what's interesting is Catholics, especially nowadays, will say, well, hey, this, no one actually believed in Sola Scriptura until Martin Luther came around and until the Protestants came around, which is kind of funny. I'm going to read some quotes for you, Frank, and I'm just going to ask, I'm just going to read some quotes. I can tell you who they are and just, you know, I want you to tell me, do these align with what you and I believe about the idea of Sola Scriptura? I haven't heard. I haven't heard these before. No, no, I'm springing these on him. So this was a single thing I planned, but I didn't say it back. All right. So here we go. This person said. Bro, come on. Bro. Hey, man. Come on, bring it. Bring it, Paul. The holy and inspired scriptures are fully sufficient for the proclamation of the truth. In other words, we don't need other people to do it. They're fully sufficient on their own. You believe that? That's, that's accurate. So this, that was from Athanasius from the fourth century. Okay. Uh, there's another one for concerning the divine and holy mysteries of the faith, not even a casual statement. Must be delivered without the holy scriptures. Do not believe me simply unless you receive the proof of what I say from the divine scriptures with that. Is that an accurate representation of Sola Scriptura? That would be Cyril of Jerusalem also from the fourth century. Um, we make the holy scriptures, the rule and the measure of every tenant. We necessarily fix our eyes upon that and approve that alone, which may be made to harmonize with the intention of those writings. You agree with that? That's Gregory of Nyssa. Finally, one more thing. This is, I could go on and on. These are just a selection of people. Gregory of Nyssa. It's also fourth century. Exactly. Also fourth century. This next person, I must not press the authority of Nyssa against you, nor that if you have Ariminum against me, let us both stand on the authority of the scriptures, which are common to both. That's Augustine. I got an earlier one for you. Oh, no, I was just, those were just a selection of a few. So when people say, oh, this was not, not a thing until Martin Luther King. I'm like, no, from the earliest days of the church, they said, Hey, as we are passing these things and these decisions, you have to make sure not simply that we said it, but that scripture said it. Here's a better one. A little earlier too. Acts 17, 11, verse 11. Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. So here's Paul with apostolic authority, and here's the Bereans basically saying, great Paul, let me, let me verify that with scripture. Also early from Paul, that all scripture is God-breathed and useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, and of course it equips every believer, to do good works. That's 2 Timothy 3, verses 16 to 17. We did not script this beforehand, ladies and gentlemen. We did not. No. I'm having a conversation right now. Yeah, we're just having a conversation. Okay. Also, can I, let me mention one of these. Go, go, go. Paul instructs the Corinthians to, quote, to not go beyond what is written, unquote. That's 1 Corinthians 4, verse 6. So obviously he's establishing the boundaries around the scripture. Jesus identifies God's word as truth itself when he says, by them, by your truth, your word is truth. That's John 17, 17. Jesus criticized the Pharisees for breaking God's commands for the sake of your tradition. Man, how many traditions, even in, not just the Catholic church, but even in Protestant churches, do we have that are not scriptural? And we sometimes, it nullifies the word of God, as Jesus says. We literally had a podcast on that, literally last episode. And Chris Berkley taught on this, on Pharisees basically adding rules and rules and rules to the, and trying to equate their rules with the law itself. Like that's the issue is that it's no different. It's the idea of, hey, we have man-made commentary, but we're going to elevate it to the same level of authority as the Bible itself. Okay, Paul and Frank, but that's great and all, but, but the only reason you have a Bible is because there was a church that gave it to you. Therefore, you wouldn't have the scripture if the church hadn't gotten it. Therefore, you compiled it and basically said, here's your Bible. What do you mean by the church? That's my first question. That's my second question, for somebody who says that. Oh yeah, the Roman Catholic Church. Okay. When did the Roman Catholic Church begin to assert its dominance over the other? When did the Bishop of Rome say, hey, I am head over all of you. When did that happen? Great question. Paul, you know. It was not for a very long time after this came to be. It was 451 AD. Yeah, 451. And even then it was debated because a hundred years after this, a council excommunicated the Bishop of Rome because he refused to comply with that communical council and only after did he submit to their authority and repented, they reinstitute him. So even then, yeah, keep going. Keep going. But no, I was just going to say, Rome did not assert its authority until 400 years after Jesus had left the earth, over 400 years. So to say that the Roman Catholic Church gave us the scriptures is just not true. The church meant all believers, and it still means all believers everywhere. And in the Apostles' Creed, when it talks about. The Catholic Church, that doesn't mean the Roman Catholic Church. It means the universal church. So the universal church, those are believers everywhere, were what we meant by the church. And the people that gave us the scriptures were the apostles who wrote these down. And then people copied those down because papyrus ultimately degrades. And those copies kept going on and on and on. So we have so many copies. We have so many copies of the New Testament now that we can reconstruct the original with about 99.5% accuracy. And the 0.5% we don't know what it's about affects no doctrine at all. So the idea that the Roman Catholic Church gave us the scriptures is just not true. Okay. I like how J.I. Packer says it. He says, the church no more gave us the canon than Isaac Newton gave us gravity. In other words, he just asserted. I'm going to actually. I'll read another quote. This is fun. Wait, wait, say it one more time for people because that's a great quote. The church no more gave us the canon than Isaac Newton gave us gravity. It recognized it. It recognized something that was already there. In fact. They discovered. Exactly. They didn't determine. Exactly. And so. Yo, bro. Yo, bro. That's good. So I'm going to ask, do you agree with this quote? Do you agree with this quote? These books the church holds to be sacred and canonical, not because she subsequently approved them by her authority, but because being written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God as their author and were committed to us such as the church. Do you agree with that? I would say yeah. That was written by the Council of Trent, which is a Catholic council. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Modern day Catholics try to use this against them. Like your own Council of Trent, which was responding to Luther, them and themselves said, they did not determine them or approve them by her authority, but simply they recognized what was already there. Okay. So we got sola scriptura. It doesn't mean there is only one authority, council's leadership tradition. They have degrees of authority. Sola scriptura means only the Bible has infallible authority and all other authorities have authority but are not infallible. Great. Doctrine of justification. That's it. That's the second difference. Let's go there in a minute, but I want to do. I want to do it with the Pope issue first. Oh, yeah. That's a big one. Because it's not just that sola scriptura is true, but let's deal with, if we can, the issue of did Jesus tell Peter that he is the first Pope, essentially, and that there's a succession of apostolic authority that continues to the present day. So what say you? No. No. Okay. Let's move on. We need to give some more detail so people don't think we're just giving an opinion here. Keep going. Let's unpack it. First of all. Well, hey, Lake Point family. Baptism Weekend here at Lake Point is coming up on May 2nd and 3rd. And if you're part of our church family here in any of our DFW physical locations and you have not yet taken that step of baptism, hey, we would love to invite you to do so. Text the word LIFE to 20411 to sign up today. And by the way, if you're not within driving distance of any of our church families, you can find us on our website at www.lakepoint.org. We would love to encourage you to get plugged into a local Bible-believing, Jesus-loving church and take that step of baptism with a local community as well. Also, you're welcome to join us for church online to celebrate those getting baptized here at Lake Point on May 2nd and 3rd as well. And now, back to the podcast. The passage comes from, of course, Matthew chapter 16, where Jesus says, Upon this rock I will build my church. What does the rock mean? There are three bases. There are three basic interpretations. The rock could mean Peter, the rock could mean Jesus, or the statement that Peter says, right? It could be those three things. And first of all, I think it would be unwise to build an entire doctrine on a passage that could be taken in three different ways, number one. But we know it can't be Peter himself for several reasons. Let me give a couple. One is. One of them is that when Peter is speaking of Jesus in Acts 4:11, he says that Jesus is the stone which was rejected by you, or the rock that was rejected by you, the builders, but which became the chief cornerstone. And Peter in his own book describes himself as a fellow elder. This is 1 Peter 5:1. And he also, in his own book, I think it's 1 Peter 2, he says that Jesus is the cornerstone. He's not the cornerstone. cornerstone, Peter's not the cornerstone. Jesus also gives the keys to other apostles in Matthew 18 when he's talking about church discipline. So the keys aren't just Peter's keys. They're the keys of all the apostles. What else? Well, I think like with that, literally what you just articulated is what Augustine himself said. And the reason I'm bringing these different names of people who are new to this conversation is I'm bringing in names of people that Catholic people would point to as authoritative in the history of the church. OK, so Augustine's view was that Peter was simply representative of all the apostles, that in that moment he was the representative of all of them, that to your point, that they all had the keys, that they all had authority. And you actually see this in the book of Acts, the first council that's ever called. So we've mentioned some other councils already that were called together. The first council that was called was in Jerusalem over debate between, OK, like Gentiles, what parts of the Old Testament they have to keep. What's interesting was when you read that account, Peter speaks, but when he speaks, it doesn't settle the whole matter. In fact, if anything, it seems like it is James who is the one who's actually the leader of that church. So Peter speaks, but he's not the only voice. And it doesn't seem like he's a determinative voice. It feels like more like it is actually a council where everybody gets to weigh in. And James had the more authoritative one. If it was so clearly supposed to be Peter, you would think that he'd be like, hey, guys, here's my decision. Everybody get in line. But actually, you don't see that literally within a few decades after Jesus's death. You don't see it playing out that way. OK, so and we'll get there because I have a couple of objections about that as well. Just here a second. But then. So we answered the authority question. Then there's the salvation question, which is, again, how are we saved? Also known as the doctrine of justification. So Frank or Paul, what is the main difference between a Protestant view and a Catholic view? Which is honestly like this is a big deal. It's a big deal. How are we saved? That's a big deal. We address the authority. There's a difference there. What about this one? Yeah, that I think we're out of time, actually. Let me add one more thing. You know that to that to this issue. Of Peter being supreme. Paul actually corrects Peter in Galatians chapter two. Yeah. I told Peter his face that he was wrong for trying to get the Old Testament believers to obey or the New Testament believers to obey the Old Testament law. So how is the first pope being corrected? And papal infallibility, of course, didn't start until 1870. But yeah. All right. Justification. As I've been reading on justification, particularly with regard to Roman Catholicism, is they would agree that initial justification. Is completely by grace, in fact, in the Council of Trent. Now, the Council of Trent began in 1545. This is in response to Luther. So this is right after Luther. And they would say that your initial justification is completely by grace. It's not by works. However, they have a second or final justification, final salvation, which we might call as Protestant sanctification. But there's a critical problem here, in my view, anyway. And it comes from the. The Council of Trent, Canon 32. Can I just read the relevant part of this? And then you guys can launch into it. And I'll abbreviate a little bit because it's a little bit wordy. It's translated, of course, into English. But let me try and be as specific as I can, as clear as I can. Here's what the Council of Trent, Canon 32, says. If anyone says that the one justified. By. The good works that he performs by the grace of God and the merit of Jesus Christ does not truly merit an increase of grace or eternal life. Let him be anathema. All right. The key phrase here, it seems, is does not truly merit an increase of grace and then eternal life. That seems not only to be against Scripture, it's against logic, because by definition, grace has nothing to do with merit. It is a complete gift. Yeah. So this final salvation or second tier of salvation, it appears to me that according to the Council of Trent, they have a section in here that is not only scripturally against Scripture, it's against logic to say that your good works, even if they're motivated by grace, merit you something. Because then it's not. If it's not of grace, it's of works, Paul. I was going to say, at that point, it's a wage. Yes. If it merits it, you're paying me for what I deserve. And that's the whole idea of grace is that it is undeserved. Now, Catholics, I don't know if you're about to do this for us. Carlos does a good job, by the way, Frank, of playing a little bit of devil's advocate sometimes with us and poking us and stuff like that. We're just playing the devil. Yeah. Well, that's. I'm not equating those two things. I know what I'm saying. I'm clarifying it. Go ahead. Yeah. I got your back. Some Catholics respond, well, hey, James says, you know, that we are justified. We're justified by our works kind of a thing. And this is, you know, Martin Luther hated that he called James the epistle of straw. Do you have any thoughts on that? What did he call it? He called it the epistle of straw. He did not. Well, because the Catholics would throw it in his face all the time. Any thoughts on the James passage? I do, but I want to give you a chance first. If you read the James passage, this is James chapter two. He says that I will show you my faith by my works. Yes. You can't see faith. You can only see what faith produces. So he's not saying when he says that faith without works is dead, he's not saying that you're saved by works. He's saying that if people want to see if you're truly saved, your faith ought to lead you to good works. Exactly. In other words, the good works are the fruit of your salvation. They're not the root of your salvation. Exactly. That's something that's helpful to keep in mind is that oftentimes people will use the same word, but in different ways. And so I would right there with you is that when James is talking about it, he's not talking about justification in the sense of meriting your salvation, but the idea of showing the salvation you either do or don't have. And in fact, Paul actually would agree with James because Paul himself says all that matters is faith showing or expressing itself through love. So to your point, I can't see faith, but I can see what comes out of it. And Paul himself says that in his writings. So I think there's no contradiction. Sometimes Catholics will want to pit these two things against each other. It's like, no, we believe. Like the reformers, Martin Luther and Calvin others said, man, you're justified by faith alone, but that faith will never be alone. That good works will accompany that. But it's the same way. Like I don't wake up in the morning with a list of all the things I need to do to be a good husband and to get my wife to love me, but I should do those things simply because I love her. That's the difference is you're not doing these things in order to get her to love me, but I'm doing this simply because I already love her. And man, I just want to express the love that I already have for her. And Paul said this. This is in Romans 11. He said it elsewhere, too. But he said, if by grace, then it cannot be based on works. If it were, grace would no longer be grace. And Paul, of course, famously says in Galatians 2, which is really, if you want to know the theme of Galatians, here's the theme of Galatians. It's Jesus plus nothing. Jesus plus nothing. That's what saves you. Not circumcision, not works, not baptism. Yeah, there you go. Not anything but Jesus. And then he says a little bit later in Galatians 2, he says, I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing. Christ died for nothing. Now, to be fair, Catholics believe grace is essential. Yes. I'm not saying they don't think grace—they do think it's essential, but they seem to be adding works in the final salvation, which has to do with perseverance, and they think they can lose their salvation through mortality. Now, as I read this, I'd love what you guys think about it, because look, Christians can disagree, can you lose your salvation or not? But in John chapter 5, Jesus says, That's right. You don't get eternal life when you die. You get it when you believe, and if it's eternal, you can't lose it by definition. So if you're truly sealed with the Holy Spirit, you truly have repented and accepted the free gift of salvation, you're saved then. You don't get salvation when you die. You get it when you believe, and if it's eternal, you can't lose it. Amen. Amen. Discuss. We would agree. No, we would agree. The same grace that saves us also sustains us, and it transforms us. And so I think, like, to this is, you know, sometimes I'll talk to some Catholic—and again, I'm like with you. I mean, many Catholics are genuine brothers and sisters in Christ, love Jesus so deeply. And I'll talk to them, and a lot of times their concern is they'll see people who claim maybe they said a prayer when they were five or six or even now, but then they live however they want. And I say, well, hey, there's a difference between profession of faith and possession of faith, is that if, like, man, if they are a genuine Christian, yeah, we're all going to have ups and downs. We're going to have places where we fail. But over the long haul, that grace that saved them will sustain them to the end. They won't lose their salvation, and it will transform them. And Paul said this. He said, by the grace of God I am what I am. This is 1 Corinthians 15. And that grace was not without effect. He says, I worked harder than them, not for salvation, but from it. And he says, yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. So he basically said, hey. The grace of God saved me, and it transformed me. It's interesting. In the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe in Narnia, Edmund is the brother that is selfish, jealous, greedy, and a traitor. And then Aslan dies in Edmund's place, and he is forgiven. And at the end of the story, the children are crowned, and Aslan calls Edmund King Edmund the Just. And that right there is a picture of imputed righteousness. It's basically telling us, hey, at justification, God is the one who declares you righteous, not because of your own doing. obviously, but because of what Jesus did, and a sinner is given a new status and a new identity, identity because of what Christ did on the cross. And so, again, that's a picture for people listening right now. Hey, if you put your faith in Christ, it is in spite of your works, in spite of your past, in spite of your sin, that you are made righteous and you are justified. Okay. Hey, man. Hey, man, that's good. That's good. Hey, bro. Hey, bro. Hey, bro. That's great. Let me just see if you guys can sense the theme here. Yeah. These are the benedictions of Paul. Every one of his 13 letters. Okay. Just a phrase. This is how each of the letters end. Romans. See if you can get a pattern here. The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you. 1 Corinthians. The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you. 2 Corinthians. May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Galatians. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you, your spirit brothers. Amen. Ephesians. Grace to all who love our Lord Jesus Christ. Philippians. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Colossians. Grace be with you. 1 Thessalonians. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. 2 Thessalonians. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. 1 Timothy. Grace be with you. 2 Timothy. Grace be with you. Titus. Grace be with you all. Philemon. It's obvious Paul thinks we're saved by works and indulgences. I think I see a pattern. I think I see a pattern there. I think I heard something over and over. Here's the shortest summary of the Bible I've ever heard. See if this makes sense. God created it. We broke it. Jesus fixed it. Amen. Frank, so honestly, it seems to me like in this season, in the last maybe three, four, five years with social media and everything, there has been an increase in voices, that are Catholic, just being more outspoken, not just being outspoken as a Catholic, but also defending the Catholic faith and honestly making like pretty strong cases. It used to be back in the day that people would say, well, you know, at least where I come from in Latin America, people, there's a saying that says basically like, if you're a Catholic and you're ignorant, eventually you'll become a Protestant. That's kind of like the saying. I don't know if that still holds true today, but today it seems like there's more voices that are honestly building a strong case for their Catholicism and why they believe what they believe. I've seen some apologists as well. Again, they're making a case for it. 1 Peter 3:15 says, "But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have, but do this with gentleness and respect." I'm not so sure that generally speaking, the church is ready when somebody comes with a very smart case for Catholicism to defend why we believe what we believe. So here's what I want to do. I want to rapid fire some common objections. That Protestants will hear from smart Catholics that have thought through their faith and have reasoned through it. And so I just want to start, we're going to rapid fire these. I'm going to shoot them your way. And you guys are welcome to chime in on any of these. So number one, so you talked about sola scriptura or Bible as being the highest authority, the only infallible authority. Here's what people would say. Well, Frank, the Bible itself never teaches sola scriptura or Bible as the highest authority. It talks about holding to both written and oral tradition. Isn't sola scriptura a tradition that's not actually in Scripture? Well, actually it's not used by name. It doesn't say sola scriptura, just like it doesn't say Trinity, which isn't the issue. And Catholics would say, if a Protestant were to say, well, purgatory, it doesn't say that in the Bible either. They would still try and come up with some theological justification for it. Okay. Fair enough. It's not the word that's the issue. In fact, we already covered this earlier when we went through those passages. One of them, of course, being 2 Timothy 3 and 1 Corinthians 4 about don't go beyond what is written. So sola scriptura is taught, but the passage that you might be referring to is 2 Thessalonians 2.15, which says this. Paul's writing to his church there, and he says, so then, brothers and sisters, stand firm and hold fast to the teachings or traditions. It could be translated traditions. We passed on to you whether by word of mouth or by letter. Okay. So, oh, these oral traditions. Well, I think this is a command to hold fast to apostolic teaching, whether spoken aloud or later preserved in the scriptures, because there was no sola scriptura in the first few decades of the church because the scripture hadn't been completed yet. Exactly. It hadn't been written down yet. Not all of it anyway. So oral testimony and oral teachings remembered orally as creeds, and there's at least 41 creeds in the New Testament, the most famous being 1 Corinthians 15 verses 3 to 8, which talks about all the witnesses for the resurrection. Those creeds were memorized in the New Testament, and they were memorized in the New Testament. They were memorized orally, later put into writing, and until the canon was complete, you couldn't say that sola scriptura had been put in place completely because you didn't have complete, you didn't have the complete Bible. Now, this passage says nothing about traditions that later generations may have come up with, like the Roman Catholics are saying we have all these traditions later. This passage is talking about the apostles, what they verbally said and wrote down. Those are the traditions you're to hold to, not these later ones by non-apostolic sources. Exactly. And you see in the early church in the first few hundred years, doctrinal debates come up. And oftentimes what different groups would do is they would say, well, our bishop says this, well, our bishop says this, our pastor says this, well, our pastor says this, and eventually what they would have to get down to is, okay, but what did the apostles say? And the only way we know that is by what they wrote or commissioned others to write. So again, I'm just going to bring up, Augustine, who when Catholics bring this up, they are like, I just like, read your own history. And it's like, Augustine literally says, neither must we bring forward councils nor we must bring forward bishops. So, you know, these are people who would pass on authoritative what they believe are the oral traditions of the church, nor must you bring forward bishops. Let us not hear this I say, or this you say, but thus says the Lord. Interesting. This was Augustine. So this would have been late fourth century, early fifth century. There are the books of the Lord whose authority we accept. There, let us seek the church. There, let us discuss our case. Augustine himself said that same thing. Here's another one. Okay, great. But here's what I don't like about Protestants. And I'm obviously speaking for other people. That's not me speaking, just to clarify, because you never know. You're welcome. Jesus prayed that his followers may be one in John 17. And Protestantism is divided into thousands and thousands of separate groups with conflicting doctrines. Nobody agrees. How is that unity? You know, unlike the Catholic church, we all believe the same thing. What say you? First of all, Jesus is not talking about organizational unity. He's talking about spiritual and doctrinal unity. So he's not talking about an organization. The body of Christ is our believers everywhere, not just people in a given church. They are anyone that has accepted the essentials of Christianity. So he's not talking about that. I understand that Catholics will say, well, you know, you guys have a lot of different denominations. There's 30,000. First of all, that's a huge overestimate, okay? 30,000 denominations. I've seen some say there's, oh, maybe 8,000, which sounds like a lot, right? But these are just sort of local groups that have decided that they don't have any superstructure above them. But that doesn't mean they're heretical. But there are heretical. Sure. Here's what I said, and I don't have enough faith to be an atheist many years ago. There's so many denominations. For the same reason there are a lot of non-Christians. It's not because the truth is not perceived. It's because the truth is not received. In other words, we believe our own traditions and desires over the Word of God. Jesus spoke forcefully against doing this, right? Don't nullify the Word of God by your tradition. Some Protestant churches have traditions that aren't biblical. Catholics have the same thing. So the issue isn't the truth. You've got to agree with this. I've just been thinking about this. When you really look at Roman Catholicism, a Protestant has to look at the Church and answer this question. Is the Roman Catholic Church a system of truth with some error, or is the Roman Catholic Church a system of error with some truth? And if you were to ask my mentor, Dr. Norman Geiser, who wrote this fabulous book, he would say it's A. It's a system of truth, with some error, because it agrees on the essentials, but there are these issues that we've been discussing that creates trouble. What's your view on that? Same thing. I mean, I literally, when we teach a theology class for our staff and we're going over the Trinity, I tell them, there is not a Protestant doctrine of the Trinity, or even, I say, a Roman Catholic doctrine of the Trinity. There's just the doctrine of the Trinity, which, like you said earlier, we agree on. And there's so many other places like that, that we agree on, that a large time we end up debating and discussing, because we naturally don't talk about the things we all agree on. We talk about the things where there's differences, so that's natural. So I'm right there with you. On that question, though, I just like. Because it sounds so good. Oh, yeah, we have one Pope, he keeps us unified, and all believe in the same thing. One Holy Catholic Church. Okay. Okay, but that Holy Catholic Church doesn't mean Roman Catholic Church. It means universal church. Exactly. So Catholic means universal. Yes. So let me just give some. What stats actually tell us. Okay, official Roman Catholic teaching says artificial contraception is morally wrong. 90 plus percent of U.S. Catholics say it's morally acceptable. Official Catholic teaching says marriage is only between a man and a woman. 60 to 70 percent of Catholics support it. Official Roman Catholic teaching says abortion is evil. 50 to 60 percent of Roman Catholics support it being legal in all or most cases. Official Catholic teaching says the bread and wine and communion become the body and blood of Christ, also known as transubstantiation. Only 31 percent of U.S. Catholics believe in that. 69 percent see it as purely symbolic. So I'm really glad we have a pope who can keep us on the same page and all believe in the same thing. It's really effective. Let's deal with that, though, because they will say something like, well, you know, we have a infallible interpreter of the scriptures. You guys are—you have a paper pope. All these Bibles are just paper popes, and you can come up with all these different interpretations. Or you're your own pope because you choose where to believe from it. OK, I'll give one answer to this, and then you guys jump in on this because it's your podcast, I'm a guest. All right. All right. If a pope says, I think this is what the scriptures mean, we still have to interpret what he means by that, right? Why would we take a pope's interpretation—maybe he has it right, maybe he has it wrong—when we can go to the apostles who we know are inspired and interpret what they say? Why do we have a middleman who we disagree over whether or not he's inspired when we can just interpret what— the scriptures say themselves? Because no matter what you're talking about, you have to interpret it. Exactly. So the pope may have it right, he may have it wrong, but to say he is always helping us isn't necessarily the case. If he has it wrong, that's a problem. In fact, I wrote this down. I would rather have the essential truths presented by several denominations than be stuck with numerous errors presented by one organization. You know, if we just— If we just had the Roman Catholic Church, we would be stuck with numerous errors presented by one organization. In fact, Martin Luther did not want to break away from the Catholic Church. He wanted to reform it. It's called the Reformation for a reason. Yeah. And instead of being corrected rightfully by scripture, the Roman Catholic Church dug in their heels and wrote the Council of Trent, which had many true things in it, but one of the false things it had in it was just what we mentioned earlier, that you can somehow merit grace. Yeah. Through your works. Yeah. So he wanted to reform it, not break away from it. It was the Roman Catholic Church that dug in their heels. They literally said, we can have unity, but only if you submit to us and do things exactly the way we want you to do. It's a forced unity. Now, I'm right there with you. I think kind of what you're hitting on is the idea of a lot of times Catholics will say, in order to discern something that is infallible, we also need something that is infallible. The problem is, is that literally just goes against the grain of what scripture says, Mike. Did Moses have to be infallible to hear from God? The burning bush. Did the prophets have to be infallible to be able to discern what God was speaking? No. Well, then I think then this is what you're getting at. It almost becomes an infinite regression. It's like, okay, well, if it takes an infallible Pope to discern the infallible word of God, well, then by logic, it should take someone infallible to discern what the Pope says. And then take someone infallible to discern what that says. And you go on and on and on. Eventually, you have to get to fallibility. So that's why this argument to me is just not really strong, because it literally just would go on forever if we follow the logic of it. Yo, bro, that's good, bro. That's really good, bro. That's good. Okay, so here's another one. Historically, yeah, but these Protestants, man, they basically show up like 500 years ago. Honestly, historically, you can trace the Catholic Church with bishops and sacraments back to the first centuries. Again, Protestant churches appear in the 1500s and later. Why should I follow a church that started 1500 years after Christ? Because the—first of all, if the person was here, I'd say, what do you mean by that? I'd want them to unpack it, right? Great question. Take the assumption as if it's true. But the Reformers wanted to bring the church back to first-century biblical Christianity, as we just mentioned. They were not starting a brand-new church 1500 years later. They were trying to reform the church back to what the Bible says, rather than these traditions which nullify the Word of God. And look, the first churches were not, as we mentioned earlier, they were not part of the Roman Church. Many of these were house churches, and they had local bishops, much like the Protestant model is today, right? That these people didn't have a superstructure above them. Paul did appoint certain leaders. Paul and Barnabas did, according to—it's like Acts 14.23. But notice, nowhere does the Scripture say that Peter appointed anyone. Paul said, hey, this guy should be the leader here of this church, but Peter never said that. In fact, my co-author, Dr. Norman Geiser, said in the book, Roman Catholics and Evangelicals, Catholics will say there's this long chain of apostolic succession, except one of the problems is there's a big break in that chain, and it's the first link. It's the first link from Peter to the next guy. Nowhere in the Bible does it say that Peter appointed anyone. So, I mean, maybe he did, maybe he didn't, we don't know. But to say that your entire— position is based on silence is not a good position to be in. In fact, it's been said, and I think—see what you think about this— the entire argument for the Roman Catholic authority structure is circular. They say, okay, let's start with the Bible. Okay, if the Bible doesn't say what we want it to say, we'll go to tradition. If tradition doesn't say what we want it to say, maybe we'll go to the Pope. Well, can you get scriptural circumstances? Do you have the support for an infallible Pope? No. So it's a circular process whereby you just keep moving the goalposts. It's the Scripture, it's the tradition, it's the Pope. And if Protestants bring up arguments, well, this Scripture doesn't fit with your position, they'll go to tradition. And if they say something about that, they'll go to the Pope. And it's a circular argument. It doesn't work. Okay, so speaking of the Pope, the Pope has been going viral recently on social media for multiple reasons. But there's—we don't have time to watch the video right now, but there's a tweet—Trinity, can you pull up? So basically, on a press conference on December 20, 2025, a journalist asked about some Catholics in Europe viewing Islam as a threat to Western Christian identity, and the Pope's response was something along the lines of, hey, we should perhaps be a little less fearful and look for ways of promoting authentic dialogue and respect. That happened, and then in April, here's another photo, over there, yep, in April, he visited the Great Mosque of Algiers, he removed his shoes and spent time in silent prayer facing Mecca, he praised Christian-Muslim coexistence and said that that space was of God, a divine, sacred space, and then you can take it down. And basically, like, if you dig into official Catholic theology, they will say, hey, Muslims and Christians worship the same God. So that's one thing that the Pope has said. Overall thoughts, just open it up. This is unfortunate, because— as the leader of the Roman Catholic Church, he should know better. A true theologian like Ratzinger was, who became Pope— Benedict. Benedict, who was really the theologian behind John Paul II, he knew better. He knew that Allah is not the same as Yahweh. And any Muslim scholar who knows the two would say the same thing, because Allah is not triune, Yahweh is. And in Islam, they don't think Jesus is God. They think Jesus is a prophet who will judge the world in the end, but it's not the Jesus of the Bible. These are completely—well, not completely, but they are different beings. And Yahweh and Allah are not the same. And so, in fact, here's a helpful little way of looking at this: really, Islam is a Christian heresy. It's basically Arianism, the idea that Jesus is not truly God. And I don't have time to get into the details, but similar to Mormonism, they have a—and I remember Josh talking about that. By the way, that guy, Josh Howerton, is brilliant. Remember when he was talking about the fact that the Book of Galatians, where it says, "If an angel appears to you and gives you another gospel, don't believe him"? Both Mormonism and Islam started that way. It's a supposed revelation, can't be verified, and we're supposed to believe in him, and it's another gospel. Now, here's what these groups do. There are four things they do. Think of the functions of math: addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. All of these groups—let's look at Islam—they add to the Bible. So you got the Koran, you have the Hadith, they subtract from Jesus. So they say Jesus isn't God, he's just a prophet. Interesting. They multiply requirements for salvation. Wow. Yeah. Right? You've got to do these other things in order to be saved. And then, fourthly, they divide the loyalties of the believer. You have to go through us. Now, even Roman Catholicism, to a certain extent, does some of this, although I don't think it's a Christian heresy. In fact, my mentor, Dr. Norman Geister, if you gave him one sentence to describe the problem with Roman Catholicism, he would say this: "My main problem with Roman Catholicism is that they've institutionalized it. They've institutionalized salvation, that you have to go through an organization to in seven different sacraments and we're going to be the one between you and god yeah so when you look at islam they've done those four things they have they have added to the bible they've subtracted from jesus they've multiplied requirements for salvation and they've divided the loyalty of the believer so let's make it a little more personal now you know obviously we have a lot of folks listening in maybe they come from catholic backgrounds or maybe you know like i know i have family members that are catholic if somebody's asking right now hey somebody that i love dearly uh they're they're catholic are they saved well that's a personal question that you need to ask the person if you were to die right now and god were to ask you why should i let you into my kingdom heaven what would you say if they start talking about i'm a pretty good person you know i haven't murdered anyone i haven't they don't understand salvation if they if they say i'm trusting in what christ did for me then they're in now according to george barnett 2020 70 of roman catholics believe that you get into heaven by being a good person wow hold on why huh i wonder why i wonder why yeah yeah well here's i'm just i'm you know it's like a response to the to some of the theology that we've been discussing it seems to me at least yeah but it's also a problem in evangelicalism because 41 percent of evangelicals say the same thing okay but it's much more pronounced in the catholic church here's my biggest problem and i said this to a a um a catholic apologist by the name of jimmy very nice guy i had him on my program we talked about justification a little bit and i said jimmy here's my main problem that i have we can talk all day about these nuances of theology but i've been to hundreds of masses in my life hundreds i never heard in the homily the sermon in a roman catholic service never heard grace or the gospel until the last mass i went to and that was my father's funeral wow when the priest said i talked to frank my dad i talked to frank the other day just before he died and he has accepted jesus as his lord and savior so he's in heaven right now he didn't talk about the sacraments he didn't talk about works he said he just accepted that christ what christ had done for him and so i asked jimmy i said jimmy why do i never hear why have i never heard it and he said well it's in the mass i said that's not my question i'm not asking you if it's in the liturgy of the roman catholic mass i'm asking you why do the priests never talk about it in my experience anyway maybe they do somewhere but i've never heard it now you were brought up in the catholic church did you hear it no i mean it took a while yeah even i mean to be fair i was brought up in you know my dad was catholic my mom was baptist uh eventually we moved towards a pentecostal church and to be fair i never actually that i would say that it actually it actually clicked to me uh first time hearing the gospel i think i was around like in high school where i finally understood the gospel so you know it took a little bit more time to get to that point and i think that's why i'm so glad that i'm here with uh you know i would say with my catholic friends they have no idea what we're talking about they've never even they've never heard of the idea of being born again yeah yeah i don't know it that's the thing that troubles me the most i mean think about the great evangelists of the past three centuries are any of them roman catholics no no who are they wesley oh yeah i mean yeah i mean of course you got billy graham yeah i mean hello yeah you got wesley way back yeah we're on time you got edwards all those yeah none of them yeah charles spurgeon yep yep yeah well they're not emphasizing go therefore make disciples of all nations they're not emphasizing the fact that i didn't come to serve i came to i didn't come to be served i came to serve give my life as a ransom for many he's a ransom he's our substitute and is it kind of even a bright spot though of like some catholic parishes and others it seems like the ones that are growing fastest that are actually new people they're the ones who are actually being more explicit about the gospel so that even should tell you something there that in the places right now that are growing it's usually not that standard stuff that we're talking about it's actually places that will actually proclaim jesus a little bit more clearly have you seen anything that's helped you with catholic friends in asking them questions or interacting with them uh yeah i mean i think uh one so i think in some ways you have to differentiate if somebody is a catholic culturally or if they are actually uh they're a christian or they're a christian i think in my experience the vast majority of my friends are more cultural catholics and so really uh when they when they see somebody that takes the bible seriously that's uh that's very different right it's kind of like you actually believe uh what you know what the bible actually says uh that's a shock and so vast majority of the time for me is really hey are you living out what you believe right it's uh can people actually see christ in you is this uh is this something more than just something that you do or that your parents do is this something that you do or that your parents do or that your parents do or that your parents do that's what gets their attention at some point they'll see your life and they'll be like you have something that i do not have but i desperately need and then that will draw them more towards wanting to learn more about what the gospel actually is the question i ask a lot of unbelievers on college campuses is if christianity were true would you become a christian and a lot of times they say no because it's not a head problem it's a hard problem that's right they don't want it to be true they want to live however they want that's right yeah but the similar question could be asked if somebody say in a roman catholic church if you were to say to them if a protestant view of christianity was the true view would you become a protestant that's a great question and see what they say wow um it might be no they're steeped in tradition and they don't want to now i think a person can still be saved within the catholic church as we mentioned earlier just like they can be saved in a baptist church that's right jesus saves yes right but like even on that note even thinking back to your original question carlos of like what should i say i say i would honestly probably address them you were really hitting on this earlier frank is the same way that i would address someone who came to lake point or any church in the south that is more of a cultural christian yeah if i'm if i met someone at lake point in my sense was hey i don't know this is a person who's a genuine believer in jesus but they're just coming here because parents made when they were going up or it's just a cultural thing to do i wouldn't start with so what do you believe about protestant doctrine i would probably start with man like just tell me about your relationship with jesus like what does jesus mean to you hey to your point hey man if you died do you have a sense of where you would go when you died it's like i wouldn't even hit the distinctives i would probably just circle and so my thing is if i would use that for someone at lake point ernie i've done a lot of ministry in the south and that's my general experience in the south is there's a good portion of our churches who they actually don't know jesus but they're coming to church i would probably have the exact same conversation with them instead of making it about our differences first yeah let's just center in the person of jesus and his work and if they're saved by him or not that's probably where i would go the question is not are you a baptist or are you a presbyterian or are you a catholic or are you a protestant um the question is do you believe in jesus for salvation and my job is not necessarily to directly take you to accept christ in your heart and be transformed that's the holy spirit's job my job is to help you take one more step towards jesus whether that's a conversation whether that's uh man i cannot pray for you how are you doing can i be how can i be a friend to you in the season um and so that's for people that like you said more cultural christians now i will say this i have friends that are very smart catholic people and they take their faith very seriously yeah i enjoy the conversation that we have where we challenge each other i am challenged and then i want to challenge them and so i mean those are opportunities where you in the context of a relationship you can have these friendly conversations that inc that challenge one another and again ultimately i think your question is brilliant frank i think uh hey if you if you knew that the protestant view of christianity is true would you would you convert would you would you trust it that's a good question yeah it clears the decks of all objections yeah it's just if it's true it's true so many of us don't want the truth even even even as protestants sometimes we suppress the truth to go a wrong way and if you take matthew 28 seriously where jesus says go and make disciples ultimately you just want people to know christ ultimately i don't really care to convert you into a lake point non-denominational whatever right live free whatever i want you to know jesus that's right i want you to experience the very presence of christ you know it's interesting we started with charlie kirk maybe we could kind of end there and then we're gonna wrap this pot up right um you remember this pig's been kicked enough maybe maybe just maybe just a few months before charlie was murdered he had a debate with michael knowles on catholicism impromptu debate they were together at an event maybe we can put it in trinity can we put that in the show notes there you go let's put that little exchange that charlie had with uh michael with michael knowles because it was interesting at one point charlie charlie was just learning about this stuff like but he still held his own very well against michael knowles and at one point michael said something about getting people into the roman catholic church and and and charlie said something like no no no you want to get him to jesus why are you trying to get him into a church you want to get them into a relationship with jesus if they choose the roman catholic church is the place where they grow into a disciple okay fine but you want to get them to love jesus to repent of their sins and accept jesus because jesus is our substitute He takes our punishment upon himself. It's a substitute. constitutionary atonement. It's not about rites and rituals. It's not about sacramentalism. It's not about going through seven hoops that you got to go through in order to have your sins forgiven and to be with Jesus forever. It's about him as our substitute. And that's why I know that Charlie is safe now. I know that he trusted in Christ. He repented of his sins and he trusted in Christ. And he, in a moment, went from this life to the next life absent from the body present with the Lord because of his decision to do that. That's right. Well, and the reason we have these conversations is because truth matters. And, you know, for many, you know, eternity is at stake whenever you have these conversations, what you believe actually makes a difference in how you behave and where you will spend the rest of eternity. The good news, like you said, Frank, the gospel is not good advice. It is good news. Jesus did not say it's kind of finished. It's semi-finished. He said it is finished. And so the gospel is that because of what Jesus did on the cross, you and I can have salvation and we can have a guarantee of that salvation. This is not about winning arguments. This is about loving people. And we want to love them enough to point them to Christ and his word. We want to preach the truth and do so with grace. We're beggars pointing to where we found the bread, and that's Jesus. Amen. Frank, would you pray for us? Heavenly Father, we are blessed that you loved us enough to come into this universe, add humanity to your deity, live the perfect life in our place, and then allow us, the creatures that rebelled against you, to torture and kill you so you could take our punishment upon yourself. So we could then trust in you and not only be forgiven, but given your righteousness. This is the greatest news ever told. The greatest story ever told, and it happens to be true. So I pray if there's anyone today, regardless of what denomination you're a part of or no denomination, that you would realize that the purpose of life is to know Jesus personally and then to make him known, and that you would then experience a rebirth to be born again. You gain eternal life when you believe. You don't gain it when you die. I pray that if you've never experienced a rebirth, that you would. And that you would join a healthy, well-balanced church to help you to become a disciple, because Jesus, as we know, Father, didn't say, make believers. He said, make disciples. I pray for Pastor Josh as he travels. Thank you for his boldness. Thank you that he wants to, along with both Carlos and Paul, address every issue that believers are dealing with, because he's a believer. And I pray that he will. And I pray that Christianity is 24-7, 365, 360 degrees. Every inch of life belongs to Jesus. We have to address all these issues. And Pastor Josh and Pastor Carlos and Pastor Paul do that so well. I pray you bless this podcast and bless all the listeners. Have them share this podcast with others so they could live free and not be bound by tradition. In Christ's name, amen. Amen. Frank, thank you. Thank you, Frank. Thank you, brothers. Live free, brother. Amen. Let's live free. Yo, bro.