transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:00] Good works are the fruit of your salvation. They're not the root of your salvation.

Speaker 2:
[00:04] The same grace that saves us also sustains us, and it transforms us.

Speaker 1:
[00:08] 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.

Speaker 3:
[00:15] 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 Lakepointe 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 wanna 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. And so 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 Lakepointe. 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 Erazo 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.

Speaker 2:
[01:25] Yes, he has.

Speaker 3:
[01:25] He's been on college campuses, high-profile debates, live Q&A. He is a gifted, brilliant, apologist, philosopher, author of multiple bestselling books, including I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist. He is the president of crossexamined.org. He is a friend and a man of God whom we deeply admire here in the Live Free podcast. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the show, Frank Turek.

Speaker 1:
[01:44] Hey, hey, I'm nervous because I'm sitting in the great Josh Howerton seat. Hey, man.

Speaker 3:
[01:50] Hey, bro.

Speaker 1:
[01:52] Hey, we're going to do one more point. We're going to wrap this pod up.

Speaker 3:
[01:54] Hey, you got the hat.

Speaker 1:
[01:55] I got the hat right here.

Speaker 2:
[01:57] T-shirt. I mean, you got the whole thing.

Speaker 3:
[01:59] You fit right in.

Speaker 1:
[02:00] 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.

Speaker 2:
[02:06] Yeah, man.

Speaker 1:
[02:07] Josh should be back next week, right? This is not a permanent thing, is it? OK, all right.

Speaker 3:
[02:11] We hope so, although we will have you back later this year.

Speaker 1:
[02:14] Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3:
[02:14] So it's going to be fun. Hey, Frank, first of all, thank you for being here, man.

Speaker 1:
[02:18] It is my pleasure. I listen to every, actually, I watch every Live Free podcast. 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, you guys need to start telling your friends about the Live Free podcast because we need to overtake, we need to overtake Father Schmitz.

Speaker 3:
[02:45] We're going to we're going to talk about Catholicism. We are.

Speaker 1:
[02:48] This is it.

Speaker 3:
[02:48] 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 Man, 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, like 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. Thank you, man. And one thing that I appreciate from you, we're 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. You can, 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.

Speaker 1:
[03:27] Patience. You haven't seen me drive. But hopefully, hopefully I try and answer a person, not just a question.

Speaker 2:
[03:36] That's good.

Speaker 1:
[03:36] That's what you want to do. You don't want to win an argument and lose a person.

Speaker 3:
[03:40] Amen.

Speaker 1:
[03:41] So that's what we try and do on college campuses.

Speaker 3:
[03:43] In an age of outrage and people just wanting to crush each other and win arguments, I think your voice that is a blessing and it's a fresh, it's a good thing that we have people like you.

Speaker 1:
[03:54] Thank you, brother.

Speaker 3:
[03:55] 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 gonna be selecting some. Today we're gonna be talking about the main differences between Catholicism and Protestantism. That's us, by the way. We're gonna be addressing the biggest objections Catholics have against Protestant theology. We're gonna be reacting to some recent headlines about 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 gonna be fun.

Speaker 1:
[04:32] And they don't. All right, good night, ladies and gentlemen.

Speaker 2:
[04:35] That's all we needed.

Speaker 1:
[04:36] That's right.

Speaker 3:
[04:37] Hey, but before we do, Frank, I wanna start asking you something a little bit more personal. I wanna 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 this, but you were there with him the day Charlie got assassinated. And so, I wanna 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?

Speaker 1:
[05:04] Sure. Charlie and I go back to January 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 25, we met on four 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? Because 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? I said, 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 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. So let's see, Monday, September 8th, he and I went on a walk through his neighborhood with a 300-pound arm bodyguard behind us. The three major issues we talked about that night were the government, politics, Islam in particular. Secondly, the resurrection. How can we be better at convincing people that here's the great evidence that Jesus rose from the dead, that 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 realized 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 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.

Speaker 3:
[09:37] Wow.

Speaker 1:
[09:38] 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 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, 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 why he reached out to me, but I'll attract a few hundred.

Speaker 3:
[10:58] And by the way, you've been doing college events for?

Speaker 1:
[11:00] Like 20 years.

Speaker 3:
[11:01] 20, long time.

Speaker 2:
[11:02] Yeah, long time.

Speaker 1:
[11:03] 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, OK, 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, Matt, this is amazing. These people are just screaming. It was a Trump rally times too 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 Mormons on my staff and I love them. You know, 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 the pop and I see Charlie go back, and so I 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, if someone has it on video, I duck, and then they grab him and they take him on the other side of the tent. And so I run alongside from the left side of the tent, they're looking at it, and I run with them as they're carrying Charlie to the SUV that we came in on. And 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 was 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 midbody, so to speak, and 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. And we're, 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 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 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, the whole way there, and we got, 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 and the way over. And so the team descends on him and they say, we have a heartbeat. So Rick and I are going up. He looked dead. I mean, he looked... Maybe there's hope. We're praying. Mikey shows up, his assistant, 23 years old, well beyond his years and maturity. He's on the phone with JD 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 we have 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, right? So, you know, everyone's in shock, obviously. This probably happened, Utah time, the murder happened somewhere around 1215, 1220. Erica probably got to the hospital around three maybe. And then by six o'clock 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 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.

Speaker 2:
[19:06] Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[19:07] There was 75,000 people in the room, and about a 30 or 40,000 in the arena next to us. There were a hundred million people watching online.

Speaker 3:
[19:18] Yeah. You had the opportunity of speaking in the memorial service.

Speaker 1:
[19:22] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[19:23] Yeah. Some people would say this was probably one of the largest evangelistic moments in modern history, where the gospel was shared.

Speaker 1:
[19:31] 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?

Speaker 2:
[19:45] Oh my goodness.

Speaker 1:
[19:45] Yeah. 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 I... 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. So God can bring good from evil.

Speaker 3:
[20:45] That's right.

Speaker 2:
[20:46] That's right.

Speaker 3:
[20:46] I mean, it speaks to Charlie's legacy as well. As somebody who pointed to Christ and what he did with through his life. First of all, thank you for sharing that, Frank.

Speaker 2:
[20:56] Yeah, I appreciate that.

Speaker 3:
[20:58] Man, after I remember, you know, everything came out and I saw a couple of videos. And all of a sudden, everybody's talking about it on social media. And there was one video where you were in it. And people started saying different things about, you know, everybody's got a theory about what's actually going on, 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. All sorts of conspiracy theories started to come out of that. Social media, again, 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 what do you think people are getting right and wrong about some of these conspiracy theories out there?

Speaker 1:
[21:47] 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 track down every conspiracy theory. 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? 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. Jesus and the apostles said that Satan is a murderer, liar, accuser 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.

Speaker 2:
[22:38] That's right.

Speaker 1:
[22:39] 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 TPUSA is involved and TURK is involved somehow. It's sinister. It's demonic to say these things. In fact, in the Old Testament, Exodus 22, 22 in the Old Testament economy, 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?

Speaker 2:
[23:56] Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[23:57] 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. 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 loved Charlie the most were involved in murdering him is against what the scriptures say. And it's demonic in my view.

Speaker 2:
[24:53] 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, gospel's 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 like, okay, if I were the enemy, if I was Satan, what would I be trying to do right now? 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.

Speaker 1:
[25:42] Generally.

Speaker 2:
[25:43] Generally speaking. And it's like, those are just these situations. I say that because maybe even the people watching, listening to this have maybe gotten caught up in some of that stuff. And I just, to just echo what you're saying, Frank, is like, man, 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.

Speaker 1:
[26:07] Exactly.

Speaker 3:
[26:07] Yeah, I mean, 2 Timothy 2.16, this is Paul speaking to a younger disciple, Timothy. He literally says, avoid godless chatter. Other translations say irreverent babble, worthless talk, foolish talk. Because those who indulge in it will become more and more ungodly. This is something, again, we're in the social media space a lot, obviously, we try to listen to what's out there. But there's wisdom in trying to figure out, hey, at what point does it become godless chatter or irreverent babble? And at the end of the day, man, you want to be mindful of what you feed your mind. You want to be intention on how you use your time wisely. And some of these conspiracy theories are just not worth it. If you're a Christian. And for sure, Frank, I think, you know, one huge takeaway, obviously, we could keep going on and on about Charlie's legacy and so much. One of the takeaways for us, I think, 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 see that in his life. And literally, after, in many ways, after Charlie's assassination, we have seen a spiritual stirring in our nation. And we're seeing, as a church, we're seeing people come to church. Everybody's talking about a reawakening of faith. People are seeking truth. 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. Whenever I talk to people in the lobby, Paul, honestly, probably the thing that people ask the most is on Catholicism. Hey, what do you make of it? Statistically, today, 20% of US adults identify as Catholic. And at the same time, 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 the likely-

Speaker 2:
[28:24] White Sox fan. I'm a Cubs fan.

Speaker 1:
[28:27] Oh, you are? Yes, I'm calling Bob from Chicago.

Speaker 2:
[28:30] Bob from Chicago.

Speaker 1:
[28:30] Bob from Chicago.

Speaker 3:
[28:32] 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, apologist and more. And so here's what I want to ask. Frank, what I want to do is basically I want to hear your story. I know you converted from Catholicism. 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.

Speaker 2:
[29:01] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[29:01] Sound like a plan?

Speaker 1:
[29:02] It's a plan. Let's go.

Speaker 3:
[29:03] We got, before we do, you're somebody that's fun to hang out with. Frank, I got a couple of memes that I think are going to feel appropriate. This is, it says here, that's a nice door you have there. It would be a shame if somebody nailed something to it. 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 going to do today.

Speaker 1:
[29:29] Let's do it.

Speaker 3:
[29:30] Frank, you converted to Catholicism.

Speaker 2:
[29:33] From? From.

Speaker 3:
[29:34] From Catholicism, that's right.

Speaker 1:
[29:36] Look, I'm from New Jersey.

Speaker 3:
[29:37] Yes, from Catholicism, that's right.

Speaker 1:
[29:39] 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. And I always believed in God because I knew there had to be a first cause. And I knew God was moral. I knew that moral law was pressing on me. This is what Paul also, 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.

Speaker 3:
[30:48] Paul was born?

Speaker 2:
[30:49] No, I was not. That's a jacket.

Speaker 3:
[30:52] Sorry, go ahead.

Speaker 1:
[30:53] Way back when, Paul, why have you never been to Israel? That's what I want to know.

Speaker 3:
[30:57] That's a great question.

Speaker 1:
[30:58] Wow. I'm here now because Pastor Josh is like somewhere overseas on some sort of tour.

Speaker 2:
[31:03] Did he call you and tell you to ask me this?

Speaker 1:
[31:05] No, but I just want to know how come he doesn't take you there?

Speaker 2:
[31:07] This is a great question because I haven't been to Israel and then he got to go to Greece. 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.

Speaker 1:
[31:18] He probably hasn't been to Bayonne, New Jersey. Would you like to go there?

Speaker 2:
[31:21] 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.

Speaker 1:
[31:28] So where were we? So I met the son of the Methodist Minister. I had so many questions where we say, get these Josh McDowell books. I read these books and I realized that Christianity was true. Then when I got out of the Navy, I met Norman Geisler, who at the time was 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.

Speaker 3:
[32:43] Oh wow.

Speaker 1:
[32:43] It's coming out in October, the new update.

Speaker 3:
[32:45] 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.

Speaker 1:
[32:51] Yeah, it's close.

Speaker 3:
[32:53] Live Free Nation, we're going to deploy our Live Free Nation app.

Speaker 1:
[32:54] Well, just like Gavin Newsom, my mom bought 900,000. Okay, so.

Speaker 3:
[32:59] 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.

Speaker 1:
[33:10] It went over a thousand.

Speaker 3:
[33:11] There you go. A million.

Speaker 1:
[33:12] A million, a million, a million of that.

Speaker 3:
[33:13] There you go.

Speaker 1:
[33:15] So we wrote that book and then in 2006, I started crossexamined.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, Lakepointe kind of church.

Speaker 3:
[33:42] Live free, let's keep this pig.

Speaker 1:
[33:43] That's right.

Speaker 3:
[33:44] There you go.

Speaker 1:
[33:44] That's right.

Speaker 3:
[33:45] 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 and Protestantism?

Speaker 1:
[33:55] Well, the source of the main difference is authority.

Speaker 2:
[33:58] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[33:59] Who is the right authority? Is it just the scripture, 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. We're not going to be able to cover the waterfront in this podcast. 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 in it, but they say it's a fair book. It's by Norman Geisler and Ralph MacKenzie. This is 500 pages. If you really want to get into details, this is where you want to go.

Speaker 3:
[35:03] I'm reading it. You got it, too. I'm working on it and it's a good book so far. It's great.

Speaker 1:
[35:09] I will say this too, that conservative evangelicals have more in common with conservative Catholics than they do with liberal Protestants.

Speaker 2:
[35:18] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[35:19] Okay?

Speaker 3:
[35:20] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[35:20] So the biggest issue between Catholics and conservatives or Catholics and evangelicals is more along the lines of, do you really believe the Bible is true or not? Because I have more in common with a conservative Catholic than I do with a liberal Protestant. Liberal Protestants are like hymns singing in 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, 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. 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 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, Sola Scriptura or not? Justification, the Apocrypha, sacramentalism, Mariology and Purgatory are some of the things we disagree on. So how do we then unpack this? How do we know who is right, if anyone, on this? Paul, why don't you start us off? What is Sola Scriptura, Paul, start us there.

Speaker 2:
[37:19] I'm glad you said it, because I honestly, what makes it hard sometimes when you're talking to a Catholic, and same thing with Eastern Orthodox believers, is that they'll often define Sola Scriptura in ways that I'm like, well, I actually don't think that's what Sola Scriptura means. Because they think, oh, so you think the only authority is Bible? 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 initially there thought it was. At the end of the day, 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.

Speaker 1:
[38:22] We got to talk about that later.

Speaker 3:
[38:23] Exactly, which is which is kind of a funny thing, because there's no thing which would be another source of infallibility.

Speaker 2:
[38:28] Yeah, yeah. But you don't need an infallible interpreter of that interpreter. You just need the one. But you can kind of see where you probably are going the same place. Got to be careful. Got to be careful going to 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 Catholicism, 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 doctrine, and we don't see that taught in scripture, then we're not going to accept it because scripture is the final authority. Is that so far you're agreeing? Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[38:59] 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.

Speaker 2:
[39:08] No, no.

Speaker 1:
[39:08] You can't.

Speaker 2:
[39:09] No.

Speaker 1:
[39:09] That's impossible. I mean, you need to know logic. You need to know grammar. You need to know even the... 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. 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. They may agree. But if there's a disagreement, it's the scriptures that are supreme. Exactly right.

Speaker 3:
[40:14] So you're saying that they could have some authority, but that authority is under the highest authority of scripture.

Speaker 2:
[40:21] I forget who said this, but they had to be like, let's just use the Nicene Creed. 1700 year anniversary was last year, classic formation around what we believe specifically around Jesus and the Trinity. And the Nicene Creed has more authority than me. But the Bible has more authority than it. 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. I'm just going to ask, I'm just going to read some quotes. I can't 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 Sola Scriptura?

Speaker 1:
[40:58] I haven't heard these before.

Speaker 2:
[40:59] No, no, I'm springing these on him. So this was the thing I planned. But I didn't say it back. So here we go. This person said, bro, come on, bro, 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 accurate, that was from Athanasius from the fourth century. 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. Is that an accurate representation of Sola Scriptura? That would be Cyril of Jerusalem, also from the fourth century. We make the holy scriptures the rule and the measure of every tenet. We necessarily fix our eyes upon that and approve that along 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.

Speaker 1:
[41:57] Gregory of Nyssa, also fourth century, correct?

Speaker 2:
[41:59] Yeah, also fourth century. This next person, I must not press the authority of Nyssa against you, nor that if you have ever meaned them against me, let us both stand on the authority of the scriptures where it's sure common to both. That's Augustine.

Speaker 3:
[42:13] I got an earlier one for you.

Speaker 2:
[42:15] No, those were just a selection of a few. When people say, oh, this was not nothing and so Martin Luther King were 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.

Speaker 3:
[42:27] 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 verify that with scripture.

Speaker 1:
[42:49] 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.

Speaker 2:
[43:06] No.

Speaker 3:
[43:06] Having a conversation right now.

Speaker 1:
[43:07] Yeah, we're just having a conversation. Okay. So also, can I, let me mention one of these. 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 is truth itself when he says, sanctify 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. We sometimes, it nullifies the word of God as Jesus says.

Speaker 3:
[43:49] We literally had a podcast on that, literally last episode, and Chris Berkeley taught on this, on Pharisees basically adding rules and rules and rules to the law.

Speaker 2:
[43:58] And trying to equate the rules with the law itself. Like that's the issue, is that it's no different. It's the idea of, hey, we have manmade commentary, but we're going to elevate it to the same level of authority as the Bible itself.

Speaker 3:
[44:09] Okay, Paul and Frank, but that's great and all. 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.

Speaker 1:
[44:25] What do you mean by the church? That's my first question. For somebody who says that.

Speaker 3:
[44:29] Oh yeah, the Roman Catholic Church.

Speaker 1:
[44:31] 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?

Speaker 3:
[44:43] Great question, Chad.

Speaker 2:
[44:45] It was not for a very long time after this campaign. 451, and even then it was debated, because 100 years after this, a council excommunicated the Bishop of Rome because he refused to comply with that Communal Council. And only after did he submit to their authority and repented, they reinstitute them. So even then, yeah, keep going.

Speaker 1:
[45:03] Yeah, but no, I was 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 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.

Speaker 2:
[46:15] Okay, I like how JI. Packer says this. It 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 read another quote. This is fun. I'm going to read another quote.

Speaker 3:
[46:25] Say it one more time for people, because that's a great quote.

Speaker 2:
[46:27] The Church no more gave us the canon than Isaac Newton gave us gravity.

Speaker 3:
[46:30] It recognized that.

Speaker 2:
[46:31] It recognized something that was already there.

Speaker 1:
[46:32] They discovered.

Speaker 2:
[46:33] Exactly.

Speaker 1:
[46:34] They didn't determine.

Speaker 2:
[46:35] Exactly. And so, yo bro, yo bro. So I'm going to ask, 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 such as the Church. You agree with that? I would say yeah. That was written by the Council of Trent, which is a Catholic Council. So in modern day Catholics try to use this to get something like, your own Council of Trent, which was responding to the losers, they themselves said, they did not determine them or approve them by her authority, but simply they recognize what was already there.

Speaker 3:
[47:08] 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 the second difference.

Speaker 1:
[47:26] Let's go there in a minute but I want to deal with the Pope issue first. 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?

Speaker 2:
[47:55] No.

Speaker 1:
[47:56] No.

Speaker 2:
[47:56] Okay. Let's move on. We need to get some more details so people don't think we're just giving an opinion here.

Speaker 1:
[48:03] Let's unpack it. First of all.

Speaker 3:
[48:06] Well, hey, Lakepointe family. Baptism Weekend here at Lakepointe is coming up on May 2nd and 3rd. 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, 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 physical locations, 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 Lakepointe on May 2nd and 3rd as well. And now, back to the podcast.

Speaker 1:
[48:47] 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 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 that when Paul, or I should say when Peter is speaking of Jesus in Acts 411, 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. 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?

Speaker 2:
[50:13] 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 knew this conversation is I'm bringing in names of people that Catholic people would point to as authoritative in the history of the church. 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. 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 a debate between, okay, 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. Peter speaks, but he's not the only voice, and it doesn't seem like he's a determinative voice. It feels 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' death. You don't see it playing out that way.

Speaker 3:
[51:21] Okay, so, and we'll get there, because I have a couple of objections about that as well, in 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.

Speaker 2:
[51:41] It's a big deal.

Speaker 3:
[51:42] How are we saved? That's a big deal. We address the authority, there's a difference there. What about this one?

Speaker 1:
[51:48] Yeah, that, I think we're out of time actually. Let me add one more thing. You know that to this issue of Peter being supreme, Paul actually corrects Peter in Galatians chapter 2. I told Peter in 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, 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 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. 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 of grace, it's of works.

Speaker 2:
[54:29] I was gonna say, at that point, it's a wage.

Speaker 1:
[54:31] Yes.

Speaker 2:
[54:31] If it merits it, you're paying me for what I deserve. And that's the 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. Yeah, well, that's... Well, I'm not equating those two things. I know what I'm saying.

Speaker 3:
[54:50] I have to clarify it. Go ahead.

Speaker 2:
[54:52] Yeah. Some Catholics respond, well, hey, James says that we are justified by our works, kind of a thing. And this is, Martin Luther hated, he called James the epistle straw. Do you have any thoughts on that?

Speaker 3:
[55:03] What did he call him?

Speaker 2:
[55:03] 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.

Speaker 1:
[55:11] If you read the James passage, this is James chapter two. He says that I will show you my faith by my works. 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 work. Exactly. In other words, the good works are the fruit of your salvation. They're not the root of your salvation.

Speaker 2:
[55:48] Exactly. 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 write there with you, is that when James is talking about it, he's not talking about justification, 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. No, we believe, like the reformers, Martin Luther and Calvin Luther 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, 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.

Speaker 1:
[56:54] 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.

Speaker 3:
[57:21] Yeah, there you go.

Speaker 1:
[57:23] 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.

Speaker 2:
[57:41] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[57:41] 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 mortal sin. 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 five, Jesus says, He who believes has passed from death into life. 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, truly you 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.

Speaker 2:
[58:29] Amen. Amen.

Speaker 3:
[58:31] We would agree. No, we would agree.

Speaker 2:
[58:32] The same grace that saves us also sustains us, and it transforms us. So I think to this is, sometimes I'll talk to some Catholic, and again, I'm going to keep with you. I mean, many Catholics are genuine brothers and sisters in Christ, love Jesus so deeply. I'll talk to them, and a lot of times their concern is, is they'll see people who claim maybe they said a prayer when they are five or six or even now, but then they live however they want. 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. 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 a 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.

Speaker 3:
[59:27] 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 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.

Speaker 1:
[60:15] Hey, man. Hey, man. That's good.

Speaker 3:
[60:17] That's good.

Speaker 2:
[60:17] Hey, bro.

Speaker 3:
[60:18] Hey, bro.

Speaker 2:
[60:18] Hey, bro.

Speaker 1:
[60:19] Hey, bro. That's great. Let me just see if you guys can sense the theme here.

Speaker 2:
[60:25] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[60:25] These are the benedictions of Paul, every one of his 13 letters. Okay, just a phrase. This is how each of the letters and Romans. See if you can get a pattern here. The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you. First Corinthians, the grace of the Lord Jesus be with you. Second 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 with an undying love. Philippians, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Colossians, grace be with you. First Thessalonians, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Second Thessalonians, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. First Timothy, grace be with you. Second Timothy, grace be with you. Titus, grace be with you all. Philemon, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. It's obvious Paul thinks we're saved by works and indulgences.

Speaker 2:
[61:33] I think I see a pattern there.

Speaker 3:
[61:35] I think I heard something over and over.

Speaker 1:
[61:36] Here's the shortest number of the Bible I've ever heard. See if this makes sense. God created it, we broke it, Jesus fixed it.

Speaker 2:
[61:43] Amen.

Speaker 1:
[61:44] God created it, we broke it, Jesus fixed it.

Speaker 2:
[61:48] Amen.

Speaker 3:
[61:49] 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 pretty strong cases. It used to be back in the day that people would say, well, at least where I come from in Latin America, people, there's a saying that says basically, if you're a Catholic and you're ignorant, eventually you'll become a Protestant. That's kind of like the same. 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 verse 15 says, But in your heart, review your crisis, 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?

Speaker 1:
[63:36] 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. Catholics would say, if 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 Second Timothy 3 and First 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 Second 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 all 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. 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 three to eight, which talks about all the witnesses for the resurrection. Those creeds 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 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 then wrote down. Those are the traditions you're to hold to, not these later ones by non-apostolic sources.

Speaker 2:
[65:38] Exactly. You see in the early church, in the first few hundred years, doctrinal debates come up. 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? The only way we know that is by what they wrote or commissioned others to write. Again, I'm just going to bring up again, Augustine, who when Catholics bring this up, they are 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 that 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.

Speaker 3:
[66:21] Interesting, where was this?

Speaker 2:
[66:23] This was Augustine, so this would have been late fourth century, early fifth century. There are the books of the Lord, whose authority we both accept. They are let us seek the church, they are let us discuss our case. Augustine himself said that same thing.

Speaker 3:
[66:35] Here's another one.

Speaker 2:
[66:36] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[66:36] 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. Thanks for that. 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?

Speaker 1:
[67:03] 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 accepted the essentials of Christianity. So he's not talking about that. You know, and I understand that Catholics will say, well, 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. Here's what I said, and I don't have enough faith to be an atheist many years ago. Why are there 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 denomination. I would also say that... Let me see if you guys 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 Geisler, 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?

Speaker 2:
[69:09] Same thing. I mean, I literally, when we teach the 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, we have one Pope, he keeps us unified and all believe in the same thing. One holy Catholic Church.

Speaker 1:
[69:44] Okay, but that holy Catholic Church doesn't mean Roman Catholic Church. It means Universal Church.

Speaker 2:
[69:50] Exactly.

Speaker 3:
[69:51] So Catholic means Universal.

Speaker 1:
[69:52] Yes.

Speaker 2:
[69:53] 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 US Catholics say it's morally acceptable. Official Catholic teaching says marriage is only between a man and a woman. 60 to 70% of Catholics support it. Official Roman Catholic teaching says abortion is evil. 50 to 60% of Roman Catholics support it being legal in all most cases. Official Catholic teaching says the bread and wine of Christ's communion become the body and blood of Christ, also known as transubstantiation. Only 31% of US Catholics believe in that. 69% 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.

Speaker 1:
[70:33] Let's deal with that though, because they will say something like, well, we have an 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.

Speaker 3:
[70:48] Or you're your own pope because you choose where to believe from it.

Speaker 1:
[70:51] Okay. 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. If a pope says, I think this is what the scriptures mean, we still have to interpret what he means by that. 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.

Speaker 2:
[71:32] Exactly.

Speaker 1:
[71:33] 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, see if this makes sense. 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 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. 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 through your works. So he wanted to reform it, not break away from it. It was the Roman Catholic Church that dug in their heels.

Speaker 2:
[72:34] 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. So forced unity. No, 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's infallible, we also need something that is infallible. 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 at 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 were getting at is 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. 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.

Speaker 1:
[73:24] Bro, that's good, bro.

Speaker 3:
[73:25] That's really good, bro.

Speaker 1:
[73:26] That's good.

Speaker 3:
[73:27] Okay, so here's another one. Historically, yeah, but these Protestants, man, they basically show up 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?

Speaker 1:
[73:45] Because, first of all, if the person was here, I'd say, what do you mean by that? I'd want them to unpack it, rather than 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 Catholic Church. Many of these were house churches. And they had local bishops, much like the Protestant model is today, right? 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 at this church. But Peter never said that. In fact, my co-author, Dr. Norman Geisler, said in the book, on 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 support for an infallible pope? You know, 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.

Speaker 3:
[76:23] Okay, so speaking of the pope, the pope has been going viral recently on social media for multiple reasons. But there's a, 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, 25, 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, 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 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.

Speaker 1:
[77:23] 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, 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 them? Both Mormonism and Islam started that way. One guy gets 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.

Speaker 3:
[79:21] Interesting.

Speaker 1:
[79:22] They multiply requirements for salvation.

Speaker 3:
[79:25] Wow.

Speaker 1:
[79:25] Yeah. Right? You've got to do these other things in order to be saved. 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 Geisler, 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 salvation. That you have to go through an organization to get saved in seven different sacraments. We're going to be the one between you and God. When you look at Islam, they've done those four things. 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.

Speaker 3:
[80:22] Let's make it a little more personal now. Obviously, we have a lot of folks listening in. Maybe they come from Catholic backgrounds, or maybe I know I have family members that are Catholic. Somebody is asking right now, hey, somebody that I love dearly, they're Catholic. Are they saved?

Speaker 1:
[80:40] 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, I haven't murdered anyone, they don't understand salvation. 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.

Speaker 3:
[81:13] Wow. Hey, I wonder why. I wonder why.

Speaker 1:
[81:17] I wonder why, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3:
[81:18] Well, here's- I mean, I'm just, you know, it's like a response to some of the theology that we've been discussing. It seems to me, at least.

Speaker 1:
[81:25] But it's also a problem in evangelicalism, because 41% 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 Catholic apologist by the name of Jimmy Akin, 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 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?

Speaker 3:
[83:02] 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. Eventually we moved towards a Pentecostal church. And to be fair, I never actually, that I would say that it actually clicked to me. 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, but yes. It's much, much more rare with, 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.

Speaker 1:
[83:36] Yeah, I don't know. 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, who are they? Wesley?

Speaker 2:
[83:51] Oh yeah, of course you got Billy Graham. Yeah, Billy Graham, Billy Sunday, George Whitfield. Yeah, Whitfield, you got Edwards, all those.

Speaker 1:
[84:00] Yeah, none of them. Charles Spurgeon.

Speaker 2:
[84:04] Yep.

Speaker 1:
[84:06] 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 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.

Speaker 2:
[84:20] And as a kind of even a bright spot though, of some Catholic parishes and others, it seems like the ones that are growing fastest, that are actually reaching 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.

Speaker 1:
[84:41] Have you seen anything that's helped you with Catholic friends in asking them questions or interacting with them?

Speaker 3:
[84:47] Yeah, I mean, I think one, so I think in some ways you have to differentiate if somebody is a Catholic culturally or if they are actually, they're committed to their faith. I think in my experience, the vast majority of my friends are more cultural Catholics. And so really, when they see somebody that takes the Bible seriously, that's very different, right? It's kind of like you actually believe what the Bible actually says. That's a shock. And so vast majority of the time for me is really, hey, are you living out what you believe? Right? Can people actually see Christ in you? Is this something more than just something that you do or that your parents do? Is this something that you're living out? And most of the times, 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.

Speaker 1:
[85:40] 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. They don't want it to be true.

Speaker 2:
[85:50] They want to live however they want.

Speaker 1:
[85:51] That's right. 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?

Speaker 3:
[86:06] That's a great question.

Speaker 1:
[86:07] And see what they say.

Speaker 3:
[86:08] Wow.

Speaker 1:
[86:10] 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.

Speaker 3:
[86:20] Jesus saves.

Speaker 1:
[86:21] Yes. Right.

Speaker 2:
[86:21] But even on that note, even thinking back to your original question, Carlos, what should I say? I would honestly probably address them, you were really hitting on this earlier, Frank, the same way that I would address someone who came to Lakepointe or any church in the south that is more of a cultural Christian. If I met someone at Lakepointe, in my sense was, hey, I don't know this person is a genuine believer in Jesus, but they're just coming here because parents made when they were going up versus the cultural thing to do. I wouldn't start with, so what do you believe about Protestant doctrine? I would probably start with, man, just tell me about your relationship with Jesus. 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. My thing is, if I would use that for someone at Lakepointe, 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 will probably have the exact same conversation with them. Instead of making it about our differences first, 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.

Speaker 3:
[87:20] 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? 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, man, can I pray for you? How are you doing? How can I be a friend to you in this season? 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. I enjoy the conversations 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 challenge one another. And again, ultimately, I think your question is brilliant, Frank. I think, hey, if you knew that the Protestant view of Christianity is true, would you convert? Would you trust it? That's a good question.

Speaker 1:
[88:22] Yeah, it clears the decks of all objections.

Speaker 3:
[88:24] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[88:24] It's just, if it's true.

Speaker 3:
[88:26] It's true.

Speaker 1:
[88:27] So many of us don't want the truth. Even as Protestants, sometimes we suppress the truth to go the wrong way.

Speaker 3:
[88:33] And if you take Matthew 28 seriously, where Jesus says, go ahead, make disciples. Ultimately, you just want people to know Christ. Ultimately, I don't really care to convert you into a Lakepointe non-denominational, whatever, Live Free, whatever. I want you to know Jesus. That's right. I want you to experience the very presence of Christ.

Speaker 1:
[88:49] You know, it's interesting. We started with Charlie Kirk. Maybe we could kind of end there. And then we're going to wrap this pod up. Hey, bro.

Speaker 3:
[88:56] That's right.

Speaker 1:
[88:58] You remember...

Speaker 3:
[88:58] This pig's been kicked enough.

Speaker 1:
[89:01] 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 at Trinity. Can we put that in the show notes?

Speaker 3:
[89:13] There you go.

Speaker 1:
[89:14] Let's put that little exchange that Charlie had with Michael Knowles. Because it was interesting at one point, Charlie was just learning about this stuff. But he still held his own very well against Michael Knowles. At one point, Michael said something about getting people into the Roman Catholic Church and Charlie said something like, no, no, no, no, you want to get them to Jesus. Why are you trying to get them into a church? You want to get them into a relationship with Jesus. If they choose the Roman Catholic Church as 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 substitutionary 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.

Speaker 3:
[90:42] 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 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.

Speaker 2:
[91:28] Good.

Speaker 1:
[91:28] Amen.

Speaker 3:
[91:29] Frank, would you pray for us?

Speaker 1:
[91:31] 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 rebuild 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 accepted that, that today 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 Christianity is 24-7, 365, 360 degrees, every inch of life belongs to Jesus. We have to address all these issues. 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.

Speaker 2:
[93:26] Amen.

Speaker 3:
[93:28] Frank, thank you.

Speaker 2:
[93:29] Thank you, Frank.

Speaker 1:
[93:29] Thank you, brothers.

Speaker 3:
[93:30] Live free, brother.

Speaker 1:
[93:31] Amen. Let's live free. Yo, bro.