"How to Answer Catholic and Orthodox Claims – part 2" by Lynn Martin

Lesson Transcript

The one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him, and a threefold cord is not quickly broken. Welcome to Strength to Strength. One of the purposes of Strength to Strength is to advance Jesus' kingdom by tackling thought-provoking topics, and I think that's something we want to continue to do here this morning. We're glad to have Brother Lynn Martin on, talking about how to answer Catholic and Orthodox claims. So before we get started, I think we'll have prayer. Father, thank you for today.

Thank you for this opportunity to connect in this way, and I pray that you would bless Lynn as he shares, and I pray that you would open our minds up and our hearts up to the opportunities to share the truth of your gospel, the historic faith, to people around us, and yeah, give us maybe some tools here in this talk. I pray that your will would be done, and your kingdom would come through our lives and in our communities, and I pray your blessing here. In Jesus' name, amen.

Okay, well, thank you, Lynn, for joining us here, and I'll turn it over to you. I think it looks like you have a bit of a review of part one that we had a couple of weeks ago, so that sounds good. Go ahead. Sounds good. Thanks, Randall.

So, like was mentioned, this presentation is a sequel to my previous one where I talked about the authority claims of the Catholic and Orthodox churches, and in that presentation, I said that a lot of people today are drawn to the claims of the Catholics and Orthodox, and that includes me. I find them attractive in a lot of ways. However, I believe it's important to go by what is apostolic rather than by what we like. So let me just share my screen here for a little bit of review on what we discussed that time.

All right. So the most important thing that I discussed last time was this, the basis for Christian doctrine. I showed that we can find these five truths from Scripture in the early church, that Jesus and the apostles were upstream from doctrine, as in what they taught was doctrine. The faith that was taught in the first years of Christianity can't be changed. All doctrine was complete and public at that time, and no one else was placed upstream from doctrine.

So that means whenever anyone else speaks something, they're not infallible. What they speak is, well, it's only Christian doctrine if they are—if they're actually saying precisely what the apostles said. It can't be doctrine just because they say it. And the books of the New Testament derive their authority from the apostles and not from the church. So doctrine comes from the apostles and not from a particular church.

And I showed that the claims to authority in the Catholic and Orthodox churches aren't consistent with these points here. Their churches can't actually make infallible decisions as to what is true doctrine. So in this presentation, I'm going to show another way of responding to Catholic and Orthodox claims.

I'll be discussing several doctrines that the Catholics and Orthodox hold to that aren't held to other Christians, and I won't try to prove them wrong here, although I will point you to where I discuss these particular doctrines in depth. But what I'm going to try to do is show you how to respond to them rather than respond to each one. So why does this matter? Why does it matter if Catholics and Orthodox hold to doctrines that weren't taught by the apostles?

Well, like I said, all Christian doctrine was revealed to the apostles, and it can't be developed or changed. So if they're differing from the apostles, or if we're differing from the apostles, or if anyone is differing from the apostles in what Christian doctrine is, they're wrong and should fix their doctrine. But also, the issue that these churches run into is that they actually claim to be infallible when they teach. So their teachings, they believe, are completely correct.

Everything that they teach is infallible. Well, everything that they teach to be doctrine in certain circumstances anyway is infallible. Not everything that everyone in their church teaches is infallible. And so if these churches are wrong on these particular doctrines, it proves that they aren't infallible, so their whole system comes tumbling down. Fortunately, we haven't, at least I hope, claimed to be infallible, so we can actually be wrong on things and correct those things.

But unfortunately, these churches, because they've positioned themselves as infallible, if they are actually wrong on something, they're kind of wrong on everything. So what are these doctrines? And I can't go into each one in one presentation, but here are some, not all of them, that are incompatible with Scripture and pre-Nicene Christianity, and I have URLs for the resources that I've provided for digging into each one.

So one of the biggest examples is the papacy, which is the claim of the Roman Catholic Church. The Bishop of Rome is Peter's successor, and as such, is supremely in charge of the whole church and can speak infallibly on matters of doctrine. So he's the Pope, the Bishop of Rome. Apostolic succession is another one. Bishops are only valid if ordained by bishops who are ordained by bishops in a direct line from the apostles. So if you have valid ordination, you're a real bishop and can perform actual communion.

If you don't have valid ordination, if you weren't ordained in that direct line from the apostles. Veneration of images. They believe in showing honor and praying to Christ and the saints through images of them, bowing to them, praying to them, kissing them, etc. They've also stopped teaching non-resistance, which the early church taught, and allow for violence and merged church and state in many cases, especially in the beginning.

So I'll be drawing examples from probably each of these as I show how to respond to them, but I won't be responding to each one in depth. So here are my goals for this talk.

I want to teach three things: how to evaluate quotations that are thrown at you, whether they're quotations from Scripture or the early church; to teach how to respond to tactics that Catholics and Orthodox use in order to make their views sound more compelling; and then finally, because I don't want to just tear down, I also want to build up; to teach how to make a positive case for one particular doctrine that their churches have changed, which is going to be non-resistance.

So why do Catholics and Orthodox believe these doctrines? First, they might sincerely believe that these doctrines were taught from the very beginning, and this is the case mostly with the Orthodox. They actually believe that all the things that they practice and do came from the very beginning of the church, and they might find what seem to be hints about these doctrines in Scripture, but especially they draw from church fathers who seem to support these doctrines.

And I'll be showing that the—I'll be discussing pre-Nicene church fathers in this video because these doctrines actually showed up in later church fathers than the pre-Nicene ones. And another reason might be that they recognize that these doctrines developed but actually believe that development is okay, and that's more the case with the Catholics.

They might think, for example, that the doctrine existed in a simpler form in the beginning and was just codified later and became kind of more complex as time went on, or they might think that the doctrine was kind of progressively revealed, although I don't think they use that language, kind of clarified over time by the teaching authority of their church. Things like that might be the Immaculate Conception. Well, let's see. Trying to think what a good example of that is.

Well, the most recent dogma is the bodily assumption of Mary, the belief that Mary actually was bodily assumed into heaven, and maybe she died, maybe she didn't. They aren't clear on that, but in any case, her body isn't here anymore. All right. So first, evaluating quotations. Here are three questions that I think we should ask of every quotation that is given to us.

And I should just say, supporting these doctrines with quotations from the church fathers is one of the biggest things that Catholic and Orthodox apologists do. So if you get into a conversation with them, often you get kind of blasted off your seat with a long list of quotations from the church fathers, and then the question is, does this prove your case? So here are three questions to ask. First, what claim is this quotation intended to support? Does the claim support the doctrine they're arguing for?

What is the quotation actually saying? Does the quotation support the claim? And what are other quotations saying about the same issue? Are there other relevant sources that contradict this claim? So this should make a lot of sense. If the claim that they're making doesn't actually support their doctrine, then obviously they don't have evidence for it. If the quotation doesn't support the claim, then obviously they don't have evidence for the claim.

So first, how should we ask what claim is this quotation intended to support? Here are some examples. So here are some claims that are fairly commonly made. The first one is a paraphrase, I believe, of what people often say. Jesus said he'd build his church on Peter. This is Matthew 16:18, I believe. And Peter acted as the chief apostle in charge of the whole church, therefore the papacy. Well, does that claim actually prove the papacy?

So even if their quotations prove that, prove that Jesus said he'd build his church on Peter and that Peter was the chief apostle, does that really mean that Peter would have successors in the bishops of Rome? Does it mean that his successors would be infallible? Does it mean they would be in charge of the whole church? Would they be in succession in the same way? And you can see that this claim doesn't actually prove that. So even if they can find quotations to prove this claim, they haven't proved their case.

The second one, this is actually from a website. Within the New Testament, there is clearly an office by which one can be ordained into by the laying on of hands by an authoritative representative of the church, or at least a means by which the Spirit interacts with administering acts within the church. Again, if their quotations prove this, does that mean that nobody can be validly ordained by anyone who doesn't have the succession?

Just because there is this kind of ongoing office, does this mean that nobody else can be validly ordained without going back the whole way to the apostles? And of course, it doesn't. So second, what is this quotation actually saying? So first, I'd like to point out that just because a church has a concept with the same name as the concept in the quote doesn't mean it's the same concept. So here's a really common example.

Irenaeus writes, "When we refer them, that is the Gnostic heretics, to the tradition which originated from the apostles, which is preserved by means of the succession of the presbyters and the churches, they object to tradition saying that they themselves are wiser not merely than the presbyters, but even the apostles." So this is used as evidence for apostolic succession because it's talking about succession from the apostles.

But the trouble is that Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox believe that apostolic succession applies to bishops alone, whereas Irenaeus is talking about presbyters, which is the second. So their churches are set up with bishops, priests, and deacons. Priests are what the early church called presbyters, or what it originally means is elders. So it applies to all elders, not just the top office.

And also, their form of apostolic succession applies to the method of ordination, whereas Irenaeus says nothing about ordination. He just talks about the handing down of specific teachings. That's what's important to him, that handing down, not that they're validly ordained and can do communion validly. Also, note this quotation from that quote. He talks about that tradition which originated from the apostles, which is preserved by means of the succession of the presbyters and the churches.

Now, by tradition, does he mean kind of a vague, amorphous entity that can be shaped into previously untaught doctrines by those who are validly ordained, which is maybe not the kindest way of talking about the tradition that the Catholics and Orthodox have, but I think it's somewhat accurate. Or does he mean specific teachings of the apostles, which the presbyters passed on to each succeeding generation of presbyters? And I think it's pretty clear that he's speaking about specific teachings.

But here's I have some quotes from the Catholic Catechism here. I won't read the whole thing because I don't want to run out of time. But basically, you can get the sense from this quotation that what they see tradition as being is something that continues to give them new light or leads believers to the full truth, etc.

They don't say it quite in those many words, but you can definitely see that they don't see tradition as specific teachings passed on as much as kind of this body of, I guess, teachings or something that can kind of be drawn from as time goes on. So another question to ask of quotations is, do they describe that particular era or do they describe a timeless principle? So the Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox will say, yeah, well, this is talking about a timeless principle. For example, this is a YouTube comment.

Irenaeus does teach that the faith is a united faith that speaks as if it has one voice. Since the first century, all of Christendom was united with the Petrine primacy. So great. I mean, Irenaeus does kind of sound that way whenever you actually very much sound that way whenever you read him. He's saying all Christians are teaching the same thing, but is he saying all Christians will forever teach the same thing, or is he saying that all Christians today are teaching the same thing?

And this quotation is directly from Irenaeus. It is possible then for everyone in every church who may wish to know the truth to contemplate the tradition of the apostles, which has been made known throughout the whole world. Is he saying that that will always be the case, that throughout every succeeding generation, everyone in every church will be able to know what the apostles taught, or is he saying that's what the case is today? I think it's pretty clear.

Now, he may have thought that it would continue, but that's not what he's resting his argument on here. And another point I would make is look at what the full quote indicates. So here's a Catholic apologist writing, "Cyprian believed the Pope could not lead the church astray," basically papal infallibility or an early form of it. He writes, "Of heretics who dare approach the throne of Peter, to whom faithlessness could have no access." Well, that seems pretty clear.

I mean, the Pope sitting on the throne of Peter and faithlessness could have no access to him. Wow, I mean, Cyprian, it really sounds like he believed the papacy. Well, it's a little more complicated than that. You can see those ellipsis points. Well, here's what the actual quote is.

"The throne of Peter, and to the chief church whence priestly unity takes its source, and not to consider that these were the Romans whose faith was praised in the preaching of the apostle Paul, to whom faithlessness could have no access." Okay, so it's a little unclear who he's saying faithlessness can have no access to. He may be referring to Paul because Paul obviously was an apostle and his teachings were correct. But maybe he's talking about the Romans.

He might think that the Roman church as a whole couldn't go into error, but it really doesn't seem like he's saying that the Roman bishop could never make an error. So it's important to look at the full quote. Also, just because something existed back then doesn't mean it was employed as it is today. So the example I use here is images.

They venerate images today, and sometimes they point to images that are back from that are from back then and say, "Yeah, they had images in the beginning, therefore they must have venerated images," is an argument that's often made. This person, I won't read the entire quote, he writes that Tertullian criticizes the depiction of Jesus on a Eucharistic chalice, like a communion cup.

And he points out that aniconists, that is, those who don't venerate images, do not fail to point out the absence of images in sanctuaries as alleged proof that they had no function during a liturgical service. In other words, if they didn't have images in their churches, then they weren't venerating images in their worship, thereby making their veneration less likely. But he says, "Surely an image right on the Eucharistic chalice clearly contradicts the preceding." He's like, "This is right there.

The most sensible reading is that they were venerating this image on this chalice." However, like I said, just because something existed back then doesn't mean it was employed in the same way as it is today. For example, if someone in 2005 had a digital camera, which they existed back then apparently, that means that they likely weren't posting images on Facebook. Okay, that seems pretty likely. But if someone in 2005 did have a digital camera, does that mean that they likely were posting images on Facebook?

No, because only university students could join Facebook in 2005. And so it's actually pretty unlikely, even if they did have a camera, that they were posting images on Facebook. And again, if no images existed in churches, that does mean that Christians likely weren't venerating images. But if images did exist in churches, that doesn't mean that Christians were venerating them because there are lots of other reasons for having images.

Okay, and then thirdly, what are the other quotations saying about the same issue? So let's see. So there are these things called early Christian quote minds out there. If you search for early Christian quotes about blah, blah, blah, like papacy here, icons or whatever, or church fathers on apostolic succession or however, you can find lots of these online compiled by Catholics and Orthodox, typically, although by Protestants as well.

The Catholic ones, sadly, tend to quote only the quotations that seem to prove their point, which I think is fine because I think those quotations still actually disprove the papacy, even when they quote the ones that seem to demonstrate their point. But not everybody sees that in those quotations, so it can be really misleading. There are other quotations out there that would seem to disprove their point, but you really don't ever see them in these quote minds for some reason.

I have an entire book called The Fathers Know Best by Jimmy Aiken, and I was like, "Great, let me read all these quotations." It's just a whole bunch of quotations from church fathers, and I was like, "Great, let me read these and find out what quotations they use to support their arguments." Wow, I mean, it's just so many quotations that made it sound like the Catholics were correct, but not a single one showing up that sounded like they weren't.

And yeah, I think that it would be better to give both sides and then offer reasons why you think your side is right, but obviously that's not the way that they seem to do it. Here are just some examples of dissenting quotations that you won't find very often in these quote minds. For example, many early sources mention only two leadership offices, bishop, which is the same thing as presbyter or elder and deacon in the church.

But that contradicts apostolic succession because apostolic succession is supposed to be for bishops alone. But if there was no individual bishop in churches, then who got the apostolic succession and this proper ordination that can't actually go through presbyters? Here's a quote from Cyprian. You noticed that Cyprian was quoted in support of the papacy in an earlier quote, but here's something that he said that I think is pretty clear.

In a council here, he says, "For neither does any of us bishops set himself up as a bishop of bishops, nor by tyrannical terror does any compel his colleague to the necessity of obedience." He's writing directly in contradiction to the Pope of Rome, the Bishop of Rome.

"Since every bishop, according to the allowance of his liberty and power, has his own proper right of judgment and can no more be judged by another than he himself can judge another." So at this point, the Bishop of Rome was claiming to have more authority than he had claimed to have in previous generations. And Cyprian is saying, "Hey, this wasn't ever the case. All of us bishops have always been, have always been, yeah, bishops.

We haven't had a Bishop of Bishops above us." And here's one that shows Mary's sinlessness to not be believed by Clement of Alexandria. "I know no one of men perfect in all things at once except Jesus alone." So that's pretty clear. He doesn't think that Mary as well was sinless. All right, so moving on to spotting common tactics that are often used in these conversations.

So first, I want to make a disclaimer that I'm trying to be charitable here, and I don't want to make it sound like Catholics and Orthodox are, yeah, these terrible people who never make a good argument and stuff. They often do make good arguments. I'm pointing these out because they come up pretty often, and they're often like they often show up in the street-level apologetics. These tactics aren't mostly anyway confined to the Catholics and Orthodox.

Lots of other people do these things as well, and they're just as wrong when they do them. And most of these aren't the official position of either church, although some of them are. And again, not all Catholics and Orthodox are like this, but this is the way that street-level apologetics tends to go. So if you encounter Catholic and Orthodox apologetics, you probably will run into one or more of these things here.

So the four that I'd like to talk about are assuming their own definitions, framing the conversation, labeling arguments as arguments from silence, and equating speculative typology with official typology. And I'll get into each one here. So first, assuming their own definitions, it's a lot easier to argue for what you want to argue for if you define things so that you're right.

So here's, for example, a Catholic apologist said, "The Protestant church can't be authoritative because it lacks essential unity." So his argument is that because, well, basically in context, he was saying that, okay, if a Protestant church would excommunicate someone, they could just go down the street to the next Protestant church. Like if they were excommunicated from the Methodists, they could just go to the Presbyterians, and they would be taken into the church.

And so there's no unity there, and so no church can actually make authoritative decisions. However, the issue is Protestantism and Anabaptism as well are not singular churches. So it's not really surprising that we don't have the sort of unity that a singular church has. Because we're a whole bunch of different churches, then yeah, we aren't going to look the same as an enormous church that's all one church. This is from a YouTube comment. "It was believed for some times that the writings of Pope St.

Clement of Rome were scripture too." Wow, I mean, you read Pope St. Clement of Rome, wow. He was actually ordained probably by apostles, and you're like, wow, they ordained the first pope. That's, wow, I mean, there must have been a pope back then. Well, this sounds like Clement was a pope, but the concept was invented long after Clement and was applied retroactively to Clement. And we're not even really sure whether he was an individual like a monarchical bishop or whether he was just one of many bishops in Rome.

It's probably more likely that he was one of many. And so here's another argument that happens sometimes. "Pope Honorius supported heretics, but that doesn't disprove papal infallibility because there's a difference between erring and teaching error." So, oops. So, I mean, when they talk about papal infallibility, they define it very, very carefully so that there's no evidence from history can actually be counter-evidence for their claim.

So it's not that the pope can't err because there are one or two examples where the pope did err. So they say, well, the pope can't teach error. They also say, well, the pope can't teach error ex cathedra, like if he's in certain very specific circumstances. So they keep making it more and more specific so that it can't be disproved by history. And then the question is, you know, which, when is it that the popes have actually spoken ex cathedra?

How do we know like which are the ones that were infallible and which weren't? But anyway, this is especially a Catholic response. Another thing that's done is framing the conversation. And I'll use Eastern Orthodox quotes from here. And there's a certain amount of this that everybody does in conversations, but we do need to be careful when doing it so that we are actually being charitable to our opponents.

One thing that's often done is to make it sound like anyone who doesn't accept their church's interpretation is a radical individualist. Either you're part of either you're talking like our church or you're just kind of this one lone guy out there. So this writer said, "I don't hunt down early Christian quotes in an effort to develop my understanding of early Christianity.

Instead, I trust the Eastern Orthodox Church to have already evaluated what the church fathers taught because they're the continuation of the same church today." That's a paraphrase of their comment. So in other words, he doesn't feel the need to go look up early Christian quotes to find out whether he's right or not, but because he can just trust his church to have done that already.

But the Eastern Orthodox Church claims to hold to the consensus of the fathers, as in what all the church fathers taught in consensus. So it isn't individualistic to ask what the church fathers say. It's just asking, okay, what's the evidence for your claims? And also this comment assumes that the Eastern Orthodox Church is the only valid interpreter of the evidence for the truth of the Eastern Orthodox Church. And I think circularity is worse than individualism.

Individualism is a big problem, but when you only have a circular basis for your church, I think that's a bigger problem. Another one that one might hear is, "If you want your beliefs to be logically sound, you're being too Western." For example, Gospel Simplicity, who's a YouTuber, said in a video that Catholicism appeals to his rationality and Orthodoxy kind of appeals to his heart, which is a good way of putting it. That's often how people experience it.

And one commenter wrote, "You can tell that he's Orthodox." I think you've made good points. While your Western American nice compartmentalized approach, coupled with the intellectual view, a philosophical approach of ideas building on ideas, fits neatly into the Roman Catholic framework, you nailed it with Orthodoxy. Our theology is in our worship. Things are a little messy. No pure straight answers.

So he definitely makes Eastern Orthodoxy sound a lot better than Roman Catholicism, by the way he frames the conversation. I thought this was a very, yeah, very unambiguous example of framing. But Western thinking is not necessarily like this straw man. We aren't necessarily just doing a nice compartmentalized approach. And also, this really isn't in continuity with the church fathers if you read them. They had specific doctrines, and they defended them with specific arguments.

They didn't say, like the Orthodox often do, "We won't provide rational evidence because, you know, we don't want to be too Western. Just come experience our worship, and you'll know that we're right." Because the Orthodox know that they have a really beautiful worship service. And if you come experience their worship, you might be convinced that they're right. And that's a little easier than providing specific arguments for many people, although there are many Orthodox who do their best to provide these arguments.

So that's another example of framing the conversation. Another one we hear is they'll label arguments as arguments from silence. So I don't know if you've heard of that phrase or not, but it comes up so often.

And arguments from silence, and this is a broad definition, not the technical historical definition, is when somebody says, "I see no evidence for X, therefore X is not true." For example, "I see no evidence for the papacy in the early church, therefore there was no papacy in the early church." That would be an argument from silence. But because so many of their beliefs aren't found in the early church, at least not specifically, Catholics and Orthodox really don't like arguments from silence very well.

And sometimes they speak as though arguments from silence are a fallacy. But two problems arise. First, not every argument that they call that is an argument from silence. For example, see this argument. "The early church didn't treat the Bishop of Rome like a pope, therefore there was no papacy in the early church." That's not an argument from silence. That's an argument from actual evidence that exists. But sometimes you'll see things like this called an argument from silence as well.

And also the problem is that arguments from silence actually have a legitimate use. And I'll show you why here. So again, an argument from silence is, "I see no evidence for X, therefore X is not true." That's legitimate if you can reasonably expect that if X were true, you would have evidence for it. But it's not legitimate if you couldn't reasonably expect to find such evidence for X, even if X were true. So here's an example.

"I see no evidence that there is an elephant in the room, therefore there is no elephant in the room." Well, you would reasonably expect if there were an elephant in the room that you would be able to find evidence of its presence. But "I see no evidence that there is a virus in the room, therefore there is no virus in the room." Well, you wouldn't reasonably expect to see evidence of a virus's presence if the virus were in the room. You might see evidence for it. You might not see evidence for it.

So that's not a valid argument from silence. So a legitimate argument from silence defends the additional premise, which is we would expect to see evidence for X if X were true.

So for example, if you say, "I see no evidence for the papacy in the early church, therefore there was no papacy in the early church," all you need to say in addition is we would expect to see evidence for a papacy in the church, in the early church, if they had one because, trying to think what some reasons would be here, maybe because it changes the ecclesiology enough that somebody would have run into the pope and realized that the pope is infallible, or somebody would have mentioned that the pope was in charge

of the whole church or something like that because of how important it is.

And then when you disagree with an argument from silence, you actually need to defend a premise, which is we would not expect to see evidence for X here, even if X were true. So some have argued for reasons why they don't believe we would see evidence for a papacy in the early church, even if they had a papacy in the early church, which I don't buy. But that is actually a legitimate method of argumentation.

You can't just say, "Oh, that's an argument from silence," because an argument from silence can actually be legitimate. And finally, one step that's often made is going from speculative typology to official typology. So to unpack that a little bit, let's just consider this quotation. So Irenaeus writes, "Mary the Virgin is found obedient, saying, 'Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it unto me according to thy word.' But Eve was disobedient.'" And so he's comparing Mary with Eve.

He's saying Mary was obedient, Eve was disobedient. And he finishes up, "And thus also it was that the knot of Eve's disobedience was loosed by the obedience of Mary. For what the Virgin Eve had bound fast through unbelief, this did the Virgin Mary set free through faith." So he's saying Mary is kind of like the new Eve. There are a lot of similarities between them. They were both virgins. What their decision of obedience or disobedience really affected the entire world and had a huge effect.

But what Catholics and Orthodox do is they move from kind of the speculative typology to say, "Yep, Mary is the new Eve." So does this quotation say Mary is analogous to Eve and plays a corresponding role in the new covenant to the role Eve played in the old covenant? Or does it actually say Mary is officially the new Eve for the new covenant, just like Jesus is officially the new Adam for the new covenant? You know, Jesus is obviously the new Adam. Scripture is very clear on that.

But is Scripture clear on that Mary is the new Eve? Is she the new Eve in the same kind of official apostolic sense that Jesus was the new Adam? Well, I think we would need more evidence in order to come to that conclusion. So then the next step that's made once they have official typology is to move from official typology to let's draw lots of conclusions and make them doctrine.

So let's suppose that Mary is officially the new Eve for the new covenant, just like Jesus is officially the new Adam for the new covenant. Let's just suppose that's true. Can we then conclude that Mary was conceived without original sin? Can we conclude that Mary is the mother of all the faithful, like Mary was just like Eve was the mother of all living? Well, I don't really think so. I don't think that that follows even from official typology.

For example, we know that John the Baptist is officially the new Elijah for the new covenant. Jesus made that clear. But can we conclude that John performed miracles? As far as I know, he didn't. He may have. But can we conclude that from being the new Elijah? Because that was one of the biggest things Elijah did was perform miracles. Or can we conclude that John was assumed into heaven without dying? Well, obviously we can't because he wasn't. He died with his head cut off.

But the Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox actually use this method of argumentation as evidence for their doctrines about Mary, as you see above. But I think this is a move that doesn't make sense. So finally, let me finish up with a positive case for a particular doctrine, and I'll be talking about the doctrine of non-resistance. The apostles in the early church taught that Christians may never use violence. So why this subject? I'm bringing it up because it's so unanimous in the early church.

It's just very, very clear what they believed on this subject. But it's something that the Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox no longer teach. And in fact, they've been kind of hand in glove with governments that used quite a bit of violence. So it's a good response to their churches. And the main reason that I'm using this specific one, because there are other ones as well, is that most of you are probably already used to defending this doctrine if you're Anabaptists or Kingdom Christians.

If anyone here isn't an Anabaptist, you may be surprised by the support for this doctrine in Scripture in the early church. But I ask you to keep an open mind. And I just note that this is a quick overview, and I made a very extensive case for non-resistance at this article. Actually, I have four articles on the subject, as I recall. This is the first one. So first, how should we define these terms?

I define non-resistance as this: Though God authorizes earthly governments to use violence, Christians must respond to injustice with love and never with violence. And what I mean by violence is any potentially harmful action that is performed with the intent or willingness to harm another person. So in other words, a surgeon is not being violent because he's trying to help somebody, even though his actions are potentially harmful. But say a murderer is being violent because they intend to harm somebody.

Or, for example, trying to think a good example. If you slap your friend on the back, you know that might look like a violent action, but you're not trying to harm your friend. You're just trying to congratulate your friend. So that's not violent, nor would be, say, disciplining one's child. I mean, well, that would be possibly violent. It's possible to be violent because one might actually intend or be willing to harm the child.

But the aim for proper discipline is definitely not to harm the child, but to help the child. So that's why I'm defining it this way. So here's the evidence that would need to be explained by any theory as to what the early church taught about violence. These are five truths we can find from Scripture and history. First, the New Testament teaches that Christians should not do violence. Second, before Constantine, Christian leaders consistently taught that Christians should not do violence.

And third, neither the New Testament nor early Christian leaders leave any exceptions where Christians can do violence. Fourth, and this is what makes it non-resistance rather than pacifism, the New Testament and the early Christian leaders consistently teach that governments may use violence. It's proper to the government, but not to Christians. And fifthly, Christian leaders taught against joining the military. Some converted soldiers remained and served non-violently. Others served violently.

So those are some facts about the Roman army, and I'll get into that more. So let's support these five claims I'm putting out here with evidence from Scripture and the early church. So for the first point, that the New Testament teaches that Christians should do no violence, I'll focus on Matthew 5, the Sermon on the Mount. But there are plenty of other passages that you're probably aware of. But in my opinion, this is the best one.

So Jesus says, "You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' But I say to you, do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.

And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well." And later he says, "I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." So a lot of ink has been spilled over these verses while a lot of both good and bad interpretations of these verses abound out there. But let's just go through and see what is being said by this text. First, Jesus explicitly replaces the Old Testament law on this point.

He says, "You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' But I say to you, do not resist the one who is evil." So just because violence was permitted in the Old Testament doesn't mean that it is permitted in the New Testament. That's one of the main arguments that people bring up. Well, violence was permitted in the Old Testament, so. But yes, it was. Jesus just changed that. Also, Jesus condemns both personal violence and civil violence, not just personal violence.

He says, for example, so the examples that he gives, like if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn the other also, those are violence done against an individual, and his commands prohibit personal retaliation. But an eye for an eye and a tooth was in the context of civil judgments in Exodus. And so he's actually forbidding both personal violence and taking part in the societal correction of wrongs.

And he doesn't specifically say this in these verses, but if we're not allowed to do any personal violence or societal violence in correction of wrongs, then that would seem to contradict just war and violence done to protect others as well. Not necessarily, but it does definitely seem that way. That would be the easiest reading of the text. Thirdly, Jesus condemns both defensive and retributive violence, not just retributive violence. So in place of defensive violence, Jesus says not to resist the one who is evil.

That's what you do when you are defending yourself. And he says that when he says an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, he's referencing an example of retribution. So Jesus is forbidding Christians to retaliate or seek punishment for wrongs done. So he's not just talking about retributive violence, but also defensive violence as well. And finally, when Jesus speaks of defensive violence, he doesn't actually say that this applies only to self-defense.

So many would argue that, okay, maybe you shouldn't do self-defense, but at least you should defend other people. But he says, do not resist the one who is evil. That applies to no matter who the one who is evil is coming after. And he does use the examples of personal injury, but he doesn't give any indications that he's giving an exhaustive list of all the things that you shouldn't do. So I think that Jesus' blanket statement does apply to the defense of others.

So moving on to point two, the early church before Constantine taught that Christians should do no violence. So I can't possibly hope to cover all the relevant data here, but a wide range of early Christian writers spoke on this issue. It's not just one or two here and there. And they were all in agreement when they spoke on the issue. And when they spoke on the issue, they spoke against all categories of violence.

Not all of them against all categories, but in total, they spoke against defensive violence, retribution, war, and just violence in general. So they didn't leave any category that I know of anyway open for Christians to do. And here are a few quotes, just scratching the very surface of what we could go into.

Clement says, "Above all, Christians are not allowed to correct with violence the delinquencies of sins." Cyprian writes, "Christians do not attack their assailants in return, for it is not lawful for the innocent to kill even the guilty." Definitely goes very much against the mindset of the world today. "For religion is to be defended not by putting to death, but by dying, not by cruelty, but by patient endurance." That's like Tantius.

Justin Margaret writes, "We who formerly used to murder one another do not only now refrain from making war upon our enemies, but also that we may not lie or deceive our examiners, willingly die confessing Christ." And Origen writes, "Christ nowhere teaches that it is right for his own disciples to offer violence to anyone, however wicked." But for he did not deem it in keeping with such laws as his, which were derived from a divine source to allow the killing of any individual whatsoever.

And I have lots and lots more quotes on my site as well. So you're welcome to look those up. Two further points, and I don't think these need a lot of support to them because I think most people, well, the first point is neither the New Testament nor early Christian leaders leave any exceptions where Christians can do violence. That kind of follows from the first two or goes with the first two.

And the fourth one is one that pretty much nobody disagrees with, that the New Testament and the early Christian leaders consistently teach that governments may use violence as part of carrying out their duties. So now let's look at the final point, which is about Christians and the military. So I've separated this into about nine different facts because it's actually a fairly complex subject. This first slide kind of shows the problem that we have.

A, no Christian leaders spoke favorably of military service for Christians. B, more than one Christian leader condemned joining the military. Some references there. But C, there were a number, there were a significant number of Christians in the Roman army. Is that a contradiction? Well, no, because they were actually, the Christians in the army tended to be people who had joined the army before they became Christians, or maybe that was their hereditary occupation.

And so what was the response of converted soldiers to Christian teaching? D, many Christians abandoned military service apparently for the reason of non-resistance. And here are a few examples of that. E, soldiers who converted to Christianity were allowed to remain in the army, but were not allowed to do violence. So there were many people who were allowed to remain, but these writers were very clear. They can't do violence because they're Christians now.

And F, some Christians, at least one, did do violence in war. Here's an example of Julius the Veteran, who kind of bragged about his military being or his fighting in the military when he was brought up before a court, which was trying him for, I believe, not offering something to the gods or to Caesar or something, I forget. However, lay Christians obviously aren't the standard for what a church teaches. And why were Christians allowed to remain in the military? That would seem really strange to us today.

However, G, one could not easily leave the Roman army at will without incurring the death penalty. So it really wasn't an option for many people to leave the Roman army. H, not all functions of the military were violent in nature. They did things like building projects. They collected tolls. They carried messages, etc. And I, not all soldiers would have seen battle since during this period, the Roman Empire had relative peace. So I think all those points kind of all go together to show one picture.

And it's a picture that's very compatible with non-resistance, as I'll show. But let's just assume that we don't know all these additional facts. All we know is that there were Christians in the military and that all Christian leaders were teaching against violence. My question is, how can we tell what a church teaches on a given subject? Do we tell by what the lay members do? Or do we tell by what the leaders consistently teach?

So for example, how do we tell whether a Mennonite church, a particular Mennonite church, teaches that war is okay? Do we tell by looking at whether or not the lay members go to war? Or do we tell by looking at whether or not the leaders consistently teach that war is okay? So if they consistently teach that it is okay or isn't okay, I think that's what makes the difference as to whether they teach it, not whether their lay members obey them or not.

And conversely, or similarly, how do we tell whether the early church taught that war is okay? We can't tell by whether or not the lay members went to war. We need to tell by whether or not the leaders consistently taught that war is or isn't okay. All right. So let's compare the different views here and see which one can explain the evidence the best. I gave these five evidences that need to, or these five data points that need to be explained by any view.

Let's just see which view does the best at explaining them. So here's the just war view, which is that some violence is wrong, but war is right. Well, the trouble is it really contradicts most of these points. It is consistent with one of these points, point four, but it can't explain why the New Testament teaches that Christians should not do violence or that Christian leaders didn't. Now, the final point, it's compatible with some of that point and not others, but it's not fully compatible with it, I don't think.

Well, then let's look at full pacifism. That is, not even the state may do violence. Well, that obviously fares quite a bit better. It doesn't contradict most of these points, but it does contradict the point that the New Testament and the early Christian leaders consistently teach that governments may use violence. Well, then, I mean, I think it's pretty obvious. Non-resistance that Christians, unlike early earthly governments, cannot use violence. That fits all those data points.

And so I think that we can conclude that the early church taught non-resistance. Furthermore, by Catholic and Orthodox standards, non-resistance should be binding. So non-resistance matches the criterion of consensus of the fathers. So the Orthodox, this is something that they believe that their church has. Their church teaches what is the consensus of the fathers.

Vincent of Larens said, "Define this as what was believed or taught everywhere, always by all." And I would add, before any changes came to the faith, because Vincent couldn't have imagined that changes came to the faith. He did come after Nicaea, but he felt like the faith had not changed, as Orthodox do today. So if something was believed everywhere, always, and by all in the very beginning, that is binding on the Eastern Orthodox.

And I believe on the Catholics as well, although they're not quite as clear on this point. And the permission for violence doesn't match John Henry Newman's conditions for a legitimate development of doctrine. So Newman came up with the idea of development of doctrine, or at least expressed it in a way that was accepted by the Roman Catholic Church. But even he, if he had realized what had happened here, this would not have matched his criteria.

So he says, "A new doctrine is not a corruption if it retains one of the same type as an earlier doctrine, the same principles, if its beginnings anticipate its subsequent phrases and its later phenomena protect and subserve its earlier. But violence is completely forbidden in the beginning, then it was allowed in many cases later. So it doesn't retain one of the same type as a complete change. It doesn't retain the same principles.

The beginnings don't anticipate the subsequent phrases because, I mean, in the beginning, there was none, and in the end, there was some. And its later phenomena don't protect and subserve non-resistance because, I mean, there isn't non-resistance. The violence is allowed." So in both cases, Catholics and Orthodox really should accept non-resistance by their own criteria, I believe. And that is the end of my presentation. Okay. Well, thank you, Lynn. I'm still digesting.

But yeah, thanks for those good points, good thoughts here. So kind of going along, a question that's popping into my mind that's going along with your last point here on non-resistance. So I've had a discussion with an Orthodox man who I was challenging him on the fact that there's Orthodox Christians in both Russia and Ukraine, and they're currently at war with each other. And how's that work? Christians in the same communion fighting against each other.

And he told me, "Well, in the Orthodox Church, killing is a sin, and someone who goes to war and kills someone has to confess before they can take communion. And that's still considered a sin." So I was a little stumped with that. Didn't know where to go with it. I don't know if you have any thoughts on that, if that agrees with what you have seen or yeah. Yeah, good question. Well, I am not an Orthodox priest, so I can't speak on behalf of the Orthodox Church.

But, well, okay, for example, even after Nicaea, there was, for a little while, people were still uncomfortable with violence. For example, Basil said, "Yeah, it's okay," or Basil, I think you say, "Basil of Caesarea, maybe Basil the Great, I believe, said, 'It's okay for people to go to war and kill. That's great.'" But he said they have defiled themselves in a way. And so he felt it was best not to let them back into communion for three years after doing that.

So he still felt like it was a problematic thing religiously, even though it was a necessary thing politically. And I don't know that much. Maybe that was a concept that was carried on for a while. But I think it is just really problematic if we're okay with people going and sinning in order to protect our country. Because, I mean, I think it's great if people still feel like that's a sin. I think we just shouldn't do it. Yeah, okay. Well, thanks.

So yeah, for those of you who are on here, you are welcome to pose a question to Lynn and see if he has more discussion, see if we have some more discussion here. I think that I know I heard that there was one that was being considered earlier. So it's open for questions. What do you have? Hey, brother. Thank you so much for your carefulness in sharing these last two talks. I really appreciate that.

Your spirit of carefulness, not wanting to paint everyone the same and nuancing it, and then sharing with a lot of the spirit of love is a good challenge for all of us here as we think about engaging in these topics. The last talk that we had on here was by Stephen Russell in the sacred writings theme. And I think his title ended up being Living the Message, I believe, is what his title.

But it's this idea, yeah, I mean, he kind of unpacked how we got our Bible down through the ages, but then really, we really need to live out this message that transcends through scripture of kindness and love towards those who are on the outside and in light of Jesus and who he is and to be full of grace and full of truth. And so thank you for being a good example of that as you gauge this topic. I know that when you look at online forums and some of the stuff happening online, it's not always like that, so.

Yeah, there's a lot of vitriol, sadly. So as I sat here this morning, my mind traveled back to a year ago. A year ago, my family and I said goodbye to a dear man who became a really dear friend of ours here at Penn State. His name was, well, I won't give his name here, but became a really good friend. And yeah, and I just thought about the journey that we went on with, let's call him Bob, the journey we went on with Bob as he grappled with the teachings of non-resistance. So Bob grew up in a secular home.

There's a number that needs muted here. Thank you, Glenn. Bob grew up in a secular home, ended up in high school, and several of his high school friends were Catholic students. They actually showed him a Winston example of being a Christ follower. And through their example, he became a Christian and got baptized in the Catholic Church after high school, right before he came to Penn State. Like a week or two before he came to Penn State here at State College, he got baptized.

And this man is a radical follower of Christ. So he lands in State College, puts his all into Penn State and all into the Catholic Student Society. And now the last year, this past year, he's the president of the Catholic Student Society, which is a pretty big society here on campus, a student campus-run organization. And he started coming into our cafe the fall of 2022. And actually, fall of, I guess, 2021, I guess. Yeah. And he was attracted to us because of our community that he saw.

And as he's thinking about the church and the life, and actually the church, to him, the Catholic Church, being faithful, going into the future, he's saying that we're way too individualistic. We need to pull together and have community again. And he was seeing that in us. And so he was soon asking us questions, and we had tons of interaction. And your point on non-resistance is that was a totally new idea for him, totally new. And he really dug into that. And I was just going through some texts as well.

We were on here. And I sent him the Just War debate, which you didn't reference that here. I'd love to hear you talk about it a little bit. But from my perspective, that really impacted him because the leading, one of the leading men in the Catholic apologists is Peter Craig, right? And he's on that debate. And that really impacted him. And he embraced non-resistance in that time that he was with us.

He said, "This is something I'm going to do." And so we were really hoping to see him be willing to step into a church that more faith would represent the kingdom. He hasn't made that yet. But that was really exciting to see that whole new idea and to see it so clear in scripture and in the early church and defended. He's like, "Yeah, you're right." But of course, then there's the challenges then of all the other things that the Catholic Church believes and does, which are more hard for me to accept.

But so yeah, so I think a great resource is a Just War debate that could work. And then one of you pointed out the nationalism, kind of the on full color between Ukraine and Russia. So I was going to say, what's going on? You have Orthodox fighting each other. You have kind of a split kind of visibly happening there. So yeah, one thing that he, Lynn, I want to hear you talk about this a little bit, but one thing that Wes was really into is this whole traditional Latin mass thing. He was really into that.

And so he had the sense of wanting to be rooted in the authentic faith, right? So even discussing how we can talk about that, I really appreciated some of your analogies from your last talk. I wasn't on here, but I listened to it. But I would say, though, that one of the things that he tried to really, using his apologetics on me, is this: come to communicate how we're so fragmented as a Protestant group, which was interesting. He came to me.

He used his apologetics on me as if I was a Protestant, and he pretty soon realized that I don't think like a Protestant. And we began to look at and talk about how we got started in the Shlikon Confession. And he was studying all these things and began to see that, whoa, okay, so here is somebody who does not think, does not believe in the way the Protestant believes in symbolism and some of those things. And anyhow, but yeah, how do we—okay, so is there a way?

Do we need growth in this area, Lynn, of some being united? Is there ways that we can move towards that? I think even just in the kingdom and a Baptist tradition, what are some ways that, as you grapple with this, that we can talk about it? Yeah, I'm just curious to—I'd love to hear your thoughts. Yeah. Really good question. Trying to think how best to answer that. There is definitely something beautiful about a huge number of people being in one communion and being able to take communion with each other.

However, and I would really love for that to be the case for us as well as for the Catholics. The issue is, the issues are several. One is, yes, that would be great, but I don't really see it as an option to, for example, have the extra doctrines that are considered infallible by the Roman Catholic Church in that communion.

So I would love to be in communion with Catholics, but unfortunately, they would be the ones blocking me out because I couldn't believe those extra doctrines and definitely couldn't believe that they're infallible. When you say that your church is infallible, that really builds up a lot of barriers. And so I would love to see that kind of thing happen, but unfortunately, there are some barriers like that.

And also, I would point out that I think it's better for us to be in separate churches that are self-governed than actually to be killing each other. In the Roman Catholic Church or the Eastern Orthodox Church, people who are actually in communion with each other can meet on opposite sides of a battlefield and mow each other down with guns. Whereas you probably won't see that happen with even the churches with the bitterest enmity in the Anabaptist tradition.

Now, obviously, we shouldn't have enmity of that kind, but at least we're not killing each other. I do think that's a big thing, even though obviously there's a lot that we could learn as well. And that's good. Yeah, for sure. I'm not interested in ecumenicalism of any sort, but even just as an Anabaptist faith tradition, how can we—is there ways that we can show that there is goodwill between us? And I think just that's a good point. I appreciate that.

So I have some other questions possibly might build, but I want to let others open up for others. Well, just a quick to answer that one, since it sounds like that was kind of your deeper question. I think one thing we can do is try not to be threatened by each other and to see each other as—to wish each other's good rather than to be scared that each other is going to harm us. I think that would be one really good step toward that. Yeah, thank you.

I think another step—I think another step would be to try to have a Christ-like love for those, even if we're not on a communion basis, but still have a charitable spirit toward one another. Yeah, very much. So I have a quick question. Maybe there's not time, and this would be another time, but excuse me. I was wondering, as far as basic salvation, being born again and believing in Jesus, our sins forgiven, do the Catholics, are we on the same page somewhat in that or not at all?

Or what are some of—where are they really at with that? I'm not so informed on some of those details of their belief. And I do some jail prison ministry, and once in a while, we meet up with a Catholic. And I was really wondering on just the basic salvation, if you understand my question. Yeah. Yeah, that's a very good question. And obviously, I can't tell you who's saved and who's not.

But I think the thing with Roman Catholicism is it's a very wide net or a very broad umbrella, as in you can be a very serious Christian, like the gentleman that Bryant mentioned, just a very serious, devout Christian, obeying the teachings of Jesus, a personal relationship with God.

Or you can just be kind of a nominal Christian who maybe goes to church every now and then, or maybe you go to church every Sunday, but you feel like all that you need to do is participate in the sacraments, and you really don't need to change your life or seek a relationship with God. So it really, I mean, I would say it's a case-by-case basis.

There are probably—you'll probably run into Catholics who are just very, very devout, I would say, born-again Christians, but then you'd run into others who almost—it's almost a different religion for them. It's something that they live out as a form or as a kind of national identity instead of as a true religion. But how does it work if they are baptized as an infant, then later they are affirmed?

Is the affirm, is that kind of when they put their faith really as more like an adult into Christ Jesus, or how do they look at that? That's something I'm not sure on. It's not something I've looked into. It seems like something like that, that so they would see you're saved when you're baptized as an infant, and then you'd be confirmed later as kind of, I guess, kind of demonstrating that you're older now and you're kind of living your own life rather than just being a child.

And so it's probably something similar to that. But as far as I know, you don't need to profess a personal relationship with God or anything to be confirmed. It's more something that happens whenever you get to that point. But that's my impression. Don't take me as an authority at all. So we would really not agree with that approach, would we? Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't agree with that approach, no. I mean, I do think it produces many good Christians, but it also produces many Christians who are not so good.

I heard this anecdote. I think I've heard it from more than one person. This particular one I'm thinking of was an Anglican, but he said, "Before I was confirmed, I was a sinner." He said, "After I was confirmed, I was a confirmed sinner." So just a question, Lynn, for you. I know that we're probably close to being out of time here. But you had talked about the development of doctrine, and I'm sure that you have an Orthodox study Bible.

And maybe just as a side note, so the Orthodox study Bible is the official Bible of the Orthodox Church at this time. I think that's the first time that they've actually had their own official Bible. But there's several footnotes in the Orthodox study Bible that I think pertain to the topic of the development of doctrine because of the portraying ideas that are not in the text.

So one of them is in James 5:12, where James says, "Above all, my brothers and sisters, do not swear either by heaven or by earth or with any other oath." And there the Orthodox study Bible in the footnote says that it says, "We may swear when required to." Would that be development of doctrine, or is that something else? And maybe before you answer that, I have two more examples I'll just throw out there. The following verse is where it talks about if somebody is sick, let them call for the elders of the church.

And then it says about confession and so on. Actually, this is a few verses later. It's not the following. But okay, I'm sorry. It's actually verses 16 through 18 where it says about confessing your faults, confessing your trespasses one to another. And it says there that the pressure of public confession was so great that the priest, instead of the entire community, heard the confession representing the people. And it acknowledges that it wasn't the earliest practice.

So that would be a second one where it's essentially saying that this is how we're going to do this. A third one would be in Matthew 5 where Jesus is talking about divorce. And there it says that the Orthodox Church does allow divorce and remarriage a second and a third time, but never a fourth time. So anyway, are those examples there? Would that be examples of the development of doctrine, or how did they defend those things that are not in the text? Did those necessarily need to come through councils or what?

Yeah, that's a very good question. And there are quite a few things like that. So there are different stances that the Orthodox will take. Some of them will just be very adamant that everything that they believe went back to the apostles. Others recognize, okay, so there were changes that happened. But they would say those changes weren't things that were ever infallible to start with. Well, obviously, they would have to say that. Some believe in forms of development of doctrine.

That's fairly uncommon, but there are some who do. That tends to be more the scholars who know enough about the history that they know that they kind of have to. And I'm not sure what the justification for those things would be. Probably one way of doing it would be, "Oh, you misunderstood what Scripture is saying there," kind of like a Protestant would argue.

Or maybe say, "Well, that wasn't intended to be an infallible pronouncement that was, and our church later said something infallible." They don't necessarily need to make a decision in a council for it to be authoritative. It can be like if everybody is doing it, I believe there's this doctrine in the Orthodox Church that if everybody is doing something, then that's a sign that it is true and infallible. And yeah, so I'm afraid I didn't answer your question very well.

On those things, I would just ask, say, an Orthodox priest. But I would put in the caveat that you'll probably hear a different answer from different priests because they aren't quite as unified on this particular issue and many others because they don't have an official teaching organ of the entire church like the Catholics do. Different ones will have a different take on it. And also, they've never quite defined a lot of things the way the Catholics do.

So you can find little things that seem like inconsistencies here and there, and different people will explain them differently. So I hope that's helpful, even though it's not very. No, thank you. Appreciate that. Yeah. Well, thanks a lot for being willing to field some questions here, Lynn. And I think it's time to wrap this up for today. So thanks for sharing. We do have a next two weeks from now, on May 20th, we have another in the series of sacred writings.

And this is by Chuck Pike, A Meal That Makes You Hungrier. So I'd like to welcome you back for that, talking about scripture reading and Bible study. And I'm sure that will be very, very good. Looking forward to that. Lynn, would you close us out in a prayer here yet? Sure. Father, thank you so much for this opportunity together and with those who love your kingdom and want to serve you more and more.

And I pray that we would be able to have more unity among ourselves and with other Christians, whether we agree with them or not, that we could all be one body of you and that we would be able to help those who are sincerely seeking, no matter where they are, to find your truth and to come to know you and to find fellowship with others who love you and seek to follow you and be the disciples of your Son, Jesus. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Well, thank you. And thank you all for joining us this morning.

And God bless your day. And we'll see you in two weeks. As iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend.