Steven Wall

I went through the same process but just looking at history the papacy is there in the early church and is functional. Jesus said the Holy Spirit would guide the church in all truth. The orthodox, the Protestants and the restoration churches like Mormons and Jehovah Witnesses all make the claim in retrospect that the Catholic Church errored some how. In the early church the papacy is there and operating. The early church believed that Matthew 16 clearly established Simon as the leader of the church with preeminent authority. In John 1:42 a verse that even most Catholics miss when Jesus first meets Simon the very first thing he says to him is that he would be called “Cephas which means rock.” Why would Jesus change Simon’s name to “rock” and foreshadow the greatest word play in the history of the world in Matthew 16 if it meant absolutely nothing? Jesus tells Simon that in the future he would be called “rock.” Then in Matt 16 two years later he gives his famous wordplay when he says You are Petros (rock) and on this petra (Rock) I will build my church Jesus goes on to give him the keys and binding authority. The early church believed that Peter went to Antioch first and served as Bishop there as he lead Antioch and the world wide church. Then he went to Rome and before he was martyred he appointed a successor. The pope is there and operating and was a part of the church councils even though he did not attend every one of them. The pope always had a say in originating the doctrines that was debated in the councils. So if Christ said that the Holy Spirit would guide the church in ALL truth then why would you not trust that he was guiding the church when the Bishop of Rome had preeminent authority? The Orthodox get out to 1054 and they look back retroactively and claim the Papacy’s preeminent authority was an error! But pause there for a second. Christ said the Holy Spirit would guide the church in all truth- - so do you want to believe someone’s claim that the early church made egregious errors? If you make the claim that the early church errors some how then why would you trust complex doctrines like the Hypostatic Union and the Trinity? Why would you trust that the church selected the right documents for the New Testament? Either the early church was led by the Holy Spirit in all truth or Christianity is a false religion. I would read Erick Ybarra’s book called “The Papacy; Revisiting the Catholic/ Orthodox debate. Also Steve Ray’s book “Upon This Rock.” Joe Heschmeyer book Pope Peter is good as well. That is how I analyzed it. May God lead you to the truth brother

@__JMJ11 This is true.

The reason why I'm at a crossroad with choosing between Catholicism and Orthodoxy comes down to this: Which side has the better historical connection to the Church Jesus founded in 33 AD? Which side is objectively closer to the early followers of Christ and what they believed.

Have you read the history of Mormonism and the antics of Joseph Smith? Good grief. To say that 200 years of Mormonism out shines the work of the 2000 year old Catholic Church is borderline incoherent. Read the book “How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization.” Then read “Baring False Witness” Debunking Centuries of anti-Catholic History by Rodney Stark a non-Catholic. Learn what true scholars have to say about it. I am not anti-Mormon when it comes to what people do because my entire family are Mormons but if you decide truth based on what people in the religion do or don’t do then no system is true and they are all true. The statement was “how could a false religion produce Christlike works” and the answer is … it’s not the works that people do and don’t do. It’s the fact that Jesus said he would build a church and he gave you the evidence to exam your self to see what it is and what it is not. He said the Holy Spirit would guide the church in all truth forever after his resurrection and the church that existed for the next thousand years after his resurrection was the Catholic Church. Christ said that his church would be persecuted right after he died. He also said that it would remain unified. He also said his church would go to all nations and he would be with his church until the end of time. So if you look at history only one church fits all of Jesus’ own evidence that he himself gives. If the Catholic Church is not Christ’s true church then Jesus is quite the trickster. He said his church would not fail and he would be with his church and if you lived for the first 1500 years after the New Testament period you had a 99% chance of not being able to read. You also had no chance to have access to a Bible because they cost more than the average house since they were hand copied. So for 1500 years if you wanted to be a Christian you only had one choice and that was to go to the nearest Catholic mass where they read the scriptures, prayed the scriptures, and recited scripture in the liturgy. As well as preached the scriptures. So if that was not Jesus’ church then he was inept for not being able to hand on the faith or he was a devious trickster who created an environment where the only choice people had to even be Christian was the Catholic Church. I don’t think Jesus was inept and I don’t see that he was a trickster either. So that is why I am Catholic. All the evidence leads there.

@snuffybodacious @ThoughtfulSaint 2000 years of Saints, keeping Holy Scriptures safe all that time, built western civilization, human rights, women’s rights, monogamy, scientific method, genetics, hospitals, universities. Sir, more people are baptized Catholic every year than exist in your modern religion.

Why would a false religion produce such incredibly Christ centered fruit?

@ReformedToRome @HomemakingLady That is the most succinct and clear way I have heard it stated.

@HomemakingLady Reformed Baptists are just confused baptists who adopted a defective covenant theology to mix with their bad ecclesiology.

True Baptists embrace the Doctrines of Grace.

@mattswaim Well this is one of those times where you don’t have to Matt. Just apply the Catholic principle of “both / and.”

Please do not make me choose

That’s exactly why I think Ryan might be in this whole thing for the money. You may be right that he is not smart enough and is too biblically illiterate to be a teacher. When you bring up that possibility he whines that those people are not “Being Christlike” to poor Ryan. And you are correct about the debate with Joe Heschmeyer Ryan acted flummoxed that Joe would use Mark 16:16 where Jesus states “he who believes and is baptized will be saved” should be considered scripture. This gets to the heart of why I think Ryan is either just malicious or is in it for the money. He acted so out and out surprised that Heschmeyer would use the verse and Ryan acted like it was acceptable scholarship that Matthew 16:16 should not be in scripture - - but come on no one could really be that illiterate could they? Just like every other Protestant tenet (sola fide - sola scriptura - a priesthood of all believers WITHOUT a ministerial) the claim that Mark 16:16 might not belong in the scriptural text was invented by two scholars who of course were Protestant in the 1800’s. Before them no one ever made that claim. They pointed out that two old completed GREEK manuscripts in the 4th century don’t have Mark 16:16 or what is called the “longer ending” in Mark. That’s two out of 1600 copies that exist from the 4 century or earlier. There are many Greek partial copies that do have the longer ending. AND all of the Latin, Syriac, Coptic texts that are complete copies of the New Testament have Mark 16:16 AND these are all EARLIER sources from the 2nd and 3rd century. On top of that all of the church fathers quoted Mark 16:16 as scripture and none of them questioned it. So in sum many partial Greek texts include Mark 16:16, and ALL Syriac, Latin, and Coptic sources that are complete copies as well as ALL partial copies of Greek, Syriac, Latin, and Coptic texts from the 2nd and 3rd century include Mark 16:16. There are literally only two sources that are from the mid fourth century that leave out Mark 16:16. They are Greek copies and both are from Egypt. The two Protestants that raise the issue (Westcott and Hort) made a big deal that these were the oldest “complete” Greek copies. But all partial Greek manuscripts that are earlier DO Have Mark 16:16 plus every partial copy AND every complete copy in Syriac, Latin, and Coptic languages from the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th centuries have Mark 16:16. Like I have stated before. I came out of atheism into Christianity over the last 10 years so I had no ax to grind and these Protestant arguments that show up after 1500 are so insanely illogical and not supported by evidence that it’s difficult to believe. To the unbiased observer the idea that two lone copies from the same region that have a textual variant that is completely different than literally 1,600 other ancient manuscripts leads every rational observer to see that Mark 16:16 is 99.9 % certain to be in the biblical text. To feign surprise like Ryan did that someone like Heschmeyer would believe the regular accepted scholarship… well that is just another fact that shows people like Ray Comfort and Ryan Hemelaar are either just in it for the money or they really are lacking the intelligence to see the obvious evidence. I don’t even like to use the word but when someone looks at the evidence like this issue about Mark 16:16 it is hard to believe anyone is “dumb” enough to be swayed by such an incredibly weak claim, let alone to feign complete surprise that someone would use the claim’s overwhelming evidence. Everything about Protestantism was made up in the 1500’s and after. If Ryan is correct the Holy Spirit has allowed 99.9% of all Christians whoever lived to be in error about Mark 16:16. It’s so beyond incoherent it’s laughable and yet people like James White believe Irenaeus’ texts are not real and Ryan believes texts that prove him wrong don’t belong in the text. Protestants are reaching for anything to cover their incoherent claims.

@CDogmatics @needGod_net Ryan has some of the most ridiculous teachings. I think he did say something like that when in a debate with @ShamelessPopery. Ryan also falsely accused parishes of charging for salvation in that debate.

Ryan Hemelaar from @needGod_net SEEMS like one of the most uneducated people to ever try teaching. He SEEMS like he never learned how to do basic reading comprehension. He SEEMS like he knows nothing about how logic works. I say “seems”, because I don’t know if he actually believes the nonsense that he spews out online, OR if he’s just messing with people. The things that Ryan says are so insanely stupid and anti-Biblical, that it is possible that he’s just pretending to be a Protestant, to give Protestantism a worse name than it already has. Whatever the case may be, one thing is for sure, the facts will always destroy Ryan’s anti-Christian nonsense ⤵️ youtu.be/jUedVaLUs0E?si…

That could be. I have asked Ryan if he really believes God established a church and let it be Catholic for 1500 years before sending 25 different Protestant “reformers” to set up at least 25 wildly contradictory “churches” but Ryan he never answers. He venerates Ray Comfort and like good old Ray he never responds when Catholics obliterate his logic and many his many faulty interpretations.I think he does it for the money, but you may be right he just might secretly be trying to divulge Protestantism for what it is; A false religious system based in schism and contradiction with the belief that Jesus and the apostles could not hand on the true gospel to the very next generation.

@Crypto__NoYogi @ReformedToRome @WWUTTcom My pleasure, glad I could help someone or anyone understand that for 1500 years no one interpreted these clear passages in the way Protestants started doing in the 1500’s.

@wall7testprep @ReformedToRome @WWUTTcom So well said, thank you for this.

Peter is not the Rock. Christ is.

Come on BibleInContext pick a side. You quote Luther sometimes, Zwingli sometimes and now Cramner? Those 3 guys radically disagreed with each other and your lack of belief in the Eucharist is different than all of those guy’s view. Christ said you would recognize his church because of its unity, if it’s not the Catholic Church that has existed for 2,000 years then which unified church was Jesus talking about?

@BibleInContext1 Why not when you can listen to a pretend “Bible Scholar”?

“Listen not to the false incantations, sweet whisperings, and crafty jugglings of the subtle papists, wherewith they have this many years deluded and bewitched the world; but harken to Christ, give ear unto His words, which shall lead you the right way unto everlasting life, there with Him to live as heirs of His kingdom.” ~ Cranmer

@KennyBurchard Great video again guys.

It never ceases to be the accusation. But is it true? NOPE! - [watch here] youtu.be/sakeNuj23qI

And that doubles us up. Busy going to the cardiologist, dermatologist, urologist, dentist etc. I stop by for Eucharistic adoration on the way back from each medical appointment so I am assured of at least doing one productive thing a day besides being busy fixing all those ailments. :)

There are two key stages in the adult life During the early stage, if someone asks you how you're doing, you respond by explaining how busy you are In the later stage, you respond to the question "how are you" by listing all the physical problems you are currently experiencing

Excellent refutation. Nobody made the argument Spurgeon makes in the first 1500 years of Christianity. Christ says there is a church that you can take someone to for sin (such as false teaching) , and Jesus states that if one will not listen to EVEN TO THE CHURCH then they are to be treated as a pagan. A pagan is a non-saved person. For the first 1,000 years of Christianity 99% of that Christianity believed this church was the Catholic Church and that is exactly how it operated. If Protestants are right it means that Christ established a church and let it immediately fail right away when it comes to infallible teaching. The church operated for 400 years and excommunicated heretics before New Testament scripture was even defined. Its incoherent. If there is no church that can declare someone as a heretic and place him in the category as a pagan, you cannot even follow Jesus’ very own words. Again, incoherent. Protestants cannot even apply Matthew 18 and if they even tried the person could go just join another Protestant group. Completely incoherent. And if in fact you are really saved by faith alone then Matthew 18 is worthless. When it comes to the sin of false teaching, no matter what one taught if a church declared it errant all he has to do is say “I am saved by faith alone.” Take faith alone to its illogical conclusion any who thinks he is saved by his faith alone no sin he does matters because after all he is saved by “faith alone” right? Protestantism is incoherent. You have to say that all of Christianity got it wrong for 1,000 years and since one is saved by faith alone then a sinful act or a lot of them just doesn’t matter and Matthew 18 cannot even be applied the way Jesus taught it.

@Joseph_Spurgeon The confessional definition is denied by scripture itself.

Roman Catholics never seem to understand the doctrine of sola scriptura. Sola scriptura is not the belief that Holy Scripture is the only authority, nor that an individual can infallibly interpret the Scriptures. Rather, it is the doctrine that Holy Scripture is the only infallible authority and therefore has supreme authority over the church. It is not the only authority. The church has real authority, along with other forms of authority in the Christian life. Those who hold to sola scriptura also maintain that Scripture is to be understood within the life of the church. It was given to the church. It guards and defines the boundaries of the church. It shapes the life of the church. The church receives it, interprets it, and works through it, not as a single infallible institution, but as a body that is accountable to the Word. A central problem in Roman Catholic argumentation is their equivocation on the word infallible. They blur the distinction between infallible and inerrant, and then build an entire doctrine on that confusion. Infallible means unable to err by nature. It is not merely that something happens to be correct in a given instance. It means it cannot be wrong. Holy Scripture is infallible because it is the very Word of God. God cannot err, and therefore His Word cannot err. Everything Scripture says carries full authority because it is true without any possibility of error. Human beings, however, can make inerrant statements without being infallible. “Jesus Christ is the Messiah” is an inerrant statement. “My name is Joseph Spurgeon” is an inerrant statement. Even something like the table of contents of Scripture can be correct. The church can recognize the canon without error. But none of that makes the church infallible. It simply means that, at times, it has spoken truly. Infallibility is not something that comes and goes. It is not something that appears in rare moments and then disappears. If a person or institution is infallible, that is a property of what they are, not a temporary condition they enter into under certain circumstances. That is exactly where the Roman doctrine of papal infallibility breaks down. It claims the Pope is infallible only in specific moments, under carefully defined conditions. That is not infallibility. That is a redefinition of the term to protect a doctrine that cannot stand on its own. And historically, this was not some universally held belief quietly passed down from the apostles. In the Middle Ages, the Franciscans, particularly in their disputes over poverty, began pressing arguments that would effectively bind the Pope to prior authoritative statements. They were attempting to lock in earlier papal rulings so that a later pope could not overturn them. In response, Pope John XXII rejected those claims outright. He saw exactly what was happening. To grant that kind of infallibility would place the pope in submission to prior declarations in a way that undermined his own authority. He resisted it, and the idea was not accepted as settled doctrine at the time. Only much later, under very different pressures, was papal infallibility formally defined at the First Vatican Council in 1870. It was not the clear, consistent teaching of the church through the ages. It was a deformation, argued for, resisted, and finally imposed. Sola scriptura cuts through all of this confusion. It locates infallibility where it actually belongs, in the Word of God. Scripture alone cannot err. Scripture alone carries absolute authority. The church has real authority, but it is always a derived and accountable authority. It can speak truly, but it is never incapable of error. Everything must be judged by the Word of God, because only the Word of God is infallible.

I have told Truth Matters a dozen times that no one taught this doctrine for 1500 years of Christianity and even Protestant scholars acknowledge that. To Protestants Christ was inept, he nor his apostles could even pass the alleged basic fact of salvation by “faith alone” to even one person!! For some reason to Protestants Christ let his church error immediately and then stay in that error for 1500 years and then when some alleged correction came it was 25 different men who started 25 different churches with radically contradicting doctrines, contradicting confessions of faith and no agreement on what even “faith alone” even meant.

@Truth_matters20 @calvingelical This isn’t remotely biblical and is a gnostic view that not a single Christian held before the Reformation era. Reformed folks abuse a text about gnostic antichrists to get this view.

Truth 💯

@BreeSolstad Go pray if you have the time Christ is more powerful than the evil one and it is our responsibility as the Body of Christ to let others know the truth

There is a witches convention coming to town and there’s an internal debate amongst a group at my Church. Half of us want to go the convention to pray outside it with Rosary prayers & hymns. The other half are fearful & say it could put us in spiritual danger. What do you say?

@MrCasey62 Thanks for constantly refuting the errors of the 1500’s heretical and contradictory Protestant movement who’s adherents believe that Christ could not do as he promised to put a unified church on the earth.

That’s an awful lot of words just to say, “I have no clue what ‘worship’, ‘veneration’, or ‘devotion’ even mean.”

@Anshra_fatima07 23?

WHICH NUMBER COMES NEXT? 99.9% PEOPLE GET THIS WRONG

As someone who has made a living in the world of insurance I think everyone should have to take a personal finance class and learn how to budget and learn what the difference types of insurance are. People spend 10% or more of there disposable income on insurance and most have no idea how it works, what they can do to keep premiums from going up etc.

Thoughts?

I read the New Testament as an atheist and I found as much scriptural support for all those items as much as I did for the Trinity. If you think the average person could just pick up the Bible and read it and come to understand the doctrine of the Trinity all on their own without relying on the Church Fathers I don’t believe you. Whenever some preaches sola scriptura to me I hand them a Bible and ask them to show me where the Bible teaches the Trinity in light of even Jesus saying “ the Father is greater than I.” I also ask them to show me where it says that any of the gospels are written by an apostle or a person who knew an apostle. They can’t remotely do it. The gospels don’t even say who wrote them or why they should be considered inspired. You can’t get that from the Bible! When you read each document one has Paul saying : I rejoice in my (Paul’s) suffering for your (the Colossians) sake. And in my flesh I make up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ for the sake of his body THE CHURCH. Paul says there is something lacking in the suffering of Christ! That is a huge statement but what is it? What suffering can Paul do for anyone that is lacking in the suffering of Christ? Where does the Bible tell you where that is? It doesn’t. If sola scriptura is true where does the Bible tell you what books should be in the Bible somewhere you even know what is scripture. How can you believe in “sola scriptura” when there is no document anywhere that even hints at what makes up “scripture” Gosh when you look at history all the men who discussed what documents should considered “God breathed” vs. which ones were not they did not look in the Bible for that. And the main players who came up with the list were Catholic Bishops like Athanasius, Augustine, Gregory of Nazianzus, Jerome, Cyril all Bishops in the Catholic Church. And as well there were Popes like Pope Damasus, Pope Innocent, and Pope Boniface. It was all Catholic men who made up what rules were used to determine which documents should be considered as inspired. Are those rules in the Bible somewhere? The answer is no. You trust those guys somehow chose the right documents to be scripture but then those very same guys taught every one of the issues on your list but you don’t believe them? Wow wh would you believe the Holy Spirit would guide them so diligently when they define what was “scripture” but the the Holy Spirit just let them fail on all those other things? What was the Holy Spirit doing? Can’t anyone see how incoherent it is to say that the Holy Spirit guides the church closely when it selected the New Testament documents but then let it error in all those other things? So if you believe the doctrine of “the Bible Alone” is a real doctrine where do you see where it is that even determines what books should be part of the Bible or what characteristics should a document have to be considered as “scripture” None of that is in the Bible either.

Protestants: ‘Not in the Bible.’ Also Protestants: Sola Scriptura… which is nowhere in the Bible.

Well I don’t support the disuse of opioids I think this movement of stopping people from getting opioid medication is a self righteous campaign of doctors who want to appear somehow as a righteous crusader, but it is BS. I don’t know a single person who got addicted to pain meds because they were prescribed them for legitimate pain. The whole movement is torturing people and it should not be happening. But I reject the vilification of buprenorphine. Buprenorphine literally saved my life. Suffering from a painful skin condition (erythromelalgia”) a doctors forced me off pain meds after 5 years of taking 10mg of OxyContin 6 times per day. On that dose I was able to be stable and live a pretty good life that way. I was dependent obviously but not an addict. But then my doctor died and NO ONE would give me the pain meds and continue my treatment plan. My life was hell, I had the skin pain and went through withdrawal hell. I know my pain was not even as bad as most acute pain suffers and still I couldn’t stand it. You people who takelegitimate pain meds from folks who have an obviously painful condition are literally torturers, I don’t know how you justify such cruelty if not to just feed your sense of self aggrandizement thinking somehow you know better than people that suffer miserably from legitimate conditions. But for me when a doctor finally recommended buprenorphine it saved my life. In literally minutes I felt normal, mostly pain free, not high, my life went from constant struggle to a sense of normalcy. I brush my teeth after each dose (45 minutes later) and have never had a problem with decay and even if I did it would still be worth it to just work with a dentist. I get my liver checked and oral cancer screenings. I just feel decent and I am in my 7th year. So I am just telling my side. If they ever stopped buprenorphine and still would not want let people have access to other pain meds I would struggle to make it.

“Subutex has ruined my life”

Yes! And so happy to see others affirm and as of yet no one from that tradition that started in the 1500’s with wild new and novel interpretations has jumped in to criticize your question yet. A dedicated place for prayer reflection and meditation on the life of Christ and the Church that he loved is a real blessing.

Do you have a Catholic home altar?🤔🙏🏻

@7Qwerk you should really get in touch with Matt Swaim and the Coming Home Network. I have read some of your posts and you are worried your ex-wife might lie about why you left - - but why the marriage ended is NOT usually the focus in an attempt to get a Declaration of Nullity. What matters more is the state of mind and the intentions of the parties when they entered into the alleged marriage. Matt and the Coming Home Network can help you with this. I never got in touch with CHN but the resources they had and the information in the series that Matt did with Kenny Burchard and Ken Hensley about “valid” and “sacramental” marriages helped me go from Protestant to Catholic. I had to get FOUR Declarations because my current Protestant wife had been married twice and so had I. You could also get the book “Mending the Heart: A Catholic Annulment Companion” by Rose Sweet. You really need to understand what annulment really means so you can express the proper truths in your declaration and trust in Holy Mother Church and the mercy of God.

@7Qwerk You should come visit us at CHNetwork.org/connection, I assure you that you are not alone

Spoke with the Priest at my local Church today and honestly I want to cry It seems like I might have to wait two more years for the Sacraments. OCIA doesn’t start until August. I’ve finally tracked down my (unfortunately still legal) wife whom I’ve been separated from for 10 years. And my Priest told me it could be up to a year for an annulment with not even that guaranteed. And if it IS granted I have to marry the mother of my children (which I already intend to do) as quickly as possible meaning a beautiful wedding takes backseat over court house “one and done” The mistakes of my past just won’t leave me alone. Talk about spiritual warfare. If I wasn’t so certain in the One True Church I’d probably just give up 😭 I just wanna go home guys