Carol Searing

@Catholic_State @TNTJohn1717 @JoshuaTCharles Thank you @Catholic_State for responding. I knew you would be able to reply to this post much better than me. I am Catholic but a convert and still have much to learn. Love your site.

👉 christtheking.info/catholic-resou… 1/ Romans 9-11 and "the lie that Israel was replaced." Let's go through this carefully, because 2,000 years of Catholic tradition has something to say about every claim in this post. 🧵 2/ First, the framing: you accuse replacement theologians of "spiritualizing, dodging, redefining." But you never once interact with the Church Fathers — the men who were closest to the Apostles, who spoke Greek as their native tongue, and who read Romans 9-11 before your system existed. 3/ St. Justin Martyr (100–165 AD) wrote his Dialogue with Trypho — a direct engagement with a Jewish interlocutor — and argued comprehensively that the Church is the true Israel, the seed of Abraham, and the heir of the promises. This is from the generation after the Apostles. 4/ St. Melito of Sardis (~180 AD) wrote Peri Pascha, one of the most striking early Christian documents we possess. He argues that Israel's institutions — the Passover, the temple, the priesthood — were types that found their reality in Christ. The type passes when the reality arrives. That's not "replacement." That's fulfillment of the type's entire purpose. 5/ Tertullian's An Answer to the Jews (written before he fell into Montanism) argues systematically that the old Law has been superseded, that the Gentiles have received what Israel forfeited, and that the Church fulfills the promises. He's not "bitter." He's exegeting. 6/ St. Cyprian of Carthage compiled his Three Books of Testimonies Against the Jews — an entire catena of Scripture passages demonstrating that the Church, not ethnic Israel, is the heir of the covenant promises. This was mainstream Christian theology in 250 AD. 7/ St. John Chrysostom — perhaps the greatest preacher in Church history and a man of extraordinary pastoral charity — wrote his famous homilies Against the Jews precisely to warn Christians away from attending synagogue worship, because he understood it as a rival, now-defunct, system. His concern was theological, not ethnic. 8/ St. Augustine's Treatise Against the Jews and his broader theology of history (developed at length in The City of God) presents Israel as a witness people — preserved, but in a state of spiritual blindness, as a living testament to the truth of Scripture. Augustine did not expect a future national restoration. He expected Jewish conversion to Christ. 9/ St. Jerome, the greatest biblical scholar of the ancient world, the man who gave us the Latin Vulgate — the very Bible from which you quote — read Romans 9-11 without arriving at dispensationalism. He too saw the promises as fulfilled in Christ and the Church. 10/ This is not a fringe position. This is the unanimous tradition of the Fathers. When the Catena Bible — which compiles patristic commentary on every verse — is consulted on Romans 9-11, you do not find a single Father teaching a future ethnic national restoration of Israel separate from conversion to Christ. 11/ Now to Romans 11:1 — "Hath God cast away his people? God forbid." You treat this as a slam-dunk for your position. But read what Paul says next. He points to himself as proof: "I also am an Israelite." The remnant that God has not cast away is the Jewish believers in Christ. That's the argument. 12/ Romans 11:5 confirms it: "Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace." The remnant is the Church drawn from Israel — not a future national program. Paul is explaining why the Gospel going to the Gentiles doesn't mean God broke faith with Abraham. 13/ Romans 11:26 — "all Israel shall be saved." This is your anchor verse. But the Fathers read "all Israel" as the totality of the elect, both Jew and Gentile, the full number of those predestined — or alternatively, as a future mass conversion of Jews to Christ at the end of time. Neither reading produces a separate national covenant or a restored Jewish kingdom. 14/ St. Thomas Aquinas, the Common Doctor of the Church, addresses this in his commentary on Romans. He does not introduce dispensationalism. He reads Paul's argument as concerning the mystery of election and the grafting of the Gentiles — with the hope of Jewish conversion to Christ, not a restoration of Mosaic institutions. 15/ The entire framework you are defending — that God has a separate prophetic program for ethnic Israel distinct from the Church — was systematized by John Nelson Darby in the 1830s. It has zero patristic support. Zero. You can search the entire corpus of the Church Fathers and you will not find it. 16/ You say men who hold fulfillment theology are "protecting a system." But your system is the novelty. The burden of proof is on the position that appeared 1,800 years after the Apostles, not on the position held universally by the men who learned from them. 17/ The Epistle of Barnabas — one of the earliest Christian documents outside the New Testament — argues that the Jews misread their own covenant by taking it carnally rather than spiritually, and that Christians are the true inheritors of the covenant because they received it in its spiritual reality. 18/ St. Irenaeus of Lyon, writing against the Gnostics in the second century, defends the unity of the two Testaments and the continuity of God's plan — but that plan culminates in Christ and the Church, not in a future Jewish national state. His Against Heresies is a sustained argument for this. 19/ Let's talk about what the medieval Church taught. St. Bernard of Clairvaux, who preached the Crusade and was one of the most influential churchmen of the 12th century, wrote about the Jews — he defended them from mob violence, but he had no concept of a future restoration of Israel outside of conversion to Christ. 20/ St. Thomas Aquinas, in his Summa Theologica and his commentary on Romans, addressed the Jewish question at length. His position: the Old Law was given by God, was holy and good, but is now dead — and to Judaize, to return to its observance, is spiritually dangerous. There is no Thomistic dispensationalism. 21/ The Disputation of Paris (1240), the Disputation of Barcelona (1263), the Disputation of Tortosa (1413–1414) — in all of these, Catholic theologians engaged Jewish scholars directly on the meaning of their own scriptures, arguing that the Messiah had come and that the promises were fulfilled. Not once was a future national restoration of Israel offered as common ground. 22/ Pope Innocent III, Pope Gregory IX, Pope Innocent IV, and many other medieval popes issued extensive legislation concerning Jews — none of it premised on the idea that God had an active, ongoing national covenant with ethnic Israel. The theological framework was always: the Old Covenant is fulfilled; conversion to Christ is the path of salvation for Jewish people as for everyone else. 23/ Now you say that people who get "angry" at God's faithfulness to Israel reveal something wrong in their spirit. But consider: the Church Fathers were not angry at God. They loved God and they loved the truth. Their writings adversus Judaeos were written out of a conviction that the Gospel is for all men — including Jews — and that the synagogue, by rejecting Christ, had become spiritually desolate. That's not hatred. That's theology. 24/ Chrysostom's homilies, which are admittedly harsh in tone, were written in Antioch where Christians were actively attending synagogue services. His pastoral concern was that his flock not be led away from Christ. That context matters enormously when reading his language. 25/ The Good Friday prayer of the traditional Roman Rite prayed for the conversion of the Jews — pro perfidis Judaeis — where "perfidis" carried the theological meaning of "unbelieving," not the modern pejorative sense. The Church prayed for their conversion. That is the Catholic posture: not hatred, not a parallel covenant, but prayer and hope for their coming to Christ. 26/ Pope St. Pius X, when Theodor Herzl came to him in 1904 asking for support for Zionism, refused. His position was clear: the Church could not endorse a Jewish national restoration in the Holy Land, because the Church does not recognize a continuing special national role for the Jewish people outside of Christ. This is not obscure — it's documented in Herzl's own diary. 27/ Cardinal Merry del Val confirmed the same position publicly. Pope Benedict XV's spokesman similarly told Zionists that the Holy See could not support their movement. This was the consistent Vatican position into the 20th century — not because of any ill will toward Jewish people, but because it was theologically incoherent with what the Church believed about the fulfillment of the Old Covenant. 28/ Fr. Denis Fahey's The Kingship of Christ and the Conversion of the Jewish Nation represents the pre-Vatican II Catholic synthesis: the Jewish people are called to conversion to Christ. That is God's plan for them. Not a national restoration. Not a separate covenant. Conversion. 29/ The whole edifice of your argument rests on reading "Israel" in Romans 9-11 as permanently, always, and exclusively referring to ethnic national Israel. But Paul himself destabilizes this in Romans 9:6 — "For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel." Paul draws a distinction within ethnic Israel between those who are truly Israel and those who are not. The elect remnant, not the ethnic totality, is the true Israel. 30/ Romans 9:8 makes it even clearer: "That is, They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed." Fleshly descent from Abraham does not constitute membership in the covenant people. This is Paul's argument, not a Gentile imposition on his text. 31/ Galatians 3:29: "And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." This is not a "crowbar" — it is Paul himself saying that being in Christ is what makes one an heir of the Abrahamic promise. This directly addresses your framework. 32/ Galatians 6:16 — "the Israel of God" — applied to the Church. You will work hard to get around this verse, but its plain meaning has been obvious to Catholic exegetes for two millennia. 33/ Ephesians 2:11-22 — the dividing wall broken down, the two made one new man in Christ, no longer strangers to the covenants. Paul is not describing a temporary parenthesis. He is describing a permanent new creation in which ethnic distinctions are not the organizing principle of covenant membership. 34/ Hebrews 8:13 — "In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away." The inspired author calls the Mosaic covenant old, decaying, and vanishing. This is Scripture, not replacement theology propaganda. 35/ The Haydock Commentary — a magnificent compilation of Catholic biblical scholarship — treats all of these passages in their proper theological context. The Catena Aurea of St. Thomas Aquinas does the same for the Gospels. These tools exist precisely so that individual readers do not have to reinvent exegesis from scratch with a modern study Bible and a dispensationalist framework borrowed from 19th-century Protestantism. 36/ You accuse fulfillment theologians of protecting a system. But what system appeared first? The system held by Ignatius of Antioch, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Cyprian, Chrysostom, Augustine, Jerome, Aquinas, Bellarmine, and every Council of the Church — or the system invented by John Nelson Darby, popularized by the Scofield Reference Bible, and embedded in American evangelical culture in the 20th century? 37/ The Scofield Reference Bible — the single most influential vehicle for dispensationalism — was first published in 1909. It introduced footnotes that treated Israel and the Church as permanently distinct peoples with permanently distinct programs. This was a novelty dressed up as biblical recovery. The Fathers would not have recognized it. 38/ St. Robert Bellarmine, one of the greatest theological minds of the Counter-Reformation, wrote extensively on eschatology. He did not produce anything resembling dispensationalism. His framework was the traditional Catholic one: the Church is the new Israel, the promises are fulfilled in Christ, and the end of history will involve a great apostasy and the coming of Antichrist — not a rapture, not a tribulation period, not a restored Jewish kingdom. 39/ Francisco Suárez, the great Jesuit theologian, similarly addressed eschatological questions with great precision. No dispensationalism. No separate prophetic track for ethnic Israel. The theological tradition is uniform on this. 40/ St. Francis de Sales, Doctor of the Church and one of the most gentle and charitable figures in Catholic history, wrote on the Jews. His framework was evangelization and conversion — not affirmation of a parallel covenant or a future national program. 41/ St. Lawrence of Brindisi, another Doctor of the Church and a Hebrew scholar who debated Jews directly from their own scriptures, argued for the fulfillment of the Old Covenant in Christ. He did this with great learning and charity. He did not produce dispensationalism. 42/ The Council of Florence (1442) taught that the Mosaic Law, once promulgated, cannot be observed without spiritual peril — that it is now dead. This is a Council of the Church. It is not a marginal opinion. It directly contradicts any framework that treats Mosaic institutions as having a future restoration. 43/ Now — Paul's grief in Romans 9:1-3. You treat his grief over Israel as evidence that God must have an ongoing national plan for them. But Paul's grief is precisely because so many of his kinsmen are outside of Christ. His grief would be unnecessary if they were fine on a separate covenant track. His grief is the grief of an evangelist for the lost. 44/ Romans 10:1 — "Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved." Not "that they might receive their national promises." Saved. Through Christ. This is the whole point of Romans 10 — that Israel has not attained righteousness because they sought it through works of law rather than through faith in Christ. 45/ Romans 10:12-13 — "For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." No difference. The same Lord. The same path. Paul is not teaching a two-track system. 46/ The olive tree analogy of Romans 11 — natural branches broken off, wild branches grafted in — does not teach a future restoration of an ethnic national program. It teaches that Israel's unbelief opened the door to the Gentiles, and that Jews can be grafted back in — by faith in Christ. Not by ethnicity. Not by nationality. By faith. 47/ Romans 11:23 — "And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be grafted in: for God is able to graft them in again." The condition is abiding not in unbelief. That means coming to faith. That means conversion to Christ. The door is open — through the same door everyone else walks through. 48/ This is exactly what the Fathers taught. The conversion of the Jews at the end of time — a hope held by many in the Catholic tradition — is a conversion to Christ, not a restoration of a Mosaic national program. These are not the same thing. Dispensationalism conflates them constantly. 49/ St. Augustine believed a great conversion of the Jews would occur near the end. But he understood it as conversion to Christ through the preaching of Elijah — not a national political restoration, not a rebuilt temple, not a reinstitution of animal sacrifice. The traditional Catholic eschatology and the dispensationalist one are fundamentally different visions. 50/ The claim that anyone who resists your reading is motivated by "bitterness" or "hatred" is worth examining. The Church Fathers, the medieval theologians, the great Doctors of the Church, the popes — all of whom held fulfillment theology — were they all bitter? Was Augustine bitter? Was Thomas Aquinas bitter? Was Robert Bellarmine bitter? Or is it possible that a serious, learned, charitable reading of Scripture simply arrives at different conclusions than yours? 51/ There is a tradition of 2,000 years of Catholic biblical scholarship, patristic commentary, conciliar teaching, and papal theology waiting to be consulted. It does not support your framework. It consistently, unanimously, and across every century supports the fulfillment of the Old Covenant in Christ and the Church as the New Israel. 52/ If you are genuinely interested in letting the Bible speak for itself — read it through the eyes of the men who received it from the Apostles. Read Justin Martyr on Romans. Read Chrysostom on Romans. Read Augustine on Romans. Read Aquinas on Romans. Then come back and tell us where they went wrong. 53/ The resources are here. Two thousand years of the Church reading Scripture. Not a system invented in 1830. Not footnotes from a Scofield Bible. The actual tradition.

Romans 9-11 and the Lie That Israel Was Replaced Main Passage: Romans 9-11 Introduction One of the surest ways to tell whether a man is going to let the Bible speak for itself is to put him in Romans 9 through 11 and watch what he does. Those three chapters are not side notes, not marginal comments, not speculative footnotes, and not theological wallpaper. They are the Holy Ghost’s extended treatment of Israel’s calling, Israel’s stumbling, Israel’s present blindness, and Israel’s future restoration. If a man can read Romans 9 through 11 honestly, without dragging in a system to flatten it, twist it, or suffocate it, then he is going to come away knowing one thing beyond all argument: God is not finished with Israel. But if a man is determined to protect replacement theology at all costs, then he is going to start spiritualizing, dodging, redefining, and changing categories so fast you would think he was trying to escape a burning building. That is because these chapters do not leave much room for his game. They say what they say, and they say it so plainly that a child could follow the line if the child were willing to believe the Book. The whole replacement theology scheme rests on one rotten assumption. It assumes that because many Jews rejected Jesus Christ, God therefore canceled His national promises to Israel and transferred them to the Church. That sounds neat to a man who likes tidy systems, but it falls apart the minute you read Paul. Paul does not say Israel was replaced. Paul does not say the Church inherited the covenants by cancellation. Paul does not say God finally gave up on Israel and moved on to a better people. What Paul says is, “Hath God cast away his people? God forbid” (Romans 11:1). That one sentence alone ought to put half the debate in a coffin. But because men are determined to resist what God says, they do not stop there. They bring in Galatians 3, or Ephesians 2, or Hebrews 8, and then pretend those passages erase what Romans 9 through 11 plainly teaches. They do not. They never did. They never will. If the Holy Ghost took three chapters to explain the issue, then no man has the right to walk in with one favorite verse, rip it out of context, and use it like a crowbar against the whole passage. There is something else under this debate that needs to be said plainly. After watching this thing for years, it becomes hard to miss that many of the people who are obsessed with erasing Israel out of God’s program are not just making an innocent mistake in exegesis. There is often a bitterness under it, a hardness under it, a hostility under it, and sometimes a flat-out hatred under it that reveals the condition of the heart more than the meaning of the text. I am not saying every confused person who repeats replacement theology is malicious. Some people are parroting what they were taught. Some are still learning. Some have never had the chapters laid out carefully for them. But the men and women who get angry that God keeps His word, who grind their teeth over the idea that Israel still matters in prophecy, who act like God’s faithfulness to Abraham is some personal insult to them, those people are not just wrestling with a doctrine. There is something sour in the spirit there. The peace of God does not produce that reaction. The love of God does not produce that reaction. A man can disagree and still keep his soul. But when the thought of God being faithful to Israel makes him boil, that tells you there is more going on than careful Bible study. 1. Romans 9 Opens with Israel’s National Position, Not the Church Replacing Them Romans 9 does not begin with the Church replacing Israel. It begins with Paul’s grief over Israel. He says, “I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart” (Romans 9:1-2). Why? Because his brethren according to the flesh had

@Catholic_State @TNTJohn1717 @Ashleyhays2089 here is a Catholic rebuttal to your claims. I hope you will take the time to read.

@Ashleyhays2089 @JoshuaTCharles would you please do a reply to refute Ashley’s claims against the Catholic Church?

Catholicism is a false religion. When we love someone, we speak the truth to them, and the truth is, is that the doctrines and foundations contradict scripture. I pray more Catholics sit down and open the Word of God, let the Holy Spirit lead and open their eyes to the truth. youtu.be/cFr4lCloNJY?si…

There's just no easy way to say this. I need help. I can barely keep my head above water right now. If you're willing and able, here's my ko-fi. I'm deeply grateful for any and everything. ko-fi.com/bananaisahanna…

@bananaisahannah 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

Sorry. My tweets today weren't the most coherent. It's been emotional to say the least. So, this is part one 👇🏻

@JoshuaTCharles EB is a horrible disease that is very painful and I know someone who has it. The only non Catholic charity I give to is DeBra of America which helps those who have this disease.

THIS WEEK of the Great Rosary Campaign, we will pray for John Hudson Dilgen, a young man suffering from the horrible disease of Epidermolysis Bullosa, which causes the skin all over his body to break out into sores and wounds. John's moving story went viral several years ago, but it now sounds as if his health may be taking a turn for the worse. He has been an incredible example of suffering with dignity, grace, and hope. Let us pray, especially if he is nearing the end of his life, that he has all the graces necessary to spend eternity with Christ. The SUGGESTED PENANCE this week is a Holy Hour before the Blessed Sacrament, the Holy Eucharist.

@bananaisahannah Oh wow. I hope and pray your power comes back on soon. Hope you are able to bundle up and stay warm.

Hnnnnnnngh

@Bug_Hall @utahagen Shame on you.

@PapistPenguin @lovinqthelord Try sending those thoughts to the foot of the cross especially if they are from the evil one.

@lovinqthelord Serious question: what helps with this? Someone I’m walking with in the faith struggles with this so intensely I feel like I don’t even know where to begin, especially never having experienced it myself. I want to be gentle but also firm if that’s what he needs.

Cried my eyes out at the moment of consecration. All I wanted was to be united with my Beloved. I was so ready. Then boom, scrupulosity hit, and my mind convinced me I was in a state of mortal sin and shouldn’t receive :(

@lovinqthelord I was at adoration one night and it suddenly came to my mind that I wasn’t worthy to be there and I needed to run out. It took me several moments to realize this was an attack and I rebuked it in the name of Jesus and it immediately left.

@bananaisahannah Hold on Hannah. The days are dark and many people are suffering as the evil one knows his time is almost up. Jesus is at your side. Hold Him tight as He is coming soon. Praying for you 🙏🏻.

My mind wants and needs something to jumpstart it but I don't know what or how to do it. I want to be me again. I feel like a hollow shell.

I'm so tired. All the time. Tired of being tired. In and out of disassociation. Mind numbingly online all day long but not productive in anything. Earlier I was playing a game with friends and felt my brain shut off like a switch. I couldn't think to play anymore.

@bananaisahannah 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

This sucks. It just really sucks.

@bananaisahannah I’m so sorry to hear this. Praying for you both.

Noah wants a divorce. I'm tired of fighting for someone who just doesn't want to be with me. Please keep us in your prayers.

Those who propagate the devotion to Our Lady of Sorrows are promised direct passage to eternal happiness with all their sins forgiven.

@GubbaHomestead Would love to try but your prices are quite high compared to other tallow companies.

Exciting news! With the transition into fall, I made a limited edition tallow to bring this season to life: My Autumn Blend Tallow. Perfectly pumpkin-spiced to nourish your skin or for a thoughtful gift. Grab yours before it’s gone: shop.gubbahomestead.com/collections/wh…

@tracybeanz But you left the Eucharist! Don’t leave the Eucharist because of a bad priest. There are bad priests and ministers in every faith. Come back home. Come back to Jesus in the Eucharist. He loves you.

This is why my family left the Catholic church after I was confirmed. We were struggling financially at home and the church told us not to come back until we could donate more. We never went back.

@SCBrushless3 @DreWill66386008 @Shepfortheking Wow aren’t you a loving Christian speaking like that. And not once did I say to worship angels. You don’t ever ask your family and friends to pray for you to God? How sad. You have a warped interpretation of the Bible.

@SearingC @DreWill66386008 @Shepfortheking Angels are our siblings. We dont ask our siblings to intercede and try to supersede the Lord. Dont be a fucking idiot like the catholics are.

@Vitus_oss 🙏🏻

@PartisanOracle @Shepfortheking You are not looking deep enough. Prays for you before it is too late for you.

@SearingC @Shepfortheking All the research I have done in the scriptures (and it has been extensive) has led me to believe what I have told you. I’ll pray that your eyes are opened before it’s too late.