Transcript

All right.

How's it going, everybody?

Just read you to be too Eeyore who says, If Joe isn't wearing a championship belt with sunglasses when this camera turns on, I'm leaving.

Totally understandable.

Um, I have obviously not learned enough from Travis Kelce.

Any of you from KC or who aren't unfortunate enough to be fans of one of the teams Kansas City beats, I don't wanna hear from any Eagles fans.

And you know what he's talking about.

Um, well, very happy to be with all of you.

I'm very happy to have had a day off yesterday to recover.

Uh, debates are a lot of fun.

They do take it out of me a little bit.

Not actually during it.

Like, during the debate I feel like I could go forever.

I'm obviously, like, running on adrenaline.

But then afterwards, boy, uh, the crash is real.

There were a couple, uh, comments from two weeks ago I wanted to follow up with real fast.

And then, um, I'll get to whatever questions you have.

I think any of you who participate in live streams know how this kinda goes.

If you, uh, do a Super Chat, Vanessa's gonna gather those and she's gonna put them, uh, in a doc and then I will kinda answer them, uh, in order from there.

So, uh, yeah.

And, and I'm happy to also talk kind of about the debate.

Or if you have questions or feedback or comment, uh, Super Chat it and then I'll, uh, I'll, I'll add those too and kind of respond as we go.

How does that sound?

Okay.

So a couple from previous weekend.

Jim, uh, said, What would you recommend for someone whose biggest struggle right now is whether Orthodoxy or Catholicism is true?

Many Eastern Orthodox personalities make points I don't hear responded to often by Catholic apologists.

My inclination with the Eastern Orthodox thing, and one of the reasons I haven't gotten super deep into it, is a lot of it strikes me as minutiae that we miss a lot of the forest for the trees.

So it'll be like, Oh, what about this situation in the 8th century?

Did the Catholic Church handle it well?

Um, does this disprove the papacy?

And it's like, probably not.

Probably, like when God establishes a church, his expectation for you finding that church isn't that you've done a deep dive on, like, 8th century Byzantine history or something like this.

And so don't get me wrong.

I think having, showing the continuity for 2,000 years is important.

And I think Catholics can do that.

Uh, I think it is possible to handle that in a way where you're getting so deep in the weeds on very specific things that you do kinda miss the broader point.

And I would make the Catholic case very simply.

The church Jesus establishes has a special role for Peter.

And this role is continued on by Peter's successors in Rome.

And we see that attested to from as early on as we see the four Gospels attested to.

Uh, literally the same document, right?

And, uh, if you saw the Ubi Petrus debate, um, with Voice of Reason, one of the areas where they disputed was, uh, why, um, why does Irenaeus choose to trace apostolic succession through the Bishop of Rome?

Or why does he, excuse me, why does he ch- choose to trace episcopal lineage, rather, through the Bishop of Rome?

And Ubi Petri says, you know, it's just 'cause Rome is, like, the most famous.

But if you read book three, chapter three of Against Heresies, then you'll see that's just not true.

He says it, like Irenaeus himself says the reason that he traces it through Rome is because of its preeminent authority.

Um, so it's right there.

You can, you can read it for yourself and, and see, okay, uh, the basics for the church, everything you would need to believe.

You've gotta be connected with the Church of the Apostles.

There's one apostle in particular, Peter, who has this special role of leadership.

And this basic model, obviously not literally apostles as their successors, but the successors to the apostles carry on a type of leadership begun with the apostles.

And, uh, just as one of them had a special authority, this is also true of one of his successors, and we now say Leo XIV.

So that's a pretty simple case.

You don't have to do a super deep historical deep dive.

And you can find that case down through history in, in different ways, shapes and forms.

One, uh, writing that I found extremely persuasive on this was Saint Optatus of Milevis, writing in the early 300s in a work called Against Sodomatists.

And in there he makes the explicit point, like the reason that there's one Apostolic See And so we talk about Apostolic Sees plural to mean all the churches set up by the apostles, but there's when you say the Apostolic See, that means Rome.

Likewise, when you talk about churches, it could be anywhere.

But if you say the Church, we're talking about the Catholic Church and everybody kinda knows it.

Uh, so yeah.

I, I would just say, like, point to that.I, I would, I would point to that and say, There, there's the basic case.

You'll find that echoed down through the ages, uh, in Eastern Fathers as well, but especially in Western Fathers.

And then if, like, the Orthodox case is correct, then that idea is, like, false and, and even seemingly heretical.

That's if I'm understanding the Orthodox claim correctly.

Well, if, if people are saying this heretical thing in the 100s, 200s, 300s, why is the east not going into schism until the 11th century?

You know?

So if you're claiming this is the faith of the two millennia of the church, then you can't s- you know, cut yourself off from the first 1,000 years.

Um Oh, actually, there's a good related question.

KM asks, I always hear about the early church fathers and I find bits and pieces online.

Is there one text that's a complete compilation of their writings?

There's no one text that has everything, 'cause there are a lot of writings.

Uh, there are a couple of good series that were actually put together by, uh, a German maybe Lutheran theologian, Philip Schaff, uh, and they're just known as the ANF and NPNF series.

ANF just means Ante-Nicean Fathers and NPNF is the Nicean and Post-Nicean Fathers.Um, the first series of the NP&F was Philip Schaff.

Uh, Henry Wace joined him in the second one, who was an Anglican.

So these are, uh, put together by Protestants, but they're good English translations.

They're also in the public domain, so if you go to newadvent.org, which is a great website for a lot of things.

Newadvent.org, uh, if you look at the You go to their page and, like, the front page is, like, news and stuff, but the top right corner has these tabs.

It has Home, Encyclopedia where it's the Catholic Encyclopedia, the Summa by St. Thomas, uh, Fathers.

And if you click on Fathers, uh, then it has everything you're gonna get in the ANF and NP&F, I believe is all right there.

That Like I said, that's not everything, but that is a fantastic online, free way to see what the Church Fathers had to say for themselves.

And then Okay, if you want, I, I'll go really nerdy here for a second.

So newadvent.org/fathers.

E- I don't know if you know how to do this in terms of, um, site-specific searches.

So let's say I wanna find out what did the Church Fathers want to say about baptism?

I can I wonder I'm a- afraid to share screens, because I've crashed things before.

Um, Fabi says, Who's here from the SWS stream?

What is the SWS stream?

I- am I missing South by Southwest?

I know that doesn't quite work, but that's what I i- im- immediately thought of.

Uh, so yeah, SWS shout out.

I don't know what the Oh, Sips with Sarah, of course.

Uh, that dude's amazing.

All right.

So okay, if you do When you're doing a Google search, you search for your term, like let's say baptism, and then you do site: and then you type in the website you wanna search within.

So if you wanna search just, like, the New Advent collection of Church Fathers stuff, then you just do, you know, baptism and then site:newadvent.org/fathers.

So yeah, there you go.

Um, it's a good way to, to do a deep dive topically on the Fathers.

Jimmy Akin also has a book called Fathers Know Best.

And, um, getting back to Jim's original question, good books on Orthodoxy and Catholicism.

I think Eric Ibarra and Michael Lofton are good on, on this stuff.

Um, I believe Answering Orthodoxy is the name of Lofton's book.

What is Ibarra's book called?

Uh, I'm sorry, Eric.

My brain The Papacy: Revisiting the Debate Between Catholics and Orthodox.

There you go.

All right.

Um, also questions from last week, or couple of things from last time.

Uh, PostKilling PostClinic with K's.

I'm a slow reader.

Says 10K for Manson.

He said 10 Euros.

If you thought I was getting 10,000, well, take that as a challenge.

Try to send me 10,000 Euros.

Uh, and then GeckoNiner says, Sorry for hard last-minute question.

Well, sorry for you.

I- I'm answering it today.

How does the Pope have his infallibility if he's voted for by cardinals?

Is it similar to the Orthodox ideas of consensus of bishops having infallibility?

No.

So he has his office by dint of, uh, being elected in that way, but the Church could have some other way elections worked.

Like, you could, uh, do Well, do like Matthias and, and just do an election by drawing lots.

Like, you could literally just have a papal lottery.

That'd be kind of fun.

And, uh, so nothing in the election process is what gives the infallibility.

The infallibility is tied to the spiritual role that he's taking on, in the same way that you would say with Matthias, uh, when he is chosen by lot and he is In that case, he's actually gonna be ordained as, uh And, and I think we actually see that in Acts 1, if memory serves.

Uh, then he, he carries the weight of office.

So, um Yeah, it says he was enrolled with the 11 apostles.

So it doesn't really explain how, but the details of how you become enrolled is, is just the electoral part.

So those things can actually change.

You know, uh, and it's a little funny for being the Pope, 'cause there's not an extra, like, ordination rite in, in the Bishop of Rome.

So it isn't like, um, becoming a bishop or becoming a priest where there's an actual rite of ordination.

If you're a bishop, once you accept the papacy, you become the Pope at that moment.

And yeah, there you go.

Valnevaan says, I look like I stepped off a yacht.

Well, thank you.

Yes, I, I just took a shower and, um, yeah.

There you go.

I almost wore this for the debate, but I thought it might seem too flippant.

Uh, Jacob M. Van Zandt, uh, says he's from the KC area and wants to know if I'd be on his show to talk about typology.

Uh, right now I'm being very choosy-ish about taking on new stuff, 'cause I'm trying to I, I want to have more time to write a book, actually.

And so I don't know.

We'll be in touch, but I'm not, I'm not sure, uh, that I'm gonna h- be able to have time for that.

All right.

Um, okay.

This week's questions.

VincibleGaming, curious name, says, Can you expand on your use of Naaman in 2 Kings 5, and how faith is active from the debate?

Yeah.

So here's the thing.

Like, with Naaman, he is actually cleansed, and so it is striking.

Like, Ryan couldn't see the connection between Naaman going into the Jordan and being washed at the c- uh, like, it's water and the Word, because Elisha tells him to, and then he obeys and he is purified.

Like, this, the sickness is washed away and he is made, uh, white as snow and his skin is like that of a newborn babe.

To miss that many parallels to baptism is, is just a tragedy, honestly.

Like, this is a clear Biblical typology.

And I understand that some, uh, schools of Protestantism really undervalue typology, but it, it is very strange to me.

There are so many times where both the cross and baptism are prefigured, and so many times where the, where the New Testament authors talk about this.

Forget the Church Fathers for a second .

like, like Saint Paul in First Corinthians, comparing the crossing of the Red Sea to baptism explicitly.

First Peter comparing the- the- Noah and his arc and salvation through water to baptism explicitly.

That's not an exhaustive list of Old Testament prefigurements of baptism.

And so if you read even, like, ancient prayers, um, so things like the medieval prayers for blessing of water, and they would include, and, and we actually have a form of that in, in the, uh, Novus Ordo blessing of water today.

It runs through all these ways that water is being tied to, uh, healing, cleansing, salvation throughout scripture.

So, yeah.

I, I think there's a lot going on there.

I think there's actually even multi-layered, uh, things we can draw from this 'cause one of the things, if you read Second Na- Kings 5, when Naaman goes, he wants something flashy, and the simplicity of it being purification through water really annoys him.

Um, and, and the language with which he's instructed is wash and be clean.

I don't know.

It just seems like, uh, are we gonna miss all that stuff?

So Oh, oh, sorry.

One other detail with it.

Elisha, I think I mentioned this, doesn't even come out.

He, uh, sends a messenger out to do it.

Now I wanna connect that to a few other things.

In John 13, one of the texts we didn't even talk about, at the Last Supper, at the washing of the feet, Peter, uh, has that whole conversation where he doesn't want his feet washed, and Jesus says to him, um Oh yeah.

Then he says, If I do not wash you, you have no part in me.

Does that sound like baptism, like we are joined to Christ in baptism?

Well, according to Saint Paul it does.

Simon Peter then says, Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head.

Jesus said to him, He who has not bathed does not need Excuse me.

He who has bathed does not need to wash except for his feet, for he is, but he is clean all over.

And you are clean but not all of you.

For he knew who was to betray him.

That was why he said you are not all clean.

So Jesus has just acknowledged that the apostles are all clean, save Judas, because they've had a bath.

Now, maybe you could take that to just mean literally they don't smell bad, or, um, maybe you could take that to mean, like, they're spiritually immersed in something.

But the obvious meaning, particularly with the literal water of, uh, the washing of the feet going on here, is that this is connected with baptism.

So, yeah.

And then I, I got myself distracted from making a point earlier in Second Kings 5. Remember how Elisha doesn't even come out himself?

It's just his word and then one of his ministers goes and, and reports it.

This is one of the themes that John makes specifically, like when he's connecting, uh, in John 4. It says, Now when the Lord knew So you've got John 3, you gotta, you gotta be born again in water and the Spirit.

In the very next verse, uh, John 3:22, After this, Jesus and his disciples went in- into the land of Judea.

There he remained with them and baptized.

But, so it's Jesus baptizing, but then John 4 tells us more specifically, Now when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John, although Jesus himself did not baptize but only his disciples.

So, put John 3 and John 4 together and what has John just told you?

Jesus is baptizing people, but he's not physically doing the baptisms.

His ministers are doing the baptisms.

Uh, and this is very much like Elisha.

It is the word of the prophet Elisha.

Even though it's not coming from the mouth of the prophet, it's coming through his ministers in Second Kings 5. This is how sacraments work.

And if you connect that with, like, Acts 19 where those, and, and Saint Augustine has beautiful commentary where he talks about this, where he talks about those who are baptized by Judas don't have to be re-baptized, but those who are baptized by John do, because the baptism of John is a symbolic baptism by John.

The baptism of Jesus is the baptism of Jesus no matter who the minister is.

So it doesn't matter if the minister is worthy or unworthy or anything like that.

So all of that I think you find prefigured very beautifully in Second Kings 5. All right.

Michael says, Deeper response to Ryan's wedding ring analogy.

Yeah.

One of the problems with the Baptist view of baptism is that the whole point of a wedding ring, allegedly, is that it's a thing you wear to show everybody else that you're married.

If you listen to the actual rites of marriage, that's not what the wedding ring is for historically.

It's a sign of your love for one another to one another.

But fine, uh, maybe one of the reasons people wear wedding rings is also to, like, ward off I'd, I've never had this problem , but, like, to ward off all the ravenous women who would, you know, just love to, uh, pursue you.

So you wear a wedding ring.

Well, okay.

So maybe baptism's like that.

It seems like that if that's the case, a few things should follow.

Number one, you shouldn't be baptized once.

You should be baptized repeatedly.

If the point is I need to let as many people know as I can how holy I am and how I've given my life to Christ, then do it a lot.

Like , why would there be one baptism?

Why would we say one Lord, one faith, one baptism?

Why would we insist on not re-baptizing people?

Why would the early Christians talk about, uh, one baptism for the forgiveness of sins, using the ace for the forgiveness of sins?

So you would expect baptism to be this thing you do ritually, repeatedly, et cetera.

Like if that's the point of it, why is the expectation you need to one time declare to whoever happens to be around that you're a Christian and then that's, that's it, you're never allowed to do that again?

That's such a weird interpretation of what baptism is, and it's coming from literally nothing in the Bible.

You won't find a connection to a wedding ring .

being made about baptism at all.

You won't find anything like that.

That whole theology, that whole reasoning is alien and contrary to the Bible.

And then you add on top of that, like, if that's your theology of baptism, then you better make sure nobody ever gets privately baptized.

You better make sure, uh, no one is baptized when it's just, you know, a couple other people.

You better make sure that you're doing baptisms in front of the most people possible, and there's not a word on that in scripture, or in the early church, or anything like that, 'cause that is simply not a good understanding of baptism.

And you, you don't even find anyone saying, like, in the New Testament, Baptism is your declaration of your faith.

No.

It talks about all these things that it is.

It's an appeal for a clean conscience.

It washes away your sin.

It's a new birth.

It's all this stuff.

Nothing about the things Baptists make it all about.

All right.

Um, Jackie says, What's up with Song of Songs?

Why is it scripture?

Yeah.

Song of Songs is about God's love for Israel and Christ's love for the church.

And it has to be read in a non-literal way, where you're just like, This seems like a weirdly steamy, um, book to include, well, on a Christian reading list in the first place, but particularly in the Christian canon.

Although, I say steamy, and to be honest with you, I'm not sure how much, uh, telling a woman she reminds you of a gazelle is likely to work.

Again, I, I mean, who knows?

Maybe.

Um, so yeah.

There you go.

Yeah, somebody in the comments says, Jesus never water baptized anybody?

That's right.

His apostles did.

Uh, John 3 talks about Jesus baptizing.

John 4 makes, makes clear that it's his ministers who are doing the baptizing.

You might also point out, Jesus never actually holds the water when he changes water into wine.

But we still call that the miracle of Christ, don't we?

So, uh, Wife of Krill said, Who proposed the topic?

It seemed like Ryan wanted to debate justification instead.

I think I proposed the topic, 'cause it's one of the most glaring things Baptists get wrong.

And it, it is just I mean, I think as you saw, Ryan's not a dumb guy, but his position is indefensible.

He has to talk about something other than baptism.

Or, there's just nothing to say, because there's just no Biblical case for the Baptist view.

Like, the entire Biblical case is, Let's ignore everything scripture says about baptism, and then, uh, just talk about what we think Paul means by justification.

Now, maybe that's an uncharitable way of, of putting it.

But I would just say, did you hear any verses that said baptism doesn't do anything?

No.

Did you hear a bunch of verses that seemed to say baptism does do a lot?

And many of them, there was literally no response to, uh, what that could be.

Now, i- the standard Baptist, like, uh, escape route is just to say, Oh, any verses that talk about baptism doing something must mean spirit baptism is some separate event from water baptism.

Uh, you don't find Christians talking in that, uh, way.

I mean, John the Baptist compares his baptism, which is just water, to Jesus', when which he's gonna baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire.

But this idea, like, if In other words, if there's these two things, water baptism and spirit baptism, and this one doesn't matter, and this one's really important, you would expect that the New Testament authors would label them, and, uh, would be very clear, like, Oh, yeah.

Water baptism's just a symbol.

It doesn't do anything.

Spirit baptism is the important one.

And yet repeatedly, you find these passages where they're talking explicitly about water.

Like First Peter 3 is explicitly about water, and then it says, Baptism which corresponds to this now saves you.

And we're supposed to be like, Well, obviously he doesn't mean water baptism.

What in the wor- what hermeneutic would tell you that at all?

It, it just doesn't follow at all.

So I think there's a strong, uh, antibody tendency within some realms of evangelicalism that i- is worth repenting of and watching out for.

Because this was one of the earliest heresies that the church had to face.

So the idea that, like, matter can't do anything, so when Jesus says, This is my body, he must, that must just be a metaphor.

When it says, Baptism now saves you, that must just be a metaphor.

Like, you might think you're a Biblical literalist when you do that, but you've turned everything into a spiritual nothing.

And Christ comes to save you in your body, and this is one of the most important things to take away from this.

Like, the whole point of Christianity is that Jesus comes with the body to save not only your soul but your body.

This is something N.T.

Wright, actually, Anglicans, uh, have talked about this.

Lutherans have talked about this.

A lot of people who aren't evangelicals have focused on this being a real serious problem, and even some evangelicals have warned about this.

Evangelical tendency within or excuse me, Gnostic tendency within evangelicalism to deny the goodness of the body as something worth redeeming.

And you can't do that and still be a faithful Christian, because you're missing the point of the incarnation, that Christ doesn't just come to save your soul but to save your body.

Read First Corinthians 15.

Like, our bodies are going to be transformed.

They're not gonna be annihilated and replaced with different bodies, they're going to be transformed.

What is sown will be what is reaped.

Think about a popcorn kernel becoming popcorn.

I like that better than farming analogies, 'cause I don't know anything about farming, but I know how to cook popcorn in the microwave.

So that's the kind of example that Saint Paul gives.

But what isn't assumed isn't redeemed.

And so you basically, you, you Like, to deny the bodiliness of what's going on here, John calls that antichrist.

I've, I've I do find this very funny.

This is an aside, that occasionally, and you saw it even in the comments of that debate, you've got some old school evangelicals who are, like, convinced Catholics are antichrist, and the Pope's the antichrist and all that.

And it's like, guys, if you read what the Bible actually says about the antichrist You know what?

Let's just read it.

'Cause the word antichrist only comes up, what, four times?

Yeah, four times.

First John 2:18 and 22, First John 4:3, and Second John 1:7.1 John 2:22, Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ?

This is the Antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son.

Does the Pope do that?

Nope.

1 John 4:3, And every spirit which does not confess Jesus is not of God.

This is the spirit of Antichrist, of which you heard it was coming, and now it is in the world already.

And then finally, 2 John 1:7, For many deceivers have gone out into the world, men who will not acknowledge the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh.

Such a one is the deceiver and the Antichrist.

Now to be clear, Evangelicals realize Jesus came in the flesh.

I just don't know if they understand why that matters.

And if you remove the importance of the flesh from salvation, you sound much closer to Antichrist than to a Christian.

So, um Oh, Chris says, Joe, sorry I'm a broke college student and can't afford to SuperChat.

Just wanna say thank you for all that you do.

I've learned so much about my faith since starting to watch your lectures and videos.

Thank you.

I'm, uh, pleased to hear that.

All right, getting back to the SuperChats.

Uh, Charles said, Haven't got the chance to watch the debate yet, but love all the work that you and Catholic Answers do.

Thank you, Charles.

LilGuy2020 says, Hey Joe, I was looking where to start against non-denom.

Appealing to reformers and authority doesn't seem to work.

What's a good starting point?

It's very tricky, because I find that people in this kind of milieu of Christianity, if you point any authority out to them, like, Hey look, these people who are holier and smarter than you, and, and me, read scripture in this way, they're gonna just be like, Well, they're not perfect.

They're not infallible.

And it's like, Brother, neither are you.

And if everyone beside Like, if, if you're taking a test, and you know you're not very good at the class, and then you find out that 10 people around you all answered the same thing, they put A and you put seven, I think you might need to change your answer to A. And that's how I would say, like, just point that out, right?

Because that's such a basic thing of just, just basic humility.

There's a, a lot that could be said there.

One of the fun kind of points on this, if, and those of you Look, I'm 40, okay?

And I remember back when Who Wants to be a Millionaire was like shocking, revolutionary television.

It's like, A million dollars?

Money used to be worth a lot more back then.

And there were three audience lifelines.

You could do 50:50, which narrowed your multiple choice from four answers to two; you could, uh, phone a friend, anyone you wanted, using AT&T, they made sure you knew that every time; uh, and so you could, like, handpick, Oh, here's my really smart friend; or you could just ask the audience, and it's just whoever happened to be there on that afternoon when they're recording.

And here's the thing, researchers went through and looked at how accurate each of those three lifelines were.

Overwhelmingly, asking the audience was the best way of finding out the right answer, including on really hard questions.

It's actually, es- especially on really hard questions.

And so given that, if you hold to a theological position that everyone in the first 1,000 years says you're wrong, I already know you're wrong.

And you should know you're wrong too, out of basic humility.

That might sound like an appeal to authority, but the point is nobody is just going to the scriptures.

You are reading a translation of the scriptures that in many cases already has baked-in presuppositions, and you're reading it through the lens of how you've been told Christianity is meant to be understood.

Everyone does this.

I do this, Ryan does this, everyone watching this does this.

There's no such thing as someone coming to Christianity without that kind of exposure.

And what's more, you're meant to have a lens through which you understand this.

It isn't as if the apostles were just mailing Bibles to random people and hoping they would just read it for themselves without any guidance.

Uh, that's not the Biblical way of reading the Bible as well.

The Biblical way of reading the Bible, well, go back to the Ethiopian eunuch.

We were talking about him earlier in the, in the debate.

He's reading Isaiah and Uh, sorry, we were, we were talking about Simon, but also from, from Acts 8. Uh, he's reading Isaiah, Philip comes up to him and says, Do you understand what you were reading?

And he says, How can I unless someone guides me?

And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.

And if you've ever read Isaiah, I don't see how you could possibly disagree with that.

Like, if you're just reading Isaiah and you're like, Oh, I get all this.

I understand these references to various tribes that aren't around anymore.

Yeah, this makes total sense to me, just intuitively.

I have no idea what you're talking about.

Of course you need help.

All of us do.

And so trying to read the Bible in a way the Bible was not meant to be read, I don't know.

That's not how to do it.

All right.

Rumor Has It Ferris is in the chat.

I hope he enjoyed the shout-out that he got in the debate.

Sips with Sarah, Adrian Lawson says, What is a good argument for the longer running of Mark being canonical, and what are some resources on that topic?

I don't know good resources offhand other than the Council of Trent says it, that the books and their parts are canonical.

The, here's the thing, and, and I know Ryan got this wrong on his stream.

He's like, Oh no, Joe doesn't realize there's an issue with textual variance.

I do.

There are plenty of people who believe Mark didn't write the original ending to Mark, and that's totally fine.

Um, our case for canonicity has nothing to do with, uh, well, it had to be St. Mark, because most of the Bible was not written by St. Mark, and St. Mark wasn't an apostle.

So if the argument is, uh, well, if it's not written by Mark personally, then it's not in the Bible, I don't understand how you would not take that same argument and say, Well, Romans 16:22, you have the line, 'I, Tertius, the writer of this letter, greet you in the Lord.' So we know for a fact, you don't even need textual criticism and all of its, you know, uh fallible arguments.

You have inspired scripture itself saying Romans isn't actually written by Paul, Tertius wrote it.

And detextual critics are gonna claim a lot of other writings aren't written by Paul.

Now, that could mean a lot of different things.

Ancient writers often, uh, made use of scribes, and scribes would sometimes just take dictation.

Other times, they would listen to what you were saying and then put it in more eloquent words, and we simply don't know, uh, the degree to which people like Tertius shaped the wording and content of the letter.

We know he was involved.

You could assume, uh, that he is simply taking dictation, but he's calling himself the writer of this, the letter, and assuming that he isn't taking dictatious when, d- dictation when he's told that, like, Paul doesn't say, I, Tertius, writer of this letter, greet you in the Lord.

Tertius is obviously saying that.

Then we know that there are passages, at least one verse, that Tertius is writing himself.

None of that impacts, uh, the canonicity or inspiration 'cause the Holy Spirit can work through whomever he wants.

Now, there's a much bigger conversation about how we know, uh, which books belong in the Bible at all, and there's a way of having that conversation for the Old Testament and for the New Testament canon, and I- I'm going to defer on that just for, for time reasons here, but I might generally point you in the direction of my book, The Early Church Was the Catholic Church.

There's a chapter in there about how we know the four Gospels are the four Gospels, and the short answer is you have to trust that the Holy Spirit is guiding the early Church.

And if you don't, if you think that all of those guys are heretics and they're in hell, then you have no reason to have the long writing of Mark, you have no reason to have any part of Mark.

Like, you're saying, Oh, higher critics say, um, that the ending of Mark isn't originally by Mark.

Yeah, they also don't think Mark literally wrote Mark.

Like, they don't think he was actually a companion of St. Peter in a lot of these cases.

So, why would you throw out just the ending of 16 and w- why not just the first 15 and a half chapters as well?

If, like, if that's your standard for canonicity, it's only, like, what the skeptics tell you they accept, you're gonna have a very short Bible.

You're not gonna have most of Daniel, you're not gonna have most of Isaiah, you're not gonna have most of Paul's letters, uh, you're not gonna have the Gospel of John, you're not gonna have the Gospel of Matthew if, if you believe it's important it was written by an apostle.

I mean, it's a weird standard to, to argue against Mark by a standard that would logically lead to you having to throw out most of your Bible, and the logical response to that is just none of those things are what gives the Bible its authority.

The human authorship is not whence its authority derives.

And we know that the long writing of Mark is extremely ancient.

It is quoted in the second century.

And so even though we don't have manuscript copies 'til later, the quotations from the longer writing of Mark are older than any version of the Gospel of Mark that we have, shorter or longer.

So, we don't know for sure who wrote it.

There's, I think there's, uh, plenty good case that Mark didn't, uh, physically write it, and I don't think that matters.

Uh, just like as I said in the debate, the ending of Deuteronomy clearly not written by Moses, that's okay.

Uh, the ending of Deuteronomy is about the death of Moses, for anyone wondering.

All right.

Bob says, Jill, please address churches charging fees for baptism, confirmation, Holy Communion.

Help me.

Look like simony and works-based salvation.

I feel like it makes ch- the churches look bad.

I agree, it makes churches look bad.

I- I think that was one of those times where we- we were so in the weeds and it felt like off-topic, I, like, I'm fine saying a parish should not charge for baptism.

A lot of times what I think is actually happening, I don't think he's actually right about churches charging for baptism 'cause canon law prohibits that, uh, if memory serves.

Let me find the canon law.

Canon 848.

The minister is to seek nothing for the administration of the sacraments beyond the offerings defined by the competent authority, always taking care the needy are not deprived of the assistance of the sacraments because of poverty.

And those are, like, small, like, basically you wanna have a situation where priests and ministers are still getting paid and still are able to earn a living, and also, um, everyone regardless of their means is capable of receiving the sacraments.

And one of the ways we've solved that in the US is just having priests on salary, uh, and that seems like a very nice way of solving it.

It avoids any whiff of simony, but it's, it's the same thing, like should, should Protestant bookstores charge for Bibles if this is gonna be the life-saving thing that saves people?

If should I have a Patreon?

Should I You know, this is, it's the tricky thing, and, and scripture talks about this, and one of the things it says is that the worker deserves his wages.

So we have to both not charge for salvation, we've received it freely and freely we are, we are to give, and the ministers of salvation can still legitimately earn a living.

It doesn't have to just be a volunteer corps, and we don't all have to do what St. Paul's approach where he has a second job.

Um, those are all different ways of trying to resolve that same sticky issue, which is an issue from the first generation of Christians, make no mistakes.

So yeah, it's fine to say maybe the best way to do that is to get rid of anything that even looks like simony, anything that looks like you're paying for the graces themselves.

That does not come one iota closer to answering the question, does baptism save or not?

So, there you go.

Uh, Winston VonToast says, Not sure if you mentioned Exodus 14, which is interpreted in 1 Corinthians 10:1-2, underrated argument for baptism?

I mentioned it in my opening statement, and then, uh, if memory serves, I think Ryan claimed that this wasn't a reference to water, even though the sea is mentioned twice in those two verses.

Uh, and I don't really understand what his counterargument i- uh, I think he just says, we're all immersed in Moses, or the Israelites were all immersed in Moses.

I- what does that mean?

Like, if your redefinition from the plain language of Scripture is, um, arguably incoherent, I- it- that doesn't feel like exegesis.

It just feels like waving away the text.

Humble Probe.

People choose whatever name they want.

Says, Joe, why are the Marian Dogmas so morally and spiritually relevant that they deserve to be on the level of dogma?

Wanted to understand why people would risk going to hell by not believing in them.

So I think there's two ways of making sense of that.

One is, why would people be so insistent on believing Mary had sin that they'd be able to risk, like, that they would be willing to risk their own damnation?

But, uh, the other one would- is just, like, well, why dogmatize the Marian Dogmas?

The short answer is, the Marian Dogmas are really about Christ.

You see this most clearly with things like calling Mary the Mother of God, Theotokos, uh, God-bearer, literally.

And, uh, the reason for that is because if you don't believe she's the Mother of God, then you don't believe Jesus is God.

You've, you've got a messed up Christology.

And so, uh, like, that's, w- you've gotta get that right.

All the stuff about Mary is closely tied to all the stuff about Jesus.

And one of the reasons we care that she is without sin is because we believe she's the Ark of the New Covenant.

And you can see that so clearly from reading Scripture.

Uh, read 2 Samuel 6, where David brings the Ark into Jerusalem.

It says he arose and went, he goes into the hill country of Judea for three months, and he's trying to bring the Ark from the hill country of Judea into Jerusalem.

And while, uh, he's there, someone touches the Ark, Uzzah touches the Ark, and is struck dead, 'cause the Ark is so holy it cannot be touched.

And so he's there for three months, and he fin- and oh, then while he's there, uh, he says, How can the Ark of the Lord come to me?

And then finally he's able to bring the Ark into Jerusalem, and he dances before the Ark.

Now I want you to compare that with Luke 1. The verbiage is even the same.

It says, Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country of Judea.

And she stays there for three months, and, uh, John the Baptist, he dances before Mary and Jesus, uh, when he hears Mary's greeting, and he is of this priestly line.

This, this matters when you look at the fact that David is wearing priestly vestments when he strips down to dance before the Lord.

And John is even more stripped down, 'cause he is an unborn child wearing no clothing in the womb of his mother, dancing before the Lord.

And then Mary, uh, excuse me, Elizabeth says to Mary, And how can this be, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?

Now, if you're seeing this connection between 2 Samuel 6 and Luke 1, which is so hard to miss once you see it.

It's like there's so many things in common, it would be the most ridiculous coincidence to, to say that's not there.

And then even the language, but where David said, How can the Ark of the Lord come to me?

Elizabeth says, much more humbly, How is it that the mother of my Lord should come to me?

So there's a contrast there, um, but also you'll notice that Mary is in the position of the new Ark.

So, that's another reason why we care.

It'd be too easy, if someone were to say, like, Oh, I believe in the God of Israel, but you guys are giving too much, uh, emphasis on the Ark of the Covenant, would just not understand Judaism.

Wouldn't understand Old Testament religion.

Likewise, someone who thinks we're giving too much holy, like, t- giving too much honor to, uh, the Geborah, the, the Queen Mother, doesn't understand either.

But Israel is fascinating because, uh, royal authority is in the hands of the king, and royal honor is given not to the wife of the king as in all the other cultures surrounding it, but to the mother of the king.

And there's question about why this was, but even the word queen is never used for the wife of the king, even for, like, Jezebel and women who are very powerful.

And rather, this royal language is used for the mother.

You'll find queen used for Esther, but she's not an Israelite queen, you see what I'm saying?

So they, they have a word for queen.

They don't, they use it for other people's queens.

They don't use it for the wives of their kings.

Rather, they have this word Gebora or Geborah, which is about the Queen Mother.

So, if Jesus is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and he has a mother, if you understand the Old Testament, you would expect her to have a very important role.

Revelation 12, which talks about the one who gives birth to Jesus being enthroned in heaven, seems to support that.

To waive all that away as just more metaphor is just dismissing so much Scripture, it's, it's heartbreaking.

So then the final thing I'd say on this is, there's a major difference between how we understand dogma.

If you trust that the Church is guided by the Holy Spirit, then we want as much dogma as we can, 'cause it gives us a clearer vision of what God has revealed.

Not new revelation, but clarifying the revelation.

The, like, the Trinity matters, Christology matters, all this stuff.

But if you think that the Church is getting this stuff wrong or just guessing, then you don't want any dogma .

The answer isn't keep all the Christology and all the Trinitarian stuff.

The answer is to just say, Hey, if we can't be sure we're right, we can't impose on you any burden to believe what we believe.

So behind this question of dogma is a total difference in how we understand the Church.

In Acts 15:28, the Church, or the Council of Jerusalem says, It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us.

So the Church there could speak corporately with the voice of God defining an issue that was disputed.

As Catholics, we believe that shows us the authority given to the Church.

It's not just the apostles saying that.

It's the apostles and elders together.

And so if the Church can do that, then by all means, clarify more things with the authority of God.

Bind and loosen as you've been told to bind and loosen.But if you don't have that authority, the answer isn't keep everything but the Marian stuff.

The answer is, don't make people believe in the Trinity if the Trinity is just a guess.

All right.

J.L.

says, Could you elaborate more on the additions of the ending of Mark and how/why the Church views it as inspired despite its later addition?

Yeah, uh, because we believe the Holy Spirit compiled it.

We actually don't know 100% sure that it is an addition.

It does seem to have a different, uh, voice than Mark, but those linguistic arguments only go so far.

The ancient codices, when you would gather things together, uh, they didn't have covers, and so you would sometimes lose the first and last page.

And so if that is what happened, then seemingly it happened so early on that there weren't enough copies of the Gospel of Mark, uh, to, to know what he said.

So then either he or someone else would've added a conclusion.

The conclusion is orthodox.

It's been believed, uh, by Christians to be, uh, true and even inspired.

So it, like, it I guess I'd just say this.

If you believe that the Holy Spirit sent inspiration or used inspiration to inspire a group of men to write down the words of God, it is bizarre to believe that they then lost those irretrievably, and that the last page was replaced with something that is heretical and false.

'Cause remember, I mean, Ryan's argument isn't just that Mark 16:16 isn't literally Jesus.

It's that someone lied about what Jesus said and made up this false teaching, and, and put it into the thing that Christians all throughout the ages believed was scripture, until modern skeptical scholars really called that much more into doubt.

And I think that is a, a bad view of God.

Like, it's a bad view of the Holy Spirit and of inspiration.

By that reasoning, how do you know you don't have other entire books that are the wrong books, that You know, there were disputed books in the early Church.

Maybe all of the doctrines of Christianity are all based on the wrong book.

So this is much more logically coherent with something like Mormonism, which says, Yeah, God inspired a bunch of books and they all got lost or corrupted, so we need a new prophet.

And the idea that we are just gonna pick the books up and be able to tell?

No.

So, I just think that the argument against that is, is so self-defeating that you would end up in something like Mormonism or, uh, I don't know, just agnosticism or something.

All right.

B-Drake?

Ooh, bad time to be Drake.

Sorry, that's a rap reference.

How do I wrestle with my wife and I being Protestant, but I wanna be Catholic and she doesn't?

We're expecting in December.

I've prayed, but I'm so afraid of change, and any division in my family.

I'm gonna tell you a hard thing.

Jesus said that he came not to bring peace, but the sword, and he meant specifically these kind of situations.

This is Matthew 10:34.

It said, For I've come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.

And a man's foes will be those of his own household.

He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

And he who does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.

So, we're given some strong words by Jesus.

Once you become aware that God has invited you to do something, you may have a thousand good reasons to say no, and you still have to say yes.

And I'm not gonna pretend that it's gonna be easy, I'm not gonna pretend it won't create some real strife in an already stressful situation, uh, but you have to listen to the voice of God.

You have to go where God is telling you to go.

By the way, on a happier note, congratulations.

I also You know, I would say there, there's a lot of things at a practical level, if you're like a lot of the guys who like this channel Actually, yeah, so I've got a group of, like, high-dollar donors that I'm in a, a WhatsApp or a Signal group with, and I think all of or, not all of them.

Many of them have wives who are not Catholic yet, and we're praying for them, you know?

They're, they're offering up prayers for them.

So, recognize as, uh, you know, Ephesians 6 says, our, our battle is not against flesh and blood, but powers and principalities, so pray for your wife.

And hopefully other people watching this will pray for her as well, uh, to just be open to that.

And you are probably gonna be inclined to try to convert her yourself, and I would actually warn you against that, especially if there's a, a lot of stress going on with the new baby.

Uh, you can do things like give her Realm Sweet Home and maybe read it together.

You can share your own journey.

But if she feels like you're applying pressure on her to become Catholic before she's ready to, I think that's going to I thi- I don't think that's gonna go well.

So be, be patient and gentle with her, and just know that God wants her to be Catholic more than you do.

And then don't be afraid of becoming Catholic yourself in the interim, uh, trusting that God who's begun a good work won't hesitate to bring it to completion.

Odd Chaldean, Joe, Ryan's not a dumb guy.

Me, 'Eh.' Crush the debate, Joe.

Well, I mean, he His knowledge of scripture is pretty good.

He, he's, he's blind to certain things, but I found him very nice.

Um, I mean, his knowledge, he can quote scripture.

I don't think he understands a lot of the things he's quoting, but he, he can quote a lot of scripture, and I don't want to I'm not trying to insult the guy at all.

I, I would happily have another debate or conversation with him.

Uh, I, I am genuinely a little bit heartbroken, 'cause I know he and people in his camp, they're convinced they have the right answer, they don't need to listen to anybody else, and they just need to go solve everybody else's problems.

But the problem is, if they would actually listen, it would be so helpful for them in their own spiritual life.

Like, I don't know if how often I warned about this in the beginning of the debate.

I said, Look, the debate is not about two things.

It's not saying baptism is necessary, like God couldn't do it another way.

He does, so spare me all the counterexamples of the thief on the cross who may or may not have been baptized.

Uh, and then if you think of baptism as incorporation into the death of Christ, he experiences that, so whatever.It's not about baptism being necessary, it's about baptism saving you.

And second, the debate is not, is the Catholic Church true?

You could have a thousand reasons for believing the Catholic Church is false and still be a Lutheran who believes baptism saves, or still be an Anglican and believe baptism saves, or still be Eastern Orthodox and believe baptism saves.

And I should've said that more explicitly, 'cause almost the entire debate is the Catholic Church was wrong about justification.

I don't care if you think the Catholic Church is wrong about justification.

I mean, I do in one sense, obviously.

I want you to have a better understanding of justification for your own salvation.

But that's not the debate.

That's what I mean by I don't care.

Like that's, that's not the debate.

Um, so yeah.

Un- that's what I would say on that.

Uh, I think, you know, it, like Cleave to Antiquity, a Protestant channel I just discovered recently, does not like Catholics at all.

I think it's fair to say, like, a lot of his ministry is meant to, like, respond to Catholic answers and Orthodox arguments and the rest.

And they had, like, a post-debate stream, and it was like Anglicans and Lutherans were all like, Yeah, we believe in Sola Fide and believe that baptism saves you.

But the people in the comments just thought that they just had enough verses that they thought meant Sola Fide, that they would win the baptism debate, and that just is not how that works.

But because they seem completely oblivious to the idea there's anyone other than Baptists and Catholics, uh, they're just missing a whole dimension to the debate.

So yeah, I, I think that it's just, it's an ignorance and maybe a, a self-satisfaction that you already have everything, you don't need to listen to anyone else.

But I don't think he's dumb.

Jeff said, uh, Love when he asked what you would say to God if he asked why to let you in and your response had nothing to do with works.

He was thrown.

Well, thanks.

Well, I, you know, honestly, a very helpful, uh, essay on this was, um, by Father Richard John Neuhaus, Born Toward Dying, I think is it?

Or no, Death on a, Death on a Friday Afternoon.

No.

Born Towards Dying.

Uh, maybe.

No, I don't know.

Somewhere, there's a Neuhaus thing where he points out that even his faith is weak at times.

And so he's not even gonna plead his faith, he's only going to plead the mercy of God.

Because even to say, Look at my faith, would still be trusting in one's own merit.

So he's not gonna look to his own faith, he's not gonna look to his own works.

He's gonna look to the mercy of God.

Well, how does the mercy of God come to us?

Well, through faith and through works.

But you have to start, everything else flows from getting that right.

So even that formulation of the question actually misunderstands how God's salvation works at a, at a fundamental level.

All right, Pete said, Pete said, Wes Huff and now Ryan are willing to remove parts of the Bible on the word of textual critics who are often atheists.

I don't see Protestantism surviving if they keep following critics over the church.

I, I am seeing an increasing kind of level of incoherence within online evangelicalism, and I, I don't know what to do with it.

'Cause in the old days, you know, you'd have, like in, in parts of, like, the American South, people who lived in these deeply Evangelical or fundamentalist cultures, and they would have kind of an insular community.

But now you've got the internet, and so they're being exposed to all these different challenges from Catholics, but also from, like, skeptics and, and the rest.

And the more they listen to those, their system isn't robust enough to handle them.

And so you get smart people, I mean, you mentioned Wes Huff.

Uh, I think no one will deny Wes Huff is a smart guy.

And they're incorporating this stuff that may not be that compatible with their faith system without having a deeper, uh, systematic theology, I would suggest, to, to handle all this stuff.

I can't speak that deeply to Wes, so I, I don't know.

But in, in terms of evangelicalism more broadly, I do think there is this danger, um, that they don't know how to handle threats when they come along.

In the 1970s when Roe v. Wade happened, Christianity Today applauded that abortion was legalized.

And it really took the strength of the Catholic Church to draw them back from that insanity.

They, you can just read up on the history of the pro-life movement, and, uh, you can see all of that.

Hi, Mike.

Caprice, he said howdy.

Um, Cosmic Catholic said, Have you seen Dr. Ortlund's video on the early church and baptismal g- regeneration?

No, but I, I should.

Uh, I'd be very interested.

I mean, like I said, Everett Ferguson has hundreds of pages.

So if, if Gavin's got a video calling that into question, I'd, I'd love to, to see that.

Like, the, the case for baptismal regeneration, I mean, I've got a bunch of stuff in, in The Early Church was the Catholic Church.

I've got a whole chapter just quoting them, talking about being born again in the waters of baptism and quoting John 3:5.

And I don't see how anyone could possibly get around Ignatius and Irenaeus and Justin Martyr in the 100s talking about this stuff explicitly.

Uh, one of the cool things, and I didn't really have time to unpack this in the debate.

In Ezekiel 36, where God promises to sprinkle clean water upon us, then all these spiritual benefits, the early fathers looked at that and were like, Oh yeah, this is about baptism, obviously.

And they made these connections.

Billy Knights says, I really hope Protestants don't charge money for Bibles or Ryan's in trouble.

Right.

Like, the fact that something is saving and it might also cost money to produce and you might need to make money off of it to be able to sustain that model is uh, it's a weird argument.

Um, Daniel says, When Ryan says trust in Christ's death alone to get to heaven, he doesn't realize that he is trusting that his trust is in Christ, death alone saves.

Oh yeah, right, to trust Right, this is I think I understand the argument you're making there, and this is the thing.

Because you'll have Protestants who say faith alone is all you need to be saved.

And it's like, cool, we have faith.

And we also believe that when Jesus says baptism saves us, that this means baptism saves us, 'cause we have faith and we trust him and we want to do what he tells us to do.

They're like, Nope.

Well, that doesn't count then, because now you're relying on yourself rather than him.

And it's like, no, we're doing what he told us to do.

That's not Like, think about it.

The reason circumcision was bad for the Christian was because they were saying, Yeah.

Sure, Jesus is right, but I should also do this other thing just to be safe.

With baptism, it's not like that.

We're not, like Jesus didn't tell us to get baptized, but we're gonna go ahead and do it.

No, the Literally, the only reason to be baptized is Jesus said to do it, and you believe him, and you obey him.

And that obedience is called, in Romans, The Obedience of Faith.

Just as in Hebrews 11, it says, By faith and then lists a bunch of people who did stuff.

That's not To put an antithesis between the obedience of faith and acting by faith against faith itself is scripturally incoherent.

It does not work as a methodology, because you have to rip the descriptions of faith apart to separate the belief from the action, because they're included in the same concept, pistis.

Anthony says, How is Christ's death good/redeeming?

That's a big question for the last couple minutes here.

Uh, I will say you should read St. Thomas Aquinas when he, he explains all of that in the Summa.

Um, and it was called the Tertio parts, part three.

Uh, it's questions, uh, 46, 47, 48.

And he goes through, especially in question 48, like, how the death of Christ kind of works, and he looks at by way of merit, by way of atonement, by way of sacrifice, by way of redemption, uh, and he explains what all of those mean.

So I'll just give you a short version.

The Christian view of the cross is not that God the Father pours out his wrath on Christ so that he bears his cross in our place.

That is fundamentally un-Christian.

Jesus says, Take up your cross and follow me, so whatever he's doing, he's not getting rid of our cross.

Also, the penalty, like, the wages of sin is death, but not just physical death, but eternal separation from God.

Jesus doesn't bear that.

So if you've been taught substitutionary penal atonement, that is not true.

Uh, that is i- incompatible with Trinitarian Christianity because you're pitting the first and second person of the Trinity against one another, and you can't have Jesus both in the hell of damnation and fully God.

It Those two things are incompatible.

So you'd have to deny Jesus's divinity or that hell is hell, and it leads you to bad places wherever you go with it.

So it is much better to look at all the ways that St. Thomas Aquinas talks about merit, atonement, sacrifice, redemption.

And i- in a very oversimplified way here, right, take all the weight of all of our sins, put them together, Christ bears them, and he gives something to God more pleasing than all of our, uh, bad actions.

Like, in John 10, Jesus talks about this.

He doesn't say, I'm going to lay down my life, and the Father is going to pour out His wrath upon me.

He says, um, For this reason, the Father loves me because I lay down my life that I may take it again.

No one takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own accord.

I have power to lay it down.

I have power to take it again.

This charge I've received from my father.

So this view that Christ is making a self-sacrificial offering that is worth more than the weight of all of our sins shows that Jesus is working in a fully divine and fully human way.

He is the priest and victim of the offering, and because we share in his humanity And St. Thomas also talks about, like, why Christ would choose to do it in this way, since there are other ways he could have redeemed us.

And one of the points he makes is, you know, like Think about when your kids screw up.

You could just fix the problem yourself and do it a lot better than they could do it, but it is much better for their dignity and their agency, as actors, as humans, that you work with them to solve the problem.

And so Christ saves us by becoming one of us, so that humanity, which has caused all the horrors of the history of the world, also has the great glory of the cross to boast in.

Uh, not of ourselves, but of one of us, and so we are united with him in our humanity, but then even more deeply in this spiritual union with him.

And this is how redemption comes about.

Now, there's much more that could be said about that, but it's not this transactional, uh, substitutionary atonement view.

Erin gave a bunch of money and didn't donate.

That's fantastic.

I Thank you.

Very kind of you.

Um, you know what?

Let's go long today.

Uh, Templar says Uh, so, okay.

I've got questions up to Oh, I've got a bunch of questions.

I might not get through all the w- questions we already have, so I'm gonna do what I can with some of the questions remaining.

I might be a little quick with them just 'cause I'd rather give you some answer than make you come back in two weeks.

Um, but if you haven't donated yet, just know I'm not gonna get to you.

Like, definitely not gonna get to you.

All right.

Templar says, I'm an Anglican.

You're an Anglican with the name Templar?

Okay, cool.

But thank you for doing that debate and calling out the mod's behavior.

It was really bad until you said something.

Good.

I'm, I'm he- Look.

Uh, Jeremiah's a great dude.

He really is a good, nice guy.

His theology, we disagree very strongly.

He thinks Catholics are in dangerous error.

I think the same of, of Reformed Baptists.

But he is a gentleman, and I, I think he is a, a really ethical guy.

I think he is also someone who is trying to run a small channel and needed a bunch of mods, and the mods were not neutral and were apparently, like, calling people goddess worshipers and all sorts of nuttiness.

And I, I was reminded when, uh, the RAF came into Northern Ireland.

And so you had these, like, uh, really anti-Catholic young Scottish men being called in to police Northern Ireland during the Troubles, and they immediately just started working with the Protestant militias and, like, attacking and torturing Catholics.

And it's like, Well, that didn't help.

That, that didn't go well.

Uh, that's not what a moderator is for.

It's not what, you know, police are for.

Uh, obviously, it didn't go to that level , but I was just thinking, like, yeah.

If someone's got, like, one very strong side in this and they don't know how to, like, actually moderate that, I understand it.

Like, uh we had Bart Ehrman come in to debate Jimmy Akin.

And I imagine if there were Catholic moderators on that, it would be very hard for them to let atheists be like, Hooray, our guy is winning!

If, if they thought that he was winning or something.

Uh, so I think it's a normal thing, but yeah, I, I share people's frustration with kind of how the moderation stuff has gone the last two times.

Um, Aaron asked, Does Ryan actually believe that even if you willfully commit horrible sins with full knowledge, but profess belief in Christ, you'd go to heaven?

I can't speak for him.

My understanding is he and Ray Comfort had a debate about whether you actually need to obey Christ.

'Cause he said, Well, obedience isn't a work, it's an action.

And at that point, you've liter- I, I literally see no reason why the devil wouldn't be saved.

If all you have to do is believe Jesus can do what he says he's gonna do, and you don't have to actually obey him or love him or trust him or act upon any of that, you just have to believe that he could do that, well, the devil has already met that criterion.

When I asked Ryan about that, he just was like, Well, the promises weren't made to the devil.

Irrelevant.

That doesn't, that You won't find that verse in there, that you have to believe promises made to you specifically.

Like, if Sarah believed promises made to Abraham, that would be faith.

If some non-relative heard that God made these promises to Abraham about having a great nation and they believed them, that would also be faith.

And so if that's all you need, to just believe God made promises to be saved, then the devil should be saved.

And James makes this point in his epistle.

Like, if that's your understanding of faith, that is not the Biblical understanding.

Um, Winston Von Toast quotes Revel- or cites Revelation 7:14, uh, These are those who came out of the Great Tribulation.

They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

Yeah, there's a lot of this kind of language of purification.

And to take all of it as just an analogy, an analogy of nothing, apparently it doesn't even represent what's happening in baptism, it does seem like a strange, a strange misinterpretation.

Uh, yeah, so like Ryan's whole argument comes down to baptism's wrong 'cause it contradicts Sola Fide.

Now, I think Sola Fide is wrong, but I also think if you have the historic Christian or historic Protestant understanding of Sola Fide, uh, you would still think baptism saves 'cause the Reformers did.

And also because, whatever you think of justification by faith or justification by faith alone, it- Titus 3 is very explicit that we're not saved by deeds done by us in righteousness.

We are saved by the washing of regeneration and renewal in the Holy Spirit.

So, whatever Paul means by works, he doesn't include baptism as one of them.

It is explicitly not in Titus 3. Dun6Force says, You should have asked him where the Bible says God is going to ask why he should let you into heaven.

Ask if he St. Peter's in hell because he taught baptism saves in First Peter.

I think he would just say, Oh, yeah.

Even though Peter talks about this being about salvation through water, Noah's Ark was not actually salvation through water or salvation through ark.

And, uh, therefore, this wasn't really about water at all and spiritual baptism.

I think that you're not doing exegesis at that point.

You're just dismissing a verse you don't know what to do with.

Uh, but I don't think he would say Peter's in hell.

Uh, yeah, but you're right, that God is not gonna ask why he should let you into heaven.

That is n- that is a, uh, kind of imaginary.

I've seen this a lot in evangelical circles, like, What, what are you gonna say to God when he asks you why he should let you in?

If he's asking me, I've got bigger problems.

Like, why would God need to ask me?

He's gonna tell me.

That's the description that we're given.

Like, think about the separation of sheep and goats.

And he's gonna tell me based on how I've responded to the faith and love I've been given.

That's what he says.

Go read the Gospel of Matthew.

Bob says, Joe, would you debate Ryan again?

Would you consider doing a Eucharist debate?

Some Orthodox and Catholics have responded to Ryan's symbolic claim.

I think I would debate Ryan again.

I don't know if on the Eucharist he'd be the best person to do that.

I don't know.

I'm open to, um, kind of what I should do for another debate.

And I, like, I found Ryan very pleasant to interact with.

I, I didn't come away feeling like, miffed or anything like that.

Um, I would really love to debate Wes Huff on the canon of scripture, but I've not been able to get ahold of him, and I, I don't know if he'd be open to that.

I'm just gonna say that out loud and see if anybody can make that happen.

Um, Dun6for says, Eusebius actually didn't deny the longer ending of Mark.

Good point.

I, did I can't remember.

Did Ryan say that he did?

Um, Matt said, Is it true from the very beginning of the church that even married clergy were required to be celibate?

I've heard conflicting info on this.

It's a little tricky.

There is an ancient practice that may go back to the apostles of at least periodic celibacy.

And the first papal decretal that is called one in the 300s talks about this.

Uh, so this idea this is like a late medieval thing is not true.

We know that there was a Jewish practice of the priests abstaining from sex for a couple of days before they would celebrate the liturgy, and all of the apostles appear to be living celibate lives.

So it, it's funny 'cause you, you ask, Okay, is Jesus married?

And Protestants are gonna say, No, of course not.

And how do you know?

Well, one of the ways is if he was married, we surely would've heard about his wife and kids, and yet we don't.

Then you say, Great, who are the apostles' wife and kids?

Name one of them.

Name one wife, one child.

And there's nobody.

The closest you get is Peter had a mother-in-law, which is great, but you know who else has mother-in-laws?

Widowers.

Um, and Peter, when In Matthew 19, there's a, a passage I know people are gonna misquote here, but I'll g- I'll get to that in a second.

In Matthew 19, Peter says to Jesus, Lo, we've left everything and followed you.

What then shall we have?

Now in context, Jesus has just talked about divorce and marriage, but he's also talked about celibacy and those who've become eunuchs for the Kingdom of God, and then he's talked about giving up everything to follow him to the rich young man.

So Peter says in response to all that Lord, we've given up everything and followed you.

What then shall we have?

And then Jesus says in response, in part, Everyone who has left houses, or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name's sake, will receive a hundredfold and inherit eternal life.

Now, included in that, pretty obviously, is a promise to those who are celibate.

Eunuchs for the kingdom, as he says earlier in Matthew 19, those giving up children doesn't mean you're like leaving your kids at a Wendy's so you can go follow Jesus.

It means like you're giving up fatherhood so that you can practice a spiritual fatherhood for the sake of the kingdom.

And he's saying this explicitly in response to Peter, which seems suggestive of the fact that Peter is living this kind of life and will be rewarded for it.

Because the question was, What shall we have?

And if Jesus isn't talking about Peter's own state, it's very strange, uh, that he would say that to him.

Like, well other people are gonna get a lot of stuff, just so you know.

Um, and then, oh yeah, the passage that I'm sure some of you, you've probably already said it somewhere in the comments, Well wait, what about in First Corinthians when St. Paul says Peter had a wife?

And the answer is, he did not.

Um, First Corinthians chapter th- no, chapter nine, sorry.

The line that gets quoted out of context says, Do we not have the right to be accompanied by a wife as the other apostles and the brethren of the Lord and Cephas?

And it's like oh yeah, that sounds really clear.

Cephas is Peter so therefore, uh, I guess it's, uh, saying Peter had a wife.

Except, if you read the footnote, it says, well, the word isn't actually wife there, it's woman or sister.

And so then you say, okay, well what's the passage about?

Is it about marriage or is it about something else?

And the answer is, it's about something else, it's about being financially supported.

This ties in well with the earlier discussion.

Saint Paul says, This is my defense to those who would examine me.

Do we not have the right to our food and drink?

Do we not have the right to be accompanied by a woman as the other apostles, and the brethren of the Lord, and Cephas?

Or is it only Barnabas and I who have no right to refrain from working for a living?

Notice that he is explaining what he means in verse five in verse six.

Then he says, Who serves as a soldier at his own expense?

Who plants a vineyard without eating any of its fruit?

Who tends a flock without giving some of its milk?

Do I say this on human authority?

Does not the law say the same?

For it is written in the law of Moses, 'You shall not muzzle an ox when it is treading out the grain.' In other words, from verse three on is all about, I have the right to be getting paid for this and I'm not.

So what is the woman doing there in verse five?

Well, one of the ways that, uh, Jesus and the apostles avoided any hint of simony is, as we see in Luke 8, that women would support them out of their means.

This is Luke 8:3, it lists several different women in the first three verses.

It says they, they provided for them out of their means.

So they're donor supported by wealthy women.

If you're a wealthy woman, or anyone, you can become one of those people over at shamelessjoe.com.

But that's the idea.

And so he's saying, you know, Paul is saying, I could start my own Patreon but I'm not.

Um, and good on him.

We have a lot of Patreons out there.

So all that's to say nothing in scripture says Peter or any of the apostles are married.

There is clearly a norm of celibacy but it is not something that we'd say is apostolically binding.

So there are married priests who are not celibate today, but the older model and the one that's more consistent with the Jewish priesthood is that even the married would refrain from sleeping together before they would offer the sacrifice.

Which means that even a lot of the married priests in the, uh, early church were living celibately at least for part of the week every week.

Charles says, Uh, I know I want to convert to Catholicism but I feel like I'm pursuing knowing it in my head more than in my heart.

Any advice?

Yeah, I mean my own journey was a little bit that way myself.

I think the fact that you recognize that is really good.

I became intellectually convinced of Catholicism, uh, before I was ready to really live in a way that was pleasing to God in a, in a more Catholic way.

I think recognizing it is the first step.

Wanting to be holy, as St. Thomas Aquinas famously said to his sister.

She asked, What does it take to become a saint?

And he said, Will it.

Like just desire it, because that desire is coming from God, and act on that desire and you'll be holy.

So, um, allow that to be the thing that transforms you.

And go where you're intellectually convinced so you can live with integrity, and then see if your life isn't made a great deal richer.

Here's the thing, I, uh, talk to Protestants who've become Catholic with some frequency and one of the things I, I encourage people to look for is, once you participate in the sacraments and, and you're, you know Like people who were good Protestants before, like faithful Protestants before who then become Catholic.

I ask them to look at their life, and overwhelmingly the response people give is that, yeah, they seem to be living holier lives now than they were before.

Not in a way that like toots their own horn, but like the struggles with sin are not as much as they were or they're able to do things they weren't able to do before in ways that maybe they wouldn't have even noticed until you actually asked them to pay attention to it.

So believe that that's true, desire that, and act upon it would be what I would suggest.

Uh, Dodo Samson.

Sorry Dodo, I'm not trying to laugh at you but your name is very funny.

Dodo Samson says, Hey Joe, hats off to you, amazing debate.

Ryan made a debate review that's very fallacious.

It's about 20 minutes long.

Would you be interested in engaging with it in the future?

God bless and greetings from the Netherlands.

I hope that I did not insult some Dutch name I'm not familiar with but here in English Dodo is, uh, the name we give to a bird that went extinct from being too dumb to live.

So apologies for that, and that's a little unfair to the Dodo bird as well.

But it Anyway.I responded to Or, maybe I didn't.

I thought I responded to something Ryan said, well, just, like, saying thank you, basically.

I don't remember if it was Yeah, I think it was the stream that he did yesterday, and I don't know if he kept it or deleted it.

I think that he's deleting all of the negative comments, and so it- it- you won't see a lot of comments on his stream, because everybody is saying, You didn't win, you didn't do well.

He just censors that so people think that he won.

Which, I don't do that stuff, I think that's lame.

Uh, we'll occasionally censor people who are being, like, actually, like, mostly combative to other people in a way that's off-putting to commenters.

And we want people to feel like they can comment without being attacked, um, but yeah, I don't- I don't do that.

Uh, someone else asked, .net is debating William, uh, Alberich next.

Do you think he's gonna back down?

I don't think he's gonna back down.

I think he thinks he won, or at least his followers think he won, and I don't think it matters to him that, like, everyone besides, like, his extremely devoted followers doesn't seem to think that he won.

I mean, I went back and read, I went- I read through the comments and I found one Catholic who thought that he won because of, like, very confusing reasons, and that was it.

There were plenty of Catholics who thought I won, plenty of Baptists who thought he won.

That's totally normal, they thought that before the debate.

I was looking for people who didn't agree with the Catholic side, and there were a lot of- a lot of people who said, I agree with Ryan, but he lost this debate.

And I think the reason he lost the debate is not 'cause he's not smart.

I think the reason he lost the debate is he has no Biblical case.

The- it's just, it- it's an indefensible position.

And if there's someone else you think can defend it, I'd be happy to, uh, to debate them.

Uh, The Lad says, Hi Joe, thanks for all you do.

Really appreciate it.

Could you put me in the direction of some books on early Church Fathers' beliefs that aren't too hard or advanced to read, for a friend I don't want to bombard?

Yeah, if So, The Fathers Know Best by Jimmy Akin is, like, a compilation of things the Church Fathers said, so it's them in their own words, thematically organized.

So, like, I like it when people just read the Church Fathers for themselves.

But I understand, not everybody feels comfortable doing that, so if you wanna know, what did the Church Fathers believe about a certain doctrine, that book just quotes them.

Uh, if you wanna know, for instance, on the Eucharist, there's a very good book called The Hidden Manna by Father James O'Conner, and, uh, that compiles what the early Christians had to believe.

It's the fir- I'd say the first half of that book is really good, the later half gets into modern, uh, controversies over Eucharistic theology, and you don't need any of that.

But O'Conner does a good job of walking you through the Church Fathers.

He quotes them and then explains what different things mean in a helpful way.

Um, my own book, The Early Church was the Catholic Church has a chapter on the Eucharist as well, um, so, you know, for things like Actually, well, and it has a chapter on baptism, has a chapter on bishops, has a chapter on the Gospels, so that would be another book where I- I tried to make that as accessible as I could, and it's only looking at Church Fathers really until about the year 200.

There's one or two exceptions, but I tried to limit myself to people who were either in the lifetime of the Apostles or in the lifetime of the students of the Apostles.

So, you get people like Irenaeus in 180.

He didn't know any of the Apostles, but his teacher did, uh, that's pretty good, 'cause it means if you've got a question about scripture, you could be like, Hey Polycarp, what did John teach about this?

And he could tell you.

Roxy said, It was a big ask for you to read those four passages during the debate.

I asked for Greek because some Bibles mistranslate obedience to believe.

Ah, I see.

I just got two more of your books in, Pope Peter and The Eucharist is Really Jesus.

Well, en- cr- enjoy them, Roxy.

I would love to hear what you think.

Uh, Egi, I'm not gonna pronounce your last name, Starkovici, probably butchering it, says, Come to Croatia August 15th, 2025 to celebrate the Assumption.

Look, if you are someone who's watching this stream and you like Seamus Boprey and you live in Europe, a place where I lived for three years and really want to go back to, uh, give me an excuse to come back.

Here's what we can do.

We have an events person, and I'm gonna give her email out.

No, I'm not.

You can find it on I don't wanna get in trouble with her.

But if you live somewhere like, in Europe, find a block of time where I don't look like I have, like, anything on the calendar, and then reach out.

And if we can get enough people, like, say, in And also, I've got a brother living in Spain, so I'd- I'd love to get over to Europe and probably I'd pay for my family to come with me to, you know, uh, they would just stay somewhere while I went and did talks.

That would be amazing, so let's talk.

Uh, you'd have to pay for, like, plane ticket and lodging and an honorarium, but especially if other people were interested, we could divide that several ways and make this affordable.

No One says, I'm not Catholic , but your content gave me hope as a former Mormon.

I'm trying to be Eastern Orthodox.

Pray for me, much love.

I was gonna say pray for no one, but that sounds bad, so pray for this person uh, as they're on a spiritual journey.

That's- that's beautiful, I'm excited for you.

I would love it if you became Catholic, but this is already a move in, it's, you know, it's more than a lateral move.

You are going to be in a true Church that has real sacraments, and that's awesome.

I have a lot of love for the LDS, but, uh, this is still a good move.

Minirissa Bonas says, In the debate, Ryan argued that although circumcision is not an action performed by the man or boy himself, it is still considered a work.

Therefore, he claimed that baptism could also be considered a work, concluding that Catholics believe in a works-based salvation.

Is the only difference that circumcision is part of the Mosaic Law, or is there a more compelling distinction?

Could you please elaborate on why Ryan's argument is invalid?

Yeah, so I mentioned this- uh, earlier when I said circumcision, people who relied on circumcision did so because they didn't trust Jesus' message enough.

People getting baptized are getting baptized because they believed Jesus' message.

That is a night and day difference.

As for works, the word work has at least three different meanings.

It can mean good works, it can mean human action, or it can mean works of the law, meaning in some ways that the law is working.

And so when Paul is condemning works, he often means works of the law.

Well, baptism is clearly not a work of the Mosaic Law.

It's not a human action in, in that sense, and it's not a good work in the normal sense of that term either.

No one's like, I'm such a good person.

I got baptized as a baby.

Nobody does that.

So none of the normal meanings of work apply to baptism, and Titus 3 explicitly says it does not.

Circumcision is a work of the Mosaic Law, not a work of the circumcised or the circumciser, a work of the law.

And so someone who believed they weren't gonna be saved by Christ but by their fidelity to the Old Testament law would be able to point at something outside of Christ.

Someone pointing to their fidelity to Christ is pointing to something inside of Christ.

All right.

R said, You did God's work, sir.

You approached the debate with love, but with strength.

Ryan's heresies are sad to hear.

The way he talks down on The Theotokos, disgusting.

It, it really does break my heart to hear people knock on Mary.

Um, and I, I feel like there's something really being missed there.

Daniel says, Would you be willing to use Streamlabs so we can send you 100% of the money in SuperChats?

I don't wanna give Godless YouTube 30% of SuperChat.

I'm gonna tell you something, Daniel.

I don't know what all those words mean.

I don't know what Streamlabs are, but I like the idea of having 100% of the money.

Now, I don't actually get 100% of the money.

A lot of it goes to Catholic Answers, but, um, yeah.

If that's a thing and it's not too hard to use, that would be great.

If Are you telling me there's Like, yeah, sure.

This is the easiest sell in the history of the world.

Uh, I saw there was a fellow Ichabod in the comments, so go Bods.

That's graduates of Washburn University.

I realized this morning, I was drinking coffee out of my wife's, uh, college mug.

She has a Thomas Aquinas College mug, and I thought, I really don't have a lot of, uh, Washburn stuff, so this gave me a good chance to do a shout-out to my alma mater.

Which, by the way, if you know Latin, means sweet mother, which is a very nice way of describing your college.

Connor says, What is the strongest argument against baptismal regeneration?

Likewise, is there one that you have thought or heard of that you cannot answer?

I think the two strongest are, number one, the thing that we just talked about with, well, it In some ways, baptism is the new circumcision.

Um, circumcision didn't save you apart from faith, therefore baptism doesn't.

Now, that's a false equation because baptism and circumcision aren't alike in every sense.

You know, we don't, for instance, just baptize boys.

Uh, so it, it's a little misleading as a comparison, but I, I see the appeal of it as an argument.

And I think other than that, you're just left with, if you understand the most stripped-down version of faith alone apart from any human efforts or human activity or any verbs, then you would logically have to say, Well, then baptism can't be part of it.

But you couldn't have anything else be a part.

If I have to read the Bible, that's an action.

If I have to go to church, I have to listen to the gospel, those are actions.

So if you try to take all of human agency out of the equation of salvation, then you logically have to get rid of faith.

You just do.

Because everything that makes up faith, like belief, involves human action.

And so the argument seems strong against baptism until you realize it's an argument against literally all of Christianity, and it's just like God saved who he's going to and we don't have anything to do with salvation at all, even in the sense of believing.

That's a mess.

All right.

Buckeye Joe, where did you come from?

Oh, that's Cotton Eyed Joe.

Never mind.

Buckeye Joe says, A believer was already a believer because, before receiving baptism, obviously he received gifts of faith before baptism, so baptism isn't infusing faith into him.

There's quotation marks around that.

I'm not 100% sure what that's talking about.

But there are plenty of cases, like in Acts 2, where you see people who become convinced Christianity is true, but are then led So, okay, let's just look at Acts 2. I know we talked about this in the debate.

In Acts 2, Peter gets up on Pentecost, he preaches to the assembled crowds.

They're cut to the heart and say to Peter and the rest of the apostles, Brethren, what shall we do?

Now, Ryan's argument is they don't literally say what shall we do to be saved, but literally that is what the context is about as you see from verse 40.

They're being told, Save yourselves from this crooked generation, so these are unsaved people in need of being saved.

And what are they told to do?

Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.

For the forgiveness of your sins there means in order to cause the forgiveness of your sins.

It cannot and does not mean because your sins are already forgiven.

So it is possible to hear the message of the gospel, be convinced that it's true, still need to repent, still need to have your sins forgiven, and that you achieve the forgiveness of your sins in baptism.

That is In Acts 2, there is no good argument against that.

There is none.

And so anyone trying to say, Well, maybe there's some other way, that doesn't deny any of what we just saw.

Now, is it possible for Jesus to save people other ways?

Sure.

Of course.

People were saved in the Old Testament times.

So we can say on the one hand, There's no other name under heaven by which men are saved, that's the name of Jesus.

And also, and yet he still saved people before his birth who did not know his name.

Acts, or excuse me, Hebrews 11 is filled with names we can point to people.

So all of the things that we're required to have, God can dispense from those requirements.

But it would be insane to say, Because God can dispense from those requirements, therefore He will, therefore I'm going to ignore doing the things He told me I had to do to be saved, uh, because that would be spiritual suicide.

It would be like this.

Like if, I used to, uh I adjunct taught a college class.

And, you know, if, if there was a situation where a student This didn't happen, but let's say a student had a, a parent who died.

I could say, Hey, you're dispensed from the homework.

It's not gonna count for your grade.

Or it's not gonna, you know, Don't worry about it.

But if someone else heard, Oh, so that means it's optional and they just didn't do it?

They're gonna get a zero.

They're gonna fail, because I have the ability to dispense and they don't.

Well, likewise, God has the ability to dispense with things like baptism, and we don't.

So we are bound by the sacraments, and God isn't.

Uh, so you'll find the, uh, the clearest case is actually not the thief on the cross.

The thief on the cross may have been a fallen-away disciple.

We just don't know if he was baptized or not.

I think Faris is a person pointing that out in a way that I thought was interesting.

I'm happy to say he probably was unbaptized.

Doesn't have anything to do with the fact that, like, someone who can't be baptized is not going to hell for not being baptized.

Likewise with Cornelius in Acts 10.

He receives the Holy Spirit before baptism.

Why?

Because it's the only way he's going to be able to get baptism.

And you see that very clearly from Acts 10:47.

Can anyone forbid water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?

He commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.

Not optional, but in that case, um, because he was a Gentile, they wouldn't have baptized him if it weren't for the fact the Holy Spirit showed that they were capable of being baptized.

All right.

Sanity Revolt says, Hey, handsome.

It's Josiah Tuesday.

Uh, I want everyone to phone in to Pints and say, Josiah's weird.

Such a shame about the live chat on the debate.

You're phenomenal.

Anyway, I'm just here to be weird.

Oh, I didn't even get to that part and already e- were- was calling you weird, so I'm glad I wasn't insulting.

Thanks, Josiah.

Um, Graceful Journey says, Thank you for your work, brother.

My wife and I are former Jehovah's Witnesses that just received confirmation in the Catholic Church.

Let's go!

That's awesome.

Happy to hear that.

Turns out Jesus is God.

Thanks again for all you do.

Had a huge impact on my conversion.

That might not make sense to people who don't realize that Jehovah's Witnesses have a messed-up Christology.

All right.

Everything else is going on the next stream.

Uh, Vanessa put that in there so I wouldn't keep going forever.

Uh, thank you to Vanessa for doing all that behind-the-scenes work.

Thank you for all of you.

And sounds like Sam Shamoon and a bunch of other people are here.

Sips with Sarah.

Nice to, uh, have all you guys drop in.

One of these days, we should do I don't know, I'm just throwing this out there.

Let me know, via a Super Chat for a lot of money.

Should we try to do, like, a stream where we get these people to not just, like, be in the comments, but actually on here?

Or is that too chaotic?

I think that'd be a lot of fun.

I'd love to see I've l- I've got to figure out where Faris I don't even know Faris's last name.

I assume it's Wheel, but I'm not sure if that's true.

Um, all right.

So yeah.

Be cool to have everybody on there, and probably a little chaotic, but if you're interested in that, we could try to invite them.

All right.

Love you all.

God bless you.

Uh, new episode Thursday.

Peace.