Joe Heschmeyer’s Argument Completely Falls Apart

Hinzugefügt: 2026-05-31

[00:00:00]All right. So, Joe Heshmire recently posted a response video to Wes Huff's video where he essentially gave six reasons as to why he's not Roman Catholic. Now, I'm not going to be responding to each and every point that Joe made in that video because honestly, honestly, that would take forever and I really don't have time to do all of that in one sitting. I have better things to do with my life. But what I do want to do in this video is simply respond to one specific argument that Joe raised in regards to the sufficiency of scripture because I do find his reasoning there to be very very interesting. And by interesting, I mean that it's one of the most common, yet one of the weakest rebuttals that I keep hearing Catholics and Orthodox apologists bring up consistently over and over again against the sufficiency of scripture. And so what I wanted to do is kind of take a moment to respond to it. Not because I think my response is going to stop people from making this argument altogether, although that would be a net positive for our society. Um, but I understand that's not going to be a reality. But hopefully, I think maybe the goal here is just to equip Protestants to at least think more carefully through this rebuttal because again, I think this is a pretty weak rebuttal that we can easily overcome pretty simply with just a few logical points. Um, and maybe hopefully this video can ward off some other Catholic and Orthodox apologists from using it in the future because honestly, honestly, it's really not a good argument. Like, it's really not. Now, Joe, to be fair to Joe, he does make some other points in regards to the sufficiency of scripture that I do plan to respond to in future videos because I do think those deserve uh a careful response to even though I don't think his arguments ultimately hold up, but I think they're at least better than the one he offers here. And so if you enjoy these kinds of discussions and you want to see the rest of those responses whenever they come out, definitely be sure to subscribe to the channel and of course turn on the notification bell so that you don't miss out on any of it because that smoke is coming. Best believe me that smoke is coming. But like I said um in in the beginning in this video specifically, I want to direct all of our attention, all of our energy to addressing this common Catholic and orthodox argument that disagreement among Protestants somehow disproves the sufficiency of scripture, right? or you know at least disprove scriptures ability to function as the church's sufficient rule of faith.

[00:02:51]Right? And before I even start responding to that claim, I actually want to let Joe present the argument for himself.

[00:02:59]>> Okay? And if we can't trust that tradition or the church is infallible, then this leaves us with another problem. How do we know which interpretation of scripture to trust?

[00:03:06]You can find countless different Protestant denominations and traditions claiming to believe in solos scriptorra claiming to believe in the sufficiency of scripture and yet it arguing for what are ultimately contradictory interpretations of the Bible. Wes acknowledges this scripture being sufficient and is sufficient due to its divine origin. And that doesn't mean then that you won't have individuals who disagree with what it means or how it should be understood. That is why the discipline of interpretation and the study of the original languages has been a core emphasis by so many throughout Christian history. And it is not God's fault that we fallably understand or misunderstand his infallible words. And likewise does not negate that due to the origin being divine. Scripture is therefore insufficient to communicate properly without an infallible interpreter. But nobody's arguing that God's failed here. The argument is instead that an infallible interpreter is one of the means God gives us because it's helpful in avoiding the kinds of problems that Protestantism has found itself facing unnecessarily for the last five centuries. Let's talk about this very concretely. You'll see what I mean.

[00:04:06]Imagine you've got a newly converted Christian. We'll call him John. Person of average intelligence and he's also a busy father of a new baby and he wants to know as a new Christian and as a new father, should he get his baby baptized?

[00:04:16]Now, if he can trust the Catholic Church, he has a clear answer to that.

[00:04:18]The Catholic Church clearly says yes.

[00:04:20]Children are born with original sin.

[00:04:21]Baptism is the means by which we become children of God. So the church and the parents would deny a child the priceless gift of becoming a child of God were they not to confer baptism shortly after birth. That answer is straightforward.

[00:04:30]It's clear. You have an infallible interpreter. You're good to go. But what if you can't trust that interpreter?

[00:04:35]How's dad meant to figure this question out from Wes's point of view? Remember the Westminster Confession in the Calvinist or Reformed Tradition teaches that parents are to baptize their babies and that it's a great sin to condemn or neglect this ordinance. But Baptist teach that you actually shouldn't baptize your babies because only those who do actually possess repentance towards God, faith, and obedience to our Lord Jesus Christ can properly receive baptism. The Anabaptists even rebaptize Christians who had been baptized as babies. So both sides of this dispute teach that scripture is sufficient. Both sides are teaching diametrically opposed doctrines. And both sides are even accusing one another of sinning for interpreting scriptures differently and engaging in the opposite practice on infant baptism. So is John going to sin by having his baby baptized or is John going to sin by not having his baby baptized? It seems to be a pretty important issue. Jesus in Mark 16:16 teaches that he who believes and is baptized will be saved. Should John take that as an instruction on the salvific necessity of baptism? Or is right that that verse was never really meant to be scripture in the first place? I don't think it's helpful or realistic to go tell John, "Well, you should go learn hermeneutics and learn biblical Greek and maybe you can figure out which side is right." So if your approach to scripture isn't capable of reliably solving these kind of real world situations that ordinary Christians face regularly, I think it's cold comfort to say that in some technical sense scripture is sufficient. We just can't figure out what the answer is. Now I want to contrast this to show that's not actually how early Christians handled disputes when they disagreed about doctrine. Nobody was giving the kind of answer that West gives. I'll give just one example here. Tertullian writing around the year 200 says what we're supposed to do when confronting heretics. And surprisingly perhaps he says that our appeal therefore must not be made to the scriptures. nor must controversy be admitted on points in which victory will either be impossible or uncertain or not certain enough.

[00:06:06]Trulion's point is that you might interpret scripture one way and another group of heretics might interpret it another way. And if you decide to just debate your interpretation versus their interpretations, it's not clear you're going to win that debate. They might be better debaters than you. And so he proposes a much simpler argument to use to defeat heretics every time. Ask them instead with whom lies that very faith to which the scriptures belong. From what and through whom and when and to whom has been handed down that rule by which men become Christians? For wherever it shall be manifest that the true Christian rule and faith shall be, there will likewise be the true scriptures and expositions thereof, and all the Christian traditions. All right.

[00:06:37]Now, on the surface, I can totally understand why this argument sounds so persuasive to a lot of people because it really does get to the emotional heartstrings as to what people tend to feel in these type of discussions. You know whether people verbalize it or not I completely understand how someone can think you know if scripture is truly sufficient Janai like you say it is then why do so many Christians disagree about what exactly it means like clearly I feel like that's some indicator that something is wrong here is it not right clearly maybe I think we need an alternative than what Protestantism is presenting to us I think we need something else and of course right on Q this is where you know your favorite Catholic or Orthodox apologist is happily stepping into the door and saying exactly you get it right. What we need is an infallible interpreter in order to uh interpret scripture for us so that it can function as it was divinely intended. But my friends, here's the problem with that assumption.

[00:07:44]You see, that conclusion does not logically follow from the premise like at all. Because you see what Joe and so many other Catholic and Orthodox apologists unfortunately you know what they're doing is that they're subtly assuming that for something to function as a sufficient rule of faith it must also come packaged together with an infallible interpreter. But my friends those two are totally different categories that we have to keep distinct. Like if you want to argue that Jesus or the apostles taught that we would have an infallible interpreter, cool. Go ahead and make that argument.

[00:08:26]Now to be clear, I don't really think there is a good argument to be made for something like that. But you know, if you want to make uh that argument, please by all means go and make one.

[00:08:36]This is a free country. This is America, right? You could do whatever you want to do. You got the right to do whatever you want to do. You have the right to your opinion irregardless of if your opinion is wrong or not. You have the right to make that argument. But my friends, what we cannot do is act like this particular argument gets you by necessity to that conclusion because it simply doesn't.

[00:08:59]Okay? I'm sorry to break it to you, but it doesn't. And you know, we could actually just see this by looking at how we function in real life itself. Right?

[00:09:09]For instance, think about something as simple as a math textbook, right? And I want you to follow me here. When you go to school, everybody, every student understands that the math textbook is sufficient to teach mathematics, right?

[00:09:25]I think that's completely uncontroversial. If you want to debate me on that, please let's put a grand on this debate. I bet you I'll come out a grand richer. I'll just put it like that because nobody in their right mind walks into algebra class and says, "Well, hold on now. Hold on. You know, unless you, Miss Green, the teacher, is infallible, how can this math textbook sufficiently teach us algebra, right? I I I don't know. I don't feel comfortable about taking this class, Miss Green." Right?

[00:10:01]Nobody thinks like that because we all instinctively understand that the sufficiency of the math textbook and the fallibility of the math teacher who in this case in this scenario is Miss Green which is actually one of my teachers growing up. Uh but you know I couldn't think of any other name on the fly.

[00:10:19]Neither here today neither here nor there. It is not about you Miss Green.

[00:10:22]So don't don't think that it is right.

[00:10:26]We all understand that those two things are completely unrelated. Like just because the teacher is fallible, that doesn't mean automatically that the textbook is insufficient. And likewise, just because the textbook is insufficient, that doesn't mean that the teacher is infallible either. But more than that, let's just stick with this example for a bit because I think we're going to get some much needed clarity with this one. My friends, just tell me, humor me for a moment. What exactly happens when disagreements arise in that math class? Right? I want you to think about it, right? Do we throw, I don't know, throw away the math textbook because we don't have an infallible interpreter, an infallible teacher, right? No. That would be completely ridiculous, right? We don't do that.

[00:11:17]Now, what do we do? Right? We go back to the textbook. We check the steps that it gave us. We check our reasoning. We check whether or not the rules uh that that we applied were followed properly.

[00:11:30]That is what we do. And catch this.

[00:11:33]Notice what the teacher does if the student gets the wrong answer. What do they usually do in order to correct the student? Well, they refer them back to the textbook. They refer them back to what was taught in the textbook. And likewise, if the teacher contradicts that textbook, let's say the student is hypothetically right, right? Guess what corrects the teacher? The textbook corrects the teacher. And it doesn't go the other way around. And so that is exactly what Protestants are saying that we should do with scripture. It's a very modest and very common sensical point, you know, when you just stop to think about it for two seconds. And I fear that so many people simply aren't stopping to think about these things for 2 seconds. My friends, the mere existence of disagreement does not disprove the sufficiency of scripture.

[00:12:25]The only thing that it proves is that somebody misunderstood or mishandled the scripture. That's it, right? That's really it, right? Joe and so many other Catholic and Orthodox apologists, you know, they'll take this point and they'll try to make it prove way more than it can actually prove. But at its best, all that it proves is that somebody is mishandling the text. That's all it proves. And and to be honest with you, we already see this uh uh logic be applied in Christianity all the time, right? Ironically, you know what I find very interesting, very funny, is that Joe himself actually brings up a a very good example of this in the very clip that we just listened to when he referenced Mark chapter 16 where Jesus says, you know, he who believes and is baptized will be saved, but he who does not believe will be condemned. Now, uh, you know, according to Joe's framework, because Christians, more specifically Protestants, disagree about something like baptism, you know, apparently that somehow means that scripture is insufficient unless you have an infallible interpreter. But honestly, I think Joe's example actually proves the exact opposite because this is precisely why hermeneutics and careful interpretation matter in the very first place. Because even if you believe this passage is authentic, right? And I know there was some dispute with Wes Huff and many other thoughtful Protestants um you know between textual criticism whether or not this was a scribal addition and you know Joe uh Wes Huff's point is that you know he wouldn't preach on this he wouldn't teach on this because he feels like you know it's probably not you know infallible or authoritative in that same sense as everything else. you know, it probably is true, but we can't fully know for sure. Um, and so even if you take this to be authentic, notice carefully what Jesus actually says there, right? Jesus says, "He who believes and is baptized will be saved."

[00:14:35]But when Jesus speaks about condemnation, I want you to notice what he doesn't say. Notice how he doesn't say, "He who does not believe and is not baptized will be condemned." Right? He only mentions unbelief as the grounds for condemnation, not baptism. Now, my friends, why is that important? Well, it's important because one, that completely disproves this idea that you u must be baptized in order to be saved. That clearly doesn't support that in the way that, you know, Joe and many other, you know, Orthodox apologists and Catholic apologists needed to say, right? because it doesn't really support that conclusion. But secondly, it's important because in the early church, baptism ordinarily followed immediately after repentance faith. This is a point that so many people simply do not know, do not understand because they're not reading the Bible very carefully. And partly it's probably because these church traditions aren't encouraging them to read their Bible with careful hermeneutics and sound reasoning because you know oh you could be the next Martin Luther. Neither here nor there. That's just besides the point. But that is an interesting point to hold in on. But if you look and read at the Bible, read the Bible very carefully and consistently, you would actually see this pattern all throughout the book of Acts. I mean, when you read through Acts, what are you going to see? You're going to see first people repent, then they believe, and then they are immediately baptized. That was that is the normal pattern all throughout the book of Acts. Right? This is why the apostles often say things like repent and be baptized. Not because baptism itself is what saves apart from faith, but because baptism was the immediate outward expression of repentance and union with Christ. In other words, my friends, these things were closely connected in the apostolic mind and practice. Right? The early church didn't wait months or even a year before being baptized like some of uh these church traditions do, right? They didn't say, "Oh, you need to be catechized first. You need to go through uh your church membership. You need to do this, you need to do that before we can, you know, verify that your professed faith is actually real." As if we can even do that.

[00:17:05]Before we can verify if you truly mean what you say you mean. as if we can even do that. No, what the early church did was actually something well within their grounds to do because look, they don't know whether or not you're faking it or not. They can only go by what you tell them, right? What you profess out of your mouth. And so when they hear you repent um and believe, they say, "All right, well, who can withhold the water from these people? let's get them baptized as they have literally just placed their faith in Jesus Christ for their salvation. And so far from Joe's example disproving the sufficiency of scripture, I actually think it proves why careful interpretation matters in the first place. Because what do we naturally do whenever we encounter a difficult passage like that? Well, we're what we should do at least is that we go back to the text. We examine the wording. We examine the context. We examine how the apostles themselves spoke elsewhere. We examine the broader teaching of scripture. Right? This is what Christians, thoughtful Christians, thoughtful biblical scholars are taught to do. Now, whether or not you teach the leoty to do that is a totally different question. To be honest, we should because there's no difference between the leoty and the scholar. But that's neither here nor there, right? If anything, my friends, we do not abandon scripture as the rule of faith simply because a passage requires careful thought, careful examination, right?

[00:18:40]Careful exesus. If anything, difficult passages are the very reason careful hermeneutics matter in the first place.

[00:18:49]Now because I know these logical examples only can do so much in these type of you know discussions I actually want to anchor everything that I'm saying in scripture itself. Although we're already kind of using scripture but I want to anchor it even more scripture because you can never have too much scripture. But before I do that, I first want to bring you back to the solution that Joe gave in that first clip because uh I remember this was Joe's recommendation for what ordinary Christians should do whenever they come across a difficult passage like Mark 16 or another difficult passage um where it may pose a problem for I guess you would say doctrinal disagreement.

[00:19:32]>> Jesus in Mark 16:16 teaches that he who believes and is baptized will be saved.

[00:19:36]Should John take that as an instruction on the salvific necessity of baptism? Or is Wes right that that verse was ever really meant to be scripture in the first place? I don't think it's helpful or realistic to go tell John, "Well, you should go learn hermeneutics and learn biblical Greek and maybe you can figure out which side is right." Now, I don't know about you, but I think that was a completely wild statement to make by Joe. Like, I don't think many people understand this, understand what he just said. Like, honestly, I just need you to think about what Joe just said there.

[00:20:05]Like Joe basically said that if poor John is confused about whether or not he should baptize his baby, what he should not do is try to go back to scripture and carefully work through the issue using sound hermeneutics and context and grammar and interpretation, right? No.

[00:20:23]According to Joe, what John should do instead is just trust the church. Don't use your brain. Don't examine these issues in light of sacred scripture, in light of what Jesus and the apostles actually is recorded uh in teaching, right? Don't do that, right? But just trust the church. Now, which church exactly? Well, of course, you know, Joe says that he should trust the Catholic church because Joe, of course, is Catholic. But what Joe hasn't told poor John, at least not yet, is that he's still going to have to do a bunch of research. you know, the very thing that he said was impractical to do in the first place. Yeah. He's going to have to do a bunch of research in order to figure out which church is supposedly the one true church because apparently, I don't know if you know this, but there's actually quite a few of them claiming, you know, that they are the one true church. You, you know, you have the Eastern Orthodoxy, you have the Oriental Orthodox, you probably have a bunch of different Orthodox, then you have the Catholic Church. I mean, there's a lot of them. And so, which church is the one church? Don't you have to use your reasoning to do that? I heard one Catholic apologist, a few actually um do this one. I I think I recently uh recorded a video not too long ago with this guy uh named Christian Wagner from Scholastic uh Answers where he was like, "Oh, yeah.

[00:21:45]You got to examine scripture in order to uh figure out which church is the one true church." But once you find out which church is the one true church, then you stop. Then you surrender your intellect, right? and just allow them to have their way with it. And I'm like, what? That is the dumbest thing. I'm sorry to say this, but frankly, that is the dumbest thing I've ever heard um in my entire life. Because apparently examining scriptures daily like the Bereans can help you to find the one true church. But once you find the one true church, apparently uh doing that same method of examining the scriptures is not good for determining whether or not that one true church is actually teaching what it should be teaching. You know, holding it accountable, doing the things that I don't know, maybe the apostles taught. Yeah. Apparently, that's when Yeah, that little method is just faulty. It's it's stupid, right?

[00:22:41]How can you even dare to do it? Yeah, you got to be a scholar to, you know, find out who the one true church is, but once you find out who the one true church is, then I guess you're dumber than a box of rocks. But look, I digress because neither here nor there. I just think it's completely wild that Joe and a bunch of Catholic and Orthodox apologists keep saying stuff like this.

[00:23:03]Like apparently trying to rightly understand the very inspired word of God is somehow someway in Christianity that is the wrong solution. And and by the way, I know that Joe later appeals to Tertullian where Tertullian, you know, apparently tells Christians not to merely debate heretics by throwing scripture verses back and forth and back and forth at each other because then it just becomes, you know, uh, you know, the game of your interpretation versus my interpretation, uh, versus their interpretation.

[00:23:35]And now honestly I think Tertullian's concern there is actually very interesting because I want you to notice what that statement in and of itself assumes right it assumes that Christians at the time were already rebutting heretics with scripture.

[00:23:55]In other words, Christians, the early church were the method that they were using to rebut heretics was that they were contrasting their scripture references against um you know the the proper interpretation of scripture. Now, does that sound familiar? Right? Is that not what literally Protestants do? Or at least what Protestants are encouraging people to do is to okay, how do you address somebody's faulty interpretation of scripture is to an appeal to an infallible magisterium? No, it's actually to take them back to scripture, right? Is to do the very thing that Tullan says, "Yeah, we probably shouldn't do, right?" Um, now we probably wouldn't listen to Tertullian because we understand that he's not infallible, which by the way, the Catholic Church doesn't even uh which the Catholic Church also believes and so much so that they don't even call him Saint Tuttle. They just call him Tatulian. Look into that, my friends.

[00:24:59]It's for a reason. And so, it's very interesting that Joe is appealing to Tertullian here as something like, oh yeah, he's like right about this, but he's not a saint. So, don't trust him on a lot of other stuff.

[00:25:11]That's neither here nor neither here nor there. I'm just pointing that out to you just for the record. And so, ironically, Joe appeals to Tertullian as though the early church was not using scripture to correct misinterp misinterpretations of scripture when in reality, Tertullian statement only makes sense precisely because they were. And Tertullian was saying, "Yeah, maybe that's not the best approach." Now whether or not you agree with Tatulian's conclusion there is an entirely different discussion entirely and honestly I think there are some major problems with his reasoning there but we'll touch on that a bit later but right now my point is simply this Joe's own appeal especially to Tertullian actually shows us that Christians in the early church were already arguing from the scriptures against false interpret retation of the scriptures, which again sounds awfully awful a lot like what Protestants continue to do today. And so if anything, we are so connected with the early church on this point. Now, you know, for some of my Catholic and Orthodox viewers who are probably watching this video, uh, who are probably visiting the channel for the very first time, first of all, hi. How you doing? Hope you stay around.

[00:26:35]subscribe if you uh want to see more videos like this where it kind of challenges your faith. Um but you know I understand that many of you may have g grew up hearing this kind of reasoning from people like Joe and Tren Horn and you know Krishna Wagner all the time and therefore it sounds completely normal to you. But my friends, allow me to point you to scripture itself to show you just how not normal this is biblically because this is really not normal. This is if if anything, it's really cultlike.

[00:27:08]I try not to throw that uh term around, but it really is. It's kind of cultlike, you know. Um but maybe that's a video for another day. A and honestly there are a lot of places that we can go to kind of demonstrate this point but I specifically want to point you to a few moments involving Jesus himself because I think Jesus very clearly models for us what we are actually supposed to do whenever interpretive conflict arises all over uh scripture and and the first example I want to show you is where Jesus settles the resurrection debate with the Sadducees in Mark 12. Now, I think this is a fantastic example because here you had two competing interpretations, right? I don't know if a lot of people know this, right? The Pharisees affirmed the resurrection while the Sadducees denied it. And just in case if anybody attempted to minimize how important this doctrinal dispute actually was, allow me to remind you or just to inform you if you're very new to this that this was a heavily debated topic in and around the time of Jesus and even afterward in the apostolic age. Like I know it's like so common sensical to us now like centuries removed and so everybody's just like I mean yeah in order to be a Christian you got to believe in the resurrection. But I'll have you know that at the time this was a very hotly debated tap topic. In fact, this is part of the reason why the Apostle Paul wrote, you know, letters uh to the Thessalonians. In fact, that's why he wrote both letters, you know, because he wrote the first one to kind of clarify, yeah, that it it exists. And then the second one is because people still was debating if whether or not, you know, I I if people could be saved, you know, before the resurrection and things of that nature. Um and especially this was the topic of discussion in the Corinthian church, hence why Paul wrote 1 Corinthians 15. Um you know, which kind of addressed this, right? And and all of this prompted Paul to stress the importance of this doctrine by saying that if the resurrection is not true. If Christ did not raise from the dead or rise from the dead, then our faith is completely useless and we are still in our sins. Like that's how important this all is, right? And so this was not some minor disagreement that Jesus was settling here, right? This wasn't like, okay, do you, you know, wash your hands or something like that. Like, no, this was super serious. And yet, when the Sadducees came to Jesus with their misinterpretation of the resurrection while trying to trap him with a little scenario that they concocted, I want you to notice what Jesus does not do. Notice how Jesus does not appeal to some infallible interpretive uh institution outside of scripture. A and I want you to notice this too because this is also important. Notice how Jesus does also does not merely fall back on the Pharisees interpretation of the issue either. My friends, that's super significant because what many Catholic and Orthodox, although I typically see this with more Catholic apologetics, if anything, what many of them will try to do is they'll try to insinuate that the Pharisees function as some kind of infallible interpretive authority because they sat in Moses's seat. And it's like, no, where are you getting that from? Right? And so, never mind that there's absolutely no basis for that type of claim. But even if we granted it for the sake of argument, I want you to notice how Jesus still does not resolve that dispute by simply appealing to their quote unquote infallible interpretive authority.

[00:30:59]Instead, Jesus says something that honestly I think applies directly to Joe's argument here. He tells them simply, "You are wrong because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God." O that's kind of like an ouch statement that but I I think that's an important statement because you know according to Jesus the issue was not that scripture was insufficient or unclear. The issue was that they did not properly understand the scriptures. And you know what's even more fascinating? I think what's even more fascinating is just how Jesus corrects them. Again, notice how he appeals directly back to the text itself, right? specifically to what God said in Exodus where he says, "I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." Right? Again, think about what Jesus is doing there. Jesus is literally resolving a major theological dispute by carefully interpreting the wording and grammar of scripture itself. Right? It's not like what Jesus did there was like it required so much like, you know, studying. It required a Harvard degree.

[00:32:09]It didn't require any of that, right?

[00:32:11]All Jesus' point was is essentially this. If you would have paid close attention to the tense of a verb and notice that God did not say, "I was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob," which is what you would say if someone passed away for good, but rather that I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, which insinuates that they're still alive, that they're still, you know, you know, you know, operating somewhere in the spiritual realm.

[00:32:44]then you would have understood that the resurrection is actually true. And so what do we have here? We see that coming to a correct interpretation requires two things. It requires sound hermeneutics and the illuminating work of the Holy Spirit, which is something that of course the Sadducees can clearly lack.

[00:33:04]And honestly, we see the same exact pattern again and again whenever Jesus is tempted in the wilderness by Satan himself, right? We all know this passage in Matthew chapter 4, right? Satan literally quotes scripture to Jesus. And how does Jesus respond every single time? Let you know, answer that for me.

[00:33:21]Uh, real quick, try to pause the video and see if we could do a little Bible trivia. How does Jesus respond in those scenarios? Uh, well, he responds by saying, "It is written." My friends, that's important, right? Jesus is correcting Satan's misinterpretation of scripture with scripture properly understood. And honestly, I think this is incredibly ironic because this is supposedly the very thing that Catholics and Orthodox and apparently Tertullian tells us that ordinary Christians should not or cannot meaningfully do. Right?

[00:34:01]according to their framework. If one person says John 14:6 where Jesus says that I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the father but by by me. Yeah. If someone used that verse and still teaches that, you know, other religions can come to God, right? Whereas us, you know, Orthodox Christians, Orthodox with the little O, not the big O. us Orthodox Christians would say that no, it's teaching the exclusivity of being able to come to to the father, right, to being able to be saved. Then apparently, right, if both people offer differing interpretations, they somehow cancel each other out. But my friends, that doesn't even make sense, right?

[00:34:45]That does not logically follow. If one person says 2 plus 2 = 4 and another another person says 2+ 2 = 5, those answers do not magically cancel each other out, right? This is where Tuttleian's logic starts to fall apart.

[00:35:00]At most, all that tells us is that one person is right and the other person is wrong. Or potentially, let's say both people are wrong and they need to go back to the rule itself to figure out where the error happened in both of their logic. But neither disagreement undermines the sufficiency of that math textbook to do its job. And my friends, that is the point. Just like that doesn't disqualify the sufficiency of the math textbook. Likewise, neither Satan nor the Sadducees undermine the sufficiency of scripture. And so, as we can see, far from Joe and so many other Catholic and Orthodox apologists disproving or casting doubt or Spurgeon on the sufficiency of scripture, all this argument really shows is the extent to which to which they are willing to undermine scriptures authority in order to prop up their tradition in magisterium. And it kind of reminds me of what Jesus said to the Pharisees in Mark 7. What did he say? Right? You nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition.

[00:36:13]Oh, but you know, we're not like the Pharisees. Yeah, I don't want to hear that. Because when you think about it, why do you need to attack the sufficiency of scripture in this way just to establish the importance of the church? Like those two things are not mutually exclusive, right? scripture. I don't know if many people know this, but you do know that scripture can be fully sufficient and Jesus and the apostles could have established an infallible authorative uh church structure if they truly establish that. Like those two things can be true at the same time.

[00:36:48]Y'all do know this, right? Like I'm like, "Oh, they think that if scripture is sufficient, then you know, I guess it's not true that, you know, an infallible interpreter is needed." It's like, no, you could technically have both.

[00:37:05]I don't know if you know that. Now, maybe that will run into some problems eventually down the line, but you could technically have both, right? And so, the problem is that this comes into conflict, right? This is where why they truly fight back on this. The problem is that this comes into conflict with Rome's theology and orthodox theology because Roman orthodoxy teaches that Christians are required to believe doctrines that are not actually found in scripture. That my friends is the real issue. And look, if you want to say that icon veneration or marry and dogmas or the papacy or whatever else postbiblical doctrine you want to concoct in this conversation, you know, if you want to say that all of those ought to be binding upon Christians, then our directive directive is honestly very simple. Show us show us where the apostles taught these things. If you cannot substantiate those doctrines, right, the necessity of believing in those doctrines from apostolic teaching, then my friends, the burden is not on us for failing to believe them. The burden is on you to demonstrate that they actually came from Christ and his apostles in the first place, right? Like I hope I if I could just press upon and just the the ears upon every Protestant in this room, do not allow these people to think that you are somehow the bad guy because you're like, "Yeah, I I just want to see where Jesus or the apostles taught this." Not where bishops later remove from, you know, Jesus and the apostles taught this. I'm talking about where do Jesus and the apostles actually say these things. If they can't show you that, look, release your conscience.

[00:38:58]You're okay. The burden's on them. If they have a bunch of people flocking and saying, "Oh, well, this person said this and this person said that." Look, let that be on them. That ain't got nothing to do with you. Um, but my friends, one thing that we absolutely cannot do is fall for these sloppy arguments attempting to undermine the sufficiency of the God breathed scriptures because that is a battle that we must fight and that they will lose every single time, 10 times out of 10. Okay, but anyways guys, I digress. Got really heated at the end. Look, let me know what your thoughts about this argument down in the comment sections below. And again, if you like this type of content, please be sure to like, share, subscribe, do all that good stuff as really does help the channel out a lot. But until next time, guys, peace.