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Does the Bible Teach Social Justice? Catholics, the Apocrypha & Biblical Truth · Relish: a Christian podcast

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  Relish pleasing or zestful flavor a quantity just sufficient to flavor to be
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  pleased or gratified by enjoy we are hoping that what we bring to your table
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  today might add some spice to your life,
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  welcome back to another episode of relish i am your host roe miller we got pastor
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  don patterson as always and over here to my left we have our special guest,
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  grant bender who is a student at Liberty doing a lot of theological studies and yeah, kind of just,
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  researching the faith and the Christianity. Yep.
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  Yeah. And we'd look up to Grant. Yeah.
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  I had to raise the camera back there, but I had to raise the camera up and make
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  some adjustments to the stage and I got on my other side.
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  So let's start out with a question for you guys. Do you think the Bible teaches about social justice?
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  Hmm. Ooh.
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  What is social justice? Yeah. Social justice. Do you think the Bible teaches on social justice?
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  I mean, what do you mean? Yeah. What do you mean by social justice?
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  I don't know. Just ask a question. Yeah. Well.
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  Okay. If we were influential in the world as Christians, would it change the world socially?
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  That's a great question. What do you think, Rowan?
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  I think it would.
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  I don't know, I think of in Matthew 5 and the Sermon on the Mount and 6 and
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  7 and Jesus saying, like, I feel like that addresses a lot of social issues.
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  And when we, if we get hit in the face, I think our earthly concept of justice
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  is to just slap them back. Like, they deserve that.
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  So I think it's definitely like a radical social justice that's being taught,
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  but something beyond our earthly understanding.
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  Yeah, I think if you look historically at Christianity, it has influenced the world.
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  And in many ways, the concept of all humans created with value,
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  like equal value in the eyes of God, is like reformed so much of society.
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  Like, for example, yesterday I just learned about how even prisons function.
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  Someone was talking to me and they said that in the olden times,
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  like you were just thrown into a prison and your family had to come and bring
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  you food. And if they didn't, you'd be dead.
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  And Christians reformed that as well upon many other things.
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  So just the value on a human being's life, regardless of age, sex, or ability. Yeah.
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  That's true. Orphanages. Yeah.
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  Places for those who are disabled. Yeah. Slavery. Slavery.
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  Cool. Yeah. Yeah.
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  How do we do that today?
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  Or have we taken it so for granted today that we don't even recognize how much,
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  influence Christianity has had on our social system?
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  Good way to start out, right? Yes. Did we get things warmed up or on? I believe so.
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  I think we're going to bring some questions about Catholicism today because
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  I know Grant has a lot of, he's been learning a lot about that,
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  a lot about, because that was kind of what the church was in the earlier days.
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  It was combined with the state that was before the Reformation.
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  That's right. Kind of just the start. It was an effort there between church
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  and state. before the Reformation. Yeah.
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  So I guess I'll just start it off here. Why do Catholics pray to saints?
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  Do these saints have the same powers as God? Well, and part of that was,
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  enabling them to better feel like they could communicate to somebody.
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  I think that intermediary relationship between, okay, I don't think I quite
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  have the clout to talk straight to God, but St. Thomas, I could.
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  And, you know, whichever saint you want to do at the time.
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  And what's interesting is Catholicism over time then developed a saint network,
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  if you will, so that if you were in a certain situation, you would pray to a certain saint.
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  So it was sort of teaching the history of the church while...
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  Talking about these individuals who were saints. And so you pray to that saint
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  if you're in this time of trouble or if you're a wanderer, you pray to this other saint.
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  So there was some teaching in it, but it wasn't biblical.
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  It wasn't biblical. And there is no need for an intermediary between us and Jesus.
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  We can pray directly. We don't need the intermediary.
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  Um, so some of it's a little misleading and some of it was meant to teach.
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  Uh, what do you think, Grant? Have you, you're the freshest among us in theology.
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  Yeah. I mean, they think saints are super holy in their eyes.
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  And so if, if someone really holy and close to God right now can pray for them,
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  they think it will be more effective.
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  And they justify it with thoughts like, oh, you ask a friend here on earth to
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  pray for you. How much better would it be to get prayers from someone who's
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  already in God's presence?
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  And I think they use the, one of the justification passages I've heard of is
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  in Revelation where it talks about the prayers of the saints offered up as a
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  fragrance before the Lord.
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  And specifically ones that had been martyred. Yep.
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  In martyrs passage. And I don't think there's much of a connection there to
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  make a doctrine on it, a whole doctrine on that verse.
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  But, you know, when I think about what the Bible says, I don't know.
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  I think it's in Hebrews or maybe Romans where it's like Christ intercedes for us.
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  Like with interceding. Holy Spirit does.
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  Yeah. Romans 8.23. Yeah. And then also Christ, the end of Hebrews 4 talks about,
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  who has passed through the heavens.
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  And gone before us so that we can approach the throne of grace in our time of
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  need. It doesn't say so that this saint can approach the throne of grace for
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  us, you know? Right. It's a direct link, so, yeah.
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  But it makes that illusion that somebody could take it that way. Exactly, yeah. Yeah.
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  So, yeah, I'm just glad I don't have to think about which saint to pray to.
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  I can just say, you know, Lord Jesus, I need this help really bad right now. Yes.
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  And I'm glad for that Romans 8, 28. Yeah. It intercedes with words and groans that we can't imagine.
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  And I would rather have that than a saint praying for me, you know,
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  personally. But I can do enough groaning on my own, though. So I don't have
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  to have help. Let's get it straight.
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  In the same way, shoot, 26. I was two verses off, guys. We need to make note of that.
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  In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we
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  ought to pray for, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans that
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  words cannot express. That's sort of like some of my prayers.
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  And He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit because the Spirit
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  intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will.
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  And so, yeah, 26. Yeah.
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  Get that all changed in our minds that it was 26, 27, 28.
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  28 goes, and we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who
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  love him, who have been called according to his purpose. That's 28.
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  That's why that one keeps coming in my little pea-picking head.
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  Good question, though. That was a great question. Yeah, very good. It causes us to pause.
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  Why do we do it? Yeah. Good. So I also know that within the Catholic Church,
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  they have their tradition, they have the scripture, and then they have the authority of the Pope.
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  So do Catholics hold all of those equally, or is there a tier ranking that they value over the other?
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  Well, I think the Pope is probably over all the other, because he's going to,
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  sort of talk Talk about how it's interpreted.
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  And he's also going to, yeah.
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  Talk about the saints. I mean, tradition in the Catholic Church drives a great deal.
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  And so he's going to talk into that tradition. And, you know,
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  in the last 70 years, I haven't seen, I've only seen 69 of them.
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  I remember Vatican II made a lot of difference in the Catholic Church.
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  And the Catholics that I was friends with really were not encouraged at all
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  to embrace Scripture before Vatican II.
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  And at Vatican II, then, they could actually read their own Bible,
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  and it was a pretty major thing among Catholics.
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  And it really has developed a lot of momentum.
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  In fact, in the last six years, there's been a lot of momentum in the Catholic
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  Church to embrace Scripture.
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  And that's pretty positive. There actually are apps for phones that have been
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  developed out of the Catholic Church and the Catholic background that are very good study apps,
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  and discipleship apps, because that's what they're working on.
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  And wow, who would have thought that?
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  I mean, when I think of the Catholic Church, so often I think of the church
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  we had in town in Hanses, and it was sort of moderate.
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  Catholicism, and it was, I mean, you couldn't really tell them from anybody else.
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  But they were regular on Sunday morning, and they combined in the afternoon.
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  It was sort of, you couldn't tell.
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  But we knew all the Catholics in our community, and I dated a Catholic girl
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  once and was told maybe I shouldn't. And I didn't watch him.
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  He was pretty. Yes, I think.
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  But the church,
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  today is so much different than them. And I'm just encouraged by the way the
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  Catholics are working at discipleship.
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  That's encouraging. And I don't mind using their apps and doing some of those
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  things, because as long as they're getting us closer to Christ and to who we're
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  to be in Christ as a new creation,
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  I can say part of that's good. Yeah.
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  Yeah i mean i think i think catholics would say like scripture is overall but
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  i think practically when you look at how they like like don says how they interpret
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  it it's decided by the pope and and um.
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  The the pope uses this thing called i think it's the the seat of peter or the
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  chair of peter and they basically can declare something as
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  authoritative like this is the authoritative interpretation from the throne
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  of peter and that stems from matthew when jesus says like on this rock i'll build my church um,
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  and so the interesting thing is like there's sometimes you get these,
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  these um declarations from the pope that seem to contradict somewhat the earlier
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  pope's declarations like um i'm thinking specifically of how in 1400s the church declared that.
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  You can only be saved through the Roman Catholic Church.
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  And then, more recently, there was another council and they're like,
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  well, somehow, there's some other ways around that, somewhat.
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  And there was this other declaration, I don't know what it's called, but, yeah, the thing is,
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  What the Pope declares sometimes seems to conflict with things that other Popes have already declared.
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  So I don't know. That's what they get is tradition.
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  But the traditions that they believe in are the things that the Pope has declared
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  as authoritative. Yeah.
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  Right? Yeah. And I'm getting more exposure these days to the conversation because
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  we have a new father in Washington.
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  And he's joining us and our pastors. Yes. Hi, Dave.
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  And he's helping us understand better where the Catholic Church is on certain things.
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  So as we have the conversation, then he'll speak into it. Yeah.
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  Dust doesn't sit there. Yeah.
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  And he told me once, he looked me straight in the face and said,
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  now, we disagree on a few things.
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  But then the thing that he was agreeing on, he wanted to make known to. Yeah. Wow. So.
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  Mm-hmm. Can you imagine anybody looking at me straight in the face and saying,
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  Don, I disagree with you on many things, but I agree with you on this. Oh, man.
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  This is my world. God bless you.
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  Oh, that's the world right there. It's cool. Good question. Mm-hmm.
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  Why do Catholics have more books in their Bible than us? Oh.
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  That is such a good question. You want to start on that one first? Yeah, for sure.
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  Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is... I will. This is my understanding.
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  I did a deep dive on this a few months ago.
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  So the Catholics used the Greek version of the Old Testament to determine what
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  books are in their Bible because I think it's called the Septuagint.
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  Well, Septuagint was the original translation. A translation from Hebrew into Greek.
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  And the thing about the Septuagint was that it was not a definitive collection
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  of these books are authoritative.
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  It was just a collection of sacred Hebrew writings. And so that's why the Catholics
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  use the extra books, because they believe that the Septuagint had more books
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  that were considered authoritative.
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  Why Protestants use the Hebrew books is because around the first or second century.
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  After Christ died or whatever, C.A.D.,
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  the Jews went through all of those books and decided which ones were authoritative,
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  which ones were actually Jewish canon.
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  And so then us as Protestants look back to what those Jews who knew the writings
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  decided and say, okay, if the Jews around the time of Jesus basically decided
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  on these books being authoritative,
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  we're going to use the ones that the Jews decided on.
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  And so the main reason is the Septuagint was just a collection of writings.
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  They weren't all considered the same level of scripture, but Catholics took
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  more of them to be used as scripture than the Jews did. Thank you.
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  Yeah, that's a good answer. Okay. Yeah, it's really interesting to read those
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  books. Yeah. I mean, if you ever have a chance, get a hold of an apocrypha and read those books.
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  They don't go against a lot of what we know, but they sure add another dimension
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  to it that we don't. Yeah.
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  Yeah. I was reading the book of Enoch.
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  I don't know why I only read that when I'm flying. But anyway,
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  I was on an airplane reading the book of Enoch.
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  Ooh, this is really out of this world.
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  Literally. And I was up on the air on that whole issue. But yeah,
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  it's very fascinating because it adds a whole layer that we don't even think
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  about. But what's interesting is how much of it's alluded to.
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  Okay. Like in Acts chapter 6 or Genesis chapter 6.
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  Yes, yes. Those things. It's just, but to make it,
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  the whole Bible, I mean, the other thing would be right now,
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  what is, who is advertising this Bible that's bigger than ours?
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  It's not Egypt. It's the, it starts with an E.
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  Yeah. Ethiopian Bible. Oh, Ethiopian Bible, which also includes those books that are, you know.
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  Beyond, in between. They're sort of intertestamental books. Yes.
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  Because they would all appear in that 400 years between Malachi and Jesus, the Xosopheles.
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  And so almost all of them follow into that era in their writing.
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  Doesn't mean it doesn't come from earlier than that, but when they're actually
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  put into print, it's that period.
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  And so they're sort of political in their nature, and like the Maccabees,
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  Yeah, it might be a little.
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  And, yeah, I don't know.
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  I guess when I read them, I'm not sure what pupil of the Bible is helped by them. Mm-hmm.
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  I mean, to understand God, to understand Jesus. I'm not sure it's helpful in
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  that. It's really interesting information.
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  And Maccabees fills in some gaps in our history, but does it help us as students?
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  And there's one other thing that I was remembering as you were talking.
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  The books themselves, those extra books that the Catholics have,
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  were not included in the original canon. They were like, put,
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  the original canon was decided in like 290 something, I think at the Council of Carthage.
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  And those books, those books, those extra books that the Catholics have were
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  always kind of up for debate whether they were authoritative or not.
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  They were not universally agreed upon by the early church, even by some of the
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  Catholic, like main Catholic priests throughout Catholic history.
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  And they were only ever considered complete scripture by the Catholics.
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  After the Reformation began, because a lot of those reformers were like,
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  well, if they're up for debate, you know, if they're not unanimously agreed
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  upon, we're going to return to what we know. We're not going to include them in our Bible.
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  In fact, in many Catholic Bibles, they were included in a second,
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  like separate section at the end.
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  And so then in response to this Protestant Reformation, you know,
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  the Catholics were like, okay, some people, they're among Catholics considered
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  pretty important, but not at the same level of scripture.
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  We're going to implement them as canon as well. So that's why they're called
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  the Deutero-canon, Deutero-canonical books, because it's the second canon. Second canon, yeah.
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  And when we talk about it today,
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  Yeah, I've read into that, but I'm more worried about becoming proficient in
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  the Bible itself. I'm talking about, I like to, proficiency in the Apocrypha,
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  I'm not sure I'm working on that.
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  But I am working on proficiency in New Testaments primarily,
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  and in Old Testament secondarily.
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  I think this needs to become a tool in our hands as Christians that we can always
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  be able to give an answer. like it says in 1 Peter 3.15.
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  Always be prepared to give an answer for the hope that we have in Christ.
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  So, good question. But I'm not going into the canon very far.
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  Or into the apocrypha that far. It's fun when I'm on an airplane.
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  All right. I think I'm up in the air about anything else. Yeah. Get there.
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  I think that about does it. Thank you both for all your answers.
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  I think we got those questions.
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  Those are real wild questions. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, those were fun.
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  Thank you guys for joining us. For the help on that one, too.
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  Hope you guys enjoyed. Maybe learned a little bit more about Catholicism.
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  But yeah, share it with somebody if you enjoyed it. And we'll see you next time. Lord willing.
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  Thank you for joining us for this podcast. Feel free to become part of this
• 20:39
  ministry by sharing it with others.
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  Our goal is to help each other grow deeper in our understanding of who God is
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  and his calling to us in our daily lives.
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  Thank you again for joining us and may God bless your day.