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Can You Trust the Bible? Communion, Manuscripts & Christianity Explained · 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'm here again with grant and don,
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  getting some more questions answered and helping you i guess better understand
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  catholicism and where we find our beliefs from, where they find their beliefs from.
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  But, yeah. And I'll start with this question.
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  It's very much like the last time, last question we answered together.
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  Okay. And I got out of this.
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  How do you think society would be different if everyone was Christian?
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  Do you think it'd be different? I think it'd be, it depends if you still have
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  your, like, kind of, I guess, spectrum of Christians, if you will.
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  I mean, you have your very devout, practicing, super religious,
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  attend a bunch of Bible studies.
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  Amish. And then, yeah, Amish, very, yeah, very set apart.
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  And then if you would still have, I don't know, those,
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  people that would call themselves Christians, but don't necessarily practice
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  or aren't actually engaging in that and then in the church and with the scripture.
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  I think it would, I don't know, I would like to think society would be better
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  off, but I think it'd be hard to judge.
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  Yeah i mean i think if everyone was truly christian you'd probably implement
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  another theocracy i wonder yeah,
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  yeah we'd be very close to that wouldn't we yeah so then what it would look
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  like if we were under theocracy or thought that's the thing it thought we were a theocracy,
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  i mean even when we were a theocracy then we really you know but now we got
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  the spirit in us So that's a whole different type of leadership.
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  That's true. That's true.
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  It could function if everyone's truly Christian. I don't know.
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  Can you imagine the speaking in tongues on Congress floor?
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  The floor of Congress? That's good. Yeah.
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  It could be interesting. That was a spicy little moment there.
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  It only gets better, too.
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  When Rowan looks out of the corner of his eye, you can tell he's got something. I don't know.
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  So we were kind of started talking about this already, but only a couple of
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  minutes ago. So I haven't had too much time to think. Okay. But this is a fresh question.
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  Yeah. So then if I understand right, the Catholics believe that during communion,
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  when you eat the bread, that's actually Christ, like the bread becomes Christ's actual body.
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  When you drink the wine, it becomes, it's actually Christ's blood.
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  So like, I guess just understanding that and where that comes from and why we aren't the same way.
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  Yeah. Yeah, well, and I think there's even two schools in that.
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  One would say that when it's in that,
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  box, that presence, that on the altar there's a place of the presence,
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  and the communion elements are in there, they actually become the blood and,
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  flesh of Christ in that spot.
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  The other school of thought is as it touches your tongue, because it's been
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  dipped in a wafer, the wafer's been dipped in the cup, and when it touches your
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  tongue, it actually becomes the flesh.
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  So there seems to be two schools of thought, even in the transubstantiation groups.
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  And I'm getting more to the point where maybe we aren't holding the host holy enough.
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  I mean, I've seen people use saltine crackers. Yeah. Was Christ salty?
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  I mean, are we being too flippant about the elements of the communion?
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  And, uh, was, uh, in a situation not long ago, which I was really privileged.
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  I felt privileged to be asked to pray for the communion elements,
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  before, because, uh, lay people were going to be giving the communion elements
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  and they asked if I'd come down and pray for the elements. And I thought, that's cool.
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  Yes, I can do that. Absolutely. I can do that. And, uh,
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  I got I'm getting in the spot where maybe not transubstantiation,
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  but maybe we need to honor that which we're remembering Christ with in a higher.
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  Yeah. With higher.
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  Regard. Regard. Well, senior moment. Yeah.
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  Well, I think that part of that might come with.
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  I mean, this is a whole nother topic, but how often, how frequently you do it.
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  Yeah. Like if you're doing communion every week, then maybe it's not as meaningful to you.
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  So it just becomes a routine or a habit or something like that,
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  rather than an actual moment with Jesus himself.
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  Yeah. And as a clergy, to make even once a month special, that takes effort,
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  to make it happen in such a way that people remember that, yes,
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  it's communion. We're doing it together.
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  We're honoring the body of Christ together.
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  It's a challenge. COVID was a challenge. Oh, mercy sakes. Anybody get those
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  little cups with a little micro wafer on the top?
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  And yes, and they were hard to open. Oh, my goodness gracious.
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  And I thought, this is Jesus.
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  So it was very difficult. But I'm being challenged in the thought that, okay, so.
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  So when we're talking about the body and blood of Christ,
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  transubstantiation might be going one way too far for me to be comfortable,
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  and cardboard crackers are the other way to be comfortable.
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  I could be off base. It's possible. I've been there once.
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  No, I think that's actually a big debate. I think that's why some of the Reformers
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  couldn't combine into one group.
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  I think Luther and Zwingli did separate over if communion was a presence literally
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  or a symbol because they both rejected the Eucharist.
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  Could be wrong with the names, but yeah. Yeah. No, I think you're right on those.
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  Well, first of all, I think when I think of it, there's a cool woman who died
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  in the Reformation period who, you know, they didn't have the Bible in her language.
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  She studied the other language and read through it.
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  And the reason she died was she rejected transubstantiation and the church there killed her.
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  I think it was the Anglican. I don't even think it was the Catholic church at
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  this point. The Anglican was still doing the Eucharist.
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  And she said, I've read the Bible and I've only ever heard of God creating man,
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  but never man creating God. Because like Don said, um, they believe it becomes
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  the body and the blood when the priest blesses it.
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  And then it's like, there is Christ's body or blood. And some people believe
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  it when it, when it eats, touches your tongue.
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  But yeah, I mean, Catholics really believe in it because of this passage in
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  John six, it says for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.
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  And he says, whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life.
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  So the first thing to note, I think, is that this would be extremely offensive
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  to Jewish people because to have the blood in you of any living thing was like this terrible sin.
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  It's in Leviticus 17, if anyone wants to look into it.
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  So they're all like, what is this guy saying? Like, this dude must be like blaspheming
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  or speaking heresy, right?
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  But second of all, this is why I think we don't believe in transubstantiation
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  in the way the Catholics do.
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  Earlier in the chapter, in the beginning of chapter 6, Jesus feeds the 5,000 with bread.
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  And Jesus goes around this lake. I can't remember where they were. Around the sea.
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  Over the sea. He goes over the sea. And the crowd follows him around the next
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  day and appears to him. And Jesus says, um, well, they say to him in, sorry, sorry, sorry.
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  Jesus says like, you're just following me. Cause you want, you had your fill
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  of food and you want more.
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  And he's like, I am the true food. Like you're looking for another fill.
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  Cause you've had your, your fill with the 5,000. Like I fed you with bread there.
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  You're coming cause you want more miracles and to see more bread,
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  but you don't understand.
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  Like I am the true bread. Like your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness
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  and you know, you got your food there, but I am the true bread.
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  Like my flesh is the thing that you need to have real life, not some temporary
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  thing that will fill you up once, you know?
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  And so that's why I don't think it's transubstantiation is literal.
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  Like, because Jesus is literally talking about it here with direct context of
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  feeding the 5,000 with bread, you know?
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  And that's reiterated in this passage in verse 15, 6, 15, Jesus,
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  knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force,
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  withdrew again to a mountain by himself.
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  Yes. In other words, that miraculous sign of feeding them is exactly what then
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  you write. It follows right up in bread of life.
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  I tell you, it's because you're looking, you're looking for me just so you can get a handout. Yes.
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  Yes. And he's like, no, I'm the real thing. I'm the real thing. Exactly. Yep. Yeah.
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  Well said. Yeah.
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  It's the only time that we always think of Jesus, King of kings,
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  Lord and lords, what he's prophesied to be.
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  And then here they wanted to make him king by force.
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  And he's, oh, no, he's got this all wrong. I'm going on the mountain. Yeah.
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  And then goes to the other side to convert him. So he gets to the other side.
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  And it's hard for us to get the context of how important that was to Jesus to
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  be understood as who he really was.
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  He was Savior, but he wasn't going to save him like a king would save him.
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  He was going to save them like only he could.
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  They tried to implement him as king, and Jesus is like, is it better to be implemented
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  as a manly king or implemented by God as king?
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  You know, implemented by man or by God.
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  And that goes back all the way to the temptations. Yeah. Yeah.
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  Huh. Well, you got a lot of travel out of that one, didn't you? I did.
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  Can you imagine our conversations in the office?
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  All right. Grant said he also had maybe studied some of this,
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  but how do we know that the Bible is still the original Bible,
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  that it was God-breathed, inspired by God, and that it hasn't been changed from
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  when it was originally written.
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  Okay. Okay. I'll take it. Go for it. And Don will fill in the blanks that I missed.
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  But first of all, with the Old Testament, you know, I think the earliest manuscript
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  that we have of the Old Testament is like the, until a certain point was like
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  the year from after like 1080.
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  So we had these, these Bibles and the question was always, how do we know the
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  Old Testament matches up to the actual Old Testament that Hebrews used?
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  And in 1947, I think it was, this shepherd stumbled into a cave in the middle
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  east and he found the dead sea scrolls and they lined up pretty much almost
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  exactly with the hebrew manuscripts that we have from the year,
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  3080 so that's how we can know that,
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  like they haven't been altered because they lined up with things that the the
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  hebrew manuscripts from the dead sea scrolls were from like 200 years before
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  jesus so we can know that before jesus people believed these things and then
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  they it was fulfilled in Jesus.
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  And then for like those New Testament manuscripts, there's over 5,700 some manuscripts
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  slash pieces of manuscripts from like early times, like in the church history of the New Testament.
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  And one way we can validate this is.
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  The manuscripts, the earliest manuscripts that we have like in all over the
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  world line up and match up.
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  And that means they had to have come from a source. And that if they're all
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  the same with only the minimal errors or like,
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  scribing errors, like dates and numbers and names or whatever,
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  but all of the rest of the things are the same, that means they had to have
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  come from the same source because otherwise someone would have had to go and
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  change everything individually.
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  And that's statistically and physically impossible. Right. And what's interesting
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  is you take manuscripts from the same period, like the Odyssey by Homer,
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  and the number of variants in Homer's Odyssey exceeds what we have in the New
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  Testament and Bible altogether, even though it was hand-copied until,
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  what, 1425, when the printing press was finally made?
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  It was copied by hand. And so each individual who was copying it letter by letter
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  by letter was very, very careful.
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  And once in a while, a dot got missed, or maybe a crossing a letter got missed.
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  Sometimes a punctuation piece got missed.
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  But it's very, very few given the number of copies that were actually made.
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  It's amazing. It's as if God's hand were in the process of even replicating
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  the text from person to person to person, from book to book to book.
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  And I've got a book upstairs in my office that actually goes line by line as
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  to what the variants are.
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  And it's amazing how few, how very, very few would even change the meaning of the text.
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  It's as if God's hand was on that, on the Bible from the very first word put
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  down to the last word put down. It's amazing.
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  And you can look in, especially NIV is notorious about it.
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  And every once in a while, like this whole section in John, and it says,
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  oh, well, earliest manuscripts, you know, and it has a note about it.
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  And that sticks out to people who are looking for things. Well,
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  I can't believe that because it says, well, I doesn't did some of the earliest
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  manuscripts. So I can't believe that.
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  So the whole book is not worth it. Yeah. Now, wait a minute, guys.
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  How many other things would you treat that way? I'm not going to buy a Ford. Wow.
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  Not ever going to buy a Ford again because it didn't have a radio. Really?
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  My first Ford didn't have a radio. Ha.
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  I still bought Fords. Now he's buying all these Model Ts.
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  Yeah, it's my cranky nature. But we tend to, because we really don't want to
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  embrace it. I mean, our heart's not into it.
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  So we're going to critique it. We're going to find reasons not to.
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  And that's some type of faulty reasoning. I can't remember what it is.
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  Searching for bias, perspective bias. I don't know, something like that.
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  Yeah, there's a bias perspective on there.
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  And when I'm, yeah, I guess the more I study, the more I fall in love with it,
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  the more it speaks truth into my day, here and now.
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  And I just, I can't get enough of it.
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  Well, and like for even the amount of manuscripts that talk about Alexander
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  the Great, it's like from 8 to 12 and he's considered by history this great
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  figure that's like solidly proven.
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  And there's over 5,000 manuscripts or copies of manuscripts of the New Testament alone.
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  So that's like, okay, if we take that logic, this should be solid through and through.
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  And then second of all, even throughout the Old Testament, it's talked about
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  events that archaeology has then proved. So this is actually treated as a historical
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  book by many archaeologists.
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  Things that we thought happened from the Bible then are proved through archaeology.
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  Right. And that more and more all the time. Yes. More and more all the time.
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  My pastor used to say, and this dates me just a tad bit, he died in.
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  1978. He used to say,
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  As time goes on, archaeology will prove the Bible true, and he believed that
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  even the Ark of the Covenant would be found. Wow.
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  Some people claim they have. In the last days, he said that the Ark of the Covenant would be found.
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  So I'm hoping and praying, and when they find it, I'm going to know it's the last day.
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  Okay. Get ready, folks. Here it comes. Okay. That's a little too much.
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  I think that about okay that's all our questions sign off dear brother rowan,
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  uh you're headed off to college i am here so and uh so this is our last broadcast with you do you know,
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  rowan that you've put together about 145 episodes is that the number,
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  of relish episodes did you know that i did not know the number i thought you
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  had it on your phone how many episodes I have all of the questions,
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  but I don't have the numbers.
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  That's insane. That's quite a few.
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  Yeah. And so it's been a good run.
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  You've done a good job. You were mighty young when we started.
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  You were beginning your junior year, weren't you?
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  I think that was, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
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  And so I really appreciate it. I'm going to miss you terrible.
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  And maybe once in a while, we'll have to have a phone call or visit.
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  Yeah. and just really appreciate what you've done for Relish and what you've
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  done for our audience and what you've done for me.
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  I've appreciated it. And God bless you in your endeavors and in college and,
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  vocation and all those things you're going into.
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  And I want you to know you've done a good job. Thank you, Don.
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  I appreciate it all you've done for me also. I mean, this has helped me mature
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  so much and I mean, just helped me out of my faith walk.
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  And then being able to use it to bring others closer also so.
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  And you got to be in front of your own classmates doing it in those special
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  episodes we had at Hillcrest. Yeah.
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  God bless you, brother. I've appreciated this. Thank you. Done good.
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  Thank you guys so much for joining us. Thank you for staying tuned for all these,
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  145 episodes or whatever it was.
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  I've enjoyed doing it. Thank you, Grant, for coming on these last couple,
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  bringing your college knowledge to us.
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  It's all fresh. She's studying her right in the present. Yeah.
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  Thank you guys for joining us. 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
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  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 is calling to us in our daily lives.
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  Thank you again for joining us and may God bless your day.