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Episode 11: The Authority of the Church Part 6 · The Uncensored Catholic

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Hey, y'all. Continuing our series on the teaching and governing authority of the
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Catholic Church. We are still with Saint Paul. We finish up Corinthians yesterday.
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Let's get to Galatians one six through nine. I am astonished that you
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are so promptly turning away from the one who called you in the grace of
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Christ and are going over to a different gospel. Not that it is another
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gospel, except that there are troublemakers among you or seeking to pervert the Gospel
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of Christ. But even if we ourselves or an angel from heaven preaches as
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a gospel to you other than the one we have preached to you, let
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God curse. Let God's curse be on him. I repeat again what we
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declared before. Anyone who preaches a gospel to you other than the one you
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were first given is to be under God's curse. That's like I said,
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Saint Paul didn't and it's works. You know, when all the Protestant churches,
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which now number anywhere between ten and fifty thousand, depending on how you
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count them, I mean, obviously you're oh, as I give the example
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of the other day about you know, the Baptist Church. There's also gonna
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be a free Will Baptist Church. There's going to be a Southern Baptist Church.
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Different they're all Baptists, So if you count them that way, or
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you've got a Lutheran church or Reform Lutheran church, I count them all as
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being Baptist and Lutheran. So I come up with about ten thousand different Protestant
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denominations. Others that count separately, say fifty thousand. But it is important
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to know that even amongst say the Lutheran and Reform Lutheran, their doctrine is
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different, and yeah, there's only one truth, and all of them differ
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from that. At the Catholic Church, which was the only church for about
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fourteen hundred years, you know, seriously. So here it is Saint Paul
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in the very earliest of the early Christian Church that's saying there were people trying
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to preach a different gospel or a different doctrine theology, and he was cursing
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them Ephesians three five through six, and twenty one. This mystery, as
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it is now revealed in the Holy Spirit to his Holy apostles and prophets,
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was unknown to humanity and previous generations, that the gentiles now have the same
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inheritance and form the same body, and enjoy the same promise in Christ Jesus
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through the Gospel. Gorey be to him from generation and generation in the Church
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and in Christ Jesus, forever and ever am one body altogether, Saint Paul,
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as I said, he went on to continue to keep preach against to
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write against schisms and false teachers. There's only one church, Jesus prayed.
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You know, Father, I pray that they may be one as you and
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I are, one, united in mind, united in heart for me,
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one body, that is the Body of Christ. Philippians two one through two
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and twelve. So, if in Christ there is anything that will move you,
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any incentive and love and fellowship in the spirit, any warmth or sympathy,
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I appeal to you make my joy complete by being of a single mind,
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one in love, one in heart, and one in mind. So,
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my dear friends, you have always been obedient. Your obedience must not
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be limited to times when I am present, Now that I am absent.
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It must be more in evidence. So to work out your salvation in fear
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and trembling. Saint Paul certainly never said, once saved, always saved,
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which is a major Protestant doctrine in several churches several denominations. He said,
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work out your salvation in fear and trembling, being obedient to the apostles,
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which is the Catholic Church. Philippians three two through three. Beware of dogs,
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beware of evil workmen, beware of self mutilators. We are the true
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people of the circumcision, since we worsh by the spirit of God. And
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may Christ Jesus our only boast, not relying on physical qualifications. He didn't
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think much of those who taught other teachings or another gospel, as he just
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said before then, or of juda isers, those that said that Christians still
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had to keep the Jewish law. He was specifically writing there against those who
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insisted on circumcision Colossians three one through five. And may the peace of Christ
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reign your hearts, because it is for this that you were called together in
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one body. Always be thankful verset Sicalonians chapter one four through eight. No
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God has approved us to be entrusted with the Gospel, and this is how
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we preach, seeking to please not human beings, but God, who tests
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our heart. Indeed, we have never acted with the thought of flattering anyone.
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As you know, nor is an excuse for greed. God is our
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witness. Nor have we ever looked for honor among human beings, either from
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you or anyone else, When we could have imposed ourselves on you with full
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weight as apostles of Christ. Instead we have lived unassumingly among you, like
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a mother feeding and looking after her children. We felt so devoted to you
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that we would have been happy to share with you not only the gospel of
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God, but also our own lives. So dear, had you become why
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I mentioned this one, Well, he said he actually had the right to
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rule over them as an apostle. If he said to them, you know,
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you need to support me and give me a house and feed me and
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all that, he would have had the full authority to do so, or
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so to do. I guess he was took great. I guess that she
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was actually a great pride, because Saint Paul was a man of a certain
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sense of pride, but not in the sinful sort, not in the sinful
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use of that way. He was a man of great integrity. And yeah,
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I mean, you know, maybe you could say his pride may have
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been a little bit of a stummy block sometimes, but he was very boldly
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stated he would not allow anyone to support him. You know, he was
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a tentmaker and he worked with his hands. Even though he could have devoted
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his full time to being a priest a bishop, he did not allow others
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to provide for him. And I don't know, maybe you should, you
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know, I mean it's that would have been good alms for the Christian to
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give to support their priests, actually their bishop. That's a Christian duty.
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But he of course was still doing penance for having helped murder Saint Stephen and
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persecute other Christians. So he had his reasons and I'm certainly not going to
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second guess him. I mean, he certainly did not have to go to
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Rome to be martyred, He did not have to die a martyr's death.
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He chose the martyr's death. He also chose to live in hard work and
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poverty when he could have had otherwise, And in yes, it probably was
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a penance for him. And you know, his his corey is greater in
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heaven because of that. There are you know, many mansions and he's probably
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got about the best one, you know, actually the whole uh you know,
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what would you call it? Parable of the mansions? Um, your
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body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. There are many mansions in heaven,
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meaning there are many people in heaven in whom the Holy Spirit dwells within.
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And yes, some are greater because they're holier, and we call them
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saints, and they have a greater enjoyment of God. Well, I don't
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know how one even begins to measure that, but that's an interesting teaching,
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you know, of the Church. For Thessalonians Chapter four, two and six
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to eight, you are well aware of instructions we gave you on the authority
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of the Lord Jesus Christ. He wants nobody at all ever to sin by
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taking advantage of a brother in these matters. The Lord always pays back sins
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of that sort. And we told you emphatically that God called us to be
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holy, not to be immoral. In other words, anyone who rejects this
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is rejecting not human authority, but God, who gives you his Holy Spirit.
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Again, he's talking about the authority that was given to them by Jesus
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Christ and which remains in the church today. Thessalonians chapter five twelve through thirteen.
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We have appealed to you, my brothers, to be considerate of those
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who work so hard among you, as your leaders in the Lord, and
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those who admonish you had the greatest respect and affection for them because of their
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work. Be a peace among yourselves. Second Thessalonians, chapter two fifteen.
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Stand firm, then, brothers, keep the traditions that we taught you,
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whether by word of mouth or by letter. Protestants gets so worked up,
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say the Catholic Church teaches the traditions of men which Jesus rejected. No.
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Catholic Church teaches the Bible and the oral tradition, which is the verbal teachings
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of the Apostles that was written down in the Bible. And doctrine developed over
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time as people had a better understanding, usually when a heresy came up and
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they had to think it through and say, well, why is this wrong?
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Why is this not real Christian doctrine? Those are the traditions that Saint
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Paul isn't mnishing us to keep the traditions of the Catholic Church. Second Thessalonians
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chapter three, fourteen through fifteen. If anyone refuses to obey what I have
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written in this letter, take note of him and have nothing to do with
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him, so that he would be ashamed of himself. Though you're not treat
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him as an enemy, but to correct him as a brother, again exercising
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authority First Timothy one through twenty, I mean men like Himanaus and Alexander,
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whom I have handed over to Satan, that they may learn not to be
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blasphemous. Yes, as a bishop, he had the right the power to
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excommunicate, to remove one from the ability to receive the Eucharist or Holy communion.
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He had handed that person over to Satan. They committed mortal sin.
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If they don't reconcile and come back into the church, they're going to hell.
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That's what mortal sin does. Mortal sin kills the soul. Mortal sin
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is a turning away from the love of God, and what those two men
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apparently did was so bad that they had to be officially excommunicated First Timothy three,
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two through five, eight through twelve. That is why the pusiliating elder
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must have an impeccable character. Husband of one wife. He must be temperate,
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discreet and courteous, huspitable, and a good teacher. Not a heavy
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drinker, nor hot tempered, but gentle and peaceable and not avaricious, a
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man who manages his own household well and brings his children up to obey him
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and be well loved. And how can any man who does not understand how
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to manage his own household take care of the Church of God. Similarly,
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deacons must be respectable, not double tongue, moderate in the amount of wine
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they drink, and not squalid and with no squalid greed for money. Deacons
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must be husbands of one wife, and must be people who manage their households
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well. Again, he's using authority, and I mean he's obviously saying what
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criteria you're supposed to have to be a leader of the church. And it's
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important to point out that he had already said that he was celibate, and
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he thought it was better than others be celibate. But he was really there
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speaking heavily against polygamy. People don't realize this was one of the big sticklers
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when actually, when I was at a certain you know, Southern Baptist university,
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they started talking about marriage, and I said, I just ask Cura
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of curiosity, where in the Bible does it condemn polygamy. It doesn't.
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I was actually expressly condemned by Pope Clement, Pope Saint Clement, the third
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Pope, okay, in the earliest writings of the early Christian fathers. And
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that was a huge controversy when I showed that actually Baptist doctrine was coming from
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the Catholic Church and not the Bible. In this, Saint Paul is certainly
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saying that members of the church, deacons and elders and such, were not
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allowed polygamy. He was exercising that authority. And this is one of the
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only verses that they can actually hanging on and say that the teaching came from
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the Bible and not the Church. But they also, in the same breath
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say that this says that priests shouldn't be celibate. But Saint Paul had already
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said he was celibate, and he thought it better that people be celibate,
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but that if you wanted to get married that was fine too, just if
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you were going to be a servant of God, he thought you should be
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unattached to the world. By this, and by those two verses, you
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know, comparing him against each other, it's clear that he's speaking to specific
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officers of the church and not to everyone. Yes, the early Church forbade
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polygamy, but that's not in the Bible. Maybe we would say, you
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know, because in Genesis is male and female. He created them. Well,
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yes, male and female, he created them, But that doesn't necessitate
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monogamy. That just says they're two genders, and there will always be two
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genders no matter what our current culture teaches us. There are two genders,
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not three, not four, and not LGBTQ twenty seven, thirty eight,
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forty nine plus whatever. Okay, there are two genders. But the laws
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of marriage are governed by the Catholic Church. First Timothy five nineteen through twenty
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three. Never accept any accusation brought against an elder unless it's supported by two
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or three witnesses. If anyone is at fault, reprimanding publicly as a warningth
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of rest before God and before Jesus Christ and his angels he has chosen.
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I charge you to keep these rules impartially and never to be influenced by favoritism.
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You should give up drinking only water and have a little wine for the
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sake of your digestion, and the frequent bouts of illness that you have,
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so Againty's exercising his authority. And those who condemned you know, you may
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not know this, but actually the entire Temperance movement was based in anti Catholicism.
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Guests, there were some that's, you know, we're against drinking.
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You know, a lot of them were socialist communists, actual atheists, and
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by outlawing drinking wine, they were harming the Catholic Church because we have wine
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in the Eucharist. If they could outlaw wine, they could outlaw Catholicism.
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And that was really the political motivation behind much of the temperate movement, a
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temperance movement that led to prohibition and the early part of the nineteen hundreds.
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Timothy First Toothy six three through five twelve. Anyone who teaches anything different and
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does not keep to the sound teaching, which is that of our Lord Jesus
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Christ, the doctrine which is in accordance with the true religion, is proud
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and has no understanding, but rather a weakness for questioning everything and arguing about
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words. All that can come of this jealousy's contention, abuse and evil,
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mistrust and unending disputes by people who are depraved in mind and deprived of truth,
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And imagine that religion is a way of making a prophet fight the good
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fight of faith and win eternal life, to which you are called and for
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which you made your noble profession of faith before many witnesses, again condemning schism
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and division. Second Timothy three, five, three, and fourteen. They
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will keep the outward appearance of religion, but will have rejected the inner power
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of it. Keep away from people like that. Of the same kind,
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too are those men who insinuate themselves into families in order to get influence over
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silly women, who are obsessed with their sins and follow one craze after another,
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always seeking learning, but unable ever to come to knowledge of the truth.
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Just as Janison John Bray's defied Moses, so these men defied the truth,
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their minds corrupt, their faith spurious. You must keep to what you
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have been taught and know to be true. Remember who your teachers were.
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I would say that describes many cult leaders, and actually some fairly prominent ministers
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in prom prominent Protestant religions. I won't say it by name, but once
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again I would reference before said Southern Baptist University, and you may remember the
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scandal that almost destroyed it a few years ago Philammon one nine through twelve.
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Therefore, in Christ, I have no hesitation about telling you what your duty
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is. I am rather appealing to your love, being what I am,
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Paul, an old man and now also a prisoner of Jesus Christ. I
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am appealing of you to you for a child of mine whose father has whose
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father I became while wearing these chains. I mean, I guess it was
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Onisimus. It looks like one Simus, but I'm kissing it's so Nissimus.
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He was of no use to you before, but now he is youthful boast
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to you and me, and I'm sending him back to you. That is
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to say, I'm sending my own heart. So there, Saint Paul was
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sending a representative that they were the un to treat with honor and respect and
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dignity. Hebrews thirteen eight through ten and seventeen. Jesus Christ is the same
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today as he was yesterday, as he will be forever. Do not be
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led astray by all sorts of strange doctrines. It is better to rely on
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grace for inner strength. Than on food, which has done no good to
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those who concentrate on it. We have our own altar, which those who
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serve the tent have no right to eat. This again, I break from
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Jewish tradition. The tent would have been the synagogue. Obey your leaders and
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give them way. Watch over your souls, because they must give an account
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of them, and make this a joy for them to do, not a
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grief. You yourself would be the losers about your leaders, your priests,
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your bishops. You know, And that wraps up Saint Paul for us.
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I'll go ahead and do Saint James He likewise emphasized the authority of the church
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and adherence to the doctrine unity of the Church. James three one, Only
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a few of you, my brothers, should be teachers, bearing in mind
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that we shall receive stricter judgment. Saint Peter clearly taught the same, and
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noticed that he even cautioned there were some taking Saint Paul's words out of context,
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confused by the written words that would become the Bible. There was already
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confusion our interpretations of the Bible, but Saint Peter's words was the final authority
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on doctrine First Peter one four through five and nine. He is a living
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stone rejected by human beings, which by God and precious to Him. Set
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yourselves close to Him, that you two may be living stones, making a
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spiritual house as a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices made acceptable to God through
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Jesus Christ. But you're a chosen race, a kingdom of priests, a
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holy nation, a people to be a personal possession to seeing the praise of
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God, who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. The second
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Peter to one, as there were false prophets in the past history of our
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people, so you two will have false teachers who will insinuate their own disruptive
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views by disowning the Lord who brought them freedom, will bring upon themselves speedy
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destruction. Second Peter, or three fifteen through eighteen. Think of our Lord's
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patience as your opportunity to be saved. Our brother Paul, who is so
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dear to us, told you this when he wrote to you the wisdom that
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he was given. He makes his point two and his letters as a whole
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wherever he touches these things. In all his letters. There are of course
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some passages which are hard to understand, and these are the ones that some
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uneducated and unbalanced people distort in the same way as they distort the rest of
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Scripture to their own destruction. Since you have been forewarned about this, my
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dear friends, to be careful that you not come to the point of losing
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the firm ground that you are standing on, carried away by unprincipled people.
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Instead, continue to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior,
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Jesus Christ. To him be glory in time and eternity. Saint John
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took the blessed virgin of Marrying to his home and his insights into theology of
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the universe that were greater than all the apostles. He too, teaches the
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same principles of apostolic authority and organized Unified Church, the one enduring truth first
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Sean two twenty fourth or twenty eight. Let what you heard in the beginning
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remain in you. As long as you heard. As long as what you
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heard in the beginning remains in you, you will main in the Son and
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in the Father. And the promise he made to you himself is eternal life.
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So much I have written to you about these things, who are about
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those so much I have written to you about those who are trying to lead
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you astray. But as for you, the anointing you received from Him remains
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in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you, since the
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anointing he gaves you teaches you everything, and since it is true, not
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faults, remain in Him, just as He taught you. Therefore, remain
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in Him now, children, so that when He appears, we may be
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fearless and not shrink from him in shame at his coming. Don't you wish
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fifty thousand Protestant dominations had remained in the original teaching. First Shoune fourth through
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six. We are from God. Whoever recognizes God listens to us. Anyone
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who is not from God refuses to listen to us. This is how we
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can distinguish the spirit of truth from the spirit of falsehood. First Shane five,
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one through three, and twenty. Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ
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is a child of God, and whoever loves the Father loves the Son.
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In this way we know that we love God's children when we love God and
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keep his commandments. This is what the love of God is keeping his commandments,
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nor are his commandments burdensome. We are well aware also that the Son
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of God is common, that his understanding, and has given us understanding so
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that we may know the one who is true. We are in the one
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who is true, as we are in his son, Jesus Christ. He
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is a true God, and this is eternal life. Children, be on
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your guard against false gods. What is a false God? A false God
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is anyone who says, at his opinion his belief, a sincere belief is
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superior to that taught by God in his church. That person worships their own
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opinions and makes themselves a false God. Second John one nine through eleven.
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If anybody does not remain in the teaching of Christ but goes beyond it,
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he does not have God with him. Only those who remain in what he
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taught can have the Father and the Son with him. If anyone comes to
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you bringing a different doctrine, you must not receive him into his house or
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even give him a greeting. Whoever greets him has a share in his wicked
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activities. We'll continue with John and just about wrap I think we can wrap
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this part up actually in Revelations two one through two. He writes to the
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Angel of the Church in Ephesus, but cheers the measters. To the one
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who holds seven stars in his right hand and who lives him on the seven
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lamp stands. I know your activity, your hard work, your perseverance.
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I know you cannot stand wicked people. And how you put to the testsos
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who were off styled apostles and found them false. There were false teachers,
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there were real churches. There was real order, there was real authority granted
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to the apostles. The churches are watched over by angels. And that church
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is the same as it was when Jesus Christ founded it, you know,
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about two thousand years ago, being close to two thousand years now, is
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it twenty twenty three? There is an actual ordered church, and it's spoken
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of very clearly in the Bible, if one has the eyes to see.
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Remember, division comes from Satan. Unity comes from God be of one mind,
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one spirit, one body. And we know it's our duty as Catholics
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to work hard to reunite the body of Christ that has been separated crucified again
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by the innestant so called Reformation. And it's hard, it's really hard.
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You're gonna be rejected, you're gonna be yelled at, you're gonna be cussed,
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you're gonna be told, you're going to hell. You're gonna be talking
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oftentimes with very unintelligent people who nonetheless have memorized long passages of the Bible,
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but will tell them into you in a way that is not what the Bible
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means. They come up with almost like gnostic fairy tales based on numerology and
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all kinds of interesting twists, and this really means that, and that makes
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them feel very intelligent and special, and unfortunately a lot of times you have
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to in your charity speak to someone who is perhaps not very intelligent, often
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very confrontational and angry, condemning you and maybe even verging on violence. Sometimes.
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I've even debated Protestants who were otherwise well meaning but suddenly became so angry
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and violent. As I would say, the Church teaches this, and this
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is where I find in the Bible that I almost wondered if they were a
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demon possessed, and as Satan is the father of discord and disunity and confusion,
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I'm not sure I was off base on that. Nevertheless, if we
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know what the Bible says and what the Catechism says, and we know the
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church and the teachers of the Church, we have no doubt that we have
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the fullness of the truth. And when you are confident in that and you
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pray, you can have a more calm self confidence that's given by the Holy
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Spirit, and you can treat such people with charity. And yeah, they
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may hit you in the face. Okay, where I grew up, they'd
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burn your house down, that's what they did. So what the clan did,
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they would burn out Catholics. War Catholics were lynched than black people and
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by the Kuplex Klan. They don't teach that in schools, but it's true.
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If that happens, and I hope it never does. You have the
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promise of eternal reward, a reward as a martyr. Well, Jesus said,
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they reject you, because they reject me. They're going You're going to
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be persecuted. But you know, peace be with you in the words of
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Saint Padre Pio, pray, hope and don't worry, and y'all, I'll
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talk to you tomorrow. And we're really coming to the end of this a
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rather long series. I really didn't think you'll take us this long, but
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hey, the more we get into it, the more interesting it becomes.
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And we'll get into some of the early church follows writings about the governance of
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the church. So no, I have it going. I'll talk to you more