Mike Winger is also better than most about researching topics before he publishes.

The Catholic apologists online, such as Trent Horn and Jimmy Akin, are well-respected apologists and are careful not to engage in overstating their case, a key feature in a good apologist. If you are referring to laymen, ok. But let's be sure and make that distinction.

Amen. I just found his ministry a few days ago and it has been such a blessing

@@N1IA-4Jimmy is “good” apologist because he willingly distorts scripture and lie about the truth. Effective is better than good. He is dishonest and Akins last debate with White put that on full display. It’s easy to represent Rome when you pretend Rome isn’t Rome and it’s some made up thing in your head. It was ridiculous to watch

This^

Beautifully said!

I've observed this too

All Catholics assume everything about the early church is all about them and lines up w/ their beliefs. It does not matter how clearly a church father stresses a point, like about scripture being their highest authority, they will not see it. Ever. There is truly a Catholic blindness. I get that we will see things through our theology and they will see things through theirs'. That would be fair enough. Except that we can often see where a church father is lining more w/ their theology in many ways. They never , ever, ever, concede that a father was speaking more in line w/ us. Not once, and they will do the craziest mental contortions to deny it too. It's just stunned me at times.

@@saintejeannedarc9460 such as?

thanks a lot! May the Lord bless you in your ministry.

-non Anglican protestants anyway

@@reginaldmudford9722 Even Anglicans don't believe in magisterial infallibility - if I'm not mistaken.

@@JW_______ True, but they retain an episcopal, three-office structure of church government, placing bishops above presbyteries. Also, their "priests" operate individually, rather than as a presbytery.

I've debated him several times and he's been kind of smug and snide each time. Then, he gets offended when he is called on it. Furthermore, he relies on obfuscating language and sources most people are unfamilar with and when you start to parse it apart and break up his argument, he'll just stop the discussion on the grounds of "he doesn't debate on X." It's kind of infuriating honestly.

Same!

I believe in you

@@Philip__325--- Why the hostility? Let's be honest: there are simply too many forms of Protestantism with too many divergences for anyone to comprehensively know.

@@padraicbrown6718 Roman Catholicism is divided as well and so is Eastern Orthodox. Protestants are more honest about the division. Examine gay priests. First of all, priests are supposed to be celibate. Secondly, there are many gay priests and the church just turns the other cheek.

>”giants” >”i’ll step up” >”i know almost nothing” lol bro i think you should study before making these kinds of declarations. i admire the confidence though

@@padraicbrown6718That’s not true, there are 3 main Protestant traditions or church institutions (plus the anabaptists), then there are some offshoot from them. Protestants are united in affirmation of reformation principles summarized as the 5 solas, and also classically Protestants affirm members of other traditions are Christians. As others have pointed out there is division among Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Christians as well. Division does not make a claim false.

Truth unites, but Protestants divide. Y'all are adrift at sea in your own little self-made life boats while the Catholic Church is Noah's Ark on the stormy seas of the modern world. I guess you need little pets from each other since you don't receive life from Jesus through the Sacraments. But keep thumping your chests "icons bad!" 😂

Don't forget us eastern catholics and orthodox who originated these biblical teachings. When the assumption was finally defined by rome, it was the Syrian orthodox who said "Rome is late to the party."

@@hailholyqueen "Biblical"? The assumption is not Biblical. Neither is the hierarchy of bishops, the superiority of bishops over presbyteries, nor the disaggregation of presbyteries into individual "priests".

@@stefanosbir3958 really? Who is the woman in revelation?

@@hailholyqueen Revelation 12? Good question. Are you suggesting that she is Mary? This is certainly not made clear. Is she ever taken into Heaven? No, the assumption is not Biblical.

@@stefanosbir3958 who else could it be? Keep in mind who Jesus gave her to from the cross.

Protestantism is an unfounded belief, my friend. Infallible simply means preserved from error. No one believes the New Testament canon (assembled by Catholics) is just a fallible teaching. No one believes that the trinity is a fallible definition. Infallibility flows from Christ's promise to guide the church to "all truth". You don't see that in modern sola-scriptura Chrisitianity; you see endless division and opinions. Gavin Ortlund is a Sophist.

Don't forget the holy spirit.

​@@thegoatofyoutube1787Giving credit to Catholics for everything sound pretty stupid to me. Prove this simple fact n convince me u did ur findings without just peddling what u were told: Where were the other churches- protestants, eastern Orthodox etc when Catholics were busy compiling the cannon? Fair question n u will see the absurdity of claiming everything for the RC so as to make it look like, therefore they have the infallible capacity to introduce new things.

@@NATAR160 The bible was compiled and made canon in 382AD. The East/West schism occurred in 1050AD and Luther came out in 1517AD. No other church was around in 300AD. The first printed bible was the Catholic Gutenberg Bible dated 1455AD. Luther's 66 book bible was created in1535AD.

@@joekey8464 It means it's not only the RC that exclusively canonized the Bible. Luther n etc were part of the church that canonized the Bible. I don't get how some erroneously claim the Bible is the RC book or that the RC gave us the Bible.

Thanks! I was just hoping to watch that. I will keep my eyes peeled.

The only reason the Catholics kick your butts is that they have reason and history on their side. Ortlund is a smart person with a false belief (that Protestantism is true or reasonable).

No, that´s not a good argument for sola scripture. (I hold to moderate sola scriptura btw) The doctrines of the apostles were delivered both in word and writing (2Thess 2:15).

@@D12Min appreciate your comment! But Paul says hold fast to the traditions you were *taught* by word or epistle. That doesn’t necessarily mean there are teachings by word only which are unrecorded in scripture. He could be saying just to hold to what you were taught (whether you received it by epistle or by word).

Or into authority arguments regardless of their being evidence for their position (this happens when I converse with them on marian dogmas).

​@@stevej71393appeal to authority is not by itself a fallacy provided certain claims about the authority in question obtain. After all, an appeal to Scripture is an appeal to authority, but its not fallacious provided that Scripture is actually true.

​@@joshuadonahue5871 I agree that appeal to authority is not inherently a fallacy. However, the Roman Catholic Church's appeals to authority are fallacious. Take the "church fathers" for example. My position is that they were human beings with fallible minds and just as much of a propensity to misinterpret the Bible as any human being today. Moreover, many of them did not have any understanding of Hebrew, which is considered a requirement for many serious theologians today. And yet, their writings are given greater weight by virtue of them being "church fathers". Tertullian said such and such therefore the Roman Catholic Church is correct.

I think we tend to overlook that Church Fathers and early Christians had different views on non-essentials. This may seem like divisions and confusion but I see it as the Divine providence. Despite differences, Christianity is stronger than ever due to God's mercy and faithfulness.

Everyone has different personal views on what is essential. Whether Christianity is 'stronger' in general today than in the first centuries is an interesting but highly subjective question.

Very well said

The best disaster though

Seems to me these simply show a passing of authority to church leaders but does not indicate infallibility. I have a Protestant church. They lay hands on someone when they go out into missions or become an elder. They are not a continuation of apostles obviously. But they are giving the authority to do the task the Lord wants them to do. I think this is more of a commissioning then anything from the reading

I've had Catholics say that a lot of the New testament wasn't even written during the time of the apostles, so it had to be oral tradition and apostolic succession .

Calling our Catholic brothers and sisters "papists" seems a bit unnecessary. One Catholic commenter on KZfaq referred to us Protestants as "protest ants". Kind of a clever pun I suppose, but really, are we insects now?

​@@PolymorphicPenguinDon't Catholics also refer to themselves sometimes as papists though? Not necessarily derogatory.

@@PolymorphicPenguin papist is what they are, this title comes straight from the reformation

Good point, considering we protestant believe that orthodoxy is way more close to us and early christianity than Roman Catholicism. Sadly Rome have defend their innovations so far that nowadays they are even heretics in the eyes of traditionalist catholics, and the own council of Trent who condemed protestantism for things modern catholics now do

If you don’t mind, I would love to hear your research! Is there any way I could read it?

thanks for the comment! out of curiosity, what is your definition of apostolic succession?

Thanks so much for the follow-up question. I typed out a lengthy response, but unfortunately internet troubles robbed me of my efforts! Hopefully, I'll find a chance to take another stab (though I'm sure the second attempt will be more concise, much as I would love to engage a bit more thoroughly). Again, I hope to get back to you soon. Until then, Godspeed, my brother! @@TruthUnites

@@stephencrawford5452 I hate it when that happens. Don’t trouble yourself too much, I’m just curious as to what you meant in your initial comment about that.

Thanks again for the question! Here's another try at it. I’ll try to give a summary of my views on Apostolic Succession. I’m glad to process some of these thoughts with you, and I’m certainly grateful for any feedback. You listed four points that are features of Apostolic Succession, and then you described such a process as “mechanical.” This description (which is certainly too often true), as well as your first and fourth points about succession (bishops/elders and exclusivity, respectively), is where I see your presentation as clashing with my own understanding. At first I thought I’d address all these differences, but maybe it’s best I focus on your first point about elders and bishops in the New Testament. Hopefully, that will help keep this comment to a reasonable length, but addressing this issue also lays the groundwork for handling other concerns. Maybe there will be an opportunity for us to interact more about those other differences. You claimed that for Apostolic Succession-proper bishops are necessarily greater than elders by divine appointment. That is certainly very often part of the claim that is made for the historic episcopate. However, the view can and should be nuanced. A defender of the episcopal succession can readily concede that within the New Testament the words overseer/bishop and elder/presbyter are interchangeable. So there is a development that happens in the post-Apostolic Church. But that development is not the formation of a new ministry that otherwise did not exist in the Church overseen by the Apostles. Such a ministry was already in place. The development that happened later was rather a shift in the usage of the words, so that the word “bishop” is used in a new way in order to name a particular ministry that had already been initiated in several cases by the Apostles themselves. Within the New Testament we are allowed a close-up view of an Apostle delegating aspects of his distinct ministry to others. This is St. Paul handing off his ministry to Timothy in Ephesus and to Titus in Crete. Paul deputizes these men to carry on his work in his absence. The work the Apostle gives these men to do mirrors Paul’s own ministry. For example, Paul delegates Titus to travel throughout Crete, to have authority over congregations in a certain region, and to ordain the local leadership in various churches. Timothy is told to do something surprisingly similar (or so I would argue). It’s also interesting to consider that Timothy seems even to take part in Paul’s apostolic work of writing Holy Scripture! (See 2 Corinthians 1:1; Philippians 1:1; Colossians 1:1; 1 and 2 Thessalonians 1:1; and Philemon 1.) Yes, even while Paul is initiating these ministries, “overseer” and “elder” are interchangeable. Paul’s commissioning Timothy and Titus is not quite what either of those words refer to-yet. We find in Timothy (and Titus ) a ministry that is distinct from the bishop/presbyters and the deacons that Timothy is deputized to appoint in local congregations. Part of what is so poignant about this is that the Paul’s discussions of qualifications for bishops are so often brought up as evidence against Apostolic Succession. However, these discussions occur exactly in the context of the Apostle deputizing and training certain other ministers to carry on aspects of his work when he's gone. The development does come later, but this development is semantic. That is, the word “bishop,” has a wider meaning, but eventually takes on slightly new meaning (not long after the last of the Apostles has died) and comes to be used more narrowly as a helpful way of naming this particular ministry that originated with the Apostles. So it is not a problem for the defender of Apostolic Succession that Timothy and Titus are not called bishops. And even if Timothy moved and ministered in other places, so would other successors of the Apostles also be appointed to new churches often enough. (Although, the Church saw the temptations lurking in such a practice and often discouraged it.) Still, it is perfectly natural that Eusebius looks back and sees Timothy as the first bishop of Ephesus and Titus as the first bishop of Crete, even though in their time that’s not how the word bishop was used. Eusebius looks at the ministries of Timothy and Titus taking shape, as Scripture itself reveals, and says without hesitation, “That is what we mean by Apostolic Succession.” The title “bishop” might be anachronistic, but only in the way that calling Paul a Trinitarian might be anachronistic. Obviously, this implies that my understanding of the early post-apostolic evidence is different from others’ interpretations. But I think this distinction regarding the New-Testament evidence opens the door to similar insights regarding the late first-century and early second-century texts. The figure who stands out most clearly in this post-Apostolic evidence is John the Apostle. With this historic testimony and the New Testament’s witness, we have a pretty clear picture of both Paul and John handing off aspects of their ministry to certain successors. This, in turn, draws us to consider Peter and Mark (whose ministry even Jerome recognizes), as well as the brother of our Lord and his successors in Jerusalem (as witnessed by Hegesippus, preserved in Eusebius). The canonical portrait of Paul’s successors and the clear and reliable historical portrait of John’s successors give added plausibility to the memory of ministers who carried forward the ministries of Peter and of James the Just. (I find this cast of characters especially interesting, since I’m fairly persuaded by the suggestion that Paul, John, Peter, and James represent four cardinal ministries within the college of the Apostles--the three pillars and the Apostle himself.) So that’s not a full response to your question about how I understand Apostolic Succession, though I’m sure this is more than enough for a KZfaq comment. I tried to focus on one aspect of the historic succession-namely, its origins. That’s the crux of the matter, anyway. But I think this is the entry-point for a fuller vision of Apostolic Succession. For example, from what the Scriptures relate about Paul and Timothy, we can see that the succession is not merely functional, or at least it’s not meant to be. It is, in a deeper way, familial. Unpacking that shows how Apostolic Succession shouldn’t be mechanical. I think this familial backdrop might also open different understandings of ministries outside of this historic line of oversight. I suspect that these different understandings can both honor such ministries, while also appreciating the gift that has been bequeathed to the Church by the Apostles. Thoughts? Or really, let me ask: is there another way we could continue this conversation? I think I have a way that I could email you. How would you feel about that? @@TruthUnites

Are you actually claiming that the Catholic Church hasn’t addressed slavery, violence, and greed? If that is your claim then I suggest you do more research. The Marian dogmas are important because they can affect one’s understanding of Christology and salvation history.

Probably. "Deacon" basically just means "servant", and "episkopos/presbuteros" are just "overseer/elder", so the words themselves are quite generic. I'd guess that a case can be made (by someone who actually studies this a little, ie not me) that they were understood as more general "people who fill the role of 'person who was given a specific job to do' and 'experienced/wise person', respectively. (Interestingly, if that turned out to be the case, then a bunch of people in modern churches would be "deacons" by that standard due to being responsible for something. I'm thinking like the A/V team, the person who cleans the church each week, the parish admin person, etc...)

You do realise in that passage, St. John is writing to a community he's admitting already knows the truth, right? So many of the other epistles are corrective to communities clearly going off the rails. St. John's letter there is full of encouragement about how the audience he's writing to knows the truth already. I don't see it as an indictment of human teachers at all.@@gcrshaw

In scripture, those chosen to lead and to serve in the church (and as missionaries) were commissioned by the laying on of hands, but this is shown by example and it's not stated that this MUST be done on every occasion, or that it's a means of passing on some form of special authority or anything. It also doesn't say anything about what was done in cases where apostles weren't present (either in a distant church, or after the apostles passed away). One can then rely on tradition, but protestants consider that to be fallible and would want to see evidence rather than just a claim that "the church has always believed that" (which is often not true).

To add Do you get to build a church when the one handed down is now wrong?

Most of the innovations you propose had nothing to do with the apostles but with christ finishing his work on the cross abd fulfilling the law. After that the mosaic covenant was no longer binding save for the 10 commandments. So various rituals such as not eating unclean animals and all that were no longer needed because ritual purely for entering the temple, and sacrifices were no longer needed. In all of the examples you might give the apostles did nothing in regards to these "innovations"

@@anthonypolonkay2681 This seems post hoc to me, given that Jesus never said anything about abolishing circumcision and kosher dietary laws, or changing the day of the Sabbath, etc. There are also the changes to gospel theology that Paul came up with. Also, there's discerning the precise meaning of "fulfilling the law." If fulfilling the law can mean whatever the apostles (and their successors) say it means, then it seems to me to be a wide justification for innovation.

​@joeoleary9010 My friend, you should go ask an educated Jewish rabbi if he thinks Jesus claimed to have abolished the law. Perhaps you need to do a more careful reading of the gospels. Peace

@@gregoryweaver3670 I think you're responding to the other guy on this thread, but neither he nor I claimed that Jesus said he "abolished" the law. In Matthew Jesus says I came not to abolish the law but to fulfill it. What does "fulfill" mean, exactly? Pastors, Priests and Rabbis have their own ideas.

​@joeoleary9010 so I was responding to you, but I guess I wasn't very clear. My point is that the way in which Jesus fulfilled the Torah would seem like abolition to a Jew. Secondly I don't think the apostles were innovating of themselves. Rather Paul understood the implications that Jesus's life had on the Torah and gave us those implications. In Galations, Paul seems pretty clear that he himself was bound to and unable to go outside the gospel implications on the law. So if Paul himself didn't have the power to bring innovation of himself I don't think the subsequent church does either. My apologies if I'm misunderstanding you.

the relevant difference is the presence of apostles. That elders were included is not particularly disruptive to this difference. That which has apostles is of greater authority than that which does not have apostles, and the fact that it ALSO has non-apostles does not change that. I stand by my claim that post-apostolic ecclesial infallibility has no foundation. I don't think it does.

@@TruthUnites thanks for the response Gavin. Also curious if you’ve looked more into Jerome and the mono-episcopacy. Elsewhere, at least twice, he affirms that there are three distinct offices by saying that the heretical sect of the Lucifereans could not continue because they didn’t have bishops to ordain anyone. If priests and bishops were the “same” in the sense that they are equally the same office, then he would not make that comment. Jerome also says “what function belongs to a bishop that does not belong to a priest, except ordination?” I don’t think he meant to contradict himself when he said they were the “same”, unless he meant something else by them being the “same.” I have my thought on why this is but curious on your opinion. Blessings