Journey Home - 10-03-2011 - Former Baptist - Marcus Grodi with Steve Ray

you good evening and welcome to the journey home my name is Marcus Grodi your host for this program this particular episode of the journey home has traditionally been the first Monday of the month in which I invite back former guests it gives them an opportunity to go deeper into their journey the first episode they talked about what brought him into the church and now they'll summarize it and then allow us to ask some additional questions and that's such with tonight's episode I invite back a good friend Steve Ray who was a former Baptist saying that Baptist still hanging around in Steve ray oh the whole enthusiasm for the faith and love for scripture it's not only there but it's been multiplied yeah I know that was an understatement of my mouth cuz I've known you all these years and it's always appreciated when you've been able to come back on the the show though now you're traveling around the world much more than you did the first time you around the journey home program yeah in fact cracks me up one of the my staff members Jim Anderson when he was scheduling one of your appearances on the journey home reminded me that when he was calling you do remember that episode he called you to see whether you'd be in the journey home remember what you were doing when he called you was I in Israel you were on a horse riding around the ground here that's right I do remember that now yeah we are filming the life of Moses God has opened up so many doors for you that of course you never dreamed of and you're in your previous life and even in your process of conversion what I'd like Steve is let's assume somebody watching this show doesn't know you from Bou give a little summary of your journey into the church well I was born and raised a Baptist my parents had 12 years of miscarriages and they both at one point in their life came to a realization that they were sinners my mom by the way was on her way shopping one day had her keys in her purse turned on the radio 1954 in Detroit and she heard Billy Graham on the radio for the first time ever she never heard anything like this before she was a sinner that she was going to go to hell because she ever sinned but that God loved her so much he sent his son to die on the cross and shed his precious blood for her my mom told me Steve I fell on my knees on the kitchen floor I dropped my keys in my purse and I cried out to God and asked him to save me from my sins and it changed my mom and my dad at a similar situation 1954 they prayed for more children and nine months later after 12 years of miscarriages nine months later I was born and they took me and they dedicated me in the Baptist Church in Detroit to Jesus they couldn't baptize me though Marcus because that was already they learned it that was a wicked Catholic man-made tradition that you don't baptize babies but they dedicated me to Christ and then they raised me to love Jesus until of the Bible I love being a Christian kid you know till I got to 15 then I got a little rebellious but at 17 I remember my mother understood the power of radio even back in those days when I was 17 years old and she had the radio on one night and Billy Graham was on and I was pretending that I wasn't listening but I was and I always had a tender spot in my heart for God I don't know whether it was that day she dedicated me to him or what but I always had a tender spot in my heart and I remember that night here in Billy Graham and I think you he said something like you could put your name in there for God so loved Steve Ray that He gave His only begotten Son that if Steve Ray would believe in him he'll not perish in have everlasting life and we lived in the country and I remember slipping out the back door and walking down our long driveway and down the country road listen to the to the birds in the air and I looked up to the up to the clouds in the sky and the stars and I said Jesus tonight I'm only 17 years old but I'm going to give my life to you and I tears running down my eyes I still do when I think about it often and it's 17 years old I gave my life to Jesus out there on the country road and I've made up my mind and never turned back on that pledge never dreaming it ever be a Catholic because I had always been taught that the Catholic Church was basically the most perfect counterfeit of true Christianity they use the same words they use their Bible everything but it is a counterfeit and the Pope is the Antichrist and the church is the of Babylon and all these things that Catholics had prayed to Mary instead of to Jesus they had tradition instead of Scripture they worked the way to heaven instead of by grace and faith all of these misconceptions and I never dreamed in a million years I'd ever be accounted like in fact I spent a good part of my time evangelizing Catholics I could usually pick a Catholic off a tree like a ripe peach because they hadn't been taught to defend their faith and I met my wife and we got married and had her family and homeschool their kids and up until the time I was 39 years old when I converted my wife and I had never once set foot in a Catholic Church we had never once met a Catholic priest and sadly enough we had never once met a Catholic who could explain or defend the faith and then our journey people said what was it that you saw beautiful about the Catholic Church you know what was it like the st. Peters glowing in the Sun what was it that made you want to come to the Catherine I said nothing there's nothing about the and the Catholics that I knew were the biggest argument against the Catholic Church why would I want to be a Catholic my journey did not come and begin with seeing anything good about Catholicism it came about by seeing the problems within Protestantism sometimes you have to find out you're sick before you look for a doctor I had to see the problems a number there very quickly through then what is worship I realized my wife and I that listening to someone preached on Sunday morning was not worship no matter how many guitars you hadn't how many speakers and how much you pump up the volume pump up the vibe that doesn't make worship there was something missing we didn't know what it was until we discovered the Eucharist second of all I loved the Bible I have 20,000 books in my house all most of them are about the Bible and church history and so on but the more books I bought the more I realized evangelicals even my own tight-knit circle we couldn't agree on what those words meant in that book who is the judge of what this means should you baptize an infant or not can you lose your salvation or not over and over these main important issues would come up and there was no judge good evangelicals disagreed so I had the problem who interprets the Bible there was no one it was me I had to become Pope Steve I had to become the final word for my own life then the third one was morals what does God expect me to do with my body with my money with my life and I realize that even you could pick any Street on one side of the street you burger King McDonald Pizza Hut KFC and when I go to lunch how do I decide where to go what do I feel like today a pizza or hamburger on Sunday morning I Drive down the road and I see on the side Baptist Methodist Lutheran Nazarene assembly of God how do I decide what church I go to Americans usually decide the same way they pick their restaurant what do I feel like today do I want to not have a guilty conscience so I'll go to a church that says everything's okay do I want to sing and have entertainment then go to one it pumps up the volume with the cappuccino holder cup you know you've put this cup right here and you get ready for the show to begin how does how did I know what to do with my life morals because there are churches up down the street that would fit any morals I want I pick them based on what I wanted and I realized both because of what worship was who interprets Scripture and what about morals there was something seriously flawed with Protestantism and it was then I could almost have become an agnostic I remember thinking how do I even know the Bible's true how do I even tell me there's 27 books in the Bible how do I know that who who has the authority to close the Canon and tell me and then a friend of mine converted to the Catholic Church his name was al Kresta I know you know we had been good evangelical buddies for 12 years and he announced to me one day that he was becoming a Catholic the words out of my mouth were L that is the stupidest thing I've ever heard of my life you're too smart to be a Catholic how could you do this and then my wife and I went on a mission to prove him wrong and in the years attempting to prove him wrong I proved him right and in May 22nd 1994 our whole family is in our four kids with tears running down our eyes are all received into the Catholic Church that's the short story how long after that was it you wrote your first book actually my seventh as it's a big impact on crossing the Tiber it's still a best-seller it's still I get emails from people who are being converted because of reading that book and it does it shocks me because it was never going to be a book I wrote the major part of it before I was received into the church I was explaining to my father who was a Baptist deacon the best dad in the world still alive 92 years old him and my mom just celebrated 72 years of marriage I remember him clenching his fist and saying you must be back wouldn't even think about these things a Catholic he was so angry and I sat at the computer that night and I said dear dad you're the best father in the world so I owe you an explanation and I started to type out to him the things I was thinking what the fathers are the very first Christians before there was even a New Testament what did they do what did they think how did they practice worship on Sunday morning and as I writing to my dad this letter with tears in my eyes again becoming a Catholics made me a big crybaby by the way I'm writing to my dad with tears in my eyes and explaining to him why I was thinking about this and that letter that I wrote to my dad became crossing the Tiber that's a great book now the the audience sees you with a hat on you weren't wearing a hat the first couple times because that that's a symbol of what God has dropped in Israel it's also a cheap to pay your worthiness it's a cheap to pay but no your couldn't get enough powder in here Eliezer is it I'm following my dad in the pseudo yes the hat it what happened was when we started going to Israel a lot this is a whole other story but I won't go into it now but when we started taking groups to Israel we're doing a documentary series on the history of salvation from a Catholic perspective the first day I was out filming I was white as could be in the morning and when I got home back to the apartment to the hotel where we were at my wife said oh my goodness Steve go look in the mirror I went it looked in the mirror and I looked like a red beet I was bright red she got me this hat and I've been wearing it ever since and it kind of represents I view myself now as a Catholic adventurer I loved the Christian faith and I loved the Catholic faith and I realize that they are true and what I've done now the rest of my life as I've gone on the adventure to prove the historicity and truth of Christianity in the Catholic Church and this kind of represents the adventure of it the love of it and I can't imagine I've ever been given this great gift of God to do this and we enjoyed watching your videos a couple questions when you were a Baptist my guess is that did you think of it as a worldwide church when you were a Baptist you know I'm saying as a Catholic you can't ignore the fact that you've experienced the world miss around the world of Catholicism amazing but but as a Baptist did I think of the Baptist Church that way no because I think after the Reformation up until the Reformation the church was viewed as one visible unity because Jesus said I pray that they would be perfected in unity that the world may know the father sent the son it can't be an invisible unity it has to be a visible unity or the world can't see it and then the world has the right to say the father did not send the son so for the first 1500 years it was a visible unity worldwide but after the Reformation I think which I now call the rebellion I hope that's okay but there because of the divisions and the fighting and infighting they could no longer view it as a organizational visible unity so they became an invisible unity in other words Marcus you were Presbyterian but you believed in Jesus you believed he died on the cross for your sins and I was a Baptist I believe this so there's an invisible unity between us we may argue disagree but there's an invisible unity I didn't view the church as an organization or as a denomination I viewed the church kind of as an invisible Brotherhood of all of those who had accepted Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior that we were all in the church misunderstanding Matthew 16 or 18 I'm sorry where it says if two or three are gathered together in my name there I am in your midst that that was what the church was you and I get together here we prayed together Marcus and it's the church Jesus is here but forgetting that he said that if I two or three is not the church it there is the church if you take go to the two or three and they don't listen to you then take it to the church there was any bigger you've been to just give a summary of the places you've been to I mean it's hard to do but that you never would have dreamed when you were happiest to Detroit between leading pilgrimages to biblical sites and being a speaker at conferences and doing our movie series last year just ten countries alone we did a whole speaking tour to tens of thousands of people all through India also in Australia in England and the Philippines in Dubai in Israel in Italy and this year already we've been to in yeah and we're going now to a to Israel six times to England to do a series of conferences in England I just it's overwhelming to me yeah it's tiring too well yeah I mean you're wasting away I'm wasted I have thirty pounds well that sounds great couple things about about your experiences that okay first of all in the places you've gone especially in the in the Middle East in the Holy Land in pêche in the Holy Land what have you seen that has convinced you the Christianity is true the reason I ask that is you know as well as I do right there are a lot of archaeologists historians even theologians that question all the historic sites and you don't want to say that all the biblical nativity scenes were all made up later you know all the sites are have been added later on because people want to make money what have you discovered that convinces you in the reality of Christianity well that's I've been to the Holy Land now over a hundred times in the last 16 years or so and one of the reasons I love to go there is because it proves the historicity of Scripture in other words I like to say that what we believe as Christians is not true because we believe it that's how the world thinks oftentimes you know I'm going to believe something hard enough it makes it true it's not true because we believe it we believe it because it's true very different the earliest Christians came to the Holy Land looking for these places they wanted to place where was Jesus born was he really born here is he really a historical person where did he die where did this happen and that happen where was a Transfiguration did these things really happen and the very first pilgrims came there looking for these places how do we know that in but let's take Bethlehem for example how do we know that that's really where Jesus was born if somebody was really born there who claimed to be God and had this kind of an impact on the world the very first believers when they lived in Bethlehem they were Jews they weren't Gentiles they were Jewish leaders who live there and that cave right over there on the hillside when pilgrims first came where was this baby born right over there where those people are praying why are they praying in that cave because that's where he was born in that cave and then eventually it was remembered even Justin Martyr and John Chrysostom said that even at this late date another early writing in 300 AD or so 203 even at this late date pilgrims come from around the world to see the place where Jesus was born it's cave it was known the earliest Christians would never forget it because because of that cave many of our two year old sons were killed because of what happened in that cave wise men came from the east which doesn't happen every day because of that baby that was born or angels came out of heaven because of what happened in that cave do you think we'll forget where that cave is or what happened no we still go there to pray and then emperor hadrian 135 he came along and he says you know what we're going to stomp out this christianity religion and he knocked down every little the chapels in the shrine and he built these pagan temples over the Holy Sepulchre where Jesus was crucified over Bethlehem and other places then in 313 3 and 325 or so when queen helaena came after it is more Constantine's conversion she came over and she said to the Christians where was Jesus born and they said right under that pagan shrine what had Emperor Hadrian had done not to the exact opposite of what he intended to do was he marked those places yeah Queen Helen knocked it down and sure enough under there was a cave and they find graffiti and they find things that the early Christians had placed before the pagan shrine went up she cleared them away and the first church was built over the Holy Sepulchre the second one over Bethlehem and the third one over Paternoster on the top of the Mount of Olives over a cave or Jesus taught his disciples to pray the Our Father and from that point on Christians have been coming to those sites to pray and the archaeology confirms over and over again the historicity and the accuracy of these sites now to every site we know know for example Emmaus there's four or five places that claim to be Emmaus we don't know so when I take a group over I don't say this is Emmaus I'll say these four places all have a claim to be amazed but when it comes to the essential sites the Annunciation of the angel to Mary in Nazareth it's right there in fact the altar in that cave says the word became flesh here I still get the hair on the back of my neck every time I read that that I imagine 2,000 years ago there's a 14 15 year-old girl coming in with a jug of water on her shoulder into this cave where I'm standing at the entrance of and an angel meets her and tells her that the word is going to become flesh here in this cave so we know where these things happened we know the truth of history history of Christianity and there are continuing archaeology for example up in the northern Israel and Dan there was a steely ax a stone was carpet many people had said David was just kind of an imaginary figure King David he is kind of the Jews had created him to be the quintessential King somebody to look back at with pride and that he there's really no evidence of it well now they're digging up archaeology of the City of David and they're discovering things there and up in the north in what was a tribe of Dan they found the stone and on it it talks about the dynasty of David and it's 3,000 years old and they used to think Pontius Pilate was just an imaginary figure kind of the fall guy for the crucifixion who we going to blame let's make up this guy Pontius Pilate and some people have said I don't mind your your Creed you know because all of it is fine but when you put Pontius Pilate and try to tie your Creed's into history that's where I disagree with them but the Creed's are historical and Pontius Pilate is historical and they said he didn't exist but several decades ago guess what they found in the city of Caesarea by the sea they dug up a stone that talks about Pontius Pilatus of Tiberius so 2,000 years later we find out he really did exist and the Scriptures are true and the scriptures are reliable and what the Church teaches us can be trusted I love to go and dig and feel and touch it smell it and prove it what a great experience for you not just for yourself but giving you the privilege of sharing that with others both those that come with you as well through the different resources when I had my own awakening of faith at age 21 I think the thing that that most convinced me was the issue of he's alive that's the issue all the other stuff but the bottom line is he's alive and I think what convinced me of that was more I read that those apostles allowed themselves to be martyred for that truth from your experiences there what are some examples of things that convinced you even more in the resurrection of Jesus Christ you know it's kind of a trite thing to go into the tomb today and come out and say hey guess what it's still empty but there's there's validity to that the fact that he's still alive this tomb has had millions and millions of people come there to visit him come and visit that place where he was crucified to see even in the Catholic Church I liked how Agustin said it was the church that the authority the church that held they didn't believe in even in the scriptures in a resurrection of Christ but when I agree with your assessment of the Apostles because at heart they were cowards you think about it Peter denied him when a little servant girl says you're one of his I am NOT eating big old Peter denied him Judas betrays and the other ones run Psalm 88 is I think a prophetic about the trials of Christ she said my friends have been taken from me they've scattered they've left and yet these cowards ended up every one of them to a man except for John the Apostles the only non martyr they went out and they gave their lives skinned alive flayed they call it crucified upside down dragged behind horses through the streets until dead these men who are cowards they would have maybe died for something it was true but they would have never died for something they knew was a lie they saw Jesus risen from the dead that risen Christ not only revealed himself but he and Bude them he breathed on them in the upper room he had viewed them with the courage with the strength to go out and preach even to shedding their own blood if nothing else is a witness to the resurrection and truth of Jesus Christ that is but then to be there to see how it played out in the land happened in fact you've probably been able to visit the sites of all of their burials no I think almost all of them I have I think Matthew is the last one I haven't tonight and I'm on a journey there soon really cuz I was just in Thomas's - I was just gonna say yeah it was in and in Italy and I thought it was India well they brought it back and it's in it's in Italy and just three weeks ago my wife and I were there his tomb and then we went to in Rome to the island and the Tiber where Barnabas Bartholomew is buried and we went to the other tomb of the apostles again we've been searching them out to visit them and to honor them because these these men they're the hinge figures if they had not done what Jesus told them to do we wouldn't be sitting here doing what we're doing today they're the hinges these guys are heroic you know one other question then we've got a little time for a break but okay oh you visited many places that convinced you with the validity of Christianity what about the church Catholicism because they're probably Protestant Baptists that do pilgrimages to to the Holy Land there are and they tend to be uncomfortable there to some degree because everything around the holy sites these places are Catholic or Orthodox they're the ancient Church and many Protestants actually have some of their own sites like the garden tomb or the Anglicans maintain that and I know that I know baptist friends who when they go there will not go to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre which is the authentic no question where Jesus was crucified and buried and rose rose from the dead but they will go to the other place the garden tomb run by the Anglicans I have to say that as far as Catholicism goes when I read the writings and see the effect of Christianity on the very first Christians what are those very first Christians do with this evidence Jesus risen from the dead the place where he was born the place was crucified the place where he is transfigured what did those early Christians do in those places they built churches and they weren't Baptist churches my wife and I were talking about this a while ago we have been to every one of the oldest churches in the world I don't think that there is a church in the first three or four hundred years that we haven't visited whether it's in Egypt or Greece or turkey or Israel or Italy we've been to every one of the eight most ancient churches in the world and there's something they all have in common they may have different structure size places one thing they all have in common is in the front and the central point is the altar it is the most important place in the church even more you could say than the tabernacle because if it weren't for the altar there would be nothing in the tabernacle it's the altar where the sacrifice takes to sacrifice the word of sacrifice is key it is key even from the writing some of the decay which is contemporary with the writings of the New Testament it says before you bring your sacrifice to the church make sure you confess your sins oh well what church says come to confession before you come on Sunday with a sacrifice that's the Catholic Church Ignatius of Antioch first century Christian died 107 but he's a first century man trained by the Apostles talks about the sacrifice about the Eucharist being the very body and blood of Christ and what Janet and I realized was that for 1,500 years every church even the first churches built had an altar and that altar in front of it had a priest and there was a sacrifice going on in that altar and then after the Reformation my heritage is a Baptist from the Reformation they threw the Pope away they threw the tradition away and the next thing they went after with those altars and they removed the altars and they put in its place a podium and in front of the podium was now a preacher the earliest churches had a altar with a priest I was raised with a podium and a preacher it was a different religion it was still Christianity but it was a different religion and that was one example of when I go back and study and visit these ancient places the very first places they were Catholics you know I was thinking of another thing that would have been an interesting jab at your particular Baptist background is that those early churches also had Baptist Reis he did but we know that it wasn't merely adult baptism regularly his days we know that but I'm intrigued that I called myself a Baptist June yet believe baptism did nothing isn't this interesting we said it was just a ceremony that you performed to be an outward sign of something that happened inside it's not essential for salvation it's not necessary we do it as an ordinance because Jesus ordered us to do it it does nothing but we do it out of obligation and yet I called myself a Baptist believing that baptism really did nothing interesting but those early churches it said they brought their whole families can you imagine a Jewish family who had their boys circumsized and brought into the covenant people of God at eight days old they were marked in the flesh as covenant people of God at eight days and yet those first Christians were Jews that came on the day of Pentecost and Peter said this is for you and your children not just you adults but you and your children and it says in Scripture that their whole households were baptized what would have happened if Peter had said on the day of Pentecost everybody older than 13 can come forward and be baptized and marked with the sign of the new covenant circumcision marks the old covenant but now we have baptism everybody over 13 years old come on up and we'll baptize you and the Jewish father would say wait a minute you say this is a better stronger and more effective covenant what about my children oh no they have to wait till they can believe on their own the Jewish father would have walked away and said this is not a better covenant than the old one the old one allowed me to bring my children into the covenant with me and so those Christians the first ones baptize their infants along with the adults because this was a Jewish way of thinking and Christianity is Jewish from that standpoint and Ignatius of Antioch I mean sorry I'm Origen said we have learned this from the Apostles that we baptize our old men and our old women our young men and our young women and even our infants this we have learned from the Apostles all right good place to pause let's take a break and we'll come back we have a few emails for you to jump into all right seedbed welcome back to the journey home I'm your host Marcus Grodi and we have a good friend Steve ray joining us against always great to see you again Steven to see a couple other questions one common theme that runs through biblical scholarship is this idea that there were independent early Christian communities following an apostle the johanan community the Petrin community community that followed James other communities that maybe imitated Paul but that they were forced together later from your travels and what you experienced over there did you find anything that debunks that idea well I think it would be foolish not to admit that if if Paul is the main he's the father of your faith like in current Corinth that you're going to tend to think like him and have his words ringing in your ears not maybe Matthews or Peters because Paul's the one that's lived with you there all those months so his words are ringing in here so you're going to have certain flavor of these but if you if we look at that in the for a sense that they were kind of the early beginning of denominationalism that Paul hid he was a lone ranger out there establishing his independent Baptist churches and Peter was over here in establishing his independent churches and they basically broke off into denominations I would say that there's no foundation for that at all not only from scripture or from studying over there when you look at even scripture when the Pauline let's use their phraseology Pauline communities had a problem because Gentiles were becoming into the church without being circumcised you have to be circumcised first he's a Jewish Messiah if you want our Jewish Messiah you can have them but you have to be a Jew first to have our Jewish Messiah and Paul said no we don't need to circumcise you can believe by faith and obedience to Christ and baptism and when there became a problem in these communities where did they come for an answer to the Apostles in Jerusalem Acts chapter 15 it would happen in 49 AD Paul and Barnabas actually came down to see Peter and the Apostles and to receive the right hand of fellowship to make sure they were not preaching in vain in other words are we doing the right thing are we teaching the right thing can you agree with us and give us your your blessing and your right hand of fellowship on this I don't see divisions so another example is the Gospel of John oftentimes it says that the Gospel of John was written by a committee it was a Johan and community later that gathered these things and kind of wove them into the document the fabric we know as the Gospel of John and I don't see any evidence for that because when you read the Gospel of John it is a coherent beautiful document I wrote a book on rhosync John's Gospel and in doing that both reading and studying the scripture and the life of Israel there's no way that this could have been put together by a committee you know they say a camel is a horse put together by a committee to the soul funny you know but no committee could have put together the Gospel of John it was written by an eyewitness account and the very earliest Christians testify to the fact that John before he died in Ephesus penned this document himself a spiritual gospel that was written by John now Who am I to trust those who recently say well you know we've got reason to believe it was put together by a Johannine committee in the next century or do I believe the very first ones who knew him and wrote read it in the Greek of the language that John wrote it and said this was written by John the Apostle Who am I going to trust well I'll err on the side of antiquity and I have personally gone out fishing all night in a sea of gallilee one night I went and talked to two Jewish fishermen and they said come with us you have too many questions come out and see for yourself I spent the night out on a boat fishing all night on the Sea of Galilee and then I go back and read the Gospel of John and I'll tell you that what he wrote was from an eyewitness it verifies the historicity and truth of Scripture and what the Church teaches one other place that seems to me that this has something to say about this idea that these were separate communities and I know you've been there and that's emphasis because Ephesus is Pauline and Johan ein at the same time were there two communities right Christians and Ephesus when you were there Mary and to because Gary's house was no there was one community one community of Ephesus and in Ephesus you had a bishop you didn't have three or four bishops you had one bishop and all the believers were subject to that bishop and you see it because Ephesus is only thirty miles away from Izmir which was was in the Oh in the New Testament it was I think of the name of the second but it was there that Polycarp was the Bishop Hall and Polycarp was trained Smyrna I said right he just had a mental blank here smyrna izmir today in Turkey and that's where Polycarp was the bishop and the other bishops from around the world like Ignatius of Antioch wrote to him as the bishop of Smyrna they didn't have three or four a Johanna and Bishop and a Pauline Bishop because he's they're all one and why did John write in the book of Revelation to the seven churches including Smyrna and Ephesus and Pergamum and Thyatira and these others because John was on the island of Patmos but he was the bishop of that area of Asia Minor he was writing to his churches their Catholic churches and the Catholic Church has had a bishop now as a Baptist you could have asked me Steve where's your bishop you would have thrown me for a loop I didn't have a bishop and there are some non Catholic traditions that have given men the titles of bishop but that's a whole different story - yes that there's a individual well meaning have the authority to say guess what Steve on this program I'm just going to make you a bishop yeah I don't have the authority to send you write the word apostle comes in the word send then I thority to send someone and bishop means one who oversees he has that given authority let's take ask email this comes from Don from Washington as a cradle Catholic I am bewildered that the infallibility of Catholic teaching on faith and morals does not have more impact on non Catholics how aware are Protestants that in 2,000 years not a teaching set forth definitively by the Magisterium of the church regarding faith and morals has been reversed and can you recall your thoughts when you first learned this to be so yes let's let's divide it into two the teaching official teaching of the church and the practice of the Pope's or the church okay we wouldn't have cared about the teaching that was never an issue to me we had all these boogie men that we would put up the Crusades oh the church did this now I found out a whole lot new reasons to what the Crusades were they were going back to retrieve those holy sites but we as Protestants would often dig up the the dirt on the Crusades or the Inquisition or the Pope's that did bad things and all we had to do was say well this Pope did this and that Pope did that and that just proves the Catholic Church is wrong or who says that the Pope can have an infallible teaching of the church how can a sinner a fallible weak man give an infallible interpretation of Scripture it's impossible but then I realized who wrote Matthew who wrote John who wrote Romans fallible sinful men is it more difficult to write infallible scripture or to simply give an infallible interpretation even as a Protestant I had to admit that the Holy Spirit superintended the pen of Paul and John and Matthew and Mark as they wrote and they wrote inspired Scripture so we didn't pay much attention to the teaching of the Catholic Church we just assumed it was all wrong I never read a Catholic book in my life I never heard meta Catholic priests in my life I had this boogeyman caricature of what the Catholic Church was and every time I'd go punch it knocked it down and I was proud of myself for knocking down this caricature but never did I really address true Catholicism and the teachings and when I did find this out it rattled my world because how could for 2,000 years these men who are fallible sinful men like the rest of us how could they be teaching historical and accurate and they're the ones that even though the whole Eastern Church was off base says Rome was always right Rome always had the true teaching on the Trinity and on the divinity of Christ it never collapsed it never gave in it may not have been timely it may not have been eloquently stated but to look at a list of 264 our heritage that always taught the truth and never taught error officially as a pope that has to rock anybody's world it's the oldest existing institution in the world yeah the particular doctrines of the Trinity divinity of Christ the the true presence the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist are not necessarily popular teachings in the cultures of those times as well as they are today aren't today because they're non sensual I can't see Jesus in that bread and I can't see the Trinity doesn't make sense to me how can a human being be hundred percent God numbers at man it would been so much easier to take the easy road but following the Holy Fathers we still treat right Chesterton has is great in his book Orthodox I think it is this great story of this knight galloping on his horse being pushed from one side to the other in the battle you know he said it would have been easy to fall off one one side or to fall off on the other but to gallop through the centuries fighting and staying upright all the way it's an exciting story and yet that's what the Catholic Church has done it would have been easy to fall to the left or fall to the right or just to stop the horse but the church has galloped through the centuries like a knight staying on course and never falling one way or the other email from Lynn from Topeka someone I know takes the Bible very literally and says that since nowhere in scripture is Peter referred to as the first pope that it must not be true can we prove the primacy of Peter from the Bible I think we can do it not only from Scripture but also from the early church and again I wrote a book called upon this rock which goes through the scripture and the first eight centuries proving that the early church right from the beginning understood that there was going to be a Vicar of Christ a pope and if we want to start with the Bible we can go all the way through the Old Testament which is talking about a kingdom and the king of the kingdom always had a king and the king always had a royal steward who was at his right hand who carried his keys for him and then you come to the cave in Nazareth where the angel says to Mary your son is going to be a king and sit on the throne of his father David what kind of king will this be this Jesus he will be in king of Israel and the kings of Israel had royal stewards and the royal stewards carried us keys for him and presented him in his absence Jesus is now John 14 I'm going away to prepare a place for you and in the meantime Peter I'm going to give you a new name you're Simon I'm going to call you Rach now because you are going to be the rock I'm building an office no not just a man but an office the rock and on this I will build my church and I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven and there is a place in Israel called a bun yes today it's in northern is a right on the Lebanese border and there is a big rock and a cave and this is the place Jesus took them all the way up there to say who do men say that I am and in front of this big rock and the cave was called the gates of hell jesus said I am going to make you with a new rock Peter not this rock where the pagans come to worship pan the foreign gods not where they throw their living sacrifices into the cave the gates of hell down where the gods live below I am going to establish a new rock and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it and I will establish my new church not the pagan temple that's here and I will not have this false sacrifice to the false gods but we'll have a real sacrifice to the true Lord and Jesus at that moment made Peter the true rock that he's going to build his church on and he gave Peter the keys of the kingdom which means you're going to be the Royal steward of my kingdom and what do keys represent exclusive Dominion and he didn't say I'm giving you all the keys he said I'm giving you singular Peter the keys right there we don't have to go much farther than that Jesus appoints Peter to exclusively be in charge of the kingdom when Peter dies does he throw the keys away no the keys like in the kingdom of Israel the keys are handed on to the successor to the next 264 all the way down to Benedict the sixteenth today that's why I love being a Catholic excellent excellent what was the name of the book again upon this rock upon which I know that but I want to make sure you taught the audience there is because it is a great look very great good Lane from Virginia writes a number of people in my neighborhood attend a Bible only church where they say that the Bible is their only Authority and guide I don't go to the church but was raised Catholic so assume that the Bible only believe isn't quite right but I am sure why can Steve shed some light on this Bible own belief and what the Catholic response is let's look at it historically first the Bible alone idea has only been recent in the last couple hundred years when I stand on the top of the Mount of Olives I always say see the clouds up there imagine Jesus always on the ground he's now going up and you see the bottom of his sandals and he did not yell back don't forget to read the book there was no idea there was going to be a new book the New Testament Jesus didn't say anything about a book the Apostles didn't even say anything about a book what did Jesus leave when he went up he didn't leave a library he left 12 men and one of them he gave the keys of the kingdom because he is the king was going away he left his royal steward in charge of the kingdom here on earth to establish a visible unity he didn't leave a book he didn't leave a tradition he left the first Magisterium of the church the first apostles and bishops headed by Peter and then they taught and from what they taught came the apostolic tradition when you read the very first writings of Christianity there's nothing about there being a Bible but there is something about the apostolic tradition and the teachings of the Apostles preserved in the church by the bishops who are like the caretakers they're like the one in charge of the bank the Apostles took this rich deposit Jesus gave and put it in the bank and the bishops are standing there with the keys protecting it and so Jesus didn't leave a book he left men and those men gave a teaching and part of that teaching got written down we would not have a New Testament today if it were not for the authority of the church it wasn't for four hundred years that the final collection of books was put together twenty-seven not 26 28 how do we know that because the Catholic Church and the councils of Bishops determined that so there can be no such thing as the Bible alone and when someone asks a Catholic I'll just stop with us where do you find the Pope in the Bible where do you find purgatory in the Bible and they always says where do you find it in the Bible I like to ask them a very simple question where do you find in the Bible that you have to find everything in the Bible the Bible never teaches this the Bible says listen to the man with the keys Paul says hold to the traditions I left you there's not just a book there's the man at the keys there's the tradition and there's the book to a certain extent this truly Bible only church is is even newer than the Reformation itself because with the Reformation you had Luthor and Melanchthon quickly doing their Creed's establishing what Lutheran's are to believe Calvin you have his Institute's but now we have these Bible only churches where they have no Creed know nothing of just the Bible and that's really a new phenomenon but even another new phenomenon parallel to that is the Jesus and me only churches and important doctrines are not important as long as you got Jesus and that's really within our generation that really it really is and my guess is where you live up in your Detroit there are a few of those yeah how do you address that four night well I address it simply the way you just did it's a brand new phenomenon we're not supposed to follow novelties new ideas we're to follow Jesus Christ and the church that he established he doesn't ask me today to start my own church or to reinvent the church I belong to one like that where we said let's scrap everything and start all over go to the book of Acts we'll start all over from scratch he doesn't ask me to reinvent the church he's already building his church what an insult to come to a man who's built a city and say well we don't accept your city we think we should tear it all down and start new because you did it wrong Jesus established his church this whole thing of Jesus and me is very American you don't find it anywhere else in the world even it's only an American thing and that's where we start we it all came along and we inverted the word person and inserted the word person you must believe in Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior that's it's all kind of an American psyche as a psychology or whatever but it's a new thing and this is not taught in the Bible the Bible talks about obeying your leaders of your church the bishops it talks about knowing the theology and teachings you're supposed to follow the apostolic teaching Paul did not just go out and start independent churches based on the Bible or just a personal relationship Paul calls them to truth to doctrine in fact we talked a minute ago about that first Council of Jerusalem that Paul came to with Peter and they sent out a letter that the council set out a letter and it didn't say just have believed in Jesus on your own we're not going to impose anything I need just to love Jesus and do you know they wrote a letter that was binding upon all of the churches and then the Greek it said we are sending out a decree binding on all of you and that word in greek is dogma they sent out a Dogma a final teaching that was binding on everyone this is very flies in the face of this man Jesus thing that's right and again if anything what is led to that is pork catechesis not only in our non Catholic world but in our Catholic world and so you have a lot of Catholics that get drawn to this because they see people with great enthusiasm for them Jesus and me relationship and they don't realize what they're leaving behind yep Jordan from Tennessee writes a close friend of mine is a devout Baptist what one thing would Steve suggest that I say to bring him closer to the Catholic Church first of all I would say tell them you love them you know we don't win souls by arguing with them we listen to them I believe you have a six step process that you told me was yeah I have preached oh so many people who have friends that are Baptist or or have family members who have left the Catholic Church and they say that's the number one question I get as I travel is what do I do about this what how do I relate to them and our first thought is that we need to argue with them you know sit them down and read them their the truth I've concluded that that's probably going to be counterproductive you and I talked about this I come up with six I hope I can remember them all one is you don't argue with the person you love them more than you ever loved them before you pray and make sacrifices for them you show the joy of the Lord in your life so they say what are you so happy about Catholic that's what I'm having about the set the last another one is that you do your homework and have the answers ready maybe books and tapes and things answers ready for if that person ever does come and want to know and sixth I think is an important one pray that God would bring somebody else into their life because family members are usually not going to listen to you and I've had this experience Riaan swear I prayed for someone and within a year God brought somebody else around from behind talk to them about the faith and they had respect for this person and it changed their whole attitude about Catholicism but for someone who has a friend who's a Baptist we as evangelicals we did have some very good ideas one was called relational evangelism you evangelize by building a relationship I've used the example I don't walk up to somebody I don't know in a street and say well hello there how are your kidneys today you see my kidneys are none of your business what are you talking about my kidneys I don't even know you but if I make friends with that person over a year's time I visit him and bring him a gift when he's in the hospital I help his family when they're in trouble and then I find out he's got kidney problems and he's in the hospital and I walk up to him on the street a year later say hey how are your kidneys today I'm going to get a different response he's going to say well thank you for asking about my kidneys what's the difference I built a relationship if we want to evangelize people around us we need to build relationships and then we earned the right to talk to them about it is said you and I both know that there are some non Catholic traditions that their view of evangelization is really cold turkey it's almost as if in essence they don't care so much about the person but that they're doing their job I'm doing my responsibilities I'm sharing the gospel yeah and we do know that when you or I or anyone shares the gospel we're not responsible for that person's choice right we're only responsible to tell right but I do believe as Catholics we recognize that we're responsible to tell everyone but that there's more to it than just I've done my job yep that as you said as both of our a presently father and her last Holy Father when they talked about new evangelization it involves mostly love and prayer and sacrifice this is really something that changed as I became a Catholic because you're exactly right as an evangelical I would hand out tracts and I also knew who was going to heaven and who wasn't going to heaven because you know if you haven't believed the way I do then obviously you can't go to heaven but as I became a Catholic there was this much rich understanding of people as persons and especially John Paul the second I think made this so clear that we are persons we are infinite beings in the sense that we are spend eternity with God in heaven that when I talk to a person I'm not talking just to a collection of molecules or to a animal or a creature I'm speaking to a person who's made in the image of God and therefore I have to love them even if I don't tell them about Jesus I still have to treat them with respect and love them and if I really ultimately love them I will tell them about Jesus which is why I wear this cross everywhere I go because if you look at me on the street you're not going to know I'm a Christian or a Catholic at the first notice but if you see this you're going to suspect hey maybe he's a Christian this reminds me to live my life right in public I got to be a good tester but also people ask me about this I like your cross and I'll say thank you I wear it proudly as a Catholic and then it opens up a discussion to treat them as an individual and as a person and to relate to them and share the gospel ultimately all right Judith from Covington Kentucky it seems to me that the Eucharist is plainly taught in the Bible especially in John 6 why then do our separate brother not believe that the bread and wine become Jesus's body and blood for a couple of reasons because when you eat it it tastes like bread and your senses tell you that's bread and most people in the world today live based on their senses they say they base it on faith but let's face it in most cases we live by our senses and when I take this it tastes like bread smells like bread feels like but it must be bread but I don't believe it's the Eucharist the body and blood of Christ because of what my senses tell me because I know my senses lie to me every day about a lot of things I consume the the Eucharist as the body of Christ because a space alien told me so and I tell this away when I talk to kids because they understand this we have five senses they're very puny and measly they give us a false reading about many things in reality but when someone comes from who's not around here and tells me things because he comes from heaven Jesus himself who ascended and descended and he comes and tells me that this is my body I'm going to have to take that pretty seriously because he knows things I don't know that I can't tell with my five senses he comes down tells me this is and I'm going to take it imagine me at the Last Supper Jesus said this is my body and I say oh excuse me Jesus I think he made a little blunder there there's going to be a billion Catholics some time to think you really meant what you said I think we should reword that and say this represents my body and we'll solve a lot of confusion you imagine the arrogance of me telling Jesus to change his words and yet he said very clearly this is my body and because I believe him even before my own senses I love the Eucharist and I could go on and on about this but I was going to say the Trinity and divinity of Christ in the Eucharist are three mysteries there that cannot truly understand exactly or prove with our senses a friend of mine exactly this he said I can prove to you this is not the Eucharist how he says with my microscope I'll put it in the microscope and if it shows up as a protein that means it's flesh if it's a carbohydrate it means it's bread and I said okay but I want to ask you a question first if Jesus was walking down the street and I ran up and took my Swiss Army knife and I cut the tip off of his finger and put it in your microscope would you be able to detect the divinity of that man and he said no I'd only be able to prove that he was a man but not that he's God and I said our senses don't tell us everything Stephen my friend god bless you thank you what's your website Catholic convert calm all right check that out god bless you all look forward to seeing again next week you you you

Channel: EWTN

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Keywords: EWTN, Journey Home, Marcus Grodi, Steve Ray, Former Baptist, Catholic, JHT01330

Id: XVu9MPB4XHM

Length: 56min 0sec (3360 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 12 2011