Paul Washer – The Essential Means of Grace

The Essential Means of Grace
By Paul Washer
Reformation Heritage Books, 2020, 64 pp.

Brother Slim Jim over at The Domain for Truth reviewed “The Essential Means of Grace” by Paul Washer way back in July. Because Jimmy was so enthusiastic and because I have enjoyed several of Paul Washer’s sermons on video in the past, I promptly downloaded the ebook to my Kindle and then promptly forgot about it, until Jimmy included it in a January post citing his Top 5 books of 2023.

No need to reinvent the wheel. Jimmy already did a great job reviewing this book (see his review here). The four essential means of God’s grace cited by Washer are:

• The Scriptures
• Prayer
• Repentance and Confession
• The Church (Washer is referring to a local church)

I’m grateful to Paul Washer for the following passage in the chapter on the Scriptures:

“One of the countless errors and heresies of Roman Catholicism is that it conformed Christianity to culture in order to make it more appealing and acceptable. In contrast, the Reformers remained faithful to the Scriptures and called the surrounding cultures to conform to its high standard. Roman Catholicism only lowered and polluted Christianity, but the Reformed faith raised cultures to new spiritual, academic, economic, and social heights.” - p.12

Truth! Praise God for evangelical pastors and para-church leaders who aren’t afraid to tell the truth about Roman Catholicism and its false gospel.

👍 “The Essential Means of Grace” would be an excellent foundational discipleship book for a new believer or a great back-to-basics “refresher” for the seasoned saint.

Thanks for the recommendation, Slim Jim! I thoroughly enjoyed it. Order from Amazon here.

Same term, very different meanings

How terms are defined makes a difference, a HUGE difference.

The leaders of the defunct Soviet Union claimed to uphold the principles of “freedom” and “democracy,” but we all knew it was double-speak. In reality, so-called freedom and democracy in the Soviet Union equated to violent oppression and authoritarianism. We must always be careful to define our terms.

The leadership of the Roman Catholic church uses terms that are rooted in the Bible and shared by evangelical Christians such as “grace,” “faith,” and “salvation in Christ,” but what Catholics mean by these terms is something entirely different compared to how evangelicals understand them.

Let’s take “faith” as just one example.

When evangelicals talk about “faith,” they’re referring to their trust in Jesus Christ as their personal Savior. At some point in their life, they understood they were a sinner destined for eternal punishment in hell and they called upon the Lord to forgive their sins and save them. By placing their trust in Christ, their sins were forgiven, they were made righteous in Christ, and were granted eternal life as a spiritually reborn child of God. As a regenerated believer, they joyfully follow their Good Shepherd in obedience, albeit imperfectly. Although “faith” entails other things, salvation and sanctification in/through Christ is the crux of Christian faith. An evangelical’s faith does not rest upon their ability to merit salvation in any form or fashion. Evangelical faith recognizes man’s complete inability to merit salvation in any way and our absolute need of the Savior.

What about Catholics? What do they mean when they talk about “faith”?

Catholics are taught they are born-again when they are baptized. They must then partake of their church’s sacraments to allegedly receive graces in order to resist temptation and sin (aka “cooperate with grace”) and hopefully merit salvation at the moment of death. So when a Catholic talks about “faith,” they are referring to faith/trust in their church’s sacramental salvation system. They are trusting in their religious institution, not in Jesus Christ and His finished work on the cross. While Catholics certainly pray for “divine” help (Mary, the saints, maybe God) to run the RC works-righteousness gauntlet, their “faith” includes their own assumed abilities and efforts to do good and merit the “golden ring” at the end of their days.

That is not Biblical faith.

Don’t let the common parlance fool you. What Catholics mean by “faith” is not what evangelicals mean. Does the difference matter? It’s the difference between heaven and hell.

Catholic friend, accept Jesus Christ as your Savior by faith alone, come out of the Roman Catholic church, and ask the Lord to lead you to an evangelical church in your area that teaches the Bible without compromise.

Evangelical brothers and sisters, don’t buy into the ecumenical propaganda. Roman Catholics believe a “different gospel” and are a mission field.

For more on the difference between Catholic “faith” and Biblical evangelical faith see “Same Words, Different Worlds: Do Roman Catholics and Evangelicals Believe the Same Gospel?” (2021) by Dr. Leonardo De Chirico, available at Amazon here.

Reformanda Initiative Podcast #62: Understanding Roman Catholic “Synodality” and the Synodal Church

Welcome to this week’s installment of our Reformanda Initiative podcast series! I’m excited to present the ministry of Dr. Leonardo De Chirico and his associates at Reformanda Initiative as they examine Roman Catholic theology in order to inform and equip evangelicals.

Episode #62: Understanding Synodality and the Synodal Church

Show Notes

You cannot talk about Roman Catholicism today without also talking about synodality. The Synodal Church is the new hermeneutic for understanding and engaging Roman Catholicism. To say it is essential is an understatement. But what is it? In this episode, we answer that question.

My Comments

The current buzzword in Roman Catholicism is “synodality.” As the RI guys explain, this is an effort by pope Francis and his progressive allies to supposedly make the church more receptive and responsive to input from the laity and to initiate reforms. Associate RI director, Reid Karr, does a good job of explaining synodality. Who cares? Evangelicals can’t understand the current trends in the RCC without understanding this progressive push for synodality.

Episode #62: Understanding Synodality and the Synodal Church
Featuring Reid Karr and Clay Kannard
November 22, 2023 – 33 minutes
https://reformandainitiative.buzzsprout.com/663850/14018628-62-understanding-synodality-and-the-synodal-church

There is no YouTube video version of this podcast. The RI guys discontinued posting episodes on YouTube following Episode #38.

Next week: Episode #63: Should Evangelicals pray with Roman Catholics?

Sunday video short #32: Does John 20:23 Support Roman Catholic Confession?

In this 1:46-minute video-short, Costi Hinn (forthegospel.org) and apologist-evangelist, Mike Gendron, discuss whether John 20:23 supports Roman Catholic confession.

John 20:23 – “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.”

For a thorough rebuttal of the Roman Catholic church’s interpretation of John 20:23 as a proof-text for confessing sins to a priest, see my relevant post here.

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Below is a link to Mike Gendron’s Gospel outreach ministry to Roman Catholics, Proclaiming the Gospel.

Proclaiming the Gospel
https://www.proclaimingthegospel.org/

Welcome to the Weekend Roundup! – News & Views – 1/27/24

• Pope Francis: ‘I like to think of hell as empty’

At the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), the Roman Catholic church officially adopted the position of semi-Universalism, the view that all religions and even “moral” atheism are legitimate pathways to God. Pope Francis, as well as other prominent Catholic clergymen, such as bishop Robert Barron, are moving the RCC closer to full-blown Universalism by informally suggesting that hell is empty. In contrast to pope Francis, Jesus Christ stated, “And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life” – Matthew 25:46.

• Pope Francis: Worst Pope in History?
• “The Catholic Church is not the Pope’s Church and Catholics are therefore not papists but Christians”

Conservative Roman Catholics are still reeling from pope Francis’ Fiducia supplicans declaration, which authorized priestly blessings for same-sex couples. Over the centuries, Catholics have boasted of their papal prerogative, claiming the absolute indefectabilty of their church because it was led by the allegedly divinely-appointed, infallible pope. That’s no longer the case. Conservative Catholic talking heads noticeably distance themselves from the papacy of progressive Francis, advising their audiences to ignore the pope and to cling to traditional Catholic doctrine. The conservative Catholic author of the first article above ponders in the affirmative whether Francis is the worst pope in history. In the second article, conservative cardinal Gerhard Müller, one of the pope’s most vocal critics, circumspectly suggests Francis is a heretic. We live in unusual times when the Roman Catholics who value the doctrines of their religion most seriously are opposed to their pope. In all of this brouhaha we see no trace of the genuine Gospel of salvation by God’s grace alone, through faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone.

• Conservative Catholic bishop deposed by pope Francis to give keynote at GOP gala

Joseph Strickland was deposed as the Catholic bishop of Tyler, Texas because of his repeated criticisms of pope Francis. At the upcoming Conservative Political Action Conference’s annual Ronald Reagan Dinner in Washington, D.C on February 23rd, politically-compromised evangelicals in attendance will be enthusiastically applauding keynote speaker Strickland despite the fact that he propagates Rome’s false gospel of salvation by sacramentalism and merit. Politics idolatry causes believers to yoke with non-believers (2 Corinthians 6:14-15).

• New book fails to explain why Protestants convert to Catholicism

This article from a Catholic source caught my eye. The writer briefly examines a recently published book, “Why Do Protestants Convert?” [to Roman Catholicism, implied but not stated on the cover – Tom] by Brad Littlejohn and Chris Castaldo. I’ve reviewed several books from Castaldo over the years. He’s soft on the RCC, i.e., critical of many of its doctrines, but still acknowledging it as a fundamentally-Christian institution. Along the same vein, Carl Trueman, a regular contributor to the Catholic ecumenical journal, First Things, supplies the forward. Catholics make much hay out of nominal “Protestants” converting to RC-ism while evangelicals are generally embarrassed regarding those who accept Christ, leave RC-ism, and join evangelical churches. Why? Because they contradict the Rome-friendly ecumenical paradigm that’s rampant throughout evangelicalism. I’ve obtained a copy of this book and will be reviewing it down the road.

Responding to “Meeting the Protestant Response”: The Index

As the capper to our twenty-month Friday series examining “Meeting the Protestant Response: How to Answer Common Comebacks to Catholic Arguments” (2022) by Catholic apologist, Karlo Broussard, I present the index to all of the installments below. Thank you for your encouragement and support throughout this long series!

Chapter 1, Rock of the Church, Matthew 16:18

#1: Petros and Petra are two different words

#2: Petros and Petra mean different things

#3: The foundation is Jesus

#4: The foundation is Peter’s confession of faith

#5: The central theme of the passage is the identity of Jesus

#6: All the apostles are the foundation, not just Peter

#7: Peter is only a pillar, not the pillar

Chapter 2, Keeper of the Keys, Matthew 16:19

#8: There’s nothing important about the images of keys, gates, and doors. It’s stock imagery

#9: If it’s not an exact parallel, then there’s no papal authority

#10: The key is not the keys

#11: Uniqueness doesn’t entail papal authority

#12: Jesus uniquely rebukes Peter

#13: The other apostles have the same authority to bind and loose

Chapter 3, Leader of the Church, Luke 22:31-32

#14: The prayer is to ensure that Peter will repent and not lose his faith completely

#15: Jesus prays for others as well

#16: Peter only strengthens by helping others not to make the same mistake that he did

#17: The Bible says that other people ‘strengthen’ as leaders in the Church

Chapter 4, Chief Shepherd of the Flock, John 21:15-17

#18: The exchange is merely to give Peter the opportunity to make up for the three times he denied Christ

#19: There are other shepherds

Chapter 5, Decider at the Council, Acts 15:7-11

#20: Peter doesn’t speak on behalf of the council. His view had to be judged by the council

#21: Peter didn’t convene the council. It was a voluntary inquiry into the issue

#22: The Jerusalem council just confirmed revelation already given to Paul

#23: James was the leader of the council, not Peter

Chapter 6, Born of Water and the Spirit, John 3:3-5

#24: Jesus’ reference to ‘birth by water’ refers to our biological birth. The ‘birth by Spirit’ refers to the new birth

#25: The water that Jesus speaks of refers to the word of God.

Chapter 7, Baptized for the Forgiveness of Sins, Acts 2:38

#26: Baptism is not the cause of salvation but rather follows it

#27: The order of salvation in the New Testament is repentance, faith, and then baptism. Salvation comes first, then baptism

Chapter 8, Baptism Now Saves You, 1 Peter 3:21

#28: What saves us is our pledge to God to follow Jesus

#29: It’s Jesus’ resurrection that saves, not baptism

Chapter 9, The Bread of Life Discourse, John 6:48-67

#30: Jesus left his audience in ignorance all the time. Nothing special here

#31: Jesus does correct his disciples’ literal thinking. He says, ‘The flesh is of no avail; the words that I have spoken to you are Spirit and life’ (John 6:63)

#32: Jesus moves away from a physical mentality in John 6:27

#33: Jesus can’t intend us to literally drink his blood because the Bible prohibits the partaking of blood in Leviticus 17:10-12

#34: Jesus meant his words figuratively, as he did in John 10:9, when he spoke of himself as a ‘door,’ and in John 15:5, when he spoke of himself as ‘the vine

#35: The context reveals that ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ mean belief

#36: The words eat and drink are used in the Bible as metaphors to refer to our relationship with God

Chapter 10, This Is My Body, Matthew 26:26-28

#37: Jesus identifies the contents of the chalice as the ‘fruit of the vine’ after the words of consecration

#38: The blood of the covenant can’t be of a living person

#39: In 1 Corinthians 10:4, Paul says Christ is the rock in the wilderness, yet we don’t take that literally

#40: In John 16:25, Jesus confirms that his words at the Last Supper were figurative

#41: The apostles were already thinking symbolically in light of the symbolism of Passover

Chapter 11, If You Forgive the Sins of Any, John 20:23

#42: Jesus means for the apostles to preach the forgiveness of sins, and the hearer’s sins will be forgiven or retained by God on how he responds

#43: Luke clarifies what Jesus means by ‘forgive and retain’ in his parallel account in Luke 24:47

#44: The Greek text reveals that the forgiveness and retainment of sins is something God has already done

#45: The apostles didn’t absolve people; they preached the forgiveness of sins

Chapter 12, Mother of God, Luke 1:43

#46: Elizabeth simply uses the title lord in the sense of an earthly ruler. She’s referring to the fruit of Mary’s womb, Jesus, as her messianic king, not the divine messianic king

#47: If you take some parallels with the ark, then you need to take all of them

Chapter 13, Perpetual Virginity, Luke 1:34, John 19:26-27

#48: Mary’s response refers to her being a virgin at the time of Gabriel’s announcement, not to some vow of lifelong virginity

#49: There are other explanations for why Jesus entrusts Mary into John’s care without having to say that Mary didn’t have other biological children

Chapter 14, Immaculate Conception and Sinlessness, Genesis 3:14-15

#50: The enmity is not total, as Mary’s sinlessness would demand

#51: There’s no prophecy that the woman would be victorious over the devil

Chapter 15, Bodily Assumption, Revelation 12:1-5

#52: The woman is a symbol of Israel, not Mary

#53: The Mariological reading gets the chronology wrong

#54: The woman can’t be Mary because she has birth pains

Chapter 16, Intercession of the Saints, Revelation 5:8

#55: The “saints” aren’t Christians on earth

#56: The ‘prayers’ aren’t petitions; they’re praises

#57: We can’t be sure that the saints in heaven hear the prayers

#58: Even if the elders hear us and intercede for us, we’re still not justified in praying to them

#59: Even if the saints hear us, the Bible doesn’t say how they hear us

Chapter 17, Hold to the Traditions You Were Taught, 2 Thessalonians 2:15

#60: The traditions spoken of are identical to what was put in writing

#61: Paul identifies the oral traditions as ‘the gospel’ and therefore restricts the oral traditions to that which eventually would be included in the written word.

#62: Paul doesn’t say traditions and letter, but rather traditions or letter.

#63: The oral traditions were authoritative but not inspired or infallible

#64: The oral tradition was only for the first century. The oral tradition/Scripture paradigm changed when the last apostle died

Chapter 18, Not by Faith Alone, James 2:24

#65: James is speaking of justification in the sight of men – because he says so in James 2:18

#66: Abraham was justified without works

#67: The term justification is used elsewhere in Scripture for vindication

Chapter 19, Work Out Your Salvation, Philippians 2:12

#68: Paul is speaking of a corporate salvation of the Philippian community, a salvation that’s temporal and experiential

#69: The salvation that Paul speaks of is successful endurance of persecution, not salvation from eternal damnation

#70: Paul is speaking about sanctification, not justification or salvation

Chapter 20, The Sheep and the Goats, Matthew 25:31-46

#71: Jesus is talking about ruling with him in the kingdom, not entrance into the kingdom

#72: The works are not causative of entrance into the kingdom. They’re merely evidential

Chapter 21, Abide in Me or Be Burned, John 15:5-6

#73: Jesus is not talking about eternal punishment. Rather, he’s talking about temporal punishment

Chapter 22, Severed from Christ, Galatians 5:4

#74: Paul is not talking about a loss of salvation. He’s talking about a loss of sanctification

Chapter 23, Lest I Be Disqualified, 1 Corinthians 9:27

#75: Paul is talking about losing heavenly rewards, not salvation

Chapter 24, Those Who Spurn the Son of God, Hebrews 10:26-31

#76: The author is talking about the loss of rewards, not salvation

#77: The passage cuts against Catholic belief, since the author teaches that the sinner can’t be restored, no longer having a sacrifice for sins

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Closing Thoughts

Throwback Thursday: Argh! Picked last for gym class AGAIN!

Welcome to this week’s “Throwback Thursday” installment. Today, we’re going to revisit a post that was originally published back on June 5, 2017 and has been revised.

We’re currently studying through the Epistle of James at church and yesterday the pastor was expounding upon James’ admonition in chapter 2:1-13 for believers not to show partiality. We’re really bad at this, right Christians? We’re trained by our culture to show partiality to the richest, the strongest, the prettiest, the smartest, etc. For some reason, I remembered something from my past that ties into this.

Growing up in a home with five older sisters, no brothers, and an emotionally distant father, I didn’t have much in the way of masculine role models. I began to have problems in fifth grade when our previously co-ed gym class was split into separate sessions for boys and girls. Most of the other boys at that age were starting to get rough and physical and gaining athletic prowess, but that wasn’t my world yet.

Each year, the gym teacher, Mrs. Miller (what a memory – like a steel trap!), picked two of the most athletic boys to be captains and every time we were to play some type of team sport, the captains would alternate picking from amongst the other boys to fill up their teams and I was always one of the last to be chosen as the gym teacher looked on approvingly. Sadist! Boy, that was humiliating! I used to wonder, “Why in this supposed Catholic (c)hristian school, would the gym teacher encourage something like this?” The torture continued for a few years. Argh! By eighth grade I was starting to fill out a little and was also trying hard to be at least somewhat competent when playing pickup football, baseball, and basketball games. I actually played football in my second year in high school although I was in way over my head.

So why harp on about a humiliation from fifty-five-plus years ago? I think we all have deep hurts from our past that we still think about. Maybe we were passed over because of our looks, or our dismal report cards, or our family’s lack of money, or our race or ethnicity, etc., etc. Kids can be very mean and so can adults.

I am so glad the Lord our God doesn’t show partiality. In fact, the Lord often uses the “weaker” people for His glory. The rich, powerful, and popular actually have a much harder time finding the humility to accept the Lord as their Savior than those of us who know what it’s like to be picked last.

“For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.” – 1 Corinthians 1:26-29

Thank you Lord, for choosing me!!! If I boast about anything, let me always boast about You!!! (1 Corinthians 1:31)

The Mustard Seed Parable: Encouraging or Ominous?

Above photo: A tall mustard plant grows roadside in Israel

Gospel Christians rightly affirm the doctrine of the “perspicuity” (i.e., clarity) of Scripture, the teaching that the central message of the Bible is clear and understandable and that the Bible itself can be properly interpreted in a normal, literal sense.

However, theologians do disagree on the meaning of some Bible passages. One such passage is the Parable of the Mustard Seed found in Matthew 13:31-32*:

³¹ He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. ³² It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.”

What exactly did Jesus mean by this parable?

Some theologians see the parable in a totally positive light. Scottish New Testament scholar, I. Howard Marshall (d. 2015), wrote that the parable foretells “the growth of the kingdom of God from tiny beginnings to worldwide size,” with the birds symbolizing Gentile converts of all nations. Supporters of this view cite Ezekiel 17:23, 31:6 and Daniel 4:12, 4:21 as supporting texts, which seem to present birds as favorable symbols of Gentile conversion into the kingdom.

Other Bible scholars see the Parable of the Mustard Seed as an ominous forewarning.

• First point: Almost immediately preceding the mustard seed parable, Jesus had used birds as symbols of demonic evil (see Matthew 13:4). Elsewhere, Revelation 18:2 refers to end-times religious Babylon as “a haunt for every unclean bird.”
• Second point: The “mustard tree” (Greek: sinapi) referred to in Matthew 13:31-32 is generally believed to be the Rhamphospermum nigrum black mustard plant that typically grows to only around 6 feet tall, but may occasionally double that height. The normal-sized sinapi plant is hardly a haven for flocks of birds.
• Third point: The fact that the Parable of the Mustard Seed follows immediately after the Parable of the Weeds (Matthew 13:24-30) in which Jesus used wheat and weeds/tares as symbols of genuine believers and false believers respectively might suggest a cautionary view of the plant/tree and birds of the Parable of the Mustard Seed rather than a totally optimistic one

This second group of scholars (e.g., Martijn Linssen, Herbert Lockeyer) proposes the parable as a prophecy that the institutionalized church would grow “unnaturally” large (i.e., in union with temporal kingdoms and not in conjunction with the Gospel) and be inhabited/influenced by demonic powers.

My take? I tend towards the second, cautionary view. Christianity quickly spread throughout the Roman Empire. After Christianity was legalized and then adopted as the official state religion, the ascendant clergy class consolidated their hold over the laity by syncretically adapting pagan philosophies, myths, and religious practices and transforming the Gospel of grace into a false gospel of salvation by sacramentalism and merit. The resulting Roman and Byzantine “Christendom” was in many aspects a counterfeit, pseudo-Christianity.

The Parable of the Leaven (Matthew 13:33) immediately follows the Mustard Seed Parable and is likewise interpreted either as favorable or cautionary. Leaven/yeast is elsewhere used in the Bible as a symbol of sin or false teaching (e.g., 1 Corinthians 5:6-8, Matthew 16:6)

Question: What is your take on the Parable of the Mustard Seed?

*See also Mark 4:30-32 and Luke 13:18-19

Broken Faith

Broken Faith: Inside the Word of Faith Fellowship, One of America’s Most Dangerous Cults
By Mitch Weiss and Holbrook Mohr
Hanover Square Press, 2020, 411 pp.

There are fundamentalist churches all across the country whose beliefs and practices border on the cultish, but the Word of Faith Fellowship in Spindale, North Carolina goes way over the line. I stumbled upon this exposé at the local library.

After attending Kenneth Hagin’s Rhema Bible Training College (Pentecostal) in Tulsa, Oklahoma for a single year in 1974, Sam Whaley became involved in various ministries. In 1985, Sam and his wife, Jane (b. 1939), began the Word of Faith Fellowship in Spindale, North Carolina. Jane claimed direct revelation from God and quickly eclipsed her husband as leader of the church. Jane tightly controlled the church’s growing congregation (currently around 800 members). There is a very long list of specific rules that members are required to follow. All important life decisions (education, employment, marriage, etc.) have to be run through Jane for approval. Those who fail to comply are called out from the pulpit. Those suspected of sinful thoughts and/or behavior (including children) are subjected to “blasting” exorcisms, whereby they are surrounded by fellow-congregants during church service and subjected to screaming and physical violence (shoving, hitting, kicking). The unrepentant males are consigned to an on-campus building for days, weeks, or months until they have a satisfactory “breakthrough.” Multiple families are forced to live together. Children are placed with other church members. No one confides in fellow church members, even to their spouse, for fear of being betrayed to Jane. Those who escape the church are shunned/ostracized by family members. Local law enforcement is sympathetic to the politically-connected church and does not react responsibly to reports of abuse.

Authors Weiss and Mohr interviewed multiple former church members, with a special focus on one large, extended family, the Coopers, to put together this exposé. This is a gut-wrenching book, folks. How could people allow themselves to be flagrantly manipulated and abused? It’s not all that far-fetched. I started out as a new Christian at an independent fundamental Baptist church for eight years, so I have some experience with authoritarian, controlling, megalomaniacal pastors, although not to the degree at Word of Faith Fellowship. People get caught up in the leadership idolatry and “circle-the-wagons,” “us versus them” group hysteria/brainwashing. We don’t like to think that we could be brainwashed, but intelligent people are manipulated every day. Scripture is our ultimate authority. If it doesn’t align with Scripture, it’s not of God. Word of Faith Fellowship is totally out of alignment with God’s Word.

A couple of criticisms: You’ll need a scorecard to keep up with the very long list of characters. A glaring weakness of this book is that authors regularly reconstruct lengthy conversations with quotation marks as if they were verbatim/factual.

Postscript: It’s entirely justifiable to expose a cult such as the 800-member Word of Faith Fellowship, but evangelicals will undiscerningly give a pass to the 1.4 billion member Roman Catholic church with its 1500-year history of atrocities and abuses, including its spiritually-deadly false gospel of salvation by sacramentalism and merit.

Above: Word of Faith Fellowship cult leaders, Sam and Jane Whaley

Above: The Whaley’s palatial estate on 35 acres

Reformanda Initiative Podcast #61: Answering Your Questions

Welcome to this week’s installment of our Reformanda Initiative podcast series! I’m excited to present the ministry of Dr. Leonardo De Chirico and his associates at Reformanda Initiative as they examine Roman Catholic theology in order to inform and equip evangelicals.

Episode #61: Answering Your Questions

Show Notes

In this episode Leonardo and Reid respond to some of the questions our listeners have sent us.

My Comments

Dr. De Chirico does an excellent job in this podcast of answering various questions about Roman Catholicism. During the course of this podcast, the RI guys mention their conference at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY, held February 22-24, 2023. I was hoping there was a video record of that event, but I haven’t found one despite searching. In our video-absorbed era, it’s beyond puzzling that RI and SBTS didn’t think to record the conference.

Episode #61: Answering Your Questions
Featuring Leonardo De Chirico and Reid Karr
March 21, 2023 – 54 minutes
https://reformandainitiative.buzzsprout.com/663850/12486041-61-answering-your-questions

There is no YouTube video version of this podcast. The RI guys discontinued posting episodes on YouTube following Episode #38.

Next week: Episode #62: Understanding Synodality and the Synodal Church