The Bible Made Me Do It
From the time I was ten years old, I wanted to be a preacher like Billy Graham and my Baptist pastor. I dreamed of preaching in the pulpit on Sunday morning and leading people to Jesus Christ. Other kids wanted to be firemen and policemen, I wanted to be a preacher.
Though in my early teenage years I drifted away from my faith with the advent of parties and girls, as is the case with so many young people, I came back to Christ through the Assemblies of God when I was eighteen and rediscovered my boyhood desire to be a preacher.
After leaving high school, shortly after giving my life back to Christ, I decided to enter the Marine Corps, in order to save money for college and gain some much needed discipline. This decision proved to be a blessing. Being stationed in different parts of the United States allowed me to become involved, in my off-duty hours, with many different protestant churches and ministries. I was involved with street evangelization and leading Bible studies. I led young Christian singles groups and a detention center outreach.
Then my dream came true. Just after I left the Marine Corps, I was asked to serve as a part-time interim youth pastor at the Assemblies of God church where I worshipped. After about six months of this work, the elders of the congregation offered to make the job a permanent full-time position. They also offered to pay my way through Bible college while I was in the ministry. I was elated!
There was one problem. During my last year in the Marines I met Matt Dula, a Catholic who really knew his faith. I didn’t know a whole lot about the Catholics, but I did know two things: Their beliefs were not biblical, and they were
not Christians. Anti-Catholicism is a staple in the diet of many Assemblies of God churches, and growing up I gorged myself on the many horror stories I heard about the errors of “Romanism.”
When I first met Matt and we started talking about religion, I assumed he would be another poor Catholic that I could help get “saved the Bible way.” I was in for quite a surprise. I started an argument that lasted my entire final year in the Marine Corps. In spite of the jousting, we became good friends. But when it came to religion, Christian charity would often go out the window.
I thank God that Matt had enough knowledge of and love for his faith, to give me intelligent answers about Catholicism. If it were not for him, I would not be a Catholic today. I pray that my testimony will encourage Catholics to defend the Faith when challenged by non-Catholics. I thank God for letting me encounter a Catholic who was willing and able to contend for the Faith (Jude 13).
Unfortunately, before meeting Matt, I had encountered many Catholics who were ignorant of their beliefs and often indifferent toward their Church. Their apathy was just another sign to me that the Catholic Church was not the true Church of Jesus Christ.
I was never shy about my faith in Jesus Christ. When I met Matt I immediately asked him if he was a Christian. He said he was a Catholic. “Ha!” I scoffed to myself. “I’ll set him straight.” And the argument commenced. Matt didn’t match me verse for verse (Fundamentalists are encouraged to memorize as much Scripture as they can), but for a Catholic he did a pretty good job! Every time I raised an objection against Catholicism his answers were always reasonable and often downright compelling. What startled me was that his explanations were invariably grounded in scripture.
I always took the offensive, attacking Catholic teachings, and poor Matt could hardly get a word in at all. I’d lob one scriptural grenade after another until he’d be exasperated by the sheer number of my objections. (Many protestants are skilled at delivering scriptural one-liners which seem to disprove a given Catholic belief. Unfortunately, these succinct arguments often require a lengthy response. It’s important for Catholics to learn how to give short, biblical responses to Fundamentalist objections. This will get their attention.)
I must have seemed like a stubborn mule, but I didn’t try consciously to be obstinate. I simply knew I was right and he was wrong. I had no respect for Catholics because of their lack of scriptural knowledge and because they held on to doctrines I had been taught were unbiblical.
The concept that the Catholic Church might be right about anything was just not a possibility, as far as I was concerned. Nope. Fundamentalist Protestantism was the truth, and I knew it. I had everything planned out: when I left the Marine Corps I was going to enter the ministry. I didn’t want anything to spoil the plan I was sure the Lord had given me. But the Lord had other plans for me.
When I attacked Catholic formula prayers as violating the Lord’s condemnation against “vain repetitions” (Matthew 6:7), he asked if I thought a wife would object to her husband repeating the words, “I love you.” “would that be a vain repetition?” he asked. “In the same way, we Catholics tell God we love him over and over again in our prayers.” This gave me pause. I had to admit to myself that hymns we sang at our worship services often were just repetitions of the words “praise God,” or some other prayerful phrase. Why were these repetitions somehow allowable for the Assemblies of God? I asked. But Catholics were not allowed to do the same?
Matt reminded me that even the angels described in Revelation 4:8 are eternally in the presence of God, repeating the prayer “holy, holy, holy, Lord.” I was forced to admit that this repetition is not only not “vain repetition,” it is biblical repetition.
When I objected to the Catholic belief in the perpetual virginity of Mary, Matt had a response that was devastating to my argument. I asked how he explained the fact that Matthew 13:55 lists the “brothers” of Jesus as James, Joseph, Simon and Judas (this verse was one of my favorites for making a Catholic squirm). He pointed out that Luke 6:15-16 reveals that James and Joseph, though elsewhere called “brothers” of Jesus, are here shown to be the sons of Alphaeus (cf. John 19:25). These “brothers” were actually Jesus’ cousins. The term “brother” is often used to mean “cousin” or some other type of kin in scripture. How embarrassing to be shown up by a Bible-quoting Catholic!
But even if those men were Jesus’ cousins, I thought, Scripture says that Jesus was Mary’s “firstborn,” implying she had other children afterwards (Matt. 1:25). Matt reminded me that the text did not say they had marital relations – that was simply my interpretation. And “firstborn” is a ceremonial title given to the firstborn male child who inherited a unique birthright from his father (cf. Gen 25:33). An only child could have this title just as validly as the firstborn of many brothers.
I was also bothered by the word “until” in Matthew 1:25 until Matt pointed out that the word “until” (Greek: hoes) does not imply anything about what came after the incident being described. He cited 1 Corinthians 15:25 which says that Christ “must reign, until he has put all enemies under his feet.” Obviously, this does not mean Jesus ceases to reign after all his enemies have been put under his feet (cf. Luke 1:33).
What’s your authority?
I objected to many Catholic doctrines during our discussions, but one afternoon Matt turned the tables and challenged me to defend my ecclesiology. “if everyone in the Church has the same authority, as you claim” he asked, who has the final authority to settle disagreements over the correct interpretation of Scripture? Isn’t that the role of the Church?”
I answered by defending sola scriptura, the Protestant doctrine that the Scripture alone is God’s infallible binding revelation for his Church. “Scripture is out teacher!” I chided Matt, “not any pope or council.” I quoted 1 John 1:26-27: “These things have I written unto you concerning them that seduce you. But the anointing which ye received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him”; and Matthew 18:19-20, “If two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” Based on these and similar verses I believed that all Christians have the same authority given by Christ through the Holy Spirit, and the true Church is where any two or more of these Christians gather together.
Matt grinned. He had been waiting for me to say that. In response he simply read aloud the entire passage of Matthew 18 (rather than just the two verses I wanted to emphasize [19-20]). In this text, Jesus explains how to deal with a Christian who falls into sin or error. If he will not listen to an individual’s admonishment, two or more witnesses should confront him, “so that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.” If he refuses to listen to them, they are to refer the issue to the Church. And “If he refuses to listen even to the Church, treat him as you would a Gentile or a tax collector” (Matt. 18:16-17). In other words, the Church has the final say. In fact, it has the authority, given it by Christ, to excommunicate someone for sin or heresy.
Immediately after this teaching on the final authority of the Church to settle such issues Jesus delivers another promise regarding the Church’s authority: “Amen, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (v. 18). Matt asked me to explain how the Church could fulfill the Lord’s command to decide issues authoritatively if the Church is not infallible.
“Furthermore,” he pressed, seeing that I was on the ropes here, “given all the conflicting opinions among Protestants on essential doctrinal issues, how can you possibly say that the Bible is the supreme authority when the Bible cannot interpret itself? Whose interpretation are we to go by?” Matt pressed further by quoting Hebrews 13:7: The faithful must “obey them that have the rule over [them[, and submit; for they watch for [their] souls.”
This Scriptural definition of an authoritative Church hierarchy really shocked me! For the first time, I didn’t have a ready retort. I was speechless, stumped by the logic of his question.
Matt suggested I look at Acts 15 and 16 which describes a doctrinal and pastoral controversy that threatened to tear the early Church apart. Questions about the Mosaic Law and about admitting Gentiles into the Church proved so vexing that the Apostles and elders of the Church called a council to consider these questions. “And certain men which came down from Judea taught the brethren, and said, except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved. When therefore Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and disputation with them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas, and certain others of them should go up to Jerusalem unto the apostles and elders about this question” (Acts 15:1-2).
Matt pointed out that the council did not appeal to Scripture alone to settle their difficulty (this would have been difficult with only the Old Testament to refer to, since none of the New Testament had been written yet). “Isn’t it true that the Church decided the matter, as the Lord commanded in Matthew 18? And doesn’t this magisterial authority also fulfill what Jesus promised his disciples, and by extension the Church, “He who listens to you listens to me, and he who rejects you rejects me?” (cf. Luke 10:16, cf. Matt. 10:40).
He also pointed out Jude’s warning to the Church (Jude 11) where Jude condemns those intruders who are following after the “rebellion of Korah” (Jude 3-11). What was this rebellion? I looked at Numbers 16, the passage to which Jude is referring and found that Korah and his follows were condemned and punished by God for their rebellion against the priests who had been appointed to preside over the People of Israel. Matt asked me how I explained the fact that Jude was warning the Church against those who rejected the authority of the New Testament Church’s hierarchy if the New Testament Church had no authoritative hierarchy. I was stumped.
He was right, of course. I couldn’t think of a single argument that would get around the biblical evidence that the New Testament Church hierarchy had the authority to speak for Christ on doctrinal and pastoral issues. What’s more, Jude’s warning coincided with Jesus’ warning to the churches of Asia Minor who rejected the decisions of the Council of Jerusalem (cf. Acts 15): “Repent; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will fight against thee with the sword f my mouth” (Rev. 2:16; cf. Acts 16:1-8).
A few days later I tried to use 1 John 2:27, which says that we need not have any man teach us, but the Holy Spirit will teach us. “Doesn’t this verse imply that we don’t need a Church to tell us what to believe and how to act?” I asked, knowing all the while what a weak argument this was. Matt explained that the Holy Spirit speaks preeminently through the Church, so that when the Church teaches officially, it is not mere human teaching but the Holy Spirit guiding the Church.
Then he reminded me of Acts 15:28, “It is the decision of the Holy Spirit and of us not to place on you any burden beyond these necessities.” The apostles then sent Paula and Silas, “who handed on to the people for observance the decisions reached by the apostles and presbyters in Jerusalem” (16:14). He pointed out that these Church decrees were “necessary things” that were binding on the consciences of all Christians. They were not free to reject what the Church taught without, in the same act, rejecting Christ himself (cf. Luke 10:16). Matt also quoted Paul’s statement, “Although we were able to impose our weight as apostles of Christ… we were gentle among you” (1 Thess. 2:7).
I was chagrined that a Catholic was able to use the very passages I quoted to prove his case. I was being biblically outmaneuvered by a Roman Catholic! Since Matt knew of my plans to be a protestant minister, he asked me whether I believed my interpretations of Scripture would be infallible. “Of course not.” I responded. “I’m a fallible, sinful human being. The only infallible authority we have is the Bible.”
“If that’s so,” he countered, “how can your interpretations of Scripture be binding on the consciences of the members of your congregation? If you have no guarantee that your interpretations are correct, why should they trust you? And if your interpretations are purely traditions of men” Jesus condemned traditions of men which nullify the Word of God. If it’s possible, as you admit, that your interpretations may be wrong – you have no infallible way of knowing for sure – then it’s possible that they are nullifying the Word of God”
“Wait a minute! I said to myself. “attacking ‘traditions of men is supposed to be my line. It’s my job to expose the Catholic Church’s unbiblical traditions.” The problem was, I had no way to argue around the Catholic position. The more Matt and I talked, the more I saw that the Catholic Church didn’t pull its beliefs of thin air – it had a biblical basis for them. I might not agree with the Catholic model of authority but I couldn’t argue with the fact that it had very strong Scriptural support.
The most frustrating thing about or discussions was that Matt never appealed to any Church tradition or any papal teaching; he stuck strictly to Scripture. He didn’t forward a mountain of evidence for Catholicism from Church history, but he was willing to meet me at my level and use Scripture alone.
This exchange compelled me to study Protestant scholars on the issue of the role of the Church. William Barclay’s commentary on Matthew 18:15-18 gave me an example of the confusion and lack of consensus I found. This is one of the most difficult passages for Protestants to harmonize with sola scriptura. Jesus’ conferral of special authority on the hierarchy of the Church fit the Catholic model perfectly, not the Protestant one.
I was dismayed at Barclay’s attempt to avoid the force of this passage: “It is not possible that Jesus said this in its present form. Jesus could not have told his disciples to take things to the Church, for it did not exist; and the passage implies a fully developed and organized Church with a system of ecclesiastical discipline… And the last verse actually seems to give the Church the power to retain and to forgive sins. Although this passage is certainly not a correct report of what Jesus said, it is equally certain that it goes back to something he did say. Can we press behind it and come to the actual commandment of Jesus?” (Daily Study Bible, Matthew, vol. 2, 186-187).
Barclay’s argument was indicative of the gyrations many Evangelical scholars go through to integrate those troublesome “Church authority” texts with the Protestant doctrine of sola scriptura. They ranged from absurdly implausible interpretations to the more candid yet thoroughly heretical solutions (like Barclay’s) which denied that Jesus and the apostles actually said the things attributed to them in the text. The more I studied this issue the more unsettled I became. I began to question whether my denomination, the Assemblies of God, could lay claim to being the authoritative Church described in the New Testament.
One day Matt asked, “Tim, why do you believe in the inspiration of Scripture?” My response was, “Because the Bible says it’s inspired. 2 Timothy 3:16 says, ‘All Scripture is given by inspiration of God.’” Then Matt showed me the fallacy of circular reasoning that flawed my response. I was right, of course; Scripture is inspired, but I hadn’t proved it by citing 2 Timothy 3:16. the mere fact that the Bible claims to be inspired doesn’t prove that it is. Plenty of other “holy books” claim to be inspired: the Quran, the Book of Mormon, the Hindu Vedas, just to name three.
Matt explained that Catholics and Protestants alike have received the testimony of the Church that Scripture is inspired. The Church did not make the books of the Bible inspired, of course, but it is the trustworthy witness God uses to attest to Scripture’s authenticity and inspiration.
As a Pentecostal, I did not like the Calvinistic view that Scripture “confirms itself” as inspired in the hearts of those who read it with a sincere heart. That was too subjective as to be an accurate test, and reminded me of Mormonism’s “burning in the bosom” method of providing the Book of Mormon’s divine origin.
The only other argument I could think of was to show that the Old Testament prophecies had been fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Didn’t that historical and prophetic reliability prove the inspiration Scripture? No it didn’t. To believe that one would still have to true the New Testament in what it told us about Jesus.
In less than a year, I had gone from utter confidence that I would convert another misguided Catholic to Christ, to wanting to get out of the Marines and away from him so I could salvage my dreams of being an Assembly of God pastor! I was beginning to get nervous. One by one, what used to be my best arguments to ‘disprove” Catholic beliefs were being defused.
Call no man ‘father’
I had always thought that by calling their priests “father,” Catholics violate the Lord’s command: “Call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven” (Matt 23:9). Matt pointed out that in context Jesus is saying we must not give honor to men that belongs to God alone, and must not regard any human as taking the place of our Father in heaven. He showed how my Protestant aversion to the Catholic custom of calling priests “father” was biblically untenable by pointing out that Jesus calls Abraham “father Abraham” in Luke 16:24, as Paul does repeatedly in Romans 4.
In fact, Paul made the startling statement that, “Even if you should have countless guides to Christ, yet you do not have many fathers, for I became your father in Christ through the gospel (1 Cor. 1:14-15). Matt explained that this passage sums up the theological reason why Catholics call priest ‘Father.’ Also, the deacon Stephen, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, addressed the Jewish priests and scripts as “my fathers” (Acts 6:12-16, 7:1-2). And the other New Testament writers addressed men as “father” (cf. Rom. 4:17-18; 1 Thess. 2:11, 1 John 2:13-14). I found myself acknowledging that this Catholic practice in no way conflicted with the Bible, but my crass literalism did.
No one can forgive sins but God alone
The Catholic belief in the sacrament of confession and their practice of confessing sins to a priest had always grated on me. I challenged them by saying “Only God can forgive sins. No one has to go to a mere sinful man to be forgiven. We go directly to God!: Matt quoted Jesus’ words, “Peace be with you. As my father has sent me, so I send you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’ Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained’; (John 20:21-23). Jesus gave this authority to forgive sins to men acting in his name. In legal terms we would say he gave them power of attorney.
In 2 Corinthians 2:10 Paul said (as the King James properly translates the text), “[I]f I forgave anything, to whom I forgave it, for your sakes forgave it I in the person of Christ.” Paul also said, “And all this is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and given us the ministry of reconciliation,… So we are ambassadors for Christ, as if God were appealing through us” (2 Cor.5:18-20). I saw that I had no biblical basis for rejecting the Catholic doctrine of confession to a priest.
My objection was based on what I perceived as the absurdity of the Catholic proposition, rather than on any scriptural grounds. “How could Jesus be saying that a mere man can forgive sins? This is ludicrous, only God can forgive sins!” Matt said he believed it because the Bible said it. “What was so difficult about that”? he needled me with mock solemnity. (It wasn’t pleasant to have a Catholic steal my lines like that.)
Be fruitful and multiply
The one issue that Matt and I could agree on was abortion, so we could always retreat to this common ground when things got a little heated. From abortion the topic slipped over one day to contraception, which I had always assumed was a non-issue. My church had classes on which types of birth control to use, and I didn’t think twice about it.
Matt quoted Genesis 38:6-10: “And Judah took a wife for Er his firstborn, whose name was Tamar. And Er, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the Lord; and the Lord slew him. And Judah said unto Onan, Go unto they brother’s wife, and marry her, and raise up seed to thy brother. And Onan knew that the seed should not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in unto the brother’s wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother. And the thing which he did displeased the Lord; and the Lord slew him: wherefore he slew him also.”
The question I asked was why was Onan killed by God. At first, I posited the possibility he may have been killed for disobedience to the law stating he must “rise up seed” for his brother, but Matt effectively demolished that possibility when he pointed out that in verse 26, Judah was guilty of not being willing to “raise up seed” for another, but he was not killed. Onan’s sin must have been in “the spilling of the seed.”
Matt quoted Romans 1:26 giving his reasons why contraception, like homosexuality, is sinful. These actions change, “The natural use into that which is against nature.” It was already obvious to me that the purpose and nature of conjugal love is both unitive and procreative.
It was also obvious that homosexuality eliminates the procreative aspect of the conjugal act (although sodomy cannot be properly called a “conjugal act”). But now I also saw how this principle also applies to contraception. Contraceptive conjugal union is sinful precisely because, by not being open to the possibility of new life, it distorts and misuses the Lord’s gift of conjugal love, rendering it sterile and incapable of fulfilling its total purpose.
After a lot of Scripture study and reading other Catholic works on this subject I was sold on the Catholic position. We had found another issue we could agree on. Ephesians 5:32 teaches that marital love is a living symbol of the loving, spousal relationship between Jesus and the Church – a loving relationship that is ever-creating and ever-unifying. I recalled the constant reminder in the Old Testament that children are precious blessings from the Lord (Psalms 127:3-5), and that it is God who opens the womb (Gen 30:22).
So often, when it comes to the vagaries of moral theology and its practical everyday outworkings in the lives of Christian men and women, Protestant pastors are forced to say that the Bible is silent on the issue so “every man must do what is right in his own eyes.” Christ did not intend such lack of doctrinal certitude for his flock.
This lack of clear and authoritative teaching ability among Protestant pastors and theologians presented itself to me as yet another example of how the principle of sola scriptura fails as a sure guide to the truth. The Protestant denominations began to resemble less and less the authoritative teaching Church described in Acts 15.
Traditions of God vs. traditions of men
Matt often told me how much authentic Christian truth I was missing out on because I denied the Church’s tradition which could so enrich Scripture for me. He said my views would remain incomplete without this gift of God. As a fundamentalist, tradition had always carried a negative connotation for me. I connected “tradition” with Jesus’ stern condemnation of “traditions of men” which nullify the Word of God (Matt. 15:9).
Until Matt and I began to hammer away at sola scriptura I hadn’t noticed the Bible’s positive discussion of traditions. For example, Paul commanded the first Christians to “stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught, either by oral statement or by a letter of ours” (2 Thess. 2:15). Here Paul says that divine Revelation comes to us in both written and oral form, and that the written Word is a subset of the overarching category of Tradition.
Other passages dealing with tradition helped me gain an appreciation of the biblical role of divine revelation preserved in the Church’s oral Tradition. For example, Paul said “I praise you because you remember me in everything and hold fast to the traditions just as I handed them on to you” (1 Cor. 11:2; see also Luke 10:16; 1 Thess. 2:13; 2 Tim. 2:1-2).
This is a hard saying! Who can listen to it?
The Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist was particularly bothersome to me. In the past my argument was mainly an assault against the absurdity of the Eucharist just as my objection to confession had been. But in the past, it had worked! ”You Catholics think you are going to eat God? Don’t you realize how ludicrous that is?” Lukewarm or ignorant Catholics would back down from my challenges against the Eucharist, in some cases because they really did not believe it. But Matt did believe this and was prepared to use the Bible to show why.
My objection pivoted on a single passage (it was actually the only one on which I could base my objection): “It is the spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life” (John 6:63). I argued from this that the Lord was speaking metaphorically not literally when he said things like “this is my body” and “unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you have no life in you.” How could Jesus possibly have meant that we should actually eat his literal flesh and blood? Matt challenged me to show him a single example in Scripture where “spiritual” means metaphorical or symbolic. I couldn’t. “the fact that Jesus said his swords in John 6 are ‘spirit and life’ does not mean that he was speaking symbolically, “ Matt explained. In response to the Jesus’ grumbling about his talk of “eating his flesh and drinking his blood,” Jesus said, “I solemnly assure you…my flesh is real food, and my blood is real drink” (v.53,55).
The text says that his teaching was so difficult for some that many of them “returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him” (v.66). when this occurred Jesus didn’t say, “Wait folks! You misunderstood. I just meant you have to come to me and believe in me as your personal Lord and Savior. You don’t think I really meant you to have to eat my flesh and drink my blood, do you?” No. Jesus let them leave and then turned to his disciples and said, “Do you also want to leave?” (v. 67). Peter answers for all who believe the Lord’s Eucharistic teaching, even though we don’t fully comprehend it or aren’t totally comfortable with it: “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the holy one of God.” (v.68-69)
To understand why Catholics see John 6 as literal, not figurative, one must consider its context. Earlier in the chapter Jesus says, ”No man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father” (v. 65). You can only see this truth if it has been supernaturally revealed to you because “the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness to him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” (1 Cor. 2:14). Words of spirit and life can only be understood in the spirit.
And what about the apostles? If Jesus had been speaking figuratively, here, Paul is certainly no help in clarifying the matter when he says such things as: “I speak as to sensible men; judge for yourselves what I say. The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?… Whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord…. For anyone who eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord…. For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body, eats and drinks damnation on himself” (1 Cor. 10:15-16, 11:27, 29). Paul surely seemed to take Jesus’ words literally! I saw for the first time that the Catholic Church had a strong – a very strong – biblical basis for its teachings on the Eucharist. What would later convince me of the truth of the Catholic claims was the fact that the early Church Fathers unanimously taught the literal Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharistic elements. Their testimony cinched it for me.
As I worked through these and other issues I began to get nervous. With each discovery that the Catholic Church had compelling biblical reasons for its teachings I became more alarmed. Things were going too fast. I was actually beginning to consider the possibility that the Catholic Church might be right. With a shudder I told myself to slow down and find some answers from some Evangelicals who could show me the errors in Catholic thinking that I had somehow missed.
At the very least, I reassured myself, whenever I’d get those troublesome “Catholic” thoughts, the Romanists were dead wrong about their Marian doctrines. That subject alone would make it impossible for me to ever become Catholic. Somehow, though, no matter how sternly I told myself this, I couldn’t seem to shake the growing fear that I was going to discover the Catholic Church was right on everything.
I desperately did not want that to be true, but I couldn’t figure out how to avoid the compelling biblical and logical arguments in favor of the Catholic Church. I felt like I was in that proverbial canoe without a paddle to help me push against the current. Worst of all, as I felt myself borne along faster and faster toward some unknown destination, I could hear the rumble of a huge waterfall somewhere in the distance. And the rumble was growing louder. “Please God,” I prayed, “Show me the truth, but don’t let the truth be Catholic!”
Searching for a tunnel at the end of the light
To may delight and relief, just when I thought I would go crazy with all these “what if” thoughts about the Catholic Church, I heard that Dr. Walter Martin, one of my favorite Evangelical apologists, was going to debate a Jesuit priest on “The John Ankerberg Show” (a Fundamentalist TV apologetics program).
“Hooray!” I exulted. Walter Martin was an excellent debater and a vigorous defender of classical Protestantism. I had (and still do have) a strong admiration for his ability to twist his opponents like pretzels with his knowledge of Scripture and his forceful, aggressive personality. I had never heard of Mitchel Pacwa before, but I was confident that Dr. Martin would destroy him, and in the process lead me back to my senses. I eagerly awaited the evening of the debate.
I sat in front of the TV, Bible in one hand, notepad in the other. The exchanges were lively and sometimes humorous, Martin was at his usual aggressive best, but I quickly saw that it would not be the rout that I had expected. They went head to head on a number of controversial issues: justification; the sacraments; Marian doctrines; papal infallibility; calling priests “father”; and sola scriptura. By the end of the debate I was stunned not only had Pacwa refuted all of Martin’s arguments, he had pinned Martin to the wall on a number of issues, and it was obvious that Martin had no way of responding.
The unthinkable happened. The best spokesman for Evangelical “biblical” Christianity had gone up against an average Jesuit priest and lost. Worse yet, Pacwa’s biblical and historical arguments reinforced everything Matt had told me. Instead of liberating me from the lure of Catholicism, this debate merely confirmed all of my fears that Protestantism might be wrong and Catholicism might be right. I was terrified at the implications that presented themselves to my mind.
Not long after the Martin/Pacwa debate my tour in Marine Corps ended. I was finally free from daily contact with Matt and all of his Catholic arguments that were haunting me. It’s so ironic that when I first met Matt I couldn’t wait to argue religion with him, I was so confident that I was right and he was wrong. By the time we parted ways, I dreaded getting into such discussions with him but I still had to deal with Fr. Pacwa’s arguments.
In an effort to clear my head, I threw myself into ministry work at my home Church. It was at this time that I was asked to be interim youth pastor, and outwardly things were going great. This was the fulfillment of a childhood dream. But is couldn’t enjoy it. The Catholic Church was wrecking everything!
Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the Catholic faith was becoming the most important thing to me. But as I came to realize this, my unease increased. The battle that raged in my soul was lonely and painful. With whom could I share these debates and suspicions? No one in my congregation or circle of friends would have understood or accepted my quandary. I was torn between a deep love for the people and piety of the Assemblies of God and a growing sense of conviction that the Catholic Church was the fullness of truth. I was faced with a decision that I couldn’t put off indefinitely: how could I be a leader in my church if I didn’t know what I believed anymore?
I watched the Martin/Pacwa debate tapes repeatedly, studying each side’s arguments carefully, searching for a chink somewhere in the Catholic armor. I wanted badly to agree with Dr. Martin, but the more I watched, the more I had to agree with the Catholic positions. Father Pacwa convinced me of the biblical basis for the Catholic positions on the communion of saints and justification. And one by one, as Martin raised them, Pacwa put to rest many of the myths and misconceptions I had always believed about Catholic Marian doctrines.
He explained the doctrine of the communion of saints using 1 Corinthians 12 where Paul described the Church as the body of Christ. He made the statement that as Christians we are more united to each other through Christ than a finger is united with a hand. Christ himself makes us one body. I had always known this to be true, but Father opened up an entire new understanding of this for me. He did this in several steps.
First, he showed me in the Bible how Christians are commanded to help one another and love one another as members of a family, and to see their interdependence as members of a single body. Paul said, “As a body is one though it has many parts, and all the parts of the body, though many, are one body, so also Christ. For in one spirit we were all baptized into one body… If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it; if one part is honored, all the parts share its joy. Now you are Christ’s body, and individually parts of it” (1 Cor. 12:12-13, 26-27).
Second, Christians do not cease being members of Christ’s body at death. I was taught as a Protestant that there is some sort of separation between Christians that occurs at death. We cannot pray to them or for them because they are with Jesus,” I was assured. Why does “being with Jesus” mean they are separated from us? There is no Scripture verse that says this.
A Christian is even more radically joined to God, and therefore more radically joined to other members of the body of Christ, when he goes home to heaven. He is freed from the constraints of sin; his faith has given way to perfect knowledge, and he is perfectly enabled to love and pray for the other members of the Body of Christ.
Most importantly, since in heaven he has been perfected in righteousness by the blood of Christ, his prayers are very powerful, much more so than they ever could have been while he was here on earth. When this fact is seen in light of James 5:16 – “The prayer of a righteous man has great power in its effects” – the Catholics doctrine of asking the saints for their intercession is undeniably the biblical teaching.
2 Maccabees shows that long before Christ the Jews prayed for the deceased and knew that those who die in a state of friendship with the Lord could pray for them (cf. 2 Macc. 12:42-46, 15:12-15). Even though I did not then accept the canonicity of 1 and 2 Maccabees, I had to acknowledge its historicity. Orthodox Jews still pray for the repose for the souls of their dead friends and relatives. Father opened my eyes to see the souls in heaven are not dead; they are alive (cf. Luke 10:38) and they are intimately concerned with our spiritual welfare (Heb. 12:1). Scripture confirms this again and again. On the mount of transfiguration in Luke 9:30-31, Moses and Elijah appear with Christ, and involved with our salvation. Revelation 5:8 shows saints in heaven interceding with God for us and God responding to their prayers. Revelation 8:5 depicts the angels doing the same. Hebrews 12:22-24 tells us that when we “come unto Mount Sion” in prayer, we do not just come to God, but also to “the spirits of just men made perfect.” These are all members of our “family in heaven” (Eph.3:15).
Blessed art though among women
The single most difficult Catholic doctrine for me to accept was Mary’s role in the Church. I had been taught to believe that Catholics worship Mary and the saints. In the debate Father Pacwa had to refute this claim over and over again with Dr. Martin. He explained that Catholics don’t worship anyone but God, but they do honor and revere their elder brothers and sisters who have serve Christ and are now with him in heaven. The Church encourages the practice of asking Mary and the saints to pray for us, just as we would ask fellow Christians on the earth to pray for us.
I had always believed that asking Mary to intercede for us conflicted with the Bible’s teaching that Christ is the “one mediator between God and man” (cf. 1 Tim. 2:5). When Martin made this objection Father responded that the opposite is true. It does not take anything away from Christ’s authority and glory when Christians preach the gospel to those who had never heard the good news. “How shall they hear without a preacher?” (Romans 10:14). This is acting as a mediator. Or what about when we pray for one another to effect change that would not occur unless we prayed? The Bible is clear that God grants gifts, “through the prayers of many” (2 Cor. 1:11). In fact, the Bible is clear that when Christians offer “supplications, prayers, petitions, and thanksgivings”… for everyone these things are good and pleasing to God our savior” (1 Tim. 2:1-3). I came to see that Mary’s role as heavenly “prayer warrior” is completely biblical.
When I began to see the Church as a body – as St. Paul repeatedly describes it – it was as though scales fell from my eyes. I no longer had the problem with honoring my brothers and sisters in Christ. In fact, when I honor them I am honoring Christ and the marvelous beauty he has wrought in them! I saw that in honoring God’s work of grace and beauty in Mary Catholics are fulfilling the biblical prophecy she uttered: “All generations shall call be blessed. The Mighty One has done great things for me!” (Luke 1:48-49). The greatest honor God ever paid to a human being he paid to Mary when he invited her to become the mother of Jesus, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. No Catholic could possibly heap more honor and exaltation on Mary than the Lord had already done.
I also labored under the misconception that by their Immaculate Conception doctrine, Catholics denied that Mary needed a savior. Father Pacwa set Walter Martin and me straight when he quoted Mary’s own words in Luke 1:47: “I rejoice in God my savior!” Mary indeed needed Christ as her savior. From the moment of her conception the Lord saved her by the grace of Christ’s death on the cross, shielding her from the ravages of sin. That he would do this for her was only fitting, in light of her mission to be the mother of Jesus, the Ark of the new Covenant who had been chosen to carry the Word of God in flesh in her womb.
If the Old Testament ark had to be pure, how much more the New Testament Ark (cf. Luke 1:43, 2 Samuel 6:9). If John the Baptist was “filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother’s womb” (Luke 1:15) to prepare him to prepare the way of the Lord, how much more would Mary need grace to prepare her body and soul for the august task of carrying God himself within her! Not only does the reference to her being the ark of God imply her sinlessness, but the angel Gabriel names her “one who has been perfected in grace” (Luke 1:28).
I also objected to the title “Mother of God,” arguing that since Mary only gave Jesus his humanity; she was only his mother “after the flesh.” But Elizabeth addressed her as the “mother of my Lord,” not “the mother of my Lord’s body.” It is true that Mary gave Jesus only his human nature, but this is true of any human mother or father – they only give us our bodies – God is the creator of the soul. Furthermore, a mother gives birth to a person, not a nature. Mary gave birth to a divine Person, not a human nature.
For by grace you have been saved
Through faith …it is not of works
Many protestants accuse the Catholic Church of teaching a system of salvation based on human works independent of God’s grace. This is not true.
The Church does teach the necessity of works, but so does Scripture. The Church condemns the notion that salvation can be achieved through “works alone.” Nothing, whether faith or works, apart from the grace of God, can save us. It is works of grace that we do as a result of the grace of God moving us to act and helping us to bring the meritorious acts to their completion.
Father Pacwa summed it up nicely when he explained that we are saved by grace through faith which works by love (cf. Gal. 5:6). But we must choose to allow God’s grace to work through us. He does not force us to “continue in grace” (cf. Acts 13:43). This made sense to me, but I was still confused by Paul’s emphasis on salvation being a past tense event: “For by grace you have been saved” (Eph. 2:8). And then there was 1 John 5:13: “These things I have written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that you have eternal life.”
Father cleared up both of these problems. He agreed that salvation is in a sense a completed action in the life of all who have been baptized (Matt 16:16, Rom. 6:3, Gal. 3:27). But salvation is also spoken about in the present tense, for example, Paul says, “The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Cor 1:18). Salvation is also described as a future event: “He who endures to the end will be saved” (Matt. 10:22).
I did an exhaustive word study on the Greek terms related to the English word “justification,” and I found that not only is it inextricably linked to the issue of sanctification (the two concepts are actually one and the same thing) the Bible also speaks of justification in the past, present, and future tenses, implying that it is an ongoing process of sanctification in the life of each believer: “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 5:1); [we are] “being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ” (Rom. 3:24); and “But if, in seeking to be justified in Christ, we ourselves are found to be sinners, is Christ then a minister of sin? Of course not!”
What can separate us from the love of Christ?
Fundamentalists claim to have an absolute certainty of their salvation. But in the debate Father Pacwa demonstrated that, while Christians have a moral assurance of salvation – meaning that God will always remain faithful to his promise of eternal life for those who love and obey him (cf. 2:11-13) – the Bible explicitly says that Christians do not have an absolute assurance of salvation.
Paul said “It does not concern me in the least that I be judged by you or any human tribunal; I do not even pass judgment on myself; I am not conscious of anything against me, but I do not thereby stand acquitted; the one who judges me is the Lord. Therefore, do not make any judgment before the appointed time, until the Lord comes, for he will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will manifest the motives of your hearts, and then everyone will receive praise from God” (1 Cor. 4:4-5). Other verses which show this are Romans 11:22; Hebrews 10:26-29; and 2 Peter 2:20-21.
In Matthew 5:19-30, Jesus first tells us that there are “least commandments” that a person can break and still go to heaven, through he will be “least in the kingdom of heaven.” And then he tells us of sins that leave a man “in danger of hell fire.” St. Paul gives us a number of lists of deadly sins about which he says, “They who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God” (Galatians 5:21), see also Eng. 5:5-7 and 1 Cor. 6:9-10).
Into the lion’s den
By this point in my study I had seen the handwriting on the wall. I knew I had to decline the offer of taking the full-time position of youth pastor at my Assemblies of God Church. I still was officially a Protestant but I was growing more and more convinced that the Catholic Church was right.
In what some might see as a dangerous act of “tempting the Lord,” I decided to put the Catholic Church to one last test at a place where I knew the toughest questions would come. I enrolled for studies at Jimmy Swaggart Bible College (JSBC) in the fall of 1987. I had not given up completely my dream of being a minister; there was still a faint glimmer of hope that I could be shown the error of Catholicism. I figured that if Jimmy Swaggart’s people couldn’t do the job of demolishing the claims of Rome, no one could.
With all of the studying I had done previously, I became known for my knowledge of apologetics. On my own I was studying the early Church councils that defined orthodox Christology and Trinitarian doctrines, so when a Sabellian “Jesus only” movement arose on campus, a number of my classmates came to me for help. I found that I could refute these anti-trinitarian arguments largely because I had been studying how the early Catholic apologists did so in the first five centuries of the Church. There was no need for me to “reinvent the wheel”; I simply gave them a dose of good old Catholic theology – and they loved it!
I was amazed to find myself in two classes back to back that taught entirely different positions on the Trinity. The first taught orthodox Trinitarian theology. The second taught that God the Father has a body and God the Holy Spirit has a body. The first class taught that Jesus was the eternal Son of the Father. The second taught that he was the eternal Word who became the “Son” only at the incarnation. I remember going to lunch with a young lady one day and she was very distraught. She said to me in despair. “I thought I knew what I believed about God, but now I’m not sure what I believe.”
The confusion I discovered at JSBC, contrasted with the Catholic doctrine I had been studying, made Rome look that much more attractive, I intensified my study of the early Church Fathers. If the Catholic Church was, in fact, the fourth-century syncretistic invention of Emperor Constantine, as Jimmy Swaggart taught and as I had always believed, perhaps writings of the earliest Christian theologians and apologists would clear up my Catholic delusions. This was my last hope.
I took Jimmy Swaggart’s challenge: “We would like to challenge the Catholic church to demonstrate that the saints and martyrs of the first thee hundred years accepted the beliefs and practices of the Catholic church as it exists today… All of the Early Church fathers were evangelical and Pentecostal and had no association with what is now recognized as the Roman Catholic church.”
I acquired a copy of J.B. Lightfoot’s The Apostolic Fathers and devoured it. I went to the library on campus and began to study the lives and works of other Fathers of the Church, examining their writings and checking their theological arguments against what the Greek text of Scripture said. I researched all of the early councils of the Church. To my dismay, all I found was Catholic truth. I could not believe Brother Jimmy could have read what I read and issued his “challenge.”
The writings of the Church Fathers clearly show that the early Church was Catholic long before the time of Emperor Constantine. St. Ignatius, bishop of Antioch who knew St. John and who wrote in A.D.110, speaks of the Church of Rome having primacy. He said the Roman Church has the “presidency of love.” A shiver went up my spine when I read these words from Ignatius: “Let now man do aught of things pertaining to the Church apart from the bishop. Let that be held a valid Eucharist which is under the bishop or one to whom he shall have committed to it. Wheresoever the bishop shall appear, there let the people be; even as where Jesus may be, there is the Catholic Church.”
Reading William Eerdman’s Handbook to the History of Christianity, which I purchased form Swaggart’s bookstore, I hoped to find a more accurate (or a more Protestant) version of this history, but even he acknowledges Irenaeus’s giving primacy to Rome. He does not agree with Irenaeus, but he does give us the historical fact. He also tells of Victor I, who was very powerful second-century pope. He does not explicitly say Victor exercised pastoral authority over the whole Church as bishop of Rome, but this conclusion is implicit in his statement that Victor “threatened to excommunicate the Asian Churches over the Quartanodeciman dispute.”
He relates that Stephen, bishop of Rome in the 250s, claimed his authority derived from Jesus’s promise to Peter in Matthew 16:18. Around the year A.D. 250 Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, wrote, “And again [Jesus] says to [Peter] after his resurrection, ‘feed my sheep.’
“On him he builds the Church, and to him he gives the command to feed the sheep; and although he assigns a like power to all the Apostles, yet he founded a single chair, and he established by his own authority a source… for that unity. … If someone does not hold fast to this unity of Peter, can he imagine that he still holds the faith?”
Under the weight of so much Scripture and now the Church Fathers, I could no longer argue against the authority of the Catholic Church. I realized that I had to become a Catholic. The only questions that remained were “when?” and “how?”
Imagine what it would be like to go to public with the plan to become Catholic at Jimmy Swaggart Bible College. My friends could see the direction in which I was headed and they were concerned for me. I was “worked on” by them at every meal. I was grilled by professors. In fact, I nearly got called in to see Jimmy Swaggart himself. Instead, I had a confrontation with the faculty “expert” on Roman Catholicism: Andrew Caradagas, a former Catholic priest who was teaching Church History at JSBC.
Our discussion was quite an adventure. He had no idea I had done the kind of study I had. He attempted to persuade me of the error of Catholicism by telling me there were no popes until the fifth century. His face turned colors when I began to rattle off quotes from Fathers long before the fifth century speaking of the authority of the bishop of Rome. He claimed the Eucharist was a medieval invention. I quoted 1st and 2nd century writings of Fathers such as Ignatius, Justin, and Irenaeus on the subject of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. The sad part is, I knew he knew better than to say those things.
As we moved from doctrine to doctrine it became evident that he had not left the Church for doctrinal reasons. He admitted he had some “bad experiences” in the Church that had led him to leave.
Our conversation ended on a sharp note as he snapped that the Catholic Church I was reading about “existed only on paper.” He warned me that I would be very disappointed in the “real Catholic Church.” As we parted he peered at me and muttered, “You’re not going to become Catholic; you are Catholic!” I left his office with mixed feelings of sadness and relief. There was nothing I could do for him, and there was certainly nothing he could do for me.
There was no one at JSBC who could answer my objections and I think it was then that it really fully dawned on me that I must become Catholic. I have never felt so alone in my life. I knew I would have to break up with my staunchly Protestant girlfriend; I’d be estranged from my Protestant family, most of whom I had “led to Christ.” I would be at odds with all of my friends at school and at home. But most painful was the realization that by becoming a Catholic I would forever forfeit my life-long dream of being a pastor.
I was extremely depressed, and I remember coming back to my dorm room one night, exhausted from an all-day argument about Catholicism with my friends. I collapsed on my bed, slid down to my knees and looked up to the ceiling with tears filling my eyes. “Lord! Help me!” I cried out in anguish.
After few moments I felt the strong urge to ask Mary to pray for me. “I don’t know if I am doing this right, Mary. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but please help me! Please pray for me!” At that moment, the peace and joy of Christ flooded my heart. I almost felt the prayers ascending to God from Mary, my newly-found mother. It was as though Jesus had given his own mother to me just as he had done for John at the foot of the Cross. I have never doubted the Catholic Faith since that day. The pilgrimage did not become easier, but I knew that I was not alone anymore. The Lord and his Mother were helping me all along.
When I left school and went home, I told my family and the members of my church that I was converting to the Catholic Church. On the first night I was home, I talked to my mother and my brother from about 10:00 until 8:00 the next morning. At first my decision was very difficult for them to accept, but we continued to discuss my reasons for becoming Catholic.
By God’s grace, these discussions with my staunchly-Protestant family members has borne much good fruit. I am forever grateful that God enabled me to help my mother, my father, and my two brothers (one of whom is now studying for the priesthood at St. Charles Boromeo Seminary, Philadephia) join the ranks of the Catholic faithful.
The Lord asked me to give up everything and follow him, no questions asked. But he also has been true to his promise to repay a “hundredfold” those who give up everything for him. The joy and peace that I now experience, the doctrinal certitude that I now posses, and the tremendous graces that are mine in the sacraments, especially in the Holy Eucharist, are riches far beyond anything I expected.
As I look back on my journey to the Catholic Church, sometimes I still cannot believe it all happened. The pilgrimage was difficult and painful. And I marvel at God’s tenacity and patience in leading me to the Catholic Church – I fought against it every step of the way. I had despised for so long the Catholic belief in Mary’s intercession. But when I finally gave in to her loving call, bidding me follow Christ her son wherever he might lead me, I knew she was saying to me, “Do whatever he tells you” (John 2:5).
Once home in the Church I felt the sweet consolation of the truth those Christians in Antioch must have felt when the apostles read the decrees of the first Church council. “They rejoiced for the consolation” (Acts 15:31) of knowing the Church had spoken; the dispute was ended.
And I can say that the former priest at Jimmy Swaggart Bible College was wrong. I love the real Catholic Church will all my heart and soul and strength.
Article by Tim Staples
Photo by Hannah Smith on Unsplash
