11/16/25

This past Sunday, Nick and I wrapped up another Bible-dialogue training with some people who just recently finished a DMC 1 with us. Bible-dialogue training is necessary for DMC 2 as the participants begin facilitating their own groups. These people are preparing to continue into the next DMC with us at the beginning of the year. I also kicked off a new DMC 1 this past Monday with Noah, a part-time NCP apprentice, and a friend of his from collage! It was a great time as we began exploring the beginning of Jesus' ministry and the opening of the Sermon on the Mount together! 

This week at CSUF I had a few very interesting conversations with students about the sufficiency of Christ's work in our purification and cleansing. The student that I primarily talked with has talked with me a few times prior but has recently become strongly fixated on Catholicism and against Protestantism. I would like to preface - I do believe that there are legitimate followers of Jesus in both Catholicism and Protestantism (as well as false ones in both); however, I am currently convinced that Catholicism has serious concerns within their doctrines of Christ's sufficiency in His finished work on the cross.

In our conversation, this gentleman asserted many fallacious claims about Protestants that he also knew were illegitimate in attempts to rage-bait me. I don't have a huge appetite for that kind of bait, so I just had a regular conversation with him instead. Some of his arguments were these: Protestants only have megachurches focused on money, Protestants don't give to charity, Protestants don't respect Mary, etc. As you can already tell, this guy was not open to much reason and just wants to be Catholic dogmatically - not my favorite. If someone comes to Catholicism through careful reason and consideration, then I'm much more willing to hear them out. Unfortunately, this gentleman had no thought-out reason for despising Protestants except a few bad experiences in his only-megachurch experience and some unsupported accusations. It is a shame that he has chosen to behave in this way as those hearing him see this as a representation of Catholicism - which I don't think is fair. Nonetheless, I do disagree with some of the Catholic teaching, and we continued into that as an actual Catholic entered the conversation.

Our primary focus was on the teaching of Purgatory, though we also touched briefly on praying to the saints and reverence of Mary. I'll first make a few interesting notes on those before jumping into our main topic of Purgatory. 

Repeatedly, this gentleman asserted that Protestants don't "respect" Mary and that we ought to in the way that Catholics do. However, when I asked him what it looks like to respect Mary, he couldn't describe anything outside of using the word "respect". The problem with this is that he's created an imaginary standard that no one can judge by; therefore, no one can know whether or not someone is respecting Mary. I think that he realized that he had no idea what it looked like and just doubled down instead of honestly saying he wasn't sure. I certainly think that Protestants "respect" Mary in many ways - acknowledging her righteous behavior and the favor God showed her, but it seems that we are applying an inconsistent standard to Mary and other biblical figures if it goes much more beyond that. Catholic teaching holds that Mary was sinless and perfectly aligned with God’s will at every moment - never wavering in faith or misunderstanding God’s plan. This comes from doctrines like the Immaculate Conception, her freedom from concupiscence, and her role as the “New Eve.” However, Scripture portrays Mary differently. In Luke 2:41–50, Mary and Joseph spend three days searching anxiously for Jesus and then rebuke Him when they find Him. Jesus’ response, “Did you not know…?”, and Luke’s statement that, “they did not understand”, show a genuine lapse in understanding God’s will. This moment of misplaced anxiety and misunderstanding is incompatible with the idea that Mary possessed perfect insight and unwavering alignment with God at all times. There is no biblical reason to believe that Mary was sinless, and only good reasons to believe she wasn't - a concerning issue when considering the legitimacy of hermeneutical methodologies.

As for praying to the saints, the topic is in fact more nuanced than I previously understood it to be; however, I still find it unconvincing and generally concerning. Many non-Catholics assert that Catholicism teaches that we are to pray that the saints might answer our prayer (instead of God). As I understand it, this is not the doctrine in writing, though in practice it can certainly become that in practicality for the uneducated. My understanding of this teaching is more properly that Catholics view the saints as fellow believers who can intercede in prayer for them in the same way you might have another Christian pray for you. I can understand how initially this makes sense at face value; however, the lack of biblical proscription (or even description) is concerning considering the seeming biblical objections to this concept. It seems clear that the Bible teaches that Jesus alone is the Mediator between God and man - not saints or other believers. Why would I pray and ask a saint to talk to God when I can boldly enter God's throne room with my own request by the blood of Jesus? At best it seems to be very indirect, at worst completely unbiblical and rejecting Jesus as our only Mediator between God and man. There also seem to be concerns the Bible presents for contacting the dead; for example, with Saul and Samuel through the witch of Endor. I recognize that the situation is not a perfect one-to-one, but it does seem to give some insight into our relation to dead saints - especially compared to the lack of positive biblical teaching on the subject. Even regardless of all of that, why would you talk to Jesus' mom when you can talk directly to God? Again, it raises significant concerns about the hermeneutical methodologies of the Catholic church.

All of this is interesting; however, we spent most of our time on the topic of Purgatory. Purgatory is also more nuanced that often explained by non-Catholics, but even with that it still reduces the sufficiency of Christ's saving work done on the cross and contradicts biblical teaching about our current relationship with God as fully reconciled and at peace. Here is, what I understand to be, the teaching of Purgatory: "Purgatory is the final purification God gives to those who die in His grace but are still imperfectly purified, so that they may be completely cleansed of any remaining imperfection and thus be able to enter His holy presence in heaven."

There are many issues with this doctrine, though Catholic teaching claims there is not discontinuity, there seems to be clear discontinuity in practicality. What I mean is this, the Bible clearly teaches that through the finished work of Jesus I am made righteous before God and am transformed by His Holy Spirit into conformity with the image of Jesus. By the blood of Jesus, I can boldly approach the Father, entering into the Holy of Holies now. There is no reason to believe that now, while imperfect in sin (1 Jn explains that if we claim to be without sin we lie and make God a liar), I can enter God's presence by Jesus' finished work, but after I die I will need to be purged of my sin again that I might be pure and able to enter God's presence. I'm not sure what changes from living to post-mortem condition, but it doesn't seem to be biblically supported. Jesus is our eternal High Priest who offered a perfect sacrifice that was offered once for all - fully sufficient. If we insist on another purification for our unity with God, then we reduce the perfect sacrifice of Jesus that already paved our way to the Father fully. This is not a small issue. The Bible clearly teaches that Jesus has reconciled us to the Father and that we have perfect peace with God by the blood of Jesus. Catholic teaching says that it also affirms these things; however, you cannot have both of these - either the one sacrifice was sufficient for uniting us fully with God, or it wasn't.

This was a very interesting conversation to have, and the other real Catholic in the conversation provided actual responses and not just rage-bait. He said he will look more into it and come back to continue the conversation, so I look forward to talking again. Again, I want to reiterate that I believe there are true disciples of Jesus in the Catholic and Protestant churches, but I currently have great concerns with the Catholic way of interpreting the Bible and arriving at truth claims. I suppose it might boil down to the different positions of epistemology - sola scriptura or other.

I unfortunately don't have any new ministry pictures to share right now as we haven't been recording this week as we consider whether or not the cameras are a stumbling block for our ministry. It seems that the recorded conversations can serve as helpful for those also looking to engage in conversational evangelism and basic apologetical engagements, but we don't want the presence of cameras to miscommunicate what we are there doing. Perhaps we will add them back, but we are currently deciding what would be most beneficial for this ministry setting and those being ministered to.