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Defense of my “Top 5 Un-Protestant Bible Verses”

Defense of my “Top 5 Un-Protestant Bible Verses”

Last updated on: June 13, 2026 at 1:08 pm by Dave Armstrong

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Defense of my “Top 5 Un-Protestant Bible Verses” 2026-06-13T13:08:17-04:00 Dave Armstrong

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I did a presentation with Catholic apologist Suan Sonna on his channel, Intellectual Catholicism, called “Top 5 Un-Protestant Bible Verses” (11-26-25). One “@alexanderarias494″ (presumably, Alexander Arias) made a reply in the combox. This is my counter-reply. He said it was okay to do a blog post of the exchange. His words will be in blue. Portions in green are from my original prepared presentation, for Suan’s show.

*****

Alexander made his reply and then we had exchanges about it in a general sense. I’ll post those first and then get to an in-depth reply.

***

Interesting comment. Maybe next time you will interact with my actual reasoning instead of caricaturing my arguments and then proceeding to bash ’em.

If you think it’s a caricature, feel free to point out which part wasn’t accurate. I addressed your claims directly… pillar does not equal infallibility, Jesus using the Law does not equal works-salvation, “they” does not equal “we” in 1 Corinthians 15, parables does not equal theological instruction manuals, and judgment according to works does not equal salvation by works. If you believe your interpretations still stand, then show how… not just assert it. I interacted with the reasoning, you just didn’t like how easily it fell apart.

I will reply after church today, and I’ll also post your comments with my reply on my blog. Does that sound like I thought my arguments

“fell apart”

under your compelling reasoning? You never stop writing (here and on my channel), but you don’t have much to say.

That is fine, reply whenever you want. Posting it on your blog is also fine. But notice something. Length does not equal substance. Saying you will reply later does not actually answer the points right now. None of my arguments depend on style or speed. They depend on the text itself. If you think I have nothing to say, then it should be very easy for you to deal with the actual claims instead of talking about how many words I write. Just show from the text where pillar means infallible, where Jesus teaches salvation by selling belongings, where Paul commands baptism for the dead as a Christian practice, where a parable about a rich man in torment becomes a doctrine of talking to the departed, or where works become the cause of salvation and not the result of it. Take your time. I am not going anywhere. But when you answer, answer the verses and not my typing habits.

I don’t need much time to answer your replies (and/or “replies”). It’ll be up in an hour or two, after I have my late lunch.

***

Now onto my reply proper:

Dave’s “five un-Protestant verses” are basically a masterclass in reading Catholic doctrines into the Bible and then acting surprised when the text doesn’t collapse under the weight.

This is the usual empty contra-Catholic charge of relentless Catholic eisegesis. Protestant apologists and polemicists of Alexander’s type simply can’t fathom the notion that a Catholic may have a legitimate point to make about biblical texts: contrary to Protestant doctrine. They assume that they “own” the Bible and that they are the “Bible people” in a way exponentially superior to any Catholic claims.

Therefore, given this hostile premise, we get the sweeping charge that the Catholic must be

“reading Catholic doctrines into the Bible”

(literally, what the word eisegesis means). Of course that has to be demonstrated, not just asserted. Alexander thinks he has done so. I think he offers a weak, insubstantial, failed reply and has scarcely even begun to “refute” what I have presented, as I will now painstakingly demonstrate.

1 Timothy 3:15 (RSV) . . . the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth.

1 Timothy 3:15 calls the Church a pillar, not a printing press of infallible dogma. A pillar holds something up. It doesn’t magically become the source of truth any more than Israel did when God called them His assembly. If “pillar” means infallible, then Corinth, Galatia, and Laodicea were all infallible too but Paul says otherwise.

This is Alexander’s entire reputed refutation of this section: four sentences. There’s no way that that can even remotely refute what I gave. The notes alone that I prepared for the show with Suan, were 3,300 words, which would be roughly twelve pages of writing, and that’s not counting the discussion back-and-forth with Suan (an hourlong show).

And Alexander thinks he can refute the first part of five (my presentation of it was six paragraphs long) with four sentences (56 words)? It’s simply not possible: whatever content he offers. He’s not taking my argument seriously, which is what comes from having such hostile premises going in, as discussed above, and which inevitably produces a failed reply. This is why I said that he was “caricaturing my arguments.” It’s the old straw man routine.

But it’s very easy to refute Alexander’s 56 words above, because there’s hardy anything there. It’s like boxing with a paper opponent. We agree that

“A pillar holds something up.”

Yes, that was a key part of my argument. But what does it mean to support something or be its foundation? I address that presuppositional factor in-depth and at some length; he does not. I never claimed that the Church was the

“source of truth.”

This is an example of the “caricature” that typifies Alexander’s reply. He doesn’t even accurately report what I argued, and proceeds to knock down the straw man that he just invented. I said that the Church supported the truth, per Paul’s statement and that we must think deeply about what that means; the implications of it.

“Corinth, Galatia, and Laodicea” are never described as “pillars” so it’s irrelevant to bring them up. This is what we call a non sequitur in logic. Paul is clearly referring to the entire Church, not simply local congregations. “Church” (Gk., ekklesia) is used that way many times in Scripture. And so this was Alexander’s entire “argument.” It’s not even worthy of the name. These are bald assertions, and two of them are immediately absurd or irrelevant.

He didn’t address my arguments for what it means to be a pillar or bulwark. Protestants themselves say that

the two “pillars” of their so-called “Reformation”

are sola Scriptura and sola fide. They obviously think that both are completely true beliefs, that their system is built upon. One is their rule of faith and the other is the heart f their incomplete and partially erroneous soteriology. They never question the truthfulness of either, precisely because these are their unquestionable axioms or premises.

Many Protestant reference sources support the straightforward meaning of “pillar” in 1 Timothy 3:15, almost identically to the way that I argued it:

New Bible Dictionary (1962), “Pillar”: ” ‘Pillar’ is also used to describe . . . the Church as upholding the truth (1 Tim. iii.15) . . .”

Eerdmans Bible Dictionary, “Pilar”: “. . . the Church as that which upholds the truth (1 Tim. 3:15) . . . “

Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers: This peculiar aspect of the Church, ”the support and pillar of the truth,” was dwelt upon probably by the Apostle as “defining—with indirect allusion to nascent and developing heresies—the true note, office, and vocation of the Church. . . . Were there no Church, there would be no witness, no guardian of archives, no basis, nothing whereon acknowledged truth could rest” . . .

Barnes’ Notes on the Bible: The word “pillar” means a column, such as that by which a building is supported, and then any firm prop or support; Galatians 2:9; Revelation 3:12. If it refers to the church here, it means that that is the support of the truth, as a pillar is of a building. It sustains it amidst the war of elements, the natural tendency to fall, and the assaults which may be made on it, and preserves it when it would otherwise tumble into ruin.

Thus it is with the church. It is entrusted with the business of maintaining the truth, of defending it from the assaults of error, and of transmitting it to future times. The truth is, in fact, upheld in the world by the church. The people of the world feel no interest in defending it, and it is to the church of Christ that it is owing that it is preserved and transmitted from age to age. The word rendered “ground” – ἑδραίωμα hedraiōma – means, properly, a basis, or foundation. The figure here is evidently taken from architecture, as the use of the word pillar is. The proper meaning of the one expression would be, that truth is supported by the church. as an edifice is by a pillar; of the other, that the truth rests “on” the church, as a house does on its foundation. It is that which makes it fixed, stable, permanent; that on which it securely stands amidst storms and tempests; that which renders it firm when systems of error are swept away as a house that is built on the sand; compare notes on Matthew 7:24-27.

The meaning then is, that the stability of the truth on earth is dependent on the church. It is owing to the fact that the church is itself founded on a rock, that the gates of hell cannot prevail against it, that no storms of persecution can overthrow it, that the truth is preserved from age to age. Other systems of religion are swept away; other opinions change; other forms of doctrine vanish; but the knowledge of the great system of redemption is preserved on earth unshaken, because the church is preserved, and because its foundations cannot be moved.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary: The Church is “the pillar of the truth,” as the continued existence (historically) of the truth rests on it; for it supports and preserves the word of truth. He who is of the truth belongs by the very fact to the Church. Christ is the alone ground of the truth in the highest sense (1Co 3:11). The apostles are foundations in a secondary sense (Eph 2:20; Re 21:14). The Church rests on the truth as it is in Christ; not the truth on the Church. But the truth as it is in itself is to be distinguished from the truth as it is acknowledged in the world. In the former sense it needs no pillar, but supports itself; in the latter sense, it needs the Church as its pillar, that is, its supporter and preserver [Baumgarten]. The importance of Timothy’s commission is set forth by reminding him of the excellence of “the house” in which he serves; and this in opposition to the coming heresies which Paul presciently forewarns him of immediately after (1Ti 4:1). The Church is to be the stay of the truth and its conserver for the world, and God’s instrument for securing its continuance on earth, in opposition to those heresies (Mt 16:18; 28:20). The apostle does not recognize a Church which has not the truth, or has it only in part.

Expositor’s Greek Testament: The Church, of the old covenant or of the new, is the divinely constituted human Society by which the support and maintenance in the world of revealed truth is conditioned. Truth if revealed to isolated individuals, no matter how numerous, would be dissipated in the world. But the Divine Society, in which it is given an objective existence, at once compels the world to take knowledge of it, and assures those who receive the revelation that it is independent of, and external to, themselves, and not a mere fancy of their own.

Pulpit Commentary: The Church is the pillar of the truth. It supports it; holds it together – binds together its different parts. And it is the ground of the truth. By it the truth is made fast, firm, and fixed. The ground (ἑδραίωμα). This word only occurs here at all; ἑδραῖος, common both in the New Testament, the LXX., and in classical Greek, means “fixed,” “firm,” or” fast.” In the A.V. of 1 Corinthians 7:37 and 1 Cor 15:58, “steadfast;” Colossians 1:23 (where it is coupled with τεθεμελιωμένα), “settled.” Thence ἑδραιόω in late Greek, “to make firm or fast,” and ἑδραίμα, the “establishment” or “grounding” of the truth; that in and by which the truth is placed on a sure and fixed basis.

Alexander completely ignored essential aspects of my argument, such as the biblical assertions that Jesus is the “cornerstone” of the Church, and the apostles and prophets also being part of the foundation (all of which presented total inspired truths); therefore, the Church is at the very least infallible (a far lesser gift than inspiration). This is how I put it:

Similarly, in Ephesians 2:19-20 Paul refers to the “household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone.” Prophets spoke “in the name of the Lord” and commonly introduced their utterances with “thus says the Lord”. They spoke the “word of the Lord”. Their messages cannot contain any untruths since the prophet is serving as God’s spokesman or intermediary. Likewise, apostles proclaimed truth unmixed with error.

Jesus is the cornerstone, and of course He can’t be a faulty foundation. And if apostles and prophets are infallible, likewise, so is the Church, “built upon” them. The Church is even identified with Jesus himself, by being called his “Body”. That the Church is so intimately connected with Jesus, is itself a strong argument that it’s infallible and without error regarding doctrine.

***

Mark 10:17-21 And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” [18] And Jesus said to him, . . . [19] You know the commandments: `Do not kill, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.’” [20] And he said to him, “Teacher, all these I have observed from my youth.” [21] And Jesus looking upon him loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you have, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”

The Rich Young Ruler passage is just Jesus doing what Jesus does… using the Law to expose self-righteousness. He tells a guy who thinks he’s crushing the commandments to “be perfect” and “sell everything,” and Catholics somehow think this is a literal salvation formula. Meanwhile Jesus literally says salvation is “impossible” without God, which is the exact opposite of works-salvation, but sure, let’s pretend that got lost in translation.

So Alexander gives me about the same number of words supposedly “refuting” my second biblical argument. My initial presentation — not counting my discussion of it with Suan, was five paragraphs long: two of them quite lengthy paragraphs. His reply is a farce and a joke, and doesn’t address my actual arguments at all. Many people don’t have the slightest clue how to actually debate or dialogue. Alexander is one of them. I explain what a true debate / dialogue is in my almost 25-year-old article,

Good Discussion: Back-and-Forth Dialogue vs. “Mutual Monologue” [1-21-01].

Alexander thinks that Jesus is somehow against the Mosaic law in this exchange with the young ruler. Nothing could be further from the truth. And he thinks this has little or nothing to do with salvation. Jesus is asked by him, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” and His reply is to ask Him whether he kept the commandments (i.e.., the law). Jesus doesn’t speak against that; doesn’t say it was irrelevant to salvation (as Protestants habitually do). But He tells him that he has one additional work to do, to be saved: sell everything he owns. And that was because money was the young man’s idol. But he is advised to do this extraordinary work, not merely to have faith alone in Him. I sarcastically expressed in my presentation what a “Protestant Jesus” should have said:

“why do you ask about works? You can’t do any work to attain eternal life! You must have faith alone!” . . . “If you would enter life, exercise faith alone in the son of man. No commandments can save you. Say the sinner’s prayer, so you will be saved; and come, follow me. Truly, I say to you, it will be hard for a man without faith alone to enter the kingdom of heaven.”

In the parallel passage, Luke 10:27 the ruler sums up the law in saying, “. . . You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” This is the very thing that Jesus elsewhere described as follows:

Matthew 22:36-40 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?” [37] And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. [38] This is the great and first commandment. [39] And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. [40] On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.”

In parallel passage Mark 12:31 Jesus says, “There is no other commandment greater than these.” So when the ruler repeated this “greatest” commandment back to Jesus, how did Our Lord respond? He said, “You have answered right; do this, and you will live.” In other words, living by what Jesus called “the great commandment” of the Mosaic Law, would save one (“live” here meaning “eternal life”). Yet Alexander somehow manages to believe that Jesus is here knocking the Law.

The complete opposite is true. Jesus says here something that should by itself jar Protestants out of their sola fide error: that observing the Law and doing an extraordinary work are both the basis of salvation. He never mentions faith. Alexander also — typically of Protestants — assumes that no one can adequately observe the Mosaic Law. This is untrue. The Bible says that many people did so

, as I wrote about and documented.

In his last sentence, Alexander commits another non sequitur, by falsely assuming that we teach works-salvation (we don’t: that is

Pelagianism, which the Catholic Church condemned in the 6th century)

and that we supposedly deny that salvation is impossible without God (we don’t at all: see the

canons and decrees on justification from the Council of Trent).

***

1 Corinthians 15:29-30, 32 Otherwise, what do people mean by being baptized on behalf of the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized on their behalf? [30] Why am I in peril every hour? . . . [32] What do I gain if, humanly speaking, I fought with beasts at Ephesus? If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”

Baptism for the dead? Paul doesn’t command it, endorse it, or even say Christians do it. He calls it something they do, not something we do… basic pronoun literacy destroys the Catholic argument instantly. But since the Catholic interpretation depends on an apocryphal book they added later, the mental gymnastics make sense.

Alexander provides his by-now-expected superficial, utterly inadequate, farcical “reply” — this time a whopping 48 words — to what many Protestant commentators (I cited two major ones) believe is the most difficult passage in the NT to understand. Paul does indeed endorse the practice of penances (secondary meaning of “baptism”). He is speaking rhetorically, as he often does — especially in 1 Corinthians, which

contains 106 question marks

–, with the socratic-like questions. In other words, if the passage were non-rhetorical in form (i.e., literal), it would read something like the following:

People are baptized on behalf of the dead because the dead are raised. This is why I myself am in peril every hour. I gain something by doing things like fighting with beasts at Ephesus, because, after all, the dead are raised and we can help them with our sufferings and penances, which have the greatest meaning, as opposed to a cynical attitude of “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”

I provided extensive reasoning for why I took the position I did (including similar Protestant analysis): all of which Alexander ignores, all the while claiming that he has refuted me to such an extent that I could have no counter-reply back. I’m not gonna spend more of my valuable time (on this Sunday, the first of Advent) repeating what he will simply ignore or cover with rank insults for the second time, anyway. But if someone wants to hear my reasoning and actually take it seriously, the same argument is presented in my article, “The Three Most UnProtestant Bible Verses (Transcript)” (10-18-25; section at the end). I need not present it again here.

By now we see the pattern of Alexander’s “arguments”: which are little more than bald emptyheaded insults and empty sophistry, so I will spend a lot less time on the last two. He doesn’t deserve anything more, being clearly — I know now — the sort of person that Paul commands us to avoid:

2 Timothy 2:23 Have nothing to do with stupid, senseless controversies; . . . (cf. 3:5-9)

Titus 3:9 But avoid stupid controversies, genealogies, dissensions, and quarrels over the law, for they are unprofitable and futile.

I’ll give someone one reply, as presently, mainly for the sake of others observing, but if I see that they don’t know how to debate (yet think they do) and offer nothing of substance, and a lot of straw men and misrepresentations and insults (veiled or not), I won’t waste my time again.

***

Matthew 25:32-36, 40, 46 Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate them one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, [33] and he will place the sheep at his right hand, but the goats at the left. [34] Then the King will say to those at his right hand, `Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; [35] for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, [36] I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ . . . [40] . . . `Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.’ . . . [46] And they will go away . . . into eternal life.

Matthew 25 isn’t Jesus giving you a merit badge checklist to earn heaven. He calls them “sheep” before mentioning a single good deed. Their works reveal their identity; they don’t create it. But when your theology needs salvation by charity work, everything starts looking like a spiritual performance review.

Another short mocking, fatuous, vapid supposed “refutation” . . . Alexander utterly ignores my reasoning. I won’t bother to defend it because there’s literally nothing here to deal with. He doesn’t interact. He has not a clue about how rational, intelligent debate works; how it proceeds. It’s the classic

“sophomore syndrome”:

the kid who has learned a bit in one year of college and starts thinking that he or she “knows everything.” Rather than spend any more time on this asinine rant, I’ll simply repeat this time my entire presentation. Let the reader decide if Alexander has “refuted” it:

Evangelical Protestants have a line they love to use when they are witnessing: especially if they know the person is a Catholic: “If you were to die tonight and God asked you why He ought to let you into heaven, what would you tell Him?” But the odd and ironic thing is that I can’t find anywhere in the Bible where God ever speaks like this. Nevertheless. These Protestants believe that if God did ask this, He would say that the criterion to get into heaven would be all about faith and belief in Jesus and not about works at all.

But all Jesus does in Matthew 25, which is exactly about this very thing: standing before God after we die, is talk about works. Why doesn’t Jesus talk about faith alone and why does He never even mention faith at all?!

One day I was curious, and I love to study the Bible, so I started to look up passages having to do with judgment day. I found fifty. Of these – here’s the striking thing — not a single onestated that faith alone was the sole reason we were saved. None even mentioned faith, except for one: Revelation 21:8. It included faith (but not faith alone) along with works. In the Bible – according to the above passage and these other 49 — the exact opposite of what Protestants assert is true: if God asked us the canned “Protestant” question, and we replied by recounting repeated acts of charity and mercy and various other “good deeds” that we had done, then we would be imitating what Jesus Himself did when He described how a person can enter heaven, but we would – for some reason — be rebuked for doing so. The biblical answer to this Protestant question, as I discovered, could include any one or all of the following 50 responses: direct quotes or very close paraphrases from the Bible [see the complete listing of these passages]:

God should let me into heaven because I am characterized by righteousness, integrity, uprightness of heart, good conduct, good ways and good fruits, good deeds, having done the will of God, endured to the end, hearing Jesus’ words and doing them, feeding the hungry, providing drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked, welcoming strangers, visiting the sick and prisoners, inviting the poor and maimed and lame and blind to my feast, good works, obeying the truth, being a good laborer and fellow worker with God, unblamable holiness, being wholly sanctified, a sound and blameless spirit and soul and body, being without spot or blemish, knowing God, obeying the gospel, sharing Christ’s sufferings, and repentance.

Conversely, I’m not wicked, committing abominations, angry with or insulting my brother, calling someone a fool, weighed down with dissipation, drunkenness, and the cares of this life, ungodly, suppressing the truth, doing evil, a coward, faithless, polluted, a murderer, fornicator, sorcerer, idolater, or a liar.

This is how God and Bible-writers say we get to heaven. Now, I like to look up and see what the Bible says about any given topic at hand. I’m weird that way. But so be it!

***

Luke 16:22-25, 27-31 The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died and was buried; [23] and in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes, and saw Abraham far off and Laz’arus in his bosom. [24] And he called out, `Father Abraham, have mercy upon me, and send Laz’arus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in anguish in this flame.’ [25] But Abraham said, `Son, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Laz’arus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish. . . . [27] And he said, `Then I beg you, father, to send him to my father’s house, [28] for I have five brothers, so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment.’ [29] But Abraham said, `They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.’ [30] And he said, `No, father Abraham; but if some one goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ [31] He said to him, `If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if some one should rise from the dead.'”

And Lazarus and the Rich Man? It’s a parable, not a Vatican approved instruction manual on calling the dead for customer support. If this passage teaches intercession of saints, then apparently souls have literal tongues, Abraham runs an afterlife call center, and hell comes with a moisture deficit. Abraham doesn’t intercede; he just delivers the point of the story: Scripture is enough, and if people won’t listen to it, nothing else will convince them. The irony writes itself.

Again, it’s an insult to my intelligence, and that of anyone who reads this, to ludicrously pretend that this reply gets anywhere to within a million miles of disposing of my argument. Again, rather than waste my time even more and explain all that and play along with this idiotic mode of pseudo-“dialogue”, I simply repeat my original argument:

This is a story — right from the lips of Jesus — about someone praying or making an intercessory request of someone other than God. The rich man makes a petition to Abraham but he says no, just as God will say no to a prayer not according to His will. It’s not that Abraham couldn’t intercede (if that were true, he would have said so and Jesus would have made it clear), but that he wouldn’t intercede in this instance (i.e., he refused to answer the request). The rich man asks Abraham again, begging, and Abraham refuses again. But he persists with a third petition, and Abraham refuses a third time.

If we were not supposed to ask saints to pray for us, Abraham would simply have said, “you shouldn’t be asking me for anything; ask God!” In the same way, angels refuse worship when it is offered, because only God can be worshiped. We see that in Revelation 19:9-10 and 22:8-9. St. Peter did the same thing with Cornelius (Acts 10:25-26). So did St Paul and Barnabas (Acts 14:11-15).

Jesus couldn’t possibly have taught a false principle. Abraham doesn’t deny that he is able to potentially send Lazarus to do what was requested; he only denies that it would work (by the logic of “if they don’t respond to greater factor x, nor will they respond to lesser factor y”). It’s assumed in the story that Abraham had the ability and authority to “answer” prayers, as God’s representative.

Hence lies the dilemma. It matters not if both men are dead, or where they are (Hades, in this case: Lk 16:23); the rich man still couldn’t do what he did, according to Protestantism, because it holds that no one can make a prayer request to anyone but God. But God is never mentioned in the entire story. The rich man asks for supernatural aid from one who has left the earthly life and has attained sainthood and perfection, with God.

So why did Jesus teach that the rich man asked Abraham to do things that Protestant theology would hold that only God can do? And why is the whole story about him asking Abraham for requests, rather than going directly to God and asking Him? This just isn’t how it’s supposed to be, from a Protestant perspective. All the emphases are wrong, and there are serious theological errors, committed by Jesus Himself (i.e., from the erroneous Protestant perspective). Praying to a saint is expressly taught by Our Lord Jesus.

One common but futile retort is to say that this is “only a parable,” and hence, supposedly can be dismissed as irrelevant. We reply that:

Parables — like anything else Jesus says – could not contain falsehoods. Jesus couldn’t and wouldn’t teach error, including in His parables.

I contend that the story about the rich man, Lazarus, and Abraham is not a parable in the first place, since parables don’t include proper names, let alone names of known historical figures. Jesus isn’t telling fairy tales, but recounting historical events.

It isn’t introduced as a parable, which is the standard biblical “protocol”. In the same book, the phrase, “he told them a parable” occurs five times: 5:36; 6:39; 12:16; 18:1; 21:29. But in Luke 16 it doesn’t. Jesus starts out, “There was a rich man . . .” (16:19).

In short, the verses aren’t “un-protestant.” They’re just un-catholic when you stop inserting doctrines the Bible never mentions.

Even if that were true — which it is not — virtually nothing that Alexander has given us in his insulting mini / tiny pseudo-“replies” would be sufficient to convince anyone of it.

***

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Photo credit: cropped version of a photograph by Geoffrey Fairchild (2-24-10) [Flickr / CC BY 2.0 license]

Summary: An anonymous commenter in a combox presents some of the most pathetic pseudo-“arguments” in the history of the world, yet is convinced he has thoroughly refuted me.

Calvinism & General Protestantism

1 Timothy 3:15

baptism for the dead

Lazarus & the rich man

Matthew 25

pillar & foundation of the truth

rich young ruler

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November 28, 2025

Parting of the Red Sea & Lake Erie Seiches