re: Evangelicals turning on Catholics all of a sudden.

all of a sudden?

Protestants turning on Catholics a few hundred years ago is why there are Protestants.

Until they start burning each other at the stake again this is just a squabble.

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reasonable people will disagree on what any particular piece of text really means, whether it be from the Bible or from some other ancient document.

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Perhaps, but the fact that scripture has a singular context and there can only be one contextual understanding, not many, and the Bible does not say multiple things that are counter to one another, but agree is the truth.

For instance, when Paul says we are saved by faith, not by our works, and James says faith without works is dead, that doesn’t mean that they disagreed, or that works somehow now saves mankind, but rather that your faith is of no use if works do not accompany it for the unbeliever. We know that because of the context in James emphasizing works accompanying faith in Abraham and Rahab. Works is justification with man, but God justifies us through faith in the finished work of Jesus. Faith is still the mechanism by which we attain salvation through Jesus, but works are the natural effects of that salvation.

And so when you compare it to what Jesus said to let our light shine before men that they might see our good works and glorify our father who is in Heaven we get our understanding. It is so that the unbelieving world see our works and glorify God. I can talk about my faith and have it, but the world cannot see my faith. They can only see the effects through my works.

Salvation is a free gift (Grace). You cannot earn it, or you’re trust is in yourself, not Jesus.

The notion that the Catholic Church or any modern Church is the remnant of the early Church is complete fiction. It’s comically absurd. The most damning argument against Catholicism is the Apocrypha. People often criticize 7th Day Adventists for the teachings of Ellen G White or Mormons for the Book of Mormon and rightfully so they should be but there is a lot of hypocrisy in it by Catholics.

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Yes, Jesus says in v.35 “whoever comes… whoever believes,” but He doesn’t stop there. He intensifies the claim, not repeats it.

In the Greek, there’s a clear shift:

Early on, He uses phagein (fa?e??) which can be taken more generally as “eat.”

But when the crowd pushes back, He doesn’t clarify it away as a metaphor. He doubles down and switches verbs to trogo (t????), which is far more graphic, closer to “gnaw” or “chew.”

John 6:54
“Whoever trogon (chews/eats) my flesh (sarx, s???) and drinks my blood has eternal life.”

That’s not how you clean up a misunderstanding. That’s how you intensify a literal claim.

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I don't disagree that Jesus is intensifying the claim He's making. The dispute is about the nature of the claim: is what is being intensified the literal eating and drinking of His body and blood, or is He doubling down on the need for His disciples to look to Him for their everlasting food and drink? I believe the context of John (and the rest of the Scriptures) points to the latter instead of the former.

Regarding the Greek, both words are used in non-literal or relational ways, so combining them doesn't add more literalism necessarily. Phago is used in John 4:32 to describe Jesus doing the will of the Father rather than eating literal food. In John 13:18, Jesus is speaking of literal eating (trogo), but in a relational sense rather than emphasizing the literal eating of bread. He was speaking of a close friend betraying Him. So again, Jesus' use of those words doesn't necessarily double down on literalism of His statement.

Going back to John 4 and the Samaritan woman at the well, Jesus tells her twice that He provides living water to quench (spiritual) thirst. She thought He was talking literally the first time, so He repeated it with an expansion. She still thought He was speaking literally, and it wasn't until He told her about her relationships that she realized He was a prophet. Even so, Jesus never fully explained that what He meant by quenching her thirst was spiritual, through He repeated Himself. The same thing happened regarding His body, that must be received by faith.

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And the word used is sarx not “symbol,” not “spirit,” but flesh. The same word used in John 1:14 “the Word became flesh.” If that’s real there, it’s real here.

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Protestants aren't claiming that "flesh" is symbolic in the sense that Jesus isn't talking about Himself. He really does say "flesh", but the question is what He means by using that word. Protestants have historically interpreted His words in light of verse 35, which is consistent with His other "I am" statements in John. Jesus is talking about Himself, but He's using a food analogy to talk about the necessity of faith. Food is used for two reasons: first, because the context is that Jesus just performed a miracle to feed 5,000+ people and many were following Him because they were hungry for more physical bread (Jesus calls this out in verse 26). Second, Jesus was asked what sign or miracle He would perform to prove that they should believe in Him for life, and then was given the example of Moses and the mana from Heaven. Jesus responds by saying that He is the true mana from Heaven. Jesus wasn't saying He was made of literal bread, but that He gives life to God's people the same way that the mana fed and nourished God's people in the wilderness. Jesus continued the food analogy just like He continued the water analogy when the woman at the well went to draw water.

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If this were just metaphor, this is the exact moment you’d expect Jesus to clarify. Instead:
• The Jews say, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
• Jesus responds by doubling down five times in stronger language
• Many disciples leave
• And He lets them walk

Compare that to actual symbolic moments. When the disciples misunderstand a metaphor elsewhere, He explains it. Here, He doesn’t walk it back.

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Jesus doesn't always explain, or at least not fully. Like the example of the woman at the well, Jesus expanded the metaphor about living water but didn't directly explain it to her.

The rich young ruler, Jesus let walk away.

The disciples you mentioned in John 6 were the ones Jesus already criticized as not wanting Him, but the miracle food He provided earlier when He fed the 5,000. In verse 64, we get insight that Jesus already knew those who would leave, so of course He wasn't going to further clarify for their sake, and this fits the pattern of what Jesus did in other places where the person(s) Jesus was talking to was not one of His sheep.

Several times, Jesus called out false faith or false claims of discipleship, even going as far as to say that one the day of judgement, many will call Him "Lord" but He will say "I never knew you".

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Also, your appeal to v.63 “the flesh profits nothing” doesn’t work in context. Jesus isn’t negating His own flesh. That would contradict the Incarnation and the entire Gospel. He’s contrasting flesh understood merely in human terms versus the Spirit’s revelation. Otherwise you’d have Him saying “my flesh gives life” (v.51) and “my flesh profits nothing” in the same breath.

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Again, you keep focusing on the word instead of how the word is used. Words are used differently in the Scriptures.

When Jesus speaks to the flesh not profiting anything, He's not saying that His flesh--or Himself--doesn't profit anything, but that what is physical is not what grants life, but the Spirit. This part of the passage has been interpreted by Protestants as referring to the Spirit's work in regeneration and justification by faith (in Christ), apart from merely doing something to earn or increase justifying grace (like eating Jesus' literal body as a physical act). The prior exhortation in this chapter to come to Christ and to believe in Him for eternal life supports this view, along with the rest of the Scriptures which teach that faith justifies while works justify (prove) that justification.

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And notice the parallel structure:
• “Believe” ? necessary for salvation
• “Eat my flesh and drink my blood” ? also necessary for life

He’s not replacing one with the other. He’s deepening it.

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You use the word "parallel" but then say there are two different things (believing and eating). I believe these are truly parallel in the sense that "eating" and "drinking" are done spiritually by faith, and therefore when He says to eat and drink, He's talking about believing in Him.

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Finally, at the Last Supper, He doesn’t say “this represents my body.” He says “this is my body,” and the earliest Christians took it literally, not symbolically.

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He also says He is a door/gate and that He is a vine, and that He is a shepherd, and so on. Saying that something "is" something else doesn't mean it is literal.

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So the issue isn’t that John 6 can be read symbolically. It’s that the text itself escalates into language that resists being reduced to a symbol, especially with the shift to trogo and the repeated use of sarx.

If anything, John goes out of his way to make it harder, not easier, to spiritualize it away.

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I disagree, as I have explained. Jesus followed the same format that He did multiple times in John, where He was referring to Himself as the Messiah who grants life, and that you must believe in Him by faith to receive that eternal life. Instead of being engrafted into the true vine (John 15), entering through the gate (John 10), drinking of the living water (John 4), or walking in the light of the world (John 8), here Jesus is telling us to eat of the bread He provides (Himself).

Why don't you take His other "I am" statements literally? Do you think He is literally made of bread (John 6:35)?

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You are my brother as well. But if you can’t recognize your church all the way back to the beginning then you are in a false church.

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This is true. If you are an Apostolic Catholic, rather than a Roman Catholic, then you can recognize your church all the way back to the beginning.

If Roman Catholics can say that their church was there in the beginning and the Schism of 1054 was just a separation from the Apostolic Catholic Church...then Protestants could also say that their church was just a separation from the Roman Catholic Church during the Protestant Reformation in 1517, the Church of England formation/split in 1537, and the subsequent Council of Trent in 1563.

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Just because the Pope condemns war, doesnt mean he's for open borders, abortion, w/e else yall wanna conflate it with

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I find it interesting that some people ignore the Pope’s bastardization of Scripture re: waging war.

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You’re saying “we have one standard,” but then admitting every individual and even each denomination decides what that standard actually teaches. That is multiple functional standards, whether you call it that or not.

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You keep looking at this like Protestantism is monolithic, however Protestants having a shared agreement about the Scriptures being their ultimate and only infallible standard is no different than what Rome does with having it's own standard. You claim to have your Magisterium that decides what to teach.

The EOC also claims to have a standard, which is similar to the RCC but doesn't claim an infallible Magisterium. They use Councils and the consensus of the Church over time.

Likewise, each Protestant denomination has their own teaching authority (the Bible) and application of that standard.

Again, you keep looking at Protestants as one organization with multiple standards. I'm saying Protestants have a shared standard in the Scriptures like how Rome and the EOC share standards (though not entirely), even though both are treated as distinct and different organizations. Each Protestant denomination is a different branch of the one tree of Christ's church.

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If two sincere, Bible-affirming Christians read the same passage and come to opposite conclusions, who decides which one is correct in a binding way? Your elders? Another denomination’s elders? You personally? That’s the issue.

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If the EOC comes to an opposite conclusion from Rome on an issue, who decides which one is correct in a binding way?

You keep talking like Protestants are monolithic, and we aren't. You also act as if we all need to have a binding authority between denominations, while you don't have a binding authority over the Eastern churches and they don't have one over you. I would imagine that you claim that your church is more pure than the EOC and that God will judge between you two, right? Well that's basically what happens between Protestant denominations. What we aren't doing, though, is saying that if you don't belong to our particular denomination, that you aren't really a Christian. At least, that's the historical Protestant position.

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Your Westminster standards prove the point, not solve it. They’re an interpretation of Scripture. Other Protestants have different confessions that contradict them. So which one is right, and who settles it definitively?

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God does. Same as what He does between Rome and the EOC, or Rome and the Coptics, or Rome and the various Protestant denominations.

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And on the “you’d need an infallible receiver” argument, that doesn’t follow. The question isn’t whether people can misunderstand, of course they can. The question is whether Christ provided a living authority to definitively settle disputes. In Acts 15, the Church doesn’t say “go read Scripture better.” It issues a binding decision.

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Yes, Christ gave apostles and the apostles gave elders and the mechanism for choosing them for ruling the church. However, the "binding" and "loosing" of those elders are not infallible and always correct. Their decisions are only binding if they are in accordance with God's revealed will, meaning that their decisions should be affirming what is objectively true in Heaven, not creating decisions that Heaven has to listen to. It's why we Presbyterians teach that the elders are judicial rather than magisterial: we are ruling and governing in accordance with God's word, not creating new standards for truth that bind the consciences of Christians in addition to God's word. That's why Protestant churches can be reformed, because we don't claim infallibility that sets decisions in stone.

With that said, the "infallible receiver" argument does follow. You claim that the Scriptures aren't sufficient because there are disagreements about what it teaches by fallible Christians. You try to solve for that by inserting an infallible interpreter between the Bible and the Christian. However, the Christian is not infallible, so if they lack understanding, don't they need another infallible interpreter between the interpreter and the Christian? On and on it goes. The receiver (the Christian) is not infallible in their understanding and may always have some confusion about some doctrine, no matter how clear the standard (whether it bet the Scriptures or the interpreters) are.

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So no, it’s not “the same result.” In one system, disagreement produces competing doctrines with no final arbiter. In the other, disagreement is measured against a defined teaching that can actually be pointed to and authoritatively clarified.

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You are saying that because the mechanisms are different, that the result isn't the same. We are talking past each other.

When I say the results are the same, I'm saying that no matter how clear the standards are, sin blinds people, and people can draw different conclusions regardless of what the standards teach. This is true for both my particular denomination as well as for the RCC.

We even see this in practice: homosexuality is clearly taught as sinful in the Scriptures. As much as some people try to fight against it, it's very clear, both in the Old and New Testaments. Both Rome and my denomination agree on this and prove in their own ways, by either appealing to Scripture or the Magisterium (or both for the Catholic). My denomination teaches that while we believe we are right on the topic of homosexuality being sinful, we could theoretically be wrong about that, and therefore we would need to be convinced by the Scriptures that we are wrong and must confirm. So far, that's been a very easy rejection, because it is so clear and has been clear for the entirety of church history.

However, just as there may be some members of our denomination who are either unclear or who even reject the teaching of our church on this topic (they would be disciplined if they taught this openly, though), there are some in Catholicism that are either ignorant of, misunderstand, or outright reject the teachings of the RCC. Just as their rejection or ignorance doesn't change Rome's standard being the standard, that same rejection or ignorance doesn't change either my denomination's standard, or the biblical teaching on it (as we see it).

What is different is that our denomination authoritatively declares what the Scriptures teach, but we do not claim an infallible authority, while Rome does.

What is the same is that we have people who reject or are ignorant of the standards that we hold up for the faithful to adhere to. Having a claimed infallible authority in Rome doesn't change that; the result is the same.

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If your system ultimately lands on “we all just do our best and can be wrong,” then practically speaking, final authority is still the individual judgment. That’s the difference you keep sidestepping.

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You are still not understanding what I'm saying. The ability to interpret the Scriptures doesn't mean each individual is the final authority, any more than Nancy Pelosi vocalizing her personal beliefs about abortion doesn't make her the final authority on that issue for her as a Catholic. For the Protestant, the final authority is still the Bible, and the individual needs to continually refine their beliefs to fall in line with the Scriptures.

You want the infallible judge to be on earth, while Protestants believe God will ultimately judge our understanding of His word. We can all interpret the speed limit however we want, but we are still held accountable for how we interpret it. If we know that 55 means 55 and we try to convince ourselves that it is 85, or we just ignore it, the judge won't take that an an excuse for breaking the law. Likewise, God will hold each person to account for what they did with His word.

Trogo and phagein absolutely mean two different things.

Not defending Catholicism but interpretation and logic.