On the Journey

Matt Swaim and Ken Hensley continue to discuss how they went from Evangelical Christian understandings of authority to embracing what the Catholic faith teaches about the relationship between Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition, and the Magisterium. Moving on from the New Testament to the first generations after the apostles, Matt and Ken look at how Christian authority was preserved in the doctrin...

Matt Swaim and Ken Hensley continue their discussion of how they wrestled with the question of Christian authority on their way into the Catholic Church. Last week, Matt and Ken looked at how authority functioned in the Old Testament. In the New Testament we find a similar pattern of authority: the writings of the Apostles (Scripture), the oral teaching of the Apostles (call it Tradition) and an o...

Matt Swaim and Ken Hensley continue to discuss how they went from Evangelical Christian understandings of authority to embracing what the Catholic faith teaches about the relationship between Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition, and the Magisterium. To better understand the Catholic take on authority, Matt and Ken unpack what the Catholic Church means by the word "magisterium," and look at the way...

Matt Swaim and Ken Hensley continue their discussion of how they wrestled with the question of Christian authority on their way into the Catholic Church. This time, they look at the kind of Church that Jesus intended to establish, and what St. Paul says about how that Church is supposed to teach, lead, and unite believers with one another and with Christ. As Evangelical Protestants, both Matt and...

Matt Swaim and Ken Hensley continue to discuss how they went from Evangelical Christian understandings of authority to embracing what the Catholic faith teaches about the relationship between Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition, and the Magisterium. The Catechism tells us that "Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture are bound closely together, and communicate one with the other." (CCC 80) Tradition...

Matt Swaim and Ken Hensley continue their discussion of how they wrestled with the question of Christian authority on their way into the Catholic Church. In this episode, Matt and Ken look at the necessity of tradition when it comes to the interpretation of Scripture. All Christians look to some kind of tradition when they approach the Bible, even if it's just their own personal set of experiences...

Matt Swaim and Ken Hensley continue to look at the question of Christian authority, and the role it played in their own journeys to the Catholic faith. This time around, they look at the way that the Catholic Church understands the role of Sacred Tradition. What is it? How is it different than the "traditions of men" that Scripture condemns? What the very existence of Sacred Scripture itself tell...

Matt Swaim and Ken Hensley begin a new series on the question of Christian authority, and the role it played in their own journeys to the Catholic faith. In this episode, Matt and Ken look at the classical twofold understanding of how God reveals Himself to us: through creation in General Revelation, and more directly through Divine Revelation. And while Protestants and Catholics differ greatly on...

Matt Swaim and Ken Hensley conclude their discussion of how they came to believe Catholic teaching on the Real Presence of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist. Matt and Ken take into account some of the main objections that they themselves had to this "hard teaching" of Jesus, and look at the consensus of Scripture and the early Church that helped lay those objections to rest for them. For more episodes,...

Matt Swaim and Ken Hensley continue their discussion of how they came to believe in the Catholic teaching of the Real Presence of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist. In this episode, Ken looks at how the whole picture of the Eucharist began to come together for him as he pondered the weight of what he was finding in the Old Testament, the teachings of Jesus and St. Paul, and the witness of the early Chur...

Matt Swaim and Ken Hensley continue their discussion of how they came to believe in the Catholic teaching of the Real Presence of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist. Taking into account a broad survey of Scripture and the early Church Fathers, Matt and Ken look at the numerous points of evidence in early Christianity that the first followers of Jesus clearly believed that in the Holy Eucharist, Christ is...

Matt Swaim and Ken Hensley continue their discussion of how they came to believe in the Catholic teaching of the Real Presence of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist. Matt and Ken explore the idea of the Eucharist as memorial sacrifice. In their Evangelical Christian backgrounds, both of them would have observed the Lord's Supper with reverence, but the idea of talking about it as a sacrifice would have b...

Matt Swaim and Ken Hensley continue their discussion of how they came to believe in the Catholic teaching of the Real Presence of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist. In this episode, they look at the "Bread of the Presence," sometimes referred to as the "Showbread," and its place in the liturgical worship of Israel. What was the story behind this mysterious bread, and how did it point forward to what Jes...

Former Baptist pastor Ken Hensley and former Evangelical musician Matt Swaim continue their discussion of how they came to believe Catholic teaching on the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. This time around, they look at the typology of the manna in the desert that God provided to the Israelites, and look at the ways it's referred to in the New Testament, especially by Jesus, who referred t...

Former Baptist pastor Ken Hensley and former Evangelical musician Matt Swaim continue their discussion of how they came to believe Catholic teaching on the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. In this episode, they discuss the defining characteristics of the Exodus and the Passover, and how Jesus both recalled and transformed them at the Last Supper. Matt and Ken look at how especially St. Pau...

The question of the meaning of Baptism has been a great source of debate among Christians since the Reformation. Even Matt Swaim and Ken Hensley in their previous Christian traditions, not only disagreed with the Catholic take on Baptism, but disagreed with each other also! Was Baptism always a subject of debate in Christianity? What did the earliest Christians believe? Matt and Ken look at the re...

Former Baptist pastor Ken Hensley and former Evangelical musician Matt Swaim continue their discussion of how they came to believe Catholic teaching on the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist.  This time around, they focus on the pattern of “miraculous meals” in the Bible, from the manna in the desert up through the multiplications of the loaves and fishes by Jesus, to look at the similarities...

Matt Swaim and Ken Hensley continue their series sharing how they came to believe Catholic teaching on the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. As Protestants, both Matt and Ken conceived of the Lord's Supper in merely symbolic terms; but as they read the Church Fathers, they saw it being discussed in much deeper and more reverent terms. Matt and Ken share what they found when they went back t...

During Matt Swaim's time as an Evangelical Christian, and Ken Hensley's time as a Baptist pastor, both of them observed the Lord's Supper as a memorial event, often using crackers and juice, that remembered Christ's sacrifice. It was a solemn event, but not essential to Christian worship. Matt and Ken share what they began to discover as they looked at the practice of the earliest Christians regar...

Can you lose your salvation? Christians are divided on a number of issues, but the question of "once saved, always saved," is not only one that divides Catholics and some Protestants, but also divides certain groups of Protestants from one another. Ken Hensley, a former Baptist pastor who used to believe in "once saved, always saved," and Matt Swaim, a Wesleyan-tradition Evangelical who definitely...

Matt Swaim and Ken Hensley conclude their series on the Catholic view of justification and the Reformation doctrine of "faith alone" by looking at one of the most controversial and misunderstood parts of the debate: the concept of merit. Do Catholics believe they need to earn their salvation? At the end of time, does God merely ook at a list of our good deeds and bad deeds, and judge us according...

Matt Swaim and Ken Hensley continue their series on Catholic and Protestant views of justification with a look at the concept of divine sonship. In some ways, the Catholic understanding of justification is like a person who owes a large amount of money being forgiven a debt; in other ways, it is like a criminal being absolved in a courtroom. But ultimately, it is most like a wayward child being we...

On the last episode, Matt Swaim and Ken Hensley dealt with how the Council of Trent discussed justification as an event. On this episode, they look at how Trent talks about justification as a process. If the event of justification (when a believer is baptized and enters into the family of God) can be comparable to the Israelites going through the Red Sea, then the process of justification (the lif...

Ken Hensley, a former Baptist pastor, and Matt Swaim, who grew up in the Wesleyan Holiness tradition, look more about how they came to understand the Catholic Church's teaching on justification and salvation. Is justification an event or a process? And what role do we play in our own salvation? Matt and Ken look at the decrees of the Council of Trent, and what they have to say about the interplay...

What is salvation? Is it something that comes from completely outside of us, or is it something we need to cooperate with? Or is it ultimately both? Scripture offers many commands in regard to salvation: "believe," "repent and be baptized," "follow," "abide," "obey," and "love." Matt Swaim and Ken Hensley look at the totality of these statements and share what kind of picture begins to come togeth...