On the Journey

On the Journey with Matt and Ken, Ep. 39: The Real Presence – The New Manna

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 to Himself as the new bread that has come down from heaven.

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On the Journey with Matt and Ken, Ep. 38: The Real Presence – The New Passover

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. Paul and the Church Fathers keyed in on these themes in their discussions of the Eucharist.

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One Measly Doctrine, Part I – On the Journey, Ep. 14

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 record of the earliest centuries of Christianity, to see what the consensus was in the Church on the meaning of Baptism.

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On the Journey with Matt and Ken, Episode 37: The Real Presence - Miraculous Meals

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 between the way God fed his people in those circumstances and the way He feeds us today in Holy Communion.

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On the Journey with Matt and Ken, Episode 36: The Real Presence - What Does St. Paul Say?

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 to the writings of St. Paul, to see what he had to say about what was really going on when the early Christians gathered for the Lord's Supper.

For more episodes, visit www.chnetwork.org/onthejourney.

On the Journey with Matt and Ken, Episode 35: The Real Presence - Facing the Fathers

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 regarding their commemoration of the Lord's Supper, and how the sources they found seemed to speak of Holy Communion as something much deeper and more mysterious than anything they had encountered in their various Protestant experiences.

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On the Journey with Matt and Ken, Episode 33: A Damning System of Works Righteousness, Part XVII

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 did not, look at what the Bible has to say about the possibility of losing one's salvation.

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On the Journey with Matt and Ken - Episode 34: A Damning System of Works Righteousness, Part XVIII

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 to the balance? Matt and Ken look at what the Catholic Church actually teaches about the idea of "merit," an idea that is often misunderstood even by Catholics.

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On the Journey with Matt and Ken - Episode 32: A Damning System of Works Righteousness, Part XVI

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 welcomed back into a family.

This concept of divine filiation, held not only by Catholics but also many other Christians, is distinct from the Reformed notion of imputed righteousness; and, as Ken explains, was a key realization that began to lead him closer to the Catholic Church while he was still serving as a Baptist pastor.

 

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On the Journey with Matt and Ken - Episode 31: A Damning System of Works Righteousness, Part XV

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 lifelong journey of a Christian in relationship with God) can be likened to the journey of the Israelites through the desert to the promised land.

The Catholic Church teaches that justification is both an event *and* a process, and Matt and Ken explore how the Council of Trent discusses salvation in those two ways.

For more episodes, visit chnetwork.org/onthejourney.