Is Roman Catholicism Right About Tradition? | Dr. W. Robert Godfrey

What does the Bible actually mean when Paul tells the Thessalonians to hold fast to the traditions they were taught "either by spoken word or by letter"? Rome has long leaned on that verse to defend a body of unwritten apostolic teaching preserved by the church. In this episode, church historian Dr. W. Robert Godfrey walks through the Greek word behind "tradition" — a plain word meaning to hand over or deliver — and shows how Paul uses the same word group in 1 Corinthians 11 for both the Lord's Supper he delivered to the church and the night Christ was delivered over to be betrayed. Tradition, in its biblical sense, is simply what the apostles taught.

Chapters:
00:00 - Introduction
01:14 - Welcoming Dr. Godfrey
02:06 - Why Study Roman Catholicism
03:38 - Protestant Fatigue and the Draw of Rome
05:23 - Eastern Orthodoxy's Historical Claims
06:36 - The Text: 2 Thessalonians 2:15
07:47 - What "Tradition" Actually Means
10:10 - Rome's Appeal to Oral Tradition
11:51 - The Council of Trent's Answer
15:55 - Vatican I and Papal Infallibility
17:39 - Newman and Doctrinal Development
19:19 - How the Reformers Responded
20:33 - The Mass, Mary, and the Priesthood
23:59 - Is Rome a Place of Rest?
26:04 - Tradition as a "Wax Nose"
27:14 - Grabbing a Greased Pig

Guest Information:
Dr. W. Robert Godfrey — Chairman of Ligonier Ministries and President emeritus and Professor emeritus of Church History at Westminster Seminary California. He holds a Master of Arts in Historical Theology; his thesis was on Faustus Socinus.
🔗 Ligonier Ministries: https://ligonier.org

Mentions:

- 2 Thessalonians 2:15
- 1 Corinthians 11:2, 23
- Hebrews 9–10
- 1 Timothy 2:5
- 1 Peter 2:9
- The Council of Trent (1545–1563)
- The First Vatican Council (1870)
- Papal infallibility / ex cathedra
- Pope Pius IX
- John Henry Newman
- An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (1845)
- Basil of Caesarea
- John Calvin
- The Church Fathers
- Eastern Orthodoxy
- The doctrine of the Trinity and Christology in the ancient church
- The sacrifice of the mass / propitiatory sacrifice
- Mary as co-mediatrix
- The priesthood after the order of Melchizedek
- The priesthood of all believers
- Sola Scriptura
- The German Roman Catholic Church and the Synodal Way
- Women's ordination
- The "wax nose" image used by the Reformers

Dr. Godfrey has taught church history at Westminster Seminary California since 1981 and served as the seminary’s third president from 1993 to 2017. He previously taught at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, Stanford University, and Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. He is a minister in the United Reformed Churches in North America, a Ligonier Ministries Teaching Fellow, and has spoken at many conferences including those sponsored by the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization, the Philadelphia Conference on Reformed Theology, and Ligonier Ministries. He is currently serving as chairman of the Board of Ligonier Ministries, a position he took over from the late Dr. R.C. Sproul.