Sovereign Grace Ministries Leader and Wayne Grudem's Editor Turns to Catholic University To Learn About the New Testament

                                     
As Director of Theology and Training, Jeff Purswell is dean of our Pastors College, leads pastoral and theological training for Sovereign Grace Ministries, and is responsible to see that ordination standards and testing are in place to serve Regional Ordination Committees. He also works with the Theology Committee in developing our Statement of Faith and develops resources through writing and publication to equip people both in and outside of Sovereign Grace.

Jeff is the editor of Bible Doctrine, an abridgment of Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology, and contributed a chapter to Worldliness: Resisting the Seduction of a Fallen World. He serves on the advisory group of the Entrust Foundation. In addition to his role with Sovereign Grace Ministries, Jeff serves as an elder at Sovereign Grace Church of Louisville.

Jeff is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in New Testament Studies from The Catholic University of America. 

~excerpt from Jeff Purswell's bio at SGM

He's getting a Ph.D in the New Testament from a heretical church/university??? And he's with "reformed" Mahaney? And he's a pastor? 

Catholic University's Foundation and Purpose

"As the national university of the Catholic Church in the United States, founded and sponsored by the bishops of the country with the approval of the Holy See, The Catholic University of America is committed to being a comprehensive Catholic and American institution of higher learning, faithful to the teachings of Jesus Christ as handed on by the Church. Dedicated to advancing the dialogue between faith and reason, The Catholic University of America seeks to discover and impart the truth through excellence in teaching and research, all in service to the Church, the nation and the world....The Catholic University of America was founded in the name of the Catholic Church in the United States by Pope Leo XIII and the bishops of this country as a national institution of learning."

~ Excerpts from the Mission statement of The Catholic University

What Rome Teaches 

To summarize: RCC adds Mary to Jesus Christ, works to grace, purgatory to the finished work at the cross, the “pope” to the Scriptures. This makes is utterly false and without life and truth.

(Note: "RCC Cat. #" means Roman Catholic Church Catechism, which is their official body of doctrine that all Catholics must subscribe to--I like to use the catechism at the Vatican website--straight from the horse's mouth):

Foundation and Establishment of the RCC Teaching

Prologue of RCC Catechism #9 "… The Council of Trent is a noteworthy example of this. It gave catechesis priority in its constitutions and decrees. It lies at the origin of the Roman Catechism, which is also known by the name of that council and which is a work of the first rank as a summary of Christian teaching.(See also #12)

Council of Trent: the RCC's Doctrine Foundation States:

RCC's Catechism #1992 and 1993 state that Justification is conferred in Baptism and that Baptism establishes cooperation between God's grace and man's freedom. In its prologue, it reiterates the Council of Trent:

Trent Council CANON III.-If any one saith, that in the Roman church, which is the mother and mistress of all churches, there is not the true doctrine concerning the sacrament of baptism; let him be anathema.

Trent Council CANON V.-If any one saith, that baptism is free, that is, not necessary unto salvation; let him be anathema.

Council of Trent CANON I.-If any one saith, that the sacraments of the New Law were not all instituted by Jesus Christ, our Lord; or, that they are more, or less, than seven, to wit, Baptism, Confirmation, the Eucharist, Penance, Extreme Unction, Order, and Matrimony; or even that any one of these seven is not truly and properly a sacrament; let him be anathema.

Who Determines The Correct Interpretation of Scripture According to Rome:

RCC Cat. #100 The task of interpreting the Word of God authentically has been entrusted solely to the Magisterium of the Church, that is, to the Pope and to the bishops in communion with him.

The Deification of Mary

The RCC Mary is a female leader which violates Scripture: Protectress, deliverer, redeemer = all male leadership roles. Additionally they place her name into the 4th commandment, thus elevating her to godhood.

Mary like Jesus:  RCC Cat. #487 What the Catholic faith believes about Mary is based on what it believes about Christ, and what it teaches about Mary illumines in turn its faith in Christ.

RCC# 2146 The second commandment forbids the abuse of God's name, i.e., every improper use of the names of God, Jesus Christ, but also of the Virgin Mary and all the saints.

RCC# 2162 The second commandment forbids every improper use of God's name. Blasphemy is the use of the name of God, of Jesus Christ, of the Virgin Mary, and of the saints in an offensive way.

But Scripture states it's solely God's name and His alone that is not to be taken in vain, making the point that His name is holy because He alone is the sinless, perfect HOLY HOLY HOLY God of Israel:  Exo 20:7  "You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. [It’s the fourth command]

The Church of Rome: It Alone Is Necessary For Salvation

RCC Catechism #846…the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation... RCC # 846 Hence they COULD NOT be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it.

Mormonism in RCC

RCC Catechism #460  "For the Son of God became man so that we might become God."⁸⁰ "The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods." 

The RCC Pope Usurps The Titles Used for the Trinity

The RCC’s popes usurp the titles "Holy Father" from God the Father, "The Head of the Church" from the Lord Jesus Christ and "The Vicar of Christ" from the Holy Spirit, whom Jesus promised to send in His place.  ~ Proclaiming the Gospel

RCC's "Baptism": A Work That Justifies and Saves

RCC 1992 …Justification is conferred in Baptism, the sacrament of faith. It conforms us to the righteousness of God, who makes us inwardly just by the power of his mercy.    Its purpose is the glory of God and of Christ, and the gift of eternal life

RCC 1993 Justification establishes cooperation between God's grace and man's freedom. On man's part it is expressed by the assent of faith to the Word of God, which invites him to conversion, and in the cooperation of charity with the prompting of the Holy Spirit who precedes and preserves his assent

RCC # 1213 Holy Baptism is the basis of the whole Christian life, the gateway to life in the Spirit (vitae spiritualis ianua),⁴ and the door which gives access to the other sacraments....  Through Baptism we are freed from sin and reborn as sons of God; we become members of Christ, are incorporated into the Church and made sharers in her mission: "Baptism is the sacrament of regeneration through water in the word."

RCC#1250 Born with a fallen human nature and tainted by original sin, children also have need of the new birth in Baptism to be freed from the power of darkness and brought into the realm of the freedom of the children of God, to which all men are called. The sheer gratuitousness of the grace of salvation is particularly manifest in infant Baptism..... The Church and the parents would deny a child the priceless grace of becoming a child of God were they not to confer Baptism shortly after birth.

985 Baptism is the first and chief sacrament of the forgiveness of sins: it unites us to Christ, who died and rose, and gives us the Holy Spirit

Scripture states Eph 2:8  For  BY GRACE you have been saved through faith. And this is  NOT your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9   NOT A RESULT OF WORKS, so that no one may boast.

Gal 2:16  yet we know that a person  NOT JUSTIFIED BY WORKS of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and  NOT BY WORKS of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified. 

How in the world can a Christian, much less an "Evangelical" one, much less a "Reformed" one (presuming Purswell is like-minded on this with Mahaney) even consider going to a den of iniquity and blasphemy to learn about the New Testament???? There is nothing but damnable blasphemy from its inception to its foundation! 

Instead we should have the view of Spurgeon as well as the many noted Separatists and Puritans who detested, and rightly so, Rome and its popery. Romanism is contrary to Christ and the Scriptures.

Spurgeon on the Pope  

Spurgeon went on to say, “Popery is contrary to Christ’s gospel and is the Antichrist and we ought to pray against it.  It should be the daily prayer of every believer that Antichrist might be hurled like a millstone into the flood and for Christ because it wounds Christ, because it robs Christ of His glory, because it puts sacramental efficacy in the place of His atonement and lifts a piece of bread into the place of the Savior and a few drops of water into the place of the Holy Spirit and puts a mere fallible man like ourselves up as the Vicar of Christ on earth...."

Spurgeon: The Protestants Commit Adultery With Rome

I am astonished, and yet more astonished when I come to turn it over, at the want of earnestness that there is in the Protestantism of the present age. How do you imagine that Cardinal Wiseman pays for all his splendours, and that the Romish church is supported? Fools and slow of heart, ye find them much of their wealth. If he is to preach in any place, who is it that crowds the chapel full, and pays for admission? The Protestants; and the Protestantism of England is the pay-master of the Pope. I am ashamed that sons of the Reformers who have Smithfield still in their midst unbuilt upon, should bow themselves before the beast, and give so much as a single farthing to the shrine of the devil's firstborn son. Take heed to yourselves, ye Protestants, lest ye be partakers of her plagues; touch her not, lest ye be defiled. Give a drachm to her, or a grain of incense to her censors, ye shall be partakers of her adulteries and partakers of her plagues. Every time you pass the house of Popery let a curse light upon her head: Thus saith the Lord:—"Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins and that ye receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.

End quote.

~Excerptsfrom Spurgeon's "War! War! War!"