Have you ever been in a discussion with someone about theology or the Bible and the other person just rattled off dozens of memorized Bible verses to try to show that you're wrong?

Or have you engaged in a comment thread and one person just listed dozens and dozens of Bible

verses after a claim they make and it makes the debates seem overwhelming.

I call this the Bible Blitzkrieg and it often makes conversations about the faith

much more difficult than they need to be. So if you feel overwhelmed by the

Blitzkrieg or if you see other people being the victim of it or if you're tempted to use it

yourself today's episode should give you a helpful shield against this

rhetorical onslaught now at the outset I want to say it is not bad to memorize scripture. In fact it's awesome if you're able to do that.

While some Catholics do do this I notice Protestants tend to be more adept at it, especially evangelicals who

were raised in environments that promoted memorizing scripture through programs

like Awana for children. St Jerome famously said that ignorance of scripture is ignorance of Christ.

So we should always commend a person's intimate knowledge of scripture.

But it's one thing to know what the Bible says, and it's another thing to know what the Bible means. St. Jerome

said of a heretical group called the Luciferians that quote let them not

flatter themselves they think they have scripture authority for their assertions.

Since the devil himself quoted scripture,

and the essence of the scriptures is not the letter, but the meaning.

St Jerome shows that anyone can string along Bible citations and say they're correct.

But that doesn't mean they're correct.

St. Irenaeus said the following about how heretics distort scripture to support their

false doctrines.

By transferring passages and dressing them up anew and making one thing out of another, they

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