So many people who have embarked upon the journey of finding the "True Church" from scripture, tradition, history, philosophy, and reason realize that they can be overwhelmed with all the options. Catholics say this, Orthodox say that, Protestants say this other thing, and so on and so forth. Many times, if we are trying to be brutally honest and rigorously accurate, we can observe that the case for 1 side over the other isn't necessarily clear-cut and obvious. Often enough, more and more research leads one to go insane because they keep seeing good punches and uppercuts coming from both sides.

A 9th-century Arabic Catholic, Theodore abu Qurrah (+,825), a mighty defender of the orthodox and catholic faith, wrote treatises on how the farmer, rather than the scholar, can know where the true Church is. That is, someone who can't possibly dive deep into the history, the exegesis of Scripture, the canons, philosophy, and all the other varied sources. Theodore refers to these as the farmers and merchants. How are they to find the truth if they aren't scholars? Heck, even scholars disagree amongst themselves.

Theodore, all the way back in the 9th century (long before the Greek and Latin schism formed), already realized this problem because of the scholarly defenses of the Oriental Orthodox against the Orthodox (i.e., the non-Chalcedonians versus the Chalcedonians). Moreover, you had the Persian Church of the East (which followed the legacy of Nestorius). And so, you have the Orthodox-Catholic Church, the Oriental Orthodox Church, and the Nestorian Church. All three of these, in Theodore's day, claimed Apostolic Succession, the proper reading of Scripture, faithfulness to the Apostolic Tradition per the rule of St. Vincent de Lerins, etc. etc..

So, how do you tell which one is right if you are just a farmer and can't dive into the weeds of this very difficult debate? Or better yet, if you are a regular Joe Smith in the pew today whose hands are dirty from fixing cars all week long, how can you have hope to know what God's single truth is amidst all the scholarly debates over who is right? It can be agonizing, right?

Theodore gives the answer to his readers, and I think many here will enjoy listening to this lecture. He takes the reader through the Bible and Christian tradition and points the reader to the OBVIOUS rules that God has CLEARLY laid down.