Boston Cardinal Sean O'Malley presides at final commendation for Sen. Edward Kennedy.
Posted on 07/26/2013 2:57:13 PM PDT by Alex Murphy
Question:
What would a baptized and confirmed Roman Catholic need to do in order to join the Orthodox Presbyterian Church?
Answer:
Allow me to answer you question with a brief autobiographical anecdote. I was born, baptized, raised, confirmed, and educated in the Roman Catholic system. In fact, it was while I was at a Roman Catholic college (of all places) that I was converted by the grace of God. After realizing how different the teachings of the RCC are from Scripture, I joined with a Baptist church. And that church required that I be rebaptized as an adult. So, I went through that process and became a member. Several years later I came to understand the doctrine of the Bible as it was taught in Reformed churches like the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC). Joining them was quite easy. I went before the session (a group of men who are officers in the church) where they interviewed me to make sure I had a credible profession of faith in Jesus Christ. The following Sunday they put me before the congregation where I publicly professed my faith in Jesus Christ in the form of several membership vows. And that was it. I was a member!
So, being baptized and confirmed in the RCC is no big obstacle if you want to become a member of the OPC. As long as you have come to trust in Jesus Christ alone for your salvation, and you trust not in any of your works. When asked the question "What must I do to be saved?", the response of Paul and Silas was "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved" (Acts 16:31), and that is still true today. What is important is to put your full trust in Jesus. If you have done that, if you have repented of your sin and trust in Jesus alone, you are welcomed into the fellowship of the OPC. There is no need to be re-baptized and there is no need to renounce your confirmation.
At this point I would strongly encourage you to seek out the pastor of a local OPC, and he can guide you through the details of the steps toward membership in the OPC. If you need assistance finding an OPC in your area, you can check out our Directory of Churches. May God bless you and may you "grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ" (2 Peter 5:18). If we can be of further assistance, just let us know!
Ping to an oldie but a goodie!
Isn’t the Roman Catholic Church the one you can never really leave, like the “family?”
What would a baptized and confirmed Roman Catholic need to do in order to join the Orthodox Presbyterian Church?
Answer: Apostatize
Presbyterian churches recognize Catholic baptisms, whether as an adult or a child.
Well my goodness, that is truly a worldwide church.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthodox_Presbyterian_Church
Orthodox Presbyterian Church
Classification Protestant
Theology Reformed Evangelical
Governance Presbyterian
Associations North American Presbyterian and Reformed Council, International Conference of Reformed Churches
Origin June 11, 1936
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Separated from Presbyterian Church in the United States of America
Separations Bible Presbyterian Church
Congregations 275
Members 30,279
Does this mean that not even 144,000 go to heaven but only 30,279 members of the OPC?
ROTFL
What was wrong with the Baptist church, other than all the drinking?
bookmark.
1. Give up all belief in historic Christianity.
2. Assume Christ lied about protecting His Church.
3. Cut seven books out of your Old Testament.
4. Give up Jesus in the Eucharist. Yes, He gave you His body, but now you have to believe it’s just a cracker despite what Christ said.
5. Ignore the Early Church Fathers or pretend they never wrote what they wrote.
6. Extras: No longer will the great Christian patrimony of art, music, literature, history, philosophy, or architecture be yours. You’ll be like an atheist at a Church picnic. Everything will still taste good, but you will no longer see the point of it all. It will be like a foreign language to you.
What you must do:
1. Start being ignorant.
2. Post ignorantly on the internet about things which you do not understand - especially the Catholic faith.
3. Claim you know the Catholic faith because you went to a Catholic school for 6, 8 or 12 years.
4. Deliberately lie about the Catholic faith. As a Protestant this should come easily to you now because you’ll be able to rationalize that you’re lying for a good cause.
5. You can now use birth control, have abortions (shhhh! pretend your sect is sort of pro-life).
6. Feel free to divorce and remarry as often as you like. You’re a Protestant now so morals are almost completely subjective even if your pastor says otherwise. Example: “Abortion is wrong. . . except in cases of rape and incest.” Many Protestants believe that as if the actual act of murdering the baby somehow qualitatively changes because the baby’s father committed a morally evil act.
You would have to give up belonging to a scriptural church.
why would you do that????
catholics wrote the bible, but these johnny come lately’s are trying to tell you all about it..
catholics have been at the forefront of the bible for over 2 millenium...
rememeber, the king of england wanted to fornicate at will..
and that is where protestantism originated..
just sayin..
“Cut seven books out of your Old Testament.”
The Historical view of the church on the Apocrypha:
Pope Gregory the first, quoting Maccabees:
“Concerning which thing we do nothing irregularly, if we adduce a testimony from the books, which although not canonical are published for the edification of the people. For Eleazar wounding an elephant in battle, slew him, but fell under him whom he had destroyed.” — Morals, book 19, on 39th chap, of Job.
Notice how he mentions that they are put forward not for the “confirmation of the faith,” but for “edification of the faithful.” This is an important distinction. They considered these books useful for instruction in righteousness, kind of like a positive story, but not to be brought forward for the confirmation of doctrine. This same idea is repeated by many authors:
Athanasius on the apocrypha:
“But for the sake of greater exactness I add this also, writing under obligation, as it were. There are other books besides these, indeed not received as canonical but having been appointed by our fathers to be read to those just approaching and wishing to be instructed in the word of godliness: Wisdom of Solomon, Wisdom of Sirach, Esther, Judith, Tobit, and that which is called the Teaching of the Apostles, and the Shepherd. But the former [standard new and old testament canon], my brethren, are included in the Canon, the latter being merely read.” (Thirty-Ninth Festal Epistle, A.D. 367.)
Rufinus on the Apocrypha:
“They were willing to have all these read in the churches but not brought forward for the confirmation of doctrine.” (Rufinus of Aquileia, Exposition of the Creed)
Cardinal Cajetan calls them not “canonical for the confirmation of the faith,” but “canonical” only in a certain sense for the “edification of the faithful.”
“Here we close our commentaries on the historical books of the Old Testament. For the rest (that is, Judith, Tobit, and the books of Maccabees) are counted by St. Jerome out of the canonical books, and are placed amongst the apocrypha, along with Wisdom and Ecciesiasticus, as is plain from the Protogus Galeatus. Nor be thou disturbed, like a raw scholar, if thou shouldest find anywhere, either in the sacred councils or the sacred doctors, these books reckoned as canonical. For the words as well of councils as of doctors are to be reduced to the correction of Jerome. Now, according to his judgment, in the epistle to the bishops Chromatius and Heliodorus, these books (and any other like books in the canon of the Bible) are not canonical, that is, not in the nature of a rule for confirming matters of faith. Yet, they may be called canonical, that is, in the nature of a rule for the edification of the faithful, as being received and authorised in the canon of the Bible for that purpose. By the help of this distinction thou mayest see thy way clearly through that which Augustine says, and what is written in the provincial council of Carthage.” (Cardinal Cajetan, “Commentary on all the Authentic Historical Books of the Old Testament,” cited by William Whitaker in “A Disputation on Holy Scripture,” Cambridge: Parker Society (1849), p. 424)
Official prefaces to Latin translations of the scripture making the same distinction:
“At the dawn of the Reformation the great Romanist scholars remained faithful to the judgment of the Canon which Jerome had followed in his translation. And Cardinal Ximenes in the preface to his magnificent Polyglott Biblia Complutensia-the lasting monument of the University which he founded at Complutum or Alcala, and the great glory of the Spanish press-separates the Apocrypha from the Canonical books. The books, he writes, which are without the Canon, which the Church receives rather for the edification of the people than for the establishment of doctrine, are given only in Greek, but with a double translation.” ( B.F. Westcott, A General Survey of the History of the Canon of the New Testament (Cambridge: MacMillan, 1889), pp. 470-471.)
“4. Give up Jesus in the Eucharist. Yes, He gave you His body, but now you have to believe it’s just a cracker despite what Christ said.”
“They said therefore unto Him, What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?” For He had said to them, “Labor not for the meat which perisheth, but for that which endureth unto eternal life.” “What shall we do?” they ask; by observing what, shall we be able to fulfill this precept? “Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him whom He has sent.” This is then to eat the meat, not that which perisheth, but that which endureth unto eternal life. To what purpose dost thou make ready teeth and stomach? Believe, and thou hast eaten already. (Augustine, Tractate 25)
“Wherefore, the Lord, about to give the Holy Spirit, said that Himself was the bread that came down from heaven, exhorting us to believe in Him. For to believe in Him is to eat the living bread. He that believes eats; he is sated invisibly, because invisibly is he born again. A babe within, a new man within. Where he is made new, there he is satisfied with food. (12) What then did the Lord answer to such murmurers? Murmur not among yourselves. As if He said, I know why you are not hungry, and do not understand nor seek after this bread. Murmur not among yourselves: no man can come unto me, except the Father that sent me draw him. Noble excellence of grace! No man comes unless drawn. There is whom He draws, and there is whom He draws not; why He draws one and draws not another, do not desire to judge, if you desire not to err.” (Augustine, Tractate 26)
“1. Give up all belief in historic Christianity.
5. Ignore the Early Church Fathers or pretend they never wrote what they wrote.”
LOL
And?
Wowsa!! here I am at my computer with no hip waders.
catholics wrote the bible
Please explain that.
Which OPC are you affiliated with? We go to one in the Denver, CO area.
This is the dumbest post yet. Why not ask how you can become a homosexual without the stigma of having AIDS?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.