Posted on 12/16/2013 6:05:21 AM PST by vladimir998
Nice attempt at redirection but your post was about "plain teachings of the Bible" that "can be understood by its direct reading", not about teachings or practices beyond the Bible.
EUCHARIST:
Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever.”CONFIRMATION:
(John 6:53-58)While they were eating, Jesus took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and giving it to his disciples said, “Take and eat; this is my body.” Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you, l for this is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed on behalf of many for the forgiveness of sins.
(Matthew 26:26-28)
Now when the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent them Peter and John, who went down and prayed for them, that they might receive the holy Spirit, for it had not yet fallen upon any of them; they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then they laid hands on them and they received the holy Spirit.CONFESSION:
(Acts 8:14-17)Paul then said, “John baptized with a baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is, in Jesus.” When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul laid [his] hands on them, the holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied.
(Acts 19:4-6)
[Jesus] said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them,m “Receive the holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.”ANOINTING OF THE SICK:
(John 20:21-23)
Is anyone among you sick* He should summon the presbyters of the church, and they should pray over him and anoint [him] with oil in the name of the Lord, and the prayer of faith will save the sick person, and the Lord will raise him up. If he has committed any sins, he will be forgiven.HOLY ORDERS:
(James 5:14-15)
This saying is trustworthy:* whoever aspires to the office of bishop desires a noble task. Therefore, a bishop must be irreproachable, married only once, temperate, self-controlled, decent, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not aggressive, but gentle, not contentious, not a lover of money. Similarly, deacons must be dignified, not deceitful, not addicted to drink, not greedy for sordid gain, holding fast to the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience.You can use what ever mental gymnastics you want to deny the clear meaning of these passages but the truth of Catholic teachings in them is evident. It is only by bring a preconceived Protestant bias to them that these truths be denied.
(1 Timothy 3:1-3, 8-9)Do not neglect the gift you have, which was conferred on you through the prophetic word with the imposition of hands of the presbyterate.
(1 Timothy 4:14)
Agreed.
“The Bible is not easy to understand and that’s why we have the Cathecism of the Catholic Church. No one can figure out the teachings in the Bible by themselves.”
You greatly err because you do not know what the Bible says.
Matthew 16:17
Jesus answered and said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.”
John 16:13
However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come.
1 Corinthians 2:10-16
But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one. For “who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct Him?” But we have the mind of Christ.
1 John 2:27
But the anointing which you have received from Him abides in you, and you do not need that anyone teach you; but as the same anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true, and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you will abide in Him.
We see from the account of Peter that his understanding of the things of God were revealed to him by God. We understand further from the teachings of Christ, Paul and John that it is the Holy Spirit that gives us understanding of the scriptures rather than man or our own natural abilities (even though they are from God as well).
Human teaching and writing can give believers and unbelievers a natural comprehension of language, history, context, etc. about the scriptures. But only the Spirit of God reveals the spiritual truths of the scriptures. Neither the catechism nor any clergymen can take the place of the Holy Spirit.
The title of the thread speaks of “Protestant bias”.
My experience on this forum is that all of the debate over Catholic teaching ultimately comes down to the claim that the so-called Catholic Church is a higher authority than scripture.
There are a number of Catholics here that love to post their offensive idolatry and criticisms of Protestant doctrines and their false gospel which the God calls accursed and then take offense when they are called on it.
If you don’t want to be reproved then quit repeating the same errors.
My soul magnifies the Lord,
And my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.
For He has regarded the low estate of His handmaiden,
For behold, henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.
For He who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is His name. And His mercy is on those who fear Him from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with His arm:
He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
He has put down the mighty from their thrones,
and exalted those of low degree.
He has filled the hungry with good things;
and the rich He has sent empty away.
He has helped His servant Israel, in remembrance of His mercy;
As He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to His posterity forever.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit.
As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen
Magníficat ánima mea Dóminum,
et exsultávit spíritus meus
in Deo salvatóre meo,
quia respéxit humilitátem
ancíllæ suæ.
Ecce enim ex hoc beátam
me dicent omnes generatiónes,
quia fecit mihi magna,
qui potens est,
et sanctum nomen eius,
et misericórdia eius in progénies
et progénies timéntibus eum.
Fecit poténtiam in bráchio suo,
dispérsit supérbos mente cordis sui;
depósuit poténtes de sede
et exaltávit húmiles.
Esuriéntes implévit bonis
et dívites dimísit inánes.
Suscépit Ísrael púerum suum,
recordátus misericórdiæ,
sicut locútus est ad patres nostros,
Ábraham et sémini eius in sæcula.
Glória Patri et Fílio
et Spirítui Sancto.
Sicut erat in princípio,
et nunc et semper,
et in sæcula sæculórum.
Amen.
She became the Mother of God, in which work so many and such great good things are bestowed on her as pass man’s understanding. For on this there follows all honor, all blessedness, and her unique place in the whole of mankind, among which she has no equal, namely, that she had a child by the Father in heaven, and such a Child . . . Hence men have crowded all her glory into a single word, calling her the Mother of God . . . None can say of her nor announce to her greater things, even though he had as many tongues as the earth possesses flowers and blades of grass: the sky, stars; and the sea, grains of sand. It needs to be pondered in the heart what it means to be the Mother of God.
(Commentary on the Magnificat, 1521; in Luther’s Works, Pelikan et al, vol. 21, 326)
“Nice attempt at redirection”
I think you must mean misdirection as redirection is something a lawyer does when the cross examination of his witness goes poorly or something a web browser does when the page being sought no longer exists. But I was not redirecting, misdirecting or even just changing the subject. My point is the crux of the matter.
We can go on endlessly debating the meaning of these passages and will get nowhere primarily because you apparently regard the entity that identifies itself as the Catholic church, or more particularly the clergy of this entity, as a higher authority than the Bible. You attribute apostolic authority to these men who are in no way qualified by the Biblical requirements and tests of apostleship. You are unwilling to test their apostolic claim and oppose others who seek to follow the Biblical mandate that goes along with such claims.
The authority of Paul, Peter, John and all of the apostles is available for me directly by opening my Bible. These men passed the tests of apostleship and most Protestants fully accept their authority.
I am well aware of high-ranking Catholic clergymen who practice and advocate immorality that Paul said must be put out of the Church, but you are among those who insist that followers of Christ must subject themselves to these men, to make auricular confessions to them, and to seek their counsel and instruction to understand scripture. These men are not, nor ever were true followers of Jesus, let alone people who should be assuming leadership in the Church.
Like the Pharisees of Christ’s earthly advent, these men are not content to go to hell alone; they constantly lead others to follow them there. The message Christ gave to these men is plain and fearful: “Woe to you.”
Christ described them as stubbornly resisting the kingdom of God and of trying to prevent anyone else from entering as well. How could a godly entity attack a man like William Tyndale for trying to bring the Bible to the masses; kidnap, imprison, torture, strangle and burn him at the stake? Where is your so-called sacrament of CONFESSION for this atrocity? Has the Catholic church confessed and repented of this wickedness? I think not. Doing so would upset the fragile (and false) doctrine of apostolic succession.
Do you expect me to accept Pope Paul III as a legitimate holder of the same position you say Peter held in the Church? A man who had affairs and illegitimate children by them? A man who consented to the torture and martyrdom of William Tyndale whose dying prayer was answered by God in giving to the masses the Authorized Version of the Holy Bible?
As imperfect as Luther may have been, I cannot for the life of me imagine anyone who thinks the contemporary pope, Pope Paul III, represented Christ on earth.
At least you just want to mock and ridicule. Pope Paul III consented to William Tyndale’s kidnapping, imprisonment, and murder because he dared to try to give the masses the scriptures in their own language. Pope Paul III was also an adulterer who should have been disqualified for the lowest of offices in the church.
You prefer that I accept that this pope represented Christ?
Rather it is you who regard Protestant ideology as a higher authority than the Bible. The passages I have given show, without any appeal to Catholic authority, a clear Catholic understanding of the sacraments. By their plain meaning the biblical teaching given in these passages is Catholic.
A lot of Catholics here seem to be far more take up with Mary than the Son of God who created her and also came to die for her sins as well as ours.
So you’re calling Jimmy Swaggart a liar and con-man? LOL.
Answering every heretical teaching and practice of the Catholic religion would take the hours of several full time jobs. That is just based on what I am currently aware of, not even attempting to explore any in depth. The scriptures you listed have nothing to do with the so-called sacraments (as practiced in the Catholic religion) you correlate with them.
EUCHARIST
The Lord’s supper is a time for believers to remember Christ’s death, renew their commitment to the New Covenant, and to discern the body of Christ. See 1 Corinthians 10-11. Christ had a natural, but incorruptible, human body which experienced death on the cross. He also has transformed His true Church into His spiritual body by means of the personal indwelling of the Holy Spirit in all who believe the gospel. Because you incorrectly attribute to the “Catholic church” the essence of this spiritual body, you do not correctly discern it nor truly ever practice the biblical command of partaking of the Lord’s supper. To do so would require you to first believe the true gospel and receive the Spirit of God in order to become a member of Christ’s spiritual body. The bread and cup do not become Christ’s natural body but His spiritual body.
John 6:63 [from the passage you cited about eating and drinking Christ’s flesh and blood]
It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.
CONFIRMATION
The Holy Spirit fell in Acts to several distinct groups of people confirming that the gospel of the apostles was the true message of God. It is the Holy Spirit who confirms the believers, not the church nor even the apostles themselves. Yet the Apostles did have power to bestow the Holy Spirit which is something wicked Simon the sorcerer coveted and the Catholic religion falsely holds to possess. You ignored my question about apostolic succession. Was Pope Paul III a legitimate example of this doctrine? Do you expect me to accept that he represented Christ on earth and not William Tyndale who is primarily responsible for me being able to read scripture for myself?
CONFESSION
When people confessed their sins to the apostles and others who preached the gospel and were baptized; they did so publicly, they did not elaborate and describe their sins, they named them using the names that the Bible ascribes to those sins, and believers were encouraged to make confessions to “one another” and pray “one another” rather than to a clergyman in private. Again, was Pope Paul III, an unrepentant adulterer and murderer, heir to this apostolic authority?
ANOINTING OF THE SICK
Representatives of the church, typically elders (or bishops as some call them), were instructed to anoint the sick with oil. This is still practiced today.
HOLY ORDERS
There are leaders in the church appointed by God. Whether these are accountable to Rome is the subject of debate. Whether the leaders in Rome qualify to represent Christ is also subject to debate. Again, do you think William Tyndale should have recanted his pursuit of translating scripture into the common language against the wishes of Rome? Should he have submitted to Pope Paul III and avoided his deserved punishments of imprisonment and execution? Is that what you want me to believe?
Everything that you have posted is nothing more than your private interpretation of Scripture, most of which is contrary to the “plain teachings of the Bible” that I and my fellow Catholics understand it “by its direct reading”. To give your opinion any more authority is to place it, and yourself, over the authority of the Bible.
You are the one who brought up Jimmy Swaggart. Here is a man who got caught in adultery. A lot of people rejected his ministry after that. My opinion is that anyone who does something like this in the ministry should leave and never be allowed to have any leadership. But since I never followed him or had anything to do with his ministry, it is not something I feel particularly exercised to address.
But Pope Paul III not only committed adultery and fathered illegitimate children, he opposed men like William Tyndale even to the point of having them arrested, imprisoned and killed because Tyndale wanted to help the common people have access to the Bible in their own language. So tell me if Pope Paul III represents the true authority of the Catholic church. Do you assert that Pope Paul III was the “vicar of Christ” on earth?
“I and my fellow Catholics understand it ‘by its direct reading’.”
Really? Some Catholics are saying on this very thread that it is too hard to understand directly. Maybe you should straighten them out on this topic. Meanwhile, back in reality, most priests in the Catholic church and the nuns rarely study the Bible and hardly know it at all. The Catholic church has a long history of attacking people who tried to promote the reading of scripture.
Do you practice CONFESSION? Then confess whether Pope Paul III was a man of God or whether he was a murderer and adulterer. Daniel in the Bible confessed his sins and the sin of his people. Is Pope Paul III your people? Or do you deny him?
If I had someone in my family tree that was a murderer, I would denounce him and acknowledge his action to be evil. You on the other hand prefer to ignore your religion’s darker history.
If the highest leader of my church had someone tortured and murdered for trying to spread the scriptures I would not just leave and denounce him, I would never try to convince those blessed by the person who had been tortured and murdered that they should subject themselves to the authority, the religion, and the doctrines of the murderer.
I can trace my beliefs to men like William Tyndale. You can trace yours to men like Pope Paul III. Tyndale regarded the authority of scripture and loved God’s word. He exemplified in his day the same spirit and conduct of the apostles and martyrs like Stephen. Pope Paul III demonstrated the evil of corrupt religion and was no different than the religious leaders of Christ’s day who wanted to kill Him because He was a threat to their position as religious leaders.
Who knows if at some point God might reach your stubborn, hardened heart just as he did Paul before he turned from his persecution of believers; but right now that is the path you are on. All I can say is you have been warned.
Most humans want to have the freedom, to be right or wrong.
Some people in this world don’t want us to have that freedom, such as
Liberals, Democrats, dictators, and popes.
Few victims of the popes:
Waldensians.
Cathars.
John Wycliff/Lollards.
Jan Hus/Hussites.
....just to name a few million
Has anyone heard of any aplogies from “the spokesman for Christ”
so called?
Boniface VIII was the norm.
Unam Sanctum B.S.
How could anybody be a Roman Catholic knowing history?
By being born into it from the cradle.
Beware of wolves in shepherds clothing.
The Word of God is the only rule for faith and practice.
You should really limit yourself to topics of which you are knowledgeable. All priests have studied the Scriptures for four years at the graduate level in the seminary. Many go on to advanced degrees.
The Catholic church has a long history of attacking people who tried to promote the reading of scripture.
I was under the impression that "thou shalt not bear false witness" was included in the Protestant Ten Commandments. It is time to put this lie to rest. The fact is that the Catholic Church encourages the faithful to read the Bible by granting an indulgence (let us not get sidetrack on the question of indulgences) for doing so.
I can trace my beliefs to men like William Tyndale.
And there you have it. You do not trace your beliefs directly to the Bible but to how Tyndale and other Protestants have interpreted it for you.
It is interesting how you constantly try to change the subject rather than address the fact that you do not, in deed, follow the plain teaching of the Bible when it comes in conflict with your Protestant ideology.
Revelation 12
Whose mind are you trying to read here? I don't know any Catholics who are knowledgeable about their faith who think their salvation is "based on a points system". Not a single one.
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