Ping
roger that.
I go to confession, even though My Father already knows my every trespass.
Well...
If you are willing to accept a priest as some kind of church office, despite it not being listed in the NT as a church office...
And you are willing to accept confession to a church officer - even a fake one - though it is not commanded...
And you are willing to do “penance” even though it is not biblical...
And you are thinking this is a sacrament, even though there are no sacraments...
Well, it seems perfectly fine.
No. Next question?
Turning FR into an anti-Catholic kook site, one spam post at a time.
**Should Christians Confess Sins to An Earthly Priest?**
Yes.
Amen!
In the very early church, sins were confessed to the entire congregation, on the theory that a sin against Christ was a sin against His church. But after the church became secular, people started “talking out of church”, describing confessed sins they had heard in church. This, the priest became the representative of the church for confession.
Anti-Catholic dribble.
Go away.
Keep telling it like it is mom.
I find this sermon by Ryle to be Scripturally sound, factual, and of potential benefit to all Christians.
Should Christians stop picking fights with other Christians?
Such enormities we ponder.
Here’s what a former Catholic priest has to say on the topic:
A Catholic person is taught to look for forgiveness by confessing his or her sins to a priest. Papal Rome’s insistence that her people confess is seen in her official teaching in the Catholic Catechism, paragraph 983: “Priests have received from God a power that he has given neither to angels nor to archangels...Were there no forgiveness of sins in the Church, there would be no hope of life to come or eternal liberation.” And in the Catholic Code of Canon law 960, it stated that, “Individual and integral confession and absolution constitute the only ordinary way which the faithful person who is aware of serious sin is reconciled with God and the Church.” Thus, the humiliating experience of confessing is obligatory. In face of real forgiveness directly from God in Jesus Christ, confession in the ear of a priest is utter deception.
Here is a link to his video: “Confession to a Priest Is Not Necessary for God’s Forgiveness”
Here is an article about the healing that can be received from experiencing reconciliation:
The silence truly had been golden. I hadn’t heard or spoken many words for a couple of days — save for at the Liturgy of the Hours in the chapel. The immersion in the silence had been one of the most special, holiest gifts I could receive.
That had been one of the overriding reasons my two friends and I chose the monastery in rural Missouri for our retreat. The weekend at Assumption Abbey would provide us the opportunity to pray the Divine Office with the Trappist monks who lived there. It was a “personal-directed” retreat, which meant we could do whatever we wanted: pray, read, attend Mass, take in nature.
The silence was a powerful attraction, too. I definitely didn’t expect to hear God communicate to me audibly — using the words of a Vietnamese monk.
In addition to the promised silence of the retreat, my friends and I also knew we would enjoy the sacrament of reconciliation. For me, no retreat is complete without that sacrament.
So on that August Saturday, I humbly entered the room — much larger than your average confessional, a room with wood-paneled walls that served as a library and dining room most of the time. The priest sat waiting for me at the table. Once he spoke, in his Vietnamese accent, his initial words caught my attention in a way I never had experienced.
“All the angels and saints in heaven are rejoicing,” he said, “because one sinner is about to repent.”
Suddenly, my attitude changed.
I had spent the previous half-hour or so in prayerful preparation for my confession. I went through an examination of conscience; I took an inventory of my sins. I have come to accept the last few years that it’s foolish for me to expect perfection of myself — though occasionally I have to remind myself forcefully of that — and in that acceptance, the love of Jesus makes its greatest impact.
“I have sinned.”
The surest sign of God working in your life comes when you sit down with a priest, say those words and genuinely mean them. Feeling anything less is merely sorrow for making foolish mistakes. Children typically perceive the sacrament at that basic level: coming up with a list of committed sins and then rattling off those “foolish mistakes.”
In Psalm 51, David writes: “Against you alone have I sinned.” That’s subtly yet profoundly different from merely admitting mistakes that have broken a rule. One concept is that sins are wrongdoings against the Church, against the people of God. Then there is the concept of sin not as a wrongdoing but as a wrong being. It’s a state of choosing separation from God, a determined independence on anything other than Him.
A true examination of conscience involves both concepts. That isn’t a fun activity. Whether kneeling in a church or sitting on a comfy couch in a monastery, accepting the fact that you have purposely chosen to turn away from God at times is a painful admission. When you confess sin, you’re admitting to a fault, acknowledging guilt.
Most of my reconciliation experiences the past 35 or so years have been powerful. The idea of recognizing my sinfulness and mentally creating the inventory of the times I had hurt God was intimidating, and the guilt often overwhelmed me emotionally. In receiving absolution, though, I found a formal freeing of those sins that stretched beyond mere forgiveness. I knew that God had completely forgotten everything.
In those moments, God and I had been reconciled, somewhat similar to a couple of friends settling a quarrel. Our lives were back in harmony. I can’t describe how good that felt. The world actually looked different, brighter.
But when the Trappist priest welcomed me into the room that day, when he referenced Jesus’ words in the 15th chapter of Luke’s Gospel, he made me understand the true impact of the sacrament. I was about to receive absolution and have my slate wiped clean.
Indeed, heaven was far from silent. Angels and saints and God Himself were rejoicing — amazingly, all because of me.
“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness”
John was addressing non believers here who denied they were sinners and in need of a savior. If we need spiritual deliverance we address those needs through Jesus. Confession to a priest is works.
1 John 1:7
“But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.”
Ephesians 2:8 - “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:”
Ephesians 2:9 “Not of works, lest any man should boast.”
I’m no Catholic and I’ll never understand confessing sins to a mortal.
IS is combing the middle east slaughtering fellow muslims who don’t adhere to their brand of Islam.
Christians, love one another!