The point was that children will understand parts of the Bible, but huge swathes of it they will not understand. Any adult who's honest will relate to that.
We were homeschoolers for 11 years and my boys memorized Proverbs and other simple single-verse excerpts on a regular basis. We discussed the meaning, too, since it wasn't always self-evident. It's an excellent thing to be immersed in Scripture.
But it is in no way self-explaining, self-defining or self-interpreting. It has always inspired myriad interpretations when in-DUH-viduals like myself try to puzzle it out on in our own little brain-boxes.
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I prayed earnestly to the Holy Spirit for guidance, and the Holy Spirit directed me to the Church.
I will ask again -- was that not yourself which testified on these pages previously of having received baptism of the Spirit in a Pentecostal Church?
While you had also shared that you were raised in the Roman Catholic Church...but for a time had not attended, etc?
And then here you say ---
"the Church"?
Since when was the Roman Catholic church ever exclusively "the" church? It most certainly was not in the earliest beginnings. Ah, but then in later centuries took up the trappings of Empire of Rome as that disintegrated and dissolved, blending that with "Church".
The idea itself the the Roman Catholic Church (which Catholic insist should be called only The Catholic Church) is indeed The Church, either in entirety, or as central authority is a Romish fantasy (and always has been!)...possibly reinforced here and there by mistaking correlation (of Spirit) for causation (themselves!)-- when the cause is God's own grace & mercy -- which can be found in full abundance far outside the narrow confines of Roman Catholicism.
One need not accept popery in order to enjoy communion, through Christ, with God. BUT -- that concept is among many that Roman Catholics (including popes) have long asserted is a requirement, even one which Christ Himself would require of all human beings (if one listens closely enough to Romanists).
Being that it that exclusivity if so far from the truth --- that aspect is in the least -- error, a mistake -- if not being an outright lie from the pit of hell itself.
And you just got through here on these pages with showing statues of early Reformers (and John Wesley, who was a leader -- but one whom few consider to have been entirely without flaw) in comparison to making graven images & statues representative of (now) spiritual entities considered to be now in Heaven -- that one can and even should direct prayers towards?
All the excuses, all the rationalizations --- they are not enough to change the reality of having incrementally populated the Heavens with lesser ranked gods and goddesses --- regardless of all the studious avoidance of using those terms of description for departed saints, in end result having renewed pagan religious thought and practice that there be a pantheon of individual spirits which one can (and should) direct their prayers towards -- other than the One True God -- the God of the Hebrews, the one God whom should be rightfully feared (even) since that is the ONE God who actually does things.
I cannot describe His Holiness, but it is frightening -- or can be -- as the Scriptures attest Moses experienced.
God is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Though He is utterly Holy, complete and entire, there being no variableness or shadow of turning within Himself, nothing within Him which is contradictory, yet still, He does have his own emotion as it were --- knowing happiness, joy, good pleasure & contentedness, He also can be angered and knows sadness (oh, boy -- does He ever know sadness).
He has allowed myself to hear as it were some of those emotions, those kind of "feelings" which were within Him in conjunction with a some (but not all) things which He shared portion of His own thought with -- little me -- who is not much, just one individual human being among billions.
You talk about "Mary" directing you towards Jesus? Really.
How does that happen?
Can you break it down for us?Can you describe how that communication transpires?
Is it more like remembering what NT texts say about her, and what various individuals within the RCC say and "teach" about Mary, producing within trains of thought and then also --- emotion?
Or is there some "spirit" which you identify as being "Mary" herself?
I'm not sure why the Helper which Christ described in John 16 would require additional assistance.
So go ahead, get mad, tell me what's what with the usual excuses, I do believe I have heard them all, and remain still far from convinced of the veracity of much of the usual RC apologetic -- but not for reason that I do not understand it.
Or -- as is more typical -- just shine me on, avoid questions which may be inconvenient, ignore what I'm really saying here -- yet if answering at all, answer just for some smallish part -- some aspect which can be like a stray strand of thread to be pulled on, diverting attention to some seam imagined to be weakpoint.
I expect nothing else.
The Truth. Ha. He's like a lonely vagabond -- homeless, wandering, searching with His lamp high and low -- and most people when they stumble over him, just pick themselves up like nothing just happened.
Dang!
Just like Adults! (Vlad excluded of course; he know's it ALL!)
Keep listenin'!