Posted on 11/30/2016 2:41:47 PM PST by SeekAndFind
6. Catholics must observe the MEATLESS Fridays during Lent and on Ash Wednesday Protestants don't have to do this. <<
I've reposted the original question for context.
>>Perhaps the burden is upon Catholicism to show where this has to be done.<<
That would be making non-Catholics less-sinners and Catholics greater sinners. Is that your idea? Lol. My, my SOMEone has an inflated idea about himself, perhaps.
If you knew ANYTHING about the Church you would know *that their Judaic tradition led the way for their Apostolic Tradition. **You would KNOW why Mary is so important.
Well, never mind,you do have your own bias, PERHAPS. PERHAPS the LOW ROAD, the easier path, is all that that non-Catholics can do. PERHAPS they simply can't make the higher grade, can't cut the less difficult stuff.
Your answer has nothing to do with the original post which questioned the necessity of having to observe what was posted in #6 above.
Not sure what this has to do with Mary. But we can discuss that on another thread.
The sabbath rest for Christians spiritualizes into an attitude that, for maximum benefit, is taken every second of every minute of every hour of every day. One rests in the spirit of Christ.
Ritual observations are good as reminders (and as convenient times to practice this kind of spiritual resting) but for the Christian, every moment is ideally a sabbath in Christ. That is not worklessness, but performing His works. He healed on the Sabbath. Everything a Christian does should at least attempt to be a kind of healing, even if it is the surgery that leads up to it.
“Not even to follow the 40 Days of Fasting that Jesus did in the desert?
It’s in your Bible. Why isn’t it recognized and followed by all since it is an example set forth by Jesus Christ himself?”
Do Catholics actually follow that example? I come from an entire family of Catholics and I have never seen a single one of them go out into the desert and subsist without food for 40 days during Lent.
Of course, Jesus never told us to try to follow that example, probably because it would be very foolish for us mortal humans to attempt. However, if you want to accuse others of not following the example, shouldn’t you follow it yourself first, so as not to be a hypocrite?
So, Jesus' fasting the in the desert for forty days is in fact "self-effort" that comes to vanity?
His passion/suffering [The true meaning of passion is SUFFERING.] is in fact "self effort" that comes to vanity?
If you knew ANYTHING about Him and Catholicism you would KNOW that suffering IS part of the human experience.
Check it out, if you dare!
http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2009/08/a-catholic-reflection-on-the-meaning-of-suffering/
How else do we pay for our sins? Or don't you believe that we DO have to pay for our sins?
6. Catholics must observe the MEATLESS Fridays during Lent and on Ash Wednesday Protestants don't have to do this. <<
Some items are actually valid examples of “church discipline.” The meatless Fridays during Lent aren’t salvational issues. They’re church discipline issues. Even if I didn’t personally do it, if I were in a church where this was the norm, I wouldn’t be urging other people to not do it or cause anyone to stumble from what they believed right by eating hamburgers in public on Friday. When they got expanded into claimed salvational issues is when the problems began to happen.
There are some parallel issues in other churches. Some forbid to drink at all. Some forbid to dance at all. Some will not have a piano played in the worship service. And so on.
Jesus never erred.
Doing something that is ostensibly the right thing, for the wrong reason... is worse than abstaining from doing it.
Read 1 Cor 5:3-5 ... the one doing wickedness was to be put out of the fellowship SO THAT his flesh could be taken by satan yet his soul remain saved.
Divorce was allowed because of the HARDNESS of those Judaic hearts. Not a GLOWING recommendation.
God did NOT place different standards on non-Catholics. THEY imposed those different standards on themselves via the emergence of Protestantism and the defrocked, excommunicated Father Martin Luther in the 16th century, 1,500 hundred years ago.
As for instruction from God, does that mean that ANY group of people who REALLY believe that they had/have "instruction from God" have the True Word?
By your definition that would exculpate Hindu and Muslim beliefs.
It’s amazing that some Catholics do believe.
It’s amazing that some PROTESTANTS do believe, too!
If it weren’t for God maneuvering to meet us where we need Him most, it wouldn’t happen at all in any church... shoot, we wouldn’t even have churches.
God’s grace is amazing.
We have church discipline issues, but nothing that can rise above the grace of God.
I’m trying to make a sharp distinction between humans’ theology and God’s salvations. When God wills a salvation, it happens.
The 16th century is 1500 years ago? In big type? We have entered a time machine? :-)
I believe even devout Catholics have hypothesized that God could save a Muslim even while still “unchurched” by speaking to him through the voice of Christ... this has gone to such an extent in fact that some have hypothesized that this speaking can even happen through the Koran... and have KISSED a Koran to show it... which at best shares a misleading message (like we love this Koran as a whole, which is ghastly wrong).
“Do you “remember the Sabbath” by watching football?”
I don’t watch football, so no.
“Divorce was allowed because of the HARDNESS of those Judaic hearts. Not a GLOWING recommendation.”
Yet God, in His wisdom, allowed it. Are you trying to say that you, or the Catholic church, is wiser than God?
“God did NOT place different standards on non-Catholics.”
So you agree with men then. Why are you arguing?
“THEY imposed those different standards on themselves...”
I really don’t care what standards men place on themselves. If they are bad standards, God will judge them for it, just like everyone else. If you want to argue about the merits of standards people imposed on themselves, go find someone else to argue with, because I don’t really care.
“As for instruction from God, does that mean that ANY group of people who REALLY believe that they had/have “instruction from God” have the True Word?”
No.
“By your definition that would exculpate Hindu and Muslim beliefs”
BTW, that wasn’t “my” definition. You typed it, so it would be YOUR definition.
cloudy may be one of the elect, or may not be. We aren’t God and don’t have that kind of vision. From separate expressions of cloudy, I think it’s possible. But that’s just me.
We can have an issue like that of Lazarus. He was clearly revived. But he was also all wrapped in grave clothes, which Jesus told the onlookers to unwrap.
I’m trying to take a grace approach here, which might not be entirely pleasing to any party. But letting God do the damning of people at the right time... concluding that they willingly lost themselves in the world... seems a winning strategy to me. Then I don’t have to do it, and get egg on my face if/because I was wrong.
Some folks try to act all holy before God has even gotten them ready for it. The result is a lot of hypocrisy. I at least try to see that my own soul is withdrawn from a certain evil before I say anything public against that evil. That way I’m not saying it just for show.
I have found through the school of hard knocks that this is counterproductive...
(not talking about you here)
In His time... in His time... He makes all things beautiful in His time....
So can poverty.
If you want to; I suppose.
Exodus 17:11
11 So it came about when Moses held his hand up, that Israel prevailed, and when he let his hand down, Amalek prevailed.
12 But Moses' hands were heavy. Then they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it; and Aaron and Hur supported his hands, one on one side and one on the other. Thus his hands were steady until the sun set.
1 Corinthians 12:27 (ESV)
Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.
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