The Eucharist of Jesus Christ

The Gospel of John, Chapter Six, The Holy Bible ^ | October 2, AD 2002 | the_doc

[Gophack]

I do read the Bible.

In the context of Matthew 16:16-19 it seems strange that Jesus would rename Simon "Peter", and then say that he's inconsequential. He gave Peter the keys to the kingdom of Heaven, such as we might give a very important person the keys to the city.

The difference is that I do not think that every man is required to read the bible on his own and come up with his own interpretation of every scripture verse, because we would have as many different interpretations as there are men. The Catholic Church was found 2,000 years ago. You don't agree that Jesus founded the Catholic Church, but I'm sure you'll agree that the Church has been around since about the time of Jesus. I trust the early church fathers and historians in their understanding taken from the Apostles and those who learned from the Apostles. The Bible itself wasn't written down for hundreds of years! Yet, except for the deuterocanicals, the Protestants accepted the Bible that Catholics canonized as Scripture.

I am not a theologian. I am not a scholar. I am a poor sinner who seeks forgiveness and mercy from the Lord. My faith is strong, but it can be stronger. I trust in the Church because I believe Jesus gave us the Church to help with disputes such as these. Jesus didn't intend for us to be divided and squabble. He intends for us to be one body in Christ, in communion with one another and with God.

Anyway, don't assume that Catholics don't read the bible, because we do. Don't assume that Catholics don't think, because we do. We think and accept through free will the teachings of the Church because we believe that the Holy Spirit is guiding the Church and that the gates of Hell shall not prevail.

God bless.

[the_doc]

I think I will re-enter the thread at this point only long enough to point out that your counterargument against the Sola Scriptura position is nonsense.

2 Timothy 2:16 definitely does present the idea of the sufficiency of Scriptures--by the very way it segues into the very next verse.

The Scriptures are INSPIRED, Dave. This is WHY the Scriptures are profitable for the things which Paul catalogues as a compendium of the excellencies of Scripture with regard to life and godliness. And this fact of the Bible's inspiration is WHY verses 16 and 17 constitute a single sentence. My goodness, it should be PATENTLY OBVIOUS to a regenerate individual that Paul is telling us that the Scriptures are inspired SO AS TO MAKE THE MAN OF GOD COMPLETE AND FULLY FITTED FOR EVERY GOOD WORK.

That is a pretty danged strong affirmation of the sufficiency of the Scriptures!

***

I will not discuss the Scriptures any more with you. You can't get even simple stuff straight. You confess with your lips a doctrine of the inspiration of the Scriptures, but your heart is far from the God of Truth Who authored the Bible.

This is why you have a notion that you are supposed to "sort of trust" the Bible, but not REALLY trust the Bible.

Dave, I'm afraid that you are in unfathomably serious trouble. The doctrine of reprobation is true. And RCism has become one of the instruments of reprobation. RCism tends only to BLOCK saving faith.

The rest of your post was just as bad. (I'll let others respond to it if they care to do so.)

[Matchett-PI]

"went to Holland -- saw these big earthenworks that held back water all over the place. and windmills, too"

Go to a mirror -- you'll get to see something there, too. In fact is really funny! It's the reflection of a "boy" who got tangled up in his own rope and is in the process of hanging himself. LOL

[SoothingDave]

Finish this sentence:

Theotokos is a word which my scholarship has revealed to mean ___________

SD

[drstevej]

My point was in response to SD's ***I imagine their purgation will require long bouts of living somewhere absolutely intolerable --- like in Calvin's Geneva.***

My comment to xzins, to which you object, was a comparison of Calvin/Geneva to Cardinal Law/Boston. It was not a general reference to the RC church. The point was that the moral rigors of Geneva would be preferable to the sexual abuses tolerated and shielded by Cardinal Law.

This is the context of the remark.

[the_doc]

I wouldn't worry about that just yet, Chuck. There are more pressing matters for you.

[SoothingDave]

That is a pretty danged strong affirmation of the sufficiency of the Scriptures!

In your mind. You do realize there is a difference between what Scripture means, and what any given person thinks it means?

The bottom line is that you can only assert that yoru interpretation is the "true" one, and you take as offensive anyone who disagrees with you.

2 tim 3 does not in any way say that Scripture is sufficient. It says it is profitable. No amount of bolding various words in your argument changes the words that are set in Scripture.

The rest of your post was just as bad. (I'll let others respond to it if they care to do so.)

Yep, typical. Cry and claim victory cause no one responds to you, then dismiss it when someone does.

On second thought, we'd probably do better to go with our initial instincts.

SD

[xzins]

let me be the first to suggest that what you lack in humor

you also lack in insight


and everything else

[xzins]

let me be the first to suggest that what you lack in humor

you also lack in insight


and everything else

[the_doc]

Yep, typical. Cry and claim victory cause no one responds to you, then dismiss it when someone does.

Nope. That ain't what's going on.

I am actually being patient with you (2 Timothy 2:26).

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

should I have used Torquemada's Spain instead of Cardinal Law's Boston?

Or perhaps, Bishop Laud's genocidal Arminian Reich in old Britain.

---

"It was this malicious 'spirit of Arminianism'," writes the editor of 'The Contender' (Nova Scotia) "that drove the episcopal leaders (in conjunction with the civil power of the king) to persecute the Covenanters to prison and to death.

Vital testimony comes from the hand of the Archbishop Laud himself, a professed Jesuit. After his death, a letter was found in his effects which was endorsed by him and dated March 1628. The endorsement reads: 'A Jesuit letter, sent to the Rector at Bruxels, about the ensuing Parliament.' The letter gave the Superior of the Jesuits, then resident at Brussels, an account of church affairs in England. Part of it reads:

"Father Rector, let not the damp of astonishment seize upon your ardent and zealous soul, in apprehending the sodaine and unexpected calling of a Parliament. We have now many strings to our bow. We have planted that soveraigne drugge Arminianisme, which we hope will purge the Protestants from their heresie; and it flourisheth and beares fruit in due season. For the better prevention of the Puritanes, the Arminians have already locked up the Duke's (of Buckingham) eares; and we have those of our owne religion, which stand continually at the Duke's chamber, to see who goes in and out: we cannot be too circumspect and carefull in this regard. I am, at this time, transported with joy, to see how happily all instruments and means, as well great as lesser, co-operate unto our purposes. But, to return unto the maine fabricke: Our Foundation is Arminianisme. The Arminians and projectors, as it appeares in the premises, affect mutation. This we second and enforce by probable arguments."

The character of Laud may be seen in relation to his part in the trial, sentencing, imprisonment and torturing of Dr. Alexander Leighton at London. (Dr. Leighton's views on Arminianism are quoted above). A sketch of Leighton's history is given in the preface to a letter which Rutherford wrote him while in prison. The sketch says that Leighton, because of his "zeal for Presbyterian principles and against the innovations of Laud," was arrested in 1629 and kept in an abominable cell sixteen weeks before his trial by the Star Chamber. Because of this "severe distress that had brought skin and hair almost wholly off his body," he could not attend his trial. The Star Chamber "condemned the afflicted and aged divine to be degraded as a minister, to have one of his ears cut off, and one side of his nose slit, to be branded on the face with a red-hot iron, to stand in the pillory, to be whipped at a post, to pay a fine of £1,000 and to suffer imprisonment until the fine was paid. When this inhuman sentence was pronounced, Laud took off his hat, and holding up his hands, gave thanks to God who had given the Church victory over her enemies! The sentence was executed without mercy, and Leighton lay in prison till upwards of ten years. When liberated he could hardly walk, see or hear. He died in 1649.

Arminianism was not more rampant than it is now in England, Scotland and our own North American continent. Let us not think that the malignant spirit of persecution that moved the Arminians — led by Bishop Sydserff, Archbishop Laud and others — died at the end of the Covenanting struggles of long ago. The Arminians of today hold precisely the same false doctrines, and are just as relentlessly opposed to the absolute sovereignty of God and unconditional election as were the Arminians of old." (The Contender—Nova Scotia, April, 1955.)

---

As bad as Calvin's self-interested detractors will paint Calvin's Geneva...

Being careful, of course, to never mention the actual opinions of the Town's own residents: "the most perfect school of Christ that ever was on the earth since the days of the Apostles." ~~ John Knox, resident of Geneva, 1554-1559

There is certainly one significant difference between Calvin's Geneva and many other States...

In Calvin's Geneva, the Constitution was covenanted by unanimous popular consent:

---

Such dispatch did Calvin and his colleagues use in this matter, that the draft of the ecclesiastical discipline was presented to the Council on the 28th of September. Its examination was begun and continued till the 27th of October. The project, as definitely amended, was, on the 9th of November, adopted by the Council of Two Hundred; and on the 20th by the Council-General, or Assembly of the People. These ecclesiastical ordinances were farther remodelled, and the final vote of the people took place on the 2nd of January, 1542. "It is," says Bungener, "from that day that the Calvinistic Republic legally dates."...in Geneva the nation was the Church, and the ecclesiastical ordinances were also the laws of the State. They had not only been enacted by the Senate, they had been twice solemnly and unanimously voted by the people. "The people could not afterwards allege," says M. Gaberel, "that they were deceived as to the bearing of the laws they were sanctioning. For several weeks they could meditate at leisure on the articles proposed; they knew the value of their decision, and when twice — on the 20th of November, 1541, and again on the 2nd of January, 1542 — they came to the Cathedral of St. Peter's, and, after each article, raised their hands in acceptance of it, the vote was an affair of conscience between God and themselves, for no human power could impose such an engagement. They were 20,000 citizens, perfectly free, and masters of their own town. The Genevese people were absolutely sovereign; they knew no other limit to their legislative power than their own will, and this people voted the ordinances from the first chapter to the last. They engaged to frequent public worship regularly, to bring up their children in the fear of the Lord, to renounce all debauchery, all immoral amusements, to maintain simplicity in their clothing, frugality and order in their dwellings." ...at Geneva the supreme authority was the Constitution, which had been approved and sanctioned by the free conscience of the people. (Wylie, “History of Protestantism”)

---

Whereas in the Arminian Reich of Bishop Laud in early-17th Century Britain, the Reign of Genocide was unilaterally imposed by totalitarian Arminian dictatorship.

And that, is a pretty important difference.

[xzins]

it's pretty obvious that OP missed the lightheartedness of us kidding around about Boston.....wouldn't you agree? :>)

[RnMomof7]

Blessings to you to Go...do you know what the keys represent?

[Iowegian]

Your hubris and self-importance know no bounds.

A perfect description of the RC church. Thanks.

[Wrigley]

Will do. I'll talk to him tonight.

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

it's pretty obvious that OP missed the lightheartedness of us kidding around about Boston.....wouldn't you agree? :>) 172 posted on 10/3/02 2:52 PM Pacific by xzins

Oh, ye of little humor!! Just as you were "lightheartedly kidding" around about the alleged unpleasantness of Calvin's Geneva, I was, of course, just "lightheartedly kidding" you about the Arminians murdering all those Puritans and Scottish Covenantors. Funny funny, hah hah!! Don't be such a stick in the mud.

As you "lightheartedly kid" others, xzins, so shall you be "lightheartedly kidded" in return.

Every, single time.

(OP smiles pleasantly)

[drstevej]

Our interchange was light-hearted, but OP's historical clarification of the nature of Geneva is a welcome response to the persistent revisionism of the adversaries of Calvin and Calvinism who paint a distorted picture of Calvin's Geneva without bothering to check the facts.

[Matchett-PI]

And the Pharisees said to Jesus:

"It seems as if all you do is scoff at others that you don't agree with. Yours seems a caustic sort of faith."

They also accused him of being a drunk and a glutton who hangs out with the scum of the earth, too.

I guess they thought that if they could demonize Jesus personally, it would be the same thing as demonizing what he taught.

Of course, such tactics do work with many people, but it isn't possible to deceive the elect, however.

[the_doc]

I'm sorry that I didn't see your e-mail before I sent mine.