Posted on 10/15/2001 6:54:40 AM PDT by malakhi
| Statesmen may plan and speculate for liberty, but it is religion and morality alone which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free constitution is pure virtue. - John Adams |
Not so. The images that Solomon built for the Temple and his palace as recorded in 1 Kings 6 and 7 were not, as far as I know, commanded by God to be made. Try again. Or as you, like a spoiled child, would say, OOPS!
You say that if we make images we commit sin. Yet God tells His people to make images. In effect, according to your very strict interpretation of the commandment against images, God was telling His people to sin. I don't know about your god, but my God doesn't command people to sin.
Unless of course, your 100%, no images, no way, no how reading is perhaps too much(but that can't be because you are without error in matters of interpretation)
Pray for John Paul II
My sentiments exactly.
Pray fo JP II
Oops. That was JHavard. I'm sorry. lol. Ya know I used to get you two confused. I have no idea why.
Hey that's kind of fun to agree on something. :-)
Obedience is doing what the Lord says. It is also abstaining from those things which the Lord says not to do. The commandments are plain and clear. The Law of God is plain and clear. Breaking the law is disobeying it. Breaking the commandments is to disobey them. Disobeying the Spirit of the Lord in anything is also sin. All of this is in scripture, Robby - all of it. It lives in me because I seek to know it. And I seek the Lord for answers. One has to be willing to listen to him instead of one's convictions and beliefs. One has to listen to him instead of what they'd like to hear. The Bible stomped all over my toes for a long time because I didn't want to hear that I was wrong. When I learned how good God is, I didn't care about being wrong anymore, I wanted to know a God that would show justice where no one else would. I wanted to know a God that would show Love that none else could. I wanted to feel his goodness instead of all the evil around me. I know Him now. And because I do, nobody can lie to me about who He is or what He says. I know His nature. When you know someone well enough, you know how they talk, act, etc. You can begin to predict action and reaction to given circumstances. Knowing God is no different save for one thing - God lives in us Christians. So you also have His Spirit to guide you. It's like having the friend next to you all the time. You don't have to guess what he'd do, you just ask and it comes out - one way or another.
I live with Jesus in me every day because I took Him at His word in faith. Nobody can talk me out of it. And I won't take a fraud for what I have. Why should I give up Gold for a chance to see something that looks like Gold every now and then(Catholicism, Mormonism...)? I have something ya'll lack. The sad thing is, you don't know you're missing it because you don't know the word. But all of you can have it too if you want it. You just have to be willing to take Jesus at His word - to take God at His word. Until you do so, you can't have it - because God won't give it to you without that.
Hey that's kind of fun to agree on something. :-)
Observe those who hold erroneous opinions concerning the grace of Jesus Christ which has come to us, and see how they run counter to the mind of God! They concern themselves with neither works of charity, nor widows, nor orphans, nor the distressed, nor those in prison or out of it, nor the hungry or thirsty. From Eucharist and prayer they hold aloof, because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the Flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins, and which the Father in His loving-kindness raised from the dead. And so, those who question the gift of God perish in their contentiousness. It would be better for them to have love, so as to share in the resurrection. It is proper, therefore, to avoid associating with such people and not to speak about them either in private or in public, but to study the Prophets attentively and, especially, the Gospel, in which the Passion is revealed to us and the Resurrection shown in its fulfillment.
I have two concerns:
1] I don't have much confidence in the authenticity of the document, based on what I read in the Catholic Encyclopedia about conflicting manuscripts and authorship.
2] If authentic, it was written about 70 years after the death of Christ...about 3 generations had passed. If he was a disciple of John, that says a lot for him; but did he not learn at the knee of anyone else? Did all his learning come from John? How long did John disciple him? I mean, was he a disciple in the true sense of the word, or did he just audit a couple of weekend classes? 8^ D Keep me posted if you find anything else, especially from that first century. Thanks, dadwags.
Gee I hope not. There are alot of people I'm going to miss seeing if they don't. You're just going to spend a really long time in purgatory :-)
As an aside... Have you ever dealt with the issue (probably not a Catholic/Protestant thing) of (potentially) our loved ones not being there? I mean, does Heaven lose a small bit of perfection for you if your wife or mother or whoever isn't there?
Just wondering. I guess it's kind of like the chocolate & sex story.
Add my vote too. I haven't read the preceeding posts, but our nations actions (or inactions) on the abortion issue cannot be ignored. He is, after all, a JUST God not "just god".
You obviously didn't take a look at those links I provided to you the other day or else you wouldn't make such blatantly rediculous statements. Continue in you anti-intellectual, anti-history, Know-Nothing attitude, if you wish. Or you can realize Truth. Truth which has been delivered by the Apostles and believed on passed on by Christians for 2000 years. The TRUTH of the Real, Substatial Presence of our Lord Jesus Christ in the Eucharist.
Pray for John Paul II
No. And it's born out in the fact that Calvanism, Lutheranism and others hold to many of the same errors the Catholic church held at the time. Some of them got it right and stuck purely to scripture. But the protest was a protest against false doctrine, and evil in high places. The world of Catholicism had been racked by scandal for years on end. One need only realize that such heights of immorality existed in the Papacy (and the college of Cardinals) that Orgies were held in the Vatican. Popes were Murdered for their office and murdered for their office. etc... I posted a long history of things the reformers had going on in their time to point to. And I didn't by any means point out all of it - just a tiny fraction. It crossed the broad spectrum of the definition of sin. And included the exposing finally of the decretals and the massive fraud that had been committed by the RCC. The Schism had occurred over false claims and agenda seeking as well as immorality and the like. If you note the times of each of these two things and look at what was going on in the higher ranks - the truth is like a 500lb bunker buster coming down on the rhetoric. But uttering it will make their eyes pop out, their voices rise to a shreik and their words turn black as oil. There is nothing more audacious to one with something to hide than being exposed tactlessly. Just look at Clinton ;)
Who be "he"? I--that includes me and myself-- don't use proof-texts. But spiritualism is (IMO) devil-worship.
No, these say nothing of a teaching magisterium nor infallibility. They do tell me that Hades ("the netherworld") is no match for the Church, that the Spirit of Christ (the Spirit of Truth) would guide the apostles (I take this to mean guidance in the writing of Scripture and in the remembrance of all Jesus had taught them), and that Christ, through His Spirit, would be with the eleven as they went forth to teach the nations.
The comparison of Fundamentalism to Gnosticism "works" on a number of levels.
1) It establishes that the speaker is an expert on both Fundamentalism and obscure things like Gnosticism
2) It compares the enemy (Protestantism) to a group all acknowledge as heretics (even Fundamentalists, hmmm)
3) It points out the role of the doctrine of the Catholic church and its infinite superiority as it beat back the gnostics once and will do it again
Have you ever read a NT studies textbook on how we (Protestants too) work our textural criticism? We've got lots of conflicting manuscripts and doubts about authorship (not that a letter from an early church father that in non-canonical is inspired or that we would have as many copies to work from). The miracle is how God held the scriptures so perfectly together with all of the potential pitfalls.
Think of all the letters of Paul (many of which claim no Pauline authorship - it is merely "tradition" that they are attributed to Paul). Many Protestant Scripture scholars believe that many of them were not his. Does that mean they are not inspired by God? Absolutely NOT. But even with all of the evidence we have one way or the other, the "authorship" is still disputed.
They have rituals because they don't know the authority of the Lord. If you can't do what you've set out to do, you might as well make it look good. I know the authority of the Lord and I have it working in my life. Waving crosses, lighting candles and burning incense doesn't bother the Devil. Nor do pious Latin incantations - witches and satanists do the same things to draw demons, not to get rid of them. But even they are forced to recognize the authority of a Jesus in a Christian with faith in the Lord who knows the scripture and functions in obedience to God.
Jesus works through the obedient because they are dependable and understand the consequences to the souls of others. He does not work through those who merely put on a good show. And deliverance is not a pretty thing nor a safe thing - if you don't know what you're doing and have no authority, you can be very badly hurt, or killed. Ya'll just have no concept of the consequences of what you do and believe - none.
Do you have any citations for that? It doesn't sound familiar.
You wrote: And only the obedient will not be led astray. The disobedient have no such promise.
This is either naive or dishonest. Please correct it.
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