Posted on 12/04/2006 7:52:47 PM PST by Pyro7480
Since I've already taken up so much bandwidth on this thread discussing space v time, spiritual v physical, etc. (some of my favorite topics) - I'll resist the urge and instead just offer the link to my first post on the subject in case anyone is interested: 12477
Thanks for the refresher course on I.I. This sounds like a little more slack is cut for those who were not raised in Catholic homes than I had thought.
That granted, still the human being has to give them a niche to slink in through before they can do any real damage. From satan's point of view, he gets the best traction out of the perpetrators of the Seven Deadly Sins: Pride, envy, anger, sloth, greed, gluttony, and lust....
Add to that list: Spiritual pride (your recommendation); arrogance; narcissism; inordinate desire for anything that is not God....
All praise and glory be to His Holy Names!
For me, the Scriptures are authenticated by the indwelling Spirit. As my eyes scan over the words, He brings them alive within. Scriptures are not like any other manuscripts in existence, they contain Truth hidden in plain sight, they are alive. IOW, God is the author of them, the mortals involved were scribes.
On the one hand, it is no surprise to me that the Spirit lead the councils to a great canon - on the other hand, I would not presume that the canon is the entire recorded revelation. For instance:
You Ladies never cease to regale my simple soul.
Amen. And that is sola scriptura.
"The same Spirit, therefore, who spoke by the mouth of the prophets, must penetrate our hearts, in order to convince us that they faithfully delivered the message with which they were divinely entrusted... Scripture, carrying its own evidence along with it, deigns not to submit to proofs and arguments, but owes the full conviction with which we ought to receive it to the testimony of the Spirit..." -- Institutes Vol. 1, vii. 4-5"For by the Scripture as our guide and teacher, God not only makes those things plain which would otherwise escape our notice, but almost compels us to behold them; as if he had assisted our dull sight with spectacles." -- JOHN CALVIN "Commentary on Genesis" Vol. I
They aren’t going to replace it to my knowledge. They are simply going to publish the scriptures in English as the Orthodox Study Bible.
Ian Thomas used to say the scriptures are their own best commentary.
Calvin would probably agree with that. 8~)
Yes, I suspect Thomas got it from Calvin. When I was introduced to Ian Thomas’s teachings, I hadn’t a clue of Calvin. I attended his lectures in Birmingham.
It is hard to take seriously someone who can't understand the context of a passage.
Nicodemos brings up the issue of being born a second time physically.
The Lord doesn't correct him, but states that what is born of the flesh is physical, what is born of the spirit is spiritual.
Thus, the Lord explained what the water was referring to, the flesh, while the spiritual birth has to do with being 'born again'.
Water Baptism is nowhere in sight.
Water is a figure of spiritual baptism, as 'Pope' Peter explained in 1Pe.3:21 He explains that water is the form of it: they waited for the patience of God in the days of Noe, when the ark was a building: wherein a few, that is, eight souls, were saved by water. Whereunto baptism being of the like form, now saveth you also.
He explains Baptism is a figure and the water doesn't save anything, it only represents what already has been saved.
As for Noah and his family, none of them were 'baptized', those who died were baptized (immersed) by the flood, not Noah and his family, who never even got wet.
The RCC doesn't teach the scriptures, it 'wrests' them (2Pe.3:16)
The RCC has always been one of the scriptures greatest enemies, as has been shown by your own distortion of them in these posts.
In the main, then, are salvation and justification interchangeable for you? How does your infused righteousness fit into this, and when specifically? I don't understand how a baptized infant can be fully justified in the eyes of God, when there is no belief. I further do not understand how God can rule that "Fred" is justified in His eyes, only to have that ruling overturned by the, presumably, higher power of Fred, through later actions.
St. Paul never taught Sola Fide. It is not that we disagree with him or that we use other sources, -- one cannot get Sola Fide from St. Paul ALONE.
St. Paul wouldn't recognize himself after being run through the lens of the Church. :) He absolutely taught Sola Fide. Apparently, there are two separate Pauls.
For one thing, St. Paul did not disapprove of kings at all; read Romans 13.
HA! :) I don't know what your version says, but nowhere in the KJV or NIV is the word "king" mentioned in Romans 13. Words like "authority" and "ruler" are used. That is completely different. Paul is saying that, as a rule, we should submit to our human governments. That's great, I agree. Now, do you think God approved of the American Revolution against King George III? By your reading of Paul it appears we shouldn't even be a country. :)
My personal opinion is that it is incontrovertible that God orchestrated the victory of the Patriots. A civilized society needs a structured, and just, leadership. Kings are notoriously unjust as a rule, (there are of course notable exceptions) and so I don't think Paul was supporting that idea at all.
On your larger point, the Scripture is indeed given to all faithful, as long as they read it faithfully. In order to understand it, note that Christ sent specific people as himself and told them to teach others. That is this Church.
I disagree that Christ sent anyone "as Himself". There is only one "Himself". And when you say "this Church" I presume you mean the RCC. I would say that Christ sent the Apostles to more fully establish God's Church, of which the RCC is a part. ...... When you say that scripture is given to everyone as long as they read it faithfully, of course that is code. It doesn't mean that people are free to absorb the text of the scripture for themselves, within their personal relationships with Christ, it means that they are only free to absorb the Traditions of the Church. Those are two different things.
FK: "Christ's Gospel is readily understandable and believable to the elect at the proper time."
So much for your populism expressed earlier. Specific warnings I had in mind is the warning at the end of 2 Peter about the difficulty in understanding the Pauline epistles, and another, also in Peter, against private interpretations.
Perhaps I have failed in making a certain distinction. On the one hand, I am saying that the core concepts of Christianity are understandable (perspicuous) to the average disinterested reader. Disinterested readers certainly include the lost or reprobate. On the other hand, I am saying that the scriptures WILL be perspicuous AND BELIEVABLE to the elect at the appointed time. Plenty of people can quote scriptures who are not right with the Lord.
This is actually a fascinating twist on our "understanding vs. faith" discussion concerning Mary. :) I suppose the resolution is that in this post, when we talk about perspicuity, I mean it on a rational level, i.e. "the text appears to be saying 'X'". No faith is necessary. But in the Mary discussion, "understanding", as I have used it, is only on the spiritual level.
“They aren’t going to replace it to my knowledge. They are simply going to publish the scriptures in English as the Orthodox Study Bible.”
The Orthodox Study Bible for the NT was published some years ago. Its not a good translation in my opinion but the annotations are pretty good. Its got a pretty good concordance too. I think, personally, the problem lies with at least a couple of the editors.
Its available on Amazon.
It does not necessarily connote equality. Mary was indeed important in the Incarnation and in fact throughout Jesus's childhood, and that is her role in the Redemption.
What??? :) You're right that it does not necessarily mean "equal". A co-pilot is not equal to the pilot. But how does this translate into Mary having a role in the Redemption? Is your whole case that Mary has a role in the Redemption because she gave birth to Jesus and raised Him? That would not match the veneration and prayers I have seen and read from Catholics to her. Her role in the Catholic idea of Redemption appears to be much greater than that. For example:
Leo XIII, Encyclical, Adiutricem populi, Sept. 5, 1895. ASS 28. 130-31. For thereafter, by the divine plan, she so began to watch over the Church, so to be present to us and to favor us as Mother, that she who had been the minister of accomplishing the mystery of human redemption, would be likewise the minister of the dispensation of that grace, practically limitless power being given to her.
St. Pius X, Encyclical, Ad diem illum, Feb. 2, 1904, ASS 36. 453-55. Hence that never disassociated manner of life and labors.... But when the final hour of her Son came, His Mother stood by the cross of Jesus, not just occupied in seeing the dread spectacle, but actually rejoicing that her Only-Begotten was being offered for the salvation of the human race. ... from this common sharing of sufferings and will, she merited to become most worthily the reparatrix of the lost world, and so the dispensatrix of all the gifts which were gained for us by the death and blood of Jesus. ... She ... since she was ahead of all in holiness and union with Christ, and was taken up by Christ into the work of human salvation, she merited congruously, as they say, what Christ merited condignly, and is the chief minister of the dispensation of graces.
Benedict XV, Epistle, Admodum probatur, June 20, 1917. AAS 10. 182. With her suffering and dying Son she suffered and almost died, so did she surrender her mother's rights over her Son for the salvation of human beings, and to appease the justice of God, so far as pertained to her, she immolated her Son, so that it can be rightly said, that she together with Christ has redeemed the human race.
I mean, I could go on, but this stuff is unbelievable! Mary "immolated" her Son??? Mary gets credit for the Redemption because she sacrificed Jesus by not stopping the crucifixion??? I have no words. :)
She is, after all, our mother too (John 19:27).
So in this case when Jesus speaks to "the disciple", he means all humanity, but when He gives the Great Commission, He is only speaking to those specific disciples. I see. Sort of. Well, in any event, I'm sure the Church has a good and logical explanation for when Jesus is addressing specific people versus all believers generally.
FK: "Can you give an example of where Jesus rebukes someone for potentially venerating Mary improperly?"
I just did in the post you are responding to.
Am I to take it that you are saying that it is improper veneration to think that Mary's womb was blessed? :) These two verses actually seem to be pretty well self-contained. I would think that we would agree that Jesus is really illustrating a priority here, and not really telling the woman that she is "wrong" for saying what she said. I mean, even I think that Mary's womb was blessed. :) So, I'm not sure that this really counts as a rebuke (or even a real criticism) by Jesus.
“Either the Holy Spirit speaks through Scripture or He doesn’t.”
From a portion of a “White Paper” by Dr. Malcolm Yarnell
The apostle’s method and message: the Bible alone
Before leaving Paul, we should consider his evangelistic method and message. Books and websites and conferences promoting various modern methods are all the craze in these crazy days. Maybe we should step back a moment and ask about the biblical method. If we believe that the Bible is sufficient for our doctrine (as it most certainly is), then certainly the Bible is sufficient for our practice, too. Isn’t it?
Are there really any believers who would dare say that the Bible is insufficient for missions and evangelism (Matt. 28:18-20), or pastoral qualifications (1 Tim. 2:11-3:7),
or questions regarding suing Christians (1 Cor. 6:1-8), or proper ecclesiology, or the counseling of Baptist Theology, souls, or personal ethics, or politics? I was recently told I was an “agonizing preacher.” Anybody care to agree at this point? It is okay if you do. You do not have to like the preacher of the Word, who may stutter, stagger, and stumble. But you should sincerely ask yourself whether you are “kicking against the goads” of Christ by contradicting God’s inspired Word, which never errs.
Now, what was Paul’s missionary method? There are three aspects to Paul’s missionary method that leap to the mind from this biblical text:
1. As we noticed, Paul was willing to stray off the beaten path, where he might not have preferred to go. In the case of Berea, Paul trusted divine providence through
the Thessalonian brothers, who rushed him out for fear of his life.
2. Paul usually started with the traditional base of the Jewish synagogue. It is certainly necessary to reach across cultural boundaries, as Paul did at Athens; but even there,
notice that Paul started at the synagogue (Acts 17:17). I have resided in numerous cultures and sub-cultures, a man without a home, three nations and ten states, never for
longer than 3-4 years. I can tell you this. Every culture has its positive aspects, but every culture is also dominated by sin. Don’t follow your culture, and don’t follow their culture, whoever “they” happen to be; follow Christ alone. Be His disciple. Obey Him completely. I can also tell you this. The sustenance for Christian life has always come through traditional churches, those churches glibly dismissed by postmodernity as irrelevant.
3. Paul preached the Word of God from the Bible. In Thessalonica, he pursued a threefold paradigm. First, he “reasoned with them from the Scriptures” (v. 2c). Paul’s preaching began with the exposition of the Bible; in this case, the Old Testament. In our case, we have both Old and New, reading the former through the gospel of the latter. Paul was an expository preacher. Second, Paul explained “that the Christ had to suffer and rise again
from the dead” (v. 3a). Paul was a theological teacher, a doctor of dogma. Third, Paul proclaimed, “This Jesus whom I preach to you is the Christ” (v. 3b). Paul was an
evangelistic preacher. We know from other passages that the kerygma, the apostolic preaching, always closed with an appeal for repentance and belief, followed by receiving
believers’ baptism (cf. 2:38-41). Like Peter, Paul boldly invited everyone to respond to the confrontational message that Jesus, the crucified man, is the Messiah, the Lord of the world: You must repent and believe (cf. 9:20-22; 13:10, 39, 40-41, 46). Paul and Peter emphasized “repent and believe,” simply because that is what Jesus also emphasized in His preaching (Mark 1:14-15).
That really is core to the biblical method: Proclaim the Bible, explain its gospel doctrine, and demand believing submission to Christ. Now, why look anywhere else for our method? Maybe all the books and conferences and websites are subliminally intended to assuage falsely our guilty consciences for not actually engaging in evangelism. Paul didn’t write books and hold conferences on how to engage in evangelism or identify the elect, although he certainly wrote gospel books and proclaimed the gospel in public venues. Paul just went ahead and engaged—by preaching expositionally, theologically, and invitingly—whomever he could, wherever he could, anytime he could! Perhaps we need to do the same.
Now, what about the message? What was Paul’s message? Well, that is the interesting thing: The biblical message is the biblical method. The method is the message, and the message
is the method. You cannot separate the Bible from the Word. The Word of God is the Bible, and the Bible is the Word of God. The Greek word logos is twice used in this pericope to refer to Paul’s preaching. In verse 11, the Bereans compared the Scriptures, the graphas, to the logos of
Paul to see if it really was of God. The noble Bereans understood that the logos, the Word or message, is intimately bound up with the graphas, the Scriptures or method. The incarnate Word, Jesus Christ, is revealed in the inscriptured Word, the Bible, and proclaimed through the intoned Word, preaching. “Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God” (Rom. 10:17). Those who claim methods are adiaphora [indifferent], as long as you hold to the message, are in fundamental error. The method, biblical proclamation, and the message, Jesus Christ himself, cannot be separated from one another. You cannot divorce the Word of God from the Bible and attach it to the Koran or any other fallen book. You cannot divorce the Word from the Bible and attach it to art. You cannot even divorce the Word from the Bible and attach it to preaching. To preach the Word, preach the Bible. The Bereans treated the
message of the gospel and the method of the Bible as inseparable, and so should we.
Not really. You are spreading a myth which has no historical or factual backing. It was Gutenberg's invention of the printing press that made it possible to make numerous copies of books without having to make them by manually copying them.
Yes, and it was the Protestant nations that allowed the Bible to be printed in the people's own language.
And even when that was made possible, how many people did the Protestants make literate? You may be surprised that the illiteracy rates in Protestant societies were no different than elsewhere and that it was not until well into the second half of the 20th century that (rudimentary) literacy became the norm. In Protestant England, for example, as late as 1841, up to 33% of men and 44% of women were illiterate (they had to "sign" with a "mark"). This is 300 years after the Protestant Reformation. As is, even the majority of those those who are considered "literate" only have ground-level literacy skills (newspapers, etc.), and as many as one third of the people in America have difficulty reading period.
The people were literate enough to read the word of God, even if they were not able to write, which is what literacy is regarded as.
How are then people going to "understand" the word of God? Never mind the fact that they have no cultural historical background to fall back on in order to more fully comprehend what is read either.
They had the words of God and Pastors to teach them the sense (Neh. 8:8)
Unlike you they actually believed what they were being taught and could check the Pastor to see if what he was saying was so (Acts 17:11)
Raymond Williams has argued that the first half of the 19th century was the moment of change following two thousand years when writing was known only to a minority.
By the 1840s, a majority of people in England had achieved at least minimal access to writing - between 65 per cent and 70 per cent - before the introduction of elementary state education.
Apart from church and charitable schools, which some children attended, but only for brief periods, adults and young people learned through a combination of self-help, 'mutual improvement', family learning, community organisation, the work of voluntary organisations and dissenting churches, e.g. attendance at Adult Sunday Schools, which offered a half-hour of writing before bible reading and learning as part of social and political movements.We would call it informal learning.
The measure of literacy was a measure of writing ability rather than reading: (emphasis added) the ability, or willingness, to sign the marriage register rather than mark it with an 'x'. However, the learning and use of writing for the working classes remained contested for several decades for various reasons.
http://www.nrdc.org.uk/content.asp?CategoryID=602&ArticleID=467
It would be interesting to compare the literacy rates in the nations that were largely Protestant and those of the RCC and Orthodox dominated states
Seems clear enough.
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