Ping!
Great article!
The thing is, Scripture is NOT UNCLEAR about what marriage is. Check out Matthew 19
1When Jesus had finished saying these things, he left Galilee and went into the region of Judea to the other side of the Jordan. 2Large crowds followed him, and he healed them there.
3Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”
4”Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’[a] 5and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’[b]? 6So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”
7”Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?”
8Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. 9I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery.”
Thanks for the post. I found it to be well written and insightful. I am Protestant, there are some aspects of Catholicism that I theologically disagree with. ( I mean no offense by this - I am just trying to speak truthfully.) However, this article forces me to examine myself and my faith - and that is a good thing. Thanks for an excellent post.-—JM
That’s why orthodox Lutherans do not claim the mantle of “protestant” but firmly assert that they are part of the Church, catholic.
Why is "He" referred to as a "he" in the Greek throughout the NT then? Why can "He" be grieved, quenched, lied to, etc.? Why does I John 5:7 - which IS a genuine part of Scripture, btw - say that these three are one, which certainly suggests ontological unity?
Is there a purpose for such a scatter-shot assault on a sister denomination?
Randomly picking-and-choosing weak points in assorted philosophies, then lumping those cumulative flaws as representative of the overarching term, is disingenuous rhetoric bent on wholesale destruction, not clarification and unity unto a greater purpose.
And further, it is not right to lump in liberal “Protestants”, along with the more conservative. AFter all, the Catholic Church also has its social gospel advocates, its gay advocates, etc. The Church rejects their ideas? So do conservative Protestans.
For me, I can’t become a Catholic, nor even consider it, as long as that”Mary, the Mother of God” nonsense exists. Mary was a human woman, created by God, not His mother. She was, however the mother of the man, Jesus.
They use these same methods to reject each others' doctrines when desired. It's not aimed specifically at the Church.
It's all really very simple. One has two choices in establishing doctrine:
1. Establish an infallible source of doctrine that can promulgate dogma that cannot be disputed. That's what Catholicism has done.
2. Allow each person to choose what he will believe, or what stress he will put on different parts of the Bible, tradition, etc. In practice that is what Protestantism has done, as any believer who becomes unhappy with the doctrine of his church can just shop around till he finds one that suits. Not that most Protestant churches are particularly interested in doctrine anymore.
There really is no third choice, short of the return of Christ visibly.
PING! for later reading/debating
Interesting...
We must not forget we must: “Study to shew ourselves approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” (2 Timothy 2:15)
As I have understood it the statement “must be the husband of one wife” was written to those that desired to be an elder or deacon in the church, (that is church leaders) Titus 1:1:7. (But I believe,in light of other scriptures, it includes us all).
As to our wives: We are commanded; “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave Himself for it;(Eph. 5:25) And no man has done that!
And; “So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself.” (Eph. 5:28)
“Nevertheless let everyone of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband.” (Eph. 5:33)
As I understand the word of God we are to pray our God our Father in heaven: “For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; Who will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For their is one God, and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus;” (1 Timothy 2:3-5)
Also Remember: “For He (God) hath made Him (Jesus) to be made sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” (2 Cor. 5:21)
And last: “But when the fullness of time of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the curse of the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts crying, Abba, Father.” (Gal. 4:4-6)
1.Jesus is God.
2.Mary is His Mother.
3.Therefore, Mary is the Mother of God.
. . . gets rejected as "inbred reasoning" since Catholics can't produce the Bible verse that says explicitly, "Mary is the Mother of God." Suddenly, only direct, explicit testimony and instruction in legally watertight language will do.
That's an incredibly poor example since it oversimplifies the argument by completely ignoring the issue of Christ's having both a fully human and fully divine nature in the question of Mary's relationship to Him, which issue is a core component of this area of disagreement.
Private interpretation of the bible directly led to the “living document” approach to the Constitution.
If you Catholics want to ridicule Protestants for their inconsistency on Sacred Tradition (and yes, they are inconsistent), fine. But must you ridicule the Word of G-d in order to do this?
What is this deep-seated aversion to the Bible? Where does it come from? Does it come from the Protestant Reformation? Is it a reaction to the sola scriptura of Protestantism? "The Prots think too highly of the Bible, so we'll tear it down?" What good is it of boasting of how your church "canonized" the Bible (it didn't) if you're so hostile to it that you make fun of it? Shame on you.
Cain did not "wander around" till he found a wife. He married his sister. His twin sister. The one who was born along with him in the Garden of Eden before the First Sin had even been committed. This was one of the things Cain and Abel quarreled over. Cain was born with a twin sister; Abel was born with two "triplet" sisters. Cain said since he was the firstborn they should marry him. Abel said they were born with him so they were his.
Now, of course, if you go reading the bare text of Genesis you won't find any of this. You know why? Because it's Sacred Tradition. You Catholics know what that is, right? You're always shooting off your bazoos about how you believe in "Tradition." But in actuality you're the heirs of the first Protestants--the original chr*stians who rejected the immemorial Sacred Tradition that had been handed down from the time of Mt. Sinai. This means both that you're every bit as inconsistent about Tradition as Protestants are, and that you're hypocrites because you claim to defend Tradition but you're actually quite ignorant of it.
I'm aware that most Catholics believe Cain and Abel are mythology. Believe me, I need no convincing whatsoever.
It's one reason I left your irreverent Church.
The author is a moron and has never read the scriptures. They are very clear in Jesus’ own words when responding to a question about divorce - by an earlier would-be Obama supporter - Jewish religious leader.. This author is clearly another fake that has the koran (false prophecy of demon worshiper - mohammid) beneath his pillow and a picture of Barack on the wall.
This is one of the most thick-headed and ignorant screeds that I can ever recall reading here.
For example, everything that one could possibly want to know about marriage has been in the Hebrew scriptures for three and a half millenia; how did the author miss it? Or is he simply looking for a spat on a dull day?
Bookmark for later
The author is too clueless about Scripture to merit a reply.
This is drivel.