“I stay close tot he text, and the Protestnat opponents offer ways not to read the passage as all that meaningful and offer theories out of their own head.”
BWAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Here are our exchanges on 1 Corinthians 3 & Purgatory.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2303075/posts?page=222#222
Let anyone read the text, and derive Purgatory if they can - but it is NOT there, as even the commentators on the NAB have allowed.
For quick reference, here is the passage ‘on Purgatory’:
“For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s field, God’s building. 10 According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it.
Let each one take care how he builds upon it. 11For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
12Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— 13 each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. 14If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. 15If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.”
What about Mary and other children? Repeatedly, the Scripture references the bothers and sisters of Jesus, which the Catholics claim are cousins - even tho Greek had words for cousin and kin, and used them 14 times in the NT, including the Gospels.
What about the sinless Mary, taught NO WHERE in Scripture, and contradicted repeatedly?
Then there are the passages on the veneration of Stephen...or are there? The passages on going to your Priest for penance. Indulgences. Etc.
And of course, the solid documentation of Purgatory.
Sorry, annalex, but Catholics don’t even try to approach Scripture with an open mind. Nor, according to your doctrine, should they - since the Catholic Church has the only true interpretation, only a heretic would approach Scripture with an open mind.
Yes, the argument on 1 Cor. 3 is a good example. A fire that cleanses inferior works at the time of judgement in order to prepare man to be saved — is it Purgatory or should we just skip this passage because it sounds too Catholic?
Or, should we ignore the Greek usage of “adelphos” as any kin and instead consider Mary the mother of James and Joseph despite their mother explicitely identified in the scripture as another woman?
Or do we have a reason to think that St. Stephen who prayed for his murderers while alive, who was sanctified by the Holy Ghost onto perfection in his life time, would stop praying for us in heaven?
Read the Scripture. Don’t explain it away; read it. It has a lot to say.
And that is the crux of the matter; the Church is the sole arbiter of what is in the Bible, and what it means. It is proclaimed as infallible and inerrant, and thus you cannot question it.
Jesus should never have said "turn the other cheek" or that anyone who looked at a woman with lust in his heart also committed adultery; after all, the Scriptures were written and fleshed out by the Rabbis, how dare He try to reinterpret the Holy Writings!