!!!SHI-NEE!!!
Posted on 02/15/2010 9:07:17 AM PST by GonzoII
The Scenario:
Ever have one of those days when you’re feeling full of energy and vigor? I mean, you’re feeling just obnoxiously happy? Well, this is one of those days.
Driving home from work, you switch on the radio to see what’s happening, and you tune in to a local Protestant radio station just in time to hear a preacher speaking against various Catholic doctrines concerning Mary. The show is called Pastor Bob’s Bible Hour. Pastor Bob proclaims: “Jesus knew Catholics would come along and begin to worship His mother and call her perpetual virgin and absurd things like that. But the Bible says: ‘Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not His mother called Mary? And are not His brethren James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And are not all of His sisters with us?’ (Matt. 13:55-56a). And isn’t it sad, my brothers and sisters?”
Pastor Bob goes on to say: “Jesus dealt with these Mary worshippers in His day. In Luke 11:27-28, the Bible says, ‘A woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to Him, “Blessed is the womb that bore You, and the breasts that You sucked!” But He said, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!”’”
On a normal day you would probably just listen, take a few mental notes and drive on. But not this time. You’re feeling a little bit too saucy. You take the first exit you see and head for a phone. This is just one more reason why you need to buy that cell phone you’ve been talking about getting.
Step One:
(Excerpt) Read more at envoymagazine.com ...
Just talking about
The congregations, colleges, universities, orders, groups affiliated with and submitted to The Vatican and the Pope in Rome.
As you probably well know in your brazenly tenacious !!!!DEMANDS!!!! to
!!!!CONTROL!!!!
Protty vocabulary and perspectives.
Look at you!!!! You got a special color reprint all to yourself - you must rate, sir!
So you're leaving out the Catholic Church.
Whew. That's a relief.
I am a Protestant, and I take issue with many of the things that I perceive to be beliefs of Catholics as I am sure that they do with my beliefs that they misunderstand.
What do you think a non-believer that is curious about Christianity and might check out a thread on FR to get a sense of what christians are like would think of the fights that take place here? They would not see the love of God being reflected by many on these threads, including to my great shame, myself.
As long as every side complains that I am biased in favor of the opposition, I am encouraged that I am being even-handed. LOL!
It’s professionally fascinating to observe such
COMPULSIVELY WRONG assertions.
Here’s what I don’t understand about Protestants.
If you invited a friend to your home for dinner, and this person said, “Well, you know, I don’t really like your mother.” Are you sure you would take this person to your home?
Who doesn’t “like” Mary?
“Thank God you’re not talking about the Catholic Church.”
Amen to that! The Invisible Universal Church of the Elect would have nothing to do with these sorts of oppression.
Some Limitations Regarding Mary, the Mother of Jesus
We are of the “all generations” that call Mary “blessed” when we read the New Testament and see how God highly favored her to be the instrument and vessel through which “unto us a child is born,;” in the flesh of that child (1 Tim. 3:16) the Son is given to rule the world in righteousness (Isaiah 9:6 and context). Thank God for a young woman so willing; a woman who by all safe assumption had before men lived unto the Lord, and could be counted with Anna, Simeon and others as one waiting for deliverance in Jerusalem. Mary was an example of yielded-ness unto the Lord God. Though no other person can ever perform a like function, believers are admonished “Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity. . . If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified, and meet for the master’s use, and prepared unto every good work.” (2 Timothy 2:19-21)
Mary was an example to every believer in Jesus Christ of one who, naming God, departed from iniquity, had purged herself, and thus was a vessel unto honor, sanctified, meet for use by God, and prepared unto every good work.
None of those Scriptures, nor any New Testament Scriptures describe Mary, the mother of Jesus as any more sinless than any other believer. Sinlessness (only God is without sin—1 John 1:8) is not a requirement for service, for if that were the case God would have no servants on this earth. Sinlessness was not a prerequisite for Mary’s service, but yieldedness and love. The only One who has ever loved God with all the heart, soul, and mind was the Lord Jesus Christ, Himself. That is the Divine standard for love to God, and so all born in Adam, from our youth, sin against God daily in the failure to maintain that standard; absolutely proving the necessity for a Saviour from sin. The person who meets that standard of love for God gets murdered by a world into which light has come, but in which men love darkness rather than light (John ch. 1).
1. Mary, the mother of Jesus, was born in Adam (Romans 5:12ff), and was therefore under condemnation. She required a Savior from that condemnation to reconcile her to God (2 Corinthians 5:18-21). The Holy Spirit tells us nowhere in Scripture that any person born in Adam would be an exception to that law of sin and death (Romans 8:2), or that God would ever make anyone sinless or justify anyone apart from the shedding of blood as an atonement (Hebrews 9:22)..
2. Mary had an issue of blood that required atonement. She knew it. The priests at the temple knew it. Mary required cleansing and a BLOOD atonement—THIS IS THE LAW FOR HER—that bore either a male or a female. The Holy Spirit testifies no exception for any woman until, of course, this was fulfilled in the Blood-shedding of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, ultimately also required for Mary. We may assume that she took these offerings after each subsequent child to whom she gave birth as well.
Luke 2:23 (As it is written in the law of the Lord, Every male that openeth the womb shall be called holy to the Lord;) (24) And to offer a sacrifice according to that which is said in the law of the Lord, A pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons.
Leviticus 12:7 Who shall offer it before the LORD, and make an atonement for her; and she shall be cleansed from the issue of her blood. This is the law for her that hath born a male or a female. (8) And if she be not able to bring a lamb, then she shall bring two turtles, or two young pigeons; the one for the burnt offering, and the other for a sin offering: and the priest shall make an atonement for her, and she shall be clean.
3. Mary had “no understanding” of Whose business Jesus had come to do (Luke 2:50), although Jesus told her (v. 49).
4. The Holy Spirit gives us no record of Mary ever performing any miracles or appearing to anyone in any unusual manner during our Lord’s earthly ministry, although the miracles that Christ performed which benefited the sick, suffering, possessed, dying, and dead could likewise be carried out by His disciples (Matthew 10: Luke 10; and see John 14:12).
5. The Holy Spirit records for us no place whatsoever where the Lord Jesus Christ directly refers to Mary as His mother in conversation with her. It is “Woman.”
6. Mary (Like 1:46-55) was not greater than John the Baptist (Luke 7:28).
7. Mary either never taught the other children in her own household (those she also bore from the same womb), or if she taught, was never able to convince them of the Missiahship of Jesus Christ (John 7:5).
8. Jesus Christ publicly placed all of His genuine disciples, all who would do the will of his Father, on equal standing with His natural mother. In fact, although the Holy Spirit reveals to us no instance where Jesus Christ directly addressed Mary as, “Mother,” he publicly declared His mother to be “these which hear the word of God, and do it.” (Luke 8:21)
9. Mary had limited power to care for her own state, and at His Crucifixion placed her under the care of John, to treat her as his own mother. (John 19:26, 27).
10. The Holy Spirit does not emphasize Mary, the mother of Jesus, in connection to the Resurrection (that is, the event itself) of Christ. Two other Marys were at the tomb, but not Jesus’ mother. The Holy Spirit does not tell us that the Resurrected Christ saw His mother first, but it was another Mary.
11. After the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ, as to the record of Scripture, Mary never performed any miracles, manifested any signs, nor appeared to anyone in any miraculous way.
12. Mary, the mother of Jesus, is never mentioned in the Acts (of the Apostles) history after Acts chapter One, where she is spoken of as being in prayer with the disciples, but not in any unusual fashion for the disciples as a Mediatrix. Afterward, she is never mentioned by name to the end of the Scripture record.
13. The Holy Spirit, who had overshadowed Mary so that “that holy thing which [was] born of her [is] called the Son of God,” never instructed the Apostle Paul, who wrote half of the books of the New Testament, and who is in a particular calling the Apostle to the Gentiles, to write about Mary, the mother of Jesus, at all.
14. The Holy Spirit instructed no other writer of New Testament Epistles to write about Mary.
As far as the Scriptures of Truth is concerned, these points represent the emphases and the limits of the emphases of the Author of the Scripture, with regard to Mary, the mother of Jesus. Any other emphases one might wish to draw must come from extra-biblical sources; sources of mere mortals. We shall continue on with the emphases of the Bible, the word of God, and reject any other source that changes the Divine Author’s emphases.
I know! Isn't Uriel's behavior compelling?
LOL!
that we are referring
PRECISELY AND SPECIFICALLY
to
The congregations, colleges, universities, orders, groups affiliated with and submitted to The Vatican and the Pope in Rome.
Pretending otherwise doesn't strike me as very honrable, in the least. However, it can be appreciated for highlighting the absurdities of your perspective.
>>Do we honor the one that is blessed or the one that blesses ?<<
That’s my question too. Frankly, calling Mary “blessed” is the Christian equivalent to the secular world calling a lotto winner “lucky”.
Mary WAS blessed in a way similar to the way that I was blessed by my wife when she said “yes” when I proposed.
Them too, I guess.
But as long as you're not describing the Catholic Church, all is well.
That is one of my favorites regarding this discussion. It makes it pretty clear. And you don’t even need to get into the nonsensical arguments about “did the Bible mean ‘cousins’ when our english translation use the word ‘brother’” speaking of those that came with Mary to see him.
I was there. I was not losing an argument. That is not why Dr. E. was told to leave. If you have a problem with the RM's decision, or any other moderator's decision, it would be best to take it up in private mall and not air your grievances on the thread. We are all here as Jim Robinson's guests, and the moderators have a thankless job. I commend them on their even-handedness.
We are all subject to the rules. I have been told to leave a thread in the past, and did not enlest friends to complain about it. I've had comments pulled. It would be hard to be passionate on the RF without breaking a rule now and then. Complaining about mod bias is juvenile. They get as many complaints from one side as the other, they tell us, and that is how they know they are doing a good job. I believe that also. It's thankless, and instead of griping, we should be grateful that anyone takes the time to set up a structure we can (almost all) all live with.
Are you picking at that scab trying to get this thread locked?
While the tenants of our Catholic faith revolve around Jesus, His resurection, the Eucharist, and the Sacraments, Catholics do believe that Blessed Mary is the Mother of all Christians. She is part of God's plan of Salvation.
Revelation Chapter 12
1 A great sign appeared in the sky, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.
2 She was with child and wailed aloud in pain as she labored to give birth.
3 Then another sign appeared in the sky; it was a huge red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and on its heads were seven diadems.
4 Its tail swept away a third of the stars in the sky and hurled them down to the earth. Then the dragon stood before the woman about to give birth, to devour her child when she gave birth.
5 She gave birth to a son, a male child, destined to rule all the nations with an iron rod. Her child was caught up to God and his throne.
6 The woman herself fled into the desert where she had a place prepared by God, that there she might be taken care of for twelve hundred and sixty days.
Then war broke out in heaven; Michael and his angels battled against the dragon. The dragon and its angels fought back, but they did not prevail and there was no longer any place for them in heaven.
The huge dragon, the ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, who deceived the whole world, was thrown down to earth, and its angels were thrown down with it.
Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: "Now have salvation and power come, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Anointed. For the accuser of our brothers is cast out, who accuses them before our God day and night.
They conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; love for life did not deter them from death.
Therefore, rejoice, you heavens, and you who dwell in them. But woe to you, earth and sea, for the Devil has come down to you in great fury, for he knows he has but a short time."
When the dragon saw that it had been thrown down to the earth, it pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child.
But the woman was given the two wings of the great eagle, so that she could fly to her place in the desert, where, far from the serpent, she was taken care of for a year, two years, and a half-year.
The serpent, however, spewed a torrent of water out of his mouth after the woman to sweep her away with the current.
But the earth helped the woman and opened its mouth and swallowed the flood that the dragon spewed out of its mouth.
Then the dragon became angry with the woman and went off to wage war against the rest of her offspring, those who keep God's commandments and bear witness to Jesus (Does her offspring include all Christians, or just Catholics?). It took its position on the sand of the sea.
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