Posted on 07/18/2010 6:04:05 AM PDT by Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus
This is exactly what we are talking about when we say that one of the greatest crimes of the Reformation is that every portion of belief becomes a personal choice. Reformed man took it upon himself to create God in his own image. Even Martin Luther recognized his error before he died and is referred to as saying that now any milkmaid who could read could start a new religion.
"But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me IS NOT AFTER MAN.
"For I NEITHER RECEIVED it of MAN, NEITHER was I TAUGHT IT, but BY THE REVELATION OF JESUS CHRIST." (Gal. 1:11,12).( Notice it's GALATIANS).
Paul neither received the gospel he preached from Peter and the 11 nor was he taught it from them.
What's the problem with that?
We don't know every detail of the pain and suffering that Jesus endured while dying for us.
We don't know the detail of what happened those three days in the grave.
We don't know the detail of how Christ was raised from the dead.
We couldn't understand the detail of most of what related to how God worked salvation, but we know that He did and what it takes for us to appropriate it.
No, the argument is that if you "really" understood it you would at least be able to correctly articulate it and not hide behind misunderstood statistics.
Would that be the KJV?
We are commanded to not be a respecter of persons.
Our trying to determine one's level of holiness puts us in the position of judging based on outward appearances, which we are also forbidden to do.
We don't know another's heart and are in no position to make accurate determinations of their level of personal holiness.
Okaaaaay. Peter experienced the Holy Spirit at Pentecost in Chapter 2 and began preaching and teaching and saving souls immediately.
Acts 2: 38 Peter (said) to them, "Repent and be baptized, 7 every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the holy Spirit. 39 For the promise is made to you and to your children and to all those far off, whomever the Lord our God will call." 40 He testified with many other arguments, and was exhorting them, "Save yourselves from this corrupt generation." 41 Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand persons were added that day.
Acts 9: 17 So Ananias went and entered the house; laying his hands on him, he said, "Saul, my brother, the Lord has sent me, Jesus who appeared to you on the way by which you came, that you may regain your sight and be filled with the holy Spirit." 18 Immediately things like scales fell from his eyes and he regained his sight. He got up and was baptized, 19 and when he had eaten, he recovered his strength. 5 He stayed some days with the disciples in Damascus, 20 and he began at once to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues, that he is the Son of God. 6 21 All who heard him were astounded and said, "Is not this the man who in Jerusalem ravaged those who call upon this name, and came here expressly to take them back in chains to the chief priests?" 22 But Saul grew all the stronger and confounded (the) Jews who lived in Damascus, proving that this is the Messiah. 23 After a long time had passed, the Jews conspired to kill him, 24 but their plot became known to Saul. Now they were keeping watch on the gates day and night so as to kill him, 25 but his disciples took him one night and let him down through an opening in the wall, lowering him in a basket. 26 When he arrived in Jerusalem 7 he tried to join the disciples, but they were all afraid of him, not believing that he was a disciple. 27 Then Barnabas took charge of him and brought him to the apostles, and he reported to them how on the way he had seen the Lord and that he had spoken to him, and how in Damascus he had spoken out boldly in the name of Jesus. 28 He moved about freely with them in Jerusalem, and spoke out boldly in the name of the Lord.
Paul got well and then hacked off all the Jews in Damascus. So he was smuggled out to Jerusalem to the Apostles. He immediately hacked off all the Hellenists in Jerusalem. So what were the Apostles to do? They were convinced that he was sent from Jesus, so in order to save his life once again, they shipped him out to Caesarea and told him to get himself to Tarsus.
The more one participates in the Church through her ministries, Bible studies, prayer groups and charity, the closer one is and the more one knows, understands and accepts the faith as preserved, protected and handed down by the Church.
A Catholic is as responsible for their own faith as any other Christian and is not immune to the false teachings they hear outside the Church.
The closer one is to the things of God, the further away they are to the things of this world.
No, your church/organization doctrine. See, anyone can play your stupid game when you have nothing to offer.
For instance, there is a lot of “acting out” of Church doctrine such as making the cross over the chest, walking forward to touch or kiss a wooden cross at Easter, kneeling before statues, kissing the ring of a religious authority, sprinkling themselves with water and so on.
God instructed some of the Old Testament prophets to act out His prophecies. And by washing the apostles’ feet Jesus acted out the doctrine of helping one another to rid ourselves of the earthly concerns we gather as we walk in Him in this mortal life. It was not about feet....
Definitely, this episode is "not about feet."
Some observations come to mind. (1) John 13:3–15 is about the reenactment, or "acting out" of an eternal divine gesture, impulse, or pattern of love and service from God to man, in so doing declaring such a pattern to have force man-to-man likewise. Christ Himself sets the pattern.
The operative word here is gesture: an acting out in physical terms of some aspect of ineffable divine Reality that one has apperceived by the grace of the Holy Spirit in one's mind and soul. One must have recourse to physical analogues to convey such an idea to persons whose intellectual development and/or lack of language skills are incapable of receiving such communications otherwise. (2) It is a very good thing that such should be the case. For Christianity has managed, by means of such devices, to survive and flourish for 2,000 years and counting by now, and has been spread to every corner of the globe by doing so. Were this not the case, there'd have been exactly nothing for the great 16th-century Reformers — e.g., Luther, Calvin, Wesley, et al. — to "reform" in the first place.
The point is, the gesture must match the Truth, in present consciousness, in order to be truly effective. People who forget this necessary connection are sleep-walking through the exercise....
It is a very funny thing I have noticed (from my very limited point of view and experience therefrom): Whereas Protties are readily disposed to dialogue on doctrinal/theological issues at the drop of a hat, in my observation Catholics tend to be very reticent to do so.
This goes to your point that the "follow-up," the opportunities for increased divine knowledge by means of dialogue among Christians, is lacking in the RC church.
At this point it seems one can say one of two things: Either Catholics are so brainwashed, and so used to kneeling before the authority of a human institution — the hierarchical church itself — that they cannot think for themselves.
Or, maybe they have thought for themselves sufficiently [even as if through a glass, darkly] to know that human reason does not encompass God's will and works sufficiently to know and explain them in terms of human experience, timebound as it is. To me, this is to stand in a position of humility WRT the eternal divine order of things. I do not disparage such a stance.
Though I might remark that Christianity itself early embraced an "intellectual tradition" grounded not only in faith, but also in reason through Augustine, and later through Aquinas and Anselm — I love them all dearly, but Anselm especially truly speaks to my heart.
Anselm — to me — brings into correspondence the two humanly accessible sources of Truth — that is to say, faith and reason. He wrote, "Lord, speak to my desirous soul what you are, other than what it has seen, that it may clearly see what it desires." [Proslogion VIX].
Then he adds: "O Lord, you are not only that than which a greater cannot be conceived, but you are also greater than what can be conceived." [Proslogion XV.]
If this be the case, then God does not reduce to terms of human rationality and experience. All the religious talk in the world does not change a thing about this situation, which has obtained since the very foundation of the Creation....
I myself am presently "unchurched," but a faithful Christian nonetheless. I may be more in the "school" of the "bakery Christians" of your own experience, dearest sister in Christ, than I am of any other school at the present time. Unless the Lord moves me otherwise, I am very likely to remain in that condition. And "happy as a clam" to do so (as they say 'round these [New England] parts).
Truth is Truth. And God — the Logos — is source and sustainer of it.
In short, God is the rock on which I stand.
All praise and thanks and glory be unto I AM THAT AM!
Thank you ever so much for your magnificently beautiful essay/post, dearest sister in Christ!
....."What could you possibly know about the teachings of the Catholic Church and where did you learn it? Did you get it from a hand out in church parking lot, or from a sermon by the Rev. Billy-Bob Rolex, from a TV preacher, or from an anti-Catholic website?"
Why is it catholics always state what could any other than themselves know about the catholic faith. Sheesh...it's all over the net and in the volumes of books and literature available to anyone for investigation. Not to mention the Vatican website itself.
Always the same comment....always....the same condescending mindset.
Oh? The Paul revealed in Acts not to your liking? Paul huddled with the Apostles a number of times in order to confer. What do you think a month long journey on foot is made for? To discuss the next round of America's Got Talent? Clearly Paul had a revelation from Christ. But he had to get himself baptized afterwards and had hands laid upon him by the Council before he was recognized as a fellow bishop.
Paul neither received the gospel he preached from Peter and the 11 nor was he taught it from them.
I think that he HAD to come to them for a bunch of reasons including ordination and simply to ensure that their stories were straight.
I'm offering "No" to Bibliolatry.
Ask HIM - He’s waiting to hear from you. It might be your first step in NOT looking to ‘man’ for answers.
The first trigger is usually some ignorant Protestant making bizzare fabrications about the actual dogma of the Church and asserting them as fact. The second is when the same dufus defends those statements by quoting not from the Catechism or a nihil obstat source, but from vague recollections of their second grade Baltimore Catechism, or the Rev. Billy-Bob Rolex, a TV preacher, or an anti-Catholic website.
I don’t adhere to Bibliolatry, that’s why I’m asking you.
To think through your position here.
I’m offering “No” to Bibliolatry.
What is Bibliolatry”
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