Freep-mail me to get on or off my pro-life and Catholic List:
Please ping me to note-worthy Pro-Life or Catholic threads, or other threads of general interest.
| This thread has been locked, it will not receive new replies. |
|
Locked on 05/04/2011 9:36:24 AM PDT by Religion Moderator, reason:
Childish behavior |
Posted on 04/28/2011 8:24:27 AM PDT by Cronos
The problem I had was that what I had been told about Catholicism was simply not true; it was distorted teaching from Protestants who did not bother to discover the truth. ....
Over the last several years, I have known deep down that the Catholic Church must be more than I thought it was. I fought myself and denied all the signs I was seeing. I was afraid; even though I knew deep down there can only be one truth, I would always find something to dismiss Catholicism
At this time I had been a member of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church for almost 10 years.. I had also been in a constant journey for God’s truth, studying his word as well as church history. The problem I began to see, however, was that my church had no authority for how it interpreted Scriptures. We claimed to be sola scriptura, and yet to hold office in the church you had to subscribe also to the full truth of the Westminster Confession of Faith
(Excerpt) Read more at ncregister.com ...
I'm not sure that is what Jesus meant. On one hand He only had the Old Testament available to Him. On the other hand Jesus was / is the Word made flesh yet not everything He said or did is recorded in Scripture. Isn't that a contradiction of the one version of Sola Scriptura which claims that 100% of the Revealed Word is included in the Bible?
Because Jesus did not write anything down nor command a legion of scribes like the Pharaohs did he relied upon the oral Tradition of his Apostles and Disciples to communicate to future generations. Some of that ended up in the Bible.
John 21: (We'll be using the KJV today to keep things on even footing): "And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen."
The Bible Itself declares that it doesn't contain everything.
Where in the Bible does it say that ONLY the trinitarian view of God is to be believed?
On the Philippians passage, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, etc.,” and bringing into it the standard that the Bible does interpret itself, it has to mean that we must work out our new lives within the knowledge of the great gift our salvation is, knowing we have been snatched from the fire, that we live in reliance only upon Christ, etc.
It does not make sense to say, after all of God’s miraculous redemptive work, from providing a sacrifice to save Isaac to Christ, our sacrifice, that we would suddenly, based upon one verse, be cast out to figure out, to work at, to fashion somehow a salvation for ourselves.
That would negate the entire message of Scripture in one passage, and insult the great sacrifice of Jesus. So, SS comes to the rescue, with the Scripture interpreting itself.
Like the apostle Paul we are working out my salvation in fear and trembling (Phil. 2:12), with hopeful confidence in the promises of Christ (Rom. 5:2, 2 Tim. 2:11–13).
Remember of course that the Salvation comes from God alone -- we cannot save ourselves.
There is no contradiction in this, despite Pelagianism or Semi-Pelagianism. Christ has won us our salvation, we cannot save ourselves by our own means that is the belief we have in the Apostolic Faith.
you would err if you think that Phil means that we save ourselves. It only says "work out your own" namely that we must choose to accept the great grace granted by God, freely given by God.
The controversy continues because these are good points. While I disagree, I can tell from your diligence that between us this is a small point. This morning’s discussion prompted me to read the entirety of Philippians. If we were to attempt to live as the entire book of Philippians directs, what unity we would have in Christ.
True and it's good enough for me that you believe with me in Jesus Christ, Our Lord, God and Savior, part of the ONE Triune God with the Father and the Holy Spirit.
Freep-mail me to get on or off my pro-life and Catholic List:
Please ping me to note-worthy Pro-Life or Catholic threads, or other threads of general interest.
On the Philippians passage, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, etc.,” and bringing into it the standard that the Bible does interpret itself, it has to mean that we must work out our new lives within the knowledge of the great gift our salvation is, knowing we have been snatched from the fire, that we live in reliance only upon Christ, etc.
About my only problem with that is the part I bolded. And my problem is not intrinsic to what you said, but more about what it's like to be me (except for the incredibly good-looking part).
That is, the first thing I do when I reach a conclusion that seems really good to me is ask,"What did I miss? Is there another way to look at this.Is my face even now heading toward my palm?"
I mean, this is wonderful pair of verses. Am I so goldarn smart that I am sure I understand them?
A new reform Baptist church is opening up where I live, and the pastor is running some very good ads (If you over look the digs at us feelthy papists, that is.) He says in one that we should interpret the harder verses by the easier ones.
My immediate skeptical response (and really, this is more from me as would-be philosopher than as Catholic) is, "Says WHO? Where does THAT come from?"
I mean, consider: Paul himself suggests there is something we might call 'growth' in the spirit and in wisdom. If we assume the growth is benign, then we have to figure that, at best, I am dumber now than I may one day be.
If that's true, then what something looks like "it has to mean" today, may have to mean something else later. And to take the "easy verses" as the standard may be the error of thinking the design of the door determines the layout of the palace.
... we must work out our new lives within the knowledge of the great gift ...While I respond extremely positively to this, I see it as a problematic formulation (which is okay, not a refutation just a comment.) It's grace "all the way down," and ANY work I do, even the work of "resting" (abiding?) in the Love of God comes from God by HIS grace. Even my work to stop working, to trust, to "be still" while the Lord fights for me.(Exodus 14:14, one of the brighter gems in the bejewelled story of the Red Sea crossing) is grace all the way down.
The other day I remarked that while in one critical sense I am born again, yet in another I feel like maybe I just made it into the cervix -- transition and delivery lie ahead and everything around me is in travail together until now.
I immediately got mugged for being a slave to works righteousness-- an attack that struck me as formulaic.
And then I remembered what I noted as a shepherd -- which sometimes seems to be ALL about obstetrics: Ewes generally have an easier time delivering a live lamb than a dead one. So while no one thinks that the lamb births itself, yet there likely is something about muscle tone, about autonomous reactions to the ewe's squeezing and pushing... that is, there may be something the lamb, so to speak, FINDS ITSELF DOING, that 'cooperates' in the birthing process to make it go better.
That lamb who took any credit or claimed any merit for this "cooperation" would be a fool, but still there was something sorta, kinda like work for the lamb to do.
It was "working out its own birth" while the ewe and the whole wonderful biology of parturition was working in it both to will and to do.
And we see something that resonates with that great verse Eph 2:10>
Oh, I've written too much!
My point is that I think that "works righteousness" could be seen as sneaking into what you say the verse "has to mean", and that that MAY BE because of an assumption that the opposition of "works of the law" and "grace" exhaust all the possibilities. Now MAYBE that's right. But it does not HAVE to be right IMHO. I need some Hebrew scholar to help with Exodus 14:14, but I note it doesn't just say, "The Lord will fight for you, period, end of sentence." It says, "The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be still." Sometimes being still is very hard! Yet it is laid upon us.
So If I saddle up and journey again through Scripture, this time STARTING with Phil 2:12,13, with Eph 2:10,, and with Ex14:14, I find the Grace of God fully trumpeted and proclaimed, perhaps more fully, because I find that the alleged "problem" everybody's least favorite verse from James, 2:24, evaporates. To oversimplify,the works are not ours, though we do them. Okay. That is QUITE enough. Thank you for your patience.
I know what you mean. It comes down to the child’s game of “Says who?” I carefully avoided saying in my post that “I believe” but you fingered the ruse in your response. Sly one, you.
Honestly, those who are at the very top of the reading chain in the Catholic Church I have found to be very close to the top of the reading chain in the Presbyterian Church, which would be consistent with the transfers at that level.
The very significant issue to me, and what I have endeavored to teach those in my care, is that we will stand alone before Christ to give our account of how we lived and treated His Gospel and loved His people.
In all honesty, because this issue of responsibility vs. sovereignty is so mysterious, I tell my children to believe God is Sovereign in salvation, but live like it is all up to you.
I'm planning on an Alford plea
-- but then I'm going to deploy my counselor, uh, Paraclete.
Silly me. What is an Alford plea?
It's always sounded weaselly to me, but there it is.
No doubt a Supreme Court opinion carving out yet another fact based legal conclusion whose legacy we enjoy for decades.......
I’m looking at this two ways:
(1) I don’t think that we would teach that a sacrament, though operative, will necessarily show immediate changes in the behavior of the recipient. Baptism would be the clearest example. My inclination to sin was barely hitting its stride when I was baptized. But a couple of decades later,”somebody touched me.” He’d been touching me all along, as I see it,as it takes along time to wake somebody up, and some of us stay groggy for a long time.
(2)I look at the situation as a pastor. On the one hand, I don’t want to throw the mysteries around like confetti. But on the other, I don’t want to deprive the child of Baptism because his parents are sinning in an especially public way. It’s not like the parents expected (I hope) the pastor to be completely jiggy with their fornication. But he needed some evidence beyond wanting “to get the baby done” that somebody in the house cared at least a little about Christ.
I would only add, but talk with Him always. Even it is to offer one's silly FR posts to Him.
it was distorted teaching from Protestants who did not bother to discover the truth
You can't be blamed for trying to put as much distance as possible between yourself and this heretical group.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.