Posted on 09/02/2011 9:07:47 AM PDT by marshmallow
Minneapolis, Minnesota (CNN) –Prior to 2006, few people even knew that then-Minnesota state legislator Keith Ellison was a Muslim. Because of his English name, he said, no one thought to ask.
But five years ago, when he ran for a seat in the United States House of Representatives - a race he would go on to win - word of his religious affiliation began to spread.
“When I started running for Congress it actually took me by surprise that so many people were fascinated with me being the first Muslim in Congress,” said Ellison, a Democrat now serving his third term in the House.
“But someone said to me, ‘Look Keith, think of a person of Japanese origin running for Congress six years after Pearl Harbor–this might be a news story.’”
Though Ellison's status as the first Muslim elected to Congress is widely known, fewer are aware that he was born into a Catholic family in Detroit and was brought up attending Catholic schools.
But he said he was never comfortable with that faith.
“I just felt it was ritual and dogma,” Ellison said. “Of course, that’s not the reality of Catholicism, but it’s the reality I lived. So I just kind of lost interest and stopped going to Mass unless I was required to.”
It wasn’t until he was a student at Wayne State University in Detroit when Ellison began, “looking for other things.”
(Excerpt) Read more at religion.blogs.cnn.com ...
You wrote:
“He REASONED WITH THEM OUT OF THE SCRIPTURES.”
Which means traditions. Not only is scripture some tradition written down, but it cannot be explained, interpretated without tradition. Also, since no New Testament yet existed, St. Paul had to relate oral stories (tradition) to explain how the Old Testament was fulfilled by Christ.
You wrote:
“I didn’t ask if we were also Abraham’s seed. I asked if the church replaced Israel.”
Wow. You must really be desperate. Here is the passage:
“And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise.”
Are the heirs only Jews? If not, then you see that the Church is bigger than Israel proper or even the Jewish people. It just is.
Although I imagine that these types of comments come from an offended Catholic and is a type of "payback", let me explain something. Christianity is acknowledging that we are sinners and there is a righteous and holy God that is also just. All those who would be in his presence for eternity MUST be as perfect as he is and he will not look upon sin nor allow it in heaven. We have a sin problem because we are fallen beings who, no matter how sincerely we try to live up to the way of life that we know God requires, we fail, some more miserably that others, but all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
Jesus Christ was God in the flesh who came to earth to make atonement for the sins of the world by being the sacrifice for our sins. God gives to us eternal life and this life is in Jesus. We come to God, first of all, admitting our sinfulness and our utter helplessness to redeem ourselves. The payment for sin is death and no other offering can be sufficient. If we think we are good and don't sin, we deceive ourselves and we are liars. Any offering of our goodness and works in a form of payment for our sins is rejected by God because he has already told us, "Without the shedding of blood (a life), there is no remission for sins.". We offend God by refusing to accept his gift when we deny that it and it alone can bring us to heaven.
We admit we are sinners and need a savior. We change our minds (repent) when we turn from our own ways and turn towards the only rescue that exists. When we receive by faith this gift of eternal life that God gave us by his grace and mercy, he promises that he will remove our sins from us as far as the east is from the west and he will remember it no more. The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin - in God's eyes. We are IN Christ, not having our own righteousness but the righteousness of God in him. Because of this grace we have been adopted into the family of God and are made joint-heirs with Christ. We are indwelled by his Spirit which is the "earnest of our inheritance" until we go to Heaven. That is why we can KNOW we have eternal life because we have received the Savior and accepted the gift God gave us by his grace.
We are saved by grace and we are kept by that same grace. We did not earn this gift nor do we work to keep this gift. God is faithful and the Spirit works within us to conform us into the image of Christ. He is our Father and he disciplines those who are his. When we rebel against him he corrects us - in many ways - and he will NEVER cast us out, NEVER lose us, never be plucked out of his hands. As long as we remain in this flesh, there will be a battle between the old nature and the new nature and the closer we move to Christ, the less effect that old sin nature will control us.
When some hear the phrase. "Once saved, always saved.", they imagine a person who grabs the gift and then lives the rest of their lives as they please with no cares at all of living a holy life pleasing to God. That is a very wrong idea. God did not save us because we were worthy, while we were YET sinners, Christ died for us. God commended his love towards us because he loved us first, even when we were at enmity with him because of our sins. Once we become his own children, we not only have a new nature, a new spirit, but we are not the same again. This is the grace of God, that loves and disciplines us to live a life that honors him so that we are fulfilling his plans for us. Plans for good and not evil, plans for a future.
A person who thinks that God's grace is "cheap", meaning they have to only say they believe, rather than it being a genuine from the heart assent, and that God doesn't care how they live from then on, have not understood the gift of grace. This is NOT true faith, God sees the heart, but others see the fruits, which prove that the faith is a real faith. But once it is a heart faith, then we are saved and will never lose that gift. It is NOT a license for sin, it is grace piled upon love piled upon mercy. Thank God for his unspeakable gift!
No, vlad. Paul had to relate REVELATIONS he received DIRECTLY from the RISEN CHRIST. And reason with them out of the SCRIPTURES, whether these things are so.
You wrote:
“No, vlad. Paul had to relate REVELATIONS he received DIRECTLY from the RISEN CHRIST.”
Yes, he did - and the traditions passed on to him by Peter.
“And reason with them out of the SCRIPTURES, whether these things are so.”
Which means the use of tradition. No interpretation can happen without tradition.
Oh, then perhaps you can give me Scriptures for those traditions that Peter gave Paul to pass on, along with THE DIRECT REVELATIONS GIVEN TO PAUL AND PAUL ALONE FROM THE RISEN CHRIST. So the Bereans were searching Scripture, Peter’s traditions given to Paul and Paul’s Revelations from Christ, daily, to see if those things were so. Is that what you are saying? Let me ask you this: if it were just a question of Paul relaying Peter’s traditions he was taught and the Scriptures, why the need for Christ to REVEAL things to Paul and Paul alone?
1260 "Since Christ died for all, and since all men are in fact called to one and the same destiny, which is divine, we must hold that the Holy Spirit offers to all the possibility of being made partakers, in a way known to God, of the Paschal mystery."62 Every man who is ignorant of the Gospel of Christ and of his Church, but seeks the truth and does the will of God in accordance with his understanding of it, can be saved. It may be supposed that such persons would have desired Baptism explicitly if they had known its necessity.
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P3O.HTM
1281 Those who die for the faith, those who are catechumens, and all those who, without knowing of the Church but acting under the inspiration of grace, seek God sincerely and strive to fulfill his will, are saved even if they have not been baptized (cf. LG 16).
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Although I imagine that these types of comments come from an offended Catholic and is a type of “payback”, let me explain something.
************************************************
Reading minds, not a good thing. An offended Catholic, give me a break. I was a Protestant for 61 YEARS before I became Catholic.
I didn’t become Catholic because there was nothing better to do that day. I became a Catholic because the Holy Spirit led me to the Church that Christ founded.
You wrote:
“Oh, then perhaps you can give me Scriptures for those traditions that Peter gave Paul to pass on, along with THE DIRECT REVELATIONS GIVEN TO PAUL AND PAUL ALONE FROM THE RISEN CHRIST.”
Everything that St. Paul passed on was originally a tradition, or a direct revelation to him alone, or a direct revelation to someone else who passed it on to Paul as a tradition, or a tradition or revelation rendered understanding of already extent scripture. Those are the only possibilities really. Thus, everything St. Paul taught is either one of those things or - as he himself admits on occasion - his opinion.
“So the Bereans were searching Scripture, Peter’s traditions given to Paul and Paul’s Revelations from Christ, daily, to see if those things were so. Is that what you are saying?”
No, nor did I even remotely suggest it. I never even remotely suggested that the Jewish Bereans were relying on Peter’s teachings. They relied on Jewish traditions - written and not - to see if what Paul said was true. They - like all people on earth - approached their traditional religious book, the Old Testament, with their traditional understandings and renderings. This would be all the more true if they used the Septuagint, and most likely they did since they lived among the Greeks.
“Let me ask you this: if it were just a question of Paul relaying Peter’s traditions he was taught and the Scriptures, why the need for Christ to REVEAL things to Paul and Paul alone?”
At the very least to convince St. Paul that He existed and to confirm Whom He was. Acts 9:1-19. St. Paul needed faith. He got it in an instant. And in that instant, Paul learned that Jesus was Lord and that Jesus and the Church were one.
I would never suggest such a thing. I am surprised that you would not know that the requirement for baptism is Pauline. It was not revealed until done so by St. Paul. At the time of the crucifixion baptism had not yet been commanded.
What you said.....
Of course it can. All anyone has to do is read what was written.
And if Scripture is just tradition written down, then we now, in this time period, are back to using Scripture to interpret Scripture.
THINK PEOPLE. THINK
Who was John the Baptist? A fur salesman?
I see this verse used a lot to "prove" that someone must have good works in addition to faith in order to go to heaven. What I read is that these people who were insisting that they had "prophesied in his name, drove out demons and performed many miracles" were relying on their OWN deeds to save them AND they were good deeds, not nasty, filthy sins. These were "religious" people, yet Jesus rejected their works and rejected them from going to heaven. Have you ever wondered why?
Oh, pardon me. I was just about to compliment you on your post, above. Never mind.
You wrote:
“Of course it can. All anyone has to do is read what was written.”
Which means tradition. Words have to be learned and they are learned according to traditions. Look at the word “cleave”. What does it mean? It can mean to cut in two. It can also mean to bring together two halves. Traditional understanding of usage (i.e. syntax and rendering) are what tells you what it means. I doubt you read Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. Thus, you, like most of us have to rely on translators, lexicogiphers, editors, commentators, etc. That means traditions and lots of them.
“And if Scripture is just tradition written down, then we now, in this time period, are back to using Scripture to interpret Scripture.”
No. We use traditions to interpret scripture. Again, translators, lexicogiphers, editors, commentators, etc.
But metmom you, as a formerly practicing Catholic, knew or should have known that scripture is not just Tradition written down, not for the Jews and not for us.
They may have used scriptures to test Paul but, Jesus talked about Traditions not even in the OT such as the seat of Moses. That would be the oral Tradition of the Jews.
Scripture and Tradition, not scripture instead of Tradition.
Amen. It’s all about “me”. Didn’t “I”, did “we” not, didn’t “we”, blah, blah. Nothing about Him. And what He did. Very telling, that Scripture. Thank you.
smvoice
And Jesus condemned virtually all the tradition He encountered.
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