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How to Read the Bible – A Three Step Plan (written for Catholics - valid for all)
taylormarshall.com ^ | September 30, 2013 | Dr. Taylor Marshall

Posted on 09/30/2013 11:30:08 AM PDT by NYer

How do you read the Bible? Today is the feast day of Saint Jerome, who once quipped, “Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.”

St.-Jerome read the bible

“Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.” – Saint Jerome

It’s a running joke that if you want to find a Bible verse, you ought to ask a Protestant and not a Catholic. Protestants read the Bible. Catholics not so much.

This raises the question:

Why Don’t More Catholics Read the Bible?

I think the answer lies in the fact that we Catholics go to Mass. The Holy Mass has at least two Bible readings every time. If you pray the Breviary or Liturgy of Hours, multiply that several times.

Joe Catholic says to himself, “Why should I study the Bible? I go to Mass. I hear it there. Check and check.”

There is something beautiful in this. For Catholics, Bible reading is liturgical. Hence, Bible reading remains chiefly a community experience.

Three Step Plan to Kick It Up a Notch

It’s good to listen to the readings from the Bible at Holy Mass. However, we also need a personal (even private) encounter with God in the pages of Sacred Scripture. All of the saints breathed Sacred Scripture. Scripture served as the grammar for their souls. They couldn’t communicate without it.

Here are some basic spiritual needs that you have every single day of your life:

  1. Praise – Voicing your delight in God and His provision for your life. Gratitude destroys discouragement.
  2. Wisdom – You need practical advice to navigate the complexities of life.
  3. Challenge – You need to be lifted higher. You need to grow in your faith. You need to be inspired. You must be an intentional Christian.

So when you wake up tomorrow, do the following:

  1. Read a Psalm. Start with Psalm 1. Make it your anthem of praise for that day.
  2. Read at least one Proverb. Proverbs are the wisdom morsels of your day. There are 31 chapters. Why not read one chapter every day during the month. Oct 1 is Provers 1. October 31 is Proverbs 31. You get the idea.
  3. Read a chapter of the one of the Gospels. This is your challenge. Your Savior challenges you in the four Gospels. He calls you to be not merely a nominal Catholic but a disciple. You cannot seriously read the Gospels and stay lukewarm. Christ speaks in a way that cannot be ignored.

“But I’m so busy. I don’t have the time!”

What? You’re too busy. Sorry, you just got served a yellow card:

yellow card

That’s a yellow card. You’ve been warned…

Doing these three readings will take you only 3-5 minutes. That’s the time of a commercial break. It will change your life for good. I promise. It takes 21 days to make a habit, so give it 21 days and see if you aren’t hooked. Put the Bible on your night stand and read it in the mornings. Start fresh.

“Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.” – Saint Jerome, Doctor of the Church



TOPICS: Catholic; Prayer; Religion & Culture
KEYWORDS: bible; catholic
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To: metmom

“I post Scripture to counter the false teachings of Catholicism”.

Oh, those stupid Catholics, they don’t even follow the book that they compiled and determined what would be divinely inspired. How stupid can some people be.

Oh, I almost forget, you have proof that the early Christian scholars were protestants, and that’s why it’s OK to follow the Bible. Gotcha.


1,821 posted on 10/12/2013 4:36:43 PM PDT by NKP_Vet
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To: boatbums; dsc; metmom; NKP_Vet
Before you sign off on this thread, please answer my question at http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/3072978/posts?page=1708#1708

I have a suspicion that this will not be last we hear from you on your contention that there has "never been anti-Protestant bigotry on FR".

It has been silent since a RC considerately provided some candidates of anti-Protestant bigotry even here, and i offered to provide some others, which broadly describe Protestants as vandals, ignorant, biblically illiterate, typically intellectually dishonest, absolutely alien to Christianity, as a bizarre and false religion, who completely reject Christ, with no solid foundation, and unable to defend it. Which i just sent anyway by PM (check you FRmail]. And it was also shown that dsc did in fact begin the complaining.

For now we have statements absolutely disallowing Prot converts from having been devout RCs (just imagine the cries if we said the same about RCs), and inclusively claiming Protestants do not have the truth on their side, and thus they have a "neverending guilt trip." From the same poster who asserts Catholics never rant and rave [which is how he countered my statements that RCs who have much engaged in posting pro-Catholic and anti-protestant articles] and put down protestants.

That was besides engaging in mind reading, but that just goes along with it.

However, since, the absolute statement was made that "There is not and never has been a scintilla of anti-protestant bigotry on FR," then the poster must dismiss every example as not being bigotry, without manifesting a double standard, or admit he/she was wrong. Or keep silent or protest being put on trial.

Which makes the rest of the scintilla utterance fitting:

Remind me, what do we call it when someone utters a statement he knows to be false? Would that be the “L” word?

1,822 posted on 10/12/2013 5:17:27 PM PDT by daniel1212 (Come to the Lord Jesus as a contrite damned+destitute sinner, trust Him to save you, then live 4 Him)
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To: NKP_Vet
Compared to Catholics, only 60 percent of Baptists, 58 percent of Lutherans, 49 percent of Pentecostals, 48 percent of Methodists, 48 percent of Church of Christ members, 44 percent of Episcopalians, and 36 percent of Presbyterians, are still practicing in the Church of their childhood. The only major religious affiliations that are doing better than the Catholic Church in retaining their members are the Jews at 74 percent and the Mormons at 72”.

However, you treat Protestants as if they were basically the same, and leaving a S. Baptist church for a Calvary Chapel does not mean they have really changed faith, and also in the poll,

68% of those raised Roman Catholic still are Catholic. 80% of adults who were raised Protestant are still Protestant, but (analysis shows) 25% no longer self-identify with the Protestant denomination in which they were raised.

1,823 posted on 10/12/2013 5:17:51 PM PDT by daniel1212 (Come to the Lord Jesus as a contrite damned+destitute sinner, trust Him to save you, then live 4 Him)
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To: daniel1212; NKP_Vet; metmom; CynicalBear

I don’t think we need to imagine what “wailing and gnashing” are going to sound like...all we need to do is read one of Daniel’s posts to a RC here and wait for the reply...


1,824 posted on 10/12/2013 5:32:26 PM PDT by smvoice (HELP! I'm trapped inside this body and I can't get out!)
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To: NKP_Vet; metmom; boatbums; caww; presently no screen name; smvoice; Greetings_Puny_Humans; ...
Speaking of scholars, the idea that the Reformers were without foundation and that RC claims have unanamous consents of the so-called church "fathers, is a typical misconception among most RCs, as support for Protestant views is provided by Catholic scholarship as below.

However, in reality the RC basis for full assurance is not Scripture and history, else they would be like evangelicals, but it is the premise of Rome's assured veracity.

Thus, faced with claims from antiquity by Reformers, no less an authority than Manning, in not denying Rome's claim to antiquity, invoked this recourse:

It was the charge of the Reformers that the Catholic doctrines were not primitive, and their pretension was to revert to antiquity. But the appeal to antiquity is both a treason and a heresy. It is a treason because it rejects the Divine voice of the Church at this hour, and a heresy because it denies that voice to be Divine. How can we know what antiquity was except through the Church? No individual, no number of individuals can go back through eighteen hundred years to reach the doctrines of antiquity. We may say with the woman of Samaria, ‘Sir, the well is deep, and thou hast nothing to draw with.’ No individual mind now has contact with the revelation of the Pentecost, except through the Church. Historical evidence and biblical criticism are human after all, and amount to no more than opinion, probability, human judgment, human tradition...

I may say in strict truth that the Church has no antiquity. It rests upon its own supernatural and perpetual consciousness. Its past is present with it, for both are one to a mind which is immutable. Primitive and modern are predicates, not of truth, but of ourselves. The Church is always primitive and always modern at one and the same time; and alone can expound its own mind, as an individual can declare his own thoughts. ‘For what man knoweth the things of a man, but the spirit of a man that is in him? So the things also that are of God no man knoweth, but the Spirit of God.’ The only Divine evidence to us of what was primitive is the witness and voice of the Church at this hour. — Most Rev. Dr. Henry Edward Cardinal Manning, Lord Archbishop of Westminster, The Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost: Or Reason and Revelation (New York: J.P. Kenedy & Sons, originally written 1865, pp. 227,28

► As regards the oft-quoted Mt. 16:18, note the bishops promise in the profession of faith of Vatican 1,

Likewise I accept Sacred Scripture according to that sense which Holy mother Church held and holds, since it is her right to judge of the true sense and interpretation of the holy scriptures; nor will I ever receive and interpret them except according to the unanimous consent of the fathers.http://mb-soft.com/believe/txs/firstvc.htm

Yet as the Dominican cardinal and Catholic theologian Yves Congar O.P. states,

Unanimous patristic consent as a reliable locus theologicus is classical in Catholic theology; it has often been declared such by the magisterium and its value in scriptural interpretation has been especially stressed. Application of the principle is difficult, at least at a certain level. In regard to individual texts of Scripture total patristic consensus is rare...One example: the interpretation of Peter’s confession in Matthew 16:16-18. Except at Rome, this passage was not applied by the Fathers to the papal primacy; they worked out an exegesis at the level of their own ecclesiological thought, more anthropological and spiritual than juridical. — Yves M.-J. Congar, O.P., p. 71

And Catholic archbishop Peter Richard Kenrick (1806-1896), while yet seeking to support Peter as the rock, stated that,

“If we are bound to follow the majority of the fathers in this thing, then we are bound to hold for certain that by the rock should be understood the faith professed by Peter, not Peter professing the faith.” — Speech of archbishop Kenkick, p. 109; An inside view of the vatican council, edited by Leonard Woolsey Bacon.

Your own CCC allows the interpretation that, “On the rock of this faith confessed by St Peter, Christ build his Church,” (pt. 1, sec. 2, cp. 2, para. 424), for some of the ancients (for what their opinion is worth) provided for this or other interpretations.

• Ambrosiaster [who elsewhere upholds Peter as being the chief apostle to whom the Lord had entrusted the care of the Church, but not superior to Paul as an apostle except in time], Eph. 2:20:

Wherefore the Lord says to Peter: 'Upon this rock I shall build my Church,' that is, upon this confession of the catholic faith I shall establish the faithful in life. — Ambrosiaster, Commentaries on Galatians—Philemon, Eph. 2:20; Gerald L. Bray, p. 42

• Augustine, sermon:

"Christ, you see, built his Church not on a man but on Peter's confession. What is Peter's confession? 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.' There's the rock for you, there's the foundation, there's where the Church has been built, which the gates of the underworld cannot conquer.John Rotelle, O.S.A., Ed., The Works of Saint Augustine , © 1993 New City Press, Sermons, Vol III/6, Sermon 229P.1, p. 327

Upon this rock, said the Lord, I will build my Church. Upon this confession, upon this that you said, 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,' I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not conquer her (Mt. 16:18). John Rotelle, Ed., The Works of Saint Augustine (New Rochelle: New City, 1993) Sermons, Volume III/7, Sermon 236A.3, p. 48.

Augustine, sermon:

For petra (rock) is not derived from Peter, but Peter from petra; just as Christ is not called so from the Christian, but the Christian from Christ. For on this very account the Lord said, 'On this rock will I build my Church,' because Peter had said, 'Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.' On this rock, therefore, He said, which thou hast confessed, I will build my Church. For the Rock (Petra) was Christ; and on this foundation was Peter himself built. For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Christ Jesus. The Church, therefore, which is founded in Christ received from Him the keys of the kingdom of heaven in the person of Peter, that is to say, the power of binding and loosing sins. For what the Church is essentially in Christ, such representatively is Peter in the rock (petra); and in this representation Christ is to be understood as the Rock, Peter as the Church. — Augustine Tractate CXXIV; Philip Schaff, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: First Series, Volume VII Tractate CXXIV (http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf107.iii.cxxv.html)

Augustine, sermon:

And Peter, one speaking for the rest of them, one for all, said, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God (Mt 16:15-16)...And I tell you: you are Peter; because I am the rock, you are Rocky, Peter-I mean, rock doesn't come from Rocky, but Rocky from rock, just as Christ doesn't come from Christian, but Christian from Christ; and upon this rock I will build my Church (Mt 16:17-18); not upon Peter, or Rocky, which is what you are, but upon the rock which you have confessed. I will build my Church though; I will build you, because in this answer of yours you represent the Church. — John Rotelle, O.S.A. Ed., The Works of Saint Augustine (New Rochelle: New City Press, 1993), Sermons, Volume III/7, Sermon 270.2, p. 289

Augustine, sermon:

Peter had already said to him, 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.' He had already heard, 'Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona, because flesh and blood did not reveal it to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of the underworld shall not conquer her' (Mt 16:16-18)...Christ himself was the rock, while Peter, Rocky, was only named from the rock. That's why the rock rose again, to make Peter solid and strong; because Peter would have perished, if the rock hadn't lived. — John Rotelle, Ed., The Works of Saint Augustine (New Rochelle: New City, 1993) Sermons, Volume III/7, Sermon 244.1, p. 95

Augustine, sermon:

...because on this rock, he said, I will build my Church, and the gates of the underworld shall not overcome it (Mt. 16:18). Now the rock was Christ (1 Cor. 10:4). Was it Paul that was crucified for you? Hold on to these texts, love these texts, repeat them in a fraternal and peaceful manner. — John Rotelle, Ed., The Works of Saint Augustine (New Rochelle: New City Press, 1995), Sermons, Volume III/10, Sermon 358.5, p. 193

Augustine, Psalm LXI:

Let us call to mind the Gospel: 'Upon this Rock I will build My Church.' Therefore She crieth from the ends of the earth, whom He hath willed to build upon a Rock. But in order that the Church might be builded upon the Rock, who was made the Rock? Hear Paul saying: 'But the Rock was Christ.' On Him therefore builded we have been. — Philip Schaff, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1956), Volume VIII, Saint Augustin, Exposition on the Book of Psalms, Psalm LXI.3, p. 249. (http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf108.ii.LXI.html)

• Augustine, in “Retractions,”

In a passage in this book, I said about the Apostle Peter: 'On him as on a rock the Church was built.'...But I know that very frequently at a later time, I so explained what the Lord said: 'Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church,' that it be understood as built upon Him whom Peter confessed saying: 'Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God,' and so Peter, called after this rock, represented the person of the Church which is built upon this rock, and has received 'the keys of the kingdom of heaven.' For, 'Thou art Peter' and not 'Thou art the rock' was said to him. But 'the rock was Christ,' in confessing whom, as also the whole Church confesses, Simon was called Peter. But let the reader decide which of these two opinions is the more probable. — The Fathers of the Church (Washington D.C., Catholic University, 1968), Saint Augustine, The Retractations Chapter 20.1:.

Basil of Seleucia, Oratio 25:

'You are Christ, Son of the living God.'...Now Christ called this confession a rock, and he named the one who confessed it 'Peter,' perceiving the appellation which was suitable to the author of this confession. For this is the solemn rock of religion, this the basis of salvation, this the wall of faith and the foundation of truth: 'For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Christ Jesus.' To whom be glory and power forever. — Oratio XXV.4, M.P.G., Vol. 85, Col. 296-297.

Bede, Matthaei Evangelium Expositio, 3:

You are Peter and on this rock from which you have taken your name, that is, on myself, I will build my Church, upon that perfection of faith which you confessed I will build my Church by whose society of confession should anyone deviate although in himself he seems to do great things he does not belong to the building of my Church...Metaphorically it is said to him on this rock, that is, the Saviour which you confessed, the Church is to be built, who granted participation to the faithful confessor of his name. — 80Homily 23, M.P.L., Vol. 94, Col. 260. Cited by Karlfried Froehlich, Formen, Footnote #204, p. 156 [unable to verify by me].

• Cassiodorus, Psalm 45.5:

'It will not be moved' is said about the Church to which alone that promise has been given: 'You are Peter and upon this rock I shall build my Church and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it.' For the Church cannot be moved because it is known to have been founded on that most solid rock, namely, Christ the Lord. — Expositions in the Psalms, Volume 1; Volume 51, Psalm 45.5, p. 455

Chrysostom (John) [who affirmed Peter was a rock, but here not the rock in Mt. 16:18]:

Therefore He added this, 'And I say unto thee, Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church; that is, on the faith of his confession. — Chrysostom, Homilies on the Gospel of Saint Matthew, Homily LIIl; Philip Schaff, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf110.iii.LII.html)

Cyril of Alexandria:

When [Peter] wisely and blamelessly confessed his faith to Jesus saying, 'You are Christ, Son of the living God,' Jesus said to divine Peter: 'You are Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church.' Now by the word 'rock', Jesus indicated, I think, the immoveable faith of the disciple.”. — Cyril Commentary on Isaiah 4.2.

Origen, Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew (Book XII):

“For a rock is every disciple of Christ of whom those drank who drank of the spiritual rock which followed them, 1 Corinthians 10:4 and upon every such rock is built every word of the church, and the polity in accordance with it; for in each of the perfect, who have the combination of words and deeds and thoughts which fill up the blessedness, is the church built by God.'

“For all bear the surname ‘rock’ who are the imitators of Christ, that is, of the spiritual rock which followed those who are being saved, that they may drink from it the spiritual draught. But these bear the surname of rock just as Christ does. But also as members of Christ deriving their surname from Him they are called Christians, and from the rock, Peters.” — Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew (Book XII), sect. 10,11 ( http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/101612.htm)

Hilary of Potier, On the Trinity (Book II): Thus our one immovable foundation, our one blissful rock of faith, is the confession from Peter's mouth, Thou art the Son of the living God. On it we can base an answer to every objection with which perverted ingenuity or embittered treachery may assail the truth."-- (Hilary of Potier, On the Trinity (Book II), para 23; Philip Schaff, editor, The Nicene & Post Nicene Fathers Series 2, Vol 9.

Secondly, there is indeed historical support from Catholic scholars for Protestant rejection of Peter as being the Rock and the perpetuated Petrine papacy.

• Klaus Schatz [Jesuit Father theologian, professor of church history at the St. George’s Philosophical and Theological School in Frankfurt] in his work, “Papal Primacy ,” pp. 1-4 :

“New Testament scholars agree..., The further question whether there was any notion of an enduring office beyond Peter’s lifetime, if posed in purely historical terms, should probably be answered in the negative.

That is, if we ask whether the historical Jesus, in commissioning Peter, expected him to have successors, or whether the authority of the Gospel of Matthew, writing after Peter’s death, was aware that Peter and his commission survived in the leaders of the Roman community who succeeded him, the answer in both cases is probably 'no.”

“....that does not mean that the figure and the commission of the Peter of the New Testament did not encompass the possibility, if it is projected into a Church enduring for centuries and concerned in some way to to secure its ties to its apostolic origins and to Jesus himself.

If we ask in addition whether the primitive church was aware, after Peter’s death, that his authority had passed to the next bishop of Rome, or in other words that the head of the community at Rome was now the successor of Peter, the Church’s rock and hence the subject of the promise in Matthew 16:18-19, the question, put in those terms, must certainly be given a negative answer.” (page 1-2)

[Schatz goes on to express that he does not doubt Peter was martyred in Rome, and that Christians in the 2nd century were convinced that Vatican Hill had something to do with Peter's grave.]

"Nevertheless, concrete claims of a primacy over the whole church cannot be inferred from this conviction. If one had asked a Christian in the year 100, 200, or even 300 whether the bishop of Rome was the head of all Christians, or whether there was a supreme bishop over all the other bishops and having the last word in questions affecting the whole Church, he or she would certainly have said no." (page 3, top)

[Lacking such support for the modern concept of the primacy of the church of Rome with its papal jurisdiction, Schatz concludes that, “Therefore we must set aside from the outset any question such as 'was there a primacy in our sense of the word at that time?” Schatz. therefore goes on to seek support for that as a development.]

“We probably cannot say for certain that there was a bishop of Rome [in 95 AD]. It is likely that the Roman church was governed by a group of presbyters from whom there very quickly emerged a presider or ‘first among equals’ whose name was remembered and who was subsequently described as ‘bishop’ after the mid-second century.” (Schatz 4).

Schatiz additionally states,

Cyprian regarded every bishop as the successor of Peter, holder of the keys to the kingdom of heaven and possessor of the power to bind and loose. For him, Peter embodied the original unity of the Church and the episcopal office, but in principle these were also present in every bishop. For Cyprian, responsibility for the whole Church and the solidarity of all bishops could also, if necessary, be turned against Rome."Papal Primacy [Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1996], p. 20)

• Roman Catholic scholar William La Due (taught canon law at St. Francis Seminary and the Catholic University of America) on Cyprian:

....those who see in The Unity of the Catholic Church, in the light of his entire episcopal life, an articulation of the Roman primacy - as we have come to know it, or even as it has evolved especially from the latter fourth century on - are reading a meaning into Cyprian which is not there." — The Chair of Saint Peter: A History of the Papacy [Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1999], p. 39

Catholic theologian and a Jesuit priest Francis Sullivan, in his work From Apostles to Bishops (New York: The Newman Press), examines possible mentions of “succession” from the first three centuries, and concludes from that study that “the episcopate [development of bishops] is a the fruit of a post New Testament development,” and cannot concur with those (interacting with Jones) who see little reason to doubt the notion that there was a single bishop in Rome through the middle of the second century:

Hence I stand with the majority of scholars who agree that one does not find evidence in the New Testament to support the theory that the apostles or their coworkers left [just] one person as “bishop” in charge of each local church...

As the reader will recall, I have expressed agreement with the consensus of scholars that available evidence indicates that the church of Rome was led by a college of presbyters, rather than a single bishop, for at least several decades of the second century...

Hence I cannot agree with Jones's judgment that there seems little reason to doubt the presence of a bishop in Rome already in the first century.

“...the evidence both from the New Testament and from such writings as I Clement, the Letter of Polycarp to the Philippians and The Shepherd of Hennas favors the view that initially the presbyters in each church, as a college, possessed all the powers needed for effective ministry. This would mean that the apostles handed on what was transmissible of their mandate as an undifferentiated whole, in which the powers that would eventually be seen as episcopal were not yet distinguished from the rest. Hence, the development of the episcopate would have meant the differentiation of ministerial powers that had previously existed in an undifferentiated state and the consequent reservation to the bishop of certain of the powers previously held collegially by the presbyters. — Francis Sullivan, in his work From Apostles to Bishops , pp. 221,22,24

• The Catholic historian Paul Johnson writes in his 1976 work “History of Christianity:”

Eusebius presents the lists as evidence that orthodoxy had a continuous tradition from the earliest times in all the great Episcopal sees and that all the heretical movements were subsequent aberrations from the mainline of Christianity.

Looking behind the lists, however, a different picture emerges. In Edessa, on the edge of the Syrian desert, the proofs of the early establishment of Christianity were forgeries, almost certainly manufactured under Bishop Kune, the first orthodox Bishop, and actually a contemporary of Eusebius...

Orthodoxy was not established [In Egypt] until the time of Bishop Demetrius, 189-231, who set up a number of other sees and manufactured a genealogical tree for his own bishopric of Alexandria, which traces the foundation through ten mythical predecessors back to Mark, and so to Peter and Jesus...

Even in Antioch, where both Peter and Paul had been active, there seems to have been confusion until the end of the second century. Antioch completely lost their list...When Eusebius’s chief source for his Episcopal lists, Julius Africanus, tried to compile one for Antioch, he found only six names to cover the same period of time as twelve in Rome and ten in Alexandria.

• Roger Collins, writing of the Symmachan forgeries”, describes these “pro-Roman” “enhancements” to history:

So too would the spurious historical texts written anonymously or ascribed to earlier authors that are known collectively as the Symmachan forgeries. This was the first occasion on which the Roman church had revisited its own history, in particular the third and fourth centuries, in search of precedents That these were largely invented does not negate the significance of the process...Some of the periods in question, such as the pontificates of Sylvester and Liberius (352-366), were already being seen more through the prism of legend than that of history, and in the Middle Ages texts were often forged because their authors were convinced of the truth of what they contained. Their faked documents provided tangible evidence of what was already believed true...

It is no coincidence that the first systematic works of papal history appear at the very time the Roman church’s past was being reinvented for polemical purposes. (Collins, “Keepers of the Keys of Heaven,” pgs 80-82).

Roman Catholic [if liberal and critical] Garry Wills, Professor of History Emeritus, Northwestern U., author of “Why i am a Catholic:”

"The idea that Peter was given some special power that could be handed on to a successor runs into the problem that he had no successor. The idea that there is an "apostolic succession" to Peter's fictional episcopacy did not arise for several centuries, at which time Peter and others were retrospectively called bishops of Rome, to create an imagined succession. Even so, there has not been an unbroken chain of popes. Two and three claimants existed at times, and when there were three of them each excommunicating the other two, they all had to be dethroned and the Council of Carthage started the whole thing over again in 1417." — WHAT JESUS MEANT, p. 81

• American Roman Catholic priest and Biblical scholar Raymond Brown (twice appointed to Pontifical Biblical Commission):

“The claims of various sees to descend from particular members of the Twelve are highly dubious. It is interesting that the most serious of these is the claim of the bishops of Rome to descend from Peter, the one member of the Twelve who was almost a missionary apostle in the Pauline sense – a confirmation of our contention that whatever succession there was from apostleship to episcopate, it was primarily in reference to the Puauline tyupe of apostleship, not that of the Twelve.” (“Priest and Bishop, Biblical Reflections,” Nihil Obstat, Imprimatur, 1970, pg 72.)

Raymond Brown [being censored here], in “Priest and Bishop: Biblical Reflections,” could not prove on historical grounds, he said, that Christ instituted the priesthood or episcopacy as such; that those who presided at the Eucharist were really priests; that a separate priesthood began with Christ; that the early Christians looked upon the Eucharist as a sacrifice; that presbyter-bishops are traceable in any way to the Apostles; that Peter in his lifetime would be looked upon as the Bishop of Rome; that bishops were successors of the Apostles, even though Vatican II made the same claim.. (from, "A Wayward Turn in Biblical Theory" by Msr. George A. Kelly can be read on the internet at http://www.catholic.net/rcc/Periodicals/Dossier/Jan-Feb00/Article5.html)

Peter Lampe (Lutheran)*:

The picture that finally emerges from Lampe’s analysis of surviving evidence is one he names ‘the fractionation of Roman Christianity’ (pp. 357–408). Not until the second half of the second century, under Anicetus, do we find compelling evidence for a monarchical episcopacy, and when it emerges, it is to manage relief shipments to dispersed Christians as well as social aid for the Roman poor (pp. 403–4). Before this period Roman Christians were ‘fractionated’ amongst dispersed house/tenement churches, each presided over by its own presbyter–bishop. This accounts for the evidence of social and theological diversity in second-century Roman Christianity, evidence of a degree of tolerance of theologically disparate groups without a single authority to regulate belief and practice, and the relatively late appearance of unambiguous representation of a single bishop over Rome. — Review of “Christians at Rome in the First Two Centuries,” by Peter Lampe in Oxford’s Journal of Theological Studies, 2005

*Peter Lampe is a German Lutheran minister and theologian and Professor of New Testament Studies at the University of Heidelberg, whose work, “From Paul to Valentinus: Christians at Rome in the First Two Centuries,” was written in 1987 and translated to English in 2003. The Catholic historian Eamon Duffy (Irish Professor of the History of Christianity at the University of Cambridge, and former President of Magdalene College), said “all modern discussion of the issues must now start from the exhaustive and persuasive analysis by Peter Lampe” — Saints and Sinners,” “A History of the Popes,” Yale, 1997, 2001, pg. 421).

Turning to non-catholic scholars, Jaroslav Pelikan [Lutheran], The Riddle of Roman Catholicism (New York: Abingdon Press, 1959), also finds:

"Recent research on the Reformation entitles us to sharpen it and say that the Reformation began because the reformers were too catholic in the midst of a church that had forgotten its catholicity..."

“The reformers were catholic because they were spokesmen for an evangelical tradition in medieval catholicism, what Luther called "the succession of the faithful." The fountainhead of that tradition was Augustine (d. 430). His complex and far-reaching system of thought incorporated the catholic ideal of identity plus universality, and by its emphasis upon sin and grace it became the ancestor of Reformation theology. … All the reformers relied heavily upon Augustine. They pitted his evangelical theology against the authority of later church fathers and scholastics, and they used him to prove that they were not introducing novelties into the church, but defending the true faith of the church.”

“...To prepare books like the Magdeburg Centuries they combed the libraries and came up with a remarkable catalogue of protesting catholics and evangelical catholics, all to lend support to the insistence that the Protestant position was, in the best sense, a catholic position.

Additional support for this insistence comes from the attitude of the reformers toward the creeds and dogmas of the ancient catholic church. The reformers retained and cherished the doctrine of the Trinity and the doctrine of the two natures in Christ which had developed in the first five centuries of the church….”

“If we keep in mind how variegated medieval catholicism was, the legitimacy of the reformers' claim to catholicity becomes clear. (Pelikan, pp. 46-47).

"Substantiation for this understanding of the gospel came principally from the Scriptures, but whenever they could, the reformers also quoted the fathers of the catholic church. There was more to quote than their Roman opponents found comfortable" (Pelikan 48-49).

In summation, more can be provided, and while it is expected that RCs seek to negate the contrary testimony these sources provide, the reality is that they provide support against Peter being the rock of Mt. 16:18, and against the cherished Roman Catholic view of an infallible perpetuated Petrine papacy proceeding from the book of Acts.

1,825 posted on 10/12/2013 5:58:50 PM PDT by daniel1212 (Come to the Lord Jesus as a contrite damned+destitute sinner, trust Him to save you, then live 4 Him)
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To: NKP_Vet; metmom
You don’t need no church, makes no difference if Jesus Christ said it or not. He only talked in parables anyway and didn’t mean anything he said.

The focus is on the Lord Jesus, as the Holy Spirit says to look to Him, (Heb. 12:2) but which does not the church is marginalized, but the true church consists only of those who look to Christ, not place confidence in a religious system.

As regards the need for the body, Westminster itself states,

It belongs to synods and councils, ministerially to determine controversies of faith, and cases of conscience; to set down rules and directions for the better ordering of the public worship of God, and government of his Church; to receive complaints in cases of maladministration, and authoritatively to determine the same; which decrees and determinations, if consonant to the Word of God, are to be received with reverence and submission; not only for their agreement with the Word, but also for the power whereby they are made, as being an ordinance of God appointed thereunto in His Word. — http://www.spurgeon.org/~phil/creeds/wcf.htm

1,826 posted on 10/12/2013 6:05:39 PM PDT by daniel1212 (Come to the Lord Jesus as a contrite damned+destitute sinner, trust Him to save you, then live 4 Him)
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To: NKP_Vet
He only talked in parables anyway and didn’t mean anything he said.

Actually, this is not what you find in the classic comprehensive evangelical commentaries, but as described , this is the kind of non-literalism seen in your own American Bible commentary. And which is the church you think we need to join.

1,827 posted on 10/12/2013 6:09:03 PM PDT by daniel1212 (Come to the Lord Jesus as a contrite damned+destitute sinner, trust Him to save you, then live 4 Him)
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To: daniel1212; NKP_Vet; metmom; boatbums; caww; presently no screen name; smvoice; ...

The duplicity of teaching within what the RCC claims as it’s history is astounding. How anyone came up with the statement “to know history is to be a Catholic” is beyond bizarre.


1,828 posted on 10/12/2013 6:09:17 PM PDT by CynicalBear (For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ)
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To: NKP_Vet

You got it.


1,829 posted on 10/12/2013 6:11:58 PM PDT by metmom ( ...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of faith....)
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To: NKP_Vet

Jesus told peter that He would build His church and it was NOT built on Peter. It was built on the truth Peter expressed.

Jesus is the Rock, the ONLY one and Peter acknowledged it in his epistles. You should read them some time.

And no, I do not need some religion to tell me what to believe and what to think and what to do.


1,830 posted on 10/12/2013 6:13:38 PM PDT by metmom ( ...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of faith....)
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To: NKP_Vet; metmom
>> Oh, I almost forget, you have proof that the early Christian scholars were protestants, and that’s why it’s OK to follow the Bible. Gotcha.<<

And just why would we need to show proof that the early Christian scholars were Protestants anyway? Is the Catholic mindset so dead set against referring to the original author which is the Holy Spirit through the vessel of the apostles that it can’t give credit where credit is due? Is the Catholic mindset so numb as to disavow the fact that the Holy Spirit was given as a guide when reading scripture? Is the Catholic mind so carnal it doesn’t recognize the it is the Holy Spirit we rely on and not some carnal earthly organization run by fallible men?

1,831 posted on 10/12/2013 6:17:56 PM PDT by CynicalBear (For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ)
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To: metmom
Folktales? Did God REALLY say....? Catholicism impugns the word it claims it wrote.

This is news to the writers, but which is another example of the diversity of interpretation within Rome, while rhapsodizing about the sure guidance within.

1,832 posted on 10/12/2013 6:32:04 PM PDT by daniel1212 (Come to the Lord Jesus as a contrite damned+destitute sinner, trust Him to save you, then live 4 Him)
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To: NKP_Vet
“No one can depart from the teaching of Catholic truth without loss of faith and salvation.” ~ Pope Pius XII

The blind leading the blind, but which interpretation places you at variance with RCs who see Lumen Gentium providing for salvation for Prots, even those who were once Catholic.

1,833 posted on 10/12/2013 6:34:42 PM PDT by daniel1212 (Come to the Lord Jesus as a contrite damned+destitute sinner, trust Him to save you, then live 4 Him)
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To: NKP_Vet; metmom
>> Oh, I almost forget you and the good Lord got a good thing going, you don’t need no stinkin’ religion telling you what think.<<

For sure!! When we have the Holy Spirit as our counselor why would we ever look to some carnal earthly organization?

And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Counselor to be with you forever--the Spirit of Truth. The world cannot accept Him, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. But you know Him, for He lives with you and will be in you. John 14:16,17

Now we know we have that same spirit.

Acts 15:8 And God, who knows the heart, bore witness by granting them the holy Spirit just as he did us. 9 He made no distinction between us and them, for by faith he purified their hearts.

When we have perfect why settle for less?

1,834 posted on 10/12/2013 6:37:18 PM PDT by CynicalBear (For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ)
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To: CynicalBear
For sure!! When we have the Holy Spirit as our counselor why would we ever look to some carnal earthly organization?

Not to some self-proclaimed infallible org as if they were God, and with their ostentatious show and titles, but while all members of the body of Christ have the Spirit of truth, yet God has placed them in the body in which there is not one member but many. And tempered the body so that there is a level of interdependence. God used men to write Scripture, "And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; (Ephesians 4:11-14)

But as the Scriptures are the supreme authority, so the Lord reproved them who sat in the seat of Moses by them, as the noble Bereans examined truth claimed by them, so are we with the same heart for truth, \

Thanks be to God

1,835 posted on 10/12/2013 7:22:13 PM PDT by daniel1212 (Come to the Lord Jesus as a contrite damned+destitute sinner, trust Him to save you, then live 4 Him)
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To: NKP_Vet

“Oh, those stupid Catholics, they don’t even follow the book that they compiled and determined what would be divinely inspired. “

“They determined what would be divinely inspired??????”

HA! HA! HA!

Wow! How hokey. A religion that no longer needs God or acknowledges Him, His sovereign work, His glory.

And on a thread about the Bible!


1,836 posted on 10/12/2013 7:30:56 PM PDT by aMorePerfectUnion (I grew up in America. I now live in the United States..)
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To: Elsie
I figger that since I'm more likely to be hit by lightning, when I feel the sizzle, THEN I'll buy a ticket!

regardless of the odds....you do need a ticket to win....the lottery is merely a way of paying taxes with a smile...I can afford to give the state of Indiana a dollar .....and hope to win something.

1,837 posted on 10/12/2013 7:38:46 PM PDT by terycarl
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To: Elsie
How about... non-TRADITIONAL Christian?

that's funny seeing that Catholics are THE traditional Christians....I thought you guys didn't believe in tradition!!

1,838 posted on 10/12/2013 7:42:16 PM PDT by terycarl
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To: Elsie
say that the ONLY reason that you have a modern Bible and know of our Savior, is thanks to the Catholic Church Oh?

check history from biblical times until the present.....for 2013 years, Christianity has been brought forward(saved in many instances) by the Catholic Church....for the past 400 years,or so, a protested version of Catholicism has attempted to revise reality but has come up way short.

1,839 posted on 10/12/2013 7:46:21 PM PDT by terycarl
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To: Elsie
Since the Catholic claim is that Mary was sinless; then SHE could have DIED FOR OUR SINS!

Mary wasn't God...she was just created sinless....like Eve, neither was able to atone for anything...only Christ, God, could fulfill the requirements

1,840 posted on 10/12/2013 7:50:19 PM PDT by terycarl
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