Posted on 02/25/2014 9:45:51 AM PST by Alex Murphy
LAKEWOOD, TX - Joel Osteen Ministries announced this week it has finalized its purchase of the entire Catholic religion which includes all assets, facilities, employees, and intellectual property. The purchase was accomplished using revenues received from corporate sponsors, member donations, and Osteen's book sales.
Osteen announced the purchase to his followers at the Lakewood Church during his weekly nationally televised service saying, "Please join me in welcoming our Catholic brothers and sisters with open arms. A purchase of this magnitude takes tremendous resources so I ask you to help us fund this wonderful acquisition by calling the 800 number at the bottom of your screen and making a generous donation."
In a manner similar to other large industry consolidations, Osteen will immediately begin converting Catholicism to the faster growing non-denominational business model. Changes include the elimination of less profitable Catholic traditions such as communion, confession, the sacraments of marriage, confirmation, and the last rites. Classic holidays with large revenue potential such as Christmas and Easter will be re-branded but not substantially revised until a complete profitability analysis can be performed.
Executives of Osteen Ministries say the Bible will be gradually replaced with Osteen's best-selling book, Your Best Life Now, which is available online and at thousands of retail book outlets worldwide.
Until further evaluation an Osteen Ministries spokesperson said all Catholic employees including Bishops, Cardinals, Priests, and Nuns will gladly be retained by Osteen Ministries and trained for jobs at Osteen's expansive donation call center in Lakewood, Texas.
Most of the Catholic churches will continue to serve as donation collection points but will be equipped with cable broadcast equipment to help increase Osteen's market share of religious television viewers.
Osteen is also reviewing options for key assets like the Vatican which may be converted to a faith-based nostalgic amusement park called CatholicLand.
Question - Why would grace be opposed to human merit?
Question - How much "human merit" is enough? How much is too little?
***Illicit sex was the worst thing you could to at one church**
I’ll bet! Who wants to see people having sex at church!
Because our best works are filthy rags.
We need the merit of one who is sin free given to us.
Don’t feel bad, I can’t stand listening to Scott Hahn either...nor do I deal well with his popular writing..He’s smart and has some good insight, but I have a hard time getting around the condescending attitude masked in folksiness. Maybe if I read something that was actually academic, I might enjoy it.
And it only took the Holy Spirit 1200 years to get around to revealing that so-called "truth" to the church.
Nice to know I'm not the only one who saw it.
It's even more apparent in person.
There are quite a few FRoman Catholics who are enamored of Hahn and his work. I can only conclude that they like, and side with, arrogance.
"There's a thin line between ignorance and arrogance. I have managed to erase that line."
Dr. Science, of The "Ask Dr. Science" Official National Science Test
Indeed. You would think Hahn invented Roman Catholicism.
Oh he has a huge following in the real world too. I'm convinced they just like the used car salesmen approach to theology. Not that I need to be bashing Scott Hahn, he's smarter than me.
That's it! You've nailed the thing I haven't been able to put my finger on.
Joel isn’t one to harp on nasty issues like sin. Nevermind Christ came to save sinners. He came to “seek and save that which was lost”, not help men live their best life now.
When Joel bothers to deal with salvation, he, like most of modern Evangelicalism, makes men think it’s in their hands, that salvation is a matter of the human will, but that isn’t biblical. Decisional regeneration simply cannot be found in Scripture. Salvation is of grace, not decision. The Bible teaches that we are not saved by our own will, but of God.
“who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” (John 1:13)
“So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.” (Romans 9:16)
Neither human will nor human works or effort (”runneth”) are involved in salvation. Salvation is all of grace.
“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:8-10)
Thus you affirm as Truth what i reproved as error, while in reality it did not take long for errors to creep in, while some errors continued, along with Truth, from their conception, and the carnally minded who imagined the Lord was teaching physically eating Him infected others.
But as it is repentant faith in the gospel of grace that purifies the heart and gains spiritual and eternal life, thus pious souls can hold to such misconceptions and still be born again believers, and be part of the essential unity of believers of Christ in them, and they in Christ.
However, with the institutionalization of the church progressively accompanying the idea of Transubstantiation, including, unlike in Scripture, pastors being distinctively titled "priests," whose primary function was to dispense physical bread and wine, and with that being the focus of the church meeting, then increasingly souls placed faith in the power of ritual and the church, and their own merits.
And by sanctioning amorphous oral tradition as equal with Scripture, other errors of traditions of men were perpetuated and channeled into doctrine, and the resultant deviation and immorality finally necessitated a formal break. And yet the church began upon principled dissent.
And yet Jesus pointed out peoples sin to bring them to salvation.
Without sin what are people being saved from?
Indeed. As a wise old Baptist preacher used to say, “Show me a man who has never been lost and I’ll show you a man who has never been found.”
"He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him."
"For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed"
"And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body. And He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins."
So to Protestants, the bible is ALWAYS literal...Um, except when it isn't. The source you linked actually claims that Jesus was restricted and could not possibly be in two places at once! Somebody get God on the horn and tell Him He can't perform miracles.
No it didn't.
The Holy Spirit revealed it to the church from the very beginning.
The problem is the changes that crept in to the church over the centuries that needed correcting.
Anyone could find the truth out just by reading the Bible that the Catholic kept from the laity, and considering the false doctrine Catholicism teaches, it's no wonder they forbade the laity from owning copies of the Bible for so long.
At least until they COULDN'T control it any more.
"He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him."
So, to be consistent, together with Jn. 6:54,54, you must hold that those, like us, who die not believing in the "Real Presence," had no spiritual life in them and have not eternal life. Affirm or deny.
So to Protestants, the bible is ALWAYS literal...Um, except when it isn't.
"So Catholics, the bible is ALWAYS literal...Um, except when it isn't.," since in amazing inconsistency, while they absolutely insist that kosher Jews, unlike David, drank literal blood, placing Christ in two places at once while not yet glorified, they reject as literal that which David plainly stated was the blood of men when given him to drink, saying, "Be it far from me, O LORD, that I should do this: is not this the blood of the men that went in jeopardy of their lives? therefore he would not drink it." (2 Samuel 23:17) for it is not lawful to drink blood. (Lv. 17:10)
In like inconsistency, while they mock us for understanding consuming human flesh as figurative, they reject as literal eating numerous other places which speak of it, such as when the fearful Israelites exclaimed that the Promised Land was “a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof;” or when Joshua exhorted the Israelites, “Only rebel not ye against the LORD, neither fear ye the people of the land; for they are bread for us. ” (Num. 13:32; 14:9) And when David declared, "When the wicked, even mine enemies and my foes, came upon me to eat up my flesh, they stumbled and fell." (Psa 27:2)
And when Jeremiah proclaims, Your words were found. and I ate them. and your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart" (Jer. 15:16), or when Ezekiel is told, "eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel" (Ezek. 3:1), or (in a phrase most similar to the Lord's supper) John is commanded, "Take the scroll ... Take it and eat it." (Rev. 10:8-9)
Moreover, they are also inconsistent by rejecting other uses of figurative language in John, consistent with Jn. 6, as being literal,
• In John 1:29, Jesus is called “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” — but he does not have hoofs and literal physical wool.
• In John 2:19 Jesus is the temple of God: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” — but He is not made of literal stone.
• In John 3:14,15, Jesus is the likened to the serpent in the wilderness (Num. 21) who must “be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal” (vs. 14, 15) — but He is not made of literal bronze.
• In John 4:14, Jesus provides living water, that “whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life” (v. 14) — but which was not literally consumed by mouth.
• In John 7:37 Jesus is the One who promises “He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water” — but this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive. (John 7:38)
• In Jn. 9:5 Jesus is “the Light of the world” — but who is not blocked by an umbrella.
• In John 10, Jesus is “the door of the sheep,”, and the good shepherd [who] giveth his life for the sheep”, “that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly” vs. 7, 10, 11) — but who again, is not literally an animal with cloven hoofs.
• In John 15, Jesus is the true vine — but who does not physically grow from the ground nor whose fruit is literally physically consumed.
Of course, those who understand the abundant use of figurative in Scripture, and context, realize that kosher Jews would not simply assent to eating human flesh, and what really is a form of cannibalism*, but they would understand as figurative just as David referred to water as blood, and men as bread. But what is consistent with figurative language is gaining spiritual life and eternal life by believing the gospel is, the words of God being spirit, and life. (Jn. 6:63)
Thus nowhere did souls gain spiritual life by physically eating, but by believing the word of God. And stated in explaining Jn. 6: "As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me," (John 6:57) the Lord stated that "It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God," (Matthew 4:4) and thus "Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work." (John 4:34)
Therefore believers live by Christ by keeping His word, the Scriptures being the assured word of God, and which includes keeping the Lord's supper, in which the church shows His death by manner in which they keep the communal meal, signifying unity with Him and each other. Which is what 1Cor. 11:19ff is about, not focuses on the elements.
* Endocannibalism is most often an expression of veneration of the dead, or the pursuit of consuming some esoteric aspect of the person, like the deceased's wisdom.
The Fore peoples of Papua New Guinea had a strongly codified type of endocannibalism as part of funerary rites. In this tribe, women and children played the largest role in cannibalism among deceased Fore males. - http://people.howstuffworks.com/cannibalism2.htm
Alpers and Lindenbaum's research conclusively demonstrated that kuru [neurological disorder] spread easily and rapidly in the Fore people due to their endocannibalistic funeral practices, in which relatives consumed the bodies of the deceased to return the "life force" of the deceased to the hamlet, a Fore societal subunit. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuru_%28disease%29#Transmission
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