Posted on 12/14/2014 11:57:21 AM PST by ealgeone
The reason for this article is to determine if the worship/veneration given to Mary by the catholic church is justified from a Biblical perspective. This will be evaluated using the Biblical standard and not man’s standard.
That is the larger context of 1 Cor. 11, but in the passage in focus St. Paul speaks of "eating" and "drinking" next to "discerning the body" and is repeating the words of Christ "this is my body". So the "body" in that passage is no longer the Christian assembly but precisely the Eucharist being eaten.
Sola Fide is a false doctrine and James makes that point. Of course James does not contradict other scriptures. People misunderstand other scriptures, just as the Apostle Peter said they do. For example, you posted a verse but neglected the precedent that Paul discussed, ie., that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law of Moses.
Following Gentile rebels as self proclaimed apostles or prophets, who created their theology outside the holy catholic apostolic church some five centuries ago is foolish. The LORD Jesus Christ appointed the Jewish Apostles with all authority to teach us doctrine, to bind and loose, to forgive sins. He built a church on Peter, the other Jewish apostles and the Jewish prophets with Himself as the chief cornerstone. The folly that some fifteen centuries later there are Gentiles setting up their own religious movements on their own authority, which continues to this day, testifies against them and their theological doctrines. The have no valid authority.
Boy is Jesus going to be surprised to hear this one.
Mat 16:18 κἀγὼ δέ σοι λέγω ὅτι σὺ εἶ Πέτρος, καὶ ἐπὶ ταύτῃ τῇ πέτρᾳ οἰκοδομήσω μου τὴν ἐκκλησίαν, καὶ πύλαι ἅδου οὐ κατισχύσουσιν αὐτῆς.
Mat 16:18 And I also say unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.
My little children, these things I write to you, that you may not sin (1 John 2:1)Mary is not among the "we".
even there were brought from his body to the sick, handkerchiefs and aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and the wicked spirits went out of them. (Acts 19:12)
Merry Christmas!
It is not wrong. To use "favor" instead of "grace" is Protestant obfuscation intended to trivialize the passage. In Pauline writings, for example, you would not translate "χαρις" or its derivatives anything but "grace". But in this episode all of a sudden, the Protestant translations drop to "favor". That is typical Protestant mariophobic sleaze.
It is like asking a husband "how do you know when you loved your wife enough?"
These are works of love. You do them because you love God and God loves you, whenever you can.
The immediate section of I corinthians 11 are the Apostle's words Correcting Abuse of the Lord’s Supper
17 In the following directives I have no praise for you, for your meetings do more harm than good. 18 In the first place, I hear that when you come together as a church, there are divisions among you, and to some extent I believe it. 19 No doubt there have to be differences among you to show which of you have God’s approval. 20 So then, when you come together, it is not the Lord’s Supper you eat, 21 for when you are eating, some of you go ahead with your own private suppers. As a result, one person remains hungry and another gets drunk. 22 Don’t you have homes to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God by humiliating those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you? Certainly not in this matter!
23 For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” 25 In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 26 For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.27 So then, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. 28 Everyone ought to examine themselves before they eat of the bread and drink from the cup. 29 For those who eat and drink without discerning the body of Christ eat and drink judgment on themselves. 30 That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep. 31 But if we were more discerning with regard to ourselves, we would not come under such judgment. 32 Nevertheless, when we are judged in this way by the Lord, we are being disciplined so that we will not be finally condemned with the world.
33 So then, my brothers and sisters, when you gather to eat, you should all eat together. 34 Anyone who is hungry should eat something at home, so that when you meet together it may not result in judgment.
And when I come I will give further directions.
The context is the context. Paul is writing about relationships with fellow believers and how to approach the Lord's Supper. There are relationship considerations for every believer, for the failure to consider other believers in the context of the Lord's Supper is condemned by Paul. After identifying and condemning these practices, Paul reiterates what He received directly from the Lord - including a command to discern the Body. He then goes right back to abuses against other believers. Eating worthily involves a self-examination. In this context, a self-examination of treating every member of the Body of Christ with honor.
“Veneration of relics, of all things, is entirely biblical.
even there were brought from his body to the sick, handkerchiefs and aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and the wicked spirits went out of them. (Acts 19:12)”
The desire and practice was a desire to be healed because of contact with the items. They did not pray to them, kiss them, worship them, venerate them. Never recorded.
“does” should read “does not”
False; do you affirm or deny that the LORD Jesus Christ commanded his Jewish Apostles to teach all nations and baptize them with water in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit ? Yes or no ?
No i do not, as contrary to the "little pope" RC strawman, I do not claim assured infallibility, but instead my claim to veracity of any teachings must rest upon the weight of Scriptural substantiation, upon which the church began, and contrary to Rome.
And thus you not only have rested upon a fallacious foundation for your claims, but have struck out trying to equate me with dong do.
The LORD Jesus Christ promised us a church against which the gates of hell would not prevail. He did not promise us a Bible, although we have a Bible that the visible holy catholic church compiled and preserved across twenty centuries.
Another fallacious argument, as the very church He promised had its doctrinal foundation in Scripture, the warrant of which Christ invoked and manifested to support His Truth claims. And His Spirit inspired men to write more wholly inspired words which were added to the existing body.
And thus it is Scripture that is the supreme standard for obedience and testing and establishing truth claims as the wholly Divinely inspired and assured, Word of God, which cannot be said even of RC "infallible" teachings of tradition.
Will you name an alternative church to the Catholic Church ?
Certainly, from the church of the Thessalonians to the Ephesians, to the Corinthians, etc. Even the church of the Laodiceans was called a church of God.
Absolutely none of these manifestly looked to an exalted supreme head in Rome claiming to be the first of a line of (conditionally) assuredly infallible popes, and even if such included men who were morally closer to Judas than Peter, and who employed carnal force to obtain their seat, and by voting.
Or who prayed to angels and departed saints, or ordained (normatively celibate) men distinctively given the same title as Jewish priests;
whose primary function was to offer human flesh and blood as an expiation for sins and dispensed to the members in order to obtain spiritual life thereby.
Or which sanctioned very liberal views on Scripture.
Nor who preached justification and entrance into Heaven by actually becoming good enough.
Or who treated even public prosodomite immoral mean as members in life and in death, conveying that what ultimately really matters is to die as a RC, fostering faith in herself, and thus her members are liberal as a majority.
Etc .
Thus the "church" of Rome is basically invisible in Scripture. But I can point you to churches (from Calvary chapels to Reformed to conservative Baptists to some holiness Pentecostals) that hold Scripture as the supreme standard as the wholly inspired assured and accurate word of God, preach salvation by grace thru purifying faith which is counted for righteousness, and is confessed in baptism by immersion, and who take part in the Lord's supper, and ordain (normatively married) men as pastors, and whose fruit is far more conservative than the overall fruit of Rome.
It is you who do not have a real church to go to as long as you remain a Cath!
Do you set up yourself as an authority as does the Catholic Church, but without a published provenance that the Catholics proffer ?
Oh no, see strawman #1 at top. But if you mean whether i may correctly discern what is of God in the light of Scripture, based upon the weight of evidence, and make my case on the basis, and that the magisterium while authoritative, can err, then yes, i do claim that, but not as one possessing assure infallibility. If you hold than an infallible magisterium is essential to know what writings and men are of God, then you will have to make your case. Which is usually interesting.
I assume you are not among some secret Pentecostal society that denies the commandment water baptism. It is not enough to deny the Catholic claim. Wherefore my judgment is one must offer an actual alternative.
At least you keep vainly trying.
Rest assured i certainly affirm baptism, and I was baptized in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit in a fundamental Baptist church about 6 years after prayerfully leaving Rome, and have been part of about 1,000 services and meetings in Baptist (Ind. and SB) churches alone over the years, including so think i must believe in baptism - even somewhat stronger than most of them do.
And for the record (and before you ask again) before this you widely asserted that as i reject paedobaptism then it seem that i hold all the Protestants are in error, and then that most Christians belong to denominations that practise infant baptism, and were once again shown to be in error.
But again, your preoccupation with particular churches presumes that i and other evangelicals are promoting a church, or that the one true church is one particular denomination, which is false. Only the body of Christ is 100% constituted by believers, while its varied (and they were in Scripture) visible churches have never been made up of 100% believers for long, nor did they realize comprehensive unity, or could presume to maintain complete freedom from any error.
But God always preserved faith, but not by a perpetual infallible magisterium, though magisterial authority has its place, but God often raised men from without the magisterium to correct it, and or add revelation, and preserver it. And thus the church began and thus has faith been often preserved.
Thus you admit you could be wrong, about your interpretations, about your teaching, about your view of Catholics.
This is progress. You left out Independent Fundamentalist Baptists but I assume you include them. Do you include Pentecostal groups that believe the LORD Jesus Christ did not command the Jewish Apostles to teach all nations and baptize them with water in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit ?
Magisterial authority in Scripture does include the power of binding and loosing, but only what is bound on earth in accordance with Scripture is bound in Heaven, and which excludes defining oneself as being an infallible and effectively autocratic organization.
For OT authority could bind and loose men, even unto death, (Dt. 17:8-13; Ps. 105:22) and even those who resist the just use of valid civil authorities are resisting God. (Rm. 13:1-7)
And even fathers and husbands are given binding and loosing power.
If a woman also vow a vow unto the LORD, and bind herself by a bond, being in her father's house in her youth; And her father hear her vow, and her bond wherewith she hath bound her soul, and her father shall hold his peace at her: then all her vows shall stand, and every bond wherewith she hath bound her soul shall stand. But if her father disallow her in the day that he heareth; not any of her vows, or of her bonds wherewith she hath bound her soul, shall stand: and the LORD shall forgive her, because her father disallowed her. And if she had at all an husband, when she vowed, or uttered ought out of her lips, wherewith she bound her soul; And her husband heard it, and held his peace at her in the day that he heard it: then her vows shall stand, and her bonds wherewith she bound her soul shall stand. (Num 30:3-7)
But the promise to apostles that "Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven," (Matthew 18:18) like that of "if ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it," (John 14:14) is conditional upon being in accordance with the word of God.
And as we see the NT doing in their Scriptural judgment of Act 15, in contrast to the Assumption of Mary, which lacks even early testimony from tradition (and her crowning before Christ returns is contrary to Scripture) but which Rome "remembered" and made a binding belief.
IIRC, I wrote "Most Christians belong to denominations that practise infant baptism" from a link. You countered that a majority of what you term American Protestants do not now practice infant baptism. Both points can be true, but yours only if you relegate Baptists as Protestants. Surely you did not hold that view whilst a member of an Independent Fundamental Baptist church. Historical Protestants believed in infant baptism and supported the execution of AnaBaptists believed in believer's baptism.
I suppose the tie that binds the alliance is to be antiCatholic.
KJV Greek interlinear Spiros Zodhiates gives equal wright to the word Church. He is an native speaking Greek protestant with a Th.D.
“KJV Greek interlinear Spiros Zodhiates gives equal wright to the word Church. He is an native speaking Greek protestant with a Th.D.”
Despite his credential from Luther Rice Seminary (which they apparently don’t offer any more, and his wonderful lifetime ministry, he is wrong on that, since there was not a word for “church” until hundreds of years later. It is commonly translated into english as “church”, since our thought process is that “Christians have churches.” He has passed on to glory and I imagine the words, “Well done! Good and faithful servant.”
Being a native speaker sure means learning Koine Greek was easier than starting out with no Greek, but it gives no inherent advantage in creating your own lexicon - of which there are many excellent ones in existence that are exceedingly thorough. It may be a disadvantage to start with modern Greek and try to separate out Koine Greek from 2,000 years ago. Word usage was different.
[I envy his head start on leaning Greek. I did it the hard way - from scratch and with great pain and suffering, notecards and many hours of WORK. Recitation in Greek class was the most tension-filled class I had. The professor could and would call on anyone at random to stand and translate without a heads up! You could feel the tension in the air every day. I don’t miss those days at all. I did make lifelong friends in that class - and of course, it forced me to work like a mad dawg to always be prepared. We were all under pressure and bonded in that foxhole. Ironically too, my Greek professor became a life-long friend. He stays with us whenever he visits our area. All told many blessing.]
Best.
88.66 χαριτόω; χάριςa, ιτος f: to show kindness to someone, with the implication of graciousness on the part of the one showing such kindness—‘to show kindness, to manifest graciousness toward, kindness, graciousness, grace.’So a good alternative that doesn't buy into the abuses heaped on "grace" by Rome, but which nonetheless is not the cold steel of mere "favor," is the term "kindness," which, as Louw-Nida indicates, reflects more on the disposition of the grantor than the benfactor. Grace should always point us to the goodness of God, not ourselves. "Kindness" catches that extra bit of Pauline flavoring, that this favor is not deserved. Certainly in Protestant modes of thought this is the emphasis, and "favor" by itself does not fully capture that aspect of the term.
χαριτόω: κεχαριτωμένη, ὁ κύριος μετὰ σοῦ ‘the Lord is with you, you to whom (the Lord) has shown kindness’ Lk 1:28; ἧς ἐχαρίτωσεν ἡμᾶς ἐν τῷ ἠγαπημένῳ ‘which he has graciously shown us in the one he loves’ Eph 1:6.χάριςa: ἐξῆλθεν παραδοθεὶς τῇ χάριτι τοῦ κυρίου ὑπὸ τῶν ἀδελφῶν ‘he left, being commended by the brothers to the kindness of the Lord’ Ac 15:40.
James 3:17-18 But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. (18) And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace.Peace,
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