Posting it as if it were will lead someone to the wrong interpretation of that passage.
What Jesus said when He spoke those words, is: Matthew 18:15-18 “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.
For all the criticism non-Catholics receive about cherry picking verses and taking them out of context, there is simply no way anyone is going to one up this abuse of Scripture.
Taking a fragment of a sentence and posting it as a command of Jesus' is the ultimate in cherry picking verses to support a doctrine.
It will lead to deception.
This passage is only about settling personal disputes between individual believers, and the taking it to the church part is the LAST step in in process.
What it most certainly is NOT is a blanket command by Jesus to listen to, or submit to, the Catholic church.
The body of Christ, not the Catholic church, is the pillar and foundation of the truth. It is NOT the truth itself.
I realize that Catholics wish with their whole hearts that non-Christians would be followers of men, but it's just not so. Nobody is following Luther just because they believe that Scripture is the final authority and that it contains all we need to know pertaining to life and godliness.
Simply because two people come to the same conclusion based on the evidence, does not by default mean that one is a follower of the other. That's a misinterpretation of the evidence. No surprise coming froma Catholic.
That is all they know ...that is the method used in their catechism .. cherry picked ...out of context scripture..
Because they do not read the scriptures they have no clue of the context.. or how to read it
Your comment: “Nobody is following Luther just because they believe that Scripture is the final authority and that it contains all we need to know pertaining to life and godliness.”
So your personal interpretation is always correct and you need no guidance in understanding God’s word. Wow!
From: http://www.catholic.com/blog/tim-staples/the-protestant-achilles-heel
Sola Scriptura was the central doctrine and foundation for all I believed when I was Protestant. On a popular level, it simply meant, “If a teaching isn’t explicit in the Bible, then we don’t accept it as doctrine!” And it seemed so simple. Unassailable. And yet, I do not recall ever hearing a detailed teaching explicating it. It was always a given. Unchallenged. Diving deeper into its meaning, especially when I was challenged to defend my Protestant faith against Catholicism, I found there to be no book specifically on the topic and no uniform understanding of this teaching among Protestant pastors.
Your comment is a false statement: “I realize that Catholics wish with their whole hearts that non-Christians would be followers of men, but it’s just not so” So is this how you interpret the Bible?
The Catholic Church has a leader and speaks with authority as delegated by Jesus Christ and will be inspired by the Holy Spirit until the end.
And the other Churches have no leader who speaks with church authority about matters of faith and morals. Apparently, anyone can form a new church and collect vast sums of money.