What, I'm supposed to turn tail and run because of that? No, private confessions were introduced by Irish priests in the 500s, before that you had to spill your guts to the entire assembly. A jolly good development of discipline if you ask me.
This business of isolating verses and linking them across entire books to build a doctrine is ridiculous and I won't sully the Sacred Scriptures by playing that game with you.
And yet that is EXACTLY what Catholicism does in numerous instances.
It cherry picks a verse about retaining sins in complete contradiction of numerous passages that prove it wrong.
It claims we must eat the flesh and blood of Jesus to have life in us when the eating of blood of unequivocally forbidden throughout Scripture.
It builds a who theology about Mary based on a few verses that don't even have anything to do with her, like Genesis 3:15, the wedding at Cana and the passage in Revelation about Jesus proceeding from Israel.
No practicing Catholic has any standing whatsoever to lecture anyone about isolating verses and linking them across books to build doctrine.
However, there is no isolation of Scripture. These are just a few examples.
If you do a word study on believe you will see that in John alone he used the word 50+ times in relation to faith in Christ.
Which is more credible?
John as moved by the Holy Spirit noted Jesus saying you have to believe on more than one occasion to have eternal life or
Jesus speaking to a group of unbelieving Jews who refused to understand His message of belief...that He was the bread of life and that by believing in Him one would have eternal life.
It was the unbelieving Jews who raised the issue of how could Jesus give them His flesh and blood to eat and drink. Jesus understood their hardheadedness and told them something so improbable it could not happen. They had to physically eat and drink His flesh and blood.
If cathoicism wants to take this as a literal understanding then right then and there they should have killed Him and began to consume His flesh and blood.
That this was not what He meant was clearly understood by the disciples as evidenced in John 6:67-69 when Peter replied to His question....We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.
They knew it was about faith in Him. This message of faith is clearly in line with the rest of the NT. The catholic position of consuming the flesh and blood is the out liar.
Further the concept of the roman catholic Mass where the priest tells Jesus to come down from Heaven to be resacrificed again and again is in stark contradiction to Hebrews 10.
I think that lays to rest your assertion of isolated scriptures.
Now, let's look at the catholic position on Mary. Upon one verse in John 2:5, where Mary is not even mentioned by name, catholics have built a whole false theology that Mary somehow tells Jesus what to do and He does it.
Further compounding their error, they base the immaculate conception on one verse in Luke 1:28 on which the DR translation is based upon an admitted incorrect translation of the Vulgate. Further compounding error is the admitted position of the catholic encyclopedia online that there is "No direct or categorical and stringent proof of the dogma can be brought forward from Scripture. "http://www.catholic.org/encyclopedia/view.php?id=6056
Where catholics derive their false teachings on all of the abilities of Mary defies Scripture in every facet. It is cultish in nature.
We can keep playing this game, but the roman catholic position on the Mass and the IC are falsehoods built upon a poor exegesis of the Scripture.
That is/was for those that follow Catholicism, not those that follow Christianity and Jesus.
Jesus did away with the need to go to a priest when the veil in the temple was torn in two from the top down at his crucifixion.
Christians since that time have had the privilege of going to the Throne of Grace and personally confess their sins to God through Jesus. Hebrews 4:16
Hebrews 4:16
King James Version (KJV)Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.