Posted on 03/30/2019 8:12:59 AM PDT by Salvation
Question: I had reason to hope my niece was going to convert to the Catholic faith. But there were so many obstacles the Church set up that discouraged her. She was asked to go to classes, and they told her that her marriage was not valid and she would need an annulment. Further, it was necessary to wait until Easter, etc. The nearby evangelical church set up no such obstacles, and she was able to join at once and be considered a member. I hear so much talk of evangelization today, but I share my niece’s frustration. Can we not streamline this process?
— Name withheld
Answer: There is a kind of appealing simplicity that you describe in many Protestant denominations. But there are problems with the approach that should give us pause. Ultimately evangelization is more about conversion than mere membership. We are summoned to embrace the saving teaching of the Lord and to walk according to it.
Because adults make informed decisions, the Church considers it important to teach them the fundamentals of the Faith so that they can know what it is they are agreeing to when they enter the Church. Although some of the Scriptures portray an almost instant, on-the-spot baptism, the consensus in the early Church shifted to a lengthy, three-year period of instruction (called the catechumenate) prior to baptism. This likely was because of the insight that quick conversions often led to quick departures or a falling away when the true demands of discipleship became known.
Instructions are most insisted upon for those who are unbaptized. In the case of those who are baptized and come from different Protestant denominations, the length and content of instructions will depend on their background. It is up to the discretion of the pastor who discerns with each individual what is needed. It is certainly not required for those already baptized to “wait until next Easter.”
The concerns about a person’s marital status are rooted in the very words and teachings of Jesus himself. He teaches without ambiguity that for a person to marry, then divorce and enter another marriage, puts them in an ongoing state of adultery in the “new” marriage (cf. Mt 5:32; Mt 19:1-9; Mk 10:11-12; Lk 16:18, etc). He adds rather firmly, “What God has joined together, let no one divide” (Mt 19:9).
It will be further noted that when the Lord was evangelizing the woman at the well, he brought her to a moment of conversion, and she asked for the gift of faith. But the Lord Jesus saw fit to first raise with her the fact that she had been married five times and was now living with a man outside of marriage. Her conversion would not be complete or adequate until she was willing to live chastely. Then the graces could flow.
For reasons of their own, many Protestant denominations have decided to practically overlook such passages. But the Catholic Church takes the Lord’s teaching on these matters rather seriously, as he clearly intended that we should. In some cases, after an investigation based on evidence, the Church may use its power to bind and loose, to indicate that the previous marriage was not “what God has joined,” and it recognizes the first marriage as null. A person’s current marriage then can be blessed and recognized. But we simply cannot set the Lord’s words aside as if they were of little importance.
Thus some conversions to the Catholic faith will take some time to be faithful to the teachings of the Lord and the nature of true conversion. It is worth the diligence required.
For one instance, I used the entity Samaria, as the Bible does, as a metaphor (the part for the whole) of the then tribes assembled as a kingdom (also denominated in the Bible as Ephraim by the literary device), which even your description shows that my use of it was correct, and your plain-literal use of it in the context is wrong.
For a second instance, regarding the entire human race, there are two resurrections, the first for the believers that Christ counts as His possession when they join Him in the clouds, having died but once; and another resurrection a thousand years later of the many who were not saved by faith in Christ before, during, or after the Church Age, the Age of Grace. People in this later resurrection will be judged and will die a second time to experience eternal death in the Lake of Fire.
Your explanation ignores yet once more these issues, and thus is wrong when compared with the portions of the Bible that deal with them.
To cover them all and show your error would take more time than I would allot you, so this is the end of your time with me.
Go ahead, make your mark so you can claim having the last word; but it won't be, for Jehovah Elohim of whom Jesus is a Human Person, He will have the absolute last and deciding word.
Thanks for your opinions! Very enlightening about you and where you are on your journey.
"We all know this: it's better to live courageously then cowardly,
Everyone knows that,
that's what you teach people that you love and...
we know that it's better to live truthfully than in deceit"
Once you finally accept it,
it's impossible to take your eyes off the Truth
7
Romans 10:8-10 But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, [even] in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach; That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. (KJV)Romans 10:8-10 10:8 But what doth it say? `Nigh thee is the saying -- in thy mouth, and in thy heart:` that is, the saying of the faith, that we preach; that if thou mayest confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and mayest believe in thy heart that God did raise him out of the dead, thou shalt be saved, for with the heart doth believe to righteousness, and with the mouth is confession made to salvation; (Young’s Literal Translation)
The words faith, believe, and believeth all derive from the Greek word ‘pisteuo’. In the Greek the verbs give rise to the nouns, so ‘pisteuo’ --to faithe-- gives rise to ‘pistis’, the noun --faith. Important to the understanding of the use of ‘pistis’ is that it is at its heart an action word which, in the way written in the passage, is an ongoing action, an immediate application with continuous force, an unending application --not continuous if referred back to, but a thing instituted by God not man, then remaining in effect WHILE the ‘faither’ lives the remainder of life ‘faithing’. Faith is action based upon belief sustained by the confidence that what God promises He will do. That is why we read repeatedly that Abraham ‘believed’ God and it was counted for him righteousness. … The words confess and confession (’homologeo‘) are derived from ‘homos’ which is Greek for ‘at the same place or time’; adding ‘logeo‘ we have ‘at the same time or place spoken‘. … The word salvation (soteria=deliverance) is derived from the Greek word ‘soter’, meaning ‘a deliverer’.
You're right, I wasn't there (and neither were you, imardmd1). Most serious Biblical scholars believe Jesus spoke Aramaic, not Greek, but they might all be wrong, and you might be right (but I really don't think so -- I believe you are just as wrong about that, as you are about all the other "eccentric" and "peculiar" opinions you and your misguided ilk put forward).
Let's take a genuinely honest look at all this, shall we? First, of all, would you agree completely, 100% with me that you don't "know it all", and that you don't even come close to knowing it all, imardmd1? Would you also agree with me that there is not one single physical page of the original New Testament writings known to still physically exist anywhere in the world today? And would you agree with me, that there are ONLY many manuscript copies, and fragments of manuscript copies of the "New Testament" writings (from much later than the initial apostolic era), known to physically exist in the world today, and that many of those hand-copied manuscripts have differing, sometimes contradictory Greek wording in them? And would you further agree with me that all respectable, serious Bible scholars and translators, will freely admit that NO PERSON ALIVE TODAY can know for certain that the absolute best-guess interpretative translation that they put on any Biblical Greek word or sentence they read, written almost 2,000 years ago, is exactly what the original authors really meant by their writings?
If you can't agree with me on all those 100% truthful facts, you are simply wrong, imardmd1, and this conversation is ended.
If you agree with those truthful facts, then let's continue here. In all the major, widely-accepted English translations of the Bible that most Protestants use, including the English Standard Version (ESV), the King James Version (KJV), the New American Standard Bible (NASB), the New Internation Version (NIV), the New King James Version (NKJV), the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), the Revised Standard Version (RSV), and the Young's Literal Translation (YLT), as well as in these online interlinear Greek/English versions, that Greek word "μισει̃" (misei) in Luke 14:26 is always translated "hate", "hates", or "hating", as clearly and honestly shown in this table.
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(ESV) LINK HERE |
"If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple." |
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(KJV) LINK HERE |
"If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple." |
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(NASB) LINK HERE |
"If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple." |
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(NIV) LINK HERE |
"If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple." |
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(NKJV) LINK HERE |
"If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple." |
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(NRSV) LINK HERE |
"Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple." |
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(RSV) LINK HERE |
"If any one comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple." |
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(YLT) LINK HERE |
"If any one doth come unto me, and doth not hate his own father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brothers, and sisters, and yet even his own life, he is not able to be my disciple." |
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(LINK HERE) |
"If anyone comes to Me and not hates the father of himself and the mother and the wife and the children and the brothers and the sisters yes and even the life of him not he is able to be of me disciple." |
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(LINK HERE) (Uses Textus Receptus - The Basis of KJV) |
"If any is coming toward Me and not is hating the father of self and the mother and the woman and the offsprings and the brothers and the sisters still yet and the of self soul not he is able of Me disciple to be." |
First, I think we would both agree that the vast majority of Christians (Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants, including most Baptists, Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Pentecostals, Assembly of God members, Church of Christ, etc., etc., etc.) do NOT try to learn Hebrew and Greek, or think that it is important for them to learn Hebrew and Greek, to try to find the "errors", "hidden meanings", or "word mis-translations", in order to study the Scriptures properly (as the Apostle Paul exhorts them to do in 2 Timothy 2:15). Most Christians (including the vast majority of Protestants), never try to learn Greek or Hebrew, nor do they feel that that is, in any way. necessary, in order to know what the Scriptures really say.
It is really just a tiny, minute handful of, shall we say, "eccentric" Christians, who take it upon themselves to try to learn Hebrew and Greek, in order to find out what the Bible really says, and often try to portray themselves as possessing superior, "special" knowledge, as compared to the vast majority of all other Christians, in all denominations. So let's set up a totally fake person -- we'll call him "Brother Greeker", a "Bible Scholar" from the totally fake denomination called the "Greek-Re-Translating, Snake Handling, Holy Roller Church".
Now, this "Brother Greeker" comes along (in our fictitious story), and says, "The Greek word translated 'hate' in Luke 14:26, really meant 'loves less', not "hate", in the Biblical Greek spoken and written 2,000 year ago. I, Brother Greeker, studied Greek, and I, with my vastly superior knowledge to all these other previous translators, know this to be an authoritative fact." Let's take a closer look at that silly claim of his.
First of all, that same exact Greek word, in that exact same form "μισει̃" (misei) is used a total of seven times in the New Testament, (in Luke 14:26, John 3:20, John 7:7, John 15:18, John 15:19, John 15:23, 1 John 3:13). In every single one of those Bible texts, in all the major, accepted English translations, that Greek word is translated as "hate", "hates", or "hateth".
Now, for Brother Greeker's assertion about the "real" translation of that Greek word to be true, he had to come along in 2019 (or, at least some time in the last 50 years, when this kind of Greek-re-translating fad first came along, as practiced by a very small group of re-translating kooks), and claim all the following.
Of course, most Christians (Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox) wisely believe those claims Brother Greeker makes are all a large crock of stinking, dirty doo-doo. For Brother Greeker to come along now, in 2019, and say that he knows for certain that all those earlier respected scholars and translators are wrong in their consensus about this Bible text, and so many other Bible texts as well, while HE (Brother Greeker) is right about them, takes a huge amount of unmitigated gaul! And for Brother Greek to assert that the Holy Spirit didn't properly guide any of those earlier English Bible translators and their translations, but waited until Brother Greeker (and his ilk) came along, in order to guide Brother Greeker (and his ilk) to point out all those many Greek translation errors, in every single major English translation of the Bible used by Protestants, and make all the corrections to all those Greek translations, requires enormous chutzpah, and, in reality, is sheer, insane nonsense. It takes more haughty arrogance than Obama, AOC, and Schiff combined, for Brother Greeker to try to foist that ridiculous whopper off on people!
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 "Queen James Version" of Bible (Homosexual Re-Translation of the Bible) |
You have defined "hate" neither in the English language nor in the Koine Greek of the time of Jesus. Nor have you defined "love" (the noun) as at least the AV translators tried to do in 1 Cor. 13, as "charity." In 2 Peter 1:7 the Scripture beyond the shadow of a doubt distinguishes that philadelphia (adelphos + philia), brotherlike friendship, is not the same lexically as agape, charity. There is a distinct difference, to be found in other contexts.
The verb agapao, which is the carrying out of the state of mind and heart particularly defined in a unique way for disciples of Jesus the Christ is found in John 13:34 and 15:77 as an imperative, where the way Jesus loved them as defined in John 15:13 is that He sovereignly preferred any one of them above Himself or any other human(s). That is, though He died for all humans in their place, I believe it was not corporately, but individually, on a one by one basis.
What He commanded to His disciples, and hence to anyone who would be His disciple, was that any one of them should personally and willingly choose to carry out the attitude of agape (noun) in the process of agapao (verb) in the same fashion as He was about to do for each of His disciples before the day had passed; that is, to the point of death from absorbing the punishment due any one of them.
That the verb agapao and the noun agape are identical in meaning is confirmed by the appearance of the noun in John 13:35.
Hence, the true definition of agape love particular to regenerated disciples is this: "A sovereign preference of one above self and others" as set forth in the English language. This word has no other meaning as applied to the Christian culture. This is not up for debate or negotiation, not according to me, but according to the definition and meaning in context of the pronouncement by Jesus, and emphatically imperative.
The obvious corollary is that salvation is the gift conferred by The Father upon the human who completely and irrevocably sovereignly commits his/her will trustingly to Jesus for His direction and guidance by the Holy Spirit, and particularly by choosing to behave according to the express desire (boulema) of the Godhead as unambiguously set forth in the Written Word of God.
Regarding "hate" in the context of Amos 5:15 (OT use) or Luke 14:26 (NT), it is clear that the definitionand meaning for it is to just put a negative operator on the definition above of agape, and you will have it. Nothing more, nothing less, and nothing else. These definitions are quite unambiguous in the English interpretation of miseo and agapao as used in the Bible. I do not know what your problem with this is, but you will have to sort that out between yourself and the Sovereign Definer. I'm clear in it and of it.
The rest of your sniping is just trash, and you can find out why by checking out Will Kinney's discussion on Bible-deniers (click here). (Though I won't go quite as far as Kinney does in claiming the AV/KJV to be inspired. By definition, it cannot be.)
JESUS ANSWERED: 28 Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” 29 Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”
And then you posted: "•Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling." See the above words of Jesus.
You remain clueless because the natural man cannot know the spiritual meanings. Your will remains turned to your striving for salvation. You conflate passages addressed to gentiles with passages given for Jewish understanding regarding the Kingdom. You do not understand the Kingdom or the dispensation of Grace. Your chosen religion, catholiciism does not want you discerning because they dictate to you what you must believe to remain in THEIR good standing. You need The Gospel of Grace, to be born from above in the here and now:
2 Corinthians 4:3 And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing.
If you want to cut to the meat, it begins at 21:15 minutes in the video.
One is saved by believing in the promises delivered in the death and resurrection of Jesus. You know, as Jesus himself said. You know, the guy that you claim to worship?
Scripture states very clearly that we’re not saved by works. Even if you mangle Scripture by claiming that ‘works of the Law’ is nothing more than temple sacrifices and dietary laws, St. Paul VERY clearly states that ANY works don’t save.
You’re very good at throwing verses around. You’re NOT very good at addressing the verses that contradict Roman Catholic dogma.
For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so through Jesus God will bring those who have died with him.For we declare to you what the Lord has told us to say: We who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who have died.
With a shout of command, with the archangel’s call, and with the sound of God’s trumpet, the Lord himself will come down from heaven, and the dead who belong to the Messiah will rise first.
Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.
1 Thess 4:13-17
well, you clearly did not want me to read your post, since you know from several past episodes that my old eyes cannot read that mass of red print. Have nice day
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