OK, since you want to split hairs over word usage, My intent and meaning was "the Bible in my possession", i.e. the one I am holding in my hand, NOT my own personal translation or compilation. Does that make it clear?
And believe it or not, good Catholics pray to God--that's Fahter, Son and Holy Spirit-- morning and night with no priest in attendence
I know that many do. Some don't. I'm glad for the ones that do. I hope it's more than just repetitious "Our Fathers" and "Hail Marys", as they don't really qualify as true prayer, IMHO. Prayer is conversation with God.
Nothing in scripture tells us that the faithful departed are indifferent to our needs just because we cannot see them anymore.
I can find nothing is scripture that tells us that they are concerned with them, either, as they are no longer in this world. I can find nothing in scripture to indicate that we should pray to them, asking them to pray for us, either.
Translated: The Bible, as interpreted by men who have rejected the authority of the Church hiearchy, is the sole rule of faith and nothing not explicitly stated in the Bible is the word of God. The problem I see is that nothing in the New Testament explicitly says this.
The Bible is God's revealed Word, and complete in all matters of faith and Godliness. The convoluted Catholic Church heirarchy is not found in the Bible, nor is its practice of priests and bishops standing between the people and God. Jesus is our High Priest, who ministers before the Throne of God, and it is He who has bought our passage into the Holy of Holies with His own Blood, that we may stand before God's Throne and petition God directly for those things we desire of Him. It is He who we are to confess our sins to, it is He who we are to draw near to in fellowship and worship. I repeat, there is one mediator between God and man, the Man, Jesus Christ. We are all Christ's representatives here on earth. The division of the church into clergy and laity is an artificial division, created by men to maintain and exert control over the masses. The ground is level at the foot of the cross, there everyone is equal.
I'm glad you're not God. Where does Scripture say all repetitious prayer is bad?
I repeat, there is one mediator between God and man, the Man, Jesus Christ.
Uh oh. What do you mean by "the Man, Jesus Christ"?
SD
I can find nothing is scripture that tells us that they are concerned with them, either, as they are no longer in this world. I can find nothing in scripture to indicate that we should pray to them, asking them to pray for us, either.
I agree that there is nothing in scripture that makes me think we should pray to anyone dead. But in Rev. 21:4 it says "God will wipe away all tears from their eyes." Why would we cry in heaven. I THINK, this is just my thoughts no scripture back up, the only reason anyone would cry in heaven is because they realize some of their loved ones are not there, or because they have been shown at the Bemus Seat judgement all the opportunities they had to witness to people and didn't and now those people are lost. But thank God it seems (I think) that God will eventually take those memories away, because heaven wouldn't be heaven with that kind of sadness for people.
Becky
Priests and Bishops don't stand between the People and God. Acts 6:6; 14:22; 1 Tim 4:14; 2 Tim 1:6. All Catholic doctrines can be found in some fashion in the Bible, in kernel form, or by inference.
To which you said in answer: The Bible is God's revealed Word, and complete in all matters of faith and Godliness.
The Bible is "complete" in that it consists of a closed canon to which nothing has been added since the 4th Century. Would those who closed the canon have included any works as Scripture which they though inconsisent with the doctrine they taught or the liturgy they employed? Yet this was substantially what is now taught by the Catholic and the Orthodox churches, doctrines which Protestants reject.
The convoluted Catholic Church hierarchy is not found in the Bible, nor is its practice of priests and bishops standing between the people and God. Jesus is our High Priest, who ministers before the Throne of God, and it is He who has bought our passage into the Holy of Holies with His own Blood, that we may stand before God's Throne and petition God directly for those things we desire of Him. It is He who we are to confess our sins to, it is He who we are to draw near to in fellowship and worship. I repeat, there is one mediator between God and man, the Man, Jesus Christ. We are all Christ's representatives here on earth. The division of the church into clergy and laity is an artificial division, created by men to maintain and exert control over the masses. The ground is level at the foot of the cross, there everyone is equal.
You, like Luther, BEGIN with the rejection of the authority of the hierarchy and THEN turn to the Scripture to justify what was for him and all ex-Catholics an act of rebellion and for Protestants in general a basic principle. Protestantism is what remains of Christianity without a priesthood, and I think it it as the artifice of men attenpting to begin from scratch and rebuild the church from what they can find in Scripture.Having rejected hierarchy, of course they see none there.
If I may pretend to read the New Testament naively--which is something I think impossible--still I see a hierarchy. Peter is the obvious leader of the Twelve and chief spokesman. Paul "fathers" churches and leaves behind "bishops" like Timothy to minister to their needs after the Apsotle has passed on. aAccording to Acts, Paul himself went to Peter and to the Church--- to "ground himself" in the Truth, so that after failing as a missionary, he now begins his success story. No, the Peter of Acts was no "pope," No "prelate of Rome" but now only the outstanding personality in the Church. "Running the Church" was not his job. Peter "founds" the church of Rome not by ecclesiastical edict but by becoming a martyr in Rome, a city favored also by the martyrdom of Paul. From this seed grew the institution of the papacy. Those obscessed with primitiveness will no more see John Paul II in Peter than the sophisticate will see the man in the fetus, but I have no difficulty with this"convoluted" mustard tree.