Posted on 01/26/2018 1:04:07 PM PST by GoldenState_Rose
We are in a time of the first ever mass conversions of Muslims,” Father Mitch Pacwa SJ told me in a phone interview. “God is doing a mighty work among them.”
Pacwa said that mass conversions are happening even in very fundamentalist countries. There is rapidly growing number of conversions especially on the edges of the Muslim world in the western and southern parts of Africa, he said. “Africa is now growing predominantly Christian despite crackdowns,” Pacwa said.
Some of the noteworthy countries he mentioned include Iran, reported to have 3 million Christians, and Indonesia with reports of 2 million a year converting.
“In Mongolia, the president opened the country to Christians and there’s even an archbishop,” Pacwa said. “They built a Catholic school there too. If I was younger, I would have gone.” He said that the desire for a Western education was the impetus to open up the country to the Catholic Church.
There are even conversions happening in many strict Muslim countries, according to Pacwa. He did not want to go on record with particulars for fear of increased retribution. Mass conversions are also being reported among refugees that are filling up the Christian churches left empty by Europeans. Many wonder if those are authentic conversions or just a response to improving their chances for amnesty, but time will tell.
Signs of this conversion are showing up in the U.S. too, Pacwa said. “I was about to celebrate Mass at a Maronite church in San Diego and I said hi to a man who introduced himself as Achmad. I asked if he was a Christian. He said: ‘Yes, I was recently baptized.’ He said he from Morocco. Christians do not have the name Ahmad—that’s a form of Mohammad.”
(Excerpt) Read more at ncregister.com ...
Perhaps if Rome had stuck with those and those alone they wouldn't have drifted into the false areas of teaching they've so well documented.
No you didn't have to be in the club to study Scripture. It was just extremely difficult because literacy was like what....10%, if that? And Bibles were fantastically expensive because they had to be copied longhand...with zero mistakes. I have Christopher de Hamel's book "A History of Illuminated Manuscripts" next to me....somewhere he crunched the numbers and figured out that the Bible in the Middle Ages cost about as much as a House. The Church taught Scripture by reading it from the pulpit, preaching it, and painting it on the walls of churches.
And you're dead wrong about the "reformers" kept off the historical record. Julian the Apostate was *despised* by the Church. We know what he thought and believed. We know quite a bit about Arius, Nestorius, and other early heretics. The Church had knock-down drag-out fights over these issues and kept records of who said yea and who said nay at the Ecumenical Councils.
Then you have a record of dissent.... can’t have it both ways Again the issue is not what was written when The issue is that the Catholic Church is rife with heretical and apostate teachings
Now that’s just pettifogging.
Practices are not Sects.
Furthermore, while Jesus did quote Scripture, I can’t seem to find anywhere he advocated his followers flout the authority of the Scribes and Pharisees, only their examples, much less constantly impugn their legitimacy as the Revisionists do.
Stones and glass houses, my FRiend.
>>There is nothing I can do to lose my salvation.<<
This statement reveals how little you understand about the teachings of Christ as set forth in the Scriptures, and it’s entirely possible that you could lose your salvation by holding that very belief!
Sure it would! Do you know where our only remaining text of the pagan writer Celsus comes from? Origen's refutation: "Against Celsus". Do you know how we know so much about the Manichaeans? Because Augustine spends so much time listing and then attacking their positions. What do you think fills the pages of Irenaeus's "Against Heresies" but a whole bunch of condemned, heretical ideas?
Catholics proudly preserved writings they disagreed with because they thought they did such a first-rate job disagreeing with them.
Amen! Mom MD.
13In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, 14who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory. Ephesians 1:13-14 NASB
The Greek for pledge, ἀρραβών, conveys the following meaning:
728 /arrhabṓn ("down-payment pledge") is the regular term in NT times for "earnest-money," i.e. advance-payment that guarantees the rest will be given. 728 (arrhabṓn) then represents full security backed by the purchaser who supplies sufficient proof they will fulfill the entire pledge (promise).
http://biblehub.com/greek/728.htm
The words....you were sealed....is the greek verb ἐσφραγίσθητε
It conveys the meaning of: 4972 /sphragízō ("to seal") signifies ownership and the full security carried by the backing (full authority) of the owner. "Sealing" in the ancient world served as a "legal signature" which guaranteed the promise (contents) of what was sealed.
It is an aorist, indicative, passive verb.
The passive voice in Koine Greek means the following:
In general it can be said that in the passive voice the subject is acted upon or receives the action of the verb. No volition-nor even necessarily awareness of the action- is implied on the part of the subject (Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basis, p431).
We had no part in our sealing. This was done by God.
Hey...you tossed the first stone, my FRiend!
I’ll take my chances. And enjoy my eternal security while you live in fear.
And Rome did what to increase that?
With the wealth of Rome they could have had copies of the Bible produced for their members. They chose not to.
It was only recently that Roman Catholics were encouraged to read the Scriptures for themselves as indicated below.
Once the printing press was invented, the most commonly printed book was the Bible, but this still did not make Bible-reading a Catholic’s common practice. Up until the mid-twentieth Century, the custom of reading the Bible and interpreting it for oneself was a hallmark of the Protestant churches springing up in Europe after the Reformation. Protestants rejected the authority of the Pope and of the Church and showed it by saying people could read and interpret the Bible for themselves. Catholics meanwhile were discouraged from reading Scripture.
Identifying the reading and interpreting of the Bible as “Protestant” even affected the study of Scripture. Until the twentieth Century, it was only Protestants who actively embraced Scripture study. That changed after 1943 when Pope Pius XII issued the encyclical Divino Afflante Spiritu. This not only allowed Catholics to study Scripture, it encouraged them to do so. And with Catholics studying Scripture and teaching other Catholics about what they were studying, familiarity with Scripture grew.
Scripture awareness grew after the Second Vatican Council. Mass was celebrated in the vernacular and so the Scripture readings at Mass were read entirely in English. Adult faith formation programs began to develop, and the most common program run at a parish focused on Scripture study. The Charismatic movement and the rise of prayer groups exposed Catholics to Scripture even more. All of this contributed to Catholics becoming more familiar with the Bible and more interested in reading the Scriptures and praying with them.
http://www.usccb.org/bible/understanding-the-bible/study-materials/articles/changes-in-catholic-attitudes-toward-bible-readings.cfm
What is your understanding of that passage?
>> How can the Roman Catholic lose what they’re not sure they have??
In either case your question is just a reverse of my question to you.....what can you do to earn your salvation?<<
Paul counseled that we must WORK OUT our salvation IN FEAR AND TREMBLING lest we who rashly assume we are saved find that we have been disqualified. But of course you already know that don’t you? Fact is, there are many passages of Scripture that teach those who claim to be Christians what being one actually requires. If you are unfamiliar with those teachings, don’t expect me to tutor you. Try reading your Bible once in awhile.
Excuse me?
Who authored post #2 ?
Ok....what WORK do you have to do??
Oh I know we have a record of dissent. But which of those dissenters would you agree with?
Do you believe that matter is inherently wicked and evil, like the Manichaeans did? Do you believe with Arius that Christ is not God? Are you a Donatist? A Gnostic? A Collyridian?
Find me one of those dissenting groups who believed the majority of what you believe, and then I'll entertain the idea that the Reformation was in any way a restoration of Primitive Christianity. Otherwise, I'll remain quite certain that it was just made up on the spot.
I don’t know...but he’s a smart fellow!
“This statement reveals how little you understand about the teachings of Christ as set forth in the Scriptures, and it’s entirely possible that you could lose your salvation by holding that very belief!”
...........
“And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.
12 Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.
13 I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so *that you may know that you have eternal life.*
I John 5:11-14
The Apostle John says by the Holy Spirit, that he wrote these things that we may *know* we have eternal life.
I’ve considered your claim and the claim of John, under inspiration of the Holy Spirit...
I’ve found your claim invalid.
There's part of the disagreement illustrating there was no unified belief among them.
Which one do you cite as authoritative when they disagree?
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