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To: berned
Dear Mr. Anti-Catholic Bible Repeater "berned":

men who forbid marriage and advocate abstaining from foods which God has created to be gratefully shared in by those who believe and know the truth.

The reference was to Gnostic teachers in Paul's time who forbade marriage (for everyone) and taught bizarre doctrines concerning food, including one involving salvation by eating large quantities of cucumbers. (I'm not kidding.)

Catholics forbid no one to marry. A priest can marry, but he's forbidden to act as a priest afterwards. (Paul himself counseled celibacy as a superior way in 1 Cor, but I don't see you quoting that. Why?) As for abstaining from foods, there's not the slightest shred of evidence that Paul was talking about anything like Friday abstinence.

The Didache, which was written either in the Apostolic age or within 50 or so years after St. John's death (scholars aren't sure), directly and flatly commands Christians to "fast on Wednesdays and Fridays". If anything, you ought to be taking us to task for relaxing that discipline, not ripping Scripture out of context to condemn our flimsy evisceration of ancient Christian practice.

Now go settle down with a nice book by Dave Hunt or Tim LaHaye and leave us to settle our own problems.

25 posted on 03/27/2002 9:13:33 AM PST by Campion
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To: Campion
1Ti 4:1

But the Spirit explicitly says that in LATER TIMES some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons,

1Ti 4:2

by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron ,

1Ti 4:3

men who forbid marriage and advocate abstaining from foods which God has created to be gratefully shared in by those who believe and know the truth.

26 posted on 03/27/2002 9:17:01 AM PST by berned
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