“You’re telling me that’s in the BIBLE?”
Yes. If you’ve read it before, stop ignoring it.
If scripture can fully equip a man for every good work, and make him wise for salvation thru faith in Christ Jesus, then what salvation requirement can exist outside of it? You cannot be fully equipped if you are missing essentials.
Nor am I the one who insists the Mass is a ‘re-presentation’ of Christ’s sacrifice. You do. So how do you represent the blood and flesh of Jesus when his sacrifice was in the past?
Do in remembrance? Makes sense. Present the actual blood and flesh of Jesus every week/every day in sacrifice?
Feel free to explain.
Jews seemed to have tradition as well, but Jesus quoted scripture, not tradition. Ever wonder why?
Christ's instruction was to go forward and teach, not write.
Jews seemed to have tradition as well, but Jesus quoted scripture, not tradition. Ever wonder why?
Because until something is written, it's hard to quote?
Please remember that I am a convert. That means that most of the arguments which seem so conclusive no longer have any effect on me. I used to believe them. Further study led me to stop finding them persuasive.
One unpersuasive thing is the illogic of taking an argument against SOME traditions and interpreting it as an argument against all traditions. "Traditions of men" is not one word; it's not a predication. "Of men" specifies a group, possibly a sub-group. There may be other traditions which maybe might could be of God.
(It's similar with "vain repetitions". The very use of the word vain suggests the possibility that there might be repetitions which are not empty. But the assault on the Rosary often presumes that ALL repetitions are by this saying shown to be vain. No sale. It doesn't follow.)
Do in remembrance?
It is interesting, though I am sure inadvertent, that you do not give the full line. It's not ποιειτε (Do as my memorial) but τουτο ποιειτε (THIS do as my memorial...) εισ την εμην αναμνησιν -- εισ (as) την (the) εμην (of mine) αναμνησιν (anamnesis -inadequately translated memorial or remembrance).
Interesting because it is the "This" over which the disagreement lies.
And we also have Scriptural witness that it is not simply a "remembering." It is also a proclamation (I Cor 11:26: καταγγελλετε, katanggellete - "announce down"?), and a κοινωνια, (I Cor 10:14-15) a participation or sharing in Christ's Sacred Body and Precious Blood (according to Paul) which makes us one with one another in the Body of Christ.
So it's a pretty large, powerful, and comprehensive τουτο — This — that we're doing, not "merely" a remembrance, If the Scriptural witness is to be taken in its entirety.
So how do you represent the blood and flesh of Jesus when his sacrifice was in the past?
You got me! It's a miracle! And one thing that means is that it's GOD who does it, not us.
Here is a deep rift in theology or in the philosophy which undergirds theology: namely, a disagreement about God and time.
I'm a little diffident about discussing this because recently when I mentioned it I got mugged, and I was never quite clear what the problem was for which I was being mugged. But we think God is outside of time as well as in time.
(We also think that God is always blissful and always all-powerful. So when we look at that crucifix for which we are so often castigated, we do not see a feckless, defeated Christ, as we have been accused, but the mystery the perfect revelation of Divine power and of God's joy and of the peace which passes all understanding.)
I mention that all to reinforce my earlier saying that we have a very different way of looking at things. It is NOT airy-fairy, at least not in my experience. As a hospital chaplain especially I experienced many times what Paul says, that when I was weak, then I was strong, because God acted in my weakness.
So, anyway, we don't claim to know HOW God does it. We just believe that He does, that in the Eucharist the discontinuity between time and eternity is broken, softly and secretly as it was at the Incarnation, as it is every time God speaks in the heart.
And this gets me back to the initial "fully equipped" question. It IS possible, you know, to have a differing opinion about a passage of Scripture without actually ignoring it.
As an attempt at rebuttal I'd say that it seems that I am asked to take one passage literally and figuratively at once. I am very dubious that Paul meant "the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament" when he wrote πασα γραφη, though I can see that it's not a huge step from literal sense of the Scriptures HE understood to be theopneustos to the figurative larger sense of the group of Scriptures WE understand to be the same.
I am also not certain about putting too great a burden on the "fully". The RSV renders thus:
(16)All scripture is inspired by God and (OR Every scripture inspired by God is also) profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness (17) that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.I don't consider the RSV an unquestionable authority, but I don't think of them as dishonest either, and their translation is not quite so restricted as the one offered often in these threads. (Once the grammarians of koine Greek disagree, I tend to throw up my hands.)
In any event one of the things WE find in Scripture is a reference to the reliability of tradition (the tough part being to determine WHICH tradition.) So the complete equipping (in our reading) includes directing Timothy to pay attention not only to all Writing, but also to what has been handed down to him otherwise.
That sort of driving one beyond itself is, to me, the hallmark of both Scripture and sound tradition. The point, after all, is not to stop at Scripture, Tradition, Church, or even Sacrament but rather to see all these as at least LIKE our Lord in that He is both Way and Truth.
Yeah, I know. Blah blah blah. And I've only had one cup of coffee!