Posted on 01/05/2010 9:46:47 PM PST by the_conscience
I just witnessed a couple of Orthodox posters get kicked off a "Catholic Caucus" thread. I thought, despite their differences, they had a mutual understanding that each sect was considered "Catholic". Are not the Orthodox considered Catholic? Why do the Romanists get to monopolize the term "Catholic"?
I consider myself to be Catholic being a part of the universal church of Christ. Why should one sect be able to use a universal concept to identify themselves in a caucus thread while other Christian denominations need to use specific qualifiers to identify themselves in a caucus thread?
IMHO Mr Rogers and Forest Keeper are good thinkers.
I think we’re lucky to have quite a few good thinkers on this site. I appreciate your insights and pray with all my heart my dear Catholic Mother understands, or one day will, the Gospel as well as you seem to. A Christian is one who is one in the heart and external labels and manner of worship are unimportant when it come down to what our relationship is with the Lord. We are saved by grace alone through faith alone and good works are the outward sign of an inward changed spirit. It appears to me, you “get it”.
1 John 4:9-11
Herein was the love of God manifested in us, that God hath sent his only begotten Son into the world that we might live through him.
Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
Yeah, but as soon as you say the "Church has never OFFICIALLY given her that title" then you know somethin's up. :)
We all cooperate in the mystery of Redemption when we enter into this repentance and compassion for the price of our sins on the Cross. We cooperate by acknowledging sin and redemption, by accepting both our own sinfulness and incapacity to redeem ourselves. We cooperate in the mystery of Redemption by accepting the Cross and the love for us that brought Him there.
Now THIS is what I would expect a Catholic to say. This is from the human side and expresses the standard view of free will cooperation and choice. While I have a different view, this doesn't make me scream bloody murder.
What makes me scream bloody murder is any idea that from "the God-side" ANYONE, I mean ANYONE besides God has anything at all to do with Redemption. When Christ redeemed us with His precious blood He didn't have any helpers, or contributors or associates or anything else. He was utterly alone in shedding His blood for our redemption:
I don't see Mary or anyone else in there at all. I appreciate that Mary suffered horribly and all, I really do. But I think it is going way too far to say that THAT means she cooperated or participated in the Redemption from the "God-side". Almost all the Apostles were martyrs and gave their blood in a similar fashion but none of them is mentioned in this same context as Mary at all. And they shouldn't be mentioned at all concerning Redemption. Redemption is in the blood, and in the blood of Christ alone (Eph. 1:7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace). It's a little ironic that the Catholic belief in the Assumption means that Mary never shed a SINGLE drop of blood herself, yet she is participating in the Redemption ahead of the Apostles who, horribly, did shed their blood for Christ.
Then I met some kids who were NOT that way. My age and a bit older - perhaps 12-15 - they were sometimes mean, but then they apologized for it! One popular girl actually asked me to forgive her for some slight, now long forgotten! They cared about each other, and about me and others they met. And they said it was because of Jesus, and that if I asked God to forgive me and change me, then Jesus would come in to me and change me.
And I knew that whatever it was that made them different, that I wanted to be like them. So I asked God to forgive me, and I asked Jesus to enter my life and change me, and make me his.
Quix recently posted a story about some children in Europe just striking out on their own, witnessing about Jesus. May God bless them and guide them!
Perhaps I'm so joyful over your testimony and this new mission because it "hits home."
I am a bakery shop kid. And that’s why labels mean nothing to me.
You see waaay back in the 50’s, when I was in elementary school, several of us kids would meet after school in the local bakery shop while they were cleaning up. The owners would give us drinks and left-over goodies. We’d bring our Bibles, read and just talk about Jesus. My older sister – now in heaven – was always the ring leader.
It so happened that an old retired Baptist preacher heard about the bakery shop kids and came by to meet us. He was moved by what he saw and he used his life’s savings to build a tiny little church up the street.
Naturally all the kids got the rest of their families to join them in meeting in the new church – and before you knew it we were all baptized Southern Baptist. The church grew and split and had missionary churches of it own.
If it had been someone from another Christian “label” who found the bakery shop kids, built the church and baptized us, I’d probably be wearing a different label today. LOLOL!
As it is my "letter" has always been in a Baptist church, though that point is meaningless to me because at the root, I will always be that bakery shop kid – a Christian, plain and simple.
God’s Name is I AM!
Calwinos are folks drunk on Calvinist teachings.
The position of the Church is that Mary is "Redemptoris Mater", the Mother of the Redeemer.
The Church also recognizes Mary's special cooperation in the redemptive sacrifice because of the importance of Mary's consent and obedience in the work of our salvation.
LOVE IT. THANKS FOR SHARING.
A few months ago . . . our youth group and an assistant pastor went on a
TREASURE HUNT.
I gather it’s a kind of youth movement sort of event thing.
Anyway—the thing is . . . the group involved get together and pray before hand . . . and try to get the Mind of The Lord Jesus on what they are to do that night—where they are to go and what they are to look for to identify the people they are to talk to.
IIRC, last time they were to look for a red shirt . . . There may have been someone else with a funny hat and someone else with a brief case or some such.
I think they felt they were to go to the mall and to dunkin doughnuts or else the mall and somewhere else and they ended up at dunkin doughnuts kind of at the tail end without meeting up with one of “God’s treasures” they’d expected to meet up with—find according to the picture someone had gotten in their mind while praying before starting out.
And there that last person was clearly by themselves at dunkin doughnuts.
I think one or more people accepted Christ as their Savior. A couple people were healed, including the older lady at Dunkin Doughnuts.
It was a fantastic time.
They are doing it again within a week or so and anyone in the church can go along. Sounds like a great kind of way to do sort of street ministry.
No labels involved. Just Jesus touching needs.
And thank you, dear brother in Christ, for sharing this with us!
ph
?
I own a few of those bibles myself...I prefer all black letters with wide margins...Then I use my own red ink to scribble all over them...
I like Mac Davis' version best...
Oh Lord, it's hard to be humble; when yer perfect in ev-ery way...
Thanks for your kind reply.
Am thinking of joining the next TREASURE HUNT!
We are having extra prayer evenings for several days and fasting as folks are led . . . for our Nation and the new year.
Sure feels like things are going to be uncommonly !different! this year LOL . . . ‘uncoomonly different!’ Silly me.
I mean . . . markedly different . . . than ever before.
We shall see.
LUB
We've all been here for some time and no Protestants call anyone here names,let alone something like that. The ones using those terms are the Catholics. they call themselves those names and infer we did it. I'm sure there is some kind of pschological reason that they do it, but please, if you are indeed a Baptist, don't use those terms when talking about us.
We need to understand that this is not about backsliding. If it were, many, if not most of the readers of Hebrews, would lose hope. What is being described is a willful renunciation of the faith, not a Christian having through weakness, carelessness, or temporary indifference fallen into serious sin. Even Peter who denied His Lord three times was forgiven and renewed to fellowship. Barnes comments on the meaning of "fallen away" which he considers the equivalent of "apostatize from," "[It] implies an entire renunciation of Christianity, or a going back to a state of Judaism, heathenism, or sin."15 Calvin offers this explanation: "But the Apostle speaks not here of theft, or perjury, or murder, or drunkenness, or adultery; but he refers to a total defection or falling away from the Gospel, when a sinner offends not God in some one thing, but entirely renounces his grace."16... It is also true that the warning against apostasy is given to the whole visible church. It is real and has motivational currency for the truly regenerate. The warning is so powerful that it is effectual and none of those the Father has given the Son will perish. They heed the warning and flee to the grace of God which enables His people to live an overcoming life. They know that if they did blaspheme the Holy Spirit by insulting Him and recrucifying Christ, putting Him to open shame, they would be irredeemably damned. This fearful, sobering reality drives God's people back into His loving arms. This, I believe, was why the writer of Hebrews was convinced that his readers had "faith to the preserving of the soul" (Hebrews 10:39)"...Further support for the identification of apostasy as blasphemy against the Holy Spirit can be found in the parallel warning in Hebrews 10:26-29. There willful sinners are warned of receiving a more severe punishment than those who thus sinned under Moses because they have "insulted the Spirit of grace" (verse 29). The book of Hebrews is filled with quotations and allusions to the Old Testament. Therefore, the warning against apostasy may have roots in Numbers 15:22-31. Here there is a distinction between the one who "unwittingly" sins and the one who sins "defiantly." The first is offered atonement upon making the appropriate sacrifices, the later is cut off. The terminology is very similar to the teaching in Hebrews: "But the person who does anything defiantly, whether he is native or an alien, that one is blaspheming the Lord; and that person shall be cut off from among his people. Because he has despised the word of the Lord and has broken His commandment, that person shall be completely cut off; his guilt shall be on him" (Numbers 15:30,31). Defiance is blasphemy and it shall not be forgiven.
And I agree with you that this year may be quite different. We'll see...
Maranatha, Jesus!!!
INDEED.
MARANATHA.
Yeah, a number of the kids are more on fire for Jesus than the adults.
And it’s not hype or groupie stuff. They really have a RELATIONSHIP and Jesus is quite real to them. They aren’t tagging onto the shirttails of their parents’ relationships with Jesus.
They have THEIR OWN VERY ALIVE AND REAL RELATIONSHIP wherein Jesus talks very intimately with them and meets their needs 1:1 with them.
Wonderful to observe.
Every so often they’ll have a significant part of an evening service or even a Sunday morning service with a skit or dance or mime sort of thing . . . . very anointed.
Sometimes they’ll even be very active in the ministry at the altar after the sermon—to great effect as God moves through them to bless the people they are praying for.
And, on occasion, one of the older youth will even give the lesson on Wed evening. Always very prayerfully anointed Biblical wisdom. I love it.
I love watching God in and through them.
hank you Doc, very good post
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