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Posted on 04/18/2010 9:49:35 PM PDT by Judith Anne
I seriously wonder about some FReepers, sometimes. Any other person accused of a crime would be defended by every FReeper as being innocent until proven guilty by a court of law. I've seen whole threads written by men who have been accused of child abuse by ex-wives out to deny them their visitation rights or to wrest more money out of them. These men are rightly indignant, and furious about the unjust accusations that cannot be proven but are never withdrawn.
Yet where are those FReepers when a PRIEST is accused? Where is the presumption of innocence? Suddenly, every accusation becomes a verdict, and not only the accused but his entire organization and all its adherents are held responsible.
I can only wonder what some of these so-called conservatives (who so faithfully defend the Constitution) would do, if THEY were the ones accused! It is a nightmare for any man -- all of you know how even the accusation stains the man forever, even if it is proven false!
Not only that, many here assert that the problems of 30, 40 and even 50 years ago must be tried in the media TODAY!
Remember the Duke rape case? There are more similarities than differences here. The priests are accused, nifonged, and instead of being defended, they are vilified!
What other man of you could stand under the weight of such an accusation trumpeted by the press, and come out whole? None! And such accusations made, LONG after the statute of limitations has passed, sometimes even after the accused is dead and buried for YEARS -- are YOU one of those who automatically, reflexively, spitefully, and gleefully act as judge, jury, and executioner?
Women! What if it were YOUR HUSBAND, YOUR BROTHER, YOUR FATHER, YOUR UNCLE, YOUR SON who was accused? Wouldn't you want the best defense possible? Wouldn't YOU believe in their innocence? Wouldn't YOU help protect your loved ones as much as possible? And yet, YOU JUDGE THE CHURCH FOR DOING WHAT YOU WOULD DO?
Shame! Vast shame! On all who have sinned against the innocent!
INDEED TO THE MAX.
None of these verses state that Jesus is Jehovah or Yahweh or equivalent.
And yet, many will believe in theological issues that are completely devoid of any Scriptural support as some claim creationism is of scientific support.
- - -
YUP.
I’d have never thought any remotely orthodox Christan group/denomination would have been capable of that . . .
until I watched it year in and year out for so many years hereon by the Roman Catholics et al.
An RD church is a slip of the finger hitting the wrong key.
Now now.
You should know by now, that the only ‘logic’ they allow is very rubbery pseudo-logic!
. . . preferably having NOTHING whatsoever to do with FACTS! Nor with authentic, objective, unrubberized, true history.
I think it’s some kind of wierd mental/spiritual pollution that’s somehow crept into the holy water. Or maybe all the fluttering white hankies cast some sort of Marian caraciture absurd fantasies mind meld.
Luther was a reformer, amongst many Catholics, that responded to the corruption endemic to the clergy, much of it revolving around the practice of concubinage with all the moral failures that sustained it, purchases of letters of absolution, the passing on of benefices to illegitimate children, etc.
The sale of indulgences is often mentioned when describing Luther’s 95 complaints but not the purpose of the indulgences.
Even the great Erasmus favored ending the sham of the celibacy rule that easily tolerated immoral concubinage but condemned honorable marriage for a clergyman.
But as Luther and others discovered, reform was impossible let alone a restoration to the apostolic church.
-—INDEED.
Quite so.
HOWEVER, ACTUALLY,
I’ve expressed trust in elements, facets of the Roman Catholic et al folks and even the insitution in very qualified and limited areas.
Of course, NONE of the rabid clique finger frothers will likely EVER admit that . . . thankfully, some of the rational Roman Catholics et al hereon have.
So glad you asked. Let us see what Paul said he believed:
Act 26:1-29
Then Agrippa said unto Paul, Thou art permitted to speak for thyself. Then Paul stretched forth the hand, and answered for himself:
I think myself happy, king Agrippa, because I shall answer for myself this day before thee touching all the things whereof I am accused of the Jews:
Especially [because I know] thee to be expert in all customs and questions which are among the Jews: wherefore I beseech thee to hear me patiently.
My manner of life from my youth, which was at the first among mine own nation at Jerusalem, know all the Jews;
Which knew me from the beginning, if they would testify, that after the most straitest sect of our religion I lived a Pharisee.
And now I stand and am judged for the hope of the promise made of God unto our fathers:
Unto which [promise] our twelve tribes, instantly serving [God] day and night, hope to come. For which hope's sake, king Agrippa, I am accused of the Jews.
Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the dead?
I verily thought with myself, that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth.
Which thing I also did in Jerusalem: and many of the saints did I shut up in prison, having received authority from the chief priests; and when they were put to death, I gave my voice against [them].
And I punished them oft in every synagogue, and compelled [them] to blaspheme; and being exceedingly mad against them, I persecuted [them] even unto strange cities.
Whereupon as I went to Damascus with authority and commission from the chief priests,
At midday, O king, I saw in the way a light from heaven, above the brightness of the sun, shining round about me and them which journeyed with me.
And when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice speaking unto me, and saying in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? [it is] hard for thee to kick against the pricks.
And I said, Who art thou, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest.
But rise, and stand upon thy feet: for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness both of these things which thou hast seen, and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee;
Delivering thee from the people, and [from] the Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee,
To open their eyes, [and] to turn [them] from darkness to light, and [from] the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me.
Whereupon, O king Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision:
But shewed first unto them of Damascus, and at Jerusalem, and throughout all the coasts of Judaea, and [then] to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, and do works meet for repentance.
For these causes the Jews caught me in the temple, and went about to kill [me].
Having therefore obtained help of God, I continue unto this day, witnessing both to small and great, saying none other things than those which the prophets and Moses did say should come:
That Christ should suffer, [and] that he should be the first that should rise from the dead, and should shew light unto the people, and to the Gentiles.
And as he thus spake for himself, Festus said with a loud voice, Paul, thou art beside thyself; much learning doth make thee mad.
But he said, I am not mad, most noble Festus; but speak forth the words of truth and soberness.
For the king knoweth of these things, before whom also I speak freely: for I am persuaded that none of these things are hidden from him; for this thing was not done in a corner.
King Agrippa, believest thou the prophets? I know that thou believest.
Then Agrippa said unto Paul, Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.
And Paul said, I would to God, that not only thou, but also all that hear me this day, were both almost, and altogether such as I am, except these bonds.
INDEED! INDEED:
Peter himself considers Christ the Rock on which the church is built.
1 Peter 2
1 So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. 2 Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— 3if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.
4As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, 5 you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 6For it stands in Scripture:
“Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone,
a cornerstone chosen and precious,
and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”
7So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe,
“The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone,”
8and
“A stone of stumbling,
and a rock of offense.”
Sadly, this is true, as they have a veil of confusion over their eyes - though many Jews have accepted Yeshua as their Messiah. One day, hopefully soon, "All Israel will be saved." "And they shall look upon him whom they have pierced."
1 Peter 5
1So I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed: 2 shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not for shameful gain, but eagerly; 3not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. 4And when the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory.
Nor does Paul....
Galatians 2:9James, Peter and John, those reputed to be pillars, gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship when they recognized the grace given to me. They agreed that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the Jews.
It's doesn't say they WERE pillars, just that they were reputed to be. A very interesting choice of words and out of line of Paul if Peter had actually been appointed to the position of THE leader of the church as the Catholics claim. Peter was just an apostle to the Jews, not the Gentiles. Paul went to the Gentiles.
If the Roman Catholic church were the real church, why wasn't it mentioned in Revelation? No mention of it at all. The seven churches there would have been under its authority according to Catholic teaching and yet ZERO is mentioned or even implied about Peter or the RCC in that letter.
The most difficult part of this response is not finding things to include, it was deciding what to leave out. As I mentioned there are entire libraries dedicated to this study. I could have added significantly more if the Religion Moderator permitted postings in German and Latin.
The most significant and blatant example of dogmatic tinkering in Luther's version of scripture is the famous interpolation of the word “alone” in Romand 3:28 (allein durch den Glauben), by which he intended to emphasize his solifidian doctrine of justification, on the plea that the German idiom required the insertion for the sake of clearness. But he thereby brought Paul into direct verbal conflict with James, who says (James 2:24), "by works a man is justified, and not only by faith" ("nicht durch den Glauben allein"). It is well known that Luther deemed it impossible to harmonize the two apostles in this article, and characterized the Epistle of James as an "epistle of straw," because it had no evangelical character ("keine evangelische Art"). Luther rejected is as not canonical valid.
Luther’s defense of this was very characteristic. "If your papist," he says, "makes much useless fuss about the word sola, allein, tell him at once: Doctor Martin Luther will have it so, and says: Papist and donkey are one thing; sic volo, sic jubeo, sit pro ratione voluntas. For we do not want to be pupils and followers of the Papists, but their masters and judges."
Luther then continued boasting against the “Papists”, imitating the language of St. Paul in dealing with his Judaizing opponents (2 Cor. 11:22 ): "Are they doctors? so am I. Are they learned? so am I. Are they preachers? so am I. Are they theologians? so am I. Are they disputators? so am I. Are they philosophers? so am I. Are they the writers of books? so am I. And I shall further boast: I can expound Psalms and Prophets; which they can not. I can translate; which they can not .... Therefore the word allein shall remain in my New Testament, and though all pope-donkeys (Papstesel) should get furious and foolish, they shall not turn it out."
Luther intentionally and unnecessarily inserted an anti-Catholic character in his New Testament. This is evident in his prefaces, his discrimination between chief books and less important books, his change of the traditional order, and his unfavorable judgments on James, Hebrews, and Revelation. It is still more apparent in his marginal notes, especially on the Pauline Epistles, where he emphasizes throughout the difference between the law and the gospel, and the doctrine of justification by faith alone; and on the Apocalypse, where he finds the papacy in the beast from the abyss (Rev. 13), and in the Babylonian harlot (Rev. 17). The anti-papal explanation of the Apocalypse became for a long time almost traditional in Protestant commentaries.
To justify his perversion of scriptural intent Luther preached a false hierarchy of the Gospel. (it should be noted that this is a claim frequently lobbed against Catholics on Free Republic.) In his own words he said: "If I had to do without one or the other-either the works or preaching of Christ-I would rather do without his works than his preaching. For the works do not help me, but His words give life, as He Himself says. Now John writes very little about the works of Christ, but very much about His preaching. The other Evangelists write much of His works and little of His preaching. Therefore, John's Gospel is the one, tender, true chief Gospel far, far to be preferred to the other three and placed high above them. So, too, the epistles of St. Paul and St. Peter far surpass the other three Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke.
In a word, St. John's Gospel and his first Epistle, St. Paul's Epistles, especially Romans, Galatians, and Ephesians, and St. Peter's first Epistle are the books that show you Christ and that teach you all that is necessary and good for you to know, even though you never see or hear any other book or doctrine. Therefore, St. James' Epistle is really an epistle of straw, compared to them; for it has nothing of the nature of the gospel in it."
The gospel of John has the well known passage "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever shall believe on Him should not perish but have everlasting life." (John 3:16). That makes it Luther's favorite gospel, which he rates "high above" the others. Matthew, Mark and Luke are much too dependant on obedience (Matthew 7:12-23, Mark 16:16. etc.) Luther falsely claims that they, unlike John, emphasize the works rather than the preaching of Christ, but that simply is not so. Matthew's gospel contains much more of the preaching of Christ than does John's gospel. And John said he wrote his gospel to emphasize the signs Jesus did (John 20:30,31). Besides all that, John also shows the need to keep the commandments of Jesus (John 14:15,21, etc.). Beware when anyone encourages you to ignore Scriptures of his choice!
To understand his doctrine and his venom we need to understand Luther the man. Luther hated anyone and anything that went against his faith and wouldn't accept his teachings. Of all races, he absolutely despised the Jews, writing:
I shall give you my sincere advice: First, to set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them. ...
Second, I advise that their houses also be razed and destroyed. For they pursue in them the same aims as in their synagogues. Instead they might be lodged under a roof or in a barn, like the gypsies. ...
Third, I advise that all their prayer books and Talmudic writings, in which such idolatry, lies, cursing, and blasphemy are taught, be taken from them. Fourth, I advise that their rabbis be forbidden to teach henceforth on pain of loss of life and limb. ...
Fifth, I advise that safe-conduct on the highways be abolished completely for the Jews. ... Sixth, I advise that usury be prohibited to them, and that all cash and treasure of silver and gold be taken from them and put aside for safekeeping. ...
Seventh, I recommend putting a flail, an ax, a hoe, a spade, a distaff, or a spindle into the hands of young, strong Jews and Jewesses and letting them earn their bread in the sweat of their brow, as was imposed on the children of Adam (Gen. 3:19).
He followed that up by saying: ... But if we are afraid that they might harm us or our wives, children, — servants, cattle, etc., if they had to serve and work for us — for it is reasonable to assume that such noble lords of the world and venomous, bitter worms are not accustomed to working and would be very reluctant to humble themselves so deeply before the accursed Goyim — then let us emulate the common sense of other nations such as France, Spain, Bohemia, etc., compute with them how much their usury has extorted from us, divide, divide this amicably, but then eject them forever from the country. For, as we have heard, God's anger with them is so intense that gentle mercy will only tend to make them worse and worse, while sharp mercy will reform them but little. Therefore, in any case, away with them!
In addition to his views on the Jews, Martin Luther had strong opinions regarding the Bible, and what he considered inspired. Luther claims that not only do we have the right to decide which books of the Bible are true and well written and those that are not. In his preface to the New Testament written in 1522 and revised in 1545 he says: From all this you can now judge all the books and decide among them which are the best.
He rejects Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelation as uninspired, though he does admit all of them but James to be 'fine' books. In regards to James he states that it is "flatly against St. Paul and all the rest of Scripture." About Hebrews he says "It need not surprise one to find here bits of wood, hay, and straw" (O'Hare PF. The Facts About Luther, 1916--1987 reprint ed., pp. 203). His translations of the Bible into German were clearly flawed by his bias and resulted in these supposed conflicts in doctrine among the various books of the New Testament. About this book of the Revelation of John...I miss more than one thing in this book, and it makes me consider it to be neither apostolic nor prophetic…I can in no way detect that the Holy Spirit produced it. Moreover he seems to me to be going much too far when he commends his own book so highly-indeed, more than any of the other sacred books do, though they are much more important-and threatens that if anyone takes away anything from it, God will take away from him, etc. Again, they are supposed to be blessed who keep what is written in this book; and yet no one knows what that is, to say nothing of keeping it. This is just the same as if we did not have the book at all. And there are many far better books available for us to keep…My spirit cannot accommodate itself to this book. For me this is reason enough not to think highly of it: Christ is neither taught nor known in it; but to teach Christ is the thing which an apostle is bound, above all else, to do, as He says in Acts 1, 'Ye shall be my witnesses.' Therefore I stick to the books which give me Christ, clearly and purely.
- Luther, M. Preface to the Revelation of St. John, 1522
"The first three speak of the works of our Lord, rather than His oral teachings; that of St. John is the only sympathetic, the only true Gospel and should undoubtedly be preferred above the others. In like manner the Epistles of St. Peter and St. Paul are superior to the first three Gospels."
Luther was also against Job, Ecclesiastes, Esther, and the story of Jonah.
"Job spoke not as it stands written in his book, but only had such thoughts. It is merely the argument of a fable. It is probable that Solomon wrote and made this book." "Ecclesiastes ought to have been more complete. There is too much incoherent matter in it...Solomon did not, therefore, write this book."
"I am such an enemy to the book of Esther that I wish it did not exist, for it Judaizes too much."
"The history of Jonah is so monstrous that it is absolutely incredible.
Throughout his writings Luther goes directly against II Timothy 3:16, "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness."
INDEED.
!HE IS RISEN!
or . . .
ETERNAL LIFE INVITATION
or
???
So far, I like yours.
What specific Scripture did they twist, redact, or revise the plain basic meaning of?
I really appreciate your effort to answer the question. There was a lot about Luther there that I had not read before so it was interesting. However, his views on Scripture are not all Protestants views on Scripture and while one denomination does carry his name, not all denominations own him as their leader.
Luther's main contribution to the Protestant Reformation seems to be more of shaking up the status quote and being the impetus for causing people to question the unbridled power of the Catholic Church and start reading Scripture for themselves.
Which, by the way, is necessary for Christians to know in order to follow the admonition of Paul in II Timothy 3:16, "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness."
If men don't know Scripture themselves, they cannot be properly instructed in righteousness, and certainly not by an organization which wasn't practicing righteousness itself. If they couldn't read, they'd not be able to know what the Bible actually says but would have to depend on someone telling them what it said and being able to trust that that someone was telling them the truth. And given men's propensity to be corrupted by absolute power, and seeing that happen in the Catholic Church, it would leave their teachings suspect.
Luther had his issues, but that does not invalidate the concerns he expressed about what the Catholic Church was teaching and doing.
Does changing the canon of Scripture count?
By the way, the Church of God points out some verses Luther twisted. No need to demand answers of a Catholic
Just look here:
http://www.cogwriter.com/luther.htm
A brief quote from the article: “Martin Luther has also been charged with intentionally mistranslating Matthew 3:2, Acts 19:18, and many other scriptures”
See post 1318
Yes he did. As I addressed in an earlier post his works had to areas of impact. The first addressed the corruption that had become manifest in the Church. His complaints were for the most part well founded and ultimately resulted in changes and reforms within the Church. While I suspect his motives I, as a Catholic, am happy and appreciative.
Unfortunately, I find his theological work heretical.
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