Posted on 02/05/2011 11:07:42 AM PST by Gamecock
Amen and Amen!
Hoss
In-grown bitterness, spite, hate, etc. tends to become increasingly like that, imho.
Creativity crashes and burns right away—if there ever was any on the part of such tortured souls and minds . . .
Wow, what a legacy you have! It is so wonderful what God can do with people who are open to his leading.
Yawn.
Amen! Me, too.
Mary, saints, statues, bread, Popes, etc etc.
Right, but you forgot to add celibate priests, popes, and nuns, who have been forbidden to marry, and Lent, Marti Gras “fat tuesdays,” can’t eat fish on fridays, etc., to your list. The apostle Paul said these things are identifiers of what became the Papacy:
1Tim. 4:1 Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils;
2 Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron;
3 Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.
The Papacy claims to be the original church, according to this passage they are an institution that has departed from the original faith. The apostate church, in other words, not Apostolic, apostate.
“in the latter times some shall depart from the faith”
to this to be true, the latter times would need to be ad95!
remember my friend, Protestants departed from the Catholic Faith, not vice versa. seems to me Paul was talking about the Reformation.
forbidding to marry - this refers to the Church being the Bride of Christ, if you aren’t in the Church, you aren’t married to Christ.
abstaining from meat - this means not receiving the Eucharist, which is the Body of Christ.
Nope. The Church, meaning the Roman Catholic Church, started substantially after that and is a man-made organization. Now, if youre referring to the THE Church, you MUST mean all Christians, called by The Father to the Son and saved by Christs shed blood i.e. Christians of which there may be some in the Roman Catholic Church.
Amen!
We are an example of following God instead of following the men of the Reformation, the Restoration and the myriad other heretic groups that call themselves Christians. Thank you for your praise of the Church.
I see a great deal of vitriol from both sides. I have to ask are these attacks saying that only those who believe as I do can be saved? The focus of the 27 books in the New Testament is Jesus Christ. The writings of the apostles, Matthew, Peter (in his own epistles and through Mark) and John all center around Christ and his atoning work. I consider Romans to be perhaps the greatest single writing in the history of mankind. The focus of that book was not the Universal Church but rather the rise, fall and redemption of sinful man through faith in the atoning work of Christ.
Church structure in the epistles is not particularly hierarchical. It talks about local congregations who support each other and outlines the conditions for the appointments for bishops, elders and deacons. The focus is not on any international worldwide church body that I can see. If there is any church that would be considered the mother church in Scripture I would say that it is the church at Jerusalem not Rome. Even though tradition says that Peter died at Rome, I Peter was composed at Babylon which was a viable city at that time.
I can find numerous doctrinal and historical issues where I disagree with the Catholic Church that you identify with. At the same time, I will also credit the Church, your Church, for many things including preserving the Scriptures for a 1000 years and spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I don’t think that the Lord would be particularly pleased with an ad hominem attack on a group which contains a great number of His faithful. I choose NOT to participate. For the record, I thought the article in question was arrogant and prideful, not at all honoring our Lord and Savior.
The Body of Christ has to be wiiling to discuss our points of disagreement while at the same time recognizing that we do agree on the major points: we are all sinners, Christ the perfect God-Man died on the cross, that he was raised from the dead on the thrid day and we are perfected not by anything that we do but simply by putting our faith in his atoning work and resurrection. The life verse that I keep coming back to is I Cor 2:2, “ I am determined to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified.”
Frankly, I’d like to see both the Catholics and Protestants on this board tone it down a bit. I don’t think that when we stand before God that he will say “ You loved My Son and Loved your neighbor as yourself, but sorry, you didn’t have everything dogamtically correct.” I don’t think either side is perfect. We need to respect the Bride of Christ.
When we read puerile theological claims like this, we tend to snicker more.
Like the younger French generation who have become oblivious to their own history, being delivered from Nazi tyranny, so it is with so many in Christendom today. They dont know their history, they are ignorant of what tyrants the Papacy was. Without good reminders like this article of yours, some of them get bushwacked by all this Papist propaganda on FR.
Yup, that Papism rises like a mist in the night, and if you are not careful, it will come in under your door and make a Papist out of you in your sleep. Or the Papist virus will be left on doorknobs and infect you without you being aware. Use lots of hand sanitizer and never, never, never use a public telephone.
Hard to argue the truth ...
Amen
Post 127.
And another one for your home page.
But as all things that have personal power attached the leadership of Rome preferred to kill them than to give up their power.
Luther loved the church, he loved it enough to put his life on the line to reform it.. but like the others..He did not love it more than he loved Christ and the gospel
Those that know the truth, can never go back to the superstitions and man made tradition ... it would not only be shame on us ...but a denial of the gospel of Christ
Excellent post! Amen!
NO, the Church is the "Body of Christ" (the saved) . . . the Bride is the new Jerusalem.
Tim. 2:15 Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needed not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. KJV
I am waiting for you to point me to one of the lies in the opening article and we can discuss that
And what if He never knew you?
Ever the optimist, I see.
The NT church had no pope, no priests, no masses, no sacrifices...
Greg Dues has written Catholic Customs & Traditions, a popular guide (New London: Twenty Third Publications, 2007). On page 166 he states, "Priesthood as we know it in the Catholic church was unheard of during the first generation of Christianity, because at that time priesthood was still associated with animal sacrifices in both the Jewish and pagan religions."
"A clearly defined local leadership in the form of elders, or presbyteroi, became still more important when the original apostles and disciples of Jesus died. The chief elder in each community was often called the episkopos (Greek, 'overseer'). In English this came to be translated as 'bishop' (Latin, episcopus). Ordinarily he presided over the community's Eucharistic assembly."
"When the Eucharist came to be regarded as a sacrifice, the role of the bishop took on a priestly dimension. By the third century bishops were considered priests. Presbyters or elders sometimes substituted for the bishop at the Eucharist. By the end of the third century people all over were using the title 'priest' (hierus in Greek and sacerdos in Latin) for whoever presided at the Eucharist."
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.