Posted on 10/28/2011 6:59:29 AM PDT by markomalley
October 31 is only three days away. For Protestants, it is Reformation Day, the date in 1517 on which Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-Five Theses to that famous door in Wittenberg, Germany. Since I returned to the Catholic Church in April 2007, each year the commemoration has become a time of reflection about my own journey and the puzzles that led me back to the Church of my youth.
One of those puzzles was the relationship between the Church, Tradition, and the canon of Scripture. As a Protestant, I claimed to reject the normative role that Tradition plays in the development of Christian doctrine. But at times I seemed to rely on it. For example, on the content of the biblical canon – whether the Old Testament includes the deuterocanonical books (or “Apocrypha”), as the Catholic Church holds and Protestantism rejects. I would appeal to the exclusion of these books as canonical by the Jewish Council of Jamnia (A.D. 90-100) as well as doubts about those books raised by St. Jerome, translator of the Latin Vulgate, and a few other Church Fathers.
My reasoning, however, was extra-biblical. For it appealed to an authoritative leadership that has the power to recognize and certify books as canonical that were subsequently recognized as such by certain Fathers embedded in a tradition that, as a Protestant, I thought more authoritative than the tradition that certified what has come to be known as the Catholic canon. This latter tradition, rejected by Protestants, includes St. Augustine as well as the Council of Hippo (A.D. 393), the Third Council of Carthage (A.D. 397), the Fourth Council of Carthage (A.D. 419), and the Council of Florence (A.D. 1441).
But if, according to my Protestant self, a Jewish council and a few Church Fathers are the grounds on which I am justified in saying what is the proper scope of the Old Testament canon, then what of New Testament canonicity? So, ironically, given my Protestant understanding of ecclesiology, then the sort of authority and tradition that apparently provided me warrant to exclude the deuterocanonical books from Scripture – binding magisterial authority with historical continuity – is missing from the Church during the development of New Testament canonicity.
The Catholic Church, on the other hand, maintains that this magisterial authority was in fact present in the early Church and thus gave its leadership the power to recognize and fix the New Testament canon. So, ironically, the Protestant case for a deuterocanonical-absent Old Testament canon depends on Catholic intuitions about a tradition of magisterial authority.
This led to two other tensions. First, in defense of the Protestant Old Testament canon, I argued, as noted above, that although some of the Church’s leading theologians and several regional councils accepted what is known today as the Catholic canon, others disagreed and embraced what is known today as the Protestant canon. It soon became clear to me that this did not help my case, since by employing this argumentative strategy, I conceded the central point of Catholicism: the Church is logically prior to the Scriptures. That is, if the Church, until the Council of Florence’s ecumenical declaration in 1441, can live with a certain degree of ambiguity about the content of the Old Testament canon, that means that sola scriptura was never a fundamental principle of authentic Christianity.
After all, if Scripture alone applies to the Bible as a whole, then we cannot know to which particular collection of books this principle applies until the Bible’s content is settled. Thus, to concede an officially unsettled canon for Christianity’s first fifteen centuries seems to make the Catholic argument that sola scriptura was a sixteenth-century invention and, therefore, not an essential Christian doctrine.
Second, because the list of canonical books is itself not found in Scripture – as one can find the Ten Commandments or the names of Christ’s apostles – any such list, whether Protestant or Catholic, would be an item of extra-biblical theological knowledge. Take, for example, a portion of the revised and expanded Evangelical Theological Society statement of faith suggested (and eventually rejected by the membership) by two ETS members following my return to the Catholic Church. It states that, “this written word of God consists of the sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments and is the supreme authority in all matters of belief and behavior.”
But the belief that the Bible consists only of sixty-six books is not a claim of Scripture, since one cannot find the list in it, but a claim about Scripture as a whole. That is, the whole has a property – i.e., “consisting of sixty-six books,” – that is not found in any of the parts. In other words, if the sixty-six books are the supreme authority on matters of belief, and the number of books is a belief, and one cannot find that belief in any of the books, then the belief that Scripture consists of sixty-six particular books is an extra-biblical belief, an item of theological knowledge that is prima facie non-biblical.
For the Catholic, this is not a problem, since the Bible is the book of the Church, and thus there is an organic unity between the fixing of the canon and the development of doctrine and Christian practice.
Although I am forever indebted to my Evangelical brethren for instilling and nurturing in me a deep love of Scripture, it was that love that eventually led me to the Church that had the authority to distinguish Scripture from other things.
John 3:3 Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
Rev 3:20 Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.
Rev 3:21 To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.
Rev 3:22 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.
Those who have to much pride to humble themselves
or to much pride in institutions don’t get the Holy Spirit.
There is no such thing as collective salvation .
You either have a personal relationship or you don’t.
He knocks but if you don’t answer it’s the same thing as saying I don’t need you...that is blasphemy of the Holy Spirit... pride gets in the way of many people ... some basically say my church will save me and in the process reject him and his teaching.
Read the letters to the seven churches in Revelation
.
Each on of those seven churches represents the different types of people in the churches . Each of those 7 churches also represent the history of Christianity , notice how he says he will take away their lamps ?
Mat 7:21 Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.
Mat 7:22 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?
Mat 7:23 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.
Carnal man can not understand the scriptures, it’s foolishness to him. It’s the Holy Spirit that teaches you personally and cleans you up.
2Pe 3:3 Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts,
2Pe 3:4 And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.
2Pe 3:5 For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:
2Pe 3:6 Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:
2Pe 3:7 But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.
2Pe 3:8 But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
2Pe 3:9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
There, in a nutshell, is the chasm between Christians and some of the fringe Paulian cults who all but openly profess that Paul, not Jesus, is their savior. Substitute the name Mary for Paul and you have what they repeatedly accuse Catholics of.
Correct. We have all these idiots who consider Paul to be the greatest of the Apostles. Jesus apparently was so naive and unschooled, that He had to practice on the 12 before He got it right and picked Paul to succeed Him. In a way, like Paul Atreides, the Messiah of Dune, who picked Leto II to succeed him. Leto was the God Emperor of Dune who lived for thousands of years and was far greater than his father.
Thus, to many of such as these, Jesus was a super David, excelling him in every way, and Paul was a super Jesus, excelling Him in every way, especially in instruction to Christians. Jesus was for the Jews only, according to this bunch. Paul was for the Christians and the whole world. It is Paul to whom Christians must turn, as long as they use the magic phrase "in Jesus' name". To their way of thinking, this preserves the illusion that they are still Christian.
Guilty of neither. But I am guilty of understanding Scripture and to what each verse applies. I say that you guys do not as a rule bow knee at the name of the Christ and you reach into the magical grab bag and pull random verse out and fling it about like antiaircraft fire hoping that something will make contact in order to try to obfuscate the truth of the matter.
All that you guys have done is prove my point with every succeeding post.
When the Scripture chosen does not apply to the subject at hand, it qualifies as a random choice.
If the discussion at hand is one on the conduct of a congregation during worship, and I post Genesis 6 through 9 in its entirety as a response, that is the equivalent. Or I could have posted entire chapters from Numbers. Would that be relevant to the discussion? You accuse me of misunderstanding Scripture while you do.
I rather think that the opposite is true, as demonstrated.
And it's all for one reason: to obscure the truth of 2 Cor. 4:3-4.
Perhaps you guys might spend a little more time discovering the truth of Matthew 1 through John 21, and a little less time trying to replace Jesus with Paul.
All your future sins are already forgiven, unless you commit the unpardonable one, in which case you don’t have the Holy Spirit living in you and therefore you lose the forgiveness for all your past, present and future sins that you once thought you had.
I.e., you were wrong.
Well said, my friend.
If I view myself, others and God in this manner, I'm on a very wrong track.
It would be like marrying for money.
Their view of us is legalistic. They think that Catholicism is actually an accounting exercise. However, they de emphasize the Beatitudes and the Commandments of Christ to the point where they are scarcely noteworthy in their eager acceptance of the New New Messiah - Paul.
Yes, the televangelists come to mind. Yet we also have the more than 50 Commandments of Christ. Which, to your Reformational mind is the greater and more relevant to man? Matthew 22:37-40, or all of Paul's Epistles?
I will ask the same question about the parable of the Good Samaritan. Let's see what you have.
While the Greek “presbyterous” (or the appropriate form) is used to refer a broader group, “older man” or “elder”, particularly in a spiritual sense.
Ah, but is not the presbyter the priest? A third ordained place, between the ordained deacon and the ordained bishop - as is used in the Church and in many Protestant denominations?
In my haste, I may have included the reference in Titus in haste.
But it IS your judgment, simply because you can not and do not know the motive of the heart - that is God's realm.
All this could have been avoided if the question about the bowing of the knee had been answered instead of returning fire with a fusillade of angry fluff. By the way, the question has still not been answered.
The obvious conclusion is that it will not be for a very good reason.
The same Jesus who told us to feed, clothe, and visit is the same Jesus who gave all these other requirements.
Matthew 5:28-30 28But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29 If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. 30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.
Do you practice these or demand that everyone else do as well? Or is it restricted to just feeding the hungry and clothing the naked? And, FWIW, do you do it out of your own pocket at your own expense, or do you let someone else pay for it and provide the facilities and you just work at their location?
What about *annulments* (Catholic divorce)? Jesus said this....
Matthew 5:31-32 31 "It was also said, 'Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.' 32 But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
Matthew 5:38-42 38 "You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' 39But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. 40And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. 41And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. 42 Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you.
Matthew 5:43-48 43 "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' 44But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? 48 You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Matthew 6 1"Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.
2 "Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. 3But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
5"And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. 6But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
7"And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. 8Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. 9 Pray then like this:
"Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. 10 Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us this day our daily bread, 12and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
14 For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, 15 but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
16"And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. 17But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, 18that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
Matthew 7:1-5 1 "Judge not, that you be not judged. 2 For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. 3Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? 4Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when there is the log in your own eye? 5You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.
We're not.
Paul isn't teaching anything Jesus didn't teach.
Salvation by faith and the security of the believer.
John 3:14-18 14And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. 16"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
John 5:24 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.
John 6:28-29 28Then they said to him, "What must we do, to be doing the works of God?" 29Jesus answered them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent."
John 6:35 Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.
John 6:39-40 39And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day."
John 6:47 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life.
John 7:38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, 'Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.'"
John 11:24-26 24 Martha said to him, "I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day." 25Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, 26and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?"
John 14:12 "Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father.
Luke 18:9-14 9He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: 10"Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.' 13But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, 'God, be merciful to me, a sinner!' 14I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted."
John 10:27-29 27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. 29My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.
John 20:30-31 30 Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; 31 but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
What a crock.....
Basing someone's level of spiritual maturity based on outward physical signs is ridiculous.
People bow their knees to all kinds of deities in this world. An outward physical sign of kneeling is meaningless as an indicator of the person's heart.
The fruit of the Spirit is.....
Galatians 5:22-23 22But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
Even Jesus said.....
Matthew 7:15-23 15 "Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. 16You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. 18A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.
21 "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?' 23 And then will I declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.'
The same Jesus who told us to feed, clothe, and visit is the same Jesus who gave all these other requirements.
Wonderful. I see that you are going out on hitherto unexplored territory. I will aid to the best of my ability.
Do you practice these or demand that everyone else do as well? Or is it restricted to just feeding the hungry and clothing the naked? And, FWIW, do you do it out of your own pocket at your own expense, or do you let someone else pay for it and provide the facilities and you just work at their location?
When I fall afoul of these, I confess them to Almighty God and ask for His Mercy. I further ask for His Help in avoiding future occasions of that sin. I do not arrogantly proclaim my own salvation. I throw myself on the mercy of Almighty God. Further, not only do I contribute cash, I do the work as well. If I serve at a pancake breakfast for the KofC, I pay the full admission. Since I am on the Council, not only do I pay dues, but I contribute where it is expedient to help with our programs for the Church and community.
What about *annulments* (Catholic divorce)? Jesus said this....
Jesus is correct (duh). Protestants are not. What is your point?
48 You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Sounds like works to me.
"Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. 10 Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us this day our daily bread, 12and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
14 For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, 15 but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses
Surely you do not believe that I hold anything against you. I forgive you and your companions rather easily. Luke 23:34. I believe that you have forgetten or else been overwhelmed by your hubris.
But that’s pretty much what CC teaching is based on so how would they understand anything different?
And we don’t replace the only mediator between God and man with someone else.
1 Corinthians 9: 23All this I do for the sake of the gospel, so that I too may have a share in it. 24* Do you not know that the runners in the stadium all run in the race, but only one wins the prize? Run so as to win.p 25Every athlete exercises discipline in every way. They do it to win a perishable crown, but we an imperishable one.q 26Thus I do not run aimlessly; I do not fight as if I were shadowboxing. 27No, I drive my body and train it, for fear that, after having preached to others, I myself should be disqualified.
Oh dear, does Paul say that you must work for your salvation and that you can be disqualified? Are the crowns that the yahoos preach about perishable? Is this little passage able to qualify for Protestant inclusion in doctrine?
If you do not persevere until the end you will be disqualified.
What a crock.....
In other words, you have nothing and cannot refute it.
But that’s pretty much what CC teaching is based on so how would they understand anything different?
The parable of the Good Samaritan is an example of what the Catholic Church teaches. We understand that. We do not understand how folks teach that nothing is required, and that nothing matters except mere words attempting to excuse one.
Neither do we.
>>Paul isn't teaching anything Jesus didn't teach.<<
Then why the reliance on Paul? If Paul taught nothing that Jesus did not teach, then theoretically one does not need to rely on Paul at all, and only concentrate on the Gospels, right?
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