The Big Discovery [by David, former Presbyterian]

Journeyof ImperfectSaint.blogspot.com ^ | October 4, 2009 | David

[Salvation]

Sunday, October 4, 2009

The Big Discovery

        I made some good friends outside my church and found out that they were all Catholics.  Now, I did not know much about Catholicism at the time.  By the way, the Mass did seem somewhat mysterious to me externally.  In fact, what little I had heard from other church members was all negative.  There was a Mrs. J at my church, who had just retired from her missionary post in China.  She was such a kind and endearing soul to all.  One day she got back from visiting someone at a hospital and looked extremely sad and disturbed.  It turned out that when she got to the hospital room, she saw that a Catholic priest was already there with the patient.  Now the question was if the patient would ever get to heaven. 

 

        Nevertheless, my Catholic friends all looked quite normal and happy.  Then could the Catholic Church, the largest church in the the world, be in error?  It so happened that at that time I was also beginning to question my Protestant faith.  The fact that there were numerous different denominations around the world bothered me.  Also, as a Protestant, whether you're a minister or lay person, you are free to marry and divorce any number of times.  It's hard to see that Jesus would be happy with these two facts.  Since I am the kind of person who always likes to find the answer to any question that's important, I decided to look into Catholicism.

 

        I made up my mind not to talk to anyone about my investigation.  I was single then and had a lot of free time to myself.  The local public library housed an excellent collection of books on Catholicism, so I started borrowing books on the subject.  I read every weekend, even taking notes as I read.  The went on for over a year.  I read all those books that viciously attack the Catholic Church too, but somehow they did not affect me much because I sensed that these attacks could not have been prompted by the Holy Spirit.  The books that really helped me were the ones on early Church history.  I could see that the continuity was there and the beliefs and practices of the early Church had been preserved to this day in the Catholic Church.  The only conclusion I could come to was that the Catholic Church was indeed the church Jesus had come and established.  Like Christ himself, the Church, being his body, must be accepted (or rejected) totally, with no middle ground. 

 

        Here's some advice for those who seek the truth.  Your chances of success will greatly improve if, first, you start out with a completely open mind and secondly, go to the source(s) directly to get the facts.  Many who misunderstand the Catholic Church today have already made up their mind that the Church is wrong, thus never bothering to pick up a copy of the Catechism of the Catholic Church to find out what the Church really teaches.  This is being close-minded. 

[Jvette]

***Unlike, I suppose, the Catholic church who says you must be baptized to be save. Except, ooops, that’s not really enough by itself; you have to add more.. The Catholic church can’t even decide if baptism saves at all.****

I suppose I could go into a lengthy explanation here of Baptism and faith, but I have a feeling it would be a waste of my time and yours.

One is saved by the waters of baptism and remains in Jesus through a life of service to others and obeying His commandments i.e. Loving God and Loving one’s neighbor.

Mark 16;16 Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.

As Jesus tells Nicodemus, one must be born again of water and the spirit to enter the kingdom of God.

Baptism is a Sacrament of Initiation and remission of sin.

Were Baptism the end all and be all of salvation, most of the New Testament is unnecessary as Paul, Peter, John and James write mostly about how to live as a Christian and warn the believer many, many times to stand firm in faith.
Why would they need to do that if all the people they baptized were saved and could not ever again be lost?

***Soul with God upon death/Soul sleeps until judgement day

Not critical to being saved so irrelevant.

Rapture/No Rapture

Not critical to being saved so irrelevant.****

Hardly irrelevant. But since I said nothing about these being critical to salvation, let’s return to the topic at hand, which is the conflicting beliefs of “Bible” churches.

The point is that there is vast disparity in some beliefs and yet all Protestants claim the Bible as the sole teacher of truth.

The point is that even though these differing denomination are reading the VERY SAME Bible, they are coming to VERY DIFFERENT conclusions about some fundamental things.

***Bodily Resurrection/No bodily Resurrection

Which Protestant denominations don’t believe in a bodily resurrection? Not anyone I’ve ever heard of.

Invalid(sic)***

Hardly. Google which churches do not believe in the bodily resurrection.

[papertyger]

No I don’t. It’s to get a divorce without actually calling it

How much more evidence of Protestant duplicity do you need? When someone will not accept a perfectly legitimate explaination for no other purpose than to find fault, you know you're dealing with the children of the accuser, and the works of their father they will do.

They are like unto children sitting in the marketplace, and calling one to another, and saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned to you, and ye have not wept.

Luk 7:33 For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine; and ye say, He hath a devil.

Luk 7:34 The Son of man is come eating and drinking; and ye say, Behold a gluttonous man, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners!

Luk 7:35 But wisdom is justified of all her children.

And if there's one thing Protestants have plenty of, it's "children."

[Jvette]

Oh, one other thing.

Why did you ping all those others?

If one cannot have a conversation with me without calling out all the others to come pile on, please don’t engage me.

You responded to a post I made to someone else, I did not engage you first.

[HarleyD]

And thank you. Once again Catholics do not wish to discuss what is very clear history. The early church fathers believed the scriptures to be given to them by God and thus they were inspired. One thousand years later the Church modified what the scriptures were and declared the Church created them. And then they wonder why Protestants don’t accept it.

[HarleyD]

Thanks for shedding light.

[Jvette]

*****When I got saved, one of the first impulses I had was the NEED to go out and buy a Bible and begin reading it. Nobody told me I had to (I got saved at work, not an altar call where someone told me I ought to do that). I just knew I needed to do it, so I did.****

And why did you feel this need? Did you know what a Bible is? In other words, did you know about God and Jesus and the Bible before you went out to buy one? And if you did, what did you know about it that made you feel you needed to buy one?

And once you did these things, you never once spoke with or studied Scripture with any other human being?

One may like to think one has come to knowledge of Christ and Scripture solely on one’s own, but that could not be further from the truth.

[Jvette]

Well it depends on the history one wants to discuss. Real history or revisionist history.

[metmom]

For a short period Jesus was brought out of eternity and subjected to the effects of time. For a short period Jesus was brought out of eternity and subjected to the effects of time.

And that's where He died and rose again. He did not die a spiritual death in heaven. He died a physical death in the confines of this physical world.

For him (and the rest of the Trinity) all time is occurring at the same moment. Time is no longer linear for him. So His birth and death are occurring at the same time.

I don't think man is capable of understanding how God *sees* time. Times and seasons are mentioned in Scripture. Jesus came in the fullness of time. If time were all happening at once, there could be no fullness of time.

It seems that it's more likely that God can interject Himself anywhere He wishes into time as He sees it all from the outside, so to speak.

That is why the Catholic Church can accurately say that he died once for all time.

He died once for all people.

[metmom]

Many Catholics disagree with the Church on many things. So what?

Does that make 1.2 billion Catholic denominations then?

For crying out loud, that's the very thing Protestants are condemned for and now it's OK because Catholics do it?

FWIW< there's more than enough evidence in the CCC and the canons from the council of Trent to know that disagreement with Catholic doctrine is NOT tolerated. Much of it results in anathemas.

Hey, dan, this is another one Catholics disagree on. Their ability to disagree with the Church.

They do not have the authority to declare binding beliefs on anyone and must answer for their own dissent when the time comes.

No different than Protestants who think that they answer to God for their own personal choices.

[RFEngineer]

“How much more evidence of Protestant duplicity do you need?”

LOL..... It’s “Protestant duplicity” when talking about Catholic Divorce.

Duplicity is pretending a divorce is really not a divorce.

It’s unmarriage in general. It’s bad whether you’re Catholic or Protestant.

You claim there is a difference when people get married and then are no longer married after a period of time living as a married couple. They go from one to the other and are unmarried. Catholics call it one thing, Protestants call it something else. Yet there is no difference - folks who were once married no longer are.

I completely get that Catholics only grant annulments after a process they go through - and one can argue about the Gingrich and Kennedy priority - but the end result is exactly the same. Catholics don’t recognize it for what it is, and that’s fine - but it really is a distinction without a difference - whether it’s a Hatian divorce or a tribunal in Rome, or a poor slob at the courthouse - you get unmarried - everyone recognizes it as that.

[metmom]

One is saved by the waters of baptism and remains in Jesus through a life of service to others and obeying His commandments i.e. Loving God and Loving one’s neighbor.

Without the shedding of blood, there is NO remission of sins. Baptism is not shed blood, therefore CANNOT save.

We do not get saved by works, we don't stay saved by works.

The point is that even though these differing denomination are reading the VERY SAME Bible, they are coming to VERY DIFFERENT conclusions about some fundamental things.

Say, aren't you the one who posted post 159 or did someone hijack your account when you weren't looking?

Nor fundamental things whether you think so or not. I'm telling you they're not and since it is not your faith we are discussing, you have no ability to decide what are fundamental differences or not. It's up to those of us whose faith it is to define it.

Catholics don't get the privilege of defining Protestant beliefs for them.

[metmom]

Why did you ping all those others?

Because it is their beliefs you are discussing and they have the right to have input into it as well.

[Natural Law]

"For crying out loud, that's the very thing Protestants are condemned for and now it's OK because Catholics do it?"

The differences is that those Catholics who disagree with the Church do not get to speak for the Church or to form their own versions of the Church and still be called Catholic.

Peace be with you.

[papertyger]

And then they wonder why Protestants don’t accept it.

We know exactly why Protestants won't accept it. Do you think Protestants were the first group of rebelious heretics to spin-off and declare themselves "the Church?"

The middle east was full of them a thousand years ago....of course, now they're all Muslims, but that could never happen to you.

[metmom]

And why did you feel this need?

The Holy Spirit impressed it on me. It wasn't because someone told me I needed to.

Did you know what a Bible is?

Not really, having never been exposed to one before.

Yes, but that did not play into the need I felt to go out and buy one.

Based on my upbringing, my first reaction SHOULD HAVE BEEN to make a beeline for the nearest Catholic church. It wasn't.

And once you did these things, you never once spoke with or studied Scripture with any other human being?

I never said that. We were discussing what caused me to feel the need to buy a Bible and anything other than addressing that, what my knowledge about God and Jesus was before that, does not enter into the equation.

If it did, I would have felt the need to buy a Bible BEFORE I got saved, not after.

I read and understood and came to my own conclusions about doctrine. It usually agreed with mainstream Evangelical teaching. And I did ask questions, but that is not what caused me to feel the need to go out and buy a Bible.

Long and short of it is that the Catholic church cannot take any credit for my desire to get a hold of God's word and read and learn of it myself under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

[Natural Law]

"It's up to those of us whose faith it is to define it."

There is a word that you should become familiar with; reciprocity. You should stop trying to redefine Catholicism before you attempt to lecture anyone on the issue.

Peace be with you.

[metmom]

We know exactly why Protestants won't accept it. Do you think Protestants were the first group of rebelious heretics to spin-off and declare themselves "the Church?"

Individual believers makeup the body of Christ. It's an organism, not an organization and no believer thinks that the local denomination they attend is the real *church*.

Catholics say that you have to be Catholic to be saved.

Believers know you need to be believers in Jesus to be saved regardless of denomination.

There is a mixture of saved and unsaved in every local assembly because it's not baptism, church membership, denominational affiliation which saves.

It's faith in Jesus which transcends denominational lines.

[Natural Law]

"Long and short of it is that the Catholic church cannot take any credit for my desire to get a hold of God's word and read and learn of it myself under the guidance of the Holy Spirit."

And neither can the Church take any of the blame for your gross doctrinal errors. I pray that you will be far more successful learning your new faith than you were learning what the Church actually teaches.

Peace be with you.

[papertyger]

LOL..... It’s “Protestant duplicity” when talking about Catholic Divorce.

No, it's Protestant duplicity when one keeps insisting an annulment is the same thing as a divorce when it manifestly is not.

There's no such thing as a "no-fault" annulment. Annulments are granted because the marriage was entered into under false pretenses and therefore was not valid.

That a spouse remains for an extended period in hopes of repairing the fault and becomes convinced they can not is none of your business, and certainly not yours to judge.

[papertyger]

It's faith in Jesus which transcends denominational lines.

Anyone can have "faith" in Jesus Christ. Mormons have faith in Jesus Christ. That's not the issue.

"Obedience" to Jesus Christ is another matter entirely.....