Pay No Attention to That Man Behind the Curtain! Catholic History and the Emerald City Protocol

reformation21 ^ | April 2012 | Carl Trueman

[Gamecock]

Full Title: Pay No Attention to That Man Behind the Curtain! Roman Catholic History and the Emerald City Protocol

In the field of Reformation studies, Professor Brad Gregory is somebody for whom I have immense respect.  Those outside the discipline of history are possibly unaware of the ravages which postmodernism brought in its wake, making all narratives negotiable and fuelling a rise in interest in all manner of trivia and marginal weirdness.  Dr. Gregory is trained in both philosophy and history and has done much to place the self-understanding of human agents back at the centre of historical analysis.  Thus, for those of us interested in the Reformation, he has also played an important role in placing religion back into the discussion.  For that, I and many others owe him a great debt of gratitude.

I therefore find myself in the odd and uncomfortable position of writing a very critical review of his latest book, The Unintended Reformation (Belknap Harvard, 2011). The book itself is undoubtedly well-written and deeply learned, with nearly a third of the text devoted to endnotes.  It is brilliant in its scope and execution, addressing issues of philosophy, politics and economics.  Anyone wanting a panoramic view of the individuals, the institutions and the forces which shaped early modern Europe should read this work. Yet for all of its brilliance, the book does not demonstrate its central thesis, that Protestantism must shoulder most of the responsibility for the various things which Dr. Gregory dislikes about modern Western society, from its exaltation of the scientific paradigm to its consumerism to its secular view of knowledge and even to global warming. I am sympathetic with many of Dr. Gregory's gripes about the world of today; but in naming Protestantism as the primary culprit he engages in a rather arbitrary blame game.

Dr. Gregory's book contains arguments about both metaphysics and what we might call empirical social realities. On the grounds that debates about metaphysics, like games of chess, can be great fun for the participants but less than thrilling for the spectators, I will post my thoughts on that aspect of the book in a separate blog entry. In this article, I will focus on the Papacy, persecution and the role of the printing press.  This piece is more of a medieval jousting tournament than a chess game and will, I trust, provide the audience with better spectator sport.

One final preliminary comment: I am confident that my previous writings on Roman Catholicism and Roman Catholics indicate that I am no reincarnation of a nineteenth century 'No popery!' rabble-rouser. I have always tried to write with respect and forbearance on such matters, to the extent that I have even been berated at times by other, hotter sorts of Protestants for being too pacific. In what follows, however, I am deliberately combative.  This is not because I wish to show disrespect to Dr. Gregory or to his Church or to his beliefs; but he has set the tone by writing a very combative book. I like that. I like writers who believe and care about the big questions of life. But here is the rub: those who write in such a way must allow those who respond to them to believe with equal passion in their chosen cause and to care about it deeply and thus to be equally combative in their rejoinders.

A key part of the book's argument is the apparent anarchy created by the Protestant emphasis on the perspicuity of scripture. In this, Dr. Gregory stands with his Notre Dame colleague, Christian Smith, as seeing this as perhaps the single weakest point of Protestantism. He also rejects any attempt to restrict Protestantism to the major confessional traditions (Reformed, Anglican and Lutheran) as he argues that such a restriction would create an artificial delimitation of Protestant diversity. Instead, he insists on also including those groups which scholars typically call radical reformers (essentially all other non-Roman Christian sects which have their origins in the turn to scripture of the Reformation). This creates a very diverse and indeed chaotic picture of Protestantism such that no unifying doctrinal synthesis is possible as a means of categorizing the whole.  

I wonder if I am alone in finding the more stridently confident comments of some Roman Catholics over the issue of perspicuity to be somewhat tiresome and rather overblown. Perspicuity was, after all, a response to a position that had proved to be a failure: the Papacy.  Thus, to criticize it while proposing nothing better than a return to that which had proved so inadequate is scarcely a compelling argument.

Yes, it is true that Protestant interpretive diversity is an empirical fact; but when it comes to selectivity in historical reading as a means of creating a false impression of stability, Roman Catholic approaches to the Papacy provide some excellent examples of such fallacious method.  The ability to ignore or simply dismiss as irrelevant the empirical facts of papal history is quite an impressive feat of historical and theological selectivity. Thus, as all sides need to face empirical facts and the challenges they raise, here are a few we might want to consider, along with what seem to me (as a Protestant outsider) to be the usual Roman Catholic responses:

Empirical fact: The Papacy as an authoritative institution was not there in the early centuries. 

Never mind.  Put together a doctrine of development whereby Christians - or at least some of them, those of whom we choose to approve in retrospect on the grounds we agree with what they say  - eventually come to see the Pope as uniquely authoritative.  

Empirical fact: The Papacy was corrupt in the later Middle Ages, building its power and status on political antics, forged documents and other similar scams. 

Ignore it, excuse it as a momentary aberration and perhaps, if pressed, even offer a quick apology. Then move swiftly on to assure everyone it is all sorted out now and start talking about John Paul II or Benedict XVI.  Whatever you do, there is no need to allow this fact to have any significance for how one understands the theory of papal power in the abstract or in the present.  

Empirical fact: The Papacy was in such a mess at the beginning of the fifteenth century that it needed a council to decide who of the multiple claimants to Peter's seat was the legitimate pope.  

Again, this was merely a momentary aberration but it has no significance for the understanding of papal authority.  After all, it was so long ago and so far away.

Empirical fact: The church failed (once again) to put its administrative, pastoral, moral and doctrinal house in order at the Fifth Lateran Council at the start of the sixteenth century.  

Forget it.  Emphasise instead the vibrant piety of the late medieval church and then blame the ungodly Protestants for their inexplicable protests and thus for the collapse of the medieval social, political and theological structure of Europe.  

Perhaps it is somewhat aggressive to pose these points in such a blunt form. Again, I intend no disrespect but am simply responding with the same forthrightness with which certain writers speak of Protestantism. The problem here is that the context for the Reformation - the failure of the papal system to reform itself, a failure in itself lethal to notions of papal power and authority - seems to have been forgotten in all of the recent aggressive attacks on scriptural perspicuity.  These are all empirical facts and they are all routinely excused, dismissed or simply ignored by Roman Catholic writers. Perspicuity was not the original problem; it was intended as the answer.   One can believe it to be an incorrect, incoherent, inadequate answer; but then one must come up with something better - not simply act as if shouting the original problem louder will make everything all right. Such an approach to history and theology is what I call the Emerald City protocol: when defending the great and powerful Oz, one must simply pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.  

Given the above empirical facts, the medieval Papacy surely has chronological priority over any of the alleged shortcomings of scriptural perspicuity in the history of abject ecclesiastical and theological disasters. To be fair, Dr. Gregory does acknowledge that 'medieval Christendom' was a failure (p. 365) but in choosing such a term he sidesteps the significance of the events of the late medieval period for papal authority. The failure of medieval Christendom was the failure of the Papacy. To say medieval Christendom failed but then to allow such a statement no real ecclesiastical significance is merely an act of throat-clearing before going after the people, the Protestants, who frankly are in the crosshairs simply because it appears one finds them and their sects distasteful. Again, to be fair, one cannot blame Roman Catholics for disliking Protestants: our very existence bears testimony to Roman Catholicism's failure. But that Roman Catholics who know their history apparently believe the Papacy now works just fine seems as arbitrary and selective a theological and historical move as any confessionally driven restriction of what is and is not legitimate Protestantism.  

As Dr. Gregory brings his narrative up to the present, I will do the same. There are things which can be conveniently ignored by North American Roman Catholic intellectuals because they take place in distant lands. Yet many of these are emblematic of contemporary Roman Catholicism in the wider world. Such, for example, are the bits of the real cross and vials of Jesus' blood which continue to be displayed in certain churches, the cult of Padre Pio and the relics of Anthony of Padua and the like (both of whom edged out Jesus and the Virgin Mary in a poll as to who was the most prayed to figure in Italian Catholicism). We Protestants may appear hopelessly confused to the latest generation of North American Roman Catholic polemicists, but at least my own little group of Presbyterian schismatics does not promote the veneration of mountebank stigmatics or the virtues of snake-oil.

Still, for the sake of argument let us accept the fideistic notion that the events of the later Middle Ages do not shatter the theology underlying the Papacy.  What therefore of Roman Catholic theological unity and papal authority today? That is not too rosy either, I am afraid.  The Roman Catholic Church's teaching on birth control is routinely ignored by vast swathes of the laity with absolute impunity; Roman Catholic politicians have been in the vanguard of liberalizing abortion laws and yet still been welcome at Mass and at high table with church dignitaries; leading theologians cannot agree on exactly what papal infallibility means; and there is not even consensus on the meaning and significance of Vatican II relative to previous church teaching. Such a Church is as chaotic and anarchic as anything Protestantism has thrown up. 

Further, if Dr. Gregory wants to include as part of his general concept of Protestantism any and all sixteenth century lunatics who ever claimed the Bible alone as sole authority and thence to draw conclusions about the plausibility of the perspicuity of scripture, then it seems reasonable to insist in response that discussions of Roman Catholicism include not simply the Newmans, Ratzingers and Wotjylas but also the Kungs, Rahners, Schillebeeckxs and the journalists at the National Catholic Reporter.  And why stop there?  We should also throw in the sedevacantists and Lefebvrists for good measure.  They all claim to be good Roman Catholics and find their unity around the Office of the Pope, after all. Let us not exclude them on the dubious grounds that they do not support our own preconceived conclusions of how papal authority should work.  At least Protestantism has the integrity to wear its chaotic divisions on its sleeve.

Moving on from the issue of authority, we find that Dr. Gregory also argues that religious persecution is a poisonous result of the confessionalisation of Europe into warring religious factions. Certainly, the bloodshed along confessional lines in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was terrible, but doctrinal disagreements did not begin with the Reformation. The New Testament makes it clear that serious doctrinal conflict existed within the church even during apostolic times (I hope I am allowed, for the sake of argument, to assume that the New Testament is perspicuous enough for me to state that with a degree of confidence); and the link between church and state which provided the context for bloodshed over matters of theological deviancy was established from at least the time of Priscillian in the late fourth century. It was hardly a Protestant or even a Reformation innovation.

When it comes to the empirical facts of Catholic persecution, Dr. Gregory only mentions the Inquisition twice. That is remarkably light coverage given its rather stellar track record in all that embarrassing auto da fe business. Moreover, he mentions it first only in a Reformation/post-Reformation context. Yet Roman Catholic persecution of those considered deviants was not simply or even primarily a response to Reformation Protestantism but a well-established pattern in the Middle Ages. No doubt the Spanish Jews and Muslims, the Cathars, the Albigensians, the Lollards, the Hussites and many other religious deviants living before the establishment of any Protestant state might have wished that their sufferings had received a more substantial role in the narrative and more significance in the general thesis. Sure, Protestantism broke the Roman Catholic monopoly on persecution and thus played a shameful and ignominious part in its escalation; but it did not establish the precedents, legally, culturally or practically.

Finally, the great lacuna in this book is the printing press. Dr. Gregory has, as I noted above, done brilliant work in putting self-understanding back on the historical agenda and thus of grounding the history of ideas in historical realities rather than metaphysical abstractions. The danger with this, however, is that material factors can come to be somewhat neglected. His thesis - that Protestantism shattered the unified nature and coherence of knowledge and paved the way for its secularization - does not take into account the impact of the easy availability of print. The printed book changed everything: it fuelled literacy rates and it expanded the potential for diversity of opinion. I suspect there is a very plausible alternative, or at least supplementary, narrative to the 'Protestantism shattered the unified nature and coherence of knowledge' thesis: the printing press did it because it made impossible the Church's control of the nature, range, flow and availability of knowledge.

Ironically, the printing press is one of the great success stories of pre-Reformation Catholic Europe. One might argue that it was a technological innovation and thus not particularly 'Catholic' in that sense. That is true; but for some years after it was invented it was unclear whether it would be successful enough to replace medieval book production. In fact, its success was significantly helped by the brisk fifteenth century trade in printed breviaries and missals and the indulgences produced to fund war against the Ottomans. In other words, it was the vibrancy of late medieval Catholic piety, of which Dr. Gregory makes much, that ensured the future of the printing press and thereby the shipwrecking of the old, stable forms of knowledge.

The Roman Catholic Church knew the danger presented by the easy transmission of, and access to, knowledge which the printing press provided. That is why it was so assiduous in burning books in the sixteenth century and why the Index of Prohibited Books remained in place until the 1960s. I well remember being amazed when reading the autobiography of the analytic philosopher and one-time priest, Sir Anthony Kenny, that he had had to obtain special permission from the Church to read David Hume for his doctoral research in the 1950s. At the start of the twenty-first century, Rome may present herself as the friend of engaged religious intellectuals in North America but she took an embarrassingly long time even to allow her people free access to the most basic books of modern Western thought. Women in Britain had the vote, Elvis (in my humble opinion) had already done his best work and The Beatles and The Rolling Stones were starting to churn out hits before Roman Catholics were free to read David Hume without specific permission from the Church.   

Of course, Dr. Gregory knows about the Index; but he seems to see it as a response to Protestantism, not as an extension of the Church's typical manner of handling deviation from its central tenets and practices which stretched back well before the Reformation. And therein lies the ironic, tragic, perplexing flaw of this brilliant and learned book: Dr. Gregory sets out to prove that Protestantism is the source of all, or at least many, of the modern world's ills; but what he actually does is demonstrate in painstaking and compelling detail that medieval Catholicism and the Papacy with which it was inextricably bound up were ultimately inadequate to the task which they set - which they claimed! - for themselves.  Reformation Protestantism, if I can use the singular, was one response to this failure, as conciliarism had been a hundred years before.  One can dispute the adequacy of such responses; but only by an act of historical denial can one dispute the fact that it was the Papacy which failed.

Thanks to the death of medieval Christendom and to the havoc caused by the Reformation and beyond, Dr Gregory is today free to believe (or not) that Protestantism is an utter failure.  Thanks to the printing press, he is also free to express this in a public form. Thanks to the modern world which grew as a response to the failure of Roman Catholicism, he is also free to choose his own solution to the problems of modernity without fear of rack or rope. Yet, having said all that, I for one find it strange indeed that someone would choose as the solution that which was actually the problem in the first place.

[LurkingSince'98]

Your whole post with the exception of Acts is Old Testament, Old Covenant, bloody sacrifices and burnt offerings.

The problem you have is that John 6:53-56 is a quote DIRECTLY FROM THE MOUTH OF THE LORD which trumps all other scripture each and every time it appears. Christ’s money quote which you can take to the spiritual bank is:

“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and DRINK HIS BLOOD, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and DRINKS MY BLOOD has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed, and MY BLOOD IS DRINK INDEED. He who eats my flesh and DRINKS MY BLOOD abides in me, and I in him” (John 6:53–56)

There - right there Christ own words repeated FOUR TIMES directly contradict your claim “Don’t eat blood” (sic)

This is another case of a protestant YOPIOS ‘Your Own Personal Interpretation Of Scripture’ which DIRECTLY CONTRADICTS CHRIST and goes completely off the Scriptural rails.

You can contradict Christ all you want - in the long run good luck with that..

For the Greater Glory of God

[LurkingSince'98]

hey I never said Fund Baptist don’t count and its my contest.

You prots can argue amongst yourselves whether someone is or isn’t in the mix - but it doesn’t matter because they are in the mix as are Eastern Orthodox.

AMDG

[metmom]

Here are a couple references I found. There is another than I'm thinking of but this will do for now.

Catholic Biblical Apologetics: Bishop of Rome

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2482796/posts

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you for sharing that, dear xone! Independent Baptists and most Southern Baptists would probably also relate directly to the early house churches.

[xone]

You prots can argue amongst yourselves whether someone is or isn’t in the mix

Catholic arguing that. If the Mass you posted is your exemplar, you have already lost, without the readings the sermon or hymns. Just pay the cash now.

[LurkingSince'98]

ante up then put up.

waiting..

[boatbums]

See my above post to Cynical Beaver

Said he who not all that long ago exhorted someone to:

Learn to behave like among the adults if you want your posts to be read and perhaps even answered.

Is juvenile name calling "adult" behavior in your view?

[boatbums]

WOW! You put a lot of work into that. I had thought about doing the same thing until I realized that it would both BE a lot of work and would probably not make any difference to the minds already made up. There are some who imagine a superiority in all things over those who are not joined with them in their sola ecclesia. As we have witnessed hundreds of times over the years on this forum, the ONLY way truth breaks through delusion is when the Holy Spirit illuminates it to the hearts of those who are diligently seeking it. Thank you for your efforts. I truly believe they WILL be used of God.

[boatbums]

You said it all right here... And unfortunately, not being conversant with God’s Word, they don’t understand.

And, apparently so, with the "Protestant" friends who supposedly agreed that the Mass contained "more" Scripture than their own worship services. Had the list been presented as first given, with no research on their part to validate said Scripture usage actually matched what was asserted, I guess it might appear to be true. However, as Daniel1212 has demonstrated, that "man behind the curtain" has pulled another fast one!

[boatbums]

Satan always does use only parts of scripture and the Catholic Church works with him. Why do they always stop at verse 56 of John 6? Jesus Himself explained that it was really the flesh later in that same chapter.

John 6:63 It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. 64 But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him.

That “flesh” you think you are eating prophets you nothing. Catholics don’t understand the Spirit and “believe not”.

This is FAR from a new idea:

They thought His discourse was harsh and intolerable, supposing that He had really and literally enjoined on them to eat his flesh, He, with the view of ordering the state of salvation as a spiritual thing, set out with the principle, It is the spirit that quickens; and then added, The flesh profits nothing — meaning, of course, to the giving of life. He also goes on to explain what He would have us to understand by spirit: The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. In a like sense He had previously said: He that hears my words, and believes in Him that sent me, has everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but shall pass from death unto life. Constituting, therefore, His word as the life-giving principle, because that word is spirit and life, He likewise called His flesh by the same appellation; because, too, the Word had become flesh. We ought therefore to desire Him in order that we may have life, and to devour Him with the ear, and to ruminate on Him with the understanding, and to digest Him by faith. (Tertullian, On the Resurrection of the Flesh 37) http://onefold.wordpress.com/early-church-evidence-refutes-real-presence/

[boatbums]

Two people in the same family, each praying for each other to be in the Kingdom of God. May it come to pass. Amen. Indeed, For with God nothing shall be impossible.

It is said Martin Luther was crawling on his knees up the stone steps of the Castle church for penance when the verse came to his mind, "The just shall live by his faith." (Habakkuk 2:4). He got off his knees and proceeded to produce his "95 Theses" which began his journey to genuine faith and contributed mightily to the cause of the Reformation. An example of the Holy Spirit turning on the light of illumination to the gospel of the grace of God to a heart diligently seeking to know the truth. That is my prayer. I know I am redeemed by grace through faith and hope that Mom can know the same peace that passes all understanding. She's not there yet.

[Springfield Reformer]

It should be obvious what low quality the KJV is. "εχαριτωσεν" is "accepted"? Good grief.

Actually, the more I study this matter, the more impressed I become with the good translation skills and in-depth language knowledge of the KJV translators, though I do not assign to them what you appear to assign to Jerome: The plenary power to adjust an angelic communication to make it more memorable for the common folk. In fact, I suspect Jerome would reject such a claim about himself. I suspect he had some prior textual basis for his choice of words, such as he appears to have had for the Johannine comma as well.

But all that is a distraction. We are not debating the skill of the KJV translators. We are examining your “special pleading” for the eclectic use of κεχαριτωμενη. To continue then, you assert that:

"Graced" is the correct translation for Eph 1.6

Really? Only in the most technical sense. Nine out of ten people I know would have no idea what “graced” meant. They would think it had something to do with with graceful movement or beauty, etc., as in “she graced the room with her presence.”

And that’s the problem with translation work. The two languages don’t always map well one to the other.

For example, how do you translate “love” when the target language has no such word, when it doesn’t even have much of the concept either? Or even more concrete things, such as the language that has no word for “ship?” How do you explain the travels of Paul in that boat if they really don’t know about boats? It happens. And it can take some deep thought and creativity to get past those linguistic barriers.

So here, it may well have been a useful adaptation for a monarchical society to use “accepten” (middle English “to take, to receive”) as a way to express grace as a verb, where “graced” would have been unintelligible, and even more so in Tyndale’s day. Because for the King to accept or receive you was life itself (see Proverbs 16:15). If you were still in his “good graces,” you had his favor, and that was a wonderful place to be.

But as intriguing as that is, it still doesn’t get us to the main point. Under either phrasing in Luke 1:28, whatever the textual justification, does your “special pleading” from κεχαριτωμενη to infer the sinlessness of Mary from conception actually work, or doesn’t it?

I contend that it does not, because even if I were to give you what I see as your most important assumption, that grace produces sinless perfection, you could not demonstrate from this expression in Luke 1:28 that it tracks back to the moment of Mary’s conception. There is nothing in the participle or the aorist or the perfect which can tell you or anyone else a specific time this purported sinlesssness came to be in Mary’s life. It is therefore a permissible reading of your own chosen language that Mary was or could have been a sinner right up to when she met Gabriel.

It is the equivocal nature of the evidence that makes it impossible to serve as proof. This is essential to sound reasoning. A court cannot accept as proof of natural born citizenship a card that says “I live here now.” Even if the proof of present residence was true, it would NOT speak to conditions at the time of birth. The evidence is equivocal. It fits two or more conflicting scenarios. It doesn’t work.

And why you think the verb form provides that extra bit of evidence you need is completely unclear to me. Participles are a dime a dozen, so there’s nothing in that. The κε at the beginning is just a reduplicated consonant used to signal the perfect, which we have already discussed as not relevant to the ontological nature of the event it describes; when combined with the aorist it only shows the event is done and has some relevance to the present circumstances. It doesn’t tell you the event started, say, at conception, or that it means she could not commit sin subsequent to experiencing grace.

Even Paul would disagree with that last posit, because as one who had also experienced grace, he still wrestled with sin, and was not always successful:

Romans 7:22-23 For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.

And again, I get that the counter to that is to make a special pleading that the grace Mary experienced was more absolute that what Paul experienced or what the believers of Ephesians 1:6 experienced. But it is precisely that, a special pleading:

“Special pleading is a form of spurious argumentation where a position in a dispute introduces favorable details or excludes unfavorable details by alleging a need to apply additional considerations without proper criticism of these considerations themselves. Essentially, this involves someone attempting to cite something as an exemption to a generally accepted rule, principle, etc. without justifying the exemption.”

See: https://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Special_pleading.html

You have, thus far, IMHO, failed to show why Mary’s experience of grace (or divine favor etc) in Luke 1:28 is necessarily different from that of any believer as described in Ephesians 1:6. Instead, your unverifiable claim, as I understand it, is that she is an exception, unlike any other human besides Christ Himself, having received grace in such a way as to render her sinless from birth. Yet the textual basis for this claim is non-existent. Every part of the term κεχαριτωμενη can be explained adequately in terms of ordinary rules of inflection. The special pleading doesn’t work.

[Luk 1:30] should have "grace" also, this is another KJV mariophobic deception

Meh. Modern lexicons are based on very broad surveys of word usage, including literature both inside and outside the Biblical corpus. Paul elevated “grace” to theological significance well beyond its common meaning. But secondary meanings are still valid meanings.

Thus, if we are using “grace” like Paul used it, we necessarily imply an undeserved gift of God that overcomes our sins, but does not necessarily make us sinless. If we accept a less Pauline meaning, we must at least consider whether “favor” or some other more generic sense is exactly what was meant.

As for “favor” versus “grace” in the KJV, you cannot based your own translation work on the supposed flaws of other translators. That is simply irrational. The objective is to know what God has said. Like Paul said, even if some preach the word with less than the best motives, nevertheless, God’s word is being preached, and that’s the main thing.

But to be fair to the KJV translators, one can find a basis for the distinction without resort to unfounded accusations of anti-Mary-ism. If you look at each of the examples cited, you will notice a pattern, not absolute, but a definite trend. Whenever an individual is found dealing with God more or less directly, as a part of the historical narrative, that is where you are most likely to see “favor” versus “grace.” And you see that pattern across both Old and New Testaments in the KJV.

By contrast, when you see Paul and the other apostles diving off into theology 101, talking about believers as a class, rather than individuals in a narrative history, you see the term “grace” coming to full fruition.

So looking at this as a question about the English translators, we have Job finding favor with God (Job 10:12), Noah finding favor with God (Genesis 6:6-8), Abraham finding favor with God (Genesis 18:3-10), Samuel finding favor with God (1 Samuel 2:26), King David finding favor with God (1 Samuel 16:22), and of course Mary finding favor with God (Luke 1:30). So really this is probably nothing more complex than narrative style by the English translators, using this method to distinguish between grace per se (a theological term of art) versus specific historical instances of God selecting someone for some special purpose. Mary of course resides in both categories, but in Luke 1:28 she is a part of the historical narrative and is experiencing being chosen for a most amazing purpose. It fits the pattern.

Real tired. Nearly 3:30am here. Going to bed now.

Peace,

SR

[Elsie]

Obviously you are taking the words at face value.

You MUST be a Catholic to claim they do not apply to you.

[Elsie]

Fair use is based on the belief that the public is entitled to freely use portions of copyrighted materials for purposes of commentary and criticism.

[Elsie]

Such services can go for hours, and the number of "amens" alone would be huge - but LS'98 would not relent.

He doesn't SMOKE Camels; but might possibly PLAY one on TV...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWBhP0EQ1lA

[Gamecock]

**It's unscriptural for a child to have access to his own Father?**

Upsets the Roman applecart. You know, where God says ask your mother. <sarc>

[Elsie]

As the contest went on, additional requirements kept being piled on.

That's why APPEASMENT never works.

[Elsie]

Here is tomorrow's bulletin. There just MIGHT be some Scripture mentioned...

ORDER OF WORSHIP – 4/13/14 – Palm / Passion Sonday

 

 

 

CONGREGATIONAL PRAYER

 

VIDEO

 

OLDER TESTAMENT LESSON                                 Zechariah 9:9-13

 

GOSPEL LESSON                                                      Matthew 21:1-11

 

SONGS OF PRAISE
          “Hosanna"
          “My Glorious”
          “Holy Is The Lord”

 

HYMN OF PRAISE
          “All Glory, Laud, and Honor”  (tune: “Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus”)

 

WORSHIPING GOD WITH HIS TITHES AND OUR GIFTS AND OFFERINGS

 

GOSPEL LESSON                                                         Matthew 16:21-28

 

NEW TESTAMENT LESSON                                        Philippians 4:2-8

 

MINISTRY OF GOD’S WORD               Pastor Dan   “Identifying With The Cross”

 

HYMN OF RESPONSE
          “There Is a Fountain”  (verses 1, 4, 3)

 

WORSHIPING GOD IN PRAYER AND CONFESSION

 

CLOSING SONG
          “Lead Me to Calvary”  (verses 1, 4)

 

BENEDICTION

 

 

[Elsie]

It is, indeed Jesus Christ Who may save the invincibly ignorant, the Muslim, and also the Protestants, because the Salvation is in the One Catholic Church where He will meet you all.

Does he still post on FR?