Posted on 12/12/2014 9:41:27 PM PST by NKP_Vet
A small group of men and women once set its principles of charity and temperance against the prevailing values of the age—and in so doing altered the course of civilization. Because the early Christians’ belief had a specific content of truth and morality based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, they could not simply go with the flow. Jesus was both God and man. They could not worship, or pretend to worship, a mere human being who claimed to be God because he was Caesar. And this seemed to non-Christians to be an unpardonable stubbornness and perversity.
Marriage and Family Matter
This "stubbornness" was not simply confined to matters of worship. The Christians’ family customs were an affront to their pagan neighbors. They would not practice artificial birth control or abortion (the Greeks and Romans had primitive forms of these) since they believed in both the sanctity of life and the life-giving process. Christian couples did not divorce or have sex before marriage because they believed that sexual intercourse was for marriage only, and that the unity of man and woman in marriage was sacred and indissoluble: It was a reflection of Christ’s own unity with his bride the Church (cf. Eph. 5:25). In an age when any father could command the death of his newborn child, Christians accepted all children, including those who were weak or handicapped. In the words of an early Christian testimony, probably written in the second century:
Christians . . . marry like all others, and beget children; but they do not expose their offspring. Their board they spread for all, but not their bed. They find themselves in the flesh, but do not live according to the flesh. They spend their days on earth, but hold citizenship in heaven.
(Excerpt) Read more at catholic.com ...
As can be evidenced.
Welcome to the FRoman RF.
“It would not be impossible to prove with sufficient repetition and a psychological understanding of the people concerned that a square is in fact a circle. They are mere words, and words can be molded until they clothe ideas and disguise.”
― Joseph Goebbels
What we DO know is these apostles and disciples WROTE volumes on what they taught. There has never been a tradition where the oral trumps the written. Both are to be in harmony.
Or are you of the school of thought which asserts the Gospels and epistles were not actually written by the original authors?
But my FRiend, the direct line back to the apostles is Pentecost as The Lord added to the church from that day on. You can find that in Acts 2 by the way.
I guess you can say I have 'transition' lenses on. I was raised Catholic, practicing Catholic and educated Catholic. Now I am not a Roman Catholic. So I see the benefits and straw in both sides' comments. Where I see the multitude of the straw on your side of the Tiber.
I will pray for your return to the true faith.
No room for Jesus eh?
It's always *return to the church* or *return to the faith*, never *return to Jesus*.
Goes to show what the Catholic focus is on and it ISN'T Jesus.
It's churchianity.
Still waiting on your reply about eating fat.
And I am still praying for you as well.
I’m going to reply on this part of what we’re talking about, closeness to Christ, which is part of what I brought up in my previous post. But before I do, I have to ask you to reply on what the main points of that post and what we’ve been talking about have to do with, which is Catholic belief on Mary. Clearly Roman Catholic prayers to her say things such as, as I pointed out, that Catholics entrust themselves their salvation to her, and dedicate and consecrate themselves and all they are and have, body and soul, to her. How, given all that Scripture plainly says over and over again (including in passages quoting Jesus and what His Apostles wrote) can Christians be expected to hold such beliefs and say such prayers? And I have to add that any church which holds such beliefs, has, I would have to say, judging by God’s Word, lost much if not all of its authority.
Yes, and how sad it is that so many who believe in Christ are kept from coming close to Him. Growing up as I did in lukewarm Lutheran churches, in a mostly Catholic area, I knew the very basics of the Gospel, but didn’t see it in the churches and lives around me. Studying the Gospels helped a lot but reading and studying all of God’s Word really brought me close to the Lord, and I also saw how little I’d been taught.
The enemy would keep us away from Scripture at all cost.
Just knowing that makes me want to get into all the more.
Try reading the last 2,000 years of REAL Christian history, instead of 500 years worth of PROTESTant history and you’ll get an idea of why Catholics and Orthodox hold Mary in such high esteem. By the way the great PROTESTant hero Martin Luther didn’t share your beliefs about the mother of God. His shared the same beliefs as Catholics do today.
Of course Mary should be held in high esteem, but as the Roman Catholic Church has developed its beliefs on her, that has turned into idolatry.
God’s Word makes clear, leaving no room for any other possibility: there is Creator and creature, and the proper service of every creature is to give all credit to the Creator and point all other creatures to the Creator if they mistakenly want to credit that particular creature. That is what Mary (who in God’s Word is called simply “the mother of Jesus”) did when Elizabeth addressed her. She said “my soul magnifies the Lord...” There is only one way. Many wrong ways, and only one right one, and that is to magnify and also to lift up the Lord (one name for the Lord in fact is the Lord Our Banner, and of course a banner is made to be seen and lifted up). God’s Word is just absolutely crystal-clear on that, including that failure to do this is what led to the rebellious angels being thrown out of Heaven. No one else but God is eternal as He is, and the source of all good, and it is what God wants us to see and then to help others to see, since in the natural man is in a lost and confused state, and that leads him to make all sorts of idols, including of himself. And the only remedy for that is the truth, and God’s faithful servants, including Mary, will, when someone wants to praise or worship them, use that occasion to point that person in the right direction, as to whom really deserves all of our praise and worship.
Boy, you dug up a lot of prayers. I do say the Hail Mary and the Holy Queen....both of which CLEARLY ask Mary to pray for us. So what did you prove? Not much. Nice try, A for effort, D- for understanding. I do not worship Mary, I honor her just as Jesus did. He gave her to us as our mother on the cross...I remember and honor her as His mother. I repeat, I only WORSHIP God alone in the trinity. Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Hail Holy Queen, by Scott Hahn is an excellent book explaining the Mary equation to non-Catholics. I recommend it.
Anybody can say anything, but the proof is in the pudding as the saying goes. How well do you know the Bible? There is so much there in those prayers which goes directly against God’s Word, tioga. God’s Word reveals things about Himself and what His will is for us. So, any Christian Church has to say it worships God alone. But then the Church should follow through on the claim. Those prayers, though, give powers, traits and abilities to Mary that God alone has. I think as Christians we understand that in Christ we’ve been given a gift which has no comparison to anything else that any religion or any worldly thing or person could offer. And having the Lord, then, I won’t go to anyone else. One of these prayers says for our desire to be for Mary, but mine is for the Lord! And I’m sure from Mary’s words when Elizabeth greeted her that’s a joyful desire that Mary shares with all who do. And I certainly honor her, but the only person I will ever go to in prayer is God.
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