Posted on 12/14/2014 11:57:21 AM PST by ealgeone
The reason for this article is to determine if the worship/veneration given to Mary by the catholic church is justified from a Biblical perspective. This will be evaluated using the Biblical standard and not man’s standard.
Indeed.
Thy kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven...
And coming to her, he said, “Hail, favored one! The Lord is with you.” - http://usccb.org/bible/luke/1
Each day I realize that more and more. I remember when I began to question some of the beliefs taught as I was growing up. I immersed myself in God's word not the words of some fallible men. It's shocking to me that they would put that much faith in fallible man rather than the inspired word of God.
“I toed the line for my first 21 years, but I felt VERY uncomfortable with that. Maybe that was just God preparing me for my conversion experience. Make sense?”
Paul was converted instantly, once it was God’s time. I imagine you were too :-)
And then you have the Douay-Rheims-Challoner, which is referenced for "full of grace" (derived from the Latin Vulgate), but which also has "favor" for "grace" (charis) in,
Act 2:47 Praising God and having favour with all the people. And the Lord increased daily together such as should be saved. (Act 2:47)
And delivered him out of all his tribulations: and he gave him favour and wisdom in the sight of Pharao, the king of Egypt. And he appointed him governor over Egypt and over all his house. (Act 7:10)
Requesting favour against him, that he would command him to be brought to Jerusalem, laying wait to kill him in the way. (Act 25:3)
And do not forget to do good and to impart: for by such sacrifices God's favour is obtained. (Heb 13:16)
These Protest-ants get in everything!
Yes it does make sense. I can relate through my own experience. I think of the people I respected and thought highly of who I now realize were off track when it comes to the truth of scripture. I can at least be grateful to them for instilling a need for a savior.
You’re up early this morning, Bossie. You don’t usually start in until after dark. When all the vampires come out!
I only read short posts. This Protestant obsession with long-winded screeds bores me.
I suppose one of the more relevant replies to the attempts to belittle by boasting of one’s degrees could be “verily I say you have your reward”.
Learning to worship Mary is not a one lesson thing.
It’s a pattern established by upbringing, so it’s not a question that can be answered by pointing back to one specific point in time as the beginning of it.
That as written, it became the supreme standard as the wholly inspired word of God. That would be entirely incontrovertibly correct, but which Caths must deny due to ignorance and or cultic devotion to a false teaching, which imagines Scripture obtains its authority from the church, and that the latter came first, and the people need an infallible magisterium to know what revelation is of God, and that church teaching is the supreme law, and the one duty of the multitude is to follow the pastors as (dumb) docile sheep. From such cults turn away.
It's become very clear that the big stumbling block for Catholics is the concept of being credited with righteousness.
It's true, we aren't righteous. Not by a long shot, and every born again believer is acutely and painfully aware of that.
But as SR mentioned, God deals with us judicially, and can credit us with the righteousness of His Son, with which He can then go on to deal with us AS IF we had no sin.
Once again great work! It struck me as I was reading through that is that in the Catholic faith all of those references to addressing the saints would have been to dead people.
They probably have more respect for her then all the writers after Pentecost. Not one word of her after that date. No one cared enough to even record where she spent her last days. She was obviously insignificant not only to religious writers but secular as well.
I'm looking at the people in Jesus' life and, as near as I can tell, Mary is the ONLY person who never let Jesus down, who always stood by him and was with him in the beginning, the end and the in between.
The Apostles, men we rightly hold in high esteem, and whose words we read, study, memorize and argue over, were not at Mary's level.
Even though they were in His presence and saw His miracles, they still had doubts and not one was with Him in the end, and one even betrayed Him.
They were not touched directly by God as Mary was. They did not know Jesus as Mary did. No one did. No one had greater faith than Mary. In fact, how could anyone have a greater love and faith than Mary?
I'm not Catholic nor Orthodox, so Mary and where Mary might be in the Holy Hierarchy are a matter of contemplation for me.
However, to my limited understanding as stated above, I think the Catholics have a much better understanding than the (pick your favorite flavor) Protestants have.
In thinking about Mary and her life, if I believe in an infinite Holy Trinity with infinite power, and I do, then it's easy for me to see that Mary out ranks every other human in life and also in "death".
So, all I can say is: Thank You, Holy Spirit for helping my understanding. I am grateful.
In spite of my laziness, and my built-in bias against what I grew up believing about the institution known as the Catholic Church, I should learn the Rosary.
But don’t ever think they deify her right?
Please show proof of anyone having done that.
>>yet they forget they were given the information directly by either Christ Himself, or the prompting of the Holy Spirit. None of which applies to any of them.<<
Acts 15:8 And God, which knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us; 9 And put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith.
Acts 10:47 Can any man forbid water, that these should not be baptized, which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we?
>>A friend o f mine keeps telling me: You can't fix red or stupid.<<
One wonders why he always tells YOU that.
Surely with all of your degrees you would have already seen where it was. See 4279.
The Rosary can be a great source of comfort and meditation. Well worth learning!!!
Do Catholics have a different list of the fruits of the Spirit?
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