But, God knows those who are His and I doubt there is a long list of those so easily fooled by smells and bells in the only book that Matters...
Posted on 04/05/2015 4:56:11 PM PDT by Arthur McGowan
In an article entitled Saint Patrick the Baptist?, Stephen R. Button tries to claim St. Patrick for Evangelical Protestantism... or at least disassociate him from Roman Catholicism. Button is hardly alone: you can find similar attempts by Don Boys and others, some of them dating back several decades.
The argument tends to work like this. From Patrick, we have (in Button's words) only the “84 short paragraphs that make up both his Confession and his 'Letter to Coroticus.'” Baptist authors then mine these texts for any doctrines that Patrick doesn't mention explicitly, and then claim that he must have held the Baptist view.
(Excerpt) Read more at catholicdefense.blogspot.it ...
When you read a passage from the Bible....do you think about what it is saying? Do you ever contemplate how you could incorporate the message into your life?
All the time. Why would you think that a Catholic would do otherwise? Catholicism has a rich history of meditations on the Bible. A search on Amazon.com for "Catholic Bible meditations" brings up 961 results. Protestants should rid themselves of the prejudice that Catholics do not follow the word of God.
I remember that happened and that was one thing that turned me off the Catholic church. How can that be when several kids were involved? Never have understood that. It just seemed like money could buy anything in that church.
There is no Spiritual error. The error comes in this world, from the carnal nature of man. I am not talking about reconciliation in any temporal sense. There can only be unity in the Spirit, by spiritually mature Believers who put the Word first, His Truth.
Romans 10:4 (KJV)
4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.
The Law has no application to the Believers in this dispensation of Grace - we could not keep it even if we tried. Believers are made alive in Christ Jesus, seated in Heavenly places. It is a gift from God and cannot be earned.
Believers have a higher Law - the Law of Love. We obey that joyfully, not out of fear of punishment or judgment, since we were already declared righteous by faith.
The apostasy was well underway in the 1st century. A combination of pagan converts bringing in their superstitions and rituals, and Judaizers introducing the Law and Jewish traditions, was already undermining the revelation Paul was teaching about the Body of Christ. It should be no surprise, since Corinthians, Galatians, and Colossians are full of correction and rebuke for those straying from the Truth. And then there were his concerns in his last letter to Timothy (here are two such examples).
2 Timothy 1:15 (KJV)
15 This thou knowest, that all they which are in Asia be turned away from me; of whom are Phygellus and Hermogenes.
2 Timothy 4:10 (KJV)
10 For Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world, and is departed unto Thessalonica; Crescens to Galatia, Titus unto Dalmatia.
He told Timothy to preach the Word, and warned of the coming time when - For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. (2 Timothy 4:3-4) This was happening in both their lifetimes. By the end of the 1st century, Paul’s revelation of the Mystery was largely abandoned and forgotten. Revelation was replaced by the intellectual reasoning of men. Preaching became a profession, instead of answering the Call of God and teaching under His Anointing. Christianity became religion, with all of its associated challenges and failures. God’s Word became secondary to the musings of theologians, who often failed to rightly divide the Word, allowing the enemy to sow confusion, strife, and division into the Body.
What emerged in subsequent centuries was something very different than what the Holy Spirit teaches in Paul’s letters to the Body of Christ. Visit your average denominational church of any flavor even now, and compare what you see and hear to the revelation found in Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians. God has always found individuals who discovered His Truth, and were a Light to their generation. And the Light is growing brighter as we approach the end of this age. May HIS TRUTH always prevail.
I agree, of course. But the canon of Scripture was tested against the teachings of the Gospel and is consistent with it. Thus, while the author of the Gospel of Luke (who is also believed to be the author of the Acts of the Apostles) wrote in, maybe, 80-100 AD, the events he described would have occurred within the lifetime, and memory, of many then still living.
It can and it lets you end your marriage and continue to go on and sin, all with a clear conscience before the church.
But not before God.
Divorce by any other name is still divorce.
Do not confuse Protestant interpretations of Scripture with Scripture itself.
the events he described would have occurred within the lifetime, and memory, of many then still living.
All the time. Why would you think that a Catholic would do otherwise? Catholicism has a rich history of meditations on the Bible. A search on Amazon.com for "Catholic Bible meditations" brings up 961 results. Protestants should rid themselves of the prejudice that Catholics do not follow the word of God.
Reason I asked is that you are doing exactly what catholics claim cannot be done or is being done wrong by non-catholics.
You're reading the Word and letting God speak to you through His Word. You are not listening to a priest. Christians do the same thing.
You claimed earlier that catholics accept Scripture as the Word of God. So do Christians.
You also claimed that catholics do not accept Protestant interpretations of Scripture.
In other words catholics say you can't read the Bible and draw your own conclusions.....which is exactly what you are doing.
It is what Christians have been doing for a long, long time.
God wants us to understand His Word. All He wants us to do is to read it. He will use the Holy Spirit to teach us the meaning.
This is typical shallow Bible Christianity since this is all such Bible Christians can do. Toss out swatches of scriptural quotations and purport to apply a definite interpretation to them that would contradict Catholic Belief. Hence the saying that even the devil can quote scripture.
You have answered your own question: “So now what do you do? How do you test the truth if we are warned there are false prophets and leaders?”
BEFORE the Bible, there existed the Catholic Church. How many times must you be reminded hat it was the Catholic Church in the Synod of Rome in AD 382, at least some two hundred or more years after the last Gospel was written, that the Church fathers acting under infallible Petrine examined hundreds of fragments of writings, interpreted and cross-checked them against the received oral tradition (John 21:25: that Christ did and said many things that were not written down and had they been written down it would not fill all the books in the world), and included some, and excluded other written tracts, like the Gbostic gospels, prayed as a community of disciples following the successors to St. Peter, and declared the canonical text to be the written Word of God.
This is the true Church, all the rest are crude heresies. This infallible authority given to Peter and his successors “to teach” and teach ONE truth was given to the Catholic Church. Protestantism and all its heresies washed ashore some ELEVEN centuries later.
This Church is the “rock” for all ages, and its saints and martyrs and stigmatists attest to all of this.
Theological scholars both from the vast array of Catholics theologians to several pre-eminent Protestant theologians now recognize this singular fact and embrace all of its doctrine and beliefs stated in the Credo and the Catholic Catechism. Just think of the superb analyses made by John Hnery Newman, after the whole the so-called Oxford Movement is called.
Speaking of false prophets you don’t have to go far. Just as we find the Moonies, the vapid bible waving lectures of Billy Graham, Benny Hinn, Jimmy Swaggart, Joel Osteen, Creflo Dollar, TD Jakes, and Rev. Wright, we now have mainline Protestant and Evangelical Churches using scriptural warrant toordain married gay and lesbian ministers. These and your foursquare Church First Methodist, First AME, First Presbyterian, First -—etc, etc., are for low information shallow Bible Christians.
Serious inquiring minds find Protestantism today an embarrassment. This is why scores of Protestant “divinity school” students complete their studies and then switch over to Catholicism, professors included.
Protestants should at least concede a point which Martin Luther, their religion’s founder, also conceded, namely, that the Catholic Church safeguarded and identified the Bible: He wrote: “We are obliged to yield many things to the Catholics – (for example), that they possess the Word of God, which we received from them; otherwise, we should have known nothing at all about it.”
Thus this infallible authority teach and interpret did not vanish with the Protestant Reformation.
That infallibility and the authority to teach ONE truth as Christ commanded in His Great Commission to “go Forth and TEACH all nations” This is to teach ONE truth and assured to Peter:
“And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven.”
The Catholic Church “bound” the Bible in AD 382 and “bound” it followers with the same infallible teaching authority that informed its selection of the canonical texts.
Thus the early Church historian J. N. D. Kelly, a Protestant, writes,
“[W]here in practice was [the] apostolic testimony or tradition to be found? . The most obvious answer was that the apostles had committed it orally to the Church, where it had been handed down from generation to generation... Unlike the alleged secret tradition of the Gnostics, it was entirely public and open, having been entrusted by the apostles to their successors, and by these in turn to those who followed them, and was visible in the Church for all who cared to look for it” (Early Christian Doctrines, 37).
Even before the Bible was assembled, St. Irenaeus writes:
“It is possible, then, for everyone in every church, who may wish to know the truth, to contemplate the tradition of the apostles which has been made known to us throughout the whole world. And we are in a position to enumerate those who were instituted bishops by the apostles and their successors down to our own times, men who neither knew nor taught anything like what these heretics rave about” (Against Heresies 3:3:1 [A.D. 189]).
Unfortunately this is not the stuff that shallow Bible Christians have even been exposed to. This is why it has been often said that take a Bible Christian to the deep end of the theological pool and either they drown or stay afloat by holding onto the Catholic raft.
Jesus said his Church would be “the light of the world.’ He then noted that “a city set on a hill cannot be hid” (Matt. 5:14).
The Councils of Hippo (393) and Carthage (397) that we find a definitive list of canonical books being drawn up, and each of these Councils acknowledged the very same list of books deemed the infallible written word of God in the Synod f AD 382.
That authority did not suddenly evaporate.
This means his Church is a visible organization. It must have characteristics that clearly identify it and that distinguish it from other churches. Jesus promised, “I will build my Church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it” (Matt. 16:18). This means that his Church will never be destroyed and will never fall away from him. His Church will survive until his return.
“Unfortunately this is not the stuff that shallow Bible Christians have even been exposed to. “
I sure hope your visits to and fellowship with Christians in protestant churches helps you with this kind of judgmental attitude.
I think your decision you announced came just in time.
Reason I asked is that you are doing exactly what catholics claim cannot be done or is being done wrong by non-catholics.
You're reading the Word and letting God speak to you through His Word. You are not listening to a priest. Christians do the same thing.
Yes, we Catholics do let God speak to us through his Word. If you were to attend a Catholic Mass you would know how important the Sacred Scriptures are to us. But we listen to the Word of God also informed by Catholic teaching. When you read the Gospel of Matthew are you not also informed by Paul's writings? When reading Paul are you not also informed by Matthew? The Sacred Scriptures and the teachings of the Church have but one source, God himself. Our understanding of each is informed by the other.
In other words catholics say you can't read the Bible and draw your own conclusions.....which is exactly what you are doing.
It is what [Protestant] Christians have been doing for a long, long time.
While Protestants like to claim that they are merely coming to their own conclusions after reading the Bible, the truth is that they are just as dependent upon Protestant tradition as Catholics are on theirs. Can you honestly say to me that you have reached your conclusions on your own before you were influenced by Protestant preaching, commentaries and instruction? If so, you would be one of the few.
Furthermore, unless you claim an infallibility with regard to the interpretation of Scripture that you would deny to the Church as a whole, by what right do you have to claim that Catholic interpretations of Scripture are any less valid than your own?
Reason I make the distinction is that catholics do. Rarely do I see on these threads an identification with Christ by catholics until they’re called on it. It’s more about associating with the roman catholic church.
You need to seriously read the history of the NT Canon.
You need to seriously address this inquiry of yours about the NT canon to eminent Lutheran and Protestant theologians who converted to Catholicism. Here are a few.
1. Ulf Ekman, the founder of Scandinavia’s biggest Bible school, with a congregation of some 4000 individuals, converted to Catholicism because his theological inquiry confirmed for him the indispensability of the Catholic sacraments.
2. Francis J. Beckwith, a “born-again” evangelical, a tenured professor at Baptist-affiliated Baylor University in Waco, Tex, was the president of the Evangelical Theological Society, an association of 4,300 Protestant theologians resigned and joined the Catholic Church. One blogger likened it to Hulk Hogan’s defection from the World Wrestling Federation to the rival World Championship Wrestling league.
3. Rev. Richard John Neuhaus, was a pre-eminent Lutheran theologian in America. He knew his Bible-text and history like no other Protestant. When he converted to Catholicism he said, “I have long believed that the Roman Catholic Church is the fullest expression of the church of Christ through time.”
Well I’ll go dig up some catholics who’ve convertedand raise you two.
Here’s a nice place to start.
Stellar List of Converts to Catholicism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_converts_to_Catholicism
But, God knows those who are His and I doubt there is a long list of those so easily fooled by smells and bells in the only book that Matters...
They are superior and justified....they are Christianity....all others are wannabes.
the quotes aren't old to Catholics....they were the only ones around...
“cultists”? Protestant theologians who converted to Catholicism fooled?
Works of Augustine-Aquinas-Newman-Benedict studied under the rigor of scholarship and inquiry in the greatest colleges and universities of this world unable to make “cogent arguments”? For over 2000 years “un-scriptural system of indoctrination”?
From AD 110, St. Ignatius of Antioch wrote: “Where the bishop is present, there let the congregation gather, just as where Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church”. The Church believes that when the bishops speak as teachers, Christ speaks; for he said to them: “He who hears you, hears me; and he who rejects you, rejects me” (Lk 10, 16).
Long time of “indoctrination and falsity” Wow! all those saints and martyrs in hell?
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