Posted on 08/02/2017 2:07:44 PM PDT by detective
“Some of us are simply striving to have the mind of Christ, as we’re commanded.”
No. You are trying to create a false either/or situation. You say that you can not love Jesus if you love the Blessed Mother. That is simply false.
The Blessed Mother is not God, no one says she is. You are simply trying to set up a false premise.
[I may have mistakenly sent this as a PM. Apologies if so.]
‘You say that you can not love Jesus if you love the Blessed Mother.’
Please search my posts. I have never said what you accuse me of saying.
The Second Commandment against making idols does however. I know Roman Catholics may not be as familiar with that one.
4“You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth.
5“You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me,
6but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments. Exodus 20:4-6 NASB
Now compare this to what the apparition at Fatima said about serving it.
1) Whoever shall faithfully serve Meby the recitation of the Rosary, shall receive signal graces.
2) The soul which recommends itself to Me by the recitation of the Rosary, shall not perish.
http://www.fatima.org/essentials/requests/promises.asp
You are trying to create a false dichotomy. You are saying that if you love Jesus you must not love the Blessed Mother.
Nope. It is the Roman Catholic who has created the false dichotomy which says we have to love Mary to love Jesus.
That is simply stupid.
It is unbiblical.
No one says The Blessed Mother is God.
The Roman catholic church has invoked her as Mediatrix, Advocatrix and Co-redemptrix.....all titles given to Jesus and/or the Holy Spirit. In essense they've elevated her to the status of Jesus.
No one says she should be worshiped as God.
The Roman Catholic idols of Mary they kneel before, pray before and light candles before say otherwise.
Your arguments boil down to you can only love Jesus if you have no love for his mother
Again...what is the Greatest Commandment?
There is no sense continuing this.
You misrepresent what Catholics do and dishonestly claim that venerating the Blessed Mother means someone does not love Jesus and that someone is worshiping false idols.
I have patiently tried to explain to you why what you are saying is false.
You have no interest in anything but espousing your false idea that in order to love Jesus you can not love the Blessed Mother.
I have an interest in explaining that you do not have to love Mary in order to have faith in Christ.
When Peter extolled the Jews after Pentecost on the need of repentance did he mention, "oh, and you need to love Mary?"
No.
After Acts 1 Mary disappears from the NT.
Not one NT writer ever said we have to love Mary in order to have faith in Christ. That's a false teaching of the Roman Catholic church.
I have also shown the prohibition of serving idols which Roman Catholics like to ignore.
It has everything to do with God’s righteous indignation that anyone would suggest a human being be venerated.
The disciples were “sore afraid” that they had done this. Are you?
Romans 15:4
For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.
The disciples were “sore afraid” that they had done this.
Consider also the following. Notice Peter's statement regarding building three tabernacles....it was ignored.
The instructions received from Heaven.....Listen to Him!
The verb, listen, in Greek is in the imperative mood. It is the mood of command. What is additionally interesting is there is no time significance with this form of the verb.
In other words, this is not a one time command given to those who were on the mountain.
A more literal way of interpreting this would be, "continually listen to Him!".
The Holy Spirit moved the writer of Matthew to use this form of Greek to indicate we are to always listen to Him....no one else.
1Six days later Jesus took with Him Peter and James and John his brother, and led them up on a high mountain by themselves.
2And He was transfigured before them; and His face shone like the sun, and His garments became as white as light.
3And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, talking with Him.
4Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if You wish, I will make three tabernacles here, one for You, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”
5While he was still speaking, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and behold, a voice out of the cloud said, “This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased; listen to Him!”
6When the disciples heard this, they fell face down to the ground and were terrified.
7And Jesus came to them and touched them and said, “Get up, and do not be afraid.”
8And lifting up their eyes, they saw no one except Jesus Himself alone. Matthew 17:1-8 NASB
I’ve had an epiphany. Jesus is our example. We are commanded to imitate Him. In Luke 11, a golden opportunity to venerate Mary is provided to Jesus. Instead of setting us an example of such veneration, Jesus responded that, “On the contrary,” blessings belong not to the one who bore Him, but to, “those who hear the word of God and observe it.”
Jesus, our example, couldn’t make it any plainer. We must obey the command to imitate Him.
Luke 11:
27 While Jesus was saying these things, one of the women in the crowd raised her voice and said to Him, “Blessed is the womb that bore You and the breasts at which You nursed.”
28 But He said, “On the contrary, blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it.”
Yes, father.
The Catholic understanding if key terms is rooted in NT usage. For instance the term “father”: in the NT the usage is this:
“Father” is used without offense or reproach, for natural genetic fathers (like Abraham , Isaac, and Jacob), for legal foster fathers (like Joseph), for spiritual fathers who have passed on the Faith (like Paul in relation to both Philemon and Onesimus), as a title for religious teachers and elders (Acts 22:1) and historic religious forebears (Romans 4:16), and as a form of respect
for the older men in the congregation (1 John 2:13).
This approved NT usage has bren retained among Christians in their Church and in Christian society continuously for 20 centuries.
Human beings are venerated in the sense of giving a subordinate kind of due honor, not only to our parents (”honor your father and your mother”) but to all who by rank or merit deserve it, in due measure (Paul says: “giving honor to whom honor is due, custom to whom custom is due, tribute to whom tribute is due” — and again, “honor the king”.).
It is necessary to distinguish between kinds and degrees of honor and veneration, not conflating them with adoration.
Even when we call Christian clergy “reverend,” we are according them *reverence*, which is to say, a degree of religious veneration.
If you want to see legitimate secular and religious veneration in display, go to a U.S. Military funeral. You will see memorable rituals of both kinds of veneration accorded to the American flag, the symbols of military rank, and the blessed remains of the American servicemen.
The military, being (still) the most conservative segment of society, still tenaciously retains the last remnants of dignified ceremonial honor and veneration in America.
Except we have,”call no man father”. It obvious this is in the spiritual sense as seen in the RCC. This usage is not attested to in the NT.
‘Even when we call Christian clergy “reverend,” we are according them *reverence*, which is to say, a degree of religious veneration.’
Not all Christians refer to clergy as ‘reverend.’ I was taught at a very early age not to confer that title on a fellow human being, and I was far from alone; many Christians eschew such terminology.
Except we never see anyone in the NT kneel,before an idol of a created being and pray to it nor attribute characteristics of God to it as we see the Romam Catholic do with Mary. There is no way, based on Scripture, you can defend this false practice.
Let’s circle back around to the disciples wanting to build temples in honor of two humans.
What was God’s response?
You are erroneously conflating every kind of honor, reverence, and veneration into one thing: adoration. And this is not just a difference in degree, but a difference in kind. All honor to a created being (for instance the honor Jesus gave to His mother) is dependent and derivative.
Only the adoration of God is absolute, because only God’s being is not contingent on any created thing.
All persons, places or things regarded as holy or religiously honorable in Christianity (the Holy Bible, the Holy Land, the Holy City of Jerusalem, the Holy Church, the Holy Angels and Archangels, the Holy Synods, the Holy Saints, Holy Mary, etc.) are holy only because of their association with God. You know that! We know it too.
Stop conflating veneration with adoration, and your objection will disappear.
Again, I’m at my Kindle and not at my computer, but when I get to my files I’ll illustrate how common this recognition of reflected and contingent holiness is in Hebrew and NT Biblical culture. It only strikes people as incomprehensible when a flattened, secularized culture has made all forms and degrees of honor and dignity incomprehensible.
We don’t kneel before idols. We do kneel before holy persons, places and things and pray -— when we make a prayer of supreme devotion and adoration -— to God. Regard prayer at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in that light. Many a Christian has knelt and said a heartfelt prayer there, or at their grandfather’s grave, and of course I don’t mean Catholics only.
26But Peter raised him up, saying, “Stand up; I too am just a man. Acts 10:25-26 NASB
Peter knew enough to tell Cornelius to get up.
Will Roman Catholics ever understand what they're doing when they knell before Mary and pray to her is worship?
Keep circling. Hope that plane has lots of gas! :)
opps!
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