“Faith without works is dead.” “IF you remain in the Faith...” We can quote verses back and forth until the cows come home. Protestant here, but the more I see the gross excesses of some preachers - I saw the enormous mansion of a certain mega-preacher from Houston - the more I appreciate the Catholic perspective which basically says “If you claim to be a Christian, then your walk must match your talk.” Multiple theology degrees here, including earned Ph.D.
One day a minister got it into his head that he should give a sermon on being God’s co-laborer and he thought it should happen soon. So he got ahold of the fellow responsible for the bulletins and told him to change the next week’s printing.
It was really off the cuff but he really wasn’t worried, after all, it was a vast topic and he was only giving it one lesson.
That Sunday after servises he started reading and highlighting text. By late Monday he’d found enough scriptures to work with and so, after an elaborate dinner and a short night’s sleep he started writing.
Amazingly, he was done by early Tuesday morning and had found the last typo before the secretary even showed up.
As he reread the sermon again he was amazed at just how good it was.
It was certainly the best thing he’d ever written and the flow was such that it would be a joy to give.
“Here is one that will stand the test of time!” he congradulated himself.
Then he got a naughty thought: confirming that he was still alone he highlighted the text and had his Mac read it back to him (even older Macs can do that, it’s built into their OS).
The minister sat there soaking in his lesson and congradulated himself for a job well done!
But no sooner had the Mac stopped speaking and he heard it’s voice chime: “WOW! I never knew I had it in me!!!”
As the minister sat there, mouth agape, his computer’s word processor took credit for the sermon.
“You didn’t write that! I did!!!” the minister yelled at the screen, “How can you take credit for my work?!?”
“That,” a booming voice filled the whole room even as the lighting grew blazingly bright, “is pretty much what I was wondering about too.”
**... the more I appreciate the Catholic perspective..**
Catholics believe that consuming the wafer and wine gives eternal life. Are you agreeing with them on that?
I took trumpet lessons once but can’t play the trumpet. Nobody wants to listen to the noise I can make.
Have you seen the Vatican?? Osteen, and I'm not defending the guy, has nothing on the Vatican.
Out of curiosity what was your PhD thesis/dissertation about?