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Locked on 04/24/2022 5:40:39 AM PDT by Religion Moderator, reason:
Childishness |
Posted on 03/06/2022 11:16:06 AM PST by CharlesOConnell
A man commits a serious crime, then he gets released. He has "paid his debt to society". But wait a minute, he's only ready for the half-way house. He's unlikely to get a prestigious job in his new prison suit coat, or any job at all; he has civil impediments, he can't vote or hold certain offices. His crime was serious enough that he won't be presumed to have been completely rehabilitated until he performs a notable service to society, or at least spends many years on the straight and narrow, so that his crime can be truly overlooked or forgotten.
In Catholic faith, your "debt to society" is paid by Jesus Christ on Calvary. It's called "eternal punishment", without Christ it keeps you from going to heaven. Supposing that you do take advantage of His sacrifice, you're truly sorry, have a firm purpose of amendment, if you relapse, you go again for forgiveness (to the Sacrament of Confession).
But your sin leaves a strong trace at another layer of impurity called "temporal punishment due to sin", like the civil impediments facing the half-way house prisoner. Because "nothing impure can enter heaven", there is a place or a state, a condition of purification to render you fit for heaven after Christ has finally saved you from hell. The Catholic Church calls it purgatory.
(Where is it in the bible? Where is the word Trinity in the bible? Where does it say that you only need a personal relationship with Jesus Christ? Many valid principles aren't stated explicitly in the bible, but it does say to "hold fast to the traditions you have learned, whether by word or by letter", because much of the Gospel wasn't written down, as Jesus only wrote in the sand, the majority of the Gospel was taught from word to ear to people who couldn't afford expensive books, the exceptions were what tended to get written down. But the implication that there is a purgatory, is contained in the bible--see the comments.)
The ex-con can receive a pardon or commutation of his probation from a Governor, if he performs some heroic deed, saving numerous lives, or, like Chuck Colson, performs a long-lasting, valuable community service helping numerous people who can't help themselves.
In the Catholic Church there are 2 ways for the residual, temporal effects due to sin to be expiated: suffering in this life, or after life, undergoing purifying suffering along with other people who will finally be saved, but have to suffer for long without the vision of God--that is what causes them their pain.
Their suffering isn't meritorious enough to grant their release, the saints in heaven and those on earth suffering and practicing virtue can pray for the suffering souls in purgatory. In no way is their release by slow transfer of suffering or practice of virtue, "buying heaven". It's a long, excruciating process.
How the misunderstanding arose that Catholics think they can buy their way into heaven, is involved with history more than 500 years old. For a millennium of Christendom between roughly 410 and 1410, there was a Medieval civilization with harmony between faith and government.
Many small farmers would cluster around the manor house of a military lord who would protect them, in exchange for a certain fixed obligation of labor and agricultural produce. In most cases, those "serfs" had much more leisure than factory workers of the industrial revolution; there were a large number of holy days without work, and except for planting and harvesting, there were long stretches of idle time.
Another large sector of the economy surrounded monasteries, where the monks developed most of the farming practices that stabilized the serfs and their manorial lords. The monks who worked those monastic lands were sworn to poverty, so that monasteries built up large accumulations of economic value over decades and centuries of labor.
At the beginning, when lands were being cleared and put into production there weren't prominent town fairs ruled by merchants and bankers. Money wasn't used for sustenance, not even much barter occurred, life was mostly agrarian.
Charity was woven into the economy of monasteries. It was estimated that you only need travel 12 miles in medieval England between monasteries, where you could get a meal and minimal lodging for free, based on need. And the charity was also spiritual, including the ancient Catholic principle of prayer for the dead, which is biblical. (See "prayer for the dead" in the original King James Bible in the comment.)
There were foundations and benefices for praying for the dead, that allowed a person of means to support monasteries' charitable works, and in proportional response the monks would pray for the souls of the donors.
It happened at the close of the middle ages, that militarily strong nobles cast their eyes on the labor value accumulated by the poverty-sworn monks of the monasteries, which those nobles perceived as monetary wealth, especially where gold and jewels had been donated by the devout to adorn churches.
(Protestant writer William Cobbett wrote in his 1824 "A History of the Protestant Reformation in England and Ireland", an anecdote, that an incredibly valuable, hand illustrated bible was stripped of it's bejeweled, gold cover, the much more valuable hand-illumined manuscript, thrown in the mud and trampled by horses hooves by raiders suppressing the monasteries in Henry VIII's England.)
A new religion growing up around this seizure of monastic lands and valuables, that sought to discredit the Catholic Church, spread the black legend that the "sale of indulgences" was abusive. But this was very exceptional. Today the stipend of a Mass said for the dead is $10.
Unsurprisingly, you miss the mark.
If the mark is set by the SDA cult, it's false prophetess, and it's false doctrines, yep.
Scripture is a mile from there.
I wouldn’t know. I don’t adhere to their doctrines. Clean miss.
The Almighty Judge does not, as indicated by the Hebrews 10:26-19. But then, the Spirit-indwelled regenerated willingly reclassified by his/her full yieldedness as the Father-accepted bond-slave of His Son Jesus Christ, the person who upon the Divine promise possesses the never-ending absolute eternal life for his/her once-executable decision, belongs to the OSAS group, is no longer of that portion of humanity that is included in the passage that you wrongly selected to apply to them.
As the Beloved John teaches the disciples saved under his faith-imparting preaching, the habitually deliberately sinning human has never escaped even for a moment out of the condemned segment of Adam's descendants.
"He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him" (1 Jn. 2:4-5 AV)Here, John is only expanding on the basis of what his Rabbi and Savior had already nailed down completely as he had already recorded:
"Whosoever is born of God doth not commitcontinually, habitually; present tense, active voice, indicative mode sin; for hisGod's seedsperma, figuratively the Word(s) remainethabides at all times in himthe Blood-bought permanently and willingly solely-owned bond-slave of God's Son and Saver of condemned humans: and hethat person cannot sinkeep on deliberately habitually, because he is bornan irreversible procedure on that person completely finished witch ongoing eternal consequences; perfect tense, passive voice, indicative mode of Godthe All-powerful Being with insuperable Will" (1 Jn. 3:9 AV)
"Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but ishas at one point, is now, and continues forever passedthe status completely done with eternal consequences; perfect tense from death unto spiritual and eternallife" (Jn. 5:24 AV)And you would like to keep on sinfully denying these as false arguments? These undeniable promises that confirm God's gracious gift of pardoned salvation that includes justification with Jesus' shed-blood propitiation, upon which Jesus' righteousness is imputed to and permanently conferred upon the restored individual without a break; to that person upon which dutiful progressive sanctification of the regenerated servant-disciple-priest and Friend of Jesus is instantly instituted?
You're camping on this anti-scriptural view?
Great news!
I sincerely ask but one thing. Why were the new gentile believers sent to Torah kindergarten?
—> Why were the new gentile believers sent to Torah kindergarten?
And sincerely in response.
Where did God command His Church to do this?
If He did not command it, it is interesting, but not required.
Where in Scripture is it recorded that new Gentile believers did this?
Same.
I know this is an unsatisfactory answer, but I ask you to diligently examine the Apostolic scriptures once again with fresh eyes. It’s right out in the open.
It’s unclear what you mean by required. If you mean required for justification, then I suggest framing it that way will hinder your efforts.
Talking to yourself, eh?
They weren’t.
Acts 15:1-10 But some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” And after Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them, Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and the elders about this question. So, being sent on their way by the church, they passed through both Phoenicia and Samaria, describing in detail the conversion of the Gentiles, and brought great joy to all the brothers. When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they declared all that God had done with them. But some believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees rose up and said, “It is necessary to circumcise them and to order them to keep the law of Moses.”
The apostles and the elders were gathered together to consider this matter. And after there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, “Brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us, and he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith. Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear?
More diligent searching needed.
That’s enough. It shows that NT believers are NOT obligated to Law keeping nor Torah kindergarten.
If you think and claim that Scripture teaches sending new Christians to Torah kindergarten, it’s YOUR argument for it and up to you to provide support for it. Making a claim and then sending people off to find support for something you believe, not them, is lazy and simply goes to show you have nothing to support it, therefore nobody is obligated to take you seriously.
I’m not believing something you claim just on your say so.
Strangely enough, I wasn’t ask you to, but OK.
Everything required for salvation and Christian maturity is found in the Scriptures.
There is no requirement of Hebrew kindergarten for gentile believers.
If you are not explicit in your claims, there is nothing to discuss, but I do wish you well.
Mormon, Catholic, or Philsworld’s other ID at FR ..
You’re in the wrong ballpark.
It’s that word require that hangs everyone up. I never said anything about it being a requirement. In fact, I cautioned against framing it in that manner. I simply asked what could be the first question of many more that would likely follow if one were to grapple with it.
I thank you for taking a few moments to discuss it.
No worries and I wish you the best.
If this comment is about to whom who the book of Hebrews was sent, and for what purpose Torah (Tanakh) composed much of the contents, it would be an error to think the intended target audience was gentiles, and most certainly not babes in Christ.
The remark that you made in Post 617 seemed to be a criticism of other posts like mine to Philsworld, in which if it was that, your indictment of such posts to him(her?) as being unchristian is unwarranted.
I don't know how you arrived at that opinion, but for sure, criticisms like mine weren't unchristian, but mostly Biblically-based reproofs. The core of my post addressed Philsworld's naivete in misusing Hebrews 10:26-30, in which the context does not permit the inclusion of regenerate Hebrews at all, let alone fellow saved gentile brethren (to whom the epistle was NOT even addressed; see 2 Pet. 3:15-16).
So let me ask, Is your post quoted above presuming that the book of Hebrews was written for the primary purpose of educating gentiles about the pre-Cross Jewish religion? Or have I mistaken the information you are seeking by your query?
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