Ahhhh- Help!

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Little_Katie

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Hi everyone-

I attend a protestant bible study on the weekends with some friends of mine. The group knows I am Catholic and they have been very gracious. We usually stick to topics we all agree on. But tonight we were discussing The Virgin Mary.

And the woman who co-runs the study (in a very kind and mostly curious way) asked me to tell everyone what Catholics believe about Mary.

I gave her and the group a very general explanation, but mostly touched on the biggest difference between us and them and that is that, one Mary was conceived without original sin and that two Mary remained a virgin after the birth of Christ. Again, in a very respectful way she asked me if I could show her where we find that in scripture. I was caught off guard. I told her that I wasn’t sure but I would look it up in the Catechism and tell her next weekend.

I was wondering if any of you could help me out with a good way of explaining why we believe those things to protestants. It’s hard for me because they want specific bible verses and I just don’t know if that’s enough of an explanation.

Will I have to explain that we don’t believe in sola scriptura???

What is the best way to respectfully go about this? I don’t want to look stupid and therefore make us Catholics look nutty…🤷
 
Well, in order to save a several page long thread topic on this subject once again, I’ll try to give as fair a summary of the situation as I can:

– No, you cannot show the Perpetual Virginity of Mary in scripture, because it is not found in scripture

– You can state that you know this to be true because it is part of Sacred Tradition, which is of equal authority of Sacred Scripture.

– Your Protestant friends will not accept this answer, as they do not accept the inerrant authority of Sacred Tradition

I’m happy to accept corrections to details of the arguments, but that’s pretty much how I’ve seen every such discussion of the Marian doctrines eventually pan out.
 
a_mirror_dimly said:
Well, in order to save a several page long thread topic on this subject once again, I’ll try to give as fair a summary of the situation as I can:

– No, you cannot show the Perpetual Virginity of Mary in scripture, because it is not found in scripture

– You can state that you know this to be true because it is part of Sacred Tradition, which is of equal authority of Sacred Scripture.

– Your Protestant friends will not accept this answer, as they do not accept the inerrant authority of Sacred Tradition

I’m happy to accept corrections to details of the arguments, but that’s pretty much how I’ve seen every such discussion of the Marian doctrines eventually pan out.
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They were actually more interested in our logic behind believing that Mary was born without original sin. They had a harder time accepting that then accepting that she might have remained a virgin.
 
Little_Katie said:
They were actually more interested in our logic behind believing that Mary was born without original sin. They had a harder time accepting that then accepting that she might have remained a virgin.
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Oops, I missed that part, but I see both are there. The same line of argument remains. There are a few verses commonly cited with regard to the Immaculate Conception: one from Genesis 3, a few references to the Ark of the Covenant, and the greeting given to Mary at the Annunciation, but none of them establish the Immaculate Conception on their own without the interpretation brought by Sacred Tradition.
 
a_mirror_dimly said:
Oops, I missed that part, but I see both are there. The same line of argument remains. There are a few verses commonly cited with regard to the Immaculate Conception: one from Genesis 3, a few references to the Ark of the Covenant, and the greeting given to Mary at the Annunciation, but none of them establish the Immaculate Conception on their own without the interpretation brought by Sacred Tradition.
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Do you talk about typological analysis of the bible. I’m sure your friends from the class would agree that in their study, there are things in the OT that prefigure their completion and fulfillment in the NT. For example, Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac prefigures Christ’s sacrifice. And the Passover Lamb also is a type for Christ. Well, in that same way, even the early church saw in the Ark of the Covenant the prefigurement of the Mother of the Lord. The pure vessel that contained the written word of God prefigures Mary - the “pure vessel” that contained the living Word of God. And because the OT Ark was seen as pure and untouchable we believe that Mary, in a very unique way completed that prefigurement in her being. Hence, the doctrines concerning Perpetual Virginity and Immaculate Conception. It is biblical, but not expressly so - much like the doctrine of the Trinity is not expressed, but can be gleaned from the full teachings of Scripture.

Best of luck to you at your next meeting.

Peace,
-Robert
 
Oh sure, I understand the assertion of analogy there, but the fact that one could make an argument for typology there doesn’t mean the typology is correct. Furthermore, in those other typologies you mentioned, the aspects of the analogy present in the Old Testament but not found in the New Testament aren’t projected onto Jesus. there is certainly a strong analogy between David’s kingship and Jesus’, but there are aspects of David’s kingship which we would never ascribe to Jesus.
 
Little_Katie said:
Hi everyone-

I attend a protestant bible study on the weekends with some friends of mine. The group knows I am Catholic and they have been very gracious. We usually stick to topics we all agree on. But tonight we were discussing The Virgin Mary.

And the woman who co-runs the study (in a very kind and mostly curious way) asked me to tell everyone what Catholics believe about Mary.

I gave her and the group a very general explanation, but mostly touched on the biggest difference between us and them and that is that, one Mary was conceived without original sin and that two Mary remained a virgin after the birth of Christ. Again, in a very respectful way she asked me if I could show her where we find that in scripture. I was caught off guard. I told her that I wasn’t sure but I would look it up in the Catechism and tell her next weekend.

I was wondering if any of you could help me out with a good way of explaining why we believe those things to protestants. It’s hard for me because they want specific bible verses and I just don’t know if that’s enough of an explanation.

Will I have to explain that we don’t believe in sola scriptura???

What is the best way to respectfully go about this? I don’t want to look stupid and therefore make us Catholics look nutty…🤷
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While not speaking of scripture, it might be helpful to mention that belief in the IC and perpetual virginity is not simply a Catholic belief. Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli all had belief in these ideas to varying degrees. So, beleiving these things about the BVM and sola scriptura are not mutually exclusive.
Hope that helps.

Jon
 
JonNC said:
While not speaking of scripture, it might be helpful to mention that belief in the IC and perpetual virginity is not simply a Catholic belief. Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli all had belief in these ideas to varying degrees. So, beleiving these things about the BVM and sola scriptura are not mutually exclusive.
Hope that helps.

Jon
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Jon,

Thanks for bringing this point up!!

Little Katie, here is a link to what Jon is talking about. It might help you some:

davidmacd.com/catholic/martin_luther_on_mary.htm

Although the link has Martin Luther’s name on it… you will find as you read down the page comments (documented) by Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Bullinger, and Wesley. Its rather interesting.

While I am a Catholic… 🙂 I have no problem accepting and using the testimonies of the founders of the Reformation in these matters!
 
The Biblical support for the Immaculate Conception is difficult for Protestants to accept. It is from Luke 1:28, which, in my RSV-CE 2nd Edition is “Hail, full of grace…”

The “grace” is God’s grace, and since she is *full *of it, there’s no room for sin. That seems to hit the nail on the head, doesn’t it? But, wait…

The problem is that *their *Bibles will say “Hail, favored one…” or something similar. Plenty of people, like King David, have been favored by God without being free from sin.

Strong’s Greek and Hebrew Dictionary says the word translated as both “full of grace” and “favored” is “charitoo,” whose root is “charis,” which is also the root of both *charity *and charism.

“Charitoo” is used only twice in the NT, and is translated two different ways. Once as above, and once as “make accepted.”
Take that second one and plug it in to Lk 1:28, and you have, “Hail, made accepted…” Throws a different (and Catholic) light on it, doesn’t it?

Ahem. It would be uncharitable to suggest that the translators of the KJV chose “favored” out of anti-Catholic bias!

Another note is that “charis” is used 156 times in the NT, and 130 times is translated as “grace.”

If someone at your study has a Strong’s, “charitoo” is G5487, and “charis” is G5485.

You have my permission to print this off as a cheat sheet!

God bless you,

Ruthie
 
Hate to burst your bubble Little Katie, but 3 things you MUST REMEMBER.

1 - The Bible never says Mary has no sin. That’s why you will never find the biblical verses to support your claim.
Whatever catholics claim about the scripture ‘indirectly claiming’ her as sinless are based on baseless assumptions.

2 - There’s no reason how a human will give ‘birth’ to God, neither does it make sense. When the bible says that Mary is the mother of Jesus, it means Mary was the physical mother of Jesus (who is God in the flesh). Is Mary the mother of God (the Spirit)? Answer is no.

3 - The Bible never says that we are to pray to Mary. It only says to pray to God. And Jesus already said that He is the Truth, the Way and the Life and no one goes to the Father EXCEPT through him, so there is NO REASON why you will need Mary or the Pope for that matter for any spiritual purpose.

.
.
 
Jesusisgod said:
Hate to burst your bubble Little Katie, but 3 things you MUST REMEMBER.

1 - The Bible never says Mary has no sin. That’s why you will never find the biblical verses to support your claim.
Whatever catholics claim about the scripture ‘indirectly claiming’ her as sinless are based on baseless assumptions.

2 - There’s no reason how a human will give ‘birth’ to God, neither does it make sense. When the bible says that Mary is the mother of Jesus, it means Mary was the physical mother of Jesus (who is God in the flesh). Is Mary the mother of God (the Spirit)? Answer is no.

3 - The Bible never says that we are to pray to Mary. It only says to pray to God. And Jesus already said that He is the Truth, the Way and the Life and no one goes to the Father EXCEPT through him, so there is NO REASON why you will need Mary or the Pope for that matter for any spiritual purpose.

.
.
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You do little to burst anyones bubble …

It has been stated that Mary was full of grace … read Luke’s account of the Annunciation. Mary overflowed with God’s grace. Read the Exodus account of the specifications for the Ark of the Covenant. From this we can see any place where God physically resides is like no other … it is built like no other. Mary can be seen to fit this profile. She had to be like no other to house where God would be. You say there is no Scripture … it goes back to Exodus.

Doesn’t make sense … then you have a problem with Scripture … Luke 1:31-33, “Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” We didn’t go up to God … God had to humble himself and come to us. So what part of God did Mary give birth too … the non-God part. Mary is the Mother of the 2nd person of the Trinity … point to Scripture that says otherwise.

Mary’s relationship with Jesus is like no other … his first public miracle, and his public ministry, began at her request. Mary will always be Jesus’s mother and will retain that status throughout eternity. No Catholic says we pray to Mary … we pray asking Mary’s intercession with Jesus … that her request be answered like the wedding feast at Cana.
 
1 - The Bible never says Mary has no sin. That’s why you will never find the biblical verses to support your claim.
Whatever catholics claim about the scripture ‘indirectly claiming’ her as sinless are based on baseless assumptions.
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“Full of Grace” certainly implies to me that she was full of God’s grace, and I’m not Catholic (which, incidentally, is capitalized when used as a proper noun).
2 - There’s no reason how a human will give ‘birth’ to God, neither does it make sense. When the bible says that Mary is the mother of Jesus, it means Mary was the physical mother of Jesus (who is God in the flesh). Is Mary the mother of God (the Spirit)? Answer is no.
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There is no doubt that from conception, Christ was fully God, and fully man. In this sense, she truly was the Theotokos.
3 - The Bible never says that we are to pray to Mary. It only says to pray to God. And Jesus already said that He is the Truth, the Way and the Life and no one goes to the Father EXCEPT through him, so there is NO REASON why you will need Mary or the Pope for that matter for any spiritual purpose.
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While I don’t think intercession was brought up by the OP, I believe it is clear that the Church Triumphant prays for us, the Church Militant, though in a generally sense. As for needing the Pope for spiritual matters, I would contend that, for Catholics, the Pope is a spiritual leader of great importance. From pastor/priests to bishops or whatever a church calls its leaders, they serve an important spiritual purpose for the laity of that church.

Jon
 
Acts 6:8
Now Stephen, a man full of God’s grace and power, did great wonders and miraculous signs among the people.

The phrase “full of grace” in Greek is “plaras karitos” and it occurs in only two places in the New Testament, neither one is in reference to Mary.
  1. “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth,” (John 1:14).
  2. “And Stephen, full of grace and power, was performing great wonders and signs among the people,” (Acts 6:8).
What does the Greek say here for "highly favored one? It is the single Greek word kexaritomena and means highly favored, make accepted, make graceful, etc. It does not mean “full of grace” which is “plaras karitos” (plaras = full and karitos = Grace) in the Greek.

Luke wrote both the Gospel of Luke and Acts. He wrote them in Greek. He used “plaras karitos” in Acts for Stephen, and used kexaritomena for Mary.
 
Jesusisgod said:
Hate to burst your bubble Little Katie, but 3 things you MUST REMEMBER.

1 - The Bible never says Mary has no sin. That’s why you will never find the biblical verses to support your claim.
Whatever catholics claim about the scripture ‘indirectly claiming’ her as sinless are based on baseless assumptions.

2 - There’s no reason how a human will give ‘birth’ to God, neither does it make sense. When the bible says that Mary is the mother of Jesus, it means Mary was the physical mother of Jesus (who is God in the flesh). Is Mary the mother of God (the Spirit)? Answer is no.

3 - The Bible never says that we are to pray to Mary. It only says to pray to God. And Jesus already said that He is the Truth, the Way and the Life and no one goes to the Father EXCEPT through him, so there is NO REASON why you will need Mary or the Pope for that matter for any spiritual purpose.

.
.
Click to expand...
Hate to burst your bubble, but neither I nor any other Catholic I know prays “to” Mary. We pray for her intercession but we only pray “to” God. God is the only one worthy of worship and prayer. We do not ‘pray to’ Mary. When we ask her for intercession it’s no different that asking your friend or your brother etc to pray for you to God. Christians pray for each other all the time!

And no one prays to the pope… that’s just silly.
 
Ruthie said:
The Biblical support for the Immaculate Conception is difficult for Protestants to accept. It is from Luke 1:28, which, in my RSV-CE 2nd Edition is “Hail, full of grace…”

The “grace” is God’s grace, and since she is *full *of it, there’s no room for sin. That seems to hit the nail on the head, doesn’t it? But, wait…

The problem is that *their *Bibles will say “Hail, favored one…” or something similar. Plenty of people, like King David, have been favored by God without being free from sin.

Strong’s Greek and Hebrew Dictionary says the word translated as both “full of grace” and “favored” is “charitoo,” whose root is “charis,” which is also the root of both *charity *and charism.

“Charitoo” is used only twice in the NT, and is translated two different ways. Once as above, and once as “make accepted.”
Take that second one and plug it in to Lk 1:28, and you have, “Hail, made accepted…” Throws a different (and Catholic) light on it, doesn’t it?

Ahem. It would be uncharitable to suggest that the translators of the KJV chose “favored” out of anti-Catholic bias!

Another note is that “charis” is used 156 times in the NT, and 130 times is translated as “grace.”

If someone at your study has a Strong’s, “charitoo” is G5487, and “charis” is G5485.

You have my permission to print this off as a cheat sheet!

God bless you,

Ruthie
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Thanks for the simple but direct answer. This will really help me try to explain our stance to the study leader. She is a sweet lady and neither of us are out to prove something to the other. She just wanted to know WHY we think what we do based on scripture. And I think this will clear things up for her.
As an off topic side note. Protestants and Catholics, despite our slight differences in doctrine are all good CHRISTIANS. We must not forget that even though we disagree, we are brothers and sisters and try to focus more energy on leading non believers to Christ and less energy on fighting each other. I think it’s healthy for Catholics and Protestants to spend more time together in Scripture Study and Fellowship. The more we learn to understand each other, the better off everyone will be.

At the same time… we have to accept that we will always disagree. Sadly, you can’t get around that really.
 
Something that was pointed out on a thread in this forum, I believe, is that when the angel comes up to Mary, he says, ‘Hi, this is what’s going on…’ Whenever an angel goes up to a person, and reveals himself to be an angel of God, in the OT or NT, I believe in all other cases, they say, ‘Do not be afraid, I am an angel. God wants…’ Gabriel did not do that with Mary; he says hi to Her, he acknowledges her title (Full of Grace/Favoured One), he acknowledges that God is with Her. After all this, he tells Her, ‘do not be afraid.’ Only after his salutation and Her response to it does he comfort Her.

Please check that with other times an angel reveals himself to be a messenger of God. I may be wrong.

The conclusion is, though, supposing that I am not, is that She was not afraid of the angel, or the circumstance (as She was/is perfect and therefore was not bothered by a messenger of God coming right up to Her, as She was free from sin, She was not at all seperated from God in any way, BUT, She was a bit…concerned…at the greeting She got. She was not afraid of the supernatural, she did not fight God’s plans for Her, but because She had no pride, She didn’t understand why one of God’s messengers would salute her as he did.
 
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