Are relics Biblical?

[Black_Knight]

:yawn:

…Furthermore, the signs and miracles accompanying the apostles were clearly affirmative instances verifying the authority and authenticity of the apostolic message of the Gospel. Since then, the revelatory Word of God has been made complete. Those signs are not needed.

Really? And just where does the New Testament even infer that?

Not only are they not needed, but being that they were for that age and time (see 1 Cor 13), any claim of authority of the objects is indeed blasphemous compared to the complete, perfect, innerrant, and infallible revelatory Word of God

.All of which nowhere states or even infers what you have just said, but if you can provide scriptures to make your case then knock yourself out and we can discuss it.

The ongoing worship

of these so-called “relics” amounts to idolatry. People placing their faith in these objects, are, in affect, saying that the completed work of God’s revelation and the completed work of Christ as declared in the revelation is not sufficient.This is plain hogwash though since there is nothing in authentic and authoritative Catholic teaching that even infers worship or adoration of relics, so you are denouncing a straw man.

The Catholic Church venerates its relics in much the same way as the New Testament plainly says that similar objects were venerated. “11 And God wrought by the hand of Paul more than common miracles. 12 So that even there were brought from his body to the sick, handkerchiefs and aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and the wicked spirits went out of them.” (Acts 19)

 

[Thing]

The ongoing worship of these so-called “relics” amounts to idolatry. .

The Eight Commandment;

1. “Neither shall you bear false witness against your neighbor.”

This commandment forbids misrepresenting the truth in relations with others. This also forbids lying. (See Catechism 2464–2513.)

The penalty used to be death to the breakers of the Commandments. So it is a serious accusation you make, and I think you should give us the ‘Instructions from the Catholic Church’ to us to worship relics.

NB The First Catholic Commandment forbids the worship of idols, so good luck with proving your accusation!

 

[myfavoritmartin]

The serpent doesn’t even qualify and a relic.

However, here’s a good example of one and God’s use of them.
2nd Kings 13:20] So Eli’sha died, and they buried him. Now bands of Moabites used to invade the land in the spring of the year.
21] And as a man was being buried, lo, a marauding band was seen and the man was cast into the grave of Eli’sha; and as soon as the man touched the bones of Eli’sha, he revived, and stood on his feet.

The 2 Kings passage does not give a command or expectation about making something a relic but are describing God’s hand working mightily through men.

 

[myfavoritmartin]

Acts 19 also gives NO command to worship or venerate relics.

 

[RNRobert]

The 2 Kings passage does not give a command or expectation about making something a relic but are describing God’s hand working mightily through men.

And God’s hand continues to work mightily through relics today…

 

[RNRobert]

Acts 19 also gives NO command to worship or venerate relics.

You know, this is really getting old. For the last time, Catholics DO NOT WORSHIP relics- we reserve that for Jesus Christ alone! :banghead:
You might want to re-read Thing’s post above regarding the commandment against bearing false witness…:tsktsk:

Also, please show me the Scripture passage that forbids the use of relics…

 

[ChadS]

You know, this is really getting old. For the last time, Catholics DO NOT WORSHIP relics- we reserve that for Jesus Christ alone! :banghead:
You might want to re-read Thing’s post above regarding the commandment against bearing false witness…:tsktsk:

Also, please show me the Scripture passage that forbids the use of relics…

Why do we keep doing it then? Because we know what the truth is and we know our separated bretheren need to know the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

But sometimes I wonder with the way things need to be repeated ad nauseum only to see the same lies and fabrications repeated in the very next post it makes me think that invincible ignorance is really invincible.

Although years ago I would’ve argued the exact same things but there by the grace of God the scales fell from my eyes and I saw the Truth and the Church welcomed into her bosom.

ChadS

 

[tomarin]

But sometimes I wonder with the way things need to be repeated ad nauseum only to see the same lies and fabrications repeated in the very next post it makes me think that invincible ignorance is really invincible.

Me, too! Cultural beliefs are very powerful, and in many ways religions are cultural systems. The implications of your observation for the possibility of non-Christians finding salvation via Christianity are very disturbing, but that’s a topic for another thread.

 

[Mannyfit75]

You know, this is really getting old. For the last time, Catholics DO NOT WORSHIP relics- we reserve that for Jesus Christ alone! :banghead:
You might want to re-read Thing’s post above regarding the commandment against bearing false witness…:tsktsk:

Also, please show me the Scripture passage that forbids the use of relics…

Protestants will never get it who thinks the way martin thinks. It’s been brained washed into their thinking.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

The 2 Kings passage does not give a command or expectation about making something a relic but are describing God’s hand working mightily through men.

Granted ​

However, no word of the Bible is written idly - every single line of it is written for our learning. (Including the bad stuff.) So that event is not just something that occurred. It is something this mentioned, because, regardless of the human author’s intentions, the Primary Author, God, intended to teach us, & those before us, & those who shall come after us, something important. ISTM that the remains of Elisha are told of, because Christ is to come after him & give meaning to the remains of the human body by His Resurrection, which the cause of ours, &, of Elisha’s.

 

[RNRobert]

Why do we keep doing it then? Because we know what the truth is and we know our separated bretheren need to know the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

But sometimes I wonder with the way things need to be repeated ad nauseum only to see the same lies and fabrications repeated in the very next post it makes me think that invincible ignorance is really invincible.

Although years ago I would’ve argued the exact same things but there by the grace of God the scales fell from my eyes and I saw the Truth and the Church welcomed into her bosom.

ChadS

I agree, especially about the invincible ignorance. But it gets so frustrating. I’ve been posting on this forum off and on for five years, and many Protestants come here with the attitude that we’re a bunch of Mary-worshipping idolaters who are ignorant of the Bible. You to try to explain what we really believe and end up going round and round refuting the same things over and over. It’s easy to become uncharitable which is why I usually have to take a break from time to time.
Like you, I’m a convert who once had the same views these folks did. All you can do is pray for them and share the faith as charitably as you can.

 

[ChadS]

I agree, especially about the invincible ignorance. But it gets so frustrating. I’ve been posting on this forum off and on for five years, and many Protestants come here with the attitude that we’re a bunch of Mary-worshipping idolaters who are ignorant of the Bible. You to try to explain what we really believe and end up going round and round refuting the same things over and over. It’s easy to become uncharitable which is why I usually have to take a break from time to time.
Like you, I’m a convert who once had the same views these folks did. All you can do is pray for them and share the faith as charitably as you can.

I agree and I sympathize with having to take a break. Sometimes comments will get under my skin and when I’m ready to write something I have to take a break and ask myself if it’s worth it. The answer is usually “no.” I realize that one last comment won’t change anybody’s opinions.

The thing that frustrates me isn’t the disagreements. It’s the seeming lack of concern over accuracy. When I was a protestant I held many opinions about the Church that simply weren’t true or accurate. Once I realized that they weren’t I couldn’t in good conscience adhere to that particular line of reasoning or belief anymore. I see it in threads like this where the same misconceptions get bandied about constantly and even with constant correction nothing changes. You don’t have to agree with Catholics, but at least be honest about our beliefs.

ChadS

 

[RNRobert]

When I signed on to the forum this evening they had an interesting quote posted that’s germane to this discussion so I thought I’s share it here.

“We do not worship, we do not adore, for fear that we should bow down to the creature rather than to the Creator, but we venerate the relics of the martyrs in order the better to adore Him whose martyrs they are.”
– St. Jerome (“Ad Riparium”, i, P.L., XXII, 907) writing on proper Catholic veneration of relics.

'Nuff said.

 

[Matariel]

You “conveniently” failed to mention that the serpent was eventually destroyed because the nation of Israel began worshipping it. The “relic” was not intended to be an object of worship and adoration.

This doesn’t apply to us, since our Church teaches that we are to worship God alone, and no created thing.

 

[RNRobert]

Furthermore, the signs and miracles accompanying the apostles were clearly affirmative instances verifying the authority and authenticity of the apostolic message of the Gospel. Since then, the revelatory Word of God has been made complete. Those signs are not needed. Not only are they not needed, but being that they were for that age and time (see 1 Cor 13), any claim of authority of the objects is indeed blasphemous compared to the complete, perfect, innerrant, and infallible revelatory Word of God.

I’m sorry but your quote of 1 Corinthians 13 to justify your position doesn’t hold water. There is nothing in the chapter to suggest that the various signs and wonders would cease at the end of the apostolic age- St. Paul is instead referring to the Beatific Vision when we see God face to face (and thus would have no need for faith or miracles).
Your attitude attempts to put an expiration date on the work of the Holy Spirit, that miracles could occur in the 1st century but not on the 21st.
We Catholics do not claim any “authority” of the objects, we simply believe that God can and does work through them, just as he works through water at Baptism, and makes Jesus present Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, in the bread and wine of the Eucharist.

 

[pipper]

It would seem that Martin is currently a member of the sect that I converted from.

The campbellite “churches of christ”. They beleive that the bible is God, the quote from my former Campbellite preacher I remember best is “God says” when reffering to the bible… To them the bible IS God, and the bible was dictated or written directly by God, without any error whether historical or scientific.

And no Martin, I do not worship relics, Mary or any of the other Saints.

I would like to ask you though, do you worship the bible you use so many superlatives in describing? Do you feel that the bible is the verbatim “voice of God”?

Who is the REAL idolator here?

 

[sodak]

I would like to go into more detail about this, but I’m just too hungry to concentrate. I didn’t know what to eat for supper, and I know we’re supposed to do all things pleasing to God. I figured I would go into my Bible and it would tell me what I should have for supper tonight. I’m up to Exodus, but still haven’t found it.

Of course, I have to make sure that I’m using the correct Bible, and not a heretical copy…

Still getting hungry…

 

[RNRobert]

  			Originally Posted by **RNRobert** 					[forums.catholic-questions.org/images/buttons_khaki/viewpost.gif](http://forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?p=5412210#post5412210) 				
  		* snip>has an almost Docetic hatred of the physical world. <snip *

how so?

How so:

• In the rejection of any kinds of sacrament (except perhaps in baptism and the Lord’s Supper, but even those are not considered to give any kind of grace)
• In the rejection of sacred art
• In doctrines that see humans as totally evil, like the doctrine of the total depravity held by some calvinistic sects

As C.S. Lewis wrote, we are not totally spirit like the angels nor totally physical like the animals, we are hybrids. God created us this way, and our physical bodies and the earth is good- the Bible says so (Genesis 1:31)! Although it is damaged by sin, it is still good, which is why Jesus took on our flesh at the Incarnation.

 

[ChadS]

RNRobert:

• In the rejection of any kinds of sacrament (except perhaps in baptism and the Lord’s Supper, but even those are not considered to give any kind of grace)
• In the rejection of sacred art
• In doctrines that see humans as totally evil, like the doctrine of the total depravity held by some calvinistic sects

As C.S. Lewis wrote, we are not totally spirit like the angels nor totally physical like the animals, we are hybrids. God created us this way, and our physical bodies and the earth is good- the Bible says so (Genesis 1:31)! Although it is damaged by sin, it is still good, which is why Jesus took on our flesh at the Incarnation.

They will, of course, deny that they view the material world as being evil, however their theology for all intents and purposes leads to that conclusion. It’s also why the majority of Protestants refuse to accept the idea that Christ established a visible church on earth and only established an “invisible” Church made up only of believers.

ChadS

 

[Matariel]

They will, of course, deny that they view the material world as being evil, however their theology for all intents and purposes leads to that conclusion. It’s also why the majority of Protestants refuse to accept the idea that Christ established a visible church on earth and only established an “invisible” Church made up only of believers.

ChadS

There was even one Protestant who said it would be wrong to worship the Sacred Heart because it is a human heart. (apparently they deny the unified personhood of Christ, if not in doctrine, in attitude and practice.)