Ask A Baptist Pastor

[Saintlucy]

Jesus prayed that we might be one … unified …

The great command is to spread the Gospel [Good News of Salvation] to every nation on earth, to every tongue, to all peoples …

We are the Church, the Body of Christ, united … united in faith, united in Christ, united by our baptism “in the Name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” …

Peter, the Rock upon which Jesus chose to build His [Jesus’] Church , the Prime Minister [read Isaiah] was instructed to strenghten his Brethren and also given the “Keys” to Open and Shut the Gates of Heaven … [and please don’t give me Revelation and Jesus holding the key - one who is deputed to open a door by the owner does not mean that the owner has given up their ownership or the “master key” as it were]. Peter was entrusted to Feed the People of God, the Lambs …

As for you rother objections: The Catholic Church lives and breaths Scripture. The Church is totally Christ centered, the Celebration of the Lord’s Supper is the source and summit of what it means to be Christian.

Jesus tells the parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man with Abraham … the Rich Man is lost, unsaved, suffering. A man who lived long after Abraham, who could never have “seen” Abraham … he speaks with Abraham, petitions Abraham. Abraham not only hears him but he responds. In revelation we have the Saints and Martyrs. The Martyrs know that the final judgement is yet to come, they cry out for vindication and are given information regaring those still on earth. The Saints present to Jesus the prayers of those on earth [the imagery is bowls of incense - prayers rising like incense … ] Ditto for the Transfiguration, Peter James ands John recognized and heard Elijah and Moses … long dead and not their contemporaries …

Sorry, this thread runs 27 pages and I read every post before responding …

Your posts can be summed up as espousing: You have "studied the Bible and have the degrees, are open minded and let the scriptures speak to you throught he innspiration of the Holy Spirit - so your interpretation is right and the Catholic Church is wrong - though you admit you could be in error but not when you have determined that Catholics have it wrong … that you know better what Catholics do [deify Mary and worship her] then we do … And we should follow you [and your Christian Faith] not the Pope’s … because real thinking Christans could not believe what the Church teaches …

Here is a News Bulletin for you … I have a Master’s Degree in Patoral Ministry [not an online program] … Three years of classroom instruction including summers [and I have a family and I worked full time] … my professors faith traditions encompassed Protestant [not that I know the denomination of all of them but they included a Lutheran and a Presbyterian] as well as Catholic, all holding Doctorates with published works and one a renowned Dead Sea Scroll Scholar [yes he has actually worked with the Scrolls - reads, speaks ans translates biblical hebrew] … I read the scriptures, study the scriptures and reflect on the scriptures …

My personal opinion is that your understanding of the Scriptures is very thin, shallow and without scholarly rigor and most importantly lacks a spirituality - a oneness with Christ - a relationship with Jesus …

Your sense of history and the culture of the first century is almost non-existant.

I do not follow the Pope or belong to the Catholic faith because I am ‘told to’ by the Church, I was not born into the Catholic faith - I made a conscious decision to be a Christian and to follow in the faith of the Christians that walked with Jesus … the Apostles, the early Christians - an authentic unified faith …

Jesus said that we must eat His Flesh and drink His Blood to have Life.

Paul tells that to eat and drink the Bread that is Blessed and the Cup without discerning the Body and Blood is to eat and drink to our death … no mere symbol is implied in either passage … I will not take your intepretation - I made my own …

You are free to have your merely symbolic “Commuion” [a man-made tradition] …

I choose to gather and worship and receive Jesus in Scripture [Liturgy of the Word] and in Heavenly Food that gives Life [Liturgy of the Eucharist] -

The Mass - Uniquely given to us - A Gift to the People of God, the Church - a family meal, a celebration of the Gospel - the Good News of Salvation
Strengthened to go out to Serve God and our fellow man

Amen, amen, amen. :clapping:

 

[JRKH]

I don’t see any questions in the OP. The closest I can come to in determining his purpose here is that he wants to teach us about what he “beleives, sees, and thinks.”

My invitation to him would be to do precisely that, instead of spending so much time attacking doctrines that he does not believe in.

God bless,
Ut

True, he has come here in a “challenging” way…

But in the end, mu conclusion still stands. These types of discussions only reinforce how lucky we are to have the authority entrusted by Christ in Holy Mother Church to listen, discuss, debate, settle and resolve such differences.

Peace
James

 

[utunumsint]

True, he has come here in a “challenging” way…

But in the end, mu conclusion still stands. These types of discussions only reinforce how lucky we are to have the authority entrusted by Christ in Holy Mother Church to listen, discuss, debate, settle and resolve such differences.

Peace
James

Agreed.

God bless,
Ut

 

[Betterave]

All of which is to say the Church forms our faith; it’s not the object of our faith.

Good post Joe, except I have to object to this one line. The Church is the mystical body of Christ and it certainly is the object of our faith (not the only one, but an essential one).

 

[Betterave]

To answer your assumption that Mary must be god-like to hear prayers: God is in Heaven. We know that God is infinite–meaning He has no limits. Time is a limit since we must live our lives in parts. Space is a limit because in order to be space, your parts are separated. Thus, God being infinite must exist in a place where there is no time or space; it’s not a looooooong time but no time, not bigger than space but no space can contain Him.

In short, Heaven isn’t the same as as here. Prayers aren’t the equivalent of calling your wife on a pay phone. Catholics believe that the saints are infused with sanctifying grace (i.e. “we are partakers of the divine nature”) and able to behold God fully in the Beatific Vision:

Heaven (See under “Supernatural character of heaven and beatific vision”)

God has given us qualities that He has Himself such as “made in the image of God” and “partakers of the divine nature” to name a few…

excellent quote!

 

[duffyk4]

Early Church Evidence Refutes Real Presence

onefold.wordpress.com/early-church-evidence-refutes-real-presence/

There my be a format problem (depending on which browser you use) but you can follow it

re: Clement
one-fold.com/?page_id=58

Has someone properly refuted this?

 

[reformissionary]

Uh-oh! Houston we have a problem! Now we have people telling you that these books are inspired. But you being a Protestant…I’m sure you wouldn’t believe in Sacred Tradition? Would you? This sounds like Sacred Tradition to me…some sorta belief being passed down saying “hey these books are inspired…look the Bible says so!”

No honest Protestant rejects tradition. That’s a Catholic fallacy I hear a lot. SACRED Tradition is rejected.

 

[RBK]

Has someone properly refuted this?

Yes: renewamerica.com/columns/giunta/091205

Excellent quote from the above link: Too many American Christians are grossly ignorant of the existence of the Eastern Churches, made up of Christians belonging to the historic churches of Egypt, Ethiopia, Syria, Palestine, Lebanon, Asia Minor, India, and Eastern Europe. If it is the case, as some polemicists assert (explicitly and implicitly) that “transubstantiation” is late medieval innovation, how does one possibly explain the doctrinal unity of these Eastern churches with Catholicism? How on earth did the Popes and Western Bishops pull that one off?! Why does not a single one of these churches (whether Catholic, Orthodox, Oriental, or Assyrian) scream Innovation! when they themselves have never framed their doctrines in Aristotelian terms, and yet are one with their Western Catholic brethren in professing a very realist understanding of the Eucharist? The answer is obvious. The doctrine of the Real Presence is a direct inheritance from the Apostolic Church; Fundamentalist Protestant conspiracy theories to the contrary ignore the historical record in favor of ideological abstractions dangerously reminiscent of leftist Constitutional hermeneutic.

And: Nine Protestant scholars acknowledge the ECF’s belief in the True Presence -
socrates58.blogspot.com/2007/02/history-of-doctrine-of-eucharist-nine.html

 

[RBK]

No honest Protestant rejects tradition.

But they will say that tradition is in no way authoritative. The problem: the Biblical Table of Contents is an extra-biblical tradition, and they (you) believe the Bible to be the sole authority for Christians. Therein lies the problem with our getting anywhere is these discussions. According to Scripture, oral tradition is authoritative.

You may find an extensive list of Scripture references to oral tradition here: scripturecatholic.com/oral_tradition.html

 

[jmcrae]

The language you use quoted here and as others have said shows to me (tell me if I’m wrong) that you think of the church organizationally.

The Church that we find in the New Testament was an organization, with leadership - Bishops, deacons, lay evangelists, teachers, presbyters, all united under the leadership of Peter and the Apostles. They were not a loose collection of separate denominations, each interpreting the Gospel in a slightly different way. We look at Acts 15, and we see a Church Council, making a ruling that binds all Christians everywhere - not just one city, or one community.

I believe he intended our unity to be on the gospel, not on the organization.

What I believe is that Jesus established the organization for the purpose of spreading the Gospel.

I don’t see any “lone ranger” Christians in the New Testament. All of them are bound to the authority of one organization, led by the Apostles. When St. Paul is writing to all of those churches - Rome, Galatia, Corinth, Ephesus, etc. - he is doing so with the authority of the Apostles, and the expectation that he will be obeyed; his style is not that of a random stranger making suggestions. Those churches were required to obey him. They didn’t have the option of making things up and going off their own way.

When St. John writes to the seven churches, as recorded in the Book of Revelation, he is doing so with the authority of Jesus Christ. Now, you may ask yourself, why did Jesus not simply appear to the leaders of each of those congregations, if their authority was equal to that of the Apostles? Surely that would have been not only easier, but more convincing - after all, very few people have visions of Jesus and then don’t change their conduct.

The reason is, it was Jesus who established Apostolic authority to begin with, and He is respecting His own chain of command - just as He continues to do, even until now.

 

[Roman_Catholic_1]

Something I have always wondered; what are the thoughts of the different Baptist churches towards each other? As a Pastor (I believe you said Southern Baptist) how do you feel about American Baptists, German Baptist, Free Baptist and other Baptist Churches? How united do you feel they all are?

God bless you

 

[jmcrae]

The Apostolic nature of the NT, fulfilled prophecy, the consistency of the witnesses, the truths and evidence of the resurrection, the testimony of Scripture to itself as Scripture, etc. The Holy Spirit created the Bible through human authors long before there was anything that looked like the Catholic Church of today.

And Pope Innocent I was called “Pope” because …

Actually, the Church that gave us the Bible in 405 AD looked almost exactly like the Catholic Church of today.

So did the Church of the first century, when Pope Clement wrote to the Corinthians to remind them of everything they had been taught by St. Paul, and ordered them to desist from their sins, and to obey their Bishops.

 

[jmcrae]

I haven’t said that. They should bring it to the church. Their local body of believers who has a relationship with this person who needs to be brought to repentance, or if not, discipline.

In my own neighborhood, there are seven “local bodies of believers” - so, whichever one you happen to belong to has Christ’s authority and protection to give you the correct answer to your problem?

Jehovah’s Witnesses? United Church of Canada? Presbyterians? Anglicans? New Light Fellowship? Apostolic Shepherds Masonic Lodge? Catholic?

You’re probably going to say, “Well, wait a minute - you should first make sure that it’s a Bible-believing church.”

Problem is, all of these organizations claim to be Bible-believing churches, and those who attend them are firmly convinced that they are being taught correct doctrine, there.

 

[JustaServant]

No honest Protestant rejects tradition. That’s a Catholic fallacy I hear a lot. SACRED Tradition is rejected.

RM please answer posts:
407, 408, 409, and 415.

 

[jmcrae]

I agree with all that. The problem you have is that “church” means “assembly” and it’s impossible to assemble all Christians everywhere. “Tell it to the Church” makes no sense in your way of thinking unless by it you only mean tell it to the bishops or cardinals or whatever. Then your problem is that it isn’t the church, it’s the leadership. That’s not what Scripture tells us at all.

I hate to continually contradict you, and I know you must be getting tired of it, too, but when I read the Acts of the Apostles, I see the people bringing their disputes to the Apostles - the world-wide leadership of the Church. Getting back to Acts 15, the catalyst for that Council was the dispute between certain Jews and certain Gentiles, whether the Gentiles ought to be circumcised, or not, and whether they needed to follow the kosher law.

Since they couldn’t resolve it between themselves, they took it to the Church - not their local assemblies (which were telling them different things) but to the Apostles, in what was then the equivalent of the Vatican - the Jerusalem Church (which later became the Vatican, when they were taken away in chains to Rome, in 67 AD).

 

[guanophore]

It is inconsistent. If it was good enough for 1500ish years there was no need to codify it at that point because everybody already knew about it. Or there is the alternative, which I believe is more likely.

Everybody was not believing it. There was a significant portion of the population that had fallen into heresy, similar to the Arian heresy that was addressed at the Council of Nicea. When this happens, it is incumbent upon the Church to make pronouncements and clarify the teaching of the apostles.

Or, do you believe that the Christians did not really believe in the Trinity before the Church used this word to describe the Godhead? Or, do you not believe the scriptures were inspired of God at the moment they were written, rather than in 382 when the canon was closed? Do you think they did not really believe Jesus is God until 325?

 To say that by my thinking the Bible is infallible therefore the church must be infallible is a false dichotomy.  The Bible is infallible but God used men who were themselves quite broken - see Paul - to write it.  So by your logic then the Roman Catholic Church is broken and sinful because Peter was broken and sinful.  So which is it?

The bible cannot be infallible because infallibility requires the ability to act and to decide. This is a quality that the Scriptures do not have. Infallibility applies to persons, not writings, however HOly.

 

[guanophore]

As to Mary, is she omnipotent and omnipresent? Those are attributes of God. Mary is not God, and therefore very limited. Yet billions of Catholic prayers are rising to her. How does she hear them all? Only explanation is that she would have to be God, which of course you don’t believe. Yet you give her a role that only God could fulfill. That goes for other Saints too.

No, but she, as well as any of us, can do anything that God enables. We are creatures, but He is able to manifest His own nature in us,a nd through us.

The Catholic Church teaches that Mary and the Saints are creatures. Albeit perfected by His grace, and able to do supernatural things by th epower of His grace. If you want to find fault with Catholicism, why not find fault with what we really believe, instead of making up stuff like this?

You can say “mystery” all you want. It’s not in Scripture, makes no sense out of limited humanity, and therefore is evidence of false teaching.

Mystery is in scripture, reformed, and there are many great mysteries of our faith. God is able to use limited humanity to do things that defy our wildest dreams. No eye has seen, nor ear heard, what God has in store for those who love Him. Don’t you think His mother loves Him?

 

[guanophore]

No, I’d ask them to believe the historic Christian faith.

This is astonishing, since you seem to have very little understanding of it.

Your “christian faith” is “bible christianity” which was invented during the reformation when the Apostolic succession was abandoned, and the people were severed from the Teachings of the Apostles preserved in the Church. They lost the other half of the divine deposit of faith, and all they had left was Scripture, so they attempted to extrapolate the faith from it’s pages. This was never the intent for Scripture. It was never to be separated form the Apostolic Faith that produced it.

There was plenty of dispute on the books, including with the early church fathers. I do say they aren't God-breathed. But guess what, we have 66 in agreement that compose nearly all of our theology. So we have plenty of room for discussion outside of canon issues.

This is why it was necessary for the Church to rule on what the Apostles believed. This was done in the case of the hypostatic union, the Trinity, the Lord’s Day and the canon.

but I’m trying hard to not get spread too thin since that can get you in trouble here.

You are already in trouble for making disparaging and insulting remarks about our faith. However, it is good to see you have read the forum rules and are mindful of them.

 

[guanophore]

It’s Scripture that keeps Protestants from Catholicism.

No, it is Protestant perceptions of what Scripture means that divides. The NT was produced by the CAtholic Church, and was written by, for, and about Catholics. There is nothing in it that is not Catholic.

So I’d have to see the entire system of Popes and Catholic leadership from one brief passage in Mt 16. I’d have to see Scripture pointing to an equal authority outside itself. I’d have to see praying to Saints from Scripture. I’d have to see baptizing infants in Scripture. I’d have to see real presence from Scripture. Etc.

It seems what you are saying is that you could become Catholic if the Catholic Church would conform to the fact that you have embraced the heresy of Sola Scriptura.

It is better for one man to be lost to the Truth than for the whole of God’s Church to fall into Apostasy.

 

[Faith1960]

You shouldn’t. You should have faith in Christ, not the Church. Christ is the head of the church, not the Pope. This is one of my biggest concerns with Catholicism is that Jesus gets sidelined for Mary, the Institution of the Church, Pope, stories of bleeding wafers and visions of Mary and tears from statues. Fix your eyes on Christ!

What are your explanations for bleeding Eucharists, visions of Mary and tears falling from statues?