Ask a FORMER Baptist Pastor

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Betterave said:
My understanding is that “eat my body,” if intended metaphorically, would be equivalent to something like “persecute me” - have you heard that one? It kind makes the symbolic interpretation fall flat!
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No, what do you mean? They say eat my body is slang for persecute me?
JustaServant said:
Keep in mind, to even toy with the idea of Catholic doctrine being correct is equivalent to questioning your Christian faith. It’s an internal struggle that the person seldom talks about out loud. To do so, means people will question your Christianity.
Do you know how many of my former ‘friends’ today consider me an apostate headed for Hell? They are simply unable to process the information.
Why? Well, I have my own ideas on that, but I will not say it on a public forum.
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I hear you.
 
MarcoPolo said:
No, what do you mean? They say eat my body is slang for persecute me?
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Right. In Jesus cultural context (Palestine, 30 A.D.) to “eat someone’s flesh” meant to inflict cruel treatment upon them. (Kind of makes sense!)
 
Betterave said:
Right. In Jesus cultural context (Palestine, 30 A.D.) to “eat someone’s flesh” meant to inflict cruel treatment upon them. (Kind of makes sense!)
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Any chance you could provide your source? This is well worth remembering, but I’m sure if I bring it up with people they will ask for a source.
 
ALLGIRLS said:
There was an episode of The Journey Home one night that featured a convert from a “megachurch” (it may have actually been Willow Creek-Rick Warren’s church, but I’m not sure), and he said (can’t remember his name, sorry) that Sunday mornings were for “seekers”, “believers” were supposed to “get fed” on Sunday nights or during the week in small groups. I didn’t know Baptist churches were like that (it seems that the Baptist preachers on the radio-Charles Stanley, David Jeremiah, are always talking about how Christians or “the saved” are supposed to behave).

In Christ,

Ellen
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I would not consider Rick Warren to be represetative of Baptists.
Charles Stanley is more of a teacher. He’s getting up in years. I noticed on TV this past Sunday he was preaching sitting down.
 
Betterave said:
Right. In Jesus cultural context (Palestine, 30 A.D.) to “eat someone’s flesh” meant to inflict cruel treatment upon them. (Kind of makes sense!)
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First time i have ever heard that. And if it is true why did so many of his followers abandon him after he said it?
 
estesbob said:
First time i have ever heard that. And if it is true why did so many of his followers abandon him after he said it?
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They abandoned Him because they realized that He meant it literally, not metaphorically.
 
how does convertion actually take place?

i know you just can’t walk up to any Protestant or any non-Catholic, open the CCC, and then run off to RCIA. is it really when someone feels that thirst and hunger in their soul? does this happen only to those with a genuine desire to find the truth?
 
choy said:
how does convertion actually take place?

i know you just can’t walk up to any Protestant or any non-Catholic, open the CCC, and then run off to RCIA. is it really when someone feels that thirst and hunger in their soul? does this happen only to those with a genuine desire to find the truth?
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It happens when people are looking for something deeper and more meaningful in their lives.
 
Incomplete said:
They abandoned Him because they realized that He meant it literally, not metaphorically.
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But the point is that he would have sounded just as crazy if he had meant it metaphorically: “Unless you inflict cruel treatment upon me you have no life in you.” Say what?

My source: I remember reading this somewhere. 😊

Also: I wonder whether they thought he meant it literally. I would guess they knew he didn’t mean it literally (“here, bite me” or “once I’m dead, fire up the bbq”), but they didn’t know he meant it sacramentally (surprise: they were like protestants!). They probably just thought, “this guy is talking crazy, I don’t need this mumbo-jumbo mystery cr*p, I’m outta here” (again, sadly, just like protestants often think about Jesus in the most holy sacrament of the altar).
 
Thanks for the tread. It helps give us with some direction when we talk to them.

I maybe able to use some of this info if and when my brother-n-law ever opens up a little.👍
 
Everybody!

The “Ask a Baptist Pastor” thread was closed for “going nowhere”!
 
Betterave: I may have possibly found your source!

catholic.com/library/Christ_in_the_Eucharist.asp

Under the title “Merely Figurative”, paragraph 2:
“…The phrase ‘to eat the flesh and drink the blood,’ when used figuratively among the Jews, as among the Arabs of today, meant to inflict upon a person some serious injury, especially by calumny or by false accusation. To interpret the phrase figuratively then would be to make our Lord promise life everlasting to the culprit for slandering and hating him, which would reduce the whole passage to utter nonsense” (O’Brien, The Faith of Millions, 215). For an example of this use, see Micah 3:3.
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Look up Micah 3:3 for its use (and the verses around it to know its context). usccb.org/nab/bible/micah/micah3.htm
 
I’m pretty sure if you look at the original Greek the word Jesus uses that we translate as “eats” trsnslates closer to “munches” implying a more literal interpretation of His words.
 
jmcrae said:
It happens when people are looking for something deeper and more meaningful in their lives.
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did you convert too? i am always wondering, how do you make people realize that they need this? i have friends and relatives who are very much into the faith, but are Evangelicals and Pentecostals. i’m wondering if there’s nothing i can do if they are perfectly happy where they are (ie. oblivious to the fact they’re missing something)
 
choy said:
did you convert too? i am always wondering, how do you make people realize that they need this? i have friends and relatives who are very much into the faith, but are Evangelicals and Pentecostals. i’m wondering if there’s nothing i can do if they are perfectly happy where they are (ie. oblivious to the fact they’re missing something)
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I don’t know. For myself, it was a long process of many little things that finally came together and made sense when someone said to me “One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic.” When my grandmother died, I realized that nobody’s opinion counts except for God’s opinion, when you’re lying there and there’s nothing left for anyone to do for you, except bury you. For me, that was the catalyst that made me do what I already knew I needed to do.

I used to lead RCIA Inquiry, and everyone who made it through the Inquiry process was on a serious journey - they had experienced some kind of deep crisis, and were looking for deeper meaning. We also had the tourists - people who would drop in, argue for a bit, and then leave - usually, those ones were curious, but didn’t have any good reason in their lives to really make any kind of change - they were happy with themselves the way they were.

We had all kinds - there was a kid who had just gotten out of jail and needed something solid to hold on to, and people he could trust to give him good advice; there was another kid who’d seen his best friend murdered, and wanted to escape from the gang life - he thought that God had led him to the Catholic Church by means of a vision; we had a married couple who were in counseling at Catholic Family Services because of stress at home; we had a girl who had been pregnant, and was rescued from an abortion clinic by one of our activists - she and her daughter attended the classes together, and they were baptized on the same day - and hundreds more. 🙂

But I never saw anybody who didn’t have anything they really, really needed from God, who stuck with the program. Those ones mostly all dropped out.
 
As another said, quoting a Priest, in the other ASK A BAPTIST PASTOR thread … ‘God loves the [Southern] Baptists, enough that many find their way to the Catholic Church’.

They are not your enemy, — help them see the Eucharist is literal, that Mary is not to be feared, and to learn some Early Church History.

Never tell them the Altar Call and Sinner’s Prayer don’t have merit … they have experienced otherwise. People will not reject their supernatural experiences … at least not the ones that brought them Grace.

And don’t ‘make sport of them’ and close their threads EARLY. That is not classy, and they know it is unfair … and reinforces the negative stereotypes about Catholicism they know of. Win them over with the better proofs. Win them over with apologetics ‘fairly’ conducted, and pray for your Christian brethren … or at least ask Christ to help you do so. Do it the way FCEMG, Pax, G-4, and Mikeledes do it. They are wise ones, with the experience. 👍
 
choy said:
how does convertion actually take place?

i know you just can’t walk up to any Protestant or any non-Catholic, open the CCC, and then run off to RCIA. is it really when someone feels that thirst and hunger in their soul? does this happen only to those with a genuine desire to find the truth?
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For me it was a re-version.
It really happened in two stages. When I was in fundamentalism, the more I studied the Bible (I mean, that is what fundamentalists are supposed to do) the less of a fundamentalist I became. Because what they were saying did not line up with what the Word of God was saying.
When I was with more Reformed-minded Baptists, my study of the 'reformers; (again, encouraged by the adherants) the less of a Protestant I became. I often like to say I came back to the Church through the ‘back door’ or the Reformation.
This led me to an in-depth study of the early Church, the Sacraments…and rest is in my blog.
It’s a slow process, it can take years. I know it did for me.
That’s why experienced apologists on CAF will post for the LURKERS, not necessarily to the poster in question. Because at one time I was one of those ‘lurkers’.
And believe me, anyone could see ReformedMIssionary was just fishing for converts (he said as much on his blog).
 
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