When would that be?
One has to keep in mind that the Church is the body of Christ, Colossians 1 below.
24 Now I rejoice in what I am suffering for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church.
And Christ said of his Church
16 “He who hears you hears me, and he who rejects you rejects me, and he who rejects me rejects him who sent me.”
So the Church is there to lead people in Truth to God on faith and morals.
We are all called to use our intellect, faith and reason to understand the revelation of God. God is truth and he calls us into a relationship with him, to know, follow and understand him. This is best done by being a member of the Church he established on earth and thereby receiving the sacraments that Christ established for our salvation.
God is God. Agree
He does not change but he uses his Church on earth that he set up through Jesus Christ to lead people to truth and holiness so that we can share in his divine life forever. He told his first Catholic bishops to go out and preach the good news…we are called as Catholics to do the same today. Nothing has changed in this regards. It’s the Lord’s command.
Pork,
I will not go through the history of the Catholic church and point out the atrocities that were committed in its name. Surely, you have been taught about these times, some of them fairly recent. If somehow you were protected from learning about them, which I find hard to believe, then look it up on the Internet.
These times and events have discouraged many Catholics from remaining within that institution. I applaud, however, those Catholics that see beyond the evil deeds of the men, who carried great authority within the church, and so, at one time, the known world, and see to the heart of the church and its love of Christ and, therefore, remain within the institution.
You really don’t need to explain the role of the church to me. I come from a family with three ministers in its history, going back well over a hundred years; and, some of my ancestors, though they owned slaves, worshiped as Catholics.
That being said, translation of the original word, that we now interpret to mean a church as in institution, means something different. I do not accept that it refers to the Catholic church or any other institution. In case you are interested, here is one article that traces the true meaning back to the original Greek term.
biblepages.net/gg06.htm That is as far as I am going to go with that.
I don’t understand why you feel you need to lecture me on the church and its role on Earth. It is great, wonderful, and inspiring that you love the church as much as you apparently do. I see things differently due to things that have happened in my life that are very personal to me. Because of them, however, I see beauty in all religions as they bring folks to their knees to bow and worship the mighty Creator.
Though I know Jesus to be the Son of God, all men that call upon others to develop further understanding of themselves as the spiritual beings that they are pull mankind up towards the Father and lead them to walk more closely as Jesus did whether they be of a faith other than Christianity or not. Good is good and should never be condemned.
Catholics will say these folks may walk as Jesus but will never see God because they do not believe in Jesus as His Son. I say, let God worry about that and we should keep our mouths shut regarding the judgment of God least we invite it to come down on us.
Please don’t quote me Scripture that you believe points to the Catholic church as the one authority. I have read that Scripture and do not interpret it the same way. Plain and simple, my religion is I love God. I love Jesus with all my heart and all my soul and he is plenty aware of it and my efforts to gain greater understanding so that I may more closely immolate him.
Christianity has used the Bible to interpret God’s guidance in establishing a church as an institution. The Baha’i faith has used the Bible, and the revelations of its leader, to interpret God’s guidance in establishing the church within the being of each individual man, to build upon and increase the active divinity within us through the Holy Spirit. In my system of belief, developed from my experience with the living Christ, this is what Jesus demonstrated to us. In addition to worshiping the Father, we are to Become one with the Father. (I know they don’t believe in an entity identified as the Holy Spirit. But, they do believe in the active god within all men. To me, it is the same thing, just called something different.)
Now, don’t try to twist my words and say I am saying we are all the same as Jesus. Nope, I surely, surely do not believe that. Heck, if I had that kind of faith in my being and of God’s love for me, my work here would be done. We are not the same as Jesus. But, we can all be Saints. I love you and all of God’s children enough to see that possibility within us.
Jesus said that it takes love to bring man to God. So, love all men, no matter what their belief system and through that love grant them the blessing of worshiping God, seeing God, as their hearts call them to do. If a correction needs to be made, God will direct them. Trust Him to be working in them. He is very capable.
