Calling all non-Catholic Christians!

[Namesake]

Well, I’m looking at it this way: If the Catholic Church does not exist, which church should a Christian join?

j4a gave a list of how one finds the correct church:

I have some questions about that, which I posted, but have yet to receive an answer.

I’m not trying to bait anyone. I’m trying to figure out how a Christian in the situation I mention determines which denomination is teaching the truth, especially considering that j4a says the denomination should “believe that the Scriptures are the basis for all beliefs and practices.”

Although the situation is hypothetical, the problem isn’t. How does a Christian looking to join a church determine which is the right one, in light of the fact that different denominations claim to go by the Bible but teach opposing doctrines?

Just how does one resolve this dilemma?

If you are that confused you will probably need to become Catholic. Simple solution.

 

[Deacon110]

That one will bite you.

Maybe

God also allowed Evil to survive. Satan is still alive.

God has also moved some Reformer’s back home.

Home?? Where’s home?? Define home.

So let me get this straight. If a Roman Catholic leaves the church because they are not growing spiritually, finds an alternate church that fulfills them spiritually bringing them closer to Jesus and GOD, you say that could not be the work of GOD.

When a Protestant moves to the Roman Catholic church you claim it is the work of GOD.

Now this is interesting. Let me ask you this. GOD sends a prophet to the Roman Catholic church in an attempt to correct some errant teachings. The Roman Catholic church will naturally respond and declare this person a heretic. So the church and all it’s followers continue down a dangerous road. How can that ever be changed??

Look at the OT. The Kings basically wanted to kill all the Prophets because they spoke the truth. Elijah has this very conversation with GOD. The Kings always thought they knew better until they met with their eventual demise. How does the Roman Catholic church differ from this at all?? Judgement day arrives. Roman Catholics say but we were infallible. GOD says no the truth is. You changed it so I sent several people to you to correct it but you didn’t listen. Not taking a cheap shot but you imply that GOD could not possibly be at work outside the Roman Catholic church.

I invite you to personally come to my house for dinner so my wife and I can educate you on all the wonderful things GOD has done for us over the past 10 years. 2 people that had nothing to do with church. I assure you it’s not satan and I’m sure satan is quite ticked that GOD interfered because I’m sure he thought he had us.

PEACE

 

[Deacon110]

some of us dont need to worry about that because we listen to Paul. he left us his letters which we use, read, live and believe everything he said is true and inspired by Jesus. and we obey.

Yes we do too.

 

[Deacon110]

*So the the church that **Jesus Christ ***established could be called the I church?
What I think, what I believe or what **I **feel!
What if I’s wrong ?

OK let’s not change the tone of a post to try and make a point. I answered a question that was directed to me. I offered my opinion.

 

[tGette]

I am increasingly disappointed threads never seem to focus on the original post. I feel like I am in a chat room rather than a forum focusing on the intention of the original post.

If you do not mind…redirect to this new post:

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=219596

 

[Deacon110]

Just wondering…
if you pay attention, you will notice that your answers is all about: i think, i believe, i i i i i and so on…
still you have not showed how you come to conclusion you know where the truth lies.
is it because you believe that this is truth and that is it?
because many people believe in many things, does it make it true?

And how do you know? Do you go to a Roman Catholic church because you think they are right? What makes you think you are right? If you say you know they are right then you claim to know the truth. How does this differ from my claim. How can you know all and I don’t??

I say believe because I trust the Holy Spirit implicitly. I never say I know. I say believe. What do you say??

 

[Deacon110]

Yes I am; read it again.

I did again and again. Sorry

Point being that everybody laughed at him and went ahead with legalizing birth control, and he is being proven right.

I think it’s a little extreme to think that the Pope singularly had this opinion out of everyone in the whole wide world.

Not as such, but he’s coming up with some very interesting stuff that has never been seen before, such as the idea of the Fourth Cup, etc. Nobody is squelching him or telling him that he’s not allowed to play around with these ideas.

Well let’s see him try to change doctrine and then we can decide

 

[wisdomseeker]

OK so show me the actual building that Jesus erected. Jesus says the spirit gives life. Show me the physical spirit. Did the people having church services in their houses constitute a building that Jesus constructed?? If yes then did he do this before he died or after??

The visible part of the church is the people. The invisible part is the Holy Spirit we all possess internally upon baptism. Unless you can show me that is visible too. Did the Ethiopian Eunich get baptized in a physical building?? Did Peter baptize the official’s family in a church building?? Let me save you the time. No, and ahh, no. Did they become part of Jesus church?? Yes. So then the church in that instance was the entire desert and the official’s house. I wonder if they had a sign outside that said Roman Catholic church. And how about the 3000 that were added at Pentecost?? Was that within a church?? Or was the outside immediate area around them blue sky and all the church??

Forgive my sarcastic remarks but your comments make no sense and the argument of visible/invisible church is just too old.

PEACE

sorry, there is no way to reason here with you. aparently you will not be able to understand the point.
as far as i am concern you can believe whatever you want.

 

[jmcrae]

So let me get this straight. If a Roman Catholic leaves the church because they are not growing spiritually, finds an alternate church that fulfills them spiritually bringing them closer to Jesus and GOD, you say that could not be the work of GOD.

Because God would never send anyone away from His Church, into heresy and schism.

When a Protestant moves to the Roman Catholic church you claim it is the work of GOD.

Yes, because God wants us all to come to the fulness of life in Him, through the Sacraments and through the authentic proclamation of His Gospel in all truth, which are all found in His Church.

Now this is interesting. Let me ask you this. GOD sends a prophet to the Roman Catholic church in an attempt to correct some errant teachings.

All of the prophets of the Old Testament were duly appointed by God through the lawful God-given authority of men; not one of them was self-appointed. The people and the Kings knew who the Prophets were, because they had been publicly anointed in a ceremony, and they bore the title “Prophet” as their job title. So, when a Prophet showed up, the Kings knew that they were supposed to listen; there was no way they were going to mistake him for some babbling homeless guy. (That’s why it was a sin for the Kings not to listen to the Prophets - because they knew who the Prophets were, and that they were supposed to listen to them.)

The Roman Catholic church will naturally respond and declare this person a heretic. So the church and all it’s followers continue down a dangerous road. How can that ever be changed??

This has never happened, though. Indeed, quite the opposite, since it was the Kings of the Reformation era who did not listen to God’s appointed man in authority (God’s “prophet” so to speak), the Pope.

Furthermore, each of the Kings established his own religion - the German King established Lutheranism, the English King established Anglicanism, the Swiss King established Calvinism, and so on.

Look at the OT. The Kings basically wanted to kill all the Prophets because they spoke the truth.

Just as the Reformation-era Kings wanted to kill the Pope, and spread all manner of lies about him, which are even still being spread until today.

Elijah has this very conversation with GOD. The Kings always thought they knew better until they met with their eventual demise.

As I am sure also happened to the Reformation-era Kings. And I am sure that Pope Benedict can identify very closely with the Prophet Elijah, when he tries to bring reform and people just ignore him.

How does the Roman Catholic church differ from this at all?? Judgement day arrives. Roman Catholics say but we were infallible. GOD says no the truth is. You changed it so I sent several people to you to correct it but you didn’t listen. Not taking a cheap shot but you imply that GOD could not possibly be at work outside the Roman Catholic church.

The Roman Catholic Church is God’s prophetic institution. God’s messengers wear distinctive clothing and are easy to identify, just as they always have been, even from Old Testament times. And they still speak a message that worldly people don’t like to hear; they would rather go to their own self-appointed prophets who speak soothing words of acceptance of everything that they do as being in accord with God’s will, whether it actually is or not.

 

[jmcrae]

I did again and again. Sorry

The short answer to your question is “Yes.” Protestants are listening to “something other than” the Holy Spirit. They are listening to their feelings, to the will’o the wisp, to the burnin’ in the bosom, and to whatever seems expedient at the time.

If they were listening to the Holy Spirit, they would be Catholic.

I think it’s a little extreme to think that the Pope singularly had this opinion out of everyone in the whole wide world.

The Pope was the one with the means to prophesy it to the whole world. Joe Blow could have held it as an opinion, but he could only promulgate it to his own family and friends, not the whole world.

Well let’s see him try to change doctrine and then we can decide

So he should propagate lies, just to prove that he has intellectual freedom?

 

[Non_Serviam]

Sorry to be so late in replying-I went away for the weekend to get away from some of the snow we have here.

Oh, I agree it shouldn’t be the basis. You’re right that love should be. However, we both agree doctrine is very important. The reason why I do is I’m concerned about souls possibly being led astray by false doctrine.

Yes, doctrine is important, but can one prevent someone from being “led astray” by “false doctrine” Whether one has a Pope, a presbytery, a single pastor or is just up in the mountains with a Scofield Reference Bible the fact is that words are passing back and forth, but there is no guarantee that sender and receiver have the same understanding of those words. If you say “I believe in Jesus” and I say “I do as well” does that mean we are in unity? Is our doctrine true?

I believe that we are all striving to grow in truth, and that God in His sovereignty is in charge of the process. Ultimately as Paul says “we shall see Him face to face” and things will be cleared up for us.

Just so we’re clear, are you saying it’s kind of okay to have doctrinal disunity in the meantime? That’s it’s kind of okay for the church to be split in the meantime? I’m not quite sure what you mean here.

I don’t know if would say okay, but I believe that is how it is. It would be redundant for Jesus to pray that believers (not sinners) be led into truth and unity if they already had that unity and truth. Having said that I believe all believers will ultimately have unity and truth, but likely only with Jesus in eternity. In the mean time, we need to work toward unity and to recognize that God is leading us into truth.

Paul talks quite clearly about divisions in the church in I Cor 1:12-how do you square that with an insistence on unity?

If you mean we puny humans can’t completely understand God, you’ll get no argument from me.

However, how we get to heaven is extremely important, and I can’t envision God not making that part of theology clear to us. This is an area where we shouldn’t have to guess–far too much is at stake. Eternal souls are at stake.

Agreed. The book of Acts has a number of examples of God going beyond the church in making sure that salvation is available to those the church hasn’t even considered: the Ethiopian eunuch, Samaritans, Cornelius, Saul are all examples that come to mind. Likewise in Acts 15 some factions in the church are certain about what it takes to get to heaven, while others have a different idea. Obviously God didn’t make it clear before that point or there would have been no divisions.

I guess for me it seems to make sense, that if I can trust God to save people (including me) I can trust Him to do what is necessary to let those people know what they must do to be saved (recognizing as in the case of the thief on the cross that God can bend His own rules as He so chooses).

Okay, I’m not going to get into Catholicism. However, my main emphasis is that heresy leads people astray. You could have somebody who believes in God, prays, studies the Bible, assembles with other believers, is open to what God is saying, *but still ends up holding the heretical doctrine that Jesus is a mere man, not God. *You could have someone who does all those things you said, but still holds to any heresy you can name: Arianism, Nestorianism, Pelagianism, Gnosticism.

See why I’m concerned?

I agree-it just concerns me at times that we can be cut and dried on heresy. The Jews had made it clear that the Samaritans were heretics in their worship and some other religious practices and yet Jesus’ interaction with the Samaritan woman made it clear that God had a different perspective on the issue. I believe there were corrections that needed to be made to the Samaritan faith, and that God had His own timetable to make them.

If we look at the Epistles, the Apostles seem to have put up with a lot at times and other times to have been very quick to crack down on things. I can’t say that I’ve figured out why some things received a quick rebuke and others were treated with more charity, but it may have depended on the spiritual maturity of the individual being corrected.

Additionally, some of the dialogues that have taken place show that in many cases the “heresy” that was trumpeted in the past turned out in many cases to have been semantic misunderstandings and interpersonal conflict.

Looking forward to your reply-I’m enjoying the discussion.

 

[fbl9]

hi Non Serviam…did not Jesus say to the samaritian woman to the effect that the samaritians did not know God…?btw you have some thought provoking posts.

 

[Non_Serviam]

hi Non Serviam…did not Jesus say to the samaritian woman to the effect that the samaritians did not know God…?btw you have some thought provoking posts.

True, although He did acknowledge that what the Samaritans were doing was worship and make them a promise of future inclusion in God’s salvation (which I believe was completely fulfilled in Acts) and He also clarified her belief in the Messiah.

While He gave the Jews full marks for getting worship right, it seems clear from the context of the discussion that they weren’t getting a passing grade in “How to relate to the Samaritans”

Likewise those of James party, who misunderstood the role of Jewish practices in the economy of salvation, leading to the council of Acts 15.

Thanks for the kind words, although I must admit to chuckling when I read the first part of your signature immediately after them!

And now I’m off to bed. A good Monday to all!

 

[qui_est_ce]

"qui:

I’m sorry, the below quote was from Deacon, not Wisdom seeker

1. Jesus is the son of God
2. Jesus is GOD in the flesh
3. Jesus died on the cross
4. Jesus paid the one time price for our sins.
5. Believing IN Jesus gives us eternal life. Not just acknowledging who HE is. Truly accepting HIM as your savior.

Now don’t put words into my post I never said the Bible was irrelevant. I was asked about important beliefs.

I didn’t say you thought the Bible was irrelevant in the quote to which you referred.

 

[qui_est_ce]

Maybe

Home?? Where’s home?? Define home.

Rome of course!

So let me get this straight. If a Roman Catholic leaves the church because they are not growing spiritually, finds an alternate church that fulfills them spiritually bringing them closer to Jesus and GOD, you say that could not be the work of GOD.
When a Protestant moves to the Roman Catholic church you claim it is the work of GOD.

All I meant is that you said your church is 95% Catholics, I meant there are a lot of Protestant converts to the CC as well. You read too much into the original post!

I invite you to personally come to my house for dinner so my wife and I can educate you on all the wonderful things GOD has done for us over the past 10 years. 2 people that had nothing to do with church. I assure you it’s not satan and I’m sure satan is quite ticked that GOD interfered because I’m sure he thought he had us.

I believe you. I never said your church doesn’t teach truth. In fact, from what you posted, your church does teach truth. My reference to Satan was in response to:

GOD not only allowed the reformers to survive, HE’s moved Roman Catholics over to their churches

qui:

That one will bite you.

God also allowed Evil to survive. Satan is still alive.

God has also moved some Reformer’s back home.

---

 

[qui_est_ce]

wouldnt you agree when someone builds something something is built. and why Jesus became visible just to tell us He was about to build something invisible through visible men like the apostles? I guess what you are saying is just that. that whatever Jesus said or did is all invisible. or maybe He did not really meant none of it. or maybe He came just for the apostles after that who cares, the next generation does not really matter they will be smart enough to speak for me.
to much confusion on your part.

I am looking for Protestant answer to this. Wisdom is not talking about a building here.

From what I have read here, Protestants do not agree on any doctrine or practice except:

1. inspired-inerrancy of the Bible
2. love one another
3. Jesus died for our sins.

Therefore, it follows that:
Jesus died to save ALL, whether they believe in Him or not. Only God can judge our hearts. Therefore, all the extra fluff the CC teaches should not offend any Protestants, because we all agree on the “Essentials.” Protestant denominations differ in their theology of Eucharist, Baptism, Sola Fide, Sola Scriptura, the Divinity of Jesus. So, if a JW or Mormon come to my door proseltizing, I should not correct them, because it is all irrelvant.

2,000 years of theological debate, history, Scripture itself, is irrelevant, because the message is boiled down to “Jesus saves” and “love one another.”

What I am left with is why did the Apostles feel the need to clarify the teachings of Jesus in the Epsitles? Why did Acts stress bother to talk about circumcision, purification rituals, etc.

Why is the inspired-inerrancy of the OT necessary?

Can a Protestant answer me this?

 

[qui_est_ce]

I am increasingly disappointed threads never seem to focus on the original post. I feel like I am in a chat room rather than a forum focusing on the intention of the original post.

If you do not mind…redirect to this new post:

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=219596

Sorry you are so disappointed. I find the topic very interesting. Deacon has made some good points, and helped me better understand the Protestant perspective.

Last night was the first night of our Parish Mission. The topic was the Bible. I couldn’t even quote you what the priest said, all I kept thinking was "WOW I believe everything he is saying, not because of my personal opinion, but because it is TRUTH. He is a priest, Apostolic Succession, Sacred Tradition. History. I can’t begin to describe how awestruck I was. Something I always knew and took for granted suddenly pierced my soul. And it was all due to this thread.

 

[Deacon110]

The short answer to your question is “Yes.” Protestants are listening to “something other than” the Holy Spirit. They are listening to their feelings, to the will’o the wisp, to the burnin’ in the bosom, and to whatever seems expedient at the time.

I think you underestimate the Holy Spirit and GOD. To assert that Protestants are not listening to the Holy Spirit is speaking for the Holy Spirit.

If they were listening to the Holy Spirit, they would be Catholic.

I disagree and I refer you to Paul’s letter to the Corinthians again when he says it doesn’t matter who plants the seed and waters. GOD ultimately will make them grow. Jesus tells us no one comes to HIM unless the FATHER sends them. As far as being Catholic, Protestants are Catholic. Just not Roman Catholic.

The Pope was the one with the means to prophesy it to the whole world. Joe Blow could have held it as an opinion, but he could only promulgate it to his own family and friends, not the whole world.

So now the Pope is a prophet?? And he is the singular prophet that exists in this world and also the only one who can promulgate, as you say, a message?? I disagree.

So he should propagate lies, just to prove that he has intellectual freedom?

Again you need to stop placing words in my post. That’s not what I said. I said if he finds doctrine in need of correction what will happen??

 

[Deacon110]

I didn’t say you thought the Bible was irrelevant in the quote to which you referred.

Maybe I misunderstood then. Forgive me. In one of the quotes you wrote, the bible is irrevelant it’s only what’s below, showing the list I posted. Maybe you can clarify what you meant.

 

[Deacon110]

Rome of course!

All I meant is that you said your church is 95% Catholics, I meant there are a lot of Protestant converts to the CC as well. You read too much into the original post!

Hmm. Maybe I did. I think I’m confusing your posts with another.

I believe you. I never said your church doesn’t teach truth. In fact, from what you posted, your church does teach truth. My reference to Satan was in response to:

Understood

PEACE