"Come out from her"

[Roman_Catholic_1]

Does anyone want to lend me a hand in this:

I am glad you don’t adore idols, Mary, etc. Nonetheless, God demands us to be holy(ie separation from those who do worship idols, etc). If the lump you fellowship among and receive teaching is leavened by sin (idolatry is spiritual adultery/ and therefore sin), then you need to separate from them according to these plain words and sound doctrines of Scripture. Is 52:11 2 Corinthians 6:17 Rev 18:4 1 Corinthians 5:9 1 Corinthians 5:11 1 Cor 10:7, 14, 20 2 Cor 6:14; Eph 5:11; 2 Thess 3:6 Jesus said if you love me, you will obey him. John 14:15 : John 14:21, 23; 15:10; 1 John 5:3; 2 John 6

My wife, a former protestant, has been having an email conversation with another protestant. Obviously I told her to tell him that we do not, nor have we ever worshiped idols. However I was just wondering if anyone had any other thoughts on this? Are we really held accountable for being, “lumped in fellowship” with those who may not have sound doctrine? I know we don’t worship idols, but I don’t want her to go back with just that. I question the premise that we are held accountable for the failings of our fellowship. The Bible tells us not to forsake fellowship, and to edify each other. Is there anything else I am missing?

Thanks and God bless

 

[Eucharisted]

He’s using personal interpretation of Scripture. More likely than not, you won’t be able to get through to him using Scripture. However, there is one way you could show him the error of his ways:

to be holy (ie separation from those who do worship idols, etc).

Is not true, because God clearly says, “Be holy, just as I am holy.” Holiness, therefore, means to imitate God. God is omnipresent, so He is with the good and the bad, the righteous and the wicked, those who love Him and those who worship idols. So we cannot imitate Him by seperating ourselves from those who worship idols. Instead, we must imitate Him as He Himself has commanded us: “Love one another, just as I love you.”

 

[TruthisBeauty7]

to be holy means to be seperated apart for God’s use. it doesnt mean to be seperated from those who worship idols or whatever this guy said.

It simply means to be consecrated unto God .

 

[Rita88]

No words, just and :clapping:

Perhaps that it is also worth reminding this man that devotion to Mary is not exclusively Catholic. She is, actually, the perfect example of holy obedience to the triune Godhead! I am an Anglican and I value her with a great love… I do not worship her, I humbly look upon her has God’s servant, who is full of wonder, being so close to God in her meek and gentle sprit that she bore our Lord and Saviour! If he seeks a church with no Marian devotion (in personal or public prayer) he will never find one… we know that those with “unorthodox” views still take shelter in “orthodox” churches (whatever orthodox may be within Christianity will always be argued over).

 

[gookykookypig]

That is true: God demands us to be holy(ie separation from those who do worship idols, etc). Yet that “those” are not us, catholics. We never worship idols. So we’re not guilty of it

Holiness demands a lot. Firstly, holiness demands peace. Look at this:

“Follow after peace with all men, and the sanctification
without which no man shall see the Lord”
(Hebrews 12:14)

You’re wife’s protestant email friend is the one failing the fellowship, by his twisted and stubborn view that we Catholics are worshipping idols.

 

[Zooey]

to be holy means to be seperated apart for God’s use. it doesnt mean to be seperated from those who worship idols or whatever this guy said.

It simply means to be consecrated unto God .

 

[CentralFLJames]

For a Protestant to make an argument of separation to remain “holy” is so pathetically ironic. It is the Protestants who have wholesale rejected any notion of holiness in their new protestant justification theology. They do not believe in infused grace that obliterates sin and makes the inner person pure and holy. No, they see humanity as “filthy nasty flesh”. They see humanity as vulgar to the core and only tolerable by God through imputed grace by a "covering of Christ’s blood’ that leaves the inner man corrupt and putrid in sin but made to appear outwardly holy by Christ’s blood. They would want us all to be snow covered dung piles that look pretty but up close would not pass the sniff test if the frozen stuff started melting under the heat of inspection.

Where does any Protestant dare come out to speak of holiness with that kind of corrupted idea of purity? It’s impossible to reconcile with scripture or with reason.

I’d get him out of his self-righteous holy-roller attitude and remind him that true Christians (Catholics - The One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church) are explicitly told in scripture to have nothing to do with those who reject the apostolic gospel and instead preach and accept a different gospel after being warned 1 or 2 times.

1 Timothy 4:7 But have nothing to do with worldly fables fit only for old women.

Titus 3:10 A man that is an heretic after the first and second admonition reject;

A person who’s own faith is based on fables and heretical doctrine has no business talking about holiness and is arrogant to presume himself holy if he rejects the apostolic teachings and its authority.

James

 

[Roman_Catholic_1]

For a Protestant to make an argument of separation to remain “holy” is so pathetically ironic.

These are not your typical protestants. They don’t believe they are protestants. Simply disciples of Jesus. They believe Catholics and “protestants” are in the same unholy mess. As my wife as been told,* “the RC system and the Protestant system are in the gutters together.”*They even use the 33,000 denomination argument to disprove Protestantism

It is the Protestants who have wholesale rejected any notion of holiness in their new protestant justification theology.

These protestants reject salvation by faith alone and also OSAS. They believe there are conditions (i.e. works) that are required for salvation. Again, not your typical Protestants. Most notably, if you are not street preaching (showing your desire to reach the lost) you are not a disciple of Christ (they don’t call themselves Christians since no where in the Bible it tells us to accept this label) and speaking in “unknown languages” (i.e. tongues) is the only way to prove that you have the Holy Spirit in you. Also you have to stop sinning and obey the commandments of Christ.

They do not believe in infused grace that obliterates sin and makes the inner person pure and holy. No, they see humanity as “filthy nasty flesh”. They see humanity as vulgar to the core and only tolerable by God through imputed grace by a "covering of Christ’s blood’ that leaves the inner man corrupt and putrid in sin but made to appear outwardly holy by Christ’s blood. They would want us all to be snow covered dung piles that look pretty but up close would not pass the sniff test if the frozen stuff started melting under the heat of inspection.

These protestants believe that we become Holy. We stop sinning. They have told my wife that yes we have all sinned but the Bible never tells us that those who are truly His, will continue to sin. They do not accept the reformation doctrine described above. Believers actually become Holy, perfect, like God here on earth.

God bless you

 

[Church_Militant]

Does anyone want to lend me a hand in this:

My wife, a former protestant, has been having an email conversation with another protestant. Obviously I told her to tell him that we do not, nor have we ever worshiped idols. However I was just wondering if anyone had any other thoughts on this? Are we really held accountable for being, “lumped in fellowship” with those who may not have sound doctrine? I know we don’t worship idols, but I don’t want her to go back with just that. I question the premise that we are held accountable for the failings of our fellowship. The Bible tells us not to forsake fellowship, and to edify each other. Is there anything else I am missing?

Thanks and God bless

I am glad you don’t adore idols, Mary, etc. Nonetheless, God demands us to be holy(ie separation from those who do worship idols, etc).

You’re right RC…since we do not worship idols then their whole argument is hogwash.

If the lump you fellowship among and receive teaching is leavened by sin (idolatry is spiritual adultery/ and therefore sin), then you need to separate from them according to these plain words and sound doctrines of Scripture.

The problem here is (as usual) that they are telling us that the Bible is the only authority to be followed, and we already know that that teaching is nowhere found within the Bible.

You might also point out that those verses are precisely why so many of us left other faiths to become Catholic.

 

[CentralFLJames]

These are not your typical protestants. They don’t believe they are protestants. Simply disciples of Jesus. They believe Catholics and “protestants” are in the same unholy mess. As my wife as been told,* “the RC system and the Protestant system are in the gutters together.”*They even use the 33,000 denomination argument to disprove Protestantism

These protestants reject salvation by faith alone and also OSAS. They believe there are conditions (i.e. works) that are required for salvation. Again, not your typical Protestants. Most notably, if you are not street preaching (showing your desire to reach the lost) you are not a disciple of Christ (they don’t call themselves Christians since no where in the Bible it tells us to accept this label) and speaking in “unknown languages” (i.e. tongues) is the only way to prove that you have the Holy Spirit in you. Also you have to stop sinning and obey the commandments of Christ.

These protestants believe that we become Holy. We stop sinning. They have told my wife that yes we have all sinned but the Bible never tells us that those who are truly His, will continue to sin. They do not accept the reformation doctrine described above. Believers actually become Holy, perfect, like God here on earth.

God bless you

Hoboy, the protestant-hydra spawns yet another new head. I have lost track. Is this now 33,001 or 33,002 new Protestant denominational sects this week?

Protestantism at large has lost any orthodox linkage to even its own heresies and its now just a tangle-weed of personal belief. You need to get back to basics with these confused people. Start off with the need for The Church. If they at least hold to scripture as the last vestige of what they imagine is orthodoxy then I recommend this site to understand what is “the biblical church” (it’s Catholic):
scripturecatholic.com/the_church.html

James

 

[Roman_Catholic_1]

Hoboy, the protestant-hydra spawns yet another new head. I have lost track. Is this now 33,001 or 33,002 new Protestant denominational sects this week?

Protestantism at large has lost any orthodox linkage to even its own heresies and its now just a tangle-weed of personal belief. You need to get back to basics with these confused people. Start off with the need for The Church. If they at least hold to scripture as the last vestige of what they imagine is orthodoxy then I recommend this site to understand what is “the biblical church” (it’s Catholic):
scripturecatholic.com/the_church.html

James

Tell me about it. Its just like :banghead:

She has tried to discuss the Church. He comes back with, “blah blah blah all you talk about is this corrupt institutional building. I never hear you talk about Christ” Which is untrue, she does talk about Christ and only brings up the Church to defend it against his misinformation that he brings into the conversation.

So it does no good to discuss the Church with these people. They see it as “taking away the glory of Christ and substituting it with your unholy institution.”

Discussing the Church only plays into their hands; that she, “has religion, but no relationship.”

Also she sent him that link a week ago. He said, “oh now I see where you are cutting and pasting your scripture to slam your dad with. More spoon fed lies from the RCC.”

He totally dismissed it since the title was scriptureCatholic Imagine that, a bible alone afraid of a little scripture.

God bless

 

[CentralFLJames]

Tell me about it. Its just like :banghead:

She has tried to discuss the Church. He comes back with, “blah blah blah all you talk about is this corrupt institutional building. I never hear you talk about Christ” Which is untrue, she does talk about Christ and only brings up the Church to defend it against his misinformation that he brings into the conversation.

So it does no good to discuss the Church with these people. They see it as “taking away the glory of Christ and substituting it with your unholy institution.”

Discussing the Church only plays into their hands; that she, “has religion, but no relationship.”

Also she sent him that link a week ago. He said, “oh now I see where you are cutting and pasting your scripture to slam your dad with. More spoon fed lies from the RCC.”

He totally dismissed it since the title was scriptureCatholic Imagine that, a bible alone afraid of a little scripture.

God bless

Yeah, I just gave an ultra fundamentalist who was booted from his own church for being “too inflexible” a proof “by scripture alone” that “scripture alone” is false. He is so fuming angry he is spitting and whining to another mutual friend that a “mere” Catholic could put him on the ropes with scripture and leave him speechless. He won’t talk to me anymore and I have been advised to be careful around him since he appears to be getting unstable and vindictive. He is shopping around for a new church but is whining that they all are polluted with at least some corrupted elements from the Catholic Church (like necessity for baptism, or permit statues, or requiring repentance lol).

I really do think the world is now declining so fast down the slippery slope of neo-Christianity that we need to get the Catholic Bishops to do a global exorcism some day soon to stop this madness.

It just seems that the more and more people get educated in secular universities and into their own personal opinions the more variations on a theme of Christianity we get. Something MUST give soon. Personally I am waiting for the big divine “thumping” to stop the madness…

James

 

[Holly3278]

I would recommend the following articles:

catholic.com/library/Saint_Worship.asp

catholic.com/library/Do_Catholics_Worship_Statues.asp

 

[FathersKnowBest]

Tell me about it. Its just like :banghead:

She has tried to discuss the Church. He comes back with, “blah blah blah all you talk about is this corrupt institutional building. I never hear you talk about Christ” Which is untrue, she does talk about Christ and only brings up the Church to defend it against his misinformation that he brings into the conversation.

While I agree with your response, it should be pointed out that Christ SO identified with His Church that, when Paul was persecuting the Church, Christ asked: “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute ME?”

The Church IS the body of Christ.

Also she sent him that link a week ago. He said, “oh now I see where you are cutting and pasting your scripture to slam your dad with. More spoon fed lies from the RCC.”

This is an *ad hominem *argument. Ask them to respond to the argument itself, not to try to disparage the source.

 

[SyCarl]

For a Protestant to make an argument of separation to remain “holy” is so pathetically ironic. It is the Protestants who have wholesale rejected any notion of holiness in their new protestant justification theology. They do not believe in infused grace that obliterates sin and makes the inner person pure and holy. No, they see humanity as “filthy nasty flesh”. They see humanity as vulgar to the core and only tolerable by God through imputed grace by a "covering of Christ’s blood’ that leaves the inner man corrupt and putrid in sin but made to appear outwardly holy by Christ’s blood. They would want us all to be snow covered dung piles that look pretty but up close would not pass the sniff test if the frozen stuff started melting under the heat of inspection.

Where does any Protestant dare come out to speak of holiness with that kind of corrupted idea of purity? It’s impossible to reconcile with scripture or with reason.

James

It is wrong to say Protestants do not believe or try to practice holiness. Take the Reformed faith for example. It does believe that there is an inward change in man by the working of the Holy Spirit. However we are not made perfectly holy since we are still able to sin. This takes place when one is regenerated. As the Westminster Confession of Faith says:

1. All those whom God hath predestinated unto life, and those only, he is pleased, in his appointed and accepted time, effectually to call, by his Word and Spirit, out of that state of sin and death, in which they are by nature, to grace and salvation, by Jesus Christ; enlightening their minds spiritually and savingly to understand the things of God, taking away their heart of stone, and giving unto them a heart of flesh; renewing their wills, and, by his almighty power, determining them to that which is good, and effectually drawing them to Jesus Christ: yet so, as they come most freely, being made willing by his grace.

Justification itself is viewed as a forensic judgment but sanctification is also required.

1. They, who are once effectually called, and regenerated, having a new heart, and a new spirit created in them, are further sanctified, really and personally, through the virtue of Christ’s death and resurrection, by his Word and Spirit dwelling in them: the dominion of the whole body of sin is destroyed, and the several lusts thereof are more and more weakened and mortified; and they more and more quickened and strengthened in all saving graces, to the practice of true holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord.

1. This sanctification is throughout, in the whole man; yet imperfect in this life, there abiding still some remnants of corruption in every part; whence ariseth a continual and irreconcilable war, the flesh lusting against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh.

1. In which war, although the remaining corruption, for a time, may much prevail; yet, through the continual supply of strength from the sanctifying Spirit of Christ, the regenerate part doth overcome; and so, the saints grow in grace, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.

opc.org/wcf.html

That we are not made perfectly righteous in this life is in keeping with Augustine.

Therefore the first commandment about righteousness, which bids us love the Lord with all our heart, and soul, and mind (the next to which is, that we love our neighbour as ourselves), we shall completely fulfil in that life when we shall see face to face. But even now this commandment is enjoined upon us, that we may be reminded what we ought by faith to require, and what we should in our hope look forward to, and, “forgetting the things which are behind, reach forth to the things which are before.” And thus, as it appears to me, that man has made a far advance, even in the present life, in the righteousness which is to be perfected hereafter, who has discovered by this very advance how very far removed he is from the completion of righteousness.

On the Spirit and the Letter, Chapters 64
newadvent.org/fathers/1502.htm

With respect to the necessity of works, Calvin himself had this to say:

We, indeed, allow that good works are required for righteousness; we only take away from them the power of conferring righteousness, because they cannot stand before the tribunal of God.

Commentary on the Catholic Epistles, Chapter 2
ccel.org/ccel/calvin/calcom45.vi.iii.vii.html

 

[pnewton]

Also she sent him that link a week ago. He said, “oh now I see where you are cutting and pasting your scripture to slam your dad with. More spoon fed lies from the RCC.”

There is a point there. Proof-texting to support Catholicism is no more honest than proof-texting to argue against it. However, I would like to point out the hyporcricy that this thread’s first post contained a classic proof texting error, as well as the classic fallacy of begging the question. Come out of her? Where in the Bible is the Her identified as the Catholic Church. The scripture has no validity unless the point is assumed in advance. This makes me cringe everytime I see a Jack Chick track.

Unfortunately, the statement you gave looks like there is no respect or willingness to listen, i.e. consider what Catholics say from any perspective except that of a vulture. With such people, I do not discuss religion, or at least any area not in common. If pressed, I make it known why I do not. I have not time to waste with a hypocrite or a fool. If someone just wants to do all the preaching and none of the listening, there is no hope.

Usually.

There is one last ditch effort if someone has time to kill. You might try a question only approach. The only place to start is with sola scriptura. Authority. If everything is in scripture, than where is it in scripture that everything is in scripture? Then after you get an answer, expand the context of the prooftxting to come by asking probing questions about each passage.

 

[CentralFLJames]

It is wrong to say Protestants do not believe or try to practice holiness. Take the Reformed faith for example…

My friend, it is not quite so “black and white” as me being “wrong”. My characterization is a mean average of “what” the fuzzy world of Protestantism is. I accept that what I have stated is not a perfect characterization of all Protestants - after all some of you all still cling to Catholic concepts - including the necessity of being Holy.

“Protestantism” et-al is a tumbleweed of conflicted and contradictory belief systems. Catholics usually adapt a Lutheran view of Protestantism in the general dialog since it is what caused the whole Protestant mess we have today.

To your point - let’s be pragmatic. We can’t by any means call Calvinism or the so called “Reformed Faith” the representative standard for Protestantism since this small cloistered sect of Protestantism accounts for only a trivial 11% world wide Protestants. I doubt that even half of these even know what their “orthodox” belief really is (BTW which Westminster confession version? Church of England, Savoy, or Baptist etc. etc. …?). So “by the numbers” Calvinistic belief with its dark and fatal attractive appeal to those few who imagine themselves to be destined to “the elect” (just like JWs) are hardly mainstream Protestants today - perhaps 300 years ago. The word “holiness” in the Calvin system might just a well be synonym for “rare” or as nearly “extinct”.

From my perspective the more predominant unifying aspect of Protestantism is not even characterized by theological categories. Rather I see it best characterized on a category of secular social behavior. That is, the Protestant “protest” against authority (ecclesial or civil) has become in the religious sector itself a self-evident expression of faith in man’s religious conviction of our own sinful nature. A legion of dogmatic choices that any sane person knows can’t all be simultaneous right becomes the Protestant Tower of Babel - a cacophony of depraved sinners attesting that they can do no good as mankind is seriously conflicted. Hmm, what genius managed to remain so holy and so perfect that he could put a “reformed” blueprint together? Franky, if not for a certain depraved ability to imperfectly subscribe to a generally accepted “Christian moral code” what really differentiates a Protestant’s faith from the same faith that heathens have that they are just as free to do as they please since they are in God’s eyes just as"equally" depraved as anyone else (some maybe even being unaware that they members of that elite group called “the elect”).

Note that within Calvinistic systems only the few destined “elect” are able to escape the mire of Total Depravity by God’s irresistible grace to become Holy. Is this not just a cop-out formula that sheds all personal responsibility and makes it ALL God’s job to save the few He might want? Calvin renders “free will” as an anomaly of “the ego” - and then goes conspicuously mute in accounting for how his neo-Christian system managed to evade the the same corrupting influence of “vulgar man” in developing a “reformed” theology. Is the Westminster Confession (version 3) a new divinely inspired work of God or just a new ego-centric expression of vain man attempting to forensically declare himself able to infallibly define a system that can at least recognize Holiness if ever one sees it in himself?

The whole Calvinist system of thinking is irrational and self contradictory. Shall we say that Mr. Calvin was still in a fledgling “regenerative” phase when he murdered his arch-nemesis Michael Servetus and burned him alive at the stake? Or was this one of Calvin’s stubborn Catholic proclivities for works that he was letting God exorcise from his corpus as he gave us his new formulas for Christianity and “bet on the come” that he was one of the elect? Fancy that, a system of “reformed” holiness that can produce real tears of repentance through empathy for those who we demonize and burn at the stake and send to hell in our place; or is it a holy repentance through the tears of despair that we might not be fated to be "the elect? I can hear it now “Please pick me Lord - just one more for heaven Lord”?

Sorry, even if Calvinistic systems properly recognize that holiness is a necessity for salvation I just can’t embrace such self evident hypocrisy that is in it’s practice as orthogonal to truth and actual attainment of objective as are the cross-beams of the crucifix to stretching “The Truth” on the cross to change Christ’s words from “My Church” to “My Churches”.

Oh dear me, I know you are trying to be sincere here. But you Calvinists are the brighter of the bunch and are not too far removed from Catholic belief. You really need to come back to “The Way” - its The Catholic Church that Christ established:
Matthew 16:18
I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.

Note there is NO plurality in this verse. It is CHURCH singular.

Acts 9:1-4
Now Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest, 2 and asked for letters from him to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, both men and women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. 3 As he was traveling, it happened that he was approaching Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him; 4 and he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?”

John 14:6
Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through** Me**.

JESUS is HIMSELF THE WAY through His Body- which is HIS RELIGION AND HIS FAITH AND HIS CHURCH.*

James