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tweetymom
Guest
Very true so why do you need a Priest? I just go direct.
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Bengoshi
Guest
First of all, we former Catholics who became Protestants/Evangelicals did not leave Jesus behind. In fact, we followed Jesus. Jesus says in John 18:20, “For where two or three come together in my name, there I am with them.” We gather in Jesus’ name. We worship and honor Him.
Second, we do confess our sins. James 5:16 says “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.” As disciples of Christ, we are made righteous by the imputation of Christ’s righteousness. Hence, confession to a mature Christian and asking for his intercession is biblical.
Third, we have received God’s grace. St. Paul in Ephesians 2:8-9 posits that “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.” We have been saved by God’s grace and not by our own good works. Moreover, “For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.” Again, as Christians, we are under the grace of God. So what you are saying here is incorrect.
Lastly, we have already been forgiven our sins because Christ died for the forgivenss of our sins. As Pricilla Ann correctly quoted John 1:9, which says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”
So if you truly want a more vibrant and genuine relationship with God and fellowship with other believers, rather than a mere ritualistic and mechanical religion, then join a real Bible-believing, Christian church!
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tweetymom
Guest
:tiphat:
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rev_kevin
Guest
AMENFirst of all, we former Catholics who became Protestants/Evangelicals did not leave Jesus behind. In fact, we followed Jesus. Jesus says in John 18:20, “For where two or three come together in my name, there I am with them.” We gather in Jesus’ name. We worship and honor Him.
Second, we do confess our sins. James 5:16 says “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.” As disciples of Christ, we are made righteous by the imputation of Christ’s righteousness. Hence, confession to a mature Christian and asking for his intercession is biblical.
Third, we have received God’s grace. St. Paul in Ephesians 2:8-9 posits that “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.” We have been saved by God’s grace and not by our own good works. Moreover, “For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.” Again, as Christians, we are under the grace of God. So what you are saying here is incorrect.
Lastly, we have already been forgiven our sins because Christ died for the forgivenss of our sins. As Pricilla Ann correctly quoted John 1:9, which says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”
So if you truly want a more vibrant and genuine relationship with God and fellowship with other believers, rather than a mere ritualistic and mechanical religion, then join a real Bible-believing, Christian church!
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Bengoshi
Guest
Yes, I have read ROME SWEET HOME. I have been wanting to buy REASONS TO BELIEVE (is that the correct title?) but it’s quite expensive. When I returned to the bookstore to buy it (coz i had the money already), it was out of stock!
Anyway, I am currently an Evangelical Christian in a non-denominational church. I am also a small group and kids worship leader. If only the Catholic Church would reform a lot of their practices and doctrines, then I may consider returning to the fold, otherwise, here will I stay, where the Gospel of Christ is preached without subtraction nor addtition of man-made traditions.
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Bengoshi
Guest
How could the congregation concentrate with noisy kids running around?
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tweetymom
Guest
Yes, I have read ROME SWEET HOME. I have been wanting to buy REASONS TO BELIEVE (is that the correct title?) but it’s quite expensive. When I returned to the bookstore to buy it (coz i had the money already), it was out of stock!
Anyway, I am currently an Evangelical Christian in a non-denominational church. I am also a small group and kids worship leader. If only the Catholic Church would reform a lot of their practices and doctrines, then I may consider returning to the fold, otherwise, here will I stay, where the Gospel of Christ is preached without subtraction nor addtition of man-made traditions.
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Carlan
Guest
oops Ben,Did you miss it? John:21-23 "Peace be with you,’ as the Father sent me I am sending you.’ After saying this he breathed on them and said: ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’
For whose sins you forgive,
they are forgiven;
for those whose sins you retain,
they are retained.
Jesus gave this power to His Apostles and they handed it on down to their successors, our Bishops and Priests. You cannot pick and choose the Scripture you wish to believe or not believe. You must believe the words of Jesus.:yup: no excuses please,
)Peace Carlan
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Bengoshi
Guest
Commentary from the ESV Study Bible:oops Ben,Did you miss it? John:21-23 "Peace be with you,’ as the Father sent me I am sending you.’ After saying this he breathed on them and said: ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’
For whose sins you forgive,
they are forgiven;
for those whose sins you retain,
they are retained.
Jesus gave this power to His Apostles and they handed it on down to their successors, our Bishops and Priests. You cannot pick and choose the Scripture you wish to believe or not believe. You must believe the words of Jesus.:yup: no excuses please,
The expressions they are forgiven and it is withheld both represent perfect-tense verbs in Greek and could also be translated, “they have been forgiven” and “it has been withheld,” since the perfect gives the sense of completed past action with continuing results in the present. The idea is not that individual Christians or churches have authority on their own to forgive or not forgive people, but rather that as the church proclaims the gospel message of forgiveness of sins in the power of the Holy Spirit (see v. 22), it proclaims that those who believe in Jesus have their sins forgiven, and that those who do not believe in him do not have their sins forgiven—which simply reflects what God in heaven has already done.
Peter is given the authority to admit entrance into the kingdom through preaching the gospel, an authority that is subsequently granted to all who are called to proclaim the gospel. (Note the contrast with the scribes and Pharisees, who shut the kingdom in people’s faces, neither entering themselves nor allowing others to enter; see 23:13.) In Acts, Peter is the apostle who first preaches the message of the kingdom to the Jews at Pentecost (Acts 2), to the Samaritans (Acts 8), and to the Gentiles (Acts 10). whatever you bind . . . whatever you loose. Peter also has authority to exercise discipline concerning right and wrong conduct for those in the kingdom, an authority that is not exclusive to Peter but is extended to the church as a whole in Matt. 18:18. Jesus delegates authority to human leaders in the church who are called to govern his church on earth, under his ultimate authority, through the application of his Word.
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Carlan
Guest
The Council of Trent defined that the power to forgive sins given in John 20: 23 is the same power exercised in the Sacrament of Penance.See mt16,19 and18,18. If you hold them bound,they are held bound: the reference of they,them, not wholly clear in the Greek, is more probably to sins than to men.
James5: 15,16. The verses you quoted, The Council of Trent declared the Anointing of the Sick, to be a sacrament “instituted by Christ our Lord and promulgated by blessed James the Apostle”. James 5:16 declare…sins as a sign of repentance to one another: probably in connection with liturgical prayer to make public confession more efficacious,as witness the Didache.Pray for one another:cf Col3,4 Thes 5,25; Heb 13, 18. Peace, Carlan
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IrishEddieOHara
Guest
My apologies. It was not you the challenge was intended for. You can stand down!Oh, I forgot to thank you for the link to the books you refer to! I appreciate it! I already downloaded some in fact!
Ray Sutton is indeed a Protestant, but his book on covenant, THAT YOU MAY PROSPER, according to Scott Hahn, has brought at least 3 people right into the Church. The principles are very sound, but the problem with the book is that Sutton cannot resist treating the covenant like a contract. This is, unfortunately, the standard Calvinist paradigm for all covenant understanding, and it is simply wrong. The Bible gives us an entirely different definition of a covenant in Ezek. 16:8
That is Jewish marital language. It is very intimate and it is very relational. Contracts do not have anything to do with a relationship. You can make a contract by proxy, but you cannot do that with a relationship!!
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IrishEddieOHara
Guest
In keeping with the covenant theme I have been talking about – covenant is analogized by marriage. As such, marriage is not just a piece of paper and someone declaring that you are married. There is much more to marriage. The nuptial bed, where the two become “one flesh.” That experience embodies the spirit of union and love which the two share.
It is not without reason that the Bible calls Jesus the divine Bridegroom. And it is not without reason that we are the Bride in scripture. It all points to the eternal union of the believer with Christ Jesus in the nuptial embrace of His eternal love. This is where the Catholic/Orthodox Faith are so different from Protestantism. Your paradigm treats salvation as a mere declaration by the Father that we are forgiven. A legal forgiveness based on a contract between the Father and the Son. Now you may call it a “relationship with Jesus” if you wish, but if you never experience union with Him, as the married couple do on their wedding night, then how do you really have a relationship?
What kind of sterile relationship would it be, in fact, if a couple NEVER had intimacies? Oh yes, they could perhaps point to their wedding certificate, mounted in a gold leaf frame on the living room wall, and say “But we are married.” Then why would they not wish to experience the fullness of that marriage which makes the two one flesh.
When you left the Church, you traded the experiential union with Christ in the bridal chamber of His love for sitting in a pew looking at the wedding certificate.
I’m sorry, but the Greek in Romans 4 does NOT support the idea of “imputed righteousness.” That is not the meaning of the Greek word “logizomai”. You need to read Robert Sungenis’ book NOT BY FAITH ALONE. Sungenis was a Presbyterian Calvinist pastor for 20+ years who returned to the Catholic Church. This book shares part of his reasons for returning as it absolutely SHREDS the idea of “faith alone” and “imputed righteousness”. I strongly urge you to get it.
(continued)
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IrishEddieOHara
Guest
No Catholic who knows the Faith teaches or believes that we are saved by good works. Salvation is by God’s grace alone, and the Council of Orange made that abundantly clear, as did Trent. Your problem is that you have confused salvation with the obtainment of eternal life. Salvation is being taken out of the condemnation of Adam (Rom. 5:12) being freely adopted by grace into the family of God and being made children of God.
Eternal life is not the same thing. Eternal life is the inheritance of the saints. This is yet another of those covenant principles which Sutton gets dead wrong as he treats it as a contract. In a family, which is one of the analogies of the Church, you have children and the children have an inheritance. The receiving of the inheritance is contingent upon the behavior of the children. Children who despise their inheritance by their behavior are disowned and disinherited. That is what the Last Judgment is about. John 5: 28-29 and Romans 2: 5-10 make it quite clear that we will be judged by our works on the last day and "those who do good shall receive eternal life." I find it profoundly odd how I, as a Protestant could have read those verses and somehow thought that good works had nothing to do with my receiving of eternal life, and therefore were not important.
Do a word check on the words “inherit” and “inheritance” and see how they both are connected to eternal life. You have salvation now because of your baptism. And you also, according to Eph. 1: 14 have the downpayment of eternal life. But that is all you have – the downpayment (called the "earnest of the inheritance in Eph.). You do not get the full amount until you go through the Judgment and it is determined that by your deeds you have proven yourself to be a faithful covenant keeper. Doing good works is how we keep our covenant with Christ Jesus.
Remember this principle: Covenant keepers receive blessing. Covenant breakers receive curse.
That is not right, sir. You have been forgiven for all you have confessed up to this point. If you have stolen something yesterday and have not confessed it, it is still staining your soul. And if you die in that condition, you will need to be purged in the afterlife. The idea that you confess once and the sins of your future are automatically forgiven is bogus. I honestly don’t know how I ever believed in such a fairy tale, seeing that the Bible does not teach it. But, of course, I didn’t know covenant back then, so I can see how I was blind to this fact.
So you are saying that when God gave instructions on how to worship, He was wrong because He gave us the rituals of the covenant? I think you better think about just WHO it is that you are insulting here!!So if you truly want a more vibrant and genuine relationship with God and fellowship with other believers, rather than a mere ritualistic and mechanical religion, then join a real Bible-believing, Christian church!
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IrishEddieOHara
Guest
“DEAD RITUALS”
A poster here has just made the usual claim against the Church that because the Church has what are called by Protestants “dead rituals,” it is impossible for a Catholic to have a deep, rich, and satisfying relationship with Christ.
I BEG TO DIFFER!!!
There is no making of nor keeping of a relationship with out ritual. Let us take one example in particular – marriage. What couple in a good, vibrant relationship would look back at their wedding day and say “Oh, that was just a dead ritual” Ridiculous!!! How many times would they sit, over the course of their lives, and look at their wedding pictures, perhaps even shedding a few tears of joy, and find such great pleasure in this, the start of their lives together.
Wedding is a ritual. Let me check that…a proper, God ordained, holy and sacramental wedding as God intended it…is a ritual. There are reasons for all that is done in the ritual. The father hands the bride over to the bridegroom, symbolizing that he is no longer covenant head over her, but that the headship is being transferred to a new covenant head. Of course, in our feminazi society which despises God patriarchal structure, this practice is all but dead.
A ring is given ritually as a symbol of the union of the two and of eternal love and fidelity.
More importantly, VOWS ARE TAKEN!!!
Vows are the absolute heart of a covenant making ceremony. Each party makes vows to the other. The breaking of those vows is the basis for the dissolution of the covenant between the two. This is shown also in the scriptures (Deut. 28). Circumcision was part of the vow of covenant making between the Jew and God. Would one say that this was a “dead ritual” when it, in fact, made one part of the people of God and opened the way to full participation in all the feasts and sacrifices?
Finally, there is the ritual of the nuptial bed. Now you may laugh at this, but the union of the two persons is what “seals the deal” You want to know how serious this is? Look at Jacob. He united with Leah, thinking that she was Rachael and guess what???
Next morning he found he had a wife that he wasn’t expecting!
The physical union completes and makes real all that the vows, the ceremonies, and the hearts of the two in love express spiritually with their words. In other words, it is the very reality of the marriage.
In Baptism we cut covenant with Jesus the Christ, who is our divine Bridegroom.
And in the Eucharist, we enter the nuptial chamber and become “one flesh” with Him. And if you don’t think this is Catholic Theology, you better do some reading! This is very Catholic.
The people who find the worship of the Catholic (and Orthodox) Faith to be “dead ritual” are those who simply do not understand the beauty that is taking place and the depths of union and love that are being experienced in the rituals. Being stimulated by thoughts of Jesus is not the same as becoming one flesh with Him. This is the problem with Protestantism – it is all based in emotionalism and intellectualism. Protestants are given a bunch of facts to mentally chew upon and then, when the facts creates some inner feeling of excitement in them, they claim they have a relationship with Jesus and that it is exciting when all they have done is to excite themselves mentally.
Catholics are given the Flesh of Christ to chew upon and those who know what is happening are filled with love and excitement because they know they are becoming one flesh with Him.
BIG
DIFFERENCE!!!
A poster here has just made the usual claim against the Church that because the Church has what are called by Protestants “dead rituals,” it is impossible for a Catholic to have a deep, rich, and satisfying relationship with Christ.
I BEG TO DIFFER!!!
There is no making of nor keeping of a relationship with out ritual. Let us take one example in particular – marriage. What couple in a good, vibrant relationship would look back at their wedding day and say “Oh, that was just a dead ritual” Ridiculous!!! How many times would they sit, over the course of their lives, and look at their wedding pictures, perhaps even shedding a few tears of joy, and find such great pleasure in this, the start of their lives together.
Wedding is a ritual. Let me check that…a proper, God ordained, holy and sacramental wedding as God intended it…is a ritual. There are reasons for all that is done in the ritual. The father hands the bride over to the bridegroom, symbolizing that he is no longer covenant head over her, but that the headship is being transferred to a new covenant head. Of course, in our feminazi society which despises God patriarchal structure, this practice is all but dead.
A ring is given ritually as a symbol of the union of the two and of eternal love and fidelity.
More importantly, VOWS ARE TAKEN!!!
Vows are the absolute heart of a covenant making ceremony. Each party makes vows to the other. The breaking of those vows is the basis for the dissolution of the covenant between the two. This is shown also in the scriptures (Deut. 28). Circumcision was part of the vow of covenant making between the Jew and God. Would one say that this was a “dead ritual” when it, in fact, made one part of the people of God and opened the way to full participation in all the feasts and sacrifices?
Finally, there is the ritual of the nuptial bed. Now you may laugh at this, but the union of the two persons is what “seals the deal” You want to know how serious this is? Look at Jacob. He united with Leah, thinking that she was Rachael and guess what???
Next morning he found he had a wife that he wasn’t expecting!
The physical union completes and makes real all that the vows, the ceremonies, and the hearts of the two in love express spiritually with their words. In other words, it is the very reality of the marriage.
In Baptism we cut covenant with Jesus the Christ, who is our divine Bridegroom.
And in the Eucharist, we enter the nuptial chamber and become “one flesh” with Him. And if you don’t think this is Catholic Theology, you better do some reading! This is very Catholic.
The people who find the worship of the Catholic (and Orthodox) Faith to be “dead ritual” are those who simply do not understand the beauty that is taking place and the depths of union and love that are being experienced in the rituals. Being stimulated by thoughts of Jesus is not the same as becoming one flesh with Him. This is the problem with Protestantism – it is all based in emotionalism and intellectualism. Protestants are given a bunch of facts to mentally chew upon and then, when the facts creates some inner feeling of excitement in them, they claim they have a relationship with Jesus and that it is exciting when all they have done is to excite themselves mentally.
Catholics are given the Flesh of Christ to chew upon and those who know what is happening are filled with love and excitement because they know they are becoming one flesh with Him.
BIG
DIFFERENCE!!!
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CMatt25
Guest
of love compared to transcedence, hierarchy, ethics, sanctions, and continuity
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josie_L
Guest
"Martin Luther, as inveterate an enemy of the Catholic Church as ever lived , was forced to admit : "Under the papacy the people were at least charitable, and force was not required to obtain alms. Today, under the reign of the Gospel [by which he meant Protestantism], in place of giving they rob each other, and it might be said that no one thinks he has anything till he gets possession of the property of his neighbor."
Taken from “How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization” by Thomas E. Woods, Jr., Ph.D: Baluffi, Cajetan. The Charity of the Church. Translated by Denis Gargan. Dublin: M. H. Gill and Son, 1885.
Edit: Moreover, Luther allowed for subjectivism (sola scriptura) to creep into theological and moral thought/truths that led to the many other “isms” which further downgraded religious truth, until we have come to believe that there is no truth at all (in the West anyways) with respect to morals and religion/God. One only has to see the downward spiral truth has suffered since the reformation.
Goodness, Josie. How on earth does this respond to my post above. That sinful human beings, be they Protestant or Catholic, fail to live by His commands is a given. That I why you and I both believe in Confession.
Luther, an inveterate enemy of the Church? Sounds like Dr. Wood’s predjudice is showing.
And its all Luther’s fault. Josie, you’re much more learned and reasonable than that.
Jon
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IrishEddieOHara
Guest
I’m not sure what it is that you are saying here, but I do find it fascinating to find someone who knows the five principles. Where did you learn them, if I might ask?
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CMatt25
Guest
I actually read and know and even understand some things.
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tweetymom
Guest
:tiphat:I actually read and know and even understand some things.
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