Helping a "me and Jesus only" mindset

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Elzee

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Can anyone help me with bible verses that show that the New Testament does not stress only a ‘me and Jesus’ relationship.

I’m going to start looking tonight, but would appreciate some help. This is to respond to a friend of mine who says that* ‘the New Testament, obviously, throughout all the books, stresses that a personal relationship with Jesus’ is all that really matters’. *

Thank you!
 
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Elzee:
‘the New Testament, obviously, throughout all the books, stresses that a personal relationship with Jesus’ is all that really matters’.
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In a sense he is right, in another sense he is wrong… it depends on what he really wanted to mean with that statement.
“and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us”
 
Look up Father in a concordance. Jesus stressed a relationship with the Father. for example, “Our Father who is in heaven…”

Good Luck. Ask him how he relates to all three persons of the Trinity?
 
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Elzee:
Can anyone help me with bible verses that show that the New Testament does not stress only a ‘me and Jesus’ relationship.
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Elzee,

Matthew 25:31-46 (the parable of the sheep and the goats) is an excellent place to start. I John 3:17-18 and 4:20-21 are also good. There’s more, but those should suffice.
  • Liberian
 
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Elzee:
Can anyone help me with bible verses that show that the New Testament does not stress only a ‘me and Jesus’ relationship.
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Here are two passages that should shed some light on the issue

Ephesians 4:11 And he gave some apostles, and some prophets, and other some evangelists, and other some pastors and doctors

1 Peter 5:2 Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking care of it, not by constraint, but willingly, according to God: not for filthy lucre’s sake, but voluntarily: 3 Neither as lording it over the clergy, but being made a pattern of the flock from the heart. 4 And when the prince of pastors shall appear, you shall receive a never fading crown of glory. 5 In like manner, ye young men, be subject to the ancients. And do you all insinuate humility one to another, for God resisteth the proud, but to the humble he giveth grace.

Our Lord has set pastors to feed the flock. We are called to submit to authority. Both of these are done on earth with people.

Having said that, it is still important that we personally desire union with God. Yet, Jesus himself always taught us to pray to the Father. And the Father has called us to obey the Son. And the Son has commanded us to love our neighbor as He loved us.

If we do live a “me and Jesus” religion, it would have to include praying and suffering for others for the glory of the Father, as Jesus did.

hurst
 
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doomhammer:
In a sense he is right, in another sense he is wrong… it depends on what he really wanted to mean with that statement.
“and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us”
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The context was it doesn’t matter what (Christian) church you go to - or even if you go to church at all - as long as you have accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior.
 
What about the bit where Jesus tells Peter that He is going to build his church on him and give him the keys to the kingdom of heaven, or something like that? Jesus did say ‘I am the way’ but he didn’t say ‘I’m holding the keys’. If Peter’s church has the keys to the kingdom of heaven then doesn’t it make sense for people to want to be in that church?

PS I don’t know bible verses and chapters, maybe someone else could post em for me. It’s somewhere in the Gospels.
 
The first word of our Lord’s Prayer is “Our” not “My”…if that doesn’t tell us to be a community I don’t know what does.
 
“Protestants often ask me why I became a Catholic. I reply that Scripture states the Church us the mystical Body of Christ and Christ is its head (Eph. 1:22-23; Col. 1:18). One can’t have a personal relationship with the Head as Lord and Savior in its fullness if one doesn’t embrace the Body as well. One can’t decapitate Jesus from the Body and expect to have a “personal” relationship with just the severed head. That isn’t what Jesus intended for us (cf. John 17:20-23)****. In the Acts of the Apostles we read about an organized Christian community led by the Holy Spirit, a visible Church which St. Paul could call ‘the pillar and foundation of truth’ (1 Tim 3:5), not merely a bunch of individualists running around with Gideon Bibles and “Just me and Jesus” attitudes. As a Fundamentalist I couldn’t claim to belong to a visible Church which is ‘the pillar and foundation of truth.’ As a Catholic I now can.”
Surprised By Truth p.209 Patrick Madrid, quote by T.L. Frazier.
The bolded part is mine.**
 
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Elzee:
The context was it doesn’t matter what (Christian) church you go to - or even if you go to church at all - as long as you have accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior.
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so he is completly wrong
 
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Elzee:
The context was it doesn’t matter what (Christian) church you go to - or even if you go to church at all - as long as you have accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior.
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Why call Him Lord and do not what He says?

Matthew 7:21 Not every one that saith to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven: but he that doth the will of my Father who is in heaven, he shall enter into the kingdom of heaven.

If He is our Lord, we will reverence Him.

Malachias 1:6 The son honoureth the father, and the servant his master: if then I be a father, where is my honour? and if I be a master, where is my fear? saith the Lord of hosts.

If we love Him we will obey Him.

John 14:21 He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them; he it is that loveth me. And he that loveth me, shall be loved of my Father: and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.

We are told to obey the Church He builds

Matthew 16:18 And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

Matthew 18:17 And if he will not hear them: tell the church. And if he will not hear the church, let him be to thee as the heathen and publican.

If the church is invisible, as many Protestants must believe, then how can this be fulfilled?

Still, we should also deal with Him on a personal level in addition to everything else.

hurst
 
Christ said:

Love your neighbor as yourself.

The question is then: How does the Me and Jesus work out with this commandment?

There’s a whole catechism on the social aspects of our relationship with Christ…It is organic. The vacuum tube relationship of Me and Jesus alone simply doesn’t add up to what Christ was saying himself.

in XT.
 
Just to add a few more Scripture passages:

1 Corinthians 12:12-31 The context is spiritual gifts, and the analogy is used showing the organic unity of the body with the interdependence of each part with each other for survival and comparing that to the Body of Christ, the Church.

Hebrews 13:17 “Obey your leaders and submit to their authority. They keep watch over you as men who must give an account. Obey them so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no advantage to you.”

1 Timothy 4:15-16 “Be diligent in these matters; give yourself wholly to them, so that everyone may see your progress. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.” Those belonging to the teaching authority of the Church play a role in the salvation of their hearers.

Luke 10:16 “He who listens to you listens to me; he who rejects you rejects me; but he who rejects me rejects him who sent me.”

1 Timothy 2:15, “But women will be saved through childbearing–if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.” Here Paul ties childbearing/motherhood to a woman’s salvation. Not that a woman has to have children to be saved, but Paul does imply here that human relationships and roles play a part in our salvation --Paul’s comment in this verse would make no sense if salvation were just about “me and Jesus.”

Just looking at the history of the Church proves that salvation can never be a “just me and Jesus” deal. The first three centuries were filled with heresies regarding the very nature of Christ. There would have been many different “Jesuses” to believe in if the Lord hadn’t established an infallible teaching authority within His Church to teach and proclaim the true nature of Christ and all His revelation. The “me and Jesus” Christians are *dependent *upon those earliest Christians for their proper understanding of the nature of Christ so they could, centuries later, hear of the true Christ from other Christians. And the sacrament of baptism they receive is from the hand of another – no one baptizes himself. But usually those who believe “just me and Jesus” don’t believe sacraments have any salvific value, assuming they even believe in sacraments at all. We encounter Christ in the sacraments, but it’s always through another Christian we receive the sacraments, so our vertical relationship with Christ also has a horizontal dimension with His Body, the Church.
 
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Flopfoot:
What about the bit where Jesus tells Peter that He is going to build his church on him and give him the keys to the kingdom of heaven, or something like that? Jesus did say ‘I am the way’ but he didn’t say ‘I’m holding the keys’. If Peter’s church has the keys to the kingdom of heaven then doesn’t it make sense for people to want to be in that church?

PS I don’t know bible verses and chapters, maybe someone else could post em for me. It’s somewhere in the Gospels.
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That’s one of the things that made me want to join the Church.

Matthew 16:18-19 (NAB): “And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

Peace
 
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