The preacher, very respected for his sound bible study said exactly the same thing the Catholic Church says about the translation of Jesus’ brother’s and sisters that I know you’re pulling out of your hat. I was NOT Catholic during that time and though I didn’t have issues whether or not Mary was perpetually virgin it made sense that Lonnie said that is was plausible to believe she was a virgin because of the translation issues with Greek as well as the fact that women did that in those days.
Matthew 1:25 says that Joseph didn’t know his wife, Mary, 'till (or until) she had her firstborn son, Jesus. 'Till is a point in time that eventually comes to pass, and in this case, it was after the birth of Jesus. She, at that time, ceased to be a virgin. If this weren’t important, it wouldn’t be in the Bible that the RCC uses.
You facts are twisted by anti-Catholics or rather anti-Mary. I know many worldly people as well as fundamentalist the can’t imagine a man not having sex. And since Mary was married to Joseph they believe it was what they consider “normal” without the historical facts about relationships like this in those days. It sounds too Catholic to them.
I’m neither anti-Catholic nor anti-Mary; I am a Catholic and I respect Mary, but I simply have a hard time praying to anyone other than God. I use the simple common sense that the good God above gave me.
What do you know about Moses? Elaborate please so that I can see that you also realize he abstained from sex after seeing God at the burning bush. My goodness. Think about this sometime when you get a chance. Imagine being Joseph. If God told you to marry Mary and that she would bear His son, would you even consider or dare have relations with the woman that gave the world God’s son by saying “yes”? I think not. Only a fool would do so and would lose all respect for giving into weakness for such a thing.
I don’t think Moses plays into this at all. Regarding Joseph, please show me where the Bible has Joseph being told that he’s get married but never be permitted to consumate the marriage. My guess is that he’d think twice about it if someone told him that.
It’s more rational to believe she remained a virgin and not the other way.
Not in light of Mark 6:3 where we find Jesus teaching in the temple and the people begin to murmur against him; “Isn’t that Jesus, Mary’s boy, brother of Joses, Simon, James, Juda, and the two unnamed sisters? What does this guy know about God?”
Yes, the term ‘brother’ can be used to mean fellow man or neighbor, but being named in the same breath as his mother clearly indicates that they were closer to him than people merely living nearby. Not only that, but the Greek uses the word “adelphos,” which is always translated as “brother” or “brotherhood,” and never cousin or neighbor. In Catholic school, we were taught that they were Jesus’ ‘cousins.’
“Praying does not equate to worship. And the ingraven images thing is way over played, twisted to mean something different that intended. Even the Jews when they build the Temple were told to create images, statues of angels. That’s such a lame position and distortion of God’s word.”
What, then, constitues worship? My dictionary says it is 1) homage or service 2) acts, rites, or ceremonies of this 3) adoration; devotion 5) idolize 6) attend or engage in worship
All of these apply to the Catholic concept of Mary. And who did Pope John Paul II pray to when he was shot and thank when he recovered? It wasn’t Jesus, was it? No, it was Mary.
Why would you put Mary or anyone else before Jesus when the only way to God is through Him?
BTW: the NIV was my favorite for reading, but for New Testament reading I preferred the interlinear bible with Greek. Hebrew is Greek to me.
Ha ha, you made me laugh here. I have the KJV and I like the antiquainted language, but I need to get something using more contemporary language because it’s a hard read. Do you recommend the NIV, then?
Read that to yourself again. You can’t read out of contest or take out of context because then you distort the truth. In all it says not to make idols of anything and worship it. If you want to be that intent on believing this as you are applying it then you better get rid of all your pictures of every family member and dare not ever participate in any picture taking event, lest you burn in hell. Why? According to your own interpretation you are committing grave sins that will cost you your soul.
I didn’t take anything out of context; I don’t want to put too much time into this so I’m not going to quote or paraphrase everything on either side of it, only the important parts.
Exodus 20:3: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” Praying to anyone but god can easily go in that very direction.
Exodus 20:4: “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above…” All one has to do is walk into any RCC and see staues of Jesus and Mary everywhere. One old church I go to has dozens of statues, but the newer one I sometimes attend has a lot fewer. In any case, this seems to clearly break that rule.
Exodus 20:5 “Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God…”
Having gone to Catholic elementary school, we did exactly that every day. This goes back to the definitions of ‘worship’ noted above.
