I need help with protestant uncle

[Arturo_Ortiz]

So I have a protestant uncle who I will love to death but as a protestant he has objections to the Catholic church, specifically when it comes to the interpretation of the bible. He states that Jesus denounced his Mother and his brethren in three passages of the bible. This passages are Mt 12: 48, where he says “who is my mother, and who are my brethren” This passage can be found seen in mk 3:32-35 the third passage can be found in LK 11:27-28 where a woman told Jesus “And it came to pass, as he spoke these things, a certain woman from the crowd, lifting up her voice, said to him: Blessed is the womb that bore thee, and the paps that gave thee suck”. Jesus replied " But he said: Yea rather, blessed are they who hear the word of God, and keep it".

My understanding is that Jesus never denounced anyone, but rather he was talking about the importance of doing God’s will rather than just mere biological connections.

Jesus also meant that although Mary was the mother of God it was more important that she did God’s will

How do you think I should explain these three passages to my auncle? What would be the best intepretation to give him?

 

[fbl9]

So I have a protestant uncle who I will love to death but as a protestant he has objections to the Catholic church, specifically when it comes to the interpretation of the bible. He states that Jesus denounced his Mother and his brethren in three passages of the bible. This passages are Mt 12: 48, where he says “who is my mother, and who are my brethren” This passage can be found seen in mk 3:32-35 the third passage can be found in LK 11:27-28 where a woman told Jesus “And it came to pass, as he spoke these things, a certain woman from the crowd, lifting up her voice, said to him: Blessed is the womb that bore thee, and the paps that gave thee suck”. Jesus replied " But he said: Yea rather, blessed are they who hear the word of God, and keep it".

My understanding is that Jesus never denounced anyone, but rather he was talking about the importance of doing God’s will rather than just mere biological connections.

Jesus also meant that although Mary was the mother of God it was more important that she did God’s will

How do you think I should explain these three passages to my auncle? What would be the best intepretation to give him?

Seems like you have answered yourself.
You uncle seems to feel Jesus could break the commandment of honoring parents.

 

[jediliz]

ask him to read the Wedding at Cana passage. He does what his MOTHER requests of him. He also honored his mother and his foster father after he was found in the temple when he was 12.

Since Jesus could not sin, he would NEVER denounce His Mother

 

[SteveLy]

I would ask on a Protestant board, or better yet get a viewpoint from Protestant Pastors. There are many commentaries which will break down the passage for you.

But before that, I would ask him if you could satisfactorily resolve the issue would he become Catholic? He will probably say no, but his answer will give you the motivation behind the presented objections. The objections you stated to my knowledge aren’t objections against Catholicism, but against Christianity - fwiw.

Good luck.

 

[Gods_Peace]

Whole heartedly answer him. Give him an earnest reply to the best of your ability. And if he doesn’t want to contemplate your response leave him.

 

[Crumpy]

So I have a protestant uncle who I will love to death but as a protestant he has objections to the Catholic church, specifically when it comes to the interpretation of the bible.

That’s “it” in a nutshell, isn’t it? That’s what protestants are – people who will take any interpretation of the Bible, as long as it isn’t Catholic.

The issues your uncle has are much bigger than the composition of Jesus’ immediate family.

From recent experience, I know that Protestants like Rev 22:18-19 that says NOT to add or take away ‘words’ from “this book” – which they liberally interpret as the entire bible.

But, their point is not merely not to add or take away words from scripture, they use this as a platform for “sola scriptura” – that they should believe in the “Bible alone” – the Bible alone is their authority.

Would that it was so simple for them.

2 Thess 2:15 says that the Thessalonians are to “hold” on to the traditions they have received by word or by Paul’s epistle (letter).

You see, this verse knocks them out of their comfort zone of accepting only what it in the bible. Because it says (as they would have to interpret it, I think) that the Bible is NOT enough – not everything has been written down.

Now, my relative says that 2 Thess 2:15 doesn’t apply anymore, because she says (without any support for saying so) that all the “traditions” have been written down in the bible.

Well, I don’t think the bible says that anyplace, to begin with. Furthermore, 2 Ti 3:15 says that “all” scripture … is profitable … for teaching, etc. So, again, you can’t dismiss 2 Thess 2:15, because it is profitable, not obsolete.

Then, the other considerations go on from there. From the cross, Jesus spoke to John and said “behold your mother.” Now, Mary was not John’s biological mother. And, if Jesus had these siblings as your uncle maintains, then Jesus wouldn’t have needed to give Mary to John for any kind of caretaking or protection, even just while Jesus was in the tomb.

There’s an apologist on EWTN who has a more convincing argument about this subject. I think it goes, that the people supposedly named as Jesus’s brothers and sisters are the children of others, not Mary. That’s the gist of one of his arguments.

But, overall, the non-written tradition of the Church, as a source of nothing less than Divine revelation along with scripture (as 2 Thess 2:15 indicates), is that Jesus was an only-child.

So, you have a scriptural basis for his overall objection to the Church interpreting scripture, indeed a counter-argument.

It comes to me now that the EWTN apologist is Mike Aquilina, who has a book or two for sale at the ewtnreligiouscatalog.com website. One of the books is “where is that in the bible” or something close to that.

I think you need to stop shooting at your uncle’s toes with a pea shooter (so to speak) and work on the larger issues. One last verse: 1 Ti 3:15. (look it up yourself) – it is the Church, not the Bible, which is the “pillar” and “bulwark” of the truth.

There’s just no room to a Bible-believing person to ignore the Church …or the Bible.

 

[MarcoPolo]

How do you think I should explain these three passages to my auncle? What would be the best intepretation to give him?

Pope John Paul II explained those passages in the encyclical Redemptoris Mater, especially section 20:*The Gospel of Luke records the moment when “a woman in the crowd raised her voice” and said to Jesus: “Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts that you sucked!” (Lk. 11:27) These words were an expression of praise of Mary as Jesus’ mother according to the flesh. Probably the Mother of Jesus was not personally known to this woman; in fact, when Jesus began his messianic activity Mary did not accompany him but continued to remain at Nazareth. One could say that the words of that unknown woman in a way brought Mary out of her hiddenness.

Through these words, there flashed out in the midst of the crowd, at least for an instant, the gospel of Jesus’ infancy. This is the gospel in which Mary is present as the mother who conceives Jesus in her womb, gives him birth and nurses him: the nursing mother referred to by the woman in the crowd. Thanks to this motherhood, Jesus, the Son of the Most High (cf. Lk. 1:32), is a true son of man. He is “flesh,” like every other man: he is “the Word (who) became flesh” (cf. Jn. 1:14). He is of the flesh and blood of Mary!43

But to the blessing uttered by that woman upon her who was his mother according to the flesh, Jesus replies in a significant way: “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it” (Lk. 11:28). He wishes to divert attention from motherhood understood only as a fleshly bond, in order to direct it towards those mysterious bonds of the spirit which develop from hearing and keeping God’s word.

This same shift into the sphere of spiritual values is seen even more clearly in another response of Jesus reported by all the Synoptics. When Jesus is told that “his mother and brothers are standing outside and wish to see him,” he replies: “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it” (cf.** Lk. 8:20-21**). This he said “looking around on those who sat about him,” as we read in Mark (3:34) or, according to Matthew (12:49), “stretching out his hand towards his disciples.”

These statements seem to fit in with the reply which the twelve- year-old Jesus gave to Mary and Joseph when he was found after three days in the Temple at Jerusalem.

Now, when Jesus left Nazareth and began his public life throughout Palestine, he was completely and exclusively “concerned with his Father’s business” (cf. Lk. 2:49). He announced the Kingdom: the “Kingdom of God” and “his Father’s business,” which add a new dimension and meaning to everything human, and therefore to every human bond, insofar as these things relate to the goals and tasks assigned to every human being. Within this new dimension, also a bond such as that of “brotherhood” means something different from “brotherhood according to the flesh” deriving from a common origin from the same set of parents. “Motherhood,” too, in the dimension of the Kingdom of God and in the radius of the fatherhood of God himself, takes on another meaning. In the words reported by Luke, Jesus teaches precisely this new meaning of motherhood.

Is Jesus thereby distancing himself from his mother according to the flesh? Does he perhaps wish to leave her in the hidden obscurity which she herself has chosen? If this seems to be the case from the tone of those words, one must nevertheless note that the new and different motherhood which Jesus speaks of to his disciples refers precisely to Mary in a very special way. Is not Mary the first of “those who hear the word of God and do it”? And therefore does not the blessing uttered by Jesus in response to the woman in the crowd refer primarily to her? Without any doubt, Mary is worthy of blessing by the very fact that she became the mother of Jesus according to the flesh (“Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts that you sucked”), but also and especially because already at the Annunciation she accepted the word of God, because she believed it, because she was obedient to God, and because she “kept” the word and “pondered it in her heart” (cf. Lk. 1:38, 45; 2:19, 51) and by means of her whole life accomplished it. Thus we can say that the blessing proclaimed by Jesus is not in opposition, despite appearances, to the blessing uttered by the unknown woman, but rather coincides with that blessing in the person of this Virgin Mother, who called herself only “the handmaid of the Lord” (Lk. 1:38). If it is true that “all generations will call her blessed” (cf. Lk. 1:48), then it can be said that the unnamed woman was the first to confirm unwittingly that prophetic phrase of Mary’s Magnificat and to begin the Magnificat of the ages.

If through faith Mary became the bearer of the Son given to her by the Father through the power of the Holy Spirit, while preserving her virginity intact, in that same faith she discovered and accepted the other dimension of motherhood revealed by Jesus during his messianic mission. One can say that this dimension of motherhood belonged to Mary from the beginning, that is to say from the moment of the conception and birth of her Son. From that time she was “the one who believed.” But as the messianic mission of her Son grew clearer to her eyes and spirit, she herself as a mother became ever more open to that new dimension of motherhood which was to constitute her “part” beside her Son. Had she not said from the very beginning: “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” (Lk. 1:38)? Through faith Mary continued to hear and to ponder that word, in which there became ever clearer, in a way “which surpasses knowledge” (Eph. 3:19), the self-revelation of the living God. Thus in a sense Mary as Mother became the first “disciple” of her Son, the first to whom he seemed to say: “Follow me,” even before he addressed this call to the Apostles or to anyone else (cf. Jn. 1:43).*

 

[Crumpy]

That’s “it” in a nutshell, isn’t it? That’s what protestants are – people who will take any interpretation of the Bible, as long as it isn’t Catholic.

The issues your uncle has are much bigger than the composition of Jesus’ immediate family.

From recent experience, I know that Protestants like Rev 22:18-19 that says NOT to add or take away ‘words’ from “this book” – which they liberally interpret as the entire bible.

But, their point is not merely not to add or take away words from scripture, they use this as a platform for “sola scriptura” – that they should believe in the “Bible alone” – the Bible alone is their authority.

Would that it was so simple for them.

2 Thess 2:15 says that the Thessalonians are to “hold” on to the traditions they have received by word or by Paul’s epistle (letter).

You see, this verse knocks them out of their comfort zone of accepting only what it in the bible. Because it says (as they would have to interpret it, I think) that the Bible is NOT enough – not everything has been written down.

Now, my relative says that 2 Thess 2:15 doesn’t apply anymore, because she says (without any support for saying so) that all the “traditions” have been written down in the bible.

Well, I don’t think the bible says that anyplace, to begin with. Furthermore, 2 Ti 3:15 says that “all” scripture … is profitable … for teaching, etc. So, again, you can’t dismiss 2 Thess 2:15, because it is profitable, not obsolete.

Then, the other considerations go on from there. From the cross, Jesus spoke to John and said “behold your mother.” Now, Mary was not John’s biological mother. And, if Jesus had these siblings as your uncle maintains, then Jesus wouldn’t have needed to give Mary to John for any kind of caretaking or protection, even just while Jesus was in the tomb.

There’s an apologist on EWTN who has a more convincing argument about this subject. I think it goes, that the people supposedly named as Jesus’s brothers and sisters are the children of others, not Mary. That’s the gist of one of his arguments.

But, overall, the non-written tradition of the Church, as a source of nothing less than Divine revelation along with scripture (as 2 Thess 2:15 indicates), is that Jesus was an only-child.

So, you have a scriptural basis for his overall objection to the Church interpreting scripture, indeed a counter-argument.

It comes to me now that the EWTN apologist is Mike Aquilina, who has a book or two for sale at the ewtnreligiouscatalog.com website. One of the books is “where is that in the bible” or something close to that.

I think you need to stop shooting at your uncle’s toes with a pea shooter (so to speak) and work on the larger issues. One last verse: 1 Ti 3:15. (look it up yourself) – it is the Church, not the Bible, which is the “pillar” and “bulwark” of the truth.

There’s just no room to a Bible-believing person to ignore the Church …or the Bible.

Sorry. In this post, I said Mike Aquilina, when I should have said Patrick Madrid.

 

[NotWorthy]

You mean your uncle is claiming that Jesus broke the 4th commandment - “Honor thy Father and Mother”