Mike Gendron and Proclaiming the Gospel

[nsper7]

Has anyone heard of a guy named Mike Gendron or his ministry “Proclaiming the Gospel”. He and I have been speaking over the phone (he knows someone I know and I was linked to his site by another site) and he is trying to convert me away from Catholicism (not working…he uses the same old tired Fundamentalist Evangelical argument that is addressed in CAF’s tract library).

Anyway, one thing that is always difficult is when someone says they were Catholic a long time (I think Gendron was a Catholic for 37 years) and that they then left after “reading Scripture for themselves”. How would people here respond to that?

 

[ibkc]

Anyway, one thing that is always difficult is when someone says they were Catholic a long time (I think Gendron was a Catholic for 37 years) and that they then left after “reading Scripture for themselves”. How would people here respond to that?

That argument bothers me because it assumes that Catholics don’t read Scripture and/or that they blindly follow what someone else tells them. As a convert myself, I came to Catholicism for many reasons, but one of them was that I began reading Scripture in light of Catholic teaching and discovered that it all made sense.

So anyway, as for your question. The sarcastic jerk in me is always tempted to say to that, “You read Scripture for yourself? Well, I read Scripture for God.” But the charitable thing to say is that I also read Scripture, and my readings confirm for me that the Catholic Church is the true church.

 

[SHW]

I think that Scripture is good for this:

2 Peter 3:15-17 “our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you, 16 as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures.
17 You therefore, beloved, since you know this beforehand, beware lest you also fall from your own steadfastness, being led away with the error of the wicked; 18 but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”

2 Peter 1:20 “knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation”

Who has been given the authority by Jesus to interpret Scripture?

The Church, not individuals. (Luke 10:16) We must be taught by those who have succeeded from the Apostles and the early Disciples. (Acts 8:29-38, 2 Timothy 2:2)

The Church is the pillar (support) and ground (foundation) of the Truth. (1 Timothy 3:15) Scripture is not.

SHW

 

[josie_L]

That argument bothers me because it assumes that Catholics don’t read Scripture and/or that they blindly follow what someone else tells them. As a convert myself, I came to Catholicism for many reasons, but one of them was that I began reading Scripture in light of Catholic teaching and discovered that it all made sense.

So anyway, as for your question. The sarcastic jerk in me is always tempted to say to that, "You read Scripture for yourself? Well, I read Scripture for God." But the charitable thing to say is that I also read Scripture, and my readings confirm for me that the Catholic Church is the true church.

Hey, I like that, has a ring of truth to it.