Kirane:
This is correct. People are shown passages which contradict Catholic teaching and the response is that if you look somewhere else in the Bible you will see something a little bit different.
Catholics read the bible differently than how Protestants read the bible or any other religion who actually cut up the bible and put it back together the way they want to read it.
I know this thread is about Mary but no one will ever “get it” until they understand that one cannot read the bible for themselves or read it with their own private interpretations. The bible has to be read as “a whole” or “on the whole.” That’s what “Catholic” means. But Catholic in the Greek would mean for the
whole world.
2 Pet 1:20-21
20 Know this first of all, that
there is no prophecy
of scripture that is a matter of personal interpretation,
21 for no prophecy ever came through human will; but
rather human beings moved by the holy Spirit spoke under the
influence of God.
That verse is used together with these next verses;
2 Tim 3:16-17
16 All scripture is inspired by God and is
useful for
teaching, for refutation, for correction, and for training in
righteousness,
17 so that one who belongs to God may be competent,
equipped for every good work.
The operative word here is “
useful.” It doesn’t say “
sufficient” for teaching or “
the only tool” for teaching or anything that would give you a clue that the Bible is the only method of teaching. And it doesn’t say that you can teach yourself either. The next verse, 17, says that if you belong to God you can be competent. Well in my Catholic understanding you can only belong to God if you are baptized into the Catholic church. Even if one is baptized in a Protestant church, (which would make you my brother/sister in Christ) they are still separated from Peter, the first Bishop of Rome which means, the POPE! Do not be separated from Peter. If you are separated from Peter then you will be scattered like sheep without a shepherd. So many Protestant churches are scattered. There are over 30,000 Protestant denominations.
It would be better to read the previous verses in 2nd Timothy to get a bigger picture;
2 Tim 3:10-15
10
You have followed my teaching, way of life,
purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance,
11 persecutions, and sufferings, such as happened to me
in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra, persecutions that I endured.
Yet from all these things the Lord delivered me.
12 In fact, all who want to live religiously in Christ
Jesus will be persecuted.
13 But wicked people and charlatans will go from bad to
worse, deceivers and deceived.
14
But you, remain faithful to what you have learned and
believed, because you know from whom you learned it,
15 and that
from infancy you have known (the) sacred
scriptures, which are capable of giving you wisdom for
salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
Read verses 10 & 14 again. Paul is telling Timothy that he learned a
way of life from him. He also says that Timothy followed his
teachings and
faith from him too. That sounds like he would’ve learned a lot more than just scripture to me. The most important thing here is that he had to learn it from someone. He learned it from Paul who learned it from Peter.
From whom do the Protestants learn? Are those people in succession of Peter? I don’t think so. Martin Luther broke from Peter and started his own church. Then it all started from there. He was still too “Catholic” for some, so others started their own churches too.
Okay now look at verse 15… it says “from infancy.” To me that means the Old Testament Scriptures. They did not have the NT yet. That should also tell you that they did not have a
bible yet either. So “bible alone” did not exist.
Paul even wrote about Tradition!
2 Thess 2:15
15 Therefore, brothers, stand firm and hold fast to the
traditions that you were taught, either by an
oral statement or
by a
letter of ours.
ooops… sorry… this post is longer than I planned. LOL
