Need help explaining 1 Timothy 4:1-5

[The_Mom]

I know the passage below is speaking of the Jews. But how do you defend this passage to a Southern Baptist who is convinced the Catholic faith has it all wrong. The Catholic Church does not allow priests to marry and we abstain from meat during Lent yet the passage warns about those who forbid marriage and advocates abstaining from foods. Any help or guidance you can give me on explaining this passage would be greatly appreciated.

1 Timothy 4:1-5

1But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons,
2 by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron,

3 men who forbid marriage and advocate abstaining from foods which God has created to be gratefully shared in by those who believe and know the truth.

4 For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with gratitude;

5 for it is sanctified by means of the word of God and prayer.

 

[Daniel_Marsh]

discuss romans 14 with him, a vaild reason to abstain from meat is given there. Your SB friend is assuming that “some will fall away from the faith” means catholics. So, you need to demonstrate to him that catholics are loyal to the faith. Paul in I cor 7 gives a vaild reason to remain single. So, did Paul because he adovacated abstaining from meat in romans 14 and advocated remaining single in I cor 7, somehow fallen away from the faith?

 

[Nita]

I know the passage below is speaking of the Jews. But how do you defend this passage to a Southern Baptist who is convinced the Catholic faith has it all wrong. The Catholic Church does not allow priests to marry and we abstain from meat during Lent yet the passage warns about those who forbid marriage and advocates abstaining from foods. Any help or guidance you can give me on explaining this passage would be greatly appreciated.

1 Timothy 4:1-5

1But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons,
2 by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron,

3 men who forbid marriage and advocate abstaining from foods which God has created to be gratefully shared in by those who believe and know the truth.

4 For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with gratitude;

5 for it is sanctified by means of the word of God and prayer.

St. Paul is very probably addressing the gnostic heresy. They rejected marriage and the eating of meat. The following is from the Catholic Encyclopedia at the following website www.newadvent.org Look under “Gnosticism”:

*(a) The Syrian School
This school represents the oldest phase of Gnosticism, as Western Asia was the birthplace of the movement. Dositheus, Simon Magus, Menander, Cerinthus, Cerdo, Saturninus Justin, the Bardesanites, Sevrians, Ebionites, Encratites, Ophites, Naassenes, the Gnostics of the “Acts of Thomas”, the Sethians, the Peratae, the Cainites may be said to belong to this school.

The more fantastic elements and elaborate genealogies and syzygies of æons of the later Gnosis are still absent in these systems. The terminology is some barbarous form of Semitic; Egypt is the symbolic name for the soul’s land of bondage.

The opposition between the good God and the World-Creator is not eternal or cosmogonic, though there is strong ethical opposition to Jehovah the God of the Jews. He is the last of the seven angels who fashioned this world out of eternally pre-existent matter. The demiurgic angels, attempting to create man, created but a miserable worm, to which the Good God, however, gave the spark of divine life. The rule of the god of the Jews must pass away, for the good God calls us to his own immediate service through Christ his Son. We obey the Supreme Deity by abstaining from flesh meat and marriage, and by leading an ascetic life. *

I would be sure to point out to your friend that the Catholic Church does not forbid marriage - it honors marriage and has raised it to the level of being a sacrament. We married people are not living in sinful disobedience to the Church! The Church merely has a discipline, in some of the rites of the Church, which requires the priests in those rites to remain celibate.

Nita

 

[Sinke]

1 Timothy 4:1-5

1But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons,
2 by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron,

3 men who forbid marriage and advocate abstaining from foods which God has created to be gratefully shared in by those who believe and know the truth.

One should know that priesthood celibacy is practice, not doctrine- and is volounteery act, as described in Corithans 7:32. While I believe that practice has problems in current society, there are also many advantages of it.

As for abstinence of food, Catholics are just practicing post ( they don’t forbid eating specific food, rather they only preform abstinence in order to turn away from this world’s joy ). Jesus even gives instructions for posting ( Matthew 6:16 ). Ask baptist when is he abstineting from food in order to please God! If he says he doesn’t do that, you caught him in contradiction with the Bible.