The Catholic Church is not based on the Bible. It’s the other way around. The New Testament is based on the living, functioning, teaching Catholic Church who wrote it. **The NT is a mirror reflection of what the Church was teaching at the time it was written down. **The NT cannot be rightly understood except within the context of the living Faith of the historical Church. It was written in the heart of the Church and must be read in the heart of the Church. Then you will not only know what it says, but you will know what it means.
When Chopin played the piano sonatas he had written, he wasn’t
interpreting the notes and musical notations – he was playing them the way he himself intended them to be played. Other musicians have to
interpret Chopin’s music – but he was the author and he
knew how he meant it to be played.
He knew what he meant by what he wrote.
When Einstein read his theory of relativity, he wasn’t interpreting –
he knew what he meant by what he wrote. Other scientists had to interpret Einstein; Einstein didn’t have to interpret himself.
:clapping:
:tiphat:
Absolutely! In my early years of college, I came into some serious doubt about the truth of Catholicism (mostly because of a Baptist history teacher who misrepresented much of church history and the Bible). Then I began to think about something. I realized that there were other accounts of Jesus’ life than the four canonical gospels. I learned about the Apocalypse of Peter, the letters of Clement, and many other non-canonical Christian writings. Who, I wondered, decided that the canonical books were Sacred Scripture and the others weren’t and when did this happen?
The answer, of course, was the the bishops of the Catholic Church.
BINGO!!!
This single fact is, for me, the key to the whole thing. The Bible is the book of the church. The church is not the church of the Bible. When I finally made this connection, the doubt was over; the puzzle was solved. There was no more debate.
If you believe in Jesus Christ, you don’t have to look hard to find the truth. Pray about it and take a good look at unbiased history. You’ll be surprised by what you find.
My realization has thus been that if Christianity is valid, then Catholicism is the true church. And if Catholicism is not valid, then mainstream Christianity as a whole is not valid and we all need to start looking at gnosticism a little more seriously.
Cheers.
