Protestant (bible study fellowship) teachings

[Indifferently]

The Book of Common Prayer’s eucharistic liturgy opens with a recitation of the Ten Commandments. This is also required knowledge for candidates for Confirmation. But the beauty of the Summary of the Law is that it makes God’s law intelligible to even the simplest human creature, and phrases in such a way as to emphasize the active imperative to love, rather than in terms, ‘Thou shalt not.’

‘On these two Commandments hang all the law and the prophets.’

 

[Christopher1290]

Yes, we must keep the commandments and they haven’t been abolished, St. Paul told us that Jesus didn’t come to do away with the law but that He reinforces it, and that the law will be there and no part of it will be done away with. They were summed up by Jesus in the two greatest commandments Love your God with all your heart, strength, body and mind, and love your neighbor as you love yourself. The point in the Bible that is being made is not that we don’t need it or that it doesn’t apply to us, but that it is a mirror to show us what we really are, to show us what is wrong, and that we know we are sinners that need mercy that only Christ can give us. And that Jesus is the real salvation, because we can not save ourselves through the law alone, but in abiding by the law by our faith and love in Christ. If we love God we follow His commandments, and sure enough as we are not perfect, we must also receive mercy for when we fail.

 

[hn160]

Our pastor is wary of Bible Study without a pastor teaching it. The Lutheran Church in this country and Europe was hurt by the pietist movement where there was Bible Studies in homes and the people thought that pastors were not necessary or the Sacraments. At my church the pastors teach all Bible Studies.

 

[Lisa1967]

Last year I went to what is called bible study fellowship which is a non denominational Protestant group that studies the bible it is world wide and meets in very large settings 1000+ and then splits into small groups

I went as a self identified Roman catholic to talk to people about the catholic teachings of the scripture they where teaching. Which made them very uncounfortable.

Well I learned on very disturbing thing that they where and are teaching

They teach as Christians we don’t have to follow the ten commandments and Jesus came to abolish them. Is this a common Protestant belief because all of the baptist and presbytians there thought this?

I have been a member of the Methodist and Lutheran churches and am currently attending an Episcopal church. I never encountered that teaching before.

 

[misspriss]

I attended Bible Study Fellowship for all 7 programs (there are 7 programs, or was when I went, once you’ve gone for 7 years you’ve done it all). I never heard about the Ten Commandments not being followed anymore. My sister still goes, maybe I’ll ask her, she was there Monday night…

 

[Gaelic_Bard]

I think we are making a distinction without a difference. Can we love God and commit murder, or adultery, or bear false witness? The moral law demands that we keep the commandments; to violate them means falling into grave sin and therefore separation from God. So one may choose to believe they have been abolished, but then one may believe they can fly off of a twenty story building. Gravity will win every time.

To some extent it could be without a difference. At least, with regard to 9 out of 10 of them. I think, though, that even in that respect, we listen to how Jesus and the apostles give us those commands, not how Moses receives and lays out the commandments. The significant departure comes with the case law laid out in Leviticus, Deuteronomy, etc., and the Sabbath, which was the sign of the Mosaic Covenant, replaced by the eucharist in the New.

 

[JonNC]

At bible study fellowship this wasn’t my experience the only Protestant that said we needed to follow moral law was a Lutheran (Missouri synod) and he was ripped on along with me

Would it be a good guess that the Lutheran was told that he really didn’t believe in “faith alone”?

Jon

 

[KathleenGee]

Aamski…

Is that the Mars Hill church in Seattle? CARM highly endorses them. A fellow that leads it is a former graduate of the Westminster College where the head of CARM was educated. He is also a former Catholic.

 

[Adamski]

Aamski…

Is that the Mars Hill church in Seattle? CARM highly endorses them. A fellow that leads it is a former graduate of the Westminster College where the head of CARM was educated. He is also a former Catholic.

No it was Newport covedent church in Bellevue, I would like to say they are actually pretty nice guys there (which I can’t say for mars hill). They are trying hard to but there theology is just really off base.

I tried to join a mars hill bible study but unless you are a member and have been baptized over the age of 13 they won’t tell you the time or place thier bible study occurs.
Mark Driscoll only started his church after he got his 19 year old girl friend pregnant which is now his wife and his father inlaw is/was a fundamentalist preacher who taught him the trade of how to be a fundamentalist preceded. I have heard his family are all still practing Catholics.
Mark Driscoll is extremely anti semitic, and anti catholic his preaching is so bizarre he will bang his head against the wall making fun Jewish prayers or mock the sign of the cross on line.

 

[KathleenGee]

Thanks for clarifying.

I saw some you tube’s of Mark Driscoll…and your comments help me see more his connection and style with the CARM people.

I know there are alot of non-denominationals in the Seattle/Bellevue area. I miss the church and all the various Catholics there. Very open and deep faith. Bishop/Cardinal Wuerl was very impressed by the faith of the Seattle area Catholics, and there was an incredible bond among the priests, religious, and laity in union with John Paul II and our Blessed Mother.

On another thread you were interested in programs that would have more outreach. I am now thinking of the young people who claim they are more progressive than their parents. I am thinking of Pope Francis who exhorts the cardinals to accept the Cross and poverty.

I wonder if these young people need to experience real crosses, and they will be the ones to inherit all the debt with a small population of young people to care for them when they get old.

So I am wondering if it is reality and the Cross that could possibly be a way to make inroads…

 

[KathleenGee]

The universal Catholic Catechism has its section of Morality.

It defines all the 10 commandments and how we can sin against them to various degrees.
It is a matter of us always coming to love God more, to learn more about Him, and to know what pleases Him and what does not, down to our daily actions.

Problem is that we have the effects of original sin always working against us. As Paul says, the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. So we always need to refresh our memories of the commandments and how we may be violating them in ordinary ways, these are the venial sins. Ordinary sins.

 

[TristanH]

I have seen this teaching quite often in various churches.

The idea is that Jesus fulfilled the old law, so therefore it is gone, all of it. This includes the ten commandments.

However, any commandments that Jesus talks about in the New Testament you DO have to follow, and almost all of the ten are contained therein.

When you point out that Jesus kept all of the old law, you’re told that He did that because He was still alive, and the old law applied, until He died.

Of course, the commandments He gave happened to be while He was alive too, so following that logic, I’m not certain if we’re technically supposed to follow those

As for how widespread it is, I’m not certain. Where I’m at it feels like a growing attitude along with Calvinism but that could be a regional thing.

I do know that one local baptistish church we have attended has bible studies with many different denominational attendees. They have been pretty open minded.

 

[Adamski]

I have been a member of the Methodist and Lutheran churches and am currently attending an Episcopal church. I never encountered that teaching before.

It seems like a modernist view of the osas that is incorporated in presbytian and baptist churches (non denominational)

 

[Gaelic_Bard]

I have seen this teaching quite often in various churches.

The idea is that Jesus fulfilled the old law, so therefore it is gone, all of it. This includes the ten commandments.

However, any commandments that Jesus talks about in the New Testament you DO have to follow, and almost all of the ten are contained therein.

Almost all is not all, however. In order for them to be the same, they must be exact. Even where they are the same, there are changes and a deepening of meaning and application that did not exist in a Mosaic understanding.

When you point out that Jesus kept all of the old law, you’re told that He did that because He was still alive, and the old law applied, until He died.

Of course, the commandments He gave happened to be while He was alive too, so following that logic, I’m not certain if we’re technically supposed to follow those

The Old Covenant is done away with when the New Covenant is inaugurated at the crucifixion. There’s a reason it’s called the Old one!

 

[KathleenGee]

In practice however, it doesn’t hold up.

Our consciences are constantly in need of growth and awareness of sin. Our neighbor also helps us to see our hidden sins. We are always dealing with the effects of original sin, although baptism has washed it away.

 

[crazzeto]

There are two interpretations to their words:

1. Because Christians have been extrinsically imputed with the righteousness of Christ, we don’t need to keep commandments to earn salvation, we do it out of love for Christ.

OR

1. The Ten Commandments actually are abolished, and killing and adultery don’t apply to us.

Now, note that both of the above interpretations run counter to the Catholic notion of the Ten Commandments, which is that they are an essential part of the Moral Law (or Natural Law) and we cannot reject them; we still follow them both because we love Christ and because He has commanded us to keep them.

To your actual question, I don’t believe that most of Protestantism believes what the Protestants that you met have said in the sense of the second interpretation. However, I could easily see them accepting that statement in the sense of the first interpretation. But that’s my observation, I apologize if it isn’t helpful.

I’ve seen the teaching that the 10 commandments are in full effect for non-christians (and that all non-Christians are automatically condemned), but if you are Christian then there is no moral law which applies. There’s really a variety of teachings out there.

 

[manualman]

What they mean is usually not as horrific as it sometimes seems they are saying. In my limited experience, evangelical protestants of this sort believe something to the effect that the purpose of the Old Testament and Mosaic Law was to demonstrate the depravity of fallen man and his need for a Savior. That need for an illustration of man’s failure is now passed with the death and resurrection of Christ. Like us, most of these folks really believe that Grace empowers us to go beyond mere compliance with commandments, but to experience true communion with God through Christ. That implicitly includes the elimination of sinful behaviors (including those outline in the 10 commandments), but they often don’t like to talk about that, because they are mortally afraid you might think that “being good” is some part of the plan of salvation.

Where we often REALLY part ways is our understanding of what that Grace really does. It seems some protestants don’t really believe that Christ totally transforms us and sanctifies us into the unblemished image and likeness of God, but instead believe that Christ’s death on the cross accomplished a sort of legal manuever by which the righteousnes of Christ covers over our sins so that God doesn’t see them, but only sees the righteousness of Christ. Personally, I can’t imagine how anybody could convert from catholicism to such a sadly flawed vision of salvation and sanctification, but I’ve known dozens of former catholics who embraced this brand of protestantism.

 

[crazzeto]

What they mean is usually not as horrific as it sometimes seems they are saying. In my limited experience, evangelical protestants of this sort believe something to the effect that the purpose of the Old Testament and Mosaic Law was to demonstrate the depravity of fallen man and his need for a Savior. That need for an illustration of man’s failure is now passed with the death and resurrection of Christ. Like us, most of these folks really believe that Grace empowers us to go beyond mere compliance with commandments, but to experience true communion with God through Christ. That implicitly includes the elimination of sinful behaviors (including those outline in the 10 commandments), but they often don’t like to talk about that, because they are mortally afraid you might think that “being good” is some part of the plan of salvation.

Where we often REALLY part ways is our understanding of what that Grace really does. It seems some protestants don’t really believe that Christ totally transforms us and sanctifies us into the unblemished image and likeness of God, but instead believe that Christ’s death on the cross accomplished a sort of legal manuever by which the righteousnes of Christ covers over our sins so that God doesn’t see them, but only sees the righteousness of Christ. Personally, I can’t imagine how anybody could convert from catholicism to such a sadly flawed vision of salvation and sanctification, but I’ve known dozens of former catholics who embraced this brand of protestantism.

In other cases it really is that bad, that’s sort of the problem with no authority center.