Question About Mary ??

[Randy_Carson]

** (answer this one) WHAT does it matter to our Salvation if Mary remained a virgin or not?

It does not matter a bit.

However, the issue goes to the credibility of Protestantism.

As the Protestant denominations have become increasingly fragmented and have wandered further and further from the Church founded by Christ, their doctrines have become increasingly erroneous.

By illustrating the fact that your belief system is at odds with that of the Early Church (and on this point, I don’t care whether you call it ‘Catholic’ or not), I seek to raise doubts in your mind about whether Protestantism is reliable and true. It is not.

Don’t misunderstand…I do not wish to undermine your faith in Christ or the Bible…just your faith in yourself and the “Bible Alone”.

Hope this helps. :tiphat:

 

[Randy_Carson]

Where is the evidence she did Sin and was not assumed in to heaven? Surely the apostles would have noted her grave and taken care of it.

The Church built giant churches over top of every other important archeological site connected with Jesus…funny how there isn’t one marking the tomb of the Mother of God.

Darn that Apostle John…Jesus entrusted his mother to him, yet he couldn’t get a nice monastery or even a small shrine to remember her by…

 

[Randy_Carson]

I will give one example of this that is off thread
Why does the Church restrict Priest to marry.
If it is by oral tradition then that oral tradition is wrong.
Scripture clearly states that some of the Apostles were married and was not restricted by the Church.
So to say that Priest can not marry goes against scripture.

This has probably already been addressed, but I’m working my way through the thread and don’t want to pass this by:

The celibacy requirement is a Church discipline - a rule - of the Church as an organization. It is not a doctrine. And it does not go against scripture since Paul remained unmarried and wrote:

1 Corinthians 7:1
1Now for the matters you wrote about: It is good for a man not to marry.

1 Corinthians 7:7-9
7I wish that all men were as I am. 8Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I am. 9But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.

1 Corinthians 7:32-34
32I would like you to be free from concern. An unmarried man is concerned about the Lord’s affairs—how he can please the Lord. 33But a married man is concerned about the affairs of this world—how he can please his wife— 34and his interests are divided.

The Catholic Church wishes her priests to be free from concern so that their interests are undivided in accordance with the Word of God.

Is that okay with you?

 

[Randy_Carson]

You make good points, but once again just like my posting it is just you opinion or the way you read the information. There is no hard proof of this either way. No I do not need proof to have faith. In the Bible there are many things that God says that require us to have faith. He is almost silent in this matter so faith of a unknown is not require.

Zcharry-

Here is the problem…you, as a Protestant, refuse to accept anything that is not in the Bible.

We, as Catholics, accept both the Bible and the living transmission of the faith handed down from one generation to the next infallibly through the guidance of the Church. This is Tradition.

Either Jesus is capable of fulfilling his promise to remain with His Church to the end of the age or not. Either the Holy Spirit is capable of leading the Church into “all truth” or not.

It’s not sufficient to say that since you have the Bible, you can sit alone in your room and figure it all out on your own. If it were possible to get our theology straight purely from the Bible Alone, then you and I would not be having this debate…we would be in complete agreement. Obviously, the Bible Alone is insufficient to guarantee complete accuracy in doctrinal issues since we cannot both be right on the matters we disagree on. The Bible Alone has failed one of us.

Are you infallible? Neither am I. Jesus never promised us infallibility as individuals. But he has promised this to His Church.

It was to the Apostles that Jesus said, “He who hears you hears me. He who rejects you rejects me and the one who sent me.” When you hear an Apostle speak, you hear Jesus speak.

“But the Apostles are all dead.” Ah, yes, but they entrusted the Church to their successors the Bishops, and Jesus said he would be with the Church to the end of the age, remember? And the Apostles themselves made sure that they passed on their authority to reliable men. For example, Peter wrote:

2 Peter 1:12-15
So I will always remind you of these things, even though you know them and are firmly established in the truth you now have. I think it is right to refresh your memory as long as I live in the tent of this body, because I know that I will soon put it aside, as our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me. And I will make every effort to see that after my departure you will always be able to remember these things.

What effort could Peter make to ensure his message would be remembered after his departure? He laid hands on reliable men.

And the Apostle Paul wrote:

2 Timothy 2:1-2
You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others.

There are five generations of believers contained in this one passage: 1. Those who came before Paul and instructed him, 2. Paul himself, 3. Timothy, who was Paul’s disciple, 4. Those whom Timothy would disciple, and 5. Those to whom Timothy’s disciples would preach.

This is Apostolic Succession at work, and I have many scriptures that illustrate the care that Paul was very concerned about this. As a result, we can trust the Church - not because of the mere men who are its leaders but because of Him who is faithful and true and built the Church His own bride.

Hope this helps. :tiphat:

 

[Randy_Carson]

Originally Posted by Justasking4
After reviewing the Bible, it is time to look at what the earliest Christians taught about the Perpetual Virginity of Mary:

ON THE PERPETUAL VIRGINITY OF MARY

Protoevangelium of James
Isn’t this from a source that the church rejected as being the truth?

No, this is from a source that the Church rejected as beiing inspired.

Something can be true even if it is not inspired.

Like this post, for example. :tiphat:

 

[Randy_Carson]

The church did nothing to make the Scriptures inspired-inerrant. God used the church to discover His canon. The church was God’s instrument for this.

The Church wrote, canonized, preserved, protected and preached the New Testament.

The Catholic Church, that is.

 

[Randy_Carson]

Right up well into the middle of the 20th Century, Mary’s perpetual virginity was still being taught by many Protestant teachers. I know. I was there. It was part of my study of the Bible in the Methodist tradition.
Yes, they do!! Every case that someone tries to point to, the parents’ names are given…One of the most interesting things about this to me, is that there are so many people in the Bible who we are never told the names of their parents. But when it comes that anyone may appear to the casual reader to have been related to Jesus, the Scriptures always make it completely clear that their father & mother’s names are given…Think maybe the Holy Spirit was all ready working, to cut the ground from under the dissenters?? I do!! I think that’s why it’s in there!!!

Zooey-

As usual, this is well-said, and I hope your Protestant brothers will reflect deeply upon your thoughtful reply.

:tiphat:

 

[mirandajb]

kujo313;2312644:

Umm, Kings 1 and Kings 2? They list every King of Israel and his Queen-Mother from Solomon and Bathsheba on down.

And Genesis certianly does mention Mary. She’s the woman whose seed (Jesus) crushes the serpent. She, together with Him, is in ENMITY with the Devil (total opposition, impossible for any normal sinful person).

And yes, the prophets (Isaiah at least) most certainly DO mention Mary - she’s the Virgin who gives birth to Emmanuel, d’uh.

Really, you should be ashamed of how little of the Bible you know, especially considering that you claim your faith is based entirely on it. You should be able to quote every chapter and verse to me if that’s the case.

Kujo313,

For someone who does not know the Bible, you have a lot of guts and nerve…and full of unprintable stuff. All the issues you have mentioned have been addressed by so many with full Biblical references and yet you persist. It is truly heart warming to see the love of Christ in the many responses to someone who is …

 

[Randy_Carson]

What if i were to say to you the Thomas ascended into heaven to. Since we don’t have his bones, that must mean he did ascend into heaven. Would you accept that?

A long public tradition in the church at Edessa honoring Thomas as the Apostle of India resulted in several surviving hymns that are attributed to Ephrem, copied in codices of the 8th and 9th centuries. References in the hymns preserve the tradition that Thomas’ bones were brought from India to Edessa by a merchant, and that the relics worked miracles both in India and at Edessa.

from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_the_Apostle

Hope this helps. :tiphat:

 

[Randy_Carson]

It is funny how a religion can be base completely on scripture can be called man made, Lutheran (WELS).

We don’t find it funny at all.

It is a serious wound to the body of Christ.

 

[Randy_Carson]

Show me one thing in the Nicene Creed that is not in scripture or taught in scripture

One baptism for the forgiveness of sins.

One.

My Protestant sister has been baptized three times…nothing in scripture prevents this.

 

[kujo313]

kujo313;2312644:

Umm, Kings 1 and Kings 2? They list every King of Israel and his Queen-Mother from Solomon and Bathsheba on down.

And Genesis certianly does mention Mary. She’s the woman whose seed (Jesus) crushes the serpent. She, together with Him, is in ENMITY with the Devil (total opposition, impossible for any normal sinful person).

And yes, the prophets (Isaiah at least) most certainly DO mention Mary - she’s the Virgin who gives birth to Emmanuel, d’uh.

Really, you should be ashamed of how little of the Bible you know, especially considering that you claim your faith is based entirely on it. You should be able to quote every chapter and verse to me if that’s the case.

As you should quote it, too.
The OT DOES mention Mary as the virgin who gives birth, but it stops there. It does not say “For a virgin shall give birth and she shall be called…” d’uh

It’s all about Jesus.

 

[Randy_Carson]

Hi my Christian friends!
I respect your religion nevertheless I would say that in my opinion the Christians have neither given the status to JesusYeshuaIssa nor to MaryMeriumMaryam they deserved on merit, only under unjustified and clever influence of Paul who robbed them of their truthful honor to establish his own hegemony over the simple people of that times called Christians, I am sorry to say, but that is a fact, to me. As Paul was disrespectful to Jesus’ disciples, he did not go to Jerusalem when they summoned him to clarify certain things, towing the same line he belittled Mary so much so that one does not find any account of her life after when JesusYeshuaIssa and MaryMeriumMaryam last met at Galilee. They both were alive on a journey to far off lands among the lost ten tribes of the houe of Israel, but due to communication problems had lost contact with Jerusalem.In that positions Paul got Jesus cleverly ascended to heavens to pave his way for absolute hegemony over the church going people; and disciples and Mary he never cared about them. This might be because perhaps even the subsequest Popes who succeeded Paul did not know it, so much so that to rectify this grey patch, at a very late stage Pope Benedict XIV corroborated lately also by Pope Pius XII ; they invented the belief in the corporeal assumption of Mary and define it to be a divinely revealed dogma ( now one could see how the NTGospels had been inspired/made up): that their Immaculate Mother of God, their ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life ( while they knew nothing about her historically, or if they knew they opted to conceal it from the public for their vested interests) was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory." The establishment of this dogma as “necessary to salvation” is widely taken to be an example of the Pope’s invoking papal infallibility (which in fact is a proof of Pope’s fallibility and his clear attempt at corrupting the Christian faith in the ages gone bye). So this is how Paul and Popes dealt with the Christianity; how cruel they had been to humanity? Would the Christians now realize it, if they wake up from their great slumber of two thousands+ years!
But Quran is graceful and magnanimous, it not only gave a lofty status to JesusYeshuaIssa he deserved but in its own style Quran made Mary one of the highest example of the believers till the end of the world.
Thanks

paarsurrey-

I realize that you do not and probably will not accept the Bible as an inspired book.

However, would you at least get a copy and read Luke and Acts as purely historical documents so that you can contribute more accurately to our discussions?

Thanks. :tiphat:

 

[kujo313]

It does not matter a bit.

However, the issue goes to the credibility of Protestantism.

As the Protestant denominations have become increasingly fragmented and have wandered further and further from the Church founded by Christ, their doctrines have become increasingly erroneous.

By illustrating the fact that your belief system is at odds with that of the Early Church (and on this point, I don’t care whether you call it ‘Catholic’ or not), I seek to raise doubts in your mind about whether Protestantism is reliable and true. It is not.

Don’t misunderstand…I do not wish to undermine your faith in Christ or the Bible…just your faith in yourself and the “Bible Alone”.

Hope this helps. :tiphat:

“Bible Alone” IS enough to get you into Heaven. Is it not? (explain your answer)

Can oral tradition be proven true? Some sources MAY be found for some, but not all. Therefore, HOW can you know if some “traditions” are true or not?

The “early church” did not include teachings about the assumption of Mary. Why not? It didn’t exist then. It was made up later.

 

[Randy_Carson]

Nuh-uh. They were quoting parts of the Gospels and Epistles maybe - and also quoting non-Canonical material like the Didache and the Shepherd of Hermas alongside it. There weren’t manuscripts of the whole kit and caboodle full text New Testament as canonised at Hippo and Carthage all together in a nice neat leather binding.

With chapters and verses and red lettering for the words of Jesus and maps and a concordance in the back?

Nuh-uh.

 

[kujo313]

kujo313;2312644:

Umm, Kings 1 and Kings 2? They list every King of Israel and his Queen-Mother from Solomon and Bathsheba on down.

And Genesis certianly does mention Mary. She’s the woman whose seed (Jesus) crushes the serpent. She, together with Him, is in ENMITY with the Devil (total opposition, impossible for any normal sinful person).

And yes, the prophets (Isaiah at least) most certainly DO mention Mary - she’s the Virgin who gives birth to Emmanuel, d’uh.

Really, you should be ashamed of how little of the Bible you know, especially considering that you claim your faith is based entirely on it. You should be able to quote every chapter and verse to me if that’s the case.

Still, if Mary wasn’t mentioned by name at all, it’d still be the same: unless you are born again, you shall not see Heaven.

 

[Randy_Carson]

No admitance at all. Name some mothers in the Bible and where I can find them.
Mary does not have anything to do with your salvation. It’s all about Jesus. If you want to go “outside the box”, that’s on you.
This “if this, then that” attitude is certainly unBiblical and against the Word of God. Why else does it NOT say what to do with the sacrifical lamb’s mother? How can Moses and the prophets be so rude to not mention the sacrifical lamb’s mother?

Still, if Mary wasn’t mentioned by name at all, it’d still be the same: unless you are born again, you shall not see Heaven.

Perhaps you’ve never read of Bathsheba, Solomon’s mom who was the Queen Mother?

“So Bathsheba went to King Solomon, to speak to him on behalf of Adonijah. And the king rose to meet her, and bowed down to her; then he sat on his throne and had a seat brought for the king’s mother; and she sat on his right. Then she said, ‘I have one small request to make of you; do not refuse me.’ And the king said to her, ‘Make your request, my mother; for I will not refuse you’” (1 Kgs. 2:19–20).

Other references to the Queens of the Old Testament:

1. 1Kings 15:13, “And also Maachah his mother, even her he removed from being Queen…”
2. 2Chron 15:16, “And also concerning Maachah the mother of Asa the king, he removed her from being Queen…”
3. Psalms 45:10, “…the Queen stands at your right hand.”
4. Daniel 5:10, “Now the Queen…came into the banquet house…” The Queen was the mother of King Belshazzar, see Dan 5:2.
5. Jeremiah 13:18 (NAB), “Say to the king and to the queen mother: come down from your throne; From your heads fall your magnificent crowns.”
6. 2Kings 10:13, “…we are going down to visit the princes and the family of the Queen Mother.”
7. Jeremiah 29:2, “This was after king Jeconiah and the Queen Mother…had departed from Jerusalem.”

Hope this helps. :tiphat:

 

[LilyM]

LilyM;2312653:

As you should quote it, too.
The OT DOES mention Mary as the virgin who gives birth, but it stops there. It does not say “For a virgin shall give birth and she shall be called…” d’uh

It’s all about Jesus.

Of course it’s all about Jesus! So is every one of the blessed Marian doctrines! If we call her Mother of God it’s because people believed Jesus wasn’t true God AND true Man hypostatically united in the one person.

If we call her Immaculately Conceived it’s because we revere HIM so much that we don’t believe He would choose (make actually - he MADE her, remember) an imperfect or sinful vessel through which to come into the world. If you could create your own mother would you make her imperfect?

If we say she was assumed into heaven by God, it’s because we believe He still loves and cares for we who he left behind on earth, and followed perfectly the commandment to honour his mother.

If we believe she has any power at all, it’s because we believe in HIS love and HIS promise to give His faithful servants charge over ‘many things’.

And why should I quote the Bible left right and centre? I’m not a sola scripturist. You’re the one standing on the one wobbly leg. I’ve got three legs holding me up - scripture, Apostolic tradition and the teaching authority passed on to the Church (not ChurchES, not any darn sod who reads the Bible 2000 years after it was written) so I’ll never fall.

Find me a verse that says ‘read and believe what is written in the scriptures and that will be all you will ever need to know’. It doesn’t. It says they’re USEFUL, not that they’re good enough on their own.

 

[Randy_Carson]

As you should quote it, too.

The OT DOES mention Mary as the virgin who gives birth, but it stops there. It does not say “For a virgin shall give birth and she shall be called…” d’uh

You’re right.

This is done in the New Testament which says, “All generations shall call me blessed.”

The OT does not have that. You were correct there.

 

[Pixie_Dust]

“Bible Alone” IS enough to get you into Heaven. Is it not? (explain your answer)

If everything that we need to know as Christians is in the Bible, then where in the Bible does it give us the list of books that are supposed to be in the Bible?

If the “Bible alone IS enough to get you into Heaven” were true, then you just condemned millions of Christians who believed by HEARING the Word of God preached to them, since they were unable to read the Bible themselves. Until quite recently, like in the last 150 years or so, most people in the world were illiterate. In many places, people still are illiterate. Are they damned because they can’t read?

Last time I checked, the Bible said that the grace of God, which gives us faith to believe and obey Jesus, is what gets us into Heaven. The Bible makes no claim to be in and of itself the ticket to Heaven.