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pickguard1
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Can you give me the actual New Testament quote that references that only things contained in scripture are to be believed in? (didn’t think so).
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pickguard1
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Would that be before or after the New Testament quote that references the Trinity by name?
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pickguard1
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Very well put - if you don’t trust the messengers, how can you trust the message?But, I am sure some will say they can’t trust things unless they are in print. Maybe that is why Jesus never asked anyone to write things down, because he asked for trust in the men he chose.
Another thing to consider is that if you needed to have the Bible and read the Bible to be a Christian - Jesus set up a pretty poor “universal” structure - the majority of the people in the world are still illiterate TODAY! Let alone 2000 years ago. Plus, even the literate have a hard time figuing out some of the more difficult passages in scripture - I believe it was Peter who said as much in one of his epistles.
Thus Jesus said to his Apostles - “go and teach all nations”
NOT “go and define everything I have said to you explicitly in a written New Testament to be attached to what will be called the ‘Old Testament’, making said New Testament 27 books long, written in either Greek, Hebrew or Aramaic, but adding an extra book or two that will be taken out later by people who disagree with what you teach because I really want to confuse people down the road. Oh, and there is no purgatory, but leave that specific word out of the New Testament to REALLY confuse people.”
Come on!
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DLClark
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pickguard1
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Church_Militant
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By all means show me these passages then, but if you do you had best insure that they specify what you are saying they mean or your argument will fall apart.
So please…bring it on.
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Doxiemom
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It is appointed unto man to die once and then there is the Judgement.
If you believe in the Judgement Seat of Christ and the purging ( to either burn up or purify) then you believe in a “purgatory”.
read what Pope benedict XVI had to say concerning purgatory. It is very close to what evangelicals teach. perhaps only the part of intercessory prayer between the living and the dead (who are not dead but have life more abundently) is in dispute.
If you believe in the Judgement Seat of Christ and the purging ( to either burn up or purify) then you believe in a “purgatory”.
read what Pope benedict XVI had to say concerning purgatory. It is very close to what evangelicals teach. perhaps only the part of intercessory prayer between the living and the dead (who are not dead but have life more abundently) is in dispute.
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zach_dunn
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I think you might be misunderstanding me, I didn’t mean to seem like I was saying that the only thing needed to believe in Christ is the Bible, sorry!zann dunn, I have to agree that bringing up sola scriptura is pertinent, because that’s the initial basis for rejecting prugatory. "if it’s not in the Bible…(fill in the blank). The only problem with this (well, not the only problem
Nonetheless, this is all beside the point because the “not in the Bible” argument doesn’t even work for Purgatory anyway, as you show.
I was just saying that the NT scriptures were written for this purpose primarily and “proving” Christian beliefs secondarily, if at all. I’ve always been a strong believer in the authority and preaching of the Apostles. That reminds me of a discussion I had with a Baptist preacher last week (it was at a fair and he was trying to show people the “Four easy steps to make sure you go to Heaven!” 
), we started talking about the authority of scripture but he wouldn’t answer my question. I’m not trying to say I outsmarted the man or anything, but there really is only one answer and it’s not a very nice one for Protestants, my question was this: who or what was the authority for Christians before the scriptures were put into one book? The answer, of course, is the Apostles, but that poses a problem for Protestants. Oh well, that’s another discussion for another thread…I’ll ask just as others have, where in the Bible does it say this? I’m assuming you mean Revelation 22:18-19. If that’s the case I’ll discuss it now. The Catholic, and obvious, “answer” to this verse is that St. John is talking about his own book, Revelation. NOT the whole Bible, when you consider that the New Testament we have today wasn’t compiled until the fourth century, St. John couldn’t have possibly been talking about the Bible with the New Testament, because there simply wasn’t a New Testament at all. All of the scriptures in the New Testament we have today were most likely written, but they weren’t together and called the New Testament.
You, like most non-Catholics, seem to not know what Catholics mean by “Tradition” which is different than “traditions”. Catholic Tradition (yes, with a capital “T”) is the oral teachings of the Apostles, their preaching. So technically, the Bible was added to Tradition!
I suppose you’re saying to yourself, “you have no evidence that there was any teaching of Jesus or the Apostles that wasn’t written down in the Bible.” Well, you’re wrong, and I can prove it to you in scripture itself. I’d like to point you to Acts 20:35:“35 In all things I have shown you that by so toiling one must help the weak, remembering the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”
This is a teaching of Jesus that was no where recorded in the Gospels. Now you’re saying, “that’s written in scripture though!” That’s true but it definitely tells us that there are teachings, and important teachings, that Jesus entrusted to the Apostles that probably didn’t get put in the scriptures. For more proof, just look to early Christian writings, any doctrine that’s in their writings but not explicitly in scripture is part of scripture. Just one more thing to mention before I move on, the Bible is PART OF TRADITION. If you reject Tradition in the Catholic sense, you are in fact rejecting the Bible, sorry about that little spoiler.
When you think of Tradition I know you’re think of times such as the episode in Matthew 15. One thing I try to emphasize here is to put Matthew 15 and 2 Thessalonians 2:15. When you read these two passages together, there comes a logical conclusion. There definitely are good Traditions and there are definitely bad traditions, you can’t deny that. There are other passages that speak of bad traditions and there are other passages that speak of good Traditions. The trick is weeding out the good and the bad. You can ask about beliefs that come more from Tradition in other threads but I honestly don’t think any non-Catholic can effectively deny the existance of Christian Tradition.
Hope this helps…again!
Zach
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LBSDBS
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I require facts to believe and evidence to trust. Likewise, the only stuff I trust the authenticity of, in terms of biblical stuff, are the words of the prophets. The bible is just a collection of records. Those records are only good when there is evidence to back them up. The only claim of “self infallibility” in the bible is the words of the prophets. The bible’s self standard for identifying and trusting the words of the prophets is that they must foretell things and none of them ever fail to happen as foretold. Not only is that highly convincing, but I would be utterly surprised if Science can find an Atheistic explanation for them, other then mass coincidence.
If you are talking about biblical accuracy, even the claim in Revelation IS NOT a claim that the words in it are sacred and infallible. They are a warning against those who attempt to tamper with it. Such a warning is by it’s vary nature an acknowledgment that there is a motivation to tamper with it and a reasonable possibility that someone will.
Since Revelation is probably the vastest single collection of foretelling of future events in the bible, it is subject to the old testament qualification, that it should ONLY be accepted as sacred if the prophecies continue to come true as told and without failure. To date, they have.
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upright
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Hi:
There is nowhere in the Bible where the word purgatory occurs
but its existence can easily be proved from certain references in
the Bible. John the beloved apostle says:
“All wrongdoing is sin but there is sin which is not mortal.”
(1 Jn 5:7)
Christ defines mortal or eternal sin as sin that leads to death of
soul or hell (Mk 3:29). Elsewhere we read:
“Nothing **unclean **can enter it (heaven).” (Rev 21:27)
Christ urges us to be **perfect **as God and all the blessed of heaven
are (Mt 5:45), and Paul also urges us to strive for **holiness **without
which no one will enter heaven (Heb 12:14).
The question is: if one has committed a wrongdoing that is equally
sin but does not lead to death, where does he go? He can’t go to
hell for his wrongdoing which is sin does not lead to death. Equally
because this wrongdoing is sin, he can’t go to heaven. Where then
does he go? He goes to the purgatory where he is purged (verb form
of purgatory) of his minor sins that are not mortal.
Now consider the consequence of making a casual “careless utterance:”
“I tell you, on the day of judgment men will render account of every
careless word they utter.” (Mt 12:36)
These are the sort of things that make us imperfect, unfit, unholy,
or **unclean **to enter heaven but will not take us to hell. Only a hypocrite
will continue to deny that these minor imperfections we encounter
everyday in our daily lives are paid for somewhere other than heaven
or hell. Christ was actually referring to purgatory when he said:
“Truly, I say to you, you will never get out till you have paid the
last penny.” (Mt 5:26)
Paul indicated the existence of purgatory when he prayed for the soul
of his dead friend, Onesiphorus (2 Tim 1:16). He knew his prayer for
him would be useless if he was in hell, yet he prayed for him, believing
he was in a place other than heaven or hell.
In his letter to the Hebrews, Paul listed the people in heaven, including
those who had made it from purgatory whom he referred to as “the spirits
of just men made perfect.” (Hew 12:22-23).
The whole story about the existence of purgatory is told in 2 Maccabees
12:38-45. The story concludes with unmistakable reference to purgatory
in these words: “Therefore he made atonement for the dead, that they
might be delivered from their sin.” Though this book was rejected by
the Protestant reformers, and therefore not in Protestant Bibles, one
cannot ignore the historical reality of this event and the reality of the
words that were said.
Hope this helps.
God bless us all.
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zach_dunn
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Where’s DLClark??? What does it mean to have you account under review?
Zach
Zach
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pickguard1
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He must have posted something somewhere else that was objectionable - I don’t really see anything here - unless the moderators nixed it before it got posted…
Zach dunn, In an earlier post you thought I misunderstood you - I think you misunderstood me I was agreeing that sola scriptura is relevant to this conversation because that’s usually the path that many use to try and refute doctrines such as prugatory. But I think the posts here demonstrate that Purgatory IS Biblical, it’s just not called purgatory - just like communion isn’t called communion, and Holy Orders isn’t called Holy Orders, and the Trinity isn’t called the Trinity - they’yre still all there in black and white.
Zach dunn, In an earlier post you thought I misunderstood you - I think you misunderstood me
I was agreeing that sola scriptura is relevant to this conversation because that’s usually the path that many use to try and refute doctrines such as prugatory. But I think the posts here demonstrate that Purgatory IS Biblical, it’s just not called purgatory - just like communion isn’t called communion, and Holy Orders isn’t called Holy Orders, and the Trinity isn’t called the Trinity - they’yre still all there in black and white.
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zach_dunn
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Oops, my bad.He must have posted something somewhere else that was objectionable - I don’t really see anything here - unless the moderators nixed it before it got posted…
Zach dunn, In an earlier post you thought I misunderstood you - I think you misunderstood me
Zach
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pickguard1
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’ OKOops, my bad.
Zach
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