[SPLIT] The Papacy, The Priesthood, and more

[SenorSalsa]

Originally by One Voice, in the Next Pope thread

First of all it is not the Popes job to be head over Gods Church It is Jesus’ and he does it quite well without help from the Pope. The stewardship you are referring to is given to the local church Pastor not a universal church Pope. Titus 1:6&7 Discusses such pastoral stewardship “If any be blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children not accused of riot or unruly. For a bishop must be blameless, as the steward of God; not selfwilled, not soon angry, not given to wine, no striker, not given to filthy lucre;” Which by the way states the qualifications for the Steward to be married. Yet another contradiction between the Catholic church and the Word of God as this steward must also be married.

On head of the universal Church, notice how several times, it is referred to as “Peter and the other disciples”

or further look at the Council of Jerusalem recorded in Acts 15, where Paul comes to Jerusalem because of a problem encountered while converting the Gentiles, and there was a gathering of the whole Church to solve a problem. And when the “apostles and elders” met, it was Peter who stood up and addressed them. And only later did James stand up, and only to praise and confirm what Peter had declared. There is no doubt that Peter was “the first among equals” just as the Pope is today.

You will further note the significance of James speaking only after Peter and confirming with what he said, since James is considered to have been the first Bishop of Jerusalem, and therefore, the local authority.

Second, what of Jesus’s words of “others have renounced marriage [the word eunuch is used in some translations] because of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.” (Matthew 19)

Or how about Paul “It is good for a man not to marry” (1 Cor 7)

or further “An unmarried man is concerned about the Lord’s affairs—how he can please the Lord. But a married man is concerned about the affairs of this world—how he can please his wife— and his interests are divided.” (ibid)

While it is a fact that for much of the Church’s history that married men could become priests, the ideal has always been celibacy, and that is because that ideal has been set forth by God. That ideal is not requiried because the Church has recognized the seriousness of Paul’s statement on where a man’s concern is. A person responsible for a community of believers cannot be occupied more by is own family

Second if you think the Pope is not being worshiped by yourself and other Catholics then maybe you should look up the definition of worship.
(1. Honor; respect; civil deference. 2. obsequious or submissive respect. 3. To adore; to pay divine honors to; to reverence with supreme respect and veneration. 4. To respect; to honor; to treat with civil reverence. 5. 3. To honor with extravagant love and extreme submission 6. To perform acts of adoration.) As you can plainly see these very acts as defined in the Websters 1828 Dictionary takes place every day in the presence of and directed towards the Pope.

This is deceitful at best. There is clearly a difference between definitions 1,2, and 4 (which I would give to the Pope) and 3,5, and 6 (which I would give only to God)

Just as in the early church there were respected Elders and Bishops, so do we respect the Pope today. One of his titles is Servant of the Servants of God for pete’s sake. We don’t worship him as a great and powerful man, we honor him as working extremely hard to help teach and lead the faithful on Earth.

 

[SenorSalsa]

Thirdly the Catholic church did not give us the Bible. As a matter of fact the Catholic church did everything in its power to keep it from being translated. Even to the point of making Martyrs of anyone attempting to do so making your theory that the Catholic Church gave us the bible a fallacy.

This one I don’t want to spend too much time on, because its not a debate I think is necessary or even sensible. However, it was the Church who assembled and decided the Canon of the Bible, as early as 393 at the Synod of Hippo. Further in 400, the Pope had St. Jerome translate the Bible into Latin, the common language of the people. Latin then became the official language of the Church (which was also a state, either through the Holy Roman Empire or Papal States, the Bible was kept in Latin, not to keep it from people, but to keep it from errors and misinterpretations. Having the essential texts translated and retranslated can cause things to be confused and wrong thinking to come up.

Fourthly I beg to differ with you about your point of view of the Priesthood. Even more importantly the Bible disagrees with you as well. In addition the catholic terms you mentioned “sacrament of confirmation” “sacred chrism”, “sacrament of holy orders”, and “Christ in the Eucharistic” cannot be found in scripture therefore cannot be used to prove biblical and doctrinal truth. This theory you have that a physical man is in someway ordained to be a go between or a priest for Christians is refuted in the book of Hebrews, and particularly in the following verses. Heb 2:17 Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people", Heb 4:14 Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession.". While we are talking about the book Hebrews I challenge all Catholics to read this book. By doing this they will discover that the very practice you have mentioned were fulfilled in Christ. That the practice of a human priest being in someway privy to intercede between God and man. Also the practice you have mentioned of turning a cookie into the body and fermented (which always represents sin in the Bible) wine into the blood of Christ is heresy and goes completely against the Bible. When Jesus said it is finished on the cross he meant if is finished" To practice any thing else goes completely against scripture and contradicts Heb 10:10 “By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” Notice once, not twice, not perpetually, (Heb 10:1 “For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect.”) but once. You see what you are doing is what used to be practiced in the Old Testament under the law. That was because the animals blood was not perfect and hence were only a covering. However Jesus being that he was the perfect sacrifice finished forever the shedding of blood to cover sin. (II Corinthians 5:21 “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.”) I apologize because I know this puts a lot of men out of a job.
Therefore the priesthood of the believer to intercede for the world as stated in I Peter 2:9 does not refer to two separate positions but one inclusive ability to approach God.
Heb 4:16 “Let (us) therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.” (Us=all)

Alright, I will address what I see to be the two main points of this part

1. Priesthood
   2)Eucharist

First, you mention the mediation of priests, yet Jesus says “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” (John 20)

Further Paul states "And to whom you have pardoned any thing, I also. For, what I have pardoned, if I have pardoned any thing, for your sakes have I done it in the person of Christ. " (2 Corinthians 2)

In the Person of Christ That sounds like representation, even mediation, right there. That seems to make a pretty strong case.

As for Hebrews, and especially of the statment of there is but one mediator, Jesus Christ. Note that by saying this is the only one to go to God would outlaw things like praying the Our Father, as it does not go through Jesus, but rather is a prayer straight to God the Father.

Further, think of how mediators work in real life. Lets say two companies are trying to resolve a problem. Does one appoint a mediator and that person goes and talks with every person in the other company to try and resolve the problem, or do BOTH companies appoint mediators? So is it for us. We appoint a mediator for us (Bishops and priests for each local community) to help us go to the mediator, Jesus Christ.

Elders and Bishops are mentioned extensively in Acts and Paul’s Letters, I have no idea why they should not exist now. And Priests are just further ambassadors of Bishops, because communities have grown too large for one Bishop to handle.

Lastly you mention that the Eucharist is not mentioned in the Bible, yet repeatedly Jesus says “I am the Bread of Life” “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” “take and eat, This is My Body” “Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant”

You challenge us to read Hebrews, I challenge you to read John 6

 

[Onevoice]

Senor Salsa … Wrong, wrong, and again wrong.
You can’t even consider the manuscripts in the earlier canonizations in Latin as a common language for various reasons. Number one the level of illiteracy was higher during that era and though Latin was a dominant language in Rome and much (but not all) of Europe it has never been a language as widely excepted, understood, and literate as the English language. Also those early century AD compilations include books that have been determined to be history and not inspired. In I Corinthians Paul talks about when the perfect word of God is come. The Apocrypha is a collection of uninspired, spurious books written by various individuals. Which proves it cannot be the perfect Word that Paul was talking about. At the Council of Trent (1546) the Roman Catholic religion pronounced the following apocryphal books sacred. They asserted that the apocryphal books together with unwritten tradition are of God and are to be received and venerated as the Word of God. So now you have the Bible, the Apocrypha and Catholic Tradition as co-equal sources of truth for the Catholic. In reality, the Bible is the last source of truth for Catholics. Catholic doctrine comes primarily from tradition stuck together with a few Bible names. In my reading of Catholic materials, I find notes like this: “You have to keep the Bible in perspective.” Catholics do not believe that the Bible is God’s complete revelation for man. I must admit though. The Catholic people are the best at taking the Bible and making it match their doctrines rather than the other way around. For instance your take on why the RC Popes didn’t want the Bible translated wasn’t to preserve it. You ever heard the term knowledge is power? 90% of the Catholic dogmas exercise fear and control for instance buying people out of Purgatory, and Hell. The leaders knew that if the truth were ever made free then the catholic church would loose its strong hold on the ignorant. There is so much I need to say to address your points I’ll run out of words if I continue. So let me submit this and address the other on a separate post.

 

[Onevoice]

Senor Salsa … Wrong, wrong, and again wrong.
You can’t even consider the manuscripts in the earlier canonizations in Latin as a common language for various reasons. Number one the level of illiteracy was higher during that era and though Latin was a dominant language in Rome and much (but not all) of Europe it has never been a language as widely excepted, understood, and literate as the English language. Also those early century AD compilations include books that have been determined to be history and not inspired. In I Corinthians Paul talks about when the perfect word of God is come. The Apocrypha is a collection of uninspired, spurious books written by various individuals. Which proves it cannot be the perfect Word that Paul was talking about. At the Council of Trent (1546) the Roman Catholic religion pronounced the following apocryphal books sacred. They asserted that the apocryphal books together with unwritten tradition are of God and are to be received and venerated as the Word of God. So now you have the Bible, the Apocrypha and Catholic Tradition as co-equal sources of truth for the Catholic. In reality, the Bible is the last source of truth for Catholics. Catholic doctrine comes primarily from tradition stuck together with a few Bible names. In my reading of Catholic materials, I find notes like this: “You have to keep the Bible in perspective.” Catholics do not believe that the Bible is God’s complete revelation for man. I must admit though. The Catholic people are the best at taking the Bible and making it match their doctrines rather than the other way around. For instance your take on why the RC Popes didn’t want the Bible translated wasn’t to preserve it. You ever heard the term knowledge is power? 90% of the Catholic dogmas exercise fear and control for instance buying people out of Purgatory, and Hell. The leaders knew that if the truth were ever made free then the catholic church would loose its strong hold on the ignorant. There is so much I need to say to address your points I’ll run out of words if I continue. So let me submit this and address the other on a separate post.

 

[Onevoice]

Salsa,

I’ll try and keep it short but your arguments are so unsubstantiated I feel I must clear them with the truth (The Bible)

When a Catholic reads a verse like those found in John 20 they do so with the mindset that RC dogma is the final authority and rather than rightly dividing the word as we are commanded to do in II Timothy 2:15 they try and match up Gods Word to the RC doctrine rather than the other way around. 2Timothy 2:15 “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”

The correct interpretation in John 20:23 means whenever a Christian (not necessarily a pastor or missionary or an evangelist, etc.) proclaims the Gospel, those who believe in Christ will have their sins forgiven by God. But those who refuse to believe in Christ will continue in their lost condition, with their sins retained. Try cross referencing John 8:24. We as Christians are to continue preaching the same Gospel message that Jesus and the disciples preached. Those who believe it will have their sins forgiven. Those who do not believe will have their sins retained. This is the context of John 20:19-23. Nowhere in scripture does it mention confessing your sins to a priest to have sins forgiven.

Your next point II Corinthians 2:2 “For if I make you sorry, who is he then that maketh me glad, but the same which is made sorry by me?” my advise to you is stop perverting the Word of God. Make sorry does not mean pardoned.

In addition your mentioning of the so called Our Father prayer this has no scriptural basis either. As Jesus when asked how to pray was giving an example of how to pray “After this manner” Which plainly represents the way you should pray and what to pray for, not exact words. As a matter of fact what you are calling the Our Father prayer was been forbidden in the previous verse. Mt 6:7&8 “But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.
Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.”

Now your description of a mediator is Catholic fabrication and also has not scriptural backing in which to rebut your explanation scripturally. I can however discuss and rebut your answers concerning Elders and Bishops. Elders and Bishops are indeed mentioned several times in the scripture. The title Bishop is mentioned 5 times in the New Testament and Elder 4 times when in the same context. However in all instances when cross referenced is plainly addressing the pastor of a church. Not a priest, pope, or anything of the sort. However in Eph 4:11&12 the Bible does list titles of leadership in the church. (“And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:”) Apostles which the last one was Paul, prophets (preachers), evangelist (missionaries), pastors, (under shepherds), teachers (obvious). All of which have been given a specific duty as mentioned in all accounts of Christ ascension. Matthew 28:19&20, Luke 24:47 Acts 1:8 etc. But nowhere is it mentioned that these leaders forgive sins.

Lastly is your mention of John 6. I have read John 6 many, many times, and I can only assume you are talking about verses 53-58. Once again you have accepted a dogma of the RC’s as your final source of authority and not the Bible. If you would have taken the time to read on further in the chapter you would have read in John 6:63 “It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.” If you would have done so you would have read that Christ was speaking spiritually not literally and so being are to be spiritually discerned. (I Corinthians 2:14 “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”) Then if you would have continued reading the entire book of John you would have read where he confirms this in John 16:25 “These things have I spoken unto you in proverbs: but the time cometh, when I shall no more speak unto you in proverbs, but I shall shew you plainly of the Father.” You are taking Christ words that he was speaking in parables and making them literal. Another example is seen in the account of the woman at the well, John 4:10 “Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.”; If you will examine and rightly divide the scriptures you will see the term remembrance is used in what you are referring to one of your sacraments (Communion). Lu 22:19 “And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me.” and When Paul instructed the Corinthian church he reiterated the same. I Corinthians 11:24-26 “And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me. After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord’s death till he come.” Words like remembrance, shew, same manner (meaning same way). The Lord’s supper is to be taken as a way to remember his death, and burial not as a means for salvation.

I hope you are receiving the spirit in which I am contributing to this post.

 

[SenorSalsa]

Salsa,
When a Catholic reads a verse like those found in John 20 they do so with the mindset that RC dogma is the final authority and rather than rightly dividing the word as we are commanded to do in II Timothy 2:15 they try and match up Gods Word to the RC doctrine rather than the other way around. 2Timothy 2:15 “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”

The correct interpretation in John 20:23 means whenever a Christian (not necessarily a pastor or missionary or an evangelist, etc.) proclaims the Gospel, those who believe in Christ will have their sins forgiven by God. But those who refuse to believe in Christ will continue in their lost condition, with their sins retained. Try cross referencing John 8:24. We as Christians are to continue preaching the same Gospel message that Jesus and the disciples preached. Those who believe it will have their sins forgiven. Those who do not believe will have their sins retained. This is the context of John 20:19-23. Nowhere in scripture does it mention confessing your sins to a priest to have sins forgiven.

I cannot see any way that “Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained” implies anything else other than giving the authority to someone, in this case the apostles, to forgive or retain sins. It does not say preach and people’s sins will be forgiven or retained depending on their belief, it says “you shall forgive” and “you shall retain”, meaning that the Apostles will be doing some action of forgiveness. As to John 8, Jesus would say that to believe in him is to follow his Word. If his word is that he has given (via breath) the Holy Spirit to some people and given them authority to forgive sins, then that action is part of belief. James 2 “But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?”. The seeking of forgiveness for sins is one of those works that gives faith life.

We see also in Matthew 18
But if thy brother shall offend against thee, go, and rebuke him between thee and him alone. If he shall hear thee, thou shalt gain thy brother.

16 And if he will not hear thee, take with thee one or two more: that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may stand. 17 And if he will not hear them: tell the church. And if he will not hear the church, let him be to thee as the heathen and publican. 18 Amen I say to you, whatsoever you shall bind upon earth, shall be bound also in heaven; and whatsoever you shall loose upon earth, shall be loosed also in heaven. 19 Again I say to you, **that if two of you shall consent upon earth, concerning any thing whatsoever they shall ask, it shall be done to them by my Father who is in heaven. **

Not to disregard your other arguments entirely, but for the sake of brevity (I am in the midst of Exams) I responded to one to keep the debate going.