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ajk19
Guest
In a lot of things, confession, Mary, etc. None of that is really of the Bible. It is simply false doctrine.
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Yes it is. Read John 20 and the Letter of James.
Are you sure you really want to dig your grave deeper by continually showing your ignorance of the Bible?
You haven’t even addressed your Resurrection fiasco. Why should we believe a word you say?
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ajk19
Guest
Ok, I’ll bite. Let’s see some sources here for what you are saying.
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ajk19
Guest
Would it make you feel any better if I took that part back?
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WitnessToHope
Guest
Mary isn’t in the Bible??? Read Luke 1:46-48, especially where she says “…from now on will all ages call me blessed.”
What did she mean when she said that? Surely you’re not calling the Mother of our Lord a liar. What does that verse mean to you? I’m waiting anxiously for your interpretation!
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Fred_4
Guest
Yes it is. Body, blood, soul, and divinity. You’re wrong. Thanks for playing.
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lak611
Guest
What is your answer about this?So EVERY BOOK OF THE BIBLE after Deuteronomy can be disregarded in its entirety then.
All the prophets after Moses, including Jesus and His followers. Makes scripture study a lot easier
By the way, talking about taking away from these precious five books - do you observe Levitical law to the letter (since Leviticus is one of the five)? Eat pork or shellfish? Wear clothing of more than two types of fibre? Are the menfolk of your family ritually circumcised? The womenfolk ritually purified after childbirth?
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WitnessToHope
Guest
I can’t speak for the others but what would make me feel better is if you made an honest effort to analyse the information you’re being provided instead of just shooting everything down because you don’t like the sound of it. Read it, pray on it. Seek the truth with an open heart and mind. If you do that much you stand a real good chance of finding the Truth that you’re clearly seeking.
God bless!!!
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Rolltide
Guest
Yes, but remember, there WASN’T a Bible, per say, when the Apostles were preaching. In any case, if I was alive back then, I’d have rather heard it from the horse’s mouth, so to speak.
So, just to get this right, these Early Church Fathers were listening to the Apostles themselves (in person, I might add, for several of them), ALL got the message wrong, and came up with all of this extra stuff?
Doesn’t John 21:25 state that there’s so much more that Jesus did (and said) that could be written down, that the whole world would not contain the books?
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ajk19
Guest
Fair enough, but what about these:
"I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the LORD; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. " Psalm 32:5
“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9
“Why doth this man thus speak blasphemies? who can forgive sins but God only?” Mark 2:7
and what about Peter’s example? What happened when someone came to him?
And when Simon saw that through laying on of the apostles’ hands the Holy Ghost was given, he offered them money, Saying, Give me also this power, that on whomsoever I lay hands, he may receive the Holy Ghost. But Peter said unto him, Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money. Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter: for thy heart is not right in the sight of God. Repent therefore of this thy wickedness, and pray God, if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee. Acts 8: 18-22
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Rolltide
Guest
(By the way, this is the SAME John that taught Clement of Rome and Ignatius of Antioch, the two earliest of the Early Church Fathers. BOTH believed in the Real Presence.)
So unless you want to claim that the Bible contradicts itself, you must harmonize. James says confess to one another. That means the act of confession is in itself good.
Then Jesus says whosesover sins YOU (i.e. the apostles, not God) sins forgive, they are forgiven them, and whosesoever sins YOU (i.e., the apostles, not God) retain, they are retained.
He clearly gives them authority to forgive and retain sins.
First of all, why do quote the words of Pharisees to bolster your position. Second, yes, God alone forgives. That’s why if you even bothered to read your Catechism before you jumped ship, you would have read that the Catholic Church teaches that God alone forgives sins through the ministry of his priests. Why do you think Jesus breathed on his apostles right before he said this? Because the forgiveness and retention of sins is only by the power of the Holy Spirit, and not of their own.
So? This is advice we all do well to follow. The thing about us Catholics is that we read the WHOLE Bible, not just the stuff that suits us. The Bible says repent. It also says confess. Because it’s both there, we do both, not either/or.
False doctrine? The Bible clearly teaches it.
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Rolltide
Guest
Well, start with John Calvin’s execution of Michael Servetus, the Spanish physician and theologian. He had him burned at the stake and presided at the trial. (Now to be fair, he was an anti-Trinitarian, and the Inquisition had condemned his writings as well). I should also mention that John Calvin personally endorsed and utilized torture as a legitimate institution. Here’s a reference.
Hans J. Hillerbrand, editor, The Reformation, A Narrative History Related by Contemporary Observers and Participants. Baker Book House, Ann Arbor, MI, 1985. pp. 174 (quoting Beza’s Life of Calvin), 169, 274, 203.
If you’re actually going to read these, I can do the research and provide much more.
Then we can look at the German Peasant’s Revolt, and Luther’s role in the deaths of 75,000 - 100,000 people. I’d try reading the work of Steven Ozment for that. I’m not going to type in pages of passages, but here’s a sample:
“Luther and his followers sympathized with the peasants. Indeed, for several years Lutheran pamphleteers made Karsthans, the burly, honest peasant who earned his bread by the sweat of his brow and sacrificed his own comfort and well-being for others, a symbol of the simple life that God desired all people to live. The Lutherans, however, were not social revolutionaries. When the peasants revolted against their masters in 1524-1525, Luther, not surprisingly, condemned them in the strongest possible terms as “un-Christian” and urged the princes to crush their revolt without mercy. Tens of thousands of peasants (estimates run between 70,000 and 100,000) died by the time the revolt was put down.”
From The Western Heritage, Ch. 12, pg. 361
No. You came in, shot, and missed. You dare say the Catholic Faith is wrong based on the Bible, and yet you clearly show by your posts that you don’t even possess half-decent understanding of the Bible, even if just the New Testament in its entirety. The only thing you’ve shot down is your credibility, and so you now resort to bait-and-switch.
How can anyone feel better about that?
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ajk19
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This is not a “bait and switch”, I realize now I was in error in what I stated, and am simply taking it back now.
And after this, you continue in your ill-advised attacks against the Catholic faith which you clearly don’t know very much about either.
Go back to your books and learn.
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ajk19
Guest
To one another yes, however that does not mean that in doing so, you are then forgiven for your sins. Only God can do it, no one else but.
I honestly didn’t even realize that the Pharisees said this. Nevertheless, you mentioned that God alone forgives sins through the ministry of his priests. Sorry that doesn’t work, you can’t have it both ways. The Bible says that there is one mediator between God and man, Jesus Christ. That’s it and that’s all. Either God alone forgives, or he doesn’t.
So again, you ignore the clear words of Jesus himself in John 20, when he tells his apostles to forgive sins and reinforces it by the power of the Holy Spirit. It’s just typical, you simply ignore the inconvenient parts that don’t suit you.
Address John 20 now.
Paul also claims the ministry of reconciliation as his own. Say again? God doesn’t work through the ministry of men? The power to forgive is from God and God alone. That does not prevent him from using people like Paul to be the ministers of reconciliation.
You are the one contradicting the Bible, not us.
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ajk19
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I am going to go back to these now:
Matthew 18: 15 Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother.
16: But if he will not hear [thee, then] take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.
Then and only then does he say:
And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell [it] unto the church: but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican.
Note the first thing man is told to do, go to the transgressor by himself/herself, not go into a confessional. In fact going to the church or “confessional” is the last thing.
Matthew 18: 15 Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother.
16: But if he will not hear [thee, then] take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.
Then and only then does he say:
And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell [it] unto the church: but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican.
Note the first thing man is told to do, go to the transgressor by himself/herself, not go into a confessional. In fact going to the church or “confessional” is the last thing.
What was I just saying about bait and switch?
Ok, I’ll humor you. If you bothered to read the context of the passage you’re fussing over, it’s not about the forgiveness of sins. It’s about disputes between Christians and fraternal correction. It is an instruction to the one WHO IS OFFENDED, not the OFFENDER.
It only shows that fraternal correction is to be the first course, then a slightly larger group, then finally the Church, who has clearly the authority to make the final judgment on the matter.
This passage SUPPORTS the authority of the Church. It has nothing to do with the matter of confession. In fact the Church has something for matters such as these. They’re called the courts. The confessional is NOT what is being talked about here.
See? Bait-and-switch.
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