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Ben_Masada
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**Well, that’s a progress. After all, Paul should be given the credit that’ts due him.
Ben:
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Ben:
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deb1
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Catholics read the Bible differently then most evangelicals and fundamentalists. When I was an evangelical, I noticed that Paul’s writing seemed to be held in a higher regard then the gospels(The first four books of the New Testament) This confused me greatly.Well, that’s a progress. After all, Paul should be given the credit that’ts due him.
Ben:
Part of your problem on this thread appears to be that you are arguing from a Bible Alone position that Catholics do not adhere to.
By the way, I have always wanted to visit Israel. My husband’s cousin lived and studied there for awhile.
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PeteVZ
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I think you cited the wrong verse. John 2: 18-19 is about Jesus saying he will rise from the dead on the third day. I think you meant 1 John 2:18-19. Those verses refer to the members of the community who denied Jesus was the Christ, which Paul did not. It also refers to the last hour, not the final hour. That term can’t be taken literally for a couple reasons.**If my problem is with the timing, why would John 2:18,19 refer to the Antichrist still two thousand years ago as the final hour then, and that the antichrists had already appeared, and that they were coming out of the ranks of Christianity itself.? Kind of odd, isn’t it? It makes one wonder if these antichrists in the plural were members of Christianity, which others from within would claim that they albeit took their leave from Christianity didn’t really belonged with them. Please, check the quotation.
And regarding your attempt to excuse Paul, nice try for being his champion, but I have with me here two different translations of the Bible, and in both of them the verb used in Ephesians 2:15 is “abolished.” That Jesus did abolish the Law in his flesh on the cross. That’s a blatant contradiction of Jesus’ words in Matthew 5:17 that he had not come to abolish the Law.
And when you say that the Law is still valid if observed in Christ, I wonder what is the difference between observing the Law in Christ and out of duty, as long as the Law is observed.
Ben:**
- If he meant 1 hour, the time would have been up before the letter was delivered
- God’s time is not our time. We are still in the last hour, the time between the resurrection and the second coming of Christ. In Revelation 20 it is referred to as the millenium. More than a thousand years has passed though and the second coming hasn’t yet ocurred.
Paul wrote his letter to the Ephesians between 61 - 63 AD. 1 John wasn’t written until close to the end of the first century. Since John said the antichrist had not yet appeared, it couldn’t be Paul.
The verb used in Ephesians by Paul is a different word in the original text than Jesus used. Paul was referring to needing to be circumsized, which was under a different covenant than the new covenant. The new covenant is for all mankind to be saved. The word Paul used in that letter means to “fade away”. The word Jesus used in Matthew means “To Destroy”.
As a parent, I can tell my child to do something, and they can either do it out of fear of punishment, or just because they were told to do it, or, they could do it because they love and want to please me. It still gets done, but it is so much more pleasant when they do it out of love. (Especially if they don’t have to do it, but do it anyway out of love)
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geometer
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You may be very right abut Paul, I had had the same thoughts. Jesus had said before the end of his time on earth that the antichrist is already in the world, and Paul is the only one who matches the description, with his torturing and murdering of the followers of the way.
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Snerticus
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Ben, that’s the first true and wonderful thing I’ve ever heard you say. Jesus was a Jew.**Well, at least I made you feel nostalgic, and perhaps younger. And maybe, you won’t do it again, because you must have detected that I am not here to win Catholics away, but to claim Jesus as one of our own, which is exactly what he was: A Jew and not a Christian. **
Ben:
Indeed He was! Salvaton came from the Jews. I love my Jewish brethren even though they do not think Jesus was the Messiah. After all, they were and still are God’s chosen people.
But Christians are the Children of God. And I believe Jesus came to fulfill Jewish Law.
I don’t think Catholic teaching teaches other that Christ was a Jew. However, I have run into Catholics that winced (truly!) when I said Jesus was not a Christian, He was a Jew. He followed Jewish Law just like any other good Jew of His day.
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PeteVZ
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That’s an interesting comment. Do you have a verse where he states that? I could only find 2 times where Jesus mentions the antichrist (Mark 13 and Matthew 24) and he doesn’t say they are already in the world.
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Ben_Masada
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**I know you meant a compliment with this post above, but… the first true thing I have ever said! That was terrible!
Regarding salvation is from the Jews, I am of the opinion that Jesus meant the collective; I mean, the whole People and not only himself individually.
They WERE still God’s chosen people! Does it mean they are no longer? I don’t know about you.
Ben:
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Snerticus
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Is the word “antichrist” used at all in the Bible? I didn’t think it was… but I have never searched for it either…
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PeteVZ
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It is, but not by Jesus. Jesus refers to “the desolating abomination” mentioned in Daniel.
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Ben_Masada
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**I hate to disagree with you, especially after you agreed with me. But I outht to let you know that Paul could not be Antichrist at the time he persecuted the followers of the New Way or Nazarenes, because then, Jesus was not Christ yet. In another perhaps 5 years Paul started preaching about him as Christ in Damascus and Arabia. But only later, in Antioch Paul’s followers started being called Christians. (Acts 11:26)
Ben:
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Ben_Masada
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**Yes, it is, in I John 2:18,19 when it says that the antichrists are coming from the ranks of Christianity itself if this Letter was written by a Christian disciple of Paul. If it was written by John the Apostle, it becomes even more compromising against
Paul because it says that they, the antichrists have come out of Judaism, which was what Paul did, when he left Judaism to found Christianity.
Ben:
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deb1
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**I hate to disagree with you, especially after you agreed with me. But I outht to let you know that Paul could not be Antichrist at the time he persecuted the followers of the New Way or Nazarenes, because then, Jesus was not Christ yet. In another perhaps 5 years Paul started preaching about him as Christ in Damascus and Arabia. But only later, in Antioch Paul’s followers started being called Christians. (Acts 11:26) **
Ben:
Okay. You have officially confused me, Ben. Not a hard thing to do, I admit.
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Ben_Masada
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**Oh Oh! I consider this a capital offense. To confuse someone else.
Okay, tell me about it, and let us clear the confusion.
Ben:
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Ed_Rand
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Wait… Are you saying that Paul may have been an antichrist such as John was referring to? I don’t know what to say or where to start…**Yes, it is, in I John 2:18,19 when it says that the antichrists are coming from the ranks of Christianity itself if this Letter was written by a Christian disciple of Paul. If it was written by John the Apostle, it becomes even more compromising against
Paul because it says that they, the antichrists have come out of Judaism, which was what Paul did, when he left Judaism to found Christianity.
Ben:
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Muslims don’t even confuse things that badly. They don’t like Paul much, but to say the greatest apostle was an antichrist takes some serious mental gymnastics. I mean, wow…
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OneTrueCathApos
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Ben, give it up about Paul, your obsession is a bit much. focus on Christ in whom you reject as they rejected Him 2,000 years ago. Jesus was born a Jew, came to teach his people, his people turned their backs on Him, just as they turned their backs against God in your Old Testament. do you realize in the book of Ezekiel, God was so upset at His Chosen, no matter what God told them they refused to listen. So as this is through the whole of the Old Testament.**In that case, I wonder why Christians don’t make of Paul the Mohammad of Chritianity and leave Jesus as the Jew that he was, with his Fatith which was Judaism.
Ben:
Well, it is the New Testament now in which Christ established His Catholic church. Your Old Laws are no more applicable anymore because Jesus Christ is the New way in which His Christian people are now His chosen.
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Gabriel_of_12
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Gabriel of 12;
That was Saul of Tarsas, not Paul the Christian Evangelist, same person, Saul died in the sacrament of Baptism, and given the Sacrament of Confirmation in his new Christian name Paul, that is why today in this Apostolic Tradition Catholics taken on a new Christian name in the Sacrament of Confirmation.
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Ben_Masada
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Ben_Masada
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**As I can see, you continue confused. Let us read together the quotation of I John 2:18,19. “Children, it is the final hour; just as you heard that the antichrist was coming, so now many such antichrists have appeared. This makes us certain that it is the final hour. It was from our ranks that they took their leave…”Wait… Are you saying that Paul may have been an antichrist such as John was referring to? I don’t know what to say or where to start…
Muslims don’t even confuse things that badly. They don’t like Paul much, but to say the greatest apostle was an antichrist takes some serious mental gymnastics. I mean, wow…
Now, ponder: If John the Apostle wrote that Letter, he meant to say that the Antichrist has come from the ranks of Judaism. Paul came from Judaism, when he left to found Christianity. If the writer of this Letter is a Christian declaring that the antichrists have taken their leave from “our ranks,” he meant from Chritianity. Either way Paul is compromised. I hope I have helped clearing the confusion.
Ben: **
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jen_fla
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i thought the enhanced driver’s licenses had the mark of the beast?
dhs.gov/xtrvlsec/crossingborders/gc_1197575704846.shtm
my apologies … please continue with original topic.
dhs.gov/xtrvlsec/crossingborders/gc_1197575704846.shtm
my apologies … please continue with original topic.
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JohnVIII
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The mark of the beast is the same mark that was put upon Cain in the Garden of Eden.
Let me hint at what the mark of the beast is: The Fathers of the Church taught that the Antichrist would be an Ethiopian, or rather that he would be of the tribe of Dan, which the Ethiopians claim to be. Enough said.
By the way, Kenya is very close to Ethiopia. The people of Kenya are probably of the tribe of Dan too. But never mind!
Let me hint at what the mark of the beast is: The Fathers of the Church taught that the Antichrist would be an Ethiopian, or rather that he would be of the tribe of Dan, which the Ethiopians claim to be. Enough said.
By the way, Kenya is very close to Ethiopia. The people of Kenya are probably of the tribe of Dan too. But never mind!
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