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Church_Militant
Guest
Exactly! Sounds a lot like those deserting disciples in John 6 doesn’t it?!
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Exactly! Sounds a lot like those deserting disciples in John 6 doesn’t it?!
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googie
Guest
I really don’t think that you know what or who the church is. I belong to the “catholic” church, that is the “universal” church, those who belong to the Body of Christ, those who are born again. There are no denominations in Gods church. In fact there are only two kinds of people in this world, those who are saved, and those who are not. I know that you are referring to the RCC when you say “catholic” church. Blessings.
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inkaneer
Guest
Well yes and no. You are a member of the catholic church only so far as your beliefs are those professed by the Catholic Church. So if you believe in the Catholic Church’s doctrine of the Trinity you are catholic. If you believe in sola scriptura you are not catholic. If you believe in the virgin birth you are catholic. If you believe Mary was a sinner you are not catholic. In a nut shell you are catholic only so far as your beliefs are the same beliefs held since or formally defined by the Catholic Church since Apostolic times. Where your beliefs differ from the Catholic Church you are not catholic. That is where denominationalism begins and that is why non Catholics are known by their denominations. They are known by their difference from the catholic church.
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googie
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I believe that God has the power to do anything. However I did not see it written in scripture where He said , “I am now changing this bread and wine into My literal body and blood”, and even though it is not indicated in the Bible, the RCC claims that the priest can do this himself, where does all this power come from, amazing. Blessings
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googie
Guest
I don’t think you get it. The body of Christ is the true church of God. Those are the called out ones. My beliefs do not differ from the “catholic” church, I am part of that church. The pope is your boss, so you are Roman Cathoilc, maybe you want to distant yourself from that handle, and rightfully so. Blessings.
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googie
Guest
Jesus say’s in scripture, I am the DOOR, and I am the VINE. Do you think that those statements are literal. This is the same emphasis that I find in the statements that Jesus made at the Last supper. I have a question to ask you; how do you receive Christ.? Blessings.
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JRKH
Guest
I’m coming late to this thread and have not read through all the replies so forgive me is I repeat something - just set me straight.
Googie you are making a confusion between “saved” and “Church”. While we certainly hope that there is considerable overlap, the two are not necessarily synonomous. There can be those who claim to be Christians and are not true and there are those who have never heard the gospel who may, none the less, be saved.
The question that you are now debating with inkaneer and perhaps others really comes down to this. Is the Church (ekklesia) that Christ founded intended to be visible and authoritative or not?
You are a bible Christian, and this is good for the bible, if properly understood in itself, will point you toward the view of a visible and authoritative ekklesia rather than an invisible one. Allow me to give you a couple of things to prayerfully consider.
In the NT you will find the term “Church” used some 73 times in the NKJV. However in the Gospels it is used only twice. Both times by Jesus Himself and both time in connection the the authority to “bind and loose”. Bind and loose what? Bind and loose, “whatever”. (See Mt 16:17-19 and Mt 18:15-18)
In Mt 18: 15-18 Jesus even goes so far as to give instruction as to what to do when your brother sins against you (and I’m sure you’ll agree that preaching doctinal error is a sin against your brother). The ultimate recourse in these instructions is to "tell it to The Church (The Ekklesia) and look at what Christ says if they refuse to listen to “The Church”…“if he refuses even to hear the church, let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector”.
This is a strong command. It speaks to the removal/excommunication/shunning of the offending party - seperating this person from the “community called out”. So - if the “church”, the “body of Christ” is a loose and invisible entity with many doctinal differences, how does one go about fulfilling Christ’s instructions contained here?
Also, since many protestants want to read this passage as the “local ekklesia” (something it does nto say), I ask you to consider how one handles it when a docrinal issue (sin of false teaching) comes up between different local communities?
The answer to this lies in Acts 15 and the Council of Jerusalem which settled a doctrinal difference between two “local communities” so that a single teaching emerged. It did so visibly and it’s decision was accepted universally.
In addition to these clear evidences we have NT passages and verses where Christ prayed that we be “One as (he) and the Fatther are one”, and others pray for and exhort others to be “one in mind”, to “praise with one voice”, and other phrases speaking to christians remaining in unity with each other.
The desire for this kind of biblically called for unity should drive all true Christians toward taking council with each other in the prayerful desire to know God better and to understand, protect, and preach the one, unified Truth of the Gospel.
Such desire and such action will naturally result in precisely what Christ desired and set up. A visible and authoritative Church body acting through councillior decsions, compiling and preserving and making available the best writings down through the years/centuries and keeping the faith thoroughly united on doctrinal matters while allowing great latitude in matters of practice.
On the contrary, looking at the bible evidence, we see nothing to support the (protestant) idea that the early church communities were doctrinally independant.
So - as I said earlier, if you study the bible for what Christ established, you will see a visible, doctrinally united Ekklesia with priests and Bishops.
Now you may choose to dispute the “papal authority” issue. Certainly this is one that the two ancient churches (Vatican and EO) must grapple with as they seek reconciliation and reunification. But in neither of the ancient churches, nor in the Bible itself, will you find the sort of loose, doctrinally independent, communities that sprang from the protestant reformation.
Peace
James
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RBK
Guest
Jesus never held up a door or a vine and said that it was His body and that if we ate a door or a vine it would be His flesh and blood. But He DID do that in John 6 and the other Gospels with bread and wine. I receive Jesus Christ in the Eucharist and the other Sacraments, in His Word, and in those whom I serve, to name a few. If you want to know how I was born again, that happened at my baptism (John 3:5). My surrender to Jesus Christ, and my declaration that He is Lord and Savior of my life came much later, and continues daily.
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googie
Guest
God is the only one who can forgive sin. There are nor priests in the new testament, I am sure you realize that we are under a “new” covenant, that is under the Blood of Christ because of the great sacrifice at Calvary. We no longer need to go to anyone else besides Jesus to get to God, the curtain in the temple was torn from top to bottom when Jesus died on the cross which allows us to go right into the Holy of Holy’s. In fact He invites us to come to Him that way. I take “all” my problems and sins directly to God through Jesus, for He says in scripture,“no one comes to the Father but by Me”. If the apostles passed their power onto someone else before they died, then whomever was suppose receive that power must have gotten a watered down version, for I don’t see the miracles, healing, etc, today. The power that Jesus bestowed on the apostles at that time, was only for “that” time, and was not passed on to anyone else as we can obviously see today. Most of the building of the RCC regarding ceremony, hierarchy and tradition is based on the fact that they believe they have this same power as the apostles had and this to me is another gospel. Blessings.
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DCNBILL
Guest
These statements seem to indicate a belief that Jesus, the Son of God, God made incarnate never intended to establish any kind of lasting authority on earth after his great sacrifice. That after all that he said and did it was going to just be a big free for all and anyone could just do and believe what they want and interpret what He said and meant and did any way they wanted?
It would seem to me that a creating, almighty, loving God would have a bit of a better plan than that.
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Cruxis117
Guest
I must clarify again, googie, that in the same way that I will not address you as an American or an English person because of the fact that you write in English on this forum, a Catholic may be more than of the Roman Rite. For example, Byzantine and Ukrainian.
There is no ‘handle’. I myself am a Catholic of the Roman rite, while I have friends who are Ukrainian Catholic. Before making a wrong and rather foolish statement (“the pope is your boss, so you are Roman Catholic”, please spend some time to research Catholic teaching and heiriarchy and organization, so that you may be able to address certain issues or any issue that pertains to Catholic teaching accurately. Thank you.
Furthermore, Christ is our boss (which is why us Catholics refer to him as our Lord, and as our King of Kings and Lord of Lords), the Pope is merely his advocate.
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Cruxis117
Guest
Where is the Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) indicated in the Bible? And that power comes from God. Peace be with you.
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ivebeenshown
Guest
I used to see it as you do, but it became clear to me that the Church must be unified in doctrine, having truth only as its doctrine. ‘Heresy’ is the same Greek word used to say ‘sect’ as in ‘sect of the Sadducees’. Paul wrote that sects are works of the flesh, along with fornication and idolatry.
If your faith in any point deviates from the established truths of the Christian faith, you are stray in your heresy – hence the need to define the nature of Christ. We see this beginning in the first epistle of John, where it is determined that if anyone denies Christ came in the flesh, he is antichrist. Of course that is not the only aspect of Christ that can be turned into heresy, thus we have the Nicene Council, which further clarifies that Christ is himself Theos, the Son, one with the Father and the Ghost. And then again later, when Nestorianism crops up, it must be clarified that Christ is fully human and fully God, inseparably so – yet two natures, not one ‘blended’ nature.
The RCC does not claim that the priest can do this himself. The priest calls upon the Lord himself to consecrate the gifts with his blessing, by the power of his Almighty and Holy Spirit. As Christ has said, “whatsoever you shall ask the Father in my name, believing, you shall receive.”
Jesus clearly delegated certain authority to the apostles to remit or retain sins:
John 20:23
Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained.
As Paul declares that sects (heresies) are a work of the flesh (a sin, along with idolatry and fornication), one who does not repent of their heresy is in no way deserving to be forgiven of their sin (until, of course, they repent.)
As far as what you say of ‘another gospel’, consider this: Paul wrote to Timothy that he had received the gift of prophecy by the laying on of hands. In Hebrews, Paul writes that part of the foundational doctrine is the laying on of hands. The apostles had the authority to correctly and infallibly interpret prophecies of scripture, such as Joel 2 and passage from Isaiah and Hosea. Peter wrote that no prophecy of the scripture was of any private interpretation. So I ask you: have you received the gift of authority to infallibly interpret prophetic passages by the laying on of hands? And can you trace this all the way back to the apostles to ensure the validity of your gift?
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JRKH
Guest
Then you deny that Christ said this to the Apostles (Men)…
Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, “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 20:21-23)
And if we come to the Father only “by Jesus”, why is it that Christ taught us to pray, not “through Him” but directly to "the Father?
Look again at the Quote from John, As the Father send Jesus, so Jesus sent the Apostles. This means with His same authority, which includes the ordination of successors. Without this ability to appoint successors there would have been none with temporal authority to make determination and canonization of the NT writings.
Sorry but I’m going to have to see a Bible passage for this contention that the authority stopped with the Apostles. Using an extra-biblical source (your observation) as your proof is no more convincing than what you see as extrabiblical sources to support ours.
Once again I’d have to see the Bible passage that said they don’t.
Peace
James
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grndslm
Guest
What Sacred Tradition does the Catholic Church have that has NO LINK to Scripture whatsoever??
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FightingFat
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Dunno, go on-tell us!?
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davidv
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This is a duplicate of a currently active thread. Please participate in Things Catholics base on Tradition and not scripture.
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catholictiger
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Tantum_ergo
Guest
Can’t think of anything, if you are referring to “Capital T” tradition. The assumption of Mary is not ‘explicit’ in Scripture in those very words, but Revelation and the woman appear to indicate Mary’s presence in heaven, and she is ‘crowned’ there. The compelling lack of evidence of ‘relics’ of her body and the early presence of written works like the SubTuum, along with such things as the writing of the catecombs which preserve the Tradition that the early Christians prayed to the martyrs among them and to the Saints (including Mary) also support that this teaching is authentic. Furthermore, Scripture itself tells us not only that all of Jesus’s teachings were not confined only to Scripture, but that the Holy Spirit whom He would leave us would guide us to all Truth. WOULD guide --that is a ‘future’ tense, not a past or present.
Finally, the assumption of Mary does not contradict Scripture in any way. First, there are Scriptural examples of others who were assumed into heaven (like Elijah and Enoch). Second, as above, Relevation strongly indicates that the woman can be identified not only as “Israel” or “The Church” but also as Mary. IOW, Scripture is multifaceted and does not necessarily only reflect ‘one’ possibility for a given ‘vision’ as being correct. Third, there is no Scriptural injunction that it absolutely did NOT happen. Fourth and finally, as Scripture tells us, when we have a question we are to ‘take it to the Church, which is the pillar and foundation of truth’. . .and the Church has indeed given us an answer which we can hold as trustworthy because it comes THROUGH THE HOLY SPIRIT.
Finally, the assumption of Mary does not contradict Scripture in any way. First, there are Scriptural examples of others who were assumed into heaven (like Elijah and Enoch). Second, as above, Relevation strongly indicates that the woman can be identified not only as “Israel” or “The Church” but also as Mary. IOW, Scripture is multifaceted and does not necessarily only reflect ‘one’ possibility for a given ‘vision’ as being correct. Third, there is no Scriptural injunction that it absolutely did NOT happen. Fourth and finally, as Scripture tells us, when we have a question we are to ‘take it to the Church, which is the pillar and foundation of truth’. . .and the Church has indeed given us an answer which we can hold as trustworthy because it comes THROUGH THE HOLY SPIRIT.
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Pax
Guest
googie in Christ,
In charity I am going to give you one more chance to refute what I gave you before exploding the opinions expressed above. Look at the scriptures I gave you. Then find scripture, if you can, that refutes my presentation as opposed to simply generating doctrinally driven opinion. The little scripture you referred to in no way denies my presentation. God put confessing sin into motion in the OT and Jesus instituted it in the NT just as my presentation shows it to be. That alone is perfectly congruent with “no one comes to the Father but by Me”
If the above is your best and only response, then I will refute the above in my next post. At the moment I am on my way to an appointment and cannot address things at the moment.
God bless.
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