What teachings would the Catholic Church have to drop for you to be a catholic

[benedictus2]

This is like asking would I would decide to marry a guy if he cut off his left arm. How can you ask a church that follows Christ to cut off it’s beliefs just so you would attend???

The question makes no sense.

The Catholic Church does not need to change for me. When / If God leads me to it I will go, until then I choose to stay on the path He has given to me to walk with Him…

And perhaps this is the first sign of His leading. The grace that somehow led you here to CAF.

 

[benedictus2]

I’m afraid that catholics are the hardest to get through to as they believe about the Lord Jesus, but dont realise that he is the ONLY way to heaven and think they have to work their way there.

And that is true. The Catholics (if they know their catechism) will be the hardest to get through becuase they would be very well informed of the truth. They will recognize straight away the lie in your interpretation.

Those who lead the Church for your counterfeit doctrine are those who are very ill informed.

Why would we trade the real thing for your half baked understanding of salvation?

If you read my post to Craig you will realize that 1) you know zilch about how Catholics understand salvation 2) you do not understand the Bible very well 3) you have no complete theology of salvation.

As a matter of fact your version of salvation theology is deficient to say the least.

I live in Northern Ireland, so trust me, I know how hard it is to get them to accept the Gospel and to trust the Lord Jesus Christ alone. They are blinded by religion.

Aaah bless the Irish for holding fast to the faith of the Apostles and not believing your man made doctrines.

You are blinded by ego and that is the all there is to it.

In your purffed up esteem of your own capacity to interpret scripture you believe you are better than apostles and their successors in interpreting what Scripture is all about.

It breaks my heart as I have found the Roman catholics I Know and have met to be very friendly people, but they refuse to listen.

Praised God be for that! Thanks be to God for not allowing them to be led into your error; to be swayed by the teaching of the father of lies.

 

[joe370]

See: catholic.com/thisrock/2005/0502fea5.asp
catholic.com/library/Infant_Baptism.asp

Sorry…still nothing about unbaptized babies burning in hell forever!

 

[benedictus2]

When a person is genuinely saved, the work of the Holy Spirit in REGENERATION is permanent and irreversible!

Then that means that no one here on earth is saved. For your statement to be true, once a person has been baptized or in evangelical parlance 'born again", then not one single one of these people will not have commited a single sin after.

If we are truly, completely and irrevocably regenerated after being saved, then we would no longer sin.

Yet if you read Paul (who himself had the most incredible conversion), this is not the case.

**Paul writes that although Christ lives in him, sin lives in him as well. **He says he does the evil that he does not want to do and does not do the good that he wants to do. **If he is truly regenerated, surely doing the good that he wants to would be a piece of cake so there would be no instances of doing the evil he does not want to do. **Yet he writes that this is not so.

So how do you reconcile these two?

However, this true believer will manifest GOOD WORKS in an overall lifestyle sense through the remainder of their lives. True believers will never be cast out by Christ; false professors of Christ, in contradistinction, wherever they are found will be cast out by Christ since He never “knew them.”

Based on that statement, does it mean that anyone who commits a sin (bad works) is not a true believer and therefore Christ never knew them?

If this is so then none of us are true believers for I doubt very much if after being “saved” as you put it, anyone has remained spotless thereafter.

 

[joe370]

When it comes to baptized babies and children who die, before they are baptized, lets not forget that Moses, and all the great prophets were not baptized either, yet no one doubts their inclusion into Heaven! The Ecumenical Council of Florence (1442) spoke of baptism as necessary even for children and required that they be baptized soon after birth, but it never defined what would happen to them if they died before baptism.

In 1992, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, while affirming that “the Church does not know of any means other than Baptism that assures entry into eternal beatitude”, but also stating that “God has bound salvation to the sacrament of Baptism, but he himself is not bound by his sacraments”, stated: “As regards children who have died without Baptism, the Church can only entrust them to the mercy of God, as she does in her funeral rites for them. Indeed, the great mercy of God who desires that all men should be saved, and Jesus’ tenderness toward children which caused him to say: ‘Let the children come to me, do not hinder them,’[19] allow us to hope that there is a way of salvation for children who have died without Baptism. All the more urgent is the Church’s call not to prevent little children coming to Christ through the gift of holy Baptism.”

 

[benedictus2]

Hi michel,

Scripture does speak of the CERTAINTY of salvation. It is based on the ACCOMPLISHED REDEMPTION WROUGHT BY CHRIST ON THE CROSS.

In John 5:24 Jesus says these astonishing words, which speak of salvation as a final, irreversible work:

“Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has ETERNAL LIFE and will not be judged but has CROSSED OVER FROM DEATH TO LIFE.” (Today’s New International Version).

Hi Craig,

Just a little comment regarding this verse.

If we take this verse in isolation, it seems that belief in Christ is not necessary, only belief in the Father.

Re-phrased He is saying " if you hear me and come to believe in the Father" you have crossed from death to life. So does it mean that if you hear His words, believed in God the Father but did not believe in Jesus, you still cross over from death to life?

I think rather that this verse confirms Jesus mission: that is to reconcile us to the Father. That in Him we see the Love of the Father. And that is why He said those who have seen Him has seen the Father.

If you read the entire John 5, you will realize that this is not about assurance of salvation at all.

Also, you cannot take this one verse as a confirmation of the assurance of salvation because there are other verses where Christ’s gives pre-conditions to salvation. A few of these pre-conditions to salvation are in John 6 and Matthew 25.

Any exegesis on a particular verse needs to take into account the message of the entire scripture.

The true believer has been ADOPTED into God’s family.

When we are baptized, we are adopted into God’s family. The reason why we cannot use the term “true believer” in this context is because it makes us, humans, judges as to who a true believer is. How do we determine who is and isn’t a true believer. I would have thought that Jimmy Swaggart would have been considered a true believer and ‘saved’ and yet he was caught in adultery not just once.

That is why God took that out of our hands. Adoption is God’s prerogative and He set the manner in which that is to be accomplished. One must be born in water and spirit. And He commissioned the apostles to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

The great Apostle Paul, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, also attests to this CERTAINTY of salvation in Romans 8:28-39. This, in my opinion, is one of the most majestic and marvellous passages in all of scripture. I read it every night, before I go to bed and find encouragement, hope and peace in it.

Yes, there are those (the elect) who have been especially chosen and predestined to salvation. But we do not know who they are. Only God knows.

In that verse, Paul clarifies with “those who love God”. How do you love God? We love God when we do His will. So now we’re back full circle to WORKS.

In my opinion (which really matters only to myself), there are greater passages in the Bible than Romans 8. I would have to say that the Gospels come before Paul’s writing in majesty.

And this is what I have always found perplexing; that a lot of protestants focus heavily on Paul but do not mention the Gospels all that much.

I do not doubt, for a moment, the necessity of GOOD WORKS and I think the list you presented was well put together. These good works, however, are the SPIRITUAL EVIDENCE that God gives to mark out true believers from the false believers. Only true believers can manifest TRUE GOOD WORKS that flow from the work of REGENERATION.

Real life however does not support this. You will find among atheists true good works. You will find Hindus and Buddhists and Muslims and even pagans who feed the hungry, clothe the naked, etc. So how do you reconcile that with your above statement.

Further more, is there a distinction in good works at all? Is there a FALSE good works? What defines TRUE and FALSE good works?

 

[benedictus2]

Yes, of course! However, the OP did not exclude bitterness and self service.

In fact, I would venture that the vast majority of people who reject the Catholic faith into which they were baptized are motivated by self service, and most of that, below the waist.

You are so right there!

 

[Eternaly_Secure]

Hey Eternaly Secure, you said:

I’m afraid that catholics are the hardest to get through to as they believe about the Lord Jesus, but dont realise that he is the ONLY way to heaven and think they have to work their way there.

Show me the official teaching of the C.C. that states that Christians belonging to the C.C. must work their way into heaven. I thought it was a free gift my friend?

All our works get their merit only from Jesus’ sacrifice on our behalf; I agree with you!!! We can do “works” 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year for the rest of our lives, but without Christ’s grace, they are nothing. Works have no merit in and of themselves!!! However, thanks to this free gift, by our Lord, Jesus Christ, "What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead? Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect? And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.

Eternaly Secure, is faith without works —DEAD?

I live in Northern Ireland, so trust me, I know how hard it is to get them to accept the Gospel and to trust the Lord Jesus Christ alone. They are blinded by religion.

Blinded by religion??? If the C.C. possesses zero authority, then I respectfully say: surely you don’t command any, either; if that is the case, then why are you attempting to get them to accept the Gospel…as you interpret it?

The C.C. codified and canonized your/my Holy Bible; if she, as the bride of Christ, can’t properly understand/interpret and accept what she collected, selected and compiled, why on earth would you trust that she accurately, selected and compiled, out of a bevy of pseudo-gospels and letters, the genuinely correct books, as opposed to the pseudo-books, floating around for hundreds of years??? My friend, that makes no sense at all!!

It breaks my heart as I have found the Roman catholics I Know and have met to be very friendly people, but they refuse to listen.

I know what you mean; it breaks my heart, as I too have met really cool and friendly protestants, who sadly embrace the 16th century man-made doctrine of sola scriptura via private interpretation {a big no no, as per your bible} --but they just refuse to listen to what their one and only authority commands, and of course that is the bible, again, through private/individual interpretation, but —what a ya gonna do, my friend!

Looking forward to your response, my friend and brother in Christ!

Salvation is a free gift and works are important, but only as far as to confirm a persons really is saved.
If someone gave you a present and said to you, here is a free gift for you and you take it and thank them and the they say, now you must work for me to pay for it, then how was it free.
People take a scripture and on it’s own it can seem to mean something that it doesn’t, like loss of salvation.
Scripture must be compared with scripture and certainly not with extra biblical writings.
We are in the very last day’s and scripture is being twisted to fit whatever a person wants it to mean, but God will not be mocked and many people are going to be in for a shock, when they realise all too late that they have used scripture to justify their sin.
To God be all Glory.

 

[benedictus2]

AS Jesus stated, “If you look upon a woman with lust in your heart, you have already committed adultery with her”. And “If you hate, it is the same as murder, for in your mind, you have killed him” Don’t misunderstand; I am not dismissing the ten commandments, just saying that it is impossible for mortal man to keep them God knew that and so He sent Jesus, to die on the Cross for all of our sins, so that we may be reconciled back to HimMark 15:38.

The question is How? How does Christ’s dying on the Cross reconcile us to God?

Here are the statements we agree on:

1. It is hard to keep the ten commandments.
2. Jesus died to reconcile us to the Father.

So now how do relate these two statements to come up with the why and how of salvation?
And I have to ask; in that clever little story that you related about the couple, where the man started the business, had an affair, then got back together; were they non-catholic, or catholic,** because you know as well as I that we are all susceptible to sin, saved or not**

Vunderbar!!! Finally an acknowledgement that we all sin.

So here is another question, if the wages of sin is death and we all sin, then how can you say that we all sin “SAVED OR NOT”.

Wouldn’t it make more sense to say that those who are “SAVED” do not sin because that is precisely what salvation is all about: being saved from sin. If you are saved therefore you should no longer be within the clutches of sin.

Think about that.

 

[Eternaly_Secure]

---

The Irish have made a major contribution to the world. Many Priests and nuns have left Ireland to minister and serve the Church all over the world. Such self sacrifice is unequalled.

After a lifetime of service the nuns remain to live out the rest of their lives. They go back to visit their families every 2 or 3 years in their retirement but they always come back.

Priests give up everything - as Jesus’suggested to the rich young man - and follow the Lord. It cannot be an easy life - lonely at times also. I happen to know that here in South Africa priests “earn” the grand sum of R1 200 (divide by ten to get the $). They have board and lodging and use the Parish car which is often a Toyota Corolla, Nissan or VW. There have been a spate of attacks on Priests because it is perceived they must have money. This week I attended the funeral of one such priest who was so well loved by the community - he was attacked and strangled and his TV and car were taken and he was dumped in the veld. The Archbishop broke down twice - once for more than a minute. He read out the name of every priest who has been killed for a few bucks. The very next day the priests take up their crosses and carry on with their work.

A young Irish Priest came forward a couple of years ago and offered himself as a guinea pig for testing a virus for HIV/AIDS. Then sometime after that he was attacked. He went home to Ireland to see his family and then came back to South Africa to work among the people.

When it comes to charity and good works the Catholic Church have had outreaches from the beginning. They give food and medical services and provide education to the needy and they don’t ask what their religion is. They just do it!

So please don’t attack the Catholic Church because if one were to delve into the history of the Church one would not make the kind of accusations and insinuations which I have seen on this thread.

Many people have done many good works, not just catholics, but muslims and people from many religions, but that WILL NOT GET THEM TO HEAVEN. If they remain in their sins they WILL go to hell.

I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. Luke 13:5

 

[Eternaly_Secure]

And that is true. The Catholics (if they know their catechism) will be the hardest to get through becuase they would be very well informed of the truth. They will recognize straight away the lie in your interpretation.

Those who lead the Church for your counterfeit doctrine are those who are very ill informed.

Why would we trade the real thing for your half baked understanding of salvation?

If you read my post to Craig you will realize that 1) you know zilch about how Catholics understand salvation 2) you do not understand the Bible very well 3) you have no complete theology of salvation.

As a matter of fact your version of salvation theology is deficient to say the least.

Aaah bless the Irish for holding fast to the faith of the Apostles and not believing your man made doctrines.

You are blinded by ego and that is the all there is to it.

In your purffed up esteem of your own capacity to interpret scripture you believe you are better than apostles and their successors in interpreting what Scripture is all about.

Praised God be for that! Thanks be to God for not allowing them to be led into your error; to be swayed by the teaching of the father of lies.

I could weep bucket loads of tears for you.
PLEASE REPENT!

 

[benedictus2]

Salvation is a free gift and works are important, but only as far as to confirm a persons really is saved.

If works is needed to confirm that someone is saved, then doesn’t it stand to reason that those who do not good works is not saved?

If someone gave you a present and said to you, here is a free gift for you and you take it and thank them and the they say, now you must work for me to pay for it, then how was it free.

But the analogy does not apply because salvation is not some inanimte object. It is more like God giving you a free ticket to the ball game but you have to have to get to the ball game first either by walking, driving or taking public transport.

People take a scripture and on it’s own it can seem to mean something that it doesn’t, like loss of salvation.

Well explain Matthew 25 please.

Scripture must be compared with scripture and certainly not with extra biblical writings.

Only to an extent. You need extra Biblical writing to understand scripture for the simple reason that the Bible was written thousands of years ago and the language was not English!

We are in the very last day’s and scripture is being twisted to fit whatever a person wants it to mean,

Yes and we find that you are probably one of those doing that.

but God will not be mocked

So why do you?

and many people are going to be in for a shock, when they realise all too late that they have used scripture to justify their sin .

I have not seen anyone do that here.

 

[benedictus2]

I could weep bucket loads of tears for you.
PLEASE REPENT!

I have. But I don’t think you have. The father of lies sure has you in its grips.

 

[w_stewart]

I don’t think the angels are part of the Church but the saints certainly are. The Church is comprised of the the Church trimphant (saints), the the Church suffering (those in purgatory) and the Church militant (us here on earth).

And yes, your point is very well made. For one thing how can a Church founded by Christ cease to have members. He who knows everything would not have started one in the first place.

I believe that the angels are part of the Church because of the fact that they are of Christ and that they are made by God to be the messengers of his salvation plan. Angels do intercede for us.

 

[benedictus2]

Many people have done many good works, not just catholics, but muslims and people from many religions, but that WILL NOT GET THEM TO HEAVEN. If they remain in their sins they WILL go to hell.

I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. Luke 13:5

So repent of your pharisaical arrogance!

 

[benedictus2]

I believe that the angels are part of the Church because of the fact that they are of Christ and that they are made by God to be the messengers of his salvation plan. Angels do intercede for us.

Yes they do intercede for us but by defintion the Body of Christ is comprised of those He saved. The angels were not in need of salvation for they were never humans and they are not considered adopted children of God.

 

[Eternaly_Secure]

I have. But I don’t think you have. The father of lies sure has you in its grips.

Twist away, but you are on a very dangerous road my friend and you will remember the warning you have been given.
Laugh if you like, but I take the salvation of peoples souls very seriously.
I hope you repent and trust Christ alone!

 

[Eternaly_Secure]

I will not be back on this forum as it is feeding my spirit with much false doctrine and is grieving the Holy Spirit.
There are many lost souls out there that are willing to listen and I need to go to them.
I have been given a gift of Love and I do love all of you, so much, but we are told to move on if people reject the gospel.
Repent and come out of the apostate catholic church, before it is too late for you.
With sincere love, Repent!

 

[benedictus2]

Twist away, but you are on a very dangerous road my friend and you will remember the warning you have been given.

Nope YOU are on the dangerous road because you are following a false gospel. One taught by man not by Christ.

As for your warning. They don’t hold water. Why should I be afraid of one who follows the inspiration of the father of lies.

Actually, you are right I should be afraid of the devil. But nah, Christ has triumphed!

Laugh if you like, but I take the salvation of peoples souls very seriously.
I hope you repent and trust Christ alone!

Don’t worry about my soul. Worry about yours because you are being led astray by the father of lies and it is egging you to attack the Body of Christ. In your pride and arrogance you believe that you are better than His Divinely insituted Church.

If you read Genesis, pride was the reason we ended up in the pit in the first place. And guess what tempted Eve into disobedience?

You know what is frightening? You do not even see the lie. And that is a worry.

 

[benedictus2]

I will not be back on this forum as it is feeding my spirit with much false doctrine and is grieving the Holy Spirit.
There are many lost souls out there that are willing to listen and I need to go to them.
I have been given a gift of Love and I do love all of you, so much, but we are told to move on if people reject the gospel.
Repent and come out of the apostate catholic church, before it is too late for you.
With sincere love, Repent!