*Dear flbl9,
I have another story if you don’t mind with regards to how far some non-catholics take ‘Once Saved, Always Saved’ along with ‘If you desire a woman in your mind, you have already committed adultery in your heart’.
A protestant friend of mine states clearly that when Jesus said: “I am the truth, the life, and the way. No one gets to the Father except through me”, Jesus meant it just like it reads, if you don’t know Jesus while on earth regardless if it’s not your fault, you’re going straight to hell. Pope John Paul II taught this message through quite a different light. Please read Romans 2 at the end about the ‘Interior Law’. It sheds a beautiful light on this.
BUT, this is not the story. The story is that he believes everyone who doesn’t believe the way his preacher teaches this concept is ‘TOAST’, to say the least.
Well, he has been unfaithful to his wife probably a couple of thousand times by his own account. His wife, to the best of his knowledge, has never been unfaithful. He said to me in conversation that his wife had been more unfaithful in their marriage than he had ever been. She has had dreams, thoughts, and desires far more times than he has been unfaithful physically (obvoiusly forgetting his own thoughts and desires which leads him to his unfaithfulness).
Taking Jesus literally versus in a literal sense, this friend of mine continued saying that his wife was more unfaithful than him based on ’ her hearfelt desires’ as Jesus said and he’ll stand by his claim.
I said to him: “You are terribly offbase with Jesus’ meaning here. And I will explain. The next time you are going to be unfaithful to your wife physically and your wife is unfaithful to you emotionally, switch places. You only think about it and let her go out and perform the deed. The morning after, you tell me who commited adultery you, thinking about it, or her, doing the act. I believe you will agree with me that you got the short end of the stick this one time.” He immediately said: " I don’t want to talk about this any more. I’m getting mad."
That’s a trip. Don’t you think?
During our conversation, I mentioned to him that many times people feel like killing someone, but it never goes further than that. It stays a thought. It’s wrong, but it’s a thought that never transpired. If the person goes ahead and commits the murder. Tell me. Which is worse, the thought or the action? Needless to say he was unhappy about my analogy.
The Church teaches us to take the Bible in a literal sense so we can try to understand what was meant when it was said, being that languages evolve over time just like every thing else. That’s why so many non-Catholics think we’re non-Christian since they take the Bible literally, not understanding what was meant when it was originally said. Quite a different take isn’t it.
Take care and may God bless you.
jpaul1953*
