Who's on First?

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This is the problem.
So, you don’t agree with the gospel the RCC teaches? Or rather, maybe you’d be more comfortable with the exact same thing rephrased; you believe the RCC is teaching the true gospel… or perhaps with more conviction; you know the RCC is teaching the true gospel.

I didn’t think RC’s were Calvinist; you made a conscious choice somewhere that the RCC was the true church didn’t you? It all means the same thing. Would you suggest someone attend a church where they don’t feel the true gospel is being presented?
 
So, you don’t agree with the gospel the RCC teaches? Or rather, maybe you’d be more comfortable with the exact same thing rephrased; you believe the RCC is teaching the true gospel… or perhaps with more conviction; you know the RCC is teaching the true gospel.

I didn’t think RC’s were Calvinist; you made a conscious choice somewhere that the RCC was the true church didn’t you? It all means the same thing. Would you suggest someone attend a church where they don’t feel the true gospel is being presented?
I would not be so prideful as to insist that the RCC conforms to my personal beliefs.
 
So, you don’t agree with the gospel the RCC teaches? Or rather, maybe you’d be more comfortable with the exact same thing rephrased; you believe the RCC is teaching the true gospel… or perhaps with more conviction; you know the RCC is teaching the true gospel.

I didn’t think RC’s were Calvinist; you made a conscious choice somewhere that the RCC was the true church didn’t you? It all means the same thing. Would you suggest someone attend a church where they don’t feel the true gospel is being presented?
I would not be so prideful as to insist that the RCC conforms to my personal beliefs.
 
At some point you came to believe what the RCC teaches is true and right… correct?
No…at some point I came to believe the RCC is the true church started by Christ to lead men to heaven. The full acceptance of the teachings came afterward. This is exactly what PRmerger was trying to explain to you.
 
No…at some point I came to believe the RCC is the true church started by Christ to lead men to heaven. The full acceptance of the teachings came afterward. This is exactly what PRmerger was trying to explain to you.
And there you go. You came to believe it. If you go to another church/congregation and they aren’t teaching that the RCC is the true church started by Christ, you aren’t going to hang around very long, but go to one, or go back to one, that does. In fact, *before *going to a church you probably make sure that it is an RCC. It’s the same concept.

For a protestant it’s bit trickier because all of the congregations don’t call themselves the same thing, nor preach the same thing. I know, it’s one of the reasons y’all don’t think protestants are correct, but there you have it. The protestant going to different congregations is checking them out to see how they line up with scripture. You may not agree with it, but at least understand it is not them “making up” their own gospel. Instead, they are trying to find the closest thing to a Bible believing and preaching church they can, they “just” don’t find it in the RCC, or else they’d be Catholic. They could be wrong or right, just as the Catholic who decided to join the RCC. 🤷
 
The protestant going to different congregations is checking them out to see how they line up with scripture.
Based upon nothing other than their own personal opinion of what Scripture actually says. Our job is not to find a “church” that complies with our understanding. It is, rather, to conform our lives to the truth, even if that truth contradicts our understanding.
You may not agree with it, but at least understand it is not them “making up” their own gospel.
Sorry, but that is exactly what they are doing. They have their own interpretation of the Scriptures and seek a “church” that agrees with them, as if their interpretation is the final authority. They are their own pope and magisterium.
 
The problem is people, not the act of reading scripture and studying it. The problem is people wanting to do what they want, not being incapable of understanding what they read. The problem is twisting it, finding loopholes, trying their best to justify a divorce, for example, because their parents just had one.

Church shopping is bad. Church visiting, searching the scriptures to compare what teachers say with what the bible says, is much different.
 
Steve VH: I have to agree wit you as it seems to me that checking up to see how a church lines up with Scripture to be one of personal infallibility, which is to say the person doing that is its own final authority as to what the Gospel is and what should be preached.
 
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For a protestant it’s bit trickier because all of the congregations don’t call themselves the same thing, nor preach the same thing. I know, it’s one of the reasons y’all don’t think protestants are correct, but there you have it.
But the gospel they are seeking is the gospel according to them…and they got it, without realizing it…from someone who came from the Protestant Reformation.
Instead, they are trying to find the closest thing to a Bible believing and preaching church they can, they “just” don’t find it in the RCC, or else they’d be Catholic.
Yes…a Bible believing and preaching church…according to their interpretation of the Bible…that they agree with.

freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1858224/posts

The “Catholic Problem”…

I believed, as most Evangelicals do, that my own brand of Christianity was the most “authentic,” i.e. the closest to the New Testament beliefs and practice - the most “biblical.” …I thought about this choose-your-own-church syndrome constantly. While all of us missionaries from these various denominations proclaimed the purity of our gospel, the truth was, there was no way for any of us to know for sure which of us had it “most right.”

And finally, the Protestant notion of sola scriptura (the Bible alone) fell apart each time I tried to test it. I began to see that Evangelicalism’s insistence on going by the Bible alone led continually into division and problems. Worse yet, claiming to go by the Bible alone didn’t really provide any certitude of belief for believers.

With all the competing voices, how was one to know who was right? What mere man could stand up with a clear conscience before a group of illiterate people and say, “This is what the Bible means?” The sheer arrogance of what was going on made it difficult for me to listen to sermons after a while. All of them were “preaching the gospel.” But whose gospel? I wondered. Around that time, a more fundamental question loomed: What is the gospel?

The most astonishing discovery came when it dawned on me through long hours of reading and studying Scripture and conservative Evangelical commentaries on biblical sufficiency that Scripture doesn’t even teach that it alone is sufficient for knowing all Truth about the Faith. Protestants presuppose sola scriptura, without giving the slightest thought to the possibility that the “Bible alone” is an incorrect view
They could be wrong or right, just as the Catholic who decided to join the RCC. 🤷
How could they know if they are right?

Continuing from the story above:

“Amen,” I said. “I believe it.” As I received Jesus sacramentally in Holy Communion for the first time, I thanked Him with all my heart for the miracle of grace He had worked in my life to unite me to Himself in this way, in a wonderful, mysterious way I could never have imagined possible. The day we landed in Guatemala City for the first time, I had hoped we were home. In reality, we were only en route to our real home, the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.
In the Catholic Church we have found the fullness of the Christian Faith. Not seventy-five percent of the Truth, not ninety percent, but all of it, one hundred percent. We have found real worship, shaped by and focused on Jesus Christ, not on this minister or that minister’s opinion about this or that passage of Scripture. We have embraced the Faith of our Fathers, the teachings which Christ intended us to have.
We found in our long, circuitous journey home to the Catholic Church that there is indeed only one Gospel, the Catholic Gospel. There is only one place where one can find the fullness of truth and the most personal of relationships with Jesus Christ - and it isn’t Protestantism. The last place we looked for truth was where the Truth had been all along. We are home to stay.
 
Based upon nothing other than their own personal opinion of what Scripture actually says. Our job is not to find a “church” that complies with our understanding. It is, rather, to conform our lives to the truth, even if that truth contradicts our understanding.
Say you are not a cradle Catholic; if you actually believe this, how would you ever make your way to the RCC? There would have to be some teaching that you make a judgment call on or else you’d never join.
 
The protestant going to different congregations is checking them out to see how they line up with scripture.
I would imagine if I went there and believed they taught the gospel I agree with and believed
Are you saying you are the final authority on what scripture means?

All the Holy Spirit wants is for each of us to get out of our own way.
 
Say you are not a cradle Catholic; if you actually believe this, how would you ever make your way to the RCC?
In full disclosure, I am a cradle Catholic and have asked myself that very question. Would I have ever found the Catholic Church had I not been brought up in it? I will never be able to answer that question. For that very reason I thank God that I am a cradle Catholic. And for that reason I admire converts above all. But this does not mean that I am a mindless follower. As an adult I keep pealing back the onion skin and what I continue to discover is deeper truth and beauty. So I would hope that I would have chosen the Catholic Church based upon both reason and faith. But we’ll never know.

Some have arrived in the Catholic Church, first through reason. Some have had a spiritual experience while attending Mass as a non-Catholic guest. Some have noticed the consistency in Catholic doctrine from the time of the Apostles. Some have been attracted by the lives of other Catholics around them. There are many various and wonderful ways in which God leads people to the Catholic Church, but I have to say, I have never heard anyone join because the Church’s view happened to dove tail with their own private views of Scripture.

In my own experience, I have had to change my views on contraception and capital punishment, for instance. Once I found out what the Church really taught concerning these issues it was easy to accept. The point is, if I was looking for a faith community that agreed with my views in the beginning it would not have been the Catholic Church. And I would have been very, very wrong. I had to change my views to conform with the truth, not look for a community that agreed with my views.

God bless.

Steve
 
In my own experience, I have had to change my views on contraception and capital punishment, for instance. Once I found out what the Church really taught concerning these issues it was easy to accept. The point is, if I was looking for a faith community that agreed with my views in the beginning it would not have been the Catholic Church. And I would have been very, very wrong. I had to change my views to conform with the truth, not look for a community that agreed with my views.
Thank you for sharing this Steve. The two instances you list above are the same two I also had to learn to confirm to…once I learned what the true teaching of the church really meant and how it applied to the gospel. I can only hope more Catholics open their hearts to the Holy Spirit and learn this also.

Peace!!!
 
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