Why does Sacred Scripture need explanation?

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Luigi_Daniele

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I hope this makes sense:o

Firstly, I am a devout Roman Catholic. I love God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I pray to love God more every day. I love the one true Roman Catholic Church. I love Sacred Scripture.

OK, now my question:D

I will use the “call no man on Earth father” example. I understand that Jesus was using exaggeration.

My question is (and I know you guys will have an answer): why would Jesus make the Scriptures “tricky”? Is it another proof of needing Holy Mother Church to guide us?

Answers appreciated. 🙂
 
Jesus didn’t deliberately make the scriptures ‘tricky’ any more than, say, the Founding Fathers deliberately made the US Bill of Rights ‘tricky’. No writer or speaker who believes in the message they are giving would ever deliberately set out to confuse their audience.

However, being human, we simply can’t and won’t all process the same words to mean exactly the same thing. Take the right to bear arms - it is certainly expressed in fairly plain language. “The right of the People to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

Yet how much debate and argument has risen over that particular short sentence! Both in Congress and in the Supreme Court and outside of them. Lots of testing of exactly what that phrase means and how it should be applied. Lots of declarations that various gun-control measures are infringements of the freedom, plenty of contrary declarations that they just might be both lawful and necessary.

The founding fathers knew that debate would arise no matter how clearly they tried to express themselves, so they wrote into the Constitution the idea of a designated authority - the Supreme Court - whose job is to interpret all Federal legislation, including the Bill of Rights, when the need arises to do so.

So with Jesus, He knew that whatever He said would be interpreted differently by different people. It’s human nature, we just never will all agree on the meaning of even the simplest words. So He set up an authority part of whose job is to provide a definitive interpretation of scripture. That body being the Church.
 
That is just an awesome explanation!

Thanks so very much.👍
 
The bible is very very tricky. All areas are interpreted in many different ways by many different people. The reason is one must bond to God in your heart and serve and follow Him. We are to bond to God and not the bible. From bonding to God one can understand the bible through God’s eyes. God wants us to cling to him as our first and formost source of reality.

Peter
 
Seeker100 said:
The bible is very very tricky. All areas are interpreted in many different ways by many different people. The reason is one must bond to God in your heart and serve and follow Him. We are to bond to God and not the bible. From bonding to God one can understand the bible through God’s eyes. God wants us to cling to him as our first and formost source of reality.

Peter
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Luigi Daniele,

DO NOT LISTEN TO SEEKER 100

His is very dangerous advice.

We are to seek to God only through His own appointed means, namely, the Word and the Sacraments.

To seek beyond these appointed means is to seek blindly.

In Christ’s love,
WALTHER
 
said:
One more thing is that THE CHURCH transcends time. Jesus reassured us of his divine protection when he said that even the gates of hell shall not prevail against HIS church.

On the other hand Words, however, are in fact subject to time. Their meanings used in different societal context can be subject to time.

The repercussions are grandiose: That of there must be “a timeless authority” , the magisterium+tradition, that understood (at the time), understands (now), and will understand (for years to come) what was meant to be conveyed.

Although how I wish AND pray that it was straightforward, for the sake of ecumenism, a truly unified in ONE church IN communion with our christian cousins.
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There are a number of things to consider concerning this excellent topic! As a matter of fact this topic played a big part in causing me to look to the Catholic Church when I was a Southern Baptist.

The Bible is not tricky in the sense that it is meant to cause confusion, by no means. But it can be complex in places,and requires authoritative explanations. The reason why there are so many different intepretations is because there are so many people who do not interpret the Bible in the light of the Church who put the Bible together, that is the Catholic Church. Scripture warns us of false teachers, and there have been many who have gone outside of the Church and spread false teachings, which has created a mess to where so many people have been taught wrong things about the Bible. And when you have been taught false doctrine, then you read the Bible with pre-misconceptions, and you see things in Scripture that are not there (once saved always saved) or you don’t see those things that are there (real presence in the Eucharist). As a Southern Baptist I read John 6 and never did that passage jump out at me, because I was reading it with my own bias.
 
Seeker100 said:
The bible is very very tricky. All areas are interpreted in many different ways by many different people. The reason is one must bond to God in your heart and serve and follow Him. We are to bond to God and not the bible. From bonding to God one can understand the bible through God’s eyes. God wants us to cling to him as our first and formost source of reality.

Peter
Click to expand...
The problem with that is that just about everyone outside of the Catholic Church has good intentions and are very sincere, but you still have the problem with totally different beliefs about vital things concerning our salvation. Just about everyone who follows that same thought as you has that same deep desire to “bond with God” but they all come to very different conclusions concerning things that cannot be compromised whatsoever. And if you say that essential doctrine can be compromised then why take the Bible seriously, if doctrine does not matter? That is where many “Christians” become relativists.
 
Chidiebere said:
One more thing is that THE CHURCH transcends time. Jesus reassured us of his divine protection when he said that even the gates of hell shall not prevail against HIS church.
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Thanks for all of your reply.

I quoted this, as it’s my mini-mission in the scriptural world:D

Many ( and I am not saying that you are among them, OK?) misinterpret this passage.
They seem to think that we are under attack by the forces of hell; that we are fighting a defensive war against evil. But this is not what it means. It means we are on the offense; that we have reached the very gates of Satan’s fortress, and that we will throw down those gates, and capture the forces of Hell, and imprison them.

I know, I know: preaching to the choir:D
 
COPLAND_3 said:
There are a number of things to consider concerning this excellent topic! As a matter of fact this topic played a big part in causing me to look to the Catholic Church when I was a Southern Baptist.

The Bible is not tricky in the sense that it is meant to cause confusion, by no means. But it can be complex in places,and requires authoritative explanations. The reason why there are so many different intepretations is because there are so many people who do not interpret the Bible in the light of the Church who put the Bible together, that is the Catholic Church. Scripture warns us of false teachers, and there have been many who have gone outside of the Church and spread false teachings, which has created a mess to where so many people have been taught wrong things about the Bible. And when you have been taught false doctrine, then you read the Bible with pre-misconceptions, and you see things in Scripture that are not there (once saved always saved) or you don’t see those things that are there (real presence in the Eucharist). As a Southern Baptist I read John 6 and never did that passage jump out at me, because I was reading it with my own bias.
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Fantastic post! Thanks:thumbsup:
 
Luigi_Daniele said:
Thanks for all of your reply.

I quoted this, as it’s my mini-mission in the scriptural world:D

Many ( and I am not saying that you are among them, OK?) misinterpret this passage.
They seem to think that we are under attack by the forces of hell; that we are fighting a defensive war against evil. But this is not what it means. It means we are on the offense; that we have reached the very gates of Satan’s fortress, and that we will throw down those gates, and capture the forces of Hell, and imprison them.

I know, I know: preaching to the choir:D
Click to expand...
No worries, i totally concurr,

Gates of hell interepretation is clearly “wide open”.🙂 Gotta love Jesus sense of humour. 🙂

Certainly not necessarily the vivid mage of hell per se, could be a heresy for that matter, as for a heresy can be very damaging and serious, hence the strict position of the church on excommunication.

The bottom line is this: THE AUTHORITY OF THE CHURCH , STEMS FROM THE FACT THAT SHE HAS NO AUTHORITY TO CHANGE THE FAITH. Therefore All she is there for is to guard the deposits of the faith.

Think of a bulletproof window casing, perfectly windexed, so as to allow every wavelength of light to fully reflect in , through, and out, HOWEVER CATEGORICALLY NEGATES ALLLLL BULLETS OF DARKNESS (heresy). THAT IS THE CHURCH AND INSIDE THE CASING - NONE OTHER THAN THE EUCHARIST, Jesus himself.

Once this is understood, pieces start to come together like an assembly line.
 
Chidiebere said:
The bottom line is this: THE AUTHORITY OF THE CHURCH , STEMS FROM THE FACT THAT SHE HAS NO AUTHORITY TO CHANGE THE FAITH. Therefore All she is there for is to guard the deposits of the faith.
Click to expand...
Exactly 🙂

“Think of a bulletproof window casing, perfectly windexed, so as to allow every wavelength of light to fully reflect in , through, and out, HOWEVER CATEGORICALLY NEGATES ALLLLL BULLETS OF DARKNESS (heresy). THAT IS THE CHURCH AND INSIDE THE CASING - NONE OTHER THAN THE EUCHARIST, Jesus himself.”

Nice analogy!👍
 
COPLAND_3 said:
The problem with that is that just about everyone outside of the Catholic Church has good intentions and are very sincere, but you still have the problem with totally different beliefs about vital things concerning our salvation. Just about everyone who follows that same thought as you has that same deep desire to “bond with God” but they all come to very different conclusions concerning things that cannot be compromised whatsoever. And if you say that essential doctrine can be compromised then why take the Bible seriously, if doctrine does not matter? That is where many “Christians” become relativists.
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The true doctrine is within all mankind. We all know it and can either follow it or reject it out of our own free will.

Seeker100
 
Seeker100 said:
The true doctrine is within all mankind. We all know it and can either follow it or reject it out of our own free will.

Seeker100
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My friend, be very, very careful. The true doctrine “being within all mankind” smacks of New Ageism. Which is just another name for Ego Worship, or Self Worship, and is a very old trick of the Enemy.

God is revealed fully to us only in one Way, in one Person, and that Person is Jesus Christ.
It may have existed in Adam and Eve as a “natural/within” thing, but they, and all of us as a consequence, forsook that.

Our only way back is not alone; is not by our own power, but through the Redeeming Power of Jesus Christ. All else is honest error at best, self worship and therefore Satanic, at worst.

It’s his oldest trick, because it was his first trick.
 
Seeker100 said:
The bible is very very tricky. All areas are interpreted in many different ways by many different people. The reason is one must bond to God in your heart and serve and follow Him. We are to bond to God and not the bible. From bonding to God one can understand the bible through God’s eyes. God wants us to cling to him as our first and formost source of reality.

Peter
Click to expand...
Peter,

you are exactly correct, only God can reveal the Truth of Sacred Scripture to us if we open our hearts!

We as Catholics believe that God did not leave us alone to hope for a correct understanding, but He sent His only Son Jesus Christ to teach us the fullness of the Truth!
 
Luigi_Daniele said:
My friend, be very, very careful. The true doctrine “being within all mankind” smacks of New Ageism. Which is just another name for Ego Worship, or Self Worship, and is a very old trick of the Enemy.

God is revealed fully to us only in one Way, in one Person, and that Person is Jesus Christ.
It may have existed in Adam and Eve as a “natural/within” thing, but they, and all of us as a consequence, forsook that.

Our only way back is not alone; is not by our own power, but through the Redeeming Power of Jesus Christ. All else is honest error at best, self worship and therefore Satanic, at worst.

It’s his oldest trick, because it was his first trick.
Click to expand...
Jesus is God. God is not satanic. Follow and obey God with all your strength, heart, mind and understanding and you can’t go wrong.
 
Luigi_Daniele said:
My friend, be very, very careful. The true doctrine “being within all mankind” smacks of New Ageism. Which is just another name for Ego Worship, or Self Worship, and is a very old trick of the Enemy.

God is revealed fully to us only in one Way, in one Person, and that Person is Jesus Christ.
It may have existed in Adam and Eve as a “natural/within” thing, but they, and all of us as a consequence, forsook that.

Our only way back is not alone; is not by our own power, but through the Redeeming Power of Jesus Christ. All else is honest error at best, self worship and therefore Satanic, at worst.

It’s his oldest trick, because it was his first trick.
Click to expand...
Following and serving God is not new age or ego worship. It is following God. God is love. Serving love is the opposite of ego worship.
 
Seeker100 said:
Following and serving God is not new age or ego worship. It is following God. God is love. Serving love is the opposite of ego worship.
Click to expand...
It is not correct to say that “we all have God in us”. We must invite Him in. Many do not. God, even though He is almighty, or maybe because he is almighty, will not force Himself upon us.

We can understand God (see St Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologica) by virtue of our intellect; we love God by inviting Him to dwell within us. It is not automatic. God wishes us to give ourselves to Him completely (in spirit and mind, ie with all of ourselves) and to ask Him in. He will not force Himself upon us, which would render us mere robots. We must cooperate in our Salvation.
 
Luigi_Daniele said:
I hope this makes sense:o

Firstly, I am a devout Roman Catholic. I love God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I pray to love God more every day. I love the one true Roman Catholic Church. I love Sacred Scripture.

OK, now my question:D

I will use the “call no man on Earth father” example. I understand that Jesus was using exaggeration.

My question is (and I know you guys will have an answer): why would Jesus make the Scriptures “tricky”? Is it another proof of needing Holy Mother Church to guide us?

Answers appreciated. 🙂
Click to expand...

It needs explanation, for the same reasons as any ancient - or not so ancient - body of writings does.​

 
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