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Actually *Epistle* was dead-on with a lot of that, and it is mind-boggling how anyone can say otherwise.
Just the first statement about elevating a mere man to the position of addressing him by a title the Bible clearly said to avoid doing is enough, if you didn't look at any of the rest.
I mean, you guys even call the Pope, "Holy Father." That title should be reserved for God, only, if you feel the need to use it somewhere..
Just the first statement about elevating a mere man to the position of addressing him by a title the Bible clearly said to avoid doing is enough, if you didn't look at any of the rest.
I mean, you guys even call the Pope, "Holy Father." That title should be reserved for God, only, if you feel the need to use it somewhere..
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I don't understand the teachings/practice of:
1) Purgatory.
2) Having to confess sins to a Priest.
3) Calling someone other than God Holy Father.
4) Infant Baptism.
5) Putting Mary in a high position equal to God.
6) Why Priests can't marry. - There have been many issues because of this.
I am a Christian married to a Catholic and have many Catholic family members that I married into...I love my family but would like to understand some of their beliefs better. Because in my study of Bible many of the things listed above should be directed to God and not to man or woman. Infants don't know they are sinners and until they can understand why they are being baptized I don't get it... the infant baptism. Personally I think it would be better to allow the Priests to marry because not marrying isn't working for some of them.
1) Purgatory.
2) Having to confess sins to a Priest.
3) Calling someone other than God Holy Father.
4) Infant Baptism.
5) Putting Mary in a high position equal to God.
6) Why Priests can't marry. - There have been many issues because of this.
I am a Christian married to a Catholic and have many Catholic family members that I married into...I love my family but would like to understand some of their beliefs better. Because in my study of Bible many of the things listed above should be directed to God and not to man or woman. Infants don't know they are sinners and until they can understand why they are being baptized I don't get it... the infant baptism. Personally I think it would be better to allow the Priests to marry because not marrying isn't working for some of them.
The writer of Hebrews calls the recipients of his epistle "holy brethren" (Heb 3:1).
Peter refers to a "holy priesthood" (1 Pet 2:5) and
"holy women" such as Sarah (1 Pet 3:5) and
"holy prophets" (2 Pet 3:2; cf. Acts 3:21;
Zechariah's prophecy in Luke 1:70).
John the Baptist is referred to as a "righteous and holy man" in Mark 6:20.
Jesus refers to a "righteous man" in Matthew 10:41.
Therefore, men can be called "holy" in Scripture. That solves half of this "pseudo-problem."
Can men also be called "father"? Of course they can:
Acts 7:2 (RSV) And Stephen said: "Brethren and fathers, hear me. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham, . . ."
Romans 4:12 . . . the father of the circumcised . . . our father Abraham . . .
Romans 4:16-17 . . . Abraham, for he is the father of us all, as it is written, "I have made you the father of many nations . . ." (cf. 9:10; Phil 2:22; Jas 2:21)
1 Corinthians 4:15 For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel.
That solves the other half of the weak, insubstantial objection. If you can call a man "holy" and also (spiritual) "father", then you can call a person *both together*, and the "problem" vanishes into thin air.
Peter refers to a "holy priesthood" (1 Pet 2:5) and
"holy women" such as Sarah (1 Pet 3:5) and
"holy prophets" (2 Pet 3:2; cf. Acts 3:21;
Zechariah's prophecy in Luke 1:70).
John the Baptist is referred to as a "righteous and holy man" in Mark 6:20.
Jesus refers to a "righteous man" in Matthew 10:41.
Therefore, men can be called "holy" in Scripture. That solves half of this "pseudo-problem."
Can men also be called "father"? Of course they can:
Acts 7:2 (RSV) And Stephen said: "Brethren and fathers, hear me. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham, . . ."
Romans 4:12 . . . the father of the circumcised . . . our father Abraham . . .
Romans 4:16-17 . . . Abraham, for he is the father of us all, as it is written, "I have made you the father of many nations . . ." (cf. 9:10; Phil 2:22; Jas 2:21)
1 Corinthians 4:15 For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel.
That solves the other half of the weak, insubstantial objection. If you can call a man "holy" and also (spiritual) "father", then you can call a person *both together*, and the "problem" vanishes into thin air.
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I too have Catholic relatives. They too acknowledge Jesus Christ as Savior but when their beliefs are examined in greater detail it quickly becomes clear that they do not impress the same meaning to the terms as I do as a biblical Christian.
After more than forty years I have observed that what they say and how they conduct themselves reveals much more about the meanings they accept for biblical terms than what proceeds out of their mouth.
For the cause of Christ
Roger
After more than forty years I have observed that what they say and how they conduct themselves reveals much more about the meanings they accept for biblical terms than what proceeds out of their mouth.
For the cause of Christ
Roger
That is where we can lead by example. Already my Mother-In-Law has asked me questions about how I can be so balanced when I came from such and unbalanced background.... How we live our lives and treat others can speak volumes... All glory is to be given to God and we can help them see the light and truth because they are willing to listen and learn then.
M
Oh Kaycie, first of all, you continued this trend of refusing to answer my basic yet crucial questions.
Secondly you proved your poor rhetoric skills by being lazy and making up beliefs about the Catholic Church. I do not feel like getting into how wrong you are on what you think we do and believe. The beauty of it is that we do not hide our beliefs and have a book specifically dedicated to what we actually believe, why we believe it,, and filled with references to scripture and history. It is call the Catechism. Every library in the US has a copy, please look it over. If you are not into reading, just spend 30 minutes speaking with a good Catholic and they will usually be happy to clarify.
Can I try this using your method? Kaycie's pastor and denomination believe in worshiping tables. I know this because some guy in the grocery store checkout lane told me. I will not investigate this claim, because I said so.
M
Are you aware of how many different English translations exist? Are you aware of how much they differ on crucial teachings?
It is EXTREMELY important to determine which translation is most accurate. God did NOT inspire every person that has translated the Bible.
Please, I beg you people to attempt to educate yourselves, you are falling into this trap of only listening to you inner circle of uneducated friends who have no knowledge on these subjects.
Please read some books on history, theology, philosophy, and most of all on how the logical process works.
Everyone responding here has the same argument, "because I said so".
What is it that you believe? I can pile books up the roof but if I do not believe what is written on the pages it is of no value to me.
Do you have personal assurance of your salvation? If you died right now would you be in heaven with Jesus Christ? If not why not? If so then what biblical evidence do you offer?
Is the blood of Jesus Christ wholly sufficient to save you and make full atonement for your sins?
For the cause of Christ
Roger
Do you have personal assurance of your salvation? If you died right now would you be in heaven with Jesus Christ? If not why not? If so then what biblical evidence do you offer?
Is the blood of Jesus Christ wholly sufficient to save you and make full atonement for your sins?
For the cause of Christ
Roger
W
This is the flaw of most Christians. Read about history, read other books besides the Bible. Trust in man instead of God. How about trust in Holy Spirit? Don't see that as one of your criteria. The disciples didn't have history books and books by others to help them. Holy Spirit educated them on things they needed to know. Granted they had Jesus for over 3 years, but the rest is from Holy Spirit not some book some human created because they knew history.
M
You guys do not understand how the logical process works do you. What I am getting at is that in order to understand the Bible, we first must find Our Lord's version of it. I refer to the history books, because anyone that understands basic logical skills can understand that Christians should, "do what the people who lived with Jesus did". This information is found in texts of people who physically knew Jesus in his human form.
Do you not understand how ignorant you sound making blanketed statements like trust in man instead of God? THE CATHOLIC CHURCH TAUGHT YOU PEOPLE THAT THE HOLY SPIRIT INSPIRED THE WRITERS OF THE BIBLE. THE CATHOLIC CHURCH GAVE YOU THE BIBLE. YOU CHANGED THE BIBLE OVER 1500 YEARS AFTER OUR LORD. YOU CONTINUE TO ALTER SACRED SCRIPTURE TO THIS DAY. WHY DON'T YOU PEOPLE UNDERSTAND HOW BLASPHEMOUS THIS IS?
The dark one encourages ignorance and lack of knowledge. Our Jewish family preached the importance of education, Christ re-iterated it. Where does Jesus instruct his disciples to blindly believe whatever they hear, and absolutely do not look to other sources?
Every argument I read comes down to, "I read the Bible". Which of the 5000 versions of the Bible do you read? This is CRUCIAL.
THE HOLY SPIRIT INSPIRED THE AUTHORS IN THE LANGUAGES OF GREEK, ARAMAIC, AND HEBREW. WHO HERE HAS READ THOSE TEXTS FROM THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THOSE LANGUAGES?
Do you not understand how ignorant you sound making blanketed statements like trust in man instead of God? THE CATHOLIC CHURCH TAUGHT YOU PEOPLE THAT THE HOLY SPIRIT INSPIRED THE WRITERS OF THE BIBLE. THE CATHOLIC CHURCH GAVE YOU THE BIBLE. YOU CHANGED THE BIBLE OVER 1500 YEARS AFTER OUR LORD. YOU CONTINUE TO ALTER SACRED SCRIPTURE TO THIS DAY. WHY DON'T YOU PEOPLE UNDERSTAND HOW BLASPHEMOUS THIS IS?
The dark one encourages ignorance and lack of knowledge. Our Jewish family preached the importance of education, Christ re-iterated it. Where does Jesus instruct his disciples to blindly believe whatever they hear, and absolutely do not look to other sources?
Every argument I read comes down to, "I read the Bible". Which of the 5000 versions of the Bible do you read? This is CRUCIAL.
THE HOLY SPIRIT INSPIRED THE AUTHORS IN THE LANGUAGES OF GREEK, ARAMAIC, AND HEBREW. WHO HERE HAS READ THOSE TEXTS FROM THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THOSE LANGUAGES?
M
You guys are killing me, if we can establish which translation is the Lord's translation, then we can begin to dissect individual books and verses and what the Lord is telling us through them.
Please do 2 minutes of research to understand that the Bible is not a simple concept. Many versions say many things. We must first determine which one is God's word and which ones are abominations of man created to fulfill what is convenient to the translator, (example: King Henry VIII, "the Bible does not teach kindly on divorce and I wish to behead my wife, I shall CHANGE the Bible, this version is still used today by many)
Please do 2 minutes of research to understand that the Bible is not a simple concept. Many versions say many things. We must first determine which one is God's word and which ones are abominations of man created to fulfill what is convenient to the translator, (example: King Henry VIII, "the Bible does not teach kindly on divorce and I wish to behead my wife, I shall CHANGE the Bible, this version is still used today by many)
M
You guys are really beginning to scare me. This blindly follow the leader thing is what allowed people like Hitler to brainwash the masses and exterminate groups of people. Educate yourselves. Question things, Jesus explicitly instructs you to do so. You guys are allowing scary cults and hate groups to continue to propagate themselves simply because you are to lazy to educate yourself.
K
What is your proof on all of this as it sounds like unsubstantiated claims you are making up, as I know of a number of Catholic schools were I grew up that their education is no better then the public school systems around them.
Even a couple of the public school systems have been voted for many of years to have a better program then the private Catholic schools did. Also some of the Catholic schools have even closed down because of their lacking educational program.
You claim Catholic scholars are better then other scholars, which actually comes from nothing but a bias point of view.
There are a number of well known biblical scholars out in the world that have no ties to the Catholic church.
Placing faith in your church system and what they tell you is dangerous, and I was in the Catholic church once but left because of the inconsistencies they taught.
Nobody has the right to change, add, or take away from God's word, but your pope's do and have stated in the past that they can do exactly that.
I see you claiming that others have changed the sacred scriptures, and think the Catholic's have stayed true to them. I think you are deceived as who has actually changed God's word.
Again I pose the question to you:
What are the 10 Commandments ???
M
Earlier this month, President Obama challenged high schools across the county to compete against each other in the second annual "Race to the Top” educational success program for the chance to have him give the commencement address at their graduation. Not included in the contest, though, are the more than 2 million students in America’s Catholic schools.If they could participate, the nation’s parochial schools would be fearsome competitors.
A 2009 comparison between public and Catholic school SAT scores show that public school students had an overall average of 496 points on the critical reading portion of the test while Catholic school students scored 533 points on the same portion. Catholic school students outscored their public school counterparts by an average of 23 points.
What makes the numbers more impressive is that Catholic high schools spend more than $2,000 less per pupil than public schools.
That is a quick lazy quote I found from the secretary of education. I suppose I can find more but it is becoming burdensome to keep up with all of these claims you guys are making. I was hoping you might do some of your own research. Please just google something along the lines of children that went to Catholic schools who graduated from college, vs. the public school rate. It may blow your mind. DO NOT USE A CATHOLIC SITE. This way we can acknowledge that it is unbiased.
As for the rest of what you're saying, we must first establish who put the Bible together and who God gave authority to in order to translate it. I have been asking this question over, and over, and over, and over, and over. Nobody will address it.
The Ten Commandments, we can't address this until we figure out which Bible is God's word and which ones are heresy.
A 2009 comparison between public and Catholic school SAT scores show that public school students had an overall average of 496 points on the critical reading portion of the test while Catholic school students scored 533 points on the same portion. Catholic school students outscored their public school counterparts by an average of 23 points.
What makes the numbers more impressive is that Catholic high schools spend more than $2,000 less per pupil than public schools.
That is a quick lazy quote I found from the secretary of education. I suppose I can find more but it is becoming burdensome to keep up with all of these claims you guys are making. I was hoping you might do some of your own research. Please just google something along the lines of children that went to Catholic schools who graduated from college, vs. the public school rate. It may blow your mind. DO NOT USE A CATHOLIC SITE. This way we can acknowledge that it is unbiased.
As for the rest of what you're saying, we must first establish who put the Bible together and who God gave authority to in order to translate it. I have been asking this question over, and over, and over, and over, and over. Nobody will address it.
The Ten Commandments, we can't address this until we figure out which Bible is God's word and which ones are heresy.
M
This will start some kind of firestorm, but it will be somewhat funny to me. "Have you been saved", can anyone tell me when this saying first appeared. I'll give you guys a hint, it happened in the 20th century. Jesus waited 1900 years to teach us that, CRAZY.
Once you're saved you can murder, rape, and pillage, because it doesn't matter. You have accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal savior. Once saved, always saved. This concept is BARELY one hundred years old. It is not acknowledged by most of the world, other than America. While convenient, it is absurd from a Biblical standpoint and logically.
Have fun with this one guys.
Once you're saved you can murder, rape, and pillage, because it doesn't matter. You have accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal savior. Once saved, always saved. This concept is BARELY one hundred years old. It is not acknowledged by most of the world, other than America. While convenient, it is absurd from a Biblical standpoint and logically.
Have fun with this one guys.