Featured Vicar of Jesus Christ?

Actually, there probably were 2nd and 3rd Baptist churches. Now think this through carefully and objectively. Here is what happened:
Acts 2:41 Then they that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls.
--The 3,000 were added to a church already in existence. They were added unto "them". Who were they?

Acts 1:13 And when they were come in, they went up into an upper room, where abode both Peter, and James, and John, and Andrew, Philip, and Thomas, Bartholomew, and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon Zelotes, and Judas the brother of James.
14 These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren.
15 And in those days Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples, and said, (the number of names together were about an hundred and twenty,)
--They were added to this assembly of 120 disciples that had been praying in the upper room. Mary was there, but it is the last time we hear of Mary and she was just one of the crowd with no exalted position whatsoever.

From these 3,000 we read:
Acts 2:47 Praising God, and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved.
--The Lord added daily to this one church. There was no other. It grew rapidly.

Where was it meeting. That "upper room" where they were praying was on the Temple grounds.
Verse 46 also says:
Acts 2:46 And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart,
--This would not last. The Temple was controlled by the Sanhedrin, the very ones that crucified Christ. And as they crucified Christ a great persecution would very soon rise against these Christians. Part of it would be led by Saul himself.
They would be scattered. In other places they would go first to synagogues but then be kicked out of there. From there they would meet in fields, houses, even cemeteries (the famed catacombs for example).

By Acts 15 the church in Jerusalem had grown so rapidly that historians say that it numbered between 100,000 and 300,000. But where did they meet?

What happened when Peter was imprisoned in Acts 12 after James was beheaded. Herod was going to do the same, but intercession was made for Peter by the church.

Acts 12:5 Peter therefore was kept in prison: but prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him.
--If you are acquainted with the story there were a number of miraculous occurrences whereby an angel came and led Peter out of prison. Then Peter found "the place of the church" that was praying for him.
Acts 12:12 And when he had considered the thing, he came to the house of Mary the mother of John, whose surname was Mark; where many were gathered together praying.

Perhaps this is the Second Baptist Church of Jerusalem. They were gathered at the house of John Mark's mother, Mary, praying, as it says in verse 5--the church. The local church in Jerusalem.

Under persecution they met wherever they could.

 

"Take, eat; this is my body which is broken for you . . ."

 

Hello Adonia,
I don't think so.
Firstly, what I wrote before: 'When they believed Philip as he preached the things concerning the kingdom of God and the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, both men and women [but not children] were baptized' (Acts 8:120. It's not just that there were no children; it was 'when they believed' that they were baptized.

Now, household baptisms. Here we are. 1 Corinthians 1:16. 'Yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanas.' There we are! Surely some infants there? Whoops! 1 Corinthians 16:15. 'I urge you, brethren- you know the household of Stephanas, that it is the firstfruits of Achaia, and that they have devoted themselves to the ministry of the saints- that you submit to such.....' So Stephanas household were not only old enough to devote themselves to the ministry, but to command obedience from the church at Corinth.

The Philippian jailor's household were old enough to listen to Paul's preaching and to believe (Acts 16:32-34), and Lydia was almost certainly a single lady (no husband is mentioned) so her household (Acts 16:15) would have consisted of slaves.

Does the typical household have infants in it? All I can tell you is that I have a wife and three children and all of them are well old enough to believe for themselves.

 

"I am the gate for the sheep......"
"I am the true vine......."

 

John 10:9 I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.

John 15:1 I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.

John 10:7 Then said Jesus unto them again, Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep.

John 10:11 I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.

John 6:35 And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.

John 6:47 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.
48 I am that bread of life.

John 6:51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.
--In the light of all the foregoing metaphors it is quite evident that by "eat" Jesus meant "believe" for in believing in him, the bread of life, one would receive eternal life.

 

Absolutely!

Therefore, "Take, eat [that, bread]; this [I myself] is my body which is broken for you . . ."

 

Imagine if you could go back in time, speak to St. Paul, and then come here to tell us about your conversation. It seems you might say something like this: "Herbert, I flat out asked St. Paul if faith in Jesus Christ was needed for salvation and he argued over and over, saying something like 'And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.'"

The fact that Catholic theology (which is truly Biblical theology) doesn't neatly arrange itself into your little man-made compartments doesn't mean that it is wrong. Don't mistake your rejection of Catholic teaching for a demonstration of its invalidity.

Just as utilyan's remarks don't deny the necessity of faith, so don't St. Paul's remarks deny the necessity of faith.

Herbert

 

And guess what, I was baptized too and just getting baptized does not make one a "Baptist", at least as we have come to know the term today. You know, if we had been alive back then both of us would have been members of the One Universal (Catholic - from the Greek katholikos) Christian Church. There was no other and history tells us that it stayed that way for a long, long time.

 

John 6: [48] I am the bread of life.

[49] Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died.

[50] This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die.

[51] I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh."

[52]The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?"

[53] So Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you;

Many of his disciples left him over this, because they knew that he wasn't speaking metaphorically, but literally. We know from Mark 4:34 that Jesus explained all of His parables to His disciples, but yet here they are leaving him after this speech about the Eucharist.

 

Let us go to St. Ignatius of Antioch and see what this man who most likely knew the Apostle John had to say about this very issue. (born in Syria about the year 50 and died in Rome somewhere between 98 and 117.

"I have no taste for corruptible food nor for the pleasures of this life. I desire the Bread of God, WHICH IS THE FLESH OF JESUS CHRIST, who was of the seed of David; and for drink I DESIRE HIS BLOOD, which is love incorruptible". (Letter to the Romans 7:3)

"Take care, then, to use one Eucharist, so that whatever you do, you do according to God: FOR THERE IS ONE FLESH OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST, and one cup IN THE UNION OF HIS BLOOD; one ALTAR, as there is one bishop with the presbytery…" (Letter to the Philadelphians 4:1)

"They [i.e. the Gnostics] abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they do not confess that THE EUCHARIST IS THE FLESH OF OUR SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST, flesh which suffered for our sins and which the Father, in his goodness, raised up again". (Letter to Smyrnians 7:1)

This is what was taught by the men of the early One Universal Church and believed by all the faithful. I would say Ignatius' take on the issue has a lot more veracity than someone who came about in the 1500's (Zwingli) whose teaching you now believe. I could likewise post quote after quote from the writings of the other Early Church Fathers concurring with this truth.

 

There you go with the twisting of the Scriptures to justify your point of view. I know, you probably claim that Jesus didn't drink the normal alcoholic wine during His lifetime too, right?

 

Sometimes Jesus spoke in metaphors (your examples) and sometimes He didn't.

 

God has infinite mercy and He can show that mercy to any person He wants to and that my friend is an in-arguable fact and no justification is needed. He is God and can do anything, at any time, to any one of us.

 

i of iv to Martin

Martin, There is nothing "in the Scriptures" which suggests that we "learn about it all... from the Scriptures alone." This is the (ironically) unBiblical foundation of your Biblicism. Yes, indeed all the glory goes to God alone. And it is certainly "all of God, none of us" in terms of the origin and foundation upon which our salvation rests. But it is God, not man, who has seen it fit that men, in, with, and through Christ, would become participants in their own salvation. This is why Jesus says "Take up your cross and follow me." For He both calls us and empowers us. This is why no man can boast. At the same time, this shouldn't be reduced to some sort of equation by which we remove ourselves from the process entirely. Instead, we understand ourselves as, by grace, being made participants in the work of Christ. And what you bolded above (verse 5) doesn't contrast one thing to another (as though sanctification and justification are rightly bifurcated). Rather, St. Peter's exhortation there represents an "also," as some thing which is naturally consequential of another, and not distinctly separate from it. Further the "for that very reason" in the text speaks to the fact that "participation in the divine life" shares a certain concomitance with the gift of faith itself. This reading is the only reading that accounts for and truly harmonizes St. Paul in Ephesians 2:8-9, Galatians 5:6, and 1st Corinthians 13:2 with St. James in 2:24 of his Epistle. There is harmony in Scripture. We must therefore, clarify the hazy by the light of the clear. And it doesn't get much clearer than "You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone."

I did not mean to suggest that God did not know that Adam and Eve would sin any more than Christ didn't know that He was going to suffer and die for us. Indeed, God knows all and sees all. And He is not truly surprised or frustrated. But there are things which, as we've both acknowledged, that He allows which are not of His doing, namely sin, which He neither causes or sanctions. For as the Exsultet sings "O truly necessary sin of Adam, destroyed completely by the Death of Christ! Oh, happy fault that earned for us so great, so glorious a Redeemer!" so it is that God takes our faults and makes them "happy." It is then that the Sin of Adam, though horrible, becomes, in God's economy, the very thing by which our Redeemer was revealed to us. I am glad to see, also, that you acknowledge that Mary's submission was an expression of her will. This is important to note. Further, it's true that God made her willing. But He did so through grace in a fashion which operates according to her human nature and not in a manner which would oppose or destroy it. There is harmony through all of God's works regardless of the person or mode through which they're wrought. And indeed, your last sentence above expresses the very scandalous notion presented by St. Ireneaus, a notion unheard of to the pagan mind, which claimed that far from needing our sacrifices and offering in some anthropomorphic sense, God Almighty did not need us at all and was completely self-sufficient, perfect, and complete in Himself. Indeed, God needs us not. But in love, He saves us. And while we were still sinners, He died for us! Amen.

 

ii of iv to Martin

Martin, we could go into all of this. For I believe that there are plenty of ways these passages may be interpreted in a manner which does not see these references as rightly being assigned to the Catholic Church. For there are plenty of powers at work in the world who present themselves as righteous yet who are truly conniving. We could discuss this at length. Further, I am not saying anything other than what the Ethiopian Eunuch said. I am not saying anything other than what 2nd Peter 3:16 says. Also, the Lord sent the Apostles to teach. My position simply makes room for God's ordained teacher, the Church His Son established. In contrast, the Protestant Principle itself, cuts out the teacher. It makes each man to be his own teacher and practically leads to each man doing what is right in his own eyes. (Judges 21:25). And as I've said, I hold to the material sufficiency of Scripture. When they're rightly understood and expressed, the Scriptures hold as one writer puts it "all the bricks necessary to build the doctrines." And it's the Catholic who's farthest from saying "We can't really know what God has said..." For the Catholic Church has a far more developed, detailed, rigorous, Scripture-soaked deposit of teachings than any other ecclesial group. And the Catholic needn't create arbitrary categories into which he might place any number of doctrines and designate them as "essential" or "non-essential." The Church, by protecting what's been handed down, does that job for the individual believer. The Church, then, and not the Bible alone (according to one's private interpretation) is the very means by which doctrines are identified as essential in the first place. I appreciate your efforts to call me out as having been deceived. I really do. I sense that you're doing so out of genuine caring. And I appreciate that. But I just don't see it the way you do. For I acknowledge that there were certainly many terrible traditions held to by the Pharisees and others which certainly did nullify the Word of God. And with you I reject such traditions. In contrast, I hold to Apostolic Tradition. I hold to the faith as it was handed on to us according to the provision which Christ instituted for just such a purpose: His Church. I hold to the traditions which came "by word of mouth or by letter." (2nd Thessalonians 2:15). These are the traditions of Apostolic Signature. Even St. Paul's words concerning the Eucharist fall into this category as well as in the category of those teaching which did become inscripturated. For it was St. Paul who said: "For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over, took bread, and, after he had given thanks, broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” Again, I affirm every word of Scripture. I just accept it in the light of Christ's intended flashlight, that of Sacred Apostolic Tradition.

This is a problem for the non-Catholic. It is not a problem for the Catholic. As I've said, the Catholic has the firm foundation laid by Christ. Ultimately, the non-Catholic has his own fallible mind, an illusion of some sort of Church authority, and the Sacred Scriptures he's wrested. Fortunately, by the inertia of Sacred Tradition, and the many clear teachings of Scripture, as well as the continued working of the Holy Spirit in non-Catholic communities, there still is much orthodoxy among non-Catholics. That orthodoxy, though, as I've said, is something accidental to the various non-catholic Christian communities and congregations all over the world. The only Church to whose nature those truths are essential is the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church founded by Christ.

Yes, St. Paul's words can be understood, by extension, as inclusive of the future sufferings of the faithful. But I'm talking about the theological implications of his words here, not just the future suffering which is implied. Theologically here, St. Paul is envisioning his suffering as somehow claiming a share in the already-sufficient, yet incomplete, sufferings of Christ. It is a passage which speaks to the incorporation of believers into the very Body of Christ made possible by His Incarnation. Again, it's a Both-And situation. Whereas, all you seem to affirm (correct me if I'm wrong), on account of your unwarrantedly distinguishing between justification & sanctification, is the "and" component of St. Paul's teaching or the "living out of the Christian faith and spreading of the word..." In other words, your soteriology forces your hermeneutic to fall short for the sake of its maintenance. But that's no way to read Scripture. Again, such seems to be a case of allowing the unclear to beshroud the clear rather than the other way around.

 

iii of iv to Martin

No. I'm not entirely wrong. For I affirm the priesthood of all believers. That's why when people complain about the Catholic Church not allowing "women priests" I ask them what they're talking about. Every female Catholic is a priest according to the priesthood of all believers. This is fundamental Catholic teaching. And it's again, one of the things which certain non-Catholics have used to gain leverage against another Catholic truth: the legitimacy of the ministerial priesthood. The Church affirms the Both-And once again. And in its wisdom doesn't go the way of the Either-Or. Your zeal for the priesthood of all believers is commendable. But it should not be presented or understood as a challenge to Christ's ministerial priesthood. Again, this is a case of what Chesterton described as a problem among non-Catholics which was caused not because they didn't have a truth, but because they only had a truth. And by that truth they were led to miss or overlook the broader coherence of Catholic, that is, authentic Christianity. Explaining his conversion, and speaking of the Catholic Church, he said this: "Now there is no other corporate mind in the world that is thus on the watch to prevent minds from going wrong. The policeman comes too late, when he tries to prevent men from going wrong. The doctor comes too late, for he only comes to lock up a madman, not to advise a sane man on how not to go mad. And all other sects and schools are inadequate for the purpose. This is not because each of them may not contain a truth, but precisely because each of them does contain a truth; and is content to contain a truth. None of the others really pretends to contain the truth. None of the others, that is, really pretends to be looking out in all directions at once. The Church is not merely armed against the heresies of the past or even of the present, but equally against those of the future, that may be the exact opposite of those of the present."

Does this sound familiar, Martin?:
"They assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron and said to them, “You have gone too far! For all in the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them. Why then do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the Lord?” Numbers 16:3

Further, it is true that we all have "direct access to God through Him." I am not denying that. We have, also, however, an access to Him through His Church which is complementary to the direct spiritual communion which we have to Him. This is, again, the Both-And of Catholicism at work.

Again, we must not place one legitimate Christian truth in opposition to another. It is true that we are to present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God. No Catholic could rightly argue against that truth. We are also to, in community, receive the temporal dispensation of the One Sacrifice of Calvary, which stands outside of time, yet is delivered in time according to Christ's designs, for the sake of His Body, in Holy Communion as we walk this journey of faith. We receive His spiritual graces over and over again as the great hymn professes "Morning by morning, new mercies I see." And whereas we receive that grace spiritually, we also receive it in a physical form in the Blessed Sacrament. For we humans are not mere spirit. He attends to the whole person, and thus gave His life for the Church spiritually and Eucharistically.

I am happy to do whatever. As I said originally, I stumbled here while reading about a particular topic and have stuck around for the conversation. But I don't have anything to prove. I am just participating in what I hope will prove to be an uplifting and charitable conversation.

What exactly does it mean to "dominate" Roman Catholic thought? Didn't Arianism do that for a time? By what single, clear, and objective standard might one make such a determination? There are often, for a time, various ideas which make their way among the Church, but are, as they prove flawed, rooted out. This occurs in the manner it does because the Church, in its organic function, like any other body, doesn't just spew out contaminants immediately, but works them out, sometimes slowly and painfully. Various points of confusion and downright heresies have hung around sometimes for centuries. Usually, they're forced out as a natural resistance to them builds and the Church understands more clearly their untoward implications. The Via Moderna never had a chance to rightly process its way into a place of regard or disregard on account of the general turmoil that came about which prevented the Magisterium from doing its job. That turmoil came about through disobedience, a disobedience not unlike Korah's. And, again, I know we've discussed this a bit. But the Church, though St. Paul describes it as the pillar and foundation of truth, should also be understood as a body, bound to its Head. It has an organic unity which makes things a little messier and drawn out than some people care to accept. So it is flexible. Strong and stalwart in the face of heresy, and malleable and dynamic when needed.

 

iv of iv to Martin

Though you may see this assessment as somehow being historically true, the truth of the matter is that all Christians believed that the bread and the wine ceased being bread and wine and instead became the very body and blood of the Lord. If the words of Our Lord recorded in Holy Scripture aren't enough, and the words of St. Paul aren't enough, and if the testimony of the early Christians isn't enough, and if the histories we have which recount the charges of the pagans who called Christians cannibals isn't enough, I don't know what would be enough. For to strain under the collective weight of that witness would crush most anybody's resolve. And the fact that during the Scholastic age various Aristotelian terms were employed to more carefully articulate the nature of the mysteries shouldn't be misunderstood as their being inventions of the Middle Ages. For a tree was a tree before Adam named it. And the Holy Eucharist was the body and blood of our Lord in sacramental form before the term "transubstantiation" was ever put to use. And the Church's understanding of that with which it's been entrusted shouldn't be seen as something fully developed from the get go. The Church acts as the safeguard. But this stewardly caretaking, made possible by the promise of the Holy Spirit, again, isn't something rigid. It is something dynamic. Prior to the point at which definitive clarity is provided, though the Real Presence was always and everywhere affirmed, albeit according to varying wordings which were, for their times acceptable, people, especially theologians, may seek to better understand that which Christ entrusted to the Church, however acrimonious the process may be. For it is a messy process. Again, though, if Adam & Eve's Sin wasn't enough to justify our losing hope, neither is the drama that comes with Scholastic intellectualism. Finally, the "mentally not dentally" quote is cute but I am afraid it's bandied about too often nowadays in books and articles. If you wish to present it as *evidence* that a Franciscan who's recognized as a great teacher of the Faith (who suffered his own share of smearing and derision) denied the Real Presence, more than its mere presentation as a cute phrase is required.

More to come!

Herbert

 

Jesus never gave that as a requirement for the kingdom of heaven.

But that formula is found:

9and he said to Him, “All these things I will give You, if You fall down and worship me.”

Except SATAN is the one saying it. To worship FEAR. Kneel before me OR ELSE.

The way of evil is with evil. Insisting absolutes. A spiritual gun to your head is what Satan calls Christianity.


Jesus would never do that because Jesus is NOT EVIL.

 

How did I twist them, Adonia? I just quoted them. If you're going to make accusations, you need to back them up if you want to be taken seriously.

Wrong! Where have I ever suggested that? When has the subject ever come up? I take responsibility for things I write, but not for things I don't write.