Christians Evangelizing Catholics

Bro. James,

May I kindly suggest that you read the first five chapters of Romans in the 2nd edition of the New Testament in the New American Bible, along with all of the notes, and thereby get a glimpse at what Roman Catholics believe about justification by faith?

 

Let me add to what James has just posted. Concerning experience. I was a Catholic for twenty years. During those years in never heard a clear presentation of the gospel once. While at the campus of the university a young man shared with me the gospel, through the Bible, something I had never been exposed to in the Catholic Church (except for "readings" in the mass). But there was never any Bible study as such. As he took me through the Bible and explained what salvation was, I bowed my head in prayer that night, invited Christ into my life as my Lord and Saviour, and was saved. I know for sure that I have eternal life, and if I were to die today would go to heaven. I could have never had that assurance as a Catholic.

As time went by I got my own Bible and began to study it. After two years of studying it on my own, I came to the realization that the doctrines taught in Scripture were vastly different than those which the Catholic Church taught. I had to make a decision: either follow the doctrine of the Catholic Church, or follow the doctrine of the Bible. I could not do both. I chose the Bible. Soon after that I found a Bible believing church, was baptized, joined it, and have been serving the Lord ever since. The Bible is now my final authoriy in all matters of faith and practice.
DHK

 

Book of Romans--

Many souls are redeemed by the Lord while they are reading the first five chapters of Romans-- in any version--even in the "New World" translation(?). Book of Ephesians Ch. 2 is another.

Yes, beware of footnotes and commentaries.

Selah,

Bro. James

 

DHK,

I was a Protestant that converted to Catholicism for differing, yet similar reasons. I am in a Bible study at church, hear the gospel proclaimed regularly (of course the "readings" are from the Gospel...I fail to see why you gloss over that), and read the Bible and find justification for almost all of the RCC's doctrine (the few that are not there are certainly not in contradiction to it), so now we have two testimonies in stark contrast to each other...what to do what to do...good thing for us God's grace is above this stuff huh? My salvation is assured as well Alleluia!

Brother James,

I am going to assume you are just ignoring me now, and if that is the case, then I am sorry, but your words are worth only as much as the silence you use to back them up...at least we'll both bathe in the glory of the risen Lord someday.

Pax Christi,

Stephen

 

Not all Protestant churches are evangelical, or preach clearly the way of salvation. I know nothing of your background, and the fact that you were a Protestant is meaningless to me. In fact I don't consider myself a Protestant. I am a Baptist that never came out of the Reformation, protesting against the Catholics, but existed before the reformation ever took place.

Portions of the "gospels" may be read in the Catholic Church. But the gospel message is never given or explained in the Catholic Church. There is a big difference. My parents are in their '80's and they don't have a clue what it means to be saved, or born again, or regenerated, or justified, etc. They are Biblically illiterate, after being some 80 years devout Catholics. The gospel is not heard in the Catholic Church. If it was, they would of heard it after 80 years, don't you think????
DHK

 

I do not believe that anyone in this thread is arguing that all Catholic churches are perfect, and I am sure that some of them are far from perfect. If your Catholic church was so terrible, why didn't you get up, walk out, and walk the three or four blocks to another Catholic church where the gospel was clearly preached, the people were saved, and the people were active in Bible study? Almost all of the Greek and Hebrew language study books that I used in my early days as a Christian were purchased from a young Catholic friend who was short on cash and had to sell part of his library. And yes, when times got better, my Catholic friend rebuilt his library.

 

You mean the RCC isn't a perfect church ? How does error creep into Christ's "true" church ?

In general, exemption or immunity from liability to error or failure; in particular in theological usage, the supernatural prerogative by which the Church of Christ is, by a special Divine assistance, preserved from liability to error in her definitive dogmatic teaching regarding matters of faith and morals.

From New Advent

 

DHK,

Well, I must say that perhaps there is something wrong with your family. I will state again, I attend Catholic mass regularly and I regularly hear the Gospel message. As for my testimony, I did not expect you to care for mine, but as you saw it fit to give yours, I saw it fit to give mine, but you are right, both have not much to do with the topic at hand. Because I have heard the Gospel faithfully proclaimed in my church, I cannot comment as to why your parents have never heard it. As for the Protestant label...call yourself whatever the heck you like, but if you are a Western Christian and not a Catholic, my friend the rest of the world will label you a Protestant.

Curt,

The church is greater than her constituent parts. There are weak parts within the church, that has nothing to do with the church as a whole. Dogmatic teaching, and theological usage are where the church claims infallibility. If there is a weak parish here or there, that does not bare down much on the church as a whole does it? This is the fallicy of division.

One thing I am confused about. Esspecially with DHK, and Brother James, your posts are becoming more and more angry in nature, and I must ask why? We are discussing and nothing more. Nothing said here should illicit much more of a response than a hardy thought. I would not let myself get so carried away lest we lose sight of the reason we are here, which is to discuss our differences and to better understand each other, nothing more.

Pax Christi,

Stephen

 

I do not believe that anyone in this thread is arguing that all Catholic churches are perfect, and I am sure that some of them are far from perfect. If your Catholic church was so terrible, why didn't you get up, walk out, and walk the three or four blocks to another Catholic church where the gospel was clearly preached, the people were saved, and the people were active in Bible study? Almost all of the Greek and Hebrew language study books that I used in my early days as a Christian were purchased from a young Catholic friend who was short on cash and had to sell part of his library. And yes, when times got better, my Catholic friend rebuilt his library. </font>[/QUOTE]Craig,
Your response to my post was so predictive. I expected something like that even before I made the post. It is rather an insulting post, if not down ignorant. What do you know about me and/or my family? My parents have probably been to more places (or even countries) then you can write the names of within a period of five minutes. Before you write about me or my family, find out the facts first. Don't make assumptions that you will later regret. I don't need baseless advice based on false assumptions by ignorant people who fail to do their research and by doing so infer false statements about myself and those I love.
DHK

 

Don't go down that same condescending route that I just answered Craig about. People that have no answer make personal attacks. No, there is nothing wrong with my family and I find it quite insulting for you to insinuate that there is. If there was any gospel message in the Catholic Church they would have heard it by now. But they haven't. They don't have a clue what it means to be saved. As far as salvation is concerned they believe exactly as the RCC has been teaching for centuries: their salvation lies in the Catholic Church (not in Christ). The proof of that is: if you leave the Catholic Church it is a mortal sin that will condemn you to Hell. There is no salvation outside the Catholic Church. Those statements are true according to the RCC, aren't they?
DHK

 

DHK,

We are running in circles here. It comes down to this. You say there is not Gospel because your parents are not saved. I say there is a Gospel because I HAVE HEARD IT. Because I HAVE HEARD IT I cannot accept your premise that it does not exist, therefore, another conclusion must be drawn. I appologize if I insulted you, I did not intend to do so, but we have an irreconcilable problem here and if it is to be dealt with, then other answers must be arrived upon.

Pax Christi,

Stephen

 

Maybe we're running in circles because as one poster pointed out we have different definitions. If the gospel is preached in the Catholic Church what is the gospel that is preached. If one can learn how to be saved in the Catholic Church, what does it mean to be saved. If one can be born again in the Catholic Church what does it mean to be born again?

Stephen,
Have you been born again? If so when, and how?
Please describe how you were born again.
DHK

 

DHK,

As I said earlier, I was a Protestant, and was born again. I am not sure of an exact time when I took Christ as my savior, but I was in middle or highschool. It was never a question for me, I just knew Christ was God, and that he died for me, for the remission of my sin. Here is a good piece of an article on Salvation from the Catholic standpoint.


"It begins with the grace of God which touches a sinner's heart, and calls him to repentance. This grace cannot be merited; it proceeds solely from the love and mercy of God. Man may receive or reject this inspiration of God, he may turn to God or remain in sin. Grace does not constrain man's free will.

Thus assisted the sinner is disposed for salvation from sin; he believes in the revelation and promises of God, he fears God's justice, hopes in his mercy, trusts that God will be merciful to him for Christ's sake, begins to love God as the source of all justice, hates and detests his sins.

This disposition is followed by justification itself, which consists not in the mere remission of sins, but in the sanctification and renewal of the inner man by the voluntary reception of God's grace and gifts, whence a man becomes just instead of unjust, a friend instead of a foe and so an heir according to hope of eternal life. This change happens either by reason of a perfect act of charity elicited by a well disposed sinner or by virtue of the Sacrament either of Baptism or of Penance according to the condition of the respective subject laden with sin. The Council further indicates the causes of this change. By the merit of the Most Holy Passion through the Holy Spirit, the charity of God is shed abroad in the hearts of those who are justified.

Against the heretical tenets of various times and sects we must hold

* that the initial grace is truly gratuitous and supernatural;
* that the human will remains free under the influence of this grace;
* that man really cooperates in his personal salvation from sin;
* that by justification man is really made just, and not merely declared or reputed so;
* that justification and sanctification are only two aspects of the same thing, and not ontologically and chronologically distinct realities;
* that justification excludes all mortal sin from the soul, so that the just man is no way liable to the sentence of death at God's judgment-seat.

Other points involved in the foregoing process of personal salvation from sin are matters of discussion among Catholic theologians; such are, for instance,

* the precise nature of initial grace,
* the manner in which grace and free will work together,
* the precise nature of the fear and the love disposing the sinner for justification,
* the manner in which sacraments cause sanctifying grace.

But these questions are treated in other articles dealing ex professo with the respective subjects. The same is true of final perseverance without which personal salvation from sin is not permanently secured.

What has been said applies to the salvation of adults; children and those permanently deprived of their use of reason are saved by the Sacrament of Baptism."
I hope this helps.

Pax Christi,

Stephen

 

You really didn't answer my question very well.
If you are really born again, tell me how you were born again. What happened. Describe it in your own words.
It is easy enough to copy and paste something from a catechism or some other Catholic resource book. That is not what I am asking. I am asking for your own testimony, your own definition, your own words.
DHK

 

I gave it to you. I told you, it was not one exact moment in time. I have always known Christ was my saviour. I was saved before I became a Catholic. My Catholic conversion was only a year and a half ago...April 2003. I cannot remember an exact time when I accepted Christ...I guess I just always have accepted him. This is the best answer I can offer.

Pax Christi,

Stephen

 

DHK wrote,

DHK,

I wrote absolutely nothing about your family. I merely asked you (not your family, you) why, if the Catholic church you were going to did not preach the gospel, you did not find another that did. I have heard the gospel preached in a Roman Catholic Cathedral by the Bishop in a very large city during a Christmas Eve Mass. The subject of the entire sermon was the necessity of being born again for salvation.

On the other side of the coin, however, I agree that some if not many Roman Catholic churches do not place the importance on group Bible study that most Baptist churches do. One afternoon I had a long talk with the rector of the above referenced Cathedral and we discussed that very topic. He expressed to me that his own congregation did not have the Biblical knowledge that many Protestants do, and he told me that he was considering beginning a Sunday school program at the Cathedral.

I have had the privilege of sitting down one on one with many clergymen of many different denominations in very serious conversations about reaching people for Christ and the subsequent ministry to them, but of all these conversations one will always stand out in my mind distinctly separate from all the rest—and that conversation was the one with the Rector referenced above. Never before or after, in all my years as a Christian, a pastor, and a teacher of the Bible, have I experienced the divine presence that I experienced sitting down with that man of God.

And by the grace of God, I had the privilege of pastoring an inner-city church in the same city as that Cathedral and its rector. As an inner-city church we specialized in ministering to the refuse discarded by the other Protestant churches in that city, and I personally heard nightmarish tails of how other pastors in our city had treated those in their church that needed them the most. And of course I heard tails of how people had been treated by the rector of the Cathedral.

One young lady fellowshipping at our church related to me how she had taken an overdose of narcotics and passed out lying in a cutter along the street. A very kind middle-aged man found her, picked her up, put her in his car, drove her to a hotel, rented a room for her, and stayed with her till he knew that she was going to be alright. That middle-aged man was the rector of the Cathedral.

On another occasion, a young man, a stranger to me, came up to me in the church and asked to use a telephone. I asked him who it was that he wished to call, and he handed to me a scrap of paper with a telephone number hand-written upon it. The man told me that a man had given him this telephone number and told him to call him at that number if he ever needed help. It was 11:30 at night, and I was reluctant to do so, but I called the number. The man who answered the telephone had obviously been awakened from sleep by my call and he asked me why I was calling. I told him about the man with the telephone number written on a piece of paper and he asked me what the man needed. I asked the man and he told me that he was homeless and all the shelters were closed for the night and he needed a place to sleep. I gave the message to the man on the other end of the telephone, not knowing who it was to whom I was speaking, and he told me rent a room for the man and told me that he would pay the bill, and he gave me his name. Yes, it was the rector of the Cathedral.

There was a third story of this nature that was related to me about this man of God, but I do not recall any of the details.

 

The insinuation is there Craig. I have heard the same ignorant reply before. It is ignorant because people don't think before they post. Here is what you said:

I will say it again: Your condescending know-it-all attitude toward my family is insulting. What makes you think that they lived in just one place and went to just one church for 80 plus years?? If you must know they have lived in various parts of four of the ten provinces of Canada, and have visited every one of them. They go to church every Sunday. Do you think that they have been to just more than one church? They have lived in Germany, and have thus visited Italy, Portugal, Ireland, Switzerland, England, Wales, Scotland, Spain, and a few others that escape my memory right now. They have traveled through many of the States. I say it again: They don't miss mass on Sunday. Do you think they just might have gone to church in more than one place so that they didn't have to go to the one three or four blocks out of the way? Your condescending attitude is insulting. It assumes a know-it-all attitude. You aren't god.

Every priest I have ever encountered hasn't had a clue what it means to be "born again." I have an outstanding challenge to the Roman Catholics (which I usually give my relatives): Show me Roman Catholicism in the Bible, and I will become a Roman Catholic, but if I show you what I believe is Scriptural and in the Bible, then you are the one that needs to change.
DHK

 

From these two quotes are your testimony.
First, no one can "have always accepted him." There must be a point and time in one's life when they were born again, a time when you remember.
Second, you say you were in middle or highschool, but then the rest is quite academic. You came to a knowledge that Christ was God, and that He died for you, for the remission of your sins. Is this just academic knowledge?
Your two quotes above actually contradict each other. One says that you remember a time in middle school or high school, and the other seems to say that have always been saved. So which one is the right one.

But back to basics. What does it mean to be born again? If you were born again in middleschool (or high school), what happened? How does one become born again? How were you born again?
DHK

 

Stephen,

Thank you for sharing your testimony. It is vastly different from mine and manifests to me the majesty of God who works in each individual’s life according to His pleasure (whether some people like it not).

Shortly after I got saved I heard many Baptists and others saying that Catholics and Lutherans are not saved, and God, who is always rich in His mercy and grace, brought into my presence a large group of Lutheran young people who shared with me a testimony much like yours where there was no day that they could put their finger on and say that was the day that they got saved. And yet I personally witnessed these Lutheran young people sharing the Gospel with strangers with an abundance of fruit, including the radical salvation of the famous prostitute, Virginia Rose.

I also personally witnessed a group of these Lutheran young people form concentric prayer rings around a man who had passed out from an overdose of methamphetamines and alcohol and raise him up perfectly whole three minutes later. A woman who had seen the man collapse on the ground had called an ambulance, but when the ambulance arrived, it arrived to a scene of much rejoicing and praising of God! Three nights in a row I stayed up all night with these precious young people, all of whom were Lutherans, praying, singing, rejoicing, witnessing and enjoying the presence of Jesus; and during those three nights God answered for me a most impossible prayer for a young man for whom I had been praying every day.

We serve the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords “who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us.”

 

DHK,

No, the insinuation was not there and I did NOT have your family in mind when I wrote my post. I had you in mind as an individual and wrote exclusively to you and merely asked you a question about you, as an individual.