Roman Catholicism , cult or not? Part II

Actually Origen is the one to blame for allegorical interpretation.

Except when the literal interpretation is inconvenient for baptist pressupositions.

 

Do you know that Catholics claim strongly they all should go to Purgatory with extremely rare exceptions of Saints?

How long do you expect you will spend time at Purgatory? Your destiny is depending neither on your own effort there in Purgatory nor on the mercy of God, but on the prayers of others, your relatives after your death, right?
How many million years or how many billion years at Purgatory can purify your sins?

Do you know that the Robber at the cross could go to Paradise immediately, without going to Purgatory? How much Catholics are more miserable than the Robber?
How many RC are on this earth today? How many among them can go to Heaven directly without going to Purgatory, having been canonized as Saints?

Catholics strongly deny that their churches are built upon Jesus Christ, by strongly insisting that their church is built upon Peter even though Peter never heard about Roman Catholics.

Catholics strongly deny that God is their Holy Father, by calling corruptible human being Popes as their Holy Father.
They cried their Holy Father died !
Our True Holy Father never dies !

Catholics strongly deny that one should not make Idols, by excusing the idols for Mary!, then create fables that the idols of Mary bleed from the eyes!

Should we submit to human beings like this?

Benedict IX (1033-1045), was made Pope as a boy 12 years old, through a money bargain with the powerful families that ruled Rome. "Surpassed John XII in wickedness; committed murders and adulteries in broad daylight; robbed pilgrims on the graves of martyrs a hideous criminal, the people drove him out of Rome." Some call him the Worst of all the Popes


http://biblestudysite.com/history.htm


Roman Catholic strongly confess that they don't believe the blood of Jesus Christ and His death cleansed all sins away but left the future sins unforgiven, by conducting Mass every week where Priests ask for the forgiveness all the time, never bringing the answer from God about how God answered their prayers.

 

Reformed? What?

To say that the Lord's Churches need reforming is to say that He has left Her and forsaken Her; and that the Holy Spirit has not been leading in all Truth.

Jesus said He would never leave--He sent another Comforter. He has abided--through the gates of hell--just like He said. God is faithful--man is not. Man is depraved.

The remnant has been preserved--through the Grace and Power of God. All man can do is make yokes of bondage and stop up the gates of heaven.

The Bride remains--undefiled. Reformations are of men--can the apostate be reformed?. God has no difficulty revealing nor enforcing His Word. The First Assembly had all the necessary equipment to carry out the commission. And so did every New Testament Assembly thereafter for the past 1900 years.

Selah,

Bro. James

 

This is unverifiable opinion and the Catholic standard lie which they would have you believe. Even the Bible itself teaches us otherwise. Peter verifies the inspiration of the epistles of Paul. </font>[/QUOTE]The key phrase is "the epistles of Paul". These were indeed the earliest to have widespread recognition as being authoritative among the Church, and it's not at all surprising that the folks to whom Peter was writing his second epistle were familiar with them. Somewhat later (in terms of widespread recognition) was the quartet of Holy Gospels. Later still were the general epistles--these were disputed for a long time in areas of the Church as I mentioned above. Ironically, the book (Second Peter) in which Peter equates Paul's writings with scripture was among the books in that disputed category. And this is not "unverified opinion". These are facts that can be found in any standard academic (and non-Roman Catholic) book on the formation of the NT canon.

But he didn't state it was to "only" their writings that believers were to take heed. On the other hand, Paul commands the Thessalonians to follow the traditions handed down whether delivered orally or by epistle. (2 Thess 2:15)

But that body of doctrine was handed down primarily orally. This was exclusively the case for about the first two decades of the Churches existence, as no NT writings were penned until approximately 50 AD. It remained practically the case for at least the next several decades as the other NT writings were gradually written and more slowly began to circulate to varying extents around the Mediterranean. In fact, it was the oral teachings--the oral tradition--that helped the Church determine which writings that claimed apostolic authorship were authentic and which (like the Gospel of Thomas, etc) were not.

And yet historically their was no indication of a canon, "fixed" or otherwise, which exactly matches our 27 book NT until AD 367 at the earliest. You can verify this through non-RCC sources. (F.F Bruce's book on the Canon is a good one). Before this time period, although there was a general agreement about the Pauline corpus and the four gospels (and perhaps 1 John and 1 Peter) there was no universal consensus about the exact limits of the canon. Hebrews, James, Jude, 2 Peter, 2 & 3 John, and Revelation were disputed in various regions for a long time. (And, books such as 1 Clement, Barnabas, Shepherd of Hermas, and the Didache were considered to be Scripture for a while in various locales). We forget that that there was no printing press back then and that transportation was more difficult, so that there were much fewer copies of Scriptures (than we have now) and it took much longer for letters to circulate around. By the time certain letters (ie many of the general epistles) starting circulating out of their initial area of reception, so too were spurious pseudo-"apostolic" works making many to be very hesitant in accepting books that they previously were unaware of (ie like 2 Peter, etc). Sorry if these facts bother you, but they are the facts.

The early church was the catholic church. Ignatius, at the beginning of the second century, even referred to the Church as being the "catholic" church.

Nope, the catholic church existed from the beginning and referred to itself as "catholic" long before the fourth century. The canon wasn't finalized until the end of the 4th or beginning of the 5th century. Sorry if this doesn't sit well with you, but, again, these are the historical facts.

Actually, you are again displaying your ignorance of early church writings (and Scripture too, for that matter). All these beliefs were expressed long before the fourth century. For example, we have documentation from the second century about belief in Mary as "the New Eve" (Justin and Irenaeus). As far as baptism is concerned, it was the consensus of the early Church that regeneration occured by the Holy Spirit in the baptismal waters. There are no writings that teach a merely symbolic view of water baptism in the ante-Nicene period. And both of these things were regarded by early Christians as having apostolic and Scriptural support (the first being more implicit, and the latter more explicit)--they would just disagree with your interpretations of the relevent Scriptures.

Not even close.
(Well, maybe a little close...Baptists to their credit at least generally acknowlege the Trinity and the Deity and Incarnation of Christ, and I'm grateful for learning these two great truths in my 33+ year stint as a Southern Baptist )

And I think many of us are still waiting for evidence of the existence of these proto-Baptists from the ante-Nicene period.

 

AMEN

AMEN

AMEN

AMEN

Yes, praise God He has preserved the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.

(But I don't think you and I are talking about the same thing. )

 

Except when the literal interpretation is inconvenient for baptist pressupositions. </font>[/QUOTE]So true, as I discovered all too well during my lifetime as a Southern Baptist.

 

You are wrong here. They do not deny that God is their Father by calling the earthly head of their church Pope or Father. Their earthly spiritual head (similar to your pastor) died. Is that not reason to weep? (Please see the other thread I started about this very topic)

(Brackets mine)

AMEN and AMEN!!!
In Christ,
Nathan

"Eccere nullus-a-um salus-utis externus Christus!"

 

Matt...

I was going to respond but DHK beat me to it. And he usually responds to "canonicity" questions better than I do anyway.

God bless,

Mike

 

Chemnitz,

It was posted...

And you responded...

Only when mindless repetition is used to indoctrinate people to be a goddess worshipper, or anything else that blatantly idolatrous or blasphemous.

Is AWANA something that promotes goddess worship or something equally hidious?

Mike

 

Yes mindless repetition for the purposes of indoctrinating in baptist teaching.

 

How I can relate:

Dominus vobiscum!
Et tum spirit tu tuo........................

Along with all the other latin: etc., etc., etc.,
DHK

 

I was going to respond but DHK beat me to it. And he usually responds to "canonicity" questions better than I do anyway.

God bless,

Mike </font>[/QUOTE]And DT has shot his argument down as usual better than I can!

 

I realize it is only natural that you take the word of modernistic unbelieving critical scholars over that of believing conservative scholars. There are obvious reasons for that.

John 8:45 And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not.

Peter epistles (both of them) were always accepted as inspired among the true believers, taught by the Apostles and their followers and so on. Error entered in when gnostics and other false teachers tried to lead others astray. Paul in both 1 and 2 Corinthians warned of these false teachers. Even at that time they were among the Corinthian Church demanding epistles of recommendation of Paul, though he had started the church at Corinth. Unbelievable!!
And you still hold to your "truth" that the believers could not separate the inspired books from the fake, gnostic forgeries. I know that the RCC today is unable to do this. But I know that I can tell that Bel and the Dragon is a fake and forgery as compared to the rest of the 66 books of the Bible. The canon of Scripture has cetain evidences and qualities that are not found in forgeries such as that fable. The early believers knew the same.

The books that make up the canon of our Scripture today were recognized as canon as they were written. Paul knew when he was writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Many times he uses statements such as: "It is not I, but the Lord that commands:" emphasizing that this indeed is the Word of God. It was obvious that Peter and others knew that his writings were inspired and recobnized them as Scripture by the words that they wrote.

 

1. There's a strong argument for saying that baptismal regeneration is taught in the Bible - I Peter 3:21 springs to mind.

2. These matters to which you refer were taught by the early church; Irenaeus, for example, writes:

Hyppolytus:

and Cyprian of Carthage:

These are all well before Constantine's Edict of Toleration of 313 when you state the Catholic Church began. Seems like these 'early Baptist churches' held some distinctly non-Baptist doctrines and interpretattions of Scripture...Hmmm...

Um...no - see above. Believers' baptism alone has only been taught since the 1520s, beginning with the Anabaptists.

 

So, these apostles were, er, omnipresent then?

 

I'm confused - is that a response to my link to the article about the Waldenses?

And we're all still waiting for your evidence of these Christian groups prior to 1160....

 

"I'm confused", indeed, we are all confused--especially when we put more credence in the writings of men than the plain teaching of the Word of God. God is not the author of confusion.

Jesus said He would build His Church--and the gates of Hell would not prevail. He said He would send another Comforter, to lead in all Truth. Jesus has been faithful. Why do some not believe Him?

The true believers have been in every generation, preserved by God, kind of like Noah in the Ark. God preserved a remnant while He destroyed the world with water. He said the world will be destroyed again--this time with fire, melting with fervent heat. Are we ready? The NT gospel has been preached for over 1900 years. Satan has tried to thwart--he has failed. The remnant, The Bride of Christ, remains undefiled. Read about Her in the pages of secular history--She is usually called an heretic.

Not all heretics are true believers.

We seem to be having a dilemma of paradigms, Matthew. My first filter is: Sola Scriptura.

Selah,

Bro. James

 

Translation- I have no proof

 

Have not seen the Ark either--God said it, that settles it. Whether we believe it or not is irrelevant in terms of Truth. The Word of God does not need a preponderance of evidence to make it so.

Do you believe man went to the moon and walked thereon and returned? Could it have been faked?

The fact that man has so utterly failed in his endeavors since Adam should indicate to us that depraved man cannot be trusted. Only the return of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords will make it right, that with a rod of iron.

How much more proof does one need?

Selah,

Bro. James