Featured Rome's Mary on the Cross and God's Throne

Your journey began with a bad experience in a Baptist Church that is NOT representative of all other Baptist churches. From that bad experience you continue to use a logical fallacy of sweeping generalization, to suggest that all Baptist Churches are just like the one that you had your bad experience with. You are so very wrong. And it is wrong for you to continue to do that. You had a bad experience. Get off you hobby horse; quit feeling sorry for yourself; stop with the pity party, and go and learn from some other Biblically based Baptist churches what the Bible really teaches.

This is where you are blind to the truth. Just because the RCC changes the meanings of words such as prayer and worship does not make the prayer and worship of Mary any less palatable or idolatrous. You can't use Catholic terminology like: latria, dulia, hyper duia, etc. to define your worship. All prayer is worship. All prayer is to be directed to God. That prayer that is not directed to God is idolatry. It robs God of his glory. He is "a jealous God," and will not share his glory with another. As long as you are blind to this you will continue in your idolatry and continue to deny it. Changing definitions of worship cannot salve your conscience or lessen the sin of idolatry. All prayer to Mary (or any other "saint" for that matter) is idolatry. Every Catholic commits idolatry. They all pray to Mary which is idolatry. You cannot deny these facts.

The Bible is our guide; or standard; not the Catholic Church.
From the Bible we take our definitions, not the RCC.

 

Thinking stuff...you asked me...

Multitudes

I am an ex- Catholic. I was a catholic for 24 years.I thank God every day for opening my eyes to the truth regarding the Catholic false church

 

I Second that !!!

 

I can third it. (twenty years)

 

Well... I was raised a Baptist from a family of Baptists that stretch back at least 150 years. Many of my ancestors founded Baptist churches in this area all of which are still alive today. I was a practicing Baptist up until about 9 months ago - I am now a proud member of the original Church founded by Christ upon Peter. And that would be the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church! :godisgood:

P.s. I did change my home church in my profile to reflect this update. And yes - I know I'll probably get banned.

Praise be to God!
WM

 

Wesminster man...

You....


I am now a proud member of the original Church founded by Christ upon Peter. And that would be the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church!

Me...That is what you have been told. But what you have been told is falsehood. The Catholic church is a FALSE church, filled with heresy and wickidness. You have been tricked.



You....P.s.I did change my home church in my profile to reflect this update. And yes - I know I'll probably get banned.


Me....I certainly hope you are not banned. I dont think you will be if you post here on the "other denominations" board and dont cause trouble anywhere else

 

Probably not. It would depend on how you behave.

What would I be if I were not a Baptist?
I would be ashamed.

 

PRAISE GOD, WestminsterMan!

I wasn't aware you had 'swam the Tiber'. I changed my 'home church' on my profile as well. My reception into the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church last Saturday was incredible! The readings at the Easter Vigil brought us through salvation history. I have never had such a close relationship with Jesus as I do now as a Catholic Christian. I'm able worship the Lord Jesus daily at mass and be fed not only on His word, but on His Body and Blood. Thank God my eyes were opened to the truth!

God bless you!

 

What I think you are asking is 'how can Jesus be really present in the Eucharist he instituted at the last supper if he hasn't died yet?' I have heard people on this board say that this is evidence of symbolic communion.

If my God is big enough to turn water into wine at the wedding feast at Cana do you not think that Jesus could turn the bread and wine at the last supper into his Divine body and blood? The ability to do this would not be impacted by the fact that His sacrifice had not yet happened in "time" yet as it is a making of that sacrifice present to the apostles in an unbloody manner. Similarly, when we participate in the Eucharist now (after Jesus death), we are partaking of his divine body and blood by participating in the one and only sacrifice which is made "present" for us-He is not re-sacrificed.

 

Of course not. 'I am the vine, you are the branches' is one example. That is metaphorical language. However, John 6 and I Cor. 10:16 as well as the ECF's make it quite clear that He was not speaking metaphorically when He said 'this IS my body and this IS my blood. There is overwhelming evidence that the Early Church held to that belief and has maintained the same position for two thousand years.

 

Good then you know at the liturgy of the Mass the Name of Mary is invoked once at the penitential rite. Only asking for her prayers along with the other angel, saints and members of the Church. What is a shame is that you came away from the Catholic Church thinking you worshiped Mary at Mass. I can't blame you however for an improper Catechesis.

 

Yes he did.

 

I think I need to make my point clear. Yes, I did have a bad experience at the Baptist Church I went to. No, I did not generalize that to all Baptist Churches or even at the one I attended. My point was that it is inconsistent to criticize the Catholic Priest for spending money on vestments when we see the same thing happening in other churches. The retort was that the person who critiqued the Catholic Church on vestments said they had the same issues with TV evangelist. To which I replied that it isn't just the TV evangelist but it happens at other churches citing what happened at my Church. Does that mean all Pastors are like that no. But the Criticism is not balanced or fair. That was my point. And yes I had a bad experience but not all experiences I had at that Baptist Church was all bad. I have very good experiences as well. And I have very good friendships I still maintain with members from that Church. I had a bad Pastor. Yes. Before him I had a great Pastor who grew that church from its beginning and retired. I'm glad he wasn't there to watch it tear itself apart by his replacement. But to suggest that I infer all Baptist Churches are like that is also an unfair assessment to my discussion with Thomas Helwys.

Meanings of words aren't "changed" by the Catholic Church. The terminology you cite aren't even English but Latin. And being Latin these were concepts not newly developed but developed long ago and they already had specific meanings. They weren't given new ones. That is your first error. Your second error is that even in English the word "prayer" isn't exclusive to worship but rather a vehicle of communication specifically its a petition. You can petition God, or you can petition a friend, or you can petition a politician or just about anybody. Therefore, there is nothing idolatrous about petitioning someone.

Well the Catholic Church produced the bible out of its tradition whether you want to believe it or not.

And once again I must remind you that the bible is not a dictionary. And as we can see at the many councils starting at Jerusalem as described in the book of Acts that certainly the Church defined doctrine.

 

Walter. you posted to me....

Heresy 100 times, or heresy once.. its still heresy.

You know better then that. That that we are discussing is pure heresy.

The Catholic false church is DRIPPING with heresy...such as worshipping its "Mary Goddess" and has been for centuries


Nice try, though

 

I'll accept your explanation

That is not my error at all. The concepts of latria, dulia, hyper dulia, etc. are not found in the Bible. These man-made differentiations in worship are not there. Both Latin and Greek existed at the time of Christ, but the Bible was written in Greek; that is the language in which the NT has been originally preserved and inspired, not Latin or any other language.

The words are Catholic. It doesn't matter what their derivation may be or even how old they may be. What is significant is how they are used today. They are used almost exclusively by the RCC to describe their mode of worship and as an excuse to defend their idolatry. Worship is worship, even when called by a different name; it is still worship.

Let's go the Bible and see what it says:
* Pray without ceasing.
* After this manner, pray ye: 'Our Father who art in heaven...'
* Why you pray use not vain repetitions as the heathen do.
* Pray ye the Lord of the harvest...
* Pray that you enter not into temptation.

Prayer is always directed to God. Even those that are petitions are still part of worship addressed to God. Included in prayer is: confession of sin, praise, thanksgiving, supplication, petition, intercession. It is all worship. All of it. And all of it are different aspects of prayer. Prayer is worship. Prayer can only be directed to God. Prayer directed to any other is idolatry. Remember we are keeping these definitions in the context of prayer.

When you petition a friend you do not pray to a friend. You are simply playing a game of semantics here. Prayer includes petitions; but not all petitions are prayer--obviously. Any petition not made to God is not prayer. If it is made to a friend then it is simply a request isn't it? If it is made to Mary, or a "saint," etc., then it is an act of idolatry, no different than a Hindu bows down to Ganesh, Ram, or Vishnu. There is no difference. They petition their gods, and you petition your gods as well. But there is only one true God, and that is Christ. You have made your religion polytheistic by including Mary and other saints.

The apostle John (along with the others were not Catholics).
The OT was written by the prophets and the NT by the apostles, generally speaking. They penned the books and the last one written was Revelation ca. 98 A.D. The RCC did not even come into existence until the beginning of the fourth century. Early Christians had the Word of God long before that. Paul taught Timothy the Word. Timothy taught others (2Tim.2:2). Early Christians were taught by the apostles. You assume that the Apostles were stupid and could not teach that first generation which MSS were inspired and which were not. They somehow had to wait for the RCC to come along and tell them. Such arrogance is so ludicrous it is sad.

Not true. The Bible does define much more than you think.
It is man that is fallible. I will take my definitions from the Bible. You can stick to you man-made catechisms. I left the darkness and superstitions of the RCC years ago and never looked back. The Bible is our final authority in all matters of faith and doctrine; not creeds, confessions, and councils.
You misunderstood what happened at Acts 15.
They simply reaffirmed doctrine that was already in practice. They made it public for those practicing and believing heresy--the legalistic Judaizers.

 

I must point out a couple of things about this post which makes no sense. Lets start with the bible not being written in Latin. This is true. The autographs were in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. The NT was written in Greek because in that part of the world Greek was the common tongue. It was the language of commerce and it would effect the largest population. They even spoke Greek in Rome. This is why the NT writers wrote in Greek. However, where you go askew is in believing that Greek itself was inspired or Hebrew or Aramaic. These languages weren't inspired. The Men who wrote the text were inspired and they chose to use Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek because of its accessibility to the general populace in their location. The next thing that you said which makes no sense is that concepts of Latria, dulia, hyper dulia are not found in scriptures. This is untrue. The words themselves aren't found in scriptures this is true because scriptures weren't written in Latin. However, we see in scriptures worship due God alone, Honor which belongs to kings, Honor due to people who serve God. So yes the concepts are there. For instance you have God called Lord, you have the king called Lord, you even have a prophet called Lord. Are we to believe that all are given the same honor that belongs to God from this? Of course not. So yes the concepts are there.

See and that is your problem even with scriptures if you don't take things in their original context you take them out of context. Which you not only do with Latin but it seems with scripture as well.

Two points. 1) Roman Catholicism doesn't defend idolatry. The terms were used because by the time many theologians in the west were writing comprehensively about theology everyone spoke Latin. So they wrote in the tongue they spoke which was Latin. They already commonly held differences in honor and worship and had more specific language than English. There were already terms used to show Honor to God alone and Honor to respected persons. English is insufficient because we use one word to have two different connotations. We use worship for God alone and worship for respected persons as we can see from the dictionary.

And thus your mistake is to impose a meaning that isn't meant because of 1) The Limitation of Language which has more than one meaning and applying the wrong meaning universally to all contexts. and 2) and impose a false characteristic to the bible of defining words.

Ye,s lets look at this. Note though you've shown how prayer is used note we do not find it defined in any of the passages you've quoted. What you find is the activity associated with that word. Not one passage you site says that the definition of prayer is only the worship of God. Prayer is defined as

Since prayer means petition lets look at those same verses

So we see the activities required by scripture is to petition God in these situations. However, does that prevent us from petitioning anyone else for other things? No. And does that mean if I petition someone else for something else I'm giving them the worship due God? No. Therefore, your premise is wrong because once again you get the language and the context wrong. And it all stems from believing that the bible is a dictionary. It is not.

I have just shown they are not. You have wrongly developed that view point.

Yes you do. Because you are stuck in the modern 21st century context you forget not long ago people would say "pray tell". It is from this language that our modern language is rooted in and the problem with the modern connotation is that words have multiple meanings which people seem to easily apply the wrong meaning because they fail at context. In this case you have failed at context.

It certainly isn't a game. These concepts were developed long before English was a language when people spoke Latin and they had specific language that provided the contextual base which to apply meaning. So Yes I can petition God, I can petition a friend. But its clear my petition to a friend is different than my petition to God though the activity is exactly the same.

Jesus founded a Church and John belonged to that Church.

Again you are wrong we have as early as 90 AD Ignatius of Antioch proclaiming Christians as Catholic. We have distinctive to Catholic worship liturgy in the Didache as early as 50 AD. So this Fourth century nonsense is just that Nonsense. The Fourth Century only allowed Christians to move about the empire freely without being persecuted. Which permitted larger gatherings free communications, better travel, and the leadership didn't have to worry about Gathering in one place in case all of them might be executed.

Orally. Note Paul told Timothy to abide by the Traditions Paul passed on to him

Again orally.

Yes orally.

Not at all. Because I insist that their first priority was to teach the gospel. However, they did it by orally teaching others.

and here is your problem the Apostles upon the Ascention of Jesus or the descent of the Holy Spirit didn't set out to write a book. The orally proclaimed the gospel and orally passed on the teachings of Jesus. There wasn't a MSS for the first 20 years of the Church! So they grew the Church which was founded by Jesus Christ. And that Church out of already established Traditions taught by the Apostles wrote down scriptures based on those teachings of the Apostles. Thus the Scriptures are the Traditions of that Church and should be understood in the context of that Church.

 

I started a thread to say that I don't believe extreme harshness towards Roman Catholics is warranted, or towards anyone, for that matter. I have also stated that I have about as many problems with Calvinism as I do with the RCC. However, I have friends who are both, and some in these camps have treated me better than those in my own camp!

I cannot change what I believe about the RCC and what I found when I researched it many years ago. When I was in my late teens, I rebelled against my upbringing and began to look at other denominations. There was not one that I did not consider, including the RCC, believe it or not. This period of my life contributed to my later desire to get an education in church history and theology. I was passionately interested in finding objective truth. If anyone actually gets an education in this area and not just an indoctrination, some things do become clear. What became clear to me was that I could never be a Roman Catholic or a member of a Calvinist denomination. And I learned to appreciate my Baptist roots all over again. I have much broader views now than before my studies, and I can appreciate many denominations.

I said all that to say this: I firmly believe what I have said about the RCC, but I have meant to attack or insult no one personally. So, regardless of what has been said or implied about me, I will not get into a p*****g contest with anyone. Further, I have been extended an olive branch and have reciprocated.

So, while I will continue to hold to what I am firmly convinced are the facts about the RCC, I would hope to have cordial relations with Roman Catholics here, the same way I try to do with Calvinists, by the way.

I must admit that I have considered leaving the forum because if banning for doctrinal reasons is common here, then this is not the place for me. But I do so much love to engage in theological discussion, and I have enjoyed my time here so far.