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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
1
chiefly British : a person of importance —used as a title for various officials (as magistrates and some mayors) 2
: reverence offered a divine being or supernatural power; also : an act of expressing such reverence3
: a form of religious practice with its creed and ritual 4
: extravagant respect or admiration for or devotion to an object of esteem
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.
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
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
to make earnest petition to (a person). to make petition or entreaty for
Since prayer means petition lets look at those same verses
*Petition (God) without ceasing
*After this manner, petition ye: "Our Father who art in heaven..."
*(while?) you petition (the Lord) use not vain repetitions as the heathen do.
*Petition ye the Lord of the harvest...
*Petition (the Lord) that you enter not into temptation
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.
Prayer is always directed to God
I have just shown they are not. You have wrongly developed that view point.
When you petition a friend you do not pray to a friend.
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.
You are simply playing a game of semantics
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.
The apostle John (along with the others were not Catholics).
Jesus founded a Church and John belonged to that Church.
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.
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.
Early Christians had the Word of God long before that. Paul taught Timothy the Word
Orally. Note Paul told Timothy to abide by the Traditions Paul passed on to him
Timothy taught others (2Tim.2:2).
Again orally.
Early Christians were taught by the apostles
Yes orally.
You assume that the Apostles were stupid and could not teach that first generation
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.
