Catholic Questions.

PeterMeansRock,

Welcome to the board. I was raised in the Catholic Church of Rome but was gloriously brought into the body of Christ in 1982. Of course God plugged me into the bible believing evangelical world.

If I listed all the errors that break my heart regarding the Catholic Church I would be typing for hours upon hours, but the main ones would be...

1) The Catholic Churchs denial of the gospel of Jesus Christ...justification through faith alone, and their substitution for that truth the false gospel that God condemns...justification through faith+works.

2) The Catholic Churchs denial that all born of the Spirit people are to turn to Gods written word, the scriptures, as their truth standard and primary source of spiritual food, and that we all are to test all things against it so we can recognise error.

And their substitution of that the cultic idea that only their *supposed* high and lofty "hierarchial authorities" are to interpret the scriptures...while the supposed "lay" people have no right to do that.

(That is precisely what the Mormons, Jehovahs Witnesses, Jim Jones and David Koresh teach or taught their people.)

Those are the 2 very basic, foundational errors of Catholicism, and all the others flow from those, imo.


And by the way, as someone else posted, although I am an evangelical child of God I too do not believe that every single Catholic is necesarrily automatically lost because they are affiliated with such an organisation. I know some born again Catholics and am overjoyed that they are my brothers and sisters in Christ.

If you are born again I am proud to be your brother.

I do believe however that the born again people in the Catholic Church are in the extreme minority and are probably not part of the priesthood or hierarchy.

I have no proof of any of that of course, just my opinion.

God bless you,

Mike

 

CharlesMeadows,

Ummmm...no. They are not.

Gods best,

Mike

 

The "wordplay in the Greek" has been put forth for years to counter the catholic arguments for the papacy. But as such it has emerged because of necessity and NOT because of likelihood. The ONLY reason to see rock as not referring to Peter is to attempt to weaknen that catholic argument. That being said I do NOT agree with the papacy arguments - but I don't think that legitimizes bad arguments.

Also, consider the Yalqut Sh'moni Midrashim. God tells Abraham that he is a rock (petra used here as a loan word instead of the Hebrew tsur) on which He (God) will build a nation. So there's a good parallel to Jesus' statement about Peter being the rock.

 

You might want to "save your breath" on this one. Having had "discussions" with D28guy on this issue several times, and having made the same simple arguement myself that you yourself make here, I can predict what the response will be. D28 will say that you are obviously "distoring" and "mangling" the meaning of the James passage (despite what it explicitly says!), and then he will proceed to pontificate on how sola fide (and sola scriptura for that matter) are both "truths" that are "thundered forth" in the Scriptures. He will then post a litany of verses which really do nothing to prove sola fide (and they certainly don't overthrow the truth of James 2:24)...so brace yourself.

 

The Catholic Church doesn’t require or make a person ask a Saint to pray for them. It’s up to the individual. Asking my mom to pray for me is no different than asking a Saint to pray for me and as long as one isn’t trying to summon the presence of some Saint who has passed on, then there’s no harm. quoted from riverm

Of course not....because all souls in Heaven are saints. The RCC highlights some individuals as Saints but there are numberless who led good lives or were martyred unknown...these too are saints.

The dead have souls who live ever on regardless in Heaven or Hell, they are not asleep or in a coma. At the Last Judgement the Lord will raise our bodies to reunite with our souls "in a twinkling of an eye at the Last Trumpet"

 

just a question (definitely some interesting replies already).. in reading that passage, if Jesus were calling Peter "pebble", it would sound like an insult and completely out of place because we are left with these choices for the interpretation of the term "pebble"...

"You are a pebble, Peter"--as in small and meaningless, which doesn't make sense after Peter's confession that Jesus is the Christ.

"I'm going to put a pebble on the foundation"-- pebbles blow off and fall, they are not sturdy building blocks, and immediately afterwards Jesus promises that the gates of Hell shall not prevail against the Church, so putting a pebble on even a sturdy foundation doesn't make much sense.

Do you have another interpretation for this passage that makes more sense? And reading through the Greek, since Church is a feminine noun and Peter is masculine there has to be a change in the Greek to show the difference. The Catholic point about the Aramaic Jesus would've spoken seems pretty solid to me. And besides, Ephesians 2:20 tells us that the Church is built on the Apostles and Prophets with Christ as the cornerstone. To say that Jesus was calling Peter "Rock" and going to "build His Church on him" seems to make sense in light of the rest of the Bible. It doesn't take anything away from God to say that He used men to accomplish His purpose, it only glorifies God all the more because it shows that God can use even the imperfect.

... my two cents.

 

Hello Again PeterMeansRock -
Thanks for answering so quickly.

Regarding the following which was my quote and part of your answer:

quote:
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I was raised in the Catholic church. My main concern, although I have many, is the issue of transubstantiation and the continued unbloody sacrifice of Christ in the Mass in light of Hebrews chapter 10.
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"Good Question.

Quite simply, Heb 10 is speaking of the old covenant and animal sacrifices for the remission of sins of Israel. That was then, in the past, and is no longer a part of what we have.

Christ is not "re-sacrificed", but his ONCE FOR ALL sacrifice is made present now always. It is eternal and always with us - and that is what the Eucharist is."

In the Catholic Catechism which is posted on www.vatican.va, I see the following two notations (copied below) #'s 1367 and 1368. They seem to say that Christ is still being sacrificed, although in a different (unbloody) manner, and that Catholics are joining Him also in a sacrifice of their works, praise, prayers, etc. Perhaps today's Catholic understands this differently and you could explain this. I do remember in the liturgy, years ago, asking God to accept this sacrifice.

1367 The sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are one single sacrifice: "The victim is one and the same: the same now offers through the ministry of priests, who then offered himself on the cross; only the manner of offering is different." "And since in this divine sacrifice which is celebrated in the Mass, the same Christ who offered himself once in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross is contained and is offered in an unbloody manner. . . this sacrifice is truly propitiatory."190

1368 The Eucharist is also the sacrifice of the Church. The Church which is the Body of Christ participates in the offering of her Head. With him, she herself is offered whole and entire. She unites herself to his intercession with the Father for all men. In the Eucharist the sacrifice of Christ becomes also the sacrifice of the members of his Body. The lives of the faithful, their praise, sufferings, prayer, and work, are united with those of Christ and with his total offering, and so acquire a new value. Christ's sacrifice present on the altar makes it possible for all generations of Christians to be united with his offering.

You also mentioned John 6 regarding transubstantiation. After John 6:54 the disciples tell Jesus that this is a hard saying and who can hear it? He is clear in John 6:63 that the flesh profiteth nothing and the words he spoke are spirit and life.

Again, thanks for responding. I know I have not replied in depth but am getting ready for a long trip, will be in and out of the forum tomorrow, and then on the road for Friday. Hoping to check in as often as I can, probably starting again next week (if I don't get stuck in a snow drift

), but trying to beat the clock right now. I'm looking forward to a more in-depth discussion when I have more time. Please feel free to e-mail me if you'd like. Have enjoyed your posts.

 

I know this wasn't directed at me, but I've always found this interesting.

It doesn't seem like a good idea (to me) to claim that Jesus was speaking symbolically because He uses the "spirit". Spirit does NOT mean "symbolic". Otherwise you've just done away with the third person of the Trinity. Furthermore, in my studies of the Bible I have not been able to find a passage where the term "spirit" is used to mean something "symbolic". Perhaps you could help me there?

 

It was posted,

Shudders...</font>[/QUOTE]I'm not very familiar with David Cloud.

Regarding Jack Chick, everything I have seen in his tracts concerning Catholicism was pretty good and accurate, but I dont like cartoon style material all that much.

Regarding his stuff on politics, communism, and that Rivera(is that right?) person, I dont know if that is accurate or not.

But regarding Dave Hunt, I would say it that the wise Catholic would read his books prayerfully and soberly. His books on Catholicism are very good, imo.

I wish they would have never needed to have been written, but unfortunetly they need to be.

Sadly,

Mike

 

PeterMeansRock...

Of course they tell you that...and that you must believe that. It is very very very important for them to convince their people that that is true, and that the Catholic Church of Rome has an unbroken string of this connecting them directly to Peter.

I know someone who used to say this...

"Why, you wouldnt even have a table of contents page if it werent for the Catholic Church!"

(Eyes rolling)

The Catholic Church is an organisation which has brought condemnation on themselves in so many ways, but one of which is adding false books to the true scriptures that Almighty God has given us. Books of course that they must add to Gods word because they support some of the Catholic Churchs false and idolatrous teachings.

With sadness,

Mike

 

PeterMeansRock,

I said...

And you said...

(sigh)

Oh no. Not that one again. (moan)

I have to say, from this post and others I see that you have all of the stock "pull these out at the appropriate times!" responses ready to go.

I was kind of hopeing that maybe with you being new you might at least say things a lttle differently...or at least change the words around a little bit...alter them a little bit...SOMETHING.

I'm sorry but its just kind of laborious to realise its going to be the SAME...OLD...THINGS, with the SAME...EXACT...PHRASES, representing the SAME OLD ERRORS, all over again.

Oh well. I'm limited on time right now, but I'll come back and get to responding to all of these errors.

And I have to say, you have no idea how much I wish my last computer hadnt of imploded and needed to be replaced.

I'm a computer know nothing and dont know anything about "downloading" and puting things on "discs" and all that stuff. All I can do is put stuff on those things called "documents". I had tons of great stuff that would save me a lot of typing but it was all lost when the computer died...so I have to start all over.

But I'll get to your issues in time.

God bless,

Mike