Holy Changes!

I believe what he is saying is that the word for "vain repetitions" originated with a Greek poet. He gave a current example of that time of a prayer to a Roman emperor, which was common, as they often were deified.
DHK

 

It has been wisely said that the Bible has one interpretation, but many applications. Barnes gave the correct interpretation, as he gave us the origin of the word, and the historical context of the word. But in application how does it apply to us today.
I believe that a vain repetition, like the Romans' praise for their emperor is no different than the Hail Mary's on the rosary which give praise to Mary. They are both said over and over again, most of the time vainly, without meaning. (I am talking of the average Catholic here--I used to be one). However, not to be undone, many Protestants do the same thing. Closing their liturgical-type service in an "Our Father," or the "Lord's Prayer," can be just as vain and repetitious at least in the sense that it is done after every service. It gets to the point, where, as a memorized prayer people are no longer thinking of the words any more, just going through the motions. I believe Jesus had this in mind also. If we read the context of the passage he was telling us to avoid all such prayer, but to "enter into our closet and there pray to our Father in secret." That was His emphasis in this passage--to get alone with God in prayer. Public prayer is not wrong. But public prayer is still talking to God--not a memorized chant or rant. You don't memorize and say over and over again what you say to your earthly father. You don't speak to him that way. Why would you speak to your heavenly Father that way?

1Sam.1:12 And it came to pass, as she continued praying before the LORD, that Eli marked her mouth.
13 Now Hannah, she spake in her heart; only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard:

These are two of the most enlightening verses on prayer in the Bible. Hannah spake in her heart. Prayer is from the heart.
DHK

 

Brian,

This is the type of thing I always warn people of, and if things pan out and I do end up in God's ministry, then it will definitely be something I stress throughout my life. It's the same reason I make myself aware of all of my actions. When I make the sign of the cross, I make sure I say the words, "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen." And I make sure I'm aware of what this means when I say it. When I genuflect in front of the tabernacle (where Jesus' body is preserved between Masses, I make sure that I'm aware of who I am bowing to, Jesus, and not bowing at nothing or bowing at the tabernacle itself.

God bless,

Grant

 

Hi Brian,

You wrote, "Also I agree that many Catholics say the Rosary with no thought of the meaning what-so-ever."

I wouldn't be so presumptuous. Let's think from a practical and realistic point-of-view. The main reason to pray the Rosary is in order to meditate upon the central mysteries it contains. Saying the Rosary without engaging in this meditation is awfully boring and fruitless (not to mention, engages in vain repetition). It would be interesting to see how many Catholics actually pray the rosary in this bland, boring, and false way; however, the nature of the Rosary weeds out those who pray it in such an empty fashion because when it is prayed properly, it is both enjoyable and fruitful in the spiritual life.

Plus, it is difficult to pray the Rosary without knowing about the meditations. One would have to memorize the Hail, Holy Queen, which would entail using an instruction on the Rosary, which both speaks about and gives the various meditations. And, if one has memorized this particular prayer and the structure of the Rosary, it is more than likely that such an individual knows quite well of the real soul behind the rosary: meditation.

I wholly recommend this type of prayer in your own prayer life. Of course, you don't have to use the words of the "Haily Mary" if it offends you. You also don't have to even say words to keep track of your meditation time (this is the purpose of repeating the same prayers in the Rosary). You can simply spend time in meditation over the mysteries of Christ, contemplating those Gospel realities that you wish to conform your own life to, so that your inner self may be transformed unto the image of Christ, for the glory of God, which is your own personal sanctification as a child of God. Go for it!

God bless,

Carson

[ November 01, 2002, 07:13 PM: Message edited by: Carson Weber ]

 

I would disagree with you, Carson, and I think if you polled the various former Catholics just on this board you probably would find that they recited the rosary without meditating "upon the central mysteries that it contains." Whether you agree with me or not, you cannot disagree with the reasons that I was taught to pray the rosary:

1. It was one of the "works" that earned my way into Heaven.
2. In particular, the more I would say the rosary, the more days I would work off in time spent in purgatory.
3. It was often said in penance, after confession. For example: say 5 or 10 Hail Mary's for penance. Of course, I would recite these as fast as I could to get it over and done with. It was simply a vain repetion, as I look back on it now.

"I wouldn't be so presumptuous," is almost a laughable statement for you to make. Most Catholics are not serious about their faith. I live in a predominately Catholic nation. I have Catholic neighbors, who don't go to church all that often. My extended family is Catholic. I have met a good many Catholics. I also go from door to door, telling others about Christ. From that alone, I get a good perspective about how serious Catholics are about their faith. I wouldn't be so presumptuous if I were you.
DHK

 

A disturbing trend that I've noticed in street and door to door evangelism is the tendancy to plead "Catholic". Whereas the people in Matthew 7:22 mention prophesy, casting out demons and many miracles in Christ's name, these people just say "I'm Catholic". They will often say that the Catholic church is wrong on various issues including baptism and will claim that Scripture is just a collection of legends and stories and none of it can be trusted but that's ok cause "I'm Catholic". Reminds me of the guy who says "I'm Jewish" but doesn't know who Abraham is. These people we're sprinkled as babies and attend mass on a regular basis but it has had no affect on them despite the Catholic church's claim that grace is received through the sacraments. The are completely blind to the Gospel. After a sketchboard presentation of the Gospel, and after being asked if they enjoyed the message, they will often say yes and that they already know the message and that they are Catholic and attend mass every week and that what we're doing is great. After further questioning to see if they understood the message, which they claim to agree with because they are Catholic, their responses suggest that they did not hear one word of the message. The message (same message of the Gospel presented in different ways) will often deal with how God does not accept the exchange of God works for bad and often includes an extreme example to illustrate that we who are imperfect wouldn't accept such an exchange and so God who is perfect certainly wouldn't. The Catholic when asked if they are certain that they would go to heaven if they were to die that very night will say no, and when asked why not, its because they might not be good enough, maybe they haven't done enough good to cancel out the bad. They claim to agree with the message but the message is the complete opposite of what they believe, a clear sign of their spiritual blindness. But that's ok, cause "I'm Catholic". I realize that not all Catholics are like this, but remember, these people were baptized as infants and thus "received grace" and became "Christians" and they try to be "good" and they attend mass on a regular basis "receiving grace" again and again and yet they are still completely blind to the truth, they don't have the slightest clue about salvation through Christ.

 

DHK and DualHunter,

Funny, because I can say these same things about the Baptists and Methodists in Gillett, AR. DualHunter, I'm not sure what you are, but I know that DHK is Baptist.

Nearly the entire Baptist Church here (save some true, genuine Christians) do what they want, when they want...and still claim to be "Baptist," and if you asked them, oh sure, they'd be sure they were "saved." They were saved last week, even!

This is why your arguments don't hold water with me, DHK. You base everything on bad personal experience. Because all the Catholics you know are bad, all Catholics are bad.

There are a billion Catholics, and what, only some 50,000,000 of them are in the United States (it's actually much less than that, I think). So frankly, you're speaking for only 5% of the Church as a whole, and frankly, you've probably met .00005% of the Catholics in the world.

You are a very judgemental person.

God bless,

Grant

 

Grant,

Uh Huh! And what was that little complimentary piece of praising prose called?

Good for you. You are correct in identifying me as a Baptist. I will go further and say that I am an IFBer, and the members of the church that I attend are very faithful to both the Word and the church in which I attend. As you may have already observed from various comments on this board, there are different kinds of Baptists. Various Baptist Churches/denominations, etc., have different constitutions and statements of faith. I choose to fellowship with those of "like faith and order" such as myself. There are some churches represented by some Baptists on this board that I would never darken the door thereof. Just because they wear the tag Baptist, doesn't make them Biblical.
Catholics on the other hand have a prescribed catechism which they adhere to the world over. It is simply a matter of being faithful to it.

In my many years of being a missionary and pastor I have never met a Catholic who has understood what it means to be born again, to have a new life in Christ, to be saved. Their understanding of the Bible invariably fails to the point of being Biblically illiterate. This is not the case in the Baptist churches I have been in. BTW, to be fair, in the last two months I just finished visiting over 20 Baptist churches in 5 states and one province. Most Baptists (in the churches that I go to) know their Bibles quite well. Most Catholics that I meet do not. Am I being judgemental? No. Realistic? Yes.
DHK

 

Actually you are the one speaking about 5% of Catholics. The Catholic church in the States seems to be in a better condition than in most of the rest of the world. DHK and I both live in Canada, not the States (that's why we have those little Canadian flags under our user names). I've talked to ex-Catholics from around the world, including Poland, Romania, Italy, Mexico, Brazil, India and they were all completely ignorant of the Gospel when they were Catholic. Like I said before, not all Catholics are like this but this is the trend. Quebec used to be very, very Catholic, but now the power of Rome has been broken and so many people have left, many churches have been closed. June 24 (John the Baptist day) used to be a huge Catholic holiday, now it's a huge excuse to get drunk. Yes there are protestants in similar conditions, they're called liberals and they don't justify their own ignorance let alone that of Catholics.

 

So you guys have never met a faithful Catholic.

I am one. I am Catholic. I have been saved. I have new life in Jesus Christ, my Savior. And I know and worship in fellowship with many others who are much like myself.

Please do explain this phenomena, DHK.

And my post was not judgemental, because my post was accurate. You claim that there is no Catholic person who is still Catholic and is saved, when you absolutely CANNOT prove that statement. That makes you judgemental. My pointing out this error in simple logic does not make me judgemental.

God bless,

Grant

 

I don't recall DHK saying that all Catholics are not saved. He said that every one that he has ever met has no clue about the Gospel. There is a definite trend but that does not rule out individual persons or even individual churches from being exceptions. From what I've heard, the exceptions tend to be in the States, though apparently there is an exception here in Montreal. A friend of mine says she was saved when she was Catholic, but then she currently attends my church, not a Catholic church. The general trend among Catholics throughout the world is to be ignorant of the Bible and the Gospel, they think that if they just try to be good and don't do too many bad things they should make it into heaven. It's possible that you are an exception, though if that's the case you probably have some conflicting theology, but the general trend does not reflect the state that you claim to be in.

[ November 02, 2002, 07:00 PM: Message edited by: Dualhunter ]

 

DualHunter,

Then this is a problem of lax Catholic parents improperly bringing up their children in the faith. I was brought up superbly in the Lutheran Church, and so my conversion to the Catholic Church has been phenominal. My faith has literally exploded! If I had not been raised in a strong faith, where I was taught how important my faith was, then I wouldn't be in the same situation.

Churches can only do so much. Individuals have to be willing to devote their lives to Christ. I know that the Catholic Churches I have attended have been right on the money with this. If people chose not to live in Christ, they are making that decision on their own. The message is there, but they have not ears to hear it.

This is because they just don't care (and no amount of evangelization can change a person; they have to change themselves), or they were raised to be indifferent.

This is not a problem caused by the Church in the sense that you project it.

God bless,

Grant