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A Roman Miracle

Discussion in 'Free-For-All Archives' started by Trust in the Lord, Oct 21, 2003.

  1. GraceSaves

    GraceSaves New Member

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    You and Jack Chick would be close friends, methinks. You and he both think the best method to bring people the the Gospel (or your contrived version of it) is to scare them, rather than love them. That's the difference between contrition and attrition. Brother Curtis, I don't think I've ever seen the love of Christ in your posts to those whom you believe do not have Him. You can try to scare the hell out of someone, but even if you did, that would not bring the love of Christ into them.

    Thank you for answering my question in a totally confrontational manner. In other words, you fully support the harrasment of those who have differing beliefs because you feel that you get the same treatment.

    Wow, now there's a subjective statement. Based on this rational, we can justify all kinds of things, like suicide bombings. I mean, after all, when Christians get upset when a radical Muslim destroys innocent lives, the "angered" response of the heathen lets them know that what they did was right in the eyes of God. But I'm sure the Holy Spirit has led you to this conclusion.

    This is very telling indeed.

    That they do not have the fullness of Truth but are our separated brethren who have a passion for the Lord and our our brothers and sisters in Christ through our mutual Christian baptism. We should pray for them, just as we pray for ourselves, that on the last day, their faith is full and their heart is open completely to the Lord Jesus Christ and His love for us.

    Teaching children to make fun of others beliefs, regardless how wrong they may be, is totaly unChristlike. There are methods of reproach, Brother Curtis (despite your ingrained belief) that do not involve ridicule and hatred.
     
  2. neal4christ

    neal4christ New Member

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    So every time you get angry that means the other person is telling the truth, right? I have never heard of this test for truth. :rolleyes:

    In Christ,
    Neal
     
  3. MikeS

    MikeS New Member

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    So every time you get angry that means the other person is telling the truth, right? I have never heard of this test for truth. :rolleyes:

    In Christ,
    Neal
    </font>[/QUOTE]Hey, I guess this means the money changers were right! [​IMG]
     
  4. Bro. Curtis

    Bro. Curtis <img src =/curtis.gif>
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    "they do not have the fullness of truth"

    That's according to you, Grant, not the position of the folks who run this board, not the position the Bible tells me,

    Anyway, I'm done here. Round and round we go, and nothing ever gets solved.

    You know what I may do is show her the thread on the plastic virgin of Zapopan. She's pertty smart, and was saved at 7 years old. Anybody with half a brain can see the RCC isn't what it says it is.
     
  5. MikeS

    MikeS New Member

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    Perhaps. But anybody with a whole brain can see that it is. :D

    (Sorry, Bro. Curtis, but you led with your chin that time!) [​IMG]

    Believe me, I am often tempted to apply the same half-brain standard to non-Catholics, but I resist that temptation. Really, just calling those you disagree with morons is not productive. There are a lot of Catholics, including a lot of converts, who were/are a heck of a lot smarter than either of us, and a heck of a lot more theologically astute. Call us mistaken, but don't call us dumb.
     
  6. GraceSaves

    GraceSaves New Member

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    You asked what I would say, and so I told you. You may disagree with what I said, but it was in no way a derogatory comment towards Baptists.

    Perhaps its because you chime in with comments like: "I'm in the body of Christ, a born again, spirit filled, heaven bound Christian, who was not offended. With some of the anti-baptist posts I have read on this BLOG, your cries of foul play humor me."

    You did not offer anything constructive FROM THE BEGINNING OF YOUR INPUT. You started the merry-go-round, and you support future ones by giving the post at the start of this thread your stamp of approval.

    Smartness has nothing to do with it. Anyone can be brainwashed with bigotry.

    Case in point.
     
  7. CatholicConvert

    CatholicConvert New Member

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    Bro. Curtis --

    How ya been? This is yer papist buddy Ed here. Hope alls well with ya.

    Look, the reason I came into this board over a year ago was that I would scan it and see all the things that were being said about the Catholic Faith and say to myself "But that's not what the Church teaches" or "But have they ever considered ____________?" I felt I had to try to show a different side of the Faith than all the misconceptions that are tossed around, especially since I myself had just put those misconceptions in the trash as a convert to the Church.

    Yeah, it do git warm around here. Guess we are all passionate about what we believe, aren't we? But you know, for us converts, it is especially tough to be told that we are stupid, Biblically ignorant, and theologically lazy when ALL converts from Protestantism have to study and pray real hard to overcome their objections to the Faith.

    Frankly, telling me that I didn't use my brain when I converted is pretty insulting. I never studied so hard, prayed so much, nor fretted so deeply as I did when I was approaching the Church.

    Brother Curtis, what you cannot understand is how different the Church looks from the inside out. I know, I know. You were born in the Church and left. But that does not mean that your eyes were necessarily open while you were in the Church. You had a conversion experience and Christ became very real to you. The person who led you to that deeper faith and trust also led you to the Baptist understanding. Many others I have met have been converted and led to the Catholic Faith.

    Anyhow, you know me...I can snarl with the best of them in the anonimity of the Internet, but I think that in person most of us would have a different decorum about us in dealing with another flesh and blood human being.

    My .02 -- for what that's worth.

    God bless ya -- real good.

    Brother Ed
     
  8. CalvinG

    CalvinG New Member

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    I can certainly understand why Catholics would find this offensive. It doesn't offend me, but that is because I don't find in necessary to accept Catholic doctrine of transsubstantiation (?sp) in order to accept God.

    I almost rolled on the floor laughing when I read this (for the first time) yesterday.

    I find the notion that a light is green to be something that can be objectively measured with instruments even if one is color blind. There is a measurable, verifiable change in the real world when a traffic light changes colors.

    It is belief in God that is a leap of faith. But it's not that much of a leap if you study the agnostic/atheist position regarding the origins of cellular life. Belief in the sacraments (at least in Protestant churches) doesn't have to be.

    I think the ditty, while offensive is useful. It encourages Catholics to explain their doctrine in a way that can be easily understood. I have a natural aversion to doctrines that take are not based directly on Scripturue and take a great deal of time to explain to someone unfamiliar with the doctrine, especially where the explanation does not really relate in a good way to common experience. It appears to me that this piece of "poetry" (using the term loosely) reveals the extent to which certain thinking outside the Scriptures influenced the Catholic church.

    To say that it is the body and blood of Christ in a literal sense is not so different from saying that it represents the body and blood of Christ. I certainly would not wish to partake of communion in an unworthy manner.
     
  9. Stephen III

    Stephen III New Member

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    CalvinG,
    Would you demand the same prerequisites of the belief in the Trinity, or the two natures of Christ as you demand in the Catholic belief of the Eucharist? Try explaining these two truths from scripture to the non-believers.

    God Bless
     
  10. CatholicConvert

    CatholicConvert New Member

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    "...thinking outside the scriptures...."

    REALLY???

    Would you go back and read John 6 S*L*O*W*L*Y and then tell me just how the Catholic understanding of the Eucharist is "outside the scriptures"

    As a lawyer and physician, you are obviously an intelligent and well read person. Would you explain to me then how this belief was present in the writings of the Early Fathers in the second century? These are men who learned directly from the apostles. Polycarp, for instance, was a disciple of John the Beloved.

    Would you also care to explain how the Early Fathers, who read and spoke Greek, came to their "misunderstanding" of scripture in the way they did?

    And all this was long before the so-called "Romanizing" of the Church by Constantine in the fourth century.

    What is outside the scriptures is the way that various sects explain away the clear meaning of John 6. Jesus said you must eat His Flesh and drink His Blood. He was rather explicit and literal about it....so much so that many who heard Him "...walked with Him no longer." The literalism of His statement drove them away, and I fail to see Him chasing after them saying "Uhhhh...hold on fellows, you don't understand the symbolic meaning of what I said."

    Be interested in your answers.

    Brother Ed
     
  11. CalvinG

    CalvinG New Member

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    Please excuse my misspelling of "Scripture" earlier.

    The 2 natures of Christ:

    John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the word was with God, and the Word was God. (Clear reference to the divine nature of the Word)

    John 1:14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. (Clear reference to the fleshly/human nature of Jesus.)

    I can go on to find reference that Jesus was tempted as we are tempted, but that seems superfluous here.


    The Trinity:

    John 1:1 Again for the divine nature of Jesus and Jesus' being God but also "with God."

    John 14:16 I will ask the Father ("asking" the Father means and the Word's being "with God" in the beginning in 1:1 indicates lack of complete identity of God the Father with God the Word (Jesus)) and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever--the Spirit of truth.

    "Another" means not complete identity with Jesus or the Father.

    Matt 28:19 (Great Commission) Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

    (Coequality of the Holy Spirit in Baptism) Do you need further proof that the Holy Spirit is God in the Scripture?

    I have not been to Semminary, but that would seem a decent explanation from Scripture.


    Now reading John 6....

    By the way, by "thinking outside the Scriptures" I meant the whole "real substance" argument.

    Jesus' absolute statement that "unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you" precludes a direct reference to the Lord's Supper. Nonbelievers have a form of life in them. They are not guaranteed "eternal life," but Hindus are alive. And those who left Jesus for this teaching were living, breathing Homo sapiens. Do Catholics believe that "eat the flesh" and "drink the blood" are literal but that "no life" in the same sentence is not? That would appear to me a strained reading of the Scripture.

    It is not doctrine that receiving the Lord's Supper is the one requirement for eternal life or the only ordinance through which salvation is received. In this very discourse, Jesus shows what he meant by emphasizing faith in response to testimony.

    v. 35

    v. 40

    v. 47

    v. 51

    Flesh and blood here point to Jesus and his crucifixion as the source of eternal life. Jesus must be acknowledged as God's appointed sacrifice for one's sin.

    This reference certainly doesn't tell us how anything other matter can be literally made to become the flesh and blood of Jesus. Perhaps you could shed some light on that.
     
  12. CalvinG

    CalvinG New Member

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    Ooops...hit the wrong button when trying to quote verses 35, 40, 47, and 51....

    Didn't mean to leave those spaces blank.
     
  13. MikeS

    MikeS New Member

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    So then your position would be that if one symbolically eats the flesh and drinks the blood of Christ, then one symbolically has life? What does it mean to have symbolic life? That would appear to me a strained reading of the Scripture! [​IMG]
     
  14. CalvinG

    CalvinG New Member

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    Not exactly. I see it as a spiritual doctrine, not as a literal doctrine. It is sort of like when Jesus was teaching Nikodemos about being "born again." And we hear so many Christians in the US today say that they are Chrisitians but not "born again" Christians.

    If you accept Jesus...he is the Bread of Life (Jn 6:35)...he has living water (Jn 4:10, 13). The living water "becomes in [whoever drinks of it] a spring of water welling up to eternal life. Jn 6:33 For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. [Meaning, I hope you agree, Jesus.]

    (Just as with the woman at the well, it appears to me that Jesus is in this context speaking about spiritually internalizing him rather than about literal things. Not much before that, in Jn. 6:35, we see "He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty." These are not literal and physical and are a preceding discussion involving the need to eat and drink in the same chapter of the same gospel.)

    Jn 6:40 For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.

    "No life" I think means "no eternal life." So it is not literally "No life." To eat Jesus' flesh and drink Jesus' blood is to accept Him into one's life as Lord and Savior. But it may be even more than that if we look to later in the Gospel of John. It may include internalizing Jesus' teachings. (Notice that I said "may" as I doubt the thief crucified with Jesus completely did so and yet he was saved.) Take what Jesus freely offers in the form of redemption from sin and allow yourself to be set free from sin by the Truth that you may live.

    Jn 14:23 If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. [Jesus within you...the same effect as if you had metaphorically "eaten" his flesh and "drunk" his blood.]

    Sometimes I find that it is useful to consider a Gospel in its totality when reasoning the meaning of difficult passages.

    Of course, this is only my interpretation. I am a fallable human being and might be wrong.

    God Bless,
    CalvinG
     
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