Featured can catholics Go To God Directly In prayers?

>16 Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

Confessing faults to God without making restitution and keeping it secret from effected humans is a cheap cop-out and I doubt God honors it.

 

Absolutely, Billwald!

That is why the 12 Step programs like 'Celebrate Recovery (Saddleback), AA and NA, etc. work. It requires that confession is made to God, ourselves and someone else as well as making amends. I have been in recovery for years but tried for years before without actually working the 4, 5 and 9th steps and could never sustain sobriety. Once I confessed to another person and made restitution and amends for my sins and offenses I was able to get sober.

 

First, Matthew was one of the first books to be written, ca. 55 A.D.
Secondly, the date doesn't matter that much anyway. Matthew is writing a biography, a history of the life of Christ. One does not give the details of teen-age years while in the midst of giving details of the infant years in a biography, for example. Matthew had knowledge of the resurrection, but that is not the topic here. He is writing of the beginning of the ministry of Christ, not the ending.

The same parallel account is given in Mark
Mark 2:7 Why doth this man thus speak blasphemies? who can forgive sins but God only?
Mark 2:10-11 But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (he saith to the sick of the palsy,) I say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy bed, and go thy way into thine house.
Mark 2:12 And immediately he arose, took up the bed, and went forth before them all; insomuch that they were all amazed, and glorified God, saying, We never saw it on this fashion.

And in Luke::
Luke 5:25-26 And immediately he rose up before them, and took up that whereon he lay, and departed to his own house, glorifying God. And they were all amazed, and they glorified God, and were filled with fear, saying, We have seen strange things to day.

There is nothing in any text that says anything about the power of absolution. The word "men" simply refers to mankind. That is the sense of the Greek, and of the context. The other accounts also refer only to amazement, amazement that is expressed in different ways.

 

A different perspective

John 20:21-23
New International Version (NIV)
21*Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” 22*And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23*If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”

According to the catholic, eastern orthodox, oriential orthodox churches they inteprate that in acts one along with other passages they have apostolic succession which they are directly appointed by the apostles which was appointed by Jesus. and after you go directy to god you can and should go through a final cleansing process as in
John 20 stated above. They say it doesn't make going to
God directly invalid but just helps you make sure the confession is complete because the priest has the ability to act "inprosona Christi" the earthly representation of Christ well you talk to him

 

So are you suggesting Jesus lied when he said to his Apostles

 

No, he is suggesting your interpretation contradicts the Word of God and no such teaching is found in scriptures. And he is correct.

 

You both are wrong. The text is quite clear. The apostles were given the authority to forgive and retain sins.

 

Rome's interpretation of the immediate context is at the expense to what the overall Biblical context teaches about the "keys" of the kingdom and remission of sins.

The overall context of scripture clearly condemns Rome's interpretation. The immediate context may be quite easily interpreted to fit the overall context of remission of sins as I pointed out in an earlier post where I listed the overall contextual evidence.

As I pointed out earlier, they were charged to preach the gospel of repentance which is declarative that all who repent receive remission of sins and equally declarative that all who reject the gospel are without forgiveness as John 3:36 clearly and explicitly states in no ambiguous terms.

 

I don't need to. I got Jesus' own words for it. The text is clear and you can't get any clearer. Jesus told the Apostles they could forgive and retain sin. Its a simple as that.

 

Can you find any command by Christ where there is no record of any disciple obeying it??? No! This is one proof YOUR INTERPETATION of Christ's words is false and that is precisely why there is no biblical record.

 

So you don't trust Jesus or his words? hmmm. Interesting. Jesus needs his words to be confirmed. Though in the begining was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. Strange how he needs what he says to be confirmed.

 

We see James telling his Church community to confess their sins to one another so that they can be healed. Logic goes if people are being healed by confessing their sins to other people then they are being forgiven rather than not.

 

Just like your religion you practice distortion of the words of others. He trusts Jesus while you and Rome distort Jesus and then have the audacity to claim your PERVERTED INTEPRETATION of the words of Jesus is His perspective.

 

What about the words "one another" do you not understand? These words repudiate that this is instruction to lay persons to confess to elders.

Moreover, neither "faults" or "offences" are to be confessed to elders but to "one another" (James) and to the person you offended "alone" (Mt. 18:15)!

You have complete SILENCE for your perverted interpretation while these specifics repudiate your interpretation.