Posted on 05/17/2008 6:30:09 PM PDT by e.Shubee
John F. MacArthur is no ordinary evangelical. I think that there is something special about him because of the unusual excellence of his book The Gospel According to Jesus. I consider that book to be the finest exposition on the gospel ever written.
The most surprising thing about John MacArthur is his wide acceptance, given that he believes in the true gospel and takes a strong stand on the historic Protestant understanding of Roman Catholicism. Consider his protestant message, Unmasking the Pope and the Catholic System, delivered shortly after the death of Pope John Paul II, and see if you can either respect or refute his statements.
http://www.bereanbeacon.org/audio_video/UnmaskingThePope.mp3
Didn't see anyone putting a gun to your head and forcing you to come onto this thread.
Rome hates the Bible. Rome FEARS the Bible. They don’t want you studying it without an “approved leader” looking over your shoulder (usually a priest or a specially-trained lay minister) so that they can tell you what it means, so that the proles won’t come to any unauthorised conclusions derived solely from reading the actual text for themselves. I’ve heard Catholics on FR exude their hatred for the King James Bible - and with good reason. As the most doctrinally rigourous version in English, it is also the one that opens up the most cans of worm for Catholics if they were to read it for themselves, with an open mind, “unaided”.
Rome hates the Bible. Rome FEARS the Bible. They don’t want you studying it without an “approved leader” looking over your shoulder (usually a priest or a specially-trained lay minister) so that they can tell you what it means, so that the proles won’t come to any unauthorised conclusions derived solely from reading the actual text for themselves. I’ve heard Catholics on FR exude their hatred for the King James Bible - and with good reason. As the most doctrinally rigourous version in English, it is also the one that opens up the most cans of worm for Catholics if they were to read it for themselves, with an open mind, “unaided”.
The fathers of the Catholic Church WROTE the Bible. The Catholic Church assembled the Bible, finalized the canon, preserved the Bible through the middle ages.
The Catholic Church is the Church founded by Christ IN the Bible.
Your assertions are absurd.
You must have some links to that.
As the most doctrinally rigourous version in English...
KJV is rigorous in false doctrine, though not the most, by far.
Again I have made that mistake. Here's the correction:
The fathers of the Catholic Church WROTE the New Testament.
Is it still on that List of Forbidden Books, you know, that List that never included Mein Kampf????
And still no answer to your question? So the Tyndale Bible is on the list of Forbidden Books while Mein Kampf isn't?
Amazing. The things you learn on Free Republic every day.
Master Tyndale, hearing this, full of godly zeal, and not bearing that blasphemous saying, replied, "I defy the pope, and all his laws;" and added, "If God spared him life, ere many years he would cause a boy that driveth the plough to know more of the Scripture than he did.""...Tyndale happened to be in the company of a certain divine, recounted for a learned man, and, in communing and disputing with him, he drove him to that issue, that the said great doctor burst out into these blasphemous words, "We were better to be without God's laws than the pope's."
And thus, by the grace of God, he did. And for those righteous efforts, Tyndale was burned at the stake.
Tyndale’s translation was so flawed, even Henry VIII rejected it.
If Tyndale is some kind of star in the Protestant galaxy of scholarship, I pity militant Protestantism even more.
Ah William Tyndale, and John Rogers. Two reasons we will never bow down.
No they didn't. The RCC didn't exist until the syncretisation of pagan systems with Christianity, beginning around the time of Constantine in the 4th century.
The Catholic Church assembled the Bible, finalized the canon
Again, incorrect. The canon of the NT was known long before 397, and that of the OT was already accepted prior to Christianity, much less the rise of Catholicism. What Rome did in 397 was put a "stamp of approval" on something people have already known for over two centuries.
preserved the Bible through the middle ages.
Again, not true. The Latin Vulgate is actually an exceedingly poor translation. The Waldenses and others, using a Latin text based on the Old Latin (mostly the Italic), had a much better translation in Latin than Rome used. As for the Greek mss. tradition, it was mostly preserved in the Greek East, and very few in the West before the Renaissance even knew Greek, much less could they have made intelligent choices in transmitting the text.
The Catholic Church is the Church founded by Christ IN the Bible.
Wrong again. Christ founded the church at Jerusalem. He did not found a "universal" church. Indeed, almost all usage of the term "church" (ekklesia) in the NT refers to local churches, and the few that appear not to are contextually better understood as synedochal statements. If Paul speaks of "churchES" of Galatia or Macedonia or Judaea, then why on earth should we entertain the fiction of a "universal, catholic" church which was the invention of theologians of a much later date?
Your assertions are absurd.
And your assertions are the result of brainwashing.
I believe an assertion that I am brainwashed is "making it personal."
Anti-Catholic propaganda. Say hello to Ian Paisley for me.
Such as? And how are you determining what is "false doctrine"? Agreement with after-the-fact, man-made doctrines invented by Rome's Magisterium? LOL, love your circular reasoning!
"More protestant" is not an adequate definition of "better" in this or any category.
Attributing motives and/or reading minds of other Freepers is "making it personal."
Well, if that's the best response you can do, that's fine. Feel free to continue to believe in ahistorical pap that some priest tells you to believe. I'll continue to believe what actually happened.
Sola fide, sola scriptura, deprecation of Mary, rejection of Holy Eucharist, dismantling of the Old Testament, etc.
You are the only one feeding me ahistorical pap.
I'll continue to believe what actually happened.
You haven't even started.
If you want to take it personally, that's your issue, not mine. It wasn't meant to be "personal", but rather a statement that I believe that your assertions are not the product of evidence or logic or reason, but instead are the product of simply repeating what has previously been taught to you, especially since I know that what you are saying is right in line with the typical statements of the Catholic religion on this issue, and hence, represent a generally understood position held by an entire organisation. There's nothing "personal" about that.
That too is mind reading
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