Posted on 05/17/2008 6:30:09 PM PDT by e.Shubee
Thank you for your kind and thoughtful post.
Only God knows who will be saved or not. That is not for you to decide. One of the many things that Jesus was clear about was/is his disdain for the pharisees. They thought they were religiosly superior because they felt they practiced the letter of the law, and forgot about the spirit of the law, which is brotherly love. I think it is important that we be humble, especially in God’s eyes. Those that pretend to be God are likely to be the ones in trouble.
Sorry DaveSmith, that previous post was directed at another poster. By the way I have a theory that it is humility that inclines us as Catholics to ask that the Blessed Mother and the Saints in Heaven pray for us. We know that God is perfect and we are not. Jesus is our salvation, but the world always leads us away. We need all the help we can get. My personal experience is that the Blessed Mother, the angels, and saints, in heaven really do help bring us back to Jesus.
Have you read Paul's epistles? He had plenty to say who was and who wasn't saved.
My opinions are based on the clear teachings of the Lord:
Matt 19:16 Now behold, one came and said to Him, "Good Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?" 17 So He said to him, "Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God. But if you want to enter into life, keep the commandments." 18 He said to Him, "Which ones?" Jesus said, "'You shall not murder,' 'You shall not commit adultery,' 'You shall not steal,' 'You shall not bear false witness,' 19 'Honor your father and your mother,' and, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' " 20 The young man said to Him, "All these things I have kept from my youth. What do I still lack?" 21 Jesus said to him, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me." 22 But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.
Perfection meaning 'wanting nothing necessary to completeness" or "complete in God". Enlightenment. Sharing the same consciousness as Jesus.
MacArthur is a hateful little man like so many he quoted in the speech for this thread. His murderous hatred has poisoned how he and his heros interpret scripture. To quote Swedenborg:
“Suppose your assumptions about life are based on truth, such as that love to the Lord and charity towards the neighbour are that on which the whole law hangs and about which all the prophets speak, and so are the essentials of all doctrine and worship. With that assumption the mind [is] enlightened by countless things in the Word which would otherwise lie hidden within the obscurity of a false assumption. Indeed if truth were the basic assumption, heresies would be dispelled and one Church would result from many, no matter how differing the doctrinal teachings and also religious practices might be flowing from that Church or leading into it.
I can see this in my spiritual experiences. The details of doctrine are transcended and I can see the shared experience of God in a variety of religions. Religion provides symbols to make sense of and set boundaries for spiritual life.
Catholic doctrine, if practiced, provides everything necessary for salvation. MacArthur preaches heresy. I'm also hearing it echoed here. These are my opinions. I'm not playing God - don't be ridiculous.
These are the types of stories we find in the lives of the Saints, Like Saint Monica-who was the Mother of Saint Augustine
http://www.churchofstmonica.org/Home-St.%20Monica’s%20Life.htm
That suffering She did has great importance in the lives of you and your family
What a beautiful gift your MIL has given
Here is a wonderful true story
http://www.thecatholic.org/2004_Dec_2005_Jan/When_I_Am_Dead.htm
Blessings,
Thanks very much for your post and links. I’ll pass them along this weekend.
“He is saying HATE YOUR NEIGHBOR! This indeed is from hell.”
Excellent insight and so true.
“He is saying HATE YOUR NEIGHBOR! This indeed is from hell.”
Excellent insight and so true.
"we shall love their souls though we loathe and detest their dogmas. [excerpt]
Dear Friend,scripture says what an antichrist is ,which there are many, is described in 1 John 2:22
“”Who is a liar, but he who denieth that Jesus is the Christ? This is Antichrist, who denieth the Father, and the Son.”” 1 John 2:22
Take a look at what this Guy John F Mac Arthur teaches
From MacArthur's Bible study guide, The Superiority of Christ
“”the terms ‘Father’ and ‘Son’ would have no significance before the incarnation.” -Page 5
“”Did you know that when 2 Samuel was written, Jesus Christ was not the Son of God? Why? The title Son refers to Jesus Christ in His incarnation. Christ did not become the Son until He was begotten into time.”” -page 52
Here is more from Mac Arthur...
Some 900 years before Jesus was born God prophesied, “I will be a Father to Him, and He shall be a Son to Me” (Heb.1:5; 2 Sam. 7:14), indicating that in eternity past that, though there were always three persons in the Trinity, there were not yet the roles of Father and Son. Those designations apparently came into being only at the incarnation. In the announcement of Jesus’ birth to Mary, the angel Gabriel declared, “He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High;...the holy offspring shall be called the Son of God” [Luke 1:32,35]. Son was a new name, never before applied to the second person of the Godhead except prophetically, as in Psalm 2:7, which is interpreted in Hebrews 1:5-6 as referring to the event of His incarnation. John wrote, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). Only when “the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us” as “the only begotten God” (John 1:14,18) did He take on the role and function of Son [emphasis his]. [John MacArthur, Jr., The MacArthur New Testament Commentary—Galatians (Chicago: Moody Press, 1987), p.108 (see his comments under Galatians 4:4).]
There is a saying, eat the meat and spit out the bones.
And there is a lot of good meat in MacArthur’s message.(and possibly a few bones.)[excerpt]
***************
Are you referring to the Pope? He is a very learned man.
If we use our own interpretation of Scripture, are we not still using a human (ourselves) to make those decisions?
From Wiki: Academic career (1951–1977) Ratzinger(Pope Benedict) became a professor at the University of Bonn in 1959; his inaugural lecture was on "The God of Faith and the God of Philosophy." In 1963, he moved to the University of Münster, where his inaugural lecture was given in a packed lecture hall, as he was already well known as a theologian[citation needed].
During this period, Ratzinger participated in the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965). Ratzinger served as a peritus (theological consultant) to Josef Cardinal Frings of Cologne. He was viewed during the time of the Council as a reformer, cooperating with radical Modernist theologians like Hans Küng and Edward Schillebeeckx. Ratzinger became an admirer of Karl Rahner, a well-known academic theologian of the Nouvelle Théologie and a proponent of church reform.
In 1966, Joseph Ratzinger was appointed to a chair in dogmatic theology at the University of Tübingen, where he was a colleague of Hans Küng. In his 1968 book Introduction to Christianity, he wrote that the pope has a duty to hear differing voices within the Church before making a decision, and he downplayed the centrality of the papacy. He also wrote that the Church of the time was too centralized, rule-bound and overly controlled from Rome[citation needed]. During this time, he distanced himself from the atmosphere of Tübingen and the Marxist leanings of the student movement of the 1960s that quickly radicalized, in the years 1967 and 1968, culminating in a series of disturbances and riots in April and May 1968. Ratzinger came increasingly to see these and associated developments (such as decreasing respect for authority among his students) as connected to a departure from traditional Catholic teachings.[8] Despite his reformist bent, his views increasingly came to contrast with the liberal ideas gaining currency in theological circles.[9]
Some voices, among them Hans Küng, deem this a turn towards Conservatism, while Ratzinger himself said in a 1993 interview, "I see no break in my views as a theologian [over the years]".[10] Ratzinger has continued to defend the Council against criticism, including Nostra Aetate, the document on respect of other religions, ecumenism and the declaration of the right to freedom of religion. (Later, as the Prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Ratzinger most clearly spelled out the Catholic Church's position on other religions in the 2000 document Dominus Iesus which also talks about the Roman Catholic way to engage in ecumenical dialogue.)
During his years at Tübingen University, Ratzinger publicized articles in the reformist theological journal Concilium, though he increasingly chose less reformist themes than other contributors to the magazine such as Hans Küng and Edward Schillebeeckx.
In 1969, he returned to Bavaria, to the University of Regensburg. He founded the theological journal Communio, with Hans Urs von Balthasar, Henri de Lubac, Walter Kasper and others, in 1972. Communio, now published in seventeen languages, including German, English and Spanish, has become a prominent journal of contemporary Catholic theological thought. Until his election as Pope, he remained one of the journal's most prolific contributors.
So is it the juicy red meat of hateful Catholic bashing you agree with? The very core of his beliefs you don't? .
MacArthur's message is the same if not worse than any of the Catholic hate sites found on the web.
Just because meat comes with bones in it, doesn't mean you should throw the whole works out.
Matt 7:17 Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
I do not agree with hateful bashing of any sort.
But I do not disagree with the truth just because to some it appears to be hateful bashing.
I was not referring to any one man (pope or otherwise), but any man in general.
If you take your eyes off Jesus and look to a man, learned as he may be, you may be unknowingly led astray.
I think it is wise to hold theological teachers up the the scrutiny of the bible when trying discern if what they are teaching is true.
Being the reason I don’t agree with MacArthur’s message 100%.
Why isn't this stuff moved to Religion?...I wonder...or start a new one for Catholics!
The mask MacArthur refers to is a projection of the guise of truth hiding his hatred. Nobody would go through such lengths to attempt to destroy a believer's faith in Jesus Christ than he.
It's the same as the psychotic "Truthers" that followed Ron Paul around.
As much as MacArthur would like to, he cannot control what people think. His minions love him because they smell a fresh kill each time he opens his yap. Cultish behavior if you ask me. Pass the Kool-Aid
Its been my observation that people play the ‘hate speech’ card when they’ve lost the argument.
Yep, I recon you observe that card being played quite a lot.
“In life, you have to decide what is suitable for eating.”
Ah, frankly, in perusing this MacArthur guy's drivel, it seems that he's serving up steaming piles of vile waste material with occasional flecks of what appears to be good food scattered amidst the vile stuff.
Typical satanic tactic.
This fellow should be rejected of whole cloth. He is evil and likely leads many so-called “Christians” to Hell.
DavidMSmith - Thank you for your remarkably Catholic and beautiful witness to the truth - faith in Christ is not an intellectual proposition to which one assents in one's mind, but rather is lived out in obedience to the commandments to love God with our entire being and to love our neighbors as ourselves.
I know many good folks who can't keep their doctrines and dogmas straight to save their lives. But it is clear that the Holy Spirit lives in them, and is changing them into the Image of Christ the Son, making them into selfless lovers of God and their fellow men.
sitetest
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