I will simply cut and paste the summarized portion of what you wrote because a lot of what you write are simply REPETITIONS (i.e., VARIATIONS ON THE You-are-not-part-of-his-church variety ).
FOR INSTANCE, you said :
I am not Roman. I am Catholic.
Actually by your admission, you follow the Pope as your absolute head, therefore you BELONG to the Roman Catholic Sect.
Nothing wrong with that in my book, However that does nothing for you unless you have true faith in Jesus Christ and obey His words. Being a Roman Catholic DOES NOT guarantee membership in Christ’s Catholic Church.
Do you really believe that someone who claims to be Catholic and yet votes to kill babies in the womb belong to Christ’s church ?
Jesus Said : “Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and yet not do the things I say ?”.
This implies that all who call Him Lord HAVE to obey Him.
I DO. Which means I belong to His Church REGARDLESS of how you define it.
As for you, I want to give you the benefit of the doubt and believe you belong to His church to, but seeing how uncharitable you are.... I have to withhold my conclusion.
YOU SAID:
So was St. Patrick. You are not Catholic.
Yes, You have repeated that ad nausseum and your reason for that is because I don’t join your particular denomination.
Sorry, The Bible does not tell me that I have to join your sect/denomination in order to be saved.
Jesus said : “You must be born of the spirit to belong to the Kingdom of God. Whosoever BELIEVES IN ME HAS LIFE.”
St. Paul’s letters to the Churches call the members saints by virtue of their faith in Jesus Christ. I QUALIFY BASED ON THAT, not based on what you say. Between Paul and vladimir, I’ll take Paul thank you.
You are ADDING to his requirements.
YOU SAID
You are a sectarian.
Actually you are the one who are. Why ? Because you are the one denying what Jesus EXPLICITLY taught. Not me.
You are insisting that your particular brand of sectarianism holds the truth when you have not shown one iota of scripture to prove it ( the same scripture you claim to believe ).
YOU SAID:
You admitted it as soon as you said you were part of an Evangelical sect.
THE WORD EVANGELICAL is DERIVED from the word -— GOSPEL ( Evangel ). Hence, I accept the Gospel of Jesus’ Apostles.
THAT MEANS I AM INCLUDED IN THE CHURCH notwithstanding what you said.
The gospel ( Evangel ) is the good news that Christ came into the world to die for man’s sins and all who accept Him as Lord and Savior are children of God ( read John’s gospel Chapter 3 ).
So, yes I am proudly evangelical and proudly biblical. That is NOT a sect unless you want to call belief in the gospel and the Bible a sect.
Let’s not be caught up with terms here. The important thing is what Christ taught, not what you said.
( more to come regarding celibacy ).
YOU SAID:
“Mary and Joseph had 4 sons and AT LEAST 2 sisters.
It’s all there in scripture.”
Actually it isn’t. Your mistake is a common one among sectarians. Catholics don’t make that mistake. http://www.catholic.com/library/Brethren_of_the_Lord.asp
I read that site and I am familiar with the arguments presented there. BTW, you pointed me to a ROMAN CATHOLIC site, which shows you really are ROMAN Catholic. So why not simply admit it ?
In each instance, the specific Greek word for “brother” is used. While the word can refer to other relatives, its NORMAL and LITERAL meaning is a physical brother.
There was a Greek word for “cousin,” and it was not used so we can dispense with that idea.
Further, if they were Jesus’ brethren in the faith, why would they so often be described as being with Mary, Jesus’ mother? There is nothing in the context of His mother and brothers coming to see Him that even hints that they were anyone other than His literal, blood-related, half-brothers.
If I am surprised by a person who heretofore, did not show something extraordinary because I knew his background, I would mention his blood relatives ( people he grew up with, his immediate family ). It is FORCING a foreign idea on a text to say that these people were surprised by asking — aren’t these his brethren in the faith ??
A second Roman Catholic argument is that Jesus’ brothers and sisters were the children of Joseph from a previous marriage. An entire theory of Joseph’s being significantly older than Mary, having been previously married, having multiple children, and then being widowed before marrying Mary is invented without any biblical basis. I have heard priests and nuns expound this to me as well.
The problem with this is that the Bible does not even hint that Joseph was married or had children before he married Mary. If Joseph had at least six children before he married Mary, why are they not mentioned in Joseph and Mary’s trip to Bethlehem (Luke 2:4-7) or their trip to Egypt (Matthew 2:13-15) or their trip back to Nazareth (Matthew 2:20-23)?
There is no biblical reason to believe that these siblings are anything other than the actual children of Joseph and Mary. Those who oppose the idea that Jesus had half-brothers and half-sisters do so, not from a reading of Scripture, but from a preconceived concept of the perpetual virginity of Mary, which is itself clearly unbiblical: “But he (Joseph) had no union with her (Mary) UNTIL she gave birth to a son. And he gave Him the name Jesus” (Matthew 1:25). Jesus had half-siblings, half-brothers and half-sisters, who were the children of Joseph and Mary. That is the clear and unambiguous teaching of God’s Word.