Posted on 08/23/2013 9:25:47 AM PDT by Alex Murphy
BEAUMONT, Texas – As Hispanic populations across the United States, many of which are traditionally Catholic, continue to increase, so do opportunities for Southern Baptist churches to address the spiritual questions of current and former Catholics.
Hispanics made up 38.1 percent of the population of Texas in 2011, the U.S. Census reports. This reflects a nearly 10 percent increase since 2006, when Hispanics accounted for 35.7 percent of all Texans, according to the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts’ office.
The Southern Baptists of Texas Convention (SBTC) has 193 cooperating churches listing Spanish as their primary or secondary language. Many of their members are former Catholics. Churches in southeast Texas such as Beaumont’s Calvary Baptist also attract people from French Catholic traditions, much like their neighbors in Louisiana a few miles east.
How, then, can a Baptist church, with sensitivity and wisdom, integrate former Catholics who have converted to evangelical faith?
In Beaumont, Texas, Calvary Baptist Church offers a Catholic Connection class twice annually. About 200 people have taken the four-week class since it began five years ago.
“We use the class to help people from a Catholic background understand the differences between the Catholic faith and the Protestant religion and our church’s beliefs,” said Cliff Ozmun, Calvary’s minister of education.
“It is not a formal pathway for new members,” Ozmun said, “but almost every term we offer it, people do join the church and are baptized.”
The Catholic Connection class is not intentionally promoted in the wider Beaumont area. “It is aimed at the Calvary community,” Ozmun emphasized. When enough from Calvary express interest, the class is offered.
“The class is not an evangelism tool for us. It is comparative theology,” said Ozmun, who noted that the last time the Catholic Connection class was offered, four individuals from a local group of Catholic apologists attended for the purpose of, in their words, providing “the Catholic response.”
“By the fourth week, they commended us,” Ozmun said. “It was not because we aligned with Catholic doctrine but because we taught the contrast in such a respectful way. They felt we were accurately presenting Catholicism.”
One person from the Catholic group even later approached Ozmun in a restaurant to say how much he had enjoyed the class.
Bill Morgan, Calvary’s minister to median adults, wrote the Catholic Connection class curriculum. Jim Robichau, a lay leader and former Catholic, teaches the course.
“We focus on a handful of things,” said Ozmun, including the authority of the Bible, the completeness of the canon, concepts of baptism, the purpose of communion, the doctrines of heaven and hell and the nature and role of confession.
Since Catholics and Baptists differ at several key doctrinal points, Mike Gonzales, SBTC director of language ministries, recommends focusing on the nature of the salvation experience when discipling former Catholics.
“A new believer who comes out of a Catholic background needs to understand that salvation is a spiritual experience” and not the result of adherence to the sacraments, Gonzales said.
“Scripture makes it clear that Jesus is the only mediator to God,” Gonzales added, citing 1 Timothy 2:5, John 14:6, John 10:9-10, Acts 4:12 and Hebrews 4:14-16.
Gonzales recommends discipling former Catholics with either Henry T. Blackaby’s Experiencing God or John MacArthur’s Fundamentals of the Faith in addition to the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 confessional statement which is heavily referenced with scripture. Still, he noted, discipling former Catholics is much like discipling any new believers, Gonzales said.
“Discipling former Catholics is a process, not a program,” said Bruno Molina, SBTC language evangelism associate. Molina, a former Catholic himself, helps lead Hillcrest en Español, a Spanish fellowship at Hillcrest Baptist Church in Cedar Hill, just south of Dallas.
Integrating those from a Catholic background into Baptist fellowships is “not a matter of going through so many lessons” or simply helping them find their spiritual gifts, Molina said. “It must entail encouraging them to stay in the Word so they understand that everything flows from the Word, not just tradition (about the Word).”
Potential pitfalls occur when the old faith traditions collide with the new. Tension can arise as those with a longtime Catholic identity relate to family members and friends.
“It’s important to encourage former Catholics not to exclude themselves from previous relationships,” said Molina, who recalled his own experience with his traditionally Catholic family after he had trusted Christ as Savior.
“When I came home from the Army and was going to explain the gospel to my dad, I was so excited. I didn’t realize at the time that when I thought they heard that God loved them and had a plan for their salvation, what they really heard was that I was rejecting their culture and the way they had raised me,” Molina explained.
Despite the tension, it is important for former Catholics to include Catholic family members in celebrations of faith, Molina said. For example, while asking Catholic family members to attend one’s adult baptism may be awkward, it should be encouraged.
“That is a great opportunity to testify and help the family understand and experience true Christian fellowship,” Molina said.
Let's not confuse politeness with agreement.
What do you think it means?
Thou art Peter (Petros - little stone), and upon this Rock (Christ is contrasting himself with Peter)(Christ was the Cornerstone)(Rock is referred to as the foundation and Jesus not Peter is the foundation of the Church) I have built my Church. Nobody uses a little stone/pebble for a foundation.
The beginning of one’s walk with Christ probably has a good deal of consolation, but God wants us to be mature Christians and so he would like to start withdrawing “experience”s. How sad that so many think something is wrong when God tries to move them past beginner feelings. How sad that so many don’t know that the worthy reception of the Holy Eucharist can lead to great consolation, I know first-hand. I repent daily, but I don’t actually feel the burden off me until I sacramentally confess.
“I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready for it.”
-1 Cor 3:2
Huh. For the first 1,500 years of the Christian Church, Peter was never held as so inconsequential as a pebble. What changed?
Petros = little stone, masculine noun, name given to Peter
Petra = boulder/big rock, feminine noun
Due to the masculine and feminine nature of the nouns, Christ wouldn't have named Peter using the feminine version. I don't know Greek, but that is what I was told regarding those two nouns. If that is true, my statement that Christ wouldn't have named Peter 'petra' is admittedly still conjecture. In my mind that seems like a reasonable explanation, but there is not really a way I know of to prove or disprove that. As a result, it then comes down to a matter of your faith, what you choose to believe on that subject.
One other argument in favor of the Catholic understanding is that in my mind it is easier to see Jesus naming an apostle 'rock' and then stating 'upon this rock' because rock would act like a pronoun referring to the last defined 'rock' (Peter). The only way I could see Jesus naming Peter, and then using the word rock to describe Jesus would be if he pointed to Himself while speaking. But again, I can't prove that either way.
A lot changed. People used to know the word Peter comes from the Greek petros meaning literally small rock, ledge or pebble. Jesus is the Rock of Ages. Peter was the impulsive and arrogant one. He denied his Lord three times! He changed. He became obedient. Peter was not inconsequential but he is not The Rock upon which the Church is built.
One has to use context. In the OT Rock is referring to God (Deut 32:4, Ps 18:2, etc). In the NT look at Peters description 1Peter 2:4-8. Everything is context.
What is the Greek word used for Rock in the OT references to God? I don’t have a Greek bible. Or were those references written in Hebrew?
That would be a bad supposition...Your sacraments are completely physical...
Except that both terms are translations from the single Aramaic word ‘Kepha’. The use of ‘Petros’ was needed in the translation to the Greek because of the need of the masculine gender for a male name.
Baptism is not something that happens to you...It is something a person chooses to do...Water baptism is a confession...It is neither a work of man nor an act of God...
Petros is Greek. Jesus was speaking Aramaic and referred to Peter as Kephas, which means large rock.
Naw...There's no evidence that it was translated from Aramaic...Besides Peter later on even acknowledges himself as a stone while he acknowledges Jesus as THE Rock...YOu guys will say anything to make the bible wrong...
Well it's easy then...Just prove it for us...
Well, we can both agree it means rock. If you want to believe it means BIG rock and your CHURCH is founded upon this man, go ahead. My belief is that the Church is founded on Christ and His teachings from a comprehensive reading of the Bible.
I can only accept, and act, on the wisdom that the Holy Spirit gives me in my own relationship with God.
That being said, I have lived in a heavily Catholic, 3rd world country, and I can guarantee you that, at the time that I was living there,the sacraments were sort of a magic formula to gain heaven to a lot of the parishioners.m I do not know what their priests taught them, of course, but we have the example of the liberation theologians to show us how priests may go astray.
Wrong again! Aramaic, not Greek, was the common language of the Jews. See John 1:42:
Then he brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, “You are Simon the son of John; you will be called Cephas” (which is translated Peter).Notice where it says that 'Cephas' is translated 'Peter'/'Petros'.
Even in his letters, which were written in Greek, Paul uses the Aramaic 'Kephas' as Peter's name:
I mean that each of you is saying, “I belong to Paul,” or “I belong to Apollos,” or “I belong to Cephas,” or “I belong to Christ.”
--1 Cor 1:12Paul or Apollos or Cephas, or the world or life or death, or the present or the future: all belong to you.
--1 Cor 3:22Do we not have the right to take along a Christian wife, as do the rest of the apostles, and the brothers of the Lord, and Cephas?
--1 Cor 9:5that he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve.
--1 Cor 15:5 Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to confer with Cephas and remained with him for fifteen days.
--Gal 1:18and when they recognized the grace bestowed upon me, James and Cephas and John, who were reputed to be pillars, gave me and Barnabas their right hands in partnership, that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised.
--Gal 2:9But when I saw that they were not on the right road in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in front of all, “If you, though a Jew, are living like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?”
--Gal 2:14
“Baptism is not something that happens to you...It is something a person chooses to do...Water baptism is a confession...It is neither a work of man nor an act of God.......”
Amazing interpretation of baptism. God sends down his Holy Spirit upon the baptized person. Any sins upon the soul of that person are forgiven in that instance. Only God has this power. It is not - that we cause our sins to be forgiven, but grace from God alone.
"Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life within you....It is the spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail." (John 6)
The Lord's flesh is spirit and life. Not just flesh.
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