Posted on 01/18/2012 3:19:15 PM PST by NYer
.- Pope Benedict XVI said today that achieving Christian unity requires more than “cordiality and cooperation” and that it must be accompanied by interior conversion.
“Faith in Christ and interior conversion, both individual and communal, must constantly accompany our prayer for Christian unity,” said the Pope to over 8,000 pilgrims gathered in the Vatican’s Paul VI Audience Hall on Jan. 18.
The Pope’s comments mark the start of the 2012 Week of Prayer for Christian Unity that runs until Jan. 25. It will be observed by over 300 Christian churches and ecclesial communities around the globe.
The Pope asked for “the Lord in a particular way to strengthen the faith of all Christians, to change our hearts and to enable us to bear united witness to the Gospel.”
In this way, he said, they “will contribute to the new evangelization and respond ever more fully to the spiritual hunger of the men and women of our time.”
The Pope explained that the concept of a week of prayer for Christian unity was initiated in 1908 by Paul Wattson, an Episcopalian minister from Maryland. One year later, he became a Catholic and was subsequently ordained to the priesthood.
Pope Benedict recalled how the initiative was supported by his predecessors Pope St. Pius X and Pope Benedict XV. It was then “developed and perfected” in the 1930s by the Frenchman Abbé Paul Couturier, who promoted prayer “for the unity of the Church as Christ wishes and according to the means he wills.”
The mandate for the week of prayer, the Pope underscored, comes from the wish of Christ himself at the Last Supper “that they may all be one.” He observed that this mission was given a particular impetus by the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) but added that “the unity we strive for cannot result merely from our own efforts.” Rather, “it is a gift we receive and must constantly invoke from on high.”
The theme for 2012 Week of Prayer – “All shall be changed by the victory of Jesus Christ our Lord” – was crafted by the Polish Ecumenical Council. Pope Benedict said it reflects “their own experience as a nation,” which stayed faithful to Christ “in the midst of trials and upheavals,” including years of occupation by the Nazis and later the Communists.
The Pope tied the victory the Polish people experienced over their oppressors to overcoming the disunity that marks Christians.
He said that the “unity for which we pray requires inner conversion, both shared and individual,” and it cannot be “limited to cordiality and cooperation.” Instead, Christians must accept “all the elements of unity which God has conserved for us.”
Ecumenism, the Pope stated, is not an optional extra for Catholics but is “the responsibility of the entire Church and of all the baptized.” Christians, he said, must make praying for unity an “integral part” of their prayer life, “especially when people from different traditions come together to work for victory in Christ over sin, evil, injustice and the violation of human dignity.”
Pope Benedict then touched on the lack of unity in the Christian community, which he said “hinders the effective announcement of the Gospel and endangers our credibility.” Evangelizing formerly Christian countries and spreading the Gospel to new places will be “more fruitful if all Christians together announce the truth of the Gospel and Jesus Christ, and give a joint response to the spiritual thirst of our times,” he explained.
The Pope concluded his comments with the hope that this year’s Week of Prayer for Christian Unity will lead to “increased shared witness, solidarity and collaboration among Christians, in expectation of that glorious day when together we will all be able to celebrate the Sacraments and profess the faith transmitted by the Apostles.”
The general audience finished with Pope Benedict addressing pilgrims in various languages, including greeting a group of men and women from the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, before leading the crowd in the Our Father and imparting his apostolic blessing.
The infallibility is the Church’s, in the office of the pope.
It is not that each man who is pope is infallible in all things. Jesus said the Holy Spirit would lead them to all truth. That is our assurance that what the Church binds as truth is actually that.
David was accountable to God. The pope too is accountable to God and they also acknowledge themselves as sinners and they too repent.
And for the record, I never said that David was any worse a sinner than myself or anyone, the point was that David was a great king, in spite of his sinfulness.
God uses sinful people to lead His people, that was the point.
Yeah, I get it.
You have substantial company on that, despite the common misconstruance of SS to mean antinomianism. And while easy-believism is much in evidence today, nowhere is this more true than among RCs, due to fostering confidence in the RCC to save the most nominal of Ted Kennedy's.
2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
Philippians 4:13 I can do all things through him who strengthens me.
1 Corinthians 2:11-16 11 For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12 Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. 13 And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.
14 The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. 15 The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. 16 “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.
Same here. When sola scriptura fails its own test and sola fide falls beside it, there's really not much left to debate.
It resolves to a bunch of individual opinions, usually of little depth.
That is a only claim of the Holy Roman Church for one
Negative. It is the understanding of the Catholic Church, not just the Latin branch.
Rome's interpretation of Scripture, Tradition and history is at odds with that of the EOs to a degree that there is a formal separation, even if not disallowing substantial communion, and which some other churches parallel.
Again, negative. It was the bickering of bishops, not the discussion of doctrine that led to the schism.
I would rather define it as the personal interpretation of Scripture in order to define individual beliefs on a whim.
While this is a reality, the evidence is also that an overall concurrence on core truths which distinguish them from sola ecclesia cults, which are shunned, while personal interpretation of Rome is also a reality under her Rome's sola ecclesia, and in which are less conspicuous than in churches in which doctrinal commitment is more evident, albeit with the risk of division.
While there are some small areas in which the individuals have certain leeway in beliefs, there are the non negotiables of core doctrine. Sola ecclesia is what Jesus taught, by the way, and reinforced by the teachings of all the Apostles and every book in the NT.
There is Catholic teaching versus what a Pelosi or Kennedy might hold, versus what individual Protestants or Protestant churches do hold given their claim of personal interpretation.
Which is based upon their PI of Rome, as the other is of Scripture. And as far as serious deviation of individual members is concerned, Pelosi or Kennedy type Roman Catholics, who see no real manifest discipline, can far more easily refers to themselves as Catholic due to what this commonly manifests (Catholics are more likely to vote them in), rather than evangelicals.
The beliefs of the Pelosis et al are not based upon the personal interpretation of 'Rome'. They are based rather upon the personal freedom to create one's own beliefs or to select them in a cafeteria style. This is one legacy of the Reformation - Luther's any milkmaid. The Eastern branch does not have the same problem that the West did - many bishops started to adopt Protestant mindsets in the mistaken belief that they could keep people in the Faith, without requiring them to actually hold the Faith.
SS preachers expect adherence to whatever it is that they preach today.
This is what i said. But not based upon the premise of perpetual assured infallibility of men, which is not the basis for the establishment of Truth in Scripture, but upon the weight of infallible Scripture, textual and testimonial, which is why we contend for the Truths we hold together with you, and against those which are a product of Tradition (PTDS, etc.) and thus the assuredly infallible magisterium of Rome by which they have authority.
The basis of the variant Protestant churches (or non denominationals) is selection of verse upon which they choose to rely. Oneness Pentecostals versus Trinitarian Pentecostals come to mind. It is not that Scripture is infallible, it is in the interpretation and the specific selection of Scriptural snippets that differentiate individual belief systems.
But as it was in the past, so it is now. While both the magisterium and formal dissent are scriptural and have their place in confirming men and being instruments of grace, formal decent of office is not how spiritual authenticity was assured in Scripture. As said, the authenticity of prophets, John the Baptist, Jesus and His apostles was not established because those who sat in the seat of Moses affirmed them, but their authority was established upon Scriptural substantiation and its means of attestation. And so it must be now if the church is to be the Church of the living God, preaching the Gospel of grace which effects manifest manifest regeneration, and by which it gains its members, versus its institutionalized counterpart which, like the Pharisees, largely rests upon its pedigree after the flesh.
I would say rather that Jesus' authority came from Himself, not Scriptural substantiation. He taught as one with authority, and not as a scribe, remember? He talked with the chief priests and the rabbinical and religious authorities who memorized huge swathes of Scripture, if not the whole Torah or even Talmud. They had the words; they did not have the understanding.
Your essays are normally well reasoned and thought provoking. Thank you.
And in need of improvement, and again sorry for the length, but in any case we should try to be willing to go with the truth may lead, and despite the charge of the atheists that Christians are required to give blind faith, the Lord Jesus asked a lot of questions, and appealed a lot to analytical reason in saying and doing things which enabled and required men to conclude as to who He really was and what the truth was based on the evidence. As does the Holy Spirit in Scripture. I think one the most subtle examples regarding his deity begins in John 12:34b (cf. Is. 6:1-10)
But men, too, are fallible. Remember that most of the disciples abandoned Jesus and one who followed (Peter) denied Him three times. Words, as the Pharisees, Sadducees, and the religious authorities show, are insufficient by themselves. Jesus never told us to read Scripture. He told us to have faith. The work that He requires of us is to believe in Him. We are to love the Lord our God with everything we have, and to love our neighbour as ourself - and by extension, everything that comes from that.
We must also realize that there are many verses that describe Jesus as a super David, a most favoured of God, and not God at all. Those who do not believe that Jesus was anything more than a favoured man (or a rabble rouser who caused a split in Judaism) also draw from Scripture.
That Scripture passage, contrary to how you state it, proves to us that Holy Scripture's purpose is to be THE authority for our faith.
Matthew 28: 18* g Then Jesus approached and said to them, “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19h Go, therefore,* and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit, 20i teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.* And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.”
Jesus never told anyone to write anything down. Those who did were inspired to. God did not dictate, as He did to Moses. Remember the opening words of Luke? Jesus told them to teach. Not spread books. The Church decided to write things down and disseminate them later. Much later. 20 years later. Were the teachings invalid because they had no book?
That is why John said what he did that not everything Jesus did was or could be written down, but what has been written is so that we may KNOW and BELIEVE "that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name". Any extraneous writings or traditions that subtract from that assurance can and should be denied and counted as false.
That is not what John said.
John 28: 24It is this disciple who testifies to these things and has written them,* and we know that his testimony is true.n 25There are also many other things that Jesus did, but if these were to be described individually, I do not think the whole world would contain the books that would be written.o
John actually said that he wrote this down and his testimony is true. There were perhaps 80 Gospels written, with many variants of each one. If they were dictated and contained all that we are required, then why did God not dictate a single Gospel? Why are all four different?
The Old Testament Scriptures most certainly were used extensively by the first Christians and Jesus referred to them numerous times to show that Moses and the Prophets spoke of Him.
In the smaller towns and villages, there was often only the rabbi who could read. Early Christians did not use the OT much - read Paul and realize that the OT meant nothing to the Greeks. Jesus and the Apostles used the OT on Jews, not Gentiles. The pagans did not care about the OT much, and by the time of the Nicene Council, they were not read at all. It took decreeds by Popes and bishops to get them included again.
The early churches had leaders installed by the Apostles who had been vetted to ensure what they knew and taught was the same and, afterward, they received the letters written by Paul, Peter, John, etc. as they were written and copied and dispersed throughout the regions. This is why there are literally thousands of extant copies of the ancient documents still around and held in collections and museums.
And many of the 'letters' were written by unknown people well after their deaths. Or we simply don't know anything about them. Who was 'Jude'? When were 1 Peter and 2 Peter written and who by? Who wrote Hebrews? Not that it matters overly much; the Church has decreed that they are Scripture and Scripture they are.
Lastly, I take issue with your MIS-interpretation of I Timothy 3:15. The Church is NOT the "basis and pillar of the truth" but "a pillar and buttress of the truth".
Find me a translation or a Greek version which says that. I'll bet you can't.
That's why God gave us Holy Scripture. Any church which fails to do that is a false one. If anyone preaches a gospel other than the one we have in Scripture, they are preaching an accursed gospel.
Jesus gave us the Church which He taught for three years. NT Scripture is a gift from the Church, aided by the Holy Spirit. You're welcome.
Same here. When sola scriptura fails its own test and sola fide falls beside it, there's really not much left to debate.
This is the Faith - the Faith of the Church, created by Jesus and handed down from the Apostles to us. We either believe it - and Him - or else we do not.
It resolves to a bunch of individual opinions, usually of little depth.
Some of the gyrations involved in defending those individual opinions can be quite entertaining.
1. Matthew: Christ presented as the King of Israel. "Behold THY KING" (Zech.9:9).
2. Mark: Christ is presented as The Servant of Jehovah. "Behold...MY SERVANT". (Zech. 3:8).
3. Christ is presented as The Perfect Son of Man. "Behold THE MAN". (Zech. 6:12,13).
4. Christ is presented as The Eternal God. "Behold YOUR GOD." (Isa. 40:9).
Matthew establishes His Royal Rights to the Throne of David. Mark gives no genealogy. That would not be an issue with a Servant. Luke establishes His full human and Natural Lineage. All the way back to Adam. John also presents no genealogy. He is traced back "from everlasting" The Eternal God.
There are four gospels because they represent the four-fold picture of Jesus Christ's earthly life and ministry. Perfectly God and perfectly Man.
That makes no sense in any way, shape or form. To begin with, 3 is the usual number. Perfectly God and perfectly man is 2, by the way. Also, there is only one Genesis. One Revelation of John. One of everything in between except for the Gospels.
If the Gospels were complete and exactly correct, then there would be one. One account of the Sermon on the Mount. One account of the Crucifixion. One account of the Resurrection.
By the way, is Joseph, the husband of Mary, the son of Heli, or the son of Jacob? Enquiring minds would like to know. Hint: Matthew and Luke.
****There WILL be evidence or the profession of faith is highly suspect.****
So, the way people behave, the things they do speak of their faith? And, if they are not behaving or doing the “right” things, then their faith is suspect? And, if their faith is suspect, then is their salvation still assured?
****to have a hunger for reading the word of God****
Where does Jesus tell us to read Scripture? Where do the Apostles tell us to read Scripture? And, do not give me the verse in Timothy as it does not one has to read Scripture.
Is reading Scripture a sign of one’s faith?
***Yeah, and there is still a lure there because the old nature is still around wanting those things,***
So, one’s nature is changed, but the old one is still there? What happens if one gives in to the old nature?
****You know what, this is like trying to describe light to a blind man.****
Why, because I’m not just swallowing whole all that you profess to be the truth?
It’s more like trying to feed garbage to someone who has just left a feast.
I think you have hit upon just the kind of character trait that makes a person "one after God's own heart". Since we know God says he is no respecter of persons, the same consideration he had for David can be for others, as well. It was because David was honest before the Lord, he acknowledged his failures instead of rationalizing them or justifying them and he wasn't too proud to prostrate himself flat on the floor in humble surrender to God. He loved the Lord, never doubted him and accepted whatever God brought into his life because he knew God loved him and wanted what was best for him.
Like you said, he was the King and all that that entailed including his every desire and need being met. When he did take that for granted and fell into sin, he repented - he named it as God named it - and he did not turn against the Lord when he reaped what he sowed. Even the king had to answer to one higher than him. We certainly can learn huge lessons from his life and that's how I know God is who is behind Holy Scripture. Men don't normally write about their failures and flaws but want to boast of all their accomplishments.
I just know I want to be a "woman after God's own heart". To be all that he wants me to be and do what he has placed me here on this earth to do all to his glory and praise.
I think you have hit upon just the kind of character trait that makes a person "one after God's own heart". Since we know God says he is no respecter of persons, the same consideration he had for David can be for others, as well. It was because David was honest before the Lord, he acknowledged his failures instead of rationalizing them or justifying them and he wasn't too proud to prostrate himself flat on the floor in humble surrender to God. He loved the Lord, never doubted him and accepted whatever God brought into his life because he knew God loved him and wanted what was best for him.
Like you said, he was the King and all that that entailed including his every desire and need being met. When he did take that for granted and fell into sin, he repented - he named it as God named it - and he did not turn against the Lord when he reaped what he sowed. Even the king had to answer to one higher than him. We certainly can learn huge lessons from his life and that's how I know God is who is behind Holy Scripture. Men don't normally write about their failures and flaws but want to boast of all their accomplishments.
I just know I want to be a "woman after God's own heart". To be all that he wants me to be and do what he has placed me here on this earth to do all to his glory and praise.
****my faith has been so strengthened on FR due to the abysmal failure of the antiCatholics to prove it wrong****
Agreed.
Why, because I’m not just swallowing whole all that you profess to be the truth?
The basic issues are not new here. It's like witnessing a rehash of the first 400 years of the Church - only on a, forgive me, third-grade level.
The poles of works/faith, free will/predestination, original sin/salvation, scripture/tradition, action/contemplation are far from new. Nor is Nestorianism, Modalism, Monarchism...
Our protestant friends seem unacquainted with these, where the various poles fall at their ends, the errors that arise under examination, the work and manner of resolution of these errors long ago into what is the one, holy, universal and apostolic Church teaching.
When our protestant friends revisit these issues and take an old road, they appear to to think it is a new and direct revelation (because they discovered it!), not knowing it is an old trail, traveled a while and then abandoned by the Church for the good reason that it ends in obvious error.
All Catholics need to do is demonstrate what the Church's examination, guided by the Holy Spirit, revealed a thousand or more years ago.
Agreed! The truth that the church is supposed to support and uphold MUST be the same truth that was recorded in Holy Scripture - which is the only divinely-inspired and assuredly infallible authority that has been given to us by God. I read elsewhere, though I can't recall where, that the "pillar" used in the I Timothy passage can also be tied to the pillar of fire by night and of cloud by day that the Lord God used to guide the children of Israel out of Egypt. It is the sure guidepost of God himself that leads us into all truth. Without it, we would wander aimlessly never knowing for certain if what we believe is correct. That is how the church is supposed to be used by God - to lead people to the truth. When anyone - or organization - ceases to be the true guide leading to the truth found in God's word, then they cease being the buttress and support of truth. They stop being what God wants them to be and those who follow them will find they have been led into a ditch rather than the straight and narrow path that leads to eternal life and those who mislead bring sure judgment and condemnation upon themselves.
Really?
You think those links prove something?
LOL
****The basic issues are not new here.****
I think of them more like fall back positions.
Every once in a while a discussion goes in a new direction that is interesting, but for the most part, it’s all a parroting of the same old, same old.
BTW: the Holy Spirit chose to present four gospel accounts for a specific purpose. Four is the number of the earth. And the four-fold picture of our Lord's eathly life and ministry is the unveiling of a four-fold PROPHETIC PROGRAM of Christ the King, Christ the Servant, Christ the Man, and Christ the Eternal God. -Through the Bible in Seven Hours. A Strategic Grasp of the Bible. Richard Jordan. Session II- "Why Four Gospels?". pp. 57-59.
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