No, I do not but I do not need to read the writings of Catholicism to find the truth.
A lot of what is in Catholic writings is the mystical stuff that winds up in mainstream evangelical Christianity and opens the door to seducing and lying spirits. I have already seen it on someone on this board and it terrifies me for them...but they will not listen so only prayer and God can lead them out of it.
No one decides for me what I believe..only the Spirit. And I think many here think I do not have a strong faith or belief because I am not debating deep theology or Scripture like others do, but I have no need to. My faith is rock solid and nothing can shake it. I would not be here if it were not.
When all you have had is the Lord lifting you up all your life and showing you His true character and nature, working things out for your good and His glory, you don’t need debate. I have the Lord and He has me...just as sure as I am sitting here.
Perhaps all this other stuff is what is needed in witnessing and I am naive to think that just telling others about how He works in my life and that I do know error when I see it are not enough. But I have also seen how quoting Scripture to those here in error does not work. As someone said, nobody is being converted here. And that is what I want to see...not just this endless debate between denominations and such.
Yes, I think naive best describes me when it comes to telling others about my faith....like a child who the grownups don’t listen to. I thank God He listens to me and thinks what I have to say is important. Imagine the Almighty God of the universe caring about what I think and wanting relationship and fellowship with me.
This is what I want and have been trying to convey since I started, but it is childlike and simple and not nearly what most adults are interested in.
Just make sure that you are not encouraging anyone into sincerity and fideism in a false gospel with a false christ, rather than salvation through spiritual rebirth through the entry of the generative Word of The God.
1Jn 3:9 Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.
Clarification:
Whosoever = pas ho; collective pronoun, nominative, singular, masculine; any human person whoever; referring to either males or females demands the masculine gender
is born = procreated; perfect tense, once done, that a new creature has been irreversibly begotten within the old human body, with continuing spiritual results; passive voice, action performed on/to one by another; participle; thus becoming adjectivial and declineable, a quality of begottenness
of = ek, from/out of
God = tou Theou, genitive, of The God; contextually, The Spirit
doth not commit = ou poime; negative of; work or perform present tense = habitually or constantly or perniciously, active voice, indicative mode, 3rd person singular
sin = hamartian; accusative, singular, thus Sin as a principle, not sins plural as acts, even though these will emerge as results
; = implied/interpretive punctuation
for = hoti, conjunction, though, since
his = pronoun; genitive, singular, masculine; whose referent is The God of the previous phrase, not the "whoever" person, because it is The God who begets the spiritual "whoever"
seed = sperma; indeclinable noun, singular, neuter, anarthrous; thus a quality, and obviously the generative Seed, the Word (logos = spoken and/or written coherent body of teachings) of God, figuratively (see Ps. 126:6, Mt. 13:18-23)
remaineth = menoh; abides permanently, integrated into
in him = en autoh; en-with-the-dative, the new spiritual (pneumatikos) human and quality integrated with the old man's body as a vehicle but supplanting the carnal (sarkikos) man-emotion and the natural (psuchikos) man-mentality as the controlling principle and agent
: = interpretive punctuation
and = kai; conjunction
can_not = ou dunatai; negative + to be able, to empower; present tense, middle or passive deponent voice, indicative mode, 3rd person singular, referring to the "whoever"; ha no ability or power to make himself keep on peniciously and habitually exercise (the sin principle) in his thoughts or actions
sin = hamartanein; present tense, active voice, infinitive; continue to exercise the Sin principle
; = implied interpretive punctuation
because = oti; conjunction
he is born = gegennaytai; perfect tense, passive voice, indicative mode, 3rd person singular; he was (and stays) begotten/procreated of = ek; preposition; from/out of God = tou Theou; articular, genitive, singular, masculine; of The God.
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Now, let me put that together, as explaining the significance to a first-century Greek-speaking person who needs no interpretatin, but understands it this way:
"Any human person who has been procreated by The God (The Spirit implied) does not persistently practice the Sin principle; since His (God's) generative seed, the spoken and written Word of God, His corpus of teachings, and by wich the new spiritual man was begotten, permanently abide integrated into his mind and will, displacing the old carnal impulses and intellectual reasonings and schemes, which are no longer his controlling principle: and this spiritually reborn person no longer has any desire or power to continue to exercise the Sin Principle as his personal chosen mode of existence; because he was (and stays) not only conceived out of The God (The Spirit), but the Word resides and is infused in his/her character and behavior, forever."
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Well, one may wish to contradict this, but it will be hard to find traction for a contrary approach to interpreting that passage with a literal hermeneutic.
BTW, this completely throws out any proposal that paedobaptism effects salvation, or that spiritual regeneration is a product of baptismal immersion, infusion, or sprinkling.
Effectual catechizing (beginning discipling) must precede regeneration, not as an education tool after spiritual rebirth. (See Rom. 10:8-10, 13-17)
And correct exposition of it does not claim sinlessness in this world, it only affirms the removal of a preference for, and a perpetual repentance from it by the entry of the Word of God.
So think of this, before intimating that one's faith does not have to rest on a progressively clearer knowledge of and incorporation of articles of The Faith. Otherwise, your stuck with an indefensible grounding of nere fideism.
With respect --