Catholics Vs. Protestants (I don't get it)

[Guest]

Just now, JohnR7 said:

Works do not save us. Works are evidence that we are saved. You have to produce fruit. You can not get the cart in front of the horse. We have to have love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. 

And what did the thief one the cross have?

When seeking what we can learn from the thief on the cross, it should be remembered that at the time of Jesus’ crucifixion, two thieves were crucified beside Him (Luke 23:33–43), and both began their time on the cross by mocking and blaspheming Him (Matthew 27:44; Mark 15:32), as did many of the spectators. One of the thieves responded in faith to the message of salvation and was taken to paradise that very day. He is the one usually referred to as the thief on the cross, while the other man did not respond in faith and is now suffering from a deadly and eternal mistake.  [from GotQuestions]

[Omegaman 3.0]

13 hours ago, NCAP said:

441 In the Old Testament, "son of God" is a title given to the angels, the Chosen People, the children of Israel, and their kings.⁴⁴ It signifies an adoptive sonship that establishes a relationship of particular intimacy between God and his creature. When the promised Messiah-King is called "son of God", it does not necessarily imply that he was more than human, according to the literal meaning of these texts. Those who called Jesus "son of God", as the Messiah of Israel, perhaps meant nothing more than this.⁴⁵

Except that the Word existed with God, before the creation, and in fact it was through the Word that creation came to be. That makes the word, the creator, aka God.

Then in John, the word became flesh, and dwelt among us, that is the Word (God) becoming a man, but never ceasing to be what He was, just taking on a human body, while temporarily setting aside some of His Godly attributes. Now He is back with God (the Father), as He was in the beginning.

John 1:14 says:

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we beheld His glory, a glory as of an only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.

That makes Jesus unique, He is the only begotten (monogenous) Son of God, not like other uses of sons of God. Denying the deity of Jesus, won't make it untrue.

[Omegaman 3.0]

18 hours ago, Not of the World said:

The main tenants of Catholicisim and Protestantism are the same, right?  Jesus is God, he came to Earth and sacrified himself for our sins, whoever believes in him and who lives a life that is pleasing to him will receive eternal life, right?  

On some social media sites I see Catholics that believe that the only path to salvation is through the RCC and, conversely, I see Protestants that claim that all Catholics are going to Hell.  

I think both views are extreme and erroneous.  What are your thoughts?

 

I see that Roman Catholics, accept that Jesus is God, God is triune, Jesus is creator, He was born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, died vicariously for believers, was buried and rose again in the resurrection, ascended to Heaven, and will return again. Those are strong points. I think some Catholics are saved, some are not. I think some protestants are saved, some are not.

Seems to me though, that salvation is by grace, through faith, and not of works. The RCC does not seem to accept that. They add works to the salvation formula, and believe in baptizing infants (instead of baptizing disciples as Jesus instructed) thinking that if a baby dies on the way to church to get baptized, it will not be saved, but a sprinkling of water and an incantation from a priest, fixes that. The have too high a regard for Mary, claiming that she was sinless (in spite of her own confession that she had a savior), they believe that she is forever virgin, in spite of the fact that Joseph "knew" her. They call her mother of God, queen of heaven etc, without Biblical support. They call her co-redemptrix, how do the figure that? There is one mediator between God and man, the man Jesus Christ. There is no need of priests, we have a high priest now, whose name is Jesus. The call priests father, Jesus said call no man father. They seem to worship saints (in the Bible all believers are saints) and pray to dead people! They invented purgatory (not in the Bible). The have a pope, while in the Bible there is no central human leader of the church. They (some of them) think they are the only true church. In a way they are right, there is one catholic (not Roman Catholic) church, that is all believers across time and across the world in any denomination, or even in no denomination.

So, while they have a lot of the important basics down, there are some fairly important differences also. 

Those would be my thoughts.

[JohnR7]

6 hours ago, Saved.One.by.Grace said:

And what did the thief one the cross have?

He had God's faith working in him. The Grace of God does a work in us to transform us into the people of God. Our part is to all God to do what He wants to do in us and in our life. There is NOTHING we can do, apart from God. 

[Guest]

2 hours ago, JohnR7 said:

He had God's faith working in him. The Grace of God does a work in us to transform us into the people of God. Our part is to all God to do what He wants to do in us and in our life. There is NOTHING we can do, apart from God. 

Scripture to support your interpretation?

[JohnR7]

2 minutes ago, Saved.One.by.Grace said:

Scripture to support your interpretation?

This is a discussion about an apocryphal book that talks about Jesus, Mary & Joseph. I would not bring up an apocryphal book if it was not so widely accepted by many Christians that Joseph was a widower in his old age when Jesus was born. 

I was asked a DIRECT question as to what scripture I feel supports this book. We must remember the two words: omission and commission. We look at what the Bible says AND we look at what the Bible DOES NOT SAY. NO WHERE does the Bible say that Jesus brothers are Mary's Children.

In addition to this, we can go back to Moses - because Mary was named after Marian, the sister of Moses. No where are we told that Marian had a husband or children. In this regard, there is clear indication that BOTH Marian and MARY the mother of Jesus made a lifetime commitment before God to remain a virgin, Holy, Sanctified and Pure before God for their entire life. As we believe, Jesus remained a virgin all of His life. Even if He was tempted in every way, as we are. Yet Jesus was without sin. He set an example for us to follow. We cannot claim that we are too weak because we are told the grace of God gives us the strength to live they way God is calling us to live. 

I like to look at what Jesus said, and I like to look at what we receive from Moses in the Torah, because NO ONE adds to what we receive from them. 

Exodus 33 11

The LORD would speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend."

The big story about Marian is that she got in trouble because she attack Moses on his one of his wives. 

Numbers 12 

Miriam and Aaron began to talk against Moses because of his Cushite wife, for he had married a Cushite. 2 “Has the Lord spoken only through Moses?” they asked. “Hasn’t he also spoken through us?” And the Lord heard this.

3 (Now Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth.)

Numbers 12: 4 At once the Lord said to Moses, Aaron and Miriam, “Come out to the tent of meeting, all three of you.” So the three of them went out. 5 Then the Lord came down in a pillar of cloud; he stood at the entrance to the tent and summoned Aaron and Miriam. When the two of them stepped forward, 6 he said, “Listen to my words:

“When there is a prophet among you,
    I, the Lord, reveal myself to them in visions,
    I speak to them in dreams.
7 But this is not true of my servant Moses;
    he is faithful in all my house.
8 With him I speak face to face,
    clearly and not in riddles;
    he sees the form of the Lord.
Why then were you not afraid
    to speak against my servant Moses?”

9 The anger of the Lord burned against them, and he left them.

Mary birthed Jesus into the world in a literal way. Women today are to birth Jesus into the world in a symbolic way. We are all to present the truth of Jesus as best as we can to a lost and a perishing world. We are to tell people they can live Holy and Pure before God all of their lives. 

IF Mary had other children, then they would have the same DNA that Jesus got from Mary. He would still be in the world, and He clearly is not in the world right now.  Science and the Bible are all about our ancestors. The Bible is all about genealogies. Aunts and Uncles have an interest in Nieces and Nephews because they carry on their DNA.  

[JohnR7]

6 hours ago, Omegaman 3.0 said:

The RCC does not seem to accept that. They add works to the salvation formula, and believe in baptizing infants

Wrong, swing and a miss. Nice try though. What you call "baptizing infants" is what we call a dedication service. At least in the book of common prayer, the whole congregation dedicates the child and makes a commitment to raising them as a Christian. Then, when they are of age, there are given the opportunity to join the church. This is when they are baptized in the Baptist church. I asked them to baptize my son, and they would not because they did not like the answers my son gave them when they asked him questions about what they were teaching him in Sunday school.

They ONLY baptize indoctrinated people in the baptist church. Also, Catholic means universal church. We are all Catholics when we belong to the Church. Does the Catholic Church have doctrine different from the Baptist Church. It sure looks that way. What does the Bible say about this? 

1 Corinthians 11 19

No doubt there have to be differences among you to show which of you have God’s approval.

If you want to further complicate the issue, Pentecostals and Charismatics believe we should be baptized in the Holy Spirit. 

It is not about getting splashed or dunked in water. It is about making a commitment to dedicate our lives to serve God and to serve man. We are to be washed and cleansed of our sin. So we can live Holy, Sanctified, Dedicated lives. We are to be living Epistles. Jesus lived His life as an example for us to follow. He went about preaching, teaching and healing. That is what we are to do also. 

 

[Starise]

If both Catholics and protestants believe the respective teachings of their churches they are VERY VERY different from one another.

The sliding effect I attribute to the last days falling away has both groups often sliding to places that would have not been considered only a short time ago.

The current pope is taking the Catholic church into places it has never gone before. Dark places. Unbiblical places.

There is a definite line where the similarity ends, and has in recent years, become extreme going in the opposite direction of bible teaching. I don't see any good in the catholic church as of now. Led by a Jesuit pope who's only purpose is to eliminate anyone or anything that opposes their mandates. Instead of killing off those who disagree and taking their property, the new more subtle strategy has been to loosen the requirements for those who want to be good people and go to a church and be accepted. It's the same strategy used by fake televangelists. Tell people what they like, tell people what they want to hear, make people feel good about themselves instead of looking at their sin.

This idea has been in the catholic church since day one. They assimilated pagan holidays and deities into their teachings. The sun god, the female gods and others. It's all there for anyone who would care to study it. I ask you, if the differences cancel out the similarities to main stream Christianity, and in fact, eliminate or negate them, then do we still have have a Christian teaching founded on Christ? What we have is the Catholic church heading up a movement as the 'universal' church with many so called protestant denominations in tow all willing to compromise to the point that it's no longer Christianity. How does one combine Judaism, Islam and protestant belief with the catholic church and come back with anything but the great whore of Revelation?

The day will come, and is already almost here, when the one world religion will be founded and I think we see this happening now. It will all be very disarming and appealing to the uninitiated. About the best we can say of it is it will be substitute for the true worship of Jesus Christ.

Ask yourself how any thinking Christian can sit under a man who is said to be the voice of God on earth and acts as if he is God  on earth. What believer in his right mind would take such a position? No true believer would even consider such a position and would call it blasphemy against God, yet here we have this man, this Jesuit going around in a bullet proof car letting people kiss his shoes and his ring and claiming to have the power to bless as God blesses. A man who usurps the words of God Almighty, replacing them with something else that is opposite what the word says.

An even greater mystery which I can only attribute to the end times deceptions, is why would so many people follow such a person and hang on their every word? Especially given the history of this organization that calls itself a church?

Edited October 16, 2022 by Starise

[JohnR7]

1 hour ago, Saved.One.by.Grace said:

Scripture to support your interpretation?

Jesus teaches in  Matthew 23:12

“For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

Luke 23 

39One of the criminals who hung there heaped abuse on Him. “Are You not the Christ?” he said. “Save Yourself and us!”

40But the other one rebuked him, saying, “Do you not even fear God, since you are under the same judgment? 41We are punished justly, for we are receiving what our actions deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.” 42Then he said, “Jesus, remember mej when You come into Your kingdom!”

43And Jesus said to him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.” 

This is why I tell people not to judge others because they only bring condemnation on themselves when they do this.

 

[Your closest friendnt]

3 hours ago, Saved.One.by.Grace said:

Scripture to support your interpretation?

This is about the thief on the Cross...we cannot say it is about the goog one because we do not know what we should know about them to make an informed comparison.

They were Israelites...if they were Jews? Most probably. 

They knew a lot of things about Jesus and the good he was doing to people...and the reasons why he was being crucified, they knew the accusations. 

What one of the thieves was saying it is the same thing many people were saying...

But for the thief who was saying " if you are the Christ come d0wn from the Cross and saved yourself and saved also us. This statement reveals an understanding that the people believed that the Messiah is mercyfull and forgiving.

They did not see the Messiah ready to  come against the unrighteous and making an example of them.

To believe that it requires faith. The other thief believe exactly what Jesus was saying and this is " that my Kingdom is not from this world...the thief believe in life after death and he also believe that Jesus will have his own kingdom in the after Life and Express his desired to be with Jesus in the after Life. 

This is the faith that moved Jesus to say to him " today you will be with me in Paradise..

Jesus said that to him, which is something he could understand because him by right as a descendant of Abraham his Inheritance after death it was to be wellcome by their Father Abraham into his Bosom...the Paradise of Abraham, only if he was righteous...Jesus knowing that the thief knew that and the bystanders knew that he said that to let them know that he forgave his sins and that's why he said to the thief that today you will be with me to the Paradise...Jesus was believed to be a righteous man...and by that statement Jesus informed the bystanders that he will die as a righteous man...and he was telling the thief that he will watch him to die and that he will also die the same day, and that Jesus will be right there at the Bosom of Abraham to wait for him..when Jesus was saying these things it was before his death of the Cross and by the time on the same day a little while after Jesus died, Jesus Christ will welcome the thief after his death on the Cross in the Paradise of Abraham, after his death but before his resurrection....