"Are the seven Catholic sacraments Biblical?"

[Oblio]

umm... eigth day???? mystical, i don't see how, as this is the 1st i've heard of a mystical eigth day. Where is scripture about this mystery?

Start a new thread, trust me, the Orthodox will come and answer. The topic is too big (and a bit OT) for this thread.

 

[QuantaCura]

I greatly revere the Word of God, as He Himself has said,

the whole of Psalm 119 is dedicated to the praise of God's Word.

Ahhh, but this is not the same as the worship do only to God. If one believes that the Bible is Jesus and therefore the Bible is God, then one should have no problem giving latria to the Bible.

 

[Oblio]

Well, the answer is no. And the answer is also yes. As somebody mentioned before the written word and Christ that came in the flesh, was crucified, and raised again are different ways God revealed himself.

Bill, you don't seem to fully grasp the reality of the Incarnation. The Bible is not God, it contains the word of God, His revelation to us, but it is not the Infinite, Eternal, Uncircumscibable Creator of the Universe. Jesus however is. Fully God, 100%. The Bible is simply a written Icon of His truth to us. Can you get to know God through the Bible ? Sure, just as I can know Shakespere, Plato, and you through your writings. But their books and writings and your posts are no more their substance (or essence in Orthodox Theogical terms) than the Bible is God.

 

[Oblio]

Can you separate Christ from God the Father, can you separate the holy ghost from God the Father? Well, think about it. Then ask yourself can you separate the Word of God (the Bible) from God the Father? the answer to all these questions is the same one. I'm going to let the holy spirit and the scripture that I quoted before answer these questions for you.

I know what the answers are to my questions I asked

I was hoping for your belief

 

[Oblio]

The practice of the Roman church of exorcising or blessing the water sprang from the Gnostic belief that evil attached to everything corporeal.

Cite ?

To us who recognize the essential difference between spirit and matter the thought of washing the soul from sin by water baptism is nonsense.

You don't seem to recognize it very well, for like most beliefs tainted with gnosticism, you separate the spritual from the physical. Scriture has plenty of examples where this is not the case.

And as I said,John Henry Cardinal Newman admitted that the practice of using "holy water" came from pagan sources.He also says that the early church took the things of "demon worship" as well as the "philosophy" of the educated class and adopted them into the church:

Newman doesn't speak for the Church, but I will say that he has philosophy part correct. Read John 1:1

 

[Benedicta00]

The practice of the Roman church of exorcising or blessing the water sprang from the Gnostic belief that evil attached to everything corporeal.

There we go again with this the Roman church started it all- Jerry don’t you find it odd that oblio who is not with the Roman church defends the positions you keep saying came from the "Roman Church”?

 

[Isaiah 53]

and if christ rose on a sunday, it was one sunday out of the year, not every sunday of the year, so why not do this only once a year?

The reception of the Eucharist in not limited to Sunday, I could receive everyday if I were able. As far as the other Sacraments and you wishing for more information...I have not ignored you--the thread seemed to have 'gotten away' from me quickly.

Feel free to ask specific questions here or in a PM if you like--I am always available. Or take your questions to OBOB (One Bread One Body)...either will work...God Bless

PAX CHRISTI

 

[Isaiah 53]

john 20:23 this doesnt say anything about confessing sins to a priest?

Christ gave the Apostles the 'ability' to forgive sin on earth, like he had...Through Apostolic Sucession this 'ability' was passed on to our Bishops and Priests today...

PAX CHRISTI

 

[Isaiah 53]

The practice of the Roman church of exorcising or blessing the water sprang from the Gnostic belief that evil attached to everything corporeal.To us who recognize the essential difference between spirit and matter the thought of washing the soul from sin by water baptism is nonsense.But it was otherwise with those steeped in pagan philosophy.With them the soul was matter,as well as the body--matter in a more subtle form.

And as I said,John Henry Cardinal Newman admitted that the practice of using "holy water" came from pagan sources.He also says that the early church took the things of "demon worship" as well as the "philosophy" of the educated class and adopted them into the church:

"Confiding then in the power of Christianity to resist the infection of evil, and to transmute the very instruments and appendages of demon-worship to an evangelical use, and feeling also that these usages had originally come from primitive revelations and from the instinct of nature, though they had been corrupted; and that they must invent what they needed, if they did not use what they found; and that they were moreover possessed of the very archetypes, of which paganism attempted the shadows; the rulers of the Church from early times were prepared, should the occasion arise, to adopt, or imitate, or sanction the existing rites and customs of the populace, as well as the philosophy of the educated class"(Newman,"The Newman Reader",Chapter 8,Part 2,#5).

In His grace,--Jerry

I love that you feel necessary to re-post the Newman quote again without a source or a link. Further, you REFUSE to post it in context or to even DATE it.

Exorcising and driving out of demons was started by Christ, not gnosticism...read the NT.

PAX CHRISTI

 

[Isaiah 53]

The best selling book The Purpose Driven Life by Southern Baptist Rick Warren has sold 6 million copies...

Just for clarification Rick Warren is not Southern Baptist, he is Non-Denom...(Saddleback)

PAX CHRISTI

 

[53Isaiah]

In addition, let me be clear I've been hard on doctrine not on the people. I'm not questioning anybody's salvation here.

You right only Christ can judge salvation. We are called to be discerners and are reminded that:

Mt 7:15 ¶ Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.
16 Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?
17 Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.
18 A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
19 Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.
20 Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.

Let's pray that God would reveal his Word and the Truth more to all of us as we read the Bible. That's my only message. Anybody that truly believes in the Son of God shall be saved, there are catholics, protestants, and people that don't go to church that will see the Kingdom of Heaven. Nobody has perfect doctrine.

Yes doctrine is very important, More scripture you’ve provoked in me:

Ps 138:2 I will worship toward thy holy temple, and praise thy name for thy lovingkindness and for thy truth: for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name.

2Ti 2:14 ¶ Of these things put them in remembrance, charging them before the Lord that they strive not about words to no profit, but to the subverting of the hearers.
15 Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
16 But shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness.
17 And their word will eat as doth a canker: of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus;
18 Who concerning the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is past already; and overthrow the faith of some.

With that said, I will continue to slam those doctrines that depart from Christ and the Bible alone because they will lead many to Hell. I am more critical today of evangelicals than of catholics. You shall recognize them by their fruits says the Bible. Baptists have the highest divorce rate of any denominantion according to the Barna Research Group. Way higher not only than catholics but higher than atheists! The spirit of God is not in the baptist church and the modern evangelical church. Why? They abandoned the scripture alone principles and their teaching has incorporated psychology. Rick Warren, James Dobson, Bill Hybels, Robert Schuller are examples of today's evangelical leaders whose teachings are responsible for this fiasco. These guys have nothing in common with Luther and Calvin, the gospel of self esteem and the church growth philosophies are secular in nature and enmity to Christ. I won't say whether these evangelical leaders are saved or not, that's between them and God. However their teachings, their theology is faulty, no matter how much they mention Christ and the cross. Christ and the cross is not the issue, the issue is all that was added to the gospel (secular humanism and psychology).

Your words remind me of these truths:

Mt 6:7 But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.

Mt 12:34 O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.

Mt 15:8 This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me.

Eze 33:31 And they come unto thee as the people cometh, and they sit before thee as my people, and they hear thy words, but they will not do them: for with their mouth they shew much love, but their heart goeth after their covetousness.

So we are called to preach:

2Ti 4:1 ¶ I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom;
2 Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.
3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;
4 And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.

We are don’t as we should:

Re 3:14 ¶ And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God;
15 I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot.
16 So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.
17 Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:
18 I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.
19 As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.

 

[JerryShugart]

I love that you feel necessary to re-post the Newman quote again without a source or a link. Further, you REFUSE to post it in context or to even DATE it.

Exorcising and driving out of demons was started by Christ, not gnosticism...read the NT.

PAX CHRISTI

All you have to do is put the words "Newman Reader" into a search engine and you will get it.

In His grace,--Jerry

 

[Isaiah 53]

All you have to do is put the words "Newman Reader" into a search engine and you will get it.

In His grace,--Jerry

I found this... http://www.newmanreader.org/works/index.html

Perhaps you could lead me to your particular passage???

PAX CHRISTI

 

[Isaiah 53]

Your words remind me of these truths:

Mt 6:7 But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.

Mt 12:34 O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.

Mt 15:8 This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me.

Eze 33:31 And they come unto thee as the people cometh, and they sit before thee as my people, and they hear thy words, but they will not do them: for with their mouth they shew much love, but their heart goeth after their covetousness.

So we are called to preach:

2Ti 4:1 ¶ I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom;
2 Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.
3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;
4 And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.

We are don’t as we should:

Re 3:14 ¶ And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God;
15 I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot.
16 So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.
17 Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:
18 I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.
19 As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.

First, sorry if I took your name....

Perhaps you could clarify what it is you mean by these verses??

PAX CHRISTI

 

[53Isaiah]

First, sorry if I took your name....

No problem. First time to a Christian Form, I usually hage out in the fields; harvest time you know.

Perhaps you could clarify what it is you mean by these verses?

2Ti 2:15 Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

 

[JerryShugart]

I found this... http://www.newmanreader.org/works/index.html

Perhaps you could lead me to your particular passage???

PAX CHRISTI

Go to:An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine

Then Chapter 8,Part 2,#5,6

In His grace,--Jerry

 

[Isaiah 53]

Go to:An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine

Then Chapter 8,Part 2,#5,6

In His grace,--Jerry

Thank you!

"Confiding then in the power of Christianity to resist the infection of evil, and to transmute the very instruments and appendages of demon-worship to an evangelical use, and feeling also that these usages had originally come from primitive revelations and from the instinct of nature, though they had been corrupted; and that they must invent what they needed, if they did not use what they found; and that they were moreover possessed of the very archetypes, of which paganism attempted the shadows; the rulers of the Church from early times were prepared, should the occasion arise, to adopt, or imitate, or sanction the existing rites and customs of the populace, as well as the philosophy of the educated class"(Newman,"The Newman Reader",Chapter 8,Part 2,#5).

Confiding then in the power of Christianity to resist the infection of evil, and to transmute the very instruments {372} and appendages of demon-worship to an evangelical use, and feeling also that these usages had originally come from primitive revelations and from the instinct of nature, though they had been corrupted; and that they must invent what they needed, if they did not use what they found; and that they were moreover possessed of the very archetypes, of which paganism attempted the shadows; the rulers of the Church from early times were prepared, should the occasion arise, to adopt, or imitate, or sanction the existing rites and customs of the populace, as well as the philosophy of the educated class.

St. Gregory Thaumaturgus supplies the first instance on record of this economy. He was the Apostle of Pontus, and one of his methods for governing an untoward population is thus related by St. Gregory of Nyssa. "On returning," he says, "to the city, after revisiting the country round about, he increased the devotion of the people everywhere by instituting festive meetings in honour of those who had fought for the faith. The bodies of the Martyrs were distributed in different places, and the people assembled and made merry, as the year came round, holding festival in their honour. This indeed was a proof of his great wisdom ... for, perceiving that the childish and untrained populace were retained in their idolatrous error by creature comforts, in order that what was of first importance should at any rate be secured to them, viz. that they should look to God in place of their vain rites, he allowed them to be merry, jovial, and gay at the monuments of the holy Martyrs, as if their behaviour would in time undergo a spontaneous change into greater seriousness and strictness, since faith would lead them to it; which has actually been the happy issue in that population, all carnal gratification having turned into a spiritual form of rejoicing." [Note 15] There is no reason to suppose {373} that the licence here spoken of passed the limits of harmless though rude festivity; for it is observable that the same reason, the need of holydays for the multitude, is assigned by Origen, St. Gregory's master, to explain the establishment of the Lord's Day also, and the Paschal and the Pentecostal festivals, which have never been viewed as unlawful compliances; and, moreover, the people were in fact eventually reclaimed from their gross habits by his indulgent policy, a successful issue which could not have followed an accommodation to what was sinful.

6.​

The example set by St. Gregory in an age of persecution was impetuously followed when a time of peace succeeded. In the course of the fourth century two movements or developments spread over the face of Christendom, with a rapidity characteristic of the Church; the one ascetic, the other ritual or ceremonial. We are told in various ways by Eusebius [Note 16], that Constantine, in order to recommend the new religion to the heathen, transferred into it the outward ornaments to which they had been accustomed in their own. It is not necessary to go into a subject which the diligence of Protestant writers has made familiar to most of us. The use of temples, and these dedicated to particular saints, and ornamented on occasions with branches of trees; incense, lamps, and candles; votive offerings on recovery from illness; holy water; asylums; holydays and seasons, use of calendars, processions, blessings on the fields; sacerdotal vestments, the tonsure, the ring in marriage, turning to the East, images at a later date, perhaps the ecclesiastical chant, and the Kyrie Eleison [Note 17], are all of pagan origin, and sanctified by their adoption into the Church. {374}


Three things to note here...first this essay was accomplished when Cardinal Newman was still Anglican. Second when read in context it paints quite a different picture--wouldn't you say? And lastly, as stated earlier, Cardinal Newman (while a great Catholic and Cardinal) does not speak for the Church.

PAX CHRISTI

 

[JerryShugart]

Three things to note here...first this essay was accomplished when Cardinal Newman was still Anglican.

Yes,but in the preface of the 1878 edition he does not repudiate what he earlier said but says that ultimately they furnish a positive argument in behalf of the "Catholic Religion":

"THE following pages were not in the first instance written to prove the divinity of the Catholic Religion, though ultimately they furnish a positive argument in its behalf, but to explain certain difficulties in its history, felt before now by the author himself, and commonly insisted on by Protestants in controversy, as serving to blunt the force of its primâ facie and general claims on our recognition."

So if we are to believe John Henry Cardinal Newman then the idea of "holy water" came from pagan religions.

Second when read in context it paints quite a different picture--wouldn't you say?

No,I wouldn't say that.An examination of other sources reveals the same thing,that many of the things of pagan worship were adopted into the early church,as evidenced by my initial post on this thread. ¨

And lastly, as stated earlier, Cardinal Newman (while a great Catholic and Cardinal) does not speak for the Church.

No,but why wouldn't we believe what the father of the Second Vatican Council has to say on this subject?

In His grace,--Jerry

 

[PassthePeace1]

Jerry,

When Paul was speaking to the pagans is Act 17, he didn't start them out with Jewish Scripture...he quoted pagan poetry....that is to say, he meet them on their own ground, appealing to their understanding as God the Creator. Acts 17:22-24. It's the same difference here...taking elements that are fimilar and Christianizing them. Do you where a wedding ring?

As to the use of Holy Water...true the Romans and Greeks used it for purification (lustration) in their religious ceremonies, but so too did the Jewish people. When Israelites entered the Temple, they had to undergo a purification thru water in a mikvah. This was a pre-figurement to Baptism.

So, the use of water for a symbol of purification, was something both the pagan and the Jew could relate too.....just like Paul used pagan poetry, and their understanding of God, to tell them the gospel.


Peace be with you....Pam

 

[Isaiah 53]

Yes,but in the preface of the 1878 edition he does not repudiate what he earlier said but says that ultimately they furnish a positive argument in behalf of the "Catholic Religion":

"THE following pages were not in the first instance written to prove the divinity of the Catholic Religion, though ultimately they furnish a positive argument in its behalf, but to explain certain difficulties in its history, felt before now by the author himself, and commonly insisted on by Protestants in controversy, as serving to blunt the force of its primâ facie and general claims on our recognition."

So if we are to believe John Henry Cardinal Newman then the idea of "holy water" came from pagan religions.

No,I wouldn't say that.An examination of other sources reveals the same thing,that many of the things of pagan worship were adopted into the early church,as evidenced by my initial post on this thread. ¨
No,but why wouldn't we believe what the father of the Second Vatican Council has to say on this subject?

In His grace,--Jerry

This is a topic I would like to discuss independent of this thread, perhaps you could start a new one?

PAX CHRISTI