What are you talking about? How are they not talking of the trinitarian nature of GOD? Jesus says he is the first and the last, alpha and omegan, beginning and end, GOD the Father says the same thing? How can you have 2 first and lasts unless it is a different manifestation of the same thing? I'm not saying that the early Catholic Fathers and current catholics are all heretics and godless men, I just disagree that the catholic church is the one true church. How's this for a trinitarian verse? or this Various places in the new testament call Jesus GOD, The Father GOD, and the Holy Spirit GOD. Holy Ghost: Jesus: Father: All three are all-knowing Holy Ghost: Jesus: Father: Yes these and the previous verses I quoted were all about the nature of each part of the triune GOD and they may not say that they are all together but those verses show that The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are all equal and the same person. edit: if you're wondering what the numbers are they are the numbers of the greek word found in the greek lexicon. I would go and take them out but I am too lazy to do that and find that if you want to look up what a word actually means in greek you can because you have the number.
These statements carry only implications. I repeat, there is no concise, definitive Trinitarian theology found in scripture. There is a great deal said about the relationship of the Father and the Son, but what is said about the Holy Spirit is ambiguous at best. It took the Church over a two hundred year period to "flesh out" the implications found in scripture. I have no doubt that from Apostolic times onward the Church accepted the concept of the Trinity based on scripture, but it took a while for the Church to articulate that faith. That was Tradition is - the articulation of faith. It took the Church a while to develope a language by which we could express our understanding of the Trinity and to define the terms. If you want to read Trinitarian statements in those quotes, you have every right to. But the language in which most Christians speak of the Trinity today, and the concept in which they think about the Trinity, come from the writings of the Church Fathers and early 4th century councils held in Africa.
Here you are implying the Catholic prayers such as the rosary contradict scripture because they are repetative, but that is not the case. Christ says not to engage in meaninnless repetition. He is alluding to the Old Testament when the Isrealies enemies prayed repetively and vaily for their gods to save them. Since these gods didn't exist their prayers were in vain. It's not the repetition that's the problem, though, but the superstitious attitude which can accompany it. Repetition as such isn't condemned in the Bible. In Revelation 4:8, for example, the four living creatures repeat, night and day, the prayer "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God almighty, who was, and who is, and who is to come." You can't get more repetitive than that. The psalms are also repetitive. Another example of repitition is in DN 3:19-23, where after the three Hebrew children are thrown into the fiery furncace they repeat "bless the Lord" for the next 39 verses. This implies that Mary could have not been ever Virgin because Jesus had brothers and sisters. This does not mean literal brothers and siblings. The problem is that there is no Aramaic word for cousin. Any close male reletive of the same generation was a brother. Any close female reletive of the same generation is a sister. To further complicate that these bretheren of the Lord could have been Joseph's children from a previos marraige. The Tradition has been taught in Christian circles since the late first/early second century. To put it as Hilary of Poitiers: "If they [the brethren of the Lord] had been Mary’s sons and not those taken from Joseph’s former marriage, she would never have been given over in the moment of the passion [crucifixion] to the apostle John as his mother, the Lord saying to each, ‘Woman, behold your son,’ and to John, ‘Behold your mother’ [John 19:26–27), as he bequeathed filial love to a disciple as a consolation to the one desolate" (Commentary on Matthew 1:4 [A.D. 354]). [/QUOTE] Nothing in Catholic teaching comes close to disputing this. These two speak of Preistly celebacy, which has not always been required, and in some of the Eastern Churches in full communion with Rome it is not today. It is an act of discipline that can be removed from priests of the Latin rite at any time Don't really know what you are getting at here. I assume it is also refers to Priestly celabacy. I think that is refuted above. Also St. Paul chose and reccomended a celibate life. Don't know what you are getting at here.
there is no mention of a "priesthood" in the book of Acts. show me this. It was never intended for there to be many different religous sects to Christanity. This is a common acceptance. Christians were not originally called "Catholics" or "Baptists" or anything other than "Christians". If you can prove otherwise, biblically, please do so. When Paul was imprisoned in ROME, there was no POPE. Each local congregation elected Elders as leaders of their own group, they DID NOT begin to ORGANIZE immediatly, they simple COMMUNICATED via the greek written letter, which was common place for the day, there was no grand design to organize into one massive organization, with a Vicor on earth chossen by men, supposedly ordained by Christ. This is NOT Biblical, it appears NO where in the bible by ANY translation and it IS a perversion of the original writings of the authors of the New Testament. Martin Luther knew this, hence his proclamation and then ex communication from the Catholic Religon of the time.
Jesus warned about rituals and traditions of men, not ordained by God. If it isn't biblical it isn't ordained, which means man added it. You can't add to the bible.
And the Bible IS NOT the sole rule of faith. Before there was the good book, there was the Church. The Catholic Church has an unbroken chain of Pope's from Benedict XVI all the way back to Peter, and Bishops who can be traced back to the other apostles. Apostolic sucession is historical fact, and no number of verses, taken out of context, can dimminish the the teaching authority of the Roman Catholic Church.
You don't need anything other than what is provided for in the Holy Scripture. You suppose that you know better than God what is needed. When you say the church are you speaking of the early Christian Church or the Roman Catholic Religion? ? or some Protestant religion? the ONLY Church are those saints which live and dwell in Christ and are simply known as "Christians". If the Cathecism as you call it teaches tradition, the Bible does not. In fact it warns agaisnt it. where does the word Cathecism appear in the New Testament? You place authority with a word/ term that was never ordained by Jesus or any new testament authors. it simply isn't in there, just like Pergatory, praying to Mary, or any dead saint. these things are man made explainations and do more harm than good. they attempt to explain or ADD to the original bible. this obviously just doen't fly with God as is evident by his chastizing of the Pharisee's in Mark 7. See above post. Again this is WHY Martin Luther began the Reformation when he nailed his Ninety-Five Theses to the door of the Wittenberg Church way back in the 1500's. He saw clearly the differences in the Gospel and papal teaching.
amazing that you would say this. In an effort to prop up the Catholic church, you in one sentence make the bible incomplete. this pretty much says it all. Before their was the good book, there were JEWS..... you need to study more. The bible was written in the early days of the church, during that time the scriptures ( old testament ) was studied and inspired men penned the Gospel's and letters to the early churches, and despite what you may THINK non of these were Catholic, the bible itself says the early Church were first called Christians at Antioch. Peter was a Christian, not a Pope. Please point out the verse that ordains Peter as a pope.. or did this come later? years after he was dead perhaps? yes i think so, history supports this. None of the verses above were taken "out of context" the context is right there, read it. or go look it up. Read the entire book for that matter. There is NO other point Jesus was trying to make to the Pharisees, so it is not out of context. it may not be to YOUR liking. maybe this is what you mean. would you like me to copy and past the entire gospel? would you see the point Jesus made if I did? look man don't belive me, read the word... it's there. what authority??? heck during the Spanish Inquisition people were tortured and made to worship as Catholic's and recognize the POPE as Christ's vicor on earth. where is this biblical? torture?? come on man sheesh. if the Pope is infallible, how did he allow the torture of the spainard heathens? does Christ need the Pope to condone torture to win souls? I don't think Jesus wanted it to be like that, maybe I'm wrong... I will grant you it was the first "organized" religion on a grand scale with government and political ties, but this isn't necessarily a good thing. Look man I don't care if you're into catholicism, that's fine, it's a religion, no more ordained than Mormon or jehovah's witness is. it is what it is. I am not saying all Catholics are going to hell or nothing like that, it's just that they are mis-lead by their own religion.
You miss a great point and there is tradition, and Tradition. It is traditions of man that the Bible warns against. The Tradition of the Catholic church pre-dates even some books of the New Testament. Paul points to this when he wrote: I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I have delivered them to you" (1 Cor. 11:2) and "So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter" (2 Thess. 2:15). and "Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is living in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us" (2 Thess. 3:6). He cannot be referring to the Bible because when he wrote these things the Bible did not yet exist. What tradition is he speaking about? The oral traditions maintained and taught in the Catholic Church of course. To make sure that the apostolic tradition would be passed down after the deaths of the apostles, Paul told Timothy, "What you have heard from me before many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also" (2 Tim. 2:2). In this passage he refers to the first four generations of apostolic succession—his own generation, Timothy’s generation, the generation Timothy will teach, and the generation they in turn will teach. Answer me this. Where is it instructed to any of the early Christians that the Bible is their sole source of teaching and morality? It doesn't.
