I appreciate the discussion too.
I think it's interesting how we shift through our life. I was raised as a Bible-only Christian and study of the Bible and prayer led me to reject Sola Scriptura. Once I rejected that man-made tradition, I had to pray and study more to find the Church that held on to the tradition of Thessalonians, spoken by word or sent by letter, and that led me to the Catholic Church.
Everything else is from man.
The idea that the only Tradition we hold on to is scripture is from man, too. You can find nothing in the Bible that says "reject what you were told, but was not written down." Because, that would be nonsense; virtually none of what they had been told was written down and almost all of it was the verbal passing on of information.
I think that's the source of the disagreements over the Sola Scriptura. Some churches existed before there was a Bible to be authoritative, others did not.
What did his baptism signify?
It prefaced the death and resurrection to come and led us, the followers of Christ, by example in righteousness. Jesus did not need a baptism, as John rightly noted "I ought to be baptized by thee, and comest thou to me?"
JW’s have “doctrines” based squarely on the Bible, but we also have “beliefs” which are held because the Bible indicates that something is true, but does not directly state it.....we never confuse the two.
Ah, okay. Sorry about the confusion, I wasn't considering the operational language of the Watchtower.
We have different wording but a similar approach. Dogma is teaching that we accord to the Sacred Tradition handed down by the Apostles, the composition of the Bible for instance is a Dogma. Doctrine are teachings on faith and morals, but not held to have been divinely revealed.
You didn’t answer my question.
I don't make claims to specific revelation of how the events of the end time will unfold. For instance, the Bible says the living and the dead will be judged and those not found in the Book of Life will be consigned to the fiery pit. Does that mean there is going to be a line of people like at a magistrate and a physical book Jesus checks like Santa with his list? I have my doubts. It could happen though.
None of them are sourced from the Bible, but forced into certain ambiguous scripture to support these beliefs.
Hey now, which is it? Is there nothing in the Bible to source these beliefs or are there ambiguous scripture that could, if the interpretation, is correct support them? Saying "I don't agree with your interpretation" is very different than "that isn't in the Bible at all".
The Word is... a divine personage
Agreed.
As I noted, you are not persuaded. You also won't be persuaded by my argument that there is, throughout the Bible, only one single divine being. If the Word is divine, then He is in fact that one single true God who proves all other gods false. This is an obvious case of my statement above too. Here we have the passage, and we disagree about the meaning of the verse. Possibly because native speaking Greeks didn't understand their own language as well as 19th century American revivalists.
I thought it was God who chose the saints?
What exactly is a “saint” according to Catholic teaching?
Of course it is God who chooses the saints, the Church recognizing someone as a saint isn't the choosing, nor is a lack of recognition considered in anyway a rejection of someone's sainthood. A saint is anyone who is part of the community of the faithful to God, living or dead.
It was a choice not to marry, not a requirement. Do you believe that the church will ever change their stance on that?
I certainly hope so, I'm not a huge fan of the discipline.