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What's in a name?

sojourner

Annoyingly Progressive Since 2006
A tactic used by a couple of JW's here is to take a simple question put forth to them and respond with a word--salad essay that rambles on and on and on, which makes it almost impossible to deal with without writing numerous essays back.
I’m not going to take that bait. You read where I said that the poster hides behind a fallacy of “I’ve done my homework.” Clearly, that’s not the case.
 

Deeje

Avid Bible Student
Premium Member
Fine. Drink the Kool-Aid.
Please check the brand that you yourself are drinking......do you not see sojourner, that this is not a game of ‘oneupmanship’.....our lives are on the line here. Don’t let pride rob you of life. Don’t let the deceiver offer you a poor ‘weedy’ imitation “Christianity”.

If I believe that you are on the wrong road (and I think I have given you more than enough evidence for the Catholic church’s impossible claim to be followers of Christ) what kind of Christian would I be if I didn’t at least try to direct you to the right one? Do you think my motive is to rub your nose in it? Could it possibly be a way for God himself to appeal to your love for him? I appeal to @pearl on the same grounds. Please just consider the evidence with an open heart and mind.

The example of the Pharisees is there for us to make the comparison between them and Jesus and his Apostles. We can’t worship as if God doesn’t care what we believe or how we conduct ourselves. “The truth” Jesus said, would “set us free”. What kind of freedom do you think he meant?

The biggest hurdle for Jesus’ first disciples (who were all Jewish) was disarming the fear engendering power that the Pharisees had over them. Jesus used their own scripture to lead them out of that apostate religious system, which had virtually gone rogue with all the nit-picking additions that they had made. The Talmud virtually replaced the Torah for Jews, just like the Catechism replaced the Bible in the minds of most Catholics. Both were undermined by the same deceiver, using the same MO, because he knew from experience that it works......taking advantage of human imperfection to achieve his goals.

I can’t force anyone to see the truth of what is stated in the scriptures.....all I can do is offer what my own studies have revealed. We must let the scriptures speak for themselves. To abandon or ignore them is tantamount to spiritual suicide.

Whether a person’s heart is “fine soil” is up to Jesus to discern, but at the end of the day, one thing is clear....
Jesus said.....
“No man can come to me, except the Father, who hath sent me, draw him. . . .

And he said: Therefore did I say to you, that no man can come to me, unless it be given him by my Father.”
(John 6:44, 65 (66) - Douay) Unless we have an invitation from the Father, we will never get to his Son, or truly understand what he taught.

According to Matthew 7:21-23, we get no second chances here.....:( so please reconsider your position....and if on genuine reflection, you still chose to remain on the path you have chosen, then so be it. It’s your choice to make.....
 

metis

aged ecumenical anthropologist
The Apostles were Jewish but not all of Jesus' disciples were as some were "God-Fearers" [Gentiles who believed in the God of Abraham].

The Talmud did not replace the Torah.

The "Catechism of the Catholic Church" did not replace the Bible.
 

sojourner

Annoyingly Progressive Since 2006
Please check the brand that you yourself are drinking......do you not see sojourner, that this is not a game of ‘oneupmanship’.....our lives are on the line here. Don’t let pride rob you of life. Don’t let the deceiver offer you a poor ‘weedy’ imitation “Christianity”.

If I believe that you are on the wrong road (and I think I have given you more than enough evidence for the Catholic church’s impossible claim to be followers of Christ) what kind of Christian would I be if I didn’t at least try to direct you to the right one? Do you think my motive is to rub your nose in it? Could it possibly be a way for God himself to appeal to your love for him? I appeal to @pearl on the same grounds. Please just consider the evidence with an open heart and mind.

The example of the Pharisees is there for us to make the comparison between them and Jesus and his Apostles. We can’t worship as if God doesn’t care what we believe or how we conduct ourselves. “The truth” Jesus said, would “set us free”. What kind of freedom do you think he meant?

The biggest hurdle for Jesus’ first disciples (who were all Jewish) was disarming the fear engendering power that the Pharisees had over them. Jesus used their own scripture to lead them out of that apostate religious system, which had virtually gone rogue with all the nit-picking additions that they had made. The Talmud virtually replaced the Torah for Jews, just like the Catechism replaced the Bible in the minds of most Catholics. Both were undermined by the same deceiver, using the same MO, because he knew from experience that it works......taking advantage of human imperfection to achieve his goals.

I can’t force anyone to see the truth of what is stated in the scriptures.....all I can do is offer what my own studies have revealed. We must let the scriptures speak for themselves. To abandon or ignore them is tantamount to spiritual suicide.

Whether a person’s heart is “fine soil” is up to Jesus to discern, but at the end of the day, one thing is clear....
Jesus said.....
“No man can come to me, except the Father, who hath sent me, draw him. . . .

And he said: Therefore did I say to you, that no man can come to me, unless it be given him by my Father.”
(John 6:44, 65 (66) - Douay) Unless we have an invitation from the Father, we will never get to his Son, or truly understand what he taught.

According to Matthew 7:21-23, we get no second chances here.....:( so please reconsider your position....and if on genuine reflection, you still chose to remain on the path you have chosen, then so be it. It’s your choice to make.....
This is proselytizing. You need not make the mistake of believing that I don’t have a handle on my own spiritual condition, and think that it’s your “Christian duty” to “fix” me. When one goes through the process of discernment for ordination in a mainstream denomination, one goes through an extensive process of theological deconstruction, self-examination, and directed spiritual formation. You need not respect the authority or the methods, but you do need to respect the person when they declare that they have earnestly sought truth and are firmly set on a path of spiritual connection with God.

God is a God of second chances, for God always 1) saves a holy remnant, and 2) calls the unworthy to worthiness. The difference between your approach and mine is that I don’t have to try to get you to see the error of your ways in order to be a good follower, because I have faith that God loves us all, and allows us to connect with God in the way that is most meaningful for each. Whereas your faith appears to be in a rigidly-defined set of doctrines and behaviors that all must learn and follow in order to escape God’s wrath. One allows people to be whom God created them to be. The other seeks to create a uniformity based on a single idea.
You “fear” for me. But I have “faith” in God’s creation of you. Whatever our differences, I believe that God has us both well in hand. You appear to not share that spiritual optimism.
 

pearl

Well-Known Member
I appeal to @pearl on the same grounds. Please just consider the evidence with an open heart and mind.

The only 'evidence' you have provided is your absolute hatred for a Church which you are totally ignorant of. You're accusations are based on nothing more than gossip which you have cherry picked just like you cherry pick Scripture. What you are attempting to spread is nothing less than 'bearing false witness', slander and intentionally harmful speech.

The Talmud virtually replaced the Torah for Jews, just like the Catechism replaced the Bible in the minds of most Catholics

Just another example of your false accusations and willful ignorance to all things Catholic;

God transcends all creatures. We must therefore continually purify our language of everything in it that is limited, imagebound or imperfect, if we are not to confuse our image of God --"the inexpressible, the incomprehensible, the invisible, the ungraspable"-- with our human representations. Our human words always fall short of the mystery of God.
Admittedly, in speaking about God like this, our language is using human modes of expression; nevertheless it really does attain to God himself, though unable to express him in his infinite simplicity. Likewise, we must recall that "between Creator and creature no similitude can be expressed without implying an even greater dissimilitude";17 and that "concerning God, we cannot grasp what he is, but only what he is not, and how other beings stand in relation to him."

Growth in understanding the faith. Thanks to the assistance of the Holy Spirit, the understanding of both the realities and the words of the heritage of faith is able to grow in the life of the Church:

- "through the contemplation and study of believers who ponder these things in their hearts";57 it is in particular "theological research [which] deepens knowledge of revealed truth".

- "from the intimate sense of spiritual realities which [believers] experience", The sacred Scriptures "grow with the one who reads them."

The inspired books teach the truth. "Since therefore all that the inspired authors or sacred writers affirm should be regarded as affirmed by the Holy Spirit, we must acknowledge that the books of Scripture firmly, faithfully, and without error teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the Sacred Scriptures."

Still, the Christian faith is not a "religion of the book". Christianity is the religion of the "Word" of God, "not a written and mute word, but incarnate and living". If the Scriptures are not to remain a dead letter, Christ, the eternal Word of the living God, must, through the Holy Spirit, "open (our) minds to understand the Scriptures."

"and such is the force and power of the Word of God that it can serve the Church as her support and vigour, and the children of the Church as strength for their faith, food for the soul, and a pure and lasting fount of spiritual life." Hence "access to Sacred Scripture ought to be open wide to the Christian faithful."

"Therefore, the study of the sacred page should be the very soul of sacred theology. the ministry of the Word, too - pastoral preaching, catechetics and all forms of Christian instruction, among which the liturgical homily should hold pride of place - is healthily nourished and thrives in holiness through the Word of Scripture.”

The Church "forcefully and specifically exhorts all the Christian faithful... to learn the surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ, by frequent reading of the divine Scriptures. Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ. from the CCC

“No man can come to me, except the Father, who hath sent me, draw him. . . .

And he said: Therefore did I say to you, that no man can come to me, unless it be given him by my Father.”
(John 6:44, 65 (66) - Douay) Unless we have an invitation from the Father, we will never get to his Son, or truly understand what he taught.

And now you cherry pick an old Catholic Bible?
[44] "Draw him": Not by compulsion, nor by laying the free will under any necessity, but by the strong and sweet motions of his heavenly grace.

[54] "Eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood": To receive the body and blood of Christ, is a divine precept, insinuated in this text; which the faithful fulfil, though they receive but in one kind; because in one kind they receive both body and blood, which cannot be separated from each other. Hence, life eternal is here promised to the worthy receiving, though but in one kind. Ver. 52. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever; and the bread that I will give, is my flesh for the life of the world. Ver. 58. He that eateth me, the same also shall live by me. Ver. 59. He that eateth this bread, shall live for ever.
 

Muffled

Jesus in me
The JW's persistently ignore Jesus own words: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind," before also paraphrasing a second passage; "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." These are Jesus' Commandments.

From there, what remains is the application of those Commandments, which sometimes can be at least somewhat variable. But what the JW's constantly do is to keep adding "commandments" and then trying to justify them under Jewish Law, which Gentiles are not under. And when asked why they don't believe in all the Jewish Laws, all one then hears from the JW's are the sounds of crickets.

Again, Jesus' basic message is the love of God and neighbor, but the Governing Body tells their flock that this is not enough. Well, apparently it was good enough for Jesus.

I believe for us, Jesus is the fulfillment of the law. We have Jesus, we fulfill it.
 
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