From A Non-catholic

[Cure of Ars]

Personally, nothing in the bible has ever really confused me, and anything that has I was able to clear up with a little research and answers from people I trust.

Also, the bible is perfect truth....and presents the perfect truth of salvation, and sanctification, rather easily.

Mulls,

How do you understand 1 Cor 15:29 when it talks about "having themselves baptised for the dead? This one personaly confused me for a long time until I found the traditional Catholic understanding of the passage.

[mulls]

Cure,

I ignore it. jk.

I should not have stated that nothing has ever confused me. Of course things have, the bible is a big book. But I've never had a question that I've never found an answer to. As for 1 Cor 15:29...

"If the total supremacy of God is not ultimately established, then the Gospel is worthless, and those who believe it deluded dupes. Relative to their being “baptized for the dead,” the obvious meaning is that as believers “fall asleep,” and others come along to take their places, the baptism of the new converts, like that of those who have preceded them, is a meaningless rite, for the baptismal candidate is declaring symbolically that he has not only died with Christ, but that he also lives with Him, and will be resurrected from physical death, to live and reign for ever with Him in heaven. All of this is a mere myth if the undisputed supremacy of God isn’t eventually established. If God lacks the power to raise the dead, then the Gospel, and all that pertains to it, is a myth, a delusion. "

1 Cor 15:29

This commentary helped me with it. The author has taught bible studies at my school in the past, he is quite brilliant.

I know that Mormons use this passage to defend actual baptisms for the dead...in which as person will actually be baptized in the name and place of a dead person, so that God's grace will take affect on the deceased.

What is the traditional Catholic understanding?

[MC Just]

Ok I'll stick to the Hip-Hop section for now on.

[hyperdulia again]

no!

[marielapin]

Cure,

I ignore it. jk.

I should not have stated that nothing has ever confused me. Of course things have, the bible is a big book. But I've never had a question that I've never found an answer to. As for 1 Cor 15:29...

"If the total supremacy of God is not ultimately established, then the Gospel is worthless, and those who believe it deluded dupes.  Relative to their being “baptized for the dead,” the obvious meaning is that as believers “fall asleep,” and others come along to take their places, the baptism of the new converts, like that of those who have preceded them, is a meaningless rite, for the baptismal candidate is declaring symbolically that he has not only died with Christ, but that he also lives with Him, and will be resurrected from physical death, to live and reign for ever with Him in heaven.  All of this is a mere myth if the undisputed supremacy of God isn’t eventually established.  If God lacks the power to raise the dead, then the Gospel, and all that pertains to it, is a myth, a delusion. " 

1 Cor 15:29

This commentary helped me with it. The author has taught bible studies at my school in the past, he is quite brilliant.

I know that Mormons use this passage to defend actual baptisms for the dead...in which as person will actually be baptized in the name and place of a dead person, so that God's grace will take affect on the deceased.

What is the traditional Catholic understanding?

But Mulls, how do you know that this person is right in his interpretation of this passage, and the Mormons are wrong?

[Joyful]

nothing in the bible has ever really confused me, and anything that has I was able to clear up with a little research and answers from people I trust.

Mulls,

How do you know who you should trust when it comes to understanding the passages that confuse you?

and as Marielapan stated, how do you know what bible commentary to use?

Have you ever seen 20/20 or 60 minutes when they show controversial court cases? Well my mom is the type of person that believes whichever side is being presented at the time. I love her dearly, but she doesn't have a lot of analytical ability. If she were protestant how would she decide which commentary to use or which people to trust?

[mulls]

the whole chapter is dedicated to the resurrection of Christ and the resurrection of the dead. the verses immediately following the one at hand show Paul talking about why Christians go through the trials that they do...because the dead in Christ will eventually be raised.

also, if one is confused about this 'baptism for the dead thing,' they can look at Jesus' quote of "Let the dead bury the dead," and OT warnings of not getting your body marked for the dead and such as evidence that rituals involving dead people are forbidden.

[MC Just]

I have a certain anger towards Non-Catholic christians I have a hard time controlling it and I have no clue why. But I know it's bad when my own brothers and sisters tell me i'm wrong and un-fair. Anyways I apologize.

[hyperdulia again]

no baby. they were dead because of their sins, because they were under the old law.

[ironmonk]

dUSt,

yea you pretty much hit it right, except for one or two things. I don't necessarily think the Bible needs to be interpreted, know what I mean? It's not like it's in a foreign language that I can't understand...I guess you are referring to the discrepancies that many denominations argue about. Personally, nothing in the bible has ever really confused me, and anything that has I was able to clear up with a little research and answers from people I trust.

Also, the bible is perfect truth....and presents the perfect truth of salvation, and sanctification, rather easily.

I don't know what "bits and pieces" you are referring to, but right now I don't believe I'm missing out on anything that the bible can't, and eventually won't, show me.

let's see if I know how you crazy Catholics will respond...

*cue the Eucharist defense*

am I right? lol

mulls,

It is a foriegn language.

The Apostles spoke Aramaic.

The bible's books and letters where in Aramaic, Greek, and Hebrew.

They were written in first century.

It wasn't in english until sometime before 700 AD.

Think of the word "bad"... is "bad" as in 'bad', 'good', or 'cool'?! Looking at it alone we can't tell because the meaning has slightly changed over the years. This happens in every language.

Someone who of our day and age cannot possibly comprehend the context by just picking up the bible and reading.

We need to study what the First Christians taught about them to understand them.

I think Acts 8:27-31 says it best....

Acts 8:27 So he got up and set out. Now there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of the Candace, 8 that is, the queen of the Ethiopians, in charge of her entire treasury, who had come to Jerusalem to worship,

28 and was returning home. Seated in his chariot, he was reading the prophet Isaiah.

29 The Spirit said to Philip, "Go and join up with that chariot."

30 Philip ran up and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and said, "Do you understand what you are reading?"

31 He replied, "How can I, unless someone instructs me?" So he invited Philip to get in and sit with him.

The Christian faith is very deep, not shallow. The Holy Spirit guides the Church in teaching us. The Holy Spirit DOES NOT guide us in our self interpretation.

2 Peter 1:20 - Understanding this first, that no prophecy of scripture is made by private interpretation.

2 Peter 3:16 - As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are certain things hard to be understood, which the unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, to their own destruction.

Acts 20:30 - And from your own group, men will come forward perverting the truth to draw the disciples away after them.

Knowing that people will come out of the True Church to draw true believers away from Christ, then we must find the Church that Christ built.

Who better to know what the Scriptures mean than the Church that gave them to us?

"We are compelled to concede to the Papists that they have the Word of God, that we received it from them, and that without them we should have no knowledge of it at all."

~ Martin Luther, Commentary on St. John

God Bless, Love in Christ & Mary

ironmonk

Edited July 22, 2003 by ironmonk

[marielapin]

the whole chapter is dedicated to the resurrection of Christ and the resurrection of the dead. the verses immediately following the one at hand show Paul talking about why Christians go through the trials that they do...because the dead in Christ will eventually be raised.

also, if one is confused about this 'baptism for the dead thing,' they can look at Jesus' quote of "Let the dead bury the dead," and OT warnings of not getting your body marked for the dead and such as evidence that rituals involving dead people are forbidden.

Wouldn't a funeral be an example of a ritual involving the dead? Is Jesus telling us to let our dead parents rot in the sun?

[hyperdulia again]

apparently!

[ironmonk]

the whole chapter is dedicated to the resurrection of Christ and the resurrection of the dead. the verses immediately following the one at hand show Paul talking about why Christians go through the trials that they do...because the dead in Christ will eventually be raised.

also, if one is confused about this 'baptism for the dead thing,' they can look at Jesus' quote of "Let the dead bury the dead," and OT warnings of not getting your body marked for the dead and such as evidence that rituals involving dead people are forbidden.

That is why protestants are lost... no protestant can truthfully and fully answer all questions you have on the meaning of a verse. Only the Catholic Church can because it was the Catholic Church that was built by Christ.

2 Peter 1:20 - Understanding this first, that no prophecy of scripture is made by private interpretation.

Here is an article for you:

http://www.catholic.net/sowing_seeds/templ...5&channel_id=15

Pastor and Flock Convert to Catholicism

by Judy Roberts

When Pentecostal minister Alex Jones came into the Church this past Easter he was not alone. He brought much of his congregation in with him.

June 20, 2001 / When Detroit-born Alex Jones became a Pentecostal minister in 1972, there was little question among those who knew him that he was answering God’s call to preach.

Now, many of his friends and family have dismissed the 59-year-old pastor as an apostate for embracing the Catholic faith, closing the nondenominational church he organized in 1982, and taking part of his congregation with him.

At this year’s April 14 Easter Vigil, Jones, his wife, Donna, and 62 other former members of Detroit’s Maranatha Church, was received into the Catholic Church at St. Suzanne’s Parish. For Jones, becoming a Catholic will mark the end of a journey that began with the planting of a seed by Catholic apologist and Register columnist Karl Keating. It also will mean the beginning of a new way of life.

Jones first heard Keating, the founder of Catholic Answers, at a debate on whether the origins of the Christian church were Protestant or Catholic. At the close, Keating asked, “If something took place, who would you want to believe, those who saw it or those who came thousands of years later and told what happened?”

“Good point,” Jones thought, and tucked it away. Five years later, while he was reading about the church fathers, Keating’s question resurfaced. Jones began a study of the Church’s beginnings, sharing his newfound knowledge with his congregation.

To illustrate what he was talking about, in the spring of 1998 he re-enacted an early worship service, never intending to alter his congregation’s worship style. “But once I discovered the foundational truths and saw that Christianity was not the same as I was preaching, some fine-tuning needed to take place.”

Soon, Maranatha Church’s Sunday service was looking more like a Catholic Mass with Pentecostal overtones. “We said all the prayers with all the rubrics of the Church, all the readings, the Eucharistic prayers. We did it all, and we did it with an African-American style.”

Not everyone liked the change, however, and the 200-member congregation began to dwindle. Meanwhile, Jones contacted Detroit’s Sacred Heart Seminary and was referred to Steve Ray of Milan, Mich., whose conversion story is told in Crossing the Tiber.

“I set up a lunch with him right away and we pretty much had lunch every month after that,” said Ray. He introduced Jones to Dennis Walters, the catechist at Christ the King Parish in Ann Arbor, Mich. Walters began giving the Pentecostal pastor and his wife weekly instructions in March, 1999.

Crossroads

Eventually, Jones and his congregation arrived at a crossroads. On June 4, the remaining adult members of Maranatha Church voted 39-19 to begin the process of becoming Catholic. In September, they began studies at St. Suzanne’s.

Maranatha closed for good in December. The congregation voted to give Jones severance pay and sell the building, a former Greek Orthodox church, to the First Tabernacle Church of God in Christ.

Father Dennis Duggan, St. Suzanne’s 53-year-old pastor, said the former Maranatha members and their pastor along with about 10 other candidates comprise the 750-member parish’s largest-ever convert class.

Unity and Diversity

Although not all parishioners at predominantly white St. Suzanne’s have received the group warmly, Father Duggan, who also is white, said he considers the newcomers a gift and an answer to prayer.

“What the Lord seems to have brought together in the two of us — Alex and myself - is two individuals who have a similar dream about diversity. Detroit is a particularly segregated kind of community, especially on Sunday morning, and here you’ve got two baptized believers who really believe we ought to be looking different.”

Father Duggan hopes eventually to bring Jones onto the parish staff. Already, he has encouraged Jones to join him in teaching at a Wednesday night Bible service. And, he is working on adapting the music at Masses so that it better reflects the parish’s new makeup.

The current European worship style at St. Suzanne’s has been the most difficult adjustment for the former Maranatha members, Jones said, because they had been accustomed to using contemporary music with the Catholic prayers and rituals. “The cultural adaptation is far more difficult than the theological adaptation,” he said.

Protestant Issues

Jones said the four biggest problems Protestants have with Catholicism are teachings about Mary, purgatory, papal authority, and praying to saints. He resolved three of the four long ago, but struggled the most with Mary, finally accepting the teaching on her just because the church taught it.

“It is so ingrained in Protestants that only God inhabits heaven and to pray to anyone else is idolatry. ... The culture had so placed in my heart that only the Trinity received prayer that it was difficult.”

He is writing a paper on the appropriateness of venerating Mary for a class at Detroit’s Sacred Heart Seminary, where he is taking prerequisite courses for a master’s degree in theology and pastoral studies. He also is writing a book for Ignatius Press and accepting speaking engagements through St. Joseph Communications, West Covina, Calif.

Jones, the father of three married sons and grandfather of six, is leaving the question of whether he becomes a priest up to the Church.

“If the Church discerns that vocation, I will accept it. If not, I will accept that, too. Whatever the Church calls me to do, I will do.”

Although he has given up his job, prestige, and the congregation he built to become Catholic, Jones said the hardest loss of all has been the family and friends who rejected him because of his decision.

“To see those that have worshiped with and prayed with me for over 40 years walk away and have no contact with them is sad.”

It was especially painful, he said, when his mother, who had helped him start Maranatha, left to go to Detroit’s Perfecting Church, where his cousin, gospel singer Marvin Winans, is the pastor.

Neither Winans nor the pastor of the church that bought Maranatha’s building would comment on Jones’ conversion. Jones also is troubled that those he left behind do not understand his decision.

“To them, I have apostasized into error. And that’s painful for me because we all want to be looked at as being right and correct, but now you have the stigma of being mentally unbalanced, changeable, being looked at as though you’ve just walked away from God.”

Jones said when his group was considering converting, prayer groups were formed to stop them. “People fasted and prayed that God would stop us from making this terrible mistake. When we did it, it was as though we had died.”

He said Catholics do not fully understand how many Protestants see their church. “There’s this thin veneer of amicability, and below that there is great hostility.”

But he remains convinced he is doing the right thing.

“How can you say no to truth? I knew that I would lose everything and that in those circles I would never be accepted again, but I had no choice,” he said.

“It would be mortal sin for me to know what I know and not act on it. If I returned to my former life, I would be dishonest, untrustworthy, a man who saw truth, knew truth, and turned away from it, and I could just not do that.”

God Bless,

ironmonk

[hyperdulia again]

Praise God!

[Jake Huether]

You the man Iron!

Thanks!