uninterrupted views of the altar.

Now what was that Reformation all about ?

1 Peter 3:18:
For Christ died for sins ONCE for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit,

Kevin Goddard - 06 July 2007 11:45 AM

uninterrupted views of the altar.

Now what was that Reformation all about ?

1 Peter 3:18:
For Christ died for sins ONCE for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit,

Perhaps we need to be careful about generalising from one verse....?

Oh, are there more than one or two or three or......?
8-)

[he, his and himself refer to Jesus Christ in all these verses,
except for Hebrews 10:10]

For the death he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God. [Romans 6:10]

He has no need to do every day what those priests do, to offer sacrifices first for their own sins and then for the sins of the people, since he did this in offering himself once for all. [Hebrews 7:27]

and he entered once for all into the most holy place not by the blood of goats and calves but by his own blood, and so he himself secured eternal redemption. [Hebrews 9:12]

And he did not enter to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the sanctuary year after year with blood that is not his own,
for then he would have had to suffer again and again since the foundation of the world. But now he has appeared once for all at the consummation of the ages to put away sin by his sacrifice.
And just as people are appointed to die once, and then to face judgment,
so also, after Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many, to those who eagerly await him he will appear a second time, not to bear sin but to bring salvation.  [Hebrews 9:25-28]

By his [God’s] will we have been made holy through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. [Hebrews 10:10]

[All from the NET Bible translation]

Grace and peace,

Terry

For those who want to move beyond the “special” number of having once seven times, I should have included the next few verses with Hebrews 10:10

By his [God’s] will we have been made holy through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
And every priest stands day after day serving and offering the same sacrifices again and again — sacrifices that can never take away sins.
But when this priest [Jesus] had offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, he sat down at the right hand of God,
where he is now waiting until his enemies are made a footstool for his feet.
For by one offering he has perfected for all time those who are made holy.  [Hebrews 10:10-14, the NET Bible translation]

As one who was raised a Roman Catholic and in my late teens converted to Christ through the reading of His Word I give these suggestions for evangelicals responding to World Youth Day.

Don’t
be aloof, afraid, condemning, hostile, or ignorant of the errrors of the Catholic Church.

Do

- Listen to your Roman Catholic friends as they may feel bold enough to talk about their faith at this time. By listening to them you win the right to be heard.
- Be respectful. Tell them what you appreciate about the Catholic church, its belief in one God and Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. By showing respect and appreciation you may earn their respect.
- Go to their church with them. Take some time to see what they really experience and believe. In turn, they later may feel a lot better about visiting a Gospel preaching church with you.

This is the approach a friend of mine took with me twenty years ago and I am convinced that it is still sound.

I’m praying that you will then have opportunity to do a Bible study with your Cathoic friends. I too would recommend “The God Who Saves” by Mark Gilbert for most Roman Catholics, for the large majority of them are still strangers to the Gospel of grace and the doctine of Justification by Faith apart from works.

It is designed for people for whom religious tradition and activity is very important, but who may not do a lot of actual Bible reading themselves, and so may not be familiar with what the Bible says about salvation by God’s grace through Christ’s work, and being received by trust in Christ only.

Ian

Welcome Ian.  Feel free to hop on over to the intro thread.

As someone who grew up in Catholic schools (for a while), I agree.

I’d also add to your note to listen, that it’s good to ask.  Often Catholic folk won’t have a thought out framework of what it is they believe, and so asking not only helps us to understand what they as an individual believe, but it also helps them to become clearer on that themselves.  That said, ask gently as someone interested in them, and not as officers of the inquisition.

Not that anyone needed me to say that.  ;)

A second thought which has probably been asked before in this thread:
What kind of Catholics are going to WYD? By that I’m guessing that it’s more likely to be your more-into-it types, rather than your maybe-attend-once-or-twice-a-year types.  In that sense, they are more likely to actually know what they believe, and probably more willing to share that with us.

However the more likely water-cooler conversation moment is going to be with the lapsed or nominal catholic.  It’s worth asking people who are only sort-of catholic whether they’re going to any WYD things, what they think of it, etc which can lead to the conversation of what they believe (or don’t believe - eg “yeah I’m catholic, but I don’t believe in the whole [insert belief here] thing").

To alert people to another coming resource, you could go to this post on Matthias Media’s Couldn’t Help Noticing blog.

Scroll down and you will see that you can download the first chapter of Ray Galea’s forthcoming book Nothing in My Hand I Bring: Understanding the differences between Roman Catholic and Protestant beliefs, apparently due for release this September.

I’ve read the sample and it’s whet my appetite for more.

linky dink (770k pdf)

Thanks for the tip, Sandy.  I enjoyed the first chapter a lot.  Ray is a very fine story-teller and I’d be keen to read the rest.  I might even buy the book, if I can’t borrow it off someone, or get the SydAng gig to review it :-)

But, it is a two-way street, isn’t it?.

Prominent protestants have also become Roman Catholics, most recently Francis Beckwith, president of the Evangelical Theological Society in the USA.  (not suggesting he is in the same theological league but...) it is rumoured Tony Blair is also about to “cross the Tiber”.  A writer I much admire, Richard Neuhaus, is also a Lutheran turned Roman Catholic.

Derek makes a good point. Gentle question asking of Roman Catholic friends can help them understand what they believe, since many do not have a coherent, well thought through faith.

Derek Cheng - 10 July 2007 04:04 PM

I’d also add to your note to listen, that it’s good to ask.  Often Catholic folk won’t have a thought out framework of what it is they believe, and so asking not only helps us to understand what they as an individual believe, but it also helps them to become clearer on that themselves.  That said, ask gently as someone interested in them, and not as officers of the inquisition.

There’s nothing particularly new in this report, but it’s a good reminder that the Roman Catholic church hasn’t changed its view that if you’re not a member of the Roman Catholic church, then you are not a member of the true church.

“Christ ‘established here on earth’ only one church,” the document said. The other communities “cannot be called ‘churches’ in the proper sense” because they do not have apostolic succession — the ability to trace their bishops back to Christ’s original apostles.

...because it said they were not true churches but merely ecclesial communities and therefore did not have the “means of salvation.”

Our Parish Council is working on it right now. We think by September we’ll have found a link to Thomas. Sure, he doubted, but nonetheless was still an apostle.

So fingers crossed, and by September we may have assurance of salvation.

Recently a Roman Catholic woman who helps shower our disabled son told my wife:

Isn’t Scott lucky; he gets a free ticket to heaven whilst the rest of us have to try hard

I too enjoyed reading the 1st chapter of Ray’s book.  Perhaps other chapters will cover this, but something we will need to know is that Roman Catholics use the same words to mean different things.  For example, they will also talk about being saved by grace, but mean something entirely different from how this word is used in the New Testament.  They also have different understandings of: sin, faith, justified, and church (as Gordon has highlighted for us).

Let’s be ready for WYD as we seek any and every opportunity to share the gospel of true grace with our RC friends.

Gordon Cheng - 11 July 2007 09:30 AM

There’s nothing particularly new in this report, but it’s a good reminder that the Roman Catholic church hasn’t changed its view that if you’re not a member of the Roman Catholic church, then you are not a member of the true church.

That’s not quite correct, strictly speaking. Paragraph 838 of the Catholic Catechism says that Protestants are in a “certain, though imperfect communion with the Catholic Church”. In that sense, Protestants are members of the true church from the Catholic perspective, although not in the sense that most Protestants would expect. Protestants are in a sense, quasi-Catholics.

I don’t believe my post said anything about Protestants! However, as with all things Roman Catholic, it’s never that simple. If a Protestant holds to Protestant teaching as anathematized by the Roman Catholic Church, then they are definitely not Roman Catholics.