I don't put a lot of stock in the ECF like Roman Catholics do. These men were not infallible and did not all support your doctrines. -
Church Fathers
If these did not support my doctrine then you, and other Protestants, would use them. Protestant scholars always talk about looking at the historical context. The way the ECF use the the teaching of the apostles is part of the historical context. I am not using them as infallible people. But they were the ones closest to the apostles. If I was famous and I died soon, the media would interview my wife, my children, and my friends to find out what the real Paul Ackermann was like. So even though the disciples of the apostle were not inspired, they could tell you what the apostles, who were inspired, actually were like and taught.
This makes for a good sales pitch for Roman Catholics, but I'm not buying it. -
Church Fathers
I recently watched an interesting video on the origins of the Roman Catholic church. Christianity and pagan customs do not mix:
Well, I'm not buying a video produced by an anti-Catholic Protestant.
Jesus is the Bread of Life. Just as bread nourishes our physical bodies, Jesus gives and sustains eternal life to all believers.
John 6:35 - "I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst." As He was accustomed, Jesus used figurative language to emphasize these spiritual truths. Jesus explains the sense of the entire passage when He says in
John 6:63 -
"It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life." 
The literal interpretation of eating flesh and drinking blood (cannibalism) is absurd.
Funny, you should mention John 6. I was going to mention it in the future. Jesus said "This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”(v 51) The crowd felt the same way way as you did - THIS IS CANNIBALISM!("How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” see v 52). So how did Jesus respond? Did He say that they misunderstood Him? That He was only figuratively? NO! He just said it again!
Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. 55 For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. 56 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them.
Verses 53 - 56
He startegd saying Truly - actually in Greek it was "Amen, Amen". This is what
a person says when he wants to be taken seriously and literally. I defy you to find about another that Jesus said "Amen, Amen" and was only talking figuratively. Look at
verse - Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life. Is eternal life only figurative??? Of course not! He really mean it! He always mean what He says when He starts off with "Truly" or "Amen, Amen"! And He really mean it when He said in 53 "Unless you eat the flesh and drink His blood, you have not life in you"
But he does not stop there. He also says in verse 55 "For my flesh is REAL food and my blood is REAL drink" He said this is REAL! He is REALLY expecting us to eat His flesh and drink His blood. The language is not the way that you expect one to talk if he was only speaking figuratively.
Then the many of His disciples say " “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?” (verse 60). Again, they think this is cannibalism. Does Jesus point out to them that they are talking him to literally. NO! Instead, He said "The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit[e] and life." You misunderstand this verse. He is not saying He is only speaking figuratively. He is saying only through the Holy Spirit can accept what He said. The flesh counts for nothing. In Romans 8, Paul writes about living in the flesh versus living in the Spirit. Only one who is being led by the Spirit can accept what He says. This why He ended His discussion with them by saying "He went on to say, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled them.”(v 65). He never said that He was talking figuratively to them. He was say "You are trying to accept this in your own flesh, in your own power. But he who is in the flesh can never accept this. You are not coming to Me because the Father has not enabled you"
From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him. (v 66).
They still took Him literally and they left Him and never came back Him. Now, if it was a misunderstanding then why did Jesus let them leave without explaining that this was all a misunderstanding? He could not do that because the problem was not that they misunderstood. They just could not accept it. And since they could not accept it, there was nothing else Jesus could say to them. He had to let them go. If it was all a misunderstanding, it would have been cruel for Him to let them leave without clarifying that He was only speaking figuratively. They no longer followed him, which they died in their sins are lost forever! All because of a misunderstanding???
..He makes abundantly clear by repeating the same truths both in metaphoric and plain language below:
That is the problem with man Protestant interpretations. For instance, to get around James 2:2 about faith and work, they define faith there differently there than in Romans 3. That is why Protestants always have group Bible studies - they need to be guided verse by verse since definitions can quickly change. I know what I talking about. I was a Baptist minister for three years, and I used to lead those Bible studies. And for about 12 years before I became a minister I used to attend them.
I will show you how by the verses you site, that you switch from plain language to figurative language, and you are not aware at all how unduly complicated this is.
John 6:40 - Everyone who looks to the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day.
According to you, I assume, this is plain language.
John 6:54 - Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.
According to you, I assume, this is figurative language (But is being raised up on the last day figurative or plain?
).
John 6:47 - Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me has everlasting life.
According to you, I assume, this is plain language.
John 6:58 - He who eats this bread will live forever.
According to you, I assume, this is figurative language (But is living forever figurative or plain?
).
The Catholic interpretation of this passage is much simpler. It is ALL plain and literal.
"He who believes" in Christ is equivalent to "he who eats this bread and drinks My blood" because the result is the same, eternal life.
Again, this is making it more complicated than it is.
"He who believes" is the one who believe in Jesus, in everything He said and it. He said "he who eats this bread and drinks My blood". The one who believe in Jesus will believe everything that Jesus said. Jesus said it. I believe it. That settles it.
Sure, it sounds like cannibalism. But the doctrine of the Trinity sounds like the belief in three Gods. The doctrine of the Incarnation, that the unchanging God changes into a Man, the Infinite becoming finite, seems contradictory. But the Catholic Church calls them mysteries. We cannot fully understand them. We just accept them with childlike faith. Jesus warned us that unless we come as little children, we cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.
Bread represents the "staff of life." Sustenance. That which essential to sustain life. Just as bread or sustenance is necessary to maintain physical life, Jesus is all the sustenance necessary for spiritual life.
Yes, Jesus is all we need. But that is not the issue. If Jesus is in the Eucharist and Jesus is all we need then we need the Eucharist. Just as if Jesus is among us whenever two or three are gathered in His Name then we need Christian fellowship. We need Jesus wherever He is found.
Individuals choosing to be celibate is one thing, yet forcing celibacy on the entire clergy is unbiblical.
It is NOT the entire clergy. Deacons can be married. And only in the Latin Rite must the priest not be married. The other rites in the Catholic Church allow married priests. Also, a married Episcopalian priest who converts to the Catholic Church can be a Latin Rite priest.
After I graduated from a Protestant seminary, it took me TWO YEARS to find a pastorate. There is an unwritten rule in Protestantism. They expect their ministers to be married! I finally found a church to hire me. They gave me $50 a week and they paid my rent. It was not much, even though it was the early '80's, but since I was single minster this was all I could find.
The point is that the Catholic Church, in the Latin Rite, has a rule that priests must be celibate. And Protestantism has an unwritten rule that their ministers must be married. Personally, I think the Catholic rule is better based on 1 Cor 7 where Paul points out that celibacy is better than being married as well as Jesus and Paul being celibates.
Not just before 1139 AD.
You really have to ask that question?
Says you and the Bible was written before the Middle Ages, so try again. Forced celibacy for all clergy is unbiblical. 1 Timothy 4:3 settles it for me.
This was not a prediction. This was something that was happening at the time Paul was writing it. In the first century, there was a heresy called Gnosticism. It taught that there were two Gods - the God of the Old Covenant and the God of the New Covenant. The God of the Old created the whole (see Genesis). He was an evil God, telling the Israelites to kill ever man, woman and child in Canaan. The God of New was Jesus - He was the good God. The God of the Old created the physical world. Jesus was the God of the spiritual world. Marriage was instituted by the evil God, so it was forbidden in their cult to get married. They did not forbid sex, just marriage. In fact, since the physical did not matter, you could in this cult have sex with problem. Jesus was only concerned with the spiritual realm. If you look closer at the text, they forbade marriage, they did not force celibacy.
There is a reason why we do not have priests. Old Testament priests were chosen by God and they were chosen for a purpose, to serve God with their lives by offering up sacrifices. When the temple veil to the Holy of Holies was torn in two by God at the time of Christ's death (Matthew 27:51), God was indicating that the Old Testament priesthood was no longer necessary. Believers now come directly to God through our high priest, Jesus Christ (Hebrews 4:14-16). There are now no earthly mediators between God and man as there was in the Old Testament priesthood (1 Timothy 2:5).
The temple veil being rent is YOUR interpretation. No where in scripture does it say that. And even if that was its meaning, it only would mean the of the OLD TESTAMENT priesthood.
But you contradict yourself here. You say we come directly to God. But then you say we come THROUGH Jesus Christ. So is it direct or not?
In the Old Testament, there was a high priest but also other priests. The high priest was the ultimate priest. Jesus replaced the ultimate, high priest. But there are other priest. It says in the Bible that priesthood continues for earthly people (Romans 15:16, 1 Pet 2:5, 9, Rev 5:10). Trues, these verses say the we are ALL priests. But this refutes that are no longer earthly mediators, since a priest is a mediator. Unlike a Protestant church service, where a member just attends the service, I as a layman go to Mass to assist. I assist because I, at a lower level than the presiding priest, am a priest assisting the Mass. But a Protestant church have no priests, even though they say they believe in the priesthood of all believers. A priest cannot exist without a sacrifice.
You are misinterpreting what I wrote. By persevering in faith and not falling away, believers demonstrate that their conversion was genuine, yet believers can KNOW they have eternal life now. (1 John 5:13)
It is not what you wrote but the unintended consequences of what you wrote.
Your perseverance is still in the future. You not not know if you will fall away in a year from now. Others have fall away, how you know that the same is for you? I think I know what you would say. You know you will not fall away in the future because God will keep you from falling. But this is all a circular argument. I'll try to demonstrate.
1. Perseverance shows that my conversion is genuine
2. Since I know that my conversion is genuine, I know that I will persevere.
3. I know my conversion is genuine because of my perseverance (#1 again)
