True. We must consider the genre. Torah, and Gospel - and parts of Revelation - are God speaking directly and making law. Only God can make divine law. THOSE are the most authoritative parts of the Bible. Everything must orient upon those poles, the Old Testament on the Torah, and the New Testament on Jesus and his words and deeds.
That non-sense has already been refuted. The the Old Testament on the Torah is not all that of express statements as parts of Revelation are, nor is the New Testament on Jesus and his words and deeds, but include inspired words of men not claiming "thus saith the Lord" with statements expressing Divine Truth, as well as accounts. When before the Law was given, we see men expressing fear of having taken another mans wife as their own (Sarah), and for the sons of Jacob in protestation saying of Shechem (who himself recognized marriage was needed) "Should he deal with our sister as with an harlot"(Genesis 34:31) for fornicating with their sister, then that itself is the inspired word of God condemning adultery and fornication, respectively, which later on would be expressly done in detail.
And as said, it is the same Spirit of Christ who inspired and sometimes contracted or expanded what Christ Himself said in the gospels who also inspired all of Scripture, including the narratives of the gospels, and those thru Paul, Peter, Jude. They are all the word of God, and while one must discern the genre and context etc., so that we understand Solomon as expressing his natural reasoning in much of Ecclesiastes for instance, yet two doctrinal statements, one by Christ and one by Peter or in Hebrews or by Paul or another inspired writer, are both the inspired word of God.
And rather than interpreting the words of Christ by themselves when one thinks they are conflict with each other, and thus calling Scripture contradictory or marginalizing the latter, instead of implicitly charging the Spirit of Christ with being confused, we are to understand that taking into consideration all the inspired word of God says on a subject (considering genre, context etc.) leads to the correct understanding. And the manifest rule is that the latter revelation is interpretive of the former.
Thus we can see the words on binding and loosing in Mt. 18 understood in the light of the judicial use of binding and loosing in the OT judgment on false prophets (Dt. 18) and the authoritative (but not infallible) Supreme Court (Dt. 17:8-13) as well as the spiritual power in doing so, ( 1Kings 17) and applied in Acts 5, 13, 15, 1Co. 5, and James 5, among other places (i am being brief here). And taken together with the teaching on what it means to be gathered and acting together in the name of Christ, this both restricts as well as expands the application of this provision, in scope of persons and application.
Thus the guide that the OT is the preparation for Christ and His revelation; the gospels are the Presentation; Acts is the Application; the epistles are the Explanation; and Revelation is the Consummation, though in all these there is overlap.
And yet as said, "Therefore they all are the words of Christ, even though as reflective of the instrument speaking, His words are never untainted by undue human emotion, and may possess their own degree of power, if the word of God can vary in this."
Which MEANS that the words YHWH and Jesus spoke trump everything else in the Bible, and where there is tension, things must always, 100% of the time without exception, be resolved in favor of God's own direct voice.
Your fallacy is there not all of Scripture are the words YHWH in their respective forms, and that there is tension, that rather than Scripture being wholly complementary and conflative, there are doctrinal texts which actually militate against each other.
Skipping ahead let us look at your prime example and your arrogance
Unless you gnaw on my flesh and gulp my blood you have no life in you." - Jesus
What part of that is ambiguous?
Why, then, do Christians play around with it and defy Jesus and presume to tell Jesus what he meant. ESPECIALLY in light of the fact that everybody at earth can go to Lanciano and LOOK AT communion bread that turned into (incorrupt) heart tissue and blood 1400 years ago, or read about it?
WHY are people so full of bile and stubbornness?
Besides the fact that taken this literally would mean one is ingesting bile, this is a classic case of your rejection of Scripture (including what Peter calls Scripture) as being the word of God, or else ascribing error to it. For,
If John 6:53 you refer to as "Unless you gnaw [though the word gnaw is in the next verse], and gulp my blood you have no life in you" is to be taken literally as you make it be, then no one who does not actually eat the actual literal bloody flesh of Christ has no spiritual life in them, which contradicts both what Scripture says as well as your church. And which excludes you from being a faithful Catholic. As does your effective rejection of Acts and the Epistles of being the word of God.
For in Scripture taking part in the Lord's supper is nowhere shown as the means by which souls obtained life in them, which instead was by becoming born again, "giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us; And put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts
by faith." (Acts 15:8-9) Which was referring to faith in the evangelical gospel. (Acts 10:43)
In addition, Catholic Eucharistic theology does not hold that at consecration the bread and wine actually become the actually manifest physical body and blood of Christ, ("If you took the consecrated host to a laboratory it would be chemically shown to be bread, not human flesh." (Catholic priest Dwight Longenecker,
Explaining Transubstantiation) being not as a body "sensible, visible, tangible, or extended, although it is such in heaven," but under a "new mode of being."(John A. Hardon, S.J., Doctrine of the Real Presence in the Encyclical "Mediator Dei")
Thus persons with celiac disease can suffer adverse effects to the non-existent gluten in the Eucharistic host) and wine (which one could get drunk on in sufficient quantity) takes place (as with mold, digestion, etc.), in which case "Christ has discontinued His Presence therein." (Catholic Encyclopedia>The Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist)
See here for more on this, by the grace of God, and to save typing:
The Lord's Supper: metaphorical or metaphysical?
Furthermore, your church (though you re one one of the myriad varieties of RCs) affirmed properly baptized Prots as having the Holy Spirit, and as your brethren, if separated (by not via limbs as sometimes in the Inquisition).
Most important example:
On what basis is a man finally judged, his thoughts, his beliefs, or his deeds?
Answer: Jesus said 16 times that men will be judged by their deeds. It is CLEAR. To then go and put together an argument from lesser authority that, no, deeds don't count the most, thoughts to, is to directly in-your-face-Jesus defy God and seek to overthrow what he said. It is illegitimate. It is wrong. It is EVIL, because it leads men AWAY from what God said.
Your problem is that you see contradiction where there is none, and then become adamant that your (erroneous ) understanding is correct. We affirm that man is finally judged bt his deeds , since for a believer this is what testifies to his faith or lack thereof, and believers will suffer the loss of rewards (and the Lord's displeasure) - which is
explicitly taught by Paul, and for an unbeliever their works determine the degree of punishment in the lake of Fire. (Rv. 20:1-15)
However, rather than directly in-your-face-Jesus defying God and seeking to overthrow what he said, it is believing - with the kind of faith which effects obedience by the Spirit - that makes one of Christ's sheep, and accepted in the Beloved, and unbelieving leaves them under wrath/. As saith the Lord:
He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him. (John 3:36)
Of course you could also relegate all such texts as having a second class authority.
And how are men forgiven their sins, what do they have to DO to be forgiven by God?
They must forgive, as they must obey, since this is what it means to believe, and one cannot claim to the latter without the former, and thus works justify one as being a believer, yet the works themselves cannot obtain justification with God, unless you actually become good enough to be with God, which one is.
Thus Paul both said, "For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified." (Romans 2:13) For the doers of the law, as in Romans 8:4, are the believers, yet since works themselves cannot make one good enough for Heaven, But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. (Romans 4:5)
There is not contradiction. In the gospels deliverance (Luke 8:50) and salvation (John 3:16; 5:24) and justification is promised to those who contritely believe, (Luke 18:13,14; 23:39-43) casting all their faith in the mercy of God in Christ, as well being promised to those who obey, (Mk. 16:16) and whose God-given faith/works are recompensed. (Mt. 25:31-40)
Likewise,
Whether is it easier to say to the sick of the palsy, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and take up thy bed, and walk? But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (he saith to the sick of the palsy,) I say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy bed, and go thy way into thine house. (Mark 2:9-11)
As with faith being equated with works since the former results in the latter, though the former is what obtains the condition of justification which even the best system of justification by works ("for if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law." (Galatians 3:21) so also healing is equated with the effect in the case of the palsied man (typifying the lost), though it was healing (in response to intercessory faith) that effected walking. The Lord could just as well a have said, "be healed" as well as "walk," likewise believe and obey, but the former enables the latter.
Thus your sublimation of faith is as wrong as those who ignore the importance of works, in their proper order, and "false balance is abomination to the Lord: but a just weight is his delight." (Proverbs 11:1).
Nothing? Look to Jesus on the cross? Or forgive other men THEIR sins, with forgiveness from God in proportion to the degree they forgive other men - and hard time in the prison of Gehenna to repay what is not forgiven.
There is no "either or," which is a false dilemma and a false gospel, while there is no reference to prison of Gehenna, which Gehenna typifies Hell, as shown by other texts.
Only that last combination is what Jesus said. THEREFORE only that last combination is correct. The rest is human opinion, and therefore completely inferior in authority or truth to what Jesus said. That law always holds true. Jesus is God - Jesus is the ONLY God who speaks in the New Testament, other than a few lines from the Father. If your argument is based four square on Jesus' words, and you're doing exactly what he said. You're right. If you're in conflict with Jesus on any point, you're wrong. You're still wrong even if you read Paul, Peter, James, John and Jude to agree with you.
There simply is no contradiction, as shown, with the contradiction being your presenting a contradiction with what is called Scripture, and thus within it.
Example: Jesus pronounced all foods clean, and the Holy Spirit confirmed that with the sheet and the animals, but the early Christians - unable to break their mind-lock on Jewish cleanliness rites STILL taught at the Council of Jerusalem that some foods were still prohibited. They were wrong. Once Jesus made all foods clean, that ended the debate. That people - even the Apostles all together, working with the Holy Spirit - were ultimately trapped by tradition and fear and habit and could not bring themselves to say that blood sausage was ok and that it didn't matter, from a consumption standard, what sort of weird bogus rites some pagan pronounced over the meat, does not mean that those rules pronounced contrary to Christ's simple and clear message were ever law. They were treated as law, but they were fake laws pronounced contrary to God's direct words, and therefore were always void - even though everybody believed they were doing the right thing. Did anybody fail final judgment because he abstained from blood sausage and meat killed before idols?
This is absolutely absurd. You, with your superior self-proclaimed logic and reasoning, erroneously and arrogantly assert the apostles were ultimately trapped by tradition and fear, pronouncing fake laws contrary to God's direct words and habit, and since the prohibition was against "blood sausage" offered to idols and which was contrary to Christ having made all food clean.
First, the words that Jesus made all goods clean ("purging all meats" in the KJV and old RC DRB, and "Thus he declared all foods clean" in the RC NAB) come from just 3 words, "katharizō pas brōma," which contextually refer to what happens to food after it goes into a person, "Because it entereth not into his heart, but into the belly, and goeth out into the draught, purging all meats? (Mark 7:19) with the point being food it cannot morally defile him,
This is actually made clearer by the vision of Peter in Acts and the words of Paul, yet the effects of what one ingests can make one sinful.
However, whether something is not itself sinful is not the only factor that can make it lawful to engage in, for there is also the consideration of others, in which the law of Christ to do unto others.. comers into play. If someone is fasting it is may be wrong for me to eat a tempting meal before them, and likewise if i am trying to convert kosher Jews or Muslims it would not be considerate to use my liberty to eat pork in front of them and unnecessarily offend them in this area of personal liberty, unless perhaps this kept me from converting some Poles. I
And the context of Acts 15 is that of the church not being fearful, for by Acts 8 the believers went everywhere preaching the gospel even being imprisoned, etc., but contrary to those who arrogantly assert their stand on Christian liberty, neither were they inconsiderate of the culture they were in or dumb.
Thus even if the prohibition was against "blood sausage" offered to idols, it was neither needful, considerate or wise to turn the already denigrated Gentiles loose to violate a capital law of the ceremonial code. If i were a drinker, I would not go to dry town and openly indulge while trying to convert devout teetotalers. Maybe you would, all the while asserting how bound up they were.
Moreover, it not said or inferred that abstaining from "blood" referred to this being anything offered to idols, and which would be sinful if being part of their dedicatory feasts, as described in 1Co. 10, which forbids it.
And as regards what you take to be your doctrinal rule (besides the prelates of your church and above all, what your you claim to hear from God) there is nothing in the gospels mentioning meat offered to idols, while the angel of the Lord in Revelation only condemns it. (Revelation 2:14,20)
In addition, once again you can hardly claim to be a faithful Catholic (though the Quakers would be different), for far from your church considering Acts 15 to be a bunch of apostles being ultimately trapped by tradition and fear, pronouncing fake laws contrary to God's direct words and habit, they hold this to be the first infallible ecumenical council (though it was James who actually provided the
Scripturally substantiated final judgment).
Nor is this judgment set down as a permanent decree as regards diet, but one that was a matter of discipline (which status is also what Catholicism teaches).
Thus contrary to some vainly puffed up by their fleshly minds, (Colossians 2:18) in contrast the apostles were lead by the only wise God, rightly discerning His working and the Scriptural basis for it, and affirming gospel Truth, and in the interest of evangelism without compromise issuing a judgment as re. diet of cultural consideration. Yet some others see "from blood" as referring to murder, innocent blood.
. Does your necessary strawman of SS mean only what is explicitly and formally taught constitute Scriptural teaching, versus what is soundly deduced upon the collective weight of indirect conflative teaching and principle, and without actual contradiction, and or materially provided for accordingly?
. Maybe the class know it all general2 or whatever can provide us the book, chapter, and verse. We do not, thanks for making my point.
