He appealed to Ceaser BECAUSE he was a Roman citizen.
He was Jew. In fact, he was not one of the 12 disciples that walked with Jesus, did that make him any less?
He was an apostle, that did not permit him to usurp the position of authority of the other 12 . . .
Revelation tells us that the 12 have a pre-eminet authority . . there are 12 foundations . . . they are the 12 apostles, of which Paul was not a part.
I believe in the Church and that it only can exist if all Christians unite and submit to the Lord, not a man who calls himself Holy Father.
He does not call himself Holy Father . . the Church does, as a sign of respect.
Now, I have a question for you . . . all Christians are
NOT united at present . . .
If what you say is true, that the Church
can only exist if all christians are united, does that mean that the Church does
NOT exist at the present?
There are allot of things I have heard concerning RCC teachings that still confuse me and wonder how they are actually in line with the Biblical teachings.
Ah HA! And here is the root of the issue . . . there are a lot of things you have
HEARD concerning our teachings . . .
I heard a lot of things in my 30 years as a protestant that confused me and made me wonder if they were really in line with the bible too . . .
I found that these things I had heard were
WRONG!
I had a
LOT to unlearn so I could learn what the Catholic Church
REALLY teaches. It took me 3 years . . I had 30 years of misinformation and the prejudices against Catholicism they created to unlearn
There are also allot of things I don't understand about Protestants either, so the issue of who is right baffles my mind right now.
I understand.
I don't know what God's plan is for me right now. For now, I will continue my education and continuosly pray to the Lord and build my relationship to one of utmost intimacy.
Does that require me to speak to a Priest every so often to absolve sins? I thought if we confess them to the Lord, and truly repent, then we would be forgiven, but I didn't know that there had to be a Third Party in there .
The receiving forgiveness of sins through a priest is a gift, a TREMENDOUS gift of God to us . . .
Here is why . .
For one to be assured, truly assured their sins are forgiven, their contrition, their repentance, has to be perfect. In other words, free of any tought or conern for ourselves, (ie what will happen to us if we don't, a fear of losing heaven or ending up in hell) but totally and purely for the reason that what we have done has offended God and our sorrow is only for this. God is all that consumes us in such repentance. I do not know how often this happens but it is rare . . . I have personally experienced this once in my life.
Repentance is usually a mixture between experiencing sorrow for having offended God and fear of losing heaven or avoiding hell . . .
This we all imperfect contrition . . .
To be forgiven one must be genuinely sorry, have genuine sorrow for having offended God, one must be truly repentant.
Now here is the question . . . how imperfect can one's repentance be before it is not genuine? How little sorrow for offending God does one have to have in order for their repentance to be genuine?
The issue is motivation . . are we motivated by selfish desires for self preservation, or sorrow for having offended God?
Where on the line between the two is the breaking point where our repentance is not really genuine and does not result in forgiveness of our sins?
We really can't say that we know . . .
This is where the gift of going to a priest comes in . . .
Jesus gave the Apostles the power and authoirty to forgive and retain sins (John 20:23). . . Jesus sent them as the Father sent Him (John 20:21) The Father sent Jesus with the power and authority to pass His power and authorit on to others, which we see He did in these verses. This also means the Apostles were sent with the power and authority to pass it on, and os forth . .
As Jesus passed on His power and authority to the Apostles He picked and ordained, so did the Apostles to those they picked and ordained, so so did those whom they ordianed do teh same, and soforth and so forth . .
This is called Apostolic Succession.
The priest in the Catholic Church who is validly ordained in this same Apostolic Succession, has the same power to forgive and retain sins as Jesus gave to the Apostles . . .
Now .. here is why this is a wonderful gift . . .
God knew that when we repent it would be a mixture of selfish motivations and true motivations of sorrow for having offended God. He knew that there would be questions such as I asked above. He gave a way we could be sure that this mixture of the selfish with the pure motivations did not hinder us from receiving forgiveness . . .
Jesus said "Whosever sins you forgiven,
THEY ARE forgiven" . .
END OF DISCUSSION . . .
Our forgiveness no longer is dependent on our repentance being perfect, pure, devoid of any selfish motivation . . . We can be assured, as long as we do repent and have the desire to turn from our sins, of being forgiven when a priest absolvies us of sin and satan cannot attack us with doubts, for we have this promise of God to stand on . .
This is a wonderful and powerful Gift Jesus gave to us . . Why would one want to go it alone with Jesus when He gave us something so wonderful a this?
Just let me know where I stand in your eyes as a Christian. That's what we all are. We are Christians. The Church maybe called Catholic, but that is not who we follow. We follow the Lord Jesus Christ and his Word.
I believe you are a sincere seeker of truth, that you love Jesus is evident.
I do not believe that any of us are "saved" right now . . I believe we have the HOPE of salvation . . and that it is the PRESENT MOMMENT where we touch eternity . . if we are in a state of Divine Sanctifying Grace in the present mommnet, we are assure salvation in ths presnt momment .. if we remain in a state of Divine Sanctifying Grace in all our present momments, then we are assured of salvation in all our present momments. If we remove ourselves from this state, we loose the Hope of our salvation until we are returned to a state of Divine Sanctifing Grace. What matters is our momment of death, if we are in a state of Divine Sanctifying Grace or not . . .
God had given us many helps to help us remain in a state of Divine Sanctifying GRace in the Catholic Church . . . with such an eternal destiny the prize, why would one not want to avail themselves of
ALL God has provided to help them?
It is all about receiving and responding to God's grace . . .That is what Catholicism is .. .it is all about Grace.
Peace to all