I grew up Southern Baptist dispensationalist and came to Catholicism through preterism, entering the Church nearly 20 years ago. These are some semi-organized thoughts, taken from a Discord discussion. Whatever your beliefs, I hope everyone has a blessed Christmas.
With the Council of Florence in mind, I use the term "Apostolic" (Catholic / Orthodox) - I won't argue against Orthodox.
I know this is heavily trod ground, but hey it's a forum, no?
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The Bible is NOT the Word of God.
Jesus Christ the Logos is the literal Word of God.
He is the Reason and Order of all creation, and not only the fulfillment of Old Testament law, but the Law itself.
The Bible is a literal product of the Apostolic (Catholic / Orthodox) Church, debated and prayed over for 3 centuries, in councils mostly from Rome.
Why is Enoch, quoted in St. Jude's letter, excluded?
Why is the once extremely controversial Hebrews, and Revealing (Revelation), included?
Because the Apostolic Church said so.
After 70 AD, when Titus decimated the Temple, we see the final culmination of the Sacramental fulfillment that began with the first Mass, the Last Supper, when the 11 were ordained priests, with St. Peter as the rock of the Church.
After 70:
Temple - body
Sacrifice - Mass
Ark - St. Mary
Priests - Apostolic priests
Circumcision - Baptism
Manna - Eucharist
Christ, Son of Man - Adam, fallen first priest of the Apostolic promise and founder of Jerusalem, over whose grave Christ was murdered
The "center" of Apostolic worship - the "source and summit" according to the Catechism - is the Sacrifice of the Mass. There is no true religion without a sacrifice. Death. Only by death and a love sacrifice is life given its true illumination, which is Love, which is a divine Person.
The purpose of life is to love and be loved, freely chosen in a subjugation of the will away from selfishness.
This is the Mass. Even if a priest is an awful homilist, which is likely, it doesn't matter that much. The center of the service is the Eucharist.
This is a very major contrast with so much Protestant worship, which is very stagey and often featuring Buddy Christ via a charismatic speaker.
All Protestants should convert.
70 AD is the second most important date in world religious history, after the days of the Holy Cross, from April 3, 33 AD.
And in those 34 years, Christ's predictions came true exactly: the Temple was torn down stone by stone. Within a generation.
Liturgy and Sacraments were universal Christian worship for nearly 1,500 years, including 1,000 years in England, the direct source of Western hospitals, hotels, and universities.
Consider an extreme but telling example of decline....a very direct line of decline.
Catholic - High Anglican - Low Anglican - Methodist (Wesley did NOT want to break, btw) - Seventh Day Adventist - Branch Davidians - Students of the Seven Seals (Koresh)
Mostly decent, intelligent people, reading the same verses, yet breaking away due to fundamental and irresolvable differences.
Does the Holy Spirit speak against Himself?
Obviously Protestants are not like Koresh - but the Bible does not interpret itself.
Our interpretation is not at all sovereign. So much is not evident.
We need to read with the Church.
Adventists, for example, have an impressive roster of people who know the Bible intimately. And yet.
This "meta" issue persists because the Bible is NOT like the Koran. It is not from God to us directly. It is a product, a holy product, that resulted from 3 centuries of quite heated debate.
Let me be clear: the Catholic Church is an awful mess, including massive infiltration by demons. Literally.
Core issue is Logos / anti-Logos
Christ in the Sacraments. Christ or Barabbas? Logos, or the churn of revolution?
After 70 AD, when Titus decimated the Temple, all must choose.
Christ is the Old Testament promise. Christ-followers are the people Israel.
The Nicene Creed, and the arguments thereof, indicates that God, the Supreme Being outside of time, and creator of space / time, stepped into history for an extraordinary act in a specific time and place - that was a universal action for ALL humanity, including those in death freed by it.
Therefore, the Order and Reason of all creation is unchanging and dynamic.
Logos moves in history.
God is Reason, and wishes for our reason to be subjugated to His, and not simply will.
This reality is why the pagan Greeks so readily adopted St. John's teaching - they had a concept of Logos already. Was it fire? Water? Earth? Winds?
St. John preached, God is universal Reason and Order, in the Person of the Nazarene. Why did St. Paul fail in Athens? Why was he laughed at? Because he (correctly!) argued like a Hebrew. Why was St. John so successful in Asia Minor?
Logos. Greeks got it.
It is essential to not be an admirer.
Lucifer, today, admires Christ.
Instead, we must be a follower.
This means to come to Christ - and to die.
We die literally, as all do.
We die to self.
We die to our solipsism, and to our carnal desires, so that we may live.
We carry our crosses because suffering is inherently redemptive, if united to Christ.
Your reason, which shares in the divine nature of Christ because you are created.
However, it must be purified by prayer, fasting, and worship, and the Bible.
The meaning of life is easy: love and be loved, as Christ loves the church.
You were given talents and abilities and interests for a reason: you did not "choose" these!
You were born of people in a time and place. You did not "choose."
Take this context, and unite your reason and will to Christ.
ALL of creation has a telos of the Logos.
The purpose of life is: telos (reason) of life is theosis (process of becoming) toward Logos (Reason, Order).
So, when a flower blooms, and bees come, this is part of the divine nature of its purpose.
It points directly to Logos.
Human purpose / reason is to love and be loved, toward the divinity of all creation, the Divine Person, the Nazarene.
Pain that is not transformed by Christ is transmitted, often to "others" who are the "enemy."
The telos of life, theosis to Logos, is a constant struggle. The struggle is subjugate the human will to the will of God, which is known by prayerful contemplation.
God has clearly spoken to everyone. Very clearly.
You were born to particular people in a particular time and place with particular interests, talents, abilities.
That is the first context.
Second, we know the commands of Christ.
When we reconcile these, we can understand the will of God.
If you talk to a materialist, and you wish to argue for the reality of God, tell them you can easily prove the existence of God by the very standards of materialism itself.
There are 2 solid proofs:
First, nothing has ever come from nothing.
So, a first Mover, a first Cause, exists.
Second, we have many thousands of cases, documented from hospitals, of clinically dead people "returning" and detailing conversations, objects on the roof, ect.
Many thousands of cases.
We humans are embodied spirits.
Jesus is the literal Word of God. All Christians are obligated to follow His instructions, as recorded in the product (not the literal word of God) of His Church, the Bible.
We are also obliged to believe in heaven and hell, as well as angels and demons, because Jesus did.
When you encounter a "Christian" who doesn't - tell them to stop being an admirer of Jesus. It is wrong to admire Jesus. That is too cheap and easy. We must follow Him.
Everyone is given a cross. Lust, disability, family problems, ect. Everyone.
This cross was given so that you would use your free will to choose God.
True love, and therefore salvation, is centered in choice. The will must be bent, everyday, toward Love, which is a Person. Coercion would be artificial, and false.
OT laws point to and anticipate Christ, who is Law itself.
Exorcists tell us demons are, amidst their mockery, quite legalistic. And we know how Jesus argued against this with Pharisees.
To elevate law above the Law, Love, Reason, Order - all of which are the Divine Person, the Logos Incarnate - is to fundamentally worship self instead of God.
If a law does not incarnate Law into the human heart, this empty ritual is for the worship of man.
Intention and will, toward their proper end (Logos), supersedes all written law. The written law must be understood in its context, which is theosis to Logos.
Regarding holidays, it is proper and just to appropriate them.
The pagan origins of Christmas, including its timeframe, contain elements of truth.
Many righteous pagans somewhat worshipped Christ (Logos) even before Jesus.
All of humanity participates, through conscience, in the divinity of God, because we embodied spirits were created by Him.
Pagan-type rituals and holidays could have degrees of holiness, such as the worship of the Magi. These (probably) Iranians worshipped the true God.
How blessed are we to know of Jesus?
It is just to appropriate all holidays toward His worship. And all true religion requires sacrifice, especially the source and summit of all Christian worship, the Mass, Christ in the Eucharist.
With the Council of Florence in mind, I use the term "Apostolic" (Catholic / Orthodox) - I won't argue against Orthodox.
I know this is heavily trod ground, but hey it's a forum, no?
______
The Bible is NOT the Word of God.
Jesus Christ the Logos is the literal Word of God.
He is the Reason and Order of all creation, and not only the fulfillment of Old Testament law, but the Law itself.
The Bible is a literal product of the Apostolic (Catholic / Orthodox) Church, debated and prayed over for 3 centuries, in councils mostly from Rome.
Why is Enoch, quoted in St. Jude's letter, excluded?
Why is the once extremely controversial Hebrews, and Revealing (Revelation), included?
Because the Apostolic Church said so.
After 70 AD, when Titus decimated the Temple, we see the final culmination of the Sacramental fulfillment that began with the first Mass, the Last Supper, when the 11 were ordained priests, with St. Peter as the rock of the Church.
After 70:
Temple - body
Sacrifice - Mass
Ark - St. Mary
Priests - Apostolic priests
Circumcision - Baptism
Manna - Eucharist
Christ, Son of Man - Adam, fallen first priest of the Apostolic promise and founder of Jerusalem, over whose grave Christ was murdered
The "center" of Apostolic worship - the "source and summit" according to the Catechism - is the Sacrifice of the Mass. There is no true religion without a sacrifice. Death. Only by death and a love sacrifice is life given its true illumination, which is Love, which is a divine Person.
The purpose of life is to love and be loved, freely chosen in a subjugation of the will away from selfishness.
This is the Mass. Even if a priest is an awful homilist, which is likely, it doesn't matter that much. The center of the service is the Eucharist.
This is a very major contrast with so much Protestant worship, which is very stagey and often featuring Buddy Christ via a charismatic speaker.
All Protestants should convert.
70 AD is the second most important date in world religious history, after the days of the Holy Cross, from April 3, 33 AD.
And in those 34 years, Christ's predictions came true exactly: the Temple was torn down stone by stone. Within a generation.
Liturgy and Sacraments were universal Christian worship for nearly 1,500 years, including 1,000 years in England, the direct source of Western hospitals, hotels, and universities.
Consider an extreme but telling example of decline....a very direct line of decline.
Catholic - High Anglican - Low Anglican - Methodist (Wesley did NOT want to break, btw) - Seventh Day Adventist - Branch Davidians - Students of the Seven Seals (Koresh)
Mostly decent, intelligent people, reading the same verses, yet breaking away due to fundamental and irresolvable differences.
Does the Holy Spirit speak against Himself?
Obviously Protestants are not like Koresh - but the Bible does not interpret itself.
Our interpretation is not at all sovereign. So much is not evident.
We need to read with the Church.
Adventists, for example, have an impressive roster of people who know the Bible intimately. And yet.
This "meta" issue persists because the Bible is NOT like the Koran. It is not from God to us directly. It is a product, a holy product, that resulted from 3 centuries of quite heated debate.
Let me be clear: the Catholic Church is an awful mess, including massive infiltration by demons. Literally.
Core issue is Logos / anti-Logos
Christ in the Sacraments. Christ or Barabbas? Logos, or the churn of revolution?
After 70 AD, when Titus decimated the Temple, all must choose.
Christ is the Old Testament promise. Christ-followers are the people Israel.
The Nicene Creed, and the arguments thereof, indicates that God, the Supreme Being outside of time, and creator of space / time, stepped into history for an extraordinary act in a specific time and place - that was a universal action for ALL humanity, including those in death freed by it.
Therefore, the Order and Reason of all creation is unchanging and dynamic.
Logos moves in history.
God is Reason, and wishes for our reason to be subjugated to His, and not simply will.
This reality is why the pagan Greeks so readily adopted St. John's teaching - they had a concept of Logos already. Was it fire? Water? Earth? Winds?
St. John preached, God is universal Reason and Order, in the Person of the Nazarene. Why did St. Paul fail in Athens? Why was he laughed at? Because he (correctly!) argued like a Hebrew. Why was St. John so successful in Asia Minor?
Logos. Greeks got it.
It is essential to not be an admirer.
Lucifer, today, admires Christ.
Instead, we must be a follower.
This means to come to Christ - and to die.
We die literally, as all do.
We die to self.
We die to our solipsism, and to our carnal desires, so that we may live.
We carry our crosses because suffering is inherently redemptive, if united to Christ.
Your reason, which shares in the divine nature of Christ because you are created.
However, it must be purified by prayer, fasting, and worship, and the Bible.
The meaning of life is easy: love and be loved, as Christ loves the church.
You were given talents and abilities and interests for a reason: you did not "choose" these!
You were born of people in a time and place. You did not "choose."
Take this context, and unite your reason and will to Christ.
ALL of creation has a telos of the Logos.
The purpose of life is: telos (reason) of life is theosis (process of becoming) toward Logos (Reason, Order).
So, when a flower blooms, and bees come, this is part of the divine nature of its purpose.
It points directly to Logos.
Human purpose / reason is to love and be loved, toward the divinity of all creation, the Divine Person, the Nazarene.
Pain that is not transformed by Christ is transmitted, often to "others" who are the "enemy."
The telos of life, theosis to Logos, is a constant struggle. The struggle is subjugate the human will to the will of God, which is known by prayerful contemplation.
God has clearly spoken to everyone. Very clearly.
You were born to particular people in a particular time and place with particular interests, talents, abilities.
That is the first context.
Second, we know the commands of Christ.
When we reconcile these, we can understand the will of God.
If you talk to a materialist, and you wish to argue for the reality of God, tell them you can easily prove the existence of God by the very standards of materialism itself.
There are 2 solid proofs:
First, nothing has ever come from nothing.
So, a first Mover, a first Cause, exists.
Second, we have many thousands of cases, documented from hospitals, of clinically dead people "returning" and detailing conversations, objects on the roof, ect.
Many thousands of cases.
We humans are embodied spirits.
Jesus is the literal Word of God. All Christians are obligated to follow His instructions, as recorded in the product (not the literal word of God) of His Church, the Bible.
We are also obliged to believe in heaven and hell, as well as angels and demons, because Jesus did.
When you encounter a "Christian" who doesn't - tell them to stop being an admirer of Jesus. It is wrong to admire Jesus. That is too cheap and easy. We must follow Him.
Everyone is given a cross. Lust, disability, family problems, ect. Everyone.
This cross was given so that you would use your free will to choose God.
True love, and therefore salvation, is centered in choice. The will must be bent, everyday, toward Love, which is a Person. Coercion would be artificial, and false.
OT laws point to and anticipate Christ, who is Law itself.
Exorcists tell us demons are, amidst their mockery, quite legalistic. And we know how Jesus argued against this with Pharisees.
To elevate law above the Law, Love, Reason, Order - all of which are the Divine Person, the Logos Incarnate - is to fundamentally worship self instead of God.
If a law does not incarnate Law into the human heart, this empty ritual is for the worship of man.
Intention and will, toward their proper end (Logos), supersedes all written law. The written law must be understood in its context, which is theosis to Logos.
Regarding holidays, it is proper and just to appropriate them.
The pagan origins of Christmas, including its timeframe, contain elements of truth.
Many righteous pagans somewhat worshipped Christ (Logos) even before Jesus.
All of humanity participates, through conscience, in the divinity of God, because we embodied spirits were created by Him.
Pagan-type rituals and holidays could have degrees of holiness, such as the worship of the Magi. These (probably) Iranians worshipped the true God.
How blessed are we to know of Jesus?
It is just to appropriate all holidays toward His worship. And all true religion requires sacrifice, especially the source and summit of all Christian worship, the Mass, Christ in the Eucharist.
