Imperishable Inheritance

Regarding the siblings issue... Hebrew doesn't have a separate word for brothers and cousins and in the culture there really wasn't a distinction between the two. Greek does have separate words and the gospels uses the term for brother, but it's plausable that that the authors used the term for brothers (I think it's 'adelphos') when they meant cousins because 1) they were thinking in a Hebrew mindset, which didn't account for the different and 2) they weren't familiar with the other greek words available. Also, Jesus told John to take care of Mary as if he were her son before he died. I'm not aware of any reasonable explination as to why he would have done that if she had other children.

Great post but a few points concerning the aprcrypal books:

1) Paul in the new testament does quote from the apocrypal books (see the link that you yourself posted on your del.ic.ious section that says, and proves, that he does)

2) The defense against the apocrypal books is more complicated then what you present and I would recommend posting a link to the article I just mentioned in this article.

It is true though concerning the sacraments. Every time a priest teaches that he is distributing the ACTUAL blood and body of Jesus that are commiting blasphemy by saying that Jesus one sacrifice was insufficient and that they are re-sacrificing Him over and over again. Such dangerous doctrine.

These issues are serious enough that we need to have deep concern for our Catholic friends. These differences are serious enough to draw a line in the sand and say that we hold distinctly different beliefs. We label cults as groups that deny that Jesus was God and the trinity exists but the Catholic church teaches that Mary somehow has a part in redemption to ASSIST Jesus and we are so quite concerning this as to not offend anyone (ever seen a painting of "The Coronation of the Virgin"). A part of or ministry should continually be focused on outreach to Catholics worldwide.

Despite all of this there are Catholics who do truly love the Lord and I would say that Janiece is a shinging example. We must conclude though that, while faith only comes from God and that only God knows that fate of any professing beleiver's salvation, that we need to be generally concerned for our Catholic neighbors that they walk with the Lord despite what they are taught by their church.

Maybe this passage can clear it up Ian (brother used in a restricted sense):

But I did not see any other of the apostles except James, the Lord's brother.
Galatians 1:19

Also, I don't see what your hang-up is with the "take her as your mother passage." I think it's probable to assume that Joseph is dead at that point, and Jesus was simply pointing her to John so that John would take care of her. I would also assume that since John was "the discple whom Jesus loved" that He wanted John to take care of her.

Perry...in that article (which I quoted in this article), it wasn't Paul who quoted from an apocryphal work but Jude in his work. Plus the book wasn't in the Catholic inter-testamental books.

"But what of the much clearer reference in Jude 14 to 1 Enoch 1:9, which no one claims to be inspired? How about the possible use of a work called the Assumption of Moses that appears to be referenced in Jude 9? Should this work also be part of the canon?"

For those interested see The Old Testament Apocrypha Controversy.

are we still friends

By the way, I'm not convinced that they were cousins, but I wanted to make sure the other side was represented since I don't think there's enough evidence to say with confidence that's it's one or the other.

VERY interesting points...thank you for sharing.

@Amanda: But what does he believe about justification? That was what the reformation was about.

@Amanda: Penal substitution is a huge deal. If penal substitution isn't true, then we're still all in our sins.

In addition to reading Trent's blog, I also read Mohler's. The interesting thing is that just now, over the last week or so and today, he's been posting on penal substitution. (I've found blogging is a good way to get an education). So, I'm more familiar with the word/concept now. He had a post about a week ago about a British priest (I believe) who thought the cross was insane. That's interesting. Anyway,
http://www.albertmohler.com/blog_read.php?id=920

So, thanks for your answers! I'm still really curious about the Catholic thing. I just have so many Catholic acquaintances. I believe for most it is a tradition and not an internalized faith.

@Salazar: Thanks for the question. The Bible says that those who call on the name of the Lord will be saved (Rom 10), but there is something I can't shake. If you really believe that works are necessary for your justification and not just your sanctification then to me that's an essential issue. I would put it in the same realm as the deity of Christ. That is why the Reformation was so divisive. Justification by faith is what truly separates all ideologies, religions, etc from Christianity.

I would like to discuss this further with you, Chris, but just some points I would like to highlight for now. What Salazar said at the very end is what it all comes down to. "Catholics call on the name of the Lord. That should be the end of story." Wise words there. Catholics are Christians too. The first Christians, in fact. I understand the points you are trying to make, but I think they are taken out of context to what we truly believe. What I know, what I have been taught is that we are saved by faith. Works are only neccessary because they are a natural reaction to our faith. We can not be saved by our works alone and the works are not what saves us anyway. Christ is the only one who saves. We can not save ourselves and Mary can not save us. However, Mary can pray for us just as anyone here on earth. We are in communion with the saints and Mary, being the mother of God is believed by me to be the closest saint to Christ. We do not hold her equal to Christ. We do not worship her, but rather honor her as we do our own mothers. Mary is the mother of God, therefor she is the mother to each of us.As far as the eucharist, we do not believe that Christ is being "re-sacrifice". It is a "re-presentation" of the ONE sacrifice that has already saved us. For study on the true presence of Christ's Body and Blood in the bread and wine read John 6:52-68. It was a hard teaching and some followers turned away from Christ because they could not accept it. I would love to discuss this further, but these are my views in short. Thank you for this opportunity to discuss our differences and hopefully one day we will all become unified in the fullness of the Lord's truth.God Bless you all!

• Early Christian writings prove the first Christians were thoroughly Catholic in belief and practice and looked to the successors of the apostles as their leaders. What these first Christians believed is still believed by the Catholic Church. No other Church can make that claim.

• http://www.catholic.com/library/Grace_What_It_Is.asp"The Protestant misunderstanding of justification lies in its claim that justification is merely a forensic (i.e., purely declaratory) legal declaration by God that the sinner is now "justified." If you "accept Christ as your personal Lord and Savior," he declares you justified, though he doesn’t really make you justified or sanctified; your soul is in the same state as it was before; but you’re eligible for heaven. A person is expected thereafter to undergo sanctification (don’t make the mistake of thinking Protestants say sanctification is unimportant), but the degree of sanctification achieved is, ultimately, immaterial to the question of whether you’ll get to heaven. You will, since you’re justified; and justification as a purely legal declaration is what counts. Unfortunately, this scheme is a legal fiction. It amounts to God telling an untruth by saying the sinner has been justified, while all along he knows that the sinner is not really justified, but is only covered under the "cloak" of Christ’s righteousness. But, what God declares, he does. "[S]o shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and prosper in the thing for which I sent it" (Is. 55:11). So, when God declares you justified, he makes you justified. Any justification that is not woven together with sanctification is no justification at all. The Bible’s teaching on justification is much more nuanced. Paul indicates that there is a real transformation which occurs in justification, that it is not just a change in legal status. This is seen, for example, in Romans 6:7, which every standard translation—Protestant ones included—renders as "For he who has died is freed from sin" (or a close variant). Paul is obviously speaking about being freed from sin in an experiential sense, for this is the passage where he is at pains to stress the fact that we have made a decisive break with sin that must be reflected in our behavior: "What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?" (Rom. 6:1-2). "Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. Do not yield your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but yield yourselves to God as men who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments of righteousness" (6:12-13). The context here is what Protestants call sanctification, the process of being made holy. Sanctification is the sense in which we are said to be "freed from sin" in this passage. Yet in the Greek text, what is actually said is "he who has died has been justified from sin." The term in Greek (dikaioo) is the word for being justified, yet the context indicates sanctification, which is why every standard translation renders the word "freed" rather than "justified." This shows that, in Paul’s mind, justification involves a real transformation, a real, experiential freeing from sin, not just a change of legal status. And it shows that, the way he uses terms, there is not the rigid wall between justification and sanctification that Protestants imagine. According to Scripture, sanctification and justification aren’t just one-time events, but are ongoing processes in the life of the believer. Both can be spoken of as past-time events, as Paul mentions in 1 Corinthians 6:11: "But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God." Sanctification is also a present, ongoing process, as the author of Hebrews notes: "For by one offering he has perfected forever those who are being sanctified" (Heb. 10:14). In regard to justification also being an on-going process, compare Romans 4:3; Genesis 15:6 with both Hebrews 11:8; Genesis 12:1-4 and James 2:21-23; Genesis 22:1-18. In these passages, Abraham's justification is advanced on three separate occasions."

• Praying to Mary and the saintsThe historic Christian practice of asking our departed brothers and sisters in Christ—the saints—for their intercession has come under attack in the last few hundred years. Though the practice dates to the earliest days of Christianity and is shared by Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, the other Eastern Christians, and even some Anglicans—meaning that all-told it is shared by more than three quarters of the Christians on earth—it still comes under heavy attack from many within the Protestant movement that started in the sixteenth century. Want to read more? http://www.catholic.com/library/Praying_to_the_Saints.asp

The teaching of the Catholic Church in Dogma have remained the same since the times of the Apostles and early Christian Church."The first Christians had no doubts about how to determine which was the true Church and which doctrines the true teachings of Christ. The test was simple: Just trace the apostolic succession of the claimants. Apostolic succession is the line of bishops stretching back to the apostles. All over the world, all Catholic bishops are part of a lineage that goes back to the time of the apostles, something that is impossible in Protestant denominations (most of which do not even claim to have bishops). The role of apostolic succession in preserving true doctrine is illustrated in the Bible. To make sure that the apostles’ teachings would be passed down after the deaths of the apostles, Paul told Timothy, "[W]hat you have heard from me before many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also" (2 Tim. 2:2). In this passage he refers to the first three generations of apostolic succession—his own generation, Timothy’s generation, and the generation Timothy will teach. The Church Fathers, who were links in that chain of succession, regularly appealed to apostolic succession as a test for whether Catholics or heretics had correct doctrine. This was necessary because heretics simply put their own interpretations, even bizarre ones, on Scripture. Clearly, something other than Scripture had to be used as an ultimate test of doctrine in these cases. Thus the early Church historian J. N. D. Kelly, a Protestant, writes, "[W]here in practice was [the] apostolic testimony or tradition to be found? . . . The most obvious answer was that the apostles had committed it orally to the Church, where it had been handed down from generation to generation. . . . Unlike the alleged secret tradition of the Gnostics, it was entirely public and open, having been entrusted by the apostles to their successors, and by these in turn to those who followed them, and was visible in the Church for all who cared to look for it" (Early Christian Doctrines, 37). For the early Fathers, "the identity of the oral tradition with the original revelation is guaranteed by the unbroken succession of bishops in the great sees going back lineally to the apostles. . . . [A]n additional safeguard is supplied by the Holy Spirit, for the message committed was to the Church, and the Church is the home of the Spirit. Indeed, the Church’s bishops are . . . Spirit-endowed men who have been vouchsafed ‘an infallible charism of truth’" (ibid.)."http://www.catholic.com/library/Apostolic_Succession.asp 

So, basically, when it comes to justification and sanctification,

* you believe that your works earn you no salvation, correct?
* You believe that the Lord is the only One who can save you?

..so do I.

* Do you believe that the actions you make have no effect on your salvation whatsoever?

I believe and the Bible teaches that works do not save us. Period. All knowledgable Christians know that. But, our Faith is dead without them. So, they are necessary. I don’t understand the confusion in this.