and if you believe that it is faith in Jesus which starts off
everything, but yet you say that someone who has rejected Jesus'
salvation can depend on his good works.
that's not right either. and i still want to know, do you feel
that the prostitute has salvation the moment she believes in her
heart or does she earn salvation after wiping Jesus' feet with her
tears and hair? ...
The grace of God touched the prostitute and she was justified
(made right with God) when she repented and believed in Jesus. It
was her repentence and faith that saved her, not her act of wiping
Jesus' feet with her tears and hair.
However, if she had
subsequently turned back to a life of sin till her death, she might
very well have ended up in hell (ie: not been saved) even though
she had earlier received inital justification and salvation. In
other words, whether she ultimately made it to heaven (eternal
salvation) depended on her faith and what she did
after coming to know Jesus (ie: how she lived out the rest of her
life) . Justification and salvation is a process, not a
one-time event.
And haven't I already clarified that I have never asserted that
someone who has rejected Jesus' salvation can depend on good works
to enter heaven? Such a person has to repent and turn back to God
(and
thereafter live a life of faith, good works and avoidance of sin)
if he is to have hope of salvation.
..... that's what really cheese me off, when i see bumper
sticker of mary with the slogan "do you know her?", when you could
put a bumper sticker of Christ. i just feel that, everything is
done with the wrong piority. ppl refer to words of man, rather than
the word of God, they want to introduce mary to others first,
before introducing Christ
Mary too leads folks to Christ. Know her and you will very
quickly come to know her son, Jesus Christ.
... sola scriptura is certainly nice, because so far, smarty boy
kept refering to the catholic encyclopedia. so are the saying of
the pope inspired by the spirit, because some stuff are a little
off....
... the crusades were instigated by the pope. the bible calls
for peace and tolerance, but obviously some people weren't
listening. everyone depended on the pope for spiritual guidance.
that's alot of power, and there are so many cases where this
authority has been abused, which led to the reformation.
luthur would have been killed for resisting against the pope's
authority if it's not because he was protected by the dutch i
think.
Catholics hold that the holy spirit does indeed guide and
prevent the pope (the successor of St. Peter) from teaching error
when the pope teaches on faith and morals to the whole
Church in his official capacity (ie: teaching 'from
the chair of Peter'; not private doctrinal musings or speculations,
or his views about the stock market etc). But beyond this special
gift of teaching authority bestowed by God on his Church through
the pope and the bishops in communion with him, the pope is subject
to sin and human failings (some might have been naive politicians,
cowardly etc), not unlike St. Peter and the apostles.
And if you think about it, you really do need an
ultimate authority on this planet to teach and guide us to the
truth in faith and morals. And that ultimate authority
cannot be the bible alone because the bible is
not written like a instruction manual. It needs interpretation and
it doesn't cover everything. Without this ultimate living
teaching authority (of the pope and bishops in communion with
him), we are going to have lots of variations and contradictory
versions of truth because everybody interprets the bible for
himself (supposedly with the guidance of the holy spirit) and sees
himself as the final authority. This is evident in the world
of protestant christianity arising from the reformation.
To avoid going too much out of topic, I'll just make one point
regarding the crusades - that it is necessary to understand
the politics and culture of that time before passing judgement.
This article provides its own perspective on the crusades: http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/2006/0603tbt.asp
At the time of the reformation, there were indeed abuses and
corruption in the Church but what the reformers apparently failed
to understand was that those were of men, not of doctrine. ...
hmmm, come to think of it (and this is just musings on my part),
maybe some of them did understand the difference but their earthly
political agendas won out :)