No Lula. I've made a connection to the goddess and Tammuz using scripture. The root of all this comes from the tower of Babel and Nimrod.

Why can't you understand this? Did you look at the link? Did you do some history checking on Nimrod/Ishtar/Tammuz? Tammuz and Nimrod ARE mentioned in scripture.

Easter is NOT a biblical holiday. Passover is. Resurrection Sunday is. Easter IS NOT! It's Pagan.

Show me in scripture where we have bunnies/eggs/hot cross buns etc to celebrate Resurrection Sunday. I refuse now to call it Easter.

Show me.



now this I can agree with. Exactly. So where did the rest come from? Where is the confusion coming from? Doesn't Satan just love to mix things up...just like wheat and tares. The good with the bad?

That's why I said basically that Satan put on his best suit, walked the aisles of the local church and applied for church membership when Constantine opened the door. If you can't beat em' join em'.

well that's funny then because no one else called it "mass" in scripture anywhere after that. And there were only 12 in attendance...actually 11 when Judas left.

I don't think that's the right answer. Think some more.

Connect all you want....No Christian and pagan festivals were amalgamated. None, nada not in the Catholic Chruch...don't know about any of the others...and nothing would surprise me there....

It's valueless to collect all this stuff from peoples of ancient mythology and claim them as parallels for the feastdays of the Church. The Chruch throughout her history absolutely forbad pagan things.



Ah, there you go again....protesting...protesting...protesting...











the link does a good job connecting and what does it come up with in the end...that the US has adopted the custom of rolling "Easter" eggs on the White House Lawn, etc. etc.

but there is no biblical reference to do this on 'Sunday.'

Acts 2:46 talks about them breaking bread on a daily basis (Note no particular day mentioned).

Note that most of the scriptures that we can attain a reference to time of the day we see it is usually in the evening.

Acts 20 suggests it was Saturday evening.

KFC, this is a MAJOR change in theology on WHICH day of the week they were to worship. Throughout ALL of the OT Israel was PUNISHED for profaning the Sabbath.

These references really don't support that the day of worship changed.



sure I'll exposit a scripture for you.

BTW, if you study how the feast of First fruits (ie Shavuot aka Pentecost)are calculated EVERY year this is on the first day of the week by biblical accounts. Some rabbis between 70 AD and 367AD eventually changed the day in which the counting of the omer began (7 weeks plus one).

Lula posts:

 

AD POSTS:

The first reference to the Christian custom of meeting on the first day of the week to celebrate the Eucharist  Acts 20:42; 1Cor.10:16, is found in Acts 20:7.  

Acts 20: 7, "On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread.."

 This is fully supported in Tradition. Doctor of the Chruch, priest and theologian, St.Bede writes "on the Lord's Day, the first day after the Sabbath, when we gather to celebrate our mysteries."  St.Justin explains "We call this food, the Eucharist, of which only he can partake who has acknowledged the  truth of our teachings, who has been cleansed by Baptism for the remission of sins and for his regeneration, and who regulates his life upon the principles laid down by Jesus Christ." (First Apology 66,1).

You're right AD, Acts 20:46 speaks of daily 'breaking of the bread." The Eucharist (Mass) was a daily event and still is around the world. The Church requires her members to assist at Mass on Sundays and all of the holy feast days.  

 

 Christian writers have pointed to the profound connection between the Eucharist which God grants as a gift to Christ's disciples.

From his "Sermon on the Third Sunday of Lent", St. Francis de Sales explains it well: "How the greatness of God las lowered itself on behalf of each and everyone of us--and how high He desires to raise us! He desires us to be so perfectly united to Him as to make us one with Him. He has desired this in order to teach us that, since we have been loved with an equal love whereby He embraces us all in the most blessed Sacrament, He desires that we love one another with that love which tends toward union, and to the greatest and most perfect form of union. We are all nourished by the same bread, that heavenly Bread of the Divine Eucharist, the reception of which is called Communion which symbolizes unity that we have with one another with which we could not be called children of God."   

 

 

 

But Acts 20 wasn't on Sunday. It was on Saturday evening.

Yes, but to the Jew...it was the first day of the week right? 

Remember they were still finding their way.  This was all new to them.  They would meet on the Sabbath to reason with the Jews and then meet on Sunday (first day of the week) to worship the risen Savior have their collections and break bread.  That's probably why the young boy fell out the window.  He was exhausted from all the preaching going on that day. 

There is some breaking bread where it means fellowship as in having a meal together and there is some refrences to having communion or sharing the bread and wine.  Paul wrote about the abuses in scripture how they were making a feast out of what was supposed to be communion in 1 Cor 11 in which he say...stay home and eat at home if you can't control yourselves and come together and take the bread and wine in a worthy manner. 

Ok...we know exposit means to draw out.  So I want you to exposit this scripture for me.....Instead of just putting in the one verse I was mainly interested I'll highlight it and put in surrounding context.

"From the days of John the Baptist until now the Kingdom of heaven has suffered violence and the violent take it by force.  For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John, and if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come.  He who has ears to hear, let him hear. "  Matthew 11:12-14

 

 

 

Yes, I agree but it was NEVER given to the Gentiles to be kept because it was part of the Old Covenant.  Circumcision was part of one covenant.  The rainbow was part of another.  The Sabbath and the Law was a covenant of Moses.    Christ instituted the New Covenant with the soon to be called Christians.  It was symbolized...not with circumcision.....not with a rainbow....not with the Sabbath....but with his blood.  Everything else paled in comparison...because they were all shadows of the real deal.  He's the substance that all the other covenants pointed to.  He is the set apart one who is our rest.  He is the Sabbath Rest for us.  Our rest is now in Him...not in any day.  He pretty much summed this up when he said....the Sabbath was made for man....not man for the Sabbath.  That's what he was saying.  The profaning of the Sabbath wasn't the problem...it was their hearts.  That was the problem.  The Sabbath situation was just evidence of their hard fickle hearts. 

There was quite a bit of "first day of the week" mentioned and like I said...all the worship with the post resurrected Christ appearances all were on the first day of the week.  It's not about the day of creation anymore.  It's about the Resurrection and that's why Paul said nothing else was important but Christ resurrected and that's what he only wanted to preach.  It wasn't about the law anymore....it was about Grace.   John 1.

 

But the Gentiles have ALWAYS been included in the 'Old Covenant.'

and the Jews are part of the New!

Is this New found in Jeremiah 31?

Just so you know I want to spend some time looking at this before I answer.

Tova7 posts #93

TOVA7,

You have made several points in this paragraph, so it’s going to entail a lengthy reply which I'll divide into 2 posts. Essentially what you’re saying is that you think the Catholic practice of praying to the Saints, and particularly the Blessed Mother Mary, the greatest of all Saints, is idolatry.

I’ll start by addressing necromancy which is foretelling of the future by communicating with the dead. It’s practicing magic or sorcery. I can assure you, Tova7, that Catholics condemn this as well…as this is strictly forbidden by the First Commandment of God,

“I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, and out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt not have strange gods before me. Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven thing, nor the likeness of anything that is in heaven above, nor in the earth beneath, nor of those things that are in the waters under the earth. Thou shalt not adore them nor serve them.” So very clearly the First Commandment forbids all dealing in superstituious practices such as necromancy.


God’s First Commandment is that He alone shall receive divine honor, worship or adoration. Catholics accept this as one of the basic truths of Catholicism. But no where does God state that those of His creatures, who are nearest and dearest to Him shall not be proportionately honored for His sake. In fact, devotion to them, to His Blessed Mother, the Angels, and the Saints is one of the most ancient practices in Christianity. No one can fully understand Catholicism unless he knows the reasons why the Church has always been faithful to this practice.

Do you really believe that those Saints who are in Heaven are dead?

Your comment has me wondering--do Protestants not believe in eternal life? Tova7, those who died and are in Heaven are very much alive…they are Saints experiencing eternal LIFE.
Regarding the Blessed Virgin Mary---because she was one like no other person---She died a normal death, yes, but in her case, Almighty God didn’t allow her body to corrupt or be separated from her soul and so she went up to Heaven body and soul. Catholics know this as the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

For the rest of us….who die….the definition of physical death is the separation of the soul from the body. At the moment of death, the soul leaves the body, and God passes judgment upon it, and decrees either life or death, that is---eternal life with God for the soul which is living with the life of God, in the state of grace or eternal death for the soul with grievous sin. Until the General Resurrection at the end of the world, the physical body lies wherever it was laid.

A passage from the Book of Wisdom is very useful in understanding this:
“The souls of the just are in the hand of God, and the torment of death shall not touch them. In the sight of the unwise they seemed to die; and their departure was taken for misery’ and their going away from us, for utter destruction; but they are in peace. And though in the sight of men they suffered torments, their hope is full of immortality. Afflicted in few things, in many they shall be well rewarded: because God hath tried them, and found them worthy of Himself. As gold in the furnace, he hath proved them, and as a victim of a holocaust He hath received them and in time there shall be respect had to them. The just shall shine, and shall run to and fro like sparks among the reeds. They shall judge nations, and rule over people, and the Lord shall reign for ever. They that trust in Him shall understand the truth; and they that are faithful in love shall rest in Him for grace and peace is in His elect. But the wicked shall be punished according to their own devices; who have neglected the just, and have revolted from the Lord.” Wisdom 3:1-10.


So, these Saint’s souls in Heaven are not dead at all but very much alive.
For example, Moses and Elias had long been dead when they appeared at the Transfiguration of our Lord, Christ promised the Penitent Thief, that “this day” you will be with Me in Paradise. According to 1St. Peter 4:6, Christ preached to the dead after His death and before His Resurrection. St.Paul writes of the faith and suffering of “the ancients” Heb.11:2-40. These dead saints constitute a “cloud of witnesses over our head” 12:1. Another is the wicked Dives had died and was in Hell, and Lazarus was in Heaven. Along with Abraham, they had major parts which they performed in a “lively” manner St.Luke 16:19-31.

Another striking example of the intercession of a dead Saint between God and those on earth is recorded in 2 Machabees 15:11-16, this, btw, as well as with the Book of Wisdom are two of the 7 books of the Old Testament rejected by Luther. When Judas Machabees was appointed by his father to carry on the fight in 167BC Jeremias had been dead from some 400 years, and Onais for a decade.

I’ve shown the Catholic practice of the invocation of the Saints and their intercession on our behalf is biblical. These examples root the Catholic belief in the doctrine of the Communion of Saints, something I’m sure most Pretestants are not familiar with at all. By Communion of the Saints, I mean those members of the Church, in Heaven (the Church Triumphant), the faithful on earth (the Church Militant), and those in Purgatory, (the Church Suffering) are in communion with each other as being one body in Jesus Christ. We are in communion with the Saints in Heaven by honoring them as the glorified members of the Church and also by our praying to them and by their praying for us.

I wonder do Protestants ever pray the Apostles’ Creed? The ninth article states, I believe in …..the communion of saints,”.

TOVA POSTS:

Because of the inexpressible dignity that is hers, the Church has from the beginning given special honor to the Blessed Mother Mary but below that worship or adoration reserved for God alone. Honoring and praying to the Blessed Mother is and always has been an integral part of Catholicism. By practicing it, the Church simply follows the example of God Himself—who chose her from all others to be His Mother. Our Lord, Jesus Christ, King of Heaven and earth will certainly not close His ears to the requests of His Mother and will certainly not fail to harken to the prayers of her children.


As to honoring and praying to the Saints, Catholics do, but not with divine honor and that is a major distinction. We don’t worship or adore them in any way. Catholics don’t turn to the Saints instead of God, but in addition to God. Saints have done “the one thing necessary” St. Luke 10:42, they have saved their souls and are certainly alive to God. They are more alive than we are for they are in the arms of God seeing His face.
I know that the Protestant dogma is that all believers are saints. But this is non-sense because some of us are less pleasing to God than others.

There is also a difference between praying, prayer of petition for our needs or for those of someone else and worshipping of Almighty God. Catholics adore God through the Holy Mass. The sacrifices of the Old Law were holocausts Ex 29, sin and guilt offerings (expiatory) and peace offerings. The holocaust fulfilled the chief of 4 purposes for which every Mass is offered--- adoration of Almighty God. Unbloody sacrifices Lev.23:10-14; 23:17-21, were supplementary to the holocausts and peace offerings. Peace offerings Lev. 6:12-17 were sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving. As in the burnt offerings, the blood of the victim was sprinkled around the altar of holocausts, and it was followed by a sacrificial banquet celebrated near the sanctuary Lev. 6:15-18; 7: 11-15; Deut. 12:7;18; 14:22-27.

Sacrifice symbolically represents God’s absolute dominion and authority over all things, and our dependence on Him. In the Sacrifice of the New Law, the animal is replaced by the perfect Victim, offered by the perfect High Priest to the same God for the same reasons, to acknowledge His majesty and our absolute dependence on Him. This great public prayer of the Church, the Sacrifice of the Mass, encompasses all the purposes and intentions of the Old Law, adoration, reparation, thanksgiving, and petition, with the efficacy for our sanctification which they lacked. Heb. 10:1.

Thus, prayer and worship aren’t identical. The word pray comes from a Sanskit root meaning “he asks”. To pray is to lift the mind and heart to God. To pray is not necessarily to worship although worship includes prayer. My point is there is little similarity between the prayers of petition for our needs to Saints in Heaven and the worship and adoration of Almighty God.

I think Protestants have a hard time making this distinction between praying and worshipping because there is no sacrifice, no Eucharist, on altars in Protestant churches. Instead, because of Luther’s decree that the reading of the Bible is what excites the faith, the focus of all Protestant church services is the preaching of the Word. Protestants may intend to worship, but as far as I can tell the highest level they ever reache in their church service is prayer, and so that may be why they think that prayer to a Saint is taking something away from God or practicing idolatry.