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- From: fjferrick@aol.com <fjferrick@aol.com>
- To: cephasministry@cephasministry.com
Ednote: This email was very interesting and caused quite a
discussion in our office. It might serve the same purpose on
your end. The question is "should this minister have ended
up in the Catholic Church?"
The email was sent by a minister of the Gospel who taught
for some years and apparently moved from one denomination to
another and suddenly began to realize that he had not really
thought about the various verses that he called 'surprise verses'.
To help us understand we have added Commentaries to help clarify
the comments of the emailer.
His email:
Subject: "Born Again to a True Church"
- Enjoy:
One of the more commonly shared experiences of Protestant
converts to the Catholic Church is the discovery of verses "we
never saw." Even after years of studying, preaching, and
teaching the Bible, sometimes from cover to cover, all of a sudden
a verse "we never saw" appears as if by magic and becomes
an "Aha!" mind-opening, life-altering messenger of
spiritual "doom"! Sometimes it’s just recognizing
an alternate, clearer meaning of a familiar verse, but often,
as with some of the verses mentioned below, it literally seems
as if some Catholic had snuck in during the night and somehow
put that verse there in the text!
The list of these surprise verses is endless, depending especially
on a convert’s former religious tradition, but the following
are a few key verses that turned my heart toward home.
(Ednote: Reading these comments brought me to the conclusion
that this minister of the Gospel arrived in Catholicism. Whether
this is true or not I know not.)
- 1. Proverbs 3:5-6
"Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not
unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him,
and he shall direct thy paths."
- Ever since my adult re-awakening (read "born-again experience")
at age 21, this Proverb has been my "life verse." It
rang true as a guide for all aspects of my life and ministry,
but then during my nine years as a Presbyterian minister, I became
desperately frustrated by the confusion of Protestantism. I loved
Jesus and believed that the Word of God was the one trustworthy,
infallible rule of fai th. But so did l ots of the non-Presbyterian
ministers and laymen I knew: Methodists, Baptists, Lutherans,
Pentecostals, Congregationalists, etc., etc., etc . . . The problem
was that we all came up with different conclusions, sometimes
radically different, from the same verses. How does one "trust
in the Lord with all your heart"? How can you make sure
you are not "leaning on your own understanding"? We
all had different opinions and lists of requirements. A verse
I had always trusted suddenly became nebulous, immeasurable,
and unreachable.
-
- 2. 1 Timothy 3: 14-15
"These things write I unto thee, hoping to come unto
thee shortly: But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how
thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is
the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth."
- Scott Hahn pulled this one on me. "So, Marc, what is
the pillar and foundation of truth?" I answered, "The
Bible, of course." "Oh yeah? But what does the Bible
say?" "What do you mean?" When he told me to look
up this verse, I suspected nothing. I had taught and preached
through First Timothy many times. But when I read this verse,
it was as if it had suddenly appeared from nowhere, and my jaw
dropped. The Church!? Not the Bible? This alone sent my mind
and essentially my whole life reeling; the question of which
Church was one I was not ready to broach (to make known).
3. 2 Timothy 3:14-17
"But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned
and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them;
And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which
are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which
is in Christ Jesus. All scripture is given by inspiration of
God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction,
for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be
perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works."
Verses 16-17 were the texts I and others had always turned to
buttress our belief in sola Scriptura, so to this I quickly turned
my attention. Among many things, three important things became
very clear, for the first time: (1) when Paul used the term "scripture"
in this verse, he could only have meant when we call the Old
Testament. The New Testament cannon would not be established
for another 300 years! (2) "All" scripture does not
mean "only" scripture nor specifically what we have
in our modern bibles. And (3), the emphasis in the context of
this verse (verses 14-15) is the trustworthiness of the oral
tradition Timothy had received from his mother and others —
not sola Scriptura!
4. 2 Thessalonians 2:15
"Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions
which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle."
This was another "too-hot-to-handle" verse Scott threw
in my lap. The traditions (Dare I say, traditions) that these
early Christian were to hold fast to were not just the written
letters and Gospels that would eventually make up the New Testament,
but the oral tradition. And even more significant, the context
of Paul’s letters indicates that his normal, preferred way
of passing along "what he had received" was orally;
his written letters were an accidental, sometimes unplanned add-on,
dealing with immediate problems leaving unsaid so much of what
they had learned through oral teaching.
- 5. Matthew 16:13-19
"When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi,
he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son
of man am? And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist:
some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets. He
saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered
and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And
Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona:
for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father
which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter,
and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell
shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys
of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth
shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on
earth shall be loosed in heaven."
There is so much to discuss in this verse, so much I never
saw. I always knew that Catholics used this to argue Petrine
authority but I wasn’t convinced. To the naively ignorant,
the English words "Peter" and "rock" are
so different that it’s obvious that Jesus was referring
to the faith Simon Peter received as a gift from the Father.
For the more informed seminary educated Bible students, like
myself, I knew that behind the English was the Greek, where one
discovered that Peter is the translation of petros, meaning little
pebble, and rock is the translation of petra, large boulder.
Again an obvious disconnect, so for years I believed and taught
specifically against Petrine authority. Then, through the reading
of Karl Keating’s wonderful book, Catholicism and Fundamentalism,
I realized the implications of something I knew all along: behind
the Greek was the Aramaic which Jesus originally spoke, in which
the word for Peter and rock are identical - kepha. Once I saw
that Jesus had said essentially "You are kepha and on this
kepha I will build my Church," I knew I was in trouble.
I will build my Church - not on the man Simon-Barjona; but on
this kepha I will build my Church," I knew I was in trouble.
[Mt 16:18 Jamiesson-Fausset-Brown Commentary: "
18. And I say also unto thee--that is, "As thou hast borne
such testimony to Me, even so in return do I to thee."
That thou art Peter--At his first calling, this new name was
announced to him as an honor afterwards to be conferred on him
(Joh 1:43). Now he gets it, with an explanation of what it was
meant to convey.
and upon this rock--As "Peter" and "Rock"
are one word in the dialect familiarly spoken by our Lord--the
Aramaic or Syro-Chaldaic, which was the mother tongue of the
country--this exalted play upon
the word can be fully seen only in languages which have one word
for both. Even in the Greek it is imperfectly represented. In
French, as WEBSTER and WILKINSON remark, it is perfect, Pierre--pierre.
I will build my Church--not on the man Simon-Barjona; but on
him as the heavenly-taught confessor of a faith. "My Church,"
says our Lord, calling the Church His OWN; a magnificent expression
regarding Himself, remarks BENGEL--nowhere else occurring in
the Gospel.
and the gates of hell--"of Hades," or, the unseen world;
meaning, the gates of Death: in other words, "It shall never
perish." Some explain it of "the assaults of the powers
of darkness"; but though that expresses a glorious truth,
probably the former is the sense here.]
- 6. Revelation 14:13
- "And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me,
Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth:
Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours;
and their works do follow them."
For years, as a Calvinist preacher, I recited this verse in every
funeral graveside service. I believed and taught sola fide and
discounting any place for works in the process of our salvation.
But then, after my last funeral service as a minister, a family
member of the deceased cornered me. He asked, with a tremble
in his voice, "What did you mean that Bill’s deeds
follow him?" I don’t remember my response, but this
was the first time I became aware of what I had been saying.
This began a long study on what the New Testament and then the
Early Church Fathers taught about the mysterious but necessary
synergistic connection between our faith and our works.
-
- [Re 14:13 Jamiesson-Fausset-Brown Commentary:
13. Encouragement to cheer those persecuted under the beast.
- Write--to put it on record for ever.
- Blessed--in resting from their toils, and, in the case of
the saints just before alluded to as persecuted by the beast,
in resting from persecutions. Their full blessedness is now "from
henceforth," that is,
FROM THIS TIME, when the judgment on the beast and the harvest
gatherings of the elect are imminent. The time so earnestly longed
for by former martyrs is now all but come; the full number of
their fellow
servants is on the verge of completion; they have no longer to
"rest (the same Greek as here, anapausis) yet for a little
season," their eternal rest, or cessation from toils (2Th
1:7; Greek, "anesis," relaxation after hardships. Heb
4:9-10, sabbatism of rest; and Greek, "catapausis,"
akin to the Greek here) is close at hand now. They are blessed
in being about to sit down to the marriage supper of the Lamb
(Re 19:9), and in having part in the first resurrection (Re 20:6),
and in having right to the tree of life (Re 22:14). In Re 14:14-16
follows the explanation of why they are pronounced "blessed"
now in particular, namely, the Son of man on the cloud is just
coming to gather them in as the harvest ripe for garner.
Yea, saith the Spirit--The words of God the Father (the "voice
from heaven") are echoed back and confirmed by the Spirit
(speaking in the Word, Re 2:7; 22:17; and in the saints, 2Co
5:5; 1Pe 4:14). All
"God's promises in Christ are yea" (2Co 1:20).
unto me--omitted in A, B, C, Vulgate, Syriac, and Coptic.
- that they may--The Greek includes also the idea, They are
blessed, in that they SHALL rest from their toils (so the Greek).
and--So B and ANDREAS read. But A, C, Vulgate, and Syriac read
"for." They rest from their toils because their time
for toil is past; they enter on the blessed rest because of their
faith evinced by their
works which, therefore, "follow WITH (so the Greek) them."
Their works are specified because respect is had to the coming
judgment, wherein every man shall be "judged according to
his works." His
works do not go before the believer, nor even go by his side,
but follow him at the same time that they go with him as a proof
that he is Christ's.]
-
- 7. Romans 10:14-15
- "How then shall they call on him in whom they have
not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they
have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? And
how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written,
How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of
peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!"
But how are men to call upon him in whom they have not believed?
And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard?
And how are they to hear without a preacher? And how can men
preach unless they are sent?
I had always used these verses to defend the central importance
of preaching and why I, therefore, had given up my engineering
career for seminary and the great privilege of becoming a preacher
of the Gospel! And I was never bothered by the last phrase about
the need of being "sent," because I could point to
my ordination where a cackle of local ministers, elders, deacons,
and laymen laid their hands on my sweaty head to send me forth
in the Name of Jesus. But then, first through my reading of the
history and writings of the Early Church Fathers and second through
my re-reading of the scriptural context of Paul’s letters,
I realized that Paul emphasized the necessity of being "sent"
because the occasion of his letters was to combat the negative,
heretical influences of self-appointed false teachers. I had
never thought of myself as a false teacher, but by what authority
did those peop le se nd me forth? Who sent them? In this I realized
the importance of Apostolic [those who have been sent] succession.
- [Romans 10:14 Jamiesson-Fausset-Brown Commentary:
14, 15. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not
believed? and . . . believe in him of whom they have not heard?
and . . . hear without a preacher? and . . . preach except .
. . sent? - that is, "True, the same Lord over all is rich
unto all alike that call upon Him. But this calling implies believing,
and
believing hearing, and hearing preaching, and preaching a mission
to preach: Why, then, take ye it so ill, O children of Abraham,
that in obedience to our heavenly mission (Ac 26:16-18) we preach
among
the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ?"]
-
- 8. John 15:4 and 6:56
"Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear
fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye,
except ye abide in me."
-
- "He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood,
dwelleth in me, and I in him."
-
- The book of the Bible I most preached on was the Gospel of
John and my most preached on section John 15, the analogy of
the vine and the branches. I bombarded my congregations with
the need to "abide" or "remain" in Christ.
But what does this mean? I always had an answer, but when I saw
"for the first time" the only verse where Jesus himself
defines clearly what we must do to abide in Him, I was floored.
"He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and
I in him." This led me to study a boatload of verses in
John 6 "I had never seen before," and in the end, when
it came accepting Jesus at His word on the
- Eucharist, I had only one answer: "Where else can we
go? Only you have the words of life."
-
- (Ednote: These two Scriptures are unrelated).
-
- [Jamiesson-Fausset-Brown Commentary: "
Joh 15:4 4. Abide in me, and I in you; as the branch cannot
bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine, &c.- As
all spiritual fruitfulness had been ascribed to the mutual inhabitation,
and living, active interpenetration (so to speak) of Christ and
His disciples, so
here the keeping up of this vital connection is made essential
to continued fruitfulness.]
-
- [Joh 6:53 Jamiesson-Fausset-Brown Commentary
53-58. Except ye eat the flesh . . . and drink the blood . .
. no life, &c.--The harshest word He had yet uttered in their
ears. They asked how it was possible to eat His flesh. He answers,
with great
solemnity, "It is indispensable." Yet even here a thoughtful
hearer might find something to temper the harshness. He says
they must not only "eat His flesh" but "drink
His blood," which could not but
suggest the idea of His death--implied in the separation of one's
flesh from his blood. And as He had already hinted that it was
to be something very different from a natural death, saying,
"My flesh I will
give for the life of the world" (Joh 6:51), it must have
been pretty plain to candid hearers that He meant something above
the gross idea which the bare terms expressed. And farther, when
He added that
they "had no life in them unless they thus ate and drank,"
it was impossible they should think He meant that the temporal
life they were then living was dependent on their eating and
drinking, in this gross sense, His flesh and blood. Yet the whole
statement was certainly confounding, and beyond doubt was meant
to be so. Our Lord had told them that in spite of all they had
"seen" in Him, they "did not believe" (Joh
6:36). For their conviction therefore he does not here lay Himself
out; but having the ear not only of them but of the
more candid and thoughtful in the crowded synagogue, and the
miracle of the loaves having led up to the most exalted of all
views of His Person and Office, He takes advantage of their very
difficulties
and objections to announce, for all time, those most profound
truths which are here expressed, regardless of the disgust of
the unteachable, and the prejudices even of the most sincere,
which His language would seem only designed to deepen. The truth
really conveyed here is no other than that expressed in Joh 6:51,
though in more emphatic terms--that He Himself, in the virtue
of His sacrificial death, is the spiritual and eternal life of
men; and that unless men voluntarily appropriate to themselves
this death, in its sacrificial
virtue, so as to become the very life and nourishment of their
inner man, they have no spiritual and eternal life at all. Not
as if His death were the only thing of value, but it is what
gives all else in Christ's
Incarnate Person, Life, and Office, their whole value to us sinners.]
[Joh 6:56 Jamiesson-Fausset-Brown Commentary
56. He that eateth . . . dwelleth in me and I in him--As our
food becomes incorporated with ourselves, so Christ and those
who eat His flesh and drink His blood become spiritually one
life, though
personally distinct.]
9. Colossians 1:24
"Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up
that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh
for his body's sake, which is the church:"
I don’t know if I purposely avoided this or just blindly
missed it, but for the first 40 years of my life I never saw
this verse. And to be honest, when I finally saw it, I still
didn’t know what to do with it. Nothing in my Lutheran,
Congregationalist, or Presbyterian backgrounds helped me understand
how I or anyone could rejoice in suffering, and especially why
anything was needed to complete the suffering of Christ: nothing
was lacking! Christ’s suffering, death, and resurrection
were sufficient and complete! To say anything less was to attack
the omnipotent completeness of God’s sovereign grace. But
then again, this was the apostle Paul speaking in inerrant, infallible
Scripture. And we were to imitate him as he imitated Jesus. It
took a reading of Pope John Paul II’s encyclical on the
meaning of suffering to open my eyes to the beautiful mystery
of redemptive suffering.
[Col 1:24 Jamiesson-Fausset-Brown Commentary:
24. Who--The oldest manuscripts omit "who"; then translate,
"Now I rejoice." Some very old manuscripts, and the
best of the Latin versions, and Vulgate, read as English Version.
To enhance the glory
of Christ as paramount to all, he mentions his own sufferings
for the Church of Christ. "Now" stands in contrast
to "I was made," in the past time (Col 1:23).
for you--"on your behalf," that ye may be confirmed
in resting solely on Christ (to the exclusion of angel-worship)
by the glorification of Christ in my sufferings (Eph 3:1).
fill up that which is behind--literally, "the deficiencies"--
all that are lacking of the afflictions of Christ (compare Note,
see on Cmt. on 2Co 1:5). Christ is "afflicted in all His
people's afflictions" (Isa 63:9).
"The Church is His body in which He is, dwells, lives, and
therefore also suffers" [VITRINGA]. Christ was destined
to endure certain afflictions in this figurative body, as well
as in His literal; these were
"that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ,"
which Paul "filled up." His own meritorious sufferings
in expiation for sin were once for all completely filled up on
the Cross. But His Church (His second
Self) has her whole measure of afflictions fixed. The more Paul,
a member, endured, the less remain for the rest of the Church
to endure; the communion of saints thus giving them an interest
in his sufferings. It is in reference to the Church's afflictions,
which are "Christ's afflictions, that Paul here saith, "I
fill up the deficiencies," or "what remain behind of
the afflictions of Christ." She is afflicted to promote
her growth in holiness, and her completeness in Christ. Not one
suffering is lost (Ps 56:8). All her members have thus a mutual
interest in one another's sufferings (1Co 12:26). But Rome's
inference hence, is utterly false that the Church has a stock
treasury of the merits and satisfactions of Christ and His apostles,
out of which she
may dispense indulgences; the context has no reference to sufferings
in expiation of sin and productive of merit. Believers should
regard their sufferings less in relation to themselves as individuals,
and more
as parts of a grand whole, carrying out God's perfect plan.]
- 10. Luke 1:46-49
"And Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord, And my
spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. For he hath regarded
the low estate of his handmaiden: for, behold, from henceforth
all generations shall call me blessed. For he that is mighty
hath done to me great things; and holy is his name."
- Finally the hardest hurdle for so many Protestant converts
to get over: our Blessed Mother Mary. For most of my life, the
only place Mary came into the picture was at Christmas and dare
I say, as a statue! But I never referred to her as "blessed."
Yet Scripture says all generations will call her blessed. Why
wasn’t I? This led me to see other verses for the f irst
time, including John 17 where from the cross Jesus giave his
mother into the keeping of John, rather than any supposed siblings,
and by grace I began, in imitation of my Lord and Savior and
eternal brother Jesus, to recognize her, too, as my loving Mother.
-
- [Luke 1:46 Jamiesson-Fausset-Brown Commentary:
46-55. A magnificent canticle, in which the strain of Hannah's
ancient song, in like circumstances, is caught up, and just slightly
modified and sublimed. Is it unnatural to suppose that the spirit
of the
blessed Virgin had been drawn beforehand into mysterious sympathy
with the ideas and the tone of this hymn, so that when the life
and fire of inspiration penetrated her whole soul it spontaneously
swept the
chorus of this song, enriching the Hymnal of the Church with
that spirit-stirring canticle which has resounded ever since
from its temple walls? In both songs, those holy women, filled
with wonder to behold
"the proud, the mighty, the rich," passed by, and,
in their persons the lowliest chosen to usher in the greatest
events, sing of this as no capricious movement, but a great law
of the kingdom of God, by
which He delights to "put down the mighty from their seats
and exalt them of low degree." In both songs the strain
dies away on CHRIST; in Hannah's under the name of "Jehovah's
King"--to whom, through all
His line, from David onwards to Himself, He will "give strength";
His "Anointed," whose horn He will exalt (1Sa 2:10);
in the Virgin's song, it is as the "Help" promised
to Israel by all the prophets.
My soul . . . my spirit--"all that is within me" (Ps
103:1).
Lu 1:47
47. my Saviour--Mary, poor heart, never dreamt, we see, of her
own "immaculate conception"--in the offensive language
of the Romanists--any more than of her own immaculate life.]
-
- [Luke 1:47 Barnes Commentary:
Verse 47. In God my Saviour. God is called Saviour, as he saves
people from sin and death. He was Mary's Saviour, as he had redeemed
her soul and given her a title to eternal life; and she rejoiced
{s} for that, and especially for his mercy in honouring her by
her being made the mother of the Messiah.
{s} Ps 35:9; Hab 3:18]
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