Category Archives: Christianity

by | September 17, 2015 · 12:19 pm

Hyperdulia is not Latria

For those who have been taught that Roman Catholics worship Mary, let me assure you we do NOT.

  • We HONOR and VENERATE her above all other humans.
  • WORSHIP belongs to God alone.

The technical terms are dulia, hyperdulia, and latria.

  • Dulia refers to the respect and veneration properly paid to the saints.
  • Hyperdulia refers to the special veneration properly paid to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
  • Latria refers to the adoration, praise and worship due to God alone.

I remember a day once upon a long time ago when my 6 and 8 year old girls came home from elementary school in tears, because some boys on the bus had accused them of worshiping Mary.

“We don’t, Mommy, right?”said the oldest, with real tears running down her cheeks.

“Of course not!”  We sat right down on the grass and I explained to them about dulia, hyperdulia and latria.  Then I explained to them about kids who, sadly, are taught lies about our faith and about how we need to teach them what we really believe, pray for them to understand, and forgive them for being mean.

My point here is that even at that tender age, my girls, who had been raised from birth in the Roman Catholic Church, who had been taught to say the rosary and were accustomed to seeing pictures and statues of Mary in our home and at church, KNEW that we DO NOT WORSHIP MARY.

What about statues and pictures of Mary? Is having them or kissing them or parading them around the streets a violation of the First Commandment?

  • It would be if we worshiped Mary.
  • Or if we worshiped her statues or her pictures.
  • But we don’t.

What we do is use statues and pictures as touch points for prayer. We’re physical beings. We often want or need ways to physicalize our thoughts and emotions. The woman in the picture below is not worshiping a stone or a flag or the soul of her dearly departed. She’s grieving.

MIL grief

“A Catholic who may kneel in front of a statue while praying isn’t worshiping the statue or even praying to it, any more than the Protestant who kneels with a Bible in his hands when praying is worshiping the Bible or praying to it.”

Read more @ http://www.catholic.com/tracts/do-catholics-worship-statues

Idolatry - Pope Francis and Mary

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Filed under Catholic Church, Christianity, Prayer

by | September 17, 2015 · 10:34 am

I don’t understand Christians who ignore Mary

Mary with baby and crucified son

  • Her “yes” made our salvation possible.
  • He spent 30 years with her and only 3 years with His disciples.
  • She was with Him during his public ministry and lived with John after His Ascension.  IOW, she didn’t just birth and raise the Messiah; she also helped birth and raise His church.
  • Gospel writers clearly interviewed her, since there is information they could get nowhere else.
  • When we accept Jesus, we become His brothers and sisters; that makes Mary our mother too.
  • The commandment says to Honor Your Mother.

One guy I know told me we are supposed to pay attention to Jesus, only Jesus. I wondered if, when his wife loves on his mom, does he jump in between and shout, “Pay attention to me, only me!”  How absurd!  Think how you feel when your child loves on a sibling or your spouse.  Doesn’t it make you love that child even MORE? 

The “Verse for the Day” on our PoliNation scripture widget is:

“Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children.” – Eph 5:1

IOW, follow Jesus’ example and honor Mary.

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Filed under Christianity

by | September 9, 2015 · 3:17 am

Democrats and Idolatry

IDOLATRY Satan doesn't care

Idolatry is a violation of the first and greatest commandment. It means to give to anything or anybody what God alone deserves.

Jesus said, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment.” Matthew 22:37-38 (NABRE)

Last weekend in New Hampshire, a women’s chorus demonstrated Democrat idolatry when they desecrated an old gospel song by replacing “Hillary” for “Jesus.”

“I woke up this morning with my heart stayed on Hillary.”

This is far from the first time that Democrats have publicly and defiantly flipped the bird at God Almighty.  I’ve collected some images and news items about Democrat Obama worship @

Democrat Idolatry: The Cult of Obama
http://on.fb.me/1QnkD2a

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Filed under Barack Obama, Christianity, Democrats, Hillary Clinton

by | September 7, 2015 · 9:45 am

The Rock: Did Jesus mean Peter’s confession of faith or Peter himself?

Is Peter the Rock in Matthew 16:18? [6:37]

Many Evangelicals believe that petros meant “small stone” and that petra meant “large rock.”  They interpret Matthew 16:18 as an antithetic statement:

“I tell you Peter, you are a very small stone, but on the great rock [of your confessional statement with regard to my identity as the Messiah], I will build my Church.”

However, Matthew 16:18 can just as easily be interpreted as a synthetic statement:

“I tell you Peter, you may look like a small stone now, but on the great rock you truly are, I will build my Church.”

But, in fact, neither of these sentences make much sense since, in first century Greek, petros and petra were synonyms. 

Moreover, the synthetic (and Catholic) interpretation becomes the obviously correct choice once you realize that Jesus’ actual words were not in Greek, but in Aramaic, where the two words — kepha and kepha — were identical.  Pron. keh-fa.

“You are Kepha and on this kepha I will build my church.”

Kephas

The petros/petra difference arose when Jesus’ words were forced into Greek grammar, which dictated the masculine form, petros, in the first place, and the feminine form, petra, in the second.

“You are Petros and on this petra I will build my church.”

(In the NT, Peter is sometimes referred to as Cephas, which is a Greek variant of the Aramaic name — Kepha — that Jesus had given him.  It is sometimes pronounced see-fas, but should be pronounced keh-fas.)

By the time the Bible was translated into English, everyone knew the man as St. Peter, so the rendering in the English version is rather nonsensical.

“You are Peter and on this rock I will build my church.”

Rock? What rock? Who said anything about a rock?

The structure of Matthew 16:17-19 makes it even more clear that Jesus meant to build His church on the man, Peter,  and not just on his confessional statement that Jesus was the Messiah. Click on graphic to embiggen for easier reading.

Matt 16 17-19 Exegetical structure

The sources from which I excerpted the above are well worth reading in full:

 

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Filed under Bible History, Christianity

by | September 6, 2015 · 3:27 am

The Left’s Gold Standard

  • The Left supports the targeted and aggressive assault on Christian religious rights.
  • The Left also supports the targeted and aggressive demands by Muslims for special treatment.

If you doubt these two statements are true, google “Charee Stanley” and “Kim Davis” and compare what you find for both quantity and tone.

Charee Stanley vs Kim Davis

The Left’s apparent hypocrisy about religious rights masks a single, underlying standard.
His name is Satan.

Sources:

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Filed under Christianity, Islam, Kim Davis, Religious Liberty

by | September 6, 2015 · 12:16 am

Gay activism: It’s not about love or equality

It’s about destroying religious freedoms for Christians.

The Left doesn’t want to accommodate Christians. They want us and our values and beliefs forced out.

2015_08 Gay couple suing church

Targeting KY clerk

Gay activists have targeted Kim Davis. The media calls her a bigot. But the whole story shows she has tried to avoid this situation from the start.

Kim Davis’ attorney, Liberty Counsel’s Mat Staver, has asked the courts and Gov. Steve Beshear to change licensing procedures to accommodate Davis’ convictions and those of others with similar beliefs.

Staver suggested several options, including removing the clerk’s name from all marriage licenses, making the state capitol the processing center for licenses and switching to an online application process.

Davis also tried to take pre-emptive measures to avoid the predicament immediately after taking office as clerk in January, writing state legislators in anticipation of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of same-sex marriage in June.

“I urged and beseeched them to get legislation on the floor while we still had time to protect clerks who had religions objections to same-sex marriage,” she said. “I got only one response, and nothing happened.”

Sources:

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Filed under Christianity, Kim Davis, Religious Liberty

by | September 5, 2015 · 8:00 am

Science Tests Faith

Eucharist - Consecration

The video is a little more than an hour long, but sooooooooooo worth watching!

Science Tests Faith [1:05:38]

One of the miracles the speaker discusses in the video is of a consecrated host in Buenos Aires, Argentina, that began to bleed. It begins at 15:30 on the video. In the liquid, scientists found human flesh and blood. This confirms the Catholic teaching that the Body and Blood of Our Lord is present in BOTH the consecrated bread and consecrated wine.

“Christ Jesus, our Lord and Savior, is wholly present under the appearance either of bread or of wine in the Eucharist. Furthermore, Christ is wholly present in any fragment of the consecrated Host or in any drop of the Precious Blood. Nevertheless, it is especially fitting to receive Christ in both forms during the celebration of the Eucharist. This allows the Eucharist to appear more perfectly as a banquet, a banquet that is a foretaste of the banquet that will be celebrated with Christ at the end of time when the Kingdom of God is established in its fullness (cf. Eucharisticum Mysterium, no. 32).”

Source:
The Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Sacrament of the Eucharist: Basic Questions and Answers
http://www.usccb.org/prayer-and-worship/the-mass/order-of-mass/liturgy-of-the-eucharist/the-real-presence-of-jesus-christ-in-the-sacrament-of-the-eucharist-basic-questions-and-answers.cfm

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Filed under Christianity, Science

by | September 2, 2015 · 6:52 pm

The reality of the slippery slope

Recent history is rife with examples of Christians being vilified as “slippery slope” straw man haters.

But each time, we have been proved right.

When “The Pill” was made available to the public in 1964, Christians warned it could lead to promiscuity and a rise in children living in broken and single parent homes.

This happened.

When abortion was made legal throughout all nine months of pregnancy in 1973, Christians warned that it would not save women’s lives, but would instead lead to devaluing all human life, especially children’s lives.

This happened.

When euthanasia was legalized in Oregon and other states, Christians warned that the non-terminally ill and eventually the mentally handicapped, or simply the unwanted, would be killed in the name of mercy.

This is happening.

When gay marriage was legalized in all 50 states, Christians warned it would lead to demands for legalizing polygamy.

2015_09 02 Polygamy up next

Source:

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Filed under Abortion, Christianity, Euthanasia, Marriage & Family Life

by | August 28, 2015 · 7:57 pm

“Lead us not into the trial, but deliver us from evil.”

2015_08 25 Medj message

Keep Making Me – Sidewalk Prophets – with Worship Video with lyrics

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Filed under Christianity, Prayer

by | August 23, 2015 · 5:52 pm

Get right with God

  • January 22, 1973 (during Shemitah #819), the Supreme Court legalized the killing of unborn children.
  • June 26, 2015 (during Shemitah #825), the Supreme Court legalized same sex marriage.

Aug 11, 2015: Jonathan Cahn gives an important word for believers [13:22]

Pastor Cahn’s message is worth your time. His basic message to “GET RIGHT WITH GOD” and “BE ALL OUT FOR GOD” is the same and consistent message of Our Lady at Medjugorje.

2015_07 25 Ms Our Lady at Medj

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Filed under Bible Prophecy, Christianity, Jonathan Cahn