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Post by Cindy on Feb 3, 2022 11:06:07 GMT -5
I'd like to talk about some of the errors the Catholic church teaches about Mary, the mother of Jesus. First of all they say she was born without sin. But the Bible says that the only one born without sin was Jesus.
“and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,” (Luke 1:47)
“If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.” (1 John 1:8)
“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin.” (Hebrews 4:15)
Mary was a very human young girl who was chosen by God to bear His Son. An amazing honor for any one for sure and I'm positive that God created a fantastic reward for her in Heaven. But she sinned just like we do. She was however a real believer in that she had real faith in God and knew she was a sinner in need of salvation, as the Bible shows. Anyone who claims that they never sin, including the Catholic church's claims about Mary, simply shows they either don't understand the Bible's plain word, or perhaps don't believe it. Neither one is a good place to be in since the Bible also tells us that we should work to show that we do know and understand God's Word.
We can also talk about the idea of praying to Mary, and about whether or not she was a virgin all her life, and any number of other fallacies that surrounds her.
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fearnot
Living With Pain
Posts: 8,383 
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Post by fearnot on Feb 3, 2022 15:22:48 GMT -5
If I am not mistaken, I think the Catholics use what is called the Latin Vulgate translation of the Bible,
however, the New testament was in Greek....so that could be one way for misunderstanding to creep in.
It seems to me, it is always best to go the true source!
There seems to be confusion that being full of grace, means to be without sin, but that is not true.
The Latin Vulgate in Latin reads:
et ingressus angelus ad eam dixit have gratia plena Dominus tecum benedicta tu in mulieribus
Translated to English
and the angel went in to her and said, "Have full grace!
The Lord is with you, blessed are you among women"
However the ESV version says:
And he came to her and said, “Greetings,
O favored one, the Lord is with you
Luke 1:28
The NIV version
The angel went to her and said,
“Greetings, you who are highly favored!
The Lord is with you.
Luke 1:28
The NASB 1995 version
And coming in, he said to her,
“Greetings, favored one!
The Lord is with you
Luke 1:28
The King James version
And the angel came in unto her, and said,
Hail, thou that art highly favoured,
the Lord is with thee
Luke 1:28
I could go on and list many more versions that say the same thing,
there is a difference between being highly favored
and full of grace.
But even being full of 'grace' does not mean....sinless.
( in any other case, but Jesus)
Jesus, alone was without sin.
God made him ( Jesus) who had no sin to be sin for us,
so that in him we might become the righteousness of God
2 Corinthians 5:21
As for all people,
Mary included, the next verse is true for her also.
( since she was not God,
like Jesus was and is and will always be)
for ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of God
Romans 3:23
And so this would be true of Mary also:
If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves,
and the truth is not in us.
9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just
to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
10 If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar,
and his word is not in us.
1 John 1:8–10
In fact, Mary herself acknowledges she needs a Savior
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior
Luke 1:47
She knew she needed a Savior, because she was not sinless.
Venerating Mary, has the result of ,
less of pure devotion to Jesus
But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived
by the serpent’s cunning,
your minds may somehow be led astray
from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ
2 Corinthians 11:3
Done for Today
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Post by Cindy on Feb 4, 2022 9:24:12 GMT -5
That's awesome Barbara! Thank you! I'll be back shortly to write more. 
Next I'd like to talk about how the Catholic Church encourages people to pray to Mary and to other people who've died. This is a sin in the eye of our Heavenly Father and because of it the people who do this are storing up His wrath (Romans 2:5). Let's look at this logically. Did or Do the Jews pray to David, or Moses or Abraham? or angels for that matter?
I ask this question to open the eyes of Catholics to what they are doing. If you'll recall, ALL the disciples and Jesus and His whole family were Jewish. So were a huge number of converts to them. The faithful Jewish people AND Jesus Himself NEVER, NEVER, NEVER prayed to David, or Moses, or Samuel, or to angels or to any other person. They ONLY prayed to God Himself. Yes, there was a time in Israel's history, when those who had turned away from the true God began praying to and worshipping idols, and some of them even worshipped their ancestors. But that was aa sin and one which horrified the faithful Jews.
The fact that Jesus and His disciples didn't pray to anyone other than God should be more than enough to show Catholics that this practice is VERY WRONG and is a sin! When the disciples asked Him to teach them how to pray, He didn't give them a prayer to His mother, or any dead person, and not even to an angel. Instead He taught them and us to pray to the Father. There are a great many prayers in both the Old and New Testaments, and every single one of them are addressed to God the Father. God doesn't change (Malachi 3:6, Heb 13:8). Therefore if it was wrong and a sin to pray to others and or angels then, it is still a sin now! Another thing to reflect on is how the leading Jews who were part of the Sanhedrin at the time of Christ would have reacted if they had discovered that Jesus or His disciples were praying to anyone dead or alive other than the One True God or teaching others to do so. They would have executed all of them for blasphemy, long before they could be killed for preaching the Gospel! There would have been plenty of read about it in the history books too because all of the Jews would have been horrified!
I asked a Jewish Rabbi if people could pray to anyone besides God and this was his reply: In Jewish Law the only entity that can be prayed to is God. In Judaism's Thirteen Principles of Faith, Number 5 states: I believe with complete faith that the Creator, Blessed is His Name - to Him alone is it proper to pray and it is not proper to pray to any other.
There is a very big difference between asking a fellow Christian who is currently alive to pray for you and praying to someone who has died. I can't imagine how the Catholic church has managed to brain wash people into believing it's the same thing.
Suppose a Christian comes and kneels before you, imploring you with great devotion to pray for him. Would you allow him? How would you react if he calls you his advocate, his hope and refuge? What if he thanks you for the many graces you conferred on him and for delivering him from hell? Suppose he tells you that he confines his salvation to your care and pleads with you to stay with him until you see him safe in heaven? Would you call that “asking a fellow Christian for prayer”? Of course not! (at least I hope you wouldn't!) That kind of prayer and confidence is nothing less than divine worship and it should be directed only to the Lord Jesus Christ. And yet that is exactly the kind of prayer that Catholics offer to Mary and the saints.
Again, neither Jesus nor any of the apostles asked anyone who was dead to pray for them! (again, they would have been horrified at the thought!) Not only that, but we can't be sure who is in heaven and who is in hell. Only God can know a person's heart. “then hear from heaven, your dwelling place. Forgive and act; deal with each man according to all he does, since you know his heart (for you alone know the hearts of all men),” (1 Kings 8:39) I know your church likes to appoint people they think are special and call them "Saints" and then tell you to pray to them, but like Jesus told the Pharisees, they are making you twice as much a son or daughter of hell as they are. That's why He called them hypocrites.(Matthew 23:15) We can feel fairly confident that a Christian is in heaven if their life was one of forgiveness and love and looked a lot like our Lord's life; if they consistently repented of sin when they realized they were sinning, and lived for Jesus and to help others, not for themselves. But we should never presume we know for sure who's in heaven. God tells us we can only know that for sure whether or not we will go to heaven, not anyone else. So people who pray to those so called "saints" could very well be praying to people who are in hell. And if you include all our dead friends and relatives, (if you're going to pray to dead people instead of God, you might as well pray to them too.) then the vast majority of those you're praying to are in Hell. We can know that simply because Jesus taught that only a very few would be saved and go to heaven, and that the majority of people will wind up in Hell. (Luke 13:23–30; Luke 18:23–27; Mark 10:24–27; Matthew 22:14; Matthew 7:13–14; Romans 11:1–5; Romans 9:27–28; Zechariah 13:8–9; 1 Peter 3:19–20; 1 Peter 4:18; 2 Peter 2:5–10) There are many more but I don't have time to list them now.
The point is that all through both the old and new testament, only a few were saved, never the majority. Because of that, it's foolish to assume that someone is in heaven to hear your prayers. Besides which, no human being is omniscient like God and no one but God can hear everyone's prayers. Finally, no one but God can answer those prayers. I hate to tell you this, but if you pray to anyone but the One True God, then you are praying to demons.
Notice that God doesn't tell us to seek Mary or anyone other then Him:
Deuteronomy 4:29 But from there you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul. 30 When you are in distress, and all these things come upon you in the latter days, when you turn to the Lord your God and obey His voice 31. (for the Lord your God is a merciful God), He will not forsake you nor destroy you, nor forget the covenant of your fathers which He swore to them.
Psalms 86:5 For You, Lord, are good, and ready to forgive, And abundant in mercy to all those who call upon You.
notice it's GOD and NOT Mary?
Psalms 130:7 O Israel, hope in the Lord; For with the Lord there is mercy, And with Him is abundant redemption.
notice that our hope is to be in HIM not Mary!
Joel 2:13 So rend your heart, and not your garments; return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness; and He relents from doing harm.
Daniel 9:9 "To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, though we have rebelled against Him.
these belong ONLY to God, not Mary!
Psalms 145:18 The Lord is near to all who call upon Him, To all who call upon Him in truth.
Jeremiah 33:3 `Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.'
John 4:10 Jesus answered and said to her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, `Give Me a drink,' you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water
Romans 10:13 For "whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
Acts 8:24 Then Simon answered and said, "Pray to the Lord for me, that none of the things which you have spoken may come upon me
Genesis 20:17 So Abraham prayed to God; and God healed Abimelech, his wife, and his female servants. Then they bore children;
Acts 10:2 a devout man and one who feared God with all his household, who gave alms generously to the people, and prayed to God always.
James 1:5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.
There are literally thousands of scriptures more that I could post and all of them say that we're to pray to the Lord our God only.
The evidence is indisputable. It is a sin to pray to anyone or anything but God.
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Post by ironbark on Jan 22, 2023 16:28:27 GMT -5
How could anyone be so foolish to actually bow down in prayer to a statue of Mary, yet at the same time deny that they are worshipping her? God clearly command us in the second of the Ten Commandments NOT to make unto ourselves ANY graven images.
"Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:" —Exodus 20:4
Do the Catholics need glasses? It says right there in black and white in Exodus 20:4 that we are NOT to make unto ourselves ANY likeness of anything that is in heaven!!! Mary is in Heaven. We are NOT to make any likeness of her according to Exodus 20:4. So what do you call a statue of mother Mary?It surely is a likeness of her, a graven image! Here's another shocker...
"Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them..." —Exodus 20:5
Ok, so then why does every Catholic BOW DOWN before a statue of Mary in their worship places? ... because they are practicing FALSE religion totally void of the truth of God. They can argue whether or not you are worshipping Mary as their bowing down to her; but one thing is for certain, God has commanded us in Exodus 20:5 NOT TO BOW DOWN to her. Even if they are not worshipping Mary, they ARE SINNING if they bow down to her because the Bible strictly forbids it! Millions of people all around the world are bowing down to Mary in violation of God's Word.
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Post by ironbark on Jan 22, 2023 17:07:36 GMT -5
Mark. 3:31-35; shows Jesus warning not to put His mother in a position above what she is....His earthly mother.
The Catholic also church teaches that Mary was sinless. If Mary was sinless, why would Mary Need a Savior? These words are from Mary’s own mouth. Mary exclaimed to Elizabeth, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior” (Luke 1:46-47).
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