User:Dataclarifier/Development page

Note: this contributor has permanently withdrawn from Conservapedia. See eyesight

From the Bible itself we see that the Bible must be "rightly divided" and interpreted by the "leaders" and "guardians of the flock" so that we are not "carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the cunning of men, by their craftiness in deceitful wiles". In my youth 8-14 I sometimes asked my Baptist pastor to confirm what I thought I understood from my Bible reading because what I found in reading it surprised me and I wanted to check my conclusions from me reading of the Bible alone, and he corrected my errors of understanding, because there were other parts of the Bible I either hadn't read or had forgotten and had failed to take into account. More than the Bible alone was needed. That's why we have Sunday school teachers to guide and interpret the Bible for the children. From age 15-17 Pastor Archie Veltman, Southtown Baptist, Des Moines. Even sola scriptura Christians need more than the Bible alone. That's why pastoral guardians of the congregation are needed and appointed to preach doctrine to their flocks, ostensibly so they won't go astray as a result of their personal reading of the Bible. Paul's listings in Ephesians and 1 Corinthians do not mention the Bible as necessary for the upbuilding of the body of Christ. That's why we have need of "Bible lesson" materials, and seminaries of pastoral Bible training for future pastors and Christian educators. The overwhelming multitude of online Bible commentary sites and Christian apologetics sites by sola scriptura Bible Christians is proof that even they acknowledge that the Bible itself, by itself, is not solely authoritative. Still, the scriptures can be twisted (KJV "wrested") by unprincipled men to their destruction and the destruction of those who follow them 1 Pt 3:15-18.

Your analysis, above, concluded that the argument is "The Bible, or Word of God, is not authoritative". Essentially a correct analysis of the argument. It is authoritative, even according to Catholic doctrine, but not by itself alone (The Cathechism of the Catholic Church CCC numbers 74-141). Whether Independent, Protestant, Orthodox or Catholic, the Bible is always interpreted by the differing Christian groups according to particular doctrinal principles not written in the Bible. For example, no text of the Bible says, "The Bible (Scripture) is the sole rule of faith for the man of God." It says rather that "the scriptures are useful / profitable". 2 Timothy 3:13-17

"while evil men and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceivers and deceived. But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings which are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work."

It does not say "the sacred writings which are able to instruct you for salvation through faith alone".
It does not say "All scripture is inspired by God as the sole rule of faith".
It does not say that faith alone is enough, but it says that the scriptures make us "equipped for every good work". "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." Ep 2:10

James says "You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone." James 2:24.
Martin Luther contradicted this doctrine. He said James is a "strawy epistle" and that he found nothing of the Gospel in it, and removed it to an appendix of uninspired writings in his German Bible.
The Bible is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, but works are necessary, since a man is justified by works and not by faith alone. The Bible is authoritative, but not by itself alone.

Fundamental Salvation

For the benefit of other readers here, it is evident that you did not read the two links I provided for direct access to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which affirms your last statement above "Baptism is of the spirit, not of the flesh" (1213-1284 and 1987-2029).
It's pretty simple. Baptism saves the soul. A child can understand that.

You asked me to answer the question, "What is salvation?" I gave you my answer from the Bible. The Bible answer to the question "What is salvation?" is set forth fully in the Catechism of the Catholic Church as a reiteration of all that the Bible says. The Catechism defines salvation from scripture alone, using abundant citations and quotations from scripture, with literal conclusions from scripture, drawn from the common understanding of the Church Fathers east and west, who based all they said on the literal sense of scripture, the sensus fidelium, sensus plenior and sensus Christianorum of Christianity, faithfully expressing "the mind of Christ", so that what you rejected as "traditions of men" is in fact the teaching of scripture, "and the scripture cannot be broken" (John 10:35; Mark 12:24; 1 Corinthians 15:34).

I can say this because I am primarily and fundamentally a Bible apologist, who just happens to be Catholic. I was raised a Baptist. I know the Bible. I am 72 years old and I have read it cover to cover 82 times since before the age of 12 when I finally "went forward and accepted Jesus as my personal Lord and Savior" and was baptized by full immersion at Grace Baptist Church (Conservative Baptist) in Des Moines, Iowa, in the spring of 1959. Shortly afterward I was appointed by the pastor as one of the "youth conversion counsellors" of newly baptized young teen converts and made one of the leaders of our Youth Group, and actively joined "Youth for Christ". Years later, as an adult, by fervent prayer, and by my knowledge of scripture and history and finding out by careful investigation what Catholicism and Orthodoxy actually teaches (which is not what I had been told they teach), at age 33 the Lord Jesus led me to embrace the Catholic Church as the most biblically faithful Church on the face of the earth. I held to three fundamental scripture passages:

Galatians 1:6-9; 1 John 2:18-19; and John 14:16-17 with John 16:12-14.

I looked for a church that did not come out of another church and teach a doctrine different from the church it came out of. Only one church qualified historically and scripturally. People asked me, "How can you do that?" I said, "Because I believe the Bible. Let me show you." I stand on the firm foundation of the doctrine of the Bible which includes all "authority established by God" (Romans 13:1-10; Hebrews 13:17; 1 Peter 2:13-17). The established Church has "the mind of Christ".

Rejection of scripture written by men who were sent by the Lord, is rejection of the word of the Lord who was sent by the Father, and rejection of the word of the Lord who was sent by God is rejection of the Lord who sent Him (Luke 10:16; Matthew 10:40; Luke 9:48; John 13:20; 12:48). The full context of the teaching of the Bible itself according to the whole of the first sixteen centuries of consistent Christian understanding of salvation through the blood of Christ alone, poured out by the Holy Spirit of Christ (Romans 8:9-11) in baptism with water (1 John 5:6; 1 Corinthians 6:11; Revelation 1:5), was the reason the whole Christian Church, Catholic, Orthodox and mainstream Protestant together, guided by the Holy Spirit (John 14:16 and 26; 16:13-14; Matthew 28:19-20), condemned the credobaptism doctrine of the Anabaptists and Baptists as a doctrine of Satan himself. What they say I say with them.

Perhaps you're familiar with Christ Renews His Parish CRHP weekend retreats. I attended one somewhat reluctantly and was tremendously edified to discover that there is such a thing as Christian male community. I afterward joined the next men's formation team for the following CRHP weekend retreat schduled to occur 6 months later. Part of that formation was what is called "history and faith sharing" in which one by one we each were invited to tell our faith-journey, as much or as little as we wished, with the strict condition that nothing we shared was to be repeated outside to anyone else. When each of the guys finished his "testimony" and sat down we each responded with personal comments of support and appreciation for what they had said and what God had done in their lives and prayed with them briefly. However, when I gave my faith and history story and sat down, there was stunned silence. One of the men, studying for the diaconate, leaned forward with a shocked expression on his face and said, "Please don't misunderstand me, but why aren't you insane or dead?" I had been honest, and as my fellow Christian Catholic brothers they still accepted me. Reliving the details of what I had experienced and how Christ had saved me was a shattering experience. My hands trembled all the next day. But a week later, when we met again, one of the men told me that he'd had nightmares for 3 nights because of what I had said. A few years before my CRHP weekend I had been told by my spiritual director in private spiritual direction, "Mike, please do yourself and other people a favor: DO NOT give the details of your past. Most priests I know can't handle what you know. And I believe you." I promised I wouldn't. But I had been persuaded to disobey him when I told my story confidentially to these men with complete trust in the formation team for CRHP. I have firmly decided to never do that again. There is such a thing as "toxic knowledge" that once you have come to know it you wish to God with all your heart that you had never been exposed to that knowledge or experience. Abbreviated parts of my conversion experience I've posted in pieces on several CP talk pages. You're welcome to quote any of them. I hereby grant you for that project my permission to you to do so. Please understand that each time I posted parts of my story I left out a lot. Posting it was a spontaneous act. I could not actually sit down and compose my conversion story in response to a request. I have also told only some of it one-on-one during a friendly conversation. But as welcome as your proposal is, please understand that I would rather not participate. Believe me, it just simply would not be a good idea. I was once asked innocently "What were you before your conversion." I said, "I was evil." They thought I was joking. I wasn't. Jesus brought me from profound darkness into his own "marvelous light". That will have to be enough, along with what you can glean from my contributions to my own and other article talk pages. God be with you. Pax vobis Semper Fi! --Dataclarifier (talk) 05:34, 15 July 2020 (EDT)

Let it be enough that I have confessed Him before men, privately, and publicly at least twice before groups of people. After retirement I found a venue on Wikipedia until they blocked me indefinitely. After I found Conservapedia I gratefully used this ministry as my venue for confessing the Lord of Life and Salvation and Head of His Body the One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church. I did this primarily by notes and articles linking irrefutable verifiable sources of accurate historical facts and documentation of history, including the sharp contrast between the interpretive doctrines of the Church which glorifies Jesus and the Bible, and the interpretive doctrines of Protestants and Fundamentalists which damn the Church as the mouthpiece of Satan by misusing the Bible. The post I made to your own talk page early this morning while IndependentSkeptic was asleep is one of my primary confessions of Jesus Christ Our Lord and Savior as Head of His Body the Church. The readership of CP has been my audience.
Thank you for your prayers. Please remember in your prayers all of those unsung warriors for democracy and freedom who are covert operatives seeking personally in the name of Christ as highly trained military specialists to pull down every proud oppressor of human dignity and destroyer of human life, all those dedicated Special Ops who use all their skill and all of them who lost their lives in the effort to free all those enslaved by Satan and his angels (messengers, extremists, terrorists). God be with you. Semper Fi!