Why Catholics Should REad The B Why Catholics Should Read The Bible – James R. Urban The Holy Bible is man’s most unique and wonderful treasure.
Revealed between the covers of this sacred book we may catch a glimpse of the heart and mind of God. It is written for man’s eternal good, for his salvation, his guidance and his spiritaul nourishment. It brings to mankind the glad message of the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Anointed One, our Saviour, Redeemer and our King.
The Scriptures are not merely a revelation of man’s wisdom but, in fact, the revealed wisdom of almight God. Because the Bible is inspired by God, it is the only unchanging and reliable source upon which we can rest our hope for eternity. Though we read it for many other reasons, the most important purpose of the Bible is to point us to the only way (God’s way) of salvation.
In the Bible is to be found, not only the key to heaven, but enough insturction and information to make one spiritually rich for time and eternity. It reveals the secret of happy living in this changing world and describes the Biblical Christian’s inheritance, an inheritance that is incorruptible, eternal and that cannot fade away.
The Bible has a great and grand mission–within its pages one can grasp the source of light and comfort. In the midst of darkness and sorrow, we are offered genuine faith, hope and love. It strengthens the mind with the sublimest of truths and fills the open heart with pure and honest love; it will cause solid principles of righteousness to sink into the depths of one’s soul. Nothing can ever change or diminish the written Word of God. Someone has said that tradition has dug for it a grave, intolerance has lighted many fires for its demise, many a Judas has betrayed it, many a Peter has denied it with an oath, many a Demas has forsaken it, yet the Holy Bible still endures. No book that is merely human in its origin could take such assault and continue to exist.
The Scriptures are majestic and enduring. Where could one find a book more beautifully written, so instructive and so deeply inspirational? The Bible is truly unique in its grandeur and its splendor. It is of intrinsic value to all who will study it. Besides being divinely inspired, infallible truth, the Bible includes literature, poetry, philosophy, theology, history, prophecy, war, drama, love, songs, prayers, sermons and warnings. Even before the printing press, tens of thousands of copies were meticulously hand written by Christian believers. From the days of the apostles it was being translated into the languages the people. It has been reported that the Bible is read in more languages than any other book that has ever been written. Portions of it have been translated into most of the languages and dilects of the world and in each one it retains its personality and individuality, its ability to meet the need of men, bringing them into a personal relationship with the God who inspired it. No other book offers so much to man. It reveals both what man is and what he may become. lst John 3:1 declares, “Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we shold be called sons of God”.
To become a son of God is the hightest and noblest position a human being can obtain. We are not born “Christians” or “children of God”. To become a son of God and enjoy the “more abundant” Christian life, one must be born-again (born spiritually) as opposed to our natural, human birth. Jesus Christ said, “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). “As many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God” (John 1:12).
God’s plan for all of us is that we recognize our spiritual need (because of our failure to attain the perfect standards of the Creator) and in ture Godly sorrow for that “sin”, repent, changing our natural attitude toward sin. We are to genuinely desire to turn away from sin and allow the Holy Spirit of God to work in us to live a clean, holy and righteous life in obedience to God’s written Word. To become a Bible Believing Christian one must submit to and receive Jesus Christ as personal Lord and Saviour through faith in His perfect and completed substitutionary sacrifice as their only means of eternal salvation.
To receive Jesus Christ in this way is as simple as speaking to Him (Remember that as God, He is omnipresent. He knows what you are saying from your heart.) Think of the commitment of your life to Him as similar to the promises in a marriage ceremony. A man may love a waman, but until those promises are made, he is not “married” to her. In the same way, a person is not a true Christian until they have committed their life to Jesus Christ by reciving Him as personal Lord and Saviour. If you have not already received Him, now is the time to do so.
The Bible says that “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away: behold all things are become new” (2nd Corinthians 5:17). When a person is “born of God”, they begin to “hunger and thirst after righteousness” (Matthew 5:6); they want to read and study the Bible (2nd Timothy 2:15); their prayer life is no longer just a formality but a true response of love to our father in heaven; their new attitude and life-style will reveal to family and friends that something genuine and wonderful has changed in the motivation of their life. There will be a new understanding of the Bible, for spiritual things are spiritually discerned (understood) (2nd Corinthians 2:14). Old religious concepts are replaced with an understanding of Biblical truth.
Many have been led to believe that the Roman Catholic church is the original church, that it is apostolic, that it is based entirely upon the authority of the Bible, that it is a true Christian church (if not now, at least it used to be). Yet, from its beginning Roman Catholicism failed to limit itself to Biblical doctrines and principles. Instead, it altered the simple meaning and practice of things such as baptism and the Lord’s supper and added other teachings and practices which neither Jesus Christ nor the apostles ever taught or practiced. Thus Roman Catholicism has followed many unscriptural traditions that men have accumulated during the centuries.
One of those traditions is Rome’s teaching on mediators. The Bible clearly states in 2nd Timothy 2:5 that “There is ONE MEDIATOR between God and men, the man Christ Jesus”. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No man cameth unto the Father, but by Me” (John 14:6). By the authority of God’s Word, no human being (not Mary, the mother of our Lord, nor any saint, pastor or priest) can be a mediator between God and man. Jesus Christ alone is our mediator. He is our great high priest, He needs no assistance. He alone is God’s gift to mankind as Saviour and Redeemer.
Rome has declared thousands of the dead to be “saints”. Yet, according to the Holy Scriptures, all true Biblical Christians are called to be “saints” (Romans 1:7). The distinguishing mark of a saint is not as in the Roman system, based upon what one has done for God, but what God has done by saving that soul from sin and eternal death.
The Bible teaches that God alone has the power to forgive our sins. John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us form all unrighteousness”. (We confess our sins to God, not to a priest in the confessional.) John 2:1 says, “If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (not a human, mediating priest). It is a self-evident fact that only the one offended is able to forgive the offense. When God is offended, God alone can grant forgiveness (Mark 2:7).
In spite of all the emphasis Catholics give to Purgatory (a place of torment where the wrath of God falls upon individuals until they have suffered sufficient torment to be purified and atone for their own sins), no such place is ever mentioned or described in the Bible. The Bible does teach, however that Jesus has “delivered us from the wrath to come” (1st Thessalonians 1:10). He is the propitiation for our sins” (Hebrews 2:2). “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord” (Revelation 14:13). John 3:36 declares, “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.” God’s wrath is declared to be only upon unbelievers. The believers are delivered from God’s wrath.
Roman Catholicism teaches that “our Saviour, at the Last Supper…instituted the Eucharistic Sacrifice of His Body and Blood so that He might perpetuate the Sacrifice of the Cross throughout the centuries ’til His coming”. The mass is not just another form of the Lord’s supper or holy communion. Rome teaches that it is the unbloody “sacrifice of the body and blood of Jesus, really present on the alter under the appearance of bread and wine, and offered to God for the living and the dead”. Yet, Hebrews 9:22 states that “without the shedding of blood is no remission” (forgiveness). The mass is an aboslute dichotomy, diametricrally opposed to the teaching of the Bible. There are about 400,000 masses every day. If the mass were true, Jesus would be suffering at every mass instead of “once for all” as Hebrews 7:25-28 says, “He is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them…who needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the peoples: for this he did once, when he offered up himself”. (See Hebrews 9:10-15, 26, 28; 10:10 and 11-14.) One perfect offering ended any need for future offerings. To teach a need for continued sacrifices is to diminish the efficacy of the work of Christ and implies that sinful man is capable of adding something, perhaps improving upon the work of Christ. That is an unthinkable blasphemy to a Biblical Christian.
One of the most precious joys of every Biblical Christian is that their salvation is secure in Jesus Christ. The Bilbe teaches that believers are justified by grace through faith (not by human merits or religious rites such as baptism, confirmation, 1st communion, mass, good works etc.) and are assured of eternal (spiritual) life. The true Christian has no fear of hell, purgatory, the future possible loss of salvation; does not depend upon last rites administered by a priest nor upon family and friends who will pray for the dead, but ONLY upon the Lord Jesus Christ who promised, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee” (Hebrews 13:5). “And this the the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. These things have I written unot you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that YE MAY KNOW THAT YE HAVE ETERNAL LIFE. (1st John 5:11-13). “Ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold” (also as human merits, sacraments, religious traditions), “but with the precious blood of Christ (1st Peter 1:18).
With all the various beliefs, sacraments and other practices of Roman Catholicism, Rome is not able to give peace, joy and certainty of the forgiveness of sins and eternal life that the Biblical Christian can now have through simple faith in the Gospel of the grace of God in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:38-39; John 5:24; John 14:3).
We urge all Roman Catholics to faithfully read and study their Bibles. In so doing, they willfind God’s only way of salvation. The Bible itself declares that the way is so plain that “fools shall not err therein” (Isaiah 35:8). We are more than convinced that the need of the day is to “search the Scriptures” (Which never change) to see if what religious leaders teach is the truth or not. (See Acts 17:11, Galatians 1:8-9 and 2nd John 10-11).
Do not assume that positive emotional religious feelings, mystical experiences, the “commitment” of your life to Christ or the acceptance of certain beliefs and practices is sufficient to guarantee that you are a true “born-again” Christian. READ AND STUDY THE BIBLE. Make a promise to yourself and to God that you will trust all the teachings of the BIBLE as your only source of spiritual authority. Question everything you believe and experience in the light of God’s Holy Word. The Bible is the infallible Word of God and all that we need to know about salvation, the certaionty of salvation, God’s will for man –all spiritual matters– may be learned by anyone willing to study its’ message. The Lord is “not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2nd Peter 3:9). “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness; for they shall be filled” (Matthew 5:6). “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God” (Romans 8:14). Do not chance being deceived because of failure to study God’s infallible Word. Instead, as Jesus said, “SEARCH THE SCRIPTURES” (John 5:39). YOU CAN TRUST THE BIBLE! Mission to Catholics P.O. Box 19280 San Diego, Ca 92119