Disagreeing to Agree. - Comments (3)

Category: Applied,Articles,Roman Catholicism
Author: John Malone
Date: 24th February, 2007 @ 11:11:27 AM

Recently, I received a reply to some Scriptural exegesis that read:

I refuse to argue with you, John.

As far as I am concerned, I have the one true religion and you can try to convince me all you want and I will not falter in my own belief, just as you apparently will not falter in your own.

Here is where I believe as mature Christians we will disagree.

So no arguing please.

Obviously, this itself is an argument – one frequently used – which has as its aim to stop a discourse, in this case specifically, my discourse to a small, but heavily Roman Catholic audience.

Here’s the short version: Stop writing.

I’m obliged to answer, in this case.

I admit, it has been a long time since I heard the phrase “on true religion.” Perhaps it has been 40 years or more! Indeed, that is what Roman Catholicism thinks and teaches: it is no misunderstanding. It declares openly there is no salvation in Jesus Christ apart from it.

Now, I can see why it is that a Roman Catholic True Believer (RCTB) would want to stop someone from arguing from the Scriptures. RCTB’s almost always invoke that ploy, and even at times will do what the most wicked of people do (according to the Scripture): {suppress the truth in unrighteousness.|Rom 1:18}.

Now I realize that I am different than most. Today, believers are very quick to embrace RC’s – even RCTB’s – as fellow believers. This is problematic. Because all believers have a nature as sinners – despite being give a new nature at the new birth – there is no sin we cannot demonstrate, even in extreme propensities. There is no reason to name heinous sins here: suffice it to say all are fair game.

For this reason, God has given us more criteria than profession of faith in Christ by which to direct our acceptance of others, and according to which we can guide our associations. These are found in a few places in Scripture, the most easily understood being in {1st Corinthians 5.|1Cor 5:9-13}

I recall when my dear cousin received the Lord as her Savior. It was quite an ordeal. She was hearing from her neighbor and attending a Bible study in my home, and for some period of time was coming under obvious conviction. As I was, she was raised RC, and she actually was a RCTB deeply into adulthood.

One Thursday night, we lingered after the study, and she made a clear confession of faith in Christ, and that she depended on His finished work for her salvation from sin. I was convinced she possessed eternal life, and told her so. We began to discuss what she was going to do from here on in: would she persist in Romanism, with it’s attendant idolatry, now that she had come to faith in Christ?

She said she would.

I said to her, “Well, this is sort of good news – bad news. Now that you have believed in Christ, I am happy you are my sister in the lord, but said that I can’t have anything to do with yot.” Then I showed her the strictures of {1st Corinthians 5|1Co 5:11}, especially the portion about idolaters, and explained some of the idolatry of the RC system, especailly concerning mariolatry and transubstantiation, the RC claim that Jesus Christ is “really, really” present in the “consecrated” wafer.

I understand idolatry, but not from Christians. How could those who have turned FROM idols continue to turn TO them? It’s inconsistent at best.

We just have to inform believers of the Scriptures, and watch their behavior, to see if the conviction of the word of God as it operates on the new nature in that believer will bring about conformity. If it does not, and we see gross immorality suh as idolatry, we follow what the Scripture tells us to do.

To her credit, she abandoned the idolatry, and conducted an honorable Christian life until her premature death by cancer, where she showed her faith in amazing – even heroic – ways.

“Argumentation” has become more and more of a politically incorrect word as public discourse in our society becomes more and more a thing of the past. Somehow, to publicly disagree, or to posit another point of view in the face of some strongly held though errant opinion, is considered as rude as moaking noises at the dinner table.

And yet, we have the definition of “argument.”

In logic, an argument is an attempt to demonstrate the truth of an assertion called a conclusion, based on the truth of a set of assertions called premises.

The example of the apostle Paul, the prototypical servant of Jesus Christ (Whose apostles ate without performing the politically correct ritual washing), who wrote {the theme verse(s) of our ministry,|Rom 1:15-16} and was widely known as “Saul of Tarsus” a citizen of {“no mean city,”|Acts 21:39-40} was to look for opportunity to engage in argument, especially publicly.

Tarsus was an intellectual and political force in the world in Paul’s day. It was the Roman Provincial Capital of Cilicia, a cultural center, and the intelletual capital of the Stoic philosophy. It was home to the leading Stoic philosophers of the first century, including Athenodorus, Zeno, Antipater, and Nestor.

Not only did Paul achieve intellectual superiority in Tarsus, to become “Saul of Tarsus,” but he also had already visited Mars Hill in Athens, and brought the powerful arguments of the Word of God to those trendy intellectuals there, who had the temerity to call Paul a {“seed picker.”|Acts 17:18}

Rome, however, being the capital of the empire, took arrogance to its zenith. We see this kind of arrogance today in our own large cities, where make believe intellectuals deride those who believe the Bible as inferiors, all the {while closing down the public fora|Rom 1:18} (“hold”=”suppress”) where discussions might take place.

Paul writes emphatically that he has frequently desired to come to Rome to preach the gospel of Christ, about which he is “not ashamed,” because it is God’s dynamite unto salvation To both Jew and Gentile: so powerfully does it move the minds of men.

What he means is this: he is very confident to take on the arrogant intellectuals of Rome because that is {the work of the gospel.|2cor 10:3-5}

Now today’s answer to the arrogance of Rome is still, in part, Rome and Romanism. This is not news. Especially, Jesuit Romanism. From the outset, Jesuit Romanism has set up schools, beginning in Sicily, to elevate the thoughts of man – interestingly forms of Stoic philosophy – above the Scripture. In fact, the whole Roman system of magisterium is a “strong hold” that is to keep the Scripture from the minds of men: a suppression of the truth in unrighteousness.

So, when you try to get me to voluntarily withhold the Scriptures in any forum, forget about it. I disagree to agree.

I’m arguing.

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