LOL, Christianity Today features female contributor who simply ignores the slave language of the New Testament, saying she's no servant

 Human Beings Are Stewards, Not Slaves to God

I’m not merely an inglorious servant to the divine . . .. 

 

She also ignores The Fall in the Christian origin story, which is her topic, and Eve's role in it.

 

What a shock, right?

None is able to serve two lords, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will hold to the one, and despise the other; ye are not able to serve God and Mammon.

 

-- Matthew 6:24

So you too, when you do all the things which were commanded you, say, 'We are unworthy slaves; we have done only that which we ought to have done.'

 

-- Luke 17:10

 

Truly, truly I say to you, a slave is not greater than his master, nor is one who is sent greater than the one who sent him.

 

-- John 13:16

 

No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, because all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.

 

-- John 15:15

 

For am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a slave of Christ.

-- Galatians 1:10

Paul, a slave of Christ Jesus, called as an apostle, having been set apart for the gospel of God.

-- Romans 1:1

For the one who was called in the Lord as a slave, is the Lord's freed person; likewise the one who was called as free, is Christ's slave.

-- I Corinthians 7:22

For though I am free from all people, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I may gain more. 

 

-- I Corinthians 9:19

 

. . . just as you learned it from Epaphras, our beloved fellow slave, who is a faithful servant of Christ on our behalf.

 

-- Colossians 1:7

Tychicus, our beloved brother and faithful servant and fellow slave in the Lord, will make known to you all my affairs.

-- Colossians 4:7

Paul, a slave of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ . . ..

-- Titus 1:1

James, a slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, To the twelve tribes who are in the Dispersion: Greetings.

 -- James 1:1

Jude, a slave of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, To those who are the called, beloved in God the Father, and kept for Jesus Christ:

-- Jude 1:1

And a white robe was given to each of them; and it was told to them that they should rest for a little while longer, until the number of their fellow slaves and their brothers who were to be killed even as they had been, would be completed also.

-- Revelation 6:11

And they sang the song of Moses, the slave of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying . . ..

-- Revelation 15:3

And a voice came from the throne, saying, 'Give praise to our God, all you His slaves, you who fear Him, the small and the great.'

-- Revelation 19:5

Then I fell at his feet to worship him. But he said to me, 'Do not do that! I am a fellow slave with you and your brothers who have the witness of Jesus. Worship God! For the witness of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.'

-- Revelation 19:10

I, John, am the one who was hearing and seeing these things. And when I heard and saw, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed me these things. But he said to me, 'Do not do that! I am a fellow slave with you and your brothers the prophets and with those who keep the words of this book. Worship God!'

-- Revelation 22:8f.

Adventures in Catholic cognitive dissonance: Sainted Pope J2P2 in 2001 gave the red hat to McCarrick, now charged with sex crimes from the '70s

Ex-Cardinal McCarrick charged with sexually assaulting teen

 

Two things are true here.

 

Pope John Paul II indeed made mistakes in these matters. He "covered up" predatory homosexuality in the Roman Catholic Church, and he elevated monsters like McCarrick.

 

Pope Francis, who defrocked McCarrick in 2019, is also out to sully the reputation of the traditionalism and conservatism J2P2 resurrected in the church in response to the liberalism of Vatican II, which Francis supports, most recently shown by his re-imposition of restrictions on the Latin Mass. 

 

The biggest problem for Catholics in our time has been the clash between the sexual revolution and the asceticism required of clergy, which, however, has been a problem since it became required over a thousand years ago.

 

Tradition which ignores the font of it is worthless, and ultimately destructive. The church needs priests who make love to women instead of who fake love with little boys.

 

Do we not have the right to the company of a believing wife, like the other apostles and the Lord's brothers and Cephas?

  

-- I Corinthians 9:5

Imagine how unreliable "eyewitness" accounts from antiquity must be when normal vision not requiring correction is such a rarity anyway

 

 

 

Reported here: 

In 2016, approximately 76 percent of adults in the U.S. stated they wore some form of vision correction.  

Widespread use of eyeglasses is an outgrowth of their late invention, during the Italian Renaissance, with ubiquitous production with plastic lenses dating only from the 1980s. Before that, things looked, well, kind of grim for an overwhelming majority of people.

St. Paul, who probably had very bad eyes from birth, yet boasted that he had seen the Lord.

Am I not an apostle? am I not free? have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord? are not ye my work in the Lord? 

-- 1 Corinthians 9:1

Paul's conversion, however, bespeaks a probably lifelong preoccupation with his poor eyesight. It specifically involves being blinded, and then scales falling from his eyes when he recovers his sight well enough to be considered normal again, and this again miraculously (Acts 9:8f., 18, 27).

But evidently this was not a full restoration of his sight.

According to Acts 23:1ff. Paul still could not spot the high priest in a crowd of people he was addressing. He says the Galatians would have given him their own eyes if they could have (Galatians 4:15), admitting that he is infirm (Galatians 4:13), and that he must write to them using "large letters" (Galatians 6:11). The Galatians knew the man and the truth about the man.

By the time he is dictating Romans, he is now older and his eyes have grown so bad that he requires an assistant to write the epistle. This person even makes an appearance at the end of it in order to explain why the penmanship doesn't match Paul's (I Tertius, the writer of this letter, greet you in the Lord. -- Romans 16:22).

We are to believe Paul was granted a miracle of an appearance of Jesus, but not a complete healing.

Like so much else outside the miracles recounted in the Synoptic tradition performed by the historical Jesus, one cannot help but feel let down by these details involving the achievements of the risen Saviour.

And a post-conversion St. Paul who could not see well enough to recognize the high priest may reasonably be doubted to have been able to recognize Jesus pre-conversion, risen or otherwise.

Isn't that obvious from Paul's own testimony?

Who art thou, Lord? -- Acts 9:5

Who art thou, Lord? -- Acts 22:8

Who art thou, Lord? -- Acts 26:15

The funny thing about Acts 1 is how there are about 120 "disciples" of Jesus after the "ascension", but only 2 are candidates to replace Judas because only they were witnesses to the baptism of John and to the resurrection

And in those days Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples, and said, (the number of names together were about an hundred and twenty,)

-- Acts 1:15

Wherefore of these men which have companied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, Beginning from the baptism of John, unto that same day that he was taken up from us, must one be ordained to be a witness with us of his resurrection. And they appointed two, Joseph called Barsabas, who was surnamed Justus, and Matthias.

-- Acts 1:21ff.

Yet Paul claims Jesus was seen resurrected by more than 500 "brethren":

After that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep. After that, he was seen of James; then of all the apostles.

-- I Corinthians 15:6f.

By the time of Acts 1, the twelve disciples of Jesus have become the (almost) twelve apostles, and the not quite disciple followers of Jesus have now been promoted as it were to full disciples.

But Acts poses far fewer "disciples", now more broadly conceived, than Paul's even more broadly conceived "brethren", who were witnesses to the resurrection.

The key to apostleship according to Acts is NOT simply the terminus ad quem of Paul (And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time -- I Corinthians 15:8), but the terminus a quo involving the ministry of the Baptist AND the terminus ad quem of the resurrection.

This is why Paul's apostleship was considered illegitimate during his lifetime. He was part of the more expansive group associated with the 500, not with the more restrictive group associated with the 120.

The deal breaker was the missing link to John the Baptist.

Him he knew not.

Paul's insistence on the "apostleship" as a gift of the Spirit (I Corinthians 12:28) is an expansive interpretation based on his own ecstatic conversion experience, which in the final analysis is the basis for his gospel and his claim to be an apostle. Everything about it hangs on his claim to have experienced "seeing" the Lord, simply the "back end" of the deal. It has absolutely nothing to do with seeing the historical Jesus from the time of Jesus' baptism at the hands of the Baptist right on through all the events to the end and witnessing his actual resurrection. Which, in fact, he utterly eschews.

Am I not an apostle? am I not free? have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord? are not ye my work in the Lord?

-- I Corinthians 9:1

Paul an apostle--not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead. But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.

-- Galatians 1:1, 11f.

Christianity as we know it today is based entirely on this, and it is sinking sand.

Former Protestant and convert to Catholicism advocates clerical celibacy while completely ignoring that Peter and the apostles all were married

One John Bergsma, here, professor of theology at Franciscan University of Steubenville, OH, omitting from his discussion this:

Do we not have the right to be accompanied by a wife, as the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas?

-- I Corinthians 9:5;

And this:

CANON 21 of the First Council of the Lateran, Rome, A.D. 1122-1123, which is so emphatic against clerical marriage because it was still so common:

We absolutely forbid priests, deacons, subdeacons, and monks to have concubines or to contract marriage. We decree in accordance with the definitions of the sacred canons, that marriages already contracted by such persons must be dissolved, and that the persons be condemned to do penance.