Book suggestions

[Judy]

I HIGHLY recommend that you go to Pastor Chuck Smith Website for FREE sound, solid Bible study books and audio. I would also be happy to send you a MP3 Bible that has over 100 messages on it!

Refuge, do you go to a calvery chapel? One of my friends is the mother of Brian Brodersen, who is Chuck's son-in-law. http://www.calvarychapel.com/library/br ... 000000.htm

 

[Refuge]

Indeed! I am a Calvary Chapel attendee. I honestly am so pleased to be a part of Calvary Chapel. I enjoy the balance of the church. And, the fact that Chuck and others offer books and teachings for free. I work with Firefighters for Christ in distributing the free resources. Firefighters has published my testimony of the Lord delivering me from satanism my site

 

[zwergel88]

So that's my humble opinion. Feel free to agree or disagree. I'd love to know what you think. Jill

Hi Jill, I'm glad that you would like to know what others think. I think this is interesting to discuss, however as this is not the apologetics forum I'll try to keep it short. By the way, a post can be broken into small pieces by interting html quote tag thingys around the area to be quoted and deleting the rest. Hope that makes sense. :D

I am a Catholic, and I do disagree with the points you have made. I will try to explain why as best I can.

1. They pray to Mary ~ that's Idolitry (sp?) she's no more capable of healing someone or answering prayers than you or I

It's true that we do pray to Mary, but we are not asking her to heal us or answer our prays etc., we are asking her to pray for us. Because she is close to God, we believe her prayers are very powerful, however, it is no different than asking someone on earth to pray for you.

2. They don't teach about having a personal relationship with God

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by a personal relationship. The Church does emphasize the importance of prayer, and doing God's will in one's life. Also, we recieve Christ, physically present in the Eucharist. I don't see what's more personal than that.

4. Confession ~ A priest is not capable of forgiving sins. Only God can do that. When Jesus died on the cross he took away everyones sins and as long as we are "reborn" of the spirit we are granted Salvation ~ It amazes me that they miss that IMPORTANT fact when reading the Bible

It's interesting that you bring up the Bible, because in the Bible in fact, Jesus does give priests the power to forgive sins. There are many verses that illustrate that, especially John 20:23 when Jesus says "If you forgive the sins of any they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any they are retained"

5. It is so based on ritual ~ ie at Good Friday going through the Stations of the Cross....yes it tells us what happened but in essence they are missing the point of Good Friday completely.

Every ritual has meaning. I love the Stations of the Cross and go every Friday and find very deep meaning and inspiration in it. I'm not really sure how to explain it, but I know that it is much more that just telling what happening, and I definately don't believe that we are missing the point of Good Friday.

Anyway, no doubt you have heard all of these arguments before, however that is just my 2 cents. I'm terrible at trying to explain things so I apologize if it didn't make sense, and also, I am sorry for turing this book discussion thread into and apologetics thread. Any way, maybe we can talk more about this sometime.

Anna 8-)


Also, as this tread was intended to recomend books, I will recomend some of my favorites.

A Story of a Soul : The Autobiography of Saint Therese of Lisieux>>It's an awesome book and tells about how one does not have to do great things to serve God, but how one can do so by endeavoring to do God's will even in the small things in every day life.

The Imitation of Christ: by Tomas a Kempis>>>I haven't finished this one yet, but it basically tell about the ways in which one can serve God in one's life.

Confessions: by Saint Augustine>>>tells about the life of Saint Augustine and how he went from sinfulness to great love of God.

 

[JM]

Mere Christianity.

Stay away from Purpose Driven Life, we as Christians are driven by the Holy Spirit, not a 'purpose.'

 

[txbkldy]

One book that I would suggest is called, "Once A Catholic," by Tony Coffey. "
Former Catholic Tony Coffey reveals how centuries of tradition have formed doctrines in the Catholic Church unknown to Jesus and clearly contradicted in Scripture. Once a Catholic is a sensitive, thoroughly biblical guidebook that presents the clearest and simplest differences between Roman Catholic tradition and the teachings of the Scripture."

I own a Christian bookstore and would recommend this book to anyone coming out of the Catholic faith and anyone who's ministering to someone in the Catholic faith.