Stay tuned for the next few weeks because Mr. Martignoni, of the Bible Christian Society, knows his stuff and can explain the Truth to anyone with an open mind and an open heart.
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Okay,
here's the background story for this week's newsletter - and the
newsletters for the next few weeks as well. As many of you know, I
have a Facebook page - John Martignoni and the Bible Christian
Society (if you haven't joined, please do so - lots of good
discussions on there). Well, this guy, Tony Thorne, from somewhere
in Maine, who has a degree in biblical studies of some sort from
Evangel University (Assemblies of God denomination), apparently
joined the FB group thinking, "Cool, a society of Bible
Christians." Well, he eventually realized that the Bible
Christian Society is basically a Catholic group, so he posted - his
one and only post up to that time - with something along the lines
of: "I am so sorry I joined this group of people who are in a
satanic cult that hates the Word of God and worships Mary before
Jesus." I don't have his actual words because he eventually
deleted his post (as I'll explain in a minute).
Anyway,
a number of folks engaged with him over his not-so-nice remarks about
Catholics and the Catholic Church. I joined in by telling him that
if he truly cared about representing Christ to a bunch of lost souls
- you know, us Catholics - that he was going about it all wrong. I
then challenged him that if he was truly a disciple of Christ, and
was truly interested in witnessing about Christ to others, that I had
3 simple questions that I would like to ask him to help me discern as
to whether or not he was truly a disciple of Christ. After all, the
Bible tells us to "test the spirits." So I tested him.
Those questions were:
1)
For a Christian, what is the pillar and ground of truth...is it the
Bible?
2)
Is the Gospel of Mark inspired by God and, if so, by what authority
do you claim it to be so...is it the Bible?
3)
Are you infallible in your interpretation of the Bible?
These
apparently piqued his interest and he began to engage with me by
giving answers to the questions. At first, he didn't answer #1.
But, I pushed him on it and eventually he did answer. And he got it
wrong. He said that, "Yes," the Bible is the pillar and
ground of the truth for the Christian. When I pointed out to him
that the Bible says the Church is the pillar and ground of the truth,
he didn't much like it and talked all around it - he had this big
explanation about what the Greek word "ecclesia" means and
that you need a degree in biblical studies to understand such things
and so on.
He
answered the 2nd question by saying that, "Yes," the Gospel
of Mark is inspired Scripture, but he never could tell me how he
knows that, other than to say that it's in the Bible, so it is
inspired. He was either unable, or unwilling, to comprehend my
questions as to how he knows it's inspired. I asked him flat out,
"Since the Bible doesn't specifically state that the Gospel of
Mark is inspired, and you go by the Bible alone for all that pertains
to Christianity, then how do you know Mark is inspired Scripture?
Who told you?" The whole time he kept answering as if he
thought I was making the argument that Mark wasn't inspired. In
other words, he never got the point of the question.
The
third question he answered correctly - "No," he is not
infallible in his interpretation of the Bible. When I then pointed
out to him that that meant he could be misunderstanding and
misinterpreting any or all passages of the Bible, since he relied on
his own private interpretations for his doctrinal beliefs - he again
either could not, or would not, understand what it was I was saying.
No, he wasn't wrong in his interpretations as he knew the Greek words
behind the English and he had a degree in biblical studies. And,
besides, the Holy Spirit helps Christians interpret the Bible. Not
realizing at all the problems inherent in the belief that the
infallibleHoly Spirit guides him in his fallibleinterpretations of
the Bible.
So,
we went a few rounds, and each time he responded he called me more
names and his tone just got meaner and nastier. Finally, he deleted
his original post and with it went all of the comments - which is why
I don't have his actual words for all of that. It never occurred to
me that he would come back and delete everything, so I didn't copy
any of it. He did message me, though, and said that this was the
first time he had ever debated someone and that he felt as if he had
done a poor job of it - both in tone and in substance. An apology of
sorts.
His
"apology" encouraged me, so I set out to see if I could get
him to re-engage. That is where this newsletter starts. Having
learned my lesson about how if the original post is deleted all
subsequent posts are deleted, I copied all of the dialogue from there
on. I will be going through that dialogue in the coming weeks. In
his original answers to my 3 questions above, he had gone through a
litany of things that the Catholic Church was wrong about - one of
them being the sinlessness of Mary, about which he made a big deal.
So, in an effort to re-engage him, I started there, with the intent
to come back to authority and the original three questions. This
newsletter picks up the dialogue there:
Challenge/Response/Strategy
Tony
Thorne:
You
will be accountable for your false teaching John.
John
Martignoni:
And
you will be accountable for yours, Tony. So, are you open to an
honest and forthright discussion about Catholicism, your faith, and
the Bible? You will be putting material out there for several
thousand Catholics to see and your posts will not be edited.
What
if I told you that I would offer you arguments, using the Bible, that
Mary was without sin? If you are up to it, here is the first argument
that I offer that Mary was sinless:
1)
Nowhere does the Bible say that Mary committed a sin.
What
is your response to that?
In
Christ,
John
Strategy
First
and foremost, I never let anyone remind me about my being held
accountable for my "false teachings," without reminding
them that they will be held accountable for theirs. The thing is,
though, that my teachings are not my own, they are the Church's - the
Church founded by Jesus Christ and guided by the Holy Spirit. Tony's
teachings, however, are indeed his own. And remember, he has
admitted that he is not infallible, which essentially means that he
more than likely is putting at least some false teachings out there.
I also am not infallible, which is why I do not rely on my own
teachings, but on the teachings of the infallible Church founded by
Jesus Christ.
I
use this first "scriptural" argument to state that the
Bible nowhere says, "Mary sinned." Nowhere. So, if you
want to use the Bible to say that Mary did indeed sin, it would be,
at best, an indirect argument from Scripture.
Tony
Thorne:
Yes,
it does. Romans 3:23
John
Martignoni :
Excellent!
That is exactly what I knew you would say. So then, it is your
contention that when the Bible says, "since all have sinned and
fall short of the glory of God," (Rom 3:23), that means
absolutely every person who has ever lived, no exception, has sinned.
Which means Mary had to have sinned, correct?
Strategy
Romans
3:23 is, without exception, the very first verse, and usuallly the
only verse, that folks point to when they attempt to scripturally
"prove" that Mary was not immaculately conceived and that
she did indeed commit sin during her life. That is why I made that
first argument about Mary's sinlessness so general, because I knew he
would respond by going straight to Rom 3:23. If you can overcome the
argument from Rom 3:23, you have put a big chink in the anti-sinless
argument. The first step in making my argument is to make sure that
I get him on record as saying that his interpretation of Rom 3:23
means that " absolutelyevery person who has ever lived, no
exception, has sinned." You'll see why this is important as we
go through this.
Tony
Thorne:
Yes
sir, Jesus is the only exception.
John
Martignoni:
Excellent
reply! So, the word "all" means every person who has ever
lived, no exception - except for Jesus. Now, in an earlier post [one
of the posts that was deleted], I asked you if you were "seeking
God." You said you were. Well, that is contrary to the Bible, at
least, according to your interpretation of the Bible, because in
Romans 3:11, it states the following: "No one seeks for God."
If "all have sinned" means that everyone, without human
exception, has sinned, then "No one seeks for God," means
that no one, without human exception, seeks for God. Yet, you say
that you do seek for God. Which means one of the following must be
true: 1) You were wrong and you do not seek for God in your life; or
2) You think the Bible is wrong when it says "No one seeks for
God." Which is it? Are you not seeking for God in your life, or
do you believe the Bible is wrong when it says "No one"
seeks for God?
Strategy
First
of all, please note that while Tony made an exception in regard to
Rom 3:23 not referring to Jesus, nowhere does the text of Rom 3:23
actually make that exception. And, again, nowhere does Rom 3:23
specifically mention Mary as having sinned. Tony added that to the
Bible. Other than that one exception for Jesus, though, he agrees
that Rom 3:23 means "absolutely" every person who has ever
lived has sinned. Well, if "all" is taken as an absolute,
then when the Bible says "no one" a few verses earlier,
that must also be taken as an absolute in order to be consistent in
our interpretation. In an earlier post I had asked Tony if he was
"seeking God." How do you think every Christian on Earth
is going to answer? "Yes, of course I'm seeking God." So,
I filed that answer away in anticipation of this particular argument
taking place.
So,
my next step here was to point out to him that the Bible says "no
one" is seeking for God, but that he said he was indeed seeking
for God. So, by his methodology of interpretation, either the Bible
is wrong or he is wrong. It has to be one or the other.
Tony
Thorne:
I
believe what that verse means in context as Paul was exerting in v10
that none are righteous, none understand. When you look up the greek
word for seek, ( zetéo) you will find in its semantic range, the
meaning, get to the bottom of. "But it was to us that God
revealed these things by his Spirit." For his Spirit searches
out everything and shows us God's deep secrets.(1 cor 2:10) then
stretching across scripture (that never contradicts as we
contexualize) we come to Jerimiah 29:13 "You will seek me and
find me when you seek me with all your heart". Then contextual
staying with the theme of the Bible, we come to Mathew 7:7 "Ask
and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the
door will be opened to you. So, it seems my interpretation is in line
at this point. In theology, we call it topicalizing when you exhort
scripture noncontextually to prove a point, as you have attempted to
do in your previous post? Back to 3:11 In context, this verse implies
that man is unable to comprehend the truth of God or grasp his
standard of rightuessness. sadly his spiritual ignorance does not
result from a lack of opertunity, but is an expression of his
depravity and rebellion.
As
you have been shown, the Bible does tell us to seek God. Its very
important to keep things in context John. Could you please now answer
the question as to what makes you think mary never sinned? Please,
direct answer would be valued.
John
Martignoni:
I
am going to let you guys chew on his response for a week. Your
homework is to think about how you would respond to what he said. No
need to send your thoughts to me, just think about it and maybe write
down a few points you would make, and when I publish my response next
week, you can compare and contrast it with your response. If you're
like me, though, when you first read his response, your first thought
was, "Huh?"
If
this newsletter was forwarded to you by a friend, and you would like
to be added to our distribution list, all you have to do is go to
http://www.biblechristiansociety.com/newsletter and put your email
address in the box at the top of the page. Either way, it will take
you about 10 seconds.
If this newsletter was forwarded to you by a friend, and you would like to be added to our distribution list, all you have to do is go to http://www.biblechristiansociety.com/newsletter and put your email address in the box at the top of the page. Either way, it will take you about 10 seconds.
TheChurchMilitant: Sometimes anti-social, but always anti-fascist since 2005.
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