BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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Do ya'll understand Hebrews 13?

Paul is contrasting what we (Christians) eat at the altar, versus what the Jews eat at the tabernacle.

The Old Covenant priests ate from animal sacrifices at the tabernacle, that's the plain meaning of verses 10-11. Then verse 10 says "we have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat."

Then verse 15 says to "offer up a sacrifice of praise." The word there is eucharistia. It's not just "say thanks." In this context, surrounded by altar, sacrifice, blood, and priesthood language, it's ritual offering vocabulary. Paul isn't randomly switching from physical categories to a purely mental one mid-paragraph. He's naming the new sacrifice that replaces the old one.

The whole passage only makes sense as priesthood-to-priesthood, altar-to-altar, sacrifice-to-sacrifice, eating-to-eating. If the Christian side of that comparison is just an inward feeling of gratitude, the contrast falls apart and doesn't make sense, because you'd be comparing a real, physical, exclusionary system to something anyone can do regardless of church membership. That's not what the text sets up. It sets up two competing systems, and says ours is better and still ours to eat from.

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Apparently, you do not understand Hebrews 13 at all.

NOTHING in Hebrews 13 says that the communion bread and wine are the "Real Presence" of Jesus, or that communion/the Eucharist is the replacement "ceremony" for the church that is the necessary means for us to receive some kind of grace. Where it says "those who serve the tent (Old Covenant Jews who still perform animal sacrifices) have no right to eat", the "eating" there is not literal. He's making the point that the New Covenant involves a higher form of "eating" that the Old Covenant Jews rejected. The "eating" isn't physical. This is made obvious by reading the verse immediately prior:

"... for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods, which have not benefited those devoted to them."

The author clearly is setting up the meaning of "eating" in the following verse in the mind of the reader to convey something higher and more significant than the physical ingestion of food.

Verse 15, which you reference, perfectly illustrates how the author is elevating the concepts of "eating" and "sacrifice" to go BEYOND, not be identical to, their meaning in the Old Covenant way:

"Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God."

It's really odd how you can read a verse thinking it makes your argument, when it completely destroys it. Clearly, this verse is saying that the "Eucharist" is NOT a sacrifice that involves the real, actual re-presentation of Jesus' sacrifice that is performed on an physical altar by human priests - but rather a "sacrifice" that comes from the heart of the believer in the form of thanksgiving, praise, obedience, and love for others. The very verse you offered as support for your view completely destroys it and fully supports the Protestant view instead.

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Here is the outline: don't slide back into ceremonial food law (v.9), we have a real altar you don't have access to (v.10), pointing to Christ's sacrifice outside the camp (v.11-13), and because of that we also offer praise and good works (v.15-16). That's addition, not swap. You've got cause and effect flipped, treating our response to the altar as if it erases the altar.

You've got the logic backwards. Verse 9's "foods" isn't saying eating in general is now some metaphor, it's talking about Jewish food laws, same thing Hebrews 9:10 already covers, "foods and drinks and various washings." It's saying don't get sucked back into Mosaic dietary rules, not "eating doesn't mean eating anymore."

Then verse 10 switches to a totally different image: an altar. "We have an altar those who serve the tent have no right to eat from." That keeps going with real priestly language, actual animals, actual blood, an actual high priest, burned outside the camp. The whole passage is set up as a parallel, their altar and eating vs. our altar and eating. If you want "eat" to suddenly mean something non-physical only on our side, you have to show me that in the text. You're just asserting it and it doesn't make any sense.

And verse 15 doesn't redefine verse 10, it adds to it. Nothing says "sacrifice of praise" replaces the altar. It's an extra exhortation, right next to verse 16's " do good and share." Those are the fruits that come from having the altar, not a reinterpretation that cancels it out. You're treating two separate things, the altar-eating in v.10 and the praise sacrifice in v.15, like the second one swallows the first. Hebrews never says that.

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You're looking at this passage with confirmation bias through your Orthodox lens, so you're reading it as a prescription for the New Covenant church to have the same system of temples, priests, altars, sacrifices, and the physical eating of the sacrifice that was characteristic of the Old Covenant. But this is completely missing the point the author is making, and is in fact going backwards from what the author intended. That old system is obsolete. There is NO MORE SACRIFICE. Jesus' sacrifice on the cross was the finished, once-for-all-time sacrifice for all sins, past, present and future. It completely eliminates the need for any further sacrifice."It is finished". Similarly, there is no more temple, because God now resides in the hearts of believers. There is no more organizational priesthood, because Jesus is now our one, true Priest who intercedes for us directly with God, and we are the "priesthood of believers". There is no more sacrificial "altar" to atone for our sins, because the final sacrifice has already been made. And there is no more literal, physical eating of the sacrifice - the "eating" is what we do when we, by believing in Jesus, gain spiritual sustenance leading to eternal life, which is superior to physical eating, which only gives us physical sustenance towards physical, temporal life. The point of Hebrews was to show that the New Covenant is made superior to the Old - the Old was only a type, a shadow of what was to come. The "altar" and "eating" language the author uses in this chapter in reference to the New Covenant is describing a new, higher, spiritual reality that is superior to the Old. The author is NOT making a one-to-one comparison with the Old Covenant to where the "eating" in the New is the same physical eating as in the Old, but rather a new, spiritual form of it.

Therefore, there is no need whatsoever for the communion bread and wine to contain the presence of Jesus in some "real" way in order for the communion "sacrifice" to be an actual, efficacious sacrifice. The efficacious sacrifice has already been completed. Jesus does not have to be "present" within the bread and wine of communion - he was present at the cross and that is all that was needed. The "Real Presence" of Jesus" in a repeated ceremonial sacrifice is a pure redundancy. And what's infinitely worse, it's actually a rejection of the finished work of Jesus on the cross. And this is what Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy formalize as dogma, a requirement for salvation. Absolutely incredible, and disgusting.

The fact that the author of Hebrews only tells us that the "eucharist" is a "sacrifice of praise"... never once mentioning anything about the sacrifice involving a kind of "real" presence within the communion bread and wine... is illustrative of all of this, and it completely invalidates your view. You're really reading HEAVILY your Orthodox theology into this passage, and your reasoning above is completely forced.

And it needs to be restated, that nowhere, not in Hebrews or anywhere else in Scripture are we told that if a believer takes communion as a symbol/memorial rather than as a "Real Presence", that there is any kind of loss for that believer, let alone salvation itself. A fact made evident by your complete failure to tell us what it is exactly that the believer misses out on. The Roman Catholics fail to do the same. Which reminds me to ask you again: if you really believe that Hebrews 13 and John 6 are telling you that "eating the sacrifice" is to be done in the same manner as in the Old Covenant.... then why aren't you holding to the Roman Catholic view?

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This might be borderline plausible if you just picked up a Bible and started reading it with absolutely no context. That's the problem, though. You can't interpret the Scripture without an understanding of historical Christian belief and practice (or "bias," as you call it).

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Translation: "You can't come to our (Roman Catholic) conclusion unless you hold our hand-picked church fathers as equal in authority to the Scriptures."

Historical Christianity needs to be viewed in context of Scripture, NOT the other way around. Historical Christianity involves fallible men trying to interpret and follow the infallible Word of God. And which history should we use as context to interpret Scripture? Church history was varied in opinion on many things, the nature of the Eucharist being a prime example. I can claim continuity with the early church for everything I've said, just as much as you say you can.

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No one holds the Church Fathers as equal in authority to the Scriptures. They are simply evidence of what the Scriptures meant to the early church. You reject them because they're fallible, then turn around and substitute your own fallible interpretation for theirs. You can't have it both ways.

As for your claim of continuity, it can't be taken seriously based on your quirky reading of an isolated quotation or two. As Doc demonstrated, and as most scholars would agree, the evidence for the Catholic view is overwhelming.

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You: "No one hold the church fathers as equal in authority to the Scriptures" - thank you for finally agreeing with sola scriptura.

No one is "rejecting" the church fathers. They are invaluable windows into the thinking of the early church and are important to read and study. But, being fallible, what they say must always be weighed against the standard of Scripture. You get this backwards, when you say that we must weigh Scripture against what the church fathers said, as you did above.

I have already proven that the evidence from the early church DOES NOT in any way support the Roman Catholic view of transubstantiation. You're simply in denial of accurate church history. At this point you're just repeating already defeated points like a broken record and trying to dismiss any church history that doesn't line up with what your church brainwashed you with by labeling them "quirky readings of isolated comments". You just don't want to be intellectually dishonest. Watching you and other Catholics go into complete denial over Augustine's words was something to behold. It convinced me that you Roman Catholics are completely mind-trapped.

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We certainly have different methods of interpretation. We Catholics read all of Augustine's words in order to understand his views and how they relate to the Church that canonized him as a saint. You latch on to a single, subjectively interpreted phrase and defend your foregone conclusion to the death. We'll have to disagree as to which one is the trap.

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You Roman Catholics read your views into the words of the church fathers. And even when those words are directly contradictory. It truly is one of the most bizzarre things ever to behold. It's made even worse by your ridiculous attempt to gaslight about the debate after the fact, blatantly mischaracterizing my argument as "latching onto a single subjectively interpreted phrase" when I gave you full passages in their entire context, and in which the meaning was quite clear. The only ones ignoring those entire passages to "latch on to" certain phrases isolated from their context, was you Catholics. Your accusing the other side of doing exactly what you were doing, is just more of the same gaslighting coming from your side.

Whether it be about the canon of Scripture, sola scriptura, sola fide, icon veneration, Mary, etc., you guys outright REFUSE to be honest about church history. It appears that gaslighting is really the only recourse you have to keep your church and its beliefs viable.

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The Fathers absolutely differed in the metaphors and philosophical language they used to explain how the transformation happens (transmutation, transelementation, mystery, figure, sign etc.). But they were unanimous on what the Eucharist is: the real, objective, life-giving Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.

The early Protestant Reformers themselves would be horrified by your stance. Martin Luther explicitly condemned the "purely symbolic" view, calling Ulrich Zwingli's memorialism a dangerous error. Luther famously slammed his fist on the table at the Marburg Colloquy and insisted on Hoc est corpus meum ("This is my body"). John Calvin likewise rejected the idea that communion was a mere metaphor, teaching a real spiritual participation in the literal Body and Blood.

The irony of your position is staggering: you treat the 16th century "Five Solas" as untouchable, dogmatic truth, yet you completely throw out what those exact same Reformers explicitly believed about the Eucharist. By picking and choosing, you aren't being faithful to Scripture, to the Church Fathers, or even to the Protestant Reformers. You're adhering to a late-stage, 20th-century American fundamentalist view that squeezed out the Sacraments just to be anti-Catholic/anti-Orthodox.

Your entire argument isn't grounded in historical theology, it's driven by a reactionary anti-Catholic and anti-Orthodox lens. In fact, your theology literally is Anti Catholic/Orthodoxy. That's why you're the only one here that's tripping out and attempting to character assassinate anyone who doesn't agree with you.

pic.twitter.com/pcJjoPx2gI

— Fr. Michael Lillie (@FrLillie) July 28, 2026

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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BUDOS said:

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Your reply to me, and in many others, appears to confirm the definition of religious narcissism. It figures.
It also points to something you be able to answer: When was the last time you were wrong, admitted it, and apologized? If that is too difficult, how about one out of three?

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Standing up for the truth and firmly holding people to sound facts, reason, and logic is not narcissism. It isn't at all surprising that you don't have this discernment, but instead believe it is something that must be antagonized and impeded.

The only narcissism here is coming from you and your insistence that the nature of the discussion fall in line within your sensibilities and preferences for a version of Christianity that has no real conviction for the truth, while assigning personality disorders from your high chair to those who dare to go beyond your bounds, where real Christianity is supposed to go.

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BTD,
As in your previous response, your own words present further proof, not to my opinion that you are a religious narcissist, but to its definition and characteristics. Apparently, you may not be aware of how much (not all) of your behavior fits, so let me copy/paste some info from outside sources, for your benefit:

A religious narcissist is not just someone who is simply devout, enthusiastic or knowledgeable about their faith. It's a person who uses religion as a tool to elevate themselves, control others, and/or protect their ego. Their faith becomes a stage on which they perform, not necessarily a path they genuinely follow.
Core Traits of a Religious Narcissist

• Self-centered spirituality Their religious life revolves around their importance, their holiness, their calling. God, at times, almost becomes a mirror reflecting their greatness.
• Authority without accountability They claim, directly or indirectly, spiritual authority but resist correction, oversight, or humility. They may quote Scripture to justify their actions but usually ignore Scripture that challenges them.
• Moral exceptionalism They believe rules apply to others, not to them. In their minds, their "special relationship with God" becomes an excuse for hypocrisy.
• Weaponized religion They use religious language to shame, manipulate, or control others. Scripture becomes ammunition rather than guidance.
• Persecution narrative Any challenge to their behavior is framed as "spiritual attack," "jealousy," or "people opposing God's anointed."

Spiritual gaslighting is another technique "If you were more faithful, you'd agree with me."

• Lack of empathy they struggle to care about others' needs unless it benefits their image.

Scripture describes patterns similar to religious narcissism:

• Pharisees who loved public honor and used religion to elevate themselves
• False teachers who exploited believers for personal gain
• Leaders who "lord it over" others rather than serving.

These examples show that religious narcissism is not new; it's a recurring human temptation.
Religious narcissists can damage churches and families, create spiritual confusion, and undermine genuine faith. Understanding the pattern helps people recognize unhealthy dynamics and seek healthier spiritual environments, avoiding the toxic environment religious narcissists create and may even relish.

A contributing factor to creating such a toxic environment is that a religious narcissist reacts very differently from a normal, healthy believer when someone challenges their interpretation of a Bible verse. The issue is not the verse it's the threat to their ego. Their reactions follow predictable patterns because the challenge threatens their selfimage as spiritually superior, uniquely insightful, or divinely favored.

They respond as if you attacked them, not the interpretation.

• "You're misunderstanding me."
• "You're twisting my words."
• "You're being disrespectful."

The conversation shifts from Scripture to protecting their ego. They often elevate their interpretation to divine status: "If you were more spiritually mature, you'd see it." This is meant to intimidate, not clarify. Your disagreement becomes a sign of your supposed spiritual inferiority.

They often reframe the challenge as sin, shifting the issue from interpretation to morality.

• "You're being rebellious."
• "You're sowing discord."
• "Your attitude isn't Christlike."

This turns your question into a character flaw.
They try to make you doubt your own reasoning.

• "That's not what I said."
• "You're reading too much into it."
• "You're being emotional."

Their goal is often to destabilize your confidence.

When challenged, they often portray themselves as spiritually attacked, which casts you as the persecutor and them as the martyr. If you persist:

• They may become angry, condescending, or sarcastic.
• Or they may shut down, withdraw, and punish you with silence.

Your challenge becomes a threat that must be neutralized, so they work to reassert control and minimize your contribution. They frame disagreement as your deficiency. They turn correction into insubordination.

A religious narcissist's identity is built on:

• being the most knowledgeable
• being the most discerning
• and often believe they are spiritually superior
• and even believe they are uniquely chosen.

A challenge threatens that identity. So they defend the self, not the Scripture.

A religious narcissist's goal is to pull you into an emotional or authority-based battle. Your goal is to stay rooted in truth. A religious narcissist must win. If you try to win, you've already lost the spiritual battle. Narcissists push until they meet a boundary. A boundary is not rudeit's biblical. Boundary examples:

• "I'm not comfortable with conversations where motives are questioned."
• "I won't continue if the discussion becomes personal."
• "Let's pause this and revisit it later."

Boundaries protect your peace and prevent spiritual manipulation, as they often fail to respect your walk with God, unwilling to recognize that all interpretations must be tested by Scripture, not personal revelation." This keeps authority where it belongsGod's Word.

A religious narcissist is not going to change, period. Only God can. Should one choose to interact with one, it is vital to stay faithful, stay grounded, stay healthy, and to stay biblical. Let me know if there is a specific point you would like to make. Just remember, he is always righteven when he is not.

I keep seeing free grace theology growing and expanding online. Even Luther had concerns about this type of mindset and it seems to be catching on.

Sola fide shouldn't give you a license to not care or not cooperate with God about your own sinful behavior. Luther coined the term antinomian to deal with this, but when John Calvin himself strongly insisted that true faith always results in a changed life and moral effort, the hyper-logical structure of high Calvinism laid the groundwork for this issue. This exact tension caused massive rifts in church history:

• When Jacobus Arminius (and later John Wesley) broke away from strict Calvinist scholasticism, their biggest critique was precisely what I'm pointing out: they argued that extreme monergism turns humans into passive robots and makes God responsible for human sin.

• Arminians advocated for synergism, the idea that while God initiates salvation by grace, humans must actively respond, yield, and cooperate with that grace using their God-given will. Wesley famously argued that without this human cooperation, grace becomes a farce that excuses holy living.

When sola fide is stretched to mean that any exertion of the human will is "works-righteousness," it stops being about grace and becomes a form of fatalism. Under that framework, moral responsibility evaporates: if God unilaterally controls every motion of the will, then sin is just a divine choice to withhold grace in that moment, and trying to resist it is viewed as a lack of faith.

This isn't a strawman:
During the English Civil War, a radical sect known as the Ranters pushed the idea of total divine grace into full-blown moral lawlessness. They engaged in public swearing, drunkenness, and adultery specifically to "prove" that their consciences were so liberated by grace that they no longer viewed those actions as evil. In 18th-century England, certain theologians (like Tobias Crisp and later John Gill) took the doctrine of predestination to a severe extreme. They held that the "elect" were justified from all eternity, meaning God never saw sin in them at any point, past, present, or future.

I see it coming back today. Proponents of calvinism and extreme "Free Grace" theology argue that if a person makes a single decision to believe in Jesus, they are permanently saved, even if they later completely abandon the faith, become an atheist, or live a life of unchecked immorality. They argue that requiring a believer to repent or turn away from sin as a part of their Christian walk was adding "works" to the Gospel.

Doc Holliday said:

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I keep seeing free grace theology growing and expanding online. Even Luther had concerns about this type of mindset and it seems to be catching on.

Sola fide shouldn't give you a license to not care or not cooperate with God about your own sinful behavior. Luther coined the term antinomian to deal with this, but when John Calvin himself strongly insisted that true faith always results in a changed life and moral effort, the hyper-logical structure of high Calvinism laid the groundwork for this issue. This exact tension caused massive rifts in church history:

• When Jacobus Arminius (and later John Wesley) broke away from strict Calvinist scholasticism, their biggest critique was precisely what I'm pointing out: they argued that extreme monergism turns humans into passive robots and makes God responsible for human sin.

• Arminians advocated for synergism, the idea that while God initiates salvation by grace, humans must actively respond, yield, and cooperate with that grace using their God-given will. Wesley famously argued that without this human cooperation, grace becomes a farce that excuses holy living.

When sola fide is stretched to mean that any exertion of the human will is "works-righteousness," it stops being about grace and becomes a form of fatalism. Under that framework, moral responsibility evaporates: if God unilaterally controls every motion of the will, then sin is just a divine choice to withhold grace in that moment, and trying to resist it is viewed as a lack of faith.

This isn't a strawman:
During the English Civil War, a radical sect known as the Ranters pushed the idea of total divine grace into full-blown moral lawlessness. They engaged in public swearing, drunkenness, and adultery specifically to "prove" that their consciences were so liberated by grace that they no longer viewed those actions as evil. In 18th-century England, certain theologians (like Tobias Crisp and later John Gill) took the doctrine of predestination to a severe extreme. They held that the "elect" were justified from all eternity, meaning God never saw sin in them at any point, past, present, or future.

I see it coming back today. Proponents of calvinism and extreme "Free Grace" theology argue that if a person makes a single decision to believe in Jesus, they are permanently saved, even if they later completely abandon the faith, become an atheist, or live a life of unchecked immorality. They argue that requiring a believer to repent or turn away from sin as a part of their Christian walk was adding "works" to the Gospel.

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Your last paragraph reminds me that Paul consistently emphasizes the following:

• Backsliding is real believers can drift, fall, or turn back.
• Restoration is possible the goal is always redemption, not rejection.
• Community matters mature believers help restore the fallen.
• Watchfulness is essential no one is immune to spiritual decline.

One of our readings at mass a couple of weeks ago sums it up for me:

"But though you are master of might, you judge with clemency, and with much lenience you govern us; for power, whenever you will, attends you. You taught your people, by these deeds, that those who are righteous must be kind; And you gave your children reason to hope that you would permit them to repent for their sins." (Wisdom 12:18-19)

Repentance leading to salvation is a hope, not an entitlement. The idea that it's a way of earning salvation assumes we're doing God a favor by repenting. That's looking at it backwards. Repentance doesn't buy grace. Nothing can do that. It's grace that buys us the opportunity to repent.

BUDOS said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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I keep seeing free grace theology growing and expanding online. Even Luther had concerns about this type of mindset and it seems to be catching on.

Sola fide shouldn't give you a license to not care or not cooperate with God about your own sinful behavior. Luther coined the term antinomian to deal with this, but when John Calvin himself strongly insisted that true faith always results in a changed life and moral effort, the hyper-logical structure of high Calvinism laid the groundwork for this issue. This exact tension caused massive rifts in church history:

• When Jacobus Arminius (and later John Wesley) broke away from strict Calvinist scholasticism, their biggest critique was precisely what I'm pointing out: they argued that extreme monergism turns humans into passive robots and makes God responsible for human sin.

• Arminians advocated for synergism, the idea that while God initiates salvation by grace, humans must actively respond, yield, and cooperate with that grace using their God-given will. Wesley famously argued that without this human cooperation, grace becomes a farce that excuses holy living.

When sola fide is stretched to mean that any exertion of the human will is "works-righteousness," it stops being about grace and becomes a form of fatalism. Under that framework, moral responsibility evaporates: if God unilaterally controls every motion of the will, then sin is just a divine choice to withhold grace in that moment, and trying to resist it is viewed as a lack of faith.

This isn't a strawman:
During the English Civil War, a radical sect known as the Ranters pushed the idea of total divine grace into full-blown moral lawlessness. They engaged in public swearing, drunkenness, and adultery specifically to "prove" that their consciences were so liberated by grace that they no longer viewed those actions as evil. In 18th-century England, certain theologians (like Tobias Crisp and later John Gill) took the doctrine of predestination to a severe extreme. They held that the "elect" were justified from all eternity, meaning God never saw sin in them at any point, past, present, or future.

I see it coming back today. Proponents of calvinism and extreme "Free Grace" theology argue that if a person makes a single decision to believe in Jesus, they are permanently saved, even if they later completely abandon the faith, become an atheist, or live a life of unchecked immorality. They argue that requiring a believer to repent or turn away from sin as a part of their Christian walk was adding "works" to the Gospel.

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Your last paragraph reminds me that Paul consistently emphasizes the following:

• Backsliding is real believers can drift, fall, or turn back.
• Restoration is possible the goal is always redemption, not rejection.
• Community matters mature believers help restore the fallen.
• Watchfulness is essential no one is immune to spiritual decline.

---

Well said

If this wasn't true, we'd have to claim apostasy isn't possible and all the warnings about it that you mentioned would be hollow and pointless

BUDOS said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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BUDOS said:

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Your reply to me, and in many others, appears to confirm the definition of religious narcissism. It figures.
It also points to something you be able to answer: When was the last time you were wrong, admitted it, and apologized? If that is too difficult, how about one out of three?

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Standing up for the truth and firmly holding people to sound facts, reason, and logic is not narcissism. It isn't at all surprising that you don't have this discernment, but instead believe it is something that must be antagonized and impeded.

The only narcissism here is coming from you and your insistence that the nature of the discussion fall in line within your sensibilities and preferences for a version of Christianity that has no real conviction for the truth, while assigning personality disorders from your high chair to those who dare to go beyond your bounds, where real Christianity is supposed to go.

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BTD,
As in your previous response, your own words present further proof, not to my opinion that you are a religious narcissist, but to its definition and characteristics. Apparently, you may not be aware of how much (not all) of your behavior fits, so let me copy/paste some info from outside sources, for your benefit:

A religious narcissist is not just someone who is simply devout, enthusiastic or knowledgeable about their faith. It's a person who uses religion as a tool to elevate themselves, control others, and/or protect their ego. Their faith becomes a stage on which they perform, not necessarily a path they genuinely follow.
Core Traits of a Religious Narcissist

• Self-centered spirituality Their religious life revolves around their importance, their holiness, their calling. God, at times, almost becomes a mirror reflecting their greatness.
• Authority without accountability They claim, directly or indirectly, spiritual authority but resist correction, oversight, or humility. They may quote Scripture to justify their actions but usually ignore Scripture that challenges them.
• Moral exceptionalism They believe rules apply to others, not to them. In their minds, their "special relationship with God" becomes an excuse for hypocrisy.
• Weaponized religion They use religious language to shame, manipulate, or control others. Scripture becomes ammunition rather than guidance.
• Persecution narrative Any challenge to their behavior is framed as "spiritual attack," "jealousy," or "people opposing God's anointed."

Spiritual gaslighting is another technique "If you were more faithful, you'd agree with me."

• Lack of empathy they struggle to care about others' needs unless it benefits their image.

Scripture describes patterns similar to religious narcissism:

• Pharisees who loved public honor and used religion to elevate themselves
• False teachers who exploited believers for personal gain
• Leaders who "lord it over" others rather than serving.

These examples show that religious narcissism is not new; it's a recurring human temptation.
Religious narcissists can damage churches and families, create spiritual confusion, and undermine genuine faith. Understanding the pattern helps people recognize unhealthy dynamics and seek healthier spiritual environments, avoiding the toxic environment religious narcissists create and may even relish.

A contributing factor to creating such a toxic environment is that a religious narcissist reacts very differently from a normal, healthy believer when someone challenges their interpretation of a Bible verse. The issue is not the verse it's the threat to their ego. Their reactions follow predictable patterns because the challenge threatens their selfimage as spiritually superior, uniquely insightful, or divinely favored.

They respond as if you attacked them, not the interpretation.

• "You're misunderstanding me."
• "You're twisting my words."
• "You're being disrespectful."

The conversation shifts from Scripture to protecting their ego. They often elevate their interpretation to divine status: "If you were more spiritually mature, you'd see it." This is meant to intimidate, not clarify. Your disagreement becomes a sign of your supposed spiritual inferiority.

They often reframe the challenge as sin, shifting the issue from interpretation to morality.

• "You're being rebellious."
• "You're sowing discord."
• "Your attitude isn't Christlike."

This turns your question into a character flaw.
They try to make you doubt your own reasoning.

• "That's not what I said."
• "You're reading too much into it."
• "You're being emotional."

Their goal is often to destabilize your confidence.

When challenged, they often portray themselves as spiritually attacked, which casts you as the persecutor and them as the martyr. If you persist:

• They may become angry, condescending, or sarcastic.
• Or they may shut down, withdraw, and punish you with silence.

Your challenge becomes a threat that must be neutralized, so they work to reassert control and minimize your contribution. They frame disagreement as your deficiency. They turn correction into insubordination.

A religious narcissist's identity is built on:

• being the most knowledgeable
• being the most discerning
• and often believe they are spiritually superior
• and even believe they are uniquely chosen.

A challenge threatens that identity. So they defend the self, not the Scripture.

A religious narcissist's goal is to pull you into an emotional or authority-based battle. Your goal is to stay rooted in truth. A religious narcissist must win. If you try to win, you've already lost the spiritual battle. Narcissists push until they meet a boundary. A boundary is not rudeit's biblical. Boundary examples:

• "I'm not comfortable with conversations where motives are questioned."
• "I won't continue if the discussion becomes personal."
• "Let's pause this and revisit it later."

Boundaries protect your peace and prevent spiritual manipulation, as they often fail to respect your walk with God, unwilling to recognize that all interpretations must be tested by Scripture, not personal revelation." This keeps authority where it belongsGod's Word.

A religious narcissist is not going to change, period. Only God can. Should one choose to interact with one, it is vital to stay faithful, stay grounded, stay healthy, and to stay biblical. Let me know if there is a specific point you would like to make. Just remember, he is always righteven when he is not.

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Is it because you feel so inadequate, that you're not intelligent enough to engage the issues here, or because you're so afraid to face that you're wrong, or some other inadequacy in your life, that you constantly attack me personally with every single one of your posts?

Your entire diatribe here was a complete projection, and you're having to insert thoughts into my head and judge what's in my heart in order to force-fit me into your google diagnosis. Aside from the more important thing that this is false witness that you're going to be held accountable for, it's also plainly obvious that it's a pure defense mechanism - you obviously can't argue against the merits of what I'm saying, so you feel the urge to "invalidate" them through personal attacks. This is LITERALLY the ONLY thing you've "contributed" in this forum. It's just so childish and pathetic. It's an embarassment to yourself and to this forum.

You say that I'm not willing to admit I'm wrong - but you've never even argued what it is I've gotten wrong. Do you feel you're too stupid to do so? Yes, I test what you guys say against the "fire" of Scripture, facts, history, and logic. If you feel too inadequate in these areas to argue against what I'm saying or to defend you and others' beliefs, then I have some advice for you: if you are too afraid of having your wood, hay, and straw revealed about you, it's simple: don't come into the fire. Go have your parallel "warm and fuzzy" Christianty discussions where no one's wrong, and its verboten to say so, and leave those alone who want serious, challenging discussion.

Doc Holliday said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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Do ya'll understand Hebrews 13?

Paul is contrasting what we (Christians) eat at the altar, versus what the Jews eat at the tabernacle.

The Old Covenant priests ate from animal sacrifices at the tabernacle, that's the plain meaning of verses 10-11. Then verse 10 says "we have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat."

Then verse 15 says to "offer up a sacrifice of praise." The word there is eucharistia. It's not just "say thanks." In this context, surrounded by altar, sacrifice, blood, and priesthood language, it's ritual offering vocabulary. Paul isn't randomly switching from physical categories to a purely mental one mid-paragraph. He's naming the new sacrifice that replaces the old one.

The whole passage only makes sense as priesthood-to-priesthood, altar-to-altar, sacrifice-to-sacrifice, eating-to-eating. If the Christian side of that comparison is just an inward feeling of gratitude, the contrast falls apart and doesn't make sense, because you'd be comparing a real, physical, exclusionary system to something anyone can do regardless of church membership. That's not what the text sets up. It sets up two competing systems, and says ours is better and still ours to eat from.

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Apparently, you do not understand Hebrews 13 at all.

NOTHING in Hebrews 13 says that the communion bread and wine are the "Real Presence" of Jesus, or that communion/the Eucharist is the replacement "ceremony" for the church that is the necessary means for us to receive some kind of grace. Where it says "those who serve the tent (Old Covenant Jews who still perform animal sacrifices) have no right to eat", the "eating" there is not literal. He's making the point that the New Covenant involves a higher form of "eating" that the Old Covenant Jews rejected. The "eating" isn't physical. This is made obvious by reading the verse immediately prior:

"... for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods, which have not benefited those devoted to them."

The author clearly is setting up the meaning of "eating" in the following verse in the mind of the reader to convey something higher and more significant than the physical ingestion of food.

Verse 15, which you reference, perfectly illustrates how the author is elevating the concepts of "eating" and "sacrifice" to go BEYOND, not be identical to, their meaning in the Old Covenant way:

"Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God."

It's really odd how you can read a verse thinking it makes your argument, when it completely destroys it. Clearly, this verse is saying that the "Eucharist" is NOT a sacrifice that involves the real, actual re-presentation of Jesus' sacrifice that is performed on an physical altar by human priests - but rather a "sacrifice" that comes from the heart of the believer in the form of thanksgiving, praise, obedience, and love for others. The very verse you offered as support for your view completely destroys it and fully supports the Protestant view instead.

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Here is the outline: don't slide back into ceremonial food law (v.9), we have a real altar you don't have access to (v.10), pointing to Christ's sacrifice outside the camp (v.11-13), and because of that we also offer praise and good works (v.15-16). That's addition, not swap. You've got cause and effect flipped, treating our response to the altar as if it erases the altar.

You've got the logic backwards. Verse 9's "foods" isn't saying eating in general is now some metaphor, it's talking about Jewish food laws, same thing Hebrews 9:10 already covers, "foods and drinks and various washings." It's saying don't get sucked back into Mosaic dietary rules, not "eating doesn't mean eating anymore."

Then verse 10 switches to a totally different image: an altar. "We have an altar those who serve the tent have no right to eat from." That keeps going with real priestly language, actual animals, actual blood, an actual high priest, burned outside the camp. The whole passage is set up as a parallel, their altar and eating vs. our altar and eating. If you want "eat" to suddenly mean something non-physical only on our side, you have to show me that in the text. You're just asserting it and it doesn't make any sense.

And verse 15 doesn't redefine verse 10, it adds to it. Nothing says "sacrifice of praise" replaces the altar. It's an extra exhortation, right next to verse 16's " do good and share." Those are the fruits that come from having the altar, not a reinterpretation that cancels it out. You're treating two separate things, the altar-eating in v.10 and the praise sacrifice in v.15, like the second one swallows the first. Hebrews never says that.

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You're looking at this passage with confirmation bias through your Orthodox lens, so you're reading it as a prescription for the New Covenant church to have the same system of temples, priests, altars, sacrifices, and the physical eating of the sacrifice that was characteristic of the Old Covenant. But this is completely missing the point the author is making, and is in fact going backwards from what the author intended. That old system is obsolete. There is NO MORE SACRIFICE. Jesus' sacrifice on the cross was the finished, once-for-all-time sacrifice for all sins, past, present and future. It completely eliminates the need for any further sacrifice."It is finished". Similarly, there is no more temple, because God now resides in the hearts of believers. There is no more organizational priesthood, because Jesus is now our one, true Priest who intercedes for us directly with God, and we are the "priesthood of believers". There is no more sacrificial "altar" to atone for our sins, because the final sacrifice has already been made. And there is no more literal, physical eating of the sacrifice - the "eating" is what we do when we, by believing in Jesus, gain spiritual sustenance leading to eternal life, which is superior to physical eating, which only gives us physical sustenance towards physical, temporal life. The point of Hebrews was to show that the New Covenant is made superior to the Old - the Old was only a type, a shadow of what was to come. The "altar" and "eating" language the author uses in this chapter in reference to the New Covenant is describing a new, higher, spiritual reality that is superior to the Old. The author is NOT making a one-to-one comparison with the Old Covenant to where the "eating" in the New is the same physical eating as in the Old, but rather a new, spiritual form of it.

Therefore, there is no need whatsoever for the communion bread and wine to contain the presence of Jesus in some "real" way in order for the communion "sacrifice" to be an actual, efficacious sacrifice. The efficacious sacrifice has already been completed. Jesus does not have to be "present" within the bread and wine of communion - he was present at the cross and that is all that was needed. The "Real Presence" of Jesus" in a repeated ceremonial sacrifice is a pure redundancy. And what's infinitely worse, it's actually a rejection of the finished work of Jesus on the cross. And this is what Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy formalize as dogma, a requirement for salvation. Absolutely incredible, and disgusting.

The fact that the author of Hebrews only tells us that the "eucharist" is a "sacrifice of praise"... never once mentioning anything about the sacrifice involving a kind of "real" presence within the communion bread and wine... is illustrative of all of this, and it completely invalidates your view. You're really reading HEAVILY your Orthodox theology into this passage, and your reasoning above is completely forced.

And it needs to be restated, that nowhere, not in Hebrews or anywhere else in Scripture are we told that if a believer takes communion as a symbol/memorial rather than as a "Real Presence", that there is any kind of loss for that believer, let alone salvation itself. A fact made evident by your complete failure to tell us what it is exactly that the believer misses out on. The Roman Catholics fail to do the same. Which reminds me to ask you again: if you really believe that Hebrews 13 and John 6 are telling you that "eating the sacrifice" is to be done in the same manner as in the Old Covenant.... then why aren't you holding to the Roman Catholic view?

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This might be borderline plausible if you just picked up a Bible and started reading it with absolutely no context. That's the problem, though. You can't interpret the Scripture without an understanding of historical Christian belief and practice (or "bias," as you call it).

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Translation: "You can't come to our (Roman Catholic) conclusion unless you hold our hand-picked church fathers as equal in authority to the Scriptures."

Historical Christianity needs to be viewed in context of Scripture, NOT the other way around. Historical Christianity involves fallible men trying to interpret and follow the infallible Word of God. And which history should we use as context to interpret Scripture? Church history was varied in opinion on many things, the nature of the Eucharist being a prime example. I can claim continuity with the early church for everything I've said, just as much as you say you can.

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No one holds the Church Fathers as equal in authority to the Scriptures. They are simply evidence of what the Scriptures meant to the early church. You reject them because they're fallible, then turn around and substitute your own fallible interpretation for theirs. You can't have it both ways.

As for your claim of continuity, it can't be taken seriously based on your quirky reading of an isolated quotation or two. As Doc demonstrated, and as most scholars would agree, the evidence for the Catholic view is overwhelming.

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Exactly, and the evidence is actually unanimous. Every single early Church father shared the real presence and believed it to be His body and blood, not symbolic. They are almost forced to view Church history as purely optional background noise rather than the living witness of how the early Christians actually practiced what the Apostles taught.

Neither John Calvin nor the early Presbyterian standards held the "it's just a symbol" view. They explicitly condemned Zwingli's purely memorial view as inadequate and overly bare. Its also a departure from the reformers.

You basically have to take the position that all the early Church fathers were in error and the Church went dark right after Pentecost. Some protestants actually believe that and share that same view with mormons.

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Your understanding of church history on this topic is sorely lacking. Though virtually every father who wrote on the subject of the Eucharist spoke in some sense about a "Real Presence" in the Eucharist, what was actually MEANT by that was diverse and conflicting. Some saw the communion bread and wine as symbols of Jesus' body and blood and that Jesus "presence" was only spiritual. Those who taught the symbolic/figurative view included but were not limited to Clement, Tertullian, Origen, Cyprian and especially Augustine. Some, on the other hand, saw the bread and wine to actually have become the very substance of Jesus' flesh and blood, and so his "presence" was physical. Some combined the two and said very conflicting statements. There was NO unanimous stance by the early church on the exact nature of the Eucharist and both views, and combinations of them, were allowed to coexist for centuries and were still being debated all the way into the 9th century (Ratramnus vs. Radbert). It wasn't until around the 11th-12th centuries when the Roman Catholic Church began to dogmatically define their version of the Real Presence and punish those who disagreed, ultimately ending the period of diversity by force.

In fact, Augustine, as has already been presented in other threads, was very clear and explicit about the "eating of Jesus" flesh in John chapter 6 and during the Last Supper as being entirely figurative (yes, Sam, entirely). I have already provided the citations in their fullest context in earlier discussions that undeniably show that Augustine did not believe in the literalist, "Real Presence" view of the Roman Catholics, or even the literalist, mystical view held by the Orthodox. It wasn't a "quirky reading" of isolated comments, as some disingenous people here would have you believe. To argue that Augustine's comments support the literalist RC and Orthodox views is to be in denial of reality.

It should also be mentioned that the Didache, one of the earliest sources that tell us of early Christian faith and practice, talks of the early church's practice of the Eucharist - and it says NOTHING about the bread and wine becoming the body and blood of Jesus in any way. You would think that if such a thing were so important for believers, especially considering your stance that a believer's salvation is on the line, that something to that effect would have been stated.

The claim that the church throughout its history held to a unanimous "Real Presence" view regarding the nature of the Eucharist is just flat out wrong. What's even MORE wrong is the Roman Catholic claim that transubstantiation was the continuous belief of the church, as was ridiculously argued above. As with most of Roman Catholicism's doctrines/dogmas, it was the result of historical development over time, and only became the "dominant" view a millenium later, after the Church exerted its influence to that end through force.

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Lol calling Augustine a champion of the "purely symbolic" view only proves you haven't read Augustine. You couldn't have picked a worse example for your symbolic view. You're a real life meme at this point.

When Augustine preaches directly to the newly baptized (Sermon 227), he doesn't leave room for your purely figurative view:

Quote:

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"That bread which you see on the altar, having been sanctified by the word of God, is the body of Christ. That chalice, or rather what is in that chalice, having been sanctified by the word of God, is the blood of Christ."

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In Expositions on the Psalms (Ps 33), he famously notes that Christ carried Himself in His own hands at the Last Supper...that's an absurd statement if it was merely symbolic. Augustine held to a real, spiritual-mystical presence, which is precisely what the Eastern Orthodox Church holds today, rejecting the hyper-literal, pseudo-scientific definitions of scholastic Rome while fiercely maintaining the Real Presence.

You cite Clement, Tertullian, Origen, and Cyprian as "figurative." Yet Tertullian (Against Marcion IV.40) explicitly says the bread is the body of Christ, and Cyprian (The Lapsed 16) warns that profaning the Eucharist attacks the literal "Body and Blood of the Lord." Did the early Fathers debate the exact mechanics of how bread becomes Christ? Absolutely. The language wasn't standardized. But they were unanimous on the outcome: what you receive in the Eucharist is not merely a psychological memory exercise, it's a real, objective communion with the living Christ.

You ignore the earliest explicit threat to Eucharistic theology: Docetism. When St. Ignatius of Antioch (107 AD) fought the very first heretics, he didn't attack them for missing a metaphor, he attacked them because "they abstain from the Eucharist... because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ."

Also keep your response in one post, stop breaking it apart into multiple responses.

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You either missed the whole discussion on Augustine's writings in a previous thread or you ignored them. It's clear that you're taking phrases isolated from the context of all of Augustine's writings, phrases which by themselves don't even support what you're saying. When a church father says "The bread IS the body of Christ...", you are automatically reading literalism into it. But that is just as much a figurative/symbolic statement as it is a literal one. You have to understand what that church father meant by that. I myself fully agree that the bread IS the body of Christ! But in what way is it the body of Christ? This is what I see you and the Roman Catholics here completely failing to engage or flat out ignoring, only shallowly using the phrase to support your literalist views. This is cherry-picking and tribalist narrow thinking, and it's intellectually lazy.

Therefore, the statement Augustine makes, that the bread IS the body of Christ, is by itself NOT supportive of your view. In this sermon he does not expound upon what he means by that. His "carrying himself in his hands" is in his Expositions on Psalm 34, not Psalm 33. And you're making the same mistake in this writing of his as well. Notice what he really said there:

"... how was he 'carried in his own hands'? Because when he commended his own body and blood, he took into his hands that which the faithful knew, and in a manner carried himself, when he said, "This is my body"."

Catch that? In a manner he carried himself. In what manner? You didn't ask this, you just completely assumed he was supporting your literalist view. You and the Roman Catholics here keep making this mistake, over and over.

So what does Augustine say in explicit terms about the Eucharist meal? Let's start here, where Augustine is explaining his hermaneutic on how to interpret Scripture:

"If the sentence is one of command, either forbidding a crime or vice, or enjoining an act of prudence or benevolence, it is not figurative. If, however, it seems to enjoin a crime or vice, or to forbid an act of prudence or benevolence, it is figurative. Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man, says Christ, and drink His blood, you have no life in you. John*6:53 This seems to enjoin a crime or a vice; it is therefore a figure, enjoining that we should have a share in the sufferings of our Lord, and that we should retain a sweet and profitable memory of the fact that His flesh was wounded and crucified for us." (Augustine, On Christian Doctrine. Book 3 Chapter 16).

Clearly, Augustine is saying that Jesus' words in John chapter 6 were entirely figurative, and he even goes on to explain what they are a figure of in the Eucharist meal: sharing in Christ's suffering, and as a MEMORY of his sacrifice. This is literally the symbolic/memorialist view. It is with this writing in mind, that one needs to interpret what Augustine meant in his other writings, such as Sermon 227 and his Expositions on Psalm 34. There's just NO way you can twist around this, this is clear, explicit language. The Roman Catholics here tried, and they made absolute fools of themselves. I implore you to not become a fool, and read this for what it really says, not what your church or Orthodox apologists tell you it says.

Doc Holliday said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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Do ya'll understand Hebrews 13?

Paul is contrasting what we (Christians) eat at the altar, versus what the Jews eat at the tabernacle.

The Old Covenant priests ate from animal sacrifices at the tabernacle, that's the plain meaning of verses 10-11. Then verse 10 says "we have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat."

Then verse 15 says to "offer up a sacrifice of praise." The word there is eucharistia. It's not just "say thanks." In this context, surrounded by altar, sacrifice, blood, and priesthood language, it's ritual offering vocabulary. Paul isn't randomly switching from physical categories to a purely mental one mid-paragraph. He's naming the new sacrifice that replaces the old one.

The whole passage only makes sense as priesthood-to-priesthood, altar-to-altar, sacrifice-to-sacrifice, eating-to-eating. If the Christian side of that comparison is just an inward feeling of gratitude, the contrast falls apart and doesn't make sense, because you'd be comparing a real, physical, exclusionary system to something anyone can do regardless of church membership. That's not what the text sets up. It sets up two competing systems, and says ours is better and still ours to eat from.

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Apparently, you do not understand Hebrews 13 at all.

NOTHING in Hebrews 13 says that the communion bread and wine are the "Real Presence" of Jesus, or that communion/the Eucharist is the replacement "ceremony" for the church that is the necessary means for us to receive some kind of grace. Where it says "those who serve the tent (Old Covenant Jews who still perform animal sacrifices) have no right to eat", the "eating" there is not literal. He's making the point that the New Covenant involves a higher form of "eating" that the Old Covenant Jews rejected. The "eating" isn't physical. This is made obvious by reading the verse immediately prior:

"... for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods, which have not benefited those devoted to them."

The author clearly is setting up the meaning of "eating" in the following verse in the mind of the reader to convey something higher and more significant than the physical ingestion of food.

Verse 15, which you reference, perfectly illustrates how the author is elevating the concepts of "eating" and "sacrifice" to go BEYOND, not be identical to, their meaning in the Old Covenant way:

"Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God."

It's really odd how you can read a verse thinking it makes your argument, when it completely destroys it. Clearly, this verse is saying that the "Eucharist" is NOT a sacrifice that involves the real, actual re-presentation of Jesus' sacrifice that is performed on an physical altar by human priests - but rather a "sacrifice" that comes from the heart of the believer in the form of thanksgiving, praise, obedience, and love for others. The very verse you offered as support for your view completely destroys it and fully supports the Protestant view instead.

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Here is the outline: don't slide back into ceremonial food law (v.9), we have a real altar you don't have access to (v.10), pointing to Christ's sacrifice outside the camp (v.11-13), and because of that we also offer praise and good works (v.15-16). That's addition, not swap. You've got cause and effect flipped, treating our response to the altar as if it erases the altar.

You've got the logic backwards. Verse 9's "foods" isn't saying eating in general is now some metaphor, it's talking about Jewish food laws, same thing Hebrews 9:10 already covers, "foods and drinks and various washings." It's saying don't get sucked back into Mosaic dietary rules, not "eating doesn't mean eating anymore."

Then verse 10 switches to a totally different image: an altar. "We have an altar those who serve the tent have no right to eat from." That keeps going with real priestly language, actual animals, actual blood, an actual high priest, burned outside the camp. The whole passage is set up as a parallel, their altar and eating vs. our altar and eating. If you want "eat" to suddenly mean something non-physical only on our side, you have to show me that in the text. You're just asserting it and it doesn't make any sense.

And verse 15 doesn't redefine verse 10, it adds to it. Nothing says "sacrifice of praise" replaces the altar. It's an extra exhortation, right next to verse 16's " do good and share." Those are the fruits that come from having the altar, not a reinterpretation that cancels it out. You're treating two separate things, the altar-eating in v.10 and the praise sacrifice in v.15, like the second one swallows the first. Hebrews never says that.

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You're looking at this passage with confirmation bias through your Orthodox lens, so you're reading it as a prescription for the New Covenant church to have the same system of temples, priests, altars, sacrifices, and the physical eating of the sacrifice that was characteristic of the Old Covenant. But this is completely missing the point the author is making, and is in fact going backwards from what the author intended. That old system is obsolete. There is NO MORE SACRIFICE. Jesus' sacrifice on the cross was the finished, once-for-all-time sacrifice for all sins, past, present and future. It completely eliminates the need for any further sacrifice."It is finished". Similarly, there is no more temple, because God now resides in the hearts of believers. There is no more organizational priesthood, because Jesus is now our one, true Priest who intercedes for us directly with God, and we are the "priesthood of believers". There is no more sacrificial "altar" to atone for our sins, because the final sacrifice has already been made. And there is no more literal, physical eating of the sacrifice - the "eating" is what we do when we, by believing in Jesus, gain spiritual sustenance leading to eternal life, which is superior to physical eating, which only gives us physical sustenance towards physical, temporal life. The point of Hebrews was to show that the New Covenant is made superior to the Old - the Old was only a type, a shadow of what was to come. The "altar" and "eating" language the author uses in this chapter in reference to the New Covenant is describing a new, higher, spiritual reality that is superior to the Old. The author is NOT making a one-to-one comparison with the Old Covenant to where the "eating" in the New is the same physical eating as in the Old, but rather a new, spiritual form of it.

Therefore, there is no need whatsoever for the communion bread and wine to contain the presence of Jesus in some "real" way in order for the communion "sacrifice" to be an actual, efficacious sacrifice. The efficacious sacrifice has already been completed. Jesus does not have to be "present" within the bread and wine of communion - he was present at the cross and that is all that was needed. The "Real Presence" of Jesus" in a repeated ceremonial sacrifice is a pure redundancy. And what's infinitely worse, it's actually a rejection of the finished work of Jesus on the cross. And this is what Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy formalize as dogma, a requirement for salvation. Absolutely incredible, and disgusting.

The fact that the author of Hebrews only tells us that the "eucharist" is a "sacrifice of praise"... never once mentioning anything about the sacrifice involving a kind of "real" presence within the communion bread and wine... is illustrative of all of this, and it completely invalidates your view. You're really reading HEAVILY your Orthodox theology into this passage, and your reasoning above is completely forced.

And it needs to be restated, that nowhere, not in Hebrews or anywhere else in Scripture are we told that if a believer takes communion as a symbol/memorial rather than as a "Real Presence", that there is any kind of loss for that believer, let alone salvation itself. A fact made evident by your complete failure to tell us what it is exactly that the believer misses out on. The Roman Catholics fail to do the same. Which reminds me to ask you again: if you really believe that Hebrews 13 and John 6 are telling you that "eating the sacrifice" is to be done in the same manner as in the Old Covenant.... then why aren't you holding to the Roman Catholic view?

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This might be borderline plausible if you just picked up a Bible and started reading it with absolutely no context. That's the problem, though. You can't interpret the Scripture without an understanding of historical Christian belief and practice (or "bias," as you call it).

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Translation: "You can't come to our (Roman Catholic) conclusion unless you hold our hand-picked church fathers as equal in authority to the Scriptures."

Historical Christianity needs to be viewed in context of Scripture, NOT the other way around. Historical Christianity involves fallible men trying to interpret and follow the infallible Word of God. And which history should we use as context to interpret Scripture? Church history was varied in opinion on many things, the nature of the Eucharist being a prime example. I can claim continuity with the early church for everything I've said, just as much as you say you can.

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No one holds the Church Fathers as equal in authority to the Scriptures. They are simply evidence of what the Scriptures meant to the early church. You reject them because they're fallible, then turn around and substitute your own fallible interpretation for theirs. You can't have it both ways.

As for your claim of continuity, it can't be taken seriously based on your quirky reading of an isolated quotation or two. As Doc demonstrated, and as most scholars would agree, the evidence for the Catholic view is overwhelming.

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You: "No one hold the church fathers as equal in authority to the Scriptures" - thank you for finally agreeing with sola scriptura.

No one is "rejecting" the church fathers. They are invaluable windows into the thinking of the early church and are important to read and study. But, being fallible, what they say must always be weighed against the standard of Scripture. You get this backwards, when you say that we must weigh Scripture against what the church fathers said, as you did above.

I have already proven that the evidence from the early church DOES NOT in any way support the Roman Catholic view of transubstantiation. You're simply in denial of accurate church history. At this point you're just repeating already defeated points like a broken record and trying to dismiss any church history that doesn't line up with what your church brainwashed you with by labeling them "quirky readings of isolated comments". You just don't want to be intellectually dishonest. Watching you and other Catholics go into complete denial over Augustine's words was something to behold. It convinced me that you Roman Catholics are completely mind-trapped.

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We certainly have different methods of interpretation. We Catholics read all of Augustine's words in order to understand his views and how they relate to the Church that canonized him as a saint. You latch on to a single, subjectively interpreted phrase and defend your foregone conclusion to the death. We'll have to disagree as to which one is the trap.

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You Roman Catholics read your views into the words of the church fathers. And even when those words are directly contradictory. It truly is one of the most bizzarre things ever to behold. It's made even worse by your ridiculous attempt to gaslight about the debate after the fact, blatantly mischaracterizing my argument as "latching onto a single subjectively interpreted phrase" when I gave you full passages in their entire context, and in which the meaning was quite clear. The only ones ignoring those entire passages to "latch on to" certain phrases isolated from their context, was you Catholics. Your accusing the other side of doing exactly what you were doing, is just more of the same gaslighting coming from your side.

Whether it be about the canon of Scripture, sola scriptura, sola fide, icon veneration, Mary, etc., you guys outright REFUSE to be honest about church history. It appears that gaslighting is really the only recourse you have to keep your church and its beliefs viable.

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The Fathers absolutely differed in the metaphors and philosophical language they used to explain how the transformation happens (transmutation, transelementation, mystery, figure, sign etc.). But they were unanimous on what the Eucharist is: the real, objective, life-giving Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.

The early Protestant Reformers themselves would be horrified by your stance. Martin Luther explicitly condemned the "purely symbolic" view, calling Ulrich Zwingli's memorialism a dangerous error. Luther famously slammed his fist on the table at the Marburg Colloquy and insisted on Hoc est corpus meum ("This is my body"). John Calvin likewise rejected the idea that communion was a mere metaphor, teaching a real spiritual participation in the literal Body and Blood.

The irony of your position is staggering: you treat the 16th century "Five Solas" as untouchable, dogmatic truth, yet you completely throw out what those exact same Reformers explicitly believed about the Eucharist. By picking and choosing, you aren't being faithful to Scripture, to the Church Fathers, or even to the Protestant Reformers. You're adhering to a late-stage, 20th-century American fundamentalist view that squeezed out the Sacraments just to be anti-Catholic/anti-Orthodox.

Your entire argument isn't grounded in historical theology, it's driven by a reactionary anti-Catholic and anti-Orthodox lens. In fact, your theology literally is Anti Catholic/Orthodoxy. That's why you're the only one here that's tripping out and attempting to character assassinate anyone who doesn't agree with you.

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As my previous post explained, when you say the church fathers were "unanimous" that the Eucharist is "the real, objective, life-giving Body and Blood of Jesus Christ", you really have to explain in what way. And as my previous post clearly showed, there definitely was NOT unanimity towards the Roman Catholic or Orthodox literalist view, as is often claimed.

Who cares if a Reformer would be horrified by my stance? My beliefs don't come from the Reformers themselves, but from the same authority they draw from. I believe in the five solas, because they are what Scripture reveals to be true, not because men say they are true. And as my previous post showed, I'm perfectly in line with early church history. Augustine is only one of many examples.

The REAL, "staggering" irony here is your charge that I'm not being faithful to Scripture or the church fathers. First of all, I don't have to be "faithful to the fathers", the fathers have to be faithful to Scripture, and I'm faithful to Scripture. But the irony is that your church as well as Roman Catholicism has been repeatedly shown to be against Scripture, and even against early church history in the areas of the canon, icon veneration, doctrines of Mary, purgatory, sola scriptura, sola fide, etc. Apparently, it's been in one ear, out the other.

The only one trying to "character assasinate" in the true sense here is BUDOS. What I'm "assasinating" is flawed facts and thinking/reasoning about the merits of the issue we're discussing. If someone isn't being honest, or exercising very poor logic, or being a brick wall to what's plainly obvious, then I'm gonna say so. But I don't just say so, I'm able to explain why, unlike the self-crowned internet psychologist hero we have gracing the pages of these threads today.

BUDOS said:

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And as some of us know all too well, there are times it is difficult to express that gratitude and love to our enemies and individuals who we believe behave antagonistically towards us. Having said that, I have been guilty of such behavior myself, in my weaker moments.

Matthew 5:44: "But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you".

Luke 6:27-28: "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you".

Romans 12:20: "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink."

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This is the part of Christianity that I disliked the most.

Which is precisely why I must be a Christian.

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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Do ya'll understand Hebrews 13?

Paul is contrasting what we (Christians) eat at the altar, versus what the Jews eat at the tabernacle.

The Old Covenant priests ate from animal sacrifices at the tabernacle, that's the plain meaning of verses 10-11. Then verse 10 says "we have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat."

Then verse 15 says to "offer up a sacrifice of praise." The word there is eucharistia. It's not just "say thanks." In this context, surrounded by altar, sacrifice, blood, and priesthood language, it's ritual offering vocabulary. Paul isn't randomly switching from physical categories to a purely mental one mid-paragraph. He's naming the new sacrifice that replaces the old one.

The whole passage only makes sense as priesthood-to-priesthood, altar-to-altar, sacrifice-to-sacrifice, eating-to-eating. If the Christian side of that comparison is just an inward feeling of gratitude, the contrast falls apart and doesn't make sense, because you'd be comparing a real, physical, exclusionary system to something anyone can do regardless of church membership. That's not what the text sets up. It sets up two competing systems, and says ours is better and still ours to eat from.

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Apparently, you do not understand Hebrews 13 at all.

NOTHING in Hebrews 13 says that the communion bread and wine are the "Real Presence" of Jesus, or that communion/the Eucharist is the replacement "ceremony" for the church that is the necessary means for us to receive some kind of grace. Where it says "those who serve the tent (Old Covenant Jews who still perform animal sacrifices) have no right to eat", the "eating" there is not literal. He's making the point that the New Covenant involves a higher form of "eating" that the Old Covenant Jews rejected. The "eating" isn't physical. This is made obvious by reading the verse immediately prior:

"... for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods, which have not benefited those devoted to them."

The author clearly is setting up the meaning of "eating" in the following verse in the mind of the reader to convey something higher and more significant than the physical ingestion of food.

Verse 15, which you reference, perfectly illustrates how the author is elevating the concepts of "eating" and "sacrifice" to go BEYOND, not be identical to, their meaning in the Old Covenant way:

"Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God."

It's really odd how you can read a verse thinking it makes your argument, when it completely destroys it. Clearly, this verse is saying that the "Eucharist" is NOT a sacrifice that involves the real, actual re-presentation of Jesus' sacrifice that is performed on an physical altar by human priests - but rather a "sacrifice" that comes from the heart of the believer in the form of thanksgiving, praise, obedience, and love for others. The very verse you offered as support for your view completely destroys it and fully supports the Protestant view instead.

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Here is the outline: don't slide back into ceremonial food law (v.9), we have a real altar you don't have access to (v.10), pointing to Christ's sacrifice outside the camp (v.11-13), and because of that we also offer praise and good works (v.15-16). That's addition, not swap. You've got cause and effect flipped, treating our response to the altar as if it erases the altar.

You've got the logic backwards. Verse 9's "foods" isn't saying eating in general is now some metaphor, it's talking about Jewish food laws, same thing Hebrews 9:10 already covers, "foods and drinks and various washings." It's saying don't get sucked back into Mosaic dietary rules, not "eating doesn't mean eating anymore."

Then verse 10 switches to a totally different image: an altar. "We have an altar those who serve the tent have no right to eat from." That keeps going with real priestly language, actual animals, actual blood, an actual high priest, burned outside the camp. The whole passage is set up as a parallel, their altar and eating vs. our altar and eating. If you want "eat" to suddenly mean something non-physical only on our side, you have to show me that in the text. You're just asserting it and it doesn't make any sense.

And verse 15 doesn't redefine verse 10, it adds to it. Nothing says "sacrifice of praise" replaces the altar. It's an extra exhortation, right next to verse 16's " do good and share." Those are the fruits that come from having the altar, not a reinterpretation that cancels it out. You're treating two separate things, the altar-eating in v.10 and the praise sacrifice in v.15, like the second one swallows the first. Hebrews never says that.

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You're looking at this passage with confirmation bias through your Orthodox lens, so you're reading it as a prescription for the New Covenant church to have the same system of temples, priests, altars, sacrifices, and the physical eating of the sacrifice that was characteristic of the Old Covenant. But this is completely missing the point the author is making, and is in fact going backwards from what the author intended. That old system is obsolete. There is NO MORE SACRIFICE. Jesus' sacrifice on the cross was the finished, once-for-all-time sacrifice for all sins, past, present and future. It completely eliminates the need for any further sacrifice."It is finished". Similarly, there is no more temple, because God now resides in the hearts of believers. There is no more organizational priesthood, because Jesus is now our one, true Priest who intercedes for us directly with God, and we are the "priesthood of believers". There is no more sacrificial "altar" to atone for our sins, because the final sacrifice has already been made. And there is no more literal, physical eating of the sacrifice - the "eating" is what we do when we, by believing in Jesus, gain spiritual sustenance leading to eternal life, which is superior to physical eating, which only gives us physical sustenance towards physical, temporal life. The point of Hebrews was to show that the New Covenant is made superior to the Old - the Old was only a type, a shadow of what was to come. The "altar" and "eating" language the author uses in this chapter in reference to the New Covenant is describing a new, higher, spiritual reality that is superior to the Old. The author is NOT making a one-to-one comparison with the Old Covenant to where the "eating" in the New is the same physical eating as in the Old, but rather a new, spiritual form of it.

Therefore, there is no need whatsoever for the communion bread and wine to contain the presence of Jesus in some "real" way in order for the communion "sacrifice" to be an actual, efficacious sacrifice. The efficacious sacrifice has already been completed. Jesus does not have to be "present" within the bread and wine of communion - he was present at the cross and that is all that was needed. The "Real Presence" of Jesus" in a repeated ceremonial sacrifice is a pure redundancy. And what's infinitely worse, it's actually a rejection of the finished work of Jesus on the cross. And this is what Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy formalize as dogma, a requirement for salvation. Absolutely incredible, and disgusting.

The fact that the author of Hebrews only tells us that the "eucharist" is a "sacrifice of praise"... never once mentioning anything about the sacrifice involving a kind of "real" presence within the communion bread and wine... is illustrative of all of this, and it completely invalidates your view. You're really reading HEAVILY your Orthodox theology into this passage, and your reasoning above is completely forced.

And it needs to be restated, that nowhere, not in Hebrews or anywhere else in Scripture are we told that if a believer takes communion as a symbol/memorial rather than as a "Real Presence", that there is any kind of loss for that believer, let alone salvation itself. A fact made evident by your complete failure to tell us what it is exactly that the believer misses out on. The Roman Catholics fail to do the same. Which reminds me to ask you again: if you really believe that Hebrews 13 and John 6 are telling you that "eating the sacrifice" is to be done in the same manner as in the Old Covenant.... then why aren't you holding to the Roman Catholic view?

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This might be borderline plausible if you just picked up a Bible and started reading it with absolutely no context. That's the problem, though. You can't interpret the Scripture without an understanding of historical Christian belief and practice (or "bias," as you call it).

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Translation: "You can't come to our (Roman Catholic) conclusion unless you hold our hand-picked church fathers as equal in authority to the Scriptures."

Historical Christianity needs to be viewed in context of Scripture, NOT the other way around. Historical Christianity involves fallible men trying to interpret and follow the infallible Word of God. And which history should we use as context to interpret Scripture? Church history was varied in opinion on many things, the nature of the Eucharist being a prime example. I can claim continuity with the early church for everything I've said, just as much as you say you can.

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No one holds the Church Fathers as equal in authority to the Scriptures. They are simply evidence of what the Scriptures meant to the early church. You reject them because they're fallible, then turn around and substitute your own fallible interpretation for theirs. You can't have it both ways.

As for your claim of continuity, it can't be taken seriously based on your quirky reading of an isolated quotation or two. As Doc demonstrated, and as most scholars would agree, the evidence for the Catholic view is overwhelming.

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Exactly, and the evidence is actually unanimous. Every single early Church father shared the real presence and believed it to be His body and blood, not symbolic. They are almost forced to view Church history as purely optional background noise rather than the living witness of how the early Christians actually practiced what the Apostles taught.

Neither John Calvin nor the early Presbyterian standards held the "it's just a symbol" view. They explicitly condemned Zwingli's purely memorial view as inadequate and overly bare. Its also a departure from the reformers.

You basically have to take the position that all the early Church fathers were in error and the Church went dark right after Pentecost. Some protestants actually believe that and share that same view with mormons.

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Your understanding of church history on this topic is sorely lacking. Though virtually every father who wrote on the subject of the Eucharist spoke in some sense about a "Real Presence" in the Eucharist, what was actually MEANT by that was diverse and conflicting. Some saw the communion bread and wine as symbols of Jesus' body and blood and that Jesus "presence" was only spiritual. Those who taught the symbolic/figurative view included but were not limited to Clement, Tertullian, Origen, Cyprian and especially Augustine. Some, on the other hand, saw the bread and wine to actually have become the very substance of Jesus' flesh and blood, and so his "presence" was physical. Some combined the two and said very conflicting statements. There was NO unanimous stance by the early church on the exact nature of the Eucharist and both views, and combinations of them, were allowed to coexist for centuries and were still being debated all the way into the 9th century (Ratramnus vs. Radbert). It wasn't until around the 11th-12th centuries when the Roman Catholic Church began to dogmatically define their version of the Real Presence and punish those who disagreed, ultimately ending the period of diversity by force.

In fact, Augustine, as has already been presented in other threads, was very clear and explicit about the "eating of Jesus" flesh in John chapter 6 and during the Last Supper as being entirely figurative (yes, Sam, entirely). I have already provided the citations in their fullest context in earlier discussions that undeniably show that Augustine did not believe in the literalist, "Real Presence" view of the Roman Catholics, or even the literalist, mystical view held by the Orthodox. It wasn't a "quirky reading" of isolated comments, as some disingenous people here would have you believe. To argue that Augustine's comments support the literalist RC and Orthodox views is to be in denial of reality.

It should also be mentioned that the Didache, one of the earliest sources that tell us of early Christian faith and practice, talks of the early church's practice of the Eucharist - and it says NOTHING about the bread and wine becoming the body and blood of Jesus in any way. You would think that if such a thing were so important for believers, especially considering your stance that a believer's salvation is on the line, that something to that effect would have been stated.

The claim that the church throughout its history held to a unanimous "Real Presence" view regarding the nature of the Eucharist is just flat out wrong. What's even MORE wrong is the Roman Catholic claim that transubstantiation was the continuous belief of the church, as was ridiculously argued above. As with most of Roman Catholicism's doctrines/dogmas, it was the result of historical development over time, and only became the "dominant" view a millenium later, after the Church exerted its influence to that end through force.

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Lol calling Augustine a champion of the "purely symbolic" view only proves you haven't read Augustine. You couldn't have picked a worse example for your symbolic view. You're a real life meme at this point.

When Augustine preaches directly to the newly baptized (Sermon 227), he doesn't leave room for your purely figurative view:

Quote:

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"That bread which you see on the altar, having been sanctified by the word of God, is the body of Christ. That chalice, or rather what is in that chalice, having been sanctified by the word of God, is the blood of Christ."

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In Expositions on the Psalms (Ps 33), he famously notes that Christ carried Himself in His own hands at the Last Supper...that's an absurd statement if it was merely symbolic. Augustine held to a real, spiritual-mystical presence, which is precisely what the Eastern Orthodox Church holds today, rejecting the hyper-literal, pseudo-scientific definitions of scholastic Rome while fiercely maintaining the Real Presence.

You cite Clement, Tertullian, Origen, and Cyprian as "figurative." Yet Tertullian (Against Marcion IV.40) explicitly says the bread is the body of Christ, and Cyprian (The Lapsed 16) warns that profaning the Eucharist attacks the literal "Body and Blood of the Lord." Did the early Fathers debate the exact mechanics of how bread becomes Christ? Absolutely. The language wasn't standardized. But they were unanimous on the outcome: what you receive in the Eucharist is not merely a psychological memory exercise, it's a real, objective communion with the living Christ.

You ignore the earliest explicit threat to Eucharistic theology: Docetism. When St. Ignatius of Antioch (107 AD) fought the very first heretics, he didn't attack them for missing a metaphor, he attacked them because "they abstain from the Eucharist... because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ."

Also keep your response in one post, stop breaking it apart into multiple responses.

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You either missed the whole discussion on Augustine's writings in a previous thread or you ignored them. It's clear that you're taking phrases isolated from the context of all of Augustine's writings, phrases which by themselves don't even support what you're saying. When a church father says "The bread IS the body of Christ...", you are automatically reading literalism into it. But that is just as much a figurative/symbolic statement as it is a literal one. You have to understand what that church father meant by that. I myself fully agree that the bread IS the body of Christ! But in what way is it the body of Christ? This is what I see you and the Roman Catholics here completely failing to engage or flat out ignoring, only shallowly using the phrase to support your literalist views. This is cherry-picking and tribalist narrow thinking, and it's intellectually lazy.

Therefore, the statement Augustine makes, that the bread IS the body of Christ, is by itself NOT supportive of your view. In this sermon he does not expound upon what he means by that. His "carrying himself in his hands" is in his Expositions on Psalm 34, not Psalm 33. And you're making the same mistake in this writing of his as well. Notice what he really said there:

"... how was he 'carried in his own hands'? Because when he commended his own body and blood, he took into his hands that which the faithful knew, and in a manner carried himself, when he said, "This is my body"."

Catch that? In a manner he carried himself. In what manner? You didn't ask this, you just completely assumed he was supporting your literalist view. You and the Roman Catholics here keep making this mistake, over and over.

So what does Augustine say in explicit terms about the Eucharist meal? Let's start here, where Augustine is explaining his hermaneutic on how to interpret Scripture:

"If the sentence is one of command, either forbidding a crime or vice, or enjoining an act of prudence or benevolence, it is not figurative. If, however, it seems to enjoin a crime or vice, or to forbid an act of prudence or benevolence, it is figurative. Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man, says Christ, and drink His blood, you have no life in you. John*6:53 This seems to enjoin a crime or a vice; it is therefore a figure, enjoining that we should have a share in the sufferings of our Lord, and that we should retain a sweet and profitable memory of the fact that His flesh was wounded and crucified for us." (Augustine, On Christian Doctrine. Book 3 Chapter 16).

Clearly, Augustine is saying that Jesus' words in John chapter 6 were entirely figurative, and he even goes on to explain what they are a figure of in the Eucharist meal: sharing in Christ's suffering, and as a MEMORY of his sacrifice. This is literally the symbolic/memorialist view. It is with this writing in mind, that one needs to interpret what Augustine meant in his other writings, such as Sermon 227 and his Expositions on Psalm 34. There's just NO way you can twist around this, this is clear, explicit language. The Roman Catholics here tried, and they made absolute fools of themselves. I implore you to not become a fool, and read this for what it really says, not what your church or Orthodox apologists tell you it says.

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When Augustine calls Jesus' command in John 6 a "figure" (figura), he is not endorsing 20th-century Zwinglian memorialism. And no, you don't agree that it is the body/blood of Christ, you hold to a low church memorialist view.

The reason this debate is so confusing is that you're using Calvinist vocabulary to hide a purely Zwinglian memorialist theology. You claim on one hand that you agree 'the bread IS the body of Christ,' but the moment you're asked to define it, you reduce it entirely to a mental memory exercise: a pure symbol that does nothing objectively, conveys no real grace, and isn't even necessary for the believer.

You aren't standing with Augustine, and you aren't even standing with Calvin. You're standing with Ulrich Zwingli and 19th-century American revivalism.

Augustine refuting cannibalism in On Christian Doctrine is not Augustine denying the Real Presence.
You stopped quoting Augustine mid thought. If you read On Christian Doctrine and his broader works on John 6, Augustine explicitly identifies what is received in that figure. In Tractates on the Gospel of John (Tractate 26), where he famously discusses spiritual eating ("Believe and you have eaten"), he explicitly clarifies that the spiritual sign and the reality (res sacramenti) are bound together in the Church's life:

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"The sacrament of a thing, that is, of the unity of the body and blood of Christ, is received from the Lord's table... by some unto life, by some unto destruction; but the thing itself whereof it is the sacrament, is for every man unto life."

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You don't even believe in sacraments dude. A sacrament is not a decorative symbol or an empty memorial. He famously defines a sacrament as "an invisible grace made visible" (signum visibile invisibilis gratiae).

You keep demanding that I explain 'in what way' or 'by what exact mechanics' the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ, assuming that if I can't give you a medieval scientific model, it must be 'purely symbolic.'. You're confusing Roman Catholic Scholasticism with Eastern Orthodoxy.
As an Orthodox Christian, I don't follow 13th century Western attempts to rationalistically define the mechanics of Transubstantiation through Aristotelian philosophy. Orthodoxy has never tried to explain how the Holy Spirit accomplishes the transformation. We don't reduce the holy sacraments to a philosophical chemistry equation. We approach the Eucharist as a Holy Mystery

Realitybites said:

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BUDOS said:

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And as some of us know all too well, there are times it is difficult to express that gratitude and love to our enemies and individuals who we believe behave antagonistically towards us. Having said that, I have been guilty of such behavior myself, in my weaker moments.

Matthew 5:44: "But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you".

Luke 6:27-28: "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you".

Romans 12:20: "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink."

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This is the part of Christianity that I disliked the most.

Which is precisely why I must be a Christian.

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yes. we have to die daily repenting from our fleshly desires including to refuse mercy and forgiveness.

Unforgiveness is especially strong in women. Men tend to be more physical in their sinful desires but can also suffer from unforgiveness and unrighteous judgement

Doc Holliday said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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Do ya'll understand Hebrews 13?

Paul is contrasting what we (Christians) eat at the altar, versus what the Jews eat at the tabernacle.

The Old Covenant priests ate from animal sacrifices at the tabernacle, that's the plain meaning of verses 10-11. Then verse 10 says "we have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat."

Then verse 15 says to "offer up a sacrifice of praise." The word there is eucharistia. It's not just "say thanks." In this context, surrounded by altar, sacrifice, blood, and priesthood language, it's ritual offering vocabulary. Paul isn't randomly switching from physical categories to a purely mental one mid-paragraph. He's naming the new sacrifice that replaces the old one.

The whole passage only makes sense as priesthood-to-priesthood, altar-to-altar, sacrifice-to-sacrifice, eating-to-eating. If the Christian side of that comparison is just an inward feeling of gratitude, the contrast falls apart and doesn't make sense, because you'd be comparing a real, physical, exclusionary system to something anyone can do regardless of church membership. That's not what the text sets up. It sets up two competing systems, and says ours is better and still ours to eat from.

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Apparently, you do not understand Hebrews 13 at all.

NOTHING in Hebrews 13 says that the communion bread and wine are the "Real Presence" of Jesus, or that communion/the Eucharist is the replacement "ceremony" for the church that is the necessary means for us to receive some kind of grace. Where it says "those who serve the tent (Old Covenant Jews who still perform animal sacrifices) have no right to eat", the "eating" there is not literal. He's making the point that the New Covenant involves a higher form of "eating" that the Old Covenant Jews rejected. The "eating" isn't physical. This is made obvious by reading the verse immediately prior:

"... for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods, which have not benefited those devoted to them."

The author clearly is setting up the meaning of "eating" in the following verse in the mind of the reader to convey something higher and more significant than the physical ingestion of food.

Verse 15, which you reference, perfectly illustrates how the author is elevating the concepts of "eating" and "sacrifice" to go BEYOND, not be identical to, their meaning in the Old Covenant way:

"Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God."

It's really odd how you can read a verse thinking it makes your argument, when it completely destroys it. Clearly, this verse is saying that the "Eucharist" is NOT a sacrifice that involves the real, actual re-presentation of Jesus' sacrifice that is performed on an physical altar by human priests - but rather a "sacrifice" that comes from the heart of the believer in the form of thanksgiving, praise, obedience, and love for others. The very verse you offered as support for your view completely destroys it and fully supports the Protestant view instead.

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Here is the outline: don't slide back into ceremonial food law (v.9), we have a real altar you don't have access to (v.10), pointing to Christ's sacrifice outside the camp (v.11-13), and because of that we also offer praise and good works (v.15-16). That's addition, not swap. You've got cause and effect flipped, treating our response to the altar as if it erases the altar.

You've got the logic backwards. Verse 9's "foods" isn't saying eating in general is now some metaphor, it's talking about Jewish food laws, same thing Hebrews 9:10 already covers, "foods and drinks and various washings." It's saying don't get sucked back into Mosaic dietary rules, not "eating doesn't mean eating anymore."

Then verse 10 switches to a totally different image: an altar. "We have an altar those who serve the tent have no right to eat from." That keeps going with real priestly language, actual animals, actual blood, an actual high priest, burned outside the camp. The whole passage is set up as a parallel, their altar and eating vs. our altar and eating. If you want "eat" to suddenly mean something non-physical only on our side, you have to show me that in the text. You're just asserting it and it doesn't make any sense.

And verse 15 doesn't redefine verse 10, it adds to it. Nothing says "sacrifice of praise" replaces the altar. It's an extra exhortation, right next to verse 16's " do good and share." Those are the fruits that come from having the altar, not a reinterpretation that cancels it out. You're treating two separate things, the altar-eating in v.10 and the praise sacrifice in v.15, like the second one swallows the first. Hebrews never says that.

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You're looking at this passage with confirmation bias through your Orthodox lens, so you're reading it as a prescription for the New Covenant church to have the same system of temples, priests, altars, sacrifices, and the physical eating of the sacrifice that was characteristic of the Old Covenant. But this is completely missing the point the author is making, and is in fact going backwards from what the author intended. That old system is obsolete. There is NO MORE SACRIFICE. Jesus' sacrifice on the cross was the finished, once-for-all-time sacrifice for all sins, past, present and future. It completely eliminates the need for any further sacrifice."It is finished". Similarly, there is no more temple, because God now resides in the hearts of believers. There is no more organizational priesthood, because Jesus is now our one, true Priest who intercedes for us directly with God, and we are the "priesthood of believers". There is no more sacrificial "altar" to atone for our sins, because the final sacrifice has already been made. And there is no more literal, physical eating of the sacrifice - the "eating" is what we do when we, by believing in Jesus, gain spiritual sustenance leading to eternal life, which is superior to physical eating, which only gives us physical sustenance towards physical, temporal life. The point of Hebrews was to show that the New Covenant is made superior to the Old - the Old was only a type, a shadow of what was to come. The "altar" and "eating" language the author uses in this chapter in reference to the New Covenant is describing a new, higher, spiritual reality that is superior to the Old. The author is NOT making a one-to-one comparison with the Old Covenant to where the "eating" in the New is the same physical eating as in the Old, but rather a new, spiritual form of it.

Therefore, there is no need whatsoever for the communion bread and wine to contain the presence of Jesus in some "real" way in order for the communion "sacrifice" to be an actual, efficacious sacrifice. The efficacious sacrifice has already been completed. Jesus does not have to be "present" within the bread and wine of communion - he was present at the cross and that is all that was needed. The "Real Presence" of Jesus" in a repeated ceremonial sacrifice is a pure redundancy. And what's infinitely worse, it's actually a rejection of the finished work of Jesus on the cross. And this is what Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy formalize as dogma, a requirement for salvation. Absolutely incredible, and disgusting.

The fact that the author of Hebrews only tells us that the "eucharist" is a "sacrifice of praise"... never once mentioning anything about the sacrifice involving a kind of "real" presence within the communion bread and wine... is illustrative of all of this, and it completely invalidates your view. You're really reading HEAVILY your Orthodox theology into this passage, and your reasoning above is completely forced.

And it needs to be restated, that nowhere, not in Hebrews or anywhere else in Scripture are we told that if a believer takes communion as a symbol/memorial rather than as a "Real Presence", that there is any kind of loss for that believer, let alone salvation itself. A fact made evident by your complete failure to tell us what it is exactly that the believer misses out on. The Roman Catholics fail to do the same. Which reminds me to ask you again: if you really believe that Hebrews 13 and John 6 are telling you that "eating the sacrifice" is to be done in the same manner as in the Old Covenant.... then why aren't you holding to the Roman Catholic view?

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This might be borderline plausible if you just picked up a Bible and started reading it with absolutely no context. That's the problem, though. You can't interpret the Scripture without an understanding of historical Christian belief and practice (or "bias," as you call it).

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Translation: "You can't come to our (Roman Catholic) conclusion unless you hold our hand-picked church fathers as equal in authority to the Scriptures."

Historical Christianity needs to be viewed in context of Scripture, NOT the other way around. Historical Christianity involves fallible men trying to interpret and follow the infallible Word of God. And which history should we use as context to interpret Scripture? Church history was varied in opinion on many things, the nature of the Eucharist being a prime example. I can claim continuity with the early church for everything I've said, just as much as you say you can.

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No one holds the Church Fathers as equal in authority to the Scriptures. They are simply evidence of what the Scriptures meant to the early church. You reject them because they're fallible, then turn around and substitute your own fallible interpretation for theirs. You can't have it both ways.

As for your claim of continuity, it can't be taken seriously based on your quirky reading of an isolated quotation or two. As Doc demonstrated, and as most scholars would agree, the evidence for the Catholic view is overwhelming.

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Exactly, and the evidence is actually unanimous. Every single early Church father shared the real presence and believed it to be His body and blood, not symbolic. They are almost forced to view Church history as purely optional background noise rather than the living witness of how the early Christians actually practiced what the Apostles taught.

Neither John Calvin nor the early Presbyterian standards held the "it's just a symbol" view. They explicitly condemned Zwingli's purely memorial view as inadequate and overly bare. Its also a departure from the reformers.

You basically have to take the position that all the early Church fathers were in error and the Church went dark right after Pentecost. Some protestants actually believe that and share that same view with mormons.

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Your understanding of church history on this topic is sorely lacking. Though virtually every father who wrote on the subject of the Eucharist spoke in some sense about a "Real Presence" in the Eucharist, what was actually MEANT by that was diverse and conflicting. Some saw the communion bread and wine as symbols of Jesus' body and blood and that Jesus "presence" was only spiritual. Those who taught the symbolic/figurative view included but were not limited to Clement, Tertullian, Origen, Cyprian and especially Augustine. Some, on the other hand, saw the bread and wine to actually have become the very substance of Jesus' flesh and blood, and so his "presence" was physical. Some combined the two and said very conflicting statements. There was NO unanimous stance by the early church on the exact nature of the Eucharist and both views, and combinations of them, were allowed to coexist for centuries and were still being debated all the way into the 9th century (Ratramnus vs. Radbert). It wasn't until around the 11th-12th centuries when the Roman Catholic Church began to dogmatically define their version of the Real Presence and punish those who disagreed, ultimately ending the period of diversity by force.

In fact, Augustine, as has already been presented in other threads, was very clear and explicit about the "eating of Jesus" flesh in John chapter 6 and during the Last Supper as being entirely figurative (yes, Sam, entirely). I have already provided the citations in their fullest context in earlier discussions that undeniably show that Augustine did not believe in the literalist, "Real Presence" view of the Roman Catholics, or even the literalist, mystical view held by the Orthodox. It wasn't a "quirky reading" of isolated comments, as some disingenous people here would have you believe. To argue that Augustine's comments support the literalist RC and Orthodox views is to be in denial of reality.

It should also be mentioned that the Didache, one of the earliest sources that tell us of early Christian faith and practice, talks of the early church's practice of the Eucharist - and it says NOTHING about the bread and wine becoming the body and blood of Jesus in any way. You would think that if such a thing were so important for believers, especially considering your stance that a believer's salvation is on the line, that something to that effect would have been stated.

The claim that the church throughout its history held to a unanimous "Real Presence" view regarding the nature of the Eucharist is just flat out wrong. What's even MORE wrong is the Roman Catholic claim that transubstantiation was the continuous belief of the church, as was ridiculously argued above. As with most of Roman Catholicism's doctrines/dogmas, it was the result of historical development over time, and only became the "dominant" view a millenium later, after the Church exerted its influence to that end through force.

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Lol calling Augustine a champion of the "purely symbolic" view only proves you haven't read Augustine. You couldn't have picked a worse example for your symbolic view. You're a real life meme at this point.

When Augustine preaches directly to the newly baptized (Sermon 227), he doesn't leave room for your purely figurative view:

Quote:

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"That bread which you see on the altar, having been sanctified by the word of God, is the body of Christ. That chalice, or rather what is in that chalice, having been sanctified by the word of God, is the blood of Christ."

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In Expositions on the Psalms (Ps 33), he famously notes that Christ carried Himself in His own hands at the Last Supper...that's an absurd statement if it was merely symbolic. Augustine held to a real, spiritual-mystical presence, which is precisely what the Eastern Orthodox Church holds today, rejecting the hyper-literal, pseudo-scientific definitions of scholastic Rome while fiercely maintaining the Real Presence.

You cite Clement, Tertullian, Origen, and Cyprian as "figurative." Yet Tertullian (Against Marcion IV.40) explicitly says the bread is the body of Christ, and Cyprian (The Lapsed 16) warns that profaning the Eucharist attacks the literal "Body and Blood of the Lord." Did the early Fathers debate the exact mechanics of how bread becomes Christ? Absolutely. The language wasn't standardized. But they were unanimous on the outcome: what you receive in the Eucharist is not merely a psychological memory exercise, it's a real, objective communion with the living Christ.

You ignore the earliest explicit threat to Eucharistic theology: Docetism. When St. Ignatius of Antioch (107 AD) fought the very first heretics, he didn't attack them for missing a metaphor, he attacked them because "they abstain from the Eucharist... because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ."

Also keep your response in one post, stop breaking it apart into multiple responses.

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You either missed the whole discussion on Augustine's writings in a previous thread or you ignored them. It's clear that you're taking phrases isolated from the context of all of Augustine's writings, phrases which by themselves don't even support what you're saying. When a church father says "The bread IS the body of Christ...", you are automatically reading literalism into it. But that is just as much a figurative/symbolic statement as it is a literal one. You have to understand what that church father meant by that. I myself fully agree that the bread IS the body of Christ! But in what way is it the body of Christ? This is what I see you and the Roman Catholics here completely failing to engage or flat out ignoring, only shallowly using the phrase to support your literalist views. This is cherry-picking and tribalist narrow thinking, and it's intellectually lazy.

Therefore, the statement Augustine makes, that the bread IS the body of Christ, is by itself NOT supportive of your view. In this sermon he does not expound upon what he means by that. His "carrying himself in his hands" is in his Expositions on Psalm 34, not Psalm 33. And you're making the same mistake in this writing of his as well. Notice what he really said there:

"... how was he 'carried in his own hands'? Because when he commended his own body and blood, he took into his hands that which the faithful knew, and in a manner carried himself, when he said, "This is my body"."

Catch that? In a manner he carried himself. In what manner? You didn't ask this, you just completely assumed he was supporting your literalist view. You and the Roman Catholics here keep making this mistake, over and over.

So what does Augustine say in explicit terms about the Eucharist meal? Let's start here, where Augustine is explaining his hermaneutic on how to interpret Scripture:

"If the sentence is one of command, either forbidding a crime or vice, or enjoining an act of prudence or benevolence, it is not figurative. If, however, it seems to enjoin a crime or vice, or to forbid an act of prudence or benevolence, it is figurative. Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man, says Christ, and drink His blood, you have no life in you. John*6:53 This seems to enjoin a crime or a vice; it is therefore a figure, enjoining that we should have a share in the sufferings of our Lord, and that we should retain a sweet and profitable memory of the fact that His flesh was wounded and crucified for us." (Augustine, On Christian Doctrine. Book 3 Chapter 16).

Clearly, Augustine is saying that Jesus' words in John chapter 6 were entirely figurative, and he even goes on to explain what they are a figure of in the Eucharist meal: sharing in Christ's suffering, and as a MEMORY of his sacrifice. This is literally the symbolic/memorialist view. It is with this writing in mind, that one needs to interpret what Augustine meant in his other writings, such as Sermon 227 and his Expositions on Psalm 34. There's just NO way you can twist around this, this is clear, explicit language. The Roman Catholics here tried, and they made absolute fools of themselves. I implore you to not become a fool, and read this for what it really says, not what your church or Orthodox apologists tell you it says.

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When Augustine calls Jesus' command in John 6 a "figure" (figura), he is not endorsing 20th-century Zwinglian memorialism. And no, you don't agree that it is the body/blood of Christ, you hold to a low church memorialist view.

The reason this debate is so confusing is that you're using Calvinist vocabulary to hide a purely Zwinglian memorialist theology. You claim on one hand that you agree 'the bread IS the body of Christ,' but the moment you're asked to define it, you reduce it entirely to a mental memory exercise: a pure symbol that does nothing objectively, conveys no real grace, and isn't even necessary for the believer.

You aren't standing with Augustine, and you aren't even standing with Calvin. You're standing with Ulrich Zwingli and 19th-century American revivalism.

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STOP overthinking this and accusing me of doing things I'm not doing. I'm not thinking about "Zwinglian memorialism" or anything else like that, but only the words of Augustine that are before us.

Let's have CLARITY - do you agree that:

• Augustine is saying that Jesus was being figurative in John chapter 6;
• he explains what the "eating of Jesus" flesh is a figure of, and it's the sharing the sufferings of Christ and as a memory of his sacrifice?

That's all I'm asking. Can you do better than the Roman Catholics and just be honest and concede what is plain and clear right before us? It's literally verbatim from Augustine's own words above. This isn't meant to be hard, or a trick, or a trap. I'm merely asking if you can simply acknowledge what's obvious to any rational person. If you can't even acknowledge what's right in front of your eyes, then we've demonstrated that your argument isn't rational or honest.

Doc Holliday said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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Do ya'll understand Hebrews 13?

Paul is contrasting what we (Christians) eat at the altar, versus what the Jews eat at the tabernacle.

The Old Covenant priests ate from animal sacrifices at the tabernacle, that's the plain meaning of verses 10-11. Then verse 10 says "we have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat."

Then verse 15 says to "offer up a sacrifice of praise." The word there is eucharistia. It's not just "say thanks." In this context, surrounded by altar, sacrifice, blood, and priesthood language, it's ritual offering vocabulary. Paul isn't randomly switching from physical categories to a purely mental one mid-paragraph. He's naming the new sacrifice that replaces the old one.

The whole passage only makes sense as priesthood-to-priesthood, altar-to-altar, sacrifice-to-sacrifice, eating-to-eating. If the Christian side of that comparison is just an inward feeling of gratitude, the contrast falls apart and doesn't make sense, because you'd be comparing a real, physical, exclusionary system to something anyone can do regardless of church membership. That's not what the text sets up. It sets up two competing systems, and says ours is better and still ours to eat from.

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Apparently, you do not understand Hebrews 13 at all.

NOTHING in Hebrews 13 says that the communion bread and wine are the "Real Presence" of Jesus, or that communion/the Eucharist is the replacement "ceremony" for the church that is the necessary means for us to receive some kind of grace. Where it says "those who serve the tent (Old Covenant Jews who still perform animal sacrifices) have no right to eat", the "eating" there is not literal. He's making the point that the New Covenant involves a higher form of "eating" that the Old Covenant Jews rejected. The "eating" isn't physical. This is made obvious by reading the verse immediately prior:

"... for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods, which have not benefited those devoted to them."

The author clearly is setting up the meaning of "eating" in the following verse in the mind of the reader to convey something higher and more significant than the physical ingestion of food.

Verse 15, which you reference, perfectly illustrates how the author is elevating the concepts of "eating" and "sacrifice" to go BEYOND, not be identical to, their meaning in the Old Covenant way:

"Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God."

It's really odd how you can read a verse thinking it makes your argument, when it completely destroys it. Clearly, this verse is saying that the "Eucharist" is NOT a sacrifice that involves the real, actual re-presentation of Jesus' sacrifice that is performed on an physical altar by human priests - but rather a "sacrifice" that comes from the heart of the believer in the form of thanksgiving, praise, obedience, and love for others. The very verse you offered as support for your view completely destroys it and fully supports the Protestant view instead.

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Here is the outline: don't slide back into ceremonial food law (v.9), we have a real altar you don't have access to (v.10), pointing to Christ's sacrifice outside the camp (v.11-13), and because of that we also offer praise and good works (v.15-16). That's addition, not swap. You've got cause and effect flipped, treating our response to the altar as if it erases the altar.

You've got the logic backwards. Verse 9's "foods" isn't saying eating in general is now some metaphor, it's talking about Jewish food laws, same thing Hebrews 9:10 already covers, "foods and drinks and various washings." It's saying don't get sucked back into Mosaic dietary rules, not "eating doesn't mean eating anymore."

Then verse 10 switches to a totally different image: an altar. "We have an altar those who serve the tent have no right to eat from." That keeps going with real priestly language, actual animals, actual blood, an actual high priest, burned outside the camp. The whole passage is set up as a parallel, their altar and eating vs. our altar and eating. If you want "eat" to suddenly mean something non-physical only on our side, you have to show me that in the text. You're just asserting it and it doesn't make any sense.

And verse 15 doesn't redefine verse 10, it adds to it. Nothing says "sacrifice of praise" replaces the altar. It's an extra exhortation, right next to verse 16's " do good and share." Those are the fruits that come from having the altar, not a reinterpretation that cancels it out. You're treating two separate things, the altar-eating in v.10 and the praise sacrifice in v.15, like the second one swallows the first. Hebrews never says that.

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You're looking at this passage with confirmation bias through your Orthodox lens, so you're reading it as a prescription for the New Covenant church to have the same system of temples, priests, altars, sacrifices, and the physical eating of the sacrifice that was characteristic of the Old Covenant. But this is completely missing the point the author is making, and is in fact going backwards from what the author intended. That old system is obsolete. There is NO MORE SACRIFICE. Jesus' sacrifice on the cross was the finished, once-for-all-time sacrifice for all sins, past, present and future. It completely eliminates the need for any further sacrifice."It is finished". Similarly, there is no more temple, because God now resides in the hearts of believers. There is no more organizational priesthood, because Jesus is now our one, true Priest who intercedes for us directly with God, and we are the "priesthood of believers". There is no more sacrificial "altar" to atone for our sins, because the final sacrifice has already been made. And there is no more literal, physical eating of the sacrifice - the "eating" is what we do when we, by believing in Jesus, gain spiritual sustenance leading to eternal life, which is superior to physical eating, which only gives us physical sustenance towards physical, temporal life. The point of Hebrews was to show that the New Covenant is made superior to the Old - the Old was only a type, a shadow of what was to come. The "altar" and "eating" language the author uses in this chapter in reference to the New Covenant is describing a new, higher, spiritual reality that is superior to the Old. The author is NOT making a one-to-one comparison with the Old Covenant to where the "eating" in the New is the same physical eating as in the Old, but rather a new, spiritual form of it.

Therefore, there is no need whatsoever for the communion bread and wine to contain the presence of Jesus in some "real" way in order for the communion "sacrifice" to be an actual, efficacious sacrifice. The efficacious sacrifice has already been completed. Jesus does not have to be "present" within the bread and wine of communion - he was present at the cross and that is all that was needed. The "Real Presence" of Jesus" in a repeated ceremonial sacrifice is a pure redundancy. And what's infinitely worse, it's actually a rejection of the finished work of Jesus on the cross. And this is what Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy formalize as dogma, a requirement for salvation. Absolutely incredible, and disgusting.

The fact that the author of Hebrews only tells us that the "eucharist" is a "sacrifice of praise"... never once mentioning anything about the sacrifice involving a kind of "real" presence within the communion bread and wine... is illustrative of all of this, and it completely invalidates your view. You're really reading HEAVILY your Orthodox theology into this passage, and your reasoning above is completely forced.

And it needs to be restated, that nowhere, not in Hebrews or anywhere else in Scripture are we told that if a believer takes communion as a symbol/memorial rather than as a "Real Presence", that there is any kind of loss for that believer, let alone salvation itself. A fact made evident by your complete failure to tell us what it is exactly that the believer misses out on. The Roman Catholics fail to do the same. Which reminds me to ask you again: if you really believe that Hebrews 13 and John 6 are telling you that "eating the sacrifice" is to be done in the same manner as in the Old Covenant.... then why aren't you holding to the Roman Catholic view?

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This might be borderline plausible if you just picked up a Bible and started reading it with absolutely no context. That's the problem, though. You can't interpret the Scripture without an understanding of historical Christian belief and practice (or "bias," as you call it).

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Translation: "You can't come to our (Roman Catholic) conclusion unless you hold our hand-picked church fathers as equal in authority to the Scriptures."

Historical Christianity needs to be viewed in context of Scripture, NOT the other way around. Historical Christianity involves fallible men trying to interpret and follow the infallible Word of God. And which history should we use as context to interpret Scripture? Church history was varied in opinion on many things, the nature of the Eucharist being a prime example. I can claim continuity with the early church for everything I've said, just as much as you say you can.

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No one holds the Church Fathers as equal in authority to the Scriptures. They are simply evidence of what the Scriptures meant to the early church. You reject them because they're fallible, then turn around and substitute your own fallible interpretation for theirs. You can't have it both ways.

As for your claim of continuity, it can't be taken seriously based on your quirky reading of an isolated quotation or two. As Doc demonstrated, and as most scholars would agree, the evidence for the Catholic view is overwhelming.

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Exactly, and the evidence is actually unanimous. Every single early Church father shared the real presence and believed it to be His body and blood, not symbolic. They are almost forced to view Church history as purely optional background noise rather than the living witness of how the early Christians actually practiced what the Apostles taught.

Neither John Calvin nor the early Presbyterian standards held the "it's just a symbol" view. They explicitly condemned Zwingli's purely memorial view as inadequate and overly bare. Its also a departure from the reformers.

You basically have to take the position that all the early Church fathers were in error and the Church went dark right after Pentecost. Some protestants actually believe that and share that same view with mormons.

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Your understanding of church history on this topic is sorely lacking. Though virtually every father who wrote on the subject of the Eucharist spoke in some sense about a "Real Presence" in the Eucharist, what was actually MEANT by that was diverse and conflicting. Some saw the communion bread and wine as symbols of Jesus' body and blood and that Jesus "presence" was only spiritual. Those who taught the symbolic/figurative view included but were not limited to Clement, Tertullian, Origen, Cyprian and especially Augustine. Some, on the other hand, saw the bread and wine to actually have become the very substance of Jesus' flesh and blood, and so his "presence" was physical. Some combined the two and said very conflicting statements. There was NO unanimous stance by the early church on the exact nature of the Eucharist and both views, and combinations of them, were allowed to coexist for centuries and were still being debated all the way into the 9th century (Ratramnus vs. Radbert). It wasn't until around the 11th-12th centuries when the Roman Catholic Church began to dogmatically define their version of the Real Presence and punish those who disagreed, ultimately ending the period of diversity by force.

In fact, Augustine, as has already been presented in other threads, was very clear and explicit about the "eating of Jesus" flesh in John chapter 6 and during the Last Supper as being entirely figurative (yes, Sam, entirely). I have already provided the citations in their fullest context in earlier discussions that undeniably show that Augustine did not believe in the literalist, "Real Presence" view of the Roman Catholics, or even the literalist, mystical view held by the Orthodox. It wasn't a "quirky reading" of isolated comments, as some disingenous people here would have you believe. To argue that Augustine's comments support the literalist RC and Orthodox views is to be in denial of reality.

It should also be mentioned that the Didache, one of the earliest sources that tell us of early Christian faith and practice, talks of the early church's practice of the Eucharist - and it says NOTHING about the bread and wine becoming the body and blood of Jesus in any way. You would think that if such a thing were so important for believers, especially considering your stance that a believer's salvation is on the line, that something to that effect would have been stated.

The claim that the church throughout its history held to a unanimous "Real Presence" view regarding the nature of the Eucharist is just flat out wrong. What's even MORE wrong is the Roman Catholic claim that transubstantiation was the continuous belief of the church, as was ridiculously argued above. As with most of Roman Catholicism's doctrines/dogmas, it was the result of historical development over time, and only became the "dominant" view a millenium later, after the Church exerted its influence to that end through force.

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Lol calling Augustine a champion of the "purely symbolic" view only proves you haven't read Augustine. You couldn't have picked a worse example for your symbolic view. You're a real life meme at this point.

When Augustine preaches directly to the newly baptized (Sermon 227), he doesn't leave room for your purely figurative view:

Quote:

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"That bread which you see on the altar, having been sanctified by the word of God, is the body of Christ. That chalice, or rather what is in that chalice, having been sanctified by the word of God, is the blood of Christ."

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In Expositions on the Psalms (Ps 33), he famously notes that Christ carried Himself in His own hands at the Last Supper...that's an absurd statement if it was merely symbolic. Augustine held to a real, spiritual-mystical presence, which is precisely what the Eastern Orthodox Church holds today, rejecting the hyper-literal, pseudo-scientific definitions of scholastic Rome while fiercely maintaining the Real Presence.

You cite Clement, Tertullian, Origen, and Cyprian as "figurative." Yet Tertullian (Against Marcion IV.40) explicitly says the bread is the body of Christ, and Cyprian (The Lapsed 16) warns that profaning the Eucharist attacks the literal "Body and Blood of the Lord." Did the early Fathers debate the exact mechanics of how bread becomes Christ? Absolutely. The language wasn't standardized. But they were unanimous on the outcome: what you receive in the Eucharist is not merely a psychological memory exercise, it's a real, objective communion with the living Christ.

You ignore the earliest explicit threat to Eucharistic theology: Docetism. When St. Ignatius of Antioch (107 AD) fought the very first heretics, he didn't attack them for missing a metaphor, he attacked them because "they abstain from the Eucharist... because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ."

Also keep your response in one post, stop breaking it apart into multiple responses.

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You either missed the whole discussion on Augustine's writings in a previous thread or you ignored them. It's clear that you're taking phrases isolated from the context of all of Augustine's writings, phrases which by themselves don't even support what you're saying. When a church father says "The bread IS the body of Christ...", you are automatically reading literalism into it. But that is just as much a figurative/symbolic statement as it is a literal one. You have to understand what that church father meant by that. I myself fully agree that the bread IS the body of Christ! But in what way is it the body of Christ? This is what I see you and the Roman Catholics here completely failing to engage or flat out ignoring, only shallowly using the phrase to support your literalist views. This is cherry-picking and tribalist narrow thinking, and it's intellectually lazy.

Therefore, the statement Augustine makes, that the bread IS the body of Christ, is by itself NOT supportive of your view. In this sermon he does not expound upon what he means by that. His "carrying himself in his hands" is in his Expositions on Psalm 34, not Psalm 33. And you're making the same mistake in this writing of his as well. Notice what he really said there:

"... how was he 'carried in his own hands'? Because when he commended his own body and blood, he took into his hands that which the faithful knew, and in a manner carried himself, when he said, "This is my body"."

Catch that? In a manner he carried himself. In what manner? You didn't ask this, you just completely assumed he was supporting your literalist view. You and the Roman Catholics here keep making this mistake, over and over.

So what does Augustine say in explicit terms about the Eucharist meal? Let's start here, where Augustine is explaining his hermaneutic on how to interpret Scripture:

"If the sentence is one of command, either forbidding a crime or vice, or enjoining an act of prudence or benevolence, it is not figurative. If, however, it seems to enjoin a crime or vice, or to forbid an act of prudence or benevolence, it is figurative. Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man, says Christ, and drink His blood, you have no life in you. John*6:53 This seems to enjoin a crime or a vice; it is therefore a figure, enjoining that we should have a share in the sufferings of our Lord, and that we should retain a sweet and profitable memory of the fact that His flesh was wounded and crucified for us." (Augustine, On Christian Doctrine. Book 3 Chapter 16).

Clearly, Augustine is saying that Jesus' words in John chapter 6 were entirely figurative, and he even goes on to explain what they are a figure of in the Eucharist meal: sharing in Christ's suffering, and as a MEMORY of his sacrifice. This is literally the symbolic/memorialist view. It is with this writing in mind, that one needs to interpret what Augustine meant in his other writings, such as Sermon 227 and his Expositions on Psalm 34. There's just NO way you can twist around this, this is clear, explicit language. The Roman Catholics here tried, and they made absolute fools of themselves. I implore you to not become a fool, and read this for what it really says, not what your church or Orthodox apologists tell you it says.

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Augustine refuting cannibalism in On Christian Doctrine is not Augustine denying the Real Presence.
You stopped quoting Augustine mid thought. If you read On Christian Doctrine and his broader works on John 6, Augustine explicitly identifies what is received in that figure. In Tractates on the Gospel of John (Tractate 26), where he famously discusses spiritual eating ("Believe and you have eaten"), he explicitly clarifies that the spiritual sign and the reality (res sacramenti) are bound together in the Church's life:

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"The sacrament of a thing, that is, of the unity of the body and blood of Christ, is received from the Lord's table... by some unto life, by some unto destruction; but the thing itself whereof it is the sacrament, is for every man unto life."

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DING DING!! THERE IT IS!! "Believe and YOU HAVE EATEN."

Are you even reading your Augustine citations? You're obviously not processing what you're reading, if you are. Here is what Augustine said in Tractate 26:

"Wherefore, the Lord, about to give the Holy Spirit, said that Himself was the bread that came down from heaven, exhorting us to believe in Him. For to believe in Him is to eat the living bread. He that believes eats;"

HOW can this be any clearer? HOW can you continue debating this?

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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Do ya'll understand Hebrews 13?

Paul is contrasting what we (Christians) eat at the altar, versus what the Jews eat at the tabernacle.

The Old Covenant priests ate from animal sacrifices at the tabernacle, that's the plain meaning of verses 10-11. Then verse 10 says "we have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat."

Then verse 15 says to "offer up a sacrifice of praise." The word there is eucharistia. It's not just "say thanks." In this context, surrounded by altar, sacrifice, blood, and priesthood language, it's ritual offering vocabulary. Paul isn't randomly switching from physical categories to a purely mental one mid-paragraph. He's naming the new sacrifice that replaces the old one.

The whole passage only makes sense as priesthood-to-priesthood, altar-to-altar, sacrifice-to-sacrifice, eating-to-eating. If the Christian side of that comparison is just an inward feeling of gratitude, the contrast falls apart and doesn't make sense, because you'd be comparing a real, physical, exclusionary system to something anyone can do regardless of church membership. That's not what the text sets up. It sets up two competing systems, and says ours is better and still ours to eat from.

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Apparently, you do not understand Hebrews 13 at all.

NOTHING in Hebrews 13 says that the communion bread and wine are the "Real Presence" of Jesus, or that communion/the Eucharist is the replacement "ceremony" for the church that is the necessary means for us to receive some kind of grace. Where it says "those who serve the tent (Old Covenant Jews who still perform animal sacrifices) have no right to eat", the "eating" there is not literal. He's making the point that the New Covenant involves a higher form of "eating" that the Old Covenant Jews rejected. The "eating" isn't physical. This is made obvious by reading the verse immediately prior:

"... for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods, which have not benefited those devoted to them."

The author clearly is setting up the meaning of "eating" in the following verse in the mind of the reader to convey something higher and more significant than the physical ingestion of food.

Verse 15, which you reference, perfectly illustrates how the author is elevating the concepts of "eating" and "sacrifice" to go BEYOND, not be identical to, their meaning in the Old Covenant way:

"Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God."

It's really odd how you can read a verse thinking it makes your argument, when it completely destroys it. Clearly, this verse is saying that the "Eucharist" is NOT a sacrifice that involves the real, actual re-presentation of Jesus' sacrifice that is performed on an physical altar by human priests - but rather a "sacrifice" that comes from the heart of the believer in the form of thanksgiving, praise, obedience, and love for others. The very verse you offered as support for your view completely destroys it and fully supports the Protestant view instead.

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Here is the outline: don't slide back into ceremonial food law (v.9), we have a real altar you don't have access to (v.10), pointing to Christ's sacrifice outside the camp (v.11-13), and because of that we also offer praise and good works (v.15-16). That's addition, not swap. You've got cause and effect flipped, treating our response to the altar as if it erases the altar.

You've got the logic backwards. Verse 9's "foods" isn't saying eating in general is now some metaphor, it's talking about Jewish food laws, same thing Hebrews 9:10 already covers, "foods and drinks and various washings." It's saying don't get sucked back into Mosaic dietary rules, not "eating doesn't mean eating anymore."

Then verse 10 switches to a totally different image: an altar. "We have an altar those who serve the tent have no right to eat from." That keeps going with real priestly language, actual animals, actual blood, an actual high priest, burned outside the camp. The whole passage is set up as a parallel, their altar and eating vs. our altar and eating. If you want "eat" to suddenly mean something non-physical only on our side, you have to show me that in the text. You're just asserting it and it doesn't make any sense.

And verse 15 doesn't redefine verse 10, it adds to it. Nothing says "sacrifice of praise" replaces the altar. It's an extra exhortation, right next to verse 16's " do good and share." Those are the fruits that come from having the altar, not a reinterpretation that cancels it out. You're treating two separate things, the altar-eating in v.10 and the praise sacrifice in v.15, like the second one swallows the first. Hebrews never says that.

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You're looking at this passage with confirmation bias through your Orthodox lens, so you're reading it as a prescription for the New Covenant church to have the same system of temples, priests, altars, sacrifices, and the physical eating of the sacrifice that was characteristic of the Old Covenant. But this is completely missing the point the author is making, and is in fact going backwards from what the author intended. That old system is obsolete. There is NO MORE SACRIFICE. Jesus' sacrifice on the cross was the finished, once-for-all-time sacrifice for all sins, past, present and future. It completely eliminates the need for any further sacrifice."It is finished". Similarly, there is no more temple, because God now resides in the hearts of believers. There is no more organizational priesthood, because Jesus is now our one, true Priest who intercedes for us directly with God, and we are the "priesthood of believers". There is no more sacrificial "altar" to atone for our sins, because the final sacrifice has already been made. And there is no more literal, physical eating of the sacrifice - the "eating" is what we do when we, by believing in Jesus, gain spiritual sustenance leading to eternal life, which is superior to physical eating, which only gives us physical sustenance towards physical, temporal life. The point of Hebrews was to show that the New Covenant is made superior to the Old - the Old was only a type, a shadow of what was to come. The "altar" and "eating" language the author uses in this chapter in reference to the New Covenant is describing a new, higher, spiritual reality that is superior to the Old. The author is NOT making a one-to-one comparison with the Old Covenant to where the "eating" in the New is the same physical eating as in the Old, but rather a new, spiritual form of it.

Therefore, there is no need whatsoever for the communion bread and wine to contain the presence of Jesus in some "real" way in order for the communion "sacrifice" to be an actual, efficacious sacrifice. The efficacious sacrifice has already been completed. Jesus does not have to be "present" within the bread and wine of communion - he was present at the cross and that is all that was needed. The "Real Presence" of Jesus" in a repeated ceremonial sacrifice is a pure redundancy. And what's infinitely worse, it's actually a rejection of the finished work of Jesus on the cross. And this is what Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy formalize as dogma, a requirement for salvation. Absolutely incredible, and disgusting.

The fact that the author of Hebrews only tells us that the "eucharist" is a "sacrifice of praise"... never once mentioning anything about the sacrifice involving a kind of "real" presence within the communion bread and wine... is illustrative of all of this, and it completely invalidates your view. You're really reading HEAVILY your Orthodox theology into this passage, and your reasoning above is completely forced.

And it needs to be restated, that nowhere, not in Hebrews or anywhere else in Scripture are we told that if a believer takes communion as a symbol/memorial rather than as a "Real Presence", that there is any kind of loss for that believer, let alone salvation itself. A fact made evident by your complete failure to tell us what it is exactly that the believer misses out on. The Roman Catholics fail to do the same. Which reminds me to ask you again: if you really believe that Hebrews 13 and John 6 are telling you that "eating the sacrifice" is to be done in the same manner as in the Old Covenant.... then why aren't you holding to the Roman Catholic view?

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This might be borderline plausible if you just picked up a Bible and started reading it with absolutely no context. That's the problem, though. You can't interpret the Scripture without an understanding of historical Christian belief and practice (or "bias," as you call it).

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Translation: "You can't come to our (Roman Catholic) conclusion unless you hold our hand-picked church fathers as equal in authority to the Scriptures."

Historical Christianity needs to be viewed in context of Scripture, NOT the other way around. Historical Christianity involves fallible men trying to interpret and follow the infallible Word of God. And which history should we use as context to interpret Scripture? Church history was varied in opinion on many things, the nature of the Eucharist being a prime example. I can claim continuity with the early church for everything I've said, just as much as you say you can.

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No one holds the Church Fathers as equal in authority to the Scriptures. They are simply evidence of what the Scriptures meant to the early church. You reject them because they're fallible, then turn around and substitute your own fallible interpretation for theirs. You can't have it both ways.

As for your claim of continuity, it can't be taken seriously based on your quirky reading of an isolated quotation or two. As Doc demonstrated, and as most scholars would agree, the evidence for the Catholic view is overwhelming.

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Exactly, and the evidence is actually unanimous. Every single early Church father shared the real presence and believed it to be His body and blood, not symbolic. They are almost forced to view Church history as purely optional background noise rather than the living witness of how the early Christians actually practiced what the Apostles taught.

Neither John Calvin nor the early Presbyterian standards held the "it's just a symbol" view. They explicitly condemned Zwingli's purely memorial view as inadequate and overly bare. Its also a departure from the reformers.

You basically have to take the position that all the early Church fathers were in error and the Church went dark right after Pentecost. Some protestants actually believe that and share that same view with mormons.

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Your understanding of church history on this topic is sorely lacking. Though virtually every father who wrote on the subject of the Eucharist spoke in some sense about a "Real Presence" in the Eucharist, what was actually MEANT by that was diverse and conflicting. Some saw the communion bread and wine as symbols of Jesus' body and blood and that Jesus "presence" was only spiritual. Those who taught the symbolic/figurative view included but were not limited to Clement, Tertullian, Origen, Cyprian and especially Augustine. Some, on the other hand, saw the bread and wine to actually have become the very substance of Jesus' flesh and blood, and so his "presence" was physical. Some combined the two and said very conflicting statements. There was NO unanimous stance by the early church on the exact nature of the Eucharist and both views, and combinations of them, were allowed to coexist for centuries and were still being debated all the way into the 9th century (Ratramnus vs. Radbert). It wasn't until around the 11th-12th centuries when the Roman Catholic Church began to dogmatically define their version of the Real Presence and punish those who disagreed, ultimately ending the period of diversity by force.

In fact, Augustine, as has already been presented in other threads, was very clear and explicit about the "eating of Jesus" flesh in John chapter 6 and during the Last Supper as being entirely figurative (yes, Sam, entirely). I have already provided the citations in their fullest context in earlier discussions that undeniably show that Augustine did not believe in the literalist, "Real Presence" view of the Roman Catholics, or even the literalist, mystical view held by the Orthodox. It wasn't a "quirky reading" of isolated comments, as some disingenous people here would have you believe. To argue that Augustine's comments support the literalist RC and Orthodox views is to be in denial of reality.

It should also be mentioned that the Didache, one of the earliest sources that tell us of early Christian faith and practice, talks of the early church's practice of the Eucharist - and it says NOTHING about the bread and wine becoming the body and blood of Jesus in any way. You would think that if such a thing were so important for believers, especially considering your stance that a believer's salvation is on the line, that something to that effect would have been stated.

The claim that the church throughout its history held to a unanimous "Real Presence" view regarding the nature of the Eucharist is just flat out wrong. What's even MORE wrong is the Roman Catholic claim that transubstantiation was the continuous belief of the church, as was ridiculously argued above. As with most of Roman Catholicism's doctrines/dogmas, it was the result of historical development over time, and only became the "dominant" view a millenium later, after the Church exerted its influence to that end through force.

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Lol calling Augustine a champion of the "purely symbolic" view only proves you haven't read Augustine. You couldn't have picked a worse example for your symbolic view. You're a real life meme at this point.

When Augustine preaches directly to the newly baptized (Sermon 227), he doesn't leave room for your purely figurative view:

Quote:

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"That bread which you see on the altar, having been sanctified by the word of God, is the body of Christ. That chalice, or rather what is in that chalice, having been sanctified by the word of God, is the blood of Christ."

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In Expositions on the Psalms (Ps 33), he famously notes that Christ carried Himself in His own hands at the Last Supper...that's an absurd statement if it was merely symbolic. Augustine held to a real, spiritual-mystical presence, which is precisely what the Eastern Orthodox Church holds today, rejecting the hyper-literal, pseudo-scientific definitions of scholastic Rome while fiercely maintaining the Real Presence.

You cite Clement, Tertullian, Origen, and Cyprian as "figurative." Yet Tertullian (Against Marcion IV.40) explicitly says the bread is the body of Christ, and Cyprian (The Lapsed 16) warns that profaning the Eucharist attacks the literal "Body and Blood of the Lord." Did the early Fathers debate the exact mechanics of how bread becomes Christ? Absolutely. The language wasn't standardized. But they were unanimous on the outcome: what you receive in the Eucharist is not merely a psychological memory exercise, it's a real, objective communion with the living Christ.

You ignore the earliest explicit threat to Eucharistic theology: Docetism. When St. Ignatius of Antioch (107 AD) fought the very first heretics, he didn't attack them for missing a metaphor, he attacked them because "they abstain from the Eucharist... because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ."

Also keep your response in one post, stop breaking it apart into multiple responses.

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You either missed the whole discussion on Augustine's writings in a previous thread or you ignored them. It's clear that you're taking phrases isolated from the context of all of Augustine's writings, phrases which by themselves don't even support what you're saying. When a church father says "The bread IS the body of Christ...", you are automatically reading literalism into it. But that is just as much a figurative/symbolic statement as it is a literal one. You have to understand what that church father meant by that. I myself fully agree that the bread IS the body of Christ! But in what way is it the body of Christ? This is what I see you and the Roman Catholics here completely failing to engage or flat out ignoring, only shallowly using the phrase to support your literalist views. This is cherry-picking and tribalist narrow thinking, and it's intellectually lazy.

Therefore, the statement Augustine makes, that the bread IS the body of Christ, is by itself NOT supportive of your view. In this sermon he does not expound upon what he means by that. His "carrying himself in his hands" is in his Expositions on Psalm 34, not Psalm 33. And you're making the same mistake in this writing of his as well. Notice what he really said there:

"... how was he 'carried in his own hands'? Because when he commended his own body and blood, he took into his hands that which the faithful knew, and in a manner carried himself, when he said, "This is my body"."

Catch that? In a manner he carried himself. In what manner? You didn't ask this, you just completely assumed he was supporting your literalist view. You and the Roman Catholics here keep making this mistake, over and over.

So what does Augustine say in explicit terms about the Eucharist meal? Let's start here, where Augustine is explaining his hermaneutic on how to interpret Scripture:

"If the sentence is one of command, either forbidding a crime or vice, or enjoining an act of prudence or benevolence, it is not figurative. If, however, it seems to enjoin a crime or vice, or to forbid an act of prudence or benevolence, it is figurative. Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man, says Christ, and drink His blood, you have no life in you. John*6:53 This seems to enjoin a crime or a vice; it is therefore a figure, enjoining that we should have a share in the sufferings of our Lord, and that we should retain a sweet and profitable memory of the fact that His flesh was wounded and crucified for us." (Augustine, On Christian Doctrine. Book 3 Chapter 16).

Clearly, Augustine is saying that Jesus' words in John chapter 6 were entirely figurative, and he even goes on to explain what they are a figure of in the Eucharist meal: sharing in Christ's suffering, and as a MEMORY of his sacrifice. This is literally the symbolic/memorialist view. It is with this writing in mind, that one needs to interpret what Augustine meant in his other writings, such as Sermon 227 and his Expositions on Psalm 34. There's just NO way you can twist around this, this is clear, explicit language. The Roman Catholics here tried, and they made absolute fools of themselves. I implore you to not become a fool, and read this for what it really says, not what your church or Orthodox apologists tell you it says.

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When Augustine calls Jesus' command in John 6 a "figure" (figura), he is not endorsing 20th-century Zwinglian memorialism. And no, you don't agree that it is the body/blood of Christ, you hold to a low church memorialist view.

The reason this debate is so confusing is that you're using Calvinist vocabulary to hide a purely Zwinglian memorialist theology. You claim on one hand that you agree 'the bread IS the body of Christ,' but the moment you're asked to define it, you reduce it entirely to a mental memory exercise: a pure symbol that does nothing objectively, conveys no real grace, and isn't even necessary for the believer.

You aren't standing with Augustine, and you aren't even standing with Calvin. You're standing with Ulrich Zwingli and 19th-century American revivalism.

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STOP overthinking this and accusing me of doing things I'm not doing. I'm not thinking about "Zwinglian memorialism" or anything else like that, but only the words of Augustine that are before us.

Let's have CLARITY - do you agree that:

• Augustine is saying that Jesus was being figurative in John chapter 6;
• he explains what the "eating of Jesus" flesh is a figure of, and it's the sharing the sufferings of Christ and as a memory of his sacrifice?

That's all I'm asking. Can you do better than the Roman Catholics and just be honest and concede what is plain and clear right before us? It's literally verbatim from Augustine's own words above. This isn't meant to be hard, or a trick, or a trap. I'm merely asking if you can simply acknowledge what's obvious to any rational person. If you can't even acknowledge what's right in front of your eyes, then we've demonstrated that your argument isn't rational or honest.

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I don't deny that its real presence and a memory. That's not in contention, there's no logical issues with that.

You need to come clean about your view, because you're all over the place. You're claiming its really His body/blood and simultaneously claiming its strictly memorialist. You keep trying to avoid coming clean about your denomination and the traditions you rely on.

And why are you basing everything on solely Augustine, again who everyone, including most protestant scholars even agree he viewed it as a real sacrament and real body/blood. I mean cmon dude...he called it a sacrament twice in one sentence, that's right in front of your eyes.

This isn't even contested in the debate sphere between prots/Orthodox/catholic. You're way out of bounds my guy.

This is so stupid. Just say you disagree with the early Church Fathers and accept that you think they have heretical views. You already think your interpretation infallible. You think your reading of scripture is perfect and nobody can challenge you.

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Sam Lowry said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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Do ya'll understand Hebrews 13?

Paul is contrasting what we (Christians) eat at the altar, versus what the Jews eat at the tabernacle.

The Old Covenant priests ate from animal sacrifices at the tabernacle, that's the plain meaning of verses 10-11. Then verse 10 says "we have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat."

Then verse 15 says to "offer up a sacrifice of praise." The word there is eucharistia. It's not just "say thanks." In this context, surrounded by altar, sacrifice, blood, and priesthood language, it's ritual offering vocabulary. Paul isn't randomly switching from physical categories to a purely mental one mid-paragraph. He's naming the new sacrifice that replaces the old one.

The whole passage only makes sense as priesthood-to-priesthood, altar-to-altar, sacrifice-to-sacrifice, eating-to-eating. If the Christian side of that comparison is just an inward feeling of gratitude, the contrast falls apart and doesn't make sense, because you'd be comparing a real, physical, exclusionary system to something anyone can do regardless of church membership. That's not what the text sets up. It sets up two competing systems, and says ours is better and still ours to eat from.

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Apparently, you do not understand Hebrews 13 at all.

NOTHING in Hebrews 13 says that the communion bread and wine are the "Real Presence" of Jesus, or that communion/the Eucharist is the replacement "ceremony" for the church that is the necessary means for us to receive some kind of grace. Where it says "those who serve the tent (Old Covenant Jews who still perform animal sacrifices) have no right to eat", the "eating" there is not literal. He's making the point that the New Covenant involves a higher form of "eating" that the Old Covenant Jews rejected. The "eating" isn't physical. This is made obvious by reading the verse immediately prior:

"... for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods, which have not benefited those devoted to them."

The author clearly is setting up the meaning of "eating" in the following verse in the mind of the reader to convey something higher and more significant than the physical ingestion of food.

Verse 15, which you reference, perfectly illustrates how the author is elevating the concepts of "eating" and "sacrifice" to go BEYOND, not be identical to, their meaning in the Old Covenant way:

"Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God."

It's really odd how you can read a verse thinking it makes your argument, when it completely destroys it. Clearly, this verse is saying that the "Eucharist" is NOT a sacrifice that involves the real, actual re-presentation of Jesus' sacrifice that is performed on an physical altar by human priests - but rather a "sacrifice" that comes from the heart of the believer in the form of thanksgiving, praise, obedience, and love for others. The very verse you offered as support for your view completely destroys it and fully supports the Protestant view instead.

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Here is the outline: don't slide back into ceremonial food law (v.9), we have a real altar you don't have access to (v.10), pointing to Christ's sacrifice outside the camp (v.11-13), and because of that we also offer praise and good works (v.15-16). That's addition, not swap. You've got cause and effect flipped, treating our response to the altar as if it erases the altar.

You've got the logic backwards. Verse 9's "foods" isn't saying eating in general is now some metaphor, it's talking about Jewish food laws, same thing Hebrews 9:10 already covers, "foods and drinks and various washings." It's saying don't get sucked back into Mosaic dietary rules, not "eating doesn't mean eating anymore."

Then verse 10 switches to a totally different image: an altar. "We have an altar those who serve the tent have no right to eat from." That keeps going with real priestly language, actual animals, actual blood, an actual high priest, burned outside the camp. The whole passage is set up as a parallel, their altar and eating vs. our altar and eating. If you want "eat" to suddenly mean something non-physical only on our side, you have to show me that in the text. You're just asserting it and it doesn't make any sense.

And verse 15 doesn't redefine verse 10, it adds to it. Nothing says "sacrifice of praise" replaces the altar. It's an extra exhortation, right next to verse 16's " do good and share." Those are the fruits that come from having the altar, not a reinterpretation that cancels it out. You're treating two separate things, the altar-eating in v.10 and the praise sacrifice in v.15, like the second one swallows the first. Hebrews never says that.

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You're looking at this passage with confirmation bias through your Orthodox lens, so you're reading it as a prescription for the New Covenant church to have the same system of temples, priests, altars, sacrifices, and the physical eating of the sacrifice that was characteristic of the Old Covenant. But this is completely missing the point the author is making, and is in fact going backwards from what the author intended. That old system is obsolete. There is NO MORE SACRIFICE. Jesus' sacrifice on the cross was the finished, once-for-all-time sacrifice for all sins, past, present and future. It completely eliminates the need for any further sacrifice."It is finished". Similarly, there is no more temple, because God now resides in the hearts of believers. There is no more organizational priesthood, because Jesus is now our one, true Priest who intercedes for us directly with God, and we are the "priesthood of believers". There is no more sacrificial "altar" to atone for our sins, because the final sacrifice has already been made. And there is no more literal, physical eating of the sacrifice - the "eating" is what we do when we, by believing in Jesus, gain spiritual sustenance leading to eternal life, which is superior to physical eating, which only gives us physical sustenance towards physical, temporal life. The point of Hebrews was to show that the New Covenant is made superior to the Old - the Old was only a type, a shadow of what was to come. The "altar" and "eating" language the author uses in this chapter in reference to the New Covenant is describing a new, higher, spiritual reality that is superior to the Old. The author is NOT making a one-to-one comparison with the Old Covenant to where the "eating" in the New is the same physical eating as in the Old, but rather a new, spiritual form of it.

Therefore, there is no need whatsoever for the communion bread and wine to contain the presence of Jesus in some "real" way in order for the communion "sacrifice" to be an actual, efficacious sacrifice. The efficacious sacrifice has already been completed. Jesus does not have to be "present" within the bread and wine of communion - he was present at the cross and that is all that was needed. The "Real Presence" of Jesus" in a repeated ceremonial sacrifice is a pure redundancy. And what's infinitely worse, it's actually a rejection of the finished work of Jesus on the cross. And this is what Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy formalize as dogma, a requirement for salvation. Absolutely incredible, and disgusting.

The fact that the author of Hebrews only tells us that the "eucharist" is a "sacrifice of praise"... never once mentioning anything about the sacrifice involving a kind of "real" presence within the communion bread and wine... is illustrative of all of this, and it completely invalidates your view. You're really reading HEAVILY your Orthodox theology into this passage, and your reasoning above is completely forced.

And it needs to be restated, that nowhere, not in Hebrews or anywhere else in Scripture are we told that if a believer takes communion as a symbol/memorial rather than as a "Real Presence", that there is any kind of loss for that believer, let alone salvation itself. A fact made evident by your complete failure to tell us what it is exactly that the believer misses out on. The Roman Catholics fail to do the same. Which reminds me to ask you again: if you really believe that Hebrews 13 and John 6 are telling you that "eating the sacrifice" is to be done in the same manner as in the Old Covenant.... then why aren't you holding to the Roman Catholic view?

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This might be borderline plausible if you just picked up a Bible and started reading it with absolutely no context. That's the problem, though. You can't interpret the Scripture without an understanding of historical Christian belief and practice (or "bias," as you call it).

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Translation: "You can't come to our (Roman Catholic) conclusion unless you hold our hand-picked church fathers as equal in authority to the Scriptures."

Historical Christianity needs to be viewed in context of Scripture, NOT the other way around. Historical Christianity involves fallible men trying to interpret and follow the infallible Word of God. And which history should we use as context to interpret Scripture? Church history was varied in opinion on many things, the nature of the Eucharist being a prime example. I can claim continuity with the early church for everything I've said, just as much as you say you can.

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No one holds the Church Fathers as equal in authority to the Scriptures. They are simply evidence of what the Scriptures meant to the early church. You reject them because they're fallible, then turn around and substitute your own fallible interpretation for theirs. You can't have it both ways.

As for your claim of continuity, it can't be taken seriously based on your quirky reading of an isolated quotation or two. As Doc demonstrated, and as most scholars would agree, the evidence for the Catholic view is overwhelming.

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Exactly, and the evidence is actually unanimous. Every single early Church father shared the real presence and believed it to be His body and blood, not symbolic. They are almost forced to view Church history as purely optional background noise rather than the living witness of how the early Christians actually practiced what the Apostles taught.

Neither John Calvin nor the early Presbyterian standards held the "it's just a symbol" view. They explicitly condemned Zwingli's purely memorial view as inadequate and overly bare. Its also a departure from the reformers.

You basically have to take the position that all the early Church fathers were in error and the Church went dark right after Pentecost. Some protestants actually believe that and share that same view with mormons.

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Your understanding of church history on this topic is sorely lacking. Though virtually every father who wrote on the subject of the Eucharist spoke in some sense about a "Real Presence" in the Eucharist, what was actually MEANT by that was diverse and conflicting. Some saw the communion bread and wine as symbols of Jesus' body and blood and that Jesus "presence" was only spiritual. Those who taught the symbolic/figurative view included but were not limited to Clement, Tertullian, Origen, Cyprian and especially Augustine. Some, on the other hand, saw the bread and wine to actually have become the very substance of Jesus' flesh and blood, and so his "presence" was physical. Some combined the two and said very conflicting statements. There was NO unanimous stance by the early church on the exact nature of the Eucharist and both views, and combinations of them, were allowed to coexist for centuries and were still being debated all the way into the 9th century (Ratramnus vs. Radbert). It wasn't until around the 11th-12th centuries when the Roman Catholic Church began to dogmatically define their version of the Real Presence and punish those who disagreed, ultimately ending the period of diversity by force.

In fact, Augustine, as has already been presented in other threads, was very clear and explicit about the "eating of Jesus" flesh in John chapter 6 and during the Last Supper as being entirely figurative (yes, Sam, entirely). I have already provided the citations in their fullest context in earlier discussions that undeniably show that Augustine did not believe in the literalist, "Real Presence" view of the Roman Catholics, or even the literalist, mystical view held by the Orthodox. It wasn't a "quirky reading" of isolated comments, as some disingenous people here would have you believe. To argue that Augustine's comments support the literalist RC and Orthodox views is to be in denial of reality.

It should also be mentioned that the Didache, one of the earliest sources that tell us of early Christian faith and practice, talks of the early church's practice of the Eucharist - and it says NOTHING about the bread and wine becoming the body and blood of Jesus in any way. You would think that if such a thing were so important for believers, especially considering your stance that a believer's salvation is on the line, that something to that effect would have been stated.

The claim that the church throughout its history held to a unanimous "Real Presence" view regarding the nature of the Eucharist is just flat out wrong. What's even MORE wrong is the Roman Catholic claim that transubstantiation was the continuous belief of the church, as was ridiculously argued above. As with most of Roman Catholicism's doctrines/dogmas, it was the result of historical development over time, and only became the "dominant" view a millenium later, after the Church exerted its influence to that end through force.

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Lol calling Augustine a champion of the "purely symbolic" view only proves you haven't read Augustine. You couldn't have picked a worse example for your symbolic view. You're a real life meme at this point.

When Augustine preaches directly to the newly baptized (Sermon 227), he doesn't leave room for your purely figurative view:

Quote:

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"That bread which you see on the altar, having been sanctified by the word of God, is the body of Christ. That chalice, or rather what is in that chalice, having been sanctified by the word of God, is the blood of Christ."

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In Expositions on the Psalms (Ps 33), he famously notes that Christ carried Himself in His own hands at the Last Supper...that's an absurd statement if it was merely symbolic. Augustine held to a real, spiritual-mystical presence, which is precisely what the Eastern Orthodox Church holds today, rejecting the hyper-literal, pseudo-scientific definitions of scholastic Rome while fiercely maintaining the Real Presence.

You cite Clement, Tertullian, Origen, and Cyprian as "figurative." Yet Tertullian (Against Marcion IV.40) explicitly says the bread is the body of Christ, and Cyprian (The Lapsed 16) warns that profaning the Eucharist attacks the literal "Body and Blood of the Lord." Did the early Fathers debate the exact mechanics of how bread becomes Christ? Absolutely. The language wasn't standardized. But they were unanimous on the outcome: what you receive in the Eucharist is not merely a psychological memory exercise, it's a real, objective communion with the living Christ.

You ignore the earliest explicit threat to Eucharistic theology: Docetism. When St. Ignatius of Antioch (107 AD) fought the very first heretics, he didn't attack them for missing a metaphor, he attacked them because "they abstain from the Eucharist... because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ."

Also keep your response in one post, stop breaking it apart into multiple responses.

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You either missed the whole discussion on Augustine's writings in a previous thread or you ignored them. It's clear that you're taking phrases isolated from the context of all of Augustine's writings, phrases which by themselves don't even support what you're saying. When a church father says "The bread IS the body of Christ...", you are automatically reading literalism into it. But that is just as much a figurative/symbolic statement as it is a literal one. You have to understand what that church father meant by that. I myself fully agree that the bread IS the body of Christ! But in what way is it the body of Christ? This is what I see you and the Roman Catholics here completely failing to engage or flat out ignoring, only shallowly using the phrase to support your literalist views. This is cherry-picking and tribalist narrow thinking, and it's intellectually lazy.

Therefore, the statement Augustine makes, that the bread IS the body of Christ, is by itself NOT supportive of your view. In this sermon he does not expound upon what he means by that. His "carrying himself in his hands" is in his Expositions on Psalm 34, not Psalm 33. And you're making the same mistake in this writing of his as well. Notice what he really said there:

"... how was he 'carried in his own hands'? Because when he commended his own body and blood, he took into his hands that which the faithful knew, and in a manner carried himself, when he said, "This is my body"."

Catch that? In a manner he carried himself. In what manner? You didn't ask this, you just completely assumed he was supporting your literalist view. You and the Roman Catholics here keep making this mistake, over and over.

So what does Augustine say in explicit terms about the Eucharist meal? Let's start here, where Augustine is explaining his hermaneutic on how to interpret Scripture:

"If the sentence is one of command, either forbidding a crime or vice, or enjoining an act of prudence or benevolence, it is not figurative. If, however, it seems to enjoin a crime or vice, or to forbid an act of prudence or benevolence, it is figurative. Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man, says Christ, and drink His blood, you have no life in you. John*6:53 This seems to enjoin a crime or a vice; it is therefore a figure, enjoining that we should have a share in the sufferings of our Lord, and that we should retain a sweet and profitable memory of the fact that His flesh was wounded and crucified for us." (Augustine, On Christian Doctrine. Book 3 Chapter 16).

Clearly, Augustine is saying that Jesus' words in John chapter 6 were entirely figurative, and he even goes on to explain what they are a figure of in the Eucharist meal: sharing in Christ's suffering, and as a MEMORY of his sacrifice. This is literally the symbolic/memorialist view. It is with this writing in mind, that one needs to interpret what Augustine meant in his other writings, such as Sermon 227 and his Expositions on Psalm 34. There's just NO way you can twist around this, this is clear, explicit language. The Roman Catholics here tried, and they made absolute fools of themselves. I implore you to not become a fool, and read this for what it really says, not what your church or Orthodox apologists tell you it says.

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When Augustine calls Jesus' command in John 6 a "figure" (figura), he is not endorsing 20th-century Zwinglian memorialism. And no, you don't agree that it is the body/blood of Christ, you hold to a low church memorialist view.

The reason this debate is so confusing is that you're using Calvinist vocabulary to hide a purely Zwinglian memorialist theology. You claim on one hand that you agree 'the bread IS the body of Christ,' but the moment you're asked to define it, you reduce it entirely to a mental memory exercise: a pure symbol that does nothing objectively, conveys no real grace, and isn't even necessary for the believer.

You aren't standing with Augustine, and you aren't even standing with Calvin. You're standing with Ulrich Zwingli and 19th-century American revivalism.

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STOP overthinking this and accusing me of doing things I'm not doing. I'm not thinking about "Zwinglian memorialism" or anything else like that, but only the words of Augustine that are before us.

Let's have CLARITY - do you agree that:

• Augustine is saying that Jesus was being figurative in John chapter 6;
• he explains what the "eating of Jesus" flesh is a figure of, and it's the sharing the sufferings of Christ and as a memory of his sacrifice?

That's all I'm asking. Can you do better than the Roman Catholics and just be honest and concede what is plain and clear right before us? It's literally verbatim from Augustine's own words above. This isn't meant to be hard, or a trick, or a trap. I'm merely asking if you can simply acknowledge what's obvious to any rational person. If you can't even acknowledge what's right in front of your eyes, then we've demonstrated that your argument isn't rational or honest.

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I don't deny that its real presence and a memory. That's not in contention, there's no logical issues with that.

You need to come clean about your view, because you're all over the place. You're claiming its really His body/blood and simultaneously claiming its strictly memorialist. You keep trying to avoid coming clean about your denomination and the traditions you rely on.

And why are you basing everything on solely Augustine, again who everyone, including most protestant scholars even agree he viewed it as a real sacrament and real body/blood. I mean cmon dude...he called it a sacrament twice in one sentence, that's right in front of your eyes.

This isn't even contested in the debate sphere between prots/Orthodox/catholic. You're way out of bounds my guy.

This is so stupid. Just say you disagree with the early Church Fathers and accept that you think they have heretical views. You already think your interpretation infallible. You think your reading of scripture is perfect and nobody can challenge you.

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Good Lord.... nothing in your response makes ANY sense.

You: "I don't deny that its a real presence and a memory" - Augustine didn't say it was a "Real Presence" and a memory. Way to shoehorn that in.

You: "You're claiming its really His body/blood and simultaneous its strictly memorialist" - what's the matter with you? Are you alright? You do know that I've been arguing that it's NOT really Jesus' body and blood, don't you? I'm getting concerned at your sudden confusion.

You: "Why are you basing everything solely on Augustine?" - who's "basing everything" on Augustine? The whole point was to show that your claim, that the church fathers were "unanimous" in their belief in the "Real Presence" view as defined by RC/Orthodoxy, was clearly false.

You: "This isn't even contested in the debate sphere between prots/Orthodox/catholic." - I agree with you here in a sense: there is no contest in this debate. I think I've shown that.

You: "This is so stupid. Just say you disagree with the early Church Fathers..." - I think it's been made pretty clear that my view is consistent with early church fathers like Augustine. What's really "stupid" is why you and the Roman Catholics here can't just be honest with Augustine's words, and concede that his view does not resemble the "Real Presence" view of your churches at all. Seriously - what is SO HARD about just admitting this? You Orthodox/RC's are just gonna have to be honest and acknowledge that your church's claims about early church history are just plain wrong. This is ultimately my whole point.

You: "You already think your interpretation infallible. You think your reading of scripture is perfect and nobody can challenge you." - you can't argue against what I've said, so you've resorted to putting thoughts in my head and then attacking them. Where, oh where have we seen this before? I just can't believe how many people in this forum when shown to be wrong resort to this.

Realitybites said:

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BUDOS said:

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And as some of us know all too well, there are times it is difficult to express that gratitude and love to our enemies and individuals who we believe behave antagonistically towards us. Having said that, I have been guilty of such behavior myself, in my weaker moments.

Matthew 5:44: "But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you".

Luke 6:27-28: "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you".

Romans 12:20: "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink."

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This is the part of Christianity that I disliked the most.

Which is precisely why I must be a Christian.

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It is something which I have struggled with myself. It's hard. We need to remember the mercy and love He showed us, knowing who we were and what each of us was going to do--even showing mercy to those who nailed Him to the cross. Because He did, when we fall short, we can ask for forgiveness, repent and seek to do better--but too often this is the area too many of us fall short.

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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BUDOS said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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BUDOS said:

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Your reply to me, and in many others, appears to confirm the definition of religious narcissism. It figures.
It also points to something you be able to answer: When was the last time you were wrong, admitted it, and apologized? If that is too difficult, how about one out of three?

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Standing up for the truth and firmly holding people to sound facts, reason, and logic is not narcissism. It isn't at all surprising that you don't have this discernment, but instead believe it is something that must be antagonized and impeded.

The only narcissism here is coming from you and your insistence that the nature of the discussion fall in line within your sensibilities and preferences for a version of Christianity that has no real conviction for the truth, while assigning personality disorders from your high chair to those who dare to go beyond your bounds, where real Christianity is supposed to go.

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BTD,
As in your previous response, your own words present further proof, not to my opinion that you are a religious narcissist, but to its definition and characteristics. Apparently, you may not be aware of how much (not all) of your behavior fits, so let me copy/paste some info from outside sources, for your benefit:

A religious narcissist is not just someone who is simply devout, enthusiastic or knowledgeable about their faith. It's a person who uses religion as a tool to elevate themselves, control others, and/or protect their ego. Their faith becomes a stage on which they perform, not necessarily a path they genuinely follow.
Core Traits of a Religious Narcissist

• Self-centered spirituality Their religious life revolves around their importance, their holiness, their calling. God, at times, almost becomes a mirror reflecting their greatness.
• Authority without accountability They claim, directly or indirectly, spiritual authority but resist correction, oversight, or humility. They may quote Scripture to justify their actions but usually ignore Scripture that challenges them.
• Moral exceptionalism They believe rules apply to others, not to them. In their minds, their "special relationship with God" becomes an excuse for hypocrisy.
• Weaponized religion They use religious language to shame, manipulate, or control others. Scripture becomes ammunition rather than guidance.
• Persecution narrative Any challenge to their behavior is framed as "spiritual attack," "jealousy," or "people opposing God's anointed."

Spiritual gaslighting is another technique "If you were more faithful, you'd agree with me."

• Lack of empathy they struggle to care about others' needs unless it benefits their image.

Scripture describes patterns similar to religious narcissism:

• Pharisees who loved public honor and used religion to elevate themselves
• False teachers who exploited believers for personal gain
• Leaders who "lord it over" others rather than serving.

These examples show that religious narcissism is not new; it's a recurring human temptation.
Religious narcissists can damage churches and families, create spiritual confusion, and undermine genuine faith. Understanding the pattern helps people recognize unhealthy dynamics and seek healthier spiritual environments, avoiding the toxic environment religious narcissists create and may even relish.

A contributing factor to creating such a toxic environment is that a religious narcissist reacts very differently from a normal, healthy believer when someone challenges their interpretation of a Bible verse. The issue is not the verse it's the threat to their ego. Their reactions follow predictable patterns because the challenge threatens their selfimage as spiritually superior, uniquely insightful, or divinely favored.

They respond as if you attacked them, not the interpretation.

• "You're misunderstanding me."
• "You're twisting my words."
• "You're being disrespectful."

The conversation shifts from Scripture to protecting their ego. They often elevate their interpretation to divine status: "If you were more spiritually mature, you'd see it." This is meant to intimidate, not clarify. Your disagreement becomes a sign of your supposed spiritual inferiority.

They often reframe the challenge as sin, shifting the issue from interpretation to morality.

• "You're being rebellious."
• "You're sowing discord."
• "Your attitude isn't Christlike."

This turns your question into a character flaw.
They try to make you doubt your own reasoning.

• "That's not what I said."
• "You're reading too much into it."
• "You're being emotional."

Their goal is often to destabilize your confidence.

When challenged, they often portray themselves as spiritually attacked, which casts you as the persecutor and them as the martyr. If you persist:

• They may become angry, condescending, or sarcastic.
• Or they may shut down, withdraw, and punish you with silence.

Your challenge becomes a threat that must be neutralized, so they work to reassert control and minimize your contribution. They frame disagreement as your deficiency. They turn correction into insubordination.

A religious narcissist's identity is built on:

• being the most knowledgeable
• being the most discerning
• and often believe they are spiritually superior
• and even believe they are uniquely chosen.

A challenge threatens that identity. So they defend the self, not the Scripture.

A religious narcissist's goal is to pull you into an emotional or authority-based battle. Your goal is to stay rooted in truth. A religious narcissist must win. If you try to win, you've already lost the spiritual battle. Narcissists push until they meet a boundary. A boundary is not rudeit's biblical. Boundary examples:

• "I'm not comfortable with conversations where motives are questioned."
• "I won't continue if the discussion becomes personal."
• "Let's pause this and revisit it later."

Boundaries protect your peace and prevent spiritual manipulation, as they often fail to respect your walk with God, unwilling to recognize that all interpretations must be tested by Scripture, not personal revelation." This keeps authority where it belongsGod's Word.

A religious narcissist is not going to change, period. Only God can. Should one choose to interact with one, it is vital to stay faithful, stay grounded, stay healthy, and to stay biblical. Let me know if there is a specific point you would like to make. Just remember, he is always righteven when he is not.

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Is it because you feel so inadequate, that you're not intelligent enough to engage the issues here, or because you're so afraid to face that you're wrong, or some other inadequacy in your life, that you constantly attack me personally with every single one of your posts?

Your entire diatribe here was a complete projection, and you're having to insert thoughts into my head and judge what's in my heart in order to force-fit me into your google diagnosis. Aside from the more important thing that this is false witness that you're going to be held accountable for, it's also plainly obvious that it's a pure defense mechanism - you obviously can't argue against the merits of what I'm saying, so you feel the urge to "invalidate" them through personal attacks. This is LITERALLY the ONLY thing you've "contributed" in this forum. It's just so childish and pathetic. It's an embarassment to yourself and to this forum.

You say that I'm not willing to admit I'm wrong - but you've never even argued what it is I've gotten wrong. Do you feel you're too stupid to do so? Yes, I test what you guys say against the "fire" of Scripture, facts, history, and logic. If you feel too inadequate in these areas to argue against what I'm saying or to defend you and others' beliefs, then I have some advice for you: if you are too afraid of having your wood, hay, and straw revealed about you, it's simple: don't come into the fire. Go have your parallel "warm and fuzzy" Christianty discussions where no one's wrong, and its verboten to say so, and leave those alone who want serious, challenging discussion.

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BTD,
if you would carefully read your responses to those after this one, you would find, but not admit, that apparently without exception, you provided further evidence of the characteristics previously indicated. That is sad. It is also potentially unhealthy and possibly even harmful for those who are unaware of your apparent disorder and attempt to participate in your diatribes in good faith. For you to knowingly treat people in the manner you is additional proof that you are not doing what you claim. Don't worry, I am not the only one aware of your issue and how you use the Word for your selfish benefit. I may check in from time to time to see if you are still using His Word to create division and discord among those who are sincerely seeking to learn more about the Word.

BUDOS said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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BUDOS said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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BUDOS said:

---

Your reply to me, and in many others, appears to confirm the definition of religious narcissism. It figures.
It also points to something you be able to answer: When was the last time you were wrong, admitted it, and apologized? If that is too difficult, how about one out of three?

---

Standing up for the truth and firmly holding people to sound facts, reason, and logic is not narcissism. It isn't at all surprising that you don't have this discernment, but instead believe it is something that must be antagonized and impeded.

The only narcissism here is coming from you and your insistence that the nature of the discussion fall in line within your sensibilities and preferences for a version of Christianity that has no real conviction for the truth, while assigning personality disorders from your high chair to those who dare to go beyond your bounds, where real Christianity is supposed to go.

---

BTD,
As in your previous response, your own words present further proof, not to my opinion that you are a religious narcissist, but to its definition and characteristics. Apparently, you may not be aware of how much (not all) of your behavior fits, so let me copy/paste some info from outside sources, for your benefit:

A religious narcissist is not just someone who is simply devout, enthusiastic or knowledgeable about their faith. It's a person who uses religion as a tool to elevate themselves, control others, and/or protect their ego. Their faith becomes a stage on which they perform, not necessarily a path they genuinely follow.
Core Traits of a Religious Narcissist

• Self-centered spirituality Their religious life revolves around their importance, their holiness, their calling. God, at times, almost becomes a mirror reflecting their greatness.
• Authority without accountability They claim, directly or indirectly, spiritual authority but resist correction, oversight, or humility. They may quote Scripture to justify their actions but usually ignore Scripture that challenges them.
• Moral exceptionalism They believe rules apply to others, not to them. In their minds, their "special relationship with God" becomes an excuse for hypocrisy.
• Weaponized religion They use religious language to shame, manipulate, or control others. Scripture becomes ammunition rather than guidance.
• Persecution narrative Any challenge to their behavior is framed as "spiritual attack," "jealousy," or "people opposing God's anointed."

Spiritual gaslighting is another technique "If you were more faithful, you'd agree with me."

• Lack of empathy they struggle to care about others' needs unless it benefits their image.

Scripture describes patterns similar to religious narcissism:

• Pharisees who loved public honor and used religion to elevate themselves
• False teachers who exploited believers for personal gain
• Leaders who "lord it over" others rather than serving.

These examples show that religious narcissism is not new; it's a recurring human temptation.
Religious narcissists can damage churches and families, create spiritual confusion, and undermine genuine faith. Understanding the pattern helps people recognize unhealthy dynamics and seek healthier spiritual environments, avoiding the toxic environment religious narcissists create and may even relish.

A contributing factor to creating such a toxic environment is that a religious narcissist reacts very differently from a normal, healthy believer when someone challenges their interpretation of a Bible verse. The issue is not the verse it's the threat to their ego. Their reactions follow predictable patterns because the challenge threatens their selfimage as spiritually superior, uniquely insightful, or divinely favored.

They respond as if you attacked them, not the interpretation.

• "You're misunderstanding me."
• "You're twisting my words."
• "You're being disrespectful."

The conversation shifts from Scripture to protecting their ego. They often elevate their interpretation to divine status: "If you were more spiritually mature, you'd see it." This is meant to intimidate, not clarify. Your disagreement becomes a sign of your supposed spiritual inferiority.

They often reframe the challenge as sin, shifting the issue from interpretation to morality.

• "You're being rebellious."
• "You're sowing discord."
• "Your attitude isn't Christlike."

This turns your question into a character flaw.
They try to make you doubt your own reasoning.

• "That's not what I said."
• "You're reading too much into it."
• "You're being emotional."

Their goal is often to destabilize your confidence.

When challenged, they often portray themselves as spiritually attacked, which casts you as the persecutor and them as the martyr. If you persist:

• They may become angry, condescending, or sarcastic.
• Or they may shut down, withdraw, and punish you with silence.

Your challenge becomes a threat that must be neutralized, so they work to reassert control and minimize your contribution. They frame disagreement as your deficiency. They turn correction into insubordination.

A religious narcissist's identity is built on:

• being the most knowledgeable
• being the most discerning
• and often believe they are spiritually superior
• and even believe they are uniquely chosen.

A challenge threatens that identity. So they defend the self, not the Scripture.

A religious narcissist's goal is to pull you into an emotional or authority-based battle. Your goal is to stay rooted in truth. A religious narcissist must win. If you try to win, you've already lost the spiritual battle. Narcissists push until they meet a boundary. A boundary is not rudeit's biblical. Boundary examples:

• "I'm not comfortable with conversations where motives are questioned."
• "I won't continue if the discussion becomes personal."
• "Let's pause this and revisit it later."

Boundaries protect your peace and prevent spiritual manipulation, as they often fail to respect your walk with God, unwilling to recognize that all interpretations must be tested by Scripture, not personal revelation." This keeps authority where it belongsGod's Word.

A religious narcissist is not going to change, period. Only God can. Should one choose to interact with one, it is vital to stay faithful, stay grounded, stay healthy, and to stay biblical. Let me know if there is a specific point you would like to make. Just remember, he is always righteven when he is not.

---

Is it because you feel so inadequate, that you're not intelligent enough to engage the issues here, or because you're so afraid to face that you're wrong, or some other inadequacy in your life, that you constantly attack me personally with every single one of your posts?

Your entire diatribe here was a complete projection, and you're having to insert thoughts into my head and judge what's in my heart in order to force-fit me into your google diagnosis. Aside from the more important thing that this is false witness that you're going to be held accountable for, it's also plainly obvious that it's a pure defense mechanism - you obviously can't argue against the merits of what I'm saying, so you feel the urge to "invalidate" them through personal attacks. This is LITERALLY the ONLY thing you've "contributed" in this forum. It's just so childish and pathetic. It's an embarassment to yourself and to this forum.

You say that I'm not willing to admit I'm wrong - but you've never even argued what it is I've gotten wrong. Do you feel you're too stupid to do so? Yes, I test what you guys say against the "fire" of Scripture, facts, history, and logic. If you feel too inadequate in these areas to argue against what I'm saying or to defend you and others' beliefs, then I have some advice for you: if you are too afraid of having your wood, hay, and straw revealed about you, it's simple: don't come into the fire. Go have your parallel "warm and fuzzy" Christianty discussions where no one's wrong, and its verboten to say so, and leave those alone who want serious, challenging discussion.

---

BTD,
if you would carefully read your responses to those after this one, you would find, but not admit, that apparently without exception, you provided further evidence of the characteristics previously indicated. That is sad. It is also potentially unhealthy and possibly even harmful for those who are unaware of your apparent disorder and attempt to participate in your diatribes in good faith. For you to knowingly treat people in the manner you is additional proof that you are not doing what you claim. Don't worry, I am not the only one aware of your issue and how you use the Word for your selfish benefit. I may check in from time to time to see if you are still using His Word to create division and discord among those who are sincerely seeking to learn more about the Word.

---

"Diatribes"? You wrote probably the longest post in this thread, and it was all about attacking me than it was about anything topic-related. Why do you feel so compelled to insert thoughts and motivations into my heart as if you have some God-like omniscience, and then attack that straw man? I wonder if you'll ever realize it, but everything you're saying is a projection.

"Good faith"? Here's what's obviously going on: there is a faction of people in this thread which includes you who, unlike what you claim, are NOT here "sincerely seeking to learn more about the Word". Rather, you and they are here to find affirmation and praise for what you want to believe. Then you were shown that you're belief is errant, and you became unsettled. And since you could not argue/defend your beliefs when challenged, or answer direct, pertinent questions that reveal the flaw in your belief, the only way you could find "resolution" of your angst was to attack the person who showed you the truth. And this is what you've been doing the ENTIRE THREAD. It's is a universal defense mechanism, especially in matters of religion. It's precisely why they killed the prophets, the apostles, and Jesus.

You are wrong about the "book of life" and you were shown definitive proof, but you are too prideful and stubborn to correct yourself, and you keep repeating the error. Sound familiar, internet diagnostician? You cowardly avoided my challenge to answer whether the Catholic prayers to Mary were idolatrous and heretical. You cowardly avoid anything that requires you to stand up for biblical truth that might offend people. And then you engage in false witness to try to shame people from doing what you're too cowardly to do. YOU are the danger, not me. You are a fraud.

I'm sort of an authority on the matter, so don't take what I say lightly - I have found that those people who feel so compelled to get into the mind of another person and go to great lengths to justifty their "diagnosis" of some kind of character/personality disorder, are likely the ones most in need of a diagnosis for themselves.

Doc Holliday said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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Do ya'll understand Hebrews 13?

Paul is contrasting what we (Christians) eat at the altar, versus what the Jews eat at the tabernacle.

The Old Covenant priests ate from animal sacrifices at the tabernacle, that's the plain meaning of verses 10-11. Then verse 10 says "we have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat."

Then verse 15 says to "offer up a sacrifice of praise." The word there is eucharistia. It's not just "say thanks." In this context, surrounded by altar, sacrifice, blood, and priesthood language, it's ritual offering vocabulary. Paul isn't randomly switching from physical categories to a purely mental one mid-paragraph. He's naming the new sacrifice that replaces the old one.

The whole passage only makes sense as priesthood-to-priesthood, altar-to-altar, sacrifice-to-sacrifice, eating-to-eating. If the Christian side of that comparison is just an inward feeling of gratitude, the contrast falls apart and doesn't make sense, because you'd be comparing a real, physical, exclusionary system to something anyone can do regardless of church membership. That's not what the text sets up. It sets up two competing systems, and says ours is better and still ours to eat from.

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Apparently, you do not understand Hebrews 13 at all.

NOTHING in Hebrews 13 says that the communion bread and wine are the "Real Presence" of Jesus, or that communion/the Eucharist is the replacement "ceremony" for the church that is the necessary means for us to receive some kind of grace. Where it says "those who serve the tent (Old Covenant Jews who still perform animal sacrifices) have no right to eat", the "eating" there is not literal. He's making the point that the New Covenant involves a higher form of "eating" that the Old Covenant Jews rejected. The "eating" isn't physical. This is made obvious by reading the verse immediately prior:

"... for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods, which have not benefited those devoted to them."

The author clearly is setting up the meaning of "eating" in the following verse in the mind of the reader to convey something higher and more significant than the physical ingestion of food.

Verse 15, which you reference, perfectly illustrates how the author is elevating the concepts of "eating" and "sacrifice" to go BEYOND, not be identical to, their meaning in the Old Covenant way:

"Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God."

It's really odd how you can read a verse thinking it makes your argument, when it completely destroys it. Clearly, this verse is saying that the "Eucharist" is NOT a sacrifice that involves the real, actual re-presentation of Jesus' sacrifice that is performed on an physical altar by human priests - but rather a "sacrifice" that comes from the heart of the believer in the form of thanksgiving, praise, obedience, and love for others. The very verse you offered as support for your view completely destroys it and fully supports the Protestant view instead.

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Here is the outline: don't slide back into ceremonial food law (v.9), we have a real altar you don't have access to (v.10), pointing to Christ's sacrifice outside the camp (v.11-13), and because of that we also offer praise and good works (v.15-16). That's addition, not swap. You've got cause and effect flipped, treating our response to the altar as if it erases the altar.

You've got the logic backwards. Verse 9's "foods" isn't saying eating in general is now some metaphor, it's talking about Jewish food laws, same thing Hebrews 9:10 already covers, "foods and drinks and various washings." It's saying don't get sucked back into Mosaic dietary rules, not "eating doesn't mean eating anymore."

Then verse 10 switches to a totally different image: an altar. "We have an altar those who serve the tent have no right to eat from." That keeps going with real priestly language, actual animals, actual blood, an actual high priest, burned outside the camp. The whole passage is set up as a parallel, their altar and eating vs. our altar and eating. If you want "eat" to suddenly mean something non-physical only on our side, you have to show me that in the text. You're just asserting it and it doesn't make any sense.

And verse 15 doesn't redefine verse 10, it adds to it. Nothing says "sacrifice of praise" replaces the altar. It's an extra exhortation, right next to verse 16's " do good and share." Those are the fruits that come from having the altar, not a reinterpretation that cancels it out. You're treating two separate things, the altar-eating in v.10 and the praise sacrifice in v.15, like the second one swallows the first. Hebrews never says that.

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You're looking at this passage with confirmation bias through your Orthodox lens, so you're reading it as a prescription for the New Covenant church to have the same system of temples, priests, altars, sacrifices, and the physical eating of the sacrifice that was characteristic of the Old Covenant. But this is completely missing the point the author is making, and is in fact going backwards from what the author intended. That old system is obsolete. There is NO MORE SACRIFICE. Jesus' sacrifice on the cross was the finished, once-for-all-time sacrifice for all sins, past, present and future. It completely eliminates the need for any further sacrifice."It is finished". Similarly, there is no more temple, because God now resides in the hearts of believers. There is no more organizational priesthood, because Jesus is now our one, true Priest who intercedes for us directly with God, and we are the "priesthood of believers". There is no more sacrificial "altar" to atone for our sins, because the final sacrifice has already been made. And there is no more literal, physical eating of the sacrifice - the "eating" is what we do when we, by believing in Jesus, gain spiritual sustenance leading to eternal life, which is superior to physical eating, which only gives us physical sustenance towards physical, temporal life. The point of Hebrews was to show that the New Covenant is made superior to the Old - the Old was only a type, a shadow of what was to come. The "altar" and "eating" language the author uses in this chapter in reference to the New Covenant is describing a new, higher, spiritual reality that is superior to the Old. The author is NOT making a one-to-one comparison with the Old Covenant to where the "eating" in the New is the same physical eating as in the Old, but rather a new, spiritual form of it.

Therefore, there is no need whatsoever for the communion bread and wine to contain the presence of Jesus in some "real" way in order for the communion "sacrifice" to be an actual, efficacious sacrifice. The efficacious sacrifice has already been completed. Jesus does not have to be "present" within the bread and wine of communion - he was present at the cross and that is all that was needed. The "Real Presence" of Jesus" in a repeated ceremonial sacrifice is a pure redundancy. And what's infinitely worse, it's actually a rejection of the finished work of Jesus on the cross. And this is what Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy formalize as dogma, a requirement for salvation. Absolutely incredible, and disgusting.

The fact that the author of Hebrews only tells us that the "eucharist" is a "sacrifice of praise"... never once mentioning anything about the sacrifice involving a kind of "real" presence within the communion bread and wine... is illustrative of all of this, and it completely invalidates your view. You're really reading HEAVILY your Orthodox theology into this passage, and your reasoning above is completely forced.

And it needs to be restated, that nowhere, not in Hebrews or anywhere else in Scripture are we told that if a believer takes communion as a symbol/memorial rather than as a "Real Presence", that there is any kind of loss for that believer, let alone salvation itself. A fact made evident by your complete failure to tell us what it is exactly that the believer misses out on. The Roman Catholics fail to do the same. Which reminds me to ask you again: if you really believe that Hebrews 13 and John 6 are telling you that "eating the sacrifice" is to be done in the same manner as in the Old Covenant.... then why aren't you holding to the Roman Catholic view?

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This might be borderline plausible if you just picked up a Bible and started reading it with absolutely no context. That's the problem, though. You can't interpret the Scripture without an understanding of historical Christian belief and practice (or "bias," as you call it).

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Translation: "You can't come to our (Roman Catholic) conclusion unless you hold our hand-picked church fathers as equal in authority to the Scriptures."

Historical Christianity needs to be viewed in context of Scripture, NOT the other way around. Historical Christianity involves fallible men trying to interpret and follow the infallible Word of God. And which history should we use as context to interpret Scripture? Church history was varied in opinion on many things, the nature of the Eucharist being a prime example. I can claim continuity with the early church for everything I've said, just as much as you say you can.

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No one holds the Church Fathers as equal in authority to the Scriptures. They are simply evidence of what the Scriptures meant to the early church. You reject them because they're fallible, then turn around and substitute your own fallible interpretation for theirs. You can't have it both ways.

As for your claim of continuity, it can't be taken seriously based on your quirky reading of an isolated quotation or two. As Doc demonstrated, and as most scholars would agree, the evidence for the Catholic view is overwhelming.

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Exactly, and the evidence is actually unanimous. Every single early Church father shared the real presence and believed it to be His body and blood, not symbolic. They are almost forced to view Church history as purely optional background noise rather than the living witness of how the early Christians actually practiced what the Apostles taught.

Neither John Calvin nor the early Presbyterian standards held the "it's just a symbol" view. They explicitly condemned Zwingli's purely memorial view as inadequate and overly bare. Its also a departure from the reformers.

You basically have to take the position that all the early Church fathers were in error and the Church went dark right after Pentecost. Some protestants actually believe that and share that same view with mormons.

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Your understanding of church history on this topic is sorely lacking. Though virtually every father who wrote on the subject of the Eucharist spoke in some sense about a "Real Presence" in the Eucharist, what was actually MEANT by that was diverse and conflicting. Some saw the communion bread and wine as symbols of Jesus' body and blood and that Jesus "presence" was only spiritual. Those who taught the symbolic/figurative view included but were not limited to Clement, Tertullian, Origen, Cyprian and especially Augustine. Some, on the other hand, saw the bread and wine to actually have become the very substance of Jesus' flesh and blood, and so his "presence" was physical. Some combined the two and said very conflicting statements. There was NO unanimous stance by the early church on the exact nature of the Eucharist and both views, and combinations of them, were allowed to coexist for centuries and were still being debated all the way into the 9th century (Ratramnus vs. Radbert). It wasn't until around the 11th-12th centuries when the Roman Catholic Church began to dogmatically define their version of the Real Presence and punish those who disagreed, ultimately ending the period of diversity by force.

In fact, Augustine, as has already been presented in other threads, was very clear and explicit about the "eating of Jesus" flesh in John chapter 6 and during the Last Supper as being entirely figurative (yes, Sam, entirely). I have already provided the citations in their fullest context in earlier discussions that undeniably show that Augustine did not believe in the literalist, "Real Presence" view of the Roman Catholics, or even the literalist, mystical view held by the Orthodox. It wasn't a "quirky reading" of isolated comments, as some disingenous people here would have you believe. To argue that Augustine's comments support the literalist RC and Orthodox views is to be in denial of reality.

It should also be mentioned that the Didache, one of the earliest sources that tell us of early Christian faith and practice, talks of the early church's practice of the Eucharist - and it says NOTHING about the bread and wine becoming the body and blood of Jesus in any way. You would think that if such a thing were so important for believers, especially considering your stance that a believer's salvation is on the line, that something to that effect would have been stated.

The claim that the church throughout its history held to a unanimous "Real Presence" view regarding the nature of the Eucharist is just flat out wrong. What's even MORE wrong is the Roman Catholic claim that transubstantiation was the continuous belief of the church, as was ridiculously argued above. As with most of Roman Catholicism's doctrines/dogmas, it was the result of historical development over time, and only became the "dominant" view a millenium later, after the Church exerted its influence to that end through force.

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Also keep your response in one post, stop breaking it apart into multiple responses.

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I break them up into individual points so that you can't hide from them. If I put them all into one, long post, then you can conveniently leave out whichever points you want, and still say you "responded" when you really didn't.

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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Do ya'll understand Hebrews 13?

Paul is contrasting what we (Christians) eat at the altar, versus what the Jews eat at the tabernacle.

The Old Covenant priests ate from animal sacrifices at the tabernacle, that's the plain meaning of verses 10-11. Then verse 10 says "we have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat."

Then verse 15 says to "offer up a sacrifice of praise." The word there is eucharistia. It's not just "say thanks." In this context, surrounded by altar, sacrifice, blood, and priesthood language, it's ritual offering vocabulary. Paul isn't randomly switching from physical categories to a purely mental one mid-paragraph. He's naming the new sacrifice that replaces the old one.

The whole passage only makes sense as priesthood-to-priesthood, altar-to-altar, sacrifice-to-sacrifice, eating-to-eating. If the Christian side of that comparison is just an inward feeling of gratitude, the contrast falls apart and doesn't make sense, because you'd be comparing a real, physical, exclusionary system to something anyone can do regardless of church membership. That's not what the text sets up. It sets up two competing systems, and says ours is better and still ours to eat from.

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Apparently, you do not understand Hebrews 13 at all.

NOTHING in Hebrews 13 says that the communion bread and wine are the "Real Presence" of Jesus, or that communion/the Eucharist is the replacement "ceremony" for the church that is the necessary means for us to receive some kind of grace. Where it says "those who serve the tent (Old Covenant Jews who still perform animal sacrifices) have no right to eat", the "eating" there is not literal. He's making the point that the New Covenant involves a higher form of "eating" that the Old Covenant Jews rejected. The "eating" isn't physical. This is made obvious by reading the verse immediately prior:

"... for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods, which have not benefited those devoted to them."

The author clearly is setting up the meaning of "eating" in the following verse in the mind of the reader to convey something higher and more significant than the physical ingestion of food.

Verse 15, which you reference, perfectly illustrates how the author is elevating the concepts of "eating" and "sacrifice" to go BEYOND, not be identical to, their meaning in the Old Covenant way:

"Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God."

It's really odd how you can read a verse thinking it makes your argument, when it completely destroys it. Clearly, this verse is saying that the "Eucharist" is NOT a sacrifice that involves the real, actual re-presentation of Jesus' sacrifice that is performed on an physical altar by human priests - but rather a "sacrifice" that comes from the heart of the believer in the form of thanksgiving, praise, obedience, and love for others. The very verse you offered as support for your view completely destroys it and fully supports the Protestant view instead.

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Here is the outline: don't slide back into ceremonial food law (v.9), we have a real altar you don't have access to (v.10), pointing to Christ's sacrifice outside the camp (v.11-13), and because of that we also offer praise and good works (v.15-16). That's addition, not swap. You've got cause and effect flipped, treating our response to the altar as if it erases the altar.

You've got the logic backwards. Verse 9's "foods" isn't saying eating in general is now some metaphor, it's talking about Jewish food laws, same thing Hebrews 9:10 already covers, "foods and drinks and various washings." It's saying don't get sucked back into Mosaic dietary rules, not "eating doesn't mean eating anymore."

Then verse 10 switches to a totally different image: an altar. "We have an altar those who serve the tent have no right to eat from." That keeps going with real priestly language, actual animals, actual blood, an actual high priest, burned outside the camp. The whole passage is set up as a parallel, their altar and eating vs. our altar and eating. If you want "eat" to suddenly mean something non-physical only on our side, you have to show me that in the text. You're just asserting it and it doesn't make any sense.

And verse 15 doesn't redefine verse 10, it adds to it. Nothing says "sacrifice of praise" replaces the altar. It's an extra exhortation, right next to verse 16's " do good and share." Those are the fruits that come from having the altar, not a reinterpretation that cancels it out. You're treating two separate things, the altar-eating in v.10 and the praise sacrifice in v.15, like the second one swallows the first. Hebrews never says that.

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You're looking at this passage with confirmation bias through your Orthodox lens, so you're reading it as a prescription for the New Covenant church to have the same system of temples, priests, altars, sacrifices, and the physical eating of the sacrifice that was characteristic of the Old Covenant. But this is completely missing the point the author is making, and is in fact going backwards from what the author intended. That old system is obsolete. There is NO MORE SACRIFICE. Jesus' sacrifice on the cross was the finished, once-for-all-time sacrifice for all sins, past, present and future. It completely eliminates the need for any further sacrifice."It is finished". Similarly, there is no more temple, because God now resides in the hearts of believers. There is no more organizational priesthood, because Jesus is now our one, true Priest who intercedes for us directly with God, and we are the "priesthood of believers". There is no more sacrificial "altar" to atone for our sins, because the final sacrifice has already been made. And there is no more literal, physical eating of the sacrifice - the "eating" is what we do when we, by believing in Jesus, gain spiritual sustenance leading to eternal life, which is superior to physical eating, which only gives us physical sustenance towards physical, temporal life. The point of Hebrews was to show that the New Covenant is made superior to the Old - the Old was only a type, a shadow of what was to come. The "altar" and "eating" language the author uses in this chapter in reference to the New Covenant is describing a new, higher, spiritual reality that is superior to the Old. The author is NOT making a one-to-one comparison with the Old Covenant to where the "eating" in the New is the same physical eating as in the Old, but rather a new, spiritual form of it.

Therefore, there is no need whatsoever for the communion bread and wine to contain the presence of Jesus in some "real" way in order for the communion "sacrifice" to be an actual, efficacious sacrifice. The efficacious sacrifice has already been completed. Jesus does not have to be "present" within the bread and wine of communion - he was present at the cross and that is all that was needed. The "Real Presence" of Jesus" in a repeated ceremonial sacrifice is a pure redundancy. And what's infinitely worse, it's actually a rejection of the finished work of Jesus on the cross. And this is what Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy formalize as dogma, a requirement for salvation. Absolutely incredible, and disgusting.

The fact that the author of Hebrews only tells us that the "eucharist" is a "sacrifice of praise"... never once mentioning anything about the sacrifice involving a kind of "real" presence within the communion bread and wine... is illustrative of all of this, and it completely invalidates your view. You're really reading HEAVILY your Orthodox theology into this passage, and your reasoning above is completely forced.

And it needs to be restated, that nowhere, not in Hebrews or anywhere else in Scripture are we told that if a believer takes communion as a symbol/memorial rather than as a "Real Presence", that there is any kind of loss for that believer, let alone salvation itself. A fact made evident by your complete failure to tell us what it is exactly that the believer misses out on. The Roman Catholics fail to do the same. Which reminds me to ask you again: if you really believe that Hebrews 13 and John 6 are telling you that "eating the sacrifice" is to be done in the same manner as in the Old Covenant.... then why aren't you holding to the Roman Catholic view?

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Neither Orthodoxy nor Catholicism teaches Christ is sacrificed again at each liturgy. Hebrews itself says "once for all" (9:26-28), and Orthodox theology fully affirms that. What's claimed is that the one, finished sacrifice is made truly present and truly participated in at each Eucharist, not repeated, not added to, or improved on. You don't know our theology man. Seriously, this is basic stuff we don't believe…

On "no more altar, temple, priesthood," you're asserting all of that, but Hebrews itself doesn't erase this language, it keeps using it in the present tense about the church. "We have an altar" (13:10) is present tense, not "we used to have." If everything physical/institutional was dissolved into pure inward spirituality, why does the author keep reaching for priest, altar, sacrifice, blood language to describe what Christians presently have, rather than simply saying "you don't need any of that anymore"? You're reading your conclusion into the tense of the verbs.

You haven't shown me where the text itself says "eating" here means something non-physical. You've given me a theological system (finished sacrifice, priesthood of all believers, indwelling Spirit) and then used that system to tell me what "eat" must mean here. You're reading a system into a text.

Rome dogmatizes a specific philosophical mechanism, transubstantiation. They try to explain it scientifically and break it apart (that's nominalism btw). Orthodoxy affirms the reality of the change without dogmatizing the metaphysical mechanism, it's held as a mystery, not explained.

I did answer what's missed, repeatedly, real union with Christ's life, tied to actual resurrection (John 6:54), the actual participation Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 10:16. You calling that answer invisible doesn't make it invisible.

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Nowhere did I say that RC/Orthodoxy "sacrifices again" in the Eucharist. What I said about their view, is clearly the official view of those churches: that the Eucharist is an actual, propitiatory sacrifice. Yes, I do know your theology. You should know by know that I'm not gonna claim things that I can't back up.

As I've clearly said, Hebrews isn't "erasing" the language of "altar", "priest", "temple", etc. it's elevating them to a new, superior form that is the ultimate realization of the Old Covenant types. Your problem is that you're still reading them through Old Covenant lenses.

On "eating" being figurative, rather than literal: you're missing the context that the author of Hebrews himself set up in the previous verse, where he says we are to be strengthened by grace, NOT by foods - in other words, by a spiritual, non-physical form of sustenance, i.e. "eating". The author is carrying over this same idea into his very next verse, where he says those Old Covenant Jews who reject Jesus have "no right" to "eat" this way because they rejected him. Even apart from this, the idea of a spiritual form of "eating" goes right along with the entire message of the book, which is that the Old Covenant types of of temples, priests, sacrifice, and "eating" have all now been realized in their new, superior, and spiritual form where their nature and significance have been perfected. It's hardly conceivable that this author of Hebrews would really be saying that physically putting something into our stomachs is this new and superior way we are reconciled with God.

And one only needs to look at Scripture to confirm all of this - the repeated declarations that salvation is by faith, that believing in Jesus from the heart is how one is justified, and in the direct examples where people were saved or told how to be saved, without physically eating a single thing, or told that they had to.

"I did answer what's missed, repeatedly" - and your answer is completely invalidated by Scripture. You can't even hold your answer consistent with your own theology. It falls apart every time the thief, sinful woman of Luke 7, and the house of Cornelius, none of whom ate anything, are brought up. It completely falls apart with Jesus words in John 6:40. Seriously - if you honestly believe that physically eating something is the way we receive the grace of salvation, then you simply do not understand the Gospel. It's a thinking like Nicodemus, when he tried to understand being "born again" in physical terms. It's a worrisome sign that you may have not truly been regenerated by the Spirit.

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Faith is the necessary prerequisite to receive grace worthily. Paul explicitly says in 1 Corinthians 11 that eating without faith/discernment brings judgment, not magic salvation. Sacraments do not replace faith: they're the physical conduits through which God imparts grace to the faithful, just as Jesus used physical spit and mud to heal the blind man, or water in baptism (1 Peter 3:21).

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How did the house of Cornelius get saved without receiving grace through the "physical conduit" of the Eucharist? Your view necessitates the belief that at the end of their story in the book of Acts, they were still not saved. And if you can't see how truly absurd that is, then your Orthodox tribalism has completely overtaken whatever rationality and logic you had.

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Doc? How did the house of Cornelius get saved without receiving grace through the "physical conduit" of the Eucharist?

You really can't avoid this question, if your church's view is to be tenable.

There is something truly ironic about BTD calling someone else "prideful and stubborn ".

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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BUDOS said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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BUDOS said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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BUDOS said:

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Your reply to me, and in many others, appears to confirm the definition of religious narcissism. It figures.
It also points to something you be able to answer: When was the last time you were wrong, admitted it, and apologized? If that is too difficult, how about one out of three?

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Standing up for the truth and firmly holding people to sound facts, reason, and logic is not narcissism. It isn't at all surprising that you don't have this discernment, but instead believe it is something that must be antagonized and impeded.

The only narcissism here is coming from you and your insistence that the nature of the discussion fall in line within your sensibilities and preferences for a version of Christianity that has no real conviction for the truth, while assigning personality disorders from your high chair to those who dare to go beyond your bounds, where real Christianity is supposed to go.

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BTD,
As in your previous response, your own words present further proof, not to my opinion that you are a religious narcissist, but to its definition and characteristics. Apparently, you may not be aware of how much (not all) of your behavior fits, so let me copy/paste some info from outside sources, for your benefit:

A religious narcissist is not just someone who is simply devout, enthusiastic or knowledgeable about their faith. It's a person who uses religion as a tool to elevate themselves, control others, and/or protect their ego. Their faith becomes a stage on which they perform, not necessarily a path they genuinely follow.
Core Traits of a Religious Narcissist

• Self-centered spirituality Their religious life revolves around their importance, their holiness, their calling. God, at times, almost becomes a mirror reflecting their greatness.
• Authority without accountability They claim, directly or indirectly, spiritual authority but resist correction, oversight, or humility. They may quote Scripture to justify their actions but usually ignore Scripture that challenges them.
• Moral exceptionalism They believe rules apply to others, not to them. In their minds, their "special relationship with God" becomes an excuse for hypocrisy.
• Weaponized religion They use religious language to shame, manipulate, or control others. Scripture becomes ammunition rather than guidance.
• Persecution narrative Any challenge to their behavior is framed as "spiritual attack," "jealousy," or "people opposing God's anointed."

Spiritual gaslighting is another technique "If you were more faithful, you'd agree with me."

• Lack of empathy they struggle to care about others' needs unless it benefits their image.

Scripture describes patterns similar to religious narcissism:

• Pharisees who loved public honor and used religion to elevate themselves
• False teachers who exploited believers for personal gain
• Leaders who "lord it over" others rather than serving.

These examples show that religious narcissism is not new; it's a recurring human temptation.
Religious narcissists can damage churches and families, create spiritual confusion, and undermine genuine faith. Understanding the pattern helps people recognize unhealthy dynamics and seek healthier spiritual environments, avoiding the toxic environment religious narcissists create and may even relish.

A contributing factor to creating such a toxic environment is that a religious narcissist reacts very differently from a normal, healthy believer when someone challenges their interpretation of a Bible verse. The issue is not the verse it's the threat to their ego. Their reactions follow predictable patterns because the challenge threatens their selfimage as spiritually superior, uniquely insightful, or divinely favored.

They respond as if you attacked them, not the interpretation.

• "You're misunderstanding me."
• "You're twisting my words."
• "You're being disrespectful."

The conversation shifts from Scripture to protecting their ego. They often elevate their interpretation to divine status: "If you were more spiritually mature, you'd see it." This is meant to intimidate, not clarify. Your disagreement becomes a sign of your supposed spiritual inferiority.

They often reframe the challenge as sin, shifting the issue from interpretation to morality.

• "You're being rebellious."
• "You're sowing discord."
• "Your attitude isn't Christlike."

This turns your question into a character flaw.
They try to make you doubt your own reasoning.

• "That's not what I said."
• "You're reading too much into it."
• "You're being emotional."

Their goal is often to destabilize your confidence.

When challenged, they often portray themselves as spiritually attacked, which casts you as the persecutor and them as the martyr. If you persist:

• They may become angry, condescending, or sarcastic.
• Or they may shut down, withdraw, and punish you with silence.

Your challenge becomes a threat that must be neutralized, so they work to reassert control and minimize your contribution. They frame disagreement as your deficiency. They turn correction into insubordination.

A religious narcissist's identity is built on:

• being the most knowledgeable
• being the most discerning
• and often believe they are spiritually superior
• and even believe they are uniquely chosen.

A challenge threatens that identity. So they defend the self, not the Scripture.

A religious narcissist's goal is to pull you into an emotional or authority-based battle. Your goal is to stay rooted in truth. A religious narcissist must win. If you try to win, you've already lost the spiritual battle. Narcissists push until they meet a boundary. A boundary is not rudeit's biblical. Boundary examples:

• "I'm not comfortable with conversations where motives are questioned."
• "I won't continue if the discussion becomes personal."
• "Let's pause this and revisit it later."

Boundaries protect your peace and prevent spiritual manipulation, as they often fail to respect your walk with God, unwilling to recognize that all interpretations must be tested by Scripture, not personal revelation." This keeps authority where it belongsGod's Word.

A religious narcissist is not going to change, period. Only God can. Should one choose to interact with one, it is vital to stay faithful, stay grounded, stay healthy, and to stay biblical. Let me know if there is a specific point you would like to make. Just remember, he is always righteven when he is not.

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Is it because you feel so inadequate, that you're not intelligent enough to engage the issues here, or because you're so afraid to face that you're wrong, or some other inadequacy in your life, that you constantly attack me personally with every single one of your posts?

Your entire diatribe here was a complete projection, and you're having to insert thoughts into my head and judge what's in my heart in order to force-fit me into your google diagnosis. Aside from the more important thing that this is false witness that you're going to be held accountable for, it's also plainly obvious that it's a pure defense mechanism - you obviously can't argue against the merits of what I'm saying, so you feel the urge to "invalidate" them through personal attacks. This is LITERALLY the ONLY thing you've "contributed" in this forum. It's just so childish and pathetic. It's an embarassment to yourself and to this forum.

You say that I'm not willing to admit I'm wrong - but you've never even argued what it is I've gotten wrong. Do you feel you're too stupid to do so? Yes, I test what you guys say against the "fire" of Scripture, facts, history, and logic. If you feel too inadequate in these areas to argue against what I'm saying or to defend you and others' beliefs, then I have some advice for you: if you are too afraid of having your wood, hay, and straw revealed about you, it's simple: don't come into the fire. Go have your parallel "warm and fuzzy" Christianty discussions where no one's wrong, and its verboten to say so, and leave those alone who want serious, challenging discussion.

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BTD,
if you would carefully read your responses to those after this one, you would find, but not admit, that apparently without exception, you provided further evidence of the characteristics previously indicated. That is sad. It is also potentially unhealthy and possibly even harmful for those who are unaware of your apparent disorder and attempt to participate in your diatribes in good faith. For you to knowingly treat people in the manner you is additional proof that you are not doing what you claim. Don't worry, I am not the only one aware of your issue and how you use the Word for your selfish benefit. I may check in from time to time to see if you are still using His Word to create division and discord among those who are sincerely seeking to learn more about the Word.

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"Diatribes"? You wrote probably the longest post in this thread, and it was all about attacking me than it was about anything topic-related. Why do you feel so compelled to insert thoughts and motivations into my heart as if you have some God-like omniscience, and then attack that straw man? I wonder if you'll ever realize it, but everything you're saying is a projection.

"Good faith"? Here's what's obviously going on: there is a faction of people in this thread which includes you who, unlike what you claim, are NOT here "sincerely seeking to learn more about the Word". Rather, you and they are here to find affirmation and praise for what you want to believe. Then you were shown that you're belief is errant, and you became unsettled. And since you could not argue/defend your beliefs when challenged, or answer direct, pertinent questions that reveal the flaw in your belief, the only way you could find "resolution" of your angst was to attack the person who showed you the truth. And this is what you've been doing the ENTIRE THREAD. It's is a universal defense mechanism, especially in matters of religion. It's precisely why they killed the prophets, the apostles, and Jesus.

You are wrong about the "book of life" and you were shown definitive proof, but you are too prideful and stubborn to correct yourself, and you keep repeating the error. Sound familiar, internet diagnostician? You cowardly avoided my challenge to answer whether the Catholic prayers to Mary were idolatrous and heretical. You cowardly avoid anything that requires you to stand up for biblical truth that might offend people. And then you engage in false witness to try to shame people from doing what you're too cowardly to do. YOU are the danger, not me. You are a fraud.

I'm sort of an authority on the matter, so don't take what I say lightly - I have found that those people who feel so compelled to get into the mind of another person and go to great lengths to justifty their "diagnosis" of some kind of character/personality disorder, are likely the ones most in need of a diagnosis for themselves.

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BTD,
Thank you for reading my last post and referring to it often. You not only appear to be a bit messed up, but dude, for you to be so obvious about continuing to repeat the characteristics, almost verbatim, well, it may make one wonder if you as prideful and arrogant as you repeatedly appear to be, or, dude, you may not be as smart as you are convinced you are. Frankly I think we all know, including you which one it is. However, I see that I am falling to your level of vitriol so, as indicated by the professionals, it's best that I take a break.

Honestly you and I are not the only ones who will be glad that the two of us quit this back and forth; however, as I review out recent exchanges, you didn't come out so well. Interesting. How does it feel to lose so many times in a row? By apparently repeatedly proving to be what the definition of the disorder was, I don't see how you call it a victory. But wait, since you seem to have implied that you are never wrong, well, let's not go there. We all know better.

I will check with you later. Enjoy ripping people up and NOT doing the Lord's work. As you can see you can be successful at getting others to get down to your level, at least temporarily. I have to go, as I am not near as good at doing what you do, plus, it makes me feel guilty with remorse. How about you?

Oldbear83 said:

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There is something truly ironic about BTD calling someone else "prideful and stubborn ".

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Yes, indeed. At least I have a better understanding of why he does what he does, and that it is not going to change. Obviously I have not done so well myself, due to the effect he can have on people. That is my fault, so I need to get away for a bit, which is the only real healthy option. Check with ya later.

BUDOS said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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BUDOS said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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BUDOS said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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BUDOS said:

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Your reply to me, and in many others, appears to confirm the definition of religious narcissism. It figures.
It also points to something you be able to answer: When was the last time you were wrong, admitted it, and apologized? If that is too difficult, how about one out of three?

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Standing up for the truth and firmly holding people to sound facts, reason, and logic is not narcissism. It isn't at all surprising that you don't have this discernment, but instead believe it is something that must be antagonized and impeded.

The only narcissism here is coming from you and your insistence that the nature of the discussion fall in line within your sensibilities and preferences for a version of Christianity that has no real conviction for the truth, while assigning personality disorders from your high chair to those who dare to go beyond your bounds, where real Christianity is supposed to go.

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BTD,
As in your previous response, your own words present further proof, not to my opinion that you are a religious narcissist, but to its definition and characteristics. Apparently, you may not be aware of how much (not all) of your behavior fits, so let me copy/paste some info from outside sources, for your benefit:

A religious narcissist is not just someone who is simply devout, enthusiastic or knowledgeable about their faith. It's a person who uses religion as a tool to elevate themselves, control others, and/or protect their ego. Their faith becomes a stage on which they perform, not necessarily a path they genuinely follow.
Core Traits of a Religious Narcissist

• Self-centered spirituality Their religious life revolves around their importance, their holiness, their calling. God, at times, almost becomes a mirror reflecting their greatness.
• Authority without accountability They claim, directly or indirectly, spiritual authority but resist correction, oversight, or humility. They may quote Scripture to justify their actions but usually ignore Scripture that challenges them.
• Moral exceptionalism They believe rules apply to others, not to them. In their minds, their "special relationship with God" becomes an excuse for hypocrisy.
• Weaponized religion They use religious language to shame, manipulate, or control others. Scripture becomes ammunition rather than guidance.
• Persecution narrative Any challenge to their behavior is framed as "spiritual attack," "jealousy," or "people opposing God's anointed."

Spiritual gaslighting is another technique "If you were more faithful, you'd agree with me."

• Lack of empathy they struggle to care about others' needs unless it benefits their image.

Scripture describes patterns similar to religious narcissism:

• Pharisees who loved public honor and used religion to elevate themselves
• False teachers who exploited believers for personal gain
• Leaders who "lord it over" others rather than serving.

These examples show that religious narcissism is not new; it's a recurring human temptation.
Religious narcissists can damage churches and families, create spiritual confusion, and undermine genuine faith. Understanding the pattern helps people recognize unhealthy dynamics and seek healthier spiritual environments, avoiding the toxic environment religious narcissists create and may even relish.

A contributing factor to creating such a toxic environment is that a religious narcissist reacts very differently from a normal, healthy believer when someone challenges their interpretation of a Bible verse. The issue is not the verse it's the threat to their ego. Their reactions follow predictable patterns because the challenge threatens their selfimage as spiritually superior, uniquely insightful, or divinely favored.

They respond as if you attacked them, not the interpretation.

• "You're misunderstanding me."
• "You're twisting my words."
• "You're being disrespectful."

The conversation shifts from Scripture to protecting their ego. They often elevate their interpretation to divine status: "If you were more spiritually mature, you'd see it." This is meant to intimidate, not clarify. Your disagreement becomes a sign of your supposed spiritual inferiority.

They often reframe the challenge as sin, shifting the issue from interpretation to morality.

• "You're being rebellious."
• "You're sowing discord."
• "Your attitude isn't Christlike."

This turns your question into a character flaw.
They try to make you doubt your own reasoning.

• "That's not what I said."
• "You're reading too much into it."
• "You're being emotional."

Their goal is often to destabilize your confidence.

When challenged, they often portray themselves as spiritually attacked, which casts you as the persecutor and them as the martyr. If you persist:

• They may become angry, condescending, or sarcastic.
• Or they may shut down, withdraw, and punish you with silence.

Your challenge becomes a threat that must be neutralized, so they work to reassert control and minimize your contribution. They frame disagreement as your deficiency. They turn correction into insubordination.

A religious narcissist's identity is built on:

• being the most knowledgeable
• being the most discerning
• and often believe they are spiritually superior
• and even believe they are uniquely chosen.

A challenge threatens that identity. So they defend the self, not the Scripture.

A religious narcissist's goal is to pull you into an emotional or authority-based battle. Your goal is to stay rooted in truth. A religious narcissist must win. If you try to win, you've already lost the spiritual battle. Narcissists push until they meet a boundary. A boundary is not rudeit's biblical. Boundary examples:

• "I'm not comfortable with conversations where motives are questioned."
• "I won't continue if the discussion becomes personal."
• "Let's pause this and revisit it later."

Boundaries protect your peace and prevent spiritual manipulation, as they often fail to respect your walk with God, unwilling to recognize that all interpretations must be tested by Scripture, not personal revelation." This keeps authority where it belongsGod's Word.

A religious narcissist is not going to change, period. Only God can. Should one choose to interact with one, it is vital to stay faithful, stay grounded, stay healthy, and to stay biblical. Let me know if there is a specific point you would like to make. Just remember, he is always righteven when he is not.

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Is it because you feel so inadequate, that you're not intelligent enough to engage the issues here, or because you're so afraid to face that you're wrong, or some other inadequacy in your life, that you constantly attack me personally with every single one of your posts?

Your entire diatribe here was a complete projection, and you're having to insert thoughts into my head and judge what's in my heart in order to force-fit me into your google diagnosis. Aside from the more important thing that this is false witness that you're going to be held accountable for, it's also plainly obvious that it's a pure defense mechanism - you obviously can't argue against the merits of what I'm saying, so you feel the urge to "invalidate" them through personal attacks. This is LITERALLY the ONLY thing you've "contributed" in this forum. It's just so childish and pathetic. It's an embarassment to yourself and to this forum.

You say that I'm not willing to admit I'm wrong - but you've never even argued what it is I've gotten wrong. Do you feel you're too stupid to do so? Yes, I test what you guys say against the "fire" of Scripture, facts, history, and logic. If you feel too inadequate in these areas to argue against what I'm saying or to defend you and others' beliefs, then I have some advice for you: if you are too afraid of having your wood, hay, and straw revealed about you, it's simple: don't come into the fire. Go have your parallel "warm and fuzzy" Christianty discussions where no one's wrong, and its verboten to say so, and leave those alone who want serious, challenging discussion.

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BTD,
if you would carefully read your responses to those after this one, you would find, but not admit, that apparently without exception, you provided further evidence of the characteristics previously indicated. That is sad. It is also potentially unhealthy and possibly even harmful for those who are unaware of your apparent disorder and attempt to participate in your diatribes in good faith. For you to knowingly treat people in the manner you is additional proof that you are not doing what you claim. Don't worry, I am not the only one aware of your issue and how you use the Word for your selfish benefit. I may check in from time to time to see if you are still using His Word to create division and discord among those who are sincerely seeking to learn more about the Word.

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"Diatribes"? You wrote probably the longest post in this thread, and it was all about attacking me than it was about anything topic-related. Why do you feel so compelled to insert thoughts and motivations into my heart as if you have some God-like omniscience, and then attack that straw man? I wonder if you'll ever realize it, but everything you're saying is a projection.

"Good faith"? Here's what's obviously going on: there is a faction of people in this thread which includes you who, unlike what you claim, are NOT here "sincerely seeking to learn more about the Word". Rather, you and they are here to find affirmation and praise for what you want to believe. Then you were shown that you're belief is errant, and you became unsettled. And since you could not argue/defend your beliefs when challenged, or answer direct, pertinent questions that reveal the flaw in your belief, the only way you could find "resolution" of your angst was to attack the person who showed you the truth. And this is what you've been doing the ENTIRE THREAD. It's is a universal defense mechanism, especially in matters of religion. It's precisely why they killed the prophets, the apostles, and Jesus.

You are wrong about the "book of life" and you were shown definitive proof, but you are too prideful and stubborn to correct yourself, and you keep repeating the error. Sound familiar, internet diagnostician? You cowardly avoided my challenge to answer whether the Catholic prayers to Mary were idolatrous and heretical. You cowardly avoid anything that requires you to stand up for biblical truth that might offend people. And then you engage in false witness to try to shame people from doing what you're too cowardly to do. YOU are the danger, not me. You are a fraud.

I'm sort of an authority on the matter, so don't take what I say lightly - I have found that those people who feel so compelled to get into the mind of another person and go to great lengths to justifty their "diagnosis" of some kind of character/personality disorder, are likely the ones most in need of a diagnosis for themselves.

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BTD,
Thank you for reading my last post and referring to it often. You not only appear to be a bit messed up, but dude, for you to be so obvious about continuing to repeat the characteristics, almost verbatim, well, it may make one wonder if you as prideful and arrogant as you repeatedly appear to be, or, dude, you may not be as smart as you are convinced you are. Frankly I think we all know, including you which one it is. However, I see that I am falling to your level of vitriol so, as indicated by the professionals, it's best that I take a break.

Honestly you and I are not the only ones who will be glad that the two of us quit this back and forth; however, as I review out recent exchanges, you didn't come out so well. Interesting. How does it feel to lose so many times in a row? By apparently repeatedly proving to be what the definition of the disorder was, I don't see how you call it a victory. But wait, since you seem to have implied that you are never wrong, well, let's not go there. We all know better.

I will check with you later. Enjoy ripping people up and NOT doing the Lord's work. As you can see you can be successful at getting others to get down to your level, at least temporarily. I have to go, as I am not near as good at doing what you do, plus, it makes me feel guilty with remorse. How about you?

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Seriously - is it because you feel so inadequate at engaging what's being talked about, that you're so obsessed with constantly personally attacking me in order to feel better about yourself?

Because whatever it is, please do it as much as you need to get it out of your system. The rest of us don't want to keep reading your defense mechanism rants. Everyone can see that you're getting WAAAY too obsessed with me. I'm flattered, but you really should move on, it's unhealthy. And it's disrupting the discussion.

Oldbear83 said:

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There is something truly ironic about BTD calling someone else "prideful and stubborn ".

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As already explained, "prideful and stubborn" is something you have to accuse me of because you can't argue against what I'm saying, so you're attempting ad hominem. You can't even point to exactly where I've demonstrated what you're accusing me of, or how it's different from what anyone else is doing, including yourself. I've repeatedly tried to ask you and BUDOS to point to it exactly, but as usual, you guys come up empty. This means you and BUDOS are pretty much full of it.

BUDOS and OldBear,

The topic of this thread is about Mary, so why not a Mary question?
Do you believe that Roman Catholic and Orthodox prayers/liturgy to Mary which say the following:

" Most Holy Virgin Immaculate, my Mother Mary,
to you who are the Mother of my Lord, the Queen of the universe, the advocate,
the hope, and the refuge of sinners,

I venerate you, great Queen, and I thank you for the many graces
you have bestowed upon me even unto this day;
in particular for having delivered me from the hell
which I have so often deserved by my sins....

... I promise to serve you willingly for ever...

... I place in you all my hopes for salvation"

OR

"Mary is the propitiation of the whole world. Through Mary our sin is remitted."
"She is the gate of salvation."
"She is the provider of God's mercy."
"She taketh away the filth of sin."
"She is the salvation of my soul."
"She is the acceptable sacrifice."


.... do you believe that these prayers are idolatrous and heretical?

BUDOS said:

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Oldbear83 said:

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There is something truly ironic about BTD calling someone else "prideful and stubborn ".

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Yes, indeed. At least I have a better understanding of why he does what he does, and that it is not going to change. Obviously I have not done so well myself, due to the effect he can have on people. That is my fault, so I need to get away for a bit, which is the only real healthy option. Check with ya later.

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Thanks BUDOS, I appreciate your tone and spirit on this board.

I'm sure others do as well.

My thoughts and opinion on Mary with regard to prayers, rank and such were plainly posted here long ago.

Mary is a woman of great faith, and someone all believers should respect. I am gravely concerned about the many people who pray to Mary, and especially those who consider her as worthy of worship. The excuse that such behavior is not 'official' in no way means it is not happening.

BTD, I would say that BUDOS has not only reached out to you multiple times in a spirit commendable in a Christian, but has patiently observed your behavior and words.

I will say no more beyond that at this time, lest I be guilty of copying your tone and behavior.

Oldbear83 said:

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BTD, I would say that BUDOS has not only reached out to you multiple times in a spirit commendable in a Christian, but has patiently observed your behavior and words.

I will say no more beyond that at this time, lest I be guilty of copying your tone and behavior.

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LOL. Right.

Oldbear83 said:

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BTD, I would say that BUDOS has not only reached out to you multiple times in a spirit commendable in a Christian, but has patiently observed your behavior and words.

I will say no more beyond that at this time, lest I be guilty of copying your tone and behavior.

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And the answer to my question, is...??