SCRIPTUAL ERROR

ERROR-CELIBACY-AN UNMARRIED PRIESTHOOD-

A situation of celibacy that has been placed upon people who wish to serve God is a departure from true Christianity, which in the church took place back in the early centuries of the growing young Body of Christ. One such scripture error refers to teachings of pagan mysteries is forbidding to marry. Celibacy for those in high orders of priesthood stems back to ancient Babylon mystery religions. It did not however spread to all nations from Babylon, Egyptian priests were allowed to marry.

The Bible does not teach for any person, male or female, to stay unmarried. God, in His wisdom, knew the problems that this would cause and never permitted such a law among those of priestly duties. It is not a doctrine of God.

The Levite priests of The Old Testament Aaronic Priesthood all were married. In the New Testament all the Apostles were married, as were the bishops and elders. Many think that Paul too was married at one time, for to be a Pharisee, one had to promote family life, and to be on the council, one of the regulations of requirements was the man had to be married. For Paul to cast his vote with the Sanhendrin against Christians, he may have been married at the time.
Those without the gift of singleness should not try and remain celibate.

The Bible states in The New Testament the qualifications for those in ministry to The Body of Christ, include marriage. Sexuality between men and women comes from God. It is very clear throughout history that the unmarried priests and nuns did and do not have the gift of celibacy. Many openly had spouses and children.

Paul in the New Testament says, false teachers of knowledge say it is wrong to be married and wrong to eat meat, even though God gave these things to well-taught Christians to enjoy and be thankful for.

Jesus did not teach celibacy, although He commented some may have this gift of not needing to be married, for exceptions i.e. John The Baptist, he had a mission to fill and fill it was his only goal.

In the 4th Century when the celibacy doctrine was introduced, all the priests and bishops were already married but were forbidden to have intercourse with their wives. All those in the Body of Christ are members of the New Testament priesthood.

ERROR-PURGATORY-A place for unforgiven souls?

The Scriptures do not teach a belief of purgatory. The souls of all believers are taken immediately into God's presence. Under the New Covenant, Christ made full atonement and His blood was sufficient.

The error of purgatory teaches of a half-way spiritual residence where souls are to be purified and unforgiven sins to be purged by family members, paying in monetary terms for them after they have died and to pray to Mary to have compassion on their suffering; both are against The Word of God.

People in this world can not pray to dead souls nor can they ransom a soul with money. Psalm 49:8,9.
" For a soul is far too precious to be ransomed by mere earthy wealth. There is not enough of it in all the earth to buy eternal life for just one soul to keep it out of hell ". (LB) Only God Himself can redeem life.

Mankind cannot buy or sell gifts of God including the undeserved favour of the forgiveness of sins. If a person attempts to do this, there must be repentance from a wicked heart attitude that is captive to sin. Acts 8:20-23.
Jesus and the apostles taught that the soul goes to be present with The Lord. There is no proof or evidence in scripture of a place where souls need further purifying or need help from those in the earthly time frame, to get the dead to be accepted into heaven with the favours given to Mary, who herself is a dead believer in the presence of God along side all other believers.

Christ's redemptive death was sufficient. Philippians 1:23 "depart and be with Christ". There is no suffering or torment for believers after death. There cannot be found any Biblical positive statement for the proof of a timeless waiting state in eternity.

ERROR-NECROMANCY-praying to the dead.

A Necromancer is one who seeks to contact the dead, for help or aid or information.
To God it is a detestable practice to consult the dead. Deuteronomy 18:11(c) Isaiah 8: 19, "Should not people inquire of their God? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living?".
Nor is it possible for the living to do anything on behalf of the dead.

When Rome conquered the world they took on the belief of the Babylonians who prayed to their gods, who at one time were living heroes. When Constantine Christianised his empire (4th century A.D.), the gods and goddesses of pagan life were renamed and called saints that were associated with certain occupations.

As paganism and Christianity merged a saint was a given a similar sounding name to the gods and goddess they replaced. Belief in praying and setting apart dead saints, expecting answers to prayer has accumulated in setting apart holidays in honour of these dead saints.

Some Christians are taught to pray to the dead saints and the original apostles to help them, but why pray to these saints when Christians have immediate access to God since the death of Christ? For He is the One and Only intercessor between God and mankind.
The fact that The Bible teaches that souls of believers go immediately into God's presence, means that living believers should know that it is not necessary to pray to or for the dead, and that to do so is against the will of God.

Repeatedly the Bible condemns all attempts to commune with the dead. If this was not a serious issue, only innocent and not harmful for believers to do, God would not have commanded that it not be so, but He did, and for our own good, spiritually.

Superstition is misplaced and misdirected reverence which cause irrational fear and misunderstanding of God's purposes.

Scriptually speaking, prayers that are addressed to saints are living people in this world today and not those who have died. The word saints are given to all who believe in Jesus, The Christ, Son of The Living God, regardless of their character or spiritual maturity, they are those who are dedicated to God.

The dead saints, whom are prayed to, against the will of God, are not friends or protectors, nor can they ever be. God Himself has promised to go to their aid with loving kindness and compassion. The Holy Spirit is the guardian, comforter, stand by, not dead believers.

The Bible tells us that when Christ was on The Cross, the veil in The Jewish Temple separating the Holy of Holies, where only the High Priest was allowed to go, was rent from top to bottom, being a symbol for all to have access to God.

The dead apostles, martyrs and saints cannot answer prayer nor help in any way, they do not perform miracles, and those who seek the dead usually have contact with a demon who can impersonate a previous living person. The early Christians as well as the prophets of the Old Testament were aware of this and recognised the worship of pagan gods as the adoration of devils, and doctrines of devils.

IT IS MORE IMPORTANT TO OBEY THE WORD OF GOD, THAN OBEY THE TRADITIONS OF MEN

ERROR-NO TO THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION-Mary was not divine.
Luke 1: 47 For "ALL HAVE SINNED AND come short of the glory of God ", "There is none righteous, no not one."

Mary was not born sinless and did not lead a sinless life. She was not infallible, but her 'infallibleness' was manmade officially in 1854. St Augustine wrote that Mary's flesh was "flesh of sin" and that " Mary springing from Adam, died because of Sin". Mary acknowledged that she was a sinner by calling God her saviour, only a sinner needs a Saviour. "My spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour ".

Jesus' divinity did not depend upon Mary being divine. Only Jesus was sinless to break the power over death and all the works of the devil, there was no reason for Mary to be divine, if she was, then the first prophecy in Genesis 3:15 could not have been fulfilled by the birth of Jesus. His mother had to be human, so Jesus could be The Redeemer for mankind.

ERROR-NO TO PERPETUAL VIRGINITY-Mary was a human mother.

Mary did not remain a virgin all her life; she did have sex with her husband Joseph and therefore had many other children. Note these Bible verses disproving this false doctrine; a] "Joseph took unto him his wife; and knew her not TILL she had brought forth her firstborn son" Matthew 1:25. This means that Joseph knew Mary sexually in normal marriage relationship after Jesus was born. b] Jesus' fellow Nazareth townsfolk who grew up with him asked: "Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary? and his brothers, James, Joseph, Simon and Judas? And his sisters, are they not all with us? Jesus here has brothers [aderphos] and sisters [adelphai]. This cannot be valid because the Greek word for cousin is 'anephios'. Mark 6:3 also translates these as 'brothers' and 'sisters'. When the disciples said to Jesus while he was talking to the crowd, Make way for your mother and family, to which Jesus replied 'Those who do the sill of my Father is my mother and family.' Matthew 12:46-50. c] Jesus, when on the cross, spoke to Mary about John saying: "Woman, behold your son", Jesus then said to John and Mary, "Behold THY MOTHER". Therefore John and Mary had a mother/son-aunt and nephew relationship. d] Jesus had brothers: "Neither did his brothers believe him". John 7:5 'These all continued...with his brethren". Acts 1:24. Nine times the Bible says that Mary was not a perpetual virgin.

Jesus' brother James was the first bishop of the church in Jerusalem, it was not Peter, and also James wrote a book in the New Testament under the Book after His name, His other brother Judas wrote the book Jude, in the New Testament.

ERROR-MARIOLOGY-
-CONNECTION WITH PAGAN MOTHER AND CHILD WORSHIP-

Mother and child worship started at the Tower of Babel, approximately 2,500 -3,500 years before Christ. Nimrod, King Of Babel was killed for his great evil. His wife Semiramis, feared that she would lose control, devised a plan to maintain the people's loyalty. She and everybody knew about the future birth of a virgin born Messiah/Saviour promised in Genesis 3:15 as the 'seed of the woman' who would bruise Satan's head.

When the Roman Emperor, Constantine, professed conversion in 320 AD he commanded an empire that were pagan worshippers of ancient Babylonian mother and child goddess, and the other half professed to be Christian. He could not pass a law to compel everyone to follow a certain religion, as people have their own free will. He himself is said to have had a vision of a cross before invading Rome, and believed he would succeed if he used that ensign.

A compromise was reached which allowed the pagans to continue their mother and child worship, yet still give the appearance of being Christian. They simply changed their ancient culture of the pagan mother and child worship to worship Mary and Jesus.

This resulted in Mary worship becoming official in 431 AD at the Council of Ephesus, the very city where Paul was arrested and argued his case against the worship of Diana of Ephesus, the same ancient mother worship that stemmed from Babylon.

Since then Mary worship has grown, so that Mary is now called the ' Mother of God', 'Queen of Heaven', 'Madonna'. etc. Note that Mary herself never claimed to be the Queen of Heaven as this was a pagan goddess that apostate Israelites made cakes to, thus provoking God to anger. ".. the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the Queen of Heaven... that they may provoke me to anger ". Jer. 7:18 and 44:17. The Queen of Heaven of the Old Testament was the same woman from Babylon once again, and they used her real name. It was the same woman that was worshipped, although each country had their own name for her.
Mary has become to be worshipped more than God's son, Jesus Christ Himself.

Note that Mary is NOT the 'Mother of God' as God was around long before Mary was born. Mary is the mother of Jesus (Acts 1:14) she was never called the "Mother of God". She is the mother of Jesus' humanity, but not His Deity. In pagan religions, the mother was worshipped as much or more than her son, yet the Bible clearly shows that Christ is to be worshipped and NEVER Mary.
THE BIBLE NEVER MENTIONS MARY INTERCEDING FOR US.
Only Jesus can forgive sin. He paid the price for the redemption of mankind, not Mary.

Who did the thief on the cross appeal to for salvation? Was it Mary or Jesus? Jesus said "Come unto ME, all ye who labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest". Matthew 11:28 "Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out". John 6:37 "No man cometh to the Father but by Me" John 14:6
Praying to Mary is of no value, people are to pray to God, The Father or Christ. In many cases prayers are addressed to Mary more than Christ. Nowhere does The Bible say Mary is of any significance other than an ordinary human being born into the sin of mankind and having her sins forgiven like other believers. Mary cannot answer prayer, nor is she to be worshipped.

ERROR-THE ASSUMPTION OF MARY-Mary is not equal with divinity.

Mary did not ascend into heaven in a bodily form, which was a man-made decree, made official in 1951. This is NOWHERE mentioned in the bible. "No man has ascended up to heaven, but ...the Son of man.." John 3:13.

Ascended in the Greek means "go up of one's own power" not taken up as was Elijah or Enoch. There are no true prophecies and miracles attributed to Mary, in the Bible.

Mary herself waited with the other disciples to receive the baptism of The Holy Spirit on Pentecost Day as promised would be sent by God, The Father. The Apostle John looked after and cared for Mary until her death.

Luke 11:27 As he was speaking, a woman in the crowd called out, "God bless your mother--the womb from which you came, and the breasts that gave you suck!" 28 He replied, "Yes, but even more blessed are all who hear the Word of God and put it into practice."

True Christianity teaches that The Lord Jesus is the One and Only Way to The Father, and He is The Way, The Truth and The Life. His mother cannot forgive sins, Jesus can. Jesus is to be worshipped and was worshipped by the disciples, but His mother was not. Mary is not to be exalted but
Jesus, The Christ is the One who is to be exalted.

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