Interesting idea.

Our team has encountered many conversion stories on this website that relate to the issue of authority. You would not think that authority is a likable quality in the 21st century, but that has not been the experience to date in many conversion stories on this website. 

Non-Catholics visiting this forum, what is your opinion on authority within Christianity?Our evidence is found at this post here [video]: http://onebillionstories.com/2580/rome-sweet-home-2/

It is the only institution that claim definitely to posses and proclaim the Truth. Revelation cannot be secured without authority, and the authority of the Church has progressed, but remains unwavering. Theses are reasons given by Newman himself. The Church has never changed her teaching, but she expands… there are developments, and responses to heresy, but never contradictions. Her claim is certainly bold, but there is something significant to be said for the fact that she remains today with the same teaching and tradition. It seems like we have to follow Newman’s example however, and be led first and foremost by our relationship with Christ, because it is our human experience and nature to seek that which we are made for. God is Truth. When we know Him, we know ourselves, and the Truth will be fully revealed in it’s fullness in the Catholic Church. Our experience and personal revelation are secured by the authority of the Church, and affirmed by Scripture. When we look at scripture in context it affirms the teaching of the Church… but sola scriptura cannot be sufficient on it’s own. We need help reveal the mystery of scripture too, and that is complimented and found in good leaders, that proclaim the gospel. If God is with us, who can be against us? He leads us home with love.

People might convert to catholism for many reasons, underlining them all is a fundamental lack of understanding of the Gospel, where in Christ took on flesh and lived a perfect sinless life that we could not, He went to the cross and died taking the punishment we deserve, after 3 days He arose from the grave defeating death, this alone is our only Hope, all according to the Scriptures. If a person believes they must do anything at all in the slightest in cooperation with Jesus to attain salvation they are in direct violation of Scripture, Ephesians 2:8-9 for starters.

Jesus + nothing = everything.

Certainly not.

As I originally stated there are any number of reasons a person weather they claim to be protestant, pagan or whatever converts to catholism, underlining them all is a fundemental lack of understanding of the Gospel. An “intelectual understanding” of the Biblical view of the Gospel does not equate to a heart transformed by the Holy Spirit. Only if the Father grants it does a person move from knowing in their head to believing in their heart.

The catholic church did not give us Bible, God did through the Old Testament Prophets and the Apostles.

So Joe, What does one need to DO in order to be saved?

Nothing. Even the very Faith a saved person places in Christ, that His death on the cross alone is sufficient to forgive all their sins past present and future, and will one day be raised with Him, is given to them as a gift by God.

Ephesians 2:8-9 CPDV

For by grace, you have been saved through faith. And this is not of yourselves, for it is a gift of God. And this is not of works, so that no one may glory…

Do you have to keep the commandments to get to heaven?

No.

Galatians 2:16 CPDV

And we know that man is not justified by the works of the law, but only by the faith of Jesus Christ. And so we believe in Christ Jesus, in order that we may be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law. For no flesh will be justified by the works of the law.

How can we cooperate with God’s saving grace without understanding and following the law? The works of the law, and it’s letter cannot stand alone, but when we fully enter into a relationship with Christ it seems necessary to intimately know the spirit of the law, and be willing to follow God’s precepts so that we can be saved. Faith should always lead to action. It seems to me that following God’s commands are a significant aspect of that action.Our love of God fills us with a fear, not simply of hell, but a fear that leads us to not want to offend Him by our transgressions. 

“My grace is sufficient for you, for only in weakness is my power made perfect.” 2 Cor 11:30

To know what it is to be human is to recognize sin, and turn to God as our savior, repent, and let Him lead us closer to Himself, but how can we live our faith and respond without His guidance… spelled out beautifully in the 10 commandments and reworded later in the 2 great commandments… The faithful need to be obedient, as Christ was to the Father.

I think the intellectuals saw how satisfying the Catholic approach was, especially when they examined the sacraments and their scriptural foundations, and unwavering consistency from the days of the early Church.

Joe, It would seem that you know very little of scripture and acually contradict and twist scripture to your own liking. What scripture CLEARLY teaches is that we are justified by works and NOT BY FAITH ALONE. In FACT the scriptures calls one foolish, shallow or an ignoramous if he believes we are justified by faith ALONE.                James 2:14-26
(14 What does it profit, my brethren, if a man says he has faith but has not works? Can his faith save him?…So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead. But some one will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith….   Do you want to be shown, you shallow man, that faith apart from works is barren? …You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by works,…You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone….26 For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so faith apart from works is dead.

Romans 2:13 For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified.

The James passages are not adding a requirement in addition to faith, James is describing what true genuine saving faith looks like in a person’s life.

Your use of them here to wrongly justify a requirement of works in addition to faith shows that you do not understand how the scriptures teach a person is saved.

We are saved by Christ alone, His death for the forgiveness of sins and resurrection is accounted to those whom He saves by faith. This faith that saves is a gift not of works so that none may boast. When this faith comes upon a person they are changed from the inside out.

2 Corinthians 5:17 CPDV

So if anyone is a new creature in Christ, what is old has passed away. Behold, all things have been made new.

Here is the next topic on the Bible: http://onebillionstories.com/8912/where-did-the-bible-come-from/

Next topic on the Bible: http://onebillionstories.com/8912/where-did-the-bible-come-from/

Next topic on the Bible: http://onebillionstories.com/8912/where-did-the-bible-come-from/

Even St Paul would agree that OSAS is wrong. “But I keep under my
body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have
preached to others, I myself should be a castaway. ” (1 Corinthians
9:27, KJV) Now if anyone, at all, ever, was ‘saved’ as you would
interpret that word, it was St Paul. Yet here he is, a long while after
being ‘saved’, STILL worrying about being disqualified, a ‘castaway’.
Elsewhere Paul talks about working out one’s salvation “with fear and
trembling” Philippians 2:12, and says “Let him that thinketh he standeth
take heed lest he fall.” (1 Corinthians 10:12) None of this is remotely
compatible with OSAS.