Celibacy in the New Testament
In our culture many find no need for celibacy in the single life, in priesthood or even in marriage. Apologist and author Dr. Raymond De Souza explains celibacy and what it means for people, whatever their calling in life may be.
I've been studying this peculiar Christian community known simply as, the Brethren.
This group came into existence during the mid-1800s or the end of what Evangelical Protestants term, "the second awakening". (paralleled the Oxford movement in England)
It's co-founder John Nelson Darby (named after Lord Nelson) , a former Anglican priest, was the community's primary forefather. Darby a Irish Protestant also known as the father of premillenialism, broke his Anglican vows and started teaching in small house gatherings (hence the title of a forum homepage below, called simple-gatherings). In a nutshell, the Brethren teach a story of returning to a primitive church from total apostasy. They profess a story wherein Christianity on mass immediately apostatized after the death of the last apostle.
Why would a legitimate church make such a claim is naturally the question for a First Christian. After all Christ did promised Peter and the other eleven he would never leave them. This explanation has been interpreted as never leave his Church. Also, Christ instructed the gates of hell would not overcome the Church, with an understanding of the wheat and the weeds growing together until the harvest or end of time the true Christian rapture.
Why then the need by Darby and his followers to enter into separatism? The leaders of this group including Darby quickly realized they could not counter bible commentary and writings of the Early Church Fathers. These were men first trained by Christ's apostles, valid Christian bishops whose consensus on Christian practise and belief attested to, a Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, a hierarchical priesthood, a liturgical worship and so on. In attempting to reconstruct a primitive church the Brethren first shunned all these fundamental professions and threw out the authentic magisterium (teaching authority) of the Christian faith.
Of course seeds for this discontent were sown some 200 years earlier in the disobedience of the English Reformation which continues to have it's effect today with over 33,000 splitter groups existing in Protestantism.
Brethren leadership is not an anointed apostolic succession but usually a group of elder men within each assembly or bible chapel/gospel hall operating autonomously from one another without an episkopos (bishop). This is not to say the system actually functions without all the "trappings" of a more "organized religion". A clear example would be disputes amongst Brethren on administration and worship within the community ultimately causing a split very early on into two camps know today as Open and Closed Brethren.
From the late 1700s to the mid-18th century, Protestantism in the British Isles was very much on the ropes and a number of smaller splitter groups started separating from the more established denominations, the Brethren is one such case.
There is this great forum for Brethren, former Brethren and Baptists see: PBD-forum that I peruse from time to time and I came across an excellent discussion on "Can you say Eucharist"
I was taken back by one contributor Elisa, who happens to be the lone visiting Catholic. Elisa has been attempting to educate many on the forum who hold faulty perception on what Catholics actually believe and what the bible actually explains about early Christianity.
Hardliners amongst this group are responding to her with much ingrained doubt and one even keeps referring to her and the Church as "Romanist", a word finding it's origins in anti-Christianity, fanned by authors like Loraine Boettner and his anti-Catholic bible during the last 40 years. Elisa's responses always cordial, always respectful, seemed to mirror a discussion between St. Philip with the questioning yet misunderstanding Eunuch (Brethren) on the road to Ethiopia.
I have yet to post any response of my own at this forum as I'm still surveying the audience, weeding out hardliners from those open enough for a real ecumenical exchange. Let me tell you there is quite a variety amongst this bunch and as meek as Brethren would first present themselves (claiming the title "simple Christians" as their own), they are anything but.
Brethren are broken into two primary groups Open and Closed Communion. They like to call their buildings of worship Bible Chapels. I've often wondered if there is any realization origin of these words is fully Catholic. Bible coming from Biblos, and Chapel finding it's origins with, "the Keeper of the cape" , the cloak Catholic Christian St Martin of Tours shared with the beggar.
The etymology of the word is Middle English, from Anglo-French chapele, from Medieval Latin cappella, from diminutive of Late Latin cappa cloak and from the cloak of St. Martin of Tours preserved as a sacred relic in a... chapel.
I will probably follow up this post with a second installment on the Brethren down the road, as there is much to comment about on their tradition especially how they've been taught to revise the historical home assembly of early Christianity into something never actually found in the historical record.
Related Posts
EWTN - Saint Martin of Tours
This is a simple and easy thing to do. Download the following pamplet and give it to your friends and neighbours.
Books They Have Gotten from the Catholic Church.rtf
Jehovah Witnesses rarely accept literature so place this one-sided letter size paper in the hands of those Witnesses approach and hope to talk with. With any luck the next Witnesses who come knocking will show enough courtesy and accept your handout in exchange for theirs.
Has it been a month already? wow time for another post at thetruthwillsetusfree.
Intro
Hello readers it is a lazy Sunday afternoon where I'm at and after hitting the send button on an email to my new Protestant Brethren friend, I started to review several of my previous posts on the site including the most recent, Former Protestant Tim Staples Answers The Rapture Theory.
Tim Staples is quite an incredible speaker and as a former Church of Christ minister his story is one that both Catholic and Protestant can listen to with ease. I think it often surprises the non-Catholic who "thinks" he or she has got it all correct on matters of faith, to learn of the transition of persons like Thomas Howard, Scott Hahn, Stephen Ray, Tim Staples and many others into the fullness of Catholic Christianity from reformed and evangelical circles of Protestantism.
Returning to today's topic, as I was first saying, reviewing the site today I decided to listen to Tim Staples' video embedded in Former Protestant Tim Staples Answers The Rapture Theory. At the end of the video you have an opportunity to view additional video topics by Tim, and the teaching of Communion of Saints reminded me of a great story/article posted by Brother Andre at catholicism.org on Praying to Saints. All Catholics should know and share with others especially less knowledgeable Catholics, challenged by those attacking the Church what they "think" Catholicism to be.
The Meat and Potatoes On Praying to Saints
The following is an excerpt of the article by Brother Andre on Praying to the Saints followed by the Tim Staples video Communion of Saints both explaining rationally, logically and ... biblically why Catholic still profess as first Christians the Oneness of Christ's Church through our prayer (requests)
I’ll never forget sitting at a table outside a café in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, while a Pentecostal street preacher screamed his odd form of Christianity at the passing college students. He had the sort of rhythmic drive that Black Baptist and Pentecostal preachers cultivate, based on repeating one line over again, (e.g., Jesse Jackson’s “I am somebody”) then saying a couple of other lines, and finally repeating the “lead line.” This man’s lead line was, “Only Jesus can save ya!” (Of course, the line is true. Jesus is the Savior of mankind, so there’s no disagreement there… 1 ) But then the preacher worked some anti-Catholic sneers into his rhythm: “Mary can’t save ya!” “St. Joseph can’t save ya!” Then he returned to the main line: “Only Jesus can save ya!”
What was the man’s point? It was a vulgar caricature of Catholic devotion to the saints, the claim that we somehow dethrone the God-Man and replace Him with a pantheon of lesser divinities. Certain Fundamentalist forms of Protestantism tend to seize upon devotion to the saints with a particular spleen (probably because most of these sects view sanctity as impossible, or at least only an external reality).
As with all Catholic doctrine, the Church’s teachings concerning devotion to the saints are divinely taught and Biblically provable. Such is the claim I wish to back up in this article.
“Pray for Us”
A good place to start is with the line that all Catholics learn — or used to learn — virtually from the time they can speak: “Pray for us!” as in, “St. Joseph, pray for us.” The line is calling upon one person to pray for another (or others). In other words, the Catholic, by uttering such a prayer, is putting someone “in between” himself and God. This is known as “intercessory prayer” and it is very biblical, as the following passages from the New Testament show:
“Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving; Withal praying also for us, that God would open unto us a door of utterance…” (Col. 4:2-3 KJV 2 ) Here, St. Paul asks for prayers to be offered so that God will bless his preaching ministry.
“Brethren, pray for us.” (I Thess. 5:25 KJV)
“But withal prepare me also a lodging: for I trust that through your prayers I shall be given unto you.” (Philemon 1: 22 KJV)
Perhaps the most emphatic one is I Tim. 2:1-4: “I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.” (KJV)
Former Protestant now Catholic apologist Tim Staples answers the Rapture Myth being marketed in the fictional series, Left Behind. Give this video a viewing.
Yet through the years, though this wonderful church formed me in the joy of the Lord that was my strength, I felt like we were missing something. As a stalwart outpost of the kingdom in a threatening world, our faith seemed somehow precarious. We stood, as we faced that world, on a foundation made of the words of our favorite Bible passages—our "canon within the Canon"—and the sermons of our pastors and a roster of approved visiting evangelists. There was utterly no sense of the mystical massiveness of a church that had stood firmly for 2,000 years. No sense that our foundation actually stretched down and back through time. I didn't have a clue who John Wesley, Martin Luther, Bernard of Clairvaux, and Ignatius of Antioch were. I just knew that I felt like I was part of a church that was in some ways powerful, but in other ways shallow and insecure in a threatening world that did not share our faith.
The above article is located at: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2008/february/22.22.html
Many people outside the church don’t understand priestly celibacy. Apologist and author Dr. Raymond De Souza explains the reason for priestly celibacy as well as sacred scripture to back it up.
