SIGNPOSTS
TO THE CHURCH.
By Rev Francis J. Ripley.
CATHOLIC TRUTH SOCIETY No. Do0340a (1963).
I would like to explain as simply as I can the main arguments for the truth of the Catholic Church. You may not be a scholar and perhaps you do not understand some of the words usually found in books on religion. I will do my best to help you.
Suppose we group everything round three big facts.
The first is GOD, the second is Jesus CHRIST, and the third is the CHURCH.
SUMMARY.
GOD.
1. GOD EXISTS.
2. WE MUST WORSHIP GOD.
3. IN THE WAY HE TEACHES US.
CHRIST.
1. CHRIST IS GOD.
Proved from:
(a)
The Gospels,
(b) His Miracles,
(c) Prophecy,
(d) His Character,
(e) His Claims,
(f) The Resurrection.
2. CHRIST’S WAY IS GOD’S WAY.
3. WE MUST ACCEPT ALL CHRIST’S TEACHING.
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.
1. CHRIST ORGANIZED A CHURCH.
2. ONLY THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IS CHRIST’S CHURCH.
(a)
It is the Scriptural Church.
(b) It is Apostolic, One, Universal, Holy.
(c) Its Head is the Successor of the Head Christ Appointed.
3. THE CATHOLIC CHURCH MUST BE ACCEPTED.
GOD.
The first big fact — God. I think you already believe that there is a God, but
to help you I will explain as simply as I can why that must be so. A story
might help you.
1. God exists.
About 300 years ago, there lived a famous scientist called Kircher. He made a
splendid model of what he knew of the Universe. When a button was pressed, the
stars, the moon and the planets began to move around the globe. He kept this in
his study. One day a young man came in who was proud of being an atheist.
Kircher knew this and was determined to teach him a lesson. He had not long to
wait for his opportunity. The young man pointed to the model of the globe and
asked, ‘Who made that?’ Quite solemnly, Kircher replied ‘Nobody, of course, it
just happened’. The young man looked puzzled. ‘Nobody?’ he said, almost without
thinking. ‘Yes, nobody’, replied Kircher. Then the young man said, ‘But
somebody must have made it; it could not have made itself’. ‘Well spoken’, said
Kircher; ‘in those words you have condemned yourself. You boast of your
atheism. You say that this little model must have had a designer and yet you
deny that the Universe itself, which is millions of times more complicated,
came into existence without a designer. I hope you see now how silly you are.’
That is a perfectly valid argument, isn’t it? You can apply it to anything you like. Think of matter itself. Nuclear physics revolves round the fact that matter is highly designed, made up of molecules, atoms, protons, electrons and things. There must have been a designer. To say it all just happened is nonsense.
Here is a question for you. Can you think of anything at all which did not at
some time or other come from something else? I am sure the answer is ‘No,
nothing except God’. All men, all animals, all plants and everything we come
across during life come from something else. Some scientists think everything
evolved but there must have been something in the beginning which developed
into all the things we have today. If ever there was nothing there is still
nothing, because nothing cannot by itself become something. You and I know that
all the things that exist receive their existence from something else. You
cannot go back for ever without finding a starting point somewhere. All the
things we know of, which receive their existence, exist only because something
gives existence in the first place.
Try an experiment for yourself, a very simple one. At breakfast tomorrow
morning, when you want a cup of coffee, put your cup on the table in the
saucer. Do nothing else. You certainly will not get any coffee. Now take an
empty jug and pour the contents into your empty cup. You are still waiting for
your coffee. Now take that empty jug and fill it from an empty coffee urn.
Still no coffee. You can go on doing that until the Thames runs dry and you
just will not get any coffee until somebody puts some in the urn. Instead of
coffee, think of the existence of everything — nothing can have it unless
something gives in the first place. That giver of existence is Being itself. It
is God. He is the completely independent being on whom everybody and everything
else depends.
What do we know about God? When
we come to think about our second big fact, Jesus Christ, we shall discover
quite a lot about Him. For the moment, let us just use our reason. By your
experiment with the coffee, you have proved that God is independent. That means
that nothing limits Him. Therefore, He has no body. You know how your body
limits you; it keeps you where you are. You have to stay where there are air
and drink and food. A being without a body is a spirit. So God is a spirit.
When we were talking about
Kircher and his model, we found out that God had designed the Universe and all
matter. He is intelligent. Because He has no limits, there are no bounds to His
intelligence. When anything has no limits, we say it is infinite. You can say
this about God in every way. Think of any quality that you like to see in human
beings, such as love, goodness, mercy, power, justice, truth, wisdom and the
rest. God does not only possess all of these, He is all of them; they are His
very being. For example, His power has no limits. Another word for power is
might, so we speak of God as being All-mighty, almighty. That is the first
point we must make about our first fact: God exists.
2. We must worship God.
The second point is that we must show by our conduct that we depend entirely on
God. In other words, we must worship Him. We belong to Him, just as much as the
sand-castle you made on the beach when you were little belonged to you. The
difference between you and your sand-castle is that you can speak to the God
who made you. You can tell Him how wonderful He is. You can tell Him you are
sorry if you do things against His wishes. You can ask Him for what you need.
Doing these things is religion. You can see that it is a duty. Here is a story
to make that clear.
Two men went aboard a liner in London docks to emigrate to Australia. They
shared a cabin. As the liner was sailing down the Thames estuary, one of the men
had a stroke and became quite helpless. The other man looked after him for the
rest of the voyage. When they arrived at Sydney, relatives of the sick man came
and took him away. Neither he nor his relatives said so much as ‘Thank you’ to
the man who had spent six weeks nursing him. You will surely say that was very
ungrateful. Men who never pray to God treat Him like that. God has done far
more for us than that passenger did for his sick friend. God has given us
everything that we are. He keeps us in being every moment we live. He provides
us with so many wonderful gifts that we can never hope to count them all.
Common sense tells us that we must acknowledge that we depend on Him. We owe
God a debt. Paying our debts is called justice. A man who never pays his debts
is an unjust man. A man who never worships God is not paying his debts to God.
He is an unjust man. Worship and religion are our debt to God. That is the
second point under our first big fact: God must be worshipped.
3. We must worship God in the way He teaches us.
And now we come to our third point. It is simply this: if God has told us how
He wants to be worshipped, we must worship Him in that way and in no other. All
the rights are on His side. He is the complete master. We depend on Him for
everything, even our being. So we have no right to turn round to God and say:
‘I will worship you as I choose, but not in the way you told me’. What would
have happened to you at school if you had said to your teacher, ‘I do not mind
doing sums but I will do them in my own way and not the way you teach me’? If
you ever did say that, you have probably painful memories of it!
CHRIST.
Under our first big fact, we have discussed three points like this:
God —
1, He exists;
2, He must be worshipped;
3, He must be worshipped in the way He has revealed.
That brings us to our second great fact. It is the fact of Jesus Christ.
1. Christ is God.
Under this fact, too, we have three important points. The first of them is
this: Christ is God. From your school days you probably remember quite a lot
about the life of Jesus Christ. He was born nearly 2,000 years ago in a stable
at Bethlehem. His mother was the Virgin Mary, and his foster-father was Joseph.
When He was born, angels sang to shepherds nearby and they came to adore Him. Some
wise men or ‘Magi’ (the ‘Three Kings’) also came from the East to adore Him and
give Him their presents. When King Herod was jealous and wanted to kill Him an
angel appeared to Joseph and told him to take the Infant Jesus into Egypt. When
Herod had died, the Holy Family came back and lived at Nazareth. There Jesus
helped Joseph, who was a carpenter.
When He was about thirty, He left home. He fasted for forty days and nights in
the desert and allowed Himself to be tempted by the devil. Then He began
preaching and supported His preaching by doing wonderful things called
miracles. He brought dead people back to life, changed water into wine, cured
all kinds of diseases, multiplied a few loaves and fishes to feed a great crowd,
and so on. We know that He foretold future events in great detail. The Jewish
leaders were jealous of Him and wanted to kill Him. He had chosen twelve
Apostles whom He wished to train to carry on His work. One of them betrayed Him
to the Jews. He was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane, tried, tortured,
beaten and eventually killed by being nailed to a cross. He was buried; but on
the third day, He rose again from His tomb. For forty days, He continued to
appear to His immediate followers, teaching them very special lessons. Then He
went up from the Mount of Olives into Heaven and ten days later, the Holy
Spirit came down on His Apostles as He had foretold.
THE GOSPELS.
We know about Christ mainly from four history books called Gospels. Gospel is
an old English word meaning good news. The writers of the Gospels are Matthew,
Mark, Luke and John. They are called Evangelists. Matthew and John were our
Lord’s personal followers; Mark might have known Him personally but he got most
of his facts from Peter, who was the chief of our Lord’s Apostles; Luke was a
doctor who got his information from our Lord’s Mother and others who had known
Him personally. Saint John tells us that the Gospels are not a full account of
our Lord’s life. They are only outlines.
You will naturally want to know
whether these Gospels can be believed. You may think that after all this time
they may have been changed or misunderstood. Let me assure you that no books
have been more thoroughly and minutely examined than these Gospels. Scholars
have studied them from every angle. They have compared what they say with what
is found out from other sources, such as excavations and inscriptions. The more
research is done on the Gospels the more their truth is established. Still, the
main way in which we learn about Christ is called Tradition. In fact, we know
most historical things by tradition. Have you ever read a life of the Duke of
Wellington? You probably know quite a bit about him because you were told it at
school. You know that he won the Battle of Waterloo. So it is with a great deal
of the knowledge you have at this moment. In the same way, traditions about
Christ have been kept alive in the Church. Saint John tells us that all the
books in the world would not be enough to contain the full story of His words
and deeds. But, for the moment, we will limit ourselves to what the Gospels
tell us.
CHRIST’S
MIRACLES,
PROPHECIES
AND CHARACTER.
Read them and you will find descriptions of the wonderful things Christ did.
They are called miracles. In fact, if you take the stories of miracles out of
the Gospels you have not very much left. Christ, whom Catholics often refer to
as Our Blessed Lord, told the people of His day that He worked miracles so that
they would believe that His message was really from God, whom He always called
His Father.
You will discover also that Christ foretold future events in astonishing
detail. For example, He said in advance that He would be denied by Peter and
betrayed by Judas, that He would be struck and scourged and spat upon, that He
would be killed and buried and would rise again on the third day, that he would
ascend into Heaven and send His Holy Spirit down on the Apostles. He foretold
also the destruction of the city of Jerusalem, which actually took place in the
year 70. He also described in advance the marvellous spread of His Church and
its persecution. This, like His miracles, shows that God was with Him.
While you read the Gospels, you will learn a lot about the character of Jesus
Christ. It is the most perfect character ever described in human words. It was
in great contrast to the accepted teachings of His time. His own teaching
corresponded to His character. It is the wisest and the most sublime the world
has ever known. The people He spoke to remarked that He taught with authority.
Put all these things together in your mind — our Lord’s miracles, His
prophecies, His character and His teaching — and you will agree that whatever
He claimed about Himself must have God’s support. God would certainly never
allow anybody to do all the wonderful things Jesus Christ did if He was falsely
claiming to be God.
CHRIST’S CLAIMS.
When you read the Gospels you will see how often Christ claimed to be God. Of
course, He could not claim it directly all at once. If He had told the Jews in
the simplest possible words that He was their God, they would have stoned Him
and He would have had no chance of giving men all the things He wanted them to
have, such as His example, His teaching and His Church. He had to prepare them
gently. But in the end He told them very clearly that He was one and the same
Being as His Father in Heaven. Before the world came into being, He existed
with His Father. He claimed for Himself the name the Jews had always given to
God. It is really Yahweh, which means I am. It has been corrupted to
Jehovah. He said on oath before the High Priest that He was the judge of all
men. He forgave sins in His own name, and when the Jews told Him that only God
could do that, He worked a miracle to prove that He could do it and that
therefore He was God. The Jews knew that He was claiming to be God because they
said to Pilate that He was guilty of death because He claimed to be God.
CHRIST’S RESURRECTION.
We have seen that God supported that claim, but so far I have hardly mentioned
the main reason why we know that. It is because Christ came to life again when
He had been brutally killed. He said He would do that. And He did it. For forty
days after coming back to life, He allowed Himself to be seen frequently by His
followers. They talked to Him and even had meals with Him. Of course, the Jews
were anxious to prove that He had not risen from the dead at all. They invented
the silly story that the Apostles had stolen Christ’s body when the guards were
asleep. It is silly because if the guards were asleep how did they know what
happened or, if the body were stolen, who stole it? In any case, all the Jews
had to do was to produce the body. Not only did they not do that, but there is
not the slightest indication that they ever even searched for the body. There
is no more certain event in history than the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. He
did it by His own power. He is God. That is our first point under our second
big fact: Jesus Christ is truly God. He is, of course, really man also.
2. Christ’s Way is God’s Way.
Our second point follows from that very easily. Because Christ is God every
word that He says is God’s word; everything He does is God’s deed; everything
He gives is God’s gift. The religion He taught is God’s religion. It is the way
in which God wishes to be worshipped. That is the second point: Christ’s way is
God’s way. Christ’s religion is God’s religion. Christ’s teaching is God’s
teaching. What Christ commands or forbids God commands or forbids.
3. We must accept all Christ’s teaching.
The third point follows directly. We must accept everything in Christ’s
teaching without exception. We have no right to pick and choose. We have no
right to say, for example, I agree with that and shall do it; but I do not like
that and shall not do it. We must accept the lot.
THE CHURCH.
Now we can summarize as far as we have gone.
The first big fact is God.
We made three points:
1, God exists;
2, God must be worshipped;
3, God must be worshipped in the way He has revealed.
The second big fact is Jesus Christ.
About Him, we also make three points:
1, He is God;
2, His religion is God’s religion;
3, We must accept it.
1. Christ organized a Church.
Our third big fact is Christ’s Church. The first point under this fact is that
Christ organized a Church and commanded all men to belong to it. Read the
Gospels for yourself. You can buy them for a few pence from the Catholic Truth
Society or from other decent bookshops. You will find from them that Christ did
not just begin a religious movement in a vague sort of way. He was not
satisfied with giving us example or even teaching. He did not just launch ideas
and do nothing more about them. He started a definite organization and made one
of His followers its head. He told it what to do and how to do it. He spoke of
it as ‘My Church’.
The Gospels tell us how Christ
chose His Apostles. First of all, He summoned them individually to follow Him.
Then there was a kind of ceremonial or official calling. After a night in
prayer, He called out the Twelve from the crowd. He named them Apostles, which
word is from the Greek. It means an envoy, one who is sent. The names of the
Twelve are given in official lists, and Simon, whose name our Lord changed to
Peter, is definitely said to be first. He gave these Twelve very special
powers. They were to teach men, govern men and make men holy. Here are some of
our Lord’s words to them: ‘Going, therefore, teach you all nations . . . to
observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. Go ye into the whole world
and preach the Gospel to every creature. He that believes, and is baptized,
shall be saved: but he that believes not shall be condemned. Whatsoever you
shall bind upon earth shall be bound also in heaven; whatsoever you shall loose
upon earth shall be loosed also in heaven. Whose sins you shall forgive, they
are forgiven them: and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained. As the Father
has sent me, I also send you’.
Our Lord organized the kind of
Church that people could see. He said that in case of dispute they were to tell
the Church, appeal to the Church. Those who did not accept the ruling of the
Church were to be cast out. In the language of our Lord’s own day, they were to
be ‘like the heathen’.
Think especially about our
Lord’s last words to His Apostles. Here they are: ‘All power is given to me in
Heaven and in earth. Going, therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in
the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to
observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you
all days, even to the consummation of the world’. Think about that. See how our
Lord claims universal Kingship. All power is His. Because of that — notice how
He says therefore — He is passing on His mission to His Apostles. He uses the
little word ‘all’ four times. Because He possesses all power, He tells them
that they are to teach all nations all His revelation for all time. There are
no exceptions. There is no country in which they must not preach nor any
individual whom they must not approach. Christ’s teaching is for everybody. His
Church is to go on until the end of time. He never speaks about His Churches.
It is always one Church. He likens it to a household, a sheepfold, a flock. He
said He had other sheep who were not in His fold. They must be brought in and
hear His voice so there would be one fold and one shepherd.
After His last supper, Jesus
prayed beautifully to His Father that the Church he had organized would always
remain united. Its unity was to be like that which existed between Him and His
Father: ‘That they all may be one, as You in me and I in You’. This unity was
to be so wonderful that it would mark out the Church as being founded by God.
Because Christ is God His prayer must have been heard. Whenever He prayed for anything,
it had to be created.
Therefore, His Church must always possess most wonderful unity. It would not
possess this unity if its members did not all believe the same thing and all
worship in the same way and all obey the same authority.
When Jesus had gone up into Heaven His Church went to work among men. Its early history is described in that book of the Bible called The Acts of the Apostles. It was written by Saint Luke about thirty-three years after our Lord went up into Heaven. From the beginning of the story, we see that the Church is an organized thing. It had deacons, priests, bishops, sacraments and discipline. So there is no doubt about our first point. Christ organized a Church. The Gospels describe how He did it and the Acts of the Apostles describe how it worked after He had gone back to Heaven. There are a lot more things we discover about this Church. For example, Jesus said it would always have His Holy Spirit as its special guide. With a guide like that, it could never lead men astray. In fact, Christ said: ‘He that hears you hears me’. Anybody who heard Christ certainly heard the truth. So when the Church teaches it teaches the truth. It can never go wrong in the essentials of its teaching, of its worship or its authority. Again, Jesus said that men would become members of His Church by being baptized. He told the Apostles to baptize. Ever since, baptism has been the way by which men joined Christ’s Church. The very fact that you have an admission ceremony means that you join an organization. From the beginning, there has been this ceremony of admission to the Church of Christ. It was His own personal instruction. So we know that He left behind Him a religious organization.
2. Only the Catholic Church is Christ’s Church.
Now pass on to our second point. It is that the Catholic Church, and only the
Catholic Church, with its head, the Pope, is the Church which Christ founded.
This is proved in several ways, but we will use just three. The first is to
examine the Church as it was immediately after Christ’s Ascension. We have
already done that, and when we compare the Catholic Church with the Church
that we discovered in the Acts of the Apostles we find that they are the
same. The head of the Church of the Acts was Saint Peter; the head of the
Catholic Church today is the successor of Saint Peter, the Pope. The Church of
the Acts taught with a voice that was certain; the Catholic Church today
teaches with that same certain voice. The Church in the Acts had its Bishops,
Priests and Deacons; the Catholic Church today has its Bishops, Priests and
Deacons. The Church in the Acts had its definite doctrine; the Catholic Church
today teaches those same doctrines. More than that, every Catholic priest
derives his spiritual power from his connection with the Apostles. For example,
the priest who is writing these lines was ordained by the late Archbishop
Downey of Liverpool. Archbishop Downey received the power to ordain priests
when he was consecrated bishop by three other bishops. Those three were
consecrated by three others, and so on. Continue the line right back and you
will eventually end with the Apostles. All the bishops in each line
acknowledged the authority of the Pope. They all taught the same doctrines and
they all worshipped in the same way. There never was any break at all. The
Catholic Church is exactly the same organization which Christ founded. It is
the Church of the Apostles — really and fully Apostolic.
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH: ONE AND UNIVERSAL
Now look at the Catholic Church today and throughout her history. Remember that
Jesus Christ said she was to teach all nations. She has done it and is doing it
still. Look at our world. See the divisions between men. We have not yet
recovered after two world wars. Our race is fearful because of the division
between East and West. The United Nations Organization serves to show how
disunited the nations are. Attempts to establish a universal language have
failed. Trade restrictions remain. There are differences of colour, national
traditions, language, climate, occupation, character, class, political
loyalties and so on. Yet the Catholic Church bridges all these differences. In
it men of every class, colour, nation, tongue and clime all believe the same
doctrines, all worship in the same way and all obey the same authority. But
that is not all.
Go back through the centuries. Think of Catholics anywhere at any time. How
they all differ. Saint Agnes was a girl of twelve when she was martyred in Rome
about the year 300. Saint Maria Goretti was a girl of twelve when she was
martyred in Italy in the year 1902. Both believed the same things, both went to
the same Mass, received the same sacraments and both recognized the authority
of the Pope. Saint Thomas More, Lord Chancellor of England, who was executed by
King Henry VIII in 1539, believed exactly the same as Saint Benedict, the
father of the monks here in the West, who died in 543. Saint Francis of Assisi,
who died in 1226, believed, worshipped and obeyed in exactly the same way as Saint
Francis Xavier, who died as a missionary in the Far East in 1552. United in
these three things, in the same beliefs, the same worship and obedience to the
same authority, are Catholics of all time, no matter how they are separated by
miles and years.
Saint Anthony of Padua, the
wonder-worker who died in 1231, was thus united with Saint Augustine, who
brought the Faith to England from Rome in 597. Saint Patrick, the Apostle of
Ireland, who died in 493, practised exactly the same faith as Saint Joan of
Arc, the Maid of Orleans, who was burned at the stake in 1431. Saint Edward the
Confessor, the English king who died in 1066, was sanctified by precisely the
same religion as Saint Martin de Porres, the South American half-caste, who was
canonized by Pope John in 1962. So you could go on. If you were to take a kind
of space ship and go back through the centuries and across the miles and meet
any Catholic of any nation you would find there the identical belief, worship
and obedience which you would find in any Catholic today.
How do you explain this
marvellous combination of unity and universality? Remember that
religion seems to be the one thing which tends to divide people. They argue
about it so easily. How would you account for the fact that all these millions
upon millions who are separated by hundreds of miles and hundreds of years all
agree in belief and doctrine and obedience to the same authority? There is no
natural explanation. It is something brought about by God. It is the result of
the prayer of Christ. You find it in no other religion in the whole wide world.
THE CHURCH IS HOLY.
All the Saints are the true fruits of the Catholic Church. Together they are
the most wonderful company of heroes and heroines the world has ever known.
They made themselves holy through using the means of holiness offered them by the
Church, the same means which are available to every Catholic who has ever
lived. They prove that the Church is holy in her teaching, in her worship and
in her authority. They are the good fruit of the good tree.
So we prove our second point. The Catholic Church today is the best argument
for its own truth. She is stamped by God with four marks which identify her as
His own. She is one and universal, apostolic and holy.
THE POPE IS SAINT PETER’S SUCCESSOR.
A third proof remains. It is very simple. While He lived on earth, Jesus Christ
made Saint Peter the head of His Church. He changed his name to signify that he
would be the foundation of the Church. His authority would hold all the members
of the Church together like the foundation-stone of a building holds together
all the things that make it. Peter was given authority over the whole flock.
Christ prayed for him that he would never fail. Christ’s prayer must have been
heard because He was God. In the Acts of the Apostles Peter acted as a head and
was acknowledged as the head. Today the Pope in Rome is the successor of Saint Peter
in a direct, unbroken line. At any period in history, you could find the Church
of Christ by finding the head Christ appointed. In other words, if you find the
successor of Saint Peter you find Christ’s Church. That is why the Catholic
Church today is the one organized by Christ Himself.
So we come to the end of our
second point under our third fact. The Catholic Church is one and the same as that
founded by Christ Himself.
3. The Catholic Church must be accepted.
The third point is obvious and easy. It follows from all we have written.
Remember that God must be worshipped in the way He has revealed. Christ is God.
His way is God’s way. It must be accepted. The Catholic Church is Christ’s way;
it is God’s way; it must be accepted. It is the one authority Christ left upon
earth. To it and to it alone He said, ‘He that hears you hears me. Whatsoever
you bind upon earth will be bound also in Heaven. I will be with you all days,
even to the consummation of the world’.
As you go back through history, all the non-Catholic bodies disappear. In 1850,
there were no Christian Scientists, Mormons or Salvationists. In 1800, there
were no Plymouth Brethren, in 1700, no Methodists, in 1590, no Baptists,
Congregationalists or Quakers, in 1500, no Protestants, Presbyterians or
Lutherans and in 800 no separated Eastern Church. The Catholic Church, centred
in Rome, was there all the time. Nobody has ever been able to name a founder of
it except Jesus Christ who was the one true God. It is His gift to all men. He
wants all men to join it.
* * *
Note. — In this booklet, I have tried to indicate as simply as possible the
straight road to the Catholic Church. I have not even interrupted the text by
including references to quotations from the New Testament. You will probably
want to read more about the points I have made. You can obtain booklets on
practically all of them from the Catholic Truth Society in London or Australia,
or Ireland, or the U.S.A. (Oregon). When you come across references to
quotations from Scripture in them, you should look them up in a Bible. When,
for example, you find this: (Matt. 6:20), it means that the text is the
twentieth verse of the sixth chapter of Saint Matthew’s Gospel. (While you are
in the mood, look up Matthew 16:18.)
{Here are some of the more important passages you ought to examine:
‘Going, therefore, teach you all nations.’ ‘To observe all things whatsoever I
have commanded you.’ (Matthew 28: 19 to 20)
‘Go ye into the whole world and preach the Gospel to every creature. He that
believes, and is baptized, shall be saved: but he that believes not shall be
condemned.’ (Mark 16:15 to 16)
‘Whatsoever you shall bind upon earth shall be bound also in heaven; whatsoever
you shall loose upon earth shall be loosed also in heaven.’ (Matthew 18:18, and
look up Matthew 16:19 as well.)
‘Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them: and whose sins you shall
retain, they are retained.’ (John 20:23)
‘As the Father has sent me, I also send you.’ (John 20:21)
‘All power is given to me in Heaven and in earth. Going, therefore, teach ye
all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of
the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded
you. And behold, I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the
world.’ (Matthew 28:18 to 20)
‘That they all may be one, as You in me and I in You.’ (John 17:21)
‘He that hears you hears me.’ (Luke 10:16)
This one is important: (Matthew 18: 17) ‘And if he will not hear the church,
let him be to you as the heathen and publican.’}
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