Crossing the Tiber, Part 4

While at Fellowship Baptist a new family came and began attending. One of my college students knew them and said I should get to know (my best friend) Greg. He said Greg was a Preterist and that a lot of my views Greg held to. Needless to say we became fast friends. Greg hosts a family Bible study which has become a rather large gathering of friends and family. So I began to attend. Greg convinced me through the Scripture the validity of his position on eschatology. I being amill. at the time my pump was primed to understand the Preterist position, which is almost the same as the Catholic position (the Catholic Church is amill. or what some would call Part-Preterist). I hold to the Catholic understanding because the full Preterist standing denies a future return of Christ and I'm not sure that portion of Preterism is true.

Greg and I are still best friends, but he doesn't want me to become Catholic. He is using the same tired excuses that most Protestants are ignorant of, such as "we worship Mary" or "we believe that the bread and wine really become the body and blood of Jesus" (which by the way is a straw man since Scripture doesn't say that it isn't), or "we believe that Tradition and Scripture are treated the same"...hello! Who was it that compiled the Scripture and chose the Scripture in the first place! There is a tiny Scripture they just don't want to take into account, Matthew 16:19 which states, Christ is speaking here to Peter, and in another response to all the disciples "I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." (NIV) That verse puts all the Catholic teaching in it's place since it is a direct line from Peter. Besides Sacred Tradition was the gospels, letters and Apocalypse BEFORE it was canonized! Don't even get me started about the infallibility of the Pope (another misunderstood concept of Protestants). Nothing burns me more than people speaking about things they have no first hand knowledge of, but I digress.

Oh one more thing, you Protestants who are SO against Sacred Tradition tell me...how is Sacred Tradition any different than listening to your pastor every week who renders his own opinion about the Scriptures? Just another straw man.

Now back to my story. I found it hard to continue with Fellowship Baptist since it taught against my eschatological stance AND was extremely Calvinist, so I left and only continued to go to Greg's bible study. But before too long Greg began teaching things that I could not come to grasp with. All this time between leaving Fellowship and my first Mass (over a month ago) I began searching for an end to all things. I was tired of all the various opinions people put forth about their interpretation of Scripture. I wanted a stone that said this is what it means and nothing else. I needed the boundary. I needed a Rock. So I began my journey to find that Rock that said this is as far as it goes, rest in it. Also this Rock had to be authoritative straight from Christ himself! Where did it start? With the Roman Catholic Church...that's where! More to come, stay tuned.