MARY In spite of the false claims of contemporary Catholic apologists, the Roman Catholic Church worships and adores Mary. She is often referred to as the Blessed Virgin Mary. At least one statue of her can be found in every Catholic church in the world. Catholics are taught to pray to and worship Mary. In official Catholic terms, the worship applied to Mary is called hyperdulia. Fifty-three of the fifty-nine beads on the rosary are the same prayer repeated to Mary. “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death, amen.” Roman Catholics often accuse non Romanists of dishonoring the Blessed Mary. All Bible believing Christians respect and honor Mary as the human mother of Jesus. We believe that Mary was a pure and holy young woman. We also believe that she was highly favored with God and a virgin prior to conceiving the Lord Jesus by the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:26-28). Mary was not however a Roman Catholic because the Catholic Church had not yet been established. Furthermore, the Bible clearly teaches that Mary had the same human characteristics as any other person and therefore needed the same salvation. In fact Mary realized her need of a Saviour as recorded in Luke 1:46-47, “And Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.” The Catholic Church calls Mary the “mother of God.” However, once again the Bible tells us something entirely different. We read in Luke 1:43 that Elizabeth refers to Mary as “the mother of my Lord.” This refers to Jesus and in no way can be seen as referring to her as the “mother of God.” However, the Bible is so crystal clear that Jesus is the Son of God and the second person of the Trinity. My question to our Catholic friends is, Show me any place in the Bible where Mary is referred to as Co-Redemptrix or Co-Mediator? Show me even one verse in the Bible where Christians are commanded to pray to Mary? I have yet to have the first Catholic show me any passage. Our Catholic friends often refer to Mary as the Queen of Heaven. If we to be truly apostolic in our teachings, the question must be asked if there is any supportive Scriptural evidence for this title? There are in fact two passages in the book of Jeremiah that mention the queen of heaven. These are found in Jer. 7 and Jer. 44. In both instances the queen of heaven is a pagan goddess that God condemns Israel for worshipping this pagan goddess who was probably Isis. Every pagan society has always had a mother/child deity that they worship. For instance, the Canaanites and Philistines who were prevalent during Bible times worshipped Isis/Cupid and Symarimus/Horace as their mother/child deity. Jer 7:18-“The children gather wood, the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger.”
Posted on: Sun, 30 Nov 2014 03:34:09 +0000