How Would A Roman Catholic Present The Gospel

[ICTHUS]

How would a Roman Catholic present the Gospel to a person? I admit, when I was a Roman Catholic, I had a heck of a time trying to get my head around the incredible complexity of Roman soteriology, thus, whenever an opportunity presented itself where I could talk to someone about Jesus' atoning sacrifice on the Cross and all the works you needed to do to earn your salvation back after you lost it, I got confused..

[Paladin D]

Sorry, just a little out of the loop here but...

[b]1.[/b] Why do you have Catholic as a religion in your profile?

[b]2.[/b] You aren't Catholic anymore? Why? Please PM me. Not to get into a debate, just curious. Because I don't know what happened.

[cmotherofpirl]

[quote name='ICTHUS' date='Jul 27 2004, 11:16 PM'] How would a Roman Catholic present the Gospel to a person? I admit, when I was a Roman Catholic, I had a heck of a time trying to get my head around the incredible complexity of Roman soteriology, thus, whenever an opportunity presented itself where I could talk to someone about Jesus' atoning sacrifice on the Cross and all the works you needed to do to earn your salvation back after you lost it, I got confused.. [/quote]
You do not understand Catholic teaching if you think salvation is earned by anyone.

[jmjtina]

Well, truthfully, I've always presented it by ppl's lives first. Starting with St. Therese the Littleflower. Her autobiography does a great job, well, [i]she[/i] does a great job.

If you can grasp the simple things and do (and know) them well, then the bigger things fall into place.

[M.SIGGA]

[quote]John
Chapter 3
1
1 Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. 2
2
He came to Jesus at night and said to him, "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one can do these signs that you are doing unless God is with him."
3
Jesus answered and said to him, "Amen, amen, I say to you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born 3 from above."
4
Nicodemus said to him, "How can a person once grown old be born again? Surely he cannot reenter his mother's womb and be born again, can he?"
5
Jesus answered, "Amen, amen, I say to you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.
6
What is born of flesh is flesh and what is born of spirit is spirit.
7
Do not be amazed that I told you, 'You must be born from above.'
8
The wind 4 blows where it wills, and you can hear the sound it makes, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes; so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit."
9
Nicodemus answered and said to him, "How can this happen?"
10
Jesus answered and said to him, "You are the teacher of Israel and you do not understand this?
11
Amen, amen, I say to you, we speak of what we know and we testify to what we have seen, but you people do not accept our testimony.
12
If I tell you about earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?
13
No one has gone up to heaven except the one who has come down from heaven, the Son of Man.
14
And just as Moses lifted up 5 the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
15
6 so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life."
16
For God so loved the world that he gave 7 his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.
17
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn 8 the world, but that the world might be saved through him.
18
Whoever believes in him will not be condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
19
9 And this is the verdict, that the light came into the world, but people preferred darkness to light, because their works were evil.
20
For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come toward the light, so that his works might not be exposed.
21
But whoever lives the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be clearly seen as done in God.
22
10 After this, Jesus and his disciples went into the region of Judea, where he spent some time with them baptizing.
23
John was also baptizing in Aenon near Salim, 11 because there was an abundance of water there, and people came to be baptized,
24
12 for John had not yet been imprisoned.
25
Now a dispute arose between the disciples of John and a Jew 13 about ceremonial washings.
26
So they came to John and said to him, "Rabbi, the one who was with you across the Jordan, to whom you testified, here he is baptizing and everyone is coming to him."
27
John answered and said, "No one can receive anything except what has been given him from heaven.
28
You yourselves can testify that I said (that) I am not the Messiah, but that I was sent before him.
29
The one who has the bride is the bridegroom; the best man, 14 who stands and listens for him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom's voice. So this joy of mine has been made complete.
30
He must increase; I must decrease."
31
15 The one who comes from above is above all. The one who is of the earth is earthly and speaks of earthly things. But the one who comes from heaven (is above all).
32
He testifies to what he has seen and heard, but no one accepts his testimony.
33
Whoever does accept his testimony certifies that God is trustworthy.
34
For the one whom God sent speaks the words of God. He does not ration his gift 16 of the Spirit.
35
The Father loves the Son and has given everything over to him.
36
Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever disobeys the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God remains upon him. [/quote]

[Justified Saint]

Rather I find Calvinist soteriology as confusedly complex as they come.

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='ICTHUS' date='Jul 27 2004, 07:16 PM']How would a Roman Catholic present the Gospel to a person? I admit, when I was a Roman Catholic, I had a heck of a time trying to get my head around the incredible complexity of Roman soteriology, thus, whenever an opportunity presented itself where I could talk to someone about Jesus' atoning sacrifice on the Cross and all the works you needed to do to earn your salvation back after you lost it, I got confused..[/quote]
It is clear from the concluding portion of your comment that you fundamentally misunderstood Catholic soteriology. Salvation is by grace alone, for both faith and works are gifts of God's grace. Thus, in presenting the good news about Christ to others, I would repeat what St. Peter said in Acts:

"But Peter, standing with the eleven, lifted up his voice and addressed them, 'Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and give ear to my words. For these men are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day; but this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: [i]And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; yea, and on my menservants and my maidservants in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy. And I will show wonders in the heaven above and signs on the earth beneath, blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke; the sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood, before the day of the Lord comes, the great and manifest day. And it shall be that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved[/i]. 'Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs which God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know -- this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. But God raised him up, having loosed the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it. For David says concerning him, [i]I saw the Lord always before me, for he is at my right hand that I may not be shaken; therefore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced; moreover my flesh will dwell in hope. For thou wilt not abandon my soul to Hades, nor let thy Holy One see corruption. Thou hast made known to me the ways of life; thou wilt make me full of gladness with thy presence[/i]. 'Brethren, I may say to you confidently of the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants upon his throne, he foresaw and spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this which you see and hear. For David did not ascend into the heavens; but he himself says, [i]The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, till I make thy enemies a stool for thy feet[/i]. Let all the house of Israel therefore know assuredly that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.' Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, 'Brethren, what shall we do?' And Peter said to them, 'Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children and to all that are far off, every one whom the Lord our God calls to him.' And he testified with many other words and exhorted them, saying, 'Save yourselves from this crooked generation.'" [Acts 2:14-40]

[Guest JeffCR07]

[quote]How would a Roman Catholic present the Gospel to a person?[/quote]

I suppose with charity, a humble heart, and a firm grasp on the Church's soteriology. Icthus, if you are under the impression that the Church teaches that we are saved by our own merit, please look into it a little more. This notion is called Pelagianism and is actually a heresy. We are saved through unmerited grace alone which Christ won for us on the cross. Being an adopted son of God necessitates faith and works, though you must keep in mind that faith without works is dead, and good deeds done without faith have no reward in heaven, but by the sanctifying grace of God.

- Your Brother In Christ, Jeff

[phatcatholic]

icthus,

it is helpful to note how Catholics define "the gospel." i offer the following article (it is long, but i highly suggest it and hope that you will read it):


[url="http://www.cin.org/users/james/ebooks/gospjust/gospel.htm"][b]What Is the Gospel?[/b][/url]
by James Akin

In order to discuss the gospel, we first need to be clear on what the content of the gospel actually is. Unfortunately, there is a lot of loose, imprecise, and polemical talk about "the gospel" and what it includes. Sometimes Calvinists load into their definition of the gospel the distinctive doctrines of Calvinism, which would imply that Arminians preach a false gospel. Sometimes Arminians load into their definition of the gospel the distinctive doctrines of Arminianism, which would imply that Calvinists have a false gospel. In order to be Biblical, we must set aside this rhetoric and look at what the Bible actually says about the gospel.

There are ninety-three references to the gospel in the New Testament, but most assume we already know what the gospel is and are not that useful for determining the content of the gospel. Twenty-six passages, however, refer to the gospel being "of" something, which can give us a clue to what the gospel is about. Not all of these do so, because the phrase "the gospel of X" can indicate alternately the origin, the content, or the effects of the gospel.

Eight of the twenty-six passages, for example, refer to "the gospel of God"--indicating the source of the gospel (Mark 1:14, Rom. 1:1, 15:16, 1 Thess. 2:2, 2:8, 2:9, 1 Tim. 1:11, 1 Pet. 4:17). We know this because God himself is not the subject of the gospel. God was preached long before the gospel was preached. The gospel was a distinctive "good news" which, though promised before hand (Rom. 1:2), begun to be preached at the time of Jesus Christ (cf. Rom. 1:1b). This leaves eighteen of the passages to indicate the content of the gospel.

Twelve of these eighteen passages, however, do refer directly to the content of the gospel, which us Jesus Christ. These passages speak of the gospel as being the good news "of Jesus Christ," "of his Son," "of Christ," "of the glory of Christ," and "of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Mark 1:1, Rom. 1:9, 15:19, 1 Cor. 9:12, 2 Cor. 2:12, 4:4, 9:13, 10:14, Gal. 1:7, Phil. 1:27, 1 Thess. 3:2, 2 Thess. 1:8).

These are closely associated in the gospel of Matthew with three passages which refer to the coming of God's kingdom, which was inescapably associated in the Jewish mind with the Messiah. These three passages (Matt. 4:23, 9:35, 24:14) thus refer to the good news "of the kingdom," which was to the Jew a proclamation of the coming of the Messiah.

Fifteen of the eighteen passages indicate the content of the gospel as being the coming of Messiah and his kingdom, which leaves three passages unaccounted for. These refer to the effects of the gospel.

The first of these--Acts 20:24--refers to "the gospel of God's grace." The second--Ephesians 1:13--refers to "the gospel of your salvation." And the final passage--Ephesians 6:15--refers to "the gospel of peace."

This last reference is ambiguous since it is not clear whether the peace Paul is referring to in this passage is between man and God, or peace between Jew and Gentile, or both. Aside from 6:15, there are six verses referring to peace in Ephesians. Two are Paul's opening and closing salutations (1:2, 6:23) and thus have less significance for telling us what Paul means in the body of the letter, since the salutation of peace is found in almost all his letters. The remaining four passages all focus on human peace--that is, peace in side the Church--and in particular peace between Jews and Gentiles. This is absolutely obvious in the case of 2:14-16:[list]
[*]For he is our peace, who has made us both one, and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law of commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby bringing the hostility to an end. (Eph. 2:14-16)
[/list]Because the theme of Jewish-Gentile peace is the dominant concept in 2:14-16, we may infer it for 2:17, which flows from these three verses. The final reference, an exhortation to "maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace" (4:3) could be a reference to congregational unity in general, but is undoubtedly colored by Paul's preceding remarks on Jewish and Gentile unity, a theme which dominates the preceding two chapters of Ephesians.

The inclusion of Gentiles with Jews as an aspect of the gospel is also emphasized in 3:4-7, and with all this as background it is thus certain that when Paul refers to "the gospel of peace" in 6:15 that it is not simply theological peace--peace between God and man--that he has in mind. The reconciliation of Jew and Gentile into one body is definitely in focus. However, theological peace may also be intended, making "the gospel of peace" echo 2:15b-16a, which has both divine and human peace in focus ("that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross").

Regardless whether both forms of peace are intended in Ephesians 6:15, it is clear that this verse, together with 1:13 ("the gospel of your salvation") and Acts 20:24 ("the gospel of God's grace") all refer to the effects of the gospel. Peace, salvation, and grace are consequences of the gospel--things that flow to us as a result of accepting the gospel.

Thus, of the twenty-six passages which speak of "the gospel of" something, eight of them refer to the origin of the gospel (God), fifteen of them refer to the subject of the gospel (Messiah and his kingdom), and three of them refer to the effects of the gospel (receiving grace, salvation, and peace). These three aspects--the origin, the subject, and the effects of the gospel--might be phrased alliteratively as the cause of the gospel, the content of the gospel, and the consequences of the gospel.

Of these, the relevant one for answering the question, "What is the gospel?" is the content of the gospel--Christ and his kingdom. This is underscored by two Pauline passages discussing the contents of the gospel, the openings to Romans 1 and 1 Corinthians 15. In the first of these we read:[list]
[*]Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures, the gospel concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and designated Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord. (Rom. 1:1-4)
[/list]Here Paul forthrightly states the content of the gospel. It is "the gospel concerning his Son." The remainder of the passage unfolds the content of the gospel by describing aspects of the story of Jesus--that he is descended from David and proven to be the Son of God by being raised from the dead, that he is Christ (Messiah) and Lord.

We see the same emphasis on the story of Jesus as the content of the gospel in the opening of 1 Corinthians 15, where Paul states:[list]
[*]Now I would remind you, brethren, in what terms I preached to you the gospel . . . For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures. (1 Cor. 15:1-4)
[/list]The story of the Messiah is thus here again the subject of the gospel--that he died for our sins, was buried, and was raised again, all as the Old Testament Scriptures foretold. Why Christ himself is the subject of the gospel is something we will see in the next chapter. But for now we should look at just one more aspect of the content of the gospel.

As we noted at the beginning of this paper, there is a lot of loose talk (among Protestant theologians) equating the gospel with the idea of "justification by faith alone." While the formula "faith alone" can be given an orthodox reading (see my paper, "Justification: 'By Faith Alone'?"), this usage is completely contrary to the Biblical usage of the term "gospel."

First of all, salvation, not justification, is the primary component of Jesus' mission. Justification was a component, but not the primary one, as illustrated by the fact that there are twenty passages in the New Testament which speak of salvation in verse with Jesus, but only eleven which speak of justification in the same verse. By this test, salvation is twice as likely to be associated with Christ as justification.

"Justification" is not the key soteriological metaphor in the Bible. This can be easily demonstrated on lexical grounds. The "justif-" complex of words only has 37 occurrences in the New Testament, with the "sanctif-" complex having 20 occurrences. However both of these put together are blown away by the "save-/salv-" complex of words, which has 129 references in Scripture. Salvation, not justification or sanctification, is the chief soteriological term in the Bible.[1] Therefore, if the gospel were to be defined in terms of any of the big soteriological models, it would be salvation, not justification.

The concept of salvation is three and a half times more common in the New Testament than is justification. And were we to include the Old Testament that ratio would increase because justification is almost unspoken of in the Old Testament (which is why Paul has to pick verses like Genesis 15:6, where the terms "justify" or "justification" do not even occur, when he is expounding the doctrine of justification); salvation, by contrast, is mentioned hundreds of times in the Old Testament.

This difference in the Biblical stress on salvation rather than justification is the reason the relevant field in systematic theology is called soteri-ology (Greek, soteria, "salvation") instead of dikai-ology (Greek, dikaiosis, "justification").

Protestant scholars in this century have been more willing than their predecessors to acknowledge that justification is not the key soteriological concept in the Bible, or even in Paul, but is something brought up in polemical contexts dealing with the Gentiles and Jewish identity. Outside of those contexts, Paul's talk of justification almost totally vanishes and he speaks about salvation instead, like the rest of the New Testament (Paul being the only author besides James who stresses justification as a soteriological concept at all).

The fact that Paul talks about justification almost exclusively in connection with the controversy over Gentiles and Jewish identity, but about salvation in almost every other context, is a theme that has been taken up and elaborated by the Protestant exegetes participating in what is now being called "the Copernican Revolution in Pauline studies"[2], which has been very frank in admitting that justification is far from being the all-consuming concept dominating Paul's thought that previous Protestants have suggested, and the Copernican Revolution has been very frank in admitting that previous generations of Protestants have simply misread Paul's doctrine of justification in very significant ways and that Catholics were not nearly so far off the mark in their reading of Paul as the Reformers thought.

The point that the concept of salvation is more central to the gospel than the concept of justification can also be demonstrated by looking at the way in which the New Testament deploys the two terms.

There is only one verse where the term "gospel" and a "justif-" term occur in the same verse (Gal. 3:8). When we expand the scope to include a verse on either side of the term "gospel", there is still only that one verse. When we expand the scope to include two verses on either side of the term "gospel" a second verse appears (Gal. 2:14). When we expand to a three verse range a third verse appears (Rom. 2:16). It is not until we expand the range to six verses on either side of "gospel" that another verse appears (Rom. 10:16). And it is not until we expand the range to nine verses on either side that a fifth verse appears (Gal. 2:7). No additional verses appear when we expand the range to ten verses, which means that there are only five verses in Paul where the term "gospel" appears and a "justif-" term appears within a twenty-one verse range(!)--ten verses on either side of the "gospel" verse--which is larger than many whole chapters in Paul.

By contrast, there are two verses in which the term "gospel" appears with a "save-/salv-" term (Rom. 1:16 and Eph. 1:13). When we expand the range to one verse on either side of the term "gospel" there are fourteen passages. When we expand the range to two verses there are nineteen. When we expand the range to three verses there are twenty-three. Expanding to four or five verses brings the total to twenty-six; expanding to six verses brings the total to twenty-seven; expanding to seven brings the total to thirty; expanding to eight or nine brings the total to thirty-two; and expanding to ten verses brings the total to thirty-four.

Thus there are only five passages in which the New Testament uses the terms "gospel" and "justif-" within a twenty-one verse range, but there are thirty-four passages in which the New Testament uses the terms "gospel" and "save-/salv-" within a twenty-one verse range. Thus the difference between the centrality of justification and the centrality of salvation to the gospel is only magnified when we turn from raw word-counts to looking at how the terms are deployed. At the ten verse range the concept of salvation is seven times more likely to be found in the context of the term "gospel" than the concept of justification.

This completely destroys Protestant rhetoric to the effect that "The gospel is the message of justification by faith alone." If you are going to define the gospel in terms of any soteriological concept, it is going to be salvation, not justification, but the primary subject matter of the gospel is Jesus Christ. Ephesians 1:12-13 offers the classic balance of these two concepts in relation to the gospel, stating: "[W]e who first hoped in Christ have been destined and appointed to live for the praise of his glory. In him you also, who have heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and have believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit" (Ephesians 1:12-13).

This emphasis on Jesus as the salvation-bringer why we read statements like, "[Y]ou shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins" (Matthew 1:21) and "The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners" (1 Timothy 1:15). Not "for he will justify his people from their sins" or "Christ Jesus came into the world to justify sinners" (1 Timothy 1:15). Of course, he did come intending that sinners be justified by his work. The point is one of emphasis: Salvation is the emphasized term in Scripture, not justification.

The gospel is the message of salvation through Christ, not justification through faith. Justification through faith is a consequence of accepting salvation through Christ, but it is not the content of the gospel. The way the New Testament speaks of the gospel, Christ is its central content and salvation is what he came to bring. Thus in all three of the "my gospel" verses (Rom. 2:16, 16:25, 2 Tim. 2:8) we read about Jesus Christ, not justification. Similarly, in 1 Corinthians 1:1-7, the longest formulaic exposition of the gospel, we read:[list]
[*]"Now I would remind you, brethren, in what terms I preached to you the gospel, which you received, in which you stand, by which you are saved, if you hold it fast -- unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles" (1 Corinthians 15:1-7).
[/list]The terms on which the gospel was preached was thus the death and resurrection of Christ so that we may be "saved, if you hold it fast -- unless you believed in vain." Christ and salvation are the key concepts. In fact, preaching the gospel on any other terms would be ridiculous since the message "You can be saved through Jesus Christ" would be far more intelligible to first century Jews and Greeks and Romans than "You can be justified through Jesus Christ." This is still the case, which is why Los Angeles has two big signs that say "Jesus Saves," not "Jesus Justifies."

The fact remains that justification is not the central soteriological concept for Paul or for the New Testament as a whole. Justification may be biconditional with salvation and thus a consequence of accepting the gospel, but justification is not the content of the gospel. We never read in Scripture of "the good news of justification," but of "the good news of Jesus Christ." Jesus Christ and his work on the cross is the content of the gospel; the rest are consequences of accepting it.

So to sum up by giving a single-sentence definition to answer the question this chapter poses: The gospel is the message that Jesus Christ died and rose for our sins so that we may be saved.


ENDNOTES:
[1] If anyone is not acquainted with the fact that salvation is a different soteriological concept than justification (though the two are biconditional), then that person needs to go do further reading until he gets the difference between basic soteriological concepts sorted out.

[2] This movement is led by writers such as E.P. Sanders, James D.G. Dunn, Dale Moody, Paul Zeisler, and others.


pax christi,
phatcatholic

[God Conquers]

Share the [url="http://www.cco.ca/ulrel/seven.htm"]ULTIMATE RELATIONSHIP!!!!!!!![/url]

[phatcatholic]

[quote name='God Conquers' date='Jul 29 2004, 06:55 AM'] Share the [url="http://www.cco.ca/ulrel/seven.htm"]ULTIMATE RELATIONSHIP!!!!!!!![/url] [/quote]
hey, that's awesome. very easy to read

[God Conquers]

Ya man, it's annointed.

That little booklet has brought 100's of people possibly thousands back to the Faith.

It was developed by the Movement which I'm a part of and currently doing missionary work with. It's the New Evangelization!!!

[CatholicAndFanatical]

G.C. where do you do missionary work with them at? And how can someone get involved with it?

peace

[God Conquers]

We're a University Student Movement dedicated to Campus Ministry and the new Evangelization.

I'm on a mission trip right now in Halifax Nova Scotia with 56 University students from all ovcer the country, working in parishes all across this diocese. The Spirit is at work hardcore.

We have full-time staff members and various other programs. If you feel called to become a campus missionary this is where it's at right now. The movement is growing and gaining momentum like crazy.

www.cco.ca is the best place for info.

[RemnantRules]

I must agree, Salvation is meant to be worked on not that is garunteed. I'll have to find it but there are at least 7 i think even 9 where it says about working out our Salvation.

Yes, Salvation was granted to us by Jesus dying but that doesn't mean we get to set here and just wait for it.

Ok, my favorite quote about salvation is Philippians 2:12
"So then, my beloved, obedient as you have always been, not only when I am present but all the more now when I am absent, [b]work out your salvation with fear and trembling."[/b]


I love this b/c Paul instructs us straight forward that we must work it out.


About presenting the Gospel, I always like to use St. Francis quote, "Teach the Gospel, and if must, use words."


So the Gospel should be shown throughout all of our actions!

But i know what you are saying and i would say that the Catholic Bible has the fullness of all of God's work. As, far as the New Testament, Catholics should show how Jesus, A) Fulfilled the Old Testament and B) Show all that he did and his Apostles did and show that...


JESUS FORMED THE CATHOLIC CHURCH!

Matthew 16:18
"...And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it..."

So from that point on, as Peter as our first Pope, we have the church and thus Christanity was formed!


I can go into more detail, but that is my straight foward simple opinion


God Bless
Jason Gregory