Back on New Year’s Day, as we were making our way through the crowds on the streets of Pasadena, California, trying to get to the vantage point we had staked out for the Tournament of Roses Parade, I was handed several pamphlets and a small booklet by Christians holding such signs as “God Loves You” and “God Will Punish Sinners.”
The pamphlet contained select sayings of Our Lord with pictures. For example, Jesus as the Good Shepherd and Jesus Before Pilate. The small booklet contained the Gospel according to John as well as some commentary. I gladly accepted the materials and warmly thanked the person who gave them to me. I wasn’t going to read them right then, but I figured I would look them over after the parade and the merrymaking subsided.When we were back in our lodgings and the kids were put to bed, I took out the tract and the booklet and knew right then that I would need to write this post. You see, at the end of the pamphlet and the booklet, I was advised that by simply reading either the pamphlet or John’s Gospel, and saying a prayer to our Lord promising that I believed in Him, I was now saved. In addition I was also exhorted to do the following:
Read the Bible every day and join a Bible believing church.
Keeping in mind my erstwhile fencing partner's remarks yesterday, let me say that a spirit of competitiveness is not what I intend to convey by this post. Instead, I am writing this post in the spirit of a command given by our first Pope, St. Peter:
Always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who calls you to account for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and reverence, keeping your conscience clear, so that, when you are maligned, those who defame your good conduct in Christ may themselves be put to shame. (1 Peter 3:15-16)I'm all for handing out tracts and pamphlets to people on the Christian faith at parades and concerts. Because, as Webster states in his post this morning, you never know how long it will take a seed to germinate once it's planted. As such, I’m all for sending people to a "Bible believing" church, especially when we’re talking about the original Bible-believing Church. The Church that believed in the Bible so much that it carefully and methodically compiled the Canon of scriptures that all Christian denominations use to this day. Yes, I mean the Roman Catholic Church.
That Church is a Gospel-believing Church too, and was so long before there was a New Testament written down anywhere. That's because there was no definitive New Testament to be read until 405 AD. Surprised? Surely you realize that when Our Lord said "believe in the Gospel" (Mark 1:34) he wasn't exhorting us to run to the nearest Barnes & Nobles to pick up a copy of His latest book. Our Lord never left any written word behind because he was too busy saving the world on a tight time schedule.
It turns out that there was a lot of discussion and debate about which books would be included in the Canon of the New Testament, just as there was with the Old Testament. And of course, in the case of the New Testament, the books had to be written. So what were all these early Christians doing when they were believing in the Gospel? Looks like they were repenting, being baptized, and holding "fast to traditions" as St. Paul instructed us to do (2Thessalonians 2:15).
After reading the pamplets, I read my Bible (the LOTH and the Daily Readings) and went to Mass at the nearest Catholic Church I could find. I invite you to do the same.
Semper Fidelis.
