Aieno Wrote:
Your response concerning food exposes the fact that in prior communications we have discussed blood since I did not bring up eating anything strangled. Sacrifices in pagan temples were slaughtered not strangled, so what you have done is add to what Paul wrote in the Scriptures you referenced. Tell me Rome, have you ever slaughtered an animal and prepared the carcass for food? Depending on the situation the first thing that is done is the animal is bled and then gutted or gutted and then bled, therefore the meat sold in temples was mostly blood free. Now unless you like your steaks blood rare, cooking meat removes the blood.
What you keep failing to understand is that the laws of the Old Covenant have been superseded by the laws of the New Covenant (2 Cor 3:14; Heb 7:18; 8:7; 10:9)
“
the kingdom of God is not food and drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Rom 14:17).
“
let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath” (Col 2:16).
The early Church fathers were unanimous in their view that the bread and wine literally become the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ. Many of these Fathers lived during apostolic times, for example Ignatius and Polycarp.
"
I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you." (John 6:53)
And above all that, we drink the blood of Christ because He Himself commanded us to do so.
Aieno Wrote:
And before you try to deny that Catholics bow before images there are a plethora of pictures of Catholics bowing before images of Mary.
Bowing does not always mean worship. It can mean veneration and honour i.e bowing to the Queen of England.
(Gen 27:29; 33:3-7; 37:10; 41:43; 42:6; 43:26; 47:31; 48:12; 49:8; Ruth 2:10; 1 Sam 20:41; 24:8; 25:23, 41; 28:14; 2 Sam 9:8; 14:22, 33; 18:21; 24:20; 1 Kings 1:15, 23, 31, 47, 53; 2:19; 2 Kings 2:15; 4:37; 1 Chr 21:21; Est 3:2; Isa 60:14).
Bowing and using religious images IN worship are not the same issue, you haven't refuted that. I have already explained this to you, stop making me go round in circles with you.
Aieno Wrote:
I see you avoided the queen of heaven:
Jeremiah 7:17-20
17 "Do you not see what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? 18 "The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead dough to make cakes for the queen of heaven; and they pour out libations to other gods in order to spite Me. 19 "Do they spite Me?" declares the LORD. "Is it not themselves they spite, to their own shame?" 20 Therefore thus says the Lord GOD, "Behold, My anger and My wrath will be poured out on this place, on man and on beast and on the trees of the field and on the fruit of the ground; and it will burn and not be quenched."
NAS
Jeremiah 44:16-19
16 "As for the message that you have spoken to us in the name of the LORD, we are not going to listen to you! 17 "But rather we will certainly carry out every word that has proceeded from our mouths, by burning sacrifices to the queen of heaven and pouring out libations to her, just as we ourselves, our forefathers, our kings and our princes did in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem; for then we had plenty of food, and were well off, and saw no misfortune. 18 "But since we stopped burning sacrifices to the queen of heaven and pouring out libations to her, we have lacked everything and have met our end by the sword and by famine." 19 "And," said the women, "when we were burning sacrifices to the queen of heaven, and were pouring out libations to her, was it without our husbands that we made for her sacrificial cakes in her image and poured out libations to her?"
NAS
I avioded it because we have spoken about it before years ago, why bring it back up? Anyway the "Queen of Heaven" refers to the Assyro-Babylonian Isshtar, goddess of fertility not the Mary mother of Jesus.