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NASB | Jude 1:4 For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Jude 1:4 For certain people have crept in unnoticed [just as if they were sneaking in by a side door]. They are ungodly persons whose condemnation was predicted long ago, for they distort the grace of our God into decadence and immoral freedom [viewing it as an opportunity to do whatever they want], and deny and disown our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. |
Subject: Scandal of the Catholic Priesthood |
Bible Note: And one of the really bizarre twists is that priests are called "fathers." Who are they kidding? In Matthew 23:7 Jesus said: "Call no man" -- what? "...father. You have one Father." And in those years when the church was taking its power -- and by the way, the number one landowner on the planet is the Roman Catholic church. They have continued to accumulate massive wealth beyond description. It's always kind of a curiosity to stand in St. Peter's Square in Rome and look at the Banco de Spiritus Sanctus, the Bank of the Holy Spirit. It's all couched in religious terms. Throughout history during this time priests who didn't obey were exposed to scorn and contempt by the people. They were even attacked by the people. So there was tremendous pressure for them to comply with the church. They then became reduced to extreme poverty. There are stories of priests being mutilated by the people if they wouldn't give in. The people would literally attack them and mutilate them, and some were tortured, and some were run out of town and put into exile. If they wouldn't give up their property willingly, then the church would take them, exile them and confiscate their property. Their children then were designated as illegitimate. It was a horrible tragedy. And many of the women, according to the historians, who were wives of priests, were buried in unconsecrated earth. So it was about power, and it was about property. So you've got this ugly scenario. There's the scandal of an aberrant, unbiblical, bizarre pagan theology of the priesthood and the mass; there's the scandal of the power and the grasping materialism of a Satanic religious system that wants to engulf the earth. The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation, Hans Hildebrand, editor, Oxford University Press 1996: "Those priests who were not married often lived in long-term relationships of concubinage, receiving special dispensations from their clerical supervisors to have their children legitimated. This practice began to change in the 12th century when at the Lateran Councils the church declared all clerical marriages invalid and prohibited clerical concubinage." So you could have a sex mistress for a while, and then they prohibited it. "Many lesser clergy responded by rioting and demonstrating. But gradually celibacy became the norm, especially among the higher clergy, and women from honorable families no longer entered into relationships with priests, knowing that these could never be declared valid marriages. The prohibition of concubinage and other types of non-marital sexual activity among the clergy was hard to enforce, however. And by the 14th century, church officials simply advocated discretion." Just be discreet in your sexual misconduct. |