Absolute Truth: Catholics vs. Protestants

"What is a Catholic, Nana?  And what is a Protestant?"  In addition to reading The Child's Story Bible (Catherine Vos) to my 6 and 8 year old grandkids, I'm also reading to them from the A Beka history book my now grown daughter used years ago, and I'd only read one paragraph into the chapter when my grandson stopped me with these questions.

The chapter I was reading was about the persecution in England in the 1600's, and how the rulers there tried to force all the people to believe the same things about God.  It explained how, if the king of England was a Catholic, he expected everyone to be Catholic, too.  If he was a Protestant, he expected the same.  Those who disobeyed were persecuted and punished until they agreed to believe the same as the king.  It was at this point the questions began.

Absolute truth, Shirley.  It always has to be absolute truth no matter if it is children we are talking to, so tell the absolute truth.  

We're Protestant, I explained to Carson.  Both Protestants and Catholics believe in the same God, but we have major differences in our beliefs.  One of the big differences between Catholics and Protestants, or at least some of the Protestants, is that we believe we must personally ask Jesus to come into us, and then we need to begin living as He called us to live.  We believe it is His Holy Spirit who is in us, and He stays in us as long as we continue to walk and live according to the truth of Jesus Christ; as long as we allow Him to keep correcting us and disciplining us in order to become more like Him.  We believe all this because Jesus tells us Himself in John 14-16.

Catholics believe they must go to mass each week and receive Jesus into them, I explained.  They do this by drinking wine and eating a wafer which has been prayed over by the priest and has become the actual blood and flesh of Jesus.  This is called Communion, which we do at our church, too.  We don't believe He is coming into us each time we receive Communion, because we believe Him when He tells us He does not leave us unless we continue to live in habitual sin.  We believe when we take Communion, we are doing this in remembrance of what happened on the Cross.  "Why do Catholics believe it is really Jesus' blood and body?" Carson asked me.  

I explained that Jesus told us whoever eats His flesh and drinks His blood will go to Heaven.  Carson's eyes were huge at this point.  Jesus told parables, I said.  He often used what is called figurative language to make His point.  Jesus knew He would be leaving this earth as a physical man.  That is why He promised us a counselor, His Holy Spirit, who would come and be in us and with us, always.  He told us He is the Bread of Life, and we need to feed on Him ... and He is the Word, which we are to feed on.  It was Jesus who served the first Communion, and it was a man somewhere along the way who decided that priests could be empowered by the Holy Spirit to literally change the wine and wafer into His blood and body.

I shared with Carson the story of Haley, a young Catholic girl who was refused Communion because she could not eat anything with wheat in it, and the wafer contained wheat.  A wafer without wheat was not an option, according to the rules of the church, because Jesus did not serve wheat-less wafers at The Last Supper.  I asked Carson if this sounded like something Jesus would do.  (Click here to read about Haley.)

But here is the deal, Carson, I explained.  Most Catholics and Protestants are wrong, no matter what they believe, because they don't want to give up all that Jesus wants them to give up, and the first thing He wants us to give up is our religion.  It doesn't matter a bit what we believe about Communion if we walk out of church and live according to our own thinking and desires.  He wants us to come to Him with everything we believe, and ask Him what He has to say about it, and He has something to say about everything we believe.

Carson then asked if there are religions today that still force people to believe what they believe.  I said yes.  He wanted to know who they are and I told him Muslims ... and he asked what the Muslims believe.  We never got past the first paragraph in our history book.

What I know for sure today is that we are ALL called to be passionate about Deut. 6, and it requires a lot of TIME, which means there is not a lot of time left for anything else.  Everyone is a child no matter their age, and if we truly love the Lord our God with all our soul and with all our mind and with all our strength, then we come to realize we have ONE passion, ONE devotion, ONE ambition for our lives ... and it all starts with obedience to Deut. 6.  

We walk on eggshells today, fearing we may offend people or put fear in children's minds about the state of our minds and the state of our country.  Didn't Jesus tell us how bad things would be?  Didn't He tell us we need to prepare not only ourselves but our families, friends and neighbors for what is to come?  Listen to the conversation around you.  Listen to the conversation on Facebook.  What's everyone talking about?  Is Deut. 6 at the forefront of our minds?  Do children (of all ages) know what is going on and what is coming?  Or do we think we need to shield them and protect them by giving them only the good, but not the bad and the ugly?

Absolute truth.  Jesus tells us in John 5, "You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life.  These are the Scripture that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life."

Absolute truth.  Jesus also tells us in Matt. 18, "If anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and be drowned in the depths of the sea."

Absolute truth.  How many more Bible studies do we need to sign up for before we are able to start sharing what we already know?  Do we cause children (of all ages) to sin because of our spiritual hoarding?  Do we become spiritually obese when we keep what we've learned to ourselves?  And do we get to pick and choose how and who we will share God with, or do we seize every opportunity that crosses our path?  Jesus Christ despises religious people and He has let us know very clearly what will happen to those who are.  We really should take Him and His absolute truth seriously and the first thing that needs to go are the religious titles.