Oddbean

Back in my day Catholics taught that cherry picking Bible verses was an abuse of scripture. If you are pulling verses for no other reason than to argue with people that was seen as abuse of scripture. Especially if you’re basing someone’s entire salvation on 1 or 2 verses. Abuse of scripture and placing yourself as equal to God in deciding who is and isn’t saved. All around it was considered really really bad.

Cherry picking verses and parts of verses, especially out of context, is definitely very bad, but these days I see people trying to make spiritual arguments based on how they feel and not referencing Scripture at all. That is even worse.

I disagree. I think abusing scripture is significantly worse than using your conscience to argue your own personal spiritual beliefs. That’s the law written in the heart of every believer. No one has to agree with anyone but abusing scripture to make a point about how you just know for sure that someone who has never confessed to a priest before won’t be saved due to literally 1 verse in the bible that’s being interpreted sideways is I think a lot worse. If someone said “I think people who don’t confess to a priest won’t be saved because that’s my personal conviction and how I feel” I would respect that more!

For context someone in my mentions yesterday said that people who don’t go to sacramental confession with a priest can’t be saved because of Matt 16:19 which Catholics dont even teach so it was very jarring to see coming from a Catholic