Y’know, there are so many people interested in fighting heresy that they seem to forget something—
John, answering Jesus’s statement about least and greatest, said, “Teacher, we saw someone throwing out gods in your name. We were trying to stop him because he wasn’t following you with us.” Jesus said, “Don’t stop him! …Anyone who isn’t opposing us is on our side.” [Mk 9.38-40
It takes some severe chutzpah—or a great deal of immaturity (bear in mind that John was in his early teens at that time)—to tell a person who can perform exorcisms in Jesus’s name, “Stop doing that. You need to belong to our church first.”
And yet… and yet…
I have heard so much anti-Catholic crap since the Pope died that it sickens me. All this from a bunch of idiot Protestants who think they’ve got Christianity all figured out. They think, because the Pope didn’t follow Jesus the way they do, he’s doomed to hell. Never mind being saved by grace; they think God’s grace doesn’t apply because the Pope didn’t worship “right,” or he prayed to Mary, or he wasn’t baptized by immersion… In other words, salvation by works, which means they’re not really Protestants. And since Catholics believe in salvation by grace too, the Catholics are actually better Protestants than they are.
Don’t these people realize they’re going to have to answer to God if they get in the way of any of his ministers? …But the problem is that they’re so convinced that they’re his only ministers that they couldn’t see the works of God in anyone else. And such was the case of the Pharisees, which is why Jesus had to warn them against blaspheming the Holy Spirit. That’s the direction they were taking; and that’s the direction we all take when our pride in our doctrines blinds us.
If only we would stop fighting each other and just follow Jesus, we might actually stand a chance of completing the tasks he set for us.