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"Curious, in that you accused me of hating Protestants based upon my comments on Luther."

I was paraphrasing an earlier post. I should have just said "Your hate is showing". It is.

"But then again, I know why I'm NOT a Lutheran - do you know why you ARE (or WERE) one?"

I am a Christian. Any division beyond that is irrelevent. I follow Christ. Not a man.

I follow Christ. Not a man.

As do I

Peace

Frankly, denominationalism is unscriptural. There are not many truths, there is only one and that is absolutely underscored in Jude 3 (cf. Titus 1:4; Phi 1:27; etc). The operative words here being "the faith" and "once delivered". Paul curses twice anybody who proclaims a gospel other than that he preached (Gal 1:8,9). And the word that Paul uses is anathema. The intrinsic meaning behind the Greek is with respect to a gift given by vow or in fullfillment of a promise devoted to destruction for God's sake (not denoting punishment intended as discipline, but divine condemnation and that of an indissoluble vow).

The question arises then, where can this one faith be found? It is my contention that the only place the faith can be found is in the Bible, or those that preach it (Rm 10:11-17). The Bible is the verbal plenary inspired Word of God. It was inspired by the Holy Spirit, to foretell the coming of the Messiah (OT), and to proclaim the prophecy of His coming fullfilled (NT). If the Bible is considered to be the Word of God, then all of it must be considered Truth. Christianity is not a cafeteria religion. If any part of Scipture can be construed to be untrue (or unreliable), than none of it is worth considering (the whole of Scripture being a house of cards). And if this would be so, then Paul pities the Christian as being the most pitiable of beings, in that their hope of the blessed resurrection is based upon a contemptible lie (I Cor 15:12-19).

Christianity doesn't stand or fall upon the Bible, it stands or falls upon whether or not Christ is who He said He is. He said that He is the Great "I Am". And Christ quote the Sciptures extensively as being the Word of God. So if Christ is a liar, then the Bible is suspect as well. And if the Bible is suspect, then so is Christ. The veracity and integrity of the Bible notwithstanding, the empty tomb needs an intellectually honest answer.

As a Christian, I accept no authority above me than the verbal plenary inspired Word of God as it is written in the Scriptures. It being the sole arbiter of all matters of doctrine, the Supreme Court of the Faith from which there is NO appeal. Scripture is adament about that issue in II Tim 3:16. Those that protest the authority of Scripture in that regard are ignorant of its veracity and integrity both historically, archeologically, and internal and external bibliographical proofs. Anybody who denies these has not looked into the matter with any amount of sincere and intellectually honest investigation; for to do so would yield no other conclusion (or are deliberately and willfully ignorant).

Finally, evolution absolutely can not be reconciled with Scripture, at least not to explain the appearance of man on this Earth. For evolution belies Scripture's insistance that God created Man, and that when He was done with creation everything was good. Scripture says that by one man, sin entered into the world, and the wages of sin are death. Evolution intimates that death was an intimate facet of this world since the beginning of life.