Posted on 02/11/2013 6:51:21 AM PST by traumer
Edited on 02/11/2013 7:25:41 AM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
Nor is laying on of hands after the manner of Ananias restricted to apostles, while Paul was preaching for years with manifest Divine attestation of his commission before going to see "James, Cephas, and John, who seemed to be pillars," and in that order he listed them.
And like as in obeying his commission to preach, in which at first he conferred not with flesh and blood, (Gal. 1:15,16) and received not his gospel from the apostles, so now Paul did not go to see those "who seemed to be somewhat ("whatsoever they were, it maketh no matter to me: God accepteth no man's person") because they called him into accountability, but he went up by revelation (Gal. 2:2-6) for confirmation, and which is related to the false brethren who alleged a conflict btwn the other apostles and Paul.
And thus Paul publicly reproved Peter for his duplicitous action in denial of the gospel which made the Gentiles blessed with faithful Abraham, and the gospel in which their was neither Jews nor Greek.
(Not that i judge holy Peter as if i am a Paul or even close to the level of either.)
Lets repeat that when you get ill, ok? Or are you a Christian scientist?
Institutions do not have to have buildings
in the book of Acts and in the Pauline Epistles we read of Elders, of bishops etc. and we also see how decisions were centrally made (in Jerusalem before its destruction in AD 69)
There were no formal literal "business" offices per se, pre-empting the opportunities for a layered bureaucracy. -- there were layers -- the apostles handing down to bishops who were to lay hands, i.e. appointed presbuteroi (elders)
The church was more informal than formal; more organism than organization. It wasn't brick & mortar because it was never intended to be that...the very Greek word for "church" was ekklesia or ecclesia -- which means called-out ONES... -- you are mistaking the Church for bricks and mortar. The Church from its beginning ensured the pureness of the faith by reference to what was taught earlier - how to check if a preacher was teaching the truth? Ask him who he learnt from and who his teacher learnt from, reaching back to the Apostles.
The so-called institution that you call a stench is what kept the teachings true and didn't allow the veering off to Marcionism or Gnosticism.
Some Catholics, some non-Catholics. All were wrong to do so.
Yet the Gnostics, the Marcionites, the Ebionites, the Mandaens etc. believed themselves to be denominations just as your denomination does, so yeah, there were as early as the 100s AD perhaps a bishop from orthodoxy and another one from a denomination or the other
The "flocks" of Christians themselves had plural leadership. Ordination didn't begin to kick in til Hippolytus'...and is NOT covered in the NT. -- not really, unless one includes Ebionites, Marcionites, Gnostics, Mandaens etc. as Christians. For those in orthodoxy, the leadership was defined, hierarchical, to ensure adherence to the correct teaching.
Sorry, that's incorrect. the Pope is a human being like any one of us and relies on the Holy Spirit to guide him through as the Spirit has done for 2000 years. Popes die, some are good, some holy, some bad, some evil. At the end, however the Holy Spirit guards the teaching to keep it true to Apostolic Teachings as handed down from Christ to His apostles
Health is pretty personal, right? After all you won't even talk of your beliefs as it is personal, right? So health too..
My obit:
Sadly; it's been reported that our good friend ELSIE has died.
The medical report states that he suffered from good health his entire life before finally succumbing to it's debilitating effects.
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