Posted on 10/15/2001 6:54:40 AM PDT by malakhi
| Statesmen may plan and speculate for liberty, but it is religion and morality alone which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free constitution is pure virtue. - John Adams |
Is this supposed to be "your church sinned more than my church hundreds of years ago so mine must be right"? You should know that mankind is and will continue to be sinfull until the end - those in the church (however you define it) are not imune to that.
No, but I would never be so naive as to try to tell you that the apostolic authority was passed down from Christ, to his apostles, then through a bunch of murderers, and came out the other side clean, and maintained the succession.:-)
Your words are well intended and well taken. But until I grew a backbone on these threads I was the favorite woopin boy. And some tried to get me banned for being too effective. I'm still here with my backbone and realize that if nothing else, if they won't listen, the lurkers do. And the word is going to be defended by me so long as I'm here.
Knowing God's word, I speak God's word and with authority.If all you do is paste the translation of the bible of your choice, this would make your statement true. Then we would have to assume that the Lord's Word as recorded in the bible enters into the hearer's mind and remains the same as the Lord intended. If this were always true we have not need of teachers or preachers. I think you perform the role of both, indicating you realize the function and the difference.If I speak that which the Lord spoke, is it less the word of the Lord or more the word of me?
Whether I state them, Jesus states them or a moose states them changes not one iota of their meaning or intent. One can twist and turn the words to mean what they wish them to mean, it does not change what they truly say.
It does not change the specific words, though which words are selected in which order with which inflection and emphasis and manner can also change what is communicated. Additional explanation and reference and relationships and information can also be included. Which, of course is what teaching, preaching and commentary is: interpreting and explaining what these "words" really mean. This of course is the content majority of your posts. To say you are merely speaking God's words as God gave them is not supported by reading your posts. This is a major point I wish to reveal to you: you are not just a recording playing scripture.
"Knowing God's word, I speak God's word and with authority."You speak with your own authority, not God's; and according to your understanding of it as you are allowed as a finite being with God's grace. There is still a distinction between God's word and your "knowing of God's word" (unless you equate your knowing with God's knowing). This is a distinction we should all be mindful of in ourselves, lest we think we can speak for God "with authority."
Which again is the distinction, the discernment, I'm trying to make you aware of.
"You can tear me down; but, the Lord will lift me up in the end."
What does any of us gain by decreasing another? Increasing your effectiveness will build you up and all of us together; my intention and effort is to be of use to this end.
May God bless us all.
But you would, I take it, believe that God has always used sinful men (it's the only kind in stock) to act in infallible ways, yes?
We'll start with the easy ones: The authors of each book of the Bible were fallible, yes? Sinful, Yes? but also acted infallibly Yes?
How many Biblical figures can you think of who were murderers, adulterers, etc. and yet were men after God's own heart, No? (Job comes to mind)
How about all of the men throughout history that safeguarded our Scriptures from relevant error? God worked through these fallible, sinful men (mostly Catholics) in an infallible way.
You're just stuck believing that He doesn't do it any more (or do believe in tongues and prophesy?).
Is the pope catholic?
See I knew it. Thank you IMRight. The first time a catholic fessed up to the freepmail network.
Answered your question the best I could. Your presentation aint exactly the Gettysburg address.
Doesn't matter we all fess up to it. Welcome to the club.
God used wicked men and kings to do his bidding many times, but when did he use a righteous man when he had fallen back into sin (a pope who promotes killing is in the depths of sin) and was still in that sin, when God worked with him?
We'll start with the easy ones: The authors of each book of the Bible were fallible, yes? Sinful, Yes? but also acted infallibly Yes?
Besides the fact that the Holy Spirit wrote the Bible, I'll grant you he used a man's hand and personality to do so, but do you think they were out by night plotting with his bishops how to efficiently kill off all his competition, then by day became the mild mannered reporter who wrote down the life of Christ and the Christian era?
How many Biblical figures can you think of who were murderers, adulterers, etc. and yet were men after God's own heart, No? (Job comes to mind)
Not when they were in their sin, but when they had repented and were pleasing to him again.
Your popes were 1st and 2nd hand murderers for hundreds of years, it wasn't a matter of making a mistake, it was their personality, not a bad hair day.
How about all of the men throughout history that safeguarded our Scriptures from relevant error? God worked through these fallible, sinful men (mostly Catholics) in an infallible way.
I don't think these men had a clue what they were doing, and certainly never expected the scripture to be used against them. They knew they had the scripture locked up, and no one could touch it with out their permission, so they felt safe enough to be honest with the findings because they couldn't picture a day when they would have to share them with the world outside of the RCC.
It is obvious they were making laws that were directly against the scripture they had in their hands, but they did what they wanted to do anyway.
You're just stuck believing that He doesn't do it any more (or do believe in tongues and prophesy?).
No he doesn’t get involved in most of our problems at this time, He gave us the scripture, and then allowed man to run their church for 1500 years just to show them what a mess they would make out of it, then he worked with a few men, and oversaw the inventing of the printing press, and then the Church came alive, and is finally fulfilling the job that you could have been doing if it weren’t for Satan controlling things for so long.
I don't think God gives us any proveable miracles at this time, because he wants us to find him through his calling, and work out our own salvation, and develop a personal relationship with him through the Holy Spirit, and not some temporary feel good miracle that the next day you will question whether it really was one or not.
How come the Holy Spirit keeps telling all you neo-Christians different things?
If you don't like "neo-Christians" you can substitute non-denominational, evangelical, bible believing, protestant, fundamentalist, anything but Catholic and probably not Orthodox, person who finds Scripture to be sufficient as the rule of faith.
If anything, I'm accommodating ;)
I wasn’t aware that Jesus spoke in Greek to his disciples.
Because our Holy Spirit has our personality, the same way He worked through the apostles when they wrote the scripture.
Our differences are not salvation matters, they are personal preference matters, that have everything to do with personality, and nothing to do with salvation.
Even your church agrees on our basic salvation beliefs, the difference is you needed more control over your members, and most non-Catholic churches don't practice mind control.
I believe that when we die, we are spirited to paradise, in the presence of God, where we sleep until the resurrection. Now even if everyone here disagrees with me, I trust in the blood of Christ for my salvation, I have been baptized, I have communion at least once a year, and I trust in Christ for everything.
Now, will I be condemned for having a different opinion on what happens when we die? I don't think God is going to say, well we were going to awaken him as soon as he died, but since he doesn’t believe it, I'll just wait until the resurrection, then wake him up?
I would ascribe it to be fact that her title to the throne was less secure legally than that of Mary Stuart. As the candidate of the Protestant faction, she had to break with Rome to secure their loyalty. At the same time she had to play a double game with Spain, so as to give Phillip the false hope that she might marry him and not break the Spanish alliance. She also had to play to France as well, baiting that kingdom with a similat hope. I don't blame her: she was raised in a hellhole known as the House of Tudor and she --or her counselors--played a masterful game, and the only one who was fully engaged on the relgious question was Pius V, who excommunicated her as much for her refusal to engage in the Holy League against the Turks as for her duplicity. And to give her further credit: as heartless as it was, her repression managed to stave off the religious wars that so ravaged France. Of course, she was fortunate that her intervention in the Low Countries did not result in a landing of the Spanish Infantry in England.
I sure didn't like what I read about the controversies surrounding Ignatius' writings---their authenticity and so on....How can I trust the content of what I read if I'm not even sure he wrote it? I think I should stick with the Holy Writings in which holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.
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