The Neverending Story (The New Christian Chronicles)

How about these chapter/verses concerning the Magisterium ?

Matt. 16:18,19
John 14:16,17
Matt. 28:19,20

Each of these selections requires a stretch of the imagination to justify "Magisterium". John 14: however stands out:

JOHN 14:

16 And I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, to be with you for ever,

17 even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him; you know him, for he dwells with you, and will be in you.

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John 14:16 Jesus will pray to the Father and the Father, not the Magisterium, will give a Counselor to you.

John 14:17 The Councelor is "the Spirit of truth" which will dwell with you.

Magesterium??

Now if we consider the Church to be an organism its collective understanding of Truth has been growing for two millennia. What we all understand now about God is based upon generations before us learning and adding to this store of understanding.

This does not sound good, Dave. Would Jude, verse 3 be appropriate here?

I don't know, let's look it up.

3 Beloved, being very eager to write to you of our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.

Hmmm. I see your point. You think that a faith "delivered once" to the saints couldn't possibly develop in undertanding.

I'm sorry you feel that way. Could you take a swipe at the question I tried to get Reggie to answer yesterday? And non-Catholic is welcome to answer this, cause I would really like an asnwer from someone. Is your understanding of God and Christ and the Truth different now than when you first became a Christian?

If you "saved" a new Christian would you teach him what you understand now, or only what you understood when you were first saved?

Havoc I'm not sure if you saw this yet, so I will repost it for you. please respond.

I don't see that I can be a portrait artist and be obedient in God's Commandments.

Also if you take Ex 20:4, and De 4:16 to mean you can't make ANY image of a man or woman, than you have to include photos as well, and tv and film. They are all made by us and they are all images. I find it odd that you say you likes the Ten Commandments but you wouldn't like a painting or statue of Moses.

I wonder how ALL the other Proddies take your interpretation of Scripture?

Don't need your links. I have a Bible that is very clear on the subject and you haven't made it over that hurdle yet. What makes you think your links matter a whit if the Bible is against you. You might as well go ask the Chinese their opinion on the subject - just as good as your links: Neither has any affect but to lie to would be believers and attempt to make God's word of none effect. If the Bible said what you want, the links wouldn't be needed.

Breathtakingly anti-intelectual. I'm sure your proud of this. But why should we read your posts or entertain your ideas when you won't reciprocate. Are you afraid of learning something that counters your swollen sense of being the Lord's personal messenger?

Sure, I remember the fliers that John passed out,"join the saints", "go where no man has gone before", well I fell for that one, and the only relief in sight may be when God tears the earth up, and puts in his new heavenly city, but who knows when that will happen, and when I asked someone when the big day was coming, I was told that, that day and hour knows no man, and since I cant find time to get away from my job, I guess I'll just have to keep listening to all these whiners down there asking for such stupid things as if I know where he put his dumb car keys, heck, I had some keys once, but I don't even remember what I did with them, let alone yours.

Wow. Again we see the selfish Protestant individualism rear its ugly head. To even think that one could be so selfish and uncaring about the rest of the Christian family while in the very presence of God Himself in Heaven.

The Devil whispers in your ear "you don't need to listen to anybody else, just read the Bible by yourself -- God promised to send his spirit to help you"

This comes awfully close to blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. Isn't that sin unforgivable? I'll pray for you, for what it's worth.

Actually it comes awfully close to "thou shalt not but the Lord, your God, to the test" Think about it.

This is the RC version of the liberal's line that the Constitution is a "living, breathing document". Thus allowing them to make up, out of thin air, anything that they so desire, as long as the magisterium, er... high court agrees to it. A very edifying post SD.

Care to take a stab at my question du jour? Is your understanding of God the same now as it was when you were first saved? Does that mean God or the Truth changed or does it mean you understanding grew?

I don't see that I can be a portrait artist and be obedient in God's Commandments.
Also if you take Ex 20:4, and De 4:16 to mean you can't make ANY image of a man or woman, than you have to include photos as well, and tv and film. They are all made by us and they are all images. I find it odd that you say you likes the Ten Commandments but you wouldn't like a painting or statue of Moses.

I wonder how ALL the other Proddies take your interpretation of Scripture?

May I add my 2 cents? Havoc, why would you consider a gift from God something that goes against God? If you are as good as you say you are, it seems to me you could do some good with that talent.

If authentic, it was written about 70 years after the death of Christ...about 3 generations had passed. If he was a disciple of John, that says a lot for him; but did he not learn at the knee of anyone else? Did all his learning come from John? How long did John disciple him? I mean, was he a disciple in the true sense of the word, or did he just audit a couple of weekend classes

Ignatius learned from John. I do not know how long he was with him, perhaps we can find that information for you. But in the meantime, consider that the Eucharist is the thing for Christians. It and Baptism are our schtick, so to speak. It is what we do that makes us different from others. Especially the Eucharist.

Given this centrality do you really expect that someone learning diretly from a disciple of the Lord would get it so wrong, so fast? Completely misunderstand?

Of course this is NOT my point. My point was that that particular verse doesn't say what [apparently] most catholics [and a lot of protestants] THINK it says. It has to do with how Scripture comes to us---God's word penned through the prophets. What they wrote was not their own interpretation of God's Word. I wanted to make that point because I get tired of people using that verse incorrectly. Find a different verse to prove YOUR point (that no one can understand the Word of God without a magic sternum to interpret for them); but STOP twisting 2 Peter 2:21.

Contrast this with:

I haven't seen anyone on this thread claiming inerrancy!

I would guess you don't know Havoc? He pontificates about the true meaning of Scripture all the time. He doesn't claim only inerrancy, he claims to speak the Word of God.

We all at times speak to the "true" meaning of Scripture, like you above. You are sure that you know the true meaning of this passage. If you are not claiming inerrancy here, you are certainly claiming "errancy" on our part.

He doesn't care if we have a picture of him or his mom in our yard. It's what's inside that counts.

Oh really? When did the 10 commandments get thrown out? I wonder. This is awful big news to the Lord, I'm sure.

Jesus internalized the 10 Commandments. He made them not about outward shows and legalistic adhereing to minutiae and every jot and tittle. He was all about spiritualizing. He doesn't want the foreskin from our penises, he wants the foreskin of our hearts. Your obsession with this carnal matter of statues totally misses the point. It is about what we worship with our hearts and minds and actions.

I need you to clarify your answer to TRD. I'm sure you thought it was a clear answer, but we know how that goes. Do you not wear mixed linen and wool? Do you follow every jot and tittle of the Law? You said to ignore any was to ignore all of it, I took this to mean that you try your best to obey the whole Law. Is this true?

Also, are you still an artist, and if yes, what is the type of art you produce?

When you learn to think spiritually you will see that God doesn't want our stinky sacrifices, he doesn't want to make sure we have no leaven in our homes on certain dates, he doesn't want to make sure we have no pictures of him.

But He did want the sacrifice of Jesus, and He does want the sacrifice of the eucharist? I don't see how removing leaven from our homes during Passover is any different than abstaining from meat during Lent or fasting on Good Friday. I take that back: the commandment against the use of leaven during Passover is scriptural; the abstention from meat is not.

Dave, I'm surprised that a Catholic would have such a negative view of the "carnal", as you put it. Doesn't your church believe in the sacramental nature of physical creation? In the idea of the sanctifying of the ordinary bread, wine, oil etc? By criticizing the Jews as a "carnal" people "obsessed" with a "carnal" law, you first forget that it was God who gave the Law to Israel! What should the Jews have said? "Sorry, God, but your Law is just too carnal. We won't obey it, because we know you're more interested in what's "inside" us." In other words, you forget that part of showing our "devotion" to God is through obedience. Second, by focusing on the spiritual rather than the physical, you undermine your own case for allowing physical representations.

Let me apologize for that outburst. Though I meant something like that, at some level, there was no excuse for me to reply to you in that manner. My tongue (typing) got ahead of my brain. Believe me, I don't think of you that way, (some maybe) but not you. Please forgive,

It's OK. We all get carried away and speak unkindly sometimes. It's important that we try to recognize when we do. You are forgiven.

an image is not a likeness

This is basically a matter of your splitting hairs over word use to say a statue is not a graven image because you call it an icon rather than an image. Your point's gone dull Alfalfa. Here's a clue, an icon is an image. If you haven't figured it out, I was going to school to become a professional artist before I left college. Your semantics may work on someone that's ignorant of art or the English language; but, not on someone who knows the terms. In other words "Pull the other one!"

The fundies have no more right to break the laws of God than anyone else. I've said it before; but, your timing is impeccable. There is no label on earth that gives anyone the right to break God's laws.

I do think it is worth noting that MOST of the Law in the Torah pertains to the Jews only, not to gentiles.

Dave, I'm surprised that a Catholic would have such a negative view of the "carnal", as you put it. Doesn't your church believe in the sacramental nature of physical creation? In the idea of the sanctifying of the ordinary bread, wine, oil etc? By criticizing the Jews as a "carnal" people "obsessed" with a "carnal" law, you first forget that it was God who gave the Law to Israel! What should the Jews have said? "Sorry, God, but your Law is just too carnal. We won't obey it, because we know you're more interested in what's "inside" us." In other words, you forget that part of showing our "devotion" to God is through obedience. Second, by focusing on the spiritual rather than the physical, you undermine your own case for allowing physical representations.

Consider it "performance art." I was just copying the wording of someone here and showing how easy it is to say "carnal" to mean "bad" and "spiritual" to mean "good." I may have gotten carried away. You are right, "carnal" is the wrong word. "Legalistic" is better.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. They acknowledged the authority of the original Hebrew text over the Greek translation. There was no "retranslation" involved. There were a number of reasons why the deuterocanonical books were rejected: they were written late, they were not written in Hebrew, and were not in common use in the Jewish communities in Israel.
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I have been waiting for you to address this subject. Thanks.

In your opinion does any Christian organization have a right to decide what should be included in the OT canon?

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