Posted on 01/01/2006 4:48:03 PM PST by HarleyD
That reminds me of the time when I moved from crowded New York to rular Virginia and bought a house there with one acre of land. Shortly after arriving there, someone rang my door bell and when I opened the door a man introduced himself as a Methodist Minister, wlecomed me to the community and invited me tocome join his church. I thanked him on the warm welcome and told him that I appreciate the invitation but that I couldn't join his parish because I am Eastern Orthodox. "No problem," he said, "I will write to you church and ask that they release you."
I must confess that the good minister brought me to the brink of laughter, but I held my composore because his intentions were sincere, but apparently he knew nothing about us.
The Orthodox "proof text?" Otherwise, I agree, with your statement.
I was being facetious
"In order to make the text fit his theology, he insists that when Jesus speaks of "water" in John 3:5, the actual reference is to the vaginal fluids. I find this quite hilarious."
Oh, good heavens!
Great story, Kosta! Imagine telling that one in a village square down in the old country over cigs and schilvo! :0
LoL, no,I should have used a different word other than "you".
As Patriarch Alexey recently stated publically, the practical purpose of the Balamand agreement was that it was the result of a working commission to try to address the Uniate issue. It has no dogmatic significance or authority. As he pointed out, it didn't even successfully do that, as far as real results are concerned, although the official text has Catholicism agreeing that it should be an approach left in the past.
JK is right that Vat II and subsequent encyclicals are very supportive of the Eastern Catholics, but this is primarily in the sense of confirming their equal right to existence and independence within Catholicism. The term Uniate, including its negative connotation, was coined not by Orthodox, but by Roman rite Catholics. Uniates were accorded second class citizen status for a long time. This has changed in the decades since Vat II.
What has been abandoned, at least officially, by Catholicism is the idea of using Uniatism as a bridge between Catholicism and the Orthodox Church. There is a practical recognition, I would suppose, that it has quite the opposite effect of what is desired.
That may well be true, but it is still based on conjecture, In the present, as between the brief Syraic recension of three epistles, the shorter of the two Greek recensions of seven epistles, and the longer Greek recension, there is a very general agreement that the second is the more primtive, whether it is to be accounted the unadulterated product of Ignatius or not (emphasis given)(History of the Christian Church, Henry C Sheldon, 1895, Vol.1, Appendix ll, The Ignatian Problem, 596)
The fact is that as Schaff points out,
The extant works of the apostolic fathers are of small compass, a handful of letters on holy living and dying, making all a volume of about twice the size of the New Testament. Half of these (several Epistles of Igantius, the Epistle of Barnabas, and the Pastor of Hermas) are of doubtful genuineness...(Schaff, History of the Christian Church, Vol.2, p.634)
Regarding the view that Justification by faith was not mentioned in the Church Fathers, while it is true it was not a developed doctrine (not becoming a source of controversy like other doctrines), Schaff notes that Clement seem to have a Pauline conception of it,
Clement is the only one of the apostolic fathers, except perhaps Ploycarp, who shows some conception of the Pauline doctrine of justification by faith. 'All (the saints of the Old Testament),' says he', 'became great and glorious, not through themselves, nor by their works, nor by their righteousness, but by the will of God. Thus we also, who are called by the will of God in Christ Jesus, are righteous not of ourselves, neither through our piety, nor through our works, which we have wrought in purity of heart, but by faith, by which the almighty God justified all these from the beginning; to whom be glory to all eternity' And then Clement precisely like Paul in the sixth chapter of Romans, derives sanctification from justification...(Ibid, p.644)
I believe by post 8167 I finally figured it out with Agrarian's help.
You call it "insistant". We call it "evangelism". :O)
" You call it "insistant". We call it "evangelism". :O)"
LOL!
The question is, could you comment on the content of the prayer. Specifically:
- we ask God that his will be done, as if alternatives to his will could be done instead;
- we link our works of forgiveness to the forgiveness of our sin;
- we ask God to not tempt (or test) us;
- we ask God to liberate us from the Devil.
All these pose no difficulty for me as a Catholic to be understood straighforwardly:
- I normally do what I will, which may or may not conform with God's will;
- my salvation is predicated on my works of charity;
- my faith is tested by events and may be damaged or extinguished;
- despite the acknowledgement of my faith inherent in the prayer, I may lose my salvation to Satan.
Additionally, if you look at the actual Matthew 6:11, it differs from the traditional wording of the prayer as the bread is described as "supersubstantial", -- "epiousion", another (with "kecharitomene") unique word formation that refers to the transsubstantiated bread of the Eucharist rather than the gastronomical bread.
I was wondering how a Calvinist would explain these things.
Yes, and it is a point that those who think they know Christ but have not been born again,(Jn.3:3) should heed very carefully.
The preceding discourse is the parable of the talents where a man is condemned to "exterior darkness". If talents represent faith, as I am sure the Protestants would agree, then here we have someone who had in initial deposit of faith but did not work on increasing it, and is sent to hell.
Regarding Matthew 25:14-30, David Cloud writes,
1. The man concept of the Lord shows that he is a lost man. He considered the Lord 'an hard man'....The fact that this man is called a servant does not necessarily mean that he was saved. The Jews are called the Lord's servants, but they were not all saved (Isa.43:10)(Way of Life Encyclopeida of the Bible and Christiantiy, p.203)
Which reminds me once more: Luther never read the gospels.
And it shows me that you have never read the Pauline Epistles.
For by grace are ye saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast (Eph.2:8-9)
But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness (Rom.4:5)
Now, those scriptures are very clear, what part about 'not of works' do you not understand?
You know, come to think of it, Greeks don't have Beatitudes in the Second Antiphon. So, while the "core" is the same, some things are not. Somebody made that change. For instance, the exist after the Divine Liturgy is also different in Greek churches. In Serbian and Russian churches, we kiss the cross and the priest's right hand. In the Greek churches I have been to, the priest gives out blessed bread, etc. In the Tokyo church, one could buy little biscuits and write names of the people who are sick or departed. That bread was give out at the very door of the church, by name.
So, liturgical practices are not uniform and someone somewhere down the line had to make changes, invent new ones, etc. You are correct that when +Leo III made his pronouncements on the filioque the Creed was not recited in the Latin Church during Mass, but was incorporated into the Mass in 1014 at the request of the Franks.
Oh, cut it out! None of those exhortations to charity have anything to do with ones salvation, and that is the point that Paul is making by saying that works have nothing to do with salvation, they have to do with showing ones salvation
The 'goats' in Matthew 25 are unbelievers not believers (sheep). They show their unbelief by their works. The point remains, the goats are goats because they do not do good works, and they are condemned to hell. Hence, good works, in addition to faith, are what makes you a sheep.
No, they are goats because they did not believe and they show that they unbelievers by their lack of good works.
Nowhere in that passage (or any other one) do you get the idea that salvation is dependent on works, it is always a result of it.
After crossing thesmelves in a demonstrative way, they would say "those guys think it's a club." :)
Sheep have ever been considered an emblem of mildness simplicity, innocence, patience and usefullness. The poeples chosen as sheep nations will be those were beneficent and capable of unconscious and unaffected goodness. Innately kind and outwardly practical because of inward faith, these peoples are rewarded by the King.
Goats are naturally quarrelsome, lascivious, excessively ill-scented and are considered a symbol of riotous, profane and impure men. Innately and unconsciously selfish, they will represent those nations given up to their own passions and lusts, and who, consequently, fail to see the needs of others. (All The Parables of the Bible, Hebert Lockyer,p.249)
And instead of going to the clear teaching of the Bible on justification by faith alone (Rom.4:5, Eph.2:9, Tit.3:5) you will run to the parables!
The very thing that the Lord gave to keep the truth hidden from those who had no heart to learn it. (Matt.13:13-15)
- we ask God that his will be done, as if alternatives to his will could be done instead;
No, there IS no alternative. It is my belief this is a submissive acknowledgment to God sovereign will. We are requesting God's will be done in our lives. It is not a hope that God's will, will be done.
I don't have a problem with this. We are to forgive others just as our father has forgiven us. This is spoken to many times in scripture. Our salvation does not rest on our failure to keep this-only our rewards.
God does not tempt us. However it is presumptuous of us when we go off on our own and not follow the leading of the Lord. (Yes, we can run off-think of Jonah.) We should remind ourselves that God is perfectly capable of withholding His grace and mercies from us.
"Evil" here is meant in the general sense of being relieved of trouble, disease, bad neighbors, and, yes, Satan. God wants us to pray for help-that is one of the purpose of prayer. If we are NOT liberated from a disease does that mean that God failed? You and I both know that's not the case. You would say that God answered "No" to your prayer. I would say that God has told me that my affliction is the best thing for me in refining me for His kingdom.
I have no problem interpreting any of this as a Reformer.
Now if you are saved, then you cannot lost that salvation (Eph.4:30).
The race being run has to do with rewards not salvation. (1Cor.9:24-26)
The final glorification has to do with our receiving our resurrection Body, not salvation (Rom.8).
These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that ye may know that ye have eternal life (1Jn.5:13)
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