v: Please read Exodus 25-40, Leviticus 6:15-17 for just a small sampling of how incense figures in the worship of the Lord in the Judeo-Christian tradition. But more to the point: will you walk a mile in my shoes? Please read the 5th chapter of Revelations Then please seek out and attend a Tridentine Mass and come back and tell me whether you still think the incense, pomp, forms, order, and music in the Catholic Mass is from the Pagans or lifted straight from Scripture.... The first part of my request to you (Reading Scripture To See If These Things Were So) is certainly easy enough that I would have hoped you would have done it prior to making your comment vis a vis pagan influences in my Church rather than taking someone else's rather poorly researched word for it.
WMFIGHTS: "The 6th century follows the era when the church became a part of the State under Constantine. The living tradition you refer to is another way of saying not SCRIPTURAL.
"No thank you. I will take my example from the Bereans who reviewed SCRIPTURE to determine if any doctrine was in conflict with it."
Irony meter...off...the...charts.
BTW, Baptists believe the Apostles had Supernatural (Godlike) Powers? That's surprising.
Thank you for your time.
They were given "sign gifts" when the Gospel was still being preached to Israel, because the Jews had been taught by the prophets to looks for signs to signify that the Messiah was the Messiah.
Also, in Israel, signs justified a prophetic ministry.
John 2:18 Then answered the Jews and said unto him, What sign shewest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things?
1 Corinthians 1:22 For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom..
Once Paul was sent to the Gentiles and Israel rejected the Gospel, the sign gifts ceased.
If you will notice, after the books of Acts, it is a whole new world as far as supernatural acts by the apostles go.
And that is because the Greeks (or gentiles) were not seekings signs to prove anything as the Jews were.