“Is my burning in the bosom neccessarily better than others? NO! I do respect those that have sincerely prayed the most. I don’t ask or expect readers to take my word for it or that of my church. If they take the challenge & come up w/ a different answer, so be it. I believe the Lord will answer those prayers as He said He would in the Bible.”
Reno, many of us have prayed AND compared mormonism to the
Bible and gotten a very clear answer that it is a false religion.
And that is the problem with the approach mormonism
advocates. Well, just one problem.
As to the rest of your post...
“One would think that if it were so clear cut in the Bible, there would be no differences.”
When Christ was on earth, he healed one man by spitting in
the dirt and wiping it on his eyes. Another was healed by
hitting him.
That started the Hittites and Spittites. :-)
It’s been the same throughout history. Where there are
people, there are problems. You could easily get rid of
all problems by eliminating all people. God didn’t choose
to do that.
I do not worry about any other church or group that doesn’t
accept the Bible as authoritative in matters of faith
or practice of Christianity. There is one Church. Purchased
with Christ’s blood. Married to Him as Bride. That’s the one
I belong to by His grace. It is the only one. The Universal
Church.
“Clearly, orthodox Christianity doesn’t have a real good track record on discerning all truth.”
The churches on earth have had failures throughout history.
Where there are humans, there is failure. Don’t look for that
to change. God is at work anyway. Even the gates of Hell will
never prevail against His Church.
Happy weekend!
ampu
From a doctrine standpoint, was Christ’s church ruled by one set of doctrines (set up by Him, I might add) or many variations during His time here & after w/ the apostles?
When Paul went to set the saints in Ephesus straight, did he teach them that as long as they believed in Christ all was well regardless of how bad they butchered the doctrines? Or did he teach them ONE set of doctrines to be followed? The Lord set up one church w/ ONE set of doctrines, not many. There were no failures in doctrine while the apostles were here from a church standpoint. But you are correct, man changed that once the apostles were no more.
Did He ever indicate that variations by man were o.k.? My studies of the Bible say absolutely not. Churches have had failures b/c they were run by man & their philosophies, not the Lord & the way He set up the church while here. That’s where your argument falls flat.
You seem to accept the teachings of man w/o direct input from the Lord. All these interpretations of the Bible & doctrine. Would the Lord really be the author of all that confusion? Would He really allow man to butcher his gospel like that & not say anything? Whenever His church went stray in biblical times, He sent His prophets to set them straight. Why would He go silent now? There’s more confusion now than in any other time in history.
You think we’re here to fend for ourselves. I respectfully disagree. That notwithstanding, I won’t stoop to denigrate your church. Not very Christ like in my humble opinion.