Posted on 01/27/2008 7:56:14 PM PST by Manfred the Wonder Dawg
January 25, 2008
ESV Romans 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
In recent days I have spent time in Lima and Sullana Peru and Mexico City and I have discovered that people by nature are the same. Man has a heart that is inclined to selfishness and idolatry. Sin abounds in the remotest parts of the land because the heart is desperately wicked. Thousands bow before statues of Mary and pray to her hoping for answers. I have seen these people stare hopelessly at Mary icons, Jesus icons, and a host of dead saints who will do nothing for them. I have talked with people who pray to the pope and say that they love him. I talked with one lady who said that she knew that Jesus was the Savior, but she loved the pope. Thousands bow before Santa Muerte (holy death angel) in hopes that she will do whatever they ask her. I have seen people bring money, burning cigarettes, beer, whiskey, chocolate, plants, and flowers to Santa Muerte in hopes of her answers. I have seen these people bowing on their knees on the concrete in the middle of public places to worship their idol. Millions of people come into the Basilica in Mexico City and pay their money, confess their sins, and stare hopelessly at relics in hope that their sins will be pardoned. In America countless thousands are chained to baseball games, football games, material possessions, and whatever else their heart of idols can produce to worship.
My heart has broken in these last weeks because the God of heaven is not honored as he ought to be honored. People worship the things that are created rather than worshiping the Creator. God has been gracious to all mankind and yet mankind has hardened their hearts against a loving God. God brings the rain on the just and unjust. God brings the beautiful sunrises and sunsets upon the just and unjust. God gives good gifts unto all and above all things he has given his Son that those who would believe in him would be saved. However, man has taken the good things of God and perverted them unto idols and turned their attention away from God. I get a feel for Jesus as he overlooked Jerusalem or Paul as he beseeched for God to save Israel. When you accept the reality of the truth of the glory of God is breaks your heart that people would turn away from the great and awesome God of heaven to serve lesser things. Moses was outraged by the golden calf, the prophets passionately preached against idolatry, Jesus was angered that the temple was changed in an idolatrous business, and Paul preached to the idolaters of Mars Hill by telling them of the unknown God.
I arrived back at home wondering how I should respond to all the idolatry that I have beheld in these last three weeks. I wondered how our church here in the states should respond to all of the idolatry in the world. What are the options? First, I suppose we could sit around and hope that people chose to get their life together and stop being idolaters. However, I do not know how that could ever happen apart from them hearing the truth. Second, I suppose we could spend a lifetime studying cultural issues and customs in hope that we could somehow learn to relate to the people of other countries. However, the bible is quite clear that all men are the same. Men are dead in sin, shaped in iniquity, and by nature are the enemies of God. Thirdly, we could pay other people or other agencies to go and do a work for us while we remain comfortably in the states. However, there is no way to insure that there will be doctrinal accuracy or integrity. If we only pay other people to take the gospel we will miss out on all of the benefits of being obedient to the mission of God. Lastly, we could seek where God would have us to do a lasting work and then invest our lives there for the glory of God. The gospel has the power to raise the dead in any culture and we must be willing to take the gospel wherever God would have us take it. It is for sure that our church cannot go to every country and reach every people group, so we must determine where God would have us work and seek to be obedient wherever that is.
It seems that some doors are opening in the Spanish speaking countries below us and perhaps God is beginning to reveal where we are to work. There are some options for work to be partnered with in Peru and there could be a couple of options in Mexico. The need is greater than I can express upon this paper for a biblical gospel to be proclaimed in Peru and Mexico. Oh, that God would glorify his great name in Peru and Mexico by using a small little church in a town that does not exist to proclaim his great gospel amongst a people who desperately need the truth.
I give thanks to the LORD for allowing me the privilege of going to these countries and broadening my horizons. The things that I have seen will be forever engraved upon my heart. I will long remember the pastors that I spent time with in Peru and I will never forget Adolfo who translated for me in Mexico. I will relish the time that I spent with Paul Washer and the others. When I think of church I will forever remember being on top of that mountain in Sullana at that church which had no electricity and no roof. I am convinced that heaven was looking down on that little church on top of that mountain and very few people on earth even know that it exist. Oh, God I pray that the things of this world will continue to grow dim and that God’s people will be caught up in his glorious presence.
Because of the truth: Pastor: J. Randall Easter II Timothy 2:19 "Our God is in heaven and does whatever He pleases."(Ps. 115:3) "He predestined us according to the good pleasure of His will."(Eph. 1:5) Those who have been saved have been saved for His glory and they are being made holy for this is the will of God. Are you being made holy? Spurgeon says, "If your religion does not make you holy it will damn you to hell."
As far as the Apostolic Church is concerned, it makes very little difference which version. We use Gosple readings that tell us how Christ lived, and how we should live. To me there is very little value in being a Christinan when it comes to alleged God-ordered slaughter of Canaanites. But what chirst taught us is of utmost importance in our daily life and how we act in similar situations (hopefully by imitating Christ).
The exact version only becomes important when cherry-pciking verses for one's own agenda, as is the the case and the cause of endless fragmentation of Christainity. The Bible is inherently corurpted by human hand, error, deletions and additions, and is as such untrustworthy because we don't have a single originaldocument to comapre it to.
Sinaiticus is a mid 4th century Bible. What proof do you have that it is a "forgery?"
The Vaticanus and Sinaitcus disagree with each other over 3,000 in the Gospels alone, while all manuscripts of the Textus Receptus agree with each other over 95%!
The KJV had hundreds of erros in its first edition, what singificane are the 3,000 variants in the two Codices you mention? The more polished a version simply means it is more altered. It doesn't mean is ti more God-breathed!
LOLOL --
So then the Greek "Chaldaios" means "Chaldean", and you are saying that the Greek "Hebraisti" also means "Chaldean"??? At first you claimed that the Greek "Hebraisti" meant "Aramaic", and then "Chaldean".
And now we find out that the Greek has two words for "Chaldean", and not one word at all for "Hebrew"????? Does anyone living in the real world outside of the land of Greek mythology believe that???
Perhaps we should heed that ancient advice: Beware of Greeks bearing their own dictionaries.
Alexandria, where this text-type came from, was the heart and soul of Gnosticism, which is found throughout this Alexandrian text. Your admission is quite telling --
Just because the Greeks called the language "Hebrew" (because Hebraios spoke it) doesn't mean it was OT Greek. Even the Jewish sources certify that the spoken language was Chaldean (Aramaic). What the Greeks called it did not change the language from Chaldean into OT Hebrew.
You just can't grasp that, can you?
Well -- in Rome there is an exception to every rule.
A Protestant scholar allowed into the Vatican archives was such an anomaly that they had to take a picture of it for posterity.
Did they make him stand for the entire 15 minute examination????
Your clock is not working. By the 4th century, the issue of Gnosticism and any threat to the Church of Alexandria (St. Athanasius) is rather a moot point. At least try to keep the comments in context.
lol. I'd like to see some substantiation by something other than the single word "original" carefully inserted into some website which gives evidence that Metzger actually handled the originals and not just copies which has been the Vatican's policy since it "discovered" these pages.
You need to pay more attention. The Greek word for Old Testament is Ioudaisti. I have posted this half a dozen times. Maybe it's the medication, or who knows...but you don't seem to register it.
OT Greek=OT Hebrew. My bad.
And I thought we read on some thread last year that no pens, papers, pencils, copiers or cameras are allowed to be taken into the “examining room” of the Vatican.
I can show you half a dozen sites with equal number of schoalrs attesting that Textus Receptus is flawed and that Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, despite their lack of polish, represent copies closest to the original scriptures (which were not polished by all accounts).
What "medication" would that be, Kosta?
Or is that just you "making it personal?"
Take your pick.
What a bizarre claim. Scripture says the bodies of Christian believers are temples of the Holy Spirit. How much more is that true of the mystical Body of Christ?
Besides which, the Church is the Temple of the Living God. It as much the Temple of the Holy Spirit as it is the Temple of the other Persons of the Blessed Trinity.
Are you into rejecting the Trinity now?
The RCC has the sacraments being the means of Christ revealing Himself to us and paying for our sins
That isn't what the catechism said, is it? No, it certainly isn't. That's your spin on what the catechism said.
when Scripture tells us that the Holy Spirit gives all believers the knowledge of what is good and true regarding Christ's one-time, accomplished sacrifice for all this sins of His flock.
The catechism passages you quoted didn't discuss how believers acquire knowledge, but how they acquire grace.
Well, on another thread, we're assured that "Romanist doctrine" says that we can only seek God through our intellect. That isn't any "Romanist doctrine" I know. Maybe you guys think "knowledge" and "grace" are two ways of saying the same thing.
First you said that scholars couldn't even see the originals. That having been disproven, now you demand proof that they can "handle" the originals. Next you'll want proof that Martin Luther was raised from the dead and permitted to eat at least one page from Romans or Galatians.
You know very well that if they let people handle those manuscripts on a regular basis that they would be dust after 50 years.
A personal question, yes. Are you the official "overseer?" Well, in that case, I was asking UC how come he didn't register the same answer at least half a dozen times when I posted it. I mean, under normal circumstances one would notice it at leats once. But when he seems to have never seen it, I wondered and honestly aske dhim. He is of course under no obligation to respond.
In your dreams.
It's called Gnosticism, and it seems to be alive and well in the Reformed world.
Nor obviously chairs to sit on --
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