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."
In fact, that happens every time I get a letter with IRS on the return address line. I don't know about nobody knowing, but the IRS sure doesn't give a hoot.
***That’s right. Many variations, showing individual interpretations and no unity. Hardly the work of the Holy Spirit!***
I am trying to figure out why you even care. You don’t believe the Bible as God’s word, you don’t believe that the Holy Spirit works in our lives to understand the Bible, You doubt assertations that express belief in God unless YOU have proof of it. What exactly DO you believe?
I’ve been wondering that myself, irish.
Oh, really? I guess God will have to repent for sending all of them out. Pity you.
How many countries are Christian? Not many.
Are you afraid they may actually preach the gospel to the EO’s and turn them to faith in Christ? LOL.
Gotta bring a little humor into this dry thread...
“Oh, really? I guess God will have to repent for sending all of them out. Pity you.”
Oh, God won’t have to repent. God is the author of sin only in Reformed “theology”. As for those “missionaries”,
“Even if one should give away all his possessions in the world, and yet be in communion with heresy, he cannot be a friend of God, but is rather an enemy.” +Theodore the Studite
“Are you afraid they may actually preach the gospel to the EO’s and turn them to faith in Christ? LOL.”
The gospel? No. The gospel you preach is the one we decided you would have so no problem there. Its the heresy you pretend to base on the gospel which concerns us. The Church is ever solicitous of her children and concerned for their spiritual safety, especially today when “ravening wolves” are assaulting Christianity in the East in league with Mohammedanism and financed with the money of American taxpayers. Bad enough that that money leads to physical death at the hands of the Eastern Barbarians. So much greater is the concern that:
“Just as the fishermen hide the hook with bait and covertly hook the fish, similarly, the crafty allies of the heresies cover their evil teachings and corrupt understanding with pietism and hook the more simple, bringing them to spiritual death.” +Isidore of Pelusium
Apparently we look at the same thing and see two totally dissimilar things. I see Christians eliminating spurious books such as "the Protoevangelium of James" and "the Acts of Paul and Thekla" without any "authoritative council" and the immediate recognition of most of the New Testament. All within a hundred years of the end of the Apostolic Era.
It was done with no printing presses, computers, fax machines, or system of communication other than letter or face to face conversation. I see the Holy Spirit guiding these Christians. If not what book or books did they miss?
“If not what book or books did they miss?”
Early on, Barnabus, Clement and The Shepherd at least. But your point is a good one, though better made, I think, in your earlier post. The fact is, however, that there were all sorts of writings floating around back then and people were reading them. Now we look back and say that the HS guided people correctly without a council to determine the canon. Well, yes and no. The early Church, what +Ignatius of Antioch called the “catholic” church, is what survived as an “institution” in various forms, Orthodoxy and Oriental Orthodoxy in the East and the Church of Rome and its children the “Protestant” churches in the West. All Trinitarian groups or churches which call themselves Christian descend from or in fact are that One Church. The other groups fell away into self destroying heresy for the most part. It therefore stands to reason, wf, that when we look back at what our spiritual forebears were reading we would see pretty much what we have today because it was “our people” (meaning pretty much all of us here) who made the determinations based on a certain definite set of beliefs.
Yes, I mentioned that in another post on this thread. It is a good reminder for the lukers however, to remind them all that local councils are not binding for the whole Church and that, as you mention, in Constantinople the Book of Revelation was listed as "questiobable" until the 9th century.
I was simply stating that the Church, locally, did not even try to define canon until the end of the 4th century and that the Third Council of Carthage is the first such event.
The second one was, as you mentioned earlier, at Trent in the 16th century, but that was binding only to the Latin Church.
You are making a generalized statement based on the canons of several fathers. It took four centuries for the whole Church to accept (at leats in the west) +Athanasius' canon. Even after that, the East did not use the Apokalypse of John for another 400 years.
Yes, the core was agreed upon very early. There was almost no disagreement (save for the likes of Marcion and Valentius), on the Gospels and the Epistles. But these four examples I listed are by no means the only canons that existed. You mentioned the Muratonian Fragment, and there are at least half a dozen others, all agreeing on the core.
You mention the Protoevangelium of James. The Church never "eliminated" it from the readings; it just never elevated it to the dignity of scripture because it was written in the middle of the 2nd century and is therefore not of apostolic origin!
But there are no known objections to the Protoevangelium being read and used in the Church. No one objected to its content.
The Church took it as true although not scriptural. It is a historical account that also reflects the belief of the Church at that time, namely that the Blessed Theotokos remained a virgin after the Birth of her Son, just as she remained a virgin at His conception.
No one questioned it. It was what the Church believed then and it is what the Church believes now. A writing can be true without being inspired.
It was done with no printing presses, computers, fax machines, or system of communication other than letter or face to face conversation
Anything that was believed to be of apostolic origin was automatically accepted as significant. They were read in churches as such. Those that were "questionable" were deemed such because their apostolic origin could not be established.
However, +Justin Martyr, as late as 150 AD, refers to them as "apostolic memoirs" and not as scriptures.
One hundred years without computers and Internet is still enough time for a handful of books to find favor in a like-minded community. Nothing really magical about it that necessitates divine intervention.
No authoritative councils as you mention, because the majority of bishops were in agreement. They were all either directly ordained by apostles who walked with Christ or they were ordained by someone who was ordained by an apostle. There was no reason to deviate to any large extent. The Church was struggling against persecutions and there was little time for theological disagreements.
But there were deviations as evidenced by epistles of +Ignatius (c 130 AD) and +Irenaeus (c 180 AD), and there were such individuals as Marcion and Valentius, and Origen and Tertullian who shortly thereafter began to slip into heresy. And when the various ideas about Christ's own nature(s) began to crop up, it was obvious that the scriptures were being misinterpreted by many.
This necessitated the first councils...the issues regarding the very core of Christian beliefs: the Holy Trinity and the Duality of Christ. And it was over these issues that the first schism occurred. Not over Mariology and her perpetual virginity found in the Protoevnagelium, or over the Apocrypha, or the Septuagint, but over the the nature of the Godhead and Christ.
I don't see the Holy Spirit creating division and disunity in the Church, and there was plenty of that from the very beginning. The "miracle" of the scriptures being agreed upon is based on the simple belief that they are of the apostolic origin (such as Hebrews, 1 and 2 Peter, 1,2,3 John, etc.) even if they were later ony attributed to an apostle.
I'm sure part of that's true, but I am unaware of any authority saying that typology is the first and most correct method of interpretation. I have said before that I do not dismiss typology out of hand, but I have seen many examples of it being taken too far in order to force fit a presupposition. Typology can be highly speculative.
In other words... you elevate your own interpretations above the early Christians who made up the Church ...
No, the Holy Spirit has led me and millions of others differently than the teachings of SOME of the members of YOUR early Church, especially the most powerful ones in human terms. I wholly reject your side's monopolistic claim on God's Church.
I would agree with the caveat that it was the Holy Spirit that was directing them. I believe this to be the case because if it were solely accomplished by the will of one like minded group in 1800 years we would have found books that clearly should have been included and books that should not have been included.
BTW, I do like your description of the early church. I think the different churches that left, or never became a part of the dominant church is a natural result of centralized authority.
“This necessitated the first councils...the issues regarding the very core of Christian beliefs: the Holy Trinity and the Duality of Christ. And it was over these issues that the first schism occurred. Not over Mariology and her perpetual virginity found in the Protoevnagelium, or over the Apocrypha, or the Septuagint, but over the the nature of the Godhead and Christ.”
This is really an excellent point and as someone with a devotion to Panagia I never really thought about it but its demonstrably true. During the first 1000 years of The Church, there simply wasn’t any question about the Theotokos or her perpetual virginity or her dormition and the facts surrounding it or her childhood, the Annunciation, etc. as there certainly were questions on the nature of the Trinity and of Christ and later of the veneration of icons which necessitated Eumenical Councils. But no questions, no heresies, about the Theotokos. Interestingly, there are comments made in the 7th century work “The Spiritual Meadow” about the devotion of a certain heretical sect, the Severians, which had been around for sometime by then, to the Theotokos. It seems even a major heretical group had no problems with the Marian beliefs of The Church.
Why do you care why I care?
Why do you care what the Catholics and Orthodox believe?
You doubt assertations that express belief in God unless YOU have proof of it
Yeah, I ask for proof. How insolent. Imagine that! How dare I ask for extraoridnary evidence for someone's extraoridnary claims!
But you know, those with proofs don't mind being questioned. It is only those who have no proof that get enraged by those who doubt their subjective stories. The anger and threats that result is a taletale sign that they don't have the cards they claim to have.
It was only a technical point I was bringing up. It is so often claimed "The Church" gave us the Scriptures implying it was solely at the direction of the Church in Rome. It is really not the case. Technically, "The Church" did compile the canon, but "The Church" was not a centralized hierarchy at that point.
Having read Revelation several times now and being as confused now as I was the first time I understand the hesitancy to include it.
“I would agree with the caveat that it was the Holy Spirit that was directing them.”
I don’t doubt for a minute that the original “source” of the necessary “knowledge” to determine the canon was the HS. We are told that. But I think it was more indirect than you do. I believe that the HS lead the apostles and their immediate successors in the right paths and that their teachings became part of the fiber of not simply that “catholic” church that +Ignatius of Antioch wrote of, but also of the People of God themselves. In living their faith within the Eucharistic/Liturgical communities which they were part of, they were transformed by the indwelling of the HS and a common belief was received and accepted...what “The Church always and everywhere has believed”. Its that corpus of beliefs which was the yardstick used to determine what eventually became the canon of the NT.
This is why hisotrical perspectives are so important, Kolo. The Bible and the Church must be seen in its historical context: our Divine Liturgy is of the same age the Church that presided over the canonization of the Bible. It tells us that what we believe is what the Church believed back then. We can say that with certainty. Other's can't.
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