Replies

[ oh, i get it, the word of God that i posted, that you claim as the sole rule of faith, that shows the apostles, appointing successors and telling others to do the same, to run the church, is wrong? ]

Yes they were wrong.. but they did the best they could do..
As "we" may have done the same.. Who knew that church officers would evidentially become Pharisees.. as they have, mostly, almost universally..

Jesus did not forbid sheep pens(John ch 10).. or denominations.. Yet surely he knew it would happen.. It is just the way sheep are.. Forming "clubs".. or "folds" along certain lines of thought.. The Jews did the same.. i.e. Pharisees, Sadducee's, Essenes etc.. The human condition requires "grouping" to hear what we want to hear.. by those that will tickle our ears.. i.e. sheep pens.. The walls of the sheep pen are dogma and doctrines.. We self sort ourselves into groups.. Jesus evidently knew that..

If Jesus forbade it "WE" would have done it anyway.. SO he didn't.. Christians have self sorted themselves into thousands of groups.. Not only that but so have the non christians.. Lets call THOSE Goat pens.. i.e. Buddhist, Hindi, Islam, Mormons, ATHEISTS etc.. Sheep and Goat pens are quite brilliantly devised.. Humans self sorting themselves into pens..

As John ch 10 suggests.. The Shepherd calls out to the sheep and SOME of them COME OUT..(of the sheep pens) which have hirelings feeding them.. Be advised that, that is what the word church(Eklesia) MEANS(called out ones).. Anyway some come out others do not.. (according to the metaphor)..

The sheep pens seem to need officers(hirelings).. or think they do.. The New Testament just says what happened right or wrong.. There MUST BE sheep pens.. and there also must be the flock outside of the sheep (and goat) pens.. following the shepherd..

“The New Testament just says what happened right or wrong.. There MUST BE sheep pens.. and there also must be the flock outside of the sheep (and goat) pens.. following the shepherd.”

Well, I guess those Apostles who wrote the Bible were just a bunch of sheep according to you. So you are basing your beliefs sola scriptura on a book written by sheep in a pen, as they passed down their beliefs by appointing those to keep the Christian religion going, and thus created the eventual hierarchy that became the Catholic Church. So your Bible you believe in was bleated out by a bunch of sheep who flocked together to create the Christian religion. Or was the Bible written magically, with no men involved. Maybe magical mystery men.