Is the Bible God's Word? (Do you believe the Bible is the only word of God?)

http://www.jamaat.net/bible/Bible1-3.html ^ | Ahmed Deedat

[bdeaner]

Psalm 78:35 And they remembered that God was their ROCK, And the Most High God their Redeemer.

Did you not read what I sent you? I know it was a long piece of writing, but perhaps you should read it again. I addressed this issue very plain and clearly already. YES, GOD IS THE ROCK. BUT THIS DOES NOT EXCLUDE CHRIST'S AUTHORITY, AS THE ROCK, TO GRANT THIS SAME AUTHORITY TO PETER, WHICH IS EXACTLY WHAT HE DOES. SEE MATT. 16:19.

I also gave you a long list of Scripture which independently validates Peter's leadership status in the Church.

Then, there are the Church Fathers, who also validate the Catholic interpretation of this Scripture. THEIR CLAIMS ARE CONSISTENT WITH SCRIPTURE; YOURS ARE NOT. They live closer in time to Christ and His Apostles, and so have more authority than you. Period.

So, on what authority do you claim to be interpreting the genuine truth of this Biblical passage? My authority is the Church, which we claim, and can demonstrate, has an unbroken line of authority going back to Christ and His Apostles, who were commanded by Our Lord to teach His Word. So, I should listen to YOUR private interpretation instead? I don't think so. Not exactly a ringing endorsement of Sola Scriptura when you have to do backflips to explain away what is obvious in the Scripture in order to undermine the authority of the Church.

[bdeaner]

Nana - A mormon posted this thread...

I know, I know. I'm posting my points here. Not sure what else I can do.

[Uri’el-2012]

XS>When is the kingdom of heaven ?

I thought you Protestants .........

But, it may help to interpret this passage in its proper Biblical context.

558 posted on January 10, 2009 12:49:39 PM MST by bdeaner

I do not protest anything except: Eisegesis

Matt. 3:2; 4:17; 5:3, 10, 19; 7:21; 8:11; 10:7; 11:11f;
13:11, 24, 31, 33, 44, 47, 52; 16:19; 18:1, 3, 23; 19:12,
14, 23; 20:1; 22:2; 23:13; 25:1

When will Yah'shua sit on the throne of David in Jerusalem ?

shalom b'SHEM Yah'shua HaMashiach Adonai

[bdeaner]

Again, sorry, but Simon was alREADY known as PETER before Christ said that to him.

You DID see those verses; right?

Yes, I saw them. But, Elsie, this is a red herring argument. It's really a diversionary tactic that does not refute the Catholic interpretation of this passage.

So what if Simon was called Peter before this passage? That doesn't change anything. Peter still means "rock" and Christ plays off this double entrendre in Peter's name in order to confer authority to Him. This becomes evident in the subsequent passage, where he passes the keys of the Kingdom to Peter. This to me seems very clear, plain and obvious in the Scripture.

Then, you go on to cite Galatians:

Galatians 2:11-14
11. When Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he was clearly in the wrong.

Yes, this is a wonderful passage, because it helps to illustrate what the Church really means by the infallibility of Peter and his successors. That you quote this passage suggests to me that you do not understand the true meaning of the Catholic doctrine of infallibility.

Infallibility means exemption from actual and possible error in matters of major Church doctrine, Truths with a Capital "T" in the Sacred Tradition. It does not require holiness of life, much less does it imply impeccability in its organs. As New Advent notes, "Sinful and wicked men may be God's agents in defining infallibly. Also, that validity of the Divine guarantee is independnet of the fallible arguments upon which a definitive decision may be based, and of the possibly unworthy human motives that in cases of strife may appear to have influenced the result. It is the definitive result itself, and it alone, that is guaranteed to be infallible, not the preliminary stages by which it is reached."

So, yes, of course Peter can be lacking in character, and he can make human mistakes. He is human after all! And so are the Popes and all the Bishops of the Church. Infallibility does not mean that the members of the Church are perfect creatures. Far from it!

No, rather, only doctrines of faith and morals, and facts so intimately connected with these as to require infallible determination, fall under the scope of infallible ecclesiastical teaching.

Infallibility is not the absence of sin. Nor is it a charism that belongs only to the pope. Indeed, infallibility also belongs to the body of bishops as a whole, when, in doctrinal unity with the pope, they solemnly teach a doctrine as true. We have this from Jesus himself, who promised the apostles and their successors the bishops, the magisterium of the Church: "He who hears you hears me" (Luke 10:16), and "Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven" (Matt. 18:18).

Getting back to the passage you cite of Peter in Antioch: Peter’s actions had to do with matters of discipline, not with issues of faith or morals.

Furthermore, the problem was Peter’s actions, not his teaching. Paul acknowledged that Peter very well knew the correct teaching (Gal. 2:12–13). The problem was that he wasn’t living up to his own teaching. Thus, in this instance, Peter was not doing any teaching; much less was he solemnly defining a matter of faith or morals.

You must acknowledge that Peter did have some kind of infallibility—you cannot deny that he wrote two infallible epistles of the New Testament while under protection against writing error. So, if his behavior at Antioch was not incompatible with this kind of infallibility, neither is bad behavior contrary to papal infallibility in general. Let's be consistent now.

[Uri’el-2012]

XS>Psalm 78:35 And they remembered that God was their ROCK, And the Most High God their Redeemer.

Then, there are the Church Fathers, who also validate the Catholic interpretation of this Scripture. THEIR CLAIMS ARE CONSISTENT WITH SCRIPTURE; YOURS ARE NOT. They live closer in time to Christ and His Apostles, and so have more authority than you. Period. So, on what authority do you claim to be interpreting the genuine truth of this Biblical passage? My authority is the Church,

561 posted on January 10, 2009 1:04:07 PM MST by bdeaner

The church fathers you speak of are Gentiles.

Many of them are anti-semites.

Should I take the word of someone who hates Yah'shua ?

The Roman church was started by Constantine, the pagan, in the fourth century.

My L-rd told me to:

Trust in the L-rd

2 Ki. 18:22, 30; 2 Chr. 20:20; Ps. 4:5; 31:6; 37:3; 40:3;
115:9ff; 125:1; Prov. 3:5; Isa. 26:4; 36:7, 15; Zeph. 3:2; Phil. 2:24

NAU Psalm 146:3 Do not trust in princes,
In mortal man, in whom there is no salvation.

shalom b'SHEM Yah'shua HaMashiach Adonai

[bdeaner]

I do not protest anything except: Eisegesis

My interpretation, the Church's interpretation, is exogesis, yours is eisegesis.

The Kingdom is the Church, my friend. And the Church is the Mystical Body of Christ. That's the Kingdom. This was the Kingdom for which Peter was given the keys, to initatiate the Church that would come to be the fruition of Christ's Mystical Body. See, for example:

Colossians 1:13
For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son,

Revelation 1:6 and He has made us to be a kingdom, priests to His God and Father--to Him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.

From the Catholic Encyclopedia

"The kingdom of god means...the ruling of God in our hearts; it means those principles which separate us off from the kingdom of the world and the devil; it means the begign sway of grace; it means the Church as that Divine institution whereby we may make sure of attaining the spirit of Christ and so win that ultimate kingdom of God Where He reigns without end in 'the holy city, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God' (Revelation 21:2)."

[Tennessee Nana]

Peter still means “rock”
_________________________________

AHHHHHHHHHH

Well, yes it does...

But it doesnt mean the same size and kind of rock that Jesus is......

Jesus called Peter a cephas, a petros...

In the Greek that is not ROCK like Jesus is THE ROCK

Not BIG ROCK like Jesus is...

Whenever the word rock is used in relationship to Jesus it is Petra...a mass of rock...

Peter is from the Greek word, petros, meaning a piece of a rock

In the Old Testament, Jesus is called a rock...in the Hebrew tsuwr or tsur meaning cliff, (or sharp rock, as compressed)boulder, refuge, an edge, (as precipitous)... (mighty) God (one) rock...

Cephas or kephas, keph is Chadee..it means ...a hollow rock...

From kaphaph...to curve, bow down...

[Uri’el-2012]

A study of the word "church", in the Koine Greek : Ekklesia.

Was the "church" started at the YHvH commanded
Feast day of Shavuot (pentecost) as some say ?

or

Did the "church" exist earlier ?

Using the LXX as a guide we see that the Ekklesia
is first used in Deuteronomy 4:10

NAsbU Deuteronomy 4:10 "Remember the day you stood before the LORD your God
at Horeb, when the LORD said to me, 'Assemble the people to Me, that I may let
them hear My words so they may learn to fear Me all the days they live on
the earth, and that they may teach their children.'

Also see : Deu 4:10, Deu 9:10, Deu 18:16, Deu 23:3, Deu 23:4, Deu 23:9, Deu 31:30,
Jos 9:2, Jda 20.2, Jda 21:5, Jda 21:8, Jdg 20:2 Jdg 21:5, Jdg 21:8, 1 Sa 17:47,
1 Sa 19:20, 1 Ki 8:14, 1 Ki 8:22, 1 Ki 8:55, 1 Ki 8:65, 1 Ch 13:2, 1 Ch 13:4, 1 Ch 28:2,
1 Ch 28:8

shalom b'SHEM Yah'shua HaMashiach Adonai

[bdeaner]

Peter is from the Greek word, petros, meaning a piece of rock.

Yes, I've heard this one before. This interpretation is based on a number of errors.

Your objection to the Catholic interpretation runs as follows; in the Greek manuscripts of Matthew Jesus calls Peter Petros and “this rock” Petra. These two words look very similar (they are, in fact, connected to each other and both mean “rock”) but they are clearly not precisely the same word. You say that this difference of words means that Peter cannot be the rock, as the word petros means “small rock” or “pebble” while petra means “large rock” or boulder. You seem to be maing an argument with one of the two points above – that the larger foundation is either Christ or Peter's faith, and that the man himself is the smaller rock; similar, but not the foundation.

This argument hinges on three vital facts;

That petros and petra really mean “small rock” and “large rock” respectively

That Christ used different words to refer to “Peter” and “this rock”

That Christ intended to differentiate between “Peter” and “this rock” in that way

However, as I will demonstrate, none of these “facts” are true! Remember, in order for this challenge to stand up, all of these facts must be true. If even one is not, then the whole argument collapses.

Firstly, do petros and petra really mean “small rock” and “large rock”? Greek scholars are almost universally agreed in saying that the words petros and petra were synonyms (words which have the same meaning) in first century Greek. The meanings "small rock" and "large rock" are only found in a number of ancient Greek poems which were composed centuries before the time of Christ. Any difference in meaning had disappeared from the language by the time Matthew’s Gospel was written (around the middle of the first century AD). In addition, the difference can only be found in Attic Greek, but the New Testament was written in Koine Greek—an entirely different dialect. In Koine Greek, both petros and petra simply meant "rock." If Jesus had wanted to call Simon a small stone in first century Koine Greek, He would have used the Greek word lithos.

Secondly, did Jesus use two different words to refer to “Peter” and “this rock”? Again, no – He did not. While the New Testament is written in Greek it was not that language that Jesus and the Apostles would have commonly spoken day to day. (There are a number of authorities who maintain that the Gospel of Matthew was not written originally in Greek, but in Aramaic. This position is based on linguistic analysis of the Greek text of the Gospel, as well as records kept by Eusebius of Caesarea.)

Greek was the common language of the first century Near- and Middle East for commerce, trade, education and international communications – but Jews in Palestine would not have spoken it when talking to each other. Jesus might have used the language to speak to non-Jews (such as Pilate) but He would not have commonly spoken to His disciples in that language. For that, He would have used Aramaic – a semitic language related to Hebrew and common in the Persian empire. A number of examples are Aramaic are cited in the New Testament as the words that Jesus actually spoke (the most famous example is “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” found in Matthew 27:46.)

So, when Jesus called Simon “Peter” (meaning “rock”) He would not have said “Peter”. He would not even have said “Petros” (from where we get the English name “Peter”). He would have used the Aramaic – a word which we find eight times in Saint Paul's epistles (four times in Galatians and four times in I Corinthians). This word is Kepha, and means “rock”. It is this word that Jesus would have used when saying “You are Peter and on this rock” - He would have said “You are Kepha and on this kepha”.

But why did Saint Matthew (or whoever translated Matthew into Greek) use different words to represent the same word in Aramaic? The answer lies in a grammatical point which is not present in English, but is present in other modern languages – such as French, Spanish and German.

Nouns in ancient Greek are gendered – that is, some of them are masculine and some are feminine. The word petra is feminine (it is used today in some parts of the world as a female version of the name Peter) and so could not be used to apply to a man like Peter (it would be like calling a man named Stephen “Stephanie”!) The male version of petra is petros – and so that is why Matthew used those words. He was trying to represent what was a perfect pun (using exactly the same words) in Aramaic using a language which did not allow him to do this. In English, virtually all of the effect is lost – few people know that Peter means “rock” - but in Greek at least some of the meaning can be preserved.

Finally, did Jesus intend to differentiate between Peter and the rock upon which He would build His Church? Some people might say that we cannot know what Jesus meant, but they would be wrong. Everything we know about Jesus comes to us through the Apostles and those the Apostles taught. So, we can learn what Jesus meant by this by looking at the Scriptural and non-Scriptural references to Peter's position and status. It is clear, from the wealth of Biblical and extra-Biblical support for the doctrine of Petrine Primacy that Jesus meant exactly what the plain sense of a literal meaning of Scripture means; You are Rock, and on this rock I will build my Church.

[Uri’el-2012]

Revelation 1:6 and He has made us to be a kingdom, priests to His God and Father--to Him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.

Again you take one verse out of context with your eisegesis.

Rev 1:4 John to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace, from Him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne,

Rev 1:5 and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To Him who loves us and released us from our sins by His blood--

Rev 1:6 and He has made us {to be} a kingdom, priests to His God and Father--to Him {be} the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.

Rev 1:7 BEHOLD, HE IS COMING WITH THE CLOUDS, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him; and all the tribes of the earth will mourn over Him. So it is to be. Amen.

shalom b'SHEM Yah'shua HaMashiach Adonai

[aMorePerfectUnion]

placemarker

[bdeaner]

The Kingdom is in the future. It is also in the past. It is also in the present.

Colossians 1:13

For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred [past tense] us to the kingdom of His beloved Son,

Matthew 11:11-12
I tell you the truth: Among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet he who is [present tense] least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it. Luke 17:20-21
20And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation:

21Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is [present tense] within you.

Romans 14:17
For the kingdom of God is [present tense] not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

The Kingdom of God is "not of this world." (John 18:36)

What is this Kingdom, then, if it is "not of this world"???

The Kingdom of God exists wherever God's will is at work. And God's will is at work wherever people are faithful to the command that we love one another as God first loved us.

But we know that we can only love when God, who is Love, is present to us. One "who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him" (1 John 4:16). The God of Love empowers us to love. Therefore, the Kingdom of God is present whenever God's power is making love, reconciliation and healing possible.

We can define the Kingdom of God as the redemptive presence of God. This redemptive (or saving) presence of God can be found in everyday personal experiences. Whenever people love one another, forgive one another, bear one another's burdens, work to build up a just and peaceful community—wherever people are of humble heart, open to their Creator and serving their neighbor—God's redemptive and liberating presence is being manifested. God's Kingdom and loving rule is in operation there.

Jesus indicated this when he told the crowds, "Happy are the poor in spirit; theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.... Happy are those who are persecuted in the cause of right; theirs is the Kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 5:3, 10). God's redemptive presence is surely at work in them.

In a sense, the word redemptive is unnecessary in our definition because God's presence is redemptive of its very nature and the Kingdom of God is in reality God—God insofar as God is present and at work in the created order.

Because there is no limit to the presence of God, the Kingdom of God has no boundaries. The Kingdom may exist in the individual human heart, in groups, in institutions, in nature and in the cosmos as a whole. The Kingdom of God is as broad and as overarching as the presence of God which renews and transforms and recreates everything touched by it.

And just as there is no limit to the spatial boundaries of the Kingdom, so there are no limits to its temporal boundaries. The Kingdom is not just for the future. It is not to be identified only with heaven, in other words. When we pray, "Thy Kingdom come," we are hoping also for the inbreaking of God's power—right now—in our daily lives. Our God is a living God. God's power is a present power.

But God has not just begun to be, nor just begun to act on our behalf. The presence and power of God have been manifested from the beginning, from the moment of creation itself. Insofar as God has always been at work breathing life and movement into the world, the Kingdom of God has a past as well as a present and a future dimension. The Kingdom of God broke in upon us in a decisive way, of course, in Jesus Christ.

As the Second Vatican Council put it: "In Christ's word, in his works, and in his presence this Kingdom reveals itself to us....Before all things. . . the Kingdom is clearly visible in the very person of Christ, Son of God and Son of Man, who came 'to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many' (Mark 10:45)" (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, #5).

This threefold dimension (past, present, future) of the Kingdom of God shapes the mission of the Church which, according to Vatican II, "has a single intention: that God's Kingdom may come..." (Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, #45).

The past. The mission of the Church is, first, to proclaim that the Kingdom of God has already come, and most definitively in Jesus Christ. The Church proclaims this conviction through its various preachings of the Word and through the sacraments which commemorate and celebrate God's intervening in our history through Jesus.

The present. Secondly, the Church is called to be a living and vibrant model—or sign—of the reality of the Kingdom of God so that people today, both inside and outside the community of faith, might look at this model and know that God still lives and that the presence of God is always a presence for healing, for reconciliation, for justice, for peace, for freedom, and so forth.

The Church "becomes on earth the initial budding forth of that Kingdom" (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, #5), for by its relationship with Christ, "the Church is a kind of sacrament or sign of intimate union with God, and of the unity of all humankind. It is also an instrument for the achievement of such union and unity" (#1).

The future. Thirdly, the Church is "like an arrow sent out into the world to point to the future," to use the famous phrase of Jurgen Moltmann in his Theology of Hope. The Church is to focus the eyes, the mind and the heart of the world on what yet lies ahead, upon that promised Kingdom where God "will wipe away every tear from our eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things will have passed away" (Revelation 21:4).

And, more than that, the Church is meant to be a servant to the world in doing all it can to narrow the gap between the Kingdom-as-now-only-partly-begun and the full flowering of that Kingdom. Part of the Church's mission in the unfolding of the Kingdom is to help set the world free of oppression and promote human development on all levels. Pope John Paul II expressed the Church's role as servant when he told the crowds at Boston Common, October 1, 1979, "I want to tell everyone that the Pope is your friend and the servant of your humanity."

In summary then, the Church is meant to be:

1. a proclaimer of the Kingdom of God already begun;

2. a sign revealing God's Kingdom or redemptive presence now;

3. a servant of the continuous unfolding of the Kingdom.

The Church fills this last role by acting on behalf of the poor, the oppressed, the despised and the persecuted as Jesus did and as he instructed us to do as his disciples (Matthew 5:1-12).

Whether or not we ourselves enter the final Kingdom will be determined by our response to the neighbor in need. Those who feed the hungry, clothe the naked, welcome the stranger and comfort the sick are those who inherit the Kingdom (Matthew 25:31-46), thus manifesting God's redemptive presence on this earth.

It is one thing to insist, as we have, that the Church is the servant or instrument of the Kingdom of God. It is another matter entirely to suggest that the Church is itself the Kingdom of God.

Before Vatican II many Catholics said precisely that. We automatically assumed that whenever the New Testament speaks of the Kingdom of God, as in the many parables of the Kingdom (the net cast into the sea, the mustard seed that grows into a large tree, and so forth), the New Testament was flatly identifying it with the Church. Actually, it was not.

The Kingdom is larger than the Church. After all, "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the Kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven" (Matthew 7:21). Or, in the words of St. Augustine as adapted by Karl Rahner, S.J., "Many whom God has, the Church does not have. And many whom the Church has, God does not have."

When the Church identifies or equates itself with the Kingdom, the Church is declaring that it is the saving presence of God on earth and at least implying that God is not present as a saving God anywhere else except in the Church. This is what some of the Council fathers called "triumphalism."

"What's the harm in it?" one might ask. Apart from the danger of idolatry, i.e., of confusing something finite with the Infinite, the identification of Church and Kingdom makes any meaningful renewal and reform of the Church almost impossible. If the Church is regarded as the Kingdom, then a person who criticizes the Church and calls for institutional and structural change is, in effect, criticizing God and calling for change in the way God chooses to deal with us and be with us.

But everything, including the Church, is subject to the Kingdom. In other words, the Church is answerable to the Kingdom, and gets its credibility by manifesting the Kingdom and not vice versa. It was to make this exact point that the Second Vatican Council added the material contained in article 5 of the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church. Because many of the bishops still seemed to be making the equation between Church and Kingdom even after two or three sessions of the Council, it was decided that some further clarification was needed.

The Council document makes it clear that the Church is at most "the initial budding forth" of the Kingdom. In the meantime, "the Church strains toward the consummation of the Kingdom and, with all its strength, hopes and desires to be united in glory with its King" (#5). The completion of that union between Church and Kingdom is yet to be realized.

If the Church is not itself the Kingdom, then at least three things follow: (1) the Church as a community and as an institution is not above criticism and reform; (2) the primary mission of the Church is not precisely to bring people into the Church but to bring them into the Kingdom; and (3) God also works outside the Church and even in other religions.

This third item is particularly jarring to a Catholic whose religious formation occurred long before Vatican II and who has not had the advantage of an explanation of how and why this change in perspective took place.

"Whatever happened to the 'one true Church' formula?" First, we understand now that Church applies to the whole Body of Christ, to all Christians, and not just to Catholics alone. As the Decree on Ecumenism declares: ". . . all those justified by faith through baptism are incorporated into Christ. They therefore have a right to be honored by the title of Christian, and are properly regarded as brothers and sisters in the Lord by the sons and daughters of the Catholic Church" (#3).

But ecumenism requires even greater breadth of vision than seeing the Church as including all Christians. Ecumenism demands also that we see the Kingdom of God as including, at least in principle, all human beings. Humankind has responded in various ways to God's universal call to salvation and to the Kingdom. "The Catholic Church rejects nothing which is true and holy in these religions" for they "often reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all men and women" (Declaration on the Relationship of the Church to Non-Christian Religions, #2).

Again, it is not the one who says, "Lord, Lord," who shall necessarily enter the Kingdom of God (Matthew 7:21). The parable of the Good Samaritan illustrates our point. God's Kingdom, or redemptive presence, was not revealed in the priest or Levite (representatives of the institutional religion) who ignored the wounded traveler, but in the Samaritan, the outsider, who was a good neighbor to the person in need. The Good Samaritan was part of the Kingdom even though he was not part of what was considered the one true religion. We know that everyone is called to the Kingdom even if we can't say for certain who has been called to the Church.

If the Church can bring many to confess that Jesus is their Lord and their God, so much the better. But another real measure of the Church's missionary effectiveness is its capacity to bring the world closer to the Kingdom. The Church is doing God's work if it brings men and women to the point where they are being good neighbors—where they are doing God's will and manifesting his saving presence—even if they never say, "Lord, Lord" (see also Matthew 25:31-46). If other religions serve this same purpose and seem to be authentic instruments of the Kingdom, we Christians can only rejoice in the triumph of God's grace and power wherever God is at work.

The Kingdom is meant to have a worldly, fleshly, social, even political dimension. Those who grew up before Vatican II are familiar with a theological outlook that stressed the "future" or "other worldly" aspect of God's Kingdom. We may have been taught to accept the suffering and oppression and injustices of this life because in the next life—in God's Kingdom—we would have our reward and be set free of our afflictions. It didn't matter so much whether our earthly community flourished or not, because our true home was in heaven.

The Church today is not telling us to reject this vision of a final Kingdom, but to broaden it. God's Kingdom is not simply something to be sought in the future. We are called to help bring it about now. By removing oppression, poverty, disease, discrimination from the world, we are allowing God's Kingdom and redemptive presence to be manifested now. When we pray, "Thy Kingdom come," we are praying that the human family be transformed into a more just and loving community now as well as in the world to come.

Recent Church teachings have stressed the Christian mission of liberating the world and humankind from all that keeps it from its full flowering as intended by the Creator. These teachings underscore the connection between the Kingdom of God and the political order. The 1971 World Synod of Bishops emphasized this very point when it declared that the pursuit of justice and transformation of this world are essential to the preaching of the Gospel. In his apostolic exhortation On Evangelization in the Modern World, Pope Paul affirmed that teaching, saying, "The Church .. . has the duty to proclaim the liberation of millions of human beings, . . . the duty of assisting the birth of this liberation, of giving witness to it, of assuring that it is complete" (#30).

The Kingdom of God is brought about by God and is God's gift. But it does not come about without human collaboration. It is proclaimed by the Church in word and in sacrament. It is signified by the Church in its very life. And it is enabled to break into the world more fully through the various efforts of the Church on behalf of justice, peace and human reconciliation.

When all is said and done, the Kingdom of God is God: God insofar as God is present to us and to our world as a power that heals, that renews, that recreates, that gives life. To recognize that abiding presence of the Kingdom of God in our midst and to work always to remove obstacles to its inbreaking are our fundamental missionary responsibilities. God's gift is our task.

Reference:
http://www.americancatholic.org/Newsletters/CU/ac0980.asp

[bdeaner]

The Church existed earlier, to the beginning of time, and the beginning of salvation history, where God has always been working out man’s redemption.

[Uri’el-2012]

"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the Kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven" (Matthew 7:21)

The verb "shall enter" is

eivse,rcomai verb indicative future middle 3rd person singular

shalom b'SHEM Yah'shua HaMashiach Adonai

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

****A study of the word "church", in the Koine Greek : Ekklesia.***

Actually it means a called out assembly. It could be Christians or it could mean the pagans as in ACTS when the Ephesians hollered "Great is Diana of the Ephesians".

Act 19:35 And when the townclerk had appeased the people, he said, [Ye] men of Ephesus, what man is there that knoweth not how that the city of the Ephesians is a worshipper of the great goddess Diana, and of the [image] which fell down from Jupiter?

Act 19:36 Seeing then that these things cannot be spoken against, ye ought to be quiet, and to do nothing rashly.

Act 19:37 For ye have brought hither these men, which are neither robbers of churches, nor yet blasphemers of your goddess.

Act 19:38 Wherefore if Demetrius, and the craftsmen which are with him, have a matter against any man, the law is open, and there are deputies: let them implead one another.

Act 19:39 But if ye enquire any thing concerning other matters, it shall be determined in a lawful assembly (ἐκκλησία ekklēsia).

Act 19:40 For we are in danger to be called in question for this day's uproar, there being no cause whereby we may give an account of this concourse.

Act 19:41 And when he had thus spoken, he dismissed the assembly(ἐκκλησία ekklēsia).

[bdeaner]

The Roman church was started by Constantine, the pagan, in the fourth century.

Wrong.

First of all, yes, the first Christians for the most part were Jews. That's obvious from reading the New Testament. However it is also obvious that Gentiles were almost from the beginning attracted to the Jesus momvement. Add Paul into the equation, working some 30 years after the Resurrection among the Hellenistic Jews living outside Palestine and their Gentile neighbors, and it didn't take many years before Gentiles FAR outnumbered those of Jewish extraction.

The point? Just this: If you read the 15th chapter of Acts you will read about a council in Jerusalem that convened to decide whether Gentile converts were bound to keep the Law of Moses. Remember the decision under the guidance of the Holy Spirit?

But as for the Gentiles who have believed, we have sent a letter with out judgment that they should obstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from unchastity (Acts 21:25).

That's it. No 600 + mitzvot to follow, no fussing over keeping kosher, no worrying about ritual pollution, just don't worship pagan idols, be chaste, and don't eat blood (a practice associated with pagan worship).

But Jews who believed in Jesus (or, as you say, Yeshua) DID still have to keep the Law! Well, some thought that way, yes, until Paul pointed out something VERY important: Christ is the end of the Law for BOTH Jews and Gentiles. Torah is done; Jesus fulfilled it and now the "handwriting that was against us" is wiped out. Rather than the written Law, we have a New Principe, the Holy Spirit, to "guide into all Truth." Besides, even IF (and I do not grant this "if") the Jews who believed in Christ were meant to keep Torah, the sheer numbers of Gentiles overwelmed them; like it or not, within 100 years of the Resurrection of Jesus, the Church was Gentile. So, Constantine didn't take away anybody's Jewishness at all; if you want to "blame" someone, blame Paul of Tarsus.

I'd be careful though before I faulted an Apostle of Jesus...very careful.

As for all those "pagan practices" Constantine supposedly introduced...

The Sign of the Cross was found in the ruins of Pompeii in a house chapel. Pompeii was destroyed in AD 79, LONG time before Constantine, nearly 300 years in fact. Also: At the beginning of the 20th Century, a graveyard of Jewish-Christians was found on the Mount of Olives by archeologist P. Bagatti, dating from the first Century after Christ. FIRST Century, that would be from around AD 33 - AD 100, when the Apostles and those who knew Jesus were still alive. On the ossuaries of the departed were found typical Jewish names of the time and (ready for a shock?) many were marked with the Sign of the Cross, or the Chi Rho (monogram of Christ in Greek), and with the Greek monogram IXB (which means, "Jesus Christ Helper"). And here's the BIG shock: ossuaries were found in a First Century family crypt with the names "Maryam," "Martha," and "Eleazar" written on them and signed with a cross. Oh, by the way, those names translate to Mary, Martha, and Lazarus.

But folks not only used the Sign of the Cross marked on things (such as ossuaries and graves), they also made the Sign on their bodies. Tertullian, an early Christian theologian born around AD 160, tells us that, as Christians,

"In our travels and movements in all our coming in and going out, in putting of our shoes, at the bath, at the table, in lighting our candles, in lying down, in sitting down, whatever employment occupies us, we mark our foreheads with the sign of the cross (The Chaplet, III).

And he tells us it is a custom coming from the Apostles' own day (which, for him, was only 50 years before!). Gee, we're still about 200 years from Constantine. Hmmm, maybe Constantine isn't so bad...but let's look further...

Oh, well, what about all the Mary business? I mean everyone knows THAT was an invention of the Constantinian Church, right? Really? Funny that. The house of Our Lord's Mother, Mary (Maryam in Aramaic, if you like) has been definitely identified under the Church of the Annunciation in Nazareth. (That's how sites were preserved in ancient times, by the way. A site holy to the Faith would be turned into a house-church used by local believers, then eventually a church structure was built over it). Some of the graffiti left there by ancient pilgrims of the 1st and early 2nd Centuries say things like, "I am prostate under the holy site of Mary," "I have fulfilled my duties toward her," and one, in Greek, says simply, "Hail Mary!" (see http://www.christusrex.org/www1/ofm/san/TSnzz04.html). If those who went to this holy place to honor her memory were doing something so wrong, don't you think the Apostles or those who had known them would have stopped such a thing? Remember, this graffiti comes from the time when some of the Apostles would still have been alive.

There is also in the Nazareth area the grave-shrine of one Konon, a relative of Christ, who was martyred for the Faith in 249 AD. One, this shows there were still kinsmen of Jesus living in the area at the time. Two, it shows that martyrs were honored as saints before Constantine's era. In fact, it is an OLD custom. We have found graves going back to the 1st Century of martyrs showing the graffiti of Christian pilgrims. Among some of this graffiti are found such things as, "Martyr of Jesus, pray for us!" and "Remember us before the Lord!" Also, after St. Polycarp's death in AD 156, Christians collected and saved his bones as a way to remember his heroism, believing his bones to be more precious than jewels and gold (Martyrdom of Polycarp, ch. 18).

Finally, I must say a word or two about the Eucharist (the Mass, the Holy Communion), knowing that poor Constantine has been accused of fabricating current doctrines about the Eucharist.

There was a lay theologican of the early Church, Justin by name, who tried to explain Christianity to his Jewish friend, Trypho, and also to the pagan Romans around him. His faith in Jesus cost him his earthly life in the year AD 165 (a time right after the Apostles when there were alive many who had known the Apostles themselves). Buthe left us wonderful written records of what Christians in his day believed, having been taught by the Lord's Disciples. Here is what he says about Holy Communion:

"And this Food is called 'Eucharist' among us, and no one is allowed to partake of it except the one who believes in the truth of what we teach and who has been washed with the washing that is for remission of sins and a Second Birth and who is living as Christ has enjoined. For we do not received these things as common bread and drink, but, just as Jesus Christ our Savior was made flesh by the Word of God and had both flesh and blood, so we have been taught that the food which is blessed by the Word of prayer transmitted from Him, by which our flesh and blood are nourished, is the very Flesh and Blood of that Jesus who was made flesh" (Apology, LXVI).

Did you see what Justin said? He writes that Christians of his day (right after the Apostles' time) believed in the Real Presence of Jeus Christ in Holy Communion. Keep in mind that Justin lived a very long time before Constantine. He also tells us (as do many of the early Christian writers) that Christians met for this Eucharist on...Sunday. Not the Sabbath, not the Seventh Day, but the First Day of the Week, the day when Jesus rose from the Tomb.

The Didache, an early Christian handbook dated to around AD 80-100, also mentions Christians gathering on Sunday to celebrate the Eucharist (called a "sacrifice"):

"But every Lord's day father yourselves together, and break bread, and give thanksgiving after having confessed your transgressions, that your sacrifice may be pure (Didache, 14).

The Epistle of Barnabas, dated to around AD 120, as well as the epistles of St. Ignatius of Antioch, written in AD 105, also testify to Sunday worship replacing Sabbath worship. Ignatius wrotes:

"[We] have come to a possession of a new hope, no longer observing the Sabbath, but living in the observance of the Lord's Day..." (Letter to the Magnesians, IX).

In fact, a simple reading of the early Church Fathers shows that Chirstians universally worshipped on Sunday, not the Sabbath. The following Church Fathers and books clearly demonstrate that Christians worshipped on Sunday: Didache (AD 100), Epistle of Barnabas (Ad 120), Ignatius (AD 105), The Epistle to Diognetus (AD 150), Justin Martyr (AD 150), Clement of Alexandria (AD 195), Origen (AD 248), Tertullian (AD 197), Victorinus (AD 280), Anatolius (AD 270), and Peter of Alexandria (AD 310). Thus Constantine could not have invented Sunday worship, as it had already been in practice since Apostolic times, a fact well-attested in early Christian writings.

You know, it surely appears as if the Church looked pretty "catholic" from the beginning and poor old Constantine has been blamed falsely. It also seems we who follow the Catholic faith have some pretty solid evidence to stand on. Do you? Maybe it's time to start listening to those from the first century or two. After all, they were there.

[Uri’el-2012]

XS>A study of the word "church", in the Koine Greek : Ekklesia.

Actually it means a called out assembly. It could be Christians or it could mean the pagans as in ACTS when the Ephesians hollered "Great is Diana of the Ephesians".

Yes as I pointed out its use in Deuteronomy 4:10 "assemble the people"

The purpose of the study was to point out to members of very large
religious corporations who have co-opted the word to describe their
corporation. NAsbU Acts 19:30 And when Paul wanted to go into the assembly, the disciples would not let him.

shalom b'SHEM Yah'shua HaMashiach Adonai

[Uri’el-2012]

The Church existed earlier, to the beginning of time, and the beginning of salvation history, where God has always been working out man’s redemption.

How do you know that the Ekklesia existed earlier than Deut 4:10 ?

To the beginning of time ?

Begining of salvation history ?

That would be the oldest book in the Bible : Job

19:25 "As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, And at the last He will take His stand on the earth.

26 "Even after my skin is destroyed, Yet from my flesh I shall see God;

27 Whom I myself shall behold, And whom my eyes will see and not another. My heart faints within me!

Does YHvH have to workout our redemption ?

Or has He known it since before the foundations of the universe.

shalom b'SHEM Yah'shua HaMashiach Adonai

[Godzilla]

So does this church of yours say that babies should be baptized or not? Can't be of much worth if no one is willing to talk about it.

While this church looks through a glass darkly on this and other issues, it has a clear vision of the sacrifice that Jesus Christ, God the Son, Second Person of the Trinity, made for the sins of those who confess Him as Lord. This church is not afraid to take up our cross and follow Him. We glory in the cross (Gal 6:14) for it reminds us that the payment was made in full for our sins. It is a church who, like David, God imputes righteousness without works (Rom 4:6) but by grace alone. This God Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began (2Tim 1:9). We will become the Bride - that He will make without spot or wrinkle - because it is impossible for us to do so on our own (Eph 5:27).

We are a church freed from the bondage of Sisyphusian laws and ordinances that only curse its members to roll a huge boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll down again - never to be freed from sin. We are the blood bought, Spirit filled, true saints of the Living God. Jesus Christ has built His Church with us, Christians, born again to eternal life, become living stones built into the spiritual temple of which Christ is the corner stone. We need not hide behind the temples made by man, performing ceremonies modified after masonic rituals by a man who practiced divination - a practice condemned by God. My Church is a chosen generation, a Royal Priesthood, a Holy Nation. Called by Him Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.(1 Pet 2:24).

[Godzilla]

At the judgment bar of God, anyone that supports UTLM is guaranteed to hear:

Sorry, in truth this is what will be said

Mt 25:21 His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.

Nothing good comes from UTLM and that should be your first clue.

Oh, the bile
Tell me, where was your prophet when the Salamander letter was being evaluated?