Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article

To: Petrosius
You must all follow the bishop as Jesus Christ follows the Father, and the presbytery as you would the Apostles. Reverence the deacons as you would the command of God.

Very, very bad advice...Your bishop may be a worse sinner than you...

Bible tells us to test the spirits...It also tells us to search the scriptures to know that our salvation is sure...

The bible also tells us that the highest above us will be the lowest...Christians don't reverence deacons or anyone...

Your author gives you unGodly and unBiblical advice...

46 posted on 02/02/2012 5:29:03 AM PST by Iscool (You mess with me, you mess with the WHOLE trailerpark...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies ]


To: Iscool
These, of course, are general counsels. St. Ignatius is not counseling that we follow individual bishops, priests or deacons into error but that we should remain in communion with the Church and not fall into schism. If an individual bishop were to fall into error then we have recourse to the Church as a whole. I remind you of the words of our Lord himself:
Then Jesus spoke to the crowds and to his disciples, saying, “The scribes and the Pharisees have taken their seat on the chair of Moses. Therefore, do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you, but do not follow their example. For they preach but they do not practice. (Matt. 23:1-3).
and:
After this the Lord appointed seventy [-two]* others whom he sent ahead of him in pairs to every town and place he intended to visit. [He said to them], "Whoever listens to you listens to me. Whoever rejects you rejects me. And whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me." (Lk. 10:1,16)
Our Lord Himself gives us the command to obey those who hold proper authority. Thus the teaching of St. Ignatius is indeed biblical.

That being said, the purpose of the post was to show the falsehood of the claim that the early Christians who were martyred were not Catholic, that somehow the Catholic Church was an invention of a latter age. The letters of the St. Ignatius, as well as other writings of the Church Fathers, show that all the markers of the Catholic Church were already present in the Church from the beginning. Nor is there any historical evidence that there were any groups of Christians in the first centuries who proposed a gospel the same as modern evangelical Protestants, a gospel which was unknown until the 16th century.

Historical facts can be such a bummer when they contradict religious fantasies.

50 posted on 02/02/2012 6:00:12 AM PST by Petrosius
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 46 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson