Posted on 09/12/2013 4:22:27 AM PDT by imardmd1
In 1962, philosopher-scientist Thomas Kuhn coined the term “paradigm shift” to signal a massive change in the way a community thinks about a particular topic. Examples of paradigm shifts include Copernicus’s discovery that the earth revolves around the sun, Einstein’s theory of relativity, and Darwin’s theory of evolution. Each changed the world of thought (some for better, some for worse) in a fundamental way.
From a political perspective, Constantine’s Edict of Milan, issued in AD 313, constituted the formal beginning of a major paradigm shift that signaled the end of the ancient world and the beginning of the medieval period. That edict legitimated Christianity and impressed upon it the Empire’s stamp of approval.
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It is a fair question to ask: “Why do we care about the eschatological views of the early church fathers?” We as evangelicals emphatically agree with Hodge that “the true method of theology… assumes that the Bible contains all the facts or truths which form the contents of theology.” As Ryrie cogently put it:
The fact that something was taught in the first century does not make it right (unless taught in the canonical Scriptures), and the fact that something was not taught until the nineteenth century does not make it wrong unless, of course, it is unscriptural.
(snip)
From a theological perspective—specifically an eschatological one—the Edict of Milan also signaled a monumental paradigm shift—from the well-grounded premillennialism of the ancient church fathers to the amillennialism or postmillennialism that would dominate eschatological thinking from the fourth century AD to at least the middle part of the nineteenth century. Yet, as explored below, the groundwork for this shift was laid long before Constantine issued the Edict of Milan in AD 313. In the two centuries that led up to the edict, two crucial interpretive errors found their way into the church that made conditions ripe for the paradigm shift incident to the Edict of Milan. The second century fathers failed to keep clear the biblical distinction between Israel and the church. Then, the third century fathers abandoned a more-or-less literal method of interpreting the Bible in favor of Origen’s allegorical-spiritualized hermeneutic. Once the distinction between Israel and the church became blurred, once a literal hermeneutic was lost, with these foundations removed, the societal changes occasioned by the Edict of Milan caused fourth century fathers to reject premillennialism in favor of Augustinian amillennialism.
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The crushing blow for premillennialism came with the Edict of Milan in AD 313, by which Constantine reversed the Roman Empire’s policy of hostility toward Christianity and accorded it full legal recognition and even favor. Historian Paul Johnson calls the issuance of this edict “one of the decisive events in world history. With it, no longer was the blood of the martyrs the seed of the church. Rather, Christianity would be, in many ways, a mirror-image of the empire itself. “It was catholic, universal, ecumenical, orderly, international, multi-racial and increasingly legalistic.” It was a huge force for stability. Hence, Christianity after 313 would become worldly, rather than other-worldly.
The church’s new-found favor from Rome caused dramatic upheavals. Jerome complained that “one who was yesterday a catechumen is today a bishop; another moves overnight from the ampitheatre to the church; a man who spent the evening in the circus stands next morning at the altar, and another who was recently a patron of the stage is now the dedicator of virgins.” He wrote that “our walls glitter with gold, and gold gleams upon our ceilings and the capitals of our pillars; yet Christ is dying at our doors in the person of his poor, naked and hungry.”
Thus, the focus of the church changed from looking for ultimate comfort in the world beyond the grave to seeking comfort in this world, in the here and now. Christianity was viewed as “a religion with a glorious past as well as an unlimited future. As a result, it suffered what Johnson called “a receding, indeed, disappearing, eschatology.”
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The lesson for us is that we must continually guard against interpreting the Bible according to current events—a point often lost on some of dispensational millennialism’s more popular proponents.
The bottom line, of course, is that we must continually go back to the Scriptures as our only source for “doing theology.” As much as we may respect and admire the early church fathers, or, for that matter, the reformers, the puritans, or a particular modern spiritual leader, we must always remember to be Bereans, checking their conclusions and reasoning against the plumb line of God’s Word. No one could put it more clearly or forcefully than Martin Luther as he boldly and defiantly proclaimed before the Diet of Worms: “Unless I am convicted by Scripture and plain reason—I do not accept the authority of popes and councils, for they have contradicted each other—my conscience is captive to the Word of God… Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise.”
Thhis is, of course, the expected--and incorrect--claim for canonizing writings. Quoting William Webster, another well-spoken observer:
"It is often asserted by Roman Catholic apologists that Protestants must rely on their tradition in order to know which books ought to be included in the Biblical Canon. The argument says that since there nis no 'inspired table of contents' for the Bible, then we are forced into relying upon tradition to dictate which books belong in the Bible, and which books do not. It was the church of Rome, these apologists allege, which determined the canon at the Councils of Hippo (393 A.D.) and Carthage (397 A.D.), and it is only due to this, that Protestants know which books are inspired, and which are not. Consequently, it is the Roman Church which should be submitted to on issues of faith.
The argument of Roman Catholics for the Canon is spurious on a number of counts."
Of these counts, Webster amplifies three which clearly condemn the claim your comment is making. The link to the brief paper is:
http://www.christiantruth.com/articles/canon.html
He concludes his discussion by remarking that, "Rome is guilty of misrepresenting history and the teachings ofthe Reformation and has misinterpreted Scripture. It is a false system which has become corrupted over time, just as the Jewish system did in the Old Testament."
I concur with this, and have experienced the attempt of a syndicate of Romanists here ganging up on to pervert the truths contained in The Holy Words to hinder their recognition demonstrated by exposition, such that a seeker may be turned away, were it possible. However, an army of these detractors cannot argue against a willing Berean armed with Scripture alone, prayed for by others, and boldly making known the mystery of the Gospel.
And by what authority does the author have to declare these errors?
The Truth of Scripture as compared to the duplicitous writings of the fallible "church fathers" that have led their gullible fideists astray.
a·pos·tle
[uh-pos-uhl]
noun
1. any of the early followers of Jesus who carried the Christian message into the world.According to the definition above, most Christians should be apostles. Disciples first, then apostles as one grows in the faith.
2. ( sometimes initial capital letter ) any of the original 12 disciples called by Jesus to preach the gospel: Simon Peter, the brothers James and John, Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James the son of Alpheus, Thaddaeus, Simon the Zealot, Judas Iscariot.
3. the first or the best-known Christian missionary in any region or country.
4. Eastern Church . one of the 70 disciples of Jesus.
5. the title of the highest ecclesiastical official in certain Protestant sects.
II Timothy 3:5 "Having an appearance indeed of godliness, but denying the power thereof. Now these avoid."
Continue to worship your own Most High and Holy Self if you like but be prepared to hear, "I never knew you" from the same Jesus Christ who you mock when you twist the words of Jesus Christ Himself to your own destruction in an effort to hide from His promise to found His Church on Peter.
Allen's use if the word "Christianity" is ill-fitted to that sentence. He should have used "Christendom instead.
And, regarding the continuance of The Faith, it is my contention that the Galatians took Paul's scolding very seriously, and never followed that line of hypocritical legalism again--that they became the proponents of the Gospel that never bowed/cowed to the so-called theologians of the "catholic" types, and held to the conduct of local autonomous immersionist assemblies governed by strong preaching, the Remembrance Supper, and unfeigned love of the brethren under persecution--the forerunners of thoday's Baptists.
“‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see. Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me. The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’”
That didn’t take long. 2nd amendment mama hardly got the popecorn popped.
Everything that Coinstantine’s church holds is completely contrary to the scriptures that Yeshua constantly quoted when he would say “It is written...”
Amen !
shalom b'SHEM Yah'shua HaMashiach
But that is not the sense in which the NT writers used for the word *apostle*.
Acts 1:21-22 So one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us—one of these men must become with us a witness to his resurrection.”
Nobody on the earth today can fit that qualification.
What qualification? “become one with us”? That’s not defining themselves as anything. We should all be apostles—witnesses to His resurrection by His presence in our lives.
It is undeniable that pagan Greek philosophy influenced many of the early church “fathers” - some for the worse. The truth is that God ALWAYS has a remnant that does not bow the knee to Baal/Rome.
Oh, yeah. It’s all Constantine’s fault. That gets tiresome.
A phony doctrine that would not survive a literal hermeneutic of Matthew 16:8,18-19 and 23-25, where Peter was of little faith, was willing to hear and repeat what he heard of the Devil just as quickly as what The God put in his mind, and was given the diminutive nickname "petros" (masculine Koine word for small stone) whereas Jesus in precise Koine (petra, feminine) referred to the massif escarpment He was standing on as figuratively representing the strength of The Father's pronouncement, unwittingly delivered through Simon bar-Jonah's lips, "Thou art The Anointed One, The Son of The God of the living," the rock-solid foundational truth undergirding the faith of the churches of The Christ.
Peter was not a rock, he was a joke, who denied the Savior six times on the dark before dawn, and had to be scolded by Paul many years later for disciplinary action. And Jesus much later on did, after at first withholding the keys to the Kingdom (not of this earth) from Simon (while he was yet unconverted, see Lk. 22:31-32) who permitted himself to fall into Satan's hands, as the others did not.
But after Peter's confession of conversion at Galilee(Jn. 21:15-19), his failure at "leadership" in the flesh without Jesus or the Holy Ghost as his Counselor on the 10 days between the Ascension and Pentecost, and after the gift of the indwelling Comforter on the Pentecostal first-day-of-the-week assembly (his regeneration, his new birth in The Spirit), Christ did finally give him no other keys for opening the doors to heaven than He has given every other regenerated believer-disciple-priest, that of the command to preach the Gospel of repentance, salvation, and reconciliation with The Father of Lights, The Creator.
Of course I will avoid following the false hope you offer through another gospel. Eh? I've been a joke in my own life, but now I follow The Messiah, The Anointed One, not another frail, fallible, phony fakir.
That's right, Constantine found a bunch of pagans, appointed them bishops and all the Christians, after suffering 300 years of persecution, just went along with it. No, the truth is that the bishops of the Church after the Edict of Milan were the same men who were bishops and lead the Church before. And while there were numerous debates about all types of theological issues there were none about the issues that Protestantism would raise 1200 years later. Additionally, writings of the Church Fathers before Constantine show that it was thoroughly Catholic. History just does not support the Protestant fantasy that the real church was somehow replaced by Constantine with a false one.
OLO...would you like butter on yours....hehehehe
OLO = LOL duh...
Wrong, because the Apostles wrote additional works that the Church would affirm as Scripture.
The illegitimate body that claims to canonize scripture is completely at odds with the scriptures that Yeshua quoted and thereby confirmed.
Wrong again, because Jesus did not quote from any of the New Testament Scriptures because they were yet to be written. Additionally, when he does quote from the Old Testament it is invariably from the Septuagint whose canon is accepted by the Catholic Church and rejected by the Protestants.
The last apostle died 1900 yearas ago.
And the very first thing that the Apostles did after our Lord ascended to heaven was to fill up the vacancy left by Judas. Paul shows that the early Church was indeed hierarchical with episkopoi, presbyteroi and diakonoi. These offices continue to exist today.
My belief is that you are correct. An Apostle of the variety you speak has to have been personally called by Jesus, chosen by Him, followed Him personally, taught directly by Him, and sent by Him to preach the gospel to initiate the process of making more disciples. A succession of disciple-taught disciples, yes! A succession of Christ-taught Apostles, no!
Perhaps you missed Council of Jerusalem or how Paul is claiming authority over a number of local churches. See Acts.
“”popecorn”? Freudian slip?
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