This is standard Protestant rebuttal stuff that has been repudiated over 2000 years. Changing one’s name to Petrus, was itself a groundbreaking event. The Great Commission to go forth and teach was to teach ONE truth, not the scandal of 35,000 garden variety biblical interpretations from the mouths of Rev. Schuller, Joel Osteen, David Koresh, Jim Jones, Tammy Faye Baker, Jimmy Swaggart, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Rev. Moon, etc, and of course your corner-street FourSquare Church “Christian” pastor….. you get the flow.
This is why thousands of intellectuals from other faiths have abandoned Protestantism in droves as nothing more but a wasteland of doctrine and heresy. The renowned Oxford Movement founded by Henry Newman, a brilliant Anglican (now a Catholic Saint) and Fr. Richard Neuhaus, the foremost American Lutheran Scholar and professor all converted to Catholicism, not to mention the Chief Rabbi of Rome.
The Great Commission is no secret:
Mark 16:
“Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. 16 He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned.(NKJV)
Matthew 28:
“All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen.(NKJV)
Luke 24:
“Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, 47 and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. 48 And you are witnesses of these things. 49 Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you; but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high.”(NKJV)
I do not see a "copyright" for one church to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Of course Paul clearly defined all of the above so no one would stray:
1 Corinthians 15:
Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, 2 by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.
3 For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve. 6 After that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep. 7 After that He was seen by James, then by all the apostles. 8 Then last of all He was seen by me also, as by one born out of due time.
9 For I am the least of the apostles, who am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me. 11 Therefore, whether it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.(NKJV)
We get more personal fidelity on the message here:
Romans 10:
5 For Moses writes about the righteousness which is of the law, “The man who does those things shall live by them.” 6 But the righteousness of faith speaks in this way, “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’” (that is, to bring Christ down from above) 7 or, “‘Who will descend into the abyss?’” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). 8 But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith which we preach): 9 that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. 11 For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.” 12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him. 13 For “whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”(NKJV)
I am sure you would not disagree with the Great Commission is alive and well being preached today. The question is does Rome have a monopoly on the Great Commission.
Pure conjecture and invective as no one here is a member of those assemblies or "churches." It is like an Evangelical claiming the Roman Church still collects indulgences for departed souls to get out of pergatory....You guys did stop that didn't you?
True; can't have them awful guys giving the CHURCH a bad name!
Pope Stephen VI (896–897), who had his predecessor Pope Formosus exhumed, tried, de-fingered, briefly reburied, and thrown in the Tiber.[1]
Pope John XII (955–964), who gave land to a mistress, murdered several people, and was killed by a man who caught him in bed with his wife.
Pope Benedict IX (1032–1044, 1045, 1047–1048), who "sold" the Papacy
Pope Boniface VIII (1294–1303), who is lampooned in Dante's Divine Comedy
Pope Urban VI (1378–1389), who complained that he did not hear enough screaming when Cardinals who had conspired against him were tortured.[2]
Pope Alexander VI (1492–1503), a Borgia, who was guilty of nepotism and whose unattended corpse swelled until it could barely fit in a coffin.[3]
Pope Leo X (1513–1521), a spendthrift member of the Medici family who once spent 1/7 of his predecessors' reserves on a single ceremony[4]
Pope Clement VII (1523–1534), also a Medici, whose power-politicking with France, Spain, and Germany got Rome sacked.
And yet the CHURCH is hard pressed to find enough men available to become priests.
Hey Alex, we're back up to 35,000!
So Steelfish, can you provide a list of the 35,000 garden variety biblical interpretations or is that just something being pulled out of your hat?
Seems to me when I read through virtual pagrs of FR the FRoman Catholic interpretations are all not in sync. Quite a few little popes running around here.