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To: St_Thomas_Aquinas; metmom; boatbums; caww; presently no screen name; redleghunter; CynicalBear; ...
-— The Church is the truth!...The Church is “the pillar and foundation of truth.” Its in your Bible.

This is just the absurd manner of compelling of Scripture to conform to Rome that repels those who look to the Scriptures as the supreme standard for obedience and testing truths claims, as it is abundantly evidenced to be in Scripture.

The reality is that while RCs invoke 1 Timothy 3:15 as if it says the church is the supreme authority on Truth, or now, that "the "Church is the Truth, neither of these claims is what the text says, or what the Greek supports.

But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.

In the Greek, the pertinent part, with the only actual words in the text and some of the other ways it can be rendered as, says,

behave ["anastrepho:" live/life, turn one’s self]

in ["en"]

house ["oikos:" household]

God, ["theos"]

which ["hostis/hētis/hoti"]

is ["esti"]

church ["ekklēsia"]

living ["zaō"]

God ["theos"],

pillar ['stulos," prop or support]

and ["kai"]

ground ["hedraiōma" (undocumented" from hedraios: sitting, settled, established)]

the ["ho/hē /to:" which, this]

truth. ["alētheia"].

Research says hedraiōma" is undocumented even in Hellenistic Jewish or secular Greek before this, with its root (though roots do not always mean what is derived from them), "hedraios," denoting settled, established, as in the only 3 places that occurs in the NT: "standeth stedfast in his heart," "be ye stedfast," "continue in the faith grounded and settled," (1Co 7:37; 15:58; Col 1:23)

Thus "house God which is church living God pillar and ground the truth," in which the words for "pillar" and "ground" denote support and settled, respectively, indicates, along with other statements and teaching in Scripture, that the church both supports the Truth and rests upon that foundation.

It provides Truth, but it is not the Truth itself, as Christ as creator inherently is, but the church was founded upon Truth and is established upon it, even as the Lord was faithful to show.

And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me. Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures, (Luke 24:44-45)

And the gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ is,

"by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith." (Romans 16:26)

But somehow this indefinite text is constantly compelled to not only support the church as being the supreme authority on Truth, or "the Truth," but also to support the RCC as being that "church of the living God."

Which is despite it manifestly being about the most spiritually dead church overall, and at best consisting of both lost and saved believers.

Instead of referring to one visible church, the way the church is used in Scripture, outside of addressing particular churches, is that of the body of Christ Eph_1:22, Eph_3:10, Eph_3:21, Eph_5:23-2,27,29,32; Col_1:18,24, etc, the "one new man," "household of God." (Eph. 2:15,20)

This is the one body which consists only of believers, but which has its various visible manifestation wherever baptized pastored born again believers in the essential truth by which they are baptized by the Spirit exists as a community of faith.

And perhaps even Rome may be called a church, for while she stands in critical contrast to the NT church, and fails of both the qualifications and unique attestation by which the authority (which she presumes) of Biblical apostles was established, yet even the mostly dead "church of the Laodiceans" was called so, (Rv. 3:14) as was the church of the proto Romanist "Diotrephes, who loveth to have the preeminence among them," and thus "receiveth us not." (3 John 1:9)

389 posted on 05/19/2014 2:22:53 PM PDT by daniel1212 (Come to the Lord Jesus as a contrite damned+destitute sinner, trust Him to save you, then live 4 Him)
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To: daniel1212

“-— The Church is the truth!...The Church is “the pillar and foundation of truth.” Its in your Bible. “

This same poster makes this claim repeatedly and I have corrected his usage multiple times. At this point, it is fraudulent usage.


390 posted on 05/19/2014 3:22:43 PM PDT by aMorePerfectUnion ( "I didn't leave the Central Oligarchy Party. It left me." - Ronaldus Magnimus, 2014)
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