Kinda like the Navajos in Tuba city!
My suggestion???
Something like this would be pretty cool at the 4 Corners Monument!
Posted on 11/28/2014 2:33:31 PM PST by NYer
It was the day after Ash Wednesday in 2012 when I called my mom from my dorm room at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and told her I thought I was going to become Catholic.
“You’re not going to become Catholic, you just know you’re not Southern Baptist,” she said.
“No, I don’t think so.”
A pause. “Oh boy,” she sighed.
I started crying.
I cannot stress enough how much I hated the idea of becoming Catholic. I was bargaining to the last moment. I submitted a sermon for a competition days before withdrawing from school. I was memorizing Psalm 119 to convince myself of sola scriptura. I set up meetings with professors to hear the best arguments. I purposefully read Protestant books about Catholicism, rather than books by Catholic authors.
Further, I knew I would lose my housing money and have to pay a scholarship back if I withdrew from school, not to mention disappointing family, friends, and a dedicated church community.
But when I attempted to do my homework, I collapsed on my bed. All I wanted to do was scream at the textbook, “Who says?!”
I had experienced a huge paradigm shift in my thinking about the faith, and the question of apostolic authority loomed larger than ever.
But let’s rewind back a few years.
I grew up in an evangelical Protestant home. My father was a worship and preaching pastor from when I was in fourth grade onwards. Midway through college, I really fell in love with Jesus Christ and His precious Gospel and decided to become a pastor.
It was during that time that I was hardened in my assumption that the Roman Catholic Church didn’t adhere to the Bible. When I asked one pastor friend of mine during my junior year why Catholics thought Mary remained a virgin after Jesus’ birth when the Bible clearly said Jesus had “brothers,” he simply grimaced: “They don’t read the Bible.”
Though I had been in talks with Seattle’s Mars Hill Church about doing an internship with them, John Piper’s book Don’t Waste Your Life clarified my call to missionary work specifically, and I spent the next summer evangelizing Catholics in Poland.
So I was surprised when I visited my parents and found a silly looking book titled Born Fundamentalist, Born Again Catholic on my father’s desk. What was my dad doing reading something like this? I was curious and hadn’t brought anything home to read, so I gave it a look.
David Currie’s memoir of leaving behind his evangelical education and ministries was bothersome. His unapologetic defense of controversial doctrines regarding Mary and the papacy were most shocking, as I had never seriously considered that Catholics would have sensible, scriptural defenses to these beliefs.
The book’s presence on my father’s desk was explained more fully a few months later when he called me and said he was returning to the Catholicism of his youth. My response? “But, can’t you just be Lutheran or something?” I felt angry, betrayed, and indignant. For the next four months I served as a youth pastor at my local church and, in my free time, read up on why Catholicism was wrong.
During that time, I stumbled across a Christianity Today article that depicted an “evangelical identity crisis.” The author painted a picture of young evangelicals, growing up in a post-modern world, yearning to be firmly rooted in history and encouraged that others had stood strong for Christ in changing and troubled times. Yet, in my experience, most evangelical churches did not observe the liturgical calendar, the Apostles’ Creed was never mentioned, many of the songs were written after 1997, and if any anecdotal story was told about a hero from church history, it was certainly from after the Reformation. Most of Christian history was nowhere to be found.
For the first time, I panicked. I found a copy of the Catechism and started leafing through it, finding the most controversial doctrines and laughing at the silliness of the Catholic Church. Indulgences? Papal infallibility? These things, so obviously wrong, reassured me in my Protestantism. The Mass sounded beautiful and the idea of a visible, unified Church was appealing - but at the expense of the Gospel? It seemed obvious that Satan would build a large organization that would lead so many just short of heaven.
I shook off most of the doubts and enjoyed the remainder of my time at college, having fun with the youth group and sharing my faith with the students. Any lingering doubts, I assumed, would be dealt with in seminary.
I started my classes in January with the excitement of a die-hard football fan going to the Super Bowl. The classes were fantastic and I thought I had finally rid myself of any Catholic problems.
I was lucky enough to see them in concert twice, Once before the death of Terry Kath and once in 83-84 after. Some of the finest Jazz Fusion out there.
You weren't set; just accused.
Again...
Perhaps this theory was introduced, like "the rapture," by Cyrus Scofield. I have not found an earlier reference yet than him introducing it in the Scofield Bible. Perhaps someone else knows if anyone of the Reformation faith groups introduced it earlier.
No, it is a Scofield novelty. It was meant to help justy other protestant novelties.
Kinda like the Navajos in Tuba city!
My suggestion???
Something like this would be pretty cool at the 4 Corners Monument!
Shows that a picture is NOT worth a 1000 words.
Seven Asia churches; long gone...
Calendars and clocks are a means to standardize the non-integer rotation of the Earth and it’s orbit around the sun.
Trying to put EVIL!! into it is a bit misplaced in my opinion.
Matthew 7:22-23 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? (23) And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.These were people, like Judas, who appeared to be in God's inner circle, at least in their own minds, and could make claim to casting out devils and many wonderful works. Yet Jesus does not say, "I knew you but you blew it." No, He says He never knew them. At no time were these lost ones redeemed, adopted sons and daughters, sealed by the Spirit, inseparable from the love of God in Christ, children who cry "Abba Father to God from the depths of their heart, whose spirit testifies that they are indeed His children, and the sheep who hear His voice, and follow only Him. At no time did they advance from those who merely knew the truth and saw the Spirit work and tasted heavenly things and the powers of the age to come, to those whose sins were washed away in the blood of Jesus, who were translated from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light, who were made a new creation, given a new heart, raised from death to life by faith in the Son of God.
Hebrews 6:9 But, beloved, we are persuaded better things of you, and things that accompany salvation, though we thus speak.ES, it isn't that Paul is saying this that encourages me to see a difference between the terrors of apostasy and the "better things" that accompany salvation. That contrast was put there by God Himself through the Holy Spirit for our encouragement. Anyone who reads those first few verses and doesn't end up in the spiritual equivalent of the fetal position shaking like a leave just isn't paying attention. I actually had that happen to me physically years ago, so I know what I'm talking about. I had just climbed a steep rock face, in street shoes no less, at the request of some friends. Chickie's Rock in the Susquehanna Valley, PA. I had no business doing that, and my body knew it better than I did. When I got to the top, I curled up into a fetal ball and stayed that way for many minutes before I relaxed enough to enjoy the magnificent sunset.
John 10:27-28 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: (28) And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.
Oh; I left out that silly Moon’s influence in all of this; eh?
At the exact North and South poles; there is NO time; as all time zones converge there!
England; when IT was the World's power, had enough sense to drive a stake in the ground (so to speak) at Greenwich; saying, we'll measure EVERYTHING from here.
Abyss, Hell, and Lake of Fire Contrasted (click here)
Here are the words:
THE MYSTERY OF LIFE AFTER DEATH -- THE PIT (GRAVE)(click here)
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That's good, because God's word says that nobody is saved yet!
As Yeshua and his apostles state, we will be saved, if we endure to the end, at the Last trump!
Your “logic” is chasing its own tail.
You completely miss the point of his revelation.
As for Paul, he wasn't any more “lost” than the average present day churchian. He was following a gospel that had been twisted by the Pharisees, but his heart told him that he was doing it for Yehova.
Present day churchians are also following a false gospel, seeking a pre-trib rapture that will never come, and believing in unconditional OSAS absurdity, and passing the same on to those that they are “getting saved” through the coaxed recital of the completely unscriptural “sinner's prayer.”
How are they different from Paul? Or Judas for that matter.
If you don't know him, then he doesn't know you.
John addresses how to “know him” and know that you know him in his first epistle
1John 2:
[3] And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments.
[4] He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.
[5] But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him.
[6] He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.
But the majority here at FR openly deny that what John said in that epistle is what Yeshua has asked of us.
Its not hard to see that what Yeshua says in Matthew 7:23 is what the majority of churchians will be hearing, not at the first resurrection, but later at the GWT judgment.
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That's good, because God's word says that nobody is saved yet!
As Yeshua and his apostles state, we will be saved, if we endure to the end, at the Last trump!
Your “logic” is chasing its own tail.
You completely miss the point of his revelation.
As for Paul, he wasn't any more “lost” than the average present day churchian. He was following a gospel that had been twisted by the Pharisees, but his heart told him that he was doing it for Yehova.
Present day churchians are also following a false gospel, seeking a pre-trib rapture that will never come, and believing in unconditional OSAS absurdity, and passing the same on to those that they are “getting saved” through the coaxed recital of the completely unscriptural “sinner's prayer.”
How are they different from Paul? Or Judas for that matter.
If you don't know him, then he doesn't know you.
John addresses how to “know him” and know that you know him in his first epistle
1John 2:
[3] And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments.
[4] He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.
[5] But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him.
[6] He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.
But the majority here at FR openly deny that what John said in that epistle is what Yeshua has asked of us.
Its not hard to see that what Yeshua says in Matthew 7:23 is what the majority of churchians will be hearing, not at the first resurrection, but later at the GWT judgment.
You answered it in part in one of your own statements which preceded that question.
Previous to development of patriarchates per se, things had been more along lines of concept for autoencaphaly for all bishops, although under biblical model each was (ideally, anyway) to make themselves subject to one another, and all the rest of the wider thus universal (catholic) Church, also.
Please bear in mind also, that these patriarchates as they eventually came to be known, there is lack of evidence and also some contra-evidence for in the first couple of centuries, even as that sort of church governing arrangement did eventually gel.
It is possibly interesting to note that the first official mentions or usages of the word to find their way into proceeding of Church Council(s), came about for reasons ancillary to the the Church of Rome having had asserted itself in North Africa, and in part, in response (in Church Council settings) was politely told to mind their own patriarchate (as others were also told/agreed to minding their own) there telling Rome to not again reach across the Mediterranean to appoint a priest there, setting also bulwark against two other patriarchates to do the same or similar in regards to any others, the same as Rome -- the overall results of the proceedings having rather pointedly re-established that they were in practical authority all on basically the same level.
The wording used included (I am here paraphrasing) "going back to how thing were from times of old" which shows there, even as late as the early fifth century was it(?) that Rome was not set above the other patriarchates, and in fact, in a gentle way, figuratively had their hands slapped for having engaged in some degree of over-reaching.
Still, when we go again yet further centuries back from that Church Council (Carthage, there was a rather long and interrelated series of them held in that City) the sense centuries previous (in the earliest times of the Church) was by weight of conciliation and agreement among the many (whom most all held their own independence) not by weight of signature of the bishop of Rome.
Later, at instances where participation and agreement of the Roman bishop be lacking -- if but for a time, one of those times stretching to 70 years or more was it(?), was at one juncture indeed cause for some consternation, but that unrest be for reason of desire for fullest unity of the Church, and due also for the admittedly high regard that many held (perhaps nostalgically?) for that particular bishopric which a couple of centuries after time of the Apostles came to be spoken of as having double-Apostolicity.
Yet that type of talk (as for or about 'Rome') can be seen as portion of how also men were trying to figure out who should be the boss...with the rather more republican-like form of horizontally arrayed governing, wherein the bishops when assembled and/or by letter could be the representatives as it were of the many churches (ekklesia) having been the more original order and arrangement of how the various ecclesia would communicate with one another as one greater "body" and association, thus universal or "catholic" Church.
Can you see it now?
So just what error have I committed? 25 years or so? That's not immediate? You've got to be kidding me...
To perhaps help to put this in perspective;
When we gaze upon the latter decade of the 1st century, among the scholars who delve into such issues, the most commonly accepted dating for the writing of the Book of Revelation is 90 AD.
Even if we are set consideration for that written work (Revelation) aside, there is such a close overlap as per Clement (as per year/date) that his own writing is so nearly immediate to the Apostle John's own lifespan -- can you show me much of anything which is earlier than Clement which is not directly Apostolic? (I already know the answer to that question, I *think*).
Now, as for yourself ending that portion [quoted immediately above] with "but it grew more prominent over time" when that is put together with that which you presented concerning Clement -- just WHAT are you straining to attempt to establish here but refutation of what I had said previously -- my having said so with no actual error;
The sort of history of the early Church which you just presented, is not only not entirely true, but many if not most of the key aspects there alluded to (in order to promote the Church of Rome as centrally authoritative over others, and recognized as such from the time immediately after the fall of Jerusalem) is simply not true, for Rome was not looked upon as seat of centralized authority by the rest of the Church, most particularly at any time near to the overthrow of Jerusalem.
You most certainly have not refuted the above.
It simply cannot be honestly done.
Truth is what it is.
If that conflicts with what the Church of Rome (A.K.A., the Roman Catholic Church) has long told itself (and it's adherents and it's critics too) about itself, that is not my problem ---
>> “What time IS it; really?” <<
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There is only one standard in God’s word.
The new moon tells us when the year begins, at Jerusalem, as it defers to the Barley growing on the slopes of the Mount of Olives.
The same new moon tells us when each month begins.
It’ll also tell us when Yeshua will return to Earth, at Yom Teruah, if we have been diligent enough to have watched for Antichrist to make his formal announcement, also at Jerusalem, and then counted out the days that Daniel revealed to us between then and Yeshua’s meeting us in the cloud. In Revelation 3 he commands us to so watch.
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