Posted on 01/01/2016 10:28:21 AM PST by NRx
By the way, further proof that Psalm 99 is talking about the Ark is found in Psalm 132:7-8:
“We will go into his tabernacles: we will worship at his footstool. Arise, O LORD, into thy rest; thou, and the ark of thy strength.”
Also, I see no evidence in Scripture that only Scripture is authoritative. In fact, I see evidence in Scripture of just the opposite. 2 Thessalonians 2:15 and 1 Corinthians 11:2, which both speak about Christian Tradition as being authoritative, and 2 Thessalonians 2:15 specifically endorses oral Tradition.
A ridiculous claim. There was a time when the vast majority of people were illiterate, and iconography was especially instructive for such people.
“There was a time when the vast majority of people were illiterate, and iconography was especially instructive for such people.”
They are still instructive. Just the other day I posted the icon of the Resurrection to demonstrate that the Evil One had indeed been bound by Christ in Hades.
“Is wearing pants a sign of Muslim influence, because I do wear pants? I admit it.”
Not that I know of. Most of the Mohammedan men around here wear pants, though when they are going to the mosque they wear sort of a long white dress. Do you wear a long white dress to church? That could be a pretty good sign that you are well down the road to Mohammedanism.
“A ridiculous claim. There was a time when the vast majority of people were illiterate, and iconography was especially instructive for such people.”
May 2016 be the year literacy descends and wipes out the scourge of illiterateracy-based idolatry. We’ve waited since the dark ages. May light finally come this year.
You are just repeating the same things and ignoring what I said. Get back to me with biblical support for bowing to, praying toward, and offering incense to images. I have given mine.
“By the way, further proof that Psalm 99 is talking about the Ark is found in Psalm 132:7-8”
God’s people in the Old Testament were supposed to pray toward the temple. Priests and non-priests did bow down. Incense was offered. But this is because the tabernacle and the temple subsequently were the designated place where God met with man. It was the one and only place on earth so designated.
They were not bowing to the cherubim or offering incense to them. These things were directed to God. The cherubim faced where God met with man above the mercy seat.
It is clear from scripture that the tabernacle and temple were not God’s actual dwelling / home because they were mere symbols of a Heavenly reality.
So we see people in the Old and New Testaments praying with their hands lifted up and facing Heaven. Are they directing prayers and worshipping birds? No. The sky? No. The sun, moon, stars? No. It is an acknowledgement that God’s throne is in Heaven.
There is no earthly temple currently. There is no physical meeting place or physical object where God meets with us today. The ark of the covenant still exists, but since the crucifixion, the veil of the temple was torn, and the glory of God’s presence departed for a second time.
God’s Spirit resides in His people, not physical objects or buildings. We do not bow down toward other people even though God dwells in them. All of the examples in the New Testament of doing this are negative examples of doing what God forbade. And no example in the Old or New Testament supports setting up images and bowing to them. Even when objects like the brass serpent or even the temple were used for idolatry, they had to be destroyed.
2 Kings 18:4
He removed the high places and broke the sacred pillars, cut down the wooden image and broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made; for until those days the children of Israel burned incense to it, and called it Nehushtan.
Would it have been okay to burn incense to it if they had not given it a name as a false god? You admitted earlier that they turned it into an idol, but do you also admit that burning incense to it was an act of idolatry?
The New Testament repeatedly warns of idolatry and never directs us to use images in this manner.
You do know, I trust, that the fellows who decided which books made up the canon of scripture in the bible you thump, what was in, what was out, I’ll trade you Hebrews for Revelation, those guys, were a group of Greek and Latin speaking bishops...who venerated icons!
“I see no evidence in Scripture that only Scripture is authoritative. “
God has established authorities in the home, church, and government. There are also natural laws that teach us. And in any organization someone has to be in charge and becomes the “authority” for those who choose to be part of it.
But there is no authority higher than God’s word. He created the Heavens and earth by His word. Christ is the Word incarnate. Anyone trying to exercise authority above God’s word is in rebellion.
Who should people obey when these “authorities” direct doing things contrary to the Bible?
Acts 5:29
But Peter and the other apostles answered and said: “We ought to obey God rather than men.”
Here are the verses you referenced:
1 Corinthians 11:2
Now I praise you, brethren, that you remember me in all things and keep the traditions just as I delivered them to you.
2 Thessalonians 2:15
Therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold the traditions which you were taught, whether by word or our epistle.
Who established these traditions? The apostles. There is a difference between traditions of men and traditions of the apostles. Notice that these traditions were also by “epistle”. That is, they were transmitted by the New Testament scriptures. At the time of this writing, the New Testament was incomplete. Obviously the church traditions were implemented orally until they were written. This is one of the reasons Peter specifically gives for writing his epistles (i.e. letters).
To introduce a tradition after the apostles were dead, or to change a tradition of the apostles, is to actually fail to keep the tradition of the apostles. The Catholic church is among those who claim to exert apostolic authority, but we see from several passages in the New Testament that apostolic authority could be falsified and must be tested. No one today has such authority. Peter, Paul, James, John and other apostles are still with us in their apostolic authority today. It is found in their writings which are scripture.
John 15:20
Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will keep yours also.
Galatians 1:11-12
But I make known to you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through the revelation of Jesus Christ.
2 Peter 1:12-15
For this reason I will not be negligent to remind you always of these things, though you know and are established in the present truth. Yes, I think it is right, as long as I am in this tent, to stir you up by reminding you, knowing that shortly I must put off my tent, just as our Lord Jesus Christ showed me. Moreover I will be careful to ensure that you always have a reminder of these things after my decease.
Matthew 15:3
He answered and said to them, “Why do you also transgress the commandment of God because of your tradition?”
Mark 7:8
For laying aside the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men —the washing of pitchers and cups, and many other such things you do.
He was quoting from this passage when He said it:
Isaiah 29:13
Therefore the Lord said:
“Inasmuch as these people draw near with their mouths
And honor Me with their lips,
But have removed their hearts far from Me,
And their fear toward Me is taught by the commandment of men”
Isaiah also had this to say about such people who prefer manmade religion over the word of God:
Isaiah 8:20
To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.
“You do know, I trust, that the fellows who decided which books made up the canon of scripture in the bible you thump, what was in, what was out, I’ll trade you Hebrews for Revelation, those guys, were a group of Greek and Latin speaking bishops...who venerated icons!”
That is like the security guard outside the mall claiming to own it.
No human beings “decided” what would be in the holy canon of scripture. No human being kept God’s word from being destroyed. Because the message of the Bible is the word of God, it is impossible to destroy. And even when leaders of your religion tried to dilute the scriptures with phony writings and altered texts, the actual scriptures emerged unscathed. And even when the leaders of your religion had people burned at the stake for translating the scriptures and printing them in the common language of the people, God preserved His word and enabled men like William Tyndale to do His work before being martyred by the leaders of your religion who were too busy having orgies and setting up houses of prostitution to care about the common people hearing the word of God.
If you want to claim credit for what your religion under the supposedly infallible leadership of continuous succession has done, then take credit for the whole ball of wax.
It's clear you are making that up to justify your false interpretation...
and so when it says to bow before the footstool of His feet, it is saying to bow towards the Ark.
The context is to bow at the throne of God where He sits which is on top of the Ark...NOT to bow to in inanimate object...
I wouldn't say 'we' if I was you because that has been proven to be wrong many, many times...
“No human beings “decided” what would be in the holy canon of scripture. No human being kept God’s word from being destroyed.”
I know some protestant sects believe that that the authors of the OT and NT as well as the bishops who decided what was in and what was out were, like Mohammed, at base automotons, mere scribes for God. Would that include yours? Do you believe that the authors were in trances, like Mohammed?
” And even when leaders of your religion tried to dilute the scriptures with phony writings and altered texts, the actual scriptures emerged unscathed.”
Which phoney writings and altered texts did the Eastern Fathers and Patriarchs use to dilute the scriptures? The writings of the early Fathers were among the standards used by The Church to determine what in fact was Holy Writ and what was not, unlearner. Even that lead to compromises. Revelation was rejected in the East and Hebrews in the West. Eventually there was a deal and in they came. Truth be told, though, for us, Revelation is kept on top of the bookcase in the back...dusty.
” And even when the leaders of your religion had people burned at the stake for translating the scriptures and printing them in the common language of the people, God preserved His word and enabled men like William Tyndale to do His work before being martyred by the leaders of your religion who were too busy having orgies and setting up houses of prostitution to care about the common people hearing the word of God.”
The scriptures in The Church in the East have always been in the “common language of the people”, at least until we converted the Slavs and even then, the Patriarch of Constantinople sent out Sts. Cyril and Methodios to translate the OT, the NT and the Liturgy and other services into Slavonic. We also didn’t do burnings at the stake, even of heretics. You have us confused with some other church perhaps?
” If you want to claim credit for what your religion under the supposedly infallible leadership of continuous succession has done, then take credit for the whole ball of wax.”
We don’t have an “infallible leadership under continuous succession”, unlearner. Our bishops and patriarchs are all too fallible. The only infallible institutions we have are Ecumenical Councils.
Did you read the post you are responding to, especially the Biblical quote?
God is sitting between the cherubim.
It is God that was being worshiped because He was RIGHT THERE! Way cool.
There are no cherubim here, yet the icon is worshiped as if God is inside of it.
“like Mohammed, at base automotons, mere scribes for God”
I would like to know which Christian sects believe the writers of the Bible were similar to Muhammed. I don’t know of any that would accept such a comparison. It is the kind of thing only opponents would assert to discredit someone else. No one would agree to the comparison.
My opinion is that various writings of the Bible were constructed under a variety of circumstances, writing styles, methods and forms. For example, Psalms and Proverbs are collections of writings that originated from multiple authors but were compiled by God’s divine direction. Some scriptures contain parts that were directly dictated by God as if He was speaking to a scribe. Some are largely from the author’s description of visions from God. Some probably came from men who had been taught by God, taught others over many years, and then carefully compiled a form of these teachings. Some are simply recollections of historical events.
What is not my opinion, but is fact, is that all of the scriptures were inspired (God-breathed). This means they contain no errors and are directly from God as general revelation to us.
The Apocryphal writings have been rejected because they were not inspired writings.
Codex Vaticanus, Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Bezae, Codex Alexandrinus, Vetus Latina, Vulgate are among the manuscripts which are not authoritative even though they may contain scriptures and may have attempted to faithfully preserve them.
The Textus Receptus is authoritative. Attempts to dilute it with “higher criticism” (John Mill in early 1700’s through Westcott and Hort in the late 1800’s) failed. This text comes to us mainly through the majority text.
Since there is the potential to spend a lifetime studying the history, language, and roles that people had in the transmission of scriptures to us today, it is impossible to have “simple” debate on the subject.
As far as your church history, I thought I was addressing a Roman Catholic. My mistake.
I’ve given you the evidence. You just don’t seem to be willing to be swayed by Scripture. There is no question that the Scriptures speaking of bowing before the Ark, and people prayed before it. It’s in the Bible.
The Church has preserved Apostolic Tradition. Furthermore, the Scriptures make no claim that Scripture alone is authoritative, and so to assert the doctrine of Sola Scriptura is to assert a doctrine that contradicts itself.
http://orthodoxinfo.com/inquirers/tca_solascriptura.aspx
Therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word [i.e. oral tradition] or our epistle (II Thessalonians 2:15).
The word here translated “traditions” is the Greek word paradosis — which, though translated differently in some Protestant versions, is the same word that the Greek Orthodox use when speaking of Tradition, and few competent Bible scholars would dispute this meaning. The word itself literally means “what is transmitted.” It is the same word used when referring negatively to the false teachings of the Pharisees (Mark 7:3, 5, 8), and also when referring to authoritative Christian teaching (I Corinthians 11:2, Second Thessalonians 2:15). So what makes the tradition of the Pharisees false and that of the Church true? The source! Christ made clear what was the source of the traditions of the Pharisees when He called them “the traditions of men” (Mark 7:8). Saint Paul on the other hand, in reference to Christian Tradition states, “I praise you brethren, that you remember me in all things and hold fast to the traditions [paradoseis] just as I delivered [paredoka, a verbal form of paradosis] them to you” (First Corinthians 11:2), but where did he get these traditions in the first place? “I received from the Lord that which I delivered [paredoka] to you” (first Corinthians 11:23). This is what the Orthodox Church refers to when it speaks of the Apostolic Tradition — “the Faith once delivered [paradotheise] unto the saints” (Jude 3). Its source is Christ, it was delivered personally by Him to the Apostles through all that He said and did, which if it all were all written down, “the world itself could not contain the books that should be written” (John 21:25). The Apostles delivered this knowledge to the entire Church, and the Church, being the repository of this treasure thus became “the pillar and ground of the Truth” (I Timothy 3:15).
The testimony of the New Testament is clear on this point: the early Christians had both oral and written traditions which they received from Christ through the Apostles. For written tradition they at first had only fragments — one local church had an Epistle, another perhaps a Gospel. Gradually these writings were gathered together into collections and ultimately they became the New Testament. And how did these early Christians know which books were authentic and which were not — for (as already noted) there were numerous spurious epistles and gospels claimed by heretics to have been written by Apostles? It was the oral Apostolic Tradition that aided the Church in making this determination.
It is clear that you have never studied Hebrew, and don’t know how to access lexical resources that would explain the meaning of the word in question. Because it literally means “to bow”. It is often translated as “worship”, but this is really a looser translation of the word, though depending on the context, it may or may not be a bad way of putting it into English.
Sometimes people are loose in the way they speak about such things, but no Orthodox Christian believes that they can ask an icon to do something. They can ask the person depicted in the icon to do something, and that is what they in fact do.
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