Posted on 10/15/2001 6:54:40 AM PDT by malakhi
| Statesmen may plan and speculate for liberty, but it is religion and morality alone which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free constitution is pure virtue. - John Adams |
There have been some other threads that have been pretty hot and heavy, not like the quiet nature if this thread. LOL. But really, some of the other threads have been really "active" for lack of a better word...
JH: Very true, but if you care to be the one to tell him what he said that he didn't make us privy to, go ahead and do so, but I am a safety man, I'll take my chances on believing only the recorded words that he left us through his apostles, for our instruction and edification.
I believe that God is not limited in the ways in which He can record the teaching of His Word. I believe that the Holy Spirit's continual teaching of the faith revealed once and for all time is recorded in the living Church.
"The Holy Spirit is personally the New Creation at work in the world. He is the presence of God-with-us, "joined to our spirit" (Rom 8:16). Without Him, God is far off, Christ is in the past, the gospel is a dead letter, the Church is only an organization, authority is domination, mission is propaganda, worship is a mere mouthing of words, and Christian action is a slave morality.
"But with Him, and in indispensible symphony with Him, the cosmos is raised up and groans with the birth pains of the kingdom; man struggles against the "flesh," Christ is raised, the gospel becomes the power of life, the Church offers communion with the Trinity, authority becomes a liberating service, mission becomes a pentecost, the liturgy is lived as both a memorial and an anticipation, and human action is deified.""
- Patriarch Ignatius IV, "The Resurrection and Modern Man"
Ignatius is the current Patriarch of the Antiochian Orthodox Church.
Least I know I am.
"Jesus on the Cross said to the disciple whom he loved: 'Behold your mother!' How sweet are those words to the Christian who is able to understand the depths of love they contain!"
"The Blessed Virgin's life was full of sorrow...Every time her tender glance fell upon her Divine Son, she suffered..."
"We ought to love the Blessed Virgin very much."
"It is impossible to meditate with devotion on the Mysteries of the Rosary and live in a state of sin."
"We have only to turn to the Blessed Virgin to be heard. Her heart is all love."
Quotes of St. John Vianney, who's body is still incorrupt.
No, I do not. I will use this as a jumping off point in my next post.
The RC’s call Mary a spotless vessel, and while this is not a biblical term, you may feel it is true, if so, how do you account for the fact that God chose a man for Mary who had been married and had at least 6 other children to another woman, do you believe God would give Mary anything but a spotless man for her mate?
We use similar terminology in Orthodoxy, and compare Mary to the Ark of the Covenant and the Burning Bush as well. We do not believe Joseph was her mate, but more like her guardian. He protected her by giving her the protection of a seemingly normal marriage. It did not matter as much what kind of man he was, although we consider him to have been holy and to be a saint. None of Joseph's biological material contributed to the Incarnate Christ, and neither did he feed Christ first in the womb and then with the breast. Mary did. Mary's biological material was blended with the Divine to produce God Incarnate. This makes her situation unique.
If Joseph had already brought 6 children into the marriage, had you considered how old they would have been.
Yes. They would all be older than Christ, some close in age to Mary. But it gets even "better" than that. Orthodox tradition includes the names of Joseph's first spouse and the names of all of his children as well. More on that later.
Would Christ not then be the youngest of the 7?
Yes.
Would you agree that the youngest child would have been a minimum of 3 years older then Jesus?
Yes.
Would you agree that James would have had to be at least 8 to 10 years older then Jesus?
Sounds right. As I mentioned earlier, I'm thinking I'll look up a "Life of St. James."
When the family followed Mary around the country side, she was their mother in law, and only a few years older then James?
I don't think the family necessarily followed Christ around the countryside all the time. There is nothing in the Scripture to indicate that they were always around, and the traditional teaching is that during the time referred to in Mt 12:47 they had made a trip especially to see Jesus. More on this later as well.
When they all came to see Jesus in Mt 12:47 Then one said unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren stand without, desiring to speak with thee. Am I to believe that all his family was still following Mary around, and they ranged in ages from 33, to their 40’s?
The traditional teaching is that they went with Mary in this situation for a specific reason, and they were not "following Mary around." More later.
If Joseph had James 15 years prior to Mary, James could have been the same age as his mother in law?
Yes.
If Jesus was the youngest child, and not the eldest, he held no responsibility for Mary’s welfare when he died, so he simply took it upon himself to tell John to take her in, because according to Jewish law, it was not his to give, and it would have gone to James.
Jesus was her only natural child. If the tradition is true, then it was known that James was not Mary's son but rather her stepson. I do not know if stepsons bore the same responsibilities for stepmothers as natural sons do for natural mothers. This might be an interesting angle for investigation.
Why do you suppose the genealogy failed to list Joseph’s previous wife and children?
I don't know. Is it common for genealogies to do this? Perhaps the only purpose of the genealogy was to establish the connection to David through Joseph. Any previous marriage by Joseph would be irrelevent to this purpose.
I am going to stop here, because I could no doubt go on forever on these absurd hypothetical questions if this line of reasoning is followed to it's natural end, but first let me get your thinking so far on this.
I don't think this is absurd, and am sorry that you do. I don't blindly accept any story I might be told, but a Church tradition that has been preserved for at least 1700 years is not "any story" either. More to come still.
Don't look at me. I just complain to you guys. :-) I've been tied up with car troubles. :-(
On that note: ALL -
Has anybody ever heard of a rear windshield just shattering on it's own? It had been parked in the company garage for four or five hours and we have had no drastic temperture changes, but some time this afternoon the darn thing just fell apart. I can't believe it's vandalism (Mack, I knew I shouldn't have told you where I live) because the car is in plain sight of the most popular "smoking lounge" (I don't think it's ever unoccupied). I'm pretty sure I would have noticed any road damage, and certainly couldn't have missed this - the window is just gone. (it's my wifes minivan, so I'm in big trouble)
Any ideas?
Note the period in bold. Four word answer.
If you can't answer my question...bother somebody else.
I don't. This does not mean it is not true. I believe that the nature of the argument we are having is less about the relationship between Mary and Joseph than it is about the nature of the Christian Faith, and the role of Scripture. The Orthodox teach that the totality of the faith is experienced within the Church, and that the preservation of this faith through teaching is accomplished through Holy Tradition. This Tradition, or teaching, includes as its apex the Holy Scriptures. They are completely true, the inspired word of God. But they are not the totality of the faith. There is not an impenetrable wall, with Scripture on one side and the lies of men on the other. Rather, Tradition includes other repositories of the faith, including the writings of the Holy Fathers, the teachings of the Ecumenical Councils such as the Nicene Creed, the hymns and prayers of the Church, art and architecture, and so on. If you're interested, I wrote about this at length to Havoc in post #23375. If you want to follow up on this, please read that post as well.
I’ll quote from some Patristic sources at length in my next post. And I think that they’re perspective is valuable. Using an analogy, this is why:
When installing software, you typically have a “troubleshooting guide.” And it’ll often walk you through a problem. “If X is happening, try A. If this doesn’t solve the problem, try B. If this still doesn’t work, try C.” This is crude, but I think that our practice of faith works in a similar way. When you have question X, try A – the Scriptures – first. If this doesn’t solve the problem, try B – the teachings of the Fathers. If this still doesn’t work, try C – the lives of the saints. And so on. Some people don’t need the troubleshooting guide at all. They have such a “feel” for software that they can figure it out themselves. And some people have such a “feel” for God, such a connection with the Holy Spirit operating in their lives, that they either don’t have problems or find their answers immediately through prayer. Church tradition is full of stories of saints who do just this. John the Baptist is a good parallel. His answers were not reached through studying Scripture.
But what if all you recognize as a source of authority concerning the nature of Christianity, and the lives of the people who are depicted in Scripture, is Scripture itself? Then you have to make “A” the answer no matter what, because there is no alternative. This seems to be where you are at. I say that the Church teaches that Mary and Joseph didn’t have sex. Not particularly radical, not like saying that Joseph was a Martian, not from my own fevered imagination. You turn to Scripture, and since this is your only choice then even if the evidence to the contrary is very brief and could be understood in more than one way, it must be definitive. I just don’t read Scripture that way. If Scripture is silent, or at best inconclusive, I have other sources to turn to for answers. And I don’t accept that something that’s not in Scripture is not valuable.
An even simpler analogy would be “when all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail.” God forgive me for comparing Holy Scripture to a hammer. And a hammer, for this analogy, may be the best tool in your toolbox. But sometimes what you really need is a screwdriver.
You could summon up Occam’s Razor, and say that your answer is true and mine is not because yours is simpler and doesn’t require turning to extra-Scriptural sources. But I don’t believe that the easiest answer is always the right answer when it comes to matters of our Lord. The nature of the events of the Gospel are not simple, or obvious. The obvious answer would be that Christ was the demented son of Joseph and Mary. Neither of us accepts that, or ever could. But likewise we shouldn’t expect the most obvious or most apparently “Scriptural” answers to be the correct ones.
The Orthodox always draw crosses as flowering, because we believe that the cross is a sign of life. This isn’t in Scripture, but it is edifying. Wearing crosses is not in Scripture, but Christians of all kinds do.
I’ve heard conservatism defined as a democracy that gives the dead a vote. I think Christianity, and Holy Tradition, is similar. It gives the dead, those saints who have walked the Christian walk before us, a vote. If ever there is a direct conflict between the teaching of the Church and Scripture, we must choose Scripture. Countless saints have stood up to the Church and proven this is true. But if there is not a direct conflict, we should pay attention to what previous Christians filled with the Holy Spirit have written and taught and passed on. Because we can’t go it alone with Scripture. In my humble opinion, of course.
God speaks not only for us little ones but for the great sages and mystics who experience what we can only read about, and to whom all the words have therefore different (richer) contents. Would not a revelation which contained nothing that you and I did not understand, be for that very reason rather suspect? To a child it would seem a contradiction to say both that his parents made him and God made him, yet we see how both can be true. – CS Lewis, Collected Letters
A whole Christian congregation watched some years ago as a man's glass eye popped out of socket and a brand new eye formed in it's place. It happened in Africa where my Father was a missionary for a number of years. It happened, and God did it. Why is it that the Catholic church has to count hocum as miracles - Statues drooling water and bits of light being mistaken for some saint are not miracles. I've seen people cured of cancer on the spot. I've seen people who wore glasses all their lives healed to where they had to remove their glasses immediately because they couldn't see with them on anymore. I've seen people with scoliosis straighten up and lose the curve in their spines. I've seen people who grew up with a short leg, walk straight with a newly lengthened leg. These are people I know - not some joe nobody that is pretending at it. I've seen countless REAL miracles performed by God through men who knew how to take authority and agree with people for healing. Where is this in the Catholic church apart from hocum about some stick or bone that supposedly did this or that six hundred years ago? The majority of the stories of Catholic saints are so full of mysticism it sounds more like something out of the necronomicon than out of christianity. Who was the woman that was supposedly beheaded whom after she died her head was 'miraculously' appended back to her body - as though God could put her back together; but, just couldn't raise her from the dead... The story gets really fanciful from there; but, it's right out of the so called stories of the saints. I'd dare say aesop's fables contain more reality.. And I'm being kind. Where are the real fruits of the spirit?
Mark 16 says that one of those fruits is that if a spirit filled christian drinks any deadly thing it shall not harm them - won't even phase them. This would be something like, oh, drinking poinson unawares. How many of the Popes died of poisoning? I can answer it for you.
Mark 16: "In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpants; and if they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover."
When's the last time the pope layed hands on a cancer patient and instantly saw that cancer disappear by commanding it gone in Jesus name? When's the last time a dead man stood up and walked because the shadown of the pope crossed over them? I can go on.
Everywhere the Apostles went, miracles followed. They Baptised people in the Holy spirit who then spoke in toungues, recieved the gift of prophecy, etc. God performed great works through them. Why is it that Catholicism can only say, "well, we built some churches and a couple homeless shelters." Heathens do that too, Where are the spiritual fruits?
Paul goes beyond and lists the gifts of the Spirit in 1 Corinthians 12:
2:1 Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant. [2] Ye know that ye were Gentiles, carried away unto these dumb idols, even as ye were led. [3] Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed: and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost. [4] Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. [5] And there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord. [6] And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all. [7] But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal. [8] For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom ; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit; [9] To another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit; [10] To another the working of miracles ; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to another divers kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues: [11] But all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will. [12] For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ. [13] For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.
Now, he does go on to say that not everyone will have the same gifts. But all who are baptised in the Spirit will have at least one of the Gifts. Where are they in Catholicism. Where are the fruits?
How anyone can call a professional NFL football player a sissy is beyond me. I guarantee that Jeff Wilkins could take you behind the shed and beat your a** like a red-headed stepchild -- 7 days a week, twice on Sundays.
Anyone else ever have one of these? This is getting rather tiresome. If he nips at my ankles any longer, he's going to be invited to a public room and then the abuse button. I've just about had enough.
Has anybody ever heard of a rear windshield just shattering on it's own? It had been parked in the company garage for four or five hours and we have had no drastic temperture changes, but some time this afternoon the darn thing just fell apart. I can't believe it's vandalism (Mack, I knew I shouldn't have told you where I live)
It happened to a Bronco that I own last year, went to prayer breakfast and came back and went to church and when we got out it was in a million pieces, crap happens, (and IMRight its not a WHITE BRONCO:)
BigMack
Oh, no. No, don't go there. :) I didn't ask for a list of your good works, I asked where the fruits of the Spirit were. Not the same thing. Paul lists the Gifts in 1 Corinthians 12 - the which I have posted and colorized for everyone. Fruits would be the effect of each of those gifts being put to use. Where are they? The Lord said these things will follow His people - where are they? Oh, and a hint - statues are not saints, nor are sticks, bones and lumps of parafin, cakes, and the like. Jesus said signs and wonders - the fruits of the spirit would be evident in the living - not in inanimate objects. The latter has more in common with witchcraft. Where are the fruits of the LIVING animate followers.
"In contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.Galatians 5:22-26
Against such there is no law.
Now those who belong to Christ (Jesus) have crucified their flesh with its passions and desires.
If we live in the Spirit, let us also follow the Spirit.
Let us not be conceited, provoking one another, envious of one another."
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