Posted on 01/27/2008 7:56:14 PM PST by Manfred the Wonder Dawg
Jesus came to make ALL religion obsolete, AND DID..
"You MUST be born again" -Jesus
He also called and is calling those out of the sheep pens..
Im not a christian Im a sheep.. following his voice..
TOO SIMPLE?... Yeah! neat ain't it.. Sheep aint too smart..
***What does fullness mean in that/this context..***
The term “fullness of the gospel” refers to the whole doctrine of salvation demonstrated and taught in the ministry and life of Jesus Christ.
you: How?
The words of God come from God, not man. It doesn't matter who He chooses to convey them or make a record of them - whether Moses, David, prophets, councils of Jews or Christians or a few goatherders in Qumran.
God's words are not constrained by the worthiness or position of mortals. Even Nebuchadnezzar (Dan 4:37) and Caiphas (John 11:49-52) conveyed words of God. It is a deep Spiritual error in a man to be proud that God has used him to sing His praises.
It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, [they] are spirit, and [they] are life. - John 6:63
He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day. - John 12:48
Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God. – Matthew 22:29
The Berean test
Spiritual discernment
But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.
But God hath revealed [them] unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.
Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know [them], because they are spiritually discerned.
But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ. - I Corinthians 2:6-16
It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, [they] are spirit, and [they] are life. - John 6:63
But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any [man] pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave [them] me, is greater than all; and no [man] is able to pluck [them] out of my Father's hand. I and [my] Father are one. – John 10:26-30
Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. – James 4:7
Fruits of the Spirit
Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither [can] a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them. - Matthew 7:15-20
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. - Galatians 5:22-23
We are wise to also apply the fruit test to ourselves, regularly - kind of like taking our spiritual "vitals."
For instance, when a Christian is anxious then something is spiritually amiss, something is obstructing the Spirit of Christ in him. On the other hand, when he is full of peace, there is no cause for alarm - at least on that point.
Beware the hirelings, thieves and robbers. (John 10:1-15)
I expect it - mostly because it brings a person face-to-face with the question: “Who do you believe?”
Those who believe Joseph Smith need to understand what that means. Ditto for those who believe Mohammed. Ditto, L. Ron Hubbard. Ditto, David Koresh. Ditto, Jim Jones. Ditto, Applewhite. And so on.
And ditto for those who believe the dogma and doctrine and liturgy and sacraments of the physical Catholic/Orthodox Church - or LDS or whatever - as it has been handed down over the years.
But that is not the Way God has chosen for me.
I believe God. I love Him and trust Him. And He authenticates His own words to me, personally.
= = =
INDEED.
THX
Jesus came to make ALL religion obsolete, AND DID..
“You MUST be born again” -Jesus
= =
INDEED.
AMEN! AMEN! AMEN!
Another one for the home page.
Thanks big.
Jeeze.. Mark it could take a lifetime or more to absorb all that.. Some people havnt even recognized the message in communion yet.. or grasped "born again".. The multifarious wisdom of God is deep and calls out deep.. it takes "time"...
***The point is how the “powers that be” dealt with what they considered at the time to be heresy. Which is to say, by “book burning” they attacked their own credibility and authority.***
I’m not sure that you realize how close the Church came to breaking. They were desperate to keep heresy out - look at what the situation is today where heresies of all kinds multiple and call themselves Christian.
***Which Church authority hated it and banned it at what time?
Philastrius, circa 380 A.D. Liber de Haeresibus***
I cannot find the Book of Henoch listed as hated or banned.
***me: ***I believe God. I love Him and trust Him. And He authenticates His own words to me, personally.***
you: How?
By bringing His words alive within.***
What does this mean to you? How are you sure that what you hear within is His voice and not a deceiver?
***I believe God. God the Father has revealed Himself in four ways: (1) through the Person of Jesus Christ His only begotten son, (2) through the indwelling Holy Spirit, (3) through Scripture and (4) through Creation both Spiritual and Physical.***
You first sentence makes some sense if written: I believe in God.
Points 1 through 3 are beliefs as well, however you try to phrase them. Point 4 is belief as well but belief that a condition exists which indicates the existence of God.
***The words of God come from God, not man. It doesn’t matter who He chooses to convey them or make a record of them - whether Moses, David, prophets, councils of Jews or Christians or a few goatherders in Qumran. ***
Do you claim that the words in your Bible are written by God?
Gen 1:
1
In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth,
2
the earth was a formless wasteland, and darkness covered the abyss, while a mighty wind swept over the waters.
There wasn’t a word in this entire sentence that existed when this Scripture was written. It was translated a number of times from one language to another until it arrived in whichever version of the English language Bible you happen to be referencing.
Men wrote this, and the best translations that we have are by Catholic diligence and perseverance.
***I’ve known Jesus Christ personally for a half century. He is not a hypothesis. He lives. Recognizing Him is easy for me now.***
You wouldn’t happen to have a digital photo that you could send along would you?
***If the message someone is trying to peddle is that Jesus Christ was a mortal, that His life began when He was conceived in Mary’s womb or when He was physically born – it is the spirit of anti-Christ. Reject it.***
Kind of irrelevant to this particular posting, but, yes we believe it.
***When someone brings spiritual advice, quickly and as thoroughly as possible - compare the message with the Scriptures. If the Scriptures do not agree, reject the message. If the Scriptures are silent on the message, take it as merely the harmless thoughts of a mortal.***
The Bereans searched the OT in order to see where it agreed with the New. The Bereans could not possibly have had the OT entirely jive with the New because Jesus has given us a whole new program. That’s what the Council of Jamnia was all about. They finally got hacked off at the upstart Christians and finally decided that they were not just another Jewish cult.
The teaching authority of Jesus was passed on to the Apostles and thus the Church; it certainly was not given to all men at their whim. Jesus left us no written words - it was the job of the Church to create documents to support its oral tradition; it did not happen the other way around.
***Those who have “ears to hear” are drawn to Christ, the living Word of God. The deceiver cannot fool us.***
The world is full of fallible men who claim to have ears that hear. They inhabit such as these fora and their claims are obviously inflated. All one seems to do is to claim that the indwelling Holy Spirit has led one to do something, and ergo, instant justification. If the deceiver was able to deceive Adam, Eve, and 1/3 of all the angels - who were made to serve God - what makes you so sure that you are able to defeat him?
***But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith***
So everyone who does not display all of these is of the devil and has no indwelling Spirit?
***To God be the glory! ***
As long as one does not exalt in his public piety or become proud of his public humility, then this phrase spoken by a true believer is exactly true.
kosta50: “I will stay with “Orthodoxy is pure Christianity” because it’s the same orthodox faith that subsisted in the the same catholic and aposotlic Church from the beginning.”
blue-duncan: "Then extend the same courtesy to those who affirm their church pedigree with the same kind of interpretive history."
A-G: I strongly agree with your request, blue-duncan .
Why am I not surprised that you use as your source Tertullian.org? Let's first look at who was Tertullian. Born around mid 2nd century, he was a foremost Greek and Latin theologian, who is credited with many a Christian signature terms, such as Trinity, orthodoxy, etc.
At some point in his productive theological life he embraced Montanism. Without going into too many tedious details, for the lurkers, let's just list what the Montanists believe and it will tell us everything about who Terutillian was:
(1) Montanists believe that their prophesies are higher than the ;prophesies of Christ's hand-picked Apostles. (2) They believe that those who fall from grace cannot be redeemed through repentance. (3) The Montanists are ultimate Gnostics who do not even consider themselves the "mouthpiece of God" but as God speaking Himself. (4) They believed in being possessed by the Spirit. (5) Many if not most Montanists were sabbatarians, believing that Jesus resurrected on a Saturday and celebrated Easter on 14 of Nisan, rather than on Sunday. (6) They also denied that God is three Persons but one Person (Sabellian heresy).
Do our Calvinist friends here share these views?
Then, of course, the very document Alamo-Girl posts under the name Decretum Gelasianum attributed to the Bishop of Rome Damasus I of 366 AD (he didn't use the title Pope; his successor Siricius was the first to use that title) is exposed as pure fiction by the fact that it mentions "blessed pope Leo" who became the Pope in 440 AD—74 years after the supposed Decretum Gelasianum!
This fraud is further exposed with statements like "likewise the works of blessed Augustine Bishop of Hippo," given that S. Augustine would have been 12 years old at the alleged Decretum in 366 AD!
So, the evidence here offered is undoubtedly exposed as fraud whose credibiity is exactly zero.
Then it bemonas that the works of such individuals as Simon Magus are among the ones allegedly burned. Who was Simon Magus? He is also known by the pseudonym Samaritan proto-Gnostic. He was considered to be the first heretic by the earliest of Church writers. Acts 8:9-24 mention Simon Magus offering money to the Apostles for miraculous powers they had. He is the person worshipped in Simonianism, a Gnostic sect, that considers Simon Magus divine. Truly the kind of belief the Church should include as "Christian."
I wonder if any of our Calvinist friends, share the sadness over Simon Magus being rejected by the Church.
Then there is mention of Ebion. It was actually no other than Tertullian who erroneously traced the name to a fictional founder of the Jewish sect known as Ebionites, who denied the divinity of Christ, His resurrection, His virgin birth, or His atonement..
I wonder what our Calvinist friends to whom Alamo-Girl appeals think about this.
Then another one on the list is one other than Montanus, whose heresy Tertullian (the same Tertullian used as a source of this despicable article referenced at Tertullian.org).
Then there is Sabellius, already mentioned, and then Arius, who considered Christ to be a lesser God than the Father, and is heresiarch of Arianism. Or Donatus, the heresiarch of Donatism, even Pelagius (who would have been only 12 years old in 366!)., and Nestorius (who wasn't even born yet!), who in his days of adulthood taught that Christ was two different Person in one body!
Now the Church includes it (the Book of Enoch) in its collected writings - but for more than a 1,000 years it was "eliminated" because the Church hated it back in 380!
FALSE! Enoch is to be found as canon only in the Ethiopian Oriental Orthodox Church, which never stopped using it! The Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church do not have Enoch as part of their scriptural writings!
The Ethiopian Church was part of the Coptic Orthodox Church until 1959, which separated form the Church in 451 AD, both of which are (and the Ethiopian name for the Church actually means) monophysite, recognizing only one, divine, but not human nature of Christ, although Coptics have in recent years revised their teaching, denying their monophysite doctrines as "perceptual" and not real.
Do our Calvinists friends recognize only one, divine, nature of Christ, but deny His human nature?
Next time you buy into any of this, think what company you are choosing.
You are mixing Kosta's opinions with Church teachings. I am not surprized because from a Protestant point of view anyone's opoinion is "official."
[If] God creates the good, who created evil? That's not Christianity, and never was, but then again we already know that. I am only making a point for lurkers.
That's not Christianity, and never was, but then again we already know that. I am only making a point for lurkers.
Well, you believe what you want, and I will do the same, ands as long as we trust in Jesus, we can argue the rest in heaven :>)
I'll make a quick reply - but I have to leave now and will not be able to respond further until this evening.
You: What does this mean to you? How are you sure that what you hear within is His voice and not a deceiver?
I do not criticize that perspective but note that mine is different. My focus is God alone and God is Light. There is nothing in between. Thus I do not believe “in” God – I believe Him, I love Him, I know Him, I trust Him.
Men wrote this, and the best translations that we have are by Catholic diligence and perseverance.
Nor can any being – whether spiritual or physical – thwart His will. God can speak in anyway He chooses to whomever He chooses in whatever means He chooses.
Truly, Jesus Christ IS the living Word of God.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. – John 1:1
For the word of the LORD [is] right; and all his works [are done] in truth. He loveth righteousness and judgment: the earth is full of the goodness of the LORD. By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth. He gathereth the waters of the sea together as an heap: he layeth up the depth in storehouses. Let all the earth fear the LORD: let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him. For he spake, and it was [done]; he commanded, and it stood fast. – Psalms 33:4-9
You: You wouldn’t happen to have a digital photo that you could send along would you?
Now it came to pass, as they went, that he entered into a certain village: and a certain woman named Martha received him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus' feet, and heard his word.
But Martha was cumbered about much serving, and came to him, and said, Lord, dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone? bid her therefore that she help me.
And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things: But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her. – Luke 10:38-42
you: So everyone who does not display all of these is of the devil and has no indwelling Spirit?
Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. – Matthew 5:14-16
For ye were sometimes darkness, but now [are ye] light in the Lord: walk as children of light: - Ephesians 5:8
The LORD [is] my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the LORD [is] the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? - Psalms 27:1
Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness. – I Thessalonians 5:5
Nice..
***Jeeze.. Mark it could take a lifetime or more to absorb all that.. Some people havnt even recognized the message in communion yet.. or grasped “born again”.. The multifarious wisdom of God is deep and calls out deep.. it takes “time”...***
Time? What time do you think we have? We could die in the next minute. We will be Judged on the state of our souls.
The Church is there to teach - and they have spent 2000 years teaching. That is the job of the Church to teach. If someone does not avail themselves of that teaching, will Christ take that into account?
***Calvinists do the same thing.. as do Jews***
Why bring non Christians into an examination of Christian practices?***
Are you infering people who believe the same things that Calvin did are not Christian?
Eternity.. Every human ever born has eternal life..
To know what death is we must know what life is..
Nobody knows.. at least no human knows..
What is life Mark?..
***Are you infering people who believe the same things that Calvin did are not Christian?***
I meant that the Jews were not Christian. I apologize.
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