Posted on 01/27/2008 7:56:14 PM PST by Manfred the Wonder Dawg
January 25, 2008
ESV Romans 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
In recent days I have spent time in Lima and Sullana Peru and Mexico City and I have discovered that people by nature are the same. Man has a heart that is inclined to selfishness and idolatry. Sin abounds in the remotest parts of the land because the heart is desperately wicked. Thousands bow before statues of Mary and pray to her hoping for answers. I have seen these people stare hopelessly at Mary icons, Jesus icons, and a host of dead saints who will do nothing for them. I have talked with people who pray to the pope and say that they love him. I talked with one lady who said that she knew that Jesus was the Savior, but she loved the pope. Thousands bow before Santa Muerte (holy death angel) in hopes that she will do whatever they ask her. I have seen people bring money, burning cigarettes, beer, whiskey, chocolate, plants, and flowers to Santa Muerte in hopes of her answers. I have seen these people bowing on their knees on the concrete in the middle of public places to worship their idol. Millions of people come into the Basilica in Mexico City and pay their money, confess their sins, and stare hopelessly at relics in hope that their sins will be pardoned. In America countless thousands are chained to baseball games, football games, material possessions, and whatever else their heart of idols can produce to worship.
My heart has broken in these last weeks because the God of heaven is not honored as he ought to be honored. People worship the things that are created rather than worshiping the Creator. God has been gracious to all mankind and yet mankind has hardened their hearts against a loving God. God brings the rain on the just and unjust. God brings the beautiful sunrises and sunsets upon the just and unjust. God gives good gifts unto all and above all things he has given his Son that those who would believe in him would be saved. However, man has taken the good things of God and perverted them unto idols and turned their attention away from God. I get a feel for Jesus as he overlooked Jerusalem or Paul as he beseeched for God to save Israel. When you accept the reality of the truth of the glory of God is breaks your heart that people would turn away from the great and awesome God of heaven to serve lesser things. Moses was outraged by the golden calf, the prophets passionately preached against idolatry, Jesus was angered that the temple was changed in an idolatrous business, and Paul preached to the idolaters of Mars Hill by telling them of the unknown God.
I arrived back at home wondering how I should respond to all the idolatry that I have beheld in these last three weeks. I wondered how our church here in the states should respond to all of the idolatry in the world. What are the options? First, I suppose we could sit around and hope that people chose to get their life together and stop being idolaters. However, I do not know how that could ever happen apart from them hearing the truth. Second, I suppose we could spend a lifetime studying cultural issues and customs in hope that we could somehow learn to relate to the people of other countries. However, the bible is quite clear that all men are the same. Men are dead in sin, shaped in iniquity, and by nature are the enemies of God. Thirdly, we could pay other people or other agencies to go and do a work for us while we remain comfortably in the states. However, there is no way to insure that there will be doctrinal accuracy or integrity. If we only pay other people to take the gospel we will miss out on all of the benefits of being obedient to the mission of God. Lastly, we could seek where God would have us to do a lasting work and then invest our lives there for the glory of God. The gospel has the power to raise the dead in any culture and we must be willing to take the gospel wherever God would have us take it. It is for sure that our church cannot go to every country and reach every people group, so we must determine where God would have us work and seek to be obedient wherever that is.
It seems that some doors are opening in the Spanish speaking countries below us and perhaps God is beginning to reveal where we are to work. There are some options for work to be partnered with in Peru and there could be a couple of options in Mexico. The need is greater than I can express upon this paper for a biblical gospel to be proclaimed in Peru and Mexico. Oh, that God would glorify his great name in Peru and Mexico by using a small little church in a town that does not exist to proclaim his great gospel amongst a people who desperately need the truth.
I give thanks to the LORD for allowing me the privilege of going to these countries and broadening my horizons. The things that I have seen will be forever engraved upon my heart. I will long remember the pastors that I spent time with in Peru and I will never forget Adolfo who translated for me in Mexico. I will relish the time that I spent with Paul Washer and the others. When I think of church I will forever remember being on top of that mountain in Sullana at that church which had no electricity and no roof. I am convinced that heaven was looking down on that little church on top of that mountain and very few people on earth even know that it exist. Oh, God I pray that the things of this world will continue to grow dim and that God’s people will be caught up in his glorious presence.
Because of the truth: Pastor: J. Randall Easter II Timothy 2:19 "Our God is in heaven and does whatever He pleases."(Ps. 115:3) "He predestined us according to the good pleasure of His will."(Eph. 1:5) Those who have been saved have been saved for His glory and they are being made holy for this is the will of God. Are you being made holy? Spurgeon says, "If your religion does not make you holy it will damn you to hell."
Thank you.
I provided the tertullian.org link to the "Decretum Gelasianum: De Libris Recipiendis et Non Recipiendis" so that you could have it in English.
Since the source website is so offensive to you, here it is in Latin:
There is no justification or excuse for burning books. Period.
I agree, but in terms of all the people of time, we may well be in a minority. The general opinion seems to have been that book burning and censorship were positive duties of the authorities, from Plato to Boston to Girl Scouts collecting and burning the awful, 'orrible comic books of the 40's. (They'd faint if they saw manga.)
I guess we can look down on Washington and Jefferson for having slaves, or we can be grateful that little by little Christians saw that slavery was fundamentally intolerable. Half empty/ half full.
That's really considerate.
Since the source website is so offensive to you, here it is in Latin:
LOL! The document is a fraud in any language. I documented that Leo I was not the pope in 366 and the doucment calls him the 'blessed pope Leo.'
And on Enoch, the Catholic Church eliminated it in the late 300's. Other books which also were not accepted into the canon we not "burned." But the Church singled out Enoch and other writings it hated and eliminated them. Enoch is particularly offensive because it is quoted in Scripture.
The Bible was no canonized until the end of the 4th century. Codex Sinaiticus (c 350 AD) contains Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermes.
It all shows that no one really knew for sure what the canon was until the Church made a decision at the Counci of Carthage August 28, 397 AD and listed the folloing books as the Christian canon: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Josue, Judges, Ruth, 4 books of Kingdoms, 2 books of Paralipomenon, Job, Psalter of David, 5 books of Solomon, 12 books of Prophets, Isaias, Jeremias, Daniel, Ezechiel, Tobias, Judith, Esther, 2 books of Esdras, 2 books of Machabees, and in the New Testament: 4 books of Gospels, 1 book of Acts of the Apostles, 13 letters of the Apostle Paul, 1 of him to the Hebrews, 2 of Peter, 3 of John, 1 of James, 1 of Judas, and the Apocalypse of John.
If the Church hated Enoch, the Church would have thrown out Jude as well.
***Then say what’s negative in our theology?***
Sure, I’ll restate what I’ve said many times before.
The Christian doctrine of God is that he is infinite, eternal and unchangeable. That naturally begs the question how man could know anything of this God in our finite and contingent condition.
Orthodox Christianity has always taught that man has an actual constitutive knowledge of God by means of revelation. This revelation is available to man’s mind on the basis of his being a creature of the Creator and in the sense that he is created in the image of God man is revelational of God. Since Man is revelational of God his mind is made for the reception of revelation. In the Genesis narrative God walked and talked with Adam. The human reason therefore never functioned properly and could not function properly except in self-conscious relationship to this supernatural revelation. Every fact was what it was by virtue of the place that it would occupy in the plan of God for the whole course of history. The human mind was gifted with logic and that was supposed merely to order the facts of reality, both with respect to God and with respect to the created universe in self-conscious subordination to supernatural positive word-revelation.
Now here’s where it goes negative. Since the Fall man has tried to make sense of the world based only on his own senses independent of God and if any conception of God is allowed it is allowed only in the negative sense, that is, in what God is not and not any positive constitutive statements about God. Aristotle, for instance, allowed for the possibility of God but not a transcendent God that was able relate to the finite world. Thus, for Aristotle, nothing could be said about the nature of God since God is unable to reveal himself to man.
Whenever we see Christian dogma that acquieces to the atheistic/agnostic position that dogma is deformed in several aspects. Usually you’ll find this deformity in making man independent of God through freedom of the will. If man is independent of God then he is no longer relevatory of God. Also, if man is partly independent of God then God becomes dependent upon man or they become dependent upon each other and upon the universe. Since man is partly independent of God his ultimate reference point is no longer exclusively found in God.
Once man no longer becomes relevatory of God because of his independence he is locked into the universe of his senses (empiricism). Once man is locked into the universe of his senses he longer has any contact with the transcendent God.
Thus any professing Christian who takes the atheist/agnostic position is both an irrationalist in the sense that he believes he has no positive knowledge of the nature of God and at the same time a rationalist who believes he can reduce reality to a network of logical relations. In essence then the Universe or Reality becomes the ultimate reference point with God and Man merely actors within that Universe.
The only way out of the inconsistency of the atheist/agnostic position is to make God the ultimate reference point to which man is entirely dependent and the acceptance of Scripture as the infallible revelation of God is the only way for reason to escape irrationalism.
It’s not just the Greeks, it’s the Romanists, the Liberal Protestants, the Neo-orthodox, the Arminians, etc...
I do not dispute the points you raise - only that having "burned" books, it is not credible for the Catholic Church to then claim that the church has always everywhere believed thus and so.
I really don't care about any of them. I do care when you state things about Orthodoxy that are patently wrong because you know nothing of it, and because you don't even undersatnd the terminology.
The only thing that would qualify as "negative" (or apophatic) knowledge in your post is that solitary sentance "The Christian doctrine of God is that he is infinite, eternal and unchangeable."
Inconceivable, immortal, undescribable, incomprehensible, etc. All this is core Orthodoxy.
And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. - Jude 6
For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast [them] down to hell, and delivered [them] into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment; - 2 Peter 2:4
And there came a voice out of the cloud, saying, This is my beloved Son: hear him. - Luke 9:35
et vox facta est de nube dicens hic est Filius meus electus ipsum audite - Luke 9:35 (Vulgate)
I Enoch played a significant role in the early Church; it was used by the authors of the Epistle of Barnabas, the Apocalypse of Peter, and a number of apologetic works. Many Church Fathers, including Justing Martyr, Irenaeus, Origen and Clement of Alexandria either knew I Enoch or were inspired by it. Among those who were familiar with I Enoch, Tertullian had an exceptionally high regard for it. But, beginning in the fourth century, the book came to be regarded with disfavor and received negative reviews from Augustine, Hilary, and Jerome. Thereafter, with the exception of a few extracts made by Georgius Syncellus, a learned monk of the eighth century, and the Greek fragments found in a Christian grave in Egypt (c. AD 800), I Enoch ceased to be appreciated except in Ethiopia. The relegation of I Enoch to virtual oblivion by medieval minds should not diminish its significance for Christian origins; few other apocryphal books so indelibly marked the religious history and thought of the time of Jesus.
On the other issue, the document The “Decretum Gelasianum de Libris Recipiendis et non Recipiendis” is helpful in identifying which books were considered apocryphal and subject to elimination, like Enoch. The document itself is traditionally attributed to Gelasius, bishop of Rome 492-496 CE and contains parts which are traced back to Damasus. The document evidently was put together sometime in the 6th century.
Damasus I wound up the clock that resulted in the book burning:
Damasus defended with vigour the Catholic Faith in a time of dire and varied perils. In two Roman synods (368 and 369) he condemned Apollinarianism and Macedonianism; he also sent his legates to the Council of Constantinople (381), convoked against the aforesaid heresies. In the Roman synod of 369 (or 370) Auxentius, the Arian Bishop of Milan, was excommunicated; he held the see, however, until his death, in 374, made way for St. Ambrose. The heretic Priscillian, condemned by the Council of Saragossa (380) appealed to Damasus, but in vain.
It was Damasus who induced Saint Jerome to undertake his famous revision of the earlier Latin versions of the Bible (see VULGATE). St. Jerome was also his confidential secretary for some time (Ep. cxxiii, n. 10). An important canon of the New Testament was proclaimed by him in the Roman synod of 374.
The Eastern Church, in the person of St. Basil of Cæsarea, besought earnestly the aid and encouragement of Damasus against triumphant Arianism; the pope, however, cherished some degree of suspicion against the great Cappadocian Doctor. In the matter of the Meletian Schism at Antioch, Damasus, with Athanasius and Peter of Alexandria, sympathized with the party of Paulinus as more sincerely representative of Nicene orthodoxy; on the death of Meletius he sought to secure the succession for Paulinus and to exclude Flavian (Socrates, Hist. Eccl., V, xv). He sustained the appeal of the Christian senators to Emperor Gratian for the removal of the altar of Victory from the Senate House (Ambrose, Ep. xvii, n. 10), and lived to welcome the famous edict of Theodosius I, "De fide Catholica" (27 Feb., 380), which proclaimed as the religion of the Roman State that doctrine which St. Peter had preached to the Romans and of which Damasus was supreme head (Cod. Theod., XVI, 1, 2).
When, in 379, Illyricum was detached from the Western Empire, Damasus hastened to safeguard the authority of the Roman Church by the appointment of a vicar Apostolic in the person of Ascholius, Bishop of Thessalonica; this was the origin of the important papal vicariate long attached to that see. The primacy of the Apostolic See, variously favoured in the time of Damasus by imperial acts and edicts, was strenuously maintained by this pope; among his notable utterances on this subject is the assertion (Mansi, Coll. Conc., VIII, 158) that the ecclesiastical supremacy of the Roman Church was based, not on the decrees of councils, but on the very words of Jesus Christ (Matthew 16:18).
The increased prestige of the early papal decretals, habitually attributed to the reign of Siricius (384-99), not improbably belongs to the reign of Damasus ("Canones Romanorum ad Gallos"; Babut, "La plus ancienne décrétale", Paris, 1904). This development of the papal office, especially in the West, brought with it a great increase of external grandeur. This secular splendour, however, affected disadvantageously many members of the Roman clergy, whose worldly aims and life, bitterly reproved by St. Jerome, provoked (29 July, 370) and edict of Emperor Valentinian addressed to the pope, forbidding ecclesiastics and monks (later also bishops and nuns) to pursue widows and orphans in the hope of obtaining from them gifts and legacies. The pope caused the law to be observed strictly.
Damasus restored his own church (now San Lorenzo in Damaso) and provided for the proper housing of the archives of the Roman Church.
Journal of Theological Studies 14 (1913) pp. 469-471, THE DECRETUM GELASIANUM.
All supernatural powers claimed by Apostolic clergy that are related to Apostolic succession are extra-scriptural. No where does the Bible state that the Apostles transferred their unique powers to "forgive sins", or raise the dead, or physically heal, etc. In current Orthodox practice, the extra-scriptural banner would include the clergy ONLY requesting without fail that the bread and wine be transformed, the clergy ONLY requesting without fail that the Holy Spirit enter a specific individual, the clergy ONLY requesting without fail that sins be forgiven, etc.
In addition, while I understand that in Orthodoxy nothing the hierarchy comes up with stands without the consent of the laity, however, it seems just a fact that the hierarchy has taken it upon itself to DECLARE what God means by His own word, IN CONTRADICTION to God's own word. Therefore, the claimed power to do that must be extra-scriptural. When Philip taught the eunuch, I presume that when he told the Good News that he only told what would later become the NT, not the extra-scriptural interpretations of the Apostolic Church. For example, I presume that Philip taught the eunuch that he must understand that he is a sinner because all people are sinners and need forgiveness and a Savior. I can't imagine Philip explaining this and adding "that is, except for this woman named Mary". That would have been an extra-scriptural addition:
Prov 30:5-6 : 5 "Every word of God is flawless; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him. 6 Do not add to his words, or he will rebuke you and prove you a liar.
Philip was directly being led by the Spirit when he taught the eunuch so no doubt he was aware of this verse (truth).
And while we are on the subject of 'extrascriptural," please find where do the scriptures talk about the "power" ascribed to "sola scriptura?"
Well, as I understand it we don't agree on what the "scriptures" even ARE as portrayed in the scriptures. So on this subject I would assume you throw out the entire NT. But even so, there are plenty of OT verses that talk about the power of God's word, such as the above. Here are a few of others:
Deut 4:2 : Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you. KJV
Deut 12:32 : What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it. KJV
Ps 119:160 : All your words are true; all your righteous laws are eternal. [i.e., as opposed to the words of men]
I don't know of any scripture that says that we should follow the later teachings of men that are not found in the scriptures, and which are equal with scriptures. That is an extra-scriptural authority created and claimed by men.
I'll bet you'll want to throw at me some verses having the Apostles saying that we should "follow these teachings". You will assume that includes your unspoken-of-in-scripture-Tradition, and I will say it doesn't. My evidence is that those Apostles knew the OT and the verses I quoted above. Your argument would have to be that they were completely unaware of those verses or ideas [that God's word should not be added to, or that it was singularly true].
How is it that the Church could canonize the NT, yet not understand it, FK?
Well, I think you see the writing and Canonizing of the Bible to be mostly a work of men. I judge by how often your side claims personal human credit for both. STF even insists that my side agrees that we owe thanks to your men. :) However, we actually believe that God determined what His own word would be and that He controlled what the correct books were to be for His revelation (our Bible). Therefore, whether any particular Bishop understood it or not is not really relevant. What was relevant is what the Church as a whole understood, including the laity, led by God, at the time.
I disagree with the Orthodox contention that what you believe today is the same as what "the Church" always and everywhere believed. You can probably show me liturgies that show what was preached in some churches was the same, but I'm not sure how you can conclude that is what "all good Christians" believed. As Harley, WM, and others say and show all the time, there were Church Fathers who wrote and taught things very different from what you believe today. Depending on what you mean by "the Church" (the definition seems to change every time the term is used :), that would break "always and everywhere believed".
[continuing:] ... or, worse, how could it know the truth of the NT and express something other than that in its liturgical prayers?
You have stated a few times before your belief that the actual books that were to be included in the Bible were literally horse-traded among men. Obviously this process would be wholly apart from God, so on that basis I cannot vouch at all for what level of truth the hierarchical "voters" held at the time.
The Apostolic Church knew the word of God from the beginning because the Apostles were there when it was received and the Apostles were there when their successors were ordained to carry on the worship which expresses our belief, and their successors' successors were there and so on to this day.
You assume perfect transfer of belief ALONG with perfect transfer of supernatural powers, and we both know that history does not reveal that, in fact, in shows something VERY different. We have all those Bishops' skulls, etc. :) We know for a fact that laying on of hands, or whatever ritual is used to transfer power, does NOT do so perfectly in faith and is NO guarantee at all that what the student teaches will be anything like what the master taught.
Blessed are ye, when [men] shall revile you, and persecute [you], and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great [is] your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you. - Matthew 5:11-12
AMEN dear sister! And I must confess my sin that this is sometimes hard for me. LOL! To find a silver lining, at least I can be certain that there is much for me to learn. :)
I readily agree that parsing the Vincentian canon is a bear.
Kosta, it would be a help if you could point out some particulars where your disagreement, so to speak, comes to a head.
A kind of canon for my theological method (cf Hamlet: If this be madness, yet there is method in it.) is this:
Dawg's First Caveat of Theology:Consequently, at every step of the way, we have. so to speak, to look around, pat our pockets, gather our belongings, count our change, and make sure no little one has wandered off, and we have both our gloves.
God is so very different from the 'categories' of the human mind that He isn't even 'one' the way we usually think of 'one'.
You, t_c, say:
Since the Fall man has tried to make sense of the world based only on his own senses independent of God and if any conception of God is allowed it is allowed only in the negative sense, that is, in what God is not and not any positive constitutive statements about God.Just for clarification:
The rest of my differences would fall under the head of "falsely exhaustive alternatives". And here -- and I say this not at all as an "I'm right and you're wrong, nanny-nanny boo-boo," kind of thing -- I would say there are many similar problems. Often, from my POV, some Protestants seem to be saying, "It's either A or B," and I want to say, "Whoa, hold on, are those the only choices?"
About freedom and God's control, and freedom as something which sort of goes through stages:
I was once free to marry. I could choose to marry this person, or that person or no person at all. Or I could dither and never make up my mind. If I never chose, it would be like my freedom never matured, or was never used. If I chose wrongly, well, that would be a shame, possibly a disaster (though it seems that nothing is beyond God's redeeming reach). But if I chose rightly and stuck by the choice, then my freedom, which seems to have been lost or "used up" when I got married blossoms into parenthood (or not) and a life of working out what matrimony means.
So somewhere in the middle of what you say I want to suggest that there might be a kind of freedom entrusted to us which is only properly used if we immediately hand it back to God. (and we never do, because we're broken, etc.)
Gosh I hope there is something comprehensibly in that.
One more (alleged) thought:
Also, if man is partly independent of God then God becomes dependent upon man or they become dependent upon each other and upon the universe.I'm probably misunderstanding you (there's a lot of that going around) but isn't the Incarnation an instance of God mysteriously becoming sort of kind of dependent on mankind and on His creation?
Just as God isn't "one" the way we expected, but includes within his simplicity a society of persons, so maybe omnipotence doesn't work out as we might think it does.
Just sayin' ....
Wow, is THIS ever an example of the concepts we bring to the table determining what we see on the table!
Speaking for myself, when I credit the Church with doing something, I do NOT think of myself as saying the thing they did is "mostly a work of men." On the as-far-away-from-it-as-you-can-get contrary!
I think more along the lines of, "Despite the Bozos whom God suffers to be members of and even to exercise leadership in His Church (and when I say "suffers" I mean in every possible sense that is not incompatible with God's impassability) By the prevenient and concomitant and ex post facto (to keep us from coming back and messing it all up when He isn't looking) grace of God, the Church managed not to make a total hash out of something.
When I say, "Dominic was a great example of a loving evangelical man," I do not mean to take anything from God but to note that God did something amazing in Dominic.
Works of men -- pheh! It is God who worketh in them, both to will and to do for His good pleasure; otherwise it's a complete mess.
AMEN! Thank you for the perfect scripture on this. As WM has said and you say now, the ultimate miracle and proof is the resurrection itself. This is a core Christian presupposition. DO WE KNOW IT AS A FACT? Or, do we "accept" it on blind faith, with nothing behind it?
Yet we know Christ has been resurrected, and therefore we are not now condemned in our sins, but acquitted by Christ whose stripes have healed us, contrary to the RCC view that says our sins must be repeatedly washed clean each time the sacraments are given.
Christ was an idea man, not a doer. :)
That is Christian liberty. That is the freedom Christ has given His flock which His death accomplished in full and His resurrection proved in fact...
"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." -- John 8:32
Amen. It is true indeed!
Worthy. I thought that the Reformed claim that none are worthy.
None are worthy in their own right. But obviously, by God's standards, some are "deemed" or "considered" worthy to enter Heaven and some are not. Imputed vs. infused.
FK: ***John 1:12-13 : 12 Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God***
Jesus gave them the right. Rights can be withdrawn or rejected.
Not this kind. The word used is exousia. Here is Strong's:
NT:1849 exousia (ex-oo-see'-ah); from NT:1832 (in the sense of ability); privilege, i.e. (subjectively) force, capacity, competency, freedom, or (objectively) mastery (concretely, magistrate, superhuman, potentate, token of control), delegated influence: KJV - authority, jurisdiction, liberty, power, right, strength.
We must ask ourselves why God uses the human parent-child analogy over and over again in scriptures. Can you really throw away your "right" to be your father's son? Symbolically perhaps, but never in fact. Once you are your father's son, there is no undoing of it. It is true forever. So it is true with the children of God. Once they have become His children, NONE will be lost:
John 10:28-29 : 28 I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand.
Perhaps the concept of being "a child" to "a parent" has been watered down by today's standards. But as you know, the concept of family meant much more then. I really doubt that God would have chosen this comparison to a born (again) child if He didn't think it had the truth of permanence. Jesus explained this to Nicodemus. We are born physically once (unchangeable), and SOME are born again (also unchangeable).
Now there is something that we do agree on. We just don’t agree on who makes up the saved.
OK, who do you say makes up the saved? My guess would have been that we probably agree on who makes up the saved (unless sacraments are required for salvation), but we disagree about whether one is able to know if he is one of them. :)
And Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch . . .
###
Philip obviously was not in correct obedient submission to Peter, the Purported Pontificator of Rome . . . How DARE Philip send that hapless Ethiopian Eunuch off to attempt the utter futility of living a Christian life with ONLY a few bits of UNRUBBERIZED, UNROMANIZED Scriptures and Holy Spirit to aid him.
NO Most Self-Righteously Holy Magnificent Maryolatrous Magicsterically Pontifical Politically Roman Apostolic Churchianity to administer the Sacraments; Forgive him for lusting after an extra mango in his heart; absolve him for not saying enough Hail Mary's; threaten him for not kowtowing sufficiently in front of sufficient numbers of images; ostracize him for not calling sufficient numbers of men FATHER; . . .
The very futile audacity of Philip to Preach the Word to the poor Eunuch and send him off with only Scripture and Holy Spirit to guide him.
What heresy! What a travesty! What damnably schlocky obedience to the Roman hierarchy! How dare he send that Eunuch off without sufficient Roman Magicsterical chains, encyclicals, edicts and boundaries. Clearly the Eunuch could ONLY flounder in heresy and end up in hell. What a waste of Philip's bother. What a futile teasing of the poor Eunuch's spiritual hopes and aspirations. Imagine--ONLY Holy Spirit for a guide! Shocking!
/sar
Good work but I have trouble with this.. The Apostles were "mostly" teenagers not at all educated in the sense of a Rabbi.. thats why they chose Mattias and not waiting for God to chose another Apostle.. which became Saul(Paul)..
They didn't even have Bibles, probably.. if even they could have read them.. However they did have the Holy Spirit who could have educated them by other means.. The Holy Spirit choosing Paul was a master stroke, I believe.. "He" WAS educated in the classical sense.. Schooled in several languages member of the proper "class", and trained in the semantics and sophistry of the Rabbis.. It is possible that the Holy Spirit could have made copies of the scriptures available to "the Apostles".. or by some other way.. But lumping all the Apostles into the same knowledge class is a mistake I believe..
The various so-called kinds Catholics revere the "Apostles" as a clerical caste too much I think.. Probably to lend credence to "Solo hand me down" authority.. and to verify that Jesus nicknamed Cephas "peter" instead of just calling him "a Rock"(metaphorically).. which he did.. The Apostle Cult is an "error" thats been given too little attention..
"The Apostle Cult".. I think I've just coined a phrase...Thats not to diminish the Holy Spirits work in the "the Apostles".. BUT it was/is/and will be the Holy Spirits work in those brothers.. and sisters by the way..
Transubstantiation MOCKS the Holy Spirit by saying Jesus re-en-fleshs when thats the reason for the Holy SPirit to even BE HERE because Jesus is with the Father.. The Seven Spirits of God (Revelation) must not be happy about that.. You know; cutting the Holy Spirit right out the so-called sacrament loop.. if indeed it even is a sacrament.. and not just an object lesson(communion)..
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