Posted on 10/25/2009 9:52:48 AM PDT by narses
I understand that and agree, though I question whether posting a thread that is predicated on the "necessity" for other religions to convert to yours is "ecumenical." While perhaps being a sincere belief of the poster, perhaps the post is mislabeled?
You label the KJV,NKJV,NAS,NIV translations as inerrant. What is the timeline for the oldest translation and where did they get the documents they translated? When did the Bible get actually collate3d in it’s correct form and by whom?
Good. Who does the ‘calling out’?
Titus objects to the content of the post - here are the rules, I believe the post itself is proper for this type caucus designation, am I in error?
From the rules:
Ecumenic threads are closed to antagonism.
To antagonize is to incur or to provoke hostility in others.
Unlike the “caucus” threads, the article and reply posts of an “ecumenic” thread can discuss more than one belief, but antagonism is not tolerable.
More leeway is granted to what is acceptable in the text of the article than to the reply posts. For example, the term “gross error” in an article will not prevent an ecumenical discussion, but a poster should not use that term in his reply because it is antagonistic. As another example, the article might be a passage from the Bible which would be antagonistic to Jews. The passage should be considered historical fact and a legitimate subject for an ecumenic discussion. The reply posts however must not be antagonistic.
Contrasting of beliefs or even criticisms can be made without provoking hostilities. But when in doubt, only post what you are “for” and not what you are “against.” Or ask questions.
Ecumenical threads will be moderated on a “where there’s smoke, there’s fire” basis. When hostility has broken out on an “ecumenic” thread, I’ll be looking for the source.
Therefore “anti” posters must not try to finesse the guidelines by asking loaded questions, using inflammatory taglines, gratuitous quote mining or trying to slip in an “anti” or “ex” article under the color of the “ecumenic” tag.
Posters who try to tear down other’s beliefs or use subterfuge to accomplish the same goal are the disrupters on ecumenic threads and will be booted from the thread and/or suspended.
No, if I remember correctly, ecumenical threads were set up to enable different beliefs to be discussed without having all the flame wars that open threads get, or the restrictions that caucus threads have.
God does, when He saves them through faith on the Word as it is preached, and they are assembled into a local church.
For instance, everywhere Paul the Apostle went preaching, people were saved, and then gathered together into local churches, which is why we see the churchES of Galatia, etc. spoken of.
That's the point, too - authority is conferred by God's Word, through faithfulness to it. There is no such thing as "apostolic" authority. The notion that the pastors of local churches had authority because they were installed by apostles, or by the descendants of apostles, is completely foreign to the Scripture. Any pastor of a local assembly has the same authority as Peter himself had - indeed, James the brother of Jesus, who was not an apostle, had the final word OVER Peter and the other apostles in the question before the church at Jerusalem in Acts 15 - this being the case because James was by this time the pastor at Jerusalem, not Peter.
For instance, an article which says that the Jewish holy writings are incomplete without Christian holy writings would nevertheless be ok for ecumenical discussion.
See my reply at 28.
There is no such thing as "apostolic" authority.Why then did those who were called out by God directly as Apostles find the authority to call out replacements? Why did the early Fathers of Christianity agree that such authority existed and was supported by the teachings of Our Lord even before the Canon of the Bible was collected or even written down yet?
Thank you.
I’ll accept this as fitting the ecumenical designation then, but would suggest that it needs to be clarified that the definition of “ecumenical” being used here is not the dictionary definition one would commonly expect.
The link in post gives the very rules I reposted.
Oh, I didn't say they didn't have the authority to call out replacements, so that question is rather non sequitur. The problem with the use of the term "apostolic authority" today is that it presupposes some line of succession such as Rome claims for itself as being the "only" line of authority. This is manifestly not the case, however, since even in the early church, the primacy of Rome - upon which Rome bases its claims as "proof" of its authority - was not established until very late.
If we wish to speak of "apostolic authority" in a way that actually has any meaning Scripturally, then we should see that any local church pastor who holds to God's Word has that same authority. In that sense, the authority is not "apostolic" but simply is true of any pastor.
Why did the early Fathers of Christianity agree that such authority existed and was supported by the teachings of Our Lord
With all due respect to them, who cares? The "early Fathers" were not arbiters of doctrine, nor do they possess any spiritual authority over anyone, other than the people at the time who may have been members of their local church, if they (like Irenaeus, for instance) were a pastor. Pointing to the authority of the patristics is like pointing to the authority of historians - they may have some good or elucidatory things to say, but that's as far as it goes. The patristics indeed were often contradictory, and in many cases, simply outright wrong in what they said, such as Irenaeus and his wacky claim that Jesus was 53 when He died. Often, the patristics were heretics of a rather severe sort, such as Origen and Clement of Alexandria. The patristics had their opinions, but that's ALL they had - opinions.
even before the Canon of the Bible was collected or even written down yet?
That's a rather simplistic way of looking at it, especially in light of Jesus' own promise to His disciples that the comforter would "lead them into all truth" - which logically would include what was scripture and what was not. Frankly, the whole notion that Christianity was ignorant of what was really Bible and what wasn't until 397 AD is not only silly, but is also objectively untrue, in light of the numerous lists of canons that we know of that predate the Council, as well as the simple and common usage of Christian writers across those first three centuries.
So anyone can claim ‘apostolic authority’ in your view? And anyone who does can ‘call out’ a ‘church’?
Nope, only those who are called to be pastors, either by a church already assembled, or by others who are already pastors who are involved in ordaining them, as directed by the Holy Spirit.
I suspect your main problem with what I'm saying is that it presupposes that pastors can be ordained with spiritual authority, while yet not being part of the Roman Catholic hierarchy?
Yes, Paul and other apostles went around, ordaining men to be pastors. These men (Titus, for example), ordained men as well. But we see nothing that demands that those ordained derive their authority from the stamp of approval of the Catholic system.
Of course.
Since that Authority comes from God and since He gave that authority — what we can call governing authority - over the Church He founded - ONE Church, Universal and Apostolic, that we are all called to belong to, why do so many choose instead to rebel?
Rather it is more, to me, like pointing to the authority of the Founding Fathers. The passage of time has not dimmed the greatness of their accomplishment.
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