You mean like this? :)
Posted on 10/31/2010 11:59:22 AM PDT by RnMomof7
In Christ Alone lyrics
Songwriters: Getty, Julian Keith; Townend, Stuart Richard;
In Christ alone my hope is found He is my light, my strength, my song This Cornerstone, this solid ground Firm through the fiercest drought and storm
What heights of love, what depths of peace When fears are stilled, when strivings cease My Comforter, my All in All Here in the love of Christ I stand
In Christ alone, who took on flesh Fullness of God in helpless Babe This gift of love and righteousness Scorned by the ones He came to save
?Til on that cross as Jesus died The wrath of God was satisfied For every sin on Him was laid Here in the death of Christ I live, I live
There in the ground His body lay Light of the world by darkness slain Then bursting forth in glorious Day Up from the grave He rose again
And as He stands in victory Sin?s curse has lost its grip on me For I am His and He is mine Bought with the precious blood of Christ
Hello Daniell...as always great to see your posts.
What I saw in your post, over and over was “faith”. How would you describe Faith? Sometimes I think we overlook words which we might not fully grasp the meaning of. We assume we know.. but as in much of Gods word the full impact can not fully be appreciated apart from a good grasp of the words being used...in a manner the Lord would want us to understand.
Thank you for considering my question.
(Memo to self: Why do I feel like every time I talk to annalex some of my brain cells die?)
tsk tsk...chuckle... good one.
Christian faith is a faith based on alleged revelation, which is a fancy way of saying uncovering of new knowledge, be it a "prophesy," or a new meaning.
I take inspiration to mean what it means in English: to be inspired means to be moved or motivated by something, i.e. a 12-year old boy sees a doctor save someone's life and is inspired by this doctor's example to devote his own life to medicine.
In that framework, I see the biblical authors "inspired" by their faith, as they experienced it, and wanting to write about it.
the very scriptures which are authorized attest that the authority of a true believer or church is not established by formal historical lineage, but by scriptural faith by which it exists
You seem to lack neither verbosity nor empty suppositions. Whatever your sentence was supposed to prove, I will reword it to reveal to you how it sounds to me: the pink unicorns which are real prove that the authority of those who believe they exist is not established by formal historical lineage, but by the faith that they exist.
Supernatural qualities and attestation, which was given to such men as Moses, Jesus, and the apostles, and which contrite, repentant, be believing souls in the Lord Jesus Christ find today today and due measure.
The problem with this is that biblical God used "miracles" and "signs" to convince people that Moses was right or that Jesus was right, and then had to go on "fixing" things, regardless, because very few people believed them. And when the miracles and signs had stopped, people believed, and still do, the stories more than they believed alleged miracles and signs.
I think we all understand that despite your affirmation of the Orthodox Church has concerns historical warrant, you reject its Bible and its God most antagonistically. And for that I think both sides here are grieved and saddened.
The Orthodox Church deserves due consideration because it is the Church that still uses the same language in which the New Testament and the Septuagint were written, and in the spirit of the languge and culture of the times. The EOC provides an invalueable perspectvie on the phronema and the interpretation of the faith by early Christians.
I have no antagonism towards God, whatever God may be. Nor do I hate the Church as some former Catholic seem to. As for condemning biblical collusion and extensive doctrinal "harmonization" of biblical authors and copyists by using manipulative techniques to get people to believe them I believe it is as unbecoming to preach morality while behaving immorally, but I also believe that many may had honest iof mistaken beliefs and no ill intent or hidden agenda.
However, given the preponderance of corurption evident in biblical manuscirpts, I understand many sought to do whater it takes, no different than political activists who engage in manipulative techniques, to get their agenda to win. Both groups seem to have a certain view they believe is true, along with the idea that ends justify the means.
So much for the Orthodox church.
When I said the "The Catholic Church has the authority because it is the author and the steward and the owner of the Christian Bible" that includes the Orthodox Church. The pre-Schism Church was the Catholic Church. After the Schism, we have the Latin or Roman Catholic and Greek or Eastern Orthodox Churches, both are catholic and apostolic.
And the Scriptures affirms men testing claims by the Scriptures as available to them. (Acts 17:11)
And the scriptures also say it is wrong (2 Peter 1:20).
while John 8:44 is another example on Jesus correcting the fallible Jews
John is an example of the Christian attempt to demonize the Jews who kicked the Christians out of synagogues when John was writing it at the end of the first century and needed a scapegoat and a new (Hellenized) God.
And that is good considering some of the things the Babylonian Talmud says about demons, which sources such as “The Jewish Religion: A Companion” deny were inserted into the Talmud by ignorant copyists or by those influenced by folk-beliefs, which were repudiated by the rabbis themselves.
The very same source says that the Babylonian Talmud was heavily influenced by the Zoroastrian belief which infiltrated some Jewish communities. Naturally, the Jews will try to deny this (no different than anyone else denying something undesirable), by blaming the scribes, etc. The fact is that some Jewish sects developed dualistic beliefs influences by pagan Persian religion because, one, Persians were seen as liberators, and, two, Zoroastrianism is also a "revealed" religion, so it was near and dear to them.
But theft is that mainstream Judaism rejects any idea of a "devil" and acknowledges that some succumbed to Zoroastrian and Christian influence under long periods living in diaspora the way many Alexandrian Jews were more prone to Greek Platonic beliefs (i.e. Philo) then Palestinian Jews were.
All of which is really irrelevant to the issue, as the Roman Catholic church affirms Jesus words as being divinely inspired truth.
Matter of faith not fact.
By this we understand that for something to be divine it must preclude using human recollection
Really? What is divine?
But again in this, the Catholic Church to whom you ascribe authority of the scriptures disagrees with you in what you determined constitutes inspiration.
Again, the Catholic Church is the Church of the first millennium, and that church is rather different from the its modern namesake. And also I did not determine what constitutes inspiration. And neither did the Church. The linguists did.
And as we agree with her in other foundational doctrines that are Scripturally substantiated, so here also.
And this must be true because you say it's true, right? Whatever.
You mean like this? :)
“And if such were the case, and the Church of the fourth century is that of Rome today...
I never said the Roman Catholic Church is necessarily that of the fourth century. The Latin Church was always prone to innovations, which is a sure way to lose track of your roots. But they are trying to get back on track, having realized they strayed too much.
then they certainly were amiss in failing to put even one example of believers praying to the departed, or instructions thereto...
In the fourth century the Latin Church was using the Antiochan and Alexandrian divine liturgies and as such most certainly offered prayers for (not to) the dead, and the Greek Church was using the divine liturgies of St. Basil and St. John Chrysostom while likewise have paniklhida, or parastas services for the departed.
or for the church to submit to Peter as it’s supreme head, etc.”
And by the end of the fourth century the primal privilege and honor (but no universal jurisdiction) was granted to Peter's successor in Rome, as the first among equals (primus inter pares) of the bishops, without the authority to lord over other patriarchs.
This pribvilege was granted to the successor of Peter explicitly on the basis of Old Rome being the seat of the Senate and the dignity it carried and not, as the Latins claim, on any biblical authority.
The text to speech software failed to read my mind, and i missed proofing this sentence.
Maybe you should try to let your fingers do the talking and type what your mind says. :)
The Synoptic ones you mean? That's why they are called synoptic, they are harmonized. John's Gospel, on the other hand, is nothing like the other three. Night and day. And even then there are some serious discrepancies among them. Also, Luke's Gospel exists in two versions, long and short.
As far as I understand the issue, yes. Everyone agrees that the Father sent the Son, and there is no issue of subordination
Or co-equality? Even when Jesus says the Father is greater than I?
Why then would there arise an issue over whether the Holy Spirit "proceeded" from the Father alone or the Father and Son? Either way, there should still be no issue of subordination. Whatever the precise meaning of "proceeded" is, I wouldn't think it would infringe on the Three being co-eternal and co-equal.
Where does the Bible says all three are co-equal and co-eternal? And the origin of the Spirit is of utmost importance in the Triniatrian dogma.
For if the Son is begotten of the Father and the Spirit is something that "comes" out of both of them, then then the cause of the Spirit are both the Father and the Son and you have double cause. How is the Spirit co-equal then?
The Spirit doesn't have everyhting the Father has, as the Son does. The spiration and the begotteness, on the other hand, point to Father as the first cause (even if eternal) of everything and all, including the Godhead, and only the Father is uncaused.
Like I said, you're not a trial lawyer. Lying or insanity has nothing, usually, to do with what people see and hear and then recall even minutes later, let alone months or years later. Sometimes the differences can be dramatically different, not just in trivial matters but also in material ones.
"Whatever the precise meaning of "proceeded" is, I wouldn't think it would infringe on the Three being co-eternal and co-equal."
That's the problem, FK. You don't know the meaning of ἐκπορευόμενον. BTW, in the confusing English translation, it's "proceeds" not proceeded and the word has nothing to do with "sending" but, as Kosta points out, with origin. This makes a difference because we are trying, in the Creed, to describe the Triune God we worship. It is not bad theology to say that the Spirit is sent by the Father or by the Father through the Son but that is not what the Creed is taking about.
Actually, we prefer new (Divinized) Hellenes! As you know, Kosta mou, I myself was once an example of such a Greek God; now, of course, I'm just a G.D. Greek!:)
[Kolo to FK] Lying or insanity has nothing, usually, to do with what people see and hear and then recall even minutes later, let alone months or years later. Sometimes the differences can be dramatically different, not just in trivial matters but also in material ones.
Back in the early 1970's when the IRA and the British troops were in a real shooting war im Northern Ireland, a British reporter David Tereshchuk was narrating his own experience of an incident known as the Bloody Sunday (1972). He said he distinctly remembered a British paratrooper in a red beret (which is worn by British "paras" in garrison and nonocmbat situations) pointing a rifle directly at him. This terrifying moment was apparently indelibly burned into this reporter's memory as he could vividly recall the details.
Unfortunately, someone came up with a photograph of that moment taken by another reporter, which clearly shows the paratrooper had a steel helmet and it wasn't red! The only thing that was more bizarre is that the Tereshchuk admitted that even after seeing the photograph his brain refused to accept it and when he closes his eyes he still sees a paratrooper in a red beret!
Eyewitness accounts are notoriously unreliable, especially with passage of time. Just as people believe what they want to believe, what they are comfortable with, they also remember what they want to remember, consciously or unconsciously. This is a fact that has been established by countless repeated experiments and anyone who doubts is welcome to do their own research.
Now, someone will come up with "Yeah, but John was 'inspired' and God woldn't let him remember incorrectly," or something to thast effect. Of course there is no evidence that John was "inspired" suggesting any type of error-protection, writing almost 70 years after the alleged events, quoting supposedly verbatim what Jesus said.
Maybe he was inspired (moved, motivated) to write about his faith, and his own personal experience, as best as he could remember, which of course is not lying or seeking to deceive.
Besides, the Gospel of John is so heavily interpolated that one can't even be sure which of the authors was "remembering." And then there are copyists who added and erred all over the place with each successive hand made copy, it is pointless to even talk about what John & al originally wrote.
Considering that the earliest complete copies of John's manuscripts are almost a century removed from the purported original manuscript and that they exist in numerous variants, just think how many hand-made copies were made in that century, each carrying its own errors and omissions and deletions and additions and "harmonizations" and doctrinal "adjustments" as each scribe saw fit!
Yes, and the mother of James and Joses and Salome is identified in Mark 15:40 s another Mary: “there were also women looking on afar off: among whom was Mary Magdalen, and Mary the mother of James the less and of Joseph, and Salome”. You are correct that the list of names differs from account to account, if that is your point.
I don't make the scripture say anything it doesn't say, and I don't make the scripture not say what it does say. The passages you are citing MAY be interpreted your way, but they also may be interpreted the correct way. I prefer the correct way, and yes, that preference comes from also knowing the Traditin of the Church.
Here is the hint, FK, to understanding the original language in this case: εκ or εξ. It means from, or out of. :)
Ekporeuomai (see Matthew 3:5; Matthew 4:4; Matthew 15:11; Matthew 15:18; Matthew 17:21; Matthew 20:29, John 15:26 Luke 4:37, etc. [KJV]) in all instances signifies the origin, like "welling from." Pouremai means a movement of some kind, a departure, but ek places it at the origin.
As Kolo observes, ti has nothing to do with "sending" but originating. Given that both the Word and the Spirit are caused by the Father, and only the Father is without a cause, the Father is the source of everything and all, including the Godhead, i.e. the so-called "monarchy" of the Father, the essentuial part of orthodox Triniarian dogma. From what Protestants, at least on these forums, write about the Holy Trinity, the monarchy of the Father doesn't exit in their "trinitarian" ideation.
That is just your opinion. The scripture however disagrees with you:
Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together in Christ, (by whose grace you are saved,) [6] And hath raised us up together, and hath made us sit together in the heavenly places, through Christ Jesus. [7] That he might shew in the ages to come the abundant riches of his grace, in his bounty towards us in Christ Jesus. [8] For by grace you are saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, for it is the gift of God; [9] Not of works, that no man may glory. [10] For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus in good works, which God hath prepared that we should walk in them. (Eph 2)by works a man is justified; and not by faith only (James 2:24)
The puzzlement you feel is because you either don't understand grace or you don't understand faith, and of course you don't understand works because you think works are works of the law and nothing else. Grace comes from God to you. Faith and works are something you do in response. So no, faith and works are not "called" grace. They are responses to grace.
Speaks of works of the law (verse 10). The Church agrees that works of any law are not works that save. In contrast to that the works of faith, such as the works of Abraham, are what saved Abraham:
[8] By faith he that is called Abraham, obeyed to go out into a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. [9] By faith he abode in the land, dwelling in cottages, with Isaac and Jacob, the co-heirs of the same promise. [10] For he looked for a city that hath foundations; whose builder and maker is God. [8] "He that is called Abraham"... or, Abraham being called. [11] By faith also Sara herself, being barren, received strength to conceive seed, even past the time of age; because she believed that he was faithful who had promised, [12] For which cause there sprung even from one (and him as good as dead) as the stars of heaven in multitude, and as the sand which is by the sea shore innumerable. [13] All these died according to faith, not having received the promises, but beholding them afar off, and saluting them, and confessing that they are pilgrims and strangers on the earth. [14] For they that say these things, do signify that they seek a country. [15] And truly if they had been mindful of that from whence they came out, they had doubtless time to return. [16] But now they desire a better, that is to say, a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for he hath prepared for them a city. [17] By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered Isaac: and he that had received the promises, offered up his only begotten son; [18] (To whom it was said: In Isaac shall thy seed be called.) [19] Accounting that God is able to raise up even from the dead (Hebrews 11)
Note that the circumcision and separation at meals, the issues in Galatians, are not listed by St. Paul among Abraham's works of faith, because the works of the law indeed do not save.
St. James agrees with St. Paul regarding Abraham's works of faith:
[21] Was not Abraham our father justified by works, offering up Isaac his son upon the altar? [22] Seest thou, that faith did co-operate with his works; and by works faith was made perfect? [23] And the scripture was fulfilled, saying: Abraham believed God, and it was reputed to him to justice, and he was called the friend of God. [24] Do you see that by works a man is justified; and not by faith only? (James 2)
The saving faith is working faith.
Then it should not be difficult to point out where I don't attend to the scripture I read.
For the record: I understand that one CAN interpret the "brothers" passages as literal brothers. What I say is that it is not the only necessary interpretation and the Church interpretation is valid as well: they are members of Jesus's household that appear like brothers to the speaker.
The "lie" that started this brouhaha is that the scripture is uncontrovertibly stating that Jesus had brothers by the same mother. As I show by citing many examples when we can see "brothers/sisters" used expansively, that interpretation is not the only one possible.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bf/Kolokotronis_statue_Athens.jpg
Yes, amazing what oikos yogurt can do; much better than makeup. Yayades know best. :)
And, to your honor, your ancestor Greek (almost) god: Kolokotronis
The statue of memorable Koloktronis in Athens caught in an unforgettable moment when he said "But I am with him!"
On his resume, his strongest bullet, besides throwing the Turks off the walls of Constantinople, was that he eats them for breakfast (hence the nickname turkophago! Ah, those divine Balkan brutes, aka homo balcanicus. :)
better late than never, pouremai is a type, it should be poreouomai.
The "lie" that started this brouhaha is that the scripture is uncontrovertibly stating that Jesus had brothers by the same mother. As I show by citing many examples when we can see "brothers/sisters" used expansively, that interpretation is not the only one possible.
Then at that point, the person who recognizes that other possible interpretations can be legitimate CANNOT, because they have no basis for it, claim that theirs is the only right one and it would be foolhardy beyond comprehension to not only build a whole doctrine on it, but to also condemn others for not believing it.
Both things that the Catholic church has done.
The "lie" that started this brouhaha is that the scripture is uncontrovertibly stating that Jesus had brothers by the same mother. As I show by citing many examples when we can see "brothers/sisters" used expansively, that interpretation is not the only one possible.
In addition, it is not only those Scriptures about His brothers and sisters which non-Catholics use to support their contention that Mary was not a virgin and Jesus had siblings.
There's the verses in Matthew 1 ....
Verse 18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.
And the well known one in verse 25....
25but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus.
Both verses clearly indicate by their plain reading and meaning, that they DID consummate their marriage after the birth of Christ.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.