If a member of any traditional culture heard you say that, they would think you were crazy. Sharing meals in traditional societies is a communal intercourse. Refusing to partake in the general fair would be unthinkably rude. The assimilated, individualist culture of the modern West in an historical anomaly.
It is your assertion that the Mosaic Law, i.e., the Torah itself, makes it impossible for Jews and Gentiles to eat together without violating kosher.
No, but keeping kosher while sharing meals as a guest of First Century Greeks would be prohibitively impractical. Otherwise, Peter and Barnabas would not have thought they had to stop eating with the Gentiles.
Jewish Christians were angry with Peter after his visit to Cornelius because apparently they understood that eating with Gentiles leads to breaking kosher laws. If Peter had kept kosher during those meals, he would have said so. Instead he did the opposite. Peter stated that God ordered him to eat nonkosher food and stop calling it impure since God had made it clean.
Acts 11:2 "So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized him 3 and said, 'You went into the house of uncircumcised men and ate with them.' 6 I looked into it and saw four-footed animals of the earth, wild beasts, reptiles, and birds of the air. 7 Then I heard a voice telling me, ‘Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.’ 8 “I replied, ‘Surely not, Lord! Nothing impure or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’ 9 The voice spoke from heaven a second time, ‘Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.’ 11 Right then three men who had been sent to me from Caesarea stopped at the house where I was staying. 12 The Spirit told me to have no hesitation about going with them."
The issue was not kosher. Unless the Gentile is just bent on being offensive, that can be handled. The issue was eighteen measures
It sounds like the eighteen measures were extreme, but think of the motivation. It is likely that Jews who trafficked with Gentiles were less able to keep the ceremonial law.
I think he was a Pharisee through-and-through.
Paul received revelations directly from Christ not available to other Pharisees. He must have thought that a true Pharisee's obligation was to follow commands of God over the rules of men. Scripture does not say Paul was inspired to attend the temple but I do not think that Paul compromised himself. That is where Jesus had preached and chastised the money changers. Your reasoning of compromise is faulty but even if it were correct, that would still have been a very minor mistake compared to those that Peter had made.
They did deemphasize the law, and not only for Gentiles. If so, you have yet to produce a valid example.
Previously I had offered the kosher examples. In addition:
Rom 7:2 by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage. 3 So then, if she marries another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is released from that law and is not an adulteress, even though she marries another man. 4 So, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead
Hebrews 8:4... there are priests that offer gifts according to the law: 5 Who serve to the example and shadow of heavenly things
Hebrews 10:1 The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming—not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship.
Gal 5:1 Stand fast, and be not held again under the yoke of bondage. 2 Behold, I Paul tell you, that if you be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing.
Gal 4:21 Tell me, you who want to be under the law, are you not aware of what the law says? 22For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other by the free woman. 23His son by the slave woman was born in the ordinary way; but his son by the free woman was born as the result of a promise. 24 These things may be taken figuratively, for the women represent two covenants. 31 Therefore, brothers, we are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman.
These passages should suffice but there are many, many more. You tried to explain away the plain meaning of Galatians 3:19. Will you try to nullify the inspired testimony of Paul? The Old Testament cannot be properly understood without the New.
Bishops that pass along what they receive were not corrupt.
No matter how much simony and immorality surrounds them.
I should say that the sacraments of morally corrupt priests are valid because they come directly from God, not from the man. The doctrinal teaching of orthodox, but morally corrupt bishops are valid. However all moral and doctrinal corruption is scandalous and reprobates deserve punishment in this life and the next.
the unilateral promise that Abraham's seed would inherit the physical land of Israel and be a blessing to the whole world is not and has never been contingent on Israel's obedience. There is literally nothing Israel can ever do to to annul that Covenant.
The Old Covenant is reciprocal:
Deut 4:23 ye shall have remained long in the land, and shall corrupt yourselves, and make a graven image, or the likeness of any thing, and shall do evil in the sight of the Lord thy God, to provoke him to anger: 26 I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that ye shall soon utterly perish from off the land whereunto ye go over Jordan to possess it; ye shall not prolong your days upon it, but shall utterly be destroyed. 27 And the Lord shall scatter you among the nations, and ye shall be left few in number among the heathen 29 But if from thence thou shalt seek the LORD thy God, thou shalt find him, if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul. 30 When thou art in tribulation, and all these things are come upon thee, even in the latter days, if thou turn to the Lord thy God, and shalt be obedient unto his voice; 31 (For the Lord thy God is a merciful God;) He will not forsake thee, neither destroy thee, nor forget the covenant of thy fathers which he sware unto them."
The Church is infallibly guided in her legislation by the Paraclete.
You accept that everything the Roman Catholic Church does and teaches is to be received uncritically.
No. I only accepter her infallible teachings. These are rarely defined and few in number. The actions of Church leaders are not necessarily more acceptable to me than what Judas did.
I think the Roman Catholic Church is false
Do you believe in the infallibly of New Testament Scripture? If so, you must accept the infallibly of the Catholic Church at least through the Forth Century.
the Bible does not teach unconditional, unthinking submission. It does teach us to honor the duly appointed authorities
The Church does NOT teach unconditional, unthinking submission to authorities. It simply recognizes the necessity and reality of Christian orthodoxy. Logically, there really can only be one true faith. Especially today, it is often necessary to resist authorities in defense of that One Truth. This is what St. Athenasius, bishop of Alexandria, did in the Forth Century. The Roman Emperor and almost all Church leaders had fallen under the heresy of Semi-Arianism. While St. Athenasius wrote polemics from exile, lay Catholics would string up heretical priests in front of their churches. This went on for decades until a new Emperor finally relented to the restoration of orthodoxy.
During the struggle, St. Athenasius revised the NT canon to ensure absolute Catholic orthodoxy. All Christians have St. Athenasius to thank for the final form of the NT Bible.
Today there is universal heresy worse than during the Forth Century. Traditional Catholics perform the role of St. Athenasius.
“Do you believe in the infallibly of New Testament Scripture? If so, you must accept the infallibly of the Catholic Church at least through the Forth Century.”
[”accept the infallibility of the Catholic church..”?
False.
There is no religious organization on this earth that is infallible. And never has been.
That is because the human race is not infallible. Plenty of religoius leaders and their church organizations have made serious mistakes. And that is precisely what the representatives of the Amish went to Israel to seek forgiveness for from the Jews.
In addition:
There is a difference between earthly religious organizations, such as Catholic or Baptist, and the true “church”, which is the body of believers, invisible, and transends denominational lines.
Please see the following article for the treatment of the old ecclesiastical word “church”.