Posted on 11/23/2011 11:11:08 AM PST by marshmallow
A notoriously 'gay-friendly' parish in San Francisco has invited an openly homosexual Episcopalian cleric to lead an Advent Vespers service.
Most Holy Redeemer parish asked Bishop Otis Charles, a retired Episcopalian prelate, to lead the November 30 service. After serving as the Bishop of Utah from 1971 to 1993, he publicly announced that he is homosexual. Divorced from the mother of his 5 children, he solemnized a same-sex union in 2004.
Of course they do; they’re almost as nicolaitan as the RCs.
I bet the Episcopals are too.
When Christ addressed nicolaitanism he was speaking to real Christian congregations, not gnostics.
You don’t know anything. He was warning the Church of Ephesus about the Nicolaitans.
Ignorance is bliss.
You seem like a nice Nicolaitian. :)
Ephesians 1:17
I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better.
I John 5:20
We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true. And we are in him who is true by being in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.
I went online and read that whole De Obitu S. Dominae and if everything that this treatise claims happened actually DID happen, it would be impossible for the Apostles to omit writing about it. EVERY Apostle, it says was miraculously spirited away from where ever in the world they were to the house where Mary was living before she died. EVEN a few apostles who had already died, were raised from their graves, it said, just so they could be present for this event. The story also speaks of nearby villagers coming to the house and just by touching the outside walls were healed of every illness. There were even more outrageous claims made. No, if such thing really DID happen, we would not have to depend on a few scraps of questionable origins written CENTURIES after it supposedly happened. We still have writings from before Jesus came, there is no logical reason why writings about this could not have been also preserved. Not only that, but St. John was "in charge" of taking care of her, right? Why would he have "forgotten" or omitted such amazing things from his epistles?
As I said before, people can believe whatever they want, but to have an organization that claims to be THE Church Jesus established and that to be a Christian, we MUST faithfully obey what the leaders deem of the faith/de fide, then they sure should have more reliable and solid proof for what they proclaim than just wishful thinking or myths.
The Church DID have a Bible to guide her.
IN ORDER to obtain a correct understanding of what is called the formation of the Canon of the New Testament, it is necessary to begin by fixing very firmly in our minds one fact which is obvious enough when attention is once called to it. That is, that the Christian church did not require to form for itself the idea of a “ canon,” — or, as we should more commonly call it, of a “Bible,” — that is, of a collection of books given of God to be the authoritative rule of faith and practice. It inherited this idea from the Jewish church, along with the thing itself, the Jewish Scriptures, or the “ Canon of the Old Testament.” The church did not grow up by natural law: it was founded. And the authoritative teachers sent forth by Christ to found His church, carried with them, as their most precious possession, a body of divine Scriptures, which they imposed on the church that they founded as its code of law. No reader of the New Testament can need proof of this; on every page of that book is spread the evidence that from the very beginning the Old Testament was as cordially recognized as law by the Christian as by the Jew. The Christian church thus was never without a “Bible” or a “canon.”
But the Old Testament books were not the only ones which the apostles (by Christ’s own appointment the authoritative founders of the church) imposed upon the infant churches, as their authoritative rule of faith and practice. No more authority dwelt in the prophets of the old covenant than in themselves, the apostles, who had been “made sufficient as ministers of a new covenant “; for (as one of themselves argued) “if that which passeth away was with glory, much more that which remaineth is in glory.” Accordingly not only was the gospel they delivered, in their own estimation, itself a divine revelation, but it was also preached “in the Holy Ghost” (I Pet. i. 12); not merely the matter of it, but the very words in which it was clothed were “of the Holy Spirit” (I Cor. ii. 13). Their own commands were, therefore, of divine authority (I Thess. iv. 2), and their writings were the depository of these commands (II Thess. ii. 15). “If any man obeyeth not our word by this epistle,” says Paul to one church (II Thess. iii. 14), “note that man, that ye have no company with him.” To another he makes it the test of a Spirit-led man to recognize that what he was writing to them was “the commandments of the Lord” (I Cor. xiv. 37). Inevitably, such writings, making so awful a claim on their acceptance, were received by the infant churches as of a quality equal to that of the old “Bible “; placed alongside of its older books as an additional part of the one law of God; and read as such in their meetings for worship — a practice which moreover was required by the apostles (I Thess. v. 27; Col. iv. 16; Rev. 1. 3). In the apprehension, therefore, of the earliest churches, the “Scriptures” were not a closed but an increasing “canon.” Such they had been from the beginning, as they gradually grew in number from Moses to Malachi; and such they were to continue as long as there should remain among the churches “men of God who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.”
We say that this immediate placing of the new books — given the church under the seal of apostolic authority — among the Scriptures already established as such, was inevitable. It is also historically evinced from the very beginning. Thus the apostle Peter, writing in A.D. 68, speaks of Paul’s numerous letters not in contrast with the Scriptures, but as among the Scriptures and in contrast with “the other Scriptures” (II Pet. iii. 16) — that is, of course, those of the Old Testament. In like manner the apostle Paul combines, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, the book of Deuteronomy and the Gospel of Luke under the common head of “Scripture” (I Tim. v. 18): “For the Scripture saith, ‘Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn’ [Deut. xxv. 4]; and, ‘The laborer is worthy of his hire’” (Luke x. 7). The line of such quotations is never broken in Christian literature. Polycarp (c. 12) in A.D. 115 unites the Psalms and Ephesians in exactly similar manner: “In the sacred books, . . . as it is said in these Scriptures, ‘Be ye angry and sin not,’ and ‘Let not the sun go down upon your wrath.’” So, a few years later, the so-called second letter of Clement, after quoting Isaiah, adds (ii. 4): “And another Scripture, however, says, ‘I came not to call the righteous, but sinners’” — quoting from Matthew, a book which Barnabas (circa 97-106 A.D.) had already adduced as Scripture. After this such quotations are common.
What needs emphasis at present about these facts is that they obviously are not evidences of a gradually-heightening estimate of the New Testament books, originally received on a lower level and just beginning to be tentatively accounted Scripture; they are conclusive evidences rather of the estimation of the New Testament books from the very beginning as Scripture, and of their attachment as Scripture to the other Scriptures already in hand. The early Christians did not, then, first form a rival “canon” of “new books” which came only gradually to be accounted as of equal divinity and authority with the “old books”; they received new book after new book from the apostolical circle, as equally” Scripture “ with the old books, and added them one by one to the collection of old books as additional Scriptures, until at length the new books thus added were numerous enough to be looked upon as another section of the Scriptures. http://www.the-highway.com/ntcanon_Warfield.html
Try this...next time you think you might be engaged in a conversation with someone who appears to at minimum speak as a Christian might....ask them "Do you know Christ Jesus' rather than the standard "are you a Christian....My oh my does that change the equation in the dialogue which follows....because most you ask if they're a Christian will yes even if they aren't....but if you ask if they "KNOW" Christ, just as you would ask about any other individual you might be discussing...it's really amazing what can and does follow.
Trust you had a lovely Thanksgiving and are looking forward to celebrating that day when He came...so that He will come again...so that He will take His rightful place before all mankind....One day does lead to another.
Wow...good read Boatbums...does put things in perspective doesn’t it.
"Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield (1851-1921) is widely recognized as the greatest English-speaking orthodox theologian of the early twentieth century, and perhaps of the whole century"
Surprising this article hasn't surfaced here before amidst the many claims regarding the canon,especially considering how long it's been around. "first published in 1892"
"...a gradually-heightening estimate of the New Testament books..."
Tragically,these days there is a lestening estimation of the scriptures as time goes by.The god of this world stops at nothing to denigrate people's estimation of God's word...and the carnal mind loves it.
Great find boatbums!
YEa...I didn’t know about him until Boatbums commet...I used the link and went searching to see who he was.... impressive to say the least.. I’ve saved the link and will find others about him in order to read more of his works.
Only if the Bible is fabricated....is it?
The Church Fathers were far closer to the source than either you or I.
Are they infallible? To what authority do they appeal for legitimacy? Could they not err?
If Protestants appeal to Scripture, which is God-breathed, how is that untrustworthy? How are fallible church fathers more reliable than anyone else? If we're appealing to temporal proximity, wouldn't you trust the Scriptures first?
Saying you believe the church fathers because they are closer in time to the events ignores those who were there and heard with their own ears and saw with their own eyes.
You need to do better than that.
Hoss
Yes we but toil on with you because we fear for your eternal soul.
Hoss
Who's speaking against good works?
Has anyone on this board said we shouldn't be doing them?
Please point us to those posts.
Funny how people who want to sin immediately knee jerk into the reaction of *You can’t judge me. Who do you think you are? God?* when someone simply points out the verses in Scripture where GOD already passes judgment on certain behaviors.
Not to mention that the Catholics then pass the same kind of judgment on non-Catholics when they tell them that they’re not saved because they haven’t been baptized, don’t take communion with the eucharist, don’t go to confession, or any of the other things their religion teaches them that they must do to get into heaven.
Again, it’s *Do as I say, not as I do* with most of the Catholics on this board.
Too many Catholics here don’t and won’t recognize some non-Catholic’s faith as legitimate when they remain outside of Catholicism, even when the CCC does. In contrast, even the non-Catholics do and will recognize some Catholics faith as legitimate even though they remain in Catholicism.
Ephesians 1:15-21 15For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, 16I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, 17that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, 18 having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, 19and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might 20that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, 21 far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come.
Ephesians 3:14-19 14For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, 16that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Colossians 1:9-14 9And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 10so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.
11 May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, 12 giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. 13He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
Maybe because what was allegedly written by St. John of Damascus could have been nothing more than an opinion piece or outright fiction....
Got it. Protestants believe that St. John Damascene was the Harold Camping of the era, with a touch of Ellen White and a dash of Joel Osteen, with an overlaying of Harold Robbins.
The Great Schism was the result of internecine squabbling amongst bishops. The Protestant Reformation fundamentally separated Protestants from Christianity. Some have managed to recross that gulf. Some have simply given up and given in to atheism and nihilism. Many have simply done their best to widen the gulf.
Proclaiming greater understanding of Christ and His Message than the Fathers and simply sneering at them as fiction writers puts the Protestant mindset and the whole framework of the Reformation into sharp relief against Christianity.
RZ is absolutely correct, and his testimony is completely consistent with the converts to the Faith that I am acquainted with.
They used the OT Scripture
Within the first century, the OT had almost completely been disregarded in favour of the AD writings. It took several Councils to reimpress the importance of the OT upon believers.
and the letters of Paul, which Peter called Scripture
As a source of belief, the believers relied on the Gospels and other documents primarily. The Gospel of Matthew, for instance was always regarded as more important than Paul. The Didache, similarly.
A convex one, that magnifies the viewer.
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