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Posted on 11/13/2014 6:49:41 PM PST by Heart-Rest
How Many Protestant Denominations Are There?
Partial List of 5000+ Protestant Denominations by Name
How Many Protestant Denominations Are There? The 20,000 / 30,000 numbers and David Barrett's statistics
"The Facts and Stats on "33,000 Denominations" The 20,000 / 30,000 numbers and David Barrett's statistics
Part II
(Above links derived from here) ===> ("How Many Protestant Denominations Are There?")
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There are many, many more Protestant denominations out there, not just those reflected in the links above. How many? Well, nobody really knows for sure exactly how many Protestant denominations exist at any given point in time, because after you get done counting the first forty or fifty thousand, several thousand more new ones pop up here and there all over the place, like popping pop corn! :-)
We Catholics love all our Protestant brothers and sisters (no matter how many denominations or "non-denominations" they belong to), and we simply want to share the fullness of the truth with them, so that they can find the precious jewel (the "pearl of great price") that we have already found (by the Grace of God). With that in mind, the following song is dedicated to all our beloved Protestant brothers and sisters, and their ever-increasing number of distinct and ever-changing denominations with contradictory, mutually-exclusive, incompatible teachings. (And, no, that is not a bunch of cardinals singing that song!)
☺
(Song -- "Bless 'em All!")
(This song is a tribute to all our beloved Protestant brothers and sisters, no matter what denomination -- or "non-denomination" -- they are currently in.)
"I appeal to you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree and that there be no dissensions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment." (1 Corinthians 1:10)
Well, I’m not positive how helpful that is in the present discussion. because He wasn’t telling the apostles to “Bite Him” either.
Most messages to the apostles, those which did not impinge upon their apostolic duty, were also intended for Christendom in general.
But I can see your point, if we take the blood/flesh literally why not take the apostolic address literally too.
I don't think CB is the one lacking understanding here. The Apostles preached the word and the Holy Spirit imbibed those words with power which was why the gospel was received by those whom the Holy Spirit had prepared to hear it. Paul said:
No one alive since John the Apostle died is a real Apostle. Their "authority", their "power" remains in the teachings they left behind for us - sacred Scripture. All that Jesus taught, all that the Holy Spirit inspired to be written, is contained in the writings we call the Bible. It continued to have the highest authority because it alone is the God-breathed truth. No person today can assert they are an authority OVER Scripture. To do so is an affront to Almighty God. If someone comes along and claims to be speaking the truth and what they say is not backed up by God's word, they are to be shunned.
The Gospel the Apostles preached was instilled with power by the Holy Spirit. Paul praised the noble Bereans because they studied the Scriptures to see if what was being preached to them was verified by Scripture - and it WAS. If Peter, the first of the Apostles, could be withstood due to a contradiction between what he said and did with the truth of God, then we are also encouraged to judge BY Scripture if false teachers come among us. Appealing to authority means nothing if that authority is not backed up by the word and with the power of the Holy Spirit. For God has said:
Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? Or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said:
“I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.”
Therefore,
“Come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.” And, “I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.”
I was reviewing some of those very church fathers yesterday. It’s amazing how much Rome has jumped the shark from the early church.
I think you mean infused or imbued, not imbibed, but general point taken.
A lot of this Catholic/evangelical dispute is about whether, and how well, Christ can and does minister outside an “official church” setting. Evangelicals aver that Christ does this extremely well.
In a strict sense, all the word of Christ is still carried by the church. Who wrote the bible, atheists? (I’m being silly to make a point.) When it speaks to someone, it speaks through the person who originally wrote its words. No believer doubts the bible authors’ authority.
Not as though some evangelical followings haven’t pushed their own oddness onto the bible in places (for example the Arminian/Calvinist oversimplifications), but in general they have unearthed the original meaning and it is powerful.
Rome has screwed it up so badly and that’s your answer?
The Arminians and Calvinists here believe they are saved by grace through faith. Orange taught that. When oh when did Rome jump the shark? It was certaily put into place at Trent, but when did Rome anathematize itself based on Orange?
I guess some would assert the Holy Spirit didn't agree with God? That's strange, since the Holy Spirit IS God:
"For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these essentials: that you abstain from things sacrificed to idols and from blood and from things strangled and from fornication; if you keep yourselves free from such things, you will do well. (Acts 15:28,29)
Before translating the Bible into Latin, St. Jerome had already translated into more common languages enough books to fill a library. In the year 383, he revised the Latin New Testament text in accordance with some Greek manuscripts. Between the years 390 and 406 he translated the Old Testament directly from the Hebrew, and this completed work is known today as the "Old Latin Vulgate". The work had been requested by Pope Damasus, and copies of St. Jerome's Latin Vulgate appeared uncorrupted as late as the 11th century, with some revisions by St. Peter Damian and Lanfranc.
Pope Benedict XV wrote about St. Jerome's translation in his 1920 encyclical, Spiritus Paraclitus, "Nor was Jerome content merely to gather up this or that teacher's words; he gathered from all quarters whatever might prove of use to him in this task. From the outset he had accumulated the best possible copies of the Bible and the best commentators on it," . . . "he corrected the Latin version of the Old Testament by the Greek; he translated afresh nearly all the books of the Old Testament from Hebrew into Latin; . . . he discussed Biblical questions with the brethren who came to him, and answered letters on Biblical questions which poured in upon him from all sides; besides all this, he was constantly refuting men who assailed Catholic doctrine and unity."
The Council of Carthage (397) was the first Council to publish a list of all the inspired books of the Bible. The Council of Florence repeated the canon of the Bible, and it was restated at the Council of Trent.
Versions of the whole or parts of the Bible in the language of the common people first appeared in Germany in the eighth century, in France and Hungary in the twelfth, and Italy, Spain, Holland, Poland and Bohemia in the thirteenth century.
How did Jerome even know what books TO retranslate into Latin?
He was very careful as to the sources of his information. He required of the exegete a very extensive knowledge of sacred and profane history, and also of the linguistics and geography of Palestine.
What was Jesus talking about when he referred to "the Scriptures" or "the law and the prophets"?
OT
I’m acknowledging that in a general sense, the evangelicals are doing well.
Rome has encrusted the legacy with so much additional stuff that it is hard to recognize. Paul would be shocked.
Kind of funny how ideas that were introduced as hypotheses took over the whole doctrine of the church before long.
Still I would quote the non biblical proverb that when we are up to our necks in alligators, it is hard to remember that the goal was to drain the swamp.
Christ isn’t, and never was, “a bunch of doctrines.” Christ is a person. You can meet that person and still believe things about him that are incorrect. The church is about meeting and worshiping Christ. If it was about getting every single doctrine right, we would all be damned. God didn’t say “Do you feel lucky, punk, have you figured out all the teachings.” God said “Here is a blessing, my Son. Accept Him as personal Savior and learn from Him.”
That is something that Catholics totally miss. Of course the Catholic Church needs to change that slightly or they would not be able to maintain the control they have.
I don't think they really expect an answer when they ask, "Show me in the Bible...", because even when we do, it is dismissed with the canard that the Roman Catholic church doesn't NEED to appeal to Scripture for her authority is inherent and truth is whatever she says it is. Like I said, it's a game they play.
What keeps getting verified every time they try that tactic, though, is that they really have no idea what sola Scriptura means. If they did, then they would acknowledge, like the ancient church fathers did, that Scripture, as the sole Divinely-inspired resource we have been given, is the authority and basis of the rule of the Christian faith. Just because the word "Trinity" isn't found in the Bible, the doctrine is clearly taught. The Bible was what the early church fathers used to disprove the heresies of the Arians and Gnostics, who denied the deity and humanity of Jesus Christ.
Just because the specific word "Bible" isn't found in the Bible - though it clearly DOES use the Greek word "biblios" to refer to the sacred writings we call the Bible and is where the term came from - we have plenty of Scriptural passages that teach the sufficiency and authority of God's word. That's why sola Scriptura IS a true doctrine of the Christian church. ALL our beliefs about God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, salvation, sin, the Gospel, eternity, etc. can be proved BY Scripture. Why else did God ensure these writings were preserved? If He intended for some "church" to be the reservoir and basis of ALL Christian doctrine, why even HAVE a Bible? If God's chosen people, the Jews, were given the oracles of God, what makes us think He thought up something new for Christians?
No, we have sacred Scripture because God KNOWS the inclinations of proud and boastful mankind and we NEED the unchangeable, infallible and authoritative word of God in order to remain in truth. It keeps us straight on the gospel and leaves us no excuse for falling prey to false teachers and doctrines of demons. It, too, is God's gift to us.
Nice point. Thanks!
The Christian doctrine of the Trinity (from Latin trinitas "triad", from trinus "threefold")[1] defines God as three consubstantial persons,[2] expressions, or hypostases:[3] the Father, the Son (Jesus Christ), and the Holy Spirit; "one God in three persons". The three persons are distinct, yet are one "substance, essence or nature".[4] In this context, a "nature" is what one is, while a "person" is who one is.[5][6][7]
According to this central mystery of most Christian faiths,[8] there is only one God in three persons: while distinct from one another in their relations of origin (as the Fourth Lateran Council declared, "it is the Father who generates, the Son who is begotten, and the Holy Spirit who proceeds") and in their relations with one another, they are stated to be one in all else, co-equal, co-eternal and consubstantial, and "each is God, whole and entire".[9] Accordingly, the whole work of creation and grace is seen as a single operation common to all three divine persons, in which each shows forth what is proper to him in the Trinity, so that all things are "from the Father", "through the Son" and "in the Holy Spirit".[10]
Terms such as "monotheism", "incarnation", "omnipotence", are not found in the Bible, but they denote theological concepts concerning Christian faith that are believed to be contained in the Bible. Even the term "Bible" is not found in the Bible. "Trinity" is another such term. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity
LOL! Yep, I defintely meant “imbued”. Thanks.
Why not take John 6:63 literally, then, where Jesus said that the Spirit gives life, the flesh is no help at all?
Or when Jesus said that He was the door, or the true vine.
I don’t suppose that Catholics would consider Him to be made out of wood or green and leafy.
To think that Jesus would command His followers to break the Law by consuming blood is ludicrous.
And it is beyond the comprehension of Catholics that it can happen at all.
The Bible" as a whole was not compiled until the late 4th century and then it was compiled by a Catholic saint (St. Jerome) at the request of a Catholic pope (St. Damasus I).
So, like I replied, Jerome was NOT the one who either "compiled" the Bible, nor was he the first to recognize the canon of Scripture that we know as the Bible. Do you dispute this?
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