Complete title:
It is the Decision of the Holy Spirit and Us – On the Council of Jerusalem and the Catholicity of the Early Church
Finely nuanced fake Church history ping!
Msgr Pope wrote: 8. The Council of Jerusalem – Luke, a master of understatement, says, “Because there arose no little dissension and debate …” (Acts 15:2) it was decided to ask the Apostles and elders in Jerusalem to gather and consider the matter. So the Apostles and some presbyters (priests) with them meet. Of course Peter is there, as is James, who was especially prominent in Jerusalem among the Apostles and would later become bishop there. Once again, Luke rather humorously understates the matter by saying, “After much debate, Peter arose” (Acts 15:7).
Peter arises to settle the matter since.....Peter clearly dismisses any notion that the Gentiles should be made to take up the whole burden of Jewish customs. Paul and Barnabas rise to support this.
This leads us to dating the Didache:
“Certainly Barnabas and Paul were “The Apostles to the Gentiles.” If the Didache is a sample of their teaching, as it certainly seems to be, then it must be dated no later than AD 49 because that was when they went their separate ways. The most probable date is either AD 44 or AD 47. In either case, those dates are earlier than anything in the New Testament. Therefore, I believe the Didache is the earliest Christian document we have. Although rightly regarded as a church handbook and not a Gospel or absolutely based on the teachings of Jesus, it provides valuable insights concerning the moral doctrines, theology, rituals, esoteric operations and congregational testing of apostles and prophets, and the basic organization of First Century Christianity.”
The Papists are at it again, I see. Inserting the Papacy, an institution that arose in the 600’s, but having its roots some 300 years earlier in the church-state arrangement of the time of Constantine, into the church of the first century.
RnMomof7 posted a similar thread not too long ago, about how the Papacy presupposes their institution into the Bible - in this case, the book of Acts. Everywhere it doesn’t belong, in other words.
How anybody can think those that gathered in Jerusalem, Peter, James, etc., were a bunch of rosary bead counting, Mary idloators, is beyond me.
He has learned his lesson and as the first Pope has been guided by God to do what is right and just.
There simply is no Roman papacy here, while what he preaches is the evangelical gospel; not that of Rome!
. Once Peter has answered them definitively, they reluctantly assent and declare somewhat cynically, “God has granted life giving repentance even to the Gentiles!” (Acts 11:18)
More eisegesis. Peter does not answered them definitively, which is language used for formally defining a matter of faith and morals, but simply explains his actions by describing what happened in response to preaching the gospel. Which was that " To him give all the prophets witness, that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins." (Acts 10:43) Which happened before baptism.
Once Peter has answered them definitively, they reluctantly assent and declare somewhat cynically, “God has granted life giving repentance even to the Gentiles!” (Acts 11:18)
Nothing here infers cynicism.
it was decided to ask the Apostles and elders in Jerusalem to gather and consider the matter. So the Apostles and some presbyters (priests) with them meet.
Note that Peter did not call the council, while there were no NT priests as presbuteros are never called hierus, the fallacy of which was just refuted here on another current thread, by God's grace.
Peter arises to settle the matter...Then James (who it seems may have felt otherwise) rises to assent to the decision and asks that a letter be sent forth to all the Churches explaining the decision. He also asks for and obtains a few concessions.
Rather, Peter gives his testimony and consequent exhortation to assent to the evangelical gospel, which Paul also already held to, by which souls were regenerated and their hearts were purified by faith before baptism. Yet there was no attempt to argue from Scripture or oral tradition, nor language such as befits an infallible decree, and Instead of this being set forth as the definitive sentence, it was an exhortation.
And as the matter was not yet settled, Paul and Barnabas added their confirmatory testimony. And then after they had held their peace, James answered and provided Scriptural argumentation confirmatory of Peter and Paul, showing this event as fulfilling prophecy, and then James alone gave the definitive sentence as to what should be done, with Scriptural restrictions. And which sentence all concurred with, rather than Peter's word being the final judgment which settled the debate.
And in no case was all the church looking to either Peter, James or Paul as the supreme infallible authorities, but even the sentence of James was more a proposal, which looked for the confirmatory consent of the faithful on the weight of Scriptural substantiation, versus the veracity resting upon the p novel and unScriptural premise of ensured perpetual magisterial infallibility as per Rome (and basically in primary cults).
At a council, a decision is made and a decree binding on the whole Church is sent out—very Catholic, actually.
The Mormons could claims as much, but as with them, the papacy of Rome and her priests are not Scriptural, nor is her premise of her presumed perpetual magisterial infallibility.
We have kept this Biblical model ever since that first council.
Since the Biblical model did not involve the church looking to Peter as the first of a line of infallible popes reigning supreme over all the church, Rome can only claim to be the predecessor of so many sola ecclesia cults.
Our Protestant brethren have departed from it because they have no pope to settle things when there is disagreement.
And as Rome pseudo-apostles fail of both the qualifications and credentials of the real manifest ones of God, (Acts 1:21,22; 1Cor. 9:1; Gal. 1:11,12; 2Cor. 6:1-0; 12:12) then it is she which has departed from the Biblical model.
Nor does Scripture ever record or teach any apostolic successors (like for James: Acts 12:1,2) after Judas, who was to maintain the original 12: Rv. 21:14) nor teach of any apostolic successors elected by voting, versus casting lots (no politics). (Acts 1:15ff)
But as Scripture only teaches of presbuteros being continually ordained as overseers of the church, (Acts 20:28; 1Tim. 3:1-7; Titus 1:5-7) so evangelicals ordain these. And as Acts 15 teaches the principle of corporate judgment under leadership, so are they to exercise the same.
The unity under the Roman model of ensured perpetual magisterial veracity a is cultic, not Scriptural. And while a centralized is ideal, the limited degree of Scriptural NT unity was under Scriptural substantiation in word and in power, with men who could say they were, "in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God,... By pureness, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned, By the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armour of righteousness on the right hand and on the left... (2 Corinthians 6:4,7)
The disunity of today is a judgment for lacking this manner of holy men.
When no one is pope, everyone is pope.
Wrong. When no one is pope, then no one is pope, which is NT Scriptural, versus holy men, if not possessing ensured formulaic infallibility. For again, the church did not look to Peter as the first of a line of infallible popes reigning in Rome over all the church. Which instead was something that developed, much taking upon the form of the Roman empire in which it found itself. Even Catholic scholars, among others, provide evidence against the RC propaganda.
We trust that decrees and doctrines that issue forth from councils of the bishops with the Pope are inspired by and authored by the Holy Spirit Himself.
.Such fantasy may comfort the ignorant or devout, but the fact is the Rome is hardly a model of unity. Consider the disunity than can result under the premise of God guiding the church in matters of faith and morals thru the pope, not unchanging Scripture being supreme.
Meanwhile, you left out what can happen when Rome loses her cultic control, and what happened prior to the needed, if imperfect, Reform-ation in the light of RC deformation :
"For nearly half a century, the Church was split into two or three obediences that excommunicated one another, so that every Catholic lived under excommunication by one pope or another, and, in the last analysis, no one could say with certainty which of the contenders had right on his side. The Church no longer offered certainty of salvation; she had become questionable in her whole objective form--the true Church, the true pledge of salvation, had to be sought outside the institution."
"It is against this background of a profoundly shaken ecclesial consciousness that we are to understand that Luther, in the conflict between his search for salvation and the tradition of the Church, ultimately came to experience the Church, not as the guarantor, but as the adversary of salvation. (Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, head of the Sacred Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith for the Church of Rome, “Principles of Catholic Theology,” trans. by Sister Mary Frances McCarthy, S.N.D. (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1989) p.196). http://www.whitehorseinn.org/blog/2012/06/13/whos-in-charge-here-the-illusions-of-church-infallibility/)
As for modern times, as one poster wryly commented: The last time the church imposed its judgment in an authoritative manner on "areas of legitimate disagreement," the conservative Catholics became the Sedevacantists and the Society of St. Pius X, the moderate Catholics became the conservatives, the liberal Catholics became the moderates, and the folks who were excommunicated, silenced, refused Catholic burial, etc. became the liberals. The event that brought this shift was Vatican II; conservatives then couldn't handle having to actually obey the church on matters they were uncomfortable with, so they left. — Nathan, http://www.ratzingerfanclub.com/blog/2005/05/fr-michael-orsi-on-different-levels-of.html
And consider the disunity than can result under the premise of God guiding the church in matters of faith and morals thru the pope, not unchanging Scripture being supreme./
Rather, God never provided or needed ensured perpetual magisterial infallibility in order to discern Truth or preserve Faith, and in fact the church began in dissent from those whom, like Rome, presumed of themselves above that which was written.
But laymen recognized what was of God without an infallible mag., and God often raised up men from without the magisterium to preserve faith, and thus the church began and has continued as the body of Christ.
The Biblical model has not been tried and found wanting, but wanting to be tried, with the the novel and unScriptural premise of ensured perpetual magisterial infallibility of Rome being a cultic substitute.