Posted on 05/25/2016 3:57:03 AM PDT by JosephJames
The answer I gave satisfies the initial phase of regeneration, which is what that passage was about. In it, Philip departed, leaving the newborn babe in Christ with the Scriptures then available, with the indwelling Holy Ghost, and with the substance of Philip's inspired teaching of the oral precepts of the New Covenant as his path to maturity.
Going on, Jesus' Upper Room discourse tells us this:
"Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us,
and not unto the world?
Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my
Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.
He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings: and the word which ye hear is not mine,
but the Father's which sent me.
These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you.
But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he
shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have
said unto you" (Jn. 14:22-26 AV; cf Deut. 8:3, Mt. 4:4, Lk. 4:4)
The Holy Ghost has always taught through the verbally inspired, inerrant, plenary, and faithfully preserved written record of The God's spoken words, summed up as The Truth.
Again, Jesus emphasized to His disciple-apostles:
"But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the
Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me:
And ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning" (Jn. 15:26,27 AV).
And again:
"I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.
Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall
not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew
you things to come.
He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you.
All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that he shall take of mine, and
shall shew it unto you" (Jn 16:12-15 AV).
These eleven apostles would receive and transmit to their personally supervised disciple-amanuenses the oral precepts given to them by their Master, for the sake of posterity, in their own tongue. As to sanctification, the growing and maturing of the new-born spiritual babe is also mentioned in His High Priestly prayer:
"They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.
As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.
And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.*
Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word;
That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be
one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me" (Jn. 17:16-21 AV; * = should be capitalized).
In the commission to recruit, induct, and instruct replicates of themselves, His imperative to them was that they shoud be:
"Teaching them** to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am
with you alway, even unto the end of the world" (Mt. 28:20 AV; ** = their disciples). In this, the sense of "observe" means not only to merely obey whatsoever Jesus had commanded them, but the verb "tereo" in the present tense infinitive means "to be persistently keeping watchful security against change or loss in any way" whatsoever, neglecting nothing, of all things pertaining to Jesus' commands to them.
The Beloved John rehearsed this in his letter to his disciples:
"These things have I written unto you concerning them that seduce you.
But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that
any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth,
and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him" (1 Jn. 2:26-27 AV).
"Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loveth
him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him.
By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his
commandments.
For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments
are not grievous.
For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that
overcometh the world, even our faith" (1 Jn 5:1-4 AV).
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My FRiend, I know that any translation from the apographs of the NT books is not itself inspired, but it need not be grossly fallible. However, my feeling is that much of the differences between opinions on the content of the autographs arises from attempts to carry into the mind of the Gentile what existed in the mind of the first century Greek-speaker who came under the discipline of the prototype Jerusalem church model, and their practice is set forth in Acts 2: "Then they that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day there
were added unto them about three thousand souls.
And they continued stedfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in
breaking of bread, and in prayers.
And fear came upon every soul: and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles.
And all that believed were together, and had all things common;
And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every
man had need" (Act 2:41-45 AV).
These new Christians had the excluisive treat of being discipled by the only men and women, including the mother of the Savior, who are the characters appearing in the pages of the New Testament, the only valid eye-witness information we have of The Faith which we now believe in, and the Master we have the privilege of serving.
Probably the best testimony to the validity of Sola Scriptura is the vignettte of the Risen Christ describing the prophecies of His mission from the pages od Scripture.
"Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken:
Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?
And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the
scriptures the things concerning himself" (Lk. 24:25-27 Av).
Do you disagree with this viewpoint?
This approach to imparting Bible truths has never disappointed me as a student or as an instructor-servant of the Lord. Let me commend that method to you.
The only thing I ever read about Jesus having to say anything about tradition was to condemn it.
GOD said that the the word of God was enough to make the one wise for salvation and man of God complete for EVERY good work.
2 Timothy 3:14-17 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
Why does the Catholic church say it's not?
What is lacking that men feel they need to add something to it? Is it not truth? Is it not authoritative? Is it not God breathed, Holy Spirit inspired?
Disputable matters? If it's relating to salvation, it's not disputable.
Salvation is by faith in Christ. If someone teaches that salvation is some other way, through good works, through baptism, through ritual or sacraments, that is wrong and that is not open for dispute. Only by the shedding of blood is there forgiveness of sin. Nothing else does it. Not works, not suffering, not baptism, not communion, not nothing for the shedding of blood.
If you want examples of *disputable matters*, then read Romans 14. God gives some.
No, it was God that chose that for us. Tell me this. Do you love God or the Roman Catholic Church? Do you obey God or the Roman Catholic Church? If God sent you a message to "Come out of her My people", would you obey God?
metmom:
Romans 14 offers an example of disputable matters, namely Jewish dietary laws; is it an all-inclusive list?
Jesus condemned *human* tradition, yes, absolutely, when such traditions countermanded the Word of God. But if such traditions are in line with His Word, and with His teaching as handed down by the Apostles, is it to be jettisoned?
“For even creation reveals Him who formed it, and the very work made suggests Him who made it, and the world manifests Him who ordered it. The Universal Church, moreover, through the whole world, has received this tradition from the Apostles.” - St. Irenaeus, “Against Heresies, Book 2, Chapter 9”
All Scripture *is* profitable for teaching, yes, absolutely. But at the time Paul wrote to Timothy, there was no New Testament yet compiled! When he speaks to how Timothy was acquainted with these writings from the time of his childhood, these would have only been the writings seen as Sacred Scripture by the Jewish people, aka the Old Testament.
When it says that all Scripture is profitable for teaching, does that exclude all other sources of wisdom? Does that mean the oral tradition of the Apostles is to be discounted?
Did not Paul exhort the Thessalonians to hold fast to the traditions they were taught, either by letter or that was *spoken* to them? (2 Thessalonians 2:2)
See here for a more thorough explanation: http://www.catholic.com/tracts/scripture-and-tradition
So, does Christ give any indication as to how disagreements are to be settled, or how offenses between fellow Christians are to be handled? As a matter of fact, He does, in Matthew 18:
[15] But if thy brother shall offend against thee, go, and rebuke him between thee and him alone. If he shall hear thee, thou shalt gain thy brother. [16] And if he will not hear thee, take with thee one or two more: that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may stand. [17] And if he will not hear them: tell the church. And if he will not hear the church, let him be to thee as the heathen and publican.
So I ask you: what church is Christ referring to?
BipolarBob:
To say that God chose Sola Scriptura and Sola Fide for you is to say that such a doctrine was taught by Christ, by His Apostles, and by His Church. Yet ‘Scripture alone’ was not formulated until the time of Luther, and the book of James actively denies ‘Faith alone’.
You ask if God sent a message to flee the Catholic Church, would I listen to it?
The question I ask of you in return is, how do you know that message is from God? For we were warned of the wiles of the Enemy, as Paul instructed in his second letter to the Corinthians (chapter 11):
[12] But what I do, that I will do, that I may cut off the occasion from them that desire occasion, that wherein they glory, they may be found even as we. [13] For such false apostles are deceitful workmen, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. [14] And no wonder: for Satan himself transformeth himself into an angel of light. [15] Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers be transformed as the ministers of justice, whose end shall be according to their works.
And what of Paul’s exhortation in the first chapter of his letter to the Galatians?
[6] I wonder that you are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ, unto another gospel. [7] Which is not another, only there are some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. [8] But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema. [9] As we said before, so now I say again: If any one preach to you a gospel, besides that which you have received, let him be anathema.
We are called to hold fast to the teachings of Christ and His Apostles; so when Christ Himself said that he would build His Church upon Peter, would grant him the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven, and that the gates of hell would not prevail against it...why would I abandon His Church? Why would I abandon that which He instituted?
That is a presumption not evidenced. How old was Timotheus when Paul wrote the letter? How long had the Apostles' writings been circulating among the body of believers. I think that if you will do a little honest research for yourself you will find that Timothy was in his twenties and the Gospels had been circulating for a couple decades, birthing members into the body of believers for at least two decades since the Crucifixion. The letter to the Galatians was written within a decade of Saul's conversion, which conversion happened less than five years after the crucifixion.
If the writings of the early church fathers, which attest to the profession of faith Peter made as the rock upon which Jesus IS building the body of believers, if those writings are unintelligible to the catholic blindness then it is even less likely that a non-Catholic will get through the darkness to enlighten the dogmatized.
I asked you earlier if you would obey God or the RCC. I am taking from your responses that you are sticking with the Roman Catholic Church.
“You keep insisting that God violates His own Law, that the Eucharist stands against the Mosaic Law, despite repeated arguments and explanations to the contrary. You’re certainly free to disregard such arguments, but you carry on as if the Church has never provided an answer to the (incorrect) charge of cannibalism.”
Read the Holy Scripture and look to the Jewish tradition of the marriage process of the time and you will see what the bread and wine signified. Step 5 really teaches what the cup meant. If you need it broke down what each step means I can do it, but it’s really simply if you really want to understand it.
Jewish Marriage Customs
Those who live in the modern western world do not catch the full significance of Jesus’ promise. This is due to the fact that in His promise Jesus was drawing an analogy from Jewish marriage customs in biblical times. Since this is so, those marriage customs must be examined if one is to grasp the significance of the promise.
The first major step in a Jewish marriage was betrothal.
1 Betrothal involved the establishment of a marriage covenant. By Jesus’ time it was usual for such a covenant to be established as the result of the prospective bridegroom taking the initiative.
2 The prospective bridegroom would travel from his father’s house to the home of the prospective bride. There he would negotiate with the father of the young woman to determine the price (mohar) that he must pay to purchase his bride.
3 Once the bridegroom paid the purchase price, the marriage covenant was thereby established, and the young man and woman were regarded to be husband and wife.
4 From that moment on the bride was declared to be consecrated or sanctified, set apart exclusively for her bridegroom.
5 As a symbol of the covenant relationship that had been established, the groom and bride would drink from a cup of wine over which a betrothal benediction had been pronounced.
6 After the marriage covenant had been established, the groom would leave the home of the bride and return to his father’s house. There he would remain separate from his bride for a period of twelve months.
7 This period of separation afforded the bride time to gather her trousseau and to prepare for married life.
8 The groom occupied himself with the preparation of living accommodations in his father’s house to which he could bring his bride. At the end of the period of separation the groom would come to take his bride to live with him. The taking of the bride usually took place at night. The groom, best man and other male escorts would leave the groom’s father’s house and conduct a torch light procession to the home of the bride.
9 Although the bride was expecting her groom to come for her, she did not know the exact time of his coming.
10 As a result the groom’s arrival would be preceded by a shout.
11 This shout would forewarn the bride to be prepared for the coming of the groom.
After the groom received his bride together with her female attendants, the enlarged wedding party would return from the bride’s home to the groom’s father’s house.
12 Upon arrival there the wedding party would find that the wedding guests had assembled already. Shortly after arrival the bride and groom would be escorted by the other members of the wedding party to the bridal chamber (huppah). Prior to entering the chamber the bride remained veiled so that no one could see her face.
13 While the groomsmen and bridesmaids would wait outside, the bride and groom would enter the bridal chamber alone. There in the privacy of that place they would enter into physical union for the first time, thereby consummating the marriage that had been covenanted earlier.
14 After the marriage was consummated, the groom would announce the consummation to the other members of the wedding party waiting outside the chamber (John 3:29). These people would pass on the news of the marital union to the wedding guests.
15 Upon receiving this good news the wedding guests would feast and make merry for the next seven days.
16 During the seven days of the wedding festivities, which were sometimes called “the seven days of the huppah,” the bride remained hidden in the bridal chamber.
17 At the conclusion of these seven days the groom would bring his bride out of the bridal chamber, now with her veil removed, so that all could see who his bride was.
This is just such a cunningly devised fable--a big lump of absolutely invalid eisegesis wrongly being presented as exegesis--that it makes any other justified and justifiable rejection of Romanism (and there are many more) pale in comparison. Based on this blatantly wrong supposition of interpretive authority, your doctrine has not only no standing to make your point, but is worthy of condemnation as to the insoucience with which it is presented.
The tradition brought into question here is exactly the same kind of "tradition" that you have learned from fallible Platonistic-tainted "patristics" and their uninspired writings, a misinterpretation of the Scripture just like those of the spiritually blind Pharisees and copyists that Jesus condemned. It is not one "handed down by the Apostles." It certainly is not one handed down by Simon bar Jonah (2 Pet.1:20-21,2:1-2, 3:15-17, the Apostle to the Jews; or by Paul (Acts 17:10-12; 1 Cor. 2:1-2,5); or by John (1 Jn. 4:1, Rev. 2:6 hating the clergy/laity scheme).
As clearly demonstrated by the Risen Jesus to Cleophas and his companion, and by Paul in the case of Timothy, and by Philip in the case of the Ethiopian eunuch, the existing Scriptures were sufficient grounds for knowledge of the Messiah Jesus to effect salvation through faith in Him alone.
Your case demeaning the effectuality of the Scriptures available to Timothy is unfounded. The Spirit-recorded words of the Apostle Paul confirmed that they had the power to save when their pre-Cross mysteries were spiritually discerned and displayed; which gift of discernment, though thoroughly trained in the Tanach by Gamaliel, Saul did not have before his miraculous rebirth.
It seems to me that your argumentation shows the same blindness of your Roman masters, not one of a spirit-filled regenerated child of The God who looks at things with the mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2:12-16, Phil. 2:2,5,8,15).
I have no confidence that your religious organization has preserved the Word of God faithfully throughout the ages, nor that y'all have the Spirit-guided mind to interpret such remnants of The Truth as it yet has. It has had to be restored (Erasmus), translated into our vernacular (Tyndall et alii), and made the Bible of the English Crown (James I, Stuart) for the global reign of Brittania in its greatest reach as a mission-minded nation.
It is clear that the LORD has raised a remnant that has continued to fulfill His desire to that they persistently follow the Christ of the Bible and see His Word preserved, proclaimed, planted, and pursued as He wishes.
They will not permit your line of credibility through supposed apostolic succession to prevail over and persuade them away from their personal daily experience with the Living God, and His Son as personal Friend and Master. The only ones from their midst who can come under your sway are those whose full and irrevocable committed trust in Christ was never recognized by them as His condition of reconciliation with The Father.
(Also, the idea that translations of the Old and New Testaments into the vernacular language was opposed by the Catholic Church as some sort of power ploy over the laity is mythical, to put it mildly.)
You speak of the Tyndale Bible as though it was the first to be translated into the English vernacular, even though English versions of Scriptures existed from before even Wycliffe, by centuries. You laud William Tyndale's translation, even though his avowed anti-Catholic beliefs would hardly make him an unbiased translator.
You berate and mock the teachings of the Apostolic successors, stating that their interpretation of Scripture and the teachings of Christ and His Apostles are incorrect. You even go so far as to make the outlandish claim that the only way a modern-day Christian would fall 'sway' to Catholicism is that they don't recognize their trust in Christ as 'His condition for reconciliation', as you say. (To which I and many other converts to Catholicism would say that, of course we trust in Christ; for what better reason would we convert to Catholicism if we did not trust in Him?)
Ultimately, however, that is only your opinion, your interpretation. And you end back up in the same place as before for those who subscribe to Sola Scriptura and Sola Fide: an interpretation that can only be called yours, separated from the history of the Church and her teaching.
"To be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant." - John Henry Cardinal Newman, Anglican priest who converted to Catholicism
I will leave these two debates on Sola Scriptura and retire from this thread. But I will say that it has been invigorating.
God bless!
Please show us documentation of the oral teachings of the apostles that was not written down in Scripture.
Demonstrate that the teaching was indeed from the apostles and not added later by someone else who claimed it was from the apostles, and that it was passed down faithfully, without corruption, for 2,000 years.
Peter is NOT the rock on which Christ is building His church.
*Petra* is JESUS, NOT Peter, and that is according to both Paul and Peter.
1 Corinthians 10:1-4 For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock (petra) that followed them, and the Rock (petra) was Christ.
http://biblehub.com/text/romans/9-33.htm
Romans 9:30-33 What shall we say, then? That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it, that is, a righteousness that is by faith; but that Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in reaching that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works. They have stumbled over the stumbling stone, as it is written,“Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock (petra) of offense; and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”
http://biblehub.com/text/1_peter/2-8.htm
1 Peter 2:1-8 So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.
As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For it stands in Scripture: “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”
So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe,
“The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,”
and
“A stone of stumbling, and a rock (petra) of offense.”
They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.
All occurrences of *petra* in the Greek.
Sorry, I know I said I would be retiring from the thread, but I have to reply to this one little bit.
Jesus didn’t speak Greek, but Aramaic. Matthew 16:18 would thus go as follows: “Thou art Kepha, and upon this Kepha I will build my Church.”
So why does the Greek render the first Kepha as Petros and the second as petra, instead of using the same word for both?
Because petra is of the feminine gender, and you wouldn’t give a feminine name to a man; hence, the masculine gender of the term petra was used for Peter’s name.
Have a blessed day!
You see, my estimate was correct. Your cohort takes on the color of commitment by donning the skin of the Greater Catechism (of which I have a copy), yet refusing to acknowledge its inconsistencies and the many ways in which its opinions and "traditions" are set above the authority of the Written Words of God, whose Personalized form is its Author, the Savior and Lord Himself, nominated by Beloved John as The Logos, The Word: Jesus Messiach, Lord of All.
Neither numbers nor the uninspired sayings of fallible men can save and justify you and yours in the Biblical view. Only absolute, unreserved persistent trust in the Jesus of the Bible--discarding all else temporal and unreliable--and in His Cleansing Blood can do that.
I have had the privilege of discipling many young Christians into greater maturity. In my later years I have been using the materials (click here) with which I was myself discipled by an old veteran missionary and Bible translator (click here).
My most sincere primary instruction to those I have been given the opportunity to help to spiritual maturity is taking the position of looking at every experience from God's point of view, and never taking the counsel of a sincere but fallible discipler or preacher-herald without exercising the kind of noble followup of the Bereans, who searched the Scriptures daily with an open mind to see if what they were told was true, The Bible being the final appeal.
This has set my mind and my energies quite against the methodology of the Romanists, whose minds are utterly closed, like those Thessalonikans reported by Luke (Acts 17:1-14) who experienced first-hand the kind of killing fury that has also been manifested by the Judaising Catholegalism when its sponsors have the upper hand, to extinguish both the power of The Book and the People of The Book.
You noted that I mentioned the sixteenth century humanist, Erasmus of Rotterdam. Though Erasmus Rogerii (as he once termed himself) remained nominally a Catholic, his body is buried among those of his friends at a Protestant cemetery in Basel. He himself helped undo the overwhelming excesses of his fellow Romanists, and that is why I mentioned him as a tool used by God to reassert the supremacy of the Word of God as the arbiter in human affairs, rather than the Vatican.
I don't know if you've read through a particular biographer's account, "Erasmus And The Age Of Reformation" by Johan Huizinga (translated from the Dutch in 1929 by F. Hopman, with Erasmus' letters later translated by Barbara Flower), but I have. It is detailed, and doesn't have much to say about the kindness of the Catholic heirarchy to him.
Another summary of Erasmus' mark on civilization is the essay A Tolerant Mind: Desiderius Erasmus (click here), an essay by Jim Powell web-posted on July 4, 2000.
Here are some highlights from it:
========= Excerpts ==========
"Erasmus wrote Enchirdion militis christiani [The Handbook of the Christian Soldier], a practical guide to Christianity. He insisted that people save their souls not by performing religious rituals but by cultivating faith and goodness. The book was translated into English (after 1518), Czech (1519), German (1520) and then into French, Italian, Polish, Portugese and Spanish, the Enchirdion helped set the stage for the Reformation."
-------
"Because of all the errors in the official Latin Vulgate edition of the Bible, Erasmus went back to Greek manuscripts — 14th century copies as it turned out — and produced a fresh Latin translation of the New Testament with annotations and commentary. His translation, published in Basel, inspired others to translate the New Testament. For instance, Martin Luther’s German translation (1522), William Tyndale’s English translation (1525), Benedek Komjati’s Hungarian translation (1533) and Francisco de Enmzinas’ Spanish translation (1543).
---------
" 'Erasmus,' noted William Manchester, 'died a martyr to everything he despised in life: fear, malice, excess, ignorance, barbarism.' The Spanish Inquisition excommunicated him as a heretic, and, Manchester continued, 'everything Erasmus had ever published was consigned to the Index Expurgatorius, which meant that any Catholic who read the prose which had once delighted a pontiff would be placing his soul in jeopardy.' In 1546, the Council of Trent condemned Erasmus’ edition of the New Testament. Pope Paul IV called Erasmus 'the leader of all heretics' and urged people to burn his writings."
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"It was in America that people began to fulfill Erasmus’ vision of tolerance. 'Thus for the first time since the Dark Ages,' wrote historian Paul Johnson, 'a society came into existence in which institutional Christianity was associated with progress and freedom, rather than against them. The United States was Erasmian in its tolerance, Erasmian in its anti-doctrinal animus, above all Erasmian in its desire to explore, within a Christian context, the uttermost limits of human possibilities.' "
=========== end of excerpts =========
It is in the spirit of the Erasmian genius of the Free Republic Religious Forum that I accept a tolerance of differences of religious opinion that may be debated, without coming to ad hominem argumentation, name-calling, flame wars, or isolation of FR members for augmented attacks; but my tolerance does not extend to accepting the oft-repeated Romanist touchstones of tran/consubstantiation, or Mariology/-otry, Peterine foundations, catholicism universality (whether Roman, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Arminian, or Orthodox), episcopacy, the clergy/laity model, as primary examples. Nor do I accept paedobaptism, continuation of special revelation, or unsubstantiated "miracles," to name a few areas in which I will contend for The Faith, and support others of a like mind.
I can understand why a sin-distressed delusional world-clinger (1 Jn. 2:15-16) would rather, as a last-ditch dependency on his own perceived goodness, become a bondslave of the Roman "Church", rather than admit his/her depravity angive it all up to become a regenerated believer-disciple-servant and friend (Jn. 15:14,15) of The Christ of the Bible. With that, I accept your "adieu" with a "ciao," as I rest in Him from Whom all blessings flow.
'Conver5ts' to Catholicism are merely taking a sideways step on the broad road toward the wide gate of damnation. Jesus did not establish an org (organization), He proclaimed a new covenant of the simplest fashion with the Greatest Holy Promise, even using bread and wine for a Remembrance of how and by what means this new covenant is sealed.
Someone converting to an org is not exhibiting faith in the Promise of God to apply His Grace when one believes on the One Whom God has sent for our salvation. They are placing faith in an org to bring them through the 'striving for salvation'. THAT is faithing in an org, not faithing in God's Holy Spirit. And catholiciism is designed by a brilliant demon to continually drag the soul back into rituals and blasphemies which serve only to mock God by declaring violation to the laws against eating human flesh and drinking human blood as righteousness on display. The org is crushing souls into the compactor of hell's delivery.
Catholiciism gets exposed at FR on these threads and thankfully the vagaries of the org are shown for what they are, the workings of anything but God's Promise. Catholiciism is designed to feed the deep and pernicious pride of self, as the adherents are encouraged to follow the sacramental path delivered by the priesthood to the laity who are required to remain clueless and attentive to the rituals which serve pride of self.
This statement is false, and the Gospels of the New Testament say so, as does Paul in his epistles (1 Cor. 11:24,25) and in his account to Like (Acts 9:4-6,11-12).
John 1:42 in the AV English translation is as follows (Jesus exact words in red, John's in black):
"And he brought him to Jesus. And when Jesus beheld him, he said, 'Thou art Simon the son of Jona: thou shalt be called Cephas', which is by interpretation, 'A stone'."
Likewise, in Jerome's Latin Vulgate translation, it is:
et adduxit eum ad Iesum intuitus autem eum Iesus dixit tu es Simon filius Iohanna tu vocaberis Cephas quod interpretatur Petrus
But in the Textus Receptus, not itself a translation, it is:
και ηγαγεν αυτον προς τον ιησουν εμβλεψας δε αυτω ο ιησους ειπεν συ ει σιμων ο υιος ιωνα συ κληθηση κηφας ο ερμηνευεται πετρος.
In the Greek, speaking the common language to his disciples, Jesus spoke both Koine and Chaldean in this literal exact quote of what He said. Nevertheless, the diminutive name he gave Simon is masculine in whatever language you want it. In Aramaic, it is:
Strong's Number H3710
כּף
kêph
Brown, Driver, Briggs' DB Definition:
כּ1) rock, hollow of a rock
Part of Speech: noun masculine
A Related Word by BDB/Strong’s Number: from H3721
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Strong's Number G2786
Κηφᾶς
Kēphas
kay-fas'
Strong's Definition:
Of Chaldee origin (compare [H3710]); the Rock; Cephas
(that is, Kepha), surname of Peter: - Cephas.
-----
Strong's NumberG2786
Κηφᾶς
Kēphas
Thayer Definition:
Cephas = "stone"
1) another name for the apostle Peter
Part of Speech: noun proper masculine
===========
So why does the Greek render the first Kepha as Petros and the second as petra, instead of using the same word for both?
Your suggestion is also impudent, for you seek to change both the original Scripture and its import by grammatically changing the meaning of what Jesus said to Simon Bar Jonah in month Sivan of A. D. 32, when He had given him the sobriquet Kephas/Petros at Bethabara, about two and a half years earlier.
Since then, He and the companions had been calling him "Peter" or "Cephas" all along. Your Matthew 16:18 passage described the interchange with Jesus and His disciples as they were standing on the huge rock escarpment at Caesarea. The passage is translated in "The Gospels: A Precise Translation" by Fred Wittman:
15 He says to them,
But yourselves, Whom are you& saying that I am?
16 Then Simon Peter answered and said,
You yourself are continuously The Christ, The Son of The Absolutely Living God.
17 And Jesus answered and said to him,
You$ are continuously a blessed one, Simon Bar Jonah; because flesh and blood
did not reveal this to you, but My Father, namely The One In The Heavens.
18 Now I myself also say to you$,
"You$ yourself are Peter and upon this rock ledge I will build my church. And Hell's gates shall not prevail against it.
19 And I will give to you$ the keys to the Kingdom of the Heavens. And what thing ever you$ bind upon the Earth shall be a bound thing in The Heavens. And what thing ever you$ loose upon the Earth shall be a loosed thing in The Heavens."
Note: $ = singular & = plural
========
Because petra is of the feminine gender, and you wouldn’t give a feminine name to a man; hence, the masculine gender of the term petra was used for Peter’s name.
No, my FRiend. Would Jesus be so imprecise as to fool us? NO! Koine is a very precise language, much more so than English, and he used it exactly so that only a determined miscreant would misinterpret it to sustain his own non-Biblical narrative.
Now, what is going on here is that Jesus is establishing for all time, first with His students, a grasp of His eternal role; that is, what His relationship to them is, and what his relationship in The Godhead is. That is what they are to learn, to believe, to teach, and to preach about Him and His rock-like stability, going forward.
"And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ" (1 Cor. 10:4 AV).
The inspired words put into Simon's heart and mouth by God are:
"You yourself are continuously The Christ, The Son of The Absolutely Living God."
That is the immovable, unchangeable, foundational proclamation that is to be the entire trust of His organization that He is in the process of creating. This deliberately came from Above. It is not a human imagination by which Jesus the Messiah's status is announced, but it is rather a spiritual message honoring Him from another man's lips. It is this word of acknowledgement and praise by which Jesus' reputation must be proclaimed. It is necessarily a Scripturally authorized and required commendation:
"Let another man praise thee, and not thine own mouth; a stranger, and not thine own lips" (Prov. 27:2AV).
But of far greater import, it is the confession of an unreservedly trusting heart that marks the salvation of a soul from hellfire:
"And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God" (Acts 8:37 AV).
The durability of Peter's statement of a spiritual truth is compared by Jesus to the miles-long rock outcropping upon which they are standing, which in the Koine Greek is the feminine noun, πετρα, petra in the nominative singular feminine. It is NOT πετροσ, petros, which no Koine-literate reader or hearer would ever be confused by what Jesus is saying.
But, just in case, He takes the trouble to say in the presence of everyone, "You, Simon Bar Jonah, are obdurate, hard to teach, strong, non-compliant, domineering, hasty, and (at times) perfidious. That is why I've gotten everyone to call you "Rocky" because of the conflict in characteristics. That's not the view I want the public to think of My Church. It has to be stable and regal, not inscrutable and unreliable.
Make no mistake: what you said is genuine, solid truth, but it didn't just occur to you out of your creativity; nor much less, out of obsequiousness. It was given to you by My Father, and you're the perfect one to say it, because it is indeed unlikely, far from the captain-of-the-ship figure you would like to project on the rest of my disciples, that you would be the one to say it.
So what I'm going to say is in a little figurative-literal metaphor, like the story I explained to y'all back last year in Adar when we were up on the mountain, about a man who ought to build his house on a stratum of geological granite so the it will survive any storm. That was a parable, too, and so is this. I'm building My Church on Myself as The Rock and on My everlasting never-failing reputation as the Only Begotten Son of God Whose Promises are true and eternal, reliable to the death and beyond, to seek and save the lost sheep of Israel.
Now, don't y'all forget that. I'm going to give the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, the earthly charge of screening applicants to the visible church on earth to everyone of my spiritual disciples--and even to you, "Peter", even to you, as slow a disciple as you are.
But remember, anything you want to make a rule about, just make sure that it is a rule that has already been approved and put in place in The Heavens, OK?"
Have you got this, US? You wanted Jesus to say,
"Thou art Kepha, and upon this Kepha I will build my Church",
didn't you? To make the Scripture fit your impertinent, wrong narrative, eh?
Well, I'm not buying it, though you might get some people logically and spiritually disadvantaged. If I find one of your "converts," I'll be helping him/her see reality and able to distinguish between metaphors and concrete (oops!) unyielding rock-solid reality.
And it would have been Kephas (masculine), not Kepha.
wOW!
Scripture was written in Greek.
Interpretation cannot be made on alleged texts or language which may have been spoken.
That’s really grasping at straws to build a case.
Coming up......
"It is NOT πετροσ πετρος, petros, . . ."
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