Posted on 03/30/2002 7:53:37 PM PST by malakhi
| Statesmen may plan and speculate for liberty, but it is religion and morality alone which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free constitution is pure virtue. - John Adams |
Ok. I deserved that.lol.
Ask yourself, the part of you that sins, is it your flesh, or the Spirit of Christ? The flesh will die, leaving only the Spirit of Christ that will be quickened to eternal life.
When you sin now, it only effects the flesh, not our Spirit that is now protected by Christ Spirit, which can not sin.
You seem to be considering your flesh as the heart of a person, but its simply a covering that will be discarded when you die, and it’s what pleasures in sin in us now. When your sinful flesh dies, it’ll have no effect on your spirit that Christ has indwelled in you.
The Jews also worried about the appearance of the outward flesh, over the inner heart, which was what God saw, not their outward righteousness.
We’ll never be able to truly distinguish between the two, flesh and spirit, until our fleshly body dies, and for the first time, that burden will be gone. We’ll see how easy it is to be perfect, with Christ mind in us, and our earthly body gone.
No longer will it be constantly yelling at us to do this, or do that, eat this, or smoke that, or drink this, or look at that.
JH :-)
I know you've been waiting to try this out on some unsuspecting Sola Scripturist, but we've been down this road many times before.
Let me cut through the chase and get to the meat of the question. Did the word "brethren " in Matthew 13:55, mean they all had the same mother, or could it have meant cousin, or a half brother, or a spiritual brother?
First, look at Matthew 13:55-56, and I believe you'll have to agree that this is Jesus family they're referring to.
Is not this the carpenter's son? is not his mother called Mary? and his brethren, James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas?
V- 5. And his sisters, are they not all with us? Whence then hath this man all these things?
From this we know that Jesus father was a carpenter, that His mothers name was Mary. We also know that Jesus had brothers ranging from the oldest, James then Joses, Simon and Judas, plus a couple of sisters.
If you'll look at Matthew 27:56 at the scene of the crucifixion, you'll find this same Mary at the scene of the crucifixion, and the only Mary besides Mary Magdalene, who’s at every accounting at the cross.
Mt 13:55, Mk 15:40, Jn 19:25, these two Mary’s are inseparable. They are always together, so they must be followers of Jesus, and more then passing friends.
Now notice that Mary has sons, she’s their mother.
Unlike some who say that Jesus had brothers but it never says that Mary was their mother, well that’s not true, because here at the crucifixion, all the writers except John, tell us Mary was the mother of these sons and brothers of Jesus, James and Joses, the same James and Joses called Jesus brethren in Matthew 13:55.
John doesn’t use the two sons James and Joses to clarify who Mary was, because he made it clear she was Mary, the mother of Jesus.
It’s clear that Mary had sons named James and Joses, and she was the only Mary in the New Testament who had sons with either of these names.
This was not a large group of followers, who would have been at the cross with Jesus, so it’s absurd to think one other Mary out of this small company of people, could also have had two sons named James and Joses, and a carpenter father.
Had there been, the writer (and the Holy Spirit) would have clarified which was which.
Just as I challenged Soothing Dave to find me another woman named Mary who had sons named James and Joses, I also challenge you, and please don’t bother me again trying to say Mary remained ever virgin unless you can.
JH
I agree with you, other then among fellow Christians who understand, I'd never mention it.
It's too hard to explain anyway. Lol
JH :-)
I've been studying Constantine and the following historical - fact based accounts of what happened in his time. And I've made several startling observations - some you will already be aware of.
1. Christianity in his time was a large amalgum of sects - not a single large sect surrounded by smaller sects.
2. One realizes Constantine was not Christian; but, here's a rather complicated one to get to. So pay close attention.
A)Licinius was a rival of Constantine - not an arm of constantine and was put down for several reasons. Defeated finally in 324, he was put down for his political aspirations and for causing division within the empire through political aspiration and persecution of Christians - and specifically the Donatists.
B)The Donatists were not put down by Constantine or on his behalf, they in fact well outlived him. The only thing Constantine actually did is order their church's siezed in an attempt to force them into unity with the other sects. Constantine was trying to unify the sects into a common harmoneous whole. Whether that was his aim or not, that is what ended up happening. His stated aim was unity of empire, not of religion.
C) Reading the factual record from countless historians at this point, it is clear that there was no central figure leading a unified church. The problem is there was no unified church. There was no unity of position. Reading the record of his forced gathering of the Bishops shows that these bishops were representative of disperate factions that had disagreements. And the biggest was with the Donatists and the Arians; but, those were not the only ones. It so happens that these two sects represented deal breaker postions to a coalescance of a combined sect or unified religion.
D) The issue on the table primarily at this forced meeting was The arian question of the nature of Christ. Now here's where it gets fun. Constantine was so ignorant of Christianity that he was clueless as to the importance of the issue at hand and was arguing for the Arian position in trying to get the other factions to accept language that would allow for the Arian view to be accepted along with the opposite view. IE, it would simultaneously allow for teaching that Christ and God were both of different nature and of the same nature. Sit and ponder this for a moment, then continue.
- The popular myth is that the Donatists were wiped out on Constantine's behalf in order to put down a heresy. Constantine's own direction on the matter was simply to attempt to unify the empire by stopping the wrangling between warring sects of the dominant religion against the backdrop of an empire struggling to survive under attack from it's enemies. The Old religions lost confidence of the people when the empire was attacked and suffered losses - which in turn fed the growth of 'Christian sects'. One can see the problem caused by religious infighting in a crumbling empire by turning on the news right now regarding post war Iraq. The different groups have to come together and learn to deal with one another or the country can't move on. This is the identical same situation Constantine was in. The factual record fails to mention a sect called 'Catholic'. A glaring abstention that had not escaped me before; but, it becomes all the more relevant when we realize that again, constantine is pulling a large group of different sects together to try and get them to cooperate and get along for the sake of the empire. And this is later punctuated by Theodosius who once and for all states there will be ONE sect called Catholic and all others thereafter will be heretics to be put down.. The price of political unity to drive out religious unrest was the creation of a common religion to the detriment of anyone who would disagree.
After reading the laws that were written by Constantine to deal with this stuff and putting it into context against what was supposed to already exist according to the popular myths. One wonders why it would be necessary for Constantine to impose laws on a body that already had such laws in place of their own. One also wonders why a common sect had to be established when one supposedly already existed. One wonders Why the sect name "catholic" isn't in the factual record until after constantine dies. The more I read, the more I'm convinced I've finally found the foundation of Catholicism. I've hinted at it and proffered it before; but, I can't see any alternatives at this point given what is known about the writings of Eusebius. If you dismiss Eusebius, Catholicism has no footprint in the world until Theodosius instituted it by name. And knowing the level of historical fraud perpetrated (and proven so) by Eusebius, dismissing him is no loss to the record. In short, Catholicism came into being over 300 years after Christ.
I could ramble on but; I will show a little constraint and not do so in the interest of brevity and hopefully clarity. But I will say I found it rather funny that Constantine outlawed divination through the reading of entrails and then had to revoke the law in order to allow himself to do so in the practice of his own religion of mithraism. The things you discover when you dig into the details...
I haven't bothered to consider the implications yet for the catholics. I was too stunned when I pieced it all together to even care. So have fun with it - bat it around for a while. And gimme some input if you would.
Why not catholic number 2?
Thank you. You people are beginning to show true colors.
You need to study a little and get your facts straight.
Cyprian and Origen in context and taken as a whole are of little concern to me or what I've said. One need not bother with them to know that diverse opining was taking place and that diversity of belief was taking root in the time of the Apostles. The problem that exists is that no one was able to handle such problems as presented by an Arius or a Donatus and as such screams of the absence both of any central authority and of any power to put it to rest. Constantine didn't force the presence of the Bishops because they were doing a good job at keeping unrest to a minimum by remaining unified in belief. Constantine acted because the inability of the sects to agree and deal with their problems in any acceptable fashion was threatening the unity of the empire. There was no unifying structure or central point of control, nor was there a final authority respected by any of the Bishops to turn to in this. In effect, Constantine put his Foot down.
I'm not honestly sure why you bother to invoke Origen given what has been brought to light with regard to him in these threads. I'm sure I've read of his predelection toward being "creative" here. And as for Cyprian, on what authority do we recieve what he says as applying to the entirety of what called itself christianity. Furthermore, what is it you are presuming to proffer that he said that has either authority or bearing as regards what I've noted. Being familiar with your tendancies I'm not particularly captive in my chair awaiting your response; but, I'm curious as to what you think they've said that is of any worth in this discussion given the facts on the table.
As regards your comments re the church in Africa. Let us not forget that based on the frauds sold to the African Church by Rome several hundred years later, Africa's cannon included a known fraudulent or forged work. As for Donatus, here's what I found interesting "The Donatists set themselves up as the fierce and uncompromising enemies of all who had allowed themselves gestures towards the pagans in order to save their skins(although it was found later that some of their most vigorous opponents had done the same). As far as the empire was concerned, they stood for a deeply rooted disharmony: for they completely spurned traditional, classical, urban culture, and rejected the sovereignty of Constantine's official church, which they identified with this sore of hated background.
- Michael Grant, "Constantine the Great: the man and his times." Scribners, NY 1993.
This passage is dealing with the Donatist rise in the face of the persecutions of Diocletion. The impact here is that Donatus was preaching that it was wrong/evil to knuckle under to the Emperor and worship pagan gods in order to save their necks. This put them at odds with the other sects who in turn prattled off to the emperor and complained. Constantine saw them as a threat because they were seen as causing disunity. But, the facts paint them as a sect that kept strictly to the teachings of the apostles and prophets with regard to not venerating pagan gods. Or in other words, they were doing what they were supposed to and preaching against the actions of those who were not and this had the other sects in a tizzy. What vile things were cooked up before the emperor is of little concern at this point. The point to the emperor had little to do with whether they were right or wrong just as in the matter of Arius. His interest was in unity and preventing civil unrest while he tried to salvage the empire. Donatus was persecuted by Constantine to create a similitude of unity - not to bring about any sort of righteous justice. That he didn't differ in his handling of the matter of the Arians is expected after reading how the Donatists were handled. Those in error prevailed due to the meddling of an emperor in things of which he was largely ignorant. It is no wonder that revisionism has taken place either because the facts are a rather scathing rebuke. And the footprint of the error is still visible in the institution that was created via the meddlings of the emperor.
Given the politics involved in what was going on, it becomes ever more clear just why so much fraud was needed to prop these guys up. The guys in the right were put down for political expediency giving cart blanche to those who were in error to do with the forming institution whatever they would. But if it ever came to light the actual nature of what happened, in the midst of the problems of the time, it would have the same effect as if an atomic bomb were dropped on Rome. The level of unrest would have been through the roof. Thus the lie to the emperor was far less important than the one fabricated for the masses. And after that, the church is locked into a lie that they cannot but perpetuate lest the truth convict them. Who needs soap operas!!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.