What makes any given branch of Christianity an authority over my life?

[marksman]

As you already have, I don't believe that.

Once again you have called me a liar so I have once again reported you to the moderators.

 

[marksman]

Then why use it in an abstract fashion? A wage is a salary and yet you asserted that Paul meant honour was a workers wage. Seems you have a very good idea of the abstract, otherwise how would you be able to identify what is or isn't an abstract?
opcorn:

I never said no such thing.

 

[marksman]

​So I take it that you have NOT done an indepth study of the NTC.

As you have not done an indepth study of the NTC, you will forgive me that I don't see you as an authority on the subject.

 

[marksman]

​In your previous post you said it was 88 times. And saying I didn't study the apostles in the gospels is contradicting nothing as I didn't.

​Just as a matter of interest. Why did you say the word appeared in the gospels 8 times and then you said it appeared 88 times? That doesn't give the impression that you know what you are saying and that you say anything if you think it will get you the upper hand.

 

[Barrd]

For the reasons I have stated.

So, you really aren't interested in helping anyone else to learn?
That doesn't sound much like a Christian attitude.
More like a dog in the manger...

 

[Barrd]

Once again you have called me a liar so I have once again reported you to the moderators.

opcorn:

 

[StanJ]

Once again you have called me a liar so I have once again reported you to the moderators.

How's that working for you?

 

[StanJ]

​Just as a matter of interest. Why did you say the word appeared in the gospels 8 times and then you said it appeared 88 times? That doesn't give the impression that you know what you are saying and that you say anything if you think it will get you the upper hand.

Yikes! Now he's responding to his OWN posts. :wacko:

 

[StanJ]

I never said no such thing.

Which means you did. (double negatives)

 

[brakelite]

Those of you who claim that the church was given authority to decide matters of conscience are placing your eternal destiny in the hands of mortal sinful error prone men.

Matt 20:25 But Jesus called them unto him, and said, Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them.
26 But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister;
27 And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant:
28 Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.

You are denying the reality of an individuals relationship with Christ...you are denying the power of the Holy Spirit to lead the readers of the word to discover what is truth...you are placing a man in the seat of power to which scripture ascribes to Jesus alone. "There is but one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus." And when Jesus left, because He couldn't be with His church physically, promised that He would be present Spiritually, through His Holy Spirit.

Col 1:27 To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:

One who relies on the Spirit of Truth to lead them into all truth will not be disappointed. This does not make that individual a "pope"...it makes him a child of God.

Ro 8:14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.

A great deal of weight is being given to the RCCs presumed authority on the basis of history. It is claimed that because Peter was the first 'pope', and then every bishop of Rome his successor, therefore Rome only has the authority and divine mandate to teach. It is also assumed that because Jesus promised that the enemy would not be able to overcome His church, therefore the great edifice we know as the Roman Catholic Church, if Jesus was speaking truth, must of necessity be the only divinely appointed depository and keeper of truth today. In order to substantiate and hold to these claims, the RCC must also of necessity repudiate the teachings and vilify any branch of the church that rejects Roman authority, classify any such as heretics, and lay claim to the power to condemn such as being deserving of eternal torment of fire which they themselves are often willing to light the kindling.

if you want to place your eternal destiny in the hands of the bishops of Rome, by all means, go ahead. God has graciously granted you the freedom of conscience to make your own decision in that respect, and no-one has the right to stop you, although we do reserve the right to warn you.
However, I will protest as a militant Protestant till the day I die, that the same freedom of conscience God gave you He gave also to me, and I will resist to the uttermost any attempts on your part to enforce my submission to your pope.
I say the above with history attesting with the blood of millions of martyrs that while Rome proclaims freedom of conscience as her right, she has consistently denied that same privilege to others.

The Bible is my final authority. Catholic teaching even in their own catechism advises that Protestants, if they are such, because they claim the Bible as their authority, ought not adhere to Catholic teachings which are not elucidated plainly from scripture, but are given dogmatic approval through tradition and the teachings of the magisterium alone. There are several examples of those teachings. And from the dawn of Christianity there have been churches who did not follow them. The irony is that many Protestant churches do accept a number of these teachings, while primitive Christianity never taught them. Among them are...

• Purgatory
• Eternal torment
• The Trinity
• Sunday sacredness.
• Transubstantiation.
• Auricular confession.
• Infant baptism
• Relics
• Holy Water
• Prayers to dead saints and angel
• Prayers for the dead
• Recognition of the temporal authority of the Papacy
• The immaculate conception
• Absolute infallibility of the pope.

 

[KingJ]

Barrd and Stan calm down please. This thread was a good read until the last two pages. Stan your replies here are pushing the envelope.

@StanJ you said 'apostles' is mentioned 8 times. Can you provide these scriptures where the context is not as Marksman proposed. Paul the apostle vs Apsotle Paul.

Marksman is making a valid point with titles. I don't believe it is a major issue all the time. As scripture does say study to show yourself approved.

@Marksman I am just curious. Why does the title 'pastor' bother you? I feel pastor is fine. I believe there were many years in many churches where a ministering pastor was appointed by the elders. Perhaps title vs office?

 

[Barrd]

Those of you who claim that the church was given authority to decide matters of conscience are placing your eternal destiny in the hands of mortal sinful error prone men.

Matt 20:25 But Jesus called them unto him, and said, Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them.
26 But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister;
27 And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant:
28 Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.

You are denying the reality of an individuals relationship with Christ...you are denying the power of the Holy Spirit to lead the readers of the word to discover what is truth...you are placing a man in the seat of power to which scripture ascribes to Jesus alone. "There is but one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus." And when Jesus left, because He couldn't be with His church physically, promised that He would be present Spiritually, through His Holy Spirit.

Col 1:27 To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:

One who relies on the Spirit of Truth to lead them into all truth will not be disappointed. This does not make that individual a "pope"...it makes him a child of God.

Ro 8:14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.

A great deal of weight is being given to the RCCs presumed authority on the basis of history. It is claimed that because Peter was the first 'pope', and then every bishop of Rome his successor, therefore Rome only has the authority and divine mandate to teach. It is also assumed that because Jesus promised that the enemy would not be able to overcome His church, therefore the great edifice we know as the Roman Catholic Church, if Jesus was speaking truth, must of necessity be the only divinely appointed depository and keeper of truth today. In order to substantiate and hold to these claims, the RCC must also of necessity repudiate the teachings and vilify any branch of the church that rejects Roman authority, classify any such as heretics, and lay claim to the power to condemn such as being deserving of eternal torment of fire which they themselves are often willing to light the kindling.

if you want to place your eternal destiny in the hands of the bishops of Rome, by all means, go ahead. God has graciously granted you the freedom of conscience to make your own decision in that respect, and no-one has the right to stop you, although we do reserve the right to warn you.
However, I will protest as a militant Protestant till the day I die, that the same freedom of conscience God gave you He gave also to me, and I will resist to the uttermost any attempts on your part to enforce my submission to your pope.
I say the above with history attesting with the blood of millions of martyrs that while Rome proclaims freedom of conscience as her right, she has consistently denied that same privilege to others.

The Bible is my final authority. Catholic teaching even in their own catechism advises that Protestants, if they are such, because they claim the Bible as their authority, ought not adhere to Catholic teachings which are not elucidated plainly from scripture, but are given dogmatic approval through tradition and the teachings of the magisterium alone. There are several examples of those teachings. And from the dawn of Christianity there have been churches who did not follow them. The irony is that many Protestant churches do accept a number of these teachings, while primitive Christianity never taught them. Among them are...

• Purgatory
• Eternal torment
• The Trinity
• Sunday sacredness.
• Transubstantiation.
• Auricular confession.
• Infant baptism
• Relics
• Holy Water
• Prayers to dead saints and angel
• Prayers for the dead
• Recognition of the temporal authority of the Papacy
• The immaculate conception
• Absolute infallibility of the pope.

We are in agreement, Brakelight.
Well....almost.
Going through your list:

• Purgatory---obviously nonsense.
• Eternal torment----I thought the wages of sin is death...where does it say "eternal torment"?
• The Trinity----well, there is the Godhead. We can't exactly restrict God to our own humanity.
• Sunday sacredness.-----God only ever set aside one day and sanctified it...and it wasn't Sunday.
• Transubstantiation.-----that's just nasty!
• Auricular confession.-----What is that?
• Infant baptism-----as if God would reject an infant because he hadn't been baptized! Ridiculous!
• Relics-----bits of dead people have no power whatsoever.
• Holy Water-----good if you are in need of a vampire repellent. Garlic works, too.
• Prayers to dead saints and angel-----Jesus went to a good deal of trouble to open the way to the Throne of Grace. Why settle for an underling if you can go directly to the Top?
• Prayers for the dead-----a little late now, don't you think? Let us pray for one another now, while we are alive!
• Recognition of the temporal authority of the Papacy-----heck, why not just convert to Catholicism and have done with it?
• The immaculate conception-----another ridiculous concept. Mary was conceived in the same way I was...her mother and her father had sex.
• Absolute infallibility of the pope.----if we could only run a "background check" on a few of the popes from Catholic history...oh, my!

 

[KingJ]

All the titles today are a new age thing. Prophets and doctors. Its good to study and get a phd. But if any profession requires you to keep that from your name its this. It should go without mentioning. Vanity is satanism not Christianity.

A prophet' who gets ONE prophecy wrong is a false prophet. So many prophets today should take a vow of silence.

 

[Barrd]

Barrd and Stan calm down please. This thread was a good read until the last two pages. Stan your replies here are pushing the envelope.

@StanJ you said 'apostles' is mentioned 8 times. Can you provide these scriptures where the context is not as Marksman proposed. Paul the apostle vs Apsotle Paul.

Marksman is making a valid point with titles. I don't believe it is a major issue all the time. As scripture does say study to show yourself approved.

@Marksman I am just curious. Why does the title 'pastor' bother you? I feel pastor is fine. I believe there were many years in many churches where a ministering pastor was appointed by the elders. Perhaps title vs office?

Excuse me. I'm not the one who is flooding the thread.
I'm not the one claiming to be super-educated, and yet I know that "kinsman" does not necessarily refer strictly to male relatives. It is a generic term. And I know that adding an "s" to the end of a woman's name doesn't make her a boy. Calling Emma "Emmas" or Stella "Stellas" would just be ridiculous, and I doubt anyone would buy it. Calling Junia "Junias" doesn't make her a boy, any more than calling Della "Dellas" makes her a city in Texas...

 

[KingJ]

• Purgatory
• Eternal torment
• The Trinity
• Sunday sacredness.
• Transubstantiation.
• Auricular confession.
• Infant baptism
• Relics
• Holy Water
• Prayers to dead saints and angel
• Prayers for the dead
• Recognition of the temporal authority of the Papacy
• The immaculate conception
• Absolute infallibility of the pope.

• Purgatory - Not completely unbelievable when you consider Protestants firmly believe ''the righteous are barely saved''. Catholics can be forgiven for this belief as they include the Maccabees.
• Eternal torment - Agreed. Just no Dante's inferno please . Weeping and gnashing teeth NOT screaming and teeth falling out.
• The Trinity - The Catholic church certainly got this right.
• Sunday sacredness - Forgiveable belief.
• Transubstantiation - Forgiveable belief.
• Auricular confession - Agree with this. Confess your sins one to another is madness when the brother is young and foolish. A dedicated priest / elder makes perfect sense.
• Infant baptism - Forgiveable belief.
• Relics - Forgiveable belief. Catholics don't teach idolatory.
• Holy Water - Forgiveable belief / offshoot from anointing with oil.
• Prayers to dead saints and angel - Forgiveable belief. As long as its taught that Jesus intercedes for our sins. Which it is.
• Prayers for the dead - Well this is an off shoot from the belief in Purgatory. We should never stop hoping for our dead. So praying for them is not the worst belief.
• Recognition of the temporal authority of the Papacy - Peter had a valid post. Not the end of the world to continue it.
• The immaculate conception - God moved the red sea to achieve His plan of salvation for mankind. Mary being properly sanctified, is a forgiveable belief.
• Absolute infallibility of the pope - haha, this is an issue. Peter never claimed this.

When I say forgiveable belief it is a case of Rom 14:5.

My chief gripe with the Catholic church is the religiosity of all prayers and services. We are free. God is our Father. The memorizing and ritualistic theme dampens this. That and absolute shock if the vidoes on youtube of what happens in cloister convents is true....

 

[KingJ]

Excuse me. I'm not the one who is flooding the thread.
I'm not the one claiming to be super-educated, and yet I know that "kinsman" does not necessarily refer strictly to male relatives. It is a generic term. And I know that adding an "s" to the end of a woman's name doesn't make her a boy. Calling Emma "Emmas" or Stella "Stellas" would just be ridiculous, and I doubt anyone would buy it. Calling Junia "Junias" doesn't make her a boy, any more than calling Della "Dellas" makes her a city in Texas...

What post # was this?

 

[Barrd]

What post # was this?

The post was in the thread "Slain in the Spirit". I can't find the original, but here is where someone else quoted him.
#268886 SLAIN IN THE SPIRIT?

It's been an ongoing battle that has encompassed at least three different threads, King.
Frankly, I'm thinking that Stan and I would both be wiser not to respond to him any more.

 

[brakelite]

I see Barrd that the only point you had doubts over was the trinity. Did you know that the primitive apostolic church, that is the one that existed before the inroads of papal error were generally consistent in their agreement that Jesus was a literal Son of His Father as attested to in scripture? Even Ulfilas, who evangelised the entire Gothic nation believed this, and believed also that because Jesus was God's Son, therefore He inherited the same nature as His Father, thus making Him divine...deity...God. The epithet "Aryan", foisted upon those true Christian believers by the papal power, and destroyed by them also, was a disparaging term suggesting they did not believe in the divinity of Christ. This was a lie. Ulfilas' teachings are still with us, unlike those of the original Arius (we have to take the papacy at their word concerning what Arius believed precisely because they destroyed all records of his teachings...can we really rely on someones enemy to tell us the truth about whom they condemned) ? So we know what Ulfilas taught...he taught apostolic Christianity, and that is what he passed on to the Goths. One must question why the Goths became such bitter enemies of Rome, and why the other "Arian" powers , the Vandals or Carthaginians of North Africa and the Heruli, were also vanquished and destroyed by secular forces in league with the Roman bishop.
Not trying to change the subject, but the trinity, and sunday sacredness, came about within 3 years of one another...both by Roman infuence, and all opposition to both teachings were labelled heretic. This to my mind is simply another very good reason to reject the idea of submission to any human authority in matters of conscience.

 

[Barrd]

I see Barrd that the only point you had doubts over was the trinity. Did you know that the primitive apostolic church, that is the one that existed before the inroads of papal error were generally consistent in their agreement that Jesus was a literal Son of His Father as attested to in scripture? Even Ulfilas, who evangelised the entire Gothic nation believed this, and believed also that because Jesus was God's Son, therefore He inherited the same nature as His Father, thus making Him divine...deity...God. The epithet "Aryan", foisted upon those true Christian believers by the papal power, and destroyed by them also, was a disparaging term suggesting they did not believe in the divinity of Christ. This was a lie. Ulfilas' teachings are still with us, unlike those of the original Arius (we have to take the papacy at their word concerning what Arius believed precisely because they destroyed all records of his teachings...can we really rely on someones enemy to tell us the truth about whom they condemned) ? So we know what Ulfilas taught...he taught apostolic Christianity, and that is what he passed on to the Goths. One must question why the Goths became such bitter enemies of Rome, and why the other "Arian" powers , the Vandals or Carthaginians of North Africa and the Heruli, were also vanquished and destroyed by secular forces in league with the Roman bishop.
Not trying to change the subject, but the trinity, and sunday sacredness, came about within 3 years of one another...both by Roman infuence, and all opposition to both teachings were labelled heretic. This to my mind is simply another very good reason to reject the idea of submission to any human authority in matters of conscience.

I'm sorry I was unclear, then, Brakelite.
I believe that Jesus is God made manifest in the flesh. I believe that the Holy Spirit is the Comforter sent to us...as Jesus said, He would not leave us comfortless...He would come to us.
I truly do not see the "mystery" in this. We believe that "with God nothing is impossible". We believe that He is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent.
Yet for some reason, we can't "get it" that He could be both Father in Heaven and Son on earth at the same time.
Well, you say, that would mean that God was praying to Himself.
I don't have a problem with that.
How many times have we talked to ourselves...as in "Deborah, this is what we need to do." Or "Deborah, why are you surprised that this happened? You knew that was a dumb idea." Or "Brilliant, Deborah! Keep it going!" (Sometimes I even do this while looking at myself in the mirror.) And don't tell me that other people do not do this, because I know better. I've even seen folks "fist bump" their mirror images.
So God is doing this on a much larger scale. Where is it written that God can not commune within Himself?
I don't really like the term "Trinity", actually. I prefer the term "Godhead". God can be whatever He desires to be, and as many as He desires to be. It's a very big universe, after all.

Now, if you believe that Jesus is divine, but a totally separate God, you now have two Gods. Yet God says that there are no other Gods but Him. Is He lying?

sa 43:10 Ye are my witnesses, saith the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me.
Isa 43:11 I, even I, am the LORD; and beside me there is no saviour.

If God's Son is another God, then why did God say there would be no other Gods either before Him or after Him?
If Jesus, Who is not God the Father, but a different God, why does God say that He is the savior and beside Him there is no other?

John says that Jesus is God:

Joh 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Why would God inspire this Apostle to write those words, if they are not true? And if they are not true, can we trust the Bible? What else is written there that might not be true?

Joh 1:2 The same was in the beginning with God.
Joh 1:3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.

So, wait...back there in Genesis, which God was it who was "moving upon the face of the deep"?

I could go on, but I think that is enough to get on with for now...

 

[StanJ]

Those of you who claim that the church was given authority to decide matters of conscience are placing your eternal destiny in the hands of mortal sinful error prone men.

Why bring up the RCC? You seem to have problem with them, and we are not discussing them?