Why I could personally never chose to be Catholic

[Marymog]

Marymog,
re: "Scripture says that The Church is the pillar and foundation of truth. Is that not true?" The trick of course is knowing which church is "The Church". Scripture calls it the "church of God" and many organizations want to claim that distinction.

Hi,

There is no "trick" to it if you know your Christian history.

Mary

 

[Marymog]

-
"But if I should be delayed, you should know how to behave in the
household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and
foundation of truth."

Every stitch of punctuation in that passage was arbitrarily penciled in by
translators because the Greek manuscripts don't have any. Here's that
passage translated without punctuation.

"But if I should be delayed you should know how to behave in the household
of God which is the church of the living God the pillar and foundation of
truth."

The emphasis is supposed to be upon the living God rather than upon His
household. In other words: were there not a real live God, then the religious
aspects of the whole entire Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, would be
fantasy, i.e. it's the reality of God that gives the Bible solid footing.

Thank you. That is an interesting "emphasis" theory you have. Why is your theory right and others wrong?

How about if I ask the question another way not using 1 Timothy?

A couple months ago I was in a church of a pastor who started his own church. He started his own church because he disagreed with the biblical interpretations of the senior pastor at his old church where he was an assistant pastor. Now, since he has his own church, he is the senior pastor and spouts HIS interpretation of scripture. One Sunday he got up on the stage and said, "Good morning. I want to welcome you, the church, to my building. You are the church." Many Christians believe this theory that THEY are The Church.

So I ask you: Of the 2 billion Christians in the world which one person is The Church that is spoken of in the NT?

Curious Mary

PS... there is an element of subjectivity in the process of adding punctuation. Many Biblical scholars have come to a good sense of the style and preferences of each author. As they developed this skill it becomes easier to see what the author would most likely have intended in each of the few places where a sentence could be divided more than one way. The punctuation in all translations of 1 Timothy 3:15 are generally consistent and agree with what I have articulated and are opposite of your theory.