When one attends a church which is part of a denomination are you implying that individual person is putting their church as foundational authority over Christ?
The implication is not necessary as it is a fact. If it comes to a toss up between the word of God and the Roman Catholic church, history shows quite clearly that the church wins hands down.
In a study I did of the New Testament Church (NTC) and the church today, it became glaringly obvious that those denominations that trumpet the Bible is their guide for faith and practice choose to ignore it if it clashes with their denominational dictates.
For example.....there is not one verse in the
New Testament that indicates any church invited "a pastor" to come from another church to run it and be paid a salary.
There are, however, 25 verses that indicate the leadership of the NTC was the province of the Apostles, the Prophets and the Elders, the latter being older men chronologically
who were chosen from within the fellowship they were members of.
I posed this question to one denomination and their response was "Oh, we don't do things that way."
In other words, whatever the scriptures says, we are not interested.
Every Christian on the face of the earth belongs to the church that Jesus builds.
And millions give credence to a religion that Jesus did not build.
Just as we have thousands of different personalities we do not always fit into every group so we form a "denomination" that comes close to fitting our culture .
Why? They didn't do this in the NTC as they loved one another so differences were irrelevant.
We have denominations because we don't love one another.
As the scripture says "We are all ONE in Christ" not "we are all divided into spiritual tribal groups" which is what denominations are.
The denominations should not be seen as divisions in the church ...... they should be seen as different parts of the body of Christ.
Anyone who is honest with themselves know quite clearly that denominationalism = division.
The scripture is very clear that different parts is related to our functioning in the body, not our division.
The bible even describes the church as a body.
Yes that is right....ONE BODY. Not a body made up of different spiritual tribal groups.
Nope, each church doesn't have their own thing, what experience has led you to believe what you post?
If that is the case, why do we have denominations? And experience is not needed as there are about 35,000 denominations worldwide so that tells us everything.
What does that seem to suggest to you?
Simple Joseph. I worked that one out a long time ago. We do not believe the Bible is the word of God. What we believe is our interpretation of the Bible is the word of God. That is why we have 35,000 denominations world wide.
I don't understand your experience, but I don't attend a church such as you describe. My pastor encourages us to challenge anything he says, he does not pick and choose from the Bible which part to believe and follow. Nor does he tell us what we are allowed to do.
That is not the norm Soupy. Why do you think that most churches have a monologue, not a dialogue as they did in the NTC?
It is harder to question a monologue. With a dialogue, it is open slather to ask whatever you want. Most pastors do not want to be held to that sort of scrutiny.
