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I follow Christ's command, while one tells others it doesn't help nor does it pay enough.

I actually trust Jesus. His command can and is followed.

A sin is a sin because God appointed it to one and one refuses. One's condemnation of whether God has granted to them the ability to follow his command is just an excuse for the wrongs committed. Your not going to hear me blame God for a lack on his part.

 

Those are not contrary. Steaver you cannot even breathe without God's will. Do you know the the correct amount of oxygen when you command your blood cells? or which way to grow veins? Or how to start or stop your liver.......I don't even know where the liver is.

Loving God, Loving neighbor requires cooperate act with God. And if God didn't want it to happen it would not happen.


If you were face to face with God today. You would swear a person would have the be the ultimate fool to discourage anyone from loving God and that there was something else more important or of higher priority then loving God as being beyond all things stupid.

 

steaver,

I stopped back for a moment to see how things had been going since I left the conversation due to the sudden change in my internet use status... After I stepped back from the conversation, you made a comment about my time here. Thanks for wishing me the best. All the best to you, as well. And though you already love and follow the Lord Jesus Christ, may you, as CS Lewis wrote, continue to travel "further in" to the mysteries of God.

Herbert

 

Do you follow this command of Jesus?
Luke 14:26 If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.
27 And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.

And a few verses later he said:
Luke 14:33 So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.
--Have you forsaken all?

 

BobRyan-

I have some time to chime in this evening and tie up a couple loose ends, if you will. As for what you said above- Thanks to you, also, for being so kind and patient with me as we've conversed.

I must say, though, that even the way you phrased your comments above reveals to me the reason why you couldn't see, in all I wrote, that "bridge" from where I was to where I am now... You're fixated on the Bible in such a way as to miss the point that your fixation is itself unBiblical. The irony is that you fail your own test and don't see it just as you point out the fact that I am failing your test... and all the while, the test itself isn't something derived from the Bible but is instead something made up by men. You want "compelling Bible details." What exactly are those? If 1st Timothy 3:15 isn't one, I don't know what is. And if Ephesians 3:10 isn't, I don't know what is. And if Collosians 1:24 isn't, I don't know what is.

But you have set a particular bar for me. And the irony is this: The bar which you hold me to is itself NOT in the Bible. You're holding me to standard of Biblical performance which is itself something of man's creation. This is the fundamental problem with DHK's position, as well. And so you both demand that I prove myself to your standard, which you both claim is the Bible when, in the meanwhile, you don't even agree with each other on some pretty central matters, you being an Adventist and all.

Bob, the Church, one, holy, catholic, and apostolic IS the bridge. He is bound to it as its Head. You've wrongly looked to the Bible to be the thing the Church is. The Church is the provision, instituted by Christ, to teach, safeguard the Sacraments, and act as Christ's Steward. The Church is the New Covenant analogue to the Ark of Noah. You don't see this because of the philosophical paradigm within which you currently find yourself.

I can't produce a "logical" series of verses which would ever satisfy you because your situation itself, your current framework for understanding Christianity, is what is preventing you from understanding Christianity in its fullness and most authentic form. Think of it this way: Imagine that a group of campers is climbing up a mountain for a few weeks in search of a giant sleeping troll they've heard about. The group is frustrated because they cannot seem to find the troll. Suddenly, by putting a few clues together, a couple of the campers realize that what they thought was a mountain was actually the giant sleeping troll itself. I am like the camper trying to convince you that the mountain isn't a mountain at all. And your framework for understanding the whole expedition makes it practically impossible for you to shift your understanding of things so as to realize things aren't at all what they seemed. This is why the Catholic Church is so old yet so new, like a great treasure hidden in the broad daylight of history...

Bob, I have never intended to state that I am unwilling to do what it is you ask. I may be incapable, but not unwilling. For, again, if you hold me to a standard which itself presumes the legitimacy of your paradigm (which is the very thing in question between us), I am certain to fail. We must both be willing to lay down our arms, truly listen to one another, and shift our thinking as needed. This has happened for me... not because I'm so great or anything... But it happened. I feel that I can genuinely understand and even appreciate the paradigm from which a Baptist or another Bible Believer sees the world. But such philosophical systems, like raincoats, may protect us from life's storms for a time. But they must be cast off when the time comes for God to call us to new storms and more extreme climes. In the Catholic Church I'm wearing a full down parka. I didn't make it, either. So I don't boast. I boast only in Jesus and what He's provided: His Church, the field hospital for sinners.

As far as these comments go, Bob, I just don't see it this way. I believe that I made a good-faith effort to respond to your claims concerning Sola Scriptura. It is a doctrine which is not found in the Bible. Maybe you could take another look at my responses to Dr. Geisler's points. For I feel that position isn't simply about "proving" Catholicism to you... Rather, I see it as necessary only to demonstrate on Scriptural grounds that your positions aren't Scriptural. That cuts at the trunk of your tree. And if the trunk of your philosophical tree can be chopped through, your whole tree will fall. But it won't crash and decompose where it sits. For it grew along a river of Catholic truth! And that river will sweep that fallen tree from the shores of that river and carry it off. For that river leads to the Sea... which is an image of God's inscrutable depths and eternal love.

And as far as appealing to Catholic arguments goes, well, I do that because I accept them. What I would have rejected as a Baptist cannot be seen as having much to do with what I do or don't accept now. I learned. I grew. I changed. I am now a Catholic. As I've said, I am thankful for my past. But that's where it is now. And it appears as though that's where it will stay.

Finally, thanks again for always being such a nice guy!

Herbert

 

Hello Herbert,
It's good to hear from you again.

No sir! Christ is the bridge.

Christ is not bound, and when a church loses its moorings, He warns it, and if it does not repent, He removes its candlestick (Revelation 2 &3).

No again. Christ is the ark, not the Church. We enter into Christ as a refuge from the waves of God's righteous anger against sin. We flee to Him as our city of refuge (Deut. 31:27).

The Bible is not our refuge any more than the Church is, but we can know nothing about Christ apart from what we find in the Bible. The Church is the 'Pillar and ground of the truth' (1 Timothy 3:15) inasmuch as it preaches the truth about Christ from the Bible. But if the salt loses its savour........

 

I think we can both agree that the statement you just made is one you would have rejected as a Baptist. That is a blocking-idea not a bridging one.

We already have Acts 17:11, Gal 1:6-9, Mark 7:6-13, Is 8:20 that appear to oppose all that you have said and would have been read that way by the "Baptist Herbert" - as I think we might both agree.

So where do you offer "the bridge"??

Until you read - texts like - Acts 17:11, Gal 1:6-9, Mark 7:6-13, Is 8:20

Which the Baptist Herbert would have been inclined to accept - as I suspect we both agree.

I would argue that this is the same standard that the Baptist Herbert had as a Baptist.

Certainly we do differ - but is that a reflection on the "Bible vs our magisterium"??

IS it your claim that if we would each just go to the magisterium of our church as you do with yours - (instead of going to our Bibles) - that all of our differences would vanish?

Which is my church. You are certainly welcomed to join us - it is the same faith as the NT writers. Christ Himself was for all intents and purposes a Seventh-day Adventist.

Does this help??

The Jewish church is even older. Is it your claim that you will join whatever is older?

Remember - Christ Himself was for all intents and purposes a Seventh-day Adventist.

This is not about taking up arms - it is about listening to the Word of God - for example Mark 7:6-13 the teaching of Christ Himself. Christ who was for all intents and purposes - a Seventh-day Adventist.

Is this your idol then? Is this what you put in place of the Word of God?

Until you read - texts like - Acts 17:11, Gal 1:6-9, Mark 7:6-13, Is 8:20

Which the Baptist Herbert would have been inclined to accept - as I suspect we both agree.

I like some of his points - but I prefer the question I have been asking even more.

If you make an argument that is only acceptable to a Catholic - then it is more of a blocking-argument on a "Baptist Board" than a "bridging argument" - I think we would both agree on that one.

in Christ,

Bob

 

Martin, As I said, my internet connection status has abruptly changed. At this point, it is intermittent. I have a few minutes right now and I don't want to "win" an argument. All I want to do is demonstrate that you don't have an upper hand. At most, you're on equal footing with the Catholic Christian. There is nothing in your system of belief which makes it preferable to a Catholic understanding of the faith. And your attempt to go after my word "bridge" is a fail because I was speaking of BobRyan's "bridge" from Baptist beliefs to Catholic beliefs. And though Christ is the one and only bridge to Heaven, the Church is the "bridge" from Baptist views to the Catholic Faith.

A "church," that is, a local church, may or may not lose its effectiveness. The "Church" with a "Big C" cannot be discarded by the Lord, its Head, however. As St. Gregory of Nyssa said, "If you've seen the Church you've seen Christ." And as St. Joan of Arc said, in her youthful and saintly wisdom, "About Jesus Christ and the Church, I simply know they're just one thing, and we shouldn't complicate the matter." You, in breaking with the historical, apostolic, and ecclesiological conception of the Faith, see the "church" as something accidental, not organically bound, not sacramentally bound to Christians, and identified according to doctrinal profession alone and not according to essential components of its historical lineage. This is precisely where your conception of the faith cannot account for itself in history. Nor can it account for itself in any objective terms, which is why a while back you went so far to appeal to Adonia to the Paulicians as, somehow, your forebears in the faith. Grasping at straws, you'll go so far as to appeal to those paedobaptists as forebears of the modern Baptists, when in reality they have virtually nothing to do with you in any organic sense. They happen (accidentally) to align with you in a few ways. But the Arians aligned with the Catholics in a few ways, too... So big deal.

The New Testament reveals in the clearest of terms a Church which is conjoined to its Head, the Lord. Having no historical, organic, objective union with the Church He founded, though, you appeal to an "either-or" paradigm to account for your "ecclesiology" of things. Of course Christ is the Ark. But His Church, bound to Him, has been understood as being typologically related to the Ark of Noah since the earliest of days. You can't have your cake and eat it, too, though, Martin. You can't imagine a historical orthodoxy, and an individualistic, renegade, Biblicist Christianity as things which are amenable to one another. For Christian history is Catholic Christian history, that is universal Christian history. For it was universal Christianity which took on the Marcionites, Docetists, Arians, and the other heresies of old. This is why Newman said "To be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant." Sure, there are plenty of non-Catholic scholars who don't become Catholic. But their careers are marked with a certain socio-historical tension that comes from the fact that everything they're talking about is somehow foreign to their current (respective) denominational identities.

I am not even sure what this means. It is an entirely unBiblical notion. Incidentally, it is the foundational belief of a Baptist. How ironic, then, that it is a notion nowhere found in the Bible. "...we can know nothing about Christ apart from what we find in the Bible." This is simply not true. Even if God were to not have revealed the New Testament texts to us, certainly Christianity would exist. Indeed, a certain Catholic Christianity would exist. For He walked among us, and people witnessed His glory. And we, even without the NT Scriptures, would know about Our Lord, and worship Him.

You've inserted that qualification where the Bible doesn't. The Bible doesn't present this truth in conditional terms. You're importing them so as to make them comport with your ecclesiology. Your church is conditional to the Christian faith. The Church He established, in contrast, is essential to the Christian Faith.

Herbert

 

I see it this way: I was born with a pair of glasses on. My parents were right to place them on me as an infant and raise me with them in mind. I, however, didn't really realize that I had them on. I was so accustomed to them, I didn't realize how they impacted my perception of things. What I thought as a Baptist is, therefore, quite insignificant. For as a Baptist, I was incapable of seeing the illegitimacy of my paradigm because of the constraints of the paradigm itself.

Bob, If I'm not mistaken, I addressed these verses already and they simply do not teach Sola Scriptura. They were never understood in the terms with which they're ascribed by a modern adherent to SS. To appeal to them is to beg the question. It's to presume the very thing in question between us not according to demonstrated reason, but according to the bald witness of a scriptural passage which simply does NOT demand that it be interpreted according to the lights of Seventh Day Adventist theology.

Maybe. But the point I am trying to make is that the Baptist Herbert was mistaken for the same reasons you're yet mistaken to this day as you ascribe to the Scriptures things the Scriptures don't claim for themselves. Again, you're mistaking human philosophy for the very word of God by virtue of the mere fact that you learned how to read.

No. It's not Bob's Bible vs. Some errant "Magisterium." It's Bob's personal fallible ideology vs. the Magisterium established by Christ. Seventh Day Adventism, formally established in during the Civil War era, is anything but the Church established by Christ despite the fact that many of the views espoused by SDAs are very much in line with Catholic Orthodoxy. So where your SDA theology goes wrong, you need Catholicism. And where your SDA theology is right, you have Christ's work in His Church to thank (for He is the one who safeguards Catholic teaching).

Please take a moment to read what the Church teaches with regard to the relationship of the Magisterium to Scripture. The Magisterium and the Scripture speak with one voice and cannot be seen as being in competition with one another. We go BOTH to our Bibles AND to the Magisterium, just as the Ethiopian Eunuch did.

As I said, your Church group, with all respect, was established formally in 1863. There are certain elements of its constitution which have apostolic pedigree. Other things, however, can, by no means, be directly related to the Christian Church of history. You wouldn't just be hard pressed to demonstrate apostolic historical lineage. You'd be utterly bankrupt and incapable of such a thing. That alone, however, doesn't discredit your faith entirely as there are certain important elements of truth accidentally retained within it. You are, then, according to the Church, a brother in Christ, though separated. You are, also, to be appreciated, affirmed, and respected. All of these things, I hope, are clear in my sincere remarks concerning my relationship to you, Martin, and DHK. I look up to all of you and admire your faith. I just hope that the substance of what I'm saying could maybe give you reason to re-think some things...

There was no "Jewish Church." Christ established a Church from there in the soil of Jewish History. And it isn't historical pedigree alone which demonstrates a worldview's legitimacy. So age alone isn't what matters. Establishment by the Lord, however, does matter. And the Catholic Faith is the faith which was established by Christ. Things that pre-date Him aren't superior to that which He established simply by virtue of their age. That's not my point.

Again, the claim that Christ was a Seventh Day Adventist is at the least a historical stretch. And at worst, it's a historical absurdity.

Idol? I don't have an idol, Bob. Christ is the Head of the Church and all Christian worship is ordered to Him who rightly receives it.

I accept those passages according to their original, unqualified, authentic presentations. It is my refusal to accept your interpretations of them (and not their meanings) by which you see me as somehow having rejected their truths. Again, though, you and DHK and a number of others, all hold to Sola Scriptura yet you don't worship together. Nor do you share in anything but an accidental unity which is only as strong as your theological whims.

I am not sure what you mean here. Arguments don't discriminate according to the presuppositions of their evaluators. Either my arguments stand or they don't. The "acceptability" of an argument isn't conditioned upon the denominational identity of its hearer. The bridge from unbelief to belief is Christ. The bridge from chaos to dogma is the Catholic Faith. This is, again, why Chesterton once said that if a man were to live a thousand years he'd either be a Catholic or an agnostic. There's nothing between the two. This is why Russell Kirk, Malcolm Muggeridge, TS Eliot, GK Chesterton, Christopher Dawson, Marshall McLuhan, and a host of other people who'd otherwise have become modernists, chose the Catholic Faith. And we're all the better for it. And the sooner we put aside the mistaken essence of Protestant values, the sooner we can, as a body, be about the work of Christ.

Herbert

 

I think we can both agree that the statement you just made is one you would have rejected as a Baptist. That is a blocking-idea not a bridging one.

We already have Acts 17:11, Gal 1:6-9, Mark 7:6-13, Is 8:20 that appear to oppose all that you have said and would have been read that way by the "Baptist Herbert" - as I think we might both agree.

So where do you offer "the bridge"??

Until you read - texts like - Acts 17:11, Gal 1:6-9, Mark 7:6-13, Is 8:20

Which the Baptist Herbert would have been inclined to accept - as I suspect we both agree.

I would argue that this is the same standard that the Baptist Herbert had as a Baptist.

Certainly we do differ - but is that a reflection on the "Bible vs our magisterium"??

IS it your claim that if we would each just go to the magisterium of our church as you do with yours - (instead of going to our Bibles) - that all of our differences would vanish?

Which is my church. You are certainly welcomed to join us - it is the same faith as the NT writers. Christ Himself was for all intents and purposes a Seventh-day Adventist.

Does this help??

The Jewish church is even older. Is it your claim that you will join whatever is older?

Remember - Christ Himself was for all intents and purposes a Seventh-day Adventist.

This is not about taking up arms - it is about listening to the Word of God - for example Mark 7:6-13 the teaching of Christ Himself. Christ who was for all intents and purposes - a Seventh-day Adventist.

Is this your idol then? Is this what you put in place of the Word of God?

Until you read - texts like - Acts 17:11, Gal 1:6-9, Mark 7:6-13, Is 8:20

Which the Baptist Herbert would have been inclined to accept - as I suspect we both agree.

I like some of his points - but I prefer the question I have been asking even more.

If you come to a Baptist board and then restrict yourself to making an argument that is only acceptable to a Catholic - then it is more of a blocking-argument on a "Baptist Board" than a "bridging argument" - I think we would both agree on that one.

Only to a Catholic that already adopts such a bias. But when you come to a Baptist board you cannot be anything but "isolationist" to restrict your own posts to ideas that require one to BE a Catholic before they might ever believe such statements.

I can imagine that you posting that same sort of thing on a CATHOLIC board would get all sorts of 'amens' - because they already ARE Catholic.

So then you remained Baptist ?? Sound like a dead-end point if the idea is to get baptists to consider the validity of the Catholic proposal.

Here again "no bridge" just "If you already were Catholic you would...be...Catholic" . Those kinds of arguments are not very compelling.

Agreed - it is the actual Bible vs some errant Magisterium.

The Catholic magisterium was formed during the apostasy of the Constantine era and subsequent ages where even Catholic historians themselves argue that they "borrowed from paganism" to get their errors off the ground.

That is a departure from the NT saints in the first 100 years - whereas the SDA magisterium is a return to that age of doctrinal purity so that is why you know you must be SDA and not Catholic.

(I hope you see how well those 'must be a member of my church first - to accept what I am saying' sort of arguments work).

In points where your Catholic theology goes wrong - you need Seventh-day Adventist doctrine.

This is a sort of "solution" that everyone on the board can use for their own denomination - just as you do for yours. But it is not compelling..

Please take a moment to read what the Church teaches with regard to the relationship of the Magisterium to Scripture.

Until you read Mark 7:6-13 and choose to accept the teaching and the Methods of Christ.

Yes there was - and Jer 31:31-33 says the NEW Covenant was made with THEM. So also does Heb 8:6-10 say the same thing.

On the contrary Christ kept the Sabbath - Catholics do not.
Christ did not teach or preach Purgatoory - Catholics do.
Christ did not pray to the dead - Catholics do
Christ did not practice infant baptism - Catholics do
Christ affirmed Sola Scriptura in both Mark 7:6-13 and Luke 24:27 -- Catholics do not.

In all of these cases - the teaching of Christ is Seventh-day Adventist - not Catholic.

 

Purgatory is easily defended in the fact you must be sinless to be before God in heaven.

The notion one is still going to sin in heaven is absurd.

One dies, what happens? You go to heaven and look one is still the same sinful self?

The problem with sin isn't the legal consequences meant to help you but one's reliance on sin itself is hell.

Every sin committed requires a mistrust in God, every sin breaks the first commandment.

If from death to heaven there is no road then death itself would be heaven, it is not. Whatever means, whether road, plane, boat, stairway you go from death to heaven THIS is purgatory.

We don't require the word "PURGATORY" that change that happens you can call it what you want. It just our theology is ahead of the curb to actually add a word to describe a process that leads to the complete post-life regeneration.

Think about it, you mean to tell us when you die and go before God, you will not learn anything, not improve on the spot. That there is no regeneration or perfecting post-life.

Death being point A, heaven being point B.

Whatever happens between A and B give it a name for us. Is it clean up time? suiting up with holiness? You already KNOW something happens.

This event, I demand a name for it.

 

Thanks for taking the time to come back to me, Herbert.
First of all, I dislike the term "System of belief." My trust is in Christ crucified, not a system. However, I can know nothing of Christ save what the Holy Spirit has told me in the Bible.
Secondly, I have to tell you that there is no bridge from 'Baptist views' to the Church of Rome. You have been deceived by false teaching of a 'Magisterium' and a religious hierarchy that are nowhere found in Scripture,

The purposes of God are not frustrated, that is true. But your 'Big C' Church is not the Church of Rome. Every individual church where the Gospel is faithfully preached and the ordinances observed is the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:27). The unity of the Church is not to be found in a big organization, nor is it the unity enforced by mass murder and persecution. Unity is found in the truth of the Gospel (John 17:17).

I am not ignorant of Church history, and I absolutely deny that the Church of Rome is
1. Historical in the sense that it represents Biblical Christianity. The Church of Rome as we know it today did not exist until the time of Hildebrand in the 11th Century.
2. Apostolic. It rests on false traditions built up over hundreds of years, not on the Apostolic doctrine found in the Bible.
3. Ecclesiological. The New Testament knows nothing of Popes, Cardinals, Archbishops, Monseigneurs and all the other rag tag of officials. No, nor Bishops and priests in the sense that the Church of Rome misuses them.

First of all, the Paulicians were credobaptists, but I certainly did not 'appeal' to them as Baptist forebears, but as a non-Romanist sect brutally extirpated by the Church of Rome along with so many others. The only 'objective term' I seek for the Christian Church is that found in the pages of the New Testament.

Indeed so. That is why I can never accept the Bishop of Rome as the head of the Church. In his unbiblical claims he manages to blaspheme each Person of the Trinity.

Excuse me! My church is the body of Christ, and members individually. As I have already stated, we need none of your organization and none of its blasphemous claims.

No sir! It is entirely possible to be joined to a church but not joined to Christ (Acts 8:13, 20-21; Jude 4) as very many people will, alas, discover on the Last day.

The only historical orthodoxy is that which is found in the Bible. You can call me a renegade if you will (Matthew 5:11-12). Better men than I have been called renegades and executed by your false sect.

Roflmao

In fact it was individual church leaders. In those days Christians argued their case. The Church of Rome invented the Inquisition.

1 Corinthians 15:3-4. 'For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received; that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.'

Indeed they did, and they wrote about Him in the New Testament.

 

Herbert,
Reading through my post above this morning, I find it is much harsher than I had intended.
You seem to be a very nice fellow. I hope you understand that my strictures are not aimed at you personally, but at the organization that you are supporting.