Christians Evangelizing Catholics

Hmm...still didn't see the proof, unless you are willing to say that God's Word = Bible alone, and even then, I did not see any statement the explicitly says that. Did God really record everything that he ever said and wanted man to receive? What did the Christians do for the first 60-70 years after Christ? How in the world could they figure out which teaching was correct, if they had no Bible to check them against? Or what of all the masses of Christians over the first 1400 years who did not have their own Bibles? Do you really believe that Faith was lost until the printing press came along?

In Christ,
Neal

 

I would suppose the early Christians for the first 60-70 years after Christ have the Apostles and their disciples to instruct them. I would also suppose that since the Apostles know that they were writing down God's inspired Word, they would inform these early Christians about it. And since these early Christians did not have the ability to print, they would faithfully copy word for word the papyrus written by the Apostles and pass them around to be re-copied by other churches.

 

The final authority?

Implies there may be other sources of authority. Such is inconsistent with God's revelation to his people.

II Tim. 3:15-17, "And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness; that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works."

"inspiration of God"==gk: theopneustos=God breathed.

"perfect"=gk: artios=fitted.

"throughly furnished"==gk:exartizo=the whole outfit, uniform,(the armour and the sword)(all the necessities--nothing else needed) (parenthetical mine).

The Apostle Paul is instructing Timothy in "sola scriptura"--hundreds of years before "The Holy See", Luther, Calvin, Joseph Smith, etal.

"The Word of God" is the ONLY source of faith and practice.

Selah,

Bro. James

 

There are countless numbers of Scripture which show that the Scriptures have been appealed to as the final authority. It has been done over and over again.
The Bereans appealed to the Scriptures as their final authority. Acts 17:11. (It wasn't Grimm's fairy tales).
The Corinthians appealed to the Scriptures as their final authority. 1Cor. 14:29. The judged the prophets in this way.
The nation of Israel appealed to the Scriptures as their final authority. Isaiah 8:20. They judged false prophets and the messages of wizards and familiar spirits this way.

They had no other standard. The entire Bible was inscripturated as soon as the Book of Revelation was completed in 98 A.D. There was no need to wait for the Catholic's approval or for the printing press. Who made up that fallacy? 2Pet.3 talks about Peter recognizing Paul's epistles as Scripture. It also puts the writings of the Apostle's writings on the same level as the prophets of the Old Testament. The early believers knew which books of the Bible were Scripture and which were not. False prophets came afterward and started to stir up confusion, but the early believers always knew which ones were the inspired books. God never leaves himself without a witness.
The Apostles were able to guide the early believers. They knew which books were inspired.

Between the death of Christ and the completion of the canon (98 A.D.), God had given revelatory gifts (the gifts of: knowledge, prophecy, and tongues) to provide the needed knowledge to the church up until the canon was finished. They were temporary gifts. When the Bible was completed, those gifts ceased (1Cor.13:8-13). They were no longer needed. Today we have the completed Word of God. It is the only revelation that we need. It is God's revelation to mankind. It is our final authority in all matters of faith and doctrine (sola scriptura), as it always has been.
DHK

 

Not necessarily. My wife was saved at an early age. She can't remember the day, or month, or perhaps even the year. She was about 7 years old. But she does know what happened. She does remember hearing the plan of salvation from her mother. She does remember trusting Christ as her Saviour. The important fact is that it was a one time event in her life, not a life long process. We have four children. They each have a birth date. When I was born again I had a spiritual birth date. I can give you that date. My wife can't give the date, but she can remember what happened on that date.
DHK </font>[/QUOTE]You're dodging the issue, so I repeat my question: are the individuals to whom I referred saved or damned?

Yours in Christ

Matt

 

Er...no they jolly well didn't! The Didache and the Shepherd of Hermas were accepted as Scripture for some decades whilst James and Revelation only made it in as late entries, just to give a couple of examples; indeed the whole issue of inspiration and canonicity only began to arise after Marcion from c.140AD. The first recorded Christian to use the complete NT canon as we have it today was Athanasius in 367.

Yours in Christ

Matt

 

Mark 7 tells us that the traditions of the religious leaders (of the ONE TRUE CHURCH in Christ's day -- the one STARTED by God at Sinai) were using the TRADITIONS of man to replace the Word of God - the command of God in His word.

In Acts 17:11 we find that it is the WORD of God that is used to validate the teaching of the Apostles.

Sola Scriptura is indeed a Bible principle.

Though some "need" to ignore it - it is clearly stated.

In Christ,

Bob

 

The NT apostles were not "confused" until Revelation was finally written. The NT is replete with references to "scripture" - but not to the Didache and not to Hermas.

The RCC "needs" us to think that the NT church lived in utter confusion until centuries later when the RCC came along to instruct them as to what was scripture.

We have no such confusion presented in the NT.

Paul says (speaking primarily of the OT) ALL scripture is given by inspiration from God and is used for doctrine and reproof..

Peter says that NO scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation -- but Holy men of OLD MOVED by the Holy Spirit SPOKE FROM GOD.

You would think that the RCC would be inclined to listen to the Apostles!

IN Christ,

Bob

 

I don't know about your salvation.
I don't know about the salvation of the ones that you mentioned. In fact I don't know about the salvation of anyone on this board. Their relationship is between them and God. The Bible says: "The Lord knows them that are His."

It also says in Jeremiah 17:9:
The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, who can know it.
Certainly not me. I am not God. I am not in the place to judge your heart, nor anyone elses.

The Bible also says in the light of false teachers and their teaching:
"You shall know them by their fruit." (Mat.7:20)
If a person in hinging their salvation on false doctrine then how can that person be saved? He cannot. Can a J.W. be saved, all the while believing that Chist is Michael the archangel. No, it is impossible.
Can a Charimatic (such as Oneness Pentecostal) who base their salvation on speaking in tongues, be saved? No. Speaking in tongues and baptism do not save. Beliefs like this are marks of a cult.
Salvation is by grace through faith in the shed blood of Christ. It is a gift of God. That gift is received at the point of salvation. I assume that you will both receive and give gifts to your relatives and friends during this season. Will you continue throughout the rest of your life to give one gift every day to one relative. Is it an on-going process that you take from the hand of a child a gift? Must be tiring Or do you thake the gift once? In a moment of time? It is an event. The gift of God is given and taken once. It is an event, not a process. I judge by what the Bible says, not by people's experiences or descriptions. To answer your question, you must answer it yourself, according to Scripture.
DHK

 

I don't think there are any Catholics left here, so you may have a long wait!

Yours in Christ

Matt

 

Ah, his profile says 'soon to be RC', and I'm ex-RC. Close, but not close enough; no cigar

Yours in Christ

Matt

 

What, all the Christians everywhere in all the churches of the NT period? Those who were fortunate enough to have been pastored by a human author of the NT would have had the portion(s) of the NT written by that pastor, at least in oral form, perhaps, but they would nowhere near have had the advantage we have today of having the entire NT at our disposal and any kind of sola scriptura-type reliance would have led to imbalances in those churches eg: those pastored by John would have been quite anti-Semitic, those by Matthew in contrast pro-Jewish and quite legalistic etc. And that's just the churches who were pastored by a NT writer - what about all the Christians who didn't have that privilege in the NT period?

Yours in Christ

Matt

 

Of course, the Bible was "inscripturated" whenever the final book was written. However, the issue is whether or not the entire Apostolic tradition was "inscripurated". Such is the assumption of Sola Scriptura advocates but it cannot be proven. The other question is whether or not the exact Canon was universally recognized when Revelation was written, and of course the answer to that is "no".

This is true, but ironically 2 Peter itself was one of those books that didn't receive universal recognition as Scripture until the late 4th century. The Pauline corpus and the four gospels were the earliest to have widespread recognition as Scripture presumably due to their wider earlier circulation. Paul's writings at least were familiar in the churches to whom Peter wrote, but the same cannot necessarily have been (initially) said about the reverse as Paul had a wider mission territory.

This is not true, and is falsified by history. Sure, the original recepients recognized their respective epistles as authoritative and on par with Scripture since they knew it came from the pen of an Apostle. However, some writings circulated more widely than others which led several books to only have local canonicity for a long period of time--Hebrews, James, Jude, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, and Revelation. By the time these books began to circulate out of their target area other pseudigriphal and apocryphal writings were also circulating which led many churches to be cautious in accepting newly received writings. OTOH, works like the Didache, Shepherd of Hermas, and Barnabas and 1 Clement even had local canonicity for a time. The fact is that it was because of Spirit guided decisions made by the Church in the late 4th century and early 5th century that we have the NT in the form it is in today. It is historically naive to suggest otherwise.

True, God has never left Himself without a witness. That's why He sent the Holy Spirit to guide His Church into all truth. That's why we can be confident, despite the fact that univeral canonicity for several books (mentioned above) took a few centuries to be achieved, that the NT Canon we have today is the correct one.

 

"HIS Church" was never a "universal invisible Church," or The Catholic Church." There was no "Church." That is a misonception. There were only churches--churches that the Apostles started. There were seven churches that the Lord Jesus addressed in Revelation 2 and 3. There were approximately 100 churches that Paul established on three missionary journeys. There were the churches that Paul wrote to in the epistles, and the churches that he sends his greetings to, as well. There was no universal Church. That was unheard of in the Apostles' day.

The early churches knew which of the epistles that were written to them were Scripture, and which were not. Paul not only tells them as much, but warns them of false teachers to come. These early beievers were not intellectually stupid, neither were they spiritually deaf.
You are exactly right. They had the Holy Spirit to guide them, and the promise of the Holy Spirit to guide them into all truth. And so he did. When false teachers tried to introduce spurious books the early believers were able to recognize them. What they did not need, and what we do not need today is the Catholic Church with their revisionist history trying to tell us that it was centuries later that the canon came into existence. That is just plain nonsense. The "Church" never was, and is not the "Catholic Church." The first pope was not Peter.
The church fathers that you are depending on were not always the true believers you think they are. In fact, Origen was declared a heretik by the church fathers themselves. He was the father of Arianism. Many of these church fathers held to strange and heretical beliefs. It also depends on what part of their lifetime you quote from. For most of Tertullian's life, he believed in some heresies. But during the latter part of his lifetime he joined a movement called the Montanists, renounced many of his former beliefs, and lived a very ascetic life. His latter beliefs varied much from his former beliefs.
The only standard we have is the Word of God. It was accepted as the true standard among the believers in the first century. I do not subscribe to Catholic revisionist history who would have us believe otherwise.
DHK

 

So how many Bodies does Christ have, DHK?

Yours in Christ

Matt

 

How many bodies of Christ?

One. "Where ever two or three of you are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst."

How many "families" are there is the world? How many do you have?

Selah

Bro. James

 

So, one church, then.

Yours in Christ

Matt