Christians Evangelizing Catholics

Which local church was Christ speaking of when he said MY church shall never fail?
where is that church today? </font>[/QUOTE]Still waiting </font>[/QUOTE]I don't think he has an Answer for you

 

I have already said that Billy Graham's wife cannot say that there was a precise moment when she became a Christian; rather, she would describe it as a process - is she damned or saved according to your criteria?

The trouble is is that you are seeking to impose a set of Modern presuppositions, in particular seeking to extract certainties on a forensically legal basis, on a collection of pre-Modern documents - the Bible - and this won't work. To take your marriage analogy, it is true that Modern marriage takes an instant to come into existence (although it takes more than a wedding ceremony to make a marriage ); but this Modern outlook similarly breaks down when applied to pre-Modern marriage, which passed typically through a number of stages before 'coming into being'. To take two examples, did Jewish marriage in Jesus' time 'come into being' when couples were pledged to be married or when the ceremony was performed by a rabbi? Did marriage in medieval England occur when a man took a woman into his home or bed and they were thus recognised by the community as married (common-law marriage) or when they were subsequently married in church, usually on the occasion of the christening of their first child?

Yours in Christ

Matt

 

Then please explain Eph. 4:1-6
4:1
I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called,

4:2
With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love;

4:3
Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

4:4
There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling;

4:5
One Lord, one faith, one baptism,

4:6
One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.

 

In Acts 15 you see the argument for a centralized body that resolves doctrinal questions and hands down its decisions to the local churches.

In fact even though Peter, James and Paul are in town - at those local churches - the decision still must go to the Jerusalem council. It is not settled until the ruling body makes a decision.

That is a very strong argument for a structured organization.

(But I fail to see what that has to do with evangelizing Catholics).

The problem for the RCC is as Paul stated it in Acts 20 - that "FROM AMONG YOUR OWN SELVES" the teachers of error would arise.

And in the very structured hierarchical system of the Jews we STILL have the Mark 7 problem of TRADITION that is used to replace the clear statement of God in scripture.

In Christ,

Bob