Featured False Christs

D.S. is a shoddy source. Use the scholars I mentioned instead. And there are others that qualify as reputable --D.S. is not.

 

Here is a reliable article with a lot of information in it:

There is much more to this article/study at:

http://www.blueletterbible.org/faq/canon.cfm

 

RCs believe the Bible was composed by the RCC, which didn't exist at the time, thus being a mythical entity. Quite a feat, even for the RCC.

 

Revise history may work for you, but in the real world of true history it is similar to saying that truth does contradict truth.

 

Deal with the actual facts in this article:

http://www.blueletterbible.org/faq/canon.cfm

 

Though the RCC is orthodox on Christology, it believes in development of doctrine as the Mormons do, and in a mythical beginning which is refuted by scripture and history.

The EOC departed from the RCC because of this development in doctrine which could not be supported by scripture or tradition. If I wanted to align myself with one of the communions claiming to be the "one true church" -- none of which are, in actuality -- I would join the EOC, as they have strayed the least far from early Christianity.

 

There is no real and true 'difference' between any churches; there also is no real and true unity between any Christian churches ... EXCEPT ON EASTER.

Sunday worship is the single and only common trademark in and of all 'Christianity' including even the so called Sabbatharians of all sorts.

 

DHK. I read your article, after reading it again I still find it very much an erroneous piece of work. I only agree that the Bible is indeed the Word of God, but we only know that because the Catholic Church told us so. How do we know what books should be in the Bible when the Bible doesn't tell us? We only know it because the Catholic Church definitively declared the Bible listing at the end of the fourth century.

If the Bible canon is necessary for our salvation, but Christ did not reveal it to His apostles, then Christ must have established an authority that would guarantee the early Christians' determination of the Bible canon after He ascended into heaven. This authority is the church, not just any particular church but His Church, not a church [ s ] invented hundreds of years later.

There was no Bible as you know it for 400 years after Christ's death, and it wasn't even distributed for 1500 years after His death. If the Bible is the only way to get us to heaven, then what happened to those millions of poor souls who never had a Bible during the 1500 year period? You need to get familiar with basic history. Jesus Christ established a Church to proclaim the good news. He never intended on having the Bible be the sole infallible guide for the Christian faith. This is why His Church is one, and your conflicting denominational churches are 30,000.

The Catholic Church wrote, translated, copied, and preserved God's written word throughout the ages. That is the only reason you even have a Bible. Quit trying to interpret the Scriptures without the Church, because it is the Bible in the Church, the Church before the Bible, the Bible and the Church (both or neither).

 

The early Christians had already accepted though virtually all of the NT canon of scriptures by end of the first century, as they did and were passing around the letters of paul and the other Apostles, so the Church of rome did NOT create the canon, they just merely affirmed what was already accepted as inspired books for a long time, and please note that the church NEVER accepted any books as being inspired other then the 66 of the protestant canon!

 

Yeshua, you crack me up. I'm laughing because you write that Protestantism existed before the Canonical list of Scripture was Canonized. Look's as if you lack knowledge in early Christian History.

 

No, I am stating that REAL Christianity existed way before the RCC, and that it would be seen as being Baptist like in doctrines and practices!

 

If you call it erroneous you must show on what grounds. On what grounds is it erroneous. Point our why and where. What facts are erroneous? Point them out. The article is factual. You simply state an opinion "because the Catholics told us so." :laugh:

I have already explained this to you. There is and was, never was, and "Church". No such thing exists or existed. The first century and even first few century knew only "churches." The word "ekklesia" means assembly. It is used 115 times in the NT, translated "church" 112 times, and 3 times translated "assembly." It means "local church," assembly, congregation. There was no such thing as "The Church," "a universal church," or the monstrous business organization as the RCC. The word has never meant that. There were only autonomous local churches. That is why Paul wrote 13 letters--all to different local churches or pastors of different local churches. He went on three different missionary journeys establishing about 100 different local churches all autonomous from each other. There was no denominations. There was no "Church".
Paul said: "For God sent me not to baptize but to preach the gospel."
It is the gospel that saves. The individuals that composed these churches were saved and baptized, baptized by the pastors who were appointed to be the pastors of the various churches. And thus the work went on.

2Ti 2:2 And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also
--The truth taught here is spiritual reproduction. That is what Paul taught Timothy, and Timothy taught to other faithful men, and the work continued.

That is false, blatantly false.
Look here:
2Pe 3:15 And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you;
2Pe 3:16 As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.
--It is obvious that by the time Peter had written this epistle that his readers had most of the epistles of Paul and most of the rest of the NT scriptures. This was near the end of the sixties, about 68 A.D. His death was soon after.
Only the writings of John and Jude were probably not written by this time.

A false premise demands a false conclusion. It needs no answer.

In Matthew 16:18 "the church" or "assembly" as it is translated in Darby's translation refers to the assembly that he had right then and there. He and his disciples. By Acts chapter one it had grown to 120 where they all assembled in the upper room. In Acts chapter two, it states that 3,000 were "added to the church," that is the First Baptist Church at Jerusalem." The Catholic church never came into existence until the fourth century.

There is no one Church, The Business organization you belong to is not a church and can never be considered a church by definition. I agree that denominations are not churches either. The church I belong to does not belong to a denomination. It is autonomous, separate from all denominations.

Blatantly false. You didn't read that article carefully, or if you did, simply denied it. You can't refute it can you?

 

gthe RCC MUST refute that the Bible alone is the inspired source for all doctrines and practices, for it condemns much of their own!

 

No problem, you can believe in whatever you like. I prefer to believe in the the One True Church founded by Jesus, that Church only follows the Teachings of Jesus along with the One True Interpretation of the Holy Bible, the same interpretation it had to use in selecting the correct Books that we have in our New Testament.

 

If you believed in the Bible, you would be able to refute what I said. But your belief is not in the Bible. It is in the heretical teachings of the RCC which you regurgitate on this board. You cannot and do not defend them with God's Word.

You just admitted that you prefer to believe in the teachings of the RCC, which is not the One True Church. I proved that to you already. No refutation came.
You can only parrot the lies that have been given you.
You believe in a myth, in many superstitions, in a false religion that leads to hell. You should get out of it while you can.

 

That's how we got the Protestant Reformation.

 

The doctrine of Sola Scriptura can be easily refuted with a bit of very simple logic. Sola Scriptura is the belief that all necessary teachings are contained within the collection of writings now known as the Holy Bible. The Bible itself contains no table of contents, no indication of which books to include or not to include. Therefore, someone must have used something other than the Bible in order to compile the Bible. Therefore the Bible is not itself sufficient.
It still seems to me that Protestantism is based on a non biblical doctrine (sola Scriptura) and as such is a false belief system based upon Protestant man-made doctrine.
Protestant man-made doctrine=/=Protestant man-made doctrine

 

Let's go back to the "Definition"

Sola Scriptura is the doctrine that all teaching/doctrine/practice/tradition must be tested against what you have today as scripture to see if it contradicts it or is in harmony with it.

So it could be used as far back as Is 8:20 "To the Law and to the Testimony if they speak not according to THIS Word - they have no light".

That same rule could be used every step of the way.

BTW - Isaiah did not have a "Table of Contents" and was read by God's people "anyway".

in Christ,

Bob

 

Yeshua1, no Baptist ,written by a Protestant;

In his History of Dogma, Harnack, a Protestant, writes: "There can be no doubt that the Gnostic propaganda [of the second century] was seriously injured by that inability to organize and govern churches which is characteristic of all philosophical systems of religion. The Gnostic organization of schools and mysteries was not able to contend with the episcopal organization of the Churches".

It will be of interest to mention just two of the Fathers of the Church, Irenaeus and Ignatius. The former had been a disciple of Polycarp, who in turn was a disciple of John the apostle. He was martyred at Lyons in the year 202. His most famous work is called Adversus Haereses. Possibly it has been quoted more than any other work of the period as evidence of belief in the supremacy of the pope. Our present purpose is simply to show what a highly organized society the Catholic Church was at the end of the second century.

"In every church, all who wish to know the truth may study the traditions of the apostles that is known all over the world. In fact, we can tell you the names of those who were appointed bishops in the [various] churches by the apostles and trace their successors to our own times...And because the apostles were committing the government of the Church into their hands, they wanted these men, who were to take their places, to be perfect and blameless in every way."

Elsewhere he wrote, "One should obey the presbyters who are the successors of the apostles....We should follow those who preserve the doctrine of the apostles and who are qualified, with the order of the priesthood, to instruct and correct others privately and publicly."

Ignatius wrote his letters about a century earlier. He was on his way from Antioch, where he was bishop, to Rome where he was to be martyred in the year 107. To the Christian communities of the places through which he passed he wrote seven letters.

Here is a quotation from what he wrote to the Trallians: "You must continue to do nothing apart from the bishop. Obey priests as apostles of Jesus Christ. Similarly, all should respect the deacons as they would respect Jesus Christ, just as they respect the bishop as representing the Father and the priests as the council of God and the college of the apostles. Apart from these there in nothing that can be called a church."

The same lesson is repeated to the Ephesians and to the Smyrneans. To the former Ignatius wrote, "If the prayer of one or two men is so powerful, how much more so is that of the bishop and that of the whole Church. Anyone, therefore, who fails to assemble with the others has already displayed his pride and separated himself...Let us be careful not to oppose the bishop so that we may obey God."

To the latter he wrote, "Shun schisms as the source of troubles. Follow the bishop as Jesus Christ did the Father and the priests as you would the apostles. Reverence the deacons as you would God's command. Apart from the bishop nobody must perform any of the functions that belong to the Church. The Eucharist must be considered valid when it is offered by the bishop or by one to whom the bishop has given this charge. Wherever the bishop appears, there should the people be; as wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church."

It hardly needs to be pointed out that in the year 107 this great martyr took it for granted that the Catholic Church existed as an organized society in all the towns through which he passed. In each place bishops and priests were necessary.

There was no government of the Church without them. They had to be obeyed if the faithful wished to be Catholics. They ruled as representatives of our Lord. Ignatius was the immediate successor of the apostles. He had known them. His idea of the constitution of the Church must have been theirs. It certainly did not change overnight.

 

You being childish, silly, ridiculous, etc.
Sola scriptura is the study of the Scriptures to prove the doctrine being taught.
More accurately, the term means "only scripture."
It is our final authority in all matters of faith and doctrine.

You have other fallible sources such as Tradition, the Pope, etc. They err. The Catechism has been changed and added to. Papal pronouncements have been made throughout the centuries to add to your "revelation."
Thus the heresy of having an "open revelation," when God himself closed the revelation with the Book of Revelation. There was and is no more revelation after the Bible; the canon of Scripture was closed. But the RCC still adds to it. That in and of itself is a heretical stance.

What did Jesus say:
Luk 24:44 And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me.
Luk 24:45 Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures,
--Jesus went through the Scriptures, that is the OT with his disciples. The Jews divided them into three parts.
1. The Law--the first five books of Moses.
2. The Prophets--This is the largest sections including most of the historical books and all the prophetical books. The twelve minor prophets were one book called "The Twelve."
3. The Psalms. More accurately these were all the poetical books such as Job and Ecclesiastes.
--They had three parts. Later on we divided the OT into five sections, and put them into a slightly different order.
BTW, we do have a Table of Contents.

The NT has a far more orderly arrangement.
The gospels are first--they are the history of the life of Christ.
The Book of Acts is second--the history of the life of the Apostles.
The Epistles of Paul come next in a general order from the longest epistle to the shortest epistle.
The Pastoral epistles follow.
Then are the General epistles by different authors starting with the longest--the Book of Hebrews.
All the writings of John, save for his gospel are at the end.
The Book of Revelation is at the end of the Bible, both because it is a writing of John and because it completes the Bible as the last to be written, and as the one that talks of end times looking to the coming of our Savior.

The books are inspired of God and claim inspiration. They had to meet criteria to be inspired. The early church was taught by the Apostles which were inspired and which were not. But you don't have faith in those early believers do you?
You have to rely on the mantras given to you by the RCC which did not come into existence until the fourth century.