My church defined your church's bible

[Eric B]

So you say written is easier to preserve than oral. That's an opinion I suppose. Since when does doctrine come from opinions?

I could form an "opinion" that written is hard to preserve too, and abandon the written. That would not be a faithful solution however.

But Paul said three times said to hold to the traditions, without qualifying that there was a sunset clause for when the canon was formed. How can you hold to sola scriptura when you can't point me to the sunset clause?

And also without qualifying that these were any special teachings not found elsewhere, that were to be "passed down" orally ONLY.

Obviously the Nicene formula wasn't passed down verbatim from the apostles. However, part of the argument by the anti-Arian side was that the full deity of Christ was an apostolic tradition. When I look at the pre-Nicene writings, I think they are right.

I spent quite a few Christian years confused about what the bible actually teaches. I wavered for a long time drifting from trinitarian, to oneness to arianism, before concluding that trinitarianism was slightly more likely to be in line with the scriptures than other options.

But now I look back on it, I think I wasted my time because I could have just trusted the church on this one. Maybe you think I'm stupider than the average Joe that I couldn't see straight off that the bible teaches the trinity. But do I have to be so smart to figure out everything for myself, me and my bible under a tree? Of course, most Christians tend to just accept whatever they have grew up in or whatever they are told by whoever got to them first, and generally the scriptural arguments can be quite convincing. I found the JW materials to present quite a good case. It was more to do with the other baggage that goes along with being a JW that put me off.

The deity of Christ is set forth clearly in John 1:1, Heb. 1 and other places, not just "tradition". The JW's have to rewrite verses like that (their "indefinite article" argument, which fails because there can only be one God, so "A" cannot be added there like it is to words like "prophet, which is one of their examples)

Now you complain that the apostolic churches hold to the traditions, and you would have them jetison them in favour of sola scriptura. But you can't tell us the verse containing the sunset clause that would allow us to do so. Nor could you point to a scripture that teaches sola scriptura.

No, I complain that they assume their practices are "apostolic traditions". Remember, that is not mutually established, here!

Orthodox would say this is a gnostic heresy to deny the goodness of the physical reality. In the OT God was only known as spirit, but in the NT we have the incarnation. No-one has ever seen God, but God the only-begotten was made flesh and dwelt amongst us. What we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life and the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you.

The Christian tradition has never cut itself off from the physical. Baptism is physical. The Eucharist is physical. Jas 5:14 says to ask the elders to annoint you with oil if you are sick. The apostles laid on hands for the people to receive the spirit. In Acts 19:12, even a hankerchief of Paul healed the sick.

Where does it say worshipping in spirit means renouncing the physical reality?

Here's a mistake that your side always makes. You lump this in with certain abuses of the concept from the past (which did heavily influence fundamental Baptists in some ways along with others).
I did not say "renouncing" the physical.
And while we did have the Incarnation, Jesus went back up to the Father, and we have the Holy Spirit IN us now, not still Jesus walking around in the flesh. We still have some physical observances, but these are signs, and not what your traditions make them out to be. The Church fathers were known to have interpreted these things according to contemporary Greek philosophy, and this was why it was widespread and agreed upon, and why we cannot just look at their unity as untimate proof of what the apostles taught and omitted from the writings.

What the bible says is that earthly worship is a shadow of what goes on in heaven. The bible never says that the OT worship is a shadow of NT worship. Go look up shadow in your concordance.

And the Orthodox try and obey this precept and make our worship a shadow of what goes on in heaven. Revelation tells us what goes on in heaven, and you can say it is symbolic, but then so is Orthodox worship symbolic of what goes on in heaven.

And you are worried about what? That we retain the complex form of worship inherited from Judaism? It ought hardly rank as an issue.

Well, one would have to ask why Revelation would use incense as a symbol, and using the word "censer", if the new Christian church
wasn't using them. It would be a bad choice of symbol if it wasn't part of Christian thought, no?

But Malachi is even clearer:

Malachi 1:11 For from the rising of the sun even to its setting, My
name will be great among the nations, and in every place incense is
going to be offered to My name, and a grain offering that is pure; for
My name will be great among the nations," says the LORD of hosts.

You tell me: At what point in history do the nations (aka the
gentiles) offer incense to God's name in every place?

The other thing about Revelation here is that in Rev 5:7 the elders
hold the prayers of the saints and offer them to God. Now you can say
it is symbolic, but symbolic of what? Why do saints in heaven offer
the prayers of the saints on earth to God, if they have nothing to do
with the saints prayers?

Now the people of the OT bowed down to the tabernacle, which Moses was
told to make a shadow of the heavenly things: "[the priests who serve
in the Temple in Jerusalem] serve unto the example and shadow of
heavenly things, as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to
make the tabernacle: for, See, saith he, that thou make all things
according to the pattern shewed to thee in the mount" (Hebrews 8:5;
cf. Exodus 25:40).

In the new covenant we know a bit more about who and what is in
heaven, it it is reflected in the iconography.

Once again, all of that is symbolic even in Heaven, which is not a physical place. Eye has not seen, nor ear heard what we shall see there, so John represents it the best way it could be perceived by humans.
The Christians reading Revelation would know what these things were from the OT, and they were taught (in books like Hebrews) how those things were shadows of the NT.
Also notice in Malachi, a grain offering. I'll bet you're going to say that that is the Eucharist, but even if so, since that right there has changed from what a true grain offering was back then, this shows that those are all figures.

Why we do what we do is because we pass on the traditions. Why they are traditions, I suggest the answer is to be found in the fact that Christianity grew up from Judaism. The apostles were Jews, Jesus was a Jew, the first Christians were Jews, and they all grew up worshipping in the synagogue, so naturally this was the only model for worship they would have known. As you see from reading Acts, the early Christians still went to synagogue, so obviously they had no qualms about the Jewish form of worship. It was only later when the non-Christian Jews would no longer tolerate the Christian Jews that Christianity split off from synagogue worship. Why do you have qualms that the early church didn't?

According to what logic would God be happy with a kind of worship one day, and not happy the next?

Not sure what the opinion of modern day Jews proves. Jewish catacombs
of the period contain icons. The Palestinian Talmud records (in Abodah
Zarah 48d) "In the days of Rabbi Jochanan men began to paint pictures
on the walls, and he did not hinder them" and "In the days of Rabbi
Abbun men began to make designs on mosaics, and he did not hinder
them." Also, the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan repeats the command against
idols, but then says "but a stone column carved with images and
likenesses you may make upon the premises of your sanctuaries, but not
to worship them."

I suggest if you do more research you may find there less difference
between the Jewish tradition and the Orthodox tradition than you may
think.

Not sure what you're talking about here.

Why then changing the Sabbath to Sunday, and replacing the annual Hoy Days (Passover, Pentecost), etc with new days, most of which were converted pagan festivals. I know the arguments for Sunday (but this is ultimately an interpretation of certain passages based ultimately on "tradition", and yes, as the RCC always said, Protestants are a bit inconsistent to be following Catholic authority on this issue). I would think the Church should have remained closer tied to Judaism, but only in certain cases were Jewish elements thrown off with force, while others were kept. That is what is "selective".

 

[Eric B]

So given the harsh reality that many of us can be persuaded of a lot of things given a clever enough argument, and we can't always understand the scriptures ourselves, shouldn't there be someone to trust to help us?

The Orthodox would call it giving your ancestors a vote, instead of every Christian re-inventing the wheel every time. You would say that any smart fellow can come along and set up a "church" and help people understand the scriptures. But then how does your average God-seeker know who to pick?

But how can anybody just come along and set up a church? Well, you couldn't have done it in say the year 60AD, because you wouldn't have been able to hold to the traditions unless you were in the church that the apostles built. You wouldn't have been able to do it in the year 150AD, because you would not have known what the canon was without asking the church the apostles built. If you'd just looked around for Jesus teachings, you would have had to choose between the gnostic writings and other sects. Even if you'd restricted your books to the ones that the apostolic churches used, you still wouldn't know for sure the canon until the apostolic churches settled it for sure.

So you couldn't have set up a baptist church in the first centuries because you would lack the theological foundation for doing so. Yet you think you can now. It doesn't quite sit right.

That still does not mean that the visible organization that grew from the apostolic Church passed down everything perfectly.

Secondly, you assume divine guidance is needed to pass down
traditions, but you don't need it to copy the scriptures. In truth,
it's a lot easier to keep a tradition of whether infants are baptised
and whether infants may take communion, than it is to make a copy of
the scriptures by hand. Try it some time and you will find out!

It might take a long time to copy it, and be painstaking, but at least what is there is written in black and white, and not what someone says they passed down from someone else.

But our church was given
the traditions by the apostles, and our church has passed on the
traditions of the apostles, as we were instructed to do. You doubt
that we have done it, but you can't produce any documentation that we
have changed our doctrines. You make a lot of assumptions about what
went on 2000 years ago, and what didn't go on. But you can't document
them with certainty.
Do you understand why we are not willing to abandon our traditions
which we believe the apostles gave us based on your say so?

Is it really *THAT* hard to believe that maybe, just maybe, the church
the apostles built might have been able to pass on the traditions for
a couple of hundred years until more or less everything had been
discussed and agreed in written form by the church fathers, and which
is still followed 1700-1800 years later? Is that so much harder to
believe than that the truth is certain in scripture, it's just that
none of the sola scriptura churches can agree on what it is?

We don't merely have "age". It also so happens, that our church is the
same church that the apostles formed. The baptist church was formed by
John Smyth in 1612. The Mormon church was formed by Joseph Smith in
1830. The Orthodox church was formed by Peter at Pentacost.
What scripture commanded to go form a new church?
You blandly call us an "organization", but we are the Church, the
bride of Christ, the body of Christ. We are the "organization"
entrusted with the word of God, in both its written and oral forms,
both guarding it in substance, and guarding it in
extent. (i.e. guarding both the text of scripture, and the canon of
scripture, both the oral traditions, and their extent). Yes you must
trust us, because we are the custodians of God's plan of salvation, as
expressed in written and oral forms. If you don't trust us, then it is
just you and your speculations under a tree. Well, unless God decides
to give you a first person revelation.

How can we be "one-upping" our way to be the one true group, when
we're just saying the exact same thing from when we WERE the only
group?
We've been saying for 1500 years that we believe in One
Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. Is it our fault that others came
along a thousand years later and told us we weren't the One Holy
Catholic and Apostolic Church?

You keep saying the only difference is age, but who founded our
church, and who founded yours?

We just
proclaim the truth. We don't compromise it to achieve unity. As the
Emperor Michael's sister put it "Better that my brother's Empire
should perish, than the purity of the Orthodox Faith".

That's like the Baptist briders, Church of Christ, JW's, some sabbathkeeping sects, etc. coming and saying the same things. My organization versus yours! They too can produce documents from the early Church supporting some of their practices, and they will claim that those men credited as the "founders" were really just men whom God raised up to restore, uncover, etc. the truth, and that the "Catholic" churches in their present form were started by Constantine, or Leo, or Boniface, or whomever. I'm not saying I agree with that, but this can be turned around easier than you think.

It's perfectly fine that you are doing what you can with the truth you have. The fact that you don't have the fullness of truth is not something we judge you over, but just regret that you are missing out
on.
You can ignore the rituals, that's fine, but it's your loss, not
ours. We're happy you follow the truth you have, and don't judge you
that you don't have it all.

Well, that's a pretty condescending statement. Once again, many other groups say the same thing. at leasr some groups like Baptists and Methodists, and Charismatics can accept each other, even if they are in different organizations with some different teachings.

Yet the witness of the entirety of tradition is much more explicit
that mere suppositions, because there is no record whatsoever of
anybody in the church debating the merits of infant baptism. According
to you, every church in the whole world simply rolled over and
abandoned the apostolic traditions, and the did so without leaving any
record of dispute or debate.

If all the postapostolic leaders in unison, and yet independently,
interpreted the scriptures in an Orthodox fashion, and not in a
protestant baptist fashion, it doesn't say much for your position does it?
Instead of just judging the ECFs by the scriptures, I suggest you also
judge the ECFs against each other, yourself against the ECFs. Are you
so wise in your interpretation that you outweigh dozens of bishops? If
so, how and why?

It all changed slowly, and since the scriptures were not widely distributed yet, who would debate it? (Yet debates did quickly come up, such as Polycarp's disciple Polycrates holding to a Quartodeciman Passover, and against the Easter Sunday of the bishop of Rome. As I've said, Greek Philosophy was widespread, and 100 years was a long time for things to spread.

As for your "documentation", here is some about the first century. And I don't think these are all Baptist or even Protestant histporians, necessarily, though I don't know their backgrounds:

Jesse Lyman Hurlbut The Story of the Christian Church p.41
We would like to read of the later work of such helpers of St. Paul as Timothy, Apollos, and Titus., but all these...drop out of record at his death. For 50 years after St. Paul's life a curtain hangs over the church through which we strive vainly to look; and when at last it arises, about AD 120, with the writings of the earliest church fathers [Justin], we find a church in many aspects different from that in the days of Peter and Paul

William J. McGothlin The Course Of Christian History

But Christianity itself had been in [the] process of transformation as it progressed and at the close of the period was in many respects quite different from the apostolic Christianity -

Samuel G. Green A Handbook of Christian History:

The 30 years which followed the close of the New Testament Canon and the destruction of Jerusalem are in truth, the most obscure in the history of the Church. When we emerge in the second century, we are, to a great extent, in a changed world

William Fitzgerald Lectures on Ecclesiastical History:

over this period of transition, which immediately succeeds upon the era properly called apostolic, great obscurity hangs... -

Philip Schaff History of the Christian Church
The remaining 30 years of the first century are involved in mysterious darkness, illuminated only by the writings of John. This is a period of church history about which we know least and would like to know most.

You take our scriptures, you trust our scribes, you follow our canon, then you fall short in not following the entire deposit of faith.

You are claiming those the scriptures, scribes and canon to an organization, rather than to the people, (which can extend beyond the membership rolls of a particular corporation), and even if they were "yours", that does not prove that the rest of the stuff added to that is "the entire deposit of faith".

Quote:
Mojoala elsewhere admitted that the concept of priesthood had changed from the first century to the second.

Not sure what you refer to.

That some things (in this case, the meanings of the offices) had changed in the first century of the Church, and were not all passed down perfectly from the apostles. But then you seem to be admitting this in some areas too.

 

[Eric B]

If the promise is not implied, why does Paul admonish the church to hold to the oral traditions? If it is that tough to keep these
traditions, then Paul was playing with fire in telling the church to
keep them.

If you believe that was a "promise" that they would be supernaturally preserved (in spite of man's tendency to distort and corrupt everything), why would they need to be so admonished?

And I suppose your particular church has got it right, and the others
don't? Either the presbyterians fell short in their reformation, or
the Oneness Pentacostals and Jehovah's witnesses overshot and
over-reformed from Catholic influence?

I didn't say that. I'm here criticizing all these groups for playing this "we're the right one" game, so I'm not doing that as well, and my church doesn't even deal in that kind of argumentation.

Really? I don't think you would reduce division by any measurable
amount. Just take some of the issues that protestant churches can't
seem to help themselves but take a position on: infant baptism, infant
communion, calvinism/arminianism, congregational vs presbyterian
polity, speaking in tongues/no speaking in tongues. There is the seeds
right there for 32 churches, each with their own combination of
doctrines.

Again, that's because people rise up and make issues out of these things. Just because that's what men do, doesn't prove that only your group is true, and the solution to it. Even if you could get all men under your organization, they would still find ways to carry this nonsense on. So what would you have? Nominal unity under a huge power base.

But I tell you what: if you can get your baptist pastor to baptize a baby, THEN I'll say hey, you're practicing what you preach. Until
then, you look a bit hypocritical.

Why? I have no control over anyone else.

We have him in letter but not in person too!!
You said it was different back then because they had the apostle in
person. But it aint true, they didn't have him in person, which is why
he had to send them the letter.

What I meant was that he was still alive, so if there was any question, he could still be contacted to resolve the issue, or at least someone who knew him. Sometimes, he even returned, or sent an epistle, if a problem was unresolved. So this whole thing that they just went on tradition, primarily, and all was well with that (until the Reformation) doesn't fly.

1 John 2:19 They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for
if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they
went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us.
If the church was merely believers, not required to belong to the
visible church the apostles built, what is the point in the apostles
talking about those leaving the visible church? They might have just
gone out to start another church.
Contrary to modern thought, the early church had a keen sense that the
church should be one. John 17:22 "The glory which You have given Me I
have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are
one. Ephesians 4:4-6 There is one body and one Spirit, just as also
you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one
baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and
in all.
It doesn't seem to mean much to the modern protestant mindset.

I didn't say that there was no visible Church at all, but that it wasn't "Orthodox" versus some other "Denomination", like you are claiming now. Of course, there was only one group then, but then who was the first to "break away"? Heretics, of course, but then the "orthodox" split, with both halves claiming to be the true Church holding the traditions. Then, it splintered further. So now, it's you versus the West, versus Church of Christ, JW's, briders, etc. all claiming to be the original Church. The only thing you have over the others is the "official "succession" of leaders in an visible organization. But then Rome can claim that too, and it does not prove that the succession passed the true faith down perfectly, any more than all the rest that broke off simply because they were outnumbered in the Churches they came out of.

Actually, Paul points out that Peter used to eat with the gentiles,
and also he points out that the gentiles have received the gospel
already. Those two things amount to the tradition, both of the church
and of Peter.

And that tradition comes from Jesus telling them to go out into allt he World, and God telling Peter in in the vision Acts not to avoid the Gentiles; not from any secret tradition.

I wish you'd tell us what this state church thingy is. What state is supposedly controlling the Orthodox church?

Under the Holy Roman Empire, they were all state institutions. Of course the Empire is gone, but thebasic governmental structure remained the same.

The Bereans may have checked Paul's authority by verifying the crux of his argument from scripture, but clearly the Bereans didn't find all
Paul's doctrines in scripture did they? How did they check everything
Paul said?

Why do you think they didn't find all of his doctrines in scripture? Where does it say that? If you're trying to say they checked him by his traditions, then that is not checking him at all, but just taking his traditions on their own authority. (These were godfearing gentiles, not an established Church, so they would not have even had the traditions).

I don't see how you can claim he doesn't teach the monarchial episcopate:
"Give ye heed to the bishop, that God also may give heed to you. I am
devoted to those who are subject to the bishop, the presbyters, the
deacons." - Ignatius to polycarp.

So it mentions a bishpo. Where do you get "monarchical" from this? It could hypothetically, possibly be, but it doesn't actually say. If you can read that in there, then the RCC can just as well read the Pope in there.

I'm not sure what you mean by "all that liturgical stuff". Everybody
who cares to investigate realises that the early church was
liturgical. The word is even used in the New Testament. Acts 13:2
"While they were engaged in the liturgy of the Lord and fasting".

That word means simply "public servant", or to "perform public functions". While what the word "liturgy" later came to mean is allowed here, but this does not necessarily mean that. Any public service anyone does in the Church (usher, worship leader, etc) is this "ministering" as it is trasnalted in the KJV.

If it's so confusing, how come nobody disputed it for 2000 years, and
still nobody in the Orthodox church disputes it? I guess you can make
disputation out of anything, but if something worked for 2000 years, I
don't see how you can seriously claim confusion.

People have disputed it for 2000 years. It's just that you're judging by "majority rules", and sometimes the majority was right, but not necessarily always.

Well what will work, you tell me?

Apparently, the return of Christ. I certainly cannot change these people, and I'm getting worn out from arguing with them here. I certainly cannot change these people, (and I'm getting worn out from arguing with them here), and if you can get them all to join the Eastern Orhodox Church and that solves everything, then go ahead and try! To me, it looks like Christ Himself will have to straighten all this out.

Firstly, we do not believe it is particularly the church leaders who
pass down traditions. The biggest obstacle to change in the Orthodox
church today is the laity. And yes, there are things which need to
change, but the hierarchy finds it very difficult to change anything
because of outcry from the laity.
We don't assume it is identical, we believe it is identical in
doctrine only. Doctrine spills over into practice in a general sense,
but not in specifics. As I said, not everything is Holy Tradition.

Well that's nice to admit, and I am a bit attracted to the ancientness of cathedrals, and some elements of it (at least around Christmas time, when I visit St. Patricks Cathedral). Also the notions of an "original Church" instead of all these "human denominations" (which I first heard through Church of Christ literature, complete with the starting dates and founders of the "denominations", with the CoC founded by Christ; and it was very impressive, but some of their doctrines were just not scriptural). I even like the incense and the candles, and the aroma they give off. But I just become alarmed when I see someone claiming this was actually mandatory "worship" in the New Testament church, but just not written, and then speak down to all the other churches outside that particular organization. (which several other sects are doing).

Since some of that you said is not really tradition; I could see myself joining some group affiliated with orthodoxy, if it was stripped of some of that stuff, and don;t say that I was unsaved all this time until I was baptized into their group. I have heard of "Families of Christians" in Israel that "go all the way back", and I was wondering of that referred to just the local Catholic/Orthodox liturgical Christians, of if they were just Christians who can trace their lineage all the way back, and never adopted all the ritual and pomp.

 

[orthodox]

And also without qualifying that these were any special teachings not found elsewhere, that were to be "passed down" orally ONLY.

Let's get real here. How could Paul himself had known? Not even Paul
knew what the canon was, nor did he even know that there would be
established a canon prior to Jesus' returning. He didn't even know
what else he himself would yet write before he was martyred, let alone
what everybody else would write. All Paul knew was that he had visited
Thessalonica, and he had emparted to them the Traditions, some in
written and some in oral form, and he wanted them to hold to both. We
don't even know what Paul emarted to them in written form! Obviously,
it wasn't the letter which he was half way through writing as this
thought occured to him. It wouldn't have been the entirety of the New
Testament, and may not have even been any of the New Testament. He may
have put in written form a list: "baptise infants, give them
communion, venerate the holy icons" for all you know. All we know is
that he gave them what they needed, and he wanted them to stick with
it.

What you're doing basically is making an assumption about what God
ought to have done as far as writing everything in scripture, and used
that as the ultimate foundation of your faith. Such assumptions are
not consistent with sola scriptura are they?

The deity of Christ is set forth clearly in John 1:1, Heb. 1 and other places, not just "tradition". The JW's have to rewrite verses like that (their "indefinite article" argument, which fails because there can only be one God, so "A" cannot be added there like it is to words like "prophet, which is one of their examples)

Maybe you are not familiar with the nuanced JW arguments, like I think
John 10:34, and others?

No, I complain that they assume their practices are "apostolic traditions". Remember, that is not mutually established, here!

And you assume that Hebrews and 2 Peter and James and Jude and
Revelation and Mark and Luke are apostolic, even though all those
books were either not written by an apostle, or it has been disputed
in church history that they were written by an apostle. Can you prove
it? No you can't, you take it on faith. Can you give a reason for your
faith? About all you could say is that the church of God agreed upon
these things after the 4th century, which is the exact same thing we
say about Tradition.

Here's a mistake that your side always makes. You lump this in with certain abuses of the concept from the past (which did heavily influence fundamental Baptists in some ways along with others).
I did not say "renouncing" the physical.
And while we did have the Incarnation, Jesus went back up to the Father, and we have the Holy Spirit IN us now, not still Jesus walking around in the flesh. We still have some physical observances, but these are signs, and not what your traditions make them out to be.

Well you say everything is merely a sign, and has no reality to it. So
why do it? Why get the priest to annoint with oil when you are sick?
It is a waste of time right? Why did they get hankerchiefs that had
touched Paul and it healed them? It was a waste of time right? You say
it is just our traditions, but most of our traditions are not purely
oral, they have a scriptural component too. Scriptures that baptists
and protestants conveniently ignore.

The Church fathers were known to have interpreted these things according to contemporary Greek philosophy, and this was why it was widespread and agreed upon, and why we cannot just look at their unity as untimate proof of what the apostles taught and omitted from the writings.

Wow. I wouldn't have said that the Church fathers in unison all
interpreted scripture according to Greek philosophy. But let's say for
a second it is true. If the culture at that time was so steeped in
Greek philosophy that that it was basically a given that this is the
framework in which it was interpreted, then all I can say is,
interpret scripture according to the cultural framework under which it
was written! That's got to be a heck of a lot more valid that using a
21st century American cultural context. Prove to me that the only
known cultural context of the 1st century for interpreting scripture
also happens to be the wrong context.

Once again, all of that is symbolic even in Heaven, which is not a physical place. Eye has not seen, nor ear heard what we shall see there, so John represents it the best way it could be perceived by humans.
The Christians reading Revelation would know what these things were from the OT, and they were taught (in books like Hebrews) how those things were shadows of the NT.

And neither will heaven look exactly like an Orthodox service, but it
is a symbol and shadow of it, just like Revelation.

Also notice in Malachi, a grain offering. I'll bet you're going to say that that is the Eucharist, but even if so, since that right there has changed from what a true grain offering was back then, this shows that those are all figures.

If grain is a figure of the bread, what is incense a figure of??

Why then changing the Sabbath to Sunday, and replacing the annual Hoy Days (Passover, Pentecost), etc with new days, most of which were converted pagan festivals. I know the arguments for Sunday (but this is ultimately an interpretation of certain passages based ultimately on "tradition", and yes, as the RCC always said, Protestants are a bit inconsistent to be following Catholic authority on this issue). I would think the Church should have remained closer tied to Judaism, but only in certain cases were Jewish elements thrown off with force, while others were kept. That is what is "selective".

I'm not quite sure of the point. The whole of the church calendar
revolves around passover, I'm not sure what you mean that Passover was
"replaced". And Sunday is not the Sabbath, even though there are
similarities in how it is treated.

I could probably argue that the whole attitude to the law is a
Tradition too. Paul says "We uphold the Law", which the 7th day
Adventists have taken very literally. There's another issue on which
again a schism continually lies in wait.

That still does not mean that the visible organization that grew from the apostolic Church passed down everything perfectly.

If they didn't, what was a Christian to do in the first few hundred
years while they waited for the canon to be finalized? The church
ought to have broken apart in an explosion the size of a thousand
reformations, since they not only had exegesis to argue about, they
also had the canon to argue about.

But they didn't blow apart, they emerged from the darkness of
persecution, more or less one. Even more impressively, they stayed
one.

CONTINUED.....

 

[orthodox]

.....CONTINUED

It might take a long time to copy it, and be painstaking, but
at least what is there is written in black and white, and not what
someone says they passed down from someone else.

To paraphrase you, being in black and white doesn't prove it is
true. What would you rather - one eywitness account in writing, or 100
eyewitness accounts orally?

That's like the Baptist briders, Church of Christ, JW's, some sabbathkeeping sects, etc. coming and saying the same things. My organization versus yours! They too can produce documents from the early Church supporting some of their practices, and they will claim that those men credited as the "founders" were really just men whom God raised up to restore, uncover, etc. the truth

Yeah, except that you and me agree that the organization of the
Orthodox church _was_ founded by men God raised up. The ultimate
result of denying the Church's ability to preserve oral tradition is
Islam, which also denies the church's ability to preserve written
tradition.

Well... if you're going to doubt the church, that's the end-game.

and that the "Catholic" churches in their present form were started by Constantine, or Leo, or Boniface, or whomever. I'm not saying I agree with that, but this can be turned around easier than you think.

Sure you can say that. Once you doubt that God would preserve his
church, all manner of speculation is now open. You've got to seriously
consider the possibility that Joseph Smith was needed to restore the
church because the bible can't be fully trusted, or that Muhammad was
right that the church had corrupted everything, or that we need a
Watch-Tower society to restore the true church on earth.

After all, the apostles did form a visible church, so why not look to
find a prophet restoring the visible church?

Well, that's a pretty condescending statement. Once again, many other groups say the same thing. at leasr some groups like Baptists and Methodists, and Charismatics can accept each other, even if they are in different organizations with some different teachings.

Acceptance of other protestant groups is somewhat of a new
thing. Historically there was very limited acceptance. One can see why
acceptance is on the increase - nobody can say with any authority that
their group is right about anything whatsoever, so logically it's not
possible to reject any group any more.

Of course it depends what you mean by "accept" each other. My priest,
before he became Orthodox, spent many years working with Orthodoxy as
a protestant in Russia. It wasn't like Orthodoxy didn't want him
around, but that doesn't mean Orthodoxy would compromise its claims.

It all changed slowly, and since the scriptures were not widely distributed yet, who would debate it? (Yet debates did quickly come up, such as Polycarp's disciple Polycrates holding to a Quartodeciman Passover, and against the Easter Sunday of the bishop of Rome. As I've said, Greek Philosophy was widespread, and 100 years was a long time for things to spread.

As for your "documentation", here is some about the first century. And I don't think these are all Baptist or even Protestant histporians, necessarily, though I don't know their backgrounds:

Jesse Lyman Hurlbut The Story of the Christian Church p.41
We would like to read of the later work of such helpers of St. Paul as Timothy, Apollos, and Titus., but all these...drop out of record at his death. For 50 years after St. Paul's life a curtain hangs over the church through which we strive vainly to look; and when at last it arises, about AD 120, with the writings of the earliest church fathers [Justin], we find a church in many aspects different from that in the days of Peter and Paul

William J. McGothlin The Course Of Christian History

But Christianity itself had been in [the] process of transformation as it progressed and at the close of the period was in many respects quite different from the apostolic Christianity -

Samuel G. Green A Handbook of Christian History:

The 30 years which followed the close of the New Testament Canon and the destruction of Jerusalem are in truth, the most obscure in the history of the Church. When we emerge in the second century, we are, to a great extent, in a changed world

William Fitzgerald Lectures on Ecclesiastical History:

over this period of transition, which immediately succeeds upon the era properly called apostolic, great obscurity hangs... -

Philip Schaff History of the Christian Church
The remaining 30 years of the first century are involved in mysterious darkness, illuminated only by the writings of John. This is a period of church history about which we know least and would like to know most.

So now you seem to be claiming that the church went off the rails
within 30 years!!?! Even your 100 year references were pretty amazing,
but now you're saying we can't trust anything because of the dark 30
years?

It's a pretty amazing claim don't you think? God spends thousands of
years working up to this moment when he'll send his Son to die for the
sins of the world, and will start his Church, and then the Church
blows it all straight to hell, because it can't follow Paul's commands
to keep the oral traditions, and it doesn't yet have any scriptures to
follow. And when it does get scriptures, the universal Greek
interpretive framework just happens to be the wrong one to get at the
truth.

Boy, things are tough!

You are claiming those the scriptures, scribes and canon to an organization, rather than to the people, (which can extend beyond the membership rolls of a particular corporation), and even if they were "yours", that does not prove that the rest of the stuff added to that is "the entire deposit of faith".

The "people" as you call it, is the church. There was no concept yet
fabricated in the minds of theological naval gazers called an
"invisible church". The scriptures weren't kept by the pagans, they
were kept by the church.

Tell me this: who are Paul's epistles addressed to? Does he just send
them out into the ether, or does he address them to the Church?

That some things (in this case, the meanings of the offices) had changed in the first century of the Church, and were not all passed down perfectly from the apostles. But then you seem to be admitting this in some areas too.

There may well have been some refinement of terminology, but I'm not
sure you could say there was actual change in the meaning of offices.

If you believe that was a "promise" that they would be supernaturally preserved (in spite of man's tendency to distort and corrupt everything), why would they need to be so admonished?

Because it's not enough to preserve the traditions, you have to HOLD
to the traditions.

CONTINUED.....

 

[orthodox]

.....CONTINUED

I didn't say that. I'm here criticizing all these groups for playing this "we're the right one" game, so I'm not doing that as well, and my church doesn't even deal in that kind of argumentation.

I'm not surprised your church doesn't "deal in that argumentation",
because the whole idea that the truth exists and can be identified and
held to, is an idea that has burnt out in protestantism with the
explosion in denominations. In real life, outside the chat rooms of
the internet, you would rarely find an Anglican or a baptist
discussing the pros and cons of infant baptism, or monarchial
episcopate, or whatever. It's all "you're ok, I'm ok" type thinking.

Well, so why are you still baptists? Why don't you all just merge into
one jelly-like church that holds to no more than me and Jesus under a tree?

Because now what divides protestantism is personal preference
about worship services, and who has the best church facilities.

And you complain because all the Orthodox worship exactly the same
way!! But difference in worship is now the primary division in the
churches. There is no unity for no better reason than everybody wants
things their own way, and are continually hunting looking for a new
model church that has more and better features than last year's model,
or a more charismatic preacher than their current church. Part of
Orthodox worship is to de-emphasize the personality of the priest so
that this whole cult of personality does not arise.

Again, that's because people rise up and make issues out of these things. Just because that's what men do, doesn't prove that only your group is true, and the solution to it. Even if you could get all men under your organization, they would still find ways to carry this nonsense on. So what would you have? Nominal unity under a huge power base.

Funnily enough, it doesn't seem to happen in Orthodoxy. It's an axiom
of Orthodoxy, that you don't change things. Because the West has papal
infallibility, every liberal with a new fangled idea at least holds
onto the hope that one day a pope will get in power who will give
credence to their idea. Every protestant with their own view hopes
they can find or form a church which preaches their
theology. Orthodoxy almost lacks mechanism for changing the Holy
Traditions, thus it is not even on the agenda. Obviously, you can't
force people to have an Orthodox mindset. You can't force people to
want to hold to the traditions as Paul admonished.

Why? I have no control over anyone else.

Would you baptize a baby if asked to, because - hey, these little details don't matter, as long as you believe in Jesus?

What I meant was that he was still alive, so if there was any question, he could still be contacted to resolve the issue, or at least someone who knew him. Sometimes, he even returned, or sent an epistle, if a problem was unresolved. So this whole thing that they just went on tradition, primarily, and all was well with that (until the Reformation) doesn't fly.

Even if he could be contacted, which seems highly doubtful for an
itinerant preacher without a mobile phone, it doesn't mean that every
fresh Christian in Thessalonica was supposed to be writing him letters
to double check that the traditions were being passed on accurately.

I didn't say that there was no visible Church at all, but that it wasn't "Orthodox" versus some other "Denomination", like you are claiming now. Of course, there was only one group then, but then who was the first to "break away"? Heretics, of course, but then the "orthodox" split, with both halves claiming to be the true Church holding the traditions. Then, it splintered further. So now, it's you versus the West, versus Church of Christ, JW's, briders, etc. all claiming to be the original Church. The only thing you have over the others is the "official "succession" of leaders in an visible organization. But then Rome can claim that too, and it does not prove that the succession passed the true faith down perfectly, any more than all the rest that broke off simply because they were outnumbered in the Churches they came out of.

But we want to be tested by the criteria of holding to the teachings
of the church of the early centuries. JWs, baptists, Church of Christ
don't even claim that. I would advise you in all sincerity, that if
the fathers of the early church teach the infallibility of the pope,
that you ought to become Roman Catholic. It's not "We are the true
church, because we said so". It is "We believe the true church has
always existed. Go forth and discover where it is".

Your position is "The true church invisibly and universally morphed
into a consistent, yet wrong church, during a dark 30 years".

And that tradition comes from Jesus telling them to go out into allt he World, and God telling Peter in in the vision Acts not to avoid the Gentiles; not from any secret tradition.

Secret tradition?? I think you've used that term a couple of times
now. Nobody is claiming that the Traditions are secret.

Under the Holy Roman Empire, they were all state institutions. Of course the Empire is gone, but thebasic governmental structure remained the same.

Define a state institution.

Why do you think they didn't find all of his doctrines in scripture? Where does it say that?

Really? So you reckon if I formed a church based purely on the old testament, I would come up with the exact same doctrines as Paul taught in the New Testament? That's an amazing claim.

If you're trying to say they checked him by his traditions, then that is not checking him at all, but just taking his traditions on their own authority. (These were godfearing gentiles, not an established Church, so they would not have even had the traditions).

Paul told the Bereans that Christ had risen, as foretold in the
scriptures. Unlike the other cities who told Paul to get out because
he was a mad man, the Bereans checked that it was the case that the OT
foretold these things about the Messiah. That doesn't mean that the
entirety of Paul's doctrine is found in the OT, which it clearly
isn't.

So it mentions a bishpo. Where do you get "monarchical" from this? It could hypothetically, possibly be, but it doesn't actually say. If you can read that in there, then the RCC can just as well read the Pope in there.

A monarchial episcopate means one bishop, multiple priests, multiple
deacons. That is EXACTLY what Ignatius refers to. But there's no pope
in here by the wildest stretch of the imagination.

That word means simply "public servant", or to "perform public functions". While what the word "liturgy" later came to mean is allowed here, but this does not necessarily mean that. Any public service anyone does in the Church (usher, worship leader, etc) is this "ministering" as it is trasnalted in the KJV.

In this religious context? Protestants would like to think so
anyway.

Take a look at Justin Martyr's description of the liturgy compared to
a Syrian liturgy 200 years later:
http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bcp/everyman_history/Chapt14.htm

Well that's nice to admit, and I am a bit attracted to the
ancientness of cathedrals, and some elements of it (at least around
Christmas time, when I visit St. Patricks Cathedral). Also the
notions of an "original Church" instead of all these "human
denominations" (which I first heard through Church of Christ
literature, complete with the starting dates and founders of the
"denominations", with the CoC founded by Christ; and it was very
impressive, but some of their doctrines were just not scriptural). I
even like the incense and the candles, and the aroma they give
off. But I just become alarmed when I see someone claiming this was
actually mandatory "worship" in the New Testament church, but just
not written, and then speak down to all the other churches outside
that particular organization. (which several other sects are doing).

Not sure what you mean by "mandatory" worship. However it was that
they worshipped in the NT church, it wasn't as if you could hop over
to the church next door if you didn't like it.

Since some of that you said is not really tradition; I could
see myself joining some group affiliated with orthodoxy, if it was
stripped of some of that stuff, and don;t say that I was unsaved all
this time until I was baptized into their group.

Orthodox don't say that other groups are unsaved, and they recognize
anybody's baptism as long as it is in the name of the trinity.

 

[Eric B]

Let's get real here. How could Paul himself had known? Not even Paul
knew what the canon was, nor did he even know that there would be
established a canon prior to Jesus' returning. He didn't even know
what else he himself would yet write before he was martyred, let alone
what everybody else would write. All Paul knew was that he had visited
Thessalonica, and he had emparted to them the Traditions, some in
written and some in oral form, and he wanted them to hold to both. We
don't even know what Paul emarted to them in written form! Obviously,
it wasn't the letter which he was half way through writing as this
thought occured to him. It wouldn't have been the entirety of the New
Testament, and may not have even been any of the New Testament. He may
have put in written form a list: "baptise infants, give them communion, venerate the holy icons" for all you know. All we know is that he gave them what they needed, and he wanted them to stick with it.
What you're doing basically is making an assumption about what God ought to have done as far as writing everything in scripture, and used that as the ultimate foundation of your faith. Such assumptions are not consistent with sola scriptura are they?

Now you make it sound like he gave the "oral" and "written" together at the same time, thus intentionally two separate bodies of teaching. That is reading way too much into those three proof-texts for "tradition".
It's not me assuming what he ought to have done, but you speculating on what he "could have" done, as we see above. If there's no reason to believe it from the scriptures, then why speculate? The later church has to be judged in light of the scriptures, not the other way around.

And you assume that Hebrews and 2 Peter and James and Jude and Revelation and Mark and Luke are apostolic, even though all those books were either not written by an apostle, or it has been disputed in church history that they were written by an apostle. Can you prove it? No you can't, you take it on faith. Can you give a reason for your faith? About all you could say is that the church of God agreed upon these things after the 4th century, which is the exact same thing we
say about Tradition.

OK, but that still does not prove that church organization got everything else right.

Well you say everything is merely a sign, and has no reality to it. So why do it? Why get the priest to annoint with oil when you are sick?
It is a waste of time right? Why did they get hankerchiefs that had touched Paul and it healed them? It was a waste of time right? You say it is just our traditions, but most of our traditions are not purely oral, they have a scriptural component too. Scriptures that baptists and protestants conveniently ignore.

There are a lot of charismatic groups that anoint with the oil. And there are some that use the prayer handkerchiefs. I didn't say that all physical things were useless, just that some of the things you're trying to justify are spiritual symbols.

Wow. I wouldn't have said that the Church fathers in unison all
interpreted scripture according to Greek philosophy. But let's say for
a second it is true. If the culture at that time was so steeped in
Greek philosophy that that it was basically a given that this is the
framework in which it was interpreted, then all I can say is,
interpret scripture according to the cultural framework under which it
was written! That's got to be a heck of a lot more valid that using a
21st century American cultural context. Prove to me that the only
known cultural context of the 1st century for interpreting scripture also happens to be the wrong context.

We're talking more about the second century and later, not the first century. And today, with our knowledge oh history and archaeology, we can look back and see these developments, sometimes more clearly that those immersed in it. You know, "Hindsight is 2020 vision"

I'm not quite sure of the point. The whole of the church calendar
revolves around passover, I'm not sure what you mean that Passover was
"replaced". And Sunday is not the Sabbath, even though there are
similarities in how it is treated.

Doesn't the EOC observe Easter according to the lunar calendar, and not the Jewish Passover according to the Hebrew calendar. (And I wasn't saying Sunday was the sabbath; only why does one replace the other if you copy OT worship in so many other areas?)

 

[Eric B]

To paraphrase you, being in black and white doesn't prove it is true. What would you rather - one eywitness account in writing, or 100
eyewitness accounts orally?

Even if he could be contacted, which seems highly doubtful for an itinerant preacher without a mobile phone, it doesn't mean that every
fresh Christian in Thessalonica was supposed to be writing him letters
to double check that the traditions were being passed on accurately.

But we're not talking about eyewitness anymore, but rather centuries of unwritten hearsay, basically.
Having an apostle who could be contacted if necessary, and you could hear of his other doings in the churches ias better than hearsay passed down over generations and generations.

Yeah, except that you and me agree that the organization of the Orthodox church _was_ founded by men God raised up. The ultimate
result of denying the Church's ability to preserve oral tradition is Islam, which also denies the church's ability to preserve written
tradition.

Well... if you're going to doubt the church, that's the end-game.

Sure you can say that. Once you doubt that God would preserve his church, all manner of speculation is now open. You've got to seriously consider the possibility that Joseph Smith was needed to restore the
church because the bible can't be fully trusted, or that Muhammad was
right that the church had corrupted everything, or that we need a
Watch-Tower society to restore the true church on earth.

After all, the apostles did form a visible church, so why not look to
find a prophet restoring the visible church?

That's a non-sequitur. Christ founded the Church, and God raised men to basically start it on its feet, and then later men built an worldly organization around it. Saying that they added some doctrines and practices, and then called them the traditions is not the same as Muhammad's or Smith's claims.

Acceptance of other protestant groups is somewhat of a new thing. Historically there was very limited acceptance. One can see why
acceptance is on the increase - nobody can say with any authority that their group is right about anything whatsoever, so logically it's not possible to reject any group any more.

I'm not surprised your church doesn't "deal in that argumentation",
because the whole idea that the truth exists and can be identified and held to, is an idea that has burnt out in protestantism with the explosion in denominations. It's all "you're ok, I'm ok" type thinking.

Well, so why are you still baptists? Why don't you all just merge into
one jelly-like church that holds to no more than me and Jesus under a tree?

Because now what divides protestantism is personal preference about worship services, and who has the best church facilities.

And you complain because all the Orthodox worship exactly the same way!! But difference in worship is now the primary division in the churches. There is no unity for no better reason than everybody wants things their own way, and are continually hunting looking for a new model church that has more and better features than last year's model, or a more charismatic preacher than their current church. Part of Orthodox worship is to de-emphasize the personality of the priest so that this whole cult of personality does not arise.

You have apoint there, and it's unfortunate. But after thousands of years of following whatever a big powerful Church beaurocracy said, with all of its corruptions and persecutions, and then breaking up into smaller versionf of the same thing, and then even smaller micorocosms that were just as controlling (backwoods fundie Churches, cults, etc) this "all inclusiveness" became the "safe way", just as it had in the world. Your way was tried before, and that didn't work, so now it's this way, and the whole new set of problems that come with it.

I've often thought that we should put all differences aside, or at least stifle the denominational names. One neighborhood where I went to church, the people all refered to the churches by the street name, regardless of the denomination (Evangelical Free, Baptist, Methodist, etc), and it gave me the sense of "one Church body", even though there were different corporations running each one. But there's too much pride behind these denominations and their "heritage" (including Catholic and Orthodox), so many would never give up their denominational identity, even if they do accept others. As you yourself said; just try to get some of the Baptists to leave theirbBaptist identity. They would be the last holdouts even if everyone else joined. This is a problem of man, and pointing at each other's church history will not solve it, but only goes along with it.

So now you seem to be claiming that the church went off the rails within 30 years!!?! Even your 100 year references were pretty amazing, but now you're saying we can't trust anything because of the dark 30 years?

Your position is "The true church invisibly and universally morphed
into a consistent, yet wrong church, during a dark 30 years".

Those quotes didn't say that it went off the rails all in 30 years; only that the 30 years after the apostles, or before the end of the century, were clouded in darkness. It would still be 100 years of change, with the first 30 (which would hold the key to what was going on) dark.

Because it's not enough to preserve the traditions, you have to HOLD
to the traditions.

Same difference. If the Spirit was going to automatically do it for them, why would they need to be so admonished?

Would you baptize a baby if asked to, because - hey, these little details don't matter, as long as you believe in Jesus?

I have never made an issue out of that, but to me it serves no point. You're not saving that baby, because he still has to grow up and make his own decision for Jesus. Instead, your tradition has led to a lot of people trusting in their baptism, and are at best "culturally Christian", and even if you try to scare them with "you must continue in good works to be saved", the infant baptism contradicts that, and everyone thinks they're doing good enough anyway, and even so, their baptism will ensure they make it.

But we want to be tested by the criteria of holding to the teachings
of the church of the early centuries. JWs, baptists, Church of Christ don't even claim that. I would advise you in all sincerity, that if the fathers of the early church teach the infallibility of the pope, that you ought to become Roman Catholic. It's not "We are the true church, because we said so". It is "We believe the true church has always existed. Go forth and discover where it is".

Take a look at Justin Martyr's description of the liturgy compared to
a Syrian liturgy 200 years later:

The problem here is the ECF's are being assumed as the final authorities on what the apostolic traditions must have been. The evidence for them carrying everything down over that century is not enough, but based more on speculation, and generalization based on their agreement with each other.

 

[Eric B]

Secret tradition?? I think you've used that term a couple of times
now. Nobody is claiming that the Traditions are secret.

What I mean by that is that they were deliberately kept from the writings, and you could only get them through hearsay.

Define a state institution.

It was the state religion, and basically married to the government, receiving subsidy and political influence at times.

Really? So you reckon if I formed a church based purely on the old testament, I would come up with the exact same doctrines as Paul taught in the New Testament? That's an amazing claim.

Paul told the Bereans that Christ had risen, as foretold in the scriptures. Unlike the other cities who told Paul to get out because
he was a mad man, the Bereans checked that it was the case that the OT foretold these things about the Messiah. That doesn't mean that the entirety of Paul's doctrine is found in the OT, which it clearly isn't.

So your "tradition" in that case would be Christ's death and resurrection and how they fulfilled OT prophecy. This says nothing about an entirely separate body of teachings like we are discussing.

A monarchial episcopate means one bishop, multiple priests, multiple deacons. That is EXACTLY what Ignatius refers to. But there's no pope in here by the wildest stretch of the imagination.

Uh, a pope is "one bishop". The problem here is that this passage does not tell us the range of this bishop's rule. (City, region, whole church). That's why neither your nor the RCC's position can be speculated from this.

If they didn't, what was a Christian to do in the first few hundred years while they waited for the canon to be finalized? The church ought to have broken apart in an explosion the size of a thousand reformations, since they not only had exegesis to argue about, they also had the canon to argue about.

But they didn't blow apart, they emerged from the darkness of persecution, more or less one. Even more impressively, they stayed one.

It's a pretty amazing claim don't you think? God spends thousands of years working up to this moment when he'll send his Son to die for the sins of the world, and will start his Church, and then the Church
blows it all straight to hell, because it can't follow Paul's commands to keep the oral traditions, and it doesn't yet have any scriptures to follow. And when it does get scriptures, the universal Greek interpretive framework just happens to be the wrong one to get at the truth.

The "people" as you call it, is the church. There was no concept yet
fabricated in the minds of theological naval gazers called an "invisible church". The scriptures weren't kept by the pagans, they were kept by the church.

You say you believe the Church is "the people", not an organization, or its leaders; but you keep arguing that only your organization is "the Church that Jesus built". That then makes it about the organization and its "succession" of leaders and specific teachings. If it's about people, then it shouldn't matter that we are in separate organizations, because those are not what the Church is. (Nice to see that you accept our baptism, though. Most groups that claim to be the 'true church' don't). And it would then be allowable for the organizations that grew out of the Church to deviate, because they do not comprise the Church Jesus built, but rather the people. So all a person in any time period had to do was believe in Jesus (of whom he heard from the church institutions enough to be saved), and he would then be saved and apart of the Body of Christ. Whether he followed the institutional practices, or not. Because that's not what Christ's meaning of the Church was about. That was just a cosmetic addition made to govern the growing movement and its assets.

 

[orthodox]

Now you make it sound like he gave the "oral" and "written" together at the same time, thus intentionally two separate bodies of teaching. That is reading way too much into those three proof-texts for "tradition".
It's not me assuming what he ought to have done, but you speculating on what he "could have" done, as we see above. If there's no reason to believe it from the scriptures, then why speculate? The later church has to be judged in light of the scriptures, not the other way around.

I don't know what you mean by intentionally two separate bodies. I mean, even the written tradition may not have been verbal. He may have drawn a diagram showing the procedure for blessing the Eucharist, or he may have drawn them a cross to explain the type of stauros that Christ was crucified on, for all I know. There's another tradition that JWs now dispute. The written traditions Paul speaks of need not be scripture, and the reason they may not be scripture, is because they could be non verbal.

In fact, almost all the traditions are not so much lacking from scripture as they are the traditional interpretation of how to apply scripture. Scripture says to give communion, but it doesn't say what age you may receive it. It's not that communion isn't scriptural, it's that the details of how to apply it come from Tradition.

You keep referring to tradition as "all this other stuff", but it isn't really that at all. The fact is, scripture doesn't say what age people may partake. Some try to draw inferences, but that's all they are - inferences and guesses.

OK, but that still does not prove that church organization got everything else right.

Sure, but if you can muster enough faith to decide they got the canon right, it ought certainly be within your grasp to have faith that the church got the traditions right. Doubt is certainly always an option - ask Thomas.

There are a lot of charismatic groups that anoint with the oil. And there are some that use the prayer handkerchiefs.

Yes sure, some do. I doubt they would have much of a theological backdrop for having a consistent understanding about it though. And there's another data point ripe for schism. Are we up to 128 churches now?

I didn't say that all physical things were useless, just that some of the things you're trying to justify are spiritual symbols.

Well, you claim they are symbols, but there's your extra-scriptural assumptions at work again.

1 Cor 11:28 But a man must examine himself, and in so doing he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly. For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep."

Look at that! People are getting sick and even dying because they take the Eucharist in an unworthy manner. Does that sound like a mere symbol to you?? It sure doesn't to me. This is serious stuff. There are real spiritual forces at work here.

Tell me, when was the last time your pastor said to be careful at communion because there was a risk of death?? My guess is: never.

We're talking more about the second century and later, not the first century.

Oh ok, a full 30-50 years after they were written. Yow.

And today, with our knowledge oh history and archaeology, we can look back and see these developments, sometimes more clearly that those immersed in it. You know, "Hindsight is 2020 vision"

If your hindsight and archeology is so darned good, then you ought to be able to demonstrate clearly when Orthodoxy changed its doctrines.

Myself, I think if you claim to understand ancient Greek better than the ancient Greeks, that's a rather puffed up attitude.

Doesn't the EOC observe Easter according to the lunar calendar, and not the Jewish Passover according to the Hebrew calendar.

I don't know, I think it depends which orthodox church you are in because some have reformed the calendar.

(And I wasn't saying Sunday was the sabbath; only why does one replace the other if you copy OT worship in so many other areas?)

I don't have the answer to every "why", all I can tell you is that we hold to the traditions. In this case - again, there is evidence that the tradition originates with the apostles because we see them meeting on Sunday, unlike the traditional Jewish practice of Saturday. Of course, for the sola scriptura adherent, this again is open for debate. Is that 256 churches now?

CONTINUED.......

 

[orthodox]

.........CONTINUED

But we're not talking about eyewitness anymore, but rather centuries of unwritten hearsay, basically.
Having an apostle who could be contacted if necessary, and you could hear of his other doings in the churches ias better than hearsay passed down over generations and generations.

Even generations and generations later there was the option to compare notes with the other churches. So if ever a church had doubts about say infant communion, all they had to do was to consult the other churches. If everybody was doing it, then the doubts would be ended.

How you think all the churches were simultaneously led astray, I still don't understand and wish you would explain. Have you EVER even heard of ONE baptist church changing its mind and starting baptizing babies? I've never heard of such thing. Yet you say that thousands of the churches of God all changed their mind and emerged in the 2nd century with the same wrong doctrine.

That's a non-sequitur. Christ founded the Church, and God raised men to basically start it on its feet, and then later men built an worldly organization around it.

Built a worldly organization around it? Which part of the church is supposedly the worldly bit that the apsotles didn't found?

You have apoint there, and it's unfortunate. But after thousands of years of following whatever a big powerful Church beaurocracy said, with all of its corruptions and persecutions, and then breaking up into smaller versionf of the same thing, and then even smaller micorocosms that were just as controlling (backwoods fundie Churches, cults, etc) this "all inclusiveness" became the "safe way", just as it had in the world. Your way was tried before, and that didn't work, so now it's this way, and the whole new set of problems that come with it.

What corruptions and persecutions from the Orthodox church are we talking about?

I understand the protestant reaction against the papacy whose claims to power knew no bounds, but we are talking about Orthodoxy now. I'm not saying the Orthodox church has been perfect, but is there really such a problem that you can say bluntly "it didn't work"?

I've often thought that we should put all differences aside, or at least stifle the denominational names. One neighborhood where I went to church, the people all refered to the churches by the street name, regardless of the denomination (Evangelical Free, Baptist, Methodist, etc), and it gave me the sense of "one Church body", even though there were different corporations running each one. But there's too much pride behind these denominations and their "heritage" (including Catholic and Orthodox), so many would never give up their denominational identity, even if they do accept others. As you yourself said; just try to get some of the Baptists to leave theirbBaptist identity. They would be the last holdouts even if everyone else joined. This is a problem of man, and pointing at each other's church history will not solve it, but only goes along with it.

How are you going to put the differences aside? Let's say you tear down your signposts so you can't tell what church is methodist and baptist. So now your unsuspecting new Christian goes to the methodist evening service, who tells them to get their baby baptized, then when she turns up at the baptist morning service the next day, she is going to expect the pastor to baptize her baby. Then the pentacostals will tell her to be annointed with oil because she is sick, and she'll be confused when the baptists won't do it. So she'll be running between churches trying to get the best deal from each one.

Same difference. If the Spirit was going to automatically do it for them, why would they need to be so admonished?

Does God preserve scripture? Does it happen "automatically", or do you actually have to go do some work to make it happen?

I have never made an issue out of that, but to me it serves no point. You're not saving that baby, because he still has to grow up and make his own decision for Jesus. Instead, your tradition has led to a lot of people trusting in their baptism, and are at best "culturally Christian", and even if you try to scare them with "you must continue in good works to be saved", the infant baptism contradicts that, and everyone thinks they're doing good enough anyway, and even so, their baptism will ensure they make it.

Firstly, yes that is your tradition, but I didn't ask if you'd be happy about it, I'd ask if you'd do it in your proposed new jelly-fish protestant church, that pretends there are no divisions.

Secondly, you say that people "trust their baptism" and become "culturally Christian". But that's not what the church teaches, neither yours nor mine. A baptist can get baptized and "trust their baptism" if they choose to. Doesn't mean the baptist church teaches you to do that. Neither does the Orthodox church teach that either.

The problem here is the ECF's are being assumed as the final authorities on what the apostolic traditions must have been. The evidence for them carrying everything down over that century is not enough, but based more on speculation, and generalization based on their agreement with each other.

Well, you've got to make a decision either way. Scripture doesn't say at what age to offer communion. It doesn't say what kind of age range and understanding warrants baptism. So you can either make it up out of your own head and speculations, or you can follow the early church on the basis that hey, maybe, just maybe they could, like, keep a tradition for a hundred years. Baptists don't seem to have fallen off the wagon in 500 years and started baptizing babies, don't ya think maybe, just maybe the church the apostles founded could keep it for a hundred years?

CONTINUED...........

 

[orthodox]

...........CONTINUED

What I mean by that is that they were deliberately kept from the writings, and you could only get them through hearsay.

I don't know about "deliberately" kept from the writings. Was it deliberately kept from the writings that persons of around the age of 15, give or take a few years who are capable of counting the cost and repenting in an adult fashion are eligable for baptism?

Or is it more likely that the apostles simply mentioned baptism in an ad-hoc fashion, and just assumed the church knew the rest? It's certainly easier to imagine them omitting the mention of ages if there were no age restrictions, than if there were restrictions. As soon as there is ANY restriction, the question is going to come up straight away - how old?

The bible says that the Church is the pillar and foundation of the truth. It doesn't say it should aim to be the pillar, or that he hopes it may be a pillar. He says it IS the pillar.

It was the state religion, and basically married to the government, receiving subsidy and political influence at times.

Well, when everybody in the govt is Orthodox, I don't know what you can do about it. Do you suggest you ought to be athiest to get into government?

So your "tradition" in that case would be Christ's death and resurrection and how they fulfilled OT prophecy. This says nothing about an entirely separate body of teachings like we are discussing.

Read the NT sometime. It is a completely separate body of teachings than that which is found in the OT. These things in the NT, these traditions that Paul passed onto the churches long before he wrote his first epistle, how were the Bereans supposed to check them?

Uh, a pope is "one bishop". The problem here is that this passage does not tell us the range of this bishop's rule. (City, region, whole church). That's why neither your nor the RCC's position can be speculated from this.

Absolutely it doesn't say whether it goes up as far as region or whole church. But it does go at least as high as city, right? That is still a monarchial episcopate. Rome and Orthodoxy agree on monarchial episcopate. We don't agree on papacy. Ignatius doesn't mention papacy. In some Orthodox churches, like I think the Jerusalem Orthodox church, the highest authority in the church is the bishop of Jerusalem. In other Orthodox churches, there are archbishops. Orthodoxy can cope with both.

Do you agree that Ignatius and Orthodoxy are consistent?

You say you believe the Church is "the people", not an organization, or its leaders; but you keep arguing that only your organization is "the Church that Jesus built".

But Orthodoxy isn't one organization! Orthodoxy is more than a dozen organizations. One Orthodox organization does not interfere in the goings on of another Orthodox organization. New, completely independant Orthodox organizations can be formed at any time. At least in theory, if your baptist church was willing to become Orthodox, we could pass onto you the traditions and it could be self-governing as a completely separate organization. That's not going to happen in practice for a tiny baptist church, because there's probably already an Orthodox bishop in your city, and the aim is to get to the biblical model of one bishop, one city. But still, the point is, that the main thing stopping your church being part of the Church, is not that your organization is separate, it is that your doctrines are not Orthodox. Just like the main thing stopping you from having fellowship with the Mormon church is not that it is a separate organization, it is because it does not share your beliefs.

That then makes it about the organization and its "succession" of leaders and specific teachings.

Specific teachings? Where in the NT does it say that doctrine doesn't matter? Do your concordance search on doctrine and see if it says it is important.

If it's about people, then it shouldn't matter that we are in separate organizations, because those are not what the Church is.

It's not about the organization! Make your church Orthodox in doctrine, and I'm sure the Orthodox church will let you into its fold. It's happened before.

(Nice to see that you accept our baptism, though. Most groups that claim to be the 'true church' don't). And it would then be allowable for the organizations that grew out of the Church to deviate, because they do not comprise the Church Jesus built, but rather the people. So all a person in any time period had to do was believe in Jesus (of whom he heard from the church institutions enough to be saved), and he would then be saved and apart of the Body of Christ. Whether he followed the institutional practices, or not. Because that's not what Christ's meaning of the Church was about. That was just a cosmetic addition made to govern the growing movement and its assets.

The apostles founded AN institution of the church, or rather a number of institutions. Yes certainly it is possible for people to go out from the original institution and found new institutions. But unless they hold to the Traditions of the 1st institution from whence they came, then they are not the Church any longer. If they do hold to the Traditions, then the new institution is the Church. If they don't, they are just a group of people following their own winds of doctrine. That doesn't mean they can't be saved. The bible says there is salvation in the Church, what there is outside the Church we cannot say.

 

[Revmitchell]

I have many versions of scripture, including some written by theological liberals, ie: the Moffatt New Testament, J. B Phillips and even the very different Cockney Bible. There isn't one I don't get something from and contains the truth of salvation.

I honestly think some have too many hang ups on translations, and looking beyond what God has to say to us in this century.

I remember the controversy when the RSV was first published, and its infamous "young maiden" in place of "virgin". The first a true translation of the Hebrew word, but overall, so is "virgin" in context........so, why the controversy? The essence of God's word is there. As the famous writer said, :"Much ado about nothing."

If a translation gets people reading the Bible, I am all for it. God will tell us His truth in His Word; the Lord Jesus.

Cheers,

Jim

I have never been on the KJVO band wagon. The arguments for it are rediculous. Although that is the primary translation that I use. But I also wouldnt just accept any translation either. The JWs' New World Translation is completely heretical. We do need to measure the translation against the original languages. And its important to understand what kind of translation it is. I.E. Dynamic vs. Word for Word.

A translation may give the general thought but in only studying the general thought much can be missed. Serious students of Gods' word need to stick with a Word For Word Translation.

 

[Eric B]

I don't know what you mean by intentionally two separate bodies. I mean, even the written tradition may not have been verbal. He may have drawn a diagram showing the procedure for blessing the Eucharist, or he may have drawn them a cross to explain the type of stauros that Christ was crucified on, for all I know. There's another tradition that JWs now dispute. The written traditions Paul speaks of need not be scripture, and the reason they may not be scripture, is because they could be non verbal.

In fact, almost all the traditions are not so much lacking from scripture as they are the traditional interpretation of how to apply scripture. Scripture says to give communion, but it doesn't say what age you may receive it. It's not that communion isn't scriptural, it's that the details of how to apply it come from Tradition.

You keep referring to tradition as "all this other stuff", but it isn't really that at all. The fact is, scripture doesn't say what age people may partake. Some try to draw inferences, but that's all they are - inferences and guesses.

Firstly, yes that is your tradition, but I didn't ask if you'd be happy about it, I'd ask if you'd do it in your proposed new jelly-fish protestant church, that pretends there are no divisions.

Secondly, you say that people "trust their baptism" and become "culturally Christian". But that's not what the church teaches, neither yours nor mine. A baptist can get baptized and "trust their baptism" if they choose to. Doesn't mean the baptist church teaches you to do that. Neither does the Orthodox church teach that either.

Well, you've got to make a decision either way. Scripture doesn't say at what age to offer communion. It doesn't say what kind of age range and understanding warrants baptism. So you can either make it up out of your own head and speculations, or you can follow the early church on the basis that hey, maybe, just maybe they could, like, keep a tradition for a hundred years. Baptists don't seem to have fallen off the wagon in 500 years and started baptizing babies, don't ya think maybe, just maybe the church the apostles founded could keep it for a hundred years?

I don't know about "deliberately" kept from the writings. Was it deliberately kept from the writings that persons of around the age of 15, give or take a few years who are capable of counting the cost and repenting in an adult fashion are eligable for baptism?
Or is it more likely that the apostles simply mentioned baptism in an ad-hoc fashion, and just assumed the church knew the rest? It's certainly easier to imagine them omitting the mention of ages if there were no age restrictions, than if there were restrictions. As soon as there is ANY restriction, the question is going to come up straight away - how old?

How are you going to put the differences aside? Let's say you tear down your signposts so you can't tell what church is methodist and baptist. So now your unsuspecting new Christian goes to the methodist evening service, who tells them to get their baby baptized, then when she turns up at the baptist morning service the next day, she is going to expect the pastor to baptize her baby. Then the pentacostals will tell her to be annointed with oil because she is sick, and she'll be confused when the baptists won't do it. So she'll be running between churches trying to get the best deal from each one.

Specific teachings? Where in the NT does it say that doctrine doesn't matter? Do your concordance search on doctrine and see if it says it is important.

Never said doctrine was unimportant.
The way you’ve spoken about this “tradition” makes it sound like “all this other stuff” that we are not “keeping”, and you continue to add speculation about diagrams and stuff we have no real reason to hypothesize.
But it seems now in your discussion, that to you, it concerns mostly infant baptism and communion. Once again, what really is the purpose of that when a child is too young to understand what it is? Even though the NT does not tell us exactly what age, since these things are for believers, who truly understand what they mean, common sense would tell them that “the household” would only include a child that could understand what it is (whichever age they may be, which can be different). If a three year old somehow showed that he understood, and wanted to receive baptism or communion, then many of us would in theory baptism, but the problem would be in that many might not really believe he understands. Then you could use Jesus’ statement “Suffer not the little children”. But you all have been using that verse for little newborn infants who are not asking to come to Jesus.
I know you do not teach that we should be cultural Christians, and that Baptists can fall into the same trap, but that is more likely to happen when someone is baptized as an infant, and taught that baptism saves.

The bible says that the Church is the pillar and foundation of the truth. It doesn't say it should aim to be the pillar, or that he hopes it may be a pillar. He says it IS the pillar.

The verse in question says “Church of the Living GOD, Pillar and ground of truth”. It is not [Church of God]=[Pillar and ground of truth], but rather [Church of][God the pillar and ground of truth]

Well, you claim they are symbols, but there's your extra-scriptural assumptions at work again.

1 Cor 11:28 But a man must examine himself, and in so doing he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly. For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep."
Look at that! People are getting sick and even dying because they take the Eucharist in an unworthy manner. Does that sound like a mere symbol to you?? It sure doesn't to me. This is serious stuff. There are real spiritual forces at work here.
Tell me, when was the last time your pastor said to be careful at communion because there was a risk of death?? My guess is: never.

Yes, my pastors have warned us of that plenty of times. Thst still doesn’t stop it from being a symbol. God’s symbols are very holy, as He is holy, and we are not to play around with them. Nothing more needs to be added to that, so I am not the one speculating.

Oh ok, a full 30-50 years after they were written. Yow.

If your hindsight and archeology is so darned good, then you ought to be able to demonstrate clearly when Orthodoxy changed its doctrines.

Myself, I think if you claim to understand ancient Greek better than the ancient Greeks, that's a rather puffed up attitude.

Even generations and generations later there was the option to compare notes with the other churches. So if ever a church had doubts about say infant communion, all they had to do was to consult the other churches. If everybody was doing it, then the doubts would be ended.

How you think all the churches were simultaneously led astray, I still don't understand and wish you would explain. Have you EVER even heard of ONE baptist church changing its mind and starting baptizing babies? I've never heard of such thing. Yet you say that thousands of the churches of God all changed their mind and emerged in the 2nd century with the same wrong doctrine.

More closer to 100 years or more after they were written, in most cases. And if we were talking about Greek language, then we would be puffed up; but we are talking about the NT faith, and being Greek does not mean one necessarily has a better understanding of it, as people went into error even as reported in the NT.
Since it seems we are talking largely about baptism and communion, it is possible for post apostolic leaders to have fill in their understanding on them, and it become widespread, so that they would be in most churches. Since the NT does not give much details on this, it is not as much of a departure from the faith as if we were trying to argue that the NT Church was identical to 12th century Roman Catholicism, which most of us are more used to dealing with, that’s why it as become such an issue.

Does God preserve scripture? Does it happen "automatically", or do you actually have to go do some work to make it happen?

Sure, but that means that some may get it wrong, and even become widespread. But the truth will be somewhere, and will always be able to be discovered. Many translational errors, copyist notes that got added to the text, etc. have been found and corrected later. The previous editions don't now become right just because they were older than the corrections.

Read the NT sometime. It is a completely separate body of teachings than that which is found in the OT. These things in the NT, these traditions that Paul passed onto the churches long before he wrote his first epistle, how were the Bereans supposed to check them?

They checked them with the OT. I wasn't saying that the NT and the OT weren't separate bodies of teaching, just that these "traditions" weren't a separate body of teaching from the written NT. So I don't quite get your point.

 

[Eric B]

Built a worldly organization around it? Which part of the church is supposedly the worldly bit that the apsotles didn't found?

I understand the protestant reaction against the papacy whose claims to power knew no bounds, but we are talking about Orthodoxy now. I'm not saying the Orthodox church has been perfect, but is there really such a problem that you can say bluntly "it didn't work"?

Well, when everybody in the govt is Orthodox, I don't know what you can do about it. Do you suggest you ought to be athiest to get into government?

Absolutely it doesn't say whether it goes up as far as region or whole church. But it does go at least as high as city, right? That is still a monarchial episcopate. Rome and Orthodoxy agree on monarchial episcopate. We don't agree on papacy. Ignatius doesn't mention papacy. In some Orthodox churches, like I think the Jerusalem Orthodox church, the highest authority in the church is the bishop of Jerusalem. In other Orthodox churches, there are archbishops. Orthodoxy can cope with both.
Do you agree that Ignatius and Orthodoxy are consistent?

"Bishop" is "overseer". Any person appointed to watch over more than one congregation, is by definition an "overseer". (where the "pastor" is the "shepherd" of one congregation). If one thinks that these offices can ONLY be large power bases on city and higher level, then that is what I have meant by "worldly government".

Sure, but if you can muster enough faith to decide they got the canon right, it ought certainly be within your grasp to have faith that the church got the traditions right. Doubt is certainly always an option - ask Thomas.

But Orthodoxy isn't one organization! Orthodoxy is more than a dozen organizations. One Orthodox organization does not interfere in the goings on of another Orthodox organization. New, completely independant Orthodox organizations can be formed at any time. At least in theory, if your baptist church was willing to become Orthodox, we could pass onto you the traditions and it could be self-governing as a completely separate organization. That's not going to happen in practice for a tiny baptist church, because there's probably already an Orthodox bishop in your city, and the aim is to get to the biblical model of one bishop, one city. But still, the point is, that the main thing stopping your church being part of the Church, is not that your organization is separate, it is that your doctrines are not Orthodox. Just like the main thing stopping you from having fellowship with the Mormon church is not that it is a separate organization, it is because it does not share your beliefs.

It's not about the organization! Make your church Orthodox in doctrine, and I'm sure the Orthodox church will let you into its fold. It's happened before.

The apostles founded AN institution of the church, or rather a number of institutions. Yes certainly it is possible for people to go out from the original institution and found new institutions. But unless they hold to the Traditions of the 1st institution from whence they came, then they are not the Church any longer. If they do hold to the Traditions, then the new institution is the Church. If they don't, they are just a group of people following their own winds of doctrine. That doesn't mean they can't be saved. The bible says there is salvation in the Church, what there is outside the Church we cannot say.

That is interesting. Again, perhaps the problem is that we are so used to arguing against the RCC.
But now, what you have done is removed the authority from the institution/leaders, to the traditions themselves, as the definition of the true Church. The debate starts with proving your traditions are apostolic. That is initially done on the premise that the institution goes all the way back through its succession of leaders. But now you're saying it's not the institution or the leaders, it's the traditions themselves. So the traditions are proof of the church, which is proof of the traditions, which then are their own authority being proof of themselves. I'm sorry, but we just don't go for that.
And being that these traditions seem to boil down to largely infant baptism and communion, and perhaps incense, candles and icons; I don't see what is the point of coming and trying to convince us of this as hypothetical "unwritten traditions" (adding to the very "doctrinal confusion" and disputatiousness you point out in Protestantism in the first place). The goal of the Christian Gospel is for everyone to receive Christ before they die, in which case they would be baptized into the Church, and then periodically receive commuion. All of this other stuff should not be issues where we donounce each other as not the true churches, and perhaps the Baptists have focused too much on that in condemning catholicism.
(most of the really egregious antiscriptural things take place in the RCC, and then we just get into bashing everything they do, and assume the EOC is the same way).

 

[orthodox]

Never said doctrine was unimportant.
The way you’ve spoken about this “tradition” makes it sound like “all this other stuff” that we are not “keeping”, and you continue to add speculation about diagrams and stuff we have no real reason to hypothesize.

Your complaint is that there is no evidence that the written and oral are different bodies of teaching. My point is, even the written teaching was probably beyond scripture, or at least beyond the scripture that Paul knew anything about when writing to Thessalonica. Whatever Paul passed to Thessalonica, written and oral, that he later wrote to them and told them to hold to, it wasn't the NT scriptures, because they didn't exist yet.

But it seems now in your discussion, that to you, it concerns mostly infant baptism and communion.

These issues are interesting because protestant land can't agree on them.

Once again, what really is the purpose of that when a child is too young to understand what it is?

The purpose is, because they are not merely a symbol but also empart a spiritual blessing. When the hankerchief was taken from Paul to heal the sick, would it have not been of any benefit if it was a child who didn't understand? Of course it would have still benefited.

Even though the NT does not tell us exactly what age, since these things are for believers, who truly understand what they mean,

"Truely" understand??? Do you "truely" understand God? The trinity? The whole council of God and the Christian religion? Of course you don't, you do your best according to your own age, mental abilities and so forth.

Here is the problem, and it's hard to explain this in a few emails to a western scholastic mindset, when the bible was written in an Eastern relational mindset. It was not the Jewish way and mindset to accept children into the faith only upon reaching a sufficient age.

common sense would tell them that “the household” would only include a child that could understand what it is (whichever age they may be, which can be different).

That certainly is common sense in a western scholastic mindset and interpretive framework. Funny thing is, in 1500 years nobody seems to have pointed out this "common sense" idea of yours.

If a three year old somehow showed that he understood, and wanted to receive baptism or communion, then many of us would in theory baptism, but the problem would be in that many might not really believe he understands.

Ah huh. More extra-scriptural conditions.

Don't you think in all the NT period whilst the apostles were writing, if infant baptism wasn't normative, it would have come up that somebody wanted to get their youngish child baptized and a dispute arises about how deeply they had to understand? It would be astonishing if this had not arisen and caused Paul to say something.

Then you could use Jesus’ statement “Suffer not the little children”. But you all have been using that verse for little newborn infants who are not asking to come to Jesus.

So you agree I could use this verse? So will you now advocate at least baptising smaller children?

I know you do not teach that we should be cultural Christians, and that Baptists can fall into the same trap, but that is more likely to happen when someone is baptized as an infant, and taught that baptism saves.

But baptism doesn't save. One is baptised for the remission of sins as the bible says, but one is able to then go and reject God and go to hell. What baptism does is empart a spiritual blessing that assists the sincere Christian in their walk, but it would be wrong to say bluntly "baptism saves". There's no point making a characture of what we teach and then tearing it down.

The verse in question says “Church of the Living GOD, Pillar and ground of truth”. It is not [Church of God]=[Pillar and ground of truth], but rather [Church of][God the pillar and ground of truth]

I havn't heard that one before.

That's an ungrammatical interpretation, both in Greek and English. In Greek, "God" is in the genitive case, because it is the church "OF" God. "Living" is also in the genitive case, as grammar dictates in Greek, because it describes God, and since God is in the genitive case here, so is "living". If "pillar and ground of the truth" was also describing God, it would also be in the genitive case. But it isn't, it's in the nominative case like "Church" is, because it is a clarification of the subject of the sentence.

You won't find any English translation either, whose translation or punctuation would give you any cause for interpreting it that way.

In my view, this is a great illustration of what happens when a church is off on its own apart from the universal church, making up its own doctrine. Self-styled bible interpreters decide that they know better than everyone else, and come up with brand new interpretations. And the typical Christian is in no position to test their claims.

Yes, my pastors have warned us of that plenty of times. Thst still doesn’t stop it from being a symbol. God’s symbols are very holy, as He is holy, and we are not to play around with them. Nothing more needs to be added to that, so I am not the one speculating.

If there is danger in playing around with them, then they are no longer a mere symbol by definition! Nobody ever got hurt playing around with a "mere" symbol. You are admitting that there is a spiritual reality that goes beyond the mere physical symbol. Having admitted that, why do you find the spiritual realities that Orthodoxy teaches so offensive or unlikely?

More closer to 100 years or more after they were written, in most cases. And if we were talking about Greek language, then we would be puffed up; but we are talking about the NT faith, and being Greek does not mean one necessarily has a better understanding of it, as people went into error even as reported in the NT.

Yes, people went into error. And Paul's solution to that concern was to admonish people to keep holding to the traditions.

Since you seem to advocate the jellyfish church, where it doesn't matter what set of propositions you accept, why not accept the traditional interpretations? The Traditions can at least lead to unity (which you seem to admit is good), as 2000 years of evidence can testify to. But abandoning the Traditions has clearly failed on that score.

In the protestant world, no matter which interpretations are correct, you would pretty much have to say that the vast majority of protestants have got it wrong about a lot of things. I mean, I'll bet if you listed down your personal beliefs, and then listed the denominations that agree with your and their numbers, I'll bet you find that there is a vanishingly small number who are right according to you.

But since you seem fairly relaxed about the protestant ethos leading everybody into error, why not go with the Traditional interpretations, at at least have have unity?

Since it seems we are talking largely about baptism and communion, it is possible for post apostolic leaders to have fill in their understanding on them, and it become widespread, so that they would be in most churches. Since the NT does not give much details on this, it is not as much of a departure from the faith as if we were trying to argue that the NT Church was identical to 12th century Roman Catholicism, which most of us are more used to dealing with, that’s why it as become such an issue.
Sure, but that means that some may get it wrong, and even become widespread. But the truth will be somewhere, and will always be able to be discovered.

It's fairly puffed up to imagine that the church was reading the scriptures for 1500 years, and could never discover the truth, but that some people came along 1500 years later, with a completely different mindset and interpretive framework, and they finally discovered the hidden truth. Having supposedly discovered this hidden truth, the church that was there 1500 years still can't see it.

How do you explain this?

Many translational errors, copyist notes that got added to the text, etc. have been found and corrected later. The previous editions don't now become right just because they were older than the corrections.

Well from our point of view, unless they were a blatant error, even the errors reflect Orthodox Christian doctrine, because all the well-intentioned yet misguided scribes who accidently or intentionally changed the text, were still Orthodox.

Someone who is heterodox can come along and argue that 1Jn 5:7 and 1Ti 3:16 are not original, and thus argue that the church has changed doctrine. For you, you've got to first prove what the text is, before you can argue what the text means. And you can't prove with certainty what the text is. From our point of view, the church knows what the truth is, and what the text means, and any future academic discoveries about what the text is, is not going to make the faith into an every changing jelly, at the beck and call of academics.

They checked them with the OT. I wasn't saying that the NT and the OT weren't separate bodies of teaching, just that these "traditions" weren't a separate body of teaching from the written NT. So I don't quite get your point.

The point is, that when Paul met the Bereans, the NT wasn't written. So when Paul passed on his new covenant teachings, which are not in the OT, the Bereans had nothing written to check him against.

 

[orthodox]

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"Bishop" is "overseer". Any person appointed to watch over more than one congregation, is by definition an "overseer". (where the "pastor" is the "shepherd" of one congregation). If one thinks that these offices can ONLY be large power bases on city and higher level, then that is what I have meant by "worldly government".

Who said anything about "only" on a city and higher level?

The point is, Ignatius teaches that in 100AD, there was one bishop with multiple elders subordinated under him. Does your church follow the 1st century model, yes or no?

That is interesting. Again, perhaps the problem is that we are so used to arguing against the RCC.
But now, what you have done is removed the authority from the institution/leaders, to the traditions themselves, as the definition of the true Church. The debate starts with proving your traditions are apostolic. That is initially done on the premise that the institution goes all the way back through its succession of leaders. But now you're saying it's not the institution or the leaders, it's the traditions themselves. So the traditions are proof of the church, which is proof of the traditions, which then are their own authority being proof of themselves. I'm sorry, but we just don't go for that.

The "institution" doesn't have to go back to the apostles, because as we discussed, Orthodoxy is multiple institutions, not all of which go back to the apostles. For example, the Russian Orthodox church was founded in the year 988.

But the point is the Orthodox institutionS can trace back the passing on of the traditions back to the original church. It's not about the leaders, or at any rate not just about the leaders, it is about the church passing on the traditions, both the leaders and the laity. And it is not about the instutions, because the traditions could be passed onto any institution who is willing to receive and follow them.

So the authority is not with just the leaders, the institution or the traditions. It is with the church, the pillar and foundation of the truth, which has passed down the traditions to the present time.

And being that these traditions seem to boil down to largely infant baptism and communion, and perhaps incense, candles and icons; I don't see what is the point of coming and trying to convince us of this as hypothetical "unwritten traditions" (adding to the very "doctrinal confusion" and disputatiousness you point out in Protestantism in the first place).

Well it's not just about communion and incense, it is about the entirety of the Christian faith. The protestant abandonment of tradition and promotion of "me and my bible under a tree" has ultimately spawned Mormonism, Jehovah's Wittnesses, Oneness Pentacostals, Unitarian Universalists, and rejection of almost every Christian doctrine that exists.

The goal of the Christian Gospel is for everyone to receive Christ before they die, in which case they would be baptized into the Church, and then periodically receive commuion. All of this other stuff should not be issues where we donounce each other as not the true churches,

Even these things are not agreed upon. The Salvation Army denomination does not take baptism or communion. Since they are merely symbols, they feel free to dispense with them.

You say the other stuff doesn't matter, but then, the NT is not a one paragraph book, it's a bit bigger than that. You say that we're wrong that symbols are only symbols and have no spiritual reality. But what if you're wrong? What about the hankerchief that healed the people? What about the annointing with oil when you are sick? What about the apostles laying on of hands to receive the Holy Spirit? You say we don't need these things, but what if you're wrong? A lot of protestantism has abandoned these things, and the Salvation Army has taken protestantism and taken it the last logical step. But what if you're wrong? Were the apostles wasting their time with all this mucking around? They ought to have just said "Don't worry about it, it's just you and Jesus under a tree. Amen".

and perhaps the Baptists have focused too much on that in condemning catholicism.
(most of the really egregious antiscriptural things take place in the RCC, and then we just get into bashing everything they do, and assume the EOC is the same way).

 

[Eric B]

Your complaint is that there is no evidence that the written and oral are different bodies of teaching. My point is, even the written teaching was probably beyond scripture, or at least beyond the scripture that Paul knew anything about when writing to Thessalonica. Whatever Paul passed to Thessalonica, written and oral, that he later wrote to them and told them to hold to, it wasn't the NT scriptures, because they didn't exist yet.

The point is, that when Paul met the Bereans, the NT wasn't written. So when Paul passed on his new covenant teachings, which are not in the OT, the Bereans had nothing written to check him against.

Now that's contradicting what the text says: that they "searched the scriptures to see if these things were so". (This of course was the OT) While the details of Christ were not in the OT, still, they could be verified there, and since that's all it says, why speculate on some other body of teaching that they just had to take their word for it with no scriptural support? When Paul said "hold to the written", that could be referring to the very writing they were reading. In other words, hold to THIS teaching, as well as what I taught you before in person.

The purpose is, because they are not merely a symbol but also empart a spiritual blessing. When the hankerchief was taken from Paul to heal the sick, would it have not been of any benefit if it was a child who didn't understand? Of course it would have still benefited.

Even these things are not agreed upon. The Salvation Army denomination does not take baptism or communion. Since they are merely symbols, they feel free to dispense with them.

You say the other stuff doesn't matter, but then, the NT is not a one paragraph book, it's a bit bigger than that. You say that we're wrong that symbols are only symbols and have no spiritual reality. But what if you're wrong? What about the hankerchief that healed the people? What about the annointing with oil when you are sick? What about the apostles laying on of hands to receive the Holy Spirit? You say we don't need these things, but what if you're wrong? A lot of protestantism has abandoned these things, and the Salvation Army has taken protestantism and taken it the last logical step. But what if you're wrong? Were the apostles wasting their time with all this mucking around? They ought to have just said "Don't worry about it, it's just you and Jesus under a tree. Amen".

If there is danger in playing around with them, then they are no longer a mere symbol by definition! Nobody ever got hurt playing around with a "mere" symbol. You are admitting that there is a spiritual reality that goes beyond the mere physical symbol. Having admitted that, why do you find the spiritual realities that Orthodoxy teaches so offensive or unlikely?

"Truely" understand??? Do you "truely" understand God? The trinity? The whole council of God and the Christian religion? Of course you don't, you do your best according to your own age, mental abilities and so forth.

Here is the problem, and it's hard to explain this in a few emails to a western scholastic mindset, when the bible was written in an Eastern relational mindset. It was not the Jewish way and mindset to accept children into the faith only upon reaching a sufficient age.

But baptism doesn't save. One is baptised for the remission of sins as the bible says, but one is able to then go and reject God and go to hell. What baptism does is empart a spiritual blessing that assists the sincere Christian in their walk, but it would be wrong to say bluntly "baptism saves". There's no point making a characture of what we teach and then tearing it down.

I never said there was no "spiritual reality", but since we are not actually (literally, physically) dying and rising again, or sacrificing christ again (despite what the RCC says), those are symbols, imparting spiritual realities. (salvation, communion). If God decides to punish someone who abuses them, that does not stop them from being symbols (as if it's the object itself that kills the offender). As far as the healings with oil or handkerchiefs, those are not the same things as baptism and communion, because one did not have to understand to receive the benefit of a physical healing. Communion you had to be conscious of in order to take it "worthily" or "unworthily", and baptism was "an answer of a good conscience". (I'm sorry, but I thought your position was like the Church of Christ that insists "baptism saves", even though they agree with you also that if one turns away later they will be lost). Even if you argue it imparts the remission of sins, that gets into the whole issue of the "age of accountability", plus the fact that if one is not finally saved until they have lived faithfully their whole lives and repented of all sins; so what would be the rush of baptizing a baby? You might as well let him get to an age where he asks to be baptized.

Ah huh. More extra-scriptural conditions.

So you agree I could use this verse? So will you now advocate at least baptising smaller children?

If they said they wanted it, I would have no problem (And it wasn't my "extra scriptural conditions", just the opposition others might have to doing it even if they ask).

That certainly is common sense in a western scholastic mindset and interpretive framework. Funny thing is, in 1500 years nobody seems to have pointed out this "common sense" idea of yours.

Don't you think in all the NT period whilst the apostles were writing, if infant baptism wasn't normative, it would have come up that somebody wanted to get their youngish child baptized and a dispute arises about how deeply they had to understand? It would be astonishing if this had not arisen and caused Paul to say something.

Maybe that shows that it was common sense that they would only baptize them if they professed faith and requested it, and later leaders took on a different intepretation of baptism (as saving, or corresponding to circumcision of the OC), so it was no longer common sense.

I havn't heard that one before.

That's an ungrammatical interpretation, both in Greek and English. In Greek, "God" is in the genitive case, because it is the church "OF" God. "Living" is also in the genitive case, as grammar dictates in Greek, because it describes God, and since God is in the genitive case here, so is "living". If "pillar and ground of the truth" was also describing God, it would also be in the genitive case. But it isn't, it's in the nominative case like "Church" is, because it is a clarification of the subject of the sentence.

You won't find any English translation either, whose translation or punctuation would give you any cause for interpreting it that way.

In my view, this is a great illustration of what happens when a church is off on its own apart from the universal church, making up its own doctrine. Self-styled bible interpreters decide that they know better than everyone else, and come up with brand new interpretations. And the typical Christian is in no position to test their claims.

I don't really know "normative" and "genitive", but my understanding comes from the fact that God alone is the source of truth, not men, even those He may have entrusted with the truth. Then I realize that I am sssuming "pillar and ground" means "source" or "basis" (based on the RCC/EOC use of the passage to justify teachings that we question, plus our good old "20th century English understanding" you alway point out), but actually the words mean "support" (pillars and the ground support objects), so in that case, it would be allowable for the Church.

 

[Eric B]

Someone who is heterodox can come along and argue that 1Jn 5:7 and 1Ti 3:16 are not original, and thus argue that the church has changed doctrine. For you, you've got to first prove what the text is, before you can argue what the text means. And you can't prove with certainty what the text is. From our point of view, the church knows what the truth is, and what the text means, and any future academic discoveries about what the text is, is not going to make the faith into an every changing jelly, at the beck and call of academics.

Tradition is not necessary, because there are others scriptures that support the doctrine. I myself believe that the Johannine comma was a note that got added, and not part of the text (breaks the flow of what is being said), but there are other passages that support God as Father, Son and Spirit

Who said anything about "only" on a city and higher level?
The point is, Ignatius teaches that in 100AD, there was one bishop with multiple elders subordinated under him. Does your church follow the 1st century model, yes or no?

Just about all churches have someone overseeing with others under him. Many just don't use those titles. I myself would prefer the biblical words.

Well it's not just about communion and incense, it is about the entirety of the Christian faith. The protestant abandonment of tradition and promotion of "me and my bible under a tree" has ultimately spawned Mormonism, Jehovah's Wittnesses, Oneness Pentacostals, Unitarian Universalists, and rejection of almost every Christian doctrine that exists.

The "institution" doesn't have to go back to the apostles, because as we discussed, Orthodoxy is multiple institutions, not all of which go back to the apostles. For example, the Russian Orthodox church was founded in the year 988.
But the point is the Orthodox institutionS can trace back the passing on of the traditions back to the original church. It's not about the leaders, or at any rate not just about the leaders, it is about the church passing on the traditions, both the leaders and the laity. And it is not about the instutions, because the traditions could be passed onto any institution who is willing to receive and follow them.
So the authority is not with just the leaders, the institution or the traditions. It is with the church, the pillar and foundation of the truth, which has passed down the traditions to the present time.

Yes, people went into error. And Paul's solution to that concern was to admonish people to keep holding to the traditions.
Since you seem to advocate the jellyfish church, where it doesn't matter what set of propositions you accept, why not accept the traditional interpretations? The Traditions can at least lead to unity (which you seem to admit is good), as 2000 years of evidence can testify to. But abandoning the Traditions has clearly failed on that score.
In the protestant world, no matter which interpretations are correct, you would pretty much have to say that the vast majority of protestants have got it wrong about a lot of things. I mean, I'll bet if you listed down your personal beliefs, and then listed the denominations that agree with your and their numbers, I'll bet you find that there is a vanishingly small number who are right according to you.
But since you seem fairly relaxed about the protestant ethos leading everybody into error, why not go with the Traditional interpretations, at at least have have unity?

It's fairly puffed up to imagine that the church was reading the scriptures for 1500 years, and could never discover the truth, but that some people came along 1500 years later, with a completely different mindset and interpretive framework, and they finally discovered the hidden truth. Having supposedly discovered this hidden truth, the church that was there 1500 years still can't see it.
How do you explain this?

Because they read it through the lens of tradition and assumed it all came from the apostles, with no need for any further proof of it other than "we all believe this". You may think this creates more unity, but then if it's wrong, what good is unity?
So accept doctrines and practices we do not agree with just to have "unity"? (Didn't you quote someone earlier who spoke against that?) In that case, we might as well have the "jellyfish" concept.
You're still saying the church is not the institution or the leaders, or the traditions, but it seems to be all of those things that define what the true Church is to you.
If you say it's the people; I would agree, but say then that they do not have to be confined to one institution, distinguished by a peculiar set of doctrines and practices that could not be found in scripture, and have to be claimed to have been passed all the way down. That is definig the Church by the traditions, as their own self-evidence.
Let the Mormons and JW's go out and teach what they want. We will guard against them trying to deceive us, but we cannot control them, and us remaining in one institution and just believing watever it taught whether or not it made sense or could be found in scripture would still not have stopped them from arising, any more than it stopped their predescessors, the Arians and Gnostics.

 

[orthodox]

Now that's contradicting what the text says: that they "searched the scriptures to see if these things were so". (This of course was the OT)

I'm not contradicting the text. Obviously the Bereans could search the OT to see if it prophesised the overall message that Christ died to atone for sins etc, which was what Paul preached to them in the streets.

But once the Bereans joined the church that Paul started - if they chose to, then they would have been to exposed to a ton of teaching that were nowhere written down in the OT. Like baptism, communion, not having to keep the Law anymore, and so on and on with all the uniquely NT teachings.

There's no logical way you can point to the Bereans as any evidence of sola scriptura, because if the Bereans became Christians, they would have to immediately go beyond scripture with new covenant teachings. So how noble really were the Bereans, given that they weren't the sola scriptura adherants that you had hoped?

While the details of Christ were not in the OT, still, they could be verified there, and since that's all it says, why speculate on some other body of teaching that they just had to take their word for it with no scriptural support?

Because we KNOW that Paul was preaching... say baptism, and we KNOW that the NT wasn't written yet and we KNOW that baptism is not in the OT. Thus for the Bereans to become Christians they had to go beyond the scriptures.

When Paul said "hold to the written", that could be referring to the very writing they were reading. In other words, hold to THIS teaching, as well as what I taught you before in person.

If it referred to what they were reading there and then, why on earth tell them to hold to the oral, which according to you is plagued with the issues of reliability? And if all he said in the oral, was what was written in the rather short letter of the Thessalonians, why didn't he write it all down before he left, and save the reliability problems, not to mention arguments 2000 years later?

I never said there was no "spiritual reality", but since we are not actually (literally, physically) dying and rising again, or sacrificing christ again (despite what the RCC says), those are symbols, imparting spiritual realities.

Nobody said they aren't symbols! Yes they are symbols that impart spiritual realities. You could be half way to becoming Orthodox.

(salvation, communion). If God decides to punish someone who abuses them, that does not stop them from being symbols (as if it's the object itself that kills the offender). As far as the healings with oil or handkerchiefs, those are not the same things as baptism and communion, because one did not have to understand to receive the benefit of a physical healing. Communion you had to be conscious of in order to take it "worthily" or "unworthily",

Here you go assuming, without any scriptural foundation, that a new-born baby is "unworthy". We believe that a new-born baby, being without sin, is worthy. And therefore, understanding is not a pre-requisite to receiving the benefit. You see, we are consistent in these matters.

and baptism was "an answer of a good conscience".

We believe that a baby has a good conscience.

(I'm sorry, but I thought your position was like the Church of Christ that insists "baptism saves", even though they agree with you also that if one turns away later they will be lost).

Well it saves in the sense that it is for the remission of sins, and we need remission of sins for salvation. But it doesn't save in the sense that this is the end of the story, that we just need the water and we are saved.

Even if you argue it imparts the remission of sins, that gets into the whole issue of the "age of accountability",

Here you go again with the extra-scriptural concepts that you need to support your traditions. And you complain about us!

Where in scripture does it even hint at any concept of an "age of accountability"?

plus the fact that if one is not finally saved until they have lived faithfully their whole lives and repented of all sins; so what would be the rush of baptizing a baby? You might as well let him get to an age where he asks to be baptized.

Because, as I said, baptism emparts a spiritual blessing that will assist the child in their coming life and walk with God. Remember the hankerchief? Remember the oil?

If they said they wanted it, I would have no problem (And it wasn't my "extra scriptural conditions", just the opposition others might have to doing it even if they ask).

Ahh, the opposition of your baptist brethren. I guess we are up to 512 churches now.

Maybe that shows that it was common sense that they would only baptize them if they professed faith and requested it, and later leaders took on a different intepretation of baptism (as saving, or corresponding to circumcision of the OC), so it was no longer common sense.

The only way you can argue that is if they were baptising the very youngest possible child that expressed some kind of faith as a reason why it never became a controversy about how much faith and understanding was necessary.

And if that's the case, ALL protestants are wrong (well except you , since there are no denominations to my knowledge that won't baptise babies but will baptise very young children.

Ahh, the amazing differences that arise because of what we read into the silences, both in scripture and the rest of history. If all the church practices infant baptism, I assume that consistency is most likely because they were all taught the same by the apostles. You on the other hand assume it was because they all fell off the rails.

I don't really know "normative" and "genitive",

Not normative but nominative. In Greek, the subject and object of the sentence aren't implied by word order but specified by the letters trailing the word. So nominative means the subject of the sentence. And in Greek there is no word for "OF", but rather a different set of trailing letters implies the "OF", and those words are then called genitive. In this verse God and living are both genitive because they are both linked together and tied to the church by a concept like "OF". Thus we get "Church of the living God".

but my understanding comes from the fact that God alone is the source of truth, not men, even those He may have entrusted with the truth.

Your understanding? Is this your way of saying that you are importing your theology into the text?

Anyway, the text isn't about who is the source of the truth, it is about who is the custodian of the truth.

Then I realize that I am sssuming "pillar and ground" means "source" or "basis" (based on the RCC/EOC use of the passage to justify teachings that we question, plus our good old "20th century English understanding" you alway point out), but actually the words mean "support" (pillars and the ground support objects), so in that case, it would be allowable for the Church.

I've never heard EOC argue that it means "source". It means, as you say, pillar and support. The church is the one who supports the truth. The church is the one who upholds the truth. We support it, we uphold it. If you want to know the truth, wouldn't you go to whoever is upholding it?

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