a question for "Bible Only" churches

[coolduude]

As I’ve discussed with you on more than one occation, the writings that make up the NT were around before the therm CC was made in the early 2nd century making your point mute, IMO.

Did you not see my other post? See post 290.

 

[Dokimas]

Not really following this part of it. If I interpreted it correctly, you are wrong. You see, Catholics know their history is correct, we don’t have to make that leap of faith and believe it is correct. How do we know it is correct? Corroborative sources say so. The same can’t be said for your church. Seeing you weren’t back there you do have to exercise a measure of faith.

It does not matter when our church began being called Catholic. To quote Shakespeare:
“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.”

In other words, it does not matter if our church is called Catholic or not, the fact remains the same that we are the One, True, Church and history is on our side. A name won’t change that.

I guess there’s no arguing with this logic. Thank you for your opinion.

 

[Bill_Pick]

I’m in a tag team match and over matched at that. ​

You all have worn me out. I’m heading to bed. Good night and God be with you all.

DoKimas, You know day by day your more like Planten all he has are opinion amd thats all you have

 

[Dokimas]

DoKimas, You know day by day your more like Planten all he has are opinion amd thats all you have

Don’t look now but that’s all you have and that’s all we all have. Our hope and desire is that our opinions match up with God’s Truth.

 

[Prodigal_Son1]

As I’ve discussed with you on more than one occation, the writings that make up the NT were around before the therm CC was made in the early 2nd century making your point mute, IMO.

Revelations was written around the same approximate time as when St. Ignatius wrote his writings.

Also, I showed you that the Greek that Catholic was derived from was actually used in scriptures.

 

[Prodigal_Son1]

And that’s your opinion.​

I don’t believe I’ve ever desired to bind or loosen; BTW, I’m not sure what that means.

It’s more than my opinion. Anyone can read Matthew 18 and see that Christ was speaking to the authoritative men, He chose and appointed over His Church, about Church authority.

Jewish Encylopedia BINDING AND LOOSING

Rabbinical term for “forbidding and permitting.” The expression “asar” (to bind herself by a bond) is used in the Bible (Num. xxx. 3 et seq.) for a vow which prevents one from using a thing. It implies binding an object by a powerful spell in order to prevent its use (see Targ. to Ps. lviii. 6; Shab. 81b, for “magic spell”). The corresponding Aramean “shera” and Hebrew “hittir” (for loosing the prohibitive spell) have no parallel in the Bible.

The power of binding and loosing was always claimed by the Pharisees. Under Queen Alexandra, the Pharisees, says Josephus (“B J.” i, 5, § 2), “became the administrators of all public affairs so as to be empowered to banish and readmit whom they pleased, as well as to loose and to bind.” This does not mean that, as the learned men, they merely decided what, according to the Law, was forbidden or allowed, but that they possessed and exercised the power of tying or untying a thing by the spell of their divine authority, just as they could, by the power vested in them, pronounce and revoke an anathema upon a person. The various schools had the power “to bind and to loose”; that is, to forbid and to permit (Ḥag. 3b); and they could bind any day by declaring it a fast-day (Meg. Ta’an. xxii.; Ta’an. 12a; Yer. Ned. i. 36c, d). This power and authority, vested in the rabbinical body of each age or in the Sanhedrin (see Authority), received its ratification and final sanction from the celestial court of justice (Sifra, Emor, ix.; Mak. 23b).

In the New Testament.

In this sense Jesus, when appointing his disciples to be his successors, used the familiar formula (Matt. xvi. 19, xviii. 18). By these words he virtually invested them with the same authority as that which he found belonging to the scribes and Pharisees who “bind heavy burdens and lay them on men’s shoulders, but will not move them with one of their fingers”; that is, “loose them,” as they have the power to do (Matt. xxiii. 2-4). In the same sense, in the second epistle of Clement to James II. (“Clementine Homilies,” Introduction), Peter is represented as having appointed Clement as his successor, saying: “I communicate to him the power of binding and loosing so that, with respect to everything which he shall ordain in the earth, it shall be decreed in the heavens; for he shall bind what ought to be bound and loose what ought to be loosed as knowing the rule of the church.” Quite different from this Judaic and ancient view of the apostolic power of binding and loosing is the one expressed in John xx. 23, where Jesus is represented as having said to his disciples after they had received the Holy Spirit: “Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained.” It is this view which, adopted by Tertullian and all the church fathers, invested the head of the Christian Church with the power to forgive sins, the “clavis ordinis,” “the key-power of the Church.”

 

[Sarahforgiven]

Well Christ didn’t say go out & make a church in a building or other such means. He said to be fishers of men & that by belief in him we are reconciled & have salvation. Very interesting dialogue.
Peace be with u
s

 

[CWBetts]

Well Christ didn’t say go out & make a church in a building or other such means. He said to be fishers of men & that by belief in him we are reconciled & have salvation. Very interesting dialogue.
Peace be with u
s

Where did He say faith alone was enough?

 

[Bill_Pick]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Rightlydivide
*I do not feel like any group has to justify anything to the Catholic Church. That is presumptious to say the least. It is also kind of hard to be a member of the Hussites…your church executed the leader and it had a hard time really taking off after that…
Once again, I do not recognize your churches authority. Just because one group is saying they have infallible teachings, does not mean the rest of us agree obviously. So please, for the sake of civil discourse, drop that any Christian has to justify their actions to a church they are not a member of.
Maybe…your church should answer to us! Since we follow the Bible…
See, I did not THINK you would like that…grin…trying to keep it light. *

The RCC should answer to your “johnny-come-lately” church? Why? Because you say so? Based on what authority? That is the whole issue with non-Catholics,refusal to accept authority,which has caused divisions,splits, and factions due to not obeying a church with authority. It is all about: We will do it our way.

You follow the Bible? Show me where Jesus gave mere men the authority to ‘create’ their own church based on private interpretation of scripture? Scripture does not teach how one can build their own church,but how to FOLLOW the one founded by Jesus,not some church founded by man/woman centuries later.

A+

 

[jmcrae]

No problem. If been told I’m all wet before. However, if you’re honest with yourself, you have your believe that the CC has the correct historical records. Seems we both are subject to puting trust in what we’ve read.

I am not even aware of any other writings that date back to those times, that contradict the “Catholic version” of history. (Foxe’s Book of Martyres was written in the 1600s, and makes no reference to any kind of original source material.)

Except for the general term ‘universal’ which is what catholic means, when did the church beging to call itself Catholic? Answer this and you’ll be on your way to answer your own question.

Prior to 107 AD, since St. Ignatius of Antioch makes use of the term “the Catholic Church” in writing at that time, without providing a definition for it, which shows that the term was already in common use by the time he was writing about it. Of course, his is the first instance that we find in writing - but the fact that he doesn’t provide a definition for it means that he is assuming that all seven of his audiences are already familiar with the term. So, we are into at least the later lifetime of the Apostles.

 

[jmcrae]

Well Christ didn’t say go out & make a church in a building or other such means. He said to be fishers of men & that by belief in him we are reconciled & have salvation. Very interesting dialogue.
Peace be with u
s

What do you make of Matthew 16:18-19? It seems pretty clear that Jesus intended to establish a Church, in those verses. (Not a building of brick and mortar or even of wood - the Catholic Church is not a building; it’s an identifiable community of people with a very specific structure of leadership - and it really seems in Matthew 16 that Jesus is setting up the original Apostles into positions of leadership in His Church.)

 

[AwGusTeen]

snip…
I believe the CC started in the 300s with Constantine …-

Well, you may believe it, but history certainly contradicts that belief.

“See that ye all follow the bishop, even as Christ Jesus does the Father, and the presbytery as ye would the apostles. Do ye also reverence the deacons, as those that carry out the appointment of God. Let no man do anything connected with the Church without the bishop. Let that be deemed a proper Eucharist, which is [administered] either by the bishop, or by one to whom he has entrusted it. Wherever the bishop shall appear, there let the multitude also be; by the bishop, or by one to whom he has entrusted it. Wherever the bishop shall appear, there let the multitude also be; even as, wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church.”
**Ignatius of Antioch, Epistle to the Smyrneans, 8:2 (c. A.D. 110). **

“[A]ll the people wondered that there should be such a difference between the unbelievers and the elect, of whom this most admirable Polycarp was one, having in our own times been an apostolic and prophetic teacher, and bishop of the **Catholic Church **which is in Smyrna. For every word that went out of his mouth either has been or shall yet be accomplished.”
**Martyrdom of Polycarp, 16:2 (A.D. 155). **

“…to be in honour however with the Catholic Church for the ordering of ecclesiastical discipline…one to the Laodicenes, another to the Alexandrians, both forged in Paul’s name to suit the heresy of Marcion, and several others, which cannot be received into the Catholic Church; for it is not fitting that gall be mixed with honey. The Epistle of Jude no doubt, and the couple bearing the name of John, are accepted by the Catholic Church…But of Arsinous, called also Valentinus, or of Militiades we receive nothing at all.”
**The fragment of Muratori (A.D. 177). **

“[N]or does it consist in this, that he should again falsely imagine, as being above this [fancied being], a Pleroma at one time supposed to contain thirty, and at another time an innumerable tribe of Aeons, as these teachers who are destitute of truly divine wisdom maintain; while the **Catholic Church **possesses one and the same faith throughout the whole world, as we have already said.”
**Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 1:10,3 (A.D. 180). **

“For it is evident that those men lived not so long ago,–in the reign of Antoninus for the most part,–and that they at first were believers in the doctrine of the Catholic Church, in the church of Rome under the episcopate of the blessed Eleutherus, until on account of their ever restless curiosity, with which they even infected the brethren, they were more than once expelled.”
Tertullian, On the Prescription Against Heretics, 22,30 (A.D. 200).

”Whence you ought to know that the bishop is in the Church, and the Church in the bishop; and if any one be not with the bishop, that he is not in the Church, and that those flatter themselves in vain who creep in, not having peace with God’s priests, and think that they communicate secretly with some; while the Church, which is Catholic and one, is not cut nor divided, but is indeed connected and bound together by the cement of priests who cohere with one another.”
Cyprian, To Florentius, Epistle 66/67 (A.D. 254).

To ignore the facts is to let prejudice override reason.

Pax!

 

[Nicea325]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Nicea325
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dokimas​

I make no issue about if or when the CC lost the true faith. I believe the CC started in the 300s with Constantine and the true church is made up of ALL true believers (followers) of Jesus the Chrsit, the Son of the Living God, God in Human flesh.​

I do not accept those writings you mentioned as part of the inspired Word of God, the Bible.

You ‘BELIEVE’ is the key emphasis.What you believe does not make it an historical fact. Sorry to rain on your parade,but you are dead wrong.

Please provide one Christian bishop or pagan writer talking about this NEW Catholic Church?
No problem. If been told I’m all wet before. However, if you’re honest with yourself, you have your believe that the CC has the correct historical records. Seems we both are subject to puting trust in what we’ve read.

No problem as to what? You have historical records,sources,etc confirming that one Christian bishop or pagan wrote about this ‘new’ Catholic Church? I beg your pardon? Since you truly believe the RCC does not have the correct historical records,but you have proof of the accurate records? Then provide these sources you believe are the correct historical records. Since you seem to be the only one in the last 2,000 years to only know about them
**Except for the general term ‘universal’ which is what catholic means, when did the church beging to call itself Catholic? Answer this and you’ll be on your way to answer your own question. **

Nice try and nice reverse pyschology there. I asked you to provide written proof of a Christian bishop or pagan writing about this ‘new’ Catholic church?

Answer this and you will be on your way of finding out of the nonsense you speak.

 

[Bill_Pick]

People with the authority to do so, yes. If I were to write to your pastor and tell him he’s doing something wrong, would he feel bound to follow my directions? I strongly doubt it, since I have no authority over him.

Clement was the fourth Bishop of Rome - this is common knowledge.

Scripture C athloic; Acts 1:15-26 - the first thing Peter does after Jesus ascends into heaven is implement apostolic succession. Matthias is ordained with full apostolic authority. Only the Catholic Church can demonstrate an unbroken apostolic lineage to the apostles in union with Peter through the sacrament of ordination and thereby claim to teach with Christ’s own authority.

Acts 1:20 - a successor of Judas is chosen. The authority of his office (his “bishopric”) is respected notwithstanding his egregious sin. The necessity to have apostolic succession in order for the Church to survive was understood by all. God never said, “I’ll give you leaders with authority for about 400 years, but after the Bible is compiled, you are all on your own.”

Acts 1:22 - literally, “one must be ordained” to be a witness with us of His resurrection. Apostolic ordination is required in order to teach with Christ’s authority.

Acts 6:6 - apostolic authority is transferred through the laying on of hands (ordination). This authority has transferred beyond the original twelve apostles as the Church has grown.

Acts 9:17-19 - even Paul, who was directly chosen by Christ, only becomes a minister after the laying on of hands by a bishop. This is a powerful proof-text for the necessity of sacramental ordination in order to be a legitimate successor of the apostles.

Acts 13:3 - apostolic authority is transferred through the laying on of hands (ordination). This authority must come from a Catholic bishop.

 

[aquabatix]

What a great little debate I have started. Thank you all for posting so much.

What strikes me as funny is that my original post inspired the question of a organised church from the beginning and its authority. It was this church that assembled the canon of scripture and gives the book (or book of books) that some base their faith off of solely. The only thing this entire forum has confirmed is that some who only “follow the bible” still will show an organised, functioning hierarchy that would be known as the Church. I don’t see any “true believers” that were apart from it that show the Catholic Church started later. The Church from the beginning was the Catholic Church. There was no need to designate any other because there wasn’t anything to designate themselves from. End of story.

 

[Dokimas]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Nicea325
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dokimas​

I make no issue about if or when the CC lost the true faith. I believe the CC started in the 300s with Constantine and the true church is made up of ALL true believers (followers) of Jesus the Chrsit, the Son of the Living God, God in Human flesh.​

I do not accept those writings you mentioned as part of the inspired Word of God, the Bible.

You ‘BELIEVE’ is the key emphasis.What you believe does not make it an historical fact. Sorry to rain on your parade,but you are dead wrong.

Please provide one Christian bishop or pagan writer talking about this NEW Catholic Church?
No problem. If been told I’m all wet before. However, if you’re honest with yourself, you have your believe that the CC has the correct historical records. Seems we both are subject to puting trust in what we’ve read.

No problem as to what? You have historical records,sources,etc confirming that one Christian bishop or pagan wrote about this ‘new’ Catholic Church? I beg your pardon? Since you truly believe the RCC does not have the correct historical records,but you have proof of the accurate records? Then provide these sources you believe are the correct historical records. Since you seem to be the only one in the last 2,000 years to only know about them
**Except for the general term ‘universal’ which is what catholic means, when did the church beging to call itself Catholic? Answer this and you’ll be on your way to answer your own question. **

Nice try and nice reverse pyschology there. I asked you to provide written proof of a Christian bishop or pagan writing about this ‘new’ Catholic church?

Answer this and you will be on your way of finding out of the nonsense you speak.

Just can’t fool you can I? You’re too keen for me, so you won’t mind if I don’t try to answer you cuz you’ll just see right through any attempt of mine to bring truth. Have a nice life.

 

[CWBetts]

Just can’t fool you can I? You’re too keen for me, so you won’t mind if I don’t try to answer you cuz you’ll just see right through any attempt of mine to bring truth. Have a nice life.

Your posts lack Charity. Try not to be so rude.

 

[Dokimas]

Your posts lack Charity. Try not to be so rude.

You’re correct. I apologize. I guess I thought incorrectly that the one I responded to lack charity. I should not have responded ‘eye for and eye’.

 

[Nicea325]

**Just can’t fool you can I? You’re too keen for me, so you won’t mind if I don’t try to answer you cuz you’ll just see right through any attempt of mine to bring truth. Have a nice life. **

U-huh. Just I figured You have no such records because I know they do not exist!

 

[aquabatix]

I would figure this “ground breaking evidence” of the other history is tied up in book deals, so why would they give it to us here on a forum? I love that it even went as far as to ask if you would renounce Catholicism if you got to see it. Sounds like your leg was being pulled.