For what it's worth… My Protestant analysis of Acts 15

[Angainor]

Catholic Dude:

How about Acts 10 where the Gentiles were OFFICIALLY accpeted at the hands of St Peter.

44 While Peter was yet speaking these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them that heard the word. 45 And the faithful of the circumcision, who came with Peter, were astonished,** for that the grace of the Holy Ghost was poured out upon the Gentiles also.** 46 For they heard them speaking with tongues, and magnifying God. 47 Then Peter answered: Can any man forbid water, that these should not be baptized, who have received the Holy Ghost, as well as we? 48 And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Then they desired him to tarry with them some days.

I always thought Gentiles were welcomed much earlier, when Jesus passed through Samaria:

When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.}
Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” … So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. And because of his words many more became believers."

From John 4

 

[TNT]

[/indent]
I always thought Gentiles were welcomed much earlier, when Jesus passed through Samaria:

When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.}

Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” … So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. And because of his words many more became believers."

From John 4

Come now. Where does it say the Apostles were WITH Him on the occasion? They came after and:

26 Jesus saith to her: I am he, who am speaking with thee. 27 And immediately his disciples came; and they wondered that he talked with the woman. Yet no man said: What seekest thou? or, why talkest thou with her? 28 The woman therefore left her waterpot, and went her way into the city, and saith to the men there: 29 Come, and see a man who has told me all things whatsoever I have done. Is not he the Christ? 30 They went therefore out of the city, and came unto him. 31 In the mean time the disciples prayed him, saying: Rabbi, eat. 32 But he said to them: I have meat to eat, which you know not. 33 The disciples therefore said one to another: Hath any man brought him to eat? [a little density here] 34 Jesus saith to them: My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, that I may perfect his work.

I just love proof texting. I’m just not very good at it, so I leave it to others.

What IS interesting is, how does John know about this if he wasn’t there??
Who told him, and when. If that’s not in the Bible then WHOOOH!
Come to think about it, WHO told Luke about the goodies in his Chapter 1?? It’s no where in the Bible. He sure wasn’t a witness. Who WAS a witness. Let me see…ahhh the big M.

 

[Angainor]

TNT:

What IS interesting is, how does John know about this if he wasn’t there??

John was the Disciple Jesus loved. I think they probably talked about it sometime after the fact. I think they talked about a lot.

You do have a point with chapter 1. This is a lot like Matthew 16:15-17:
“But what about you?” [Jesus] asked. “Who do you say that I am?”
Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven.”
Some things were revealed to the Apostles. Others they had to struggle with, talk over, then draw conclusions.

 

[Angainor]

twf:

With all due respect, can you find a single Father, or even a group that was deemed heretical, that postulate the modern Evangelical understanding of the Gospel and Christianity prior to the Reformation?

St. Paul

You say the counsil made a decree in the form of a letter to the Gentile Christians. In that decree was a dietary restriction:
You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols…
Acts 15:29
Paul disagreed:
Eat anything sold in the meat market without raising questions of conscience, for, “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it.”
1 Corinthians 10:25-26
Paul goes on to explain why he does not consider himself bound by a decree from Jerusalem:
Why should my freedom be judged by another’s conscience?
1 Corinthians 10:29
Who is the “another” that Paul is talking about? You say it was Peter that decreed the dietary restriction.

Paul does not consider himself bound by Peter’s conscience.

---

Paul is a Protestant.

 

[Emly]

I hate to put on my old reason hat, but look at it like this. Christ is the way, the turth, and the life? What is truth, it is not our own truth. truth is not somthing we make up in our heads, as fallen human bings, how can we ever tell ourselves what to do? christ would nto want 26000 different types of christians. truth is truth, and that truth is Jesus Christ, shepard of his Chucrth, the Catholic Chucrth, the one true Chucrth, from without which there is no salvation (fi you don’t understand that or somthing, start another topic because I don’t want to go to much off topic)

Mathew 16 says “Peter, you are the rock, and upon this rock I shell build my chucrth, and the gates of hell shell not pervail against it. Whatever you shell bound on the earth, shell be bound in heaven, whatever you shell loose on the earth, will be loosed in heaven.”

IHow much does a contry need a govermant? How much more, does a poeple, need a Chucrth?