T
theweeper
Guest
I have some friends who asked me to speak to their preacher and this is his reply to my email.
As a matter of fact, it is actually the Catholic Church that is using something different since the Reformation. The Bible, of course, originated with God expressing His Word and Will to and through people, including the folks who wrote what we call the Bible. Canon simply means measure. So, that signifies what folks used to declare that scripture was authentic. There were several criteria used to Canonize scripture, such as did it claim to be from God, is it historically accurate, was it accepted by the people of God as being His authoritative Word, etc?
Therefore, such books as 1 and 2 Maccabees do not appear in the protestant Bible. However, as I mentioned, those books and several others were not canonized by the Roman Catholic Church until after the Reformation began. This was done in response to the Reformation and Luther’s 95 theses nailed to the Wittenburg Door.
It should be noted that there is confusion in using the terms Catholic and Protestant. The term, catholic, means universal, and so in the true sense of the word, the church is and is to be catholic. However, Roman Catholicism developed when Constantine declared Christianity the state religion of the Roman Empire. The primacy of the bishop of Rome came from that time, and the hierarchy of the church was patterned after the Roman government. The pope, as the vicar of Christ, is as the emperor of Rome, and cardinals, bishops, priests, etc, all having form and function of the Roman senate, prefects, governors, etc.
The protestant church in the US should not be to harsh in criticizing that, however, since we have patterned our hierarchy after the US government…the preacher acting as president, elders as the Senate, and deacons as the House of Representatives.
>why do the protestant christian churches have no bishops. it is clear to me from reading early church fathers and many early christian writings that they had authority that is so foreign to the modern churches.<
In point of fact, we do have bishops, we just used other biblical terms for the same office. If you read carefully through the NT, there are such words (in the original language) as presbytoi, episkopoi, poimenoi. Those particular words denote the same function as used in the New Testament. The Roman Catholic church chose presbytoi (bishop) to denote the same function as what we use for our elders (poimenoi) meaning shepherds…
>>if you dont want to get into this i understand. i mean you’re not my pastor and you dont know me. but kenny and tracy asked me to email you and i respect them and love them.<<
If you have further questions, feel free to ask, and we certainly love and repect Kenny and Tracy as well!
>>where did the bible come from and why is the protestant bible different than the catholic bible? i have read the cannons from several councils and the decree of Demasus regarding the cannon of scripture. i’m confused as to why christians before the reformation use a different cannon than us…and why did the early bishops give primacy to the bishop of Rome?<<
As a matter of fact, it is actually the Catholic Church that is using something different since the Reformation. The Bible, of course, originated with God expressing His Word and Will to and through people, including the folks who wrote what we call the Bible. Canon simply means measure. So, that signifies what folks used to declare that scripture was authentic. There were several criteria used to Canonize scripture, such as did it claim to be from God, is it historically accurate, was it accepted by the people of God as being His authoritative Word, etc?
Therefore, such books as 1 and 2 Maccabees do not appear in the protestant Bible. However, as I mentioned, those books and several others were not canonized by the Roman Catholic Church until after the Reformation began. This was done in response to the Reformation and Luther’s 95 theses nailed to the Wittenburg Door.
It should be noted that there is confusion in using the terms Catholic and Protestant. The term, catholic, means universal, and so in the true sense of the word, the church is and is to be catholic. However, Roman Catholicism developed when Constantine declared Christianity the state religion of the Roman Empire. The primacy of the bishop of Rome came from that time, and the hierarchy of the church was patterned after the Roman government. The pope, as the vicar of Christ, is as the emperor of Rome, and cardinals, bishops, priests, etc, all having form and function of the Roman senate, prefects, governors, etc.
The protestant church in the US should not be to harsh in criticizing that, however, since we have patterned our hierarchy after the US government…the preacher acting as president, elders as the Senate, and deacons as the House of Representatives.
>why do the protestant christian churches have no bishops. it is clear to me from reading early church fathers and many early christian writings that they had authority that is so foreign to the modern churches.<
In point of fact, we do have bishops, we just used other biblical terms for the same office. If you read carefully through the NT, there are such words (in the original language) as presbytoi, episkopoi, poimenoi. Those particular words denote the same function as used in the New Testament. The Roman Catholic church chose presbytoi (bishop) to denote the same function as what we use for our elders (poimenoi) meaning shepherds…
>>if you dont want to get into this i understand. i mean you’re not my pastor and you dont know me. but kenny and tracy asked me to email you and i respect them and love them.<<
If you have further questions, feel free to ask, and we certainly love and repect Kenny and Tracy as well!
