Is the Holy Spirit for all Christians? or only

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SolaChristo:
Besides 2 Tim 2:15?

How about the Church fathers? 😃 😃 😃 😉

as the source of teaching, the Lord, both by the prophets, the Gospel, and the blessed apostles, “in divers manners and at sundry times,” [Heb 1:1] leading from the beginning of knowledge to the end. He, then, who of himself believes the Scripture and voice of the Lord, which by the Lord acts to the benefiting of men, is rightly [regarded] faithful." … “For those are slothful who, having it in their power to provide themselves with proper proofs for the divine Scriptures from the Scriptures themselves, select only what contributes to their own pleasures. And those have a craving for glory who voluntarily evade, by arguments of a diverse sort, the things delivered by the blessed apostles and teachers, which are wedded to inspired words; opposing the divine tradition by human teachings , in order to establish the heresy”(Clement of Alexandria, book 7, ch 16, Scripture the Criterion by Which Truth and Heresy are Distinguished)
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Interesting, and yet you don’t accept what they say about the eucharist and the ecclesial order of the church. Why quote men who held ecclesial authority at all?

Isn’t this interpreting the bible through part of (t)radition?

Peace and God Bless
Nicene
 
The Great Commision is for the apostles but we can do it if its part of the Churchs’ mission? But John 14-16 is only for the apostles?
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So the arguement is that now we have all wisdom and knowledge imparted to us personally and can all interpret scripture imparting doctrine.

So does this include the mentally handicapped who have an I.Q. of less than 90 (or dyslexics etc)? If so are they allowed to interpret doctrine your for church? If not, why not? They have been granted all truth under this premise.

When the Holy Spirit decended on you, how can we be sure you were granted the gifts of knowledge and wisdom guiding into all truth? Or did he possibly give you another gift and you are assuming you got wisdom and knowledge?

If we are all led into all truth via the Holy Spirit as described in John, why do we need to check the Spirit at all? Isn’t that a dichotomy?

Peace and God Bless
Nicene
 
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SolaChristo:
So where do we find the best, most authoritative record of apostolic teaching? Not corrupted by men of course 😉
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The Catholic Church. 😉 You? 😛

Peace and God Bless
Nicene
 
2Pe 3:16 As also in all [his] epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as [they do] also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.

If the above are all true, and each man can interpret for himself, and it wasn’t granted to the Apostles as a unique Chrism in John, how could this have happened, and is it happening even now?

Peace and God Bless
Nicene
 
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SolaChristo:
Oh now Im really confused :confused:
The Great Commision is for the apostles but we can do it if its part of the Churchs’ mission?
But John 14-16 is only for the apostles?
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Do both gel with the priesthood of all believers and with 2 Peter cited above? Or does it appear that it only gels with one? How does this also gel with the council of Jerusalem. If everyone was led into all truth without particular gifts, was the council necessary at all? Why weren’t the entire ecclesial body of believers consulted? If not, did they even need to be?

Peace and God Bless
Nicene
 
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mercygate:
In the Church that brought you the New Testament: the Catholic Church.
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It was not. It was God who inspired the writters who gave us the bible. It was many saints who perserved the word throughout the centuries.
 
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Philthy:
When you say “each of us”, do you mean believers only vs non-believers? If so, where did you get that from the Jeremiah verse? Where does it specify that some will know God intimately and some will not?
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Jesus tore open the veil that seperates God from man. When we(believers) are covered in His blood we are able to go boldly to the throne of grace.
 
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Lazerlike42:
In the Bible as interpreted in accordance with the Magesterium of the Holy Catholic Church.

If we just took the Bible, well it really isn’t very authoritative at all, now is it? See, Luther, using the Bible as the most authoritative thing on earth, got one set of ideas. Calvin got some * different ideas. My friend Sean has ideas that are different still. So we can’t call the Bible authoritative on its own, because when each one of these people criticizes the other’s view by pointing to “the authority of the Bible,” the other person will just hold up his* Bible and use it to argue his point. By definition, something that is authoritative is something that can’t be argued with. Well, all these non Catholic Christians do argue with each other, even though all of their teachings are being drawn from the “authoritative” Bible.

The problem is that the Bible is not systematic theology. If it was, we wouldn’t need anything else. If it just listed off point after point after point, then we could just go there and use that Bible and not need anything else. But it’s not that. The Bible is a collection of letters.

Let’s say that you didn’t know how to use your computer, so I came to see you and taught you how. Now assume I go home, and you go to download e-mail. However, you get an email with an attachment, and you don’t know how to download the attachment, because I never told you, or you forgot what I said. Say you write a letter to me asking how to download attachments. I write back, and say, “My dear Malachi, I am so thankful to hear from you. As far as the e-mail is concerned, all you need to know is to press the paperclip button.” You receive this letter and know what it means and are able to understand it completely.

This is the situation that the recipiants of Paul’s letters were in. Now assume you put the letter on your desk, and then someone else finds it later. They read it, and think, “all I need to know about e-mail is that button! Great!” However, when they go to use the email, they don’t understand what it says and don’t use the e-mail right, thinking they only have to press one button when in fact they have to do a lot more. This is the position that non-Catholics are in. They lack the context, whereas the original recipiants had the context.

Now Catholics don’t claim to know the context either. So how do we know what the Bible is meant to say? SImple! The author signed a deal with us, and He said He’d stick around and guide us whenever we try to figure it out!

95% of the bible needs no special interpretation. Anyone can read and and let the words be a light in their lives. How do you interpret the other parts which may be difficult and how do you arrive at a systematic theology that is biblically based?
Do you put your faith in someone else? ie the leaders of the your church or do you put your trust that God will not lead you astray?
We believe also that the author signed the same deal with us that He has stuck with us and has not led us astray.
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SolaChristo said:
95% of the bible needs no special interpretation. Anyone can read and and let the words be a light in their lives. How do you interpret the other parts which may be difficult and how do you arrive at a systematic theology that is biblically based?
Do you put your faith in someone else? ie the leaders of the your church or do you put your trust that God will not lead you astray?
We believe also that the author signed the same deal with us that He has stuck with us and has not led us astray.
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There is a road in Flint Mi, just off the freeway, where you can count no less than 7 churches (5-Baptist, I believe) within a 1-2 mile stretch. Some are so close, they even “share” adjoining parking lots.

But that is one of the few things they share other than some version of sola-scriptura or sola-fide.

My guess is that they all put their “trust” in the deal with God. Yet they teach and preach different ideas on critical doctrines… baptism, divorce, Mary, angels, sin etc etc etc. And they each retain the “authority” to hire and fire their pastors if they so choose to.

Yes, you are right when you say HE has not led us astray. It is WE, who choose to reject authority of the Church.

“… he who accepts you, accepts Me, and the One Who sent Me… he who rejects you, rejects ME…”
 
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SolaChristo:
We believe also that the author signed the same deal with us that He has stuck with us and has not led us astray.
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Then I guess it doesn’t even matter what we believe because God is obviously leading many sincere people to many different interpretations! If they are sincerely trying to follow Jesus, then they must not be being led astray! Whew… I’m glad I don’t need to worry about discussing doctrine anymore…

or maybe God meant this too:

2Pet 3:16 said:
As also in all [his]
epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as [they do] also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.
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Forgive me for the sarcasm above, but I simply CANNOT understand how people continue to hold the position that “God leads all who sincerely seek Him to a correct understanding of Sacred Scripture” when history, common sense, and personal experience speak so utterly conclusively against it.

The ONLY possible way to justify that position is to PRESUME that anyone who does not agree with your own personal interpretation is not sincerely following Jesus, which is, in my opinion, an extremely prideful and arrogant thing to presume.

Again, forgive me if my frustration is boiling over.

Peace,
javelin
 
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MrS:
There is a road in Flint Mi, just off the freeway, where you can count no less than 7 churches (5-Baptist, I believe) within a 1-2 mile stretch. Some are so close, they even “share” adjoining parking lots.

But that is one of the few things they share other than some version of sola-scriptura or sola-fide.

My guess is that they all put their “trust” in the deal with God. Yet they teach and preach different ideas on critical doctrines… baptism, divorce, Mary, angels, sin etc etc etc. And they each retain the “authority” to hire and fire their pastors if they so choose to.

Yes, you are right when you say HE has not led us astray. It is WE, who choose to reject authority of the Church.

“… he who accepts you, accepts Me, and the One Who sent Me… he who rejects you, rejects ME…”
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I live in a large metropolitan city. On the other side of the river is a very conservative bishop. That Catholic diocese professes an entirely different doctrine in regards to social issues as to the dioceses downtown which is liberal and then again the diocese on this side of the river outside the city is then again different.
 
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javelin:
Then I guess it doesn’t even matter what we believe because God is obviously leading many sincere people to many different interpretations! If they are sincerely trying to follow Jesus, then they must not be being led astray! Whew… I’m glad I don’t need to worry about discussing doctrine anymore…

or maybe God meant this too:

Forgive me for the sarcasm above, but I simply CANNOT understand how people continue to hold the position that “God leads all who sincerely seek Him to a correct understanding of Sacred Scripture” when history, common sense, and personal experience speak so utterly conclusively against it.

The ONLY possible way to justify that position is to PRESUME that anyone who does not agree with your own personal interpretation is not sincerely following Jesus, which is, in my opinion, an extremely prideful and arrogant thing to presume.

Again, forgive me if my frustration is boiling over.

Peace,
javelin
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I look at Joseph, the foster father of Jesus, who married Mary against everything that Jewish tradition and teaching would have.
Joseph believed the dream given to him and acting on it even though it was contrary to everything that was until then believed.
Not all Christians are given such revelations, not all are hearing from God in this way. But I thank God that He still gives us dreams and visions, that we can still walk with him in the cool of the day, that we can hear His voice and act on it even though it is contrary to all human wisdom.

My answer to you is that not all professed Christians have that faith, to me this is sad.
 
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SolaChristo:
I live in a large metropolitan city. On the other side of the river is a very conservative bishop. That Catholic diocese professes an entirely different doctrine in regards to social issues as to the dioceses downtown which is liberal and then again the diocese on this side of the river outside the city is then again different.
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This does not affect the point that MrS made. This bishop is not in agreement with the Magesterium. Remember, the Magesterium is all of the bishops teaching in union, not simply the teaching of each individual bishop. The Holy Spirit does not protect each individual bishop, but the entire group of them working together.

Some bishops are dissident unfortunately. They are not, however, authentically representing the teaching of the Church, in the same way that one Christian who happens to steal from the poor is not authentically representing the entire Christian community’s behavior. Such bishops are in sin, but they are not teaching the teaching of the Church.

Let me ask you this. Would you agree that whatever is true about God can not be contradicted by what happens in our world? For instance, say somebody interprets Acts chapter 5 to mean that any Christian who is not a communist will be struck down by God. (I’m not saying this interpretation is correct, I am just saying that some person has read it this way.) One could in fact reasonably conclude from the chapter that this is the case. However, there have been many non-communist Christians in our world who have not died. Since the truth of God cannot contradict what happens in our world, we know that this interpretation is wrong. Say a second person interprets the passage to mean that God will strike down any person who secretly witholds money from the Church (or a church, whichever way you want to go). Well, we also have had many times in this world where men have secretly witheld money from the Church (or a church) and have not died. So we know that this interpretation is wrong, because it does not mesh with what happens in the world.

So my question to you is this: In our world, we have thousands of different denominations of Christians. Let’s not worry about that though, and take only two. Let’s take Baptists and, oh the Salvationists, just to through in a weird (uncommon) one. Between those two, there are millions of Christians. There have got to be hundreds of thousands in each denomination who are really, truly commited to Christ, and really, truly seeking the truth. Buuuuttt let’s not worry about that. Let’s just take one person from each. I think it’s more than fair to say that there’s at least one person in each of these denominations who is really truly seeking God. Now we have a problem. These two denominations have some very different theological ideas. Baptists, for instance, would say you must be dunked in the creek to be baptised, whereas the Salvationists don’t even baptize at all.

So we know from what happens in our world that the interpretation that the Holy Spirit was promised to all believers to guide them into all truth is wrong. It contradicts what happens in our world. What happens in our world is the truth of God. It can’t be otherwise, or God either A) is a liar or B) does not exist. If you want to say that this interpretation is correct, you have a huge problem here, because the interpretation does not at all mesh with what really happens.

However, the Catholic interpretation is not contradicted by what really happens. Whenever the Catholic bishops have taught in union with one another, it has been the same. It has been protected and has not changed.

Ask yourself this, too. Have you ever changed your mind about a doctrine? Did you used to believe one thing, but believe something different now? If so, when did the Holy Spirit really guide you, and why didn’t He before?
 
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SolaChristo:
I look at Joseph, the foster father of Jesus, who married Mary against everything that Jewish tradition and teaching would have.
Joseph believed the dream given to him and acting on it even though it was contrary to everything that was until then believed.
Not all Christians are given such revelations, not all are hearing from God in this way. But I thank God that He still gives us dreams and visions, that we can still walk with him in the cool of the day, that we can hear His voice and act on it even though it is contrary to all human wisdom.

My answer to you is that not all professed Christians have that faith, to me this is sad.
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This answer doesn’t even come close to working. As I pointed out in my other post, this wouldn’t even work if there were only two people in the world that actually have faith.

There are really only two possibilities here.

One is that the Catholic interpretation is correct, and God promised the Holy Spirit would protect those whom succeeded the Apostles from teaching error.

The other is that God has only given the Holy Spirit to you, and to a handful of others who believe exactly like you do.

Which seems more reasonable to you?
 
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SolaChristo:
I live in a large metropolitan city. On the other side of the river is a very conservative bishop. That Catholic diocese professes an entirely different doctrine in regards to social issues as to the dioceses downtown which is liberal and then again the diocese on this side of the river outside the city is then again different.
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what does that mean?
 
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SolaChristo:
It was not. It was God who inspired the writters who gave us the bible. It was many saints who perserved the word throughout the centuries.
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Show us your church doing this along with their patricitic writings, which saints? There must be a record somewhere.

Peace and God Bless
Nicene
 
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SolaChristo:
It was not. It was God who inspired the writters who gave us the bible. It was many saints who perserved the word throughout the centuries.
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Yep… St John the Catholic Beloved Disiple
St Paul, the Catholic Apostle to the Gentiles
St Luke, The Catholic physician
St Matthew and St Mark, the Catholic men who put the Holy Spirit’s inspiration to hard copy

etc etc.

and the Catholic Saints who were designated Doctors of the Catholic Church (33 in number now) who have studied and presented the Truth for all to hear.
 
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Lazerlike42:
This answer doesn’t even come close to working. As I pointed out in my other post, this wouldn’t even work if there were only two people in the world that actually have faith.

There are really only two possibilities here.

One is that the Catholic interpretation is correct, and God promised the Holy Spirit would protect those whom succeeded the Apostles from teaching error.

The other is that God has only given the Holy Spirit to you, and to a handful of others who believe exactly like you do.

Which seems more reasonable to you?
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The answer works for me.
Without faith we recieve nothing.
 
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Nicene:
Show us your church doing this along with their patricitic writings, which saints? There must be a record somewhere.

Peace and God Bless
Nicene
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We are all of Christs church. which encompasses all those that believe in Him.
 
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