MERGED: Where are these 40,000 plus Protestant denominations

[Rightlydivide]

You may believe the Pope has the guidance of the Holy Spirit and he cannot err, when in “ex-cathedra” or whatever. Or you can claim that the Holy Spirit is guiding you to understand (Sola Scripture) whatever secret there is hidden on the Word of God, but however if anything you interpreted or dictated or papal bull’d or read and understood to be the “revelation” the the Holy Spirit gave you or read what any super PHD theologian/apologist of any church wrote, if anything is not accord to the sound doctrine the Lord gave, is not from the Holy Spirit and is not true. Is what your flesh falsely declared you. And most of the time this things happen in innocence, this is the reason why we defend all of our “doctrines” which in the end aren’t even important, if in first place they aren’t accord to the sound doctrine of the Lord. And secondly if you are making assumptions.

Shalom
Yahweh bless you.

Hello
I usually do not debate Evangelicals on the board but its a slow night…
Can you provide some verses to show us which doctrines are important and which ones are not?
It seems like your doctrine is that not all doctrine is important. I was wondering the source of this reasoning.

 

[PRmerger]

If there are more than one interpretation of Tradition and Scripture, does that also prove them false?

Not at all.

But if they are contradictory, as in “It says X” and “It says not-X”, then clearly one is false.

How many different groups does it take to prove something false PR merger?

I think about 9000?

I am examing the presuppositions behind the belief that more than one group disagreeing about the same thing negates the Truth of the belief.

No. That is not what we’re saying.

We are saying that the fruit of this paradigm: the Bible is the sole rule of faith
is chaos and confusion.

 

[Rightlydivide]

If I don’t believe in the rapture, but only in the Second Coming of the Messiah, and I preach the Gospel (Good News) of the Lord, and follow His commandments , will I go to hell? No because the rapture isn’t essential. Not everything is essential. What is essential is what the Lord already said. The commandments, believing in Jesus, etc. You and I may disagree on theology and philosophy, but if we disagree in the commandments there’s real problem between you and I.

What is your scriptural support again for this view? Oh and thanks for answering.
I hope the rapture comment was hypothetical…but I digress…
Welcome!

 

[Araninski]

Originally Posted by tqualey

Hi, Araninski,

Glad to have you join the thread.

Now, tell me, where did you get these definitions of doctrine and belief and who actually decided what was ‘essential’ and what wasn’t?

Looking forward to hearing from you.

God bless

Well if you go to wikipedia, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctrine. There’s an a skepticism on what is really doctrine, a doctrine is a law for me( Ok there’s a little problem haha). So you got to decide is a doctrine an opinion or belief (dogma) or a principle of law. However the passage I posted Titus 2, I believe mirrors what is doctrine, which are our instructions (Torah?) that God gave us which are essential.

If God is telling you ,believe in me and love me with all that you can. This is the first thing that establishes relationship with Him, then He proceeds to tell us instructions and finally tells us to believe in a prophet which will tell us how to accomplish this commandments perfectly (that would be Jesus). All of these are essential because they will make us good in front of God eyes if we keep them not only believe them, to practice them also. They will save us.

God gives them. He is the Supreme Leader and Authority, right? No one can teach a believe that disagrees with His laws right?

 

[tqualey]

Hi, Araninski,

I looked at the hyperlink you had on statues. The pictures is identified as a statue of Jupiter who Catholics think is St. Peter. And, your point was that Catholics engage not only in idol worship - but worshiping pagan gods.

I do not know how to provide you with the picure I have - the one in your hyperlink is really of poor photographic quality - but, my wife and I went to St. Peter’s last year and I took a picture of this statue. it really is of St. Peter. Not visible in your photo is St. Peter has his right hand raised in a blessing and in his left hand he is holding the keys of the Kingdom (Matt 16:18) that Chrsit gave to him. This is not a statue of a pagan god.

I would enjoy sharing this picture with the list … I just do not know how to do it. So, anyone who has an idea … please let me know.

God bless

 

[Byzantine_Wolf]

Well, if it is a split or division you wish to use as your criteria … (you seem to have adopted this one) then obviously, by this criteria, the Gates of Hell have prevailed!

Thank you. That’s all I wanted to know.

Could someone explain to me this 242 Catholic denominations stuff?

The reason I brought that up was a source that a lot of Roman Catholics use to say there are “33,000” denominations or so (the number gets higher and higher depending on who you’re talking to and how irrational their anti-Protestant rhetoric gets) also says there are 242+ Roman Catholic denominations and over 700 Eastern Orthodox denominations. I was calling for a consistent use of sources. I was met mostly with, “No, that’s wrong because the Roman Catholic Church is one…but we’re still going to use the 33,000/40,000/5-million-bajillion denomination number because it proves our point!”

 

[Araninski]

Originally Posted by Rightlydivide

What is your scriptural support again for this view? Oh and thanks for answering.
I hope the rapture comment was hypothetical…but I digress…
Welcome!

Now when He had spoken these things, while they watched, He was taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight. And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as He went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel, who also said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven.”

– Acts 1:9-11

By the passage I can say that He will in fact come again.We have to believe this because we believe God is holy and He isn’t a liar and He said I am coming back. We have to believe what He said because then we are breaking the first commandment. If I believe in the rapture or not will not change the way God looks me. He doesn’t care if I believe in the rapture or not, He knows I believe the Messiah will come back again, that’s enough for Him. He didn’t say I will rapture. If He would have said that , I would with no doubt believe Him.

Now if I want to elaborate an idea or theory or a belief about how is His second coming going to be, that’s another thing. And we should debate this topic peacefully and without fighting because anyways this isn’t an essential believe (the rapture). We should pray to God ask him for knowledge, but this believe is not to cause division or anything it isn’t essential for everybody. I don’t like eating cheese but you do. Are we really going to fight for this? Or divide for this?

 

[Araninski]

Originally Posted by Rightlydivide
Hello
I usually do not debate Evangelicals on the board but its a slow night…
Can you provide some verses to show us which doctrines are important and which ones are not?
It seems like your doctrine is that not all doctrine is important. I was wondering the source of this reasoning.

My point is not everything which is called doctrine is doctrine…To use a more understandable language, not all teachings are essential. you can divide them in two groups if you want. Essential teachings (doctrines) and teachings.

 

[elvisman]

My point is not everything which is called doctrine is doctrine…To use a more understandable language, not all teachings are essential. you can divide them in two groups if you want. Essential teachings (doctrines) and teachings.

I had this debate on another thread and issued a challenge to any Protestant that could give me a list of the essential Christian beliefs.

Nobody was up for the challange. Perhaps you could provide a list?

 

[Todd520]

I had this debate on another thread and issued a challenge to any Protestant that could give me a list of the essential Christian beliefs.

**Nobody was up for the challange. Perhaps you **could provide a list?

Elvis, since this is such a big challenge, i suggest you define what you mean by “**essential **Christian beliefs”

 

[Araninski]

Originally Posted by elvisman

I had this debate on another thread and issued a challenge to any Protestant that could give me a list of the essential Christian beliefs.

Nobody was up for the challange. Perhaps you could provide a list?

Shalom elvisman

Well there’s a big list of beliefs, but some of the essential ones would be:

1)Love God with all you heart, soul, mind, body, etc.
2)Accept Jesus , because that’s the only way one can have the Father, by having Son., through Him you will live again.
3)Follow His commandments.
4)Preach His Gospel.
5)Wait His Second Coming and do not let, His Second Coming surprise you like a thief in the night, but be prepared for it, because we are sons of light and not of darkness.
6)If you have the opportunity in your lifetime, baptize.
7)Celebrate the Lord’s Supper. (The way you believe it is to be celebrated, God knows your heart, but you have to keep it.)

I can’t think of more, if you want you can post me a list of different believes and I will try to order them on essential and non-essential.

But IMO read your bible we are supposed to know the doctrine the Lord gave us. For the law we have now is of the spirit. It has been written on our hearts, we know them but do we keep them?

Yahweh bless you.

 

[PRmerger]

Shalom elvisman

Well there’s a big list of beliefs, but some of the essential ones would be:

1)Love God with all you heart, soul, mind, body, etc.
2)Accept Jesus , because that’s the only way one can have the Father, by having Son., through Him you will live again.
3)Follow His commandments.
4)Preach His Gospel.
5)Wait His Second Coming and do not let, His Second Coming surprise you like a thief in the night, but be prepared for it, because we are sons of light and not of darkness.
6)If you have the opportunity in your lifetime, baptize.
7)Celebrate the Lord’s Supper. (The way you believe it is to be celebrated, God knows your heart, but you have to keep it.)

I can’t think of more, if you want you can post me a list of different believes and I will try to order them on essential and non-essential.

But IMO read your bible we are supposed to know the doctrine the Lord gave us. For the law we have now is of the spirit. It has been written on our hearts, we know them but do we keep them?

Yahweh bless you.

Interesting list. Why is “There is only one God” not an essential belief?
And what about “God made me in his image and likeness”?
And “forgive others”?

However, as the Bible speaks *not a word *about which of the verses are essential and which aren’t, what you are providing is something you’ve just heard from another person. That is, someone else’s opinion about what’s essential and not essential.

And who gets to decide what’s essential and not essential? What about Malachi 1:11? Is it essential, and how do you know?

 

[Todd520]

For essential beliefs for all Christians, I would have to go with:

1. 
   *] You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.
   
   *] You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
   
   Relatively speaking, everything else is icing on the cake.

 

[PRmerger]

For essential beliefs for all Christians, I would have to go with:

1. 
   *] You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.
   
   *] You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
   
   Relatively speaking, everything else is icing on the cake.

1. 
   Christ’s atoning death on the cross is just “icing on the cake?”

 

[Todd520]

Christ’s atoning death on the cross is just “icing on the cake?”

Knowing Christ’s atoning death helps me with #1

These essential beliefs come direct from Jesus

Mt 22:36 “[Jesus], which is the great commandment in the law?” And he said to him, ’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.”

 

[PRmerger]

Knowing Christ’s atoning death helps me with #1

So it, too, is an essential.

And then, it necessarily follows that another essential would be that Christ is Divine…otherwise his death is as efficacious as yours or mine is in atoning for sin, right?

 

[Araninski]

Originally Posted by PRmerger

Interesting list. Why is “There is only one God” not an essential belief?
And what about “God made me in his image and likeness”?
And “forgive others”?

However, as the Bible speaks not a word about which of the verses are essential and which aren’t, what you are providing is something you’ve just heard from another person. That is, someone else’s opinion about what’s essential and not essential.

And who gets to decide what’s essential and not essential? What about Malachi 1:11? Is it essential, and how do you know?

PRmerger, the first commandment loving God with all our heart, mind, soul and spirit. Declares that God is our Lord. When we accept the fact that He is our Lord, we must obey everything He says because He is our Lord. If God says that we are made in His image and likeness then its true because I love Him with all my heart,mind, soul and spirit and everything I have. This first declaration I posted makes valid the belief that the Word of God which I believe is in the bible, is what my Lord has already told me and I must believe what He told. There is only one God, is resumed in the ten commandments, please read my comment well…

I missed forgive others, Jesus told that.

God is the one who decides, what essential and what isn’t.

Malachi 1:11
My name will be great among the nations, from the rising to the setting of the sun. In every place incense and pure offerings will be brought to my name, because my name will be great among the nations," says the LORD Almighty.

This believe is essential because God (Yahweh) told this. The Lord speaks and we believe. This was a prophetic word.

The four animals, and the four and twenty elders, fell down before the Lamb, having each one of them a harp, and golden vials full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints (Rev. 5:8)

Hebrews 13:15
Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise–the fruit of lips that confess his name.
Our pure offerings are our sacrifices which is worship.

Shalom

 

[Todd520]

So it, too, is an essential.

And then, it necessarily follows that another essential would be that Christ is Divine…otherwise his death is as efficacious as yours or mine is in atoning for sin, right?

NOPE, stop expanding the list. There are only two essentials (per Jesus) and everything else is additive.

 

[Wampa]

The reason I brought that up was a source that a lot of Roman Catholics use to say there are “33,000” denominations or so (the number gets higher and higher depending on who you’re talking to and how irrational their anti-Protestant rhetoric gets) also says there are 242+ Roman Catholic denominations and over 700 Eastern Orthodox denominations. I was calling for a consistent use of sources. I was met mostly with, "No, that’s wrong because the Roman Catholic Church is one…but we’re still going to use the 33,000/40,000/5-million-bajillion denomination number because it proves our point!"

If it makes you feel any better, that was basically the result of the previous attempt at this (the old thread I linked to), as well. But rest assured, some Catholics grasp and respect your point. I stopped citing the 40,000+ number a long time ago, in favor of more accurate language.

 

[Byzantine_Wolf]

If it makes you feel any better, that was basically the result of the previous attempt at this (the old thread I linked to), as well. But rest assured, some Catholics grasp and respect your point. I stopped citing the 40,000+ number a long time ago, in favor of more accurate language.

Oh yeah, I saw that link, I meant to thank you for it. Glad some have stopped citing it.