No, it isn’t. While a Lutheran may not refer to marriage, unction, confirmation or ordination as a sacrament, these are still important practices within the tradition.TNMan:
Which sacraments, all 7, 2, none? This is the quagmire…
With various emphasis.
Sorry, my point is, “Gospel is shared and sacraments…” The Gospel is shared with all Christians, but everyone has a different belief on which sacraments are needed, which are just symbols, and which are not needed at all…
True
The Protestant formulation is simplistic, but I get your point.
Why is it simplistic?
Is that better?
Because it implies personal interpretation, or a lack of hierarchy. That doesn’t apply to all traditions loosely categorized as Protestant.
No.
None observed.
Going to have to say a general yes to this response. Not all protestants lack a visible form of hierarchy. Anglicans have an episcopal polity, but generally the episcopal authority is less defined throughout the diocese. The cathedral is generally more traditional, while most of the parishes are more modern. In catholicism, I would say the differences between the TLM and novus ordo are definitely less significant compared to a high and low church anglican, there is more uniformity in authority.
I think so, though my knowledge of how non-denoms work is limited.
Apostolic succession is very important for Catholics.
They were written to local churches, but much of what was written applied to the universal church, even to this day, such as when Paul wrote to the Galatians that if anyone teaches a false gospel, let him by anathema. That applies in the modern church today.
For the first century Christian church the “Scriptures” would have referred to the OLD Testament Scriptures, since most of the NT hadn’t been written yet. But, many of the NT writings were considered just as much “God-breathed” as the OT, such as Jude affirming Peter’s epistles, Peter affirming Paul’s, & Paul’s affirming Luke’s.
Actually, the NT elder-bishop was a single office. This single office didn’t get “split” until the early second century in the time of Ignatius of Antioch just before his martyrdom. What the apostles taught was that Jesus was the fulfillment of the OT Messianic prophecies, which then was passed on to the church, including elders & later bishops.
What is the modern church?
So 1st century would mean 100A.D-200? All of the NT scripture was written by then. Or do you mean from the time Christ died 33A.D. till 100A.D.? So did the first Christians rely on the OT for learning about salvation? If this is the case, why would a Jew in the first century need to be baptized, repent for their sins, and join the “Christians” if the OT was still referred too.
I’m not familiar with this, can you explain how it went from a single office and then “split”.
RC you continue to ignore the many other writings in the early Christian church that also were considered “God-breathed” such as 1 Clement, Shepherd of Hermas, Epistle of Barnabas. You can ignore it all you want but in your paradigm, these, and many more, have just as much “authority” as 1 Corinthians and the Gospel of Matthew.
My “modern church,” I meant the current church in the 21st century, as opposed to the church in the first century when Revelation was written.
No, the first century was from A.D. 1 to 100.
They relied on the OT which prophesied about the Messiah, which was fulfilled by Jesus. Baptism was command by our Lord to identify with His death & resurrection. Although Jesus died for our sins, only those who would believe in Him & repent will go to Heaven, because Jesus did not die for everyone. He isn’t a universalist.
Acts 20:28 & 1 Peter 5:1-2 use all three terms (pastor/shepherd, elder, and overseer/bishop) to describe the same single office of pastor-elder-bishop. Paul’s epistles to Timothy & Titus refer to the elder & the overseer/bishop as the same office. During the time of Ignatius, there arose a need of a respected leader in the church to “oversee” a group of local churches. This is when the single elder-bishop office “split” into the pastor-elder who was the leader of a local church, and the bishop who was an “overseer” of several churches in a city. There is an excellent book written by Bryan Litfin that goes into detail about this event, titled, “Getting to Know the Church Fathers: an Evangelical Introduction.”
But not until the second century, because they were not written until then (except for 1 Clement around AD 95). In the first century, only the NT books were considered God-breathed, not these later writings, which were yet to be written. Unlike the NT books, these later writings contained errors & contradictions in them, which is why they eventually fell out of favor by the 4th century, because God-breathed Scripture cannot contain error in them, which is why they aren’t in the NT.
No, there were more than 1 Clement RC but even if that was the only one your “except” clause confirms my point.adf417:
But not until the second century, because they were not written until then (except for 1 Clement around AD 95). In the first century, only the NT books were considered God-breathed, not these later writings, which were yet to be written. Unlike the NT books, these later writings contained errors & contradictions in them, which is why they eventually fell out of favor by the 4th century, because God-breathed Scripture cannot contain error in them, which is why they aren’t in the NT.