I am asking these questions in utter desperation,after having read the whole thread twice over.
Leann,
just what is the Church of Christ according to you (I did not ask what the Protestant position is;there cannot be one postion since there is no one Church)?
I have been told by most P friends that it is the community of believers,among other things.If u agree with this,then u wil also agree that this Community started as a tiny group on Pentecost. **Aftr the death of the Apostles, was this true Church-Community still alive? **From what u have ben saying, it appears not,for the following reason:
It was the Bishops of the five Patriarchiate churches that perpetuated the handing down of teaching offices,the manuscripts of Scripture,etc by the “laying on of hands”.These same teachers clearly talked about veneration of the Saints,the Eucharist and other Catholic beliefs,even if rudimentarily: don’t even be dishonest enuf to deny this.
Adhering to your conviction that all catholic beliefs are spurious,this Church of the second century could not have been the true church.
**Assuming that the apostles’ church was a Bible-only community,exactly when did your “true Bible church” disappear? Which year, exactly? And where?**Both of us will agree that since 2nd c the Institutionalised Church(which to my asurance was Roman catholic) as we roughly know it today has
never been bible-only.Until, I’m sure you will insist,the reformers came along and your ‘true church’,which i could assume had gone into a 1400 year hibernation, finally emerged.
Or maybe you will say the true church was revealed to *you *when an altar-call was made in some underground garage, or school hall,or your living room b4 the TV set.There are thousands of people claiming similar things.
During those 1400 years, the Church I call Mother has produced the great Saints about whom i won’t get started;I don’t want to romanticise the lives of the Saints or the martyrs,because I don’t even expect u to take their “catholic” testimonies as Christian. You just tell me how u can be so certain that u have been chosen as the/a recipient of the “true gospel”.
Such premium on your private understanding…disregarding the saints over the centuries,their lives and the Holy Spirit’s works thru them!
*I want to urge you…do not make the mistake of thinking that you are the first Christian,and that there were no true Christians before you.*If u realise that the “pillar and foundation of Truth” is the Church,the One Holy Catholic Apostolic of the Nicene Creed, and not a book interpreted by arbitrary individual understanding,all your certitudes,which most of us tend to idolise, will disappear.
Blessings and good wishes.