But can you define what you mean by “conditions?”
Certainly, it’s simply a matter of demonstrating that the beliefs and practices of the church Paul is addressing are the beliefs and practices of the church 1950 years later. Surely you can do that without resorting to qualification or begging the question about any differences that appear between the two?
Now to be sure, the Church has grown and developed –tremendously so - just as Scripture foretold. And is this not the nature of all living things?
And yet Protestantism, with its retrograde mentality (no disrespect to our Protestant friends) is ever trying to force a living entity (the Church), to “revert” back to some “primitive” or “pure” state!
Sadly, this kind of retrograde thinking is actually a wicked perversion of the natural order of things! Really, it is more a description of a *dead and decaying organism * rather than of a vibrant, living and healthy one!
You see,* living* organisms, *all *living organisms, all truly healthy organisms, do grow, develop, and change. They must even increase in organizational complexity. This is the *natural order *of things! And this is precisely what the Church has done from the beginning.
Scripture foretold she would she would grow, be seen, and fill the earth, which she has.
Or perhaps you can’t-when you beg the question by predefining every difference as “growth” then you prejudice the outcome.
To be fair, you’d have to agree that cancer is “organic growth” as well, wouldn’t you?
Simple healthy cells that have gotten a bit off track from their original purpose, and as they multiplied, got a little further off track each time. But it is still “growth” that’s what we often call a tumour as a matter of fact.
So let’s set our analogies aside and look at which beliefs and practices are the same between Paul’s church in Rome and the Roman Catholic church and which differ-does that seem agreeable to you?
Well, it’s not inconceivable that their “tenacity” was among the many things that were undoubtedly on St. Paul’s mind when he wrote to the Catholics at Rome.
{snipped for space reasons]
(Hardly a church in need of a “corrective epistle” wouldn’t you say?
)
I am simply astounded that you can gloss over 15 chapters of corrective instruction and deny their existence by misinterpreting 2 verses near the end of the Epistle.
**
Romans 1:11 ** For I long to see you, that I may share with you some spiritual gift so that you may be strengthened,
They need to be strengthened-so there was some weakness in the church
Romans 1:15 that is why I am eager to preach the gospel also to you in Rome.
Some in the church in Rome were in need of the Gospel
**Romans 2:1 **Therefore, you are without excuse, every one of you who passes judgment.
Some in the church in Rome were judging incorrectly
**Romans 6:11 **Consequently, you too must think of yourselves as (being) dead to sin and living for God in Christ Jesus.
Corrective teaching for those in the church who hadn’t grasped this lesson of the faith
Romans 7:1 Are you unaware, brothers (for I am speaking to people who know the law), that the law has jurisdiction over one as long as one lives?
Correcting another mistaken idea
Romans 8:12-15
12 Consequently, brothers, we are not debtors to the flesh, to live according to the flesh.
13 For if you live according to the flesh, you will die, but if by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
14 For those who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.
15 For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a spirit of adoption, through which we cry, “Abba, Father!”
More correction of their mistaken ideas.
Romans 11:20-21
20 That is so. They were broken off because of unbelief, but you are there because of faith. So do not become haughty, but stand in awe.
21 For if God did not spare the natural branches, (perhaps) he will not spare you either.
Paul issues another corrective.
I’m going to stop here and give you the chance to find the rest-these are enough to clearly demonstrate that this was a corrective Epistle.
So St. Paul is telling us here is that the Roman Church, of all the churches, possesses two particularly astounding attributes, attributes usually thought of as belonging to strictly to God alone i. e., perfect goodness, and perfect knowledge!
Looked at it another way, by using the expressions,“full of goodness” and “filled with all knowledge," the Holy Spirit is clearly associating the gospel in all it’s purity with a particular Church - the Roman Church!
In fine:
The Roman faith = The Pure Gospel!
It’s a nice rhetorical technique to take Paul’s word “full” and replace it with “perfect” but there was a Greek word for perfect and Paul didn’t use it.
This usage was hardly unique. Look at:
2 Corinthians 8:7 “full of every good thing, of faith, of the word, of knowledge, of a ready mind, and of love to us”
And we know that the Corinthian church wasn’t “perfect”
I also agree that if the Romans heeded Paul’s correction that they would have beliefs that would be noteworthy-God wants us to have the same beliefs today and therefore saw to it that Paul’s Epistle was preserved for us.
