Wouldn't it be Great if....?

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fulloftruth

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I ask you this, how do you know what books make up the infallible Scripture. There were many letters and writings that were circulated as Inspired, many of which were not included in the final list. The Gospel of Thomas, The Shepard of Hermas,etc… Without an earthly authority endowed with the Spirit of God, there is no way to know what books make up the Bible. Under whose authority did the reformers remove seven books. Was that an infallible decision or not. If not how do you know for sure that It was Gods will and not the reformers. How is a person in the Protestant community to know when he has come upon Heresy or the truth. The Bible does not interpret itself the same way for everyone, or there would be only one church. The Spirit is not leading every Pastor to truth because they all disagree on so much and the Spirit does not lead in different directions. Let me ask you a question, and this will take some imagination. Imagine that you have the same bible that you have today, and instead of knowing anything about any different churches, you think to yourself, "If Christ were here on earth and I believe that he was, and he wanted to make sure that every generation on earth would get the same truth that he gave to the Apostles, now and forever. How would he do it? He knows that man twists different beliefs to mean what they want them to mean even know they are well meaning and attempting to be honest with themselves and others, sin leads them astray.

Continued…
 
First he would preach all his truth, then he would send the Holy Spirit, to fill the Apostles and to lead them. But what would happen when the Apostles died, how would he be sure that the second generation would not deviate"He would need to be sure that the second and every other generation would get the same message and be able to define those beliefs and be able to refute false teachings so that the whole herd would not be led astray. People on earth, while Christ is in Heaven on His throne, would need an Authority that they could rely on to teach what Christ wanted them to teach as if he were here teaching it himself, in person" Now forget you have ever heard of the Catholic Church. you continue. "Now the Spirit was sent to lead, but does he lead everyone individually, privatley? Obviously not or Christ would not have needed to set up a church. Remember he said to the Apostles “He who hears you hears me”, and to Peter he gave the Keys to the Kingdom and the power of binding and loosing. He also gave them the power to forgive sins in his name. Obviously it is Christ and God the Father who does there actual forgiving but Christ shared that power with his Apostles and there successors. How would they know what sins to forgive and what sins to retain unless they were told those sins in a confession of some sorts. He also told Peter to “feed My Lambs, tend my sheep, feed My sheep”. Christ commissioned the Apostles to Baptize and preach to the whole world, a feat that would not have been possible in one generation of believers time, all the more pointing to the need to have this Authority to live on after the death of the last Apostle. How was this to be done? Well, looking at how God done things in the past, he does things in Phases, and his heavenly kingdom is modeled after the old Kingdom of David, after all Christ was called the Son of David, and the Kingdom of Heaven is called the Heavenly Jerusalem in Revelation(so is the Church), which was the spiritual and physical center of the Kingdom of David.
 
How was David’s Kingdom managed. Well in Isaiah 22:20-24 we see the institution of an office of Authority called the Prime Minister, an office that lasted for the duration of the Kingdoms reign. Whenever the Prime Minister died or was removed, a new one was appointed in his place with the same authority. Notice that this is the line in scripture that Christ quoted almost verbatim when he gave Peter the Keys to the Kingdom. "and I will commit your authority to his hand; he shall be a FATHER to the inhabitants of Israel and to the house of Judah. And I will place on his shoulder the key to the house of David; he shall open, none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open. And I will fasten him like a peg in a sure place, and he will become a throne of honor to his fathers house. Now this throne of honor in no way threatened the authority of the King, It displayed it. It was created to handle the day to day governing of the land in the Kings Absence. His seal had the authority of the King behind it. Is there any question as to who the King is in the Heavenly Jerusalem, Who is the Prime Minister. Peter and his successors. There was obvious successor ship in the office of Prime Minister, and even more so in the New Covenant. Now the question is was Christ successful at sharing his authority with the Apostles and did that authority die with them. If it did then how would his commission be carried out, to preach to all nations. It can’t be just Scripture for several reasons. First Christ never said he would start a book club, he said he would start a church, one that all believers could go to for an infallible decision when one has a disagreement with his brother, a church that is referred to as the pillar and foundation of truth(1 Tim 3:15) The visible head of which would be Peter and his successors. Now, forgetting all of the teachings of the CC that you disagree with. If you knew for sure that Christ not only intended but was successful at giving his believers, a gift so great that it would be called his Bride. A gift that would Mother his followers and lead them into all truth, not just the first generation but all subsequent generations. One that he would refer to as “Me” when he knocked Saul off of his horse(Acts 9:4-6). Is this gift Scripture, well partially, yes. But Scripture alone cannot tell you what Scripture is. Some Authority must sift through all of the writings and decide which books are inspired.
 
The table of contents in your Bible is not inspired. God uses his Apostles and their successors, with the Guarantee of the Spirit as guide, to put together the Bible. Now remember, You have never heard of The Catholic Church. You also know that until recently, like the last 3 centuries, most people could not read, certainly not for the first 15 centuries of Christianity. All teaching was done orally, and with pictures. Oral teaching in Scripture was held equally with the written word, for logistic sakes, since most people could not read. How was Christ to ensure that his Church would not be lead astray. First he would guard it with the Holy Spirit and give us promise that the gates of hell would not prevail against it, and that he would be with us until the end of the world, which does not mean he won’t be with us after the end of the world. This Church would be the visible entity(a city on a hill) to which Christ would deposit all that he wanted to be teached and it would be guarded from teaching heresy, and would decide all disputes involving the faith and moral teachings, It would be the source of all sacraments, and would be run by the priesthood like in Ancient Israel. The Levites were given the job of making sacrifices for atonement, when a Jew had transgressed he was to go to the priest and the priest would make sacrifice on his behalf and mend his relationship with God. All worship was done through the Temple by the Levites. This teaching conforms to the Old Testament model and is practical for Gods purpose. Having a Royal Priesthood is the only way that Christ could raise up Sons that would carry out his teachings, since the authority of forgiving sins, and baptizing was not given to everyone. Only certain men were chosen to be in authority over the family of believers, an extension of the Prime Minister with some of his authority, That is what the priesthood would do. It would administer the sacraments and do the preaching and facilitate the carrying out of the great commission. Remember you have never heard of the Catholic Church. The Scriptures would be the guide and one of the three pegs of Authority that Christ would establish to carry his message to all generations. The other two would be Sacred Tradition, and the Magisterium.
 
Sacred Tradition being all of the Teachings of Christ written and Spoken together and handed on, all of which are foundimplicitly in Scripture, most of which are found explicitly in Scripture, none of which contradict any teachings found in Scripture or the Spirit of the Whole of Scripture.

These are all of the teachings notmentioned explicitly in Scripture, which does not diminish its validity. Remember Scripture tells us that everything that Christ taught is not found in Scripture and could not fit

in a thousand books. Remember Paul says he spent 3 years in Ephesus, yet his letter to them is only 6 chapters. Are we to believe that everything that he taught them was in those 6 chapters. Yet they are believed to have been given the whole of the faith or at least a lot of it.And the Magisterium is the teaching arm of the Church, endowed with the Authority of Christ to bind and loose as Scripture tells us. Wouldn’t it be great if this were true, if Christ would have done all that for us, so

that we would not be tossed to and fro with every change in society. Would it not be great if you had an infallible guarantee that when your Pastor says you do have to be baptized to be saved, you would be able to

know for sure that he was teaching the truth and not the Pastor down the

street who says that it is just symbolic. These are teachings that can cause souls to miss heaven if not taught correctly. Would Christ leave that to chance and abandon every believer to search and sift and decides in that state. How can a believer know for himself what is heresy and what is truth? This does not sound like my Savior. For all of you who say an Honest look at the scriptures will lead you to the truth are not being honest with yourselves. If it were that easy then there would not be so many churches. I have heard James White say that just because people do not follow the scriptures does not make the scriptures insufficient. But I contend that if there are 2 opposing interpretations, then there must be an authority on earth to say definitively which is true. The document can only be used if it is interpreted properly. And because a case can be made for conflicting interpretations, Wouldn’t Christ want to clarify these things for us In Love.

Now this priesthood is not infallible, they are all sinners, just like the apostles. Throughout salvation history God has used fallible, sinful men, and rendered their work infallible. Take the Authors of Scripture, all of who were presumably sinners, were still used to write infallible Scripture. Wouldn’t it be reasonable to believe that God would do the same thing to transmit that truth to all future generations?
 
The Pope (the word Pope is the Italian word for Papa, Father. Remember Isaiah 22:22,“he will be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem”) is only infallible in matters of faith and morals when he is in official capacity, Ex-Cathedra (from the chair). Every Pope is presumably a sinner. Pope JP 2nd goes to confession every week, something he would not need to do if he were sinless. Infallible is not impeccable.Forget the teachings of the CC that you think are non scriptural. Wouldn’t such a church be a gift from God, if it existed?
 
You know, you’ve replied to yourself over and over without anyone else replying to you, besides me. 😃
 
Corpus Cristi:
You know, you’ve replied to yourself over and over without anyone else replying to you, besides me. 😃
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hi.

Now there’s a little more balance to the thread. 👍

ken
 
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Apologia100:
Is there a point to this dissertation?
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It would appear that the author is trying to get around the 4K(?) character per post limit. Perhaps he is trying out a draft of a magazine article or something?
 
How would one know of the 4k rule if one had not ranted oneself?
 
I read about it in a Support forum, iirc. Apparently you’ve run up against it before. 😉
 
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fulloftruth:
How would one know of the 4k rule if one had not ranted oneself?
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I’ve hit it, even when it had a 6,000 word limit… 😃

ken
 
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