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Message
re: A biblical warning about our times
Posted on 2/8/22 at 8:04 am to cajunangelle
Posted on 2/8/22 at 8:04 am to cajunangelle
(no message)
This post was edited on 2/8/22 at 8:11 am
0
Posted on 2/8/22 at 9:06 am to Champagne
quote:That's a lot of word salad not to get anywhere. I'm Methodist. We don't reassign pedophiles to other jurisdictions. They gone.
You may decide for yourself.
Posted on 2/8/22 at 9:58 am to Diamondawg
quote:
I'm Methodist.
Your religion was invented by this man, Wesley. It is an off-shoot of The Church of England. The Methodism of Wesley itself has sub-divided into different sects.
Your religion follows traditions invented by a man born in 1703.
LINK
How many divisions of the Methodist Church exist today? Isn't it about ten different sects now, since Mr. Wesley created this religion back in the 1700s?
The Church of England was created by Henry VIII and, under his reign and that of his successors, all followers of other religions were persecuted as Traitors to the King and many if not most were Executed by Order of the King or Queen.
This post was edited on 2/8/22 at 10:20 am
Posted on 2/8/22 at 10:31 am to Champagne
quote:While I'm sure Catholics get annoyed that Protestants don't understand your doctrine and beliefs (which is why you point us to your catechism), it is equally true that Catholics tend to forget that the Reformation was not a movement to create a new faith, but to reclaim the truths of the scriptures that were lost or veiled with 1,500 years of tradition that added more doctrines and requirements for the faithful while at the same time removing access to the scriptures from the common man.
The Invisible Church is another Protestant tradition. It is a man-made doctrine invented by men writing 1,500 years after Christ established his Church.
This is true with the doctrine of the distinction of the visible and invisible church, which is based on scripture and its teaching on salvation and the relationship we have to Christ and to each other.
To summarize: the visible church is the entire body of professing Christians that claim allegiance to Christ and attend a local body/church. The invisible church is the entire body of the elect (those who are written in the Lamb's book of life) from all ages: all those who have gone on to glory in death, those who are alive today, and those even yet to be born.
The visible church is made up of wheat and tares, and we can't always know who is who. The visible church contains both the "good and faithful servant[s]" as well as those whom Christ will say "I never knew you", because salvation is based on faith, not local church membership or even a mere public profession of faith. Only God knows who all belongs to the invisible church, but they are those who will be at the marriage feast of the Lamb.
quote:This, again, is a mischaracterization. The Reformation, as the name suggests, was meant to reform the church. Martin Luther desperately wanted to remain part of Rome in the beginning and saw his condemnation of indulgences as a way to purify the Church from an abuse, not a means to tear her apart.
The Church that Christ founded was visible, universal, unified, handed to the Apostles and then handed down from the Apostles to the Church for 1,500 years until some men decided to rip the Body of Christ apart - men who were Protestants.
However, it was clear that once the scriptures were made available to the common man, that there were a lot of things found within them that were not taught by Rome or were contradicted by Rome through the teachings of the magisterium. These differences (which survive today) are what tore the church apart, as faithful Christians who read the scriptures were convicted that what they were reading were not in alignment with what was being taught by Rome.
quote:This is a rather forceful statement. It's not true that any Protestant who has not read the entirety of the Catholic Catechism and is prepared to discuss its contents knows "nothing" about the Catholic Church. The spirit of what you say is true, though, that to know what Rome teaches, you have to go to authoritative sources. While I would love to say that you should read the entirety of the Westminster Confession of Faith and be prepared to discuss its contents with me, I'm not willing to say that is a requirement to have discussion or that you know "nothing" of what I believe if you haven't read it all.
The Catholic Catechism contains extensive theological and biblical support for its doctrines. Any Protestant who has not read this document and is not prepared to discuss its contents knows nothing about the Catholic Church.
quote:Again, this is not true. The Reformation was going back to the scriptures, before the traditions started to be formally added in. It's unfair to say that Presbyterians, for instance, sprang up out of nowhere, 1,500 years after Christ. We look at Acts 15 as the basis for our form of church polity. Protestants weren't making up new doctrine out of thin air, and when someone did, it was rejected due to the lack of scriptural support.
The Protestant sects, of which there are 45,000, all come from traditions and doctrines written by men over 1,500 years after Christ established his Church on earth.
quote:Have you read any Protestant systematic theology books? Have you read the Westminster standards (Confession of Faith and Larger and Shorter Catechisms)? Have you read the Three Forms of Unity? What about the London Baptist Confession? There is has been extensive writing to support the beliefs of Protestants that go beyond simple tracts and pamphlets. The Reformers were prolific writers.
None of them contain the depth and solid doctrinal coherence of the Catholic Catechism - THAT'S why our resident Protestants won't show us the document that establishes THEIR church's "catechism" - it either does not exist or it exists in a pamphlet format.
If you are less concerned about the catechisms and confessions and are more concerned about their supporting documents, I again point you back to scripture, which is the basis for Protestant theology. This is one of the fundamental differences between Catholics and Protestants: you look to 2,000 years of church tradition as being equal to the God-breathed scriptures in terms of authority, and Protestants look to the scriptures alone as the final authority on faith and life for the church. You may brag about 1,500 years of writings prior to Luther and Calvin, while Protestants go back to what preceded those writings, back to scripture, itself. While I respect the gifted insight that God gave Calvin, I don't place his words above scripture. Sola Scriptura is about authority over the Christian, and Protestants believe that scripture alone is our authority for faith and life.
quote:Rome has not exactly been entirely consistent in how it has interpreted the Bible (or its own tradition) over its long history. Popes and Councils have contradicted themselves many times over that stretch of time. However, you are correct in that there are differences in biblical hermeneutics between Protestant denominations, and even within them. This is due to the sinfulness of man that is not done away with by having a single human authority dictate to the Church what it should believe, as the Pope does, or when Councils meet. We recognize that the final authority is God alone.
Another reason why Prots don't like to identify their Sect is because they all belong to DIFFERENT ones who don't agree on how they interpret the Bible.
Posted on 2/8/22 at 10:45 am to Champagne
I don't know about all of the other Methodist sects other than Independent Methodist but at our United Methodist General Conference this year in Minneapolis, we are likely to split into three groups (Traditionalists (actually follow the Book of Discipline) and two others with one being the most progressive. They can have gay bishops, perform same sex marriages, among other things that are not allowed in the Book of Discipline. My Church will be in the traditionalist group (Global Methodist Church) or I will be changing Churches from the one I have attended and been a member of for 30+ years.
Posted on 2/8/22 at 11:07 am to FooManChoo
Here's my problem with the Church and with Christianity right now. I can explain the revelation of God in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) to my 8-year-old granddaughter in about one minute. And she will understand it.
Otoh, 2,000 years after Jesus Christianity is divided into over 40,000 denominations and New Testament scholars can't even explain the New Testament revelation of God (Trinity, Triune God, 3 persons of the Godhead. Jesus is fully God yet fully human; Jesus was co-existent with God, etc) to one another, much less to my 8-year-old granddaughter
It has nothing to do with humans not being able to understand God. Of course we can't. It has to do with the fact that if an omnipotent God chose to reveal Himself to mankind, He'd do it in a way we could understand. He wouldn't do it in a way that 2,000 years later we'd still be arguing over what he meant.
Otoh, 2,000 years after Jesus Christianity is divided into over 40,000 denominations and New Testament scholars can't even explain the New Testament revelation of God (Trinity, Triune God, 3 persons of the Godhead. Jesus is fully God yet fully human; Jesus was co-existent with God, etc) to one another, much less to my 8-year-old granddaughter
It has nothing to do with humans not being able to understand God. Of course we can't. It has to do with the fact that if an omnipotent God chose to reveal Himself to mankind, He'd do it in a way we could understand. He wouldn't do it in a way that 2,000 years later we'd still be arguing over what he meant.
This post was edited on 2/8/22 at 11:47 am
Posted on 2/8/22 at 11:54 am to L.A.
In Genesis, we only had one simple rule to follow and yet we broke it. That was the end.
Until God sent his son, Jesus Christ, to die in place of our sins as the ultimate sacrifice and those who repent and place their faith in Him can receive the free gift of salvation. And if we have received that free gift of salvation, we are commanded to tell others of this good news.
Therefore, the New Testament is the fulfillment of the Old Covenant fulfilled through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
That's the Gospel and that's all there is to it.
Until God sent his son, Jesus Christ, to die in place of our sins as the ultimate sacrifice and those who repent and place their faith in Him can receive the free gift of salvation. And if we have received that free gift of salvation, we are commanded to tell others of this good news.
Therefore, the New Testament is the fulfillment of the Old Covenant fulfilled through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
That's the Gospel and that's all there is to it.
Posted on 2/8/22 at 11:56 am to L.A.
Just teach her from the Nicene Creed. Been around since the 300s and most Christian Churches use it. God and Jesus intended for there to be one Church but man got in the way of that. But, this kind of boils it down for anyone to teach from.
quote:
"We believe in one God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.
“And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, Very God of Very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father by whom all things were made; who for us men, and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary, and was made man, and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate. He suffered and was buried, and the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father. And he shall come again with glory to judge both the quick and the dead, whose kingdom shall have no end.
“And we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life, who proceedeth from the Father, who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified, who spoke by the prophets. And we believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church. We acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins. And we look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen."
Posted on 2/8/22 at 12:00 pm to Diamondawg
quote:This is exactly the kind of word salad I was talking about in my post. None of that makes sense. Jesus is the Son of God, but He's also God? Begotten but not made? Come on, man
“And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, Very God of Very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father by whom all things were made
Posted on 2/8/22 at 12:00 pm to L.A.
quote:Israel was the "Church" in its infancy. God spoke to Israel through the prophets as if He was speaking to children, and they still didn't understand what He was saying, by and large.
Here's my problem with the Church and with Christianity right now. I can explain the revelation of God in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) to my 8-year-old granddaughter in about one minute. And she will understand it.
Otoh, 2,000 years after Jesus Christianity is divided into over 40,000 denominations and New Testament scholars can't even explain the New Testament revelation of God (Trinity, Triune God, 3 persons of the Godhead. Jesus is fully God yet fully human; Jesus was co-existent with God, etc) to one another, much less to my 8-year-old granddaughter
It has nothing to do with humans not being able to understand God. Of course we can't. It has to do with the fact that if an omnipotent God chose to reveal Himself to mankind, He'd do it in a way we could understand. He wouldn't do it in a way that 2,000 years later we'd still be arguing over what he meant.
The problem is that God is a person and being wholly unlike anything in our experience, so it's tough at times to understand some of the details that we're given about Him and what He has done for us.
I'll say this, though: the core of the message of the Bible (not just the NT) is that our sin separates us from God and that we need atonement in order to be in fellowship with Him. The OT displayed this in types and shadows through the sacrifices and the NT shows the culmination of those things in Jesus Christ.
As much as Catholics, Atheists, and others like to point out the disunity in Protestants, for the most part we differ on non-essentials of the faith, whereas we are in agreement in what the gospel is, which is the most important thing to get right.
Posted on 2/8/22 at 12:06 pm to FooManChoo
quote:I've heard it all before. I'm telling you where I am after a 50 year journey. It's all man-made word salad
Israel was the "Church" in its infancy. God spoke to Israel through the prophets as if He was speaking to children, and they still didn't understand what He was saying, by and large.
The problem is that God is a person and being wholly unlike anything in our experience, so it's tough at times to understand some of the details that we're given about Him and what He has done for us. And fwiw, I'm neither an atheist nor a Catholic
I'll say this, though: the core of the message of the Bible (not just the NT) is that our sin separates us from God and that we need atonement in order to be in fellowship with Him. The OT displayed this in types and shadows through the sacrifices and the NT shows the culmination of those things in Jesus Christ.
As much as Catholics, Atheists, and others like to point out the disunity in Protestants, for the most part we differ on non-essentials of the faith, whereas we are in agreement in what the gospel is, which is the most important thing to get right.
This post was edited on 2/8/22 at 12:09 pm
Posted on 2/8/22 at 12:10 pm to L.A.
quote:
I can explain the revelation of God in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) to my 8-year-old granddaughter in about one minute. And she will understand it.
Ok, explain it to me like I'm 8.
Posted on 2/8/22 at 12:27 pm to Meauxjeaux
quote:
Ok, explain it to me like I'm 8.
This is what I told my granddaughter:
There is one God, and only one God. He created everything that exists. He created human beings in His image. That means that you were created in God's image. He loves you, and that will never change, even if you do something that disappoints Him. God wants us to love Him with all our hearts. He wants us to be kind to other people and treat them well, because they too were created in God's image, no matter who they are. God wants us to live good, moral lives, so He gave us a book filled with instructions and commandments on how to live. Make this Book your companion for life. If you follow its teachings, you will have lived a good life
Posted on 2/8/22 at 12:32 pm to L.A.
quote:...to you.
I've heard it all before. I'm telling you where I am after a 50 year journey. It's all man-made word salad
I'm saying it's neither man-made nor a word salad. The issue is that there is a depth to God and His Word in the Bible that cannot be plumbed in a single lifetime, and so more can be said about it even after 2,000 since Christ was lifted up on the cross.
But the primary message is clear: all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and need to be reconciled to Him through Jesus Christ by His sacrificial death on the cross. Everything else is just unpacking what all that means to varying degrees.
Posted on 2/8/22 at 12:36 pm to L.A.
quote:You are just trying to make it more complicated than it really is. How old is she? Explain it like she's five. There are a lot of stupid people in the world so God made is pretty to understand. The Trinity - God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit; One God.
This is exactly the kind of word salad I was talking about in my post. None of that makes sense. Jesus is the Son of God, but He's also God? Begotten but not made? Come on, man
Posted on 2/8/22 at 12:42 pm to L.A.
quote:
This is what I told my granddaughter:
There is one God, and only one God. He created everything that exists. He created human beings in His image. That means that you were created in God's image. He loves you, and that will never change, even if you do something that disappoints Him. God wants us to love Him with all our hearts. He wants us to be kind to other people and treat them well, because they too were created in God's image, no matter who they are. God wants us to live good, moral lives, so He gave us a book filled with instructions and commandments on how to live. Make this Book your companion for life. If you follow its teachings, you will have lived a good life
A good start for an 8 year old.
But you and I both know that will leave her where you are at 50.
Her first question will be, but you told me, Grandpa, that He wants us to be kind to other people and then he kills wantonly... old, people, young people, kids, ox, everything.
Maybe "companion" is a great word you used with her. If she understands that, she has a chance.
Posted on 2/8/22 at 2:04 pm to Meauxjeaux
quote:Tell me about it. I just finished reading the book of Deuteronomy. Yikes!
Her first question will be, but you told me, Grandpa, that He wants us to be kind to other people and then he kills wantonly... old, people, young people, kids, ox, everything.
Posted on 2/8/22 at 2:13 pm to FooManChoo
quote:I'm not trying to be belligerent. Please know that. But it is man-made. All the teachings about the Trinity/Triune God/3 persons of the God head stuff took the Church centuries to agree upon. Things that were once believed became heresies later on. The Trinity didn't even become official church doctrine until the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD. Then they had to tweak the doctrine 56 years later at the council of Constantinople in 381 AD, and again at the Council of Ephesus in 431 AD, and again at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD, and again at the Third Council of Constantinople in 680 AD.
I'm saying it's neither man-made nor a word salad
I just don't believe that God is such a poor communicator
Posted on 2/8/22 at 2:23 pm to FooManChoo
quote:
Cooperation implies that both man and God are working towards the same end, and that man contributes something positive towards his own salvation. That is not what the Bible teaches, but rather our "contribution" is faith which receives the promises of God, yet that faith is a gift of God (Eph. 2), so it turns out that we don't even contribute that. We have faith, we don't perform or "do" faith as a work, essentially.
For me this comes down to free will again. If we have free will we have the choice to either cooperate with God’s grace or resist God’s grace. If we don’t have free will which you suggest, than I guess you are right we can’t refuse or cooperate with God’s grace because God’s sovereignty has power over our will. But I believe that is in error as I believe we have free will. It is a complicated matter because how can God who is all-knowing, meaning he knows what we will do tomorrow, a week from now, etc. but human experience shows we have the freedom to choose to do wrong or good. We can’t be saved apart from God’s grace but that doesn’t mean that we don’t have the freedom to resist or cooperate with God’s grace.
quote:
Are not those things in Matthew 25 expressions of the works of the law? Did not Christ summarize the law (the 10 commandments) as loving God and loving your neighbor? Jesus said that if we do not love our neighbor, we do not love Him.
Yet we are also told that no man is justified by the works of the law (Rom. 3:20; Gal. 2:16), so what Jesus said cannot be at odds with this. What, then, does He mean? Since the elect are "born again" of the Spirit, and being born of the Spirit produces fruits of the Spirit, then we should expect that the fruits of the Spirit are an evidence of the indwelling of the Spirit, which resides in us as God's people. What Jesus is saying is in alignment with the rest of scripture, namely by their fruits you shall know them (Matt. 7:20).
So you are saying we are not judged by our works. Which Matthew 25 seems to be saying, but instead that people will know we are saved by our fruits. To me Jesus clearly says that we will be judged by how we love our neighbor. that doesn’t contradict that faith saves us but judgement clearly seems to be that we are judged by how we treat our neighbor. In Matthew 25 there is no mention of faith, no mention of do you believe in God. I’m not saying that it doesn’t matter but if faith is all we need and we are not judged by our works then why would Jesus leave it out of the judgement scene?
quote:
If I'm correct, my position can claim that both are true: namely that no man is justified by the works of the law but by faith alone, and also that no one who lives a life practicing disobedience will be saved. The connection is that the works do not justify, but are an evidence of that justification. Your position, however, cannot support both claims in order to be consistent with your belief that our works contribute or cooperate towards our justification in some way.
God gives us freedom and allows us to cooperate with his grace or reject it. The error you are making with our view is that because we believe in works justification as you call it, you think we believe we can be saved without God’s grace. That is a heresy as I’ve shown called pelagianism. We cannot be saved apart from God’s grace. However, that doesn’t mean we don’t play a part in our own salvation.
quote:
Like I said previously, the analogy breaks down and is not perfect, but the point of the analogy is what matters, namely that there are some who appear to be connected with Christ as a branch is connected to a vine, yet possess no life that bears fruit. And forward
the only way we are connected to the vine is through baptism. Baptism saves us by God’s grace, but if we sin we can be cut off from the vine and lose our salvation. But I know you disagree with this. It just doesn’t make sense to me how someone can be baptized but not receive sanctifying grace, because they later fall away. I could see how someone is just going through the motions but there are plenty of people who took their own baptisms seriously (excluding infant baptisms which is another topic) but then fall away later.
quote:
We are connected to Christ by faith, but we are not Christ. Jesus is the head of the Church and we are the body, but we are still separate. He is God and we are not. He is the groom and we are the bride. Christ is the vine and we are the branches. In this passage, Jesus clearly tells us that He is the vine and branches are something other than Himself. Even in your interpretation, you admit that we (the Church) make up both the branches that bear fruit and the branches that don't. I don't see how that can be true if we (the Church) are the vine.
This relates to what we have talked about earlier. Yes Jesus is the head of the body but he is also the entire body. But I think this is a distraction for my main issue I have with your view and that is of free will.
quote:
It's a difference of interpretation based on a presuppositional difference. You assume free will and therefore you interpret the scriptures in accordance with that presupposition, and I do the same with my presupposition that the scriptures teach that our wills are not free.
I've had these debates a lot over the years. While the issue appears to be about the freedom of the will, the true issue is about sovereignty: are we sovereign or is God?
Let’s assume you are correct that there is no free will in man. We can’t choose the good by ourselves and when we are saved we can’t choose evil. If men are not free to choose the good then does that mean that God willed that man does evil? Does that mean that when Adam was given the choice to be obedient to God’s law about the tree or eat the fruit, that God willed that Adam eat the fruit? What about serious sins people have committed throughout the centuries? Did God will that?
If man has no free will than it seems to logically follow that God willed evil. Not only did he will that evil occur he actively willed it and not passively willed it (which I believe). If God is all good and everything he creates is good, 1 Timothy 4:4, how can evil exist in a world where free will does not exist?
I should note the problem of evil is a complicated matter and I don’t claim to understand it completely. If God is all good meaning no evil can possibly exist in God, and if evil exists in the world then something other than God caused evil to exist.
God’s sovereignty can allow the freedom of man, he is God all things are possible in God. But speaking of God’s sovereignty if God’s will cannot be resisted or a better way to put it, God’s grace cannot be resisted than it seems that God willed that some are chosen by God to go to hell, eternal punishment, eternal fire, eternal separation from God. So basically God is punishing us because he chooses to punish us. How does that work with God being all good? Or do you reject the perfection of God or the absolute goodness of God?
How can God will that all be saved as St. Paul says, 1 Timothy 2:4, but then will that some be damned to eternal punishment? Even if you claim that St. Paul doesn’t mean all then this falls back to the problem of the goodness of God. God willfully creates men who will be faced with eternal punishment. Why would you follow such a God? A God who creates something just to be punished for all eternity? I’m not saying all must be saved for God to be good, that is where God’s justice comes in. But God’s justice presumes man’s freedom. Hell is the consequence of not following Jesus, being wicked, not having faith even when God revealed himself to you.
This post is about to be too long so I wrap it up here.
Posted on 2/8/22 at 2:27 pm to L.A.
quote:
I'm not trying to be belligerent. Please know that. But it is man-made. All the teachings about the Trinity/Triune God/3 persons of the God head stuff took the Church centuries to agree upon. Things that were once believed became heresies later on. The Trinity didn't even become official church doctrine until the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD. Then they had to tweak the doctrine 56 years later at the council of Constantinople in 381 AD, and again at the Council of Ephesus in 431 AD, and again at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD, and again at the Third Council of Constantinople in 680 AD.
I just don't believe that God is such a poor communicator
I get what you are saying, but in relation to God, we are like your 8 year old granddaughter. Do you expect your 8 year old to understand complicated truths?
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