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So when you pray "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name..." do you ever wonder why we don't have a commonly used name for the father? I'm not sure which name that prayer was written for but it seems important to know. Just thinking out loud. Please ignore if you have stuff to do.

Yes. With regard to my original post, you and Hedrick have provided satisfactory explanations. There was no need to define the Trinity as water-tight as we do today back in the NT days because alternate views of God had not yet developed. (Although it should have been obvious to all concerned...

Hedrick, I think that is an excellent answer :) I don't reject the Trinity either but I have felt at a bit of a loss sometimes in my defense. Thank you.

Hi Clare. Yes that is a good description for a modern day Christian and a church that has been teaching such a description for almost 2,000 years. However it would have sounded like quite a bizarre description to the first NT Christians who had never heard of such a thing before (three being...

Hi John and thanks for the reply. I guess I'm just very curious about the absence of confusion on behalf of the first Christians in the NT. Paul had to address issues which seem almost trivial when compared to the makeup of the Godhead. It's difficult to believe that the Trinity was a...

We know that the concept of the Trinity is a difficult one to express so why don't we have any NT attempt to explain or describe a triune God? We have instructions about women covering their heads and discussions about circumcision but not much at all about a teaching that many consider to be a...

You're completely correct about everything. I won't bother your sensibilities again.

So we don't need annoying scripture like Matthew 7:16 "You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?"

Interesting. So a Pope can be a complete scoundrel but somehow be guided by God when he speaks ex cathedra?

I have been reading up on the Borgia family since my first post and if even 10% of the claims are true then Pope Alexander VI was a very sinister character. I'm not sure how much impact this would have on beliefs about Apostolic Succession and Papal infallibility.

If anyone has been watching "The Borgias" TV series, do you know how historically accurate it has been?

Well for a sizable chunk of the first millennium "Sola scriptura" would have been irrelevant for the new testament. Had the idea existed, it would have been called "Sola not-finished-yet". By the latter part of the first millennium, the truth was in the hands of the powerful, to do with as...

So what do Protestants preach today, that was not preached in the first millenium?

Hi dbcsf. I thought your original summary answer was quite well put and I enjoyed reading it.

True. I've always liked the notion of "Sola scriptura" but that may be due to my life long bias against anything RC. It's also nice to have a rallying phrase to make everyone feel comfortable. However the assembly of our modern bibles is the result of traditional beliefs. There has to be a...

"A rolling stone gathers no moss".

Nothing that would get us too excited :) Some really cool goats. Access to the executive urinal sandpit and the tribe's collection of foreskins. I think we have to write his behavior off as being understandable. Probably because God liked him. He was the equivalent of a politician after all.

Hi inheritance rights were precious and he didn't value them. Hebrews 12:16 "See that no one is sexually immoral, or is godless like Esau, who for a single meal sold his inheritance rights as the oldest son. " (NIV) This passage calls Esau "godless" so we don't need to look much further to...

He gave up something that was very precious for a meal. Pearls before swine.

Hi cygnusx1. Thanks for the post. I can't quite see that the plain meaning of the text is as you claim but I can see that the context certainly adds weight to your claim. In fact Matthew 23:37 almost reads like a lament which summarizes the preceding verses. This will become another entry in...