Where did the Church first go wrong?

[DrBubbaLove]

I've also stated pages ago my position on the Catholic Church that (and i repeat) 'they may be the Loadician Church but they are still my brothers and sister in Christ'. I some times go to Catholic churches, I do not discriminate.

Could actually care less about vulgar opinions of the Church's or faith of others. Am more interested in understanding how someone can make the claim being made about the Apostles first act without impugning themselves.

 

[Albion]

...they are led to pray for God's Providence in selecting between them and then allowed His Providence to do so....

This is speculation. The Bible passage does not say this. As with the other gambit you've been using--saying that the member is putting himself above the Apostles--it's just getting in the way of your basic argument. And that argument has to stand on its own without either of these little embellishments.

 

[DrBubbaLove]

More waffle! It was the casting of lots. Four words, not a whole paragraph. Just say 'casting lots was fine' and I'll say yes we've discussed this for 30 pages and have a nice day.

Ummm not so fast sparky. So nothing at all was wrong in that depiction expect that the Apostles were willing to leave something to God's Providence.
So once again I ask, is there a denial here that one has ever prayed and left something to God's Providence?

 

[Citizen of the Kingdom]

count down to thread closure and cleanup ......

 

[Guide To The Bible]

So what's the point? A congratulations party for Protestants?

No, my next thread will be 'Are Protestants all fruitcakes?'

 

[Guide To The Bible]

Ummm not so fast sparky. So nothing at all was wrong in that depiction expect that the Apostles were willing to leave something to God's Providence.
So once again I ask, is there a denial here that one has ever prayed and left something to God's Providence?

Can you rephrase the question with less waffle and more ice cream please.

 

[prodromos]

No, my next thread will be 'Are Protestants all fruit cakes?'

Fruit AND nuts.

 

[DrBubbaLove]

This is speculation. The Bible passage does not say this.

What is being speculated exactly in the quoted part, which was only this "they are led to pray for God's Providence in selecting between them and then allowed His Providence to do so.." , Help me to understand your point/objection in how I said it.
What specifically is claimed to be speculation?

• That Acts said they prayed?
• That Apostles praying would indicate they were "led" to pray about it?
  
• That they were praying for a decision on something they could only agree to reduce to two among many?
• That the fact they prayed indicated a desire for God's Providence since they were either unable or not trusting themselves to make the call?
  
• Or that casting lots or probably more likely drawing lots would be a random choice between the two?
• Or that removing themselves from making that decision was leaving it to God's Providence?

 

[DrBubbaLove]

Can you rephrase the question with less waffle and more ice cream please.

is there a denial here that one has ever prayed and left something to God's Providence?

 

[Albion]

What is being speculated exactly in the quoted part, which was only this "they are led to pray for God's Providence in selecting between them and then allowed His Providence to do so.." , Help me to understand your point/objection in how I said it.
What specifically is claimed to be speculation?

That the decision in favor of Matthias was directed by God. That is not indicated in the Scripture.

• 
  

 

[DrBubbaLove]

That the decision in favor of Matthias was directed by God. That is not indicated in the Scripture.

How so. If the Apostles removed themselves from granting favor for either, who or Whom was responsible for the outcome?

 

[Albion]

How so. If the Apostles removed themselves from granting favor for either, who or Whom was responsible for the outcome?

There is no reason to think anything but that they made a purely human calculation concerning the appropriateness of each of the two candidates.

 

[Citizen of the Kingdom]

It comes down to binding ...

 

[Paul Yohannan]

Every denomination has a problem by virtue of setting up a them and us man made hierarchy.

This is simply untrue.

I've accepted that and is not the OP

The OP was predicated upon that argument.

So if a naughty child says that they were not told to not burn the house down does that make it alright then?

You can't liken the ordination of St. Matthias to such an act, although I would observe wrly the fault in the contrived scenario you present would lie with the parents, legally and didactically.

It disturbs me deeply you would even invoke such a scenario, where you have a child, who burns down a house, and somehow that's their fault (and owes to naughtiness as opposed to mental illness and/or parent negligence).

So Jesus selecting Paul in such spectacular fashion means nothing to you then?

It does not mean that St. Paul was intended to replace Judas, as you claim. That contention is entirely unbiblical.

No it was within weeks. And this is off OP.

It is directly relevant, because your OP revolves around the contention that the selection, and inceed more specifically, the method of selection, of St. Matthias was some grave proto-error, when there is no scriptural evidence to support such a claim.

No way, it was 3000+ strong only because of the work of the Holy Spirit.

This is of course a monergistic interpretation which neglects the vital human element of the Church and is therefore crypto-Docetic.

(Do you even have the Holy Spirit?)

Yes. Just so you know, accusing someone of not having the Spirit would likely be considered flaming and goading.

Well Jesus did this but then that doesn't seem to mean anything to you.

It means a great deal to me.

No the Apostles wrote the NT. The ongoing team muddled through.

Luke, Mark, James and Paul were not members of the twelve Apostles, and we have no certain knowledge of who wrote Hebrews.

There's plenty of Protestant Bible translators who did just a good a job too. William Tyndale for example is probably the greatest of them all; Protestant.

I am not talking about translation, but rather the preservation of the Greek manuscripts in the centuries before the printing press.

The Holy Spirit hadn't been given as I keep pointing out.

The Spirit descended on all the Apostles, including St. Matthias.

Rubbish, with or with out the Catholic Church the Bible would have come about. And again off OP.

I am not talking about the Roman Catholic Church.

Your argument contained a chicken and egg problem; you seemed to expect the Apostles to rely on the Bible when the rather vital New Testament was yet to be written.

 

[DrBubbaLove]

There is no reason to think anything but that they made a purely human calculation concerning the appropriateness of each of the two candidates.

Good point, but I think it goes much too far.
How is it necessarily true or even evident that human involvement interfered in any way?
And from the story how is it necessarily true there could only have been "purely human" involvement in the vetting process?

And if we go down that road and agreed all this in fact is and even necessarily was what is indicated actually happened, when was the prophecy correctly fulfilled?

 

[Vicomte13]

Not many consider where it first began to go wrong for the church:

Acts 1:4 On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about.

Jesus gave the Apostle this one command just before His Ascension but in that 10 days the apostles chose by votes and lot, and also apart from Gods’ instructions, to replace Judas with Matthias:

Acts 2:26 Then they cast lots, and the lot fell to Matthias; so he was added to the eleven apostles.

This seemly innocuous act carried over and into the Christian faith the Jewish priesthood practice of drawing lots and started an unofficial man made tradition of voting and drawing lots to replace the disciples after they had died, including Peter and which has continued until this day with each new selection of Pope. However, this was never God’s intention as it is God alone who selects His chosen people as proven by the fact that Jesus chose Paul shortly afterwards to be the replacement apostle:

1 Corinthians 15:9
For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.

The casting of lots is OT and is not for the Church because it is a man made system that is open to corruption and is the problem at the centre of the Catholic Church. If they had of waited on God as they were instructed by Jesus to do, then after the day of Pentecost Paul would have been added to their number. This failure to wait on God and not act in ones own power is probably the most basic and commonly made errors all Christians make.

The problem with your theory is quite simple: Jesus never said a word against this. The Holy Spirit did not reject the Church on account of it. None of the Apostles spoke against it. Remember, God outright killed Ananias and Sapphira right before Peter, and God revealed the sheet with non-kosher foods before Peter. God performed healings, etc., all after this choosing of Matthias.

If it was an error, God would have so indicated. He didn't. So it wasn't.

You're grasping at straws.

Where the Church first fatally erred was when it had a hand in executing people, and that first happened in 385 AD. Before that, the division of the Church into fragments and the merciless anger between Christians was error.

We see in the time of the Apostles that various local churches were already fighting and bickering and doing evil to each other.

Any of those points could be called the place where the church first erred.

What you pointed to: the drawing of lots for Matthias cannot possibly in any reasonable sense be called an error.

 

[Albion]

Good point, but I think it goes much too far.
How is it necessarily true or even evident that human involvement interfered in any way?

Interfered? Even today, the choice of a new bishop is made by real men using the intellectual tools available to men. Of course we pray for divine guidance, but that's a far cry from contending that God made the decision on Matthias while the Apostles acted as some sort of bystanders.

 

[Philip_B]

There is no reason to think anything but that they made a purely human calculation concerning the appropriateness of each of the two candidates.

My concern with this line is that it suggests that prayer is void

Acts 1:24-25
Then they prayed and said, ‘Lord, you know everyone’s heart. Show us which one of these two you have chosen to take the place in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas turned aside to go to his own place.’​

 

[DrBubbaLove]

Interfered? Even today, the choice of a new bishop is made by real men using the intellectual tools available to men. Of course we pray for divine guidance, but that's a far cry from contending that God made the decision on Matthias while the Apostles acted as some sort of bystanders.

How is that even a fair depiction of my indicating there was vetting process? In what manner is vetting indicating to you I said they were necessarily bystanders?

And why not answer why you apparently think their involvement in the vetting means it is necessary to believe from that account that there was only "purely human" involvement in the vetting?

 

[Paul Yohannan]

Where the Church first fatally erred was when it had a hand in executing people, and that first happened in 385 AD.

It didn't, though. That was all Emperor Theodosius. St. Ambrose of Milan, who was at the time the most influential bishop in the Western church, certainly more powerful than the Roman archbishop, objected with great moral outrage to the execution of Priscillian.

Now Theodosius was later made a saint, probably because he did eventually outlaw the Pagan religion, but the first ten years of his reign were not brilliant from a Christian perspective. Recall how St. Ambrose had to barricade himself and his laity in a church in Milan to prevent it from being taken over by the Arians at the command of Theodosius.