(moved) Can the Philosophical Approach of "Reformed" Protestantism lead out of Christianity?

Does Reformed Protestantism have a direct apostolic basis to consider the Eucharist only symbolic?


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rakovsky

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DEAR PeaceByJesus!

Do you think it is helpful to be able to reevaluate issues for oneself, even if it is not expected by one's opinion? Reformed are probably the single biggest religious group in America. Do you think people can go against the grain on this issue to look at things in another way?

"Of course, each writer or prophet in the Bible meant something when he wrote a passage. So in theory, I think each Protestant could read the Bible on his/her own and get the true meaning 100%.
But in real life, the opposite often happens where groups of people (including Reformed) read the Bible in sincerity and are convinced that it means opposite things."

But which not warrant rejecting SS, as meaning Scripture alone is the wholly inspired of God standard, and sufficient in its formal and material aspects, as you have affirmed it enables one to 100% understand it (which a common historical evangelical contention for basic Truths attests to), while also allowing for disagreements.
Yes, in REAL LIFE, the fact that "groups of people (including Reformed) read the Bible in sincerity and are convinced that it means opposite things" disproves IN REAL LIFE that SS "enables one to 100% understand it".

It is such a simple proof because it means that the "wrong" side of the debate who followed SS were not able in REAL LIFE to understand it.

This is such a simple fact of logic. There is no mentally reasonable way to argue against that fact.

For which Scripture provides the magisterial office, which no less than the Westminster Confession affirms: "It belongeth to synods and councils, ministerially, to determine controversies of faith," (Westminster, XXXI)

For we see this in Scripture, (Dt. 17:8-13) and which certainly had authority, if not being infallible, but that is not enough for Rome, as she presumes that her magisterial office possesses perpetual ensured infallibility, and that even when not speaking accordingly then she will not err salvifically in her official (which class is subject to RC debate) teaching.

But which ensured infallibility is a novel and unScriptural premise, being unseen and unnecessary in Scripture. And in fact, God not only provided and preserved Truth and faith without a infallible magisterium, but in so doing He sometimes raised up men from without the magisterium to provide and preserve faith, and reprove thoswe who sat in leadership.

And thus the church began and has been preserved as the body of Christ, with the imperfect Reformation being part of that.
Orthodoxy does not teach infallibility of Tradition except MAYBE a few councils' main creeds (eg. Nicene Creed).

Also, in PRACTICE Reformed often don't care THAT much for synods to solve controversies except maybe a few foundational Reformed ones like Westminster. Otherwise Reformed today would get together and have a council on Infant baptism, Dispensationalism, and dozens of other major iusses they split over and then they would put major mutual trust in those synods, instead of still arguing with eachother no less tensely over the same issues.

Since their views are mutually exclusive, it means that on their own they weren't able to discern the "real" meaning.
No, not actually, as it need only mean that only one is correct.
If only one is correct, then the other one who followed SS in sincerity is wrong. And that proves that the wrong side was not able to discern the real meaning. They tried and failed.

That is so simple.

For Calvin, "Reason" was the standard. Reformed-style SS fails the "Reason" test.

A good example is the debate over whether to baptize infants.
And since they are innocent and morally incognizant, they need not and cannot willful the stated requirements for baptism, that of repentant wholehearted faith. (Acts 2:38; 8:36,37) And the Holy Spirit conspicuously and uncharacteristically never mentions infants being baptized (leaving paedobaptist to extrapolate it out of bare mentions of whole household baptisms) yet requiring repentant wholehearted faith for it. Nor does the very limited correspondence to circumcision (for just males) warrant it either.
Even if your "side" of that debate were right, the other side who also believed in SS and sincerely tries to follow it is wrong.

Earlier in your message you cited Westminster's confession with approval. Do you understand that Westminster Confession teaches infant baptism? Calvin taught infant baptism himself.

So now you are saying that Westminster Confession and Calvin were not able to see the truth in the Bible about infant baptism, even though they followed Reformed-style SS.

This is a slam dunk case of SS disproving itself by your standards on infant baptism in real life.


Which, and multitude more examples, your magisterium is not going to "infallibly" explain, and in fact one a few texts of Scripture have been. Thus this is not a valid objection even if your mag. possesses ensured conditional infallibility.

Moreover, you cannot claim that even the NT church realized comprehensive doctrinal unity, much less Rome in which variant interpretations can lawfully about, and do, even as to what requires assent. And thus by your reasoning your alternative means of determination of Truth and unity is also invalidated.
Sorry, I don't understand what you are talking about. Do you understand that I am not Roman Catholic and that we don't consider Tradition infallible (except for maybe a few creeds like Nicene Creed)?

NT Church taught against fracturing into splinter groups and said to follow their traditions. 2 Thessalonians 2:15 In contrast, Reformed sects did not put a major emphasis on upholding Christian traditions and they splintered into groups based on their opposing doctrines, like Dispensation, Zionism, infant/non-infant baptism, how many points of Calvinism you accept, etc. etc. etc.

In early Church time though its also true that there were gnostic groups who did not care about following Tradition and staying under the Church leaders when plausible either, and so even back then there were splinter groups. I don't see this as a good reason to stop caring about mainstream Church traditions like the gnostics did.

No, once again that is faulty reasoning, as simply because there are conflicting judgments does not invalidate the source from providing Truth in a way that souls find unity, which is also a reality.
It does not invalidate the source of Truth (Bible). Reality of pervasive breakups invalidates their method for "providing Truth in a way that souls find unity" (Reformed "Reason" version of Sola Scriptura).

And in if you demand comprehensive doctrinal unity then the closest thing to that will be found in a cults, which effectively operate under the unScriptural RC model, in which the leadership claims unique ensured veracity based on their teaching.
I don't teach Tradition is infallible or demand 100% unity on all beliefs.
I think people should care alot about Tradition though and not break up Jesus' "body" the church over hundreds of strange new teachings.

WRONG. Those who lived in 35-200 AD did NOT produce the NT, any more than the Scribes and Pharisees produced OT writings, though both had enough sense to substantially acknowledge what was of God.
Evangelists and apostles in 35-200 AD produced the NT and their audience were close to them to ask for understanding it. This was in same time NT was written or within 100 years' difference. Pharisees in 30 AD came 800-2000 years after most of the Tanakh was written. That's a huge difference!

You are starting to make me sad, how do you with nice name "Peace by Jesus" not see that?

But it is the transcendent, substantive wholly inspired of God writings that are the standard for what Truth is, not the post apostolic judgments of uninspired men who increasingly adopted or relied on traditions of men.
So if the men's judgments were so uninspired and unimportant, how did they get the Bible books right, when the list was just finalized in the Church fathers' times?


Certainly along with the progressive accretion of traditions of men the 2nd-3rd century church retained enough Truth whereby souls could be saved and morality upheld, but that did not make it the community that produced the Bible.
It is the community that decided on which books would be in the Bible.


No, you have ZERO cases of believers on earth seeking beings in heaven to intercede for them. Any two-way communication btwn created beings required both to somehow be in the same realm, and i have yet to see any case in which the the created being was asked to intercede for them before God.
If an angel or dead saint visually "appeared" to someone in the Bible does that prove that the angel was directly in the person's realm?
Jesus appeared to Stephen in the clouds. Does that mean Jesus was in Stephen's realm?
Communicating with saints/angels is not always asking for intercession either.

Which again does not translate into praying to those in Heaven to interceded for them, as they were both in one place, and no intercession before God was sought.

You need to show created beings being addressed by those on earth, and being asked to interceded for them.
This is not asking angels to intercede for them, or actually addressing them, for employing such poetic language we can also justify praying to the sun and moon and other material objects. For as Ps. 148 goes on to say in proceeding verses after your cut off,

Praise ye him, sun and moon: praise him, all ye stars of light. Praise him, ye heavens of heavens, and ye waters that be above the heavens. Let them praise the name of the Lord: for he commanded, and they were created. (Psalms 148:3-5)
Praise the Lord from the earth, ye dragons, and all deeps: Fire, and hail; snow, and vapour; stormy wind fulfilling his word: Mountains, and all hills; fruitful trees, and all cedars: (Psalms 148:7-9)


Thus these are forms of worship addressed to God, extolling His worthiness of universal worship by all creation.
Obviously, saying to the sun and to angels to praise God is not worship addressed to God, just as instructions to Dominoes to deliver pizza to a house are not instructions to the house.
I am very skeptical that as Reformed you will be OK if Christians nowadays go into a church and on their own ask angels and saints in heaven to praise God?


Then you are left with fallible, uninspired traditions being made equal with thewholly inspired word of God!
Who said it is "equal"? It seems you don't understand that if you use a tool to help understand something that the tool is not "equal" to the text.
If you use human language to understand the Bible, does that mean you consider human language "equal to" the Bible?

Rather, we are not referring to such things as historical writings being a help, or traditions like wedding ceremonies being used, but making into binding doctrine that which is not in Scripture, and even contrary to it, but with the veracity of which being based on the tradition of an infallible church.

A church which can decree something over 1700 years after it allegedly occurred to be binding Truth, despite such critical lack of evidence for it from tradition that the very scholars of the church opposed it.
Why do you not understand that the Orthodox Church does not teach Tradition is infallible? Why spend a Tome as you called it making a strawman?

And I think that when we add in a modern, "scientific" mindset, we can better understand how some modern groups coming out of the Reformed movement think that the Bible miracles are all just so called "true" "allegories" that didn't "literally" happen.

Which means they departed from the faith, and your argument is less valid than arguing that your church is wrong because Catholic scholars, with the sanction of the American body of bishops, have taught such for decades in the RC Bibles!
Do you know of Catholic scholars who teach that Jesus' incarnation and resurrection was just a "true" story like the Protestant "Jesus Seminar" teaches? Can you find multiple Catholic Study Bibles saying that Isaiah 53 is not about Messiah like the Protestant ones do?


It's only natural that in the early church the presbyters who were responsible for managing their churches would also normally play a leading role in different rituals like the Eucharist.

What kind of response is that to "We can also look in vain to even one instance of a NT presbuteros being titled "priest" and having a unique sacerdotal function." The Holy Spirit is not simply scribbling a few notes but provides extensive description an doctrine on the church and contrasts with the Jewish and other faiths. And in so doing speaks of priests/high priests about 300 times, always using hiereus/archiereus, and not once giving that title to NT presbyters, except as part of the general priesthood of all believers, and nowhere ascribes to NT presbyters any unique sacerdotal function. But Caths insist on ignoring the manifest distinction, and imposing a unique sacerdotal function on prelates.

It provides what is needed and its silence can be as weighty as its statements, and does not teach infant baptism, but which is held due to tradition by more Catholic Prot churches.
Obviously this is a huge contradiction in your logic. You say that Anglican/Catholic/Orthodox idea that priest has a special role in rituals must be wrong because the NT doesn't lay that out and is just silent on the question, even though on other major questions the NT is also silent and debated among Reformed themselves, like infant baptism, Zionism, and many issues.

If Reformed were right that Bible alone "provides what is needed " on infant baptism, they wouldn't be so divided on it!

This is such a simple issue of logic, PBJ! And remember, for Calvin, "reasonableness" was a major way to judge against a teaching.

And the so-called Jehovah's Witnesses effectively operate more according to the RC model of authority and unity, with leadership presuming assured veracity and requiring implicit assent.
For purposes of this argument, that doesn't matter. They claim that they get their weird teachings from the Bible and don't accept God is Trinity from "weak" things like 1900+ years of Christian beliefs

This is where the Reformed Train comes to its destination.

But which is a poor foundation, for as JWs argue, such also held false doctrine, and the increasing reliance upon tradition, "we always believed this" (even if the NT did not) may have been seen as an easier recourse, but it also fostered the perpetuation of traditions of men that came along with Biblical Truth.
Which did a better job of keeping together the basics of Trinity, "Bible 1st + Tradition 2nd" or "Bible-only as I see it"?
"Bible-only as I see it" directly led to modern mass Unitarianism and JWs.

In contrast, it is evangelical Bible believing Christians that JWs want to avoid (they must have our house marked, but we have gone after them to reprove when seen), as they are defeated by recourse to Scripture, not tradition with its admixture of truth and traditions of men.
JWs try to use Scripture, JWs DEFINITELY don't use Tradition because Tradition is Definitely against JWs.
Scripture can be abused by JWs more easily than "Tradition + scripture".

For as with me, the recourse to ECFs is in dealing with Caths, in condescension to them, not because they are determinitive of Truth
Yes. This goes back to what I said about "a movement [that] appears 1500 years later and goes ONLY on that main sacred Book and doesn't care much about how the contemporary Christian leaders understood the passages in the books that they passed down" and your answer reflects why I said "The Church Fathers are not a central focus of [REFORMED] approach to teaching doctrines".

Good to see that you agree.

Such affirmation can be of weight if those who provide attestation have Biblical credentials, with the veracity of their claims being based on the weight of Scriptural substantiation. Which i think Nicea much did.

But the RC argument is not simply that an authoritative magisterium is needed, to which we concur, but that an infallible one is, which premise of ensured perpetual magisterial infallibility is novel, unseen and unnecessary in Scripture.

I understand the appeal, as thus there can be no valid dissent, but the church began in dissent from those who sat in the authentic authoritative historical magisterial seat. (Mt. 23:2; Mk. 11:27-33)

Scripture can be a supreme written authority. But that doesn't mean that what some people are convinced the Scripture says is Supreme either. JWs are convinced that Scripture doesn't teach Trinity. But we don't submit the teachings on Trinity to the "authority" of what the JWs believe Scripture says. We need to evaluate the meanings with the major help of what Christians have been thinking about this for the last 1900 years.
I don't disagree with anything in the paragraphs directly above. It seems that you view things in terms of RC infallibility vs. Calvin's "Reason-based" version of sola scriptura. I would encourage you to learn more about Lutheranism, Anglicanism and Eastern Orthodoxy as ways to escape those two strange absolutist poles.


No, as that relies on the same presumption of the Jews, that the historical church, via its magisterium, is correct or most trustworthy in any conflict. Thus faced with one that reproved them by Scripture, they rejected him and his followers. (Mk. 7:2-16)
Here you don't seem to see the difference - Jesus said about the Church that He would be with them always. He can guide the Church. The Church is filled with God's spirit and a new covenant with a new Israel. That's not the same thing as the pharisees and the old Israel

SECOND, the pharisees' traditions actually WERE helpful to achieve Christianity, but were not infallible either. The NT quotes the OT Apocrypha numerous times even though the OT Apocrypha is not the primary canonical Bible, but is part of a written "Tradition".

Jesus and Paul both studied from the pharisees and in the Temple. Therefore, traditions and learning about them were important. This does not mean that pharisees had inherent permanent authority. When they rejected Jesus, it was game over. If Catholic Popes rejected the basics of Christianity, they can't be considered Christian either. However, whatever your criticisms, Catholic bishops cannot explicitly teach against the basics of Christianity laid out in the Nicene Creed, which our "CF" Forum considers the definition of "Christian".

Yes, I am not teaching "absence of errors". I am saying that if surviving persecution is one of the main proofs of Christianity, and as you are saying these 1st-3rd century Christians are pious of great faith, then don't you agree that their explanations should be a key resource for deciding what the books of the Bible from their own era that they chose mean?

That is not a problem, as far as historical research goes, but the RC argument is that what these selectively say, as in what Rome chooses from them and interprets them as saying or supporting, are the determinitive basis for doctrine, though in the case of the Assumption, that is quite the stretch.

Of course, Rome interprets them as supporting her premise of ensured magisterial infallibility, under which her interpretation of them can be said to be infallible.
Why do you keep going back to strange RC doctrines of "infallibility"?

Let me put it this way:
If surviving persecution is one of the main proofs of Christianity, and as you are saying these 1st-3rd century Christians are pious of great faith, then don't you agree that their explanations should be a key, crucial, central resource for believers to decide what the books of the Bible from their own era that they chose mean, and not just accidentally helpful for worldly scholars' "historical research"?​

No, as even as a newly born again yet Catholic who was trying to share the exciting things i was finding then i found little interest. So i went to RC charismatic Bible study, led by a lay RC women who was somewhat discipled by evangelicals, and to a charismatic meetings, which i found some life in. But the hierarchy made them join with a social gospel nun's group (to legitimize the former), and instesd of going forward they went backwards. They could sense it, and even thought that maybe it was bcz the lights were too bright. God will work where He can, but souls must keep pace with the light they are getting if they will go forward.
I like hearing your personal stories. But what do you mean by the exciting things? I was active in Catholic student groups and they were interested in discussing religious ideas informally. I suppose if you teach something off the radar, mainstream Christians of any group may think it's odd.

And after that, having lived in a predominately RC area for over 60 years, and witnessed, or attempted to, to thousands of RCs with the basic non-denominational gospel, i can attest that they are about the most ambivalent or antagonistic group (Jews, God love them, take first place in the latter aspect, followed by some Muslims). Which is due to a dead gospel and dead souls, and faith in their merit and that of a church.
I sense that your problem here is not really RCs but mainstream Christians in general. Mainstream Christians have about the same level of "gospel life". Arguably there are Catholic circles with more gospel life than Reformed ones in some cases.

Which is in stark contrast to when i have met so many born again evangelical types from different countries church, in which their a spontaneous kinship, based on a common transformative conversion and profound life changing relationship with Christ. Not that all are like that, or that i have always kept pace with the light i have, or do not need to regularly repent of something in heart or in deed, omission of commission. Thank God for the sinless shed blood of Jesus.
I perceive it iis comparably easy to form bonds with Catholics or Evans. If you are Evan-minded, you may find YOURSELF doing this more with other groups you identify with.

Sure, just a little while ago were debating a RC here that thought Abraham and David were myths. I asked why he was a RC and he said that his beliefs were not considered radical in Catholicism. And they hardly are.
Believing DAVID was a myth is considered radical, even among Catholic scholars. Abraham is different since Torah was written generations later.

You are selectively picking on Catholics when you say this, because this is more centrally the thinking in critical scholarship our PCUSA Reformed interlocutor Hedrick discusses. And "critical scholarship" as Hedrick said, comes more from 19th c. German Protestant circles and American secular/modernist Protestant ones.

I should also admit that it was in Reformed PCUSA Confirmation that I learned about how evolution is compatible with the Bible. It was in contrast to PCUSA(Reformed) and Catholic circles that Evangelical ones felt like a mental straightjacket the way they talked about "Evolutionists" (I guess that means PCUSA by implication).

It seems to me that on the question of tolerant interfaith attitudes, Reformed split both ways, with PCUSA becoming more Ecumenical (like Catholics) and conservative Reformed becoming more insular and hostile to "outsiders".

I believe that Catholicism much more tolerant of Evolution than Evangelicals, but Catholicism did not have major massive Unitarian/non-Trinitarian movements exude from it. So the question must become what is more fundamental to Christianity: whether humans came from primates or whether "Christ-God" miraculously resurrected?

America is a mainly Protestant country (or else doesn't care about religion), and Reformed are a HUGE part of the Protestants. I think that in practice someone usually risks more ostracization from society if they are Catholic than if they don't care about religion or are Reformed. At least, this is my experience.​
Hardly, at least if Reformed are conservative evangelicals, which counted as the greatest threat by liberals, Muslims and many RCs.
I am counting those as Reformed who lay claim to the Reformed heritage, including PCUSA, Evangelicals, PCA, etc. Yes, they are a big part of Protestants in the US. Baptists + Presbyterians are two of the biggest groups in America next to Methodists! Catholics are smaller.


"But the same Catholic church which claims the faith of early martyrs has the blood of Christian martyrs on her hands, both those who were Catholic as well as sincere souls who dared dissent from her."(PBJ)

Anyway, one of Luther's 95 Theses said that it was wrong to kill heretics. That's a wonderful teaching by Luther, right? ~ Rakovsky

So you disagree that it is it wrong to kill heretics (because of that), though i actually think you meant to charge Luther with supporting such, which is another of your historical errors. For where you see this in the 95 theses know not, but likely you are referring to Exsurge Domine condemning errors of Luther, which you mistake as Luther supporting killing heretics, but one of which the pope condemns is "That heretics be burned is against the will of the Spirit."
I am confused what your point is.
Luther's words were "The burning of heretics is contrary to the will of the Holy Spirit.”
You can just do an internet search and find that they are widely quoted by him.

My point on this topic was that I think Luther was right against killing heretics and that the Catholics were wrong to support it, and that Calvin was wrong when Calvin supported killing people who rejected infant baptism (eg. Servetus).


And Emperor Charles V permitted anyone to kill Luther without legal consequence. For the Canons of the Ecumenical Fourth Lateran Council (canon 3), 1215, decreed of RC rulers:

Secular authorities, whatever office they may hold, shall be admonished and induced and if necessary compelled by ecclesiastical censure, that as they wish to be esteemed and numbered among the faithful, so for the defense of the faith they ought publicly to take an oath that they will strive in good faith and to the best of their ability to exterminate in the territories subject to their jurisdiction all heretics pointed out by the Church ; so that whenever anyone shall have assumed authority, whether spiritual or temporal, let him be bound to confirm this decree by oath.

Pope Pius IX also condemned the proposition that "Every man is free to embrace and to profess that religion which, led by the light of reason, he shall consider to true," (Pope Pius IX, “Syllabus of Modern Errors,”December 8, 1864; http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Pius09)

No, Calvin disagreed with not killing heretics but followed Rome in using the state to do so, as she changed the NT teaching on this issue, and again you are making historical errors. See here for Roman Catholic use of the sword of men.
Why do you use the double negative when you say "Calvin disagreed with not killing heretics"?
As the book "Did Calvin Kill Servetus?" explains, Calvin followed Luther in opposing the death penalty for heretics until 1553, after Servetus escaped French prison. Servetus came to Geneva where one of the two main reasons Calvin instigated his killing that year was because Servetus opposed infant baptism. It is simply incorrect then to say that Calvin was simply following Rome in this. The fact was that Calvin and the Reformed publicly chose to accept Luther's teaching UNTIL the Servetus affair when they switched their position on their own with no compulsion by Rome to kill Servetus for opposing infant baptism.


Actually, aside from most all of all the writings of the Church Fathers on the internet being from a late 19th century work (Oxford/Edinburgh "Ante-Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers") of Anglican (if not reformed) prelates, and Salem Communications (Protestant) providing writings of these, Reformed sources often provide and invoke such as historical testimony to truth or error,
That is not my experience. Go check the debates on Infant Baptism, Dispensationalism, Zionism, Replacement Theology, etc. Reformed rarely cite the Fathers favorably during the Reformed infighting related to such topics. The long foundational "Second Helvetica Confession" gives about three paragraphs citing three church fathers favorably, I think.

but we should not "care about them a ton" such as Caths do as their works are vastly inferior to Scripture, nor always consistent with it or uniform with each other. RCs and EO even disagree on what they support.

And as Rome herself judges them more than they judge her, and for a faithful RC history is what Rome says it means, then it is her authority that is the issue, which we will judge in the light of the most authoritative source, the wholly inspired written word of God.
Sorry, you are just confusing me on what you mean about Rome "judging them". You keep coming back to the RC views too, even though I am not advocating RC "infallibility of Tradition."

Jerome and Augustine, among others and other things, held perverse views regarding marital relations, with Jerome even abusing Scripture to support his erroneous conclusion.

Then you agree with us that we can as well, but our basis is what Scripture manifestly teaches. Which certainly was not the RC distinctives as these.

Regardless of what esteeming the wholly inspired word of God over the various ideas of others seems like to you, it seems obvious that Roman and EO Catholics care more about their church and its accretion of traditions of men over what Scripture actually teaches,...

I have a pretty hard time agreeing with the bold, considering how many Catholic and EO commentaries and writings there are about the Bible. I think if they didn't care about figuring out the Bible's real meaning they wouldn't talk about it so much.​

That is no argument against Catholics caring more about their church and its accretion of traditions of men over what Scripture actually teaches, as surveys show that Caths come in almost last in personal Bible reading, and evangelical commentaries have been far more popular, while the devil himself is quite interested in what the Bible says, and the notes the sanctioned Catholic NAB Bible and its helps section for the study version are quite liberal, though sometimes refreshing correct, both of which have a relative-few conservative RCs upset.
Of course it's an argument: Since Catholics talk about the Bible often, it means that they care about figuring out what the Bible actually teaches. If they didn't care about the Bible's ideas, they wouldn't talk about them! It's that simple.

If you give a Catholic priest a lie detector test and ask him if he cares what the Bible means or not, they are going to answer "Yes".
Likewise, if you ask a young Catholic student if he cares more about the Bible's true meaning on Jesus or if he cares about what Pope so and so thought about Jesus in the medieval times, he is going to pick the Bible's "actual meaning". Go post a survey over on the Catholic section- "Which do you care about more?"

Maybe you will feel like answering me "Catholics lie, they care more about the popes!"
But such a hostile answer by you, when Catholics speak to you their inner heartfelt cares and beliefs, would show the same judgmental Calvinist mentality that supported killing opponents of infant baptism.




The NAB you cited complained that "Then there are ultra-liberal scholars who qualify the whole Bible as another book of fairly tales."​

Yes, as even the devil knows not to go too extreme - at first, but relegating such things as the Flood, Jonah and the fish, Balaam and the donkey, the tower of Babel to being fables, and Joshua's conquests (which are treated as literal historical accounts in the NT) and other demonic revisionism is what is included under being led into all Truth via what Rome provides.
Numerous Protestant Bibles are teaching that Is 53 is not about Messiah, even though the teaching that Messiah's resurrection was per the OT is a foundational Nicene belief.
Your response is to complain about a Catholic study Bible NAB treating secondary OT events as metaphors. However, whether those OT events are fables or not is not a foundational issue or mentioned in Nicea's Creed. Whether Noah had a literal flood is not foundational.

Do you see the problem?

When I make this post, the last question is whether the Reformed Approach can lead outside the fundamentals of Biblical Christianity. Balaam's donkey is not a "fundamental". Jesus' unique divine Sonship, denied by the ex-Reformed movement of Unitarianism, is foundational.


That type of things, plus treating such men as Teddy Kennedy as members in life and in death, and besides even the doctrinal errors, requires us to seperate from her or similar liberal Prot denoms.
Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? (2 Corinthians 6:14)

Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. (2 Corinthians 6:17-18)
RC Church allowing Ted Kennedy to stay is not different from what mainstream Protestant churches would do. Let me know if Bill Clinton got excommunicated by Reformed over abortion.

The Unitarianism movement's origins is a major difference between the Reformed movement and Catholicism. Whether Ted Kennedy gets excommunicated over abortion is not a dividing line between Reformed and Catholicism. Exagerated Judgmental attitudes against Catholics seems to me to be a hallmark of Fundamentalist Reformed however. This was one of the reasons I left Evan school, even though I was a Protestant who disagreed with Catholicism.

But when you relegate stories such as Jonah and the fish to being a folk tale, which the Lord invoked as analogous to His death and resurrection, then it is a slippery slope leading to a speculative view of the latter.
Can I hope that now you are starting to see the logic behind the slippery slopes of interpreting "miracles" to be just metaphors, as in Calvin's attitude toward the Eucharist bread and to the spiritual rock in the desert?

I can see how across mainstream Christian studies there would be a common idea that some OT stories like Noah's flood and Jonah's whale were allegories.

The difference in importance is that the OT is a "type" and prefigurement of the NT fulfillments. If we say that Isaiah 53 was not a chronological account but just an allegory of the Messiah, this does not hurt the fundamentals. If however we say like those Protestant Study Bibles that Is. 53 is not about the Messiah, haven't we begun to cut away the fundamentals, PBJ?

So the Catholic Church, whatever its faults, is still Christian, because it still accepts the basics of Jesus being God and the Messiah and the other many things in the Nicene Creed (See CF Forums rules for what counts as Christian).​

Moreover, the CF Forums statement (which allows for rejecting baptism as a regenerating ordinance) for what counts as Christian (yet the rules say we cannot even imply someone is not!) does not include the very thing that makes one a Christian, that of coming to God as a damned and destitute sinner but with hearfelt repentance and faith in the risen Lord Jesus to save one on His account, not our merits or that of the church.

I, along with multitude other damned souls, professed such a creed, but never really repented and received the Lord Jesus to save me until i was really convicted by God of my lost condition, and heading for judgment. And even then i put it off. Thanks be to God for His long-suffering and mercy and grace in Christ!
I am confused - are you implying that good Catholics are not Christian?
If you "never really repented and received the Lord Jesus to save me", the Catholic Church would say that you were not being a good Catholic and it would agree that you must do this.

The "merits" themselves do not really "save" or "provide grace directly", but obedience to God is a condition or important factor in "being saved". If you are intentionally going hard in the opposite direction, you are not "being saved", whether you sincerely think so or not.

Yet is was against such liberal revisionism that the modern evangelical movement basically arose, as Scripture does not change, while the NAB scholar's alternative is liberal revision light. And which examples the problem with looking to men as supreme, to simply "follow the pastors," as Pius X enjoined, as when they go South, so does their followers. Now you have Francis writing an encyclical treating Climate Change as a dire threat, leading some RCs to reject it as not requiring any assent.
Modern Evan movement arose back in the mid 19th century with revivalism and many other such movement whether or not there were liberal revisionists. And this still doesn't change that the revisionists were a product of Reformed. I don't know what you mean about Climate Change here. I don't see how NAB's revision light is from following the pastors, since PCUSA doesn't teach "men's supremacy" and must be comparably "revisionist".

If someone imagines the Catholic Church going outside of Tradition and start debunking basic Christianity, then it will mean that the RCC is starting to follow the modern "Reformed" approach that does not treat Tradition as a key way to decide what Christianity means, and instead just decides what the Bible "really" means by itself.​

Non-sense, as such Bible believing Prots rejected tradition as the standard since it is inferior to Scripture, and oppose traditions as binding doctrine what are not taught in Scripture, but owe their veracity to Rome's decree, and instead they looked to unchanging Scripture as the standard, with its self-evident literal understanding on historical accounts, etc.
"Bible believing Prots" rejected tradition and looked to scripture as standard, but they have a liberal wing that the NAB criticized. There are self-identified "Prots" who who rejected tradition and think that the Bible says things in the NT different than you and both Evangelicals, and Catholics do.
That conservative "Bible believing Prots" don't debunk basic Christianity does not disprove that any RCCs who do are following the modern "Reformed approach" to tradition. Tradition includes basic Christianity like the Nicene Creed, so any RCCs who don't care about the Nicene Creed and claim they know the Bible's "true" meaning will be taking the Reformed approach on that question.

In contrast, just as Catholics looked to men who deviated from Scripture in the past, so they easily can follow modern traditions of men which militate against Scripture.
In this case, those "modern traditions of men" would be modern Protestant "critical scholarship", but the RCCs don't consider them "iinfaliible". RCCs in that case would be sharing the modern attitude about critical scholarship that Hedrick has mentioned.


Also, you will have to admit that revisionism is common among even conservative Reformed, when they debate over Christian Zionism, Replacement Theology, Dispensationalism, End Times chronologies and propositions, Infant Baptism, etc. etc.​

That is not revisionism at all, but differences in interpretation, much of which sees debate among RCs as well, whose interpretation as to treatment of Jews and their homeland can hardly been consistent and pure, while leaving room for debate in eschatology, and RCs also have a great deal of liberty to interpret Scripture to support Rome as they interpret her.
Such strange novelties and innovations as Christian Zionism, Dispensationalism, and numerous odd End Times chronologies and propositions are not "revisionism at all"?
In comparison, if you are RC theologian, you practically have to accept the same basic kind of Covenantalism that non-Zionist Reformed teach.

That's a major difference that you gloss over by saying that weird Reformed innovations are just "different interpretations", while implying that RC somehow have comparable liberty to make the same kinds of odd teachings, even though in reality they don't do that.

They did a far better job keeping their Churches together though than breaking up into dozens or hundreds of totally independent groups with their own very different teachings, even though the Bible says not to do that as we have been discussing. (eg. 1 Cor 10-11)​
Unity in error and having churches together does not translate into Biblical unity,
Reformed seems to have unity in error like self-disproven SS, but still don't have their churches together.

and what real unity they have is very limited,
RC "real unity" is very limited?
The believe in real communion with Jesus during Eucharist, something Calvin taught, but Reformed can't even agree if that happens or if Eucharist is just a symbol.

while apart from pseudoProts, if evangelicals were not so unified despite differences then they would not be seen as the most distinctive religious threat by liberals and many Caths alike.
Even if they were a "most distinctive religious threat" (not clear BTW), it does not mean they have unity. 1000 mosquitos with malaria in a room are an extreme threat, but the mosquitos don't have unity.

Yet all major religious groups are in declension. As prophesied. (2Ths. 2:1-4)
The limited unity of the NT was under powerfully manifest men of God, with strong Scriptural substantiation in word and in power, and lacking that today is our fault, and thus the lack of unity is a judgment against the church of God. But Rome is the most manifest example of the deformation of the NT church.
Evangelicals are a major religious group. Are they in declension?
What do you mean by the "limited unity of the NT"?
How did the NT era have "strong Scriptural substantiation" if the gospels hadn't even by written until after Paul's time?
You say "lacking that [unity] today is our fault"- by that do you mean Reformed?

Do you support the Charismatic movement, and belief in modern massive Gifts of the Spirit? If so, can you please write about Charismatics' "substantiation" of heir gifts and whether you find it comparable to the NT era? It is an interesting question for me, probably for a separate thread.

What is a better example of "deformation" - Tradition-less religious communities that came out of Reformed communities and use the Bible to reject Nicene basics and to reject NT fundamentals like communion rituals, or the RC Church, which still accepts the fundamentals of Christianity and the Nicene Creed?

What's a stronger deformation? "Bible-only based" JWs, Unitarianism, non-Trinitarian SDAs, "oneness Pentecostals, Eucharist-less Protestants who don't believe that the OT predicted the Messiah, etc., or the RC Church that accepts the Nicene Creed / Christian basics stated in the "CF" forum statement of faith?

Thank yo for your ideas. At this point, I would like to ask you to read Question 3 B.
http://www.christianforums.com/thre...of-christianity.7929431/page-19#post-69271122
 
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rakovsky

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Dear Hedrick,
The fact that Jesus died doesn’t make him literally a lamb. It makes him literally a sacrificial victim, for which lamb is a metaphor. If you want to call him a “spiritual lamb,” that’s fine with me, as long as that phrase isn’t meant in a literal way.

The isn’t anything about against the supernatural. This is about how literature works.
By comparison, the fact that God was directly with the Israelites in the desert, as it says he was in the cloud and fire, doesn't make Him literally a rock, it makes Him literally a being accompanying them and holding up their spirits, for which "spiritual rock" is a metaphor?
 
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rakovsky

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Dear Hedrick,
Your explanation is clear but nonsensical. The fact that Christ was a sacrifice for sin doesn't mean he has to be a lamb.

Calvin believed Christ was actually with Israel. He just didn't believe that this required him to be a rock. Rock was, however, given the 1st Cent Jewish context, a reasonable metaphor for his role.
Did Calvin believe that Christ was directly with Israel in the desert?
He didn't see to view 1 Cor 11 about "spiritual rock" that way, but reinterpreted "rock" as "stream" and concluded that the stream directly present was a pre-figurement of Christ, not actually Christ.
 
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rakovsky

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Dear Hedrick,

Partaking of Christ could be described as a metaphor if you think that “partake” means eat. After all, we don’t literally eat Christ. Partaking of Christ would then be a metaphorical way to refer to the real spiritual interaction that you refer to.

The problem is that the meaning of partake isn’t limited to eating. According to dictionary.com, it is derived from a Latin wording meaning “participate,” and the English still has some of that sense. So if you understand partake to mean participate in, then I think it applies directly. The Greek word translated partake in 1 Cor 10:14ff has this meaning as well. It’s not just “eat” but participate in.
Sure, I had this in mind.

Indeed 1 Cor 10:14 ff speaks of communion as participation. However that still leaves open the question of what “participation” means, and the relationship between partaking of bread and partaking of Christ’s body. I don’t think one can be sure that Paul means anything beyond that in eating and drinking, we participate in Christ’s death (understanding the body and blood as ways to refer to his death).
What about the resurrection and Jesus' life or energy?

But this could be because the eating and drinking reminds us of his death, and that in going through that experience with him in remembrance, we die and rise with him spiritually, and identify ourselves with him and his mission. In a literal sense this is something that happens in our minds and our spirits. After all, the words of institution tell us to do this in remembrance.
Maybe you will find my research on the meaning of remembrance as "making present".
http://www.christianforums.com/thre...of-christianity.7929431/page-21#post-69291068

I'm not sure whether to call this understanding of participation literal or metaphorical, but I think the literal meaning of participation can include this kind of spiritual participation. In which case partaking of Christ need not be seen as a metaphor. But if you understand partake as eat, then I think eating Christ is a metaphor for spiritual participation in him.
In Jesus' example, the apostles were like branches and he was the vine. A vine has sap inside that it feeds its branches with. Paul gave the example of a tree with the branches being believers who take in the fat or richness. Branches don't have a mouth with literal teeth, but they have an opening or narrow vein through which sap can travel.
leaf-veins.jpg


It's true that this is also a metaphor.

However, it seems that there is an act of consumption that goes beyond the simple participation that goes on with something like a group of people being in the same room and participating in a lecture or discussion group.
 
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rakovsky

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Dear Hedrick,
You’re absolutely right that there is a “broader, modern group of people who don't put major value on traditional Christian interpretations.” I’m one of them. I think the reason for this is a belief that in moving from Palestine to the wider Greco-Roman culture the Church made significant reinterpretations of Jesus. While this reinterpretation may have been fine for people living in the Greco-Roman culture, we don’t feel any requirement to accept those reinterpretations.
Marcion would be a good example of someone who, moving from the Jewish to gentile context would reject the early Christian Jewish ideas, like the importance of the Old Testament. However, the Church rejected Marcion.
At the same time, like I said, Jewish Christians were still running Jerusalem's church until the destruction of 135 AD or so.

And cultural shift need not mean erasure of an ideology's teachings. For example, when Catholicism moves to 3rd world countries, there can be cultural shifts to accommodate folk art and attitudes, but it doesn't mean that major Catholic teachings change. Something similar can be said about Protestant mission work in pagan cultures.

If you didn't have any writings with direct quotes from European Christians and for some reason had to rely on the Bible and on the Christian religious teachings of the missionized people in order to figure out Catholicism or Protestantism, I think that you could do that, even if Protestants or Catholics in those 3rd world countries had been severed from contact with Europe for, say, 200 years or so. By simply relying on a Bible-only approach in that hypothetical, one could miss much deeper understanding of Christianity.

I don’t think Calvin had that attitude. I don’t believe there was a good enough understanding in the 16th Cent just how much changed between the NT and early Christianity. But he did start down the path of critical scholarship that led to that.
A perception of "how much changed between the NT and early Christianity" could change a lot depending on the "scholar's" own beliefs. A scholar like Ehrman could have very different ideas on this than W.L. Craig or an Orthodox scholar. Michael Brown, a major Jewish Christian scholar seems to take a rather traditional Protestant view on such questions. Meanwhile, there are writers who claim that Jesus was basically about telling people to return to Torah, not that Jesus thought that He was Messiah or divine.

You’re quite right that being critical about tradition results in many conclusions that are untraditional. It’s obvious that this would be the case. You’re welcome to your view that it’s a bad thing. I disagree.

There is, of course, a lot of value in traditional Christianity. I would certainly not want to lose that. But that doesn’t mean that I’m forced to accept interpretations of the NT that I believe are contrary to the intent of the authors.
What you are saying is that if you undertake investigation and don't conclude the same way Tradition does, you shouldn't have to obey Tradition. Yes, as I gave in the case of Mt. Hermon, Orthodoxy does not require one to think that the Transfiguration was on Mt. Tabor. Tradition is not considered infallible except maybe the Councils.

However, the Council gives the Nicene Creed, teaching that Jesus was divine and that his resurrection happened. What happens when a scholar doesn't consider Tradition a major authority to understand the Bible and concludes that the Nicene Creed's fundamentals are bunk or are "metaphorical only", eg. that Jesus didn't exist?
 
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rakovsky

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Dear Hedrick,
The claim that the Gospels are a Greco-Roman take on a simple Jewish life goes against all the historical Jesus work of the last century or so. That work has placed Jesus and his portrayal in the Gospels quite firmly in a Jewish background.
There is work that doesn't but I don't consider it good work. See eg. the book "Kosher Jesus" by Rabbi Boteach.

The NT does show some Greco-Roman background. As you say, Paul operated within that world. Even Jesus did, to a limited extent. But later Christian writers operated within a rather different worldview than the NT writers.
Both the evangelists and later Christian writers operated in a "Christian worldview". Being strongly centered in a cult or religion can have an intense impact on one's worldview. A strong Christian living in a future 2050 America may have more in common in one's worldview with a medieval Christian in southern India (The Oriental Orthodox Church), especially in terms of theology, than either do with their nonChristian co-citizens.

It’s true that there isn’t an absolute line between NT and post-NT writings, but the speed with which the reinterpretations took place is pretty impressive. You can see the beginnings within the NT itself.
You have piqued my interest. What such beginnings do you see? I think such a perception of significant reinterpretations, especially in a Greco-Roman direction, would contradict Calvinism.

However, would it contradict the trajectory of the Calvinist approach? That is a more interesting question, isn't it, Hedrick?

If the NT did contradict itself or start to make reinterpretations in a Hellenistic pagan direction, would Calvin's approach of putting "Reason" against the plain meaning of scripture and Tradition (eg. his Reason-based claim that rock = stream) in effect lead to "ferreting out" the contradictions and reinterpretations?


Of course some of this is due to later selection. There’s some reason to think that there were Christians who resisted these developments. Their documents are not preserved.

Ehrman’s idea of Jesus seems to me to be based on views that are no longer common in historical Jesus work, though I’m not sure he quite thinks what you said. He thinks Jesus was a failed apocalyptic prophet. That’s a Jewish model, just the wrong one.


Ehrman writes:
Until a year ago I would have said – and frequently did say, in the classroom, in public lectures, and in my writings – that Jesus is portrayed as God in the Gospel of John but not, definitely not, in the other Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. I would point out that only in John did Jesus say such things as “Before Abraham, I am” (8:58; taking upon himself the name of God, as given to Moses in Exodus 3); his Jewish opponents knew full well what he was saying: they take up stones to stone him.

.....
But more than that, in doing my research and thinking harder and harder about the issue, when I (a) came to realize that the Gospels not only attributed these things to him, but also understood him to be adopted as the Son of God at his baptism (Mark 1:9-11), or to have been made the son of God by virtue of the fact that God was literally his father, in that it was the Spirit of God that made the virgin Mary pregnant (Luke 1:35), and (b) realized what “adoption” meant to people in the Roman world (as indicated in a previous post), I finally yielded. These Gospels do indeed think of Jesus as divine. Being made the very Son of God who can heal, cast out demons, raise the dead, pronounce divine forgiveness, receive worship together suggests that even for these Gospels Jesus was a divine being, not merely a human.
.....
For Mark, Jesus was adopted to be God’s son at his baptism. Before that, he was a mere mortal. For Luke, Jesus was conceived by God and so was literally God’s son, from the point of his conception. (In Luke Jesus did not exist *prior* to that conception to the virgin – his conception is when he came into existence).
http://ehrmanblog.org/jesus-as-god-in-the-synoptics-for-members/
Do you see the problem, from this, with modern Reformed Tradition-less "critical scholarship"?

Ehrman, coming out of a Fundamentalist Reformed training that does not care much about Tradition (common longstanding Christian teachings), goes from teaching as fact that Jesus in the synoptics did not consider himself divine to then teaching the opposite, in greater agreement with Tradition. (common longstanding Christian teachings)

However, even after this, he does not get things right. He assumes that since Mark doesn't narrate the incarnation that he must not have believed in it.
But this is not a necessary assumption- Mark didn't narrate the Resurrection and so theoretically just going on Mark it might not have happened. But I think that Mark believed in the Resurrection nonetheless.

Mark's lack of narrating the incarnation gives Ehrman enough room to say that it didn't happen in Mark's ideas, as Ehrman doesn't rely on Tradition, but not only that, he doesn't read the gospels in harmony with each other (in contrast, conservative Reformed try to harmonize them). And Reason and Ehrman's own naturalistic expectations are also probably his motives for thinking that Mark didn't believe this if Mark didn't narrate it.


I would refer to the Hadith to understand how Islam reads the Quran. That’s generally the issue for non-Muslims. “Historical Mohammed” work isn’t as common among Muslims as historical Jesus work among Christians. However it would use the Hadiths carefully, understanding that they are not necessarily an accurate reflection of his intent. I don’t know enough about Islam that I’d want to go further discussing it, but I don’t think there’s a perfect correspondence between the NT and the Quran.
When you say the last part, are you implying that since NT and Quran are different, you would treat hadiths as a crucial authority but not Christians' own early writings of 30-200 AD?
You think that there was an early Christian shift toward gentile Christians' worldviews, and so we shouldn't strongly emphasize extraBiblical writings for understanding. In fact though, the same thing can be said about the hadiths and early Islamic Law- the Muslim community spread across several major cultures within a few hundred years, and it also sharply divided between Shia and Sunnis, each with opposing traditions.

Yet if you don't use the Hadiths, things can get unclear. Take for example the Splitting of the moon I mentioned earlier. You can guess that this was portrayed as a miracle in the Quran. But if you use Calvinist-style logic, the moon was not split, just as rocks don't follow people around Mt Horeb, and so this must be a metaphor, or "moon" means something else. However, I think that the Hadiths are right about this and that the Quran intends to portray a miracle. There are also other miracle stories in the QUran and I don't think they are metaphors either.

You may wish to reply that the NT, unlike the Quran, is clear in meaning. but in truth the NT has plenty of mystical doctrines like the Trinity that people have occasionally argued over for the last 1800 years or so.


In fact I do look at the Christian community’s understanding of the Bible. I agree that understanding the authors' intent often requires work, and that commentaries are important. However there are multiple Christian communities. I belong to an ecumenical community that accepts recent historical Jesus and Paul work.
For something to be really ecumenical, I think it should include Orthodox theologians, since Orthodox are one of three main branches of Christianity. Otherwise it is just "inter-church Western Christian". I would be interested in seeing what Orthodox theologians you would consider as part of historical Jesus work.

Scholarship is not a bunch of individuals in isolation. Scholars work as a community, and although not all are active Christians, they do work within the broader Christian community. However this community doesn’t include people who view tradition as largely or completely infallible. The boundaries are a bit flexible, though, since Catholics are to a reasonable extent part of it.
Orthodox don't consider Tradition as largely infallible, but it's kind of interesting how Catholics could be part of such an effort if they don't. I wonder if there has been a time when all RC bishops accepted something that was later reversed by the RC church. Such a thing might disprove their concept of magisterial Infallibility that a poster mentioned above.
 
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rakovsky

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Dear Hedrick,
I may have made a mistake in implying that the only thing going on in the early Church was a shift to a Greco-Roman context. The Church had to come up with ways to organize leadership and liturgy, for example. The experience of persecution, and an admiration for those who persevered had a serious influence. Christian spiritual experience began to build up. So did “popular piety.”

Many of those things are just fine. But they’re also not immune from reconsideration. We might well consider different forms of leadership appropriate, and different liturgies. We might well not want to continue the types of popular piety that grew up in the early Church.
OK.
My argument was not whether we must follow the same exact forms of caring for religious pictures that they did in 300 AD. I am not even arguing that the instances of caring for holy objects in the Bible were rationally "correct" and realistic. My argument is the thesis you agreed with, that the Reformed principles go against even the kinds of things we saw in the Bible.

And then a major question for me becomes: Once we think that numerous miracles in the Bible did not happen and that thousands of claims about miracles with relics didn't happen, where do we go from there in judging Christianity's miracles more generally, including those alleged by non-Catholics today?
 
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rakovsky

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Dear Fred,

How can you ask this:

In traditional Christianity, the term "lamb" can be a metaphor, but Christ literally underwent an atonement for humanity.

My point is that it is not enough to just say that "Christ is bread, a lamb, and a vine" and that these are "metaphors" and "symbols",
therefore not more, and leave it at that (as Zwingli's and Fred's approach would seem to do), even if you accept the Calvinist system.
It seems with this there is no acknowledgement of metaphors in the Bible, even with so much of that shown. Is this true?
I just told you that "Christ is bread" is lamb is a metaphor, but that this is not enough to say. How do you say I don't acknowledge them, when I just said that they were metaphors.

As with Christ saying among those "I am"s that he is the vine, the door, the light of the world, the bread from heaven, he is using terms that are metaphors for the truth of what he spiritually is for us, no one here is saying that because he is metaphorically a lamb that the atonement, for which the lamb is a metaphor, is itself a metaphor. We understand the reality, so we can use the metaphorical language that shows what is necessary and how animals needing to die for people was just used for the symbolism of the reality, for enabling their necessary faith. Hopefully how a metaphor is used can be better understood. It doesn't require other terms to be metaphors as well.
Yes. This is my point.
So when Christ is called by Paul a "spiritual rock" that follows believers ( 1 Cor 10:4), the term "spiritual rock" is a metaphor, just like "metaphorical rock" would be a metaphor. However, the "following" is not a metaphor, just as the atoning of the "spiritual lamb" is not a metaphor.
So in 1 Cor 10:4, Christ the "spiritual rock" is actually following Israelites.

Just as he could say "I am" and use a metaphorical term for the truth that he is spiritually for us,
he could say of the bread he broke, "this is my body" and with that bread being a metaphor.
Here's the big difference between the two:
In the first case, the "metaphorical term" was just a term or abstract expression.
In the second case, the object described is a real, actual, specific object, not a mental abstract expression.

When Jesus says "I am", he means he really "is". God "is". His name is "I am", and He actually "is".

This was Martin Luther's explanation about 1 Cor 4:10 also.

There isn't reason to dismiss that as what could have been meant, and it was an apt metaphor of how he was to suffer, given for them and all believers. That he said do this in remembrance of me shows that doing this is the important thing to be continued, to remember with the constant act with this, not the need to believe it is actually his body, which isn't being said as a necessary belief we need anywhere in the Bible.
"Remembrance" as I mentioned in a past message means to "make present" in Hebrew, such that Jesus is being made present, not just thought about.
The belief that it is actually his body is found in 1 Cor:10-11 when paul repeats about discerning and judging that the ritual bread itself is the communion of the body.

15 I speak as to wise men; judge(krinate) ye what I say.
16 The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?

24 And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me.
25 After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, this cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me.
29 For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning (krinate) the Lord's body.

Paul says to "discern/judge" that the ritual bread is the body, and then complains that Corinthians are failing to make that discernment.

1550 years later in the late Renaissance period this sounds strange to Calvin, who uses naturalistic Reason to judge miracles and scripture. (eg. with relics and the moving rock in Exodus).
 
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rakovsky

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Thank you for your discussions. Let's summarize the issues.

I. Severe downgrading of Tradition.

Reformed give a simple proposition - they just "let the Bible speak for itself" to get religious Truths and don't consider early Christian traditions to be a key tool to understand what the Bible is saying in the first place.

The problem in this is shown in real life by the dozens or hundreds of mutually exclusive religious claims whose Reformed advocates sincerely claim are based just on the Bible, not tradition. Such debates have been so severe that they've imposed massive mortal persecution, as with the Anabaptists.​

Reformed tend to respond by complaining that Catholics treat Tradition as infallible, and that since Tradition can have flaws, therefore we should not use it. But such a response does not grapple with the fact that I am not advocating infallibility, and that just because something is fallible does not negate it as a crucial resource. Most basically, the Reformed response is unable to address the reality that its Bible-only method has disproven its own "Truth" by shattering its followers into hundreds of sects.

II. Naturalistic early modern Reason as a main tool against supernatural, traditional meanings
Calvin had a habit of judging others' teachings that we've discussed on a standard of "reasonableness" vs "foolishness", and Luther complained about this. Reformed would reply that this sense of Reason should be used, because it's "logic", and deny that they are using this against the Bible's meaning.

When we turn to real examples though, it looks like this is what happens. We find Calvin reading "rock" as "stream of water" in 1 Cor 10 because rocks in nature don't follow people. We find Reformed intensely skeptical of relics who propose that the Israelite who revived after touching Elisha's bones was not dead. Hedrick, who is quite intelligent, considered NT relic miracles to be "relic mania", concluding that not all supernatural NT events "will be accepted." Meanwhile, numerous Protestant Study Bibles teach that Isaiah 53 was not about the Messiah, yet my own literary analysis shows that the traditional Christian view that the Servant is Messiah is correct.

Again, Reformed don't tend to really grasp that there are numerous cases where they have in fact used naturalistic Reason against the plain, traditional meanings. For Hedrick, Calvin just didn't know there was a Jewish tradition about a rock following the Israelites. But in truth, that wouldn't have made a difference because Calvin didn't care that much about pharisees' traditions, especially when he found them "foolish", like he considered other Christians' views on the verse to be.​

III. Christ's body in the Eucharistic bread
Catholics/Lutherans/Orthodox teach that Christ is in the Eucharistic bread.
Reformed claim that when Christ repeated many times that believers need to eat his body (John 6), gave them a piece of bread and said "This is my body" (synoptics), and when Paul repeatedly instructed them to "discern" that the ritual bread is the communion of Christ's body (1 Cor 10-11), this was all meant metaphorically, not literally, about the bread.

For Hedrick, "many disciples" left Jesus in John 6 because they couldn't believe Jesus came from heaven, even though the discourse focused on Jesus being bread and getting eaten and one of the main objections was "How can this man give us His body to eat?" And when Paul complained that Corinthians weren't discerning the body, Reformed claimed that this only referred to them not "discerning" the community being at the ritual - even though not long before (1 Cor 10) Paul had asked them to "discern" (krinate) that the bread was the communion of Jesus' body.

While I think there are enough reasons in the text to show that they believed Jesus was actually present in the bread, I have trouble using the Bible alone to prove it to the same powerful extent that I can prove the text's meaning in the cases in the last section above (section II). What is remarkable is that the way that the Calvinists settled the debate was by relying on Reason to arrive at this new teaching after 1500 years of Christianity's existence. And like the "many disciples" who left in John 6 and like the fractiousness Paul warned against among those failing to discern the body, Reformed broke away from the rest of Christianity and then broke into dozens of sects. If in a situation where the Bible is not clear on its own one disregards tradition and relies on Reason to show that a major teaching like the Eucharist bread is just a metaphor, then it can be expected that the same thing will happen to other major supernatural teachings.
Likewise, in Calvin's dispute against Luther, Calvin used Reason to decide that Christ could not be in the Eucharist bread - ie. if Christ's body is in heaven, then it is not omnipresent nor can it be on earth in the Eucharist bread.

The problem is that it demands Jesus' body obey natural law. And by extension, this would mean that he couldn't be invisible in the walls of the house in John 20. Further, bilocation according to Einstein is not even banned in physics like Calvin imagined it was. (Calvin was wrong in denying heliocentrism too, BTW).
Calvin's response was that Jesus was not "invisible" but just "disappeared". And Hedrick said that this was not a physics issue, but just the definition of a "body".

But then how is being impaned in a wall acceptable to the idea of a body while being impaned in bread is not? If Einstein allows for bilocation and God could incarnate and make the world out of nothing, why couldn't God choose to be in a piece of bread? I think Reformed do not have substantive answers that really address these questions.
IV. Groups coming out of the Reformed community
Conservative Reformed address the fact that major "heretical" religious groups, ranging from JWs to Unitarians have hemorrhaged from the Reformed community by saying that Reformed have fought those groups. For his part, Hedrick prefers to identify with modern Protestant "critical scholarship" while seeming to downplay how strongly major aspects like the Jesus seminar break in effect with the fundamentals of Christianity.

These responses however don't address the connection between the creation of these major groups and the "schismatics'" use of the Reformed approach. Namely, they have claimed that they follow the Bible's "true" meaning without paying major attention to Tradition. Like Reformed belief that the Eucharist bread metaphorically has Jesus' body and a spiritual uplifting occurs, the Protestant "Jesus Seminar" and some other scholars propose that Jesus' resurrection is a "true" story or that Jesus' resurrection was "spiritual". Quakers took Zwingli's belief that the Eucharist was just an "outward sign" to its logical conclusion and stopped using rituals in general because rituals were just "outward". Reformed don't seem able to recognize the connection between their shared approach and the repeated, eventual result of this "de-mystifying" of Christianity.

V. Questions and Criticisms


My main criticism is not that Reformed use Reason as a tool to judge religion, but that they use Reason over plain, traditional meanings to decide what the NT intended to say. The problem is that ancient mentalities and the Supernatural do not obey early modern perceptions of Reason. Mediterranean Christians living in 30-200 AD in the same era as the books were written have a closer mentality to and contact with the apostles and their direct audience than late Renaissance Western European Christians.

But while I think that this is a deeply flawed way to address a religion's basic text, I wonder if the path of Reason is a good way to judge Religion in the first place?
Those who use Reason to conclude that the gospels teach a "symbolic-only" presence in the bread and a "spiritual-only" resurrection are in my opinion wrong in their method to understanding the gospels. However, should we use Reason as a tool to judge religion itself, in the way that Hedrick judged relic miracles in disregard of the's NT portrayal of them to be real?

Two of the main reasons given to support Christian faith are: (1) that early Christians in 30-300 AD persisted and grew despite persecution, thus proving the Truth of their beliefs, and (2) that a multitude of Christian miracles have happened through the centuries. However, Reformed teaching says that early Christians' writings of 30-300 AD besides the limited books of the New Testament are not very sacred or important to understanding the faith. Plus, it takes a cynical view of thousands of miracles claimed to have occurred involving miracles. Since modern Reformed Reason can be so skeptical about persecuted Christians' writings and thousands of relic miracles, then does the perseverence of the gospel writers lose its power to prove their own main text? Do thousands of non-Catholic miracles lose their objective persuasiveness in the eyes of Reason just like thousands of relic miracles have?
 
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PeaceByJesus

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Due to the length of this in response to yours, i will supply it in 3 parts by God's grace, but who is not to be blamed for its need for proof reading and improvements or corrections. And i do not intend to go one responding to and writing more tomes.

Part 1:

DEAR PeaceByJesus!
Do you think it is helpful to be able to reevaluate issues for oneself, even if it is not expected by one's opinion? Reformed are probably the single biggest religious group in America. Do you think people can go against the grain on this issue to look at things in another way?
Which objectivity is what i seek to engage in, and am not fully on the Reformed side anyway. Objective thinking is more of a challenge for Catholics, esp. RCs, since their church is the basis for the veracity of belief.
Yes, in REAL LIFE, the fact that "groups of people (including Reformed) read the Bible in sincerity and are convinced that it means opposite things" disproves IN REAL LIFE that SS "enables one to 100% understand it".
It is such a simple proof because it means that the "wrong" side of the debate who followed SS were not able in REAL LIFE to understand it.
This is such a simple fact of logic. There is no mentally reasonable way to argue against that fact.
It is mentally reasonable to consider the context, and that since in REAL LIFE those who operate under SS concur and strongly contend for many core Truths then it testifies that SS enables one to basically 100% understand basic truths i referred, "which a common historical evangelical contention for basic Truths attests to," which was what i wrongly thought you were referring to.

However, if 100% concurrence on everything in Scripture and all points of theology is the criteria for qualifying a source to be the supreme standard then neither of us have any.

And that sufficiency of a source as a sure comprehensive standard must exclude disagreements to be valid, is like arguing that a electricians manual must be deficient if someone misunderstands it and short circuits the house.

For your repetitious unlearned argument is based a fundamental fallacy that the sufficiency of Scripture must enables one to 100% understand it and preclude the possibility of disagreements about it, as if sufficiency of Scripture meant explicit formal sufficiency, as in being able to read a text like Acts 10:36-43 and be born again. But if sufficiency was restricted to that, then a historical document on SS as Westminster would not refer to what Scripture materially provides, that of the magisterial office to settle controversies, as well as that "there are some circumstances concerning the worship of God, and government of the Church, common to human actions and societies, which are to be ordered by the light of nature , and Christian prudence, according to the general rules of the Word, which are always to be observed," and that via "the due use of the ordinary means," one may attain unto a [FONT=Arial, sans-serif]sufficient [/FONT]understanding.

Meanwhile, "with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again," (Matthew 7:2) and thus your alternative to SS must result in the 100% understanding you seem to demand of SS, or at least exclude divisions, yet Catholicism broadly exists in sects and disagreements, if not as manifest among EOs, partly due to less technical teachings.

Under the alternative to SS, with tradition, Scripture and the magisterium providing what is necessary for faith and morals, which i presume both RCs and EOs' hold to, with the church being the supreme judge, then there are still substantial differences. Meanwhile the veracity of apostolic teaching and limited unity under them was due to the great degree of Scriptural substantiation in word and in power.

But by now i forgot why your argument was used. It seems that you were attacking "partial unity" of the Reformed, but as said, that is also true of Catholicism, the difference being in scope and degree, while in real terms, that being in practical popular level, then as said, "those who esteem Scripture the most as the wholly inspired accurate word of God are the most unified religious group in basic beliefs, and strongest contenders against those who deny them".

Your response that Catholics and Orthodox also agree that Scripture is the inspired word of God misconstrues the argument, which is not about those who profess Scripture as the inspired word of God, but that those who esteem Scripture the most as being so, and to be more specific:

The percentage of Catholics who believed the Bible is totally accurate in all of the principles it teaches declined from 34% in 1991 to 26% in 2011 - http://www.barna.org/faith-spiritua...1991-shows-significant-changes-by-faith-group.

Bible Reading: the highest was 75%, by those going to a Pentecostal/Foursquare church who reported they had read the Bible during the past week (besides at church), while the lowest was among Catholics at 23% - http://www.science20.com/print/972444

47.8% of the Evangelicals and 11.8% of Catholics affirm the Bible is Literally true. 6.5% of the former and 19.8% of the latter see it as an ancient book of history and legends.

Evangelical Protestants are the most politically conservative Christian tradition. Within each tradition, those with literal views of the Bible are more politically conservative than is their tradition overall. Catholics that are Biblical literalists (11.8%) hold more conservative political views than the Catholic population in general does. The Biblical literalist Catholic is as politically conservative as the Biblical literalist who is Evangelical (47.8%) or Mainline Protestant. (11.2%) - American Piety in the 21st Century, Baylor Institute for Studies of Religion: http://www.baylor.edu/content/services/document.php/33304.pdf

81% of Pentecostal/Foursquare believers strongly agree that the Bible is totally accurate in all that it teaches , followed by 77% of Assemblies of God believers, and ending with 26% of Catholics and 22% of Episcopalians - http://www.barna.org/barna-update/article/5-barna-update/53

In a survey asking whether one approves or rejects or overall sees little consequence (skeptical) to society regarding seven trends on the family (unmarried couples raising children; gay and lesbian couples raising children; single women having children without a male partner to help raise them; people living together without getting married; mothers of young children working outside the home; people of different races marrying each other; and more women not ever having children), 42% of all Protestants were “Rejecters” of the modern trend, 35% were Skeptics, and 23% were “Approvers.” Among Catholics, 27% were Rejecters, 34% were Approvers, and 39% were Skeptics. - Pew forum, The Public Renders a Split Verdict On Changes in Family Structure, February 16, 2011 http://pewsocialtrends.org/2011/02/...dict-on-changes-in-family-structure/#prc_jump
Orthodoxy does not teach infallibility of Tradition except MAYBE a few councils' main creeds (eg. Nicene Creed).
Which further provides for disagreement, both as to what statements (or which parts) are infallible as well as their meaning.
Also, in PRACTICE Reformed often don't care THAT much for synods to solve controversies except maybe a few foundational Reformed ones like Westminster.
They should, and in fact a centralized, if not infallible, magisterium is the ideal, which the arrogance, errors and inequity of Rome has poisoned. Yet Christianity began in dissent from those who sat in the seat of Moses, and which under Moses was a capital crime, (Dt. 17:8-13) though one could be right in so doing, as with the secular judges whom we are enjoined to generally obey. (Rm. 13:1-7)
Otherwise Reformed today would get together and have a council on Infant baptism, Dispensationalism, and dozens of other major iusses they split over and then they would put major mutual trust in those synods, instead of still arguing with each other no less tensely over the same issues.

The fact that some "Bible churches" practice infant baptism and subscribe to supersessionism does not invalidate SS as it is by the use of this that we see the strengths and weakness of each position, enabling a conclusion. The magisterial office can judge which is correct and require assent to its decisions, but as with the OT magisterium to which submission was required, (Dt. 17:8-13) the veracity of its decisions rested upon conformity with the established word of God. Thus the church began in dissent from those who sat in the seat of Moses.

Scripture also shows that that there can be essential unity despite non-salvific differences (as Catholicism must allow for), and that churches can vary greatly in their fidelity, (Rv. 2+3) and that separation is sometimes needful, (2Co. 6:14-18) and that God can allow false prophets in judgment against the people in order to test them.(Judges 2:20-23)

SS does not require 100% unity but does provide for the means of unity, even though others dissent, based on the weight of Scriptural substantiation, which the decision of Acts 15 had, and we have the historical contentions by evangelical types for core teachings against cults that deny them, as well as against certain traditions of Catholicism, which has its divisions, if lesser, over what tradition teaches.
As for in-house disputes, even in Catholicism the strongest unity is also among those who have the strongest disputations (as sects as the RC SSPX evidence), both being due to their commitment to Truths. And in application, the unity of evangelical-types has historically been so manifest that they have been as the greatest threat by liberals as well as Catholics.

As a former weekly mass-going RC, even for years after i was born again thru real conviction and repentance and realized the basic profound transformative effects of Biblical regeneration, i can honestly attest to i find far more essential spiritual fellowship, even spontaneously, among other evangelicals due to a share conversion and Scripture-based relationship with the Lord, and with heartfelt worship, edifying teaching, along with multitudes of ministries made of such from various evangelical churches working together in service to God.

Why would i want to go back to the mostly perfunctory praise and professions and dead rituals and sermonettes by unscriptural priest imagining they are physically feeding people the flesh and blood of Christ, along with, and because of, other false teachings?

Nor would i want to be part of liberal Prot. churches or those of prosperity preachers, all of which God allows in judgment to test people what they really want. (cf. Judges 2:20-23)

If only one is correct, then the other one who followed SS in sincerity is wrong. And that proves that the wrong side was not able to discern the real meaning. They tried and failed.
But which would still mean that one side did discern the true meaning. And again under the alternative means of unity, with the church being the supreme sure judge, the same thing occurs, with a basic unity being realized as well as disunity, but which itself does not disallow something from being the standard or faith and morals. Again, if comprehensive doctrinal unity is required for something to be the sure standard then there is none and never has been any none. Even under the apostles it is hardly conceivable that all theological aspects were considered and agreed upon.
For Calvin, "Reason" was the standard. Reformed-style SS fails the "Reason" test.
No, reason is not the standard itself, as that is a process which Christ much appealed to (as you are also), but which must have a basis. The question "whom say ye that I am?," calls for a reasonable response in the light of evidence, and its correspondence with a standard which defines what a person is. To be the Son of the Living God presumes revelation of that God, and His nature, which as abundantly seen, was Scripture.
Even if your "side" of that debate were right, the other side who also believed in SS and sincerely tries to follow it is wrong.
And if the EOs are right, then Rome is wrong, and the feelings are mutual, while within each faith there is much varied and variant judgments. The appeal to the magisterial office is Scriptural, but often impractical in Catholicism.

Instead, the limited degree of unity in the NT was achieved upon the weight of Scriptural substantiation in word and in power, under manifest men of God, such as we need today. (2Co. 6:4-10)
Earlier in your message you cited Westminster's confession with approval. Do you understand that Westminster Confession teaches infant baptism? Calvin taught infant baptism himself.
If you are going to engage in debate then you need to understand that invoking a source does not necessarily mean complete (or any) agreement with it. The context was that of SS for which Westminster is held to be a primary definitive source, thus its testimony to the magisterial office is valid since Caths typically define SS as excluding it. But i do not concur with all else it may say, nor with Luther, which yet hold to some traditions of Catholicism. The Reformation is not a work or one day or two, and must yet continue.
So now you are saying that Westminster Confession and Calvin were not able to see the truth in the Bible about infant baptism, even though they followed Reformed-style SS.
And others did, and misreading a map does not impugn its sufficiency. And again, in Catholicism there is basic unity yet varying degrees of disagreement in what they mean. Just because some people write bad code does a hammer does not impugn its ability to be used as

In a typical conservative evangelical church there are core Truths one needs to affirm, or at least not dispute if he does not want to be corrected, and esp. if he wants to be in leadership, yet there is much he can disagree one. Likewise in Catholicism. There can be disagreement over what teachings require assent and varying degrees of disagreement in what they mean, even which the magisterial office does not solve, but can even be cited by both sides on.

Thus we both hold that assent is required for certain core beliefs, which we who hold strongly to Scripture as being the wholly inspired and accurate word of God see unity in, while allowing for varying degree of disagreement in what they mean.
This is a slam dunk case of SS disproving itself by your standards on infant baptism in real life.
The only slam dunk is your waste a lot of time relying on your foul fallacy. As your premise is wrong then so is your conclusion, for Scripture enables unity as well as there to be differences in non-salvific issues as well as showing how to reprove false gospels and in deception, as the Lord did in reproving error by Scripture, while also testifying that God can allow error and deception to exist in order to prove the people. Including churches which autocratically claim "my doctrine is pure." That the devil misused Scripture in Mt. 4 and the Sadducees did not understand it does not impugn the supremacy and sufficiency of Scripture.

For what is needed is the Truth for salvation and growth in grace, and which Scripture provides in its formal and material aspects, yet which itself teaches, "now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known." (1 Corinthians 13:12)

I believe the ""then" is,

"Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is." (1 John 3:2)

Only then will 100% unity be realized, and it remains that your own means for unity fails to provide complete unity and solve all differences, while producing much unity in Catholic errors.

And honestly, it is unlikely that if infant baptism was not part of tradition that SS type churches would come up with it, yet as with Scripture itself, SS does not exclude that souls can employ it to reach wrong decisions, but that under SS these can be shown to be in error.
Sorry, I don't understand what you are talking about. Do you understand that I am not Roman Catholic and that we don't consider Tradition infallible (except for maybe a few creeds like Nicene Creed)?
Yet it still means that "by your reasoning your alternative means of determination of Truth and unity is also invalidated." Or need we get into differences of belief within Orthodoxy past and present? Including btwn Greek and SlavSlavs?
NT Church taught against fracturing into splinter groups and said to follow their traditions. 2 Thessalonians 2:15
And which means what? You can no more show us what oral teachings Paul was specifically referring to than your Roman cousins can who invoke that same and substantially disagree with you on what tradition teaches, nor in passing them on is your magisterium speaking under the inspiration of the Spirit as the writers of Scripture realized, nor providing new revelation as they also did, while what a SS preacher can do is enjoin obedience to oral preaching, presuming it is Scriptural and subject to Scriptural examination as to its veracity, as was that of the apostles was. (Acts 17:11)
In contrast, Reformed sects did not put a major emphasis on upholding Christian traditions
And again, which Rome and EOs divide on, and both pick and choose while we uphold Scriptural "traditions" but as Christ did, and reject others such as prayer to created beings in Heaven.
and they splintered into groups based on their opposing doctrines, like Dispensation, Zionism, infant/non-infant baptism, how many points of Calvinism you accept, etc. etc. etc.
And you imagine that Orthodoxy also does not see disagreements? They are less manifest in Orthodoxy than among RCs, partly due to being less technical, which they criticize Rome for being, but it remains that under the alternative to SS - with tradition, Scripture and the magisterium providing what is necessary for faith and morals - there are still substantial differences, while the veracity of apostolic teaching was due to Scriptural substantiation in word and in power.
In early Church time though its also true that there were gnostic groups who did not care about following Tradition and staying under the Church leaders when plausible either, and so even back then there were splinter groups. I don't see this as a good reason to stop caring about mainstream Church traditions like the gnostics did.
In the early Church period there were common people who followed a man in a hairy garment who ate insects but whom the spiritual leaders, who sat in the seat of Moses, rejected. Likewise another itinerant Preacher who proved the magisterial leaders by Scripture.

Then came the officers to the chief priests and Pharisees; and they said unto them, Why have ye not brought him? The officers answered, Never man spake like this man. Then answered them the Pharisees, Are ye also deceived? Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed on him? But this people who knoweth not the law are cursed. (John 7:45-49)

So much for any mainstream=Truth. Meanwhile due to a wide core consensus evangelicals have historically contended against liberal revisionism such as predominates in RC scholarship. Works such as Walter Martin's "Kingdom of the Cults" could presume this.
It does not invalidate the source of Truth (Bible). Reality of pervasive breakups invalidates their method for "providing Truth in a way that souls find unity" (Reformed "Reason" version of Sola Scriptura).
But they do find unity, as well as disagreements, as do souls in looking to the church as the supreme sure source, despite the limited and mostly paper unity that may be professed.
I don't teach Tradition is infallible or demand 100% unity on all beliefs.
You sure seem to do the latter for SS since you ignore the essential unity of evangelical types which thus contended against the denials of cults etc. of them, and constantly argue that their disagreements and divisions disallow SS, while you have no alternative that effects lack of disagreement.

Meanwhile if you do not do believe tradition is infallible (which Rome does) then you must allow for error and disagreements, while evangelicals testify to greater popular unity on basic beliefs than Catholics and are overall liberal. Why should the former join the latter even on that basis?
 
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PeaceByJesus

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Part 2 by God's grace:

DEAR PeaceByJesus!
I think people should care alot about Tradition though
I agree, so when tradition says we are to pray to created beings in Heaven, which the Holy Spirit nowhere examples (except by pagans) in providing approx. 200 prayers in Scripture, nor teaches, and shows God as the only one able to hear such in Heaven from those on earth, and only teaches of Christ being the heavenly intercessor, then we cannot accept it if we will follow the only substantive class of Truth which is affirmed to be wholly inspired of God. Nor bow before statues in praise and adulation of those it represents in the unseen world, beseeching such for supernatural help, which is pagan, not Biblical.

Likewise unScriptural is distinctively calling NT presbuteros/episkopos (one office) "priests," which the Spirit never does, but which developed due to imposed functional equivalence under the untenable understanding of the Lord's Supper.
and not break up Jesus' "body" the church over hundreds of strange new teachings.
I agree, so Catholicism is excluded due to its many strange new teachings as well as those by cults, while we could just limit the one true church to just one evangelical denomination, which is not Scriptural either, yet bringing all under a centralized leadership should be the goal, although division is both necessary (1Co. 11:19) as well as a judgment for not having men as the apostles in word, virtue and power, under which the NT church saw its limited unity.

Evangelists and apostles in 35-200 AD produced the NT and their audience were close to them to ask for understanding it. This was in same time NT was written or within 100 years' difference.
The 200 AD is a liberal lie but critical for you, as all aberrations going mainstream took place after the last book was penned and the death of the apostles, and what developed is seen in contrast to it. Besides other things, you have the perverse views on marriage such as Jerome abused Scripture to support, and the 4th century Pope Damasus who an hired a gang of murderous thugs to secure his seat from his rival,
Pharisees in 30 AD came 800-2000 years after most of the Tanakh was written. That's a huge difference! You are starting to make me sad, how do you with nice name "Peace by Jesus" not see that?
Your claim was that "people should consider what Christians who lived in 35-200 AD thought about what those verses mean" to solve division, and since we do know from Scripture what the NT church believed before approx. 90 AD, then what is left is 90-200 AD, with you advocating heeding those who came after the death of the apostles, as if that was even uniform (which it is not), and your argument is essentially the same as advocating we follow the historical magisterium and mainline people, not any new start up.
So if the men's judgments were so uninspired and unimportant, how did they get the Bible books right, when the list was just finalized in the Church fathers' times?
There was no finalized list in the Church fathers' time of all books of Scripture, as men such as Jerome rejected apocryphal books, and scholarly doubts and disagreements about apocryphal books and some NT ones continued sown thru the centuries and right into Trent, which provided the first "infallible" RC canon after the death of Luther in 1546, while the Orthodox slightly differ, and it seems some differ among themselves.

As even the the Catholic Encyclopedia In the Latin Church, all through the Middle Ages we find evidence of hesitation about the character of the deuterocanonicals. There is a current friendly to them, another one distinctly unfavourable to their authority and sacredness, while wavering between the two are a number of writers whose veneration for these books is tempered by some perplexity as to their exact standing, and among those we note St. Thomas Aquinas. Few are found to unequivocally acknowledge their canonicity. The prevailing attitude of Western medieval authors is substantially that of the Greek Fathers. The chief cause of this phenomenon in the West is to be sought in the influence, direct and indirect, of St. Jerome's depreciating Prologus (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03267a.htm) ^

Secondly, your argument that getting Bible books right means the judgments of men who did were inspired (I did not say unimportant), and thus we should follow them, also applies to those who affirmed OT writings as being of God, which were thus invoked by the Lord and disciples, which those in the seat of Moses never objected to. Likewise under your discernment=inspiration reasoning, those who concur on the canon today based on the qualities of these books, nor because they follow a church, could be said to be inspired.
It is the community that decided on which books would be in the Bible.
This is true, essentially due to their unique Divine qualities and attestation, as with men of God, both of which leadership is to affirm. Yet leadership can be wrong about both, and as in the past, the community can also hold to things that were not of God, but time will make it manifest.
If an angel or dead saint visually "appeared" to someone in the Bible does that prove that the angel was directly in the person's realm?
It means the entity communicated personally in the same realm, versus hearing corporate mental prayer from Heaven, in contrast to God alone being shown able to hear from heaven the prayers from earth, and who alone is addressed in prayer.
Jesus appeared to Stephen in the clouds. Does that mean Jesus was in Stephen's realm?
Being God He would not need to. Again, it remains that only God is shown addressed in prayer to Heaven, and privileged and having the power to hear all prayer from Heaven, mentally or otherwise (I recall no indication angels can even read minds), and respond. Angels and elders offering prayers as memorial to God before the final judgments does not do it.

Yet Caths presume a manifest unique Divine ability and to do what the Holy Spirit would not even though it is such a basic practice That is what happens when the church presumes it can equates what it will with Scripture.
Communicating with saints/angels is not always asking for intercession either.
I suppose some just tell them the "Good Morning" but it remains that only God is addressed in prayer to Heaven in Scripture.
Obviously, saying to the sun and to angels to praise God is not worship addressed to God, just as instructions to Dominoes to deliver pizza to a house are not instructions to the house.
But such poetic language is not telling the sun how glorious it is and imploring it to shine on you or the like.
I am very skeptical that as Reformed you will be OK if Christians nowadays go into a church and on their own ask angels and saints in heaven to praise God?
Which is absurd, as as such poetic language is not asking them to do so anymore than it is in saying, "Praise the Lord from the earth, ye dragons, and all deeps: Fire, and hail; snow, and vapour; stormy wind fulfilling his word." (Psalms 148:7-8) What next?
Who said it is "equal"? It seems you don't understand that if you use a tool to help understand something that the tool is not "equal" to the text.
Tradition for Catholicism is not merely a tool but a source of Divine revelation, considering scripture and tradition to be on equal ground, and of equal validity as EOs state. Thus they can teach even a basic practice as being of God even though it is utterly absent in Scripture.
Why do you not understand that the Orthodox Church does not teach Tradition is infallible? Why spend a Tome as you called it making a strawman?
That was just one sentence, as it is easy to forgot the few differences. Sorry!
Do you know of Catholic scholars who teach that Jesus' incarnation and resurrection was just a "true" story like the Protestant "Jesus Seminar" teaches? Can you find multiple Catholic Study Bibles saying that Isaiah 53 is not about Messiah like the Protestant ones do?
So you must resort to invoking whatever you call Protestant in order to attack what i am defending, which is contrary to such? A false desperate argument just as invoking Santeria would be to discredit Catholicism would be. SS is based on the premise of Scripture being the wholly inspired word of God, with its basically literal hermeneutic as regards historical accounts, which "Jesus Seminar" "Protestants" den. Such "Protestants" types no more impugn SS, which deny it, than the misuse of Scripture by devil impugns using Scripture as the authoritative word of God does.

Instead (since i am defending SS as referring to Scripture as wholly inspired with its Scriptural position of holding historical events to be literal, if not all language, versus than whatever may pass as Reformed), conservative evangelicalism as a whole has historically contended against Jesus Seminar types.

If i was defending a liberal church or whatever falls under "Protestant" faith them your argument would have validity but i am not, but defending a basic doctrine as Scripturally supported, and its effects as able to produce an actual degree of basic Biblical unity at least as strong as the limited unity in Catholicism.
Obviously this is a huge contradiction in your logic. You say that Anglican/Catholic/Orthodox idea that priest has a special role in rituals must be wrong because the NT doesn't lay that out and is just silent on the question, even though on other major questions the NT is also silent and debated among Reformed themselves, like infant baptism, Zionism, and many issues.
You sure have an imagination. Once again, there is no contradiction in my logic, but as your premise is false so is your conclusion, for this is not a matter if cats are in Heaven, but that of a distinctive change being made, from leadership being given a distinctive title, even abundantly in the NT as regards Jewish leadership, while in contrast NT leadership is distinctly referred to as presbuteros/episkopos (one office: Titus 1:5-7; Acts 20) and never hiereus or archiereus, which are the distinctive words for priests, while also never showing presbuteros/episkopos as having a uniquely sacrificial function.

And what also testifies to this distinction is that the Holy Spirit while only referring to NT pastors as presbuteros/episkopos (as well as pastors/shepherds) he concurrently uses hiereus/archiereus for Jewish and pagan leadership about 150 times, as well as for all believers as they all in addition is the fact that giving NT pastors the distinctive title of priests was a later development as a result of imposed functional equivalence.

Catholic writer Greg Dues in "Catholic Customs & Traditions, a popular guide," states, "Priesthood as we know it in the Catholic church was unheard of during the first generation of Christianity, because at that time priesthood was still associated with animal sacrifices in both the Jewish and pagan religions."

"When the Eucharist came to be regarded as a sacrifice [after Rome's theology], the role of the bishop took on a priestly dimension. By the third century bishops were considered priests. Presbyters or elders sometimes substituted for the bishop at the Eucharist. By the end of the third century people all over were using the title 'priest' (hierus in Greek and sacerdos in Latin) for whoever presided at the Eucharist." (http://books.google.com/books?id=ajZ_aR-VXn8C&source=gbs_navlinks_s)

Even if some "Bible churches" (who manifestly contend for the high view of Scripture and for it being their supreme standard by which they examine and establish truth claims by) practice infant baptism and wrongly subscribe to supersessionism does not invalidate SS asit is by the use of this that we see the strengths and weakness of each position, enabling a conclusion. The magisterial office can judge which is correct and require assent to its decisions, but as with the OT magisterium to which submission was required, the veracity of its decisions rests upon conformity with the established word of God. Which contest the NT won although Judaism yet exists, and i believe we have won the majority of "Bible Christians" over rejecting paedobaptism and supersessionism.

If Reformed were right that Bible alone "provides what is needed " on infant baptism, they wouldn't be so divided on it! This is such a simple issue of logic, PBJ! And remember, for Calvin, "reasonableness" was a major way to judge against a teaching.
As explained, it is not logical unless your premise is that SS must mean 100% can concur 100% of the time, as is the case under your own alternative.

Your argument is as logical and reasonable as arguing that if a road map was sufficient to provide directions then people would not get lost. For again, your argument is not that use of Scripture under SS cannot result in concurrence of belief, but that it must prevent disagreement, as you seem to presume the sufficiency of Scripture must be wholly explicitly formal, while in reality it must refer to the material aspect as well, providing for such things as correcting error upon the weight of Scriptural warrant, as well as enduring non-salvific differences, (Phil. 3:2; Acts 15:36-40) and that the visible churches can greatly vary in their fidelity, (Rv. 2-3) while that God requires division (1Co. 11:19; 2Co. 6:14-18) and can allow false prophets to test people. (Judges 2:2-23)

The fact the most of evangelical churches, including the largest US denomination, reject infant baptism itself testifies that SS can enable unity, even if some employ it to conclude otherwise.

Likewise churches differ with each other )and internally) under the premise that the church is infallible in making faith decisions, with competing "infallible" churches debating about tradition! And hose within can dissent from leadership:

Orthodox traditionalists, on the other hand [versus RCs], are not only justified for separating from Churches or Bishops which violate the dictates of Holy Tradition, but are required by the Holy Canons to do so. Any Church (or Bishop) which preaches heresy places itself in danger; and those who see that danger, whether laymen or clergy, must separate from it. - From the "Question and Answer" section of Orthodox Tradition, Vol. IX, No. 4, p. 15. Originally titled "Traditionalist Catholics."

But which presumes that God can preserve the church by raising up souls whom leadership rejects, and uphold to what is historically sound, which Scripture is the sure source of, being the only transcendent substantive body of Truth that is affirmed to be wholly inspired of God.
For purposes of this argument, that doesn't matter. They claim that they get their weird teachings from the Bible and don't accept God is Trinity from "weak" things like 1900+ years of Christian beliefs This is where the Reformed Train comes to its destination.
You sure sink a lot of time into a sinking ship, but it remains that the devil using Scripture does not disallow the Lord using it as sufficient to refute him, nor does two persons using the same source and method coming to different conclusions negate the same source and method for coming to the same conclusion. All that is needed is to show that a sure source and method of employing it provides the means for coming to a conclusion based on the superior weight of evidence, which is how the church began, even contrary to the most learned authorities.

And by employing SS and not resorting to tradition we have successfully contended against and refuted those who deny the Trinity, which is demanded in the light of texts which at the least teach the Deity of Christ, which even i have shown is Scriptural.

But at the least traditions such as i have mentioned before no more justified as being offivial teaching as baptizing by immersion three times, giving the one baptized a drink of milk and honey and forbidding such from taking a bath for a week, forbidding kneeling in Sunday mass and making the sign of the cross, yet such observances of the Churches, which are due to tradition, have acquired the authority of the written law.

Which did a better job of keeping together the basics of Trinity, "Bible 1st + Tradition 2nd" or "Bible-only as I see it"?
"Bible-only as I see it" directly led to modern mass Unitarianism and JWs.
More sophistry, as "Bible only" hardly suffices for SS, and under "Bible 1st + Tradition 2nd" you still see division, and under the latter we see the strongest contentions among those who most strongly hold to Scripture being the wholly inspired and accurate word of God, which Unitarianism denies, and with SS as the means of ascertaining the veracity of what is taught, which JWs deny.

For rather than "JWs" actually operating under SS, instead Scripture is used but can only mean what the leadership says, which effectively is closer to the Catholic model.
JWs try to use Scripture, JWs DEFINITELY don't use Tradition because Tradition is Definitely against JWs. Scripture can be abused by JWs more easily than "Tradition + scripture".

But which is defined as meaning "Elders only," meaning Scripture can only authoritatively mean what they say, and challenges will get you kicked out, which is basically how the Reformation began, inn opposition to the sola ecclesia model.

For as most manifestly seen among devout RCs, JWs they also operate under what Pope Pious X enjoined, that "the one duty of the multitude is to allow themselves to be led, and, like a docile flock, to follow the Pastors." (VEHEMENTER NOS)

If unity is your goal and the highest criteria for validity, then that is your means.
Yes. This goes back to what I said about "a movement [that] appears 1500 years later and goes ONLY on that main sacred Book and doesn't care much about how the contemporary Christian leaders understood the passages in the books that they passed down" and your answer reflects why I said "The Church Fathers are not a central focus of [REFORMED] approach to teaching doctrines".
But reformers did look to and invoke church father much, Pelikan (later of EO declension) said,

"All the reformers relied heavily upon Augustine. They pitted his evangelical theology against the authority of later church fathers and scholastics, and they used him to prove that they were not introducing novelties into the church, but defending the true faith of the church.”
“...To prepare books like the Magdeburg Centuries they combed the libraries and came up with a remarkable catalogue of protesting catholics and evangelical catholics, all to lend support to the insistence that the Protestant position was, in the best sense, a catholic position.
Additional support for this insistence comes from the attitude of the reformers toward the creeds and dogmas of the ancient catholic church. The reformers retained and cherished the doctrine of the Trinity and the doctrine of the two natures in Christ which had developed in the first five centuries of the church….”
“If we keep in mind how variegated medieval catholicism was, the legitimacy of the reformers' claim to catholicity becomes clear.
"Substantiation for this understanding of the gospel came principally from the Scriptures, but whenever they could, the reformers also quoted the fathers of the catholic church. There was more to quote than their Roman opponents found comfortable" (Pelikan 46-49).

But while both Jewish as well as Catholic ancients can be helpful, the error of them both is making some of their teachings to be the word of God, even if they must pick and choose to do so (or in the case of Rome on the Assumption, "remembering" what early tradition fails to provide), for you certainly cannot say that such things as praying to angels and saints and the separate sacerdotal priests of Catholicism is seen in the NT church.

But do see them referencing Scripture as the supreme authority, invoking OT writings for necessary support as authoritative, and affirming the examination of what was preached to Scripture, this being the only substantive transcendent body of Truth that is affirmed to be wholly inspired of God, thus separating wheat from chaff, and providing the Truth needed for salvation and growth in grace (which was even true under the OT, [Ps. 19; 119] but God would yet give more grace) and for more complementary conflative writings and the discernment to see them as being of God.

And as said, while obedience to what is orally preached can be enjoined today by SS preachers, this does not presume that they are speaking as wholly inspired of God, and providing new revelation. Yet there are even many continuationist Calvinists who allow for such revelatory gifts as prophecy and tongues, and see no conflict with SS as such.

I don't disagree with anything in the paragraphs directly above. It seems that you view things in terms of RC infallibility vs. Calvin's "Reason-based" version of sola scriptura. I would encourage you to learn more about Lutheranism, Anglicanism and Eastern Orthodoxy as ways to escape those two strange absolutist poles.

I see what Scripture teaches, which is "not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God." (2 Corinthians 4:2).

But in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, In stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labours, in watchings, in fastings; By pureness, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned, By the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armour of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, (2 Corinthians 6:4-7)
Here you don't seem to see the difference - Jesus said about the Church that He would be with them always. He can guide the Church. The Church is filled with God's spirit and a new covenant with a new Israel. That's not the same thing as the pharisees and the old Israel.
Here you don't seem to see that this is basically a difference without a distinction in this regard, as God always promised that He would be with His people and guide them and chastise them if needed unto repentance,(Gn. 12:2,3; 17:4,7,8; Ex. 19:5; Lv. 10:11; Dt. 4:31; 17:8-13; Ps, 11:4,9; Is. 41:10, Ps. 89:33,34; Jer. 7:23) and provided them with an authoritative magisterial office, (Dt. 17:8-13) and made them the stewards of Divine revelation, "because that unto them were committed the oracles of God," (Rm. 3:2) to whom pertaineth" the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises." (Rm. 9:4)

But as seen, they were not infallible and above Scripture, which even the writers of (which did not always understand what they were writing) were subject to. Likewise the church.

Nor is the church all filled with God's spirit, as believers are to seek to be, and much less the visible churches which ultimately are admixtures of wheat and tares. And like in the OT, God can raise up souls who reprove and are rejected by the leadership and the "mainstream" congregation, and thus the NT began upon those who did and were!

SECOND, the pharisees' traditions actually WERE helpful to achieve Christianity, but were not infallible either. The NT quotes the OT Apocrypha numerous times even though the OT Apocrypha is not the primary canonical Bible, but is part of a written "Tradition".
No, despite some attempts i do not believer there are any direct quotes only attributable to Apocrypha, as is often the case with canonical books, while there can be several allusions and parallel passages. Yet even pagans and writings such as Enoch are quoted, and what is needed is such being called "Scripture" or the word of God/theLaw/God saith, which only is seen for canonical books. And the evidence indicates that the Scribes and Pharisees who sat in the sweat of Moses subscribed to the smaller canon, perhaps being the Palestinian canon, and which Tripartite canon the Lord is seen referencing in Lk. 24:44.
Jesus and Paul both studied from the pharisees and in the Temple. Therefore, traditions and learning about them were important. This does not mean that pharisees had inherent permanent authority.
Trying to say that to those who sat in the seat of Moses circa 32 AD would be like saying that to a Catholic in the 15th century. That the promises of God to preserve His believing people and be with them could be realized outside their physical jurisdiction was anathema to both. But as needed, God does so in preserving His relative remnant. Glory to God.
When they rejected Jesus, it was game over.
But upon what basis could one justify following a non-officially ordained itinerant preacher in the desert who was rejected by those who sat in the seat of Moses, and whom this desert prophet called to repentance? Under the Catholic model for authority such would be rejected i am sure.

The common people who "held John to be a prophet indeed" were right was confirmed in the light of another non-officially ordained itinerant Preacher, and those whom He chose and sent out, who established their Truth claims upon Scriptural substantiation in word and in power, not the premise of historical descent of office.
If Catholic Popes rejected the basics of Christianity, they can't be considered Christian either.
But when a church autocratically defines what is Christianity it cannot be wrong.
However, whatever your criticisms, Catholic bishops cannot explicitly teach against the basics of Christianity laid out in the Nicene Creed,
They can profess what they want, but so can the devil, and that alone does not make them Christian.
which our "CF" Forum considers the definition of "Christian".
Which is insufficient criteria as it only defines what can be agreed to intellectually, and is also incomplete on that level. For if you want to try to ensure members are Christian then at the least it needs to be asked when they became born again as we see in Scripture with its profound basic transformative effects, coming to God as a damned and morally destitute sinner, and trusting in the mercy of God to save them on Christ's account, not theirs, by His sinless shed blood, and which salvific faith is counted for righteousness, (Rm. 3:10-5:1) and is confessed in baptism (Acts 2:38-42; 10:47) and in otherwise following the Lord. (Jn. 10:27)

For there is a time of salvation, (2Co. 6:2) when God effectually draws, (Jn. 6:44; 12:32) convicts of sin, righteousness and judgment, (Jn. 16:8-11) and opens hearts (Acts 16:14) and grants repentant faith, (Acts 11:18; Eph. 2:8,9; Ps. 34:18) and souls believe, which infant baptism obscures.
Why do you keep going back to strange RC doctrines of "infallibility"?
Well, i am used to debating RCs, but it is relevant as EOs do believe (though typically far less precise than RC theology) in infallibility:
The Church—as it has been historically expressed and understood in the Nicene Creed—is an object of faith. In this sense, belief in the Church is no different than belief in God. The Church as an infallible “pillar and ground of the Truth” cannot be proven empirically. We are simply to believe in it. — http://orthodoxinfo.com/inquirers/church.aspx
And RC argue (as with " shamelesspopery") against your lack of an infallible magisterium, asserting Eastern Orthodoxy has an infallibility problem akin to Protestantism, not being able to know for sure such things as was truly is an Ecumenical Council, obedience to which being binding, even quoting Bishop Kallistos Ware on the subject:

How then can one be certain that a particular gathering is truly an Ecumenical Council and therefore that its decrees are infallible? Many councils have considered themselves ecumenical and have claimed to speak in the name of the whole Church, and yet the Church has rejected them as heretical: [Second] Ephesus in 449, for example, or the Iconoclast Council of Hieria in 754, or Florence in 1438-9. Yet these councils seem in no way different in outward appearance from the Ecumenical Councils. (The Orthodox Church: An Introduction to Eastern Christianity, by Timothy Ware)

The RC solution for certainty of Truth and validity is an infallible pope, which a RC is sure is the case since Rome has infallibly declared he possesses this, which kicks in when speaking according to her (infallibly defined?) scope and subject-based formula, but it retroactively applicable to past statements. Yet even then there is lack of certainty and the need for interpretation and reality of variant judgments as which and how many (of potentially thousands, as one EO source argues) dogmatic statement are infallible, as well as the meaning of them and those which only require religious, versus sacred, assent. Yes, Rome gets technical.

Moreover, faced with the circularity of knowing the church is infallible because the church said she is, which is akin to saying the same of Scripture, in both cases external evidences are brought in, whereby one may find enough warrant whereby the source is worthy of a step of faith into trusting that entity/source, and thus find certainty, and all variant conclusions must be brought into conformity to that source. Even though as said, this does not eliminate the need for interpretation of that source and hence for variant interpretations, which do not find clear resolvement.

However, what Rome essentially requires is for souls to conclude that in particular is as God, requiring implicit assent of faith to present infallibly declared teachings as well as in advance to any she comes up with later, even if so lacking in evidence from tradition that her own scholars oppose it as being made an article of faith, as was the case with the Assumption. Calling things that are not evidenced as if they were. And when we do not find Rome warranting this faith, and contrary to Scripture, we are told we need to submit to Rome to understand Scripture.

Back to Orthodoxy, the solution of Ware is not technical but essentially is that they know a council is ecumenical by the assent of the people as they live it out, thus testifying that is the voice of the God. However, while this is sound to a degree, as seen in Acts 15 in which "it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things," (Acts 15:28) yet as religions evidence, people can overall affirm error as well as Truth, and a minority can be most faithful. And thus the basis for their judgment is critical.

Upon what basis could the widow women say to "Elijah, Now by this I know that thou art a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in thy mouth is truth?" (1 Kings 17:24) Or the common people hold that John the baptizer "was a prophet?" (Mk. 11:32) In the first case it was the Scriptural virtue of the prophet and manifest supernatural attestation, while in the second case it was the Scriptural character of the prophet and his preaching. But (as the devil seeks to operate on the same level as God) men such as the Surgeon of the Rusty Knife have apparently done miracles, fundamentally false "holy preachers" have gain great followings, and thus both the nature of the preachers as well as the people and their critical basis for judgment is critical.

Before the giving of the Law, God expressly revealed His will to a limited degree to a very limited amount of people, and to the latter He supernaturally affirmed it was Him as well as attested to the faith and overall character of men such as Abraham (though in the case of Samson it was basically only his faith), thus providing a cultural standard for what was of God in word and in holiness and power.

For Moses the nature and degree of the supernatural attestation of him and His words, along with His selfless and meek (as in power under control) character was such that there could be no rational atheists (not that many today would somehow find ways of rejecting it), though it did not prevent them from acting faithless.

But thru Moses God choose to reveal His will far more comprehensively to an entire select nation (who in turn then would attest to all the world who the True God was), by providing the Law, which He preserved in writing. And as is abundantly evidenced, as written, Scripture became the transcendent supreme standard for obedience and testing and establishing truth claims as the wholly Divinely inspired and assured, Word of God.

Thus those who judged John to be a prophet indeed had a Scriptural standard to look to for what a prophet was, and likewise for the Lord and His disciples after him. And thus NT church was admonished "not to think of men above that which is written," (1Co. 4:6) which men tend to do, and thus the Lord asked questions such as "Did ye never read in the scriptures," (Mt. 21:42) and statements "Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God," (Matthew 22:29) and "beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself," (Luke 24:27) "Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three sabbath days reasoned with them out of the scriptures," (Acts 17:2) "mightily convinced the Jews, and that publickly, shewing by the scriptures that Jesus was Christ." (Acts 18:28)

Nowhere is oral tradition thus invoked, but oral preaching required this support, and inclusion in inspired writings separates the chaff or non-needful aspects of oral transmission from the wheat for perpetuation, as did the inclusion of some aspects of Jewish tradition (2Tim. 3:8) or sources such as Enoch.

As thus the matter of whose judgment is correct on what the word of God consists of and means is not settled upon the premise of ensured magisterial or corporate infallibility, but by the weight of Scriptural substantiation in word and in power, persuading souls by "manifestation of the Truth" which must be maintained as it is always subject to challenges, and require overcoming error and evil with God, as the NT did, despite the claim to historicity and Jewish tradition by them.
 
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PeaceByJesus

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Part 3:

DEAR PeaceByJesus! Let me put it this way:
If surviving persecution is one of the main proofs of Christianity, and as you are saying these 1st-3rd century Christians are pious of great faith, then don't you agree that their explanations should be a key, crucial, central resource for believers to decide what the books of the Bible from their own era that they chose mean, and not just accidentally helpful for worldly scholars' "historical research"?
That is a false dilemma, for there is a third alternative, which is to hold both ECF's as well as Jewish sources as helpful, but only subjection to Scripture. For instance, Jerome affirmed that,
Therefore a presbyter is the same as a bishop is, and before that by the instigation of the devil emulations in respect to religion arose, and people began to say: I am of Paul, and I of Apollos, and I of Cephas, the churches were governed by the Common counsel of the presbyters...

Some one may think that this is our opinion. not found in the Scriptures, that bishop and presbyter are one,one being a designation of age. the other of office. but let him read over the words of the Apostle...bishops may understand that they are greater than presbyters more by custom than by the veritable ordinance of the Lord. - Catholic World, Volume 32 Paulist Fathers, 1881, pp. 73,74

However, Jerome saw marriage as so inferior (at the least) to virginity, celibacy and continence, that he presented a false dilemma engaged in specious reasoning to support him, teaching,

"It is not disparaging wedlock to prefer virginity. No one can make a comparison between two things if one is good and the other evil." (''Letter'' 22). On First Corinthians 7 he reasons, "It is good, he says, for a man not to touch a woman. If it is good not to touch a woman, it is bad to touch one: for there is no opposite to goodness but badness. But if it be bad and the evil is pardoned, the reason for the concession is to prevent worse evil."

"If we are to pray always, it follows that we must never be in the bondage of wedlock, for as often as I render my wife her due, I cannot pray.

And even wrested Scripture to support his imbalanced perverse idea:

...we must observe, at least if we would faithfully follow the Hebrew, that while Scripture on the first, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth days relates that, having finished the works of each, “God saw that it was good,” on the second day it omitted this altogether, leaving us to understand that two is not a good number because it destroys unity, and prefigures the marriage compact. Hence it was that all the animals which Noah took into the ark by pairs were unclean. Odd numbers denote cleanness. St. Jerome, Against Jovinianus Book 1 http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf206.vi.vi.I.html

So much for 2x2 evangelism!


In addition, matryrs can be of great and pious faith, but have some real errors in belief:

Regarding "Gregory the blessed priest of Nyssa: “Preserving all the respect due to this Father, we cannot refrain from noticing, that he was but a mortal man, and man, however great a degree of holiness he may attain, is very apt to err, especially on such subjects, which have not been examined before or determined upon in a general Council by the Fathers."”...we must view the general doctrine of the Church, and take the Holy Scripture as a rule for ourselves, nor paying attention to what each has written in his private capacity” — http://orthodoxinfo.com/death/stmark_purg.aspx
I like hearing your personal stories. But what do you mean by the exciting things?
I meant have being raised as a devout RC in a family that never missed Mass or holy days of obligation, made conformation, prayed regularly, yet after an evangelical type conversion then even nature seemed new and i had an insatiable hunger to know how to please God from the Bible. And which a new evangelical station much helped to provide. As a truck driver i would listen all day, even speed up under bridges to gain reception.

The preachers wee mainly from John MacArthur, J. Vernon Mcgee, Swindoll and Chuck Smith and the like, all basically preaching the same things, along with a minority of things i could see were debatable.

My external life changed so much that i would stop my care to pick up broken bottles as i feared someone would get a flat, and was voted "Most helpful worker" at my job. Yet my conscience was now so keen that i wanted to go to confession daily, and spent much time in asking forgiveness for things in my heart.

But realizing what mainly evangelical preacher were saying, of how i was already accepted in the Beloved as a new creation, then i began to see myself as redeemed and thus better able to live it out from a position of strength, without presuming grace meant i was without law.

And as the Bible became a living book to me, so i would try to share some basic things, and while such persons as the song leader commended me for being able to article my faith, most had little heart to discuss things from the Bible (which was not about purgatory, praying to saints, the Lord's supper).

I sense that your problem here is not really RCs but mainstream Christians in general. Mainstream Christians have about the same level of "gospel life". Arguably there are Catholic circles with more gospel life than Reformed ones in some cases.
Only partly true, as i increasingly saw the contrast btwn the NT church and Catholicism in both word and deed, even though i visited different RC churches seeking life, and went to charismatic meetings, which were better as described. All the while working around 60 hours a week, on salary. If the devil cannot make you bad, he may make you too busy some say.
I perceive it iis coparably easy to form bonds with Catholics or Evans. If you are Evan-minded, you may find YOURSELF doing this more with other groups you identify with.
No: when i say i rarely find basic fellowship in the Spirit with a Catholic, i mean the same is true with mainline liberal Prots (and cults) as well, although being raised in a heavily Cath area, and as one who has gone to hundreds of Catholic doors with the basic gospel, in addition to multitudes of personal meetings over the years by the grace of God, my experience is mostly with the former.

The spontaneous fellowship i mentioned is kind of two earthling meeting each other on a alien planet. When finding you are a born again believer due to something you said or are doing their is an kinship of spirit with such, as you both have a "knowing," that you were both spiritually know the One who changed them, a reality btwn death and life, and with a sparkle in their eyes when they speak of Him. That relationship is by far what is central, with the church they go to usually being akin to what part of the country they come from. The may go to a Pentecostal or S. Baptist of Calvary Chapel church or other life churches, and from with many ministries find volunteers to work, as they shared much the same basic ethos and pathos.

The famous Calvinistic preacher Charles Spurgeon stated,

Although upon doctrines of grace our views differ from those avowed by Arminian Methodists, we have usually found that on the great evangelical truths we are in full agreement, and we have been comforted by the belief that Wesleyans were solid upon the central doctrines. (Sword and the Trowel, May, 1891)

Most atrocious things have been spoken about the character and spiritual condition of John Wesley, the modern prince of Arminians. I can only say concerning him that, while I detest many of the doctrines which he preached, yet for the man himself I have a reverence second to no Wesleyan; and if there were wanted two apostles to be added to the number of the twelve, I do not believe that there could be found two men more fit to be so added than George Whitfield and John Wesley. (C. H. Spurgeon’s Autobiography, Vol. 1, p. 173, in “A Defence Of Calvinism,” The Banner Of Truth Trust edition)

There may be some who are to be deplored among ecclesiastical confederacies, but in the spiritual Church Unity in Christ of the Living God, I am really at a loss to discover the divisions which are so loudly proclaimed. It strikes me that the tokens of union are much more prominent than the tokens of division.

But what are they? First there is a union in judgment upon all vital matters. I converse with a spiritual man, and no matter what he calls himself, when we talk of sin, pardon, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and such like themes, we are agreed. We speak of our blessed Lord. My friend says that Jesus is fair and lovely - so do I. He says that he has nothing else to trust to but the precious blood; nor have I anything else. I tell him that I find myself a poor, weak creature; he laments the same. I live in his house a little while - we pray together at the family altar, you could not tell which it was that prayed, Calvinist or Arminian, we pray so exactly alike, and when we open the hymn book, very likely if he happens to be a Wesleyan he chooses to sing, "Jesus, lover of my soul." I will sing it, and then next morning he will sing with me, "Rock of Ages, cleft for me." If the Spirit of God is in us, we are all agreed upon great points.
.
..leave the letter and get to the spirit, crack the shells and eat the kernel of spiritual truth, and you will find that the points of agreement between genuine Christians are something marvelous. But this union is to be seen most plainly in union of heart...

Now I hate High Churchism as my soul hates Satan; but I love George Herbert, although George Herbert is a desperately High Churchman. I hate his high Churchism, but I love George Herbert from my very soul, and I have a warm corner in my heart for every man who is like him. Let me find a man who loves my Lord Jesus Christ as George Herbert did, and I do not ask myself whether I shall love him or not; there is no room for question, for I cannot help myself; unless I can leave off loving Jesus Christ, I cannot cease loving those who love him. (Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol. 12, p. 6; http://www.spurgeongems.org/vols10-12/chs668.pdf)

But most devout religious Catholics have interacted with a different spirit. I have a Latino neighbor for instance that was a former heavy drinker and was also as good as dead, but whom the Lord both physically saved and spiritually changed. He has a simple faith and love for Christ that i can see and we have a good basic fellowship as the transformative Christ is central, despite the language barrier, with us glorying in exalting Christ. Gloria a Dios! But that is not the same with his wife, as there is a different spirit, and in my interaction with her focus has basically been about her church, and praying to Mary.

My own very devout parents, who i lived with for some time after being manifestly born again, were like most other devout RCs, as they had religion which they were committed to, and were very good members and citizens, but despite my commitment in trying to serve God by becoming a lector and CCD teacher after my regeneration, there was no real fellowship of the Spirit.

Believing DAVID was a myth is considered radical, even among Catholic scholars. Abraham is different since Torah was written generations later.
You can argue with him then, but as everything from the story of Adam and Eve to that of Jonah and the Fish being rejected as actually happening, and if a RCs like Teddy K. can be blessed as being members, and even have Mass said in their house, and a get a nice non-critical letter from the pope in response to his impenitent description of himself, then it is hardly inconceivable that a person holding David to be a myth would feel far more at home than in a conservative evangelical church.
You are selectively picking on Catholics when you say this, because this is more centrally the thinking in critical scholarship our PCUSA Reformed interlocutor Hedrick discusses. And "critical scholarship" as Hedrick said, comes more from 19th c. German Protestant circles and American secular/modernist Protestant ones.
No, i have include liberal Prot churches in my censure of such revisionism, while it was not my intent to defend Reformed Christian churches in the first place, by SS as described my me, though i understand the intent of the OP is that of Reformed faith in general.
I believe that Catholicism much more tolerant of Evolution than Evangelicals,
No doubt, but threimn is another division regarding which. Some RCs contend for geocentrism.
but Catholicism did not have major massive Unitarian/non-Trinitarian movements exude from it.
You mean Unitarian/non-Trinitarian dissented from Reformation theology. And according to that logic, the Reformation exuded from Catholicism.
So the question must become what is more fundamental to Christianity: whether humans came from primates or whether "Christ-God" miraculously resurrected?
That the latter is more critical does not reduce the importance of Gn. 1-3 being a literal event, though their may be some symbolism involved. If Gn. 2 is not literal, then neither is the Adam which Luke says Christ descended from, and the union of male and female which He invoked from Scripture was a fable.
I
I am counting those as Reformed who lay claim to the Reformed heritage, including PCUSA, Evangelicals, PCA, etc. Yes, they are a big part of Protestants in the US. Baptists + Presbyterians are two of the biggest groups in America next to Methodists! Catholics are smaller.
But not all Baptists hold to Calvinistic theology, much less all Evangelicals. Presently only about 10 percent of Southern Baptist - the largest Prot. denom. - leaders identify themselves as five-point Calvinists, while about 30 percent of recent seminary graduates identify themselves as such, (http://www.sbclife.net/Articles/2010/10/sla13) and sixty-six percent of pastors do not consider their church a Reformed theology congregation, while 30 percent agree (somewhat or strongly) with the statement "My church is theologically Reformed or Calvinist." , (http://www.lifeway.com/Article/research-sbc-pastors-polled-on-calvinism-affect-on-convention, in contrast to past Baptists), while the American Baptist site says "By and large modern Baptists are motivated by an Arminian theology that stresses free will," (http://www.abc-usa.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/history.pdf)

Baptists - roughly half being S. Baptists - make up 25% of all Prots, followed by Pentecostals at 9% and then Lutheran (which has differences with Calvinism) Presbyterian/ Reformed and Methodist (differences here with Calvinism) together making up 13%, while the rest make up less than 2%, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestantism_in_the_United_States)

As for Evangelical Protestants, they are said to constitute 25% of Protestantism, 9% being Baptists and Nondenominational being 5%, and Pentecostal being 4% for a total of 19%, and with the Reformed Family making up only 0.3%. (http://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/)

Thus that Reformed make up a majority of Prots is pushing it, as with a majority of Evangelicals.
I am confused what your point is. Luther's words were "The burning of heretics is contrary to the will of the Holy Spirit.” You can just do an internet search and find that they are widely quoted by him.
My point on this topic was that I think Luther was right against killing heretics and that the Catholics were wrong to support it, and that Calvin was wrong when Calvin supported killing people who rejected infant baptism (eg. Servetus).
I see, as it was I who was confused by your statement, which seemed to criticize Luther. But yes, Calvin as with other early Prots, still had things to unlearn from Rome.
Why do you use the double negative when you say "Calvin disagreed with not killing heretics"?
Meaning he disagree with Luther about not killing heretics.
It is simply incorrect then to say that Calvin was simply following Rome in this. The fact was that Calvin and the Reformed publicly chose to accept Luther's teaching UNTIL the Servetus affair when they switched their position on their own with no compulsion by Rome to kill Servetus for opposing infant baptism.
So he went back to what Rome had exampled, which was contrary to the NT church in Scripture.
That is not my experience. Go check the debates on Infant Baptism, Dispensationalism, Zionism, Replacement Theology, etc. Reformed rarely cite the Fathers favorably during the Reformed infighting related to such topics.
For they can be helpful, but are far from warranting being determinitive of Scripture, and placing much weight on them, which would be a specious foundation. They hardly show themselves as possessing unique or superior illumination of Scripture, and were often working thru their theology and could differ with each other as well as Catholic teaching.
The long foundational "Second Helvetica Confession" gives about three paragraphs citing three church fathers favorably, I think.
That is consistent with no thinking of men above that which is written. This variegated group of men were far from being manifest Biblical apostles. (2Co. 6:4-10)
Sorry, you are just confusing me on what you mean about Rome "judging them". You keep coming back to the RC views too, even though I am not advocating RC "infallibility of Tradition."
It means that Rome is the supreme judge as to what tradition really means, even if EOs disagree:

The living magisterium, therefore, makes extensive use of documents of the past, gladly finding in them its present thought, but likewise, when needful, distinguishing its present thought from what is traditional only in appearance....Thus are explained both her respect for the writings of the Fathers of the Church and her supreme independence towards those writings–she judges them more than she is judged by them.” — Catholic Encyclopedia: “Tradition and Living Magisterium”

It was the charge of the Reformers that the Catholic doctrines were not primitive, and their pretension was to revert to antiquity. But the appeal to antiquity is both a treason and a heresy. It is a treason because it rejects the Divine voice of the Church at this hour, and a heresy because it denies that voice to be Divine.

I may say in strict truth that the Church has no antiquity. It rests upon its own supernatural and perpetual consciousness. Its past is present with it, for both are one to a mind which is immutable. Primitive and modern are predicates, not of truth, but of ourselves. ..The only Divine evidence to us of what was primitive is the witness and voice of the Church at this hour. — Dr. Henry Edward Cardinal Manning, Lord Archbishop of Westminster, The Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost: Or Reason and Revelation (New York: J.P. Kenedy & Sons, originally written 1865, reprinted with no date), pp. 227-228.
Of course it's an argument: Since Catholics talk about the Bible often, it means that they care about figuring out what the Bible actually teaches. If they didn't care about the Bible's ideas, they wouldn't talk about them! It's that simple.
But while RCs have a great deal of liberty in interpreting Scripture, the fact is that they are almost last in personal Bible reading, and relative few talk about the Bible often. Likewise other mainliners as Episcopalians. You simply cannot judge this issue based on RCs here, any more than among Prots.

Catholics [2012] report the lowest proportion of strongly affiliated followers among major American religious traditions, with a considerable divergence between evangelical Protestants on the one hand and Catholics and mainline Protestants on the other.

The typical Catholic person was 38% less likely than the average American to read the Bible; 67% less likely to attend a Sunday school class; 20% less likely to share their faith in Christ with someone who had different beliefs, donated about 17% less money to churches, and were 36% less likely to have an "active faith," defined as reading the Bible, praying and attending a church service during the prior week. Catholics were also significantly less likely to believe that the Bible is totally accurate in all of the principles it teaches. - http://www.science20.com/news_articles/religion_america_evangelicals_surge_catholics_wane-97244

If you give a Catholic priest a lie detector test and ask him if he cares what the Bible means or not, they are going to answer "Yes".
That depends on what the issue is, and the priest.

A 2002 nationwide poll of 1,854 priests in the United States and Puerto Rico reported that 30% of Roman Catholic priests described themselves as Liberal, 28% as Conservative, and 37% as Moderate in their Religious ideology. 53 percent responded that they thought it always was a sin for unmarried people to have sexual relations; 32 percent that is often was, and 9 percent seldom/never.

49 percent affirmed that it was always a sin to engage in homosexual behavior, often, 25 percent; and never, 19 percent. - Los Angeles Times (extensive) nationwide survey (2002). http://www.bishop-accountability.org/resources/resource-files/reports/LAT-Priest-Survey.pdf

Likewise, if you ask a young Catholic student if he cares more about the Bible's true meaning on Jesus or if he cares about what Pope so and so thought about Jesus in the medieval times, he is going to pick the Bible's "actual meaning".
What substantiation do you have for that assertion, or that they even care more about what the pope says in their moral decisions, and why focus on one group?

After examining the official web sites of 244 Catholic universities and colleges in America, the TFP Student Action found that 107 – or 43% have pro-homosexual clubs. TFP Student Action Dec. 6. 2011; studentaction.org/get-involved/online-petitions/pro-homosexual-clubs-at-107-catholic-colleges/print.html

77% of Catholics polled believe a person can be a good Catholic without going to Mass every Sunday, 65 percent believe good Catholics can divorce and remarry, and 53 percent believe Catholics can have abortions and remain in good standing. - 1999 poll by the National Catholic Reporter.

40% of 18- to 29-year-old Catholics said the church’s “teachings on sexuality and birth control are out of date.” - http://www.barna.org/teens-next-gen-articles/528-six-reasons-young-christians-leave-church

43% of Catholics overall (and 36% of weekly attendees) affirmed they look to Catholic teachings and statements made the pope and bishops to form their conscience on what is morally acceptable;

A 2008 Catholic commissioned survey of adult Catholics reported 68% of Catholics affirmed you could be a good Catholic without going to Mass every Sunday, and 55% thought of themselves as good Catholics. - 2008 poll of 1,007 self-identified adult Catholics by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) at Georgetown University; http://cara.georgetown.edu/beliefattitude.pdf
More by God's grace.

Go post a survey over on the Catholic section- "Which do you care about more?"
Which would be like asking football fans about how much they cared about rule changes to determine what the public thought, if not that extreme a contrast, but Cath or Prot people here are hardly representative of Cath commitment overall.
Maybe you will feel like answering me "Catholics lie, they care more about the popes!"
But such a hostile answer by you, when Catholics speak to you their inner heartfelt cares and beliefs, would show the same judgmental Calvinist mentality that supported killing opponents of infant baptism.
Your bare statement is no less biased then mine would be, while your analogy is certainly falls under that category. However, according to what popes have said,
Numerous Protestant Bibles are teaching that Is 53 is not about Messiah, even though the teaching that Messiah's resurrection was per the OT is a foundational Nicene belief.
Irrelevant. When i start defending a faith that does so then you can bring it up, but i am nor, nor do those who have such a low view of Scripture and or such an unScriptural (Acts 8:29-35) impugn SS, and it is by the use of that, under the high view of Scripture, that such liberal views are refuted. Obviously if Is. 53 is not about Christ then you have the Holy Spirit sending a man to teach error, and inspiring the writing of it as gospel, which is blasphemy.
Your response is to complain about a Catholic study Bible NAB treating secondary OT events as metaphors.
Which is relevant as it examples what can happen when what the church provides is followed versus what Scripture teaches consistent with the high view of Scripture.
However, whether those OT events are fables or not is not a foundational issue or mentioned in Nicea's Creed. Whether Noah had a literal flood is not foundational.Do you see the problem?
Actually it is, for if they were fables then why not NT historical accounts, including the resurrection since the Lord invoked the story of Jonah and the fish as analogous to His death and resurrection.

And His genealogy goes back to Adam as said, and He prophesied that His return would be when people are like in the days of Noah, which Peter invoked as literal, equating the latter day scoffers to those of Noah's day. Thus is these were fables, then where do you stop?
When I make this post, the last question is whether the Reformed Approach can lead outside the fundamentals of Biblical Christianity. Balaam's donkey is not a "fundamental". Jesus' unique divine Sonship, denied by the ex-Reformed movement of Unitarianism, is foundational.
I do not know what your idea of the Reformed Approach is, but as Balaam is invoked no less than 3 times in the NT as an historical event, when you relegate the and the like to being fables then you seriously impugn the integrity of the NT, including the Divine Sonship of Christ, whom Himself invoked such accounts as historical.

They may not be icebergs, but they will slow and eventually sink a ship nonetheless if not patched.
RC Church allowing Ted Kennedy to stay is not different from what mainstream Protestant churches would do. Let me know if Bill Clinton got excommunicated by Reformed over abortion.
Once again that is irrelevant and does not impugn SS, which we use to refute such.
The Unitarianism movement's origins is a major difference between the Reformed movement and Catholicism. Whether Ted Kennedy gets excommunicated over abortion is not a dividing line between Reformed and Catholicism. Exagerated Judgmental attitudes against Catholics seems to me to be a hallmark of Fundamentalist Reformed however. This was one of the reasons I left Evan school, even though I was a Protestant who disagreed with Catholicism.
And a history of consigning all who will not submit to the pope, while presently asserting Prot churches are not worthy of the proper name "church" is not an Exagerated Judgmental attitude i suppose, even if that is more Romish tha EO perhaps.
Can I hope that now you are starting to see the logic behind the slippery slopes of interpreting "miracles" to be just metaphors, as in Calvin's attitude toward the Eucharist bread and to the spiritual rock in the desert?
Wrong, as in the light of Scripture we see that miracles such as Jonah and the Fish are held to be actual miracles, while the figurative use of eating and drinking abounds in Scripture, and the metaphorical understanding is the only one that easily conflates with the totality of Scripture.

Among many other examples, including men being said to be bread for Israel, David distinctly said drinking water was the blood of men, and thus would not drink it, but poured it out on the ground as an offering to the Lord, as it is forbidden to drink blood:

And the three mighty men brake through the host of the Philistines, and drew water out of the well of Bethlehem, that was by the gate, and took it, and brought it to David: nevertheless he would not drink thereof, but poured it out unto the Lord. And he said, Be it far from me, O Lord, that I should do this: is not this the blood of the men that went in jeopardy of their lives? therefore he would not drink it. (2 Samuel 23:16-17)

Holding that Jn. 6 must be taken literally is actually akin to thinking what the Lord was saying in "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up" (John 2:19) referred to the physical temple, esp. since He just cleaned house with it, and which misapprehension resulted in that being a charge at His trial.

Caths emphasize Jn. 6:53,54, invoking it as being as much the absolute imperative that other "very verily" commands convey, yet as such it would exclude all those who reject the literalistic position from salvation. However, the Lord does give explanation, first by making it analogous to how the Lord Jesus lived by the Father: "As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me." (John 6:57) And as He stated how we are to live is clear: "It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God," (Matthew 4:4) then thus the Lord - once again using metaphor which abounds in John - stated that obeying that word, doing the Father's will was His "meat." "But he said unto them, I have meat to eat that ye know not of. Therefore said the disciples one to another, Hath any man brought him ought to eat? Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work." (John 4:32-34)

Furthermore, while carnal seekers (which here had come looking for another free physical feeding) once again understood the Lord as speaking of the physical, the Lord further explained,

When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it, he said unto them, Doth this offend you? What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before? It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him. (John 6:61-64)

But rather than linking this to the Lord's Supper, which John conspicuously does not do and never mentions the "take eat, this is my body" words seen in the synoptic gospels, instead the Lord speaks that which is consistent with the rest of John and the NT, which is never that of literally physically consuming anything in order to obtain spiritual life, but that the transcendent "words that I speak unto you, they are spirit," by which one who hears them and believes can obtain spiritual life, versus needing a priest and transubstantiated elements to consume.

It is by believing the gospel message with effectual faith that one has his heart purified by faith and is born again. (Acts 10:43-47; 15:7-11) And it is the word that is said to "nourish" souls, (1Tim. 4:6) and build them up, by which the pastors are to "feed the church," (Acts 20:28,32) the primary ordained charge being prayer and to "preach the word." (Acts 6:4; 2Tim. 4:2) Thus nowhere in the life of the church (Acts onward, which is interpretive of the gospels) is the Lord's supper preached as the means of regeneration, or even sees much emphasis or centrality, in stark contrast to Catholicism.

Finally, in the light of the totality of Scripture it is the use of metaphorical language here alone which alone easily conflates with the rest of Scripture, and which the apostles would have been familiar with, and would have understood the Lord's words by, versus as a radical new requirement that contradicted Scripture, in which spiritual life is never obtained by physically eating anything, and requires a metaphysical explanation of "real" but not bloody to justify.

I did not intend to go on at length here on this oft-debated issue, which warrants its own thread, and here is more extensive refutation by the grace of God.
If however we say like those Protestant Study Bibles that Is. 53 is not about the Messiah, haven't we begun to cut away the fundamentals, PBJ?
Yes, but again, i am not defending such view of Scripture, which are contrary to SS, which historically referred to Scripture being wholly inspired of God and internally consistent as being so, versus the Spirit inspiring the preaching of Is. 53 to be about Christ when according to liberal elites then it was not.
I am confused - are you implying that good Catholics are not Christian?
They may not be nor may many "good" Prots. Simply professing assent to the Nicene Creed does not mean one actually believes it, nor has repentant salvific faith in the Lord Jesus to save him as a damned and destitute sinner on Christ's account, but His sinless shed blood.
If you "never really repented and received the Lord Jesus to save me", the Catholic Church would say that you were not being a good Catholic and it would agree that you must do this.
But she teaches that baptism, in RC theology the proper act itself, effects regeneration, making one a child of God, even morally incognizant infants who cannot fulfil the Biblical requirements of repentance and wholehearted faith. (Acts 2:28; 8:36,37)

And rather than emphasizing the absence of any actual merit by which we many gain Heaven and instead our worthiness of Hell and calling them to conversion of personal repentance as damned and destitute sinners, (Rm. 3:9-4:7ff) instead Rome (which i am familiar with) treats her souls as already being children of God, and emphasizes merit so much, with Trent even saying one merits eternal life by the works one does in God, and that one must become good enough (and atone for sins) in postmortem purgatorial suffering (which EOs at least tend to deny), that the RC hope of Heaven is much based on his merits and the powers of his interceding church.

The "merits" themselves do not really "save" or "provide grace directly", but obedience to God is a condition or important factor in "being saved". If you are intentionally going hard in the opposite direction, you are not "being saved", whether you sincerely think so or not.
True, and contrary to the Cath charges, reformers preached that the faith which appropriates justification must be one that effects obedience. And in grace God rewards faith (Heb. 10:35) in recognition of that it effects, by which one is judged to have true faith and fit to be rewared. (Heb. 6:9,10; Rv. 3:14) Even though man could not and would not believe on the Lord Jesus or follow Him unless God gave him life, and breath, and all good things he has, (Acts 17:25) and convicted him, (Jn. 16:8) drew him, (Jn. 6:44; 12:32) opened his heart, (Acts 16:14) and granted repentance (Acts 11:18) and gave faith, (Eph. 2:8,9) and then worked in him both to will and to do of His good pleasure the works He commands them to do. (Phil. 2:13; Eph. 2:10)
Thus man owes to God all things, and while he is guilty and rightly damned for resisting God contrary to the level of grace given him, (Prov. 1:20-31; Lk. 10:13; 12:48; Rv. 20:11-15) man can not claim he actually deserves anything, and God does not owe him anything but damnation, except that under grace — which denotes unmerited favor — God has chosen to reward faith, (Heb. 10:35) in recognition of its effects.

Which means that God justifies man without the merit of any works, which is what Romans 4:1-7ff teaches, with “works of the law” including all systems of justification by merit of works, “for, if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law.” (Galatians 3:21)

Thus the penitent publican and the contrite criminal, both of whom abased themselves as damned and destitute sinner and cast all their faith upon the mercy of God (which ultimately is Christ), were justified, and as such could go directly to be with the Lord at death, even before they did any manifest works of faith. But works justify one as being a believer, and fit to be rewarded under grace for such, (Mt. 25:30-40; Rv. 3:4) though only because God has decided to reward man for what God Himself is actually to be credited for.

But we can hardly expect Catholics (at least a RC) to understand that when they hear such things as, "If anyone says that...the one justified by the good works that he performs by the grace of God and the merit of Jesus Christ...does not truly merit...the attainment of eternal life itself and also an increase of glory, let him be anathema." (Trent, Canons Concerning Justification, Canon 32)
Modern Evan movement arose back in the mid 19th century with revivalism and many other such movement whether or not there were liberal revisionists.
The two were related but it arose to counter liberal revisionism such as denied the virgin birth. As D.W. Cloud wrote: "In the first half of the 20th century, evangelicalism in America was largely synonymous with fundamentalism. George Marsden in Reforming Fundamentalism (1995) writes, "There was not a practical distinction between fundamentalist and evangelical: the words were interchangeable" (p. 48).

"Christian fundamentalism, movement in American Protestantism that arose in the late 19th century in reaction to theological modernism." "The issue of biblical authority was crucial to American Protestantism, which had inherited the fundamental doctrine of sola Scriptura (Latin: “Scripture alone”) as enunciated by Martin Luther (1483–1546) and other 16th-century Reformers. Thus, any challenge to scriptural integrity had the potential to undermine Christianity as they understood and practiced it"

Continuing conservative militancy led to the founding of the American Bible League in 1902 and the subsequent publication of The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth (1910–15), a series of 12 booklets comprising articles by conservative leaders from across the country. - http://www.britannica.com/topic/Christian-fundamentalism
And this still doesn't change that the revisionists were a product of Reformed. I don't know what you mean about Climate Change here. I don't see how NAB's revision light is from following the pastors, since PCUSA doesn't teach "men's supremacy" and must be comparably "revisionist".
I am not here to defend whatever is called "Reformed" much less "Protestant." Such liberal "Reformed" does not flow from SS under the historical, Biblical view of Scripture, and would be like SCOTUS viewing the Constitution of protecting the right for homosexual marriage.
But under the RC model for doctrine and obedience, the faithful are to follow the pastors, with the latest 34,000+ word encyclical of its head having to do with the dire danger of Climate Change, economic disparity etc.
"Bible believing Prots" rejected tradition and looked to scripture as standard, but they have a liberal wing that the NAB criticized.
No: fundamentalists are called the "Bible believing Prots" and oppose liberalism and traditions of men (such as the Immaculate Conception), but contend for such things as the CF SOF states (which is not tradition), and fundamentalists, if a more extreme fringe, is what the NAB censures.
That conservative "Bible believing Prots" don't debunk basic Christianity does not disprove that any RCCs who do are following the modern "Reformed approach" to tradition.
"Modern Reformed approach" that does not treat Tradition as a key way to decide what Christianity means does not translate into liberal revisionism, as instead that marginalization of Tradition was most characteristic of fundamentalism.
Tradition includes basic Christianity like the Nicene Creed, so any RCCs who don't care about the Nicene Creed and claim they know the Bible's "true" meaning will be taking the Reformed approach on that question.
Wrong: Tradition refers to oral tradition, things not seen in Scripture, such as the Assumption, praying to created beings in Heaven, RC purgatory, Catholic priests, etc., versus such things as the Nicene Creeds states as seen in the CF SOF. As regards the Trinity, God refers to Himself as "US," defines "one" other than absolute, calls the Father, Son and Spirit "God," ascribes to each uniquely Divine titles, glory and attributes, and personality, and together as what name the believer is baptized with, and ultimate source of grace, love and communion. (2 Corinthians 13:14)
In this case, those "modern traditions of men" would be modern Protestant "critical scholarship", but the RCCs don't consider them "iinfaliible". RCCs in that case would be sharing the modern attitude about critical scholarship that Hedrick has mentioned.
Whatever. Such modern Protestant and RC "critical scholarship" is contrary to Scripture under SS as Scripture being the wholly inspired word of God, and treating what liberal scholarship calls myths to be literal accounts, and thus adherents historically contended against liberal revisionism.
Such strange novelties and innovations as Christian Zionism, Dispensationalism, and numerous odd End Times chronologies and propositions are not "revisionism at all"?
That depends. That the "natural branches" are yet "beloved for the father's sake" and that in the end what is left of such will turn to the Lord has strong Scriptural support, and Rome even teaches the glorious Messiah's coming awaits a distinct latter-day conversion of the "full inclusion" of the Jews in the Messiah's salvation, in the wake of "the full number of the Gentiles" (even though reluctant to support the modern nation of Israel).

And of the rise of a anti-Christ and a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers before Christ's second coming. And thus it makes sense that the miraculous regaining of at least some or their homeland and regathering of Jews after largely maintaining a distinct identity without a homeland for over 2,000 years would fit into this scenario.

Yet Rome denies premillennialism, that the Second coming will occur before a literal thousand-year reign of Christ from Jerusalem upon the earth, though ancients as Papias, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Hippolytus, Methodius, Commodianus, and Lactanitus are said to have been premillennialists.
In comparison, if you are RC theologian, you practically have to accept the same basic kind of Covenantalism that non-Zionist Reformed teach.
That
That's a major difference that you gloss over by saying that weird Reformed innovations are just "different interpretations", while implying that RC somehow have comparable liberty to make the same kinds of odd teachings, even though in reality they don't do that. [/QUOTE]
When dealing with eschatology there is room for interpretation, but if one holds that
the Jewish people are now no longer a "chosen people" but are no different from any other group, and as a distinct people they have no distinct promises but all are taken away from the Jews and given to the Church, then that is a perpetuation of erroneous tradition, contrary to Rom. 11, among other texts.
RC "real unity" is very limited?
Indeed. Not only is the scope of "infallible" teachings narrow, but whether assent to many apart from them is debatable, while as regards what Catholics actually believe there is vast disagreement. In addition to other things, Catholics broke with their Church's teachings more than most other groups, with just six out of 10 Catholics affirming that God is "a person with whom people can have a relationship", and three in 10 describing God as an "impersonal force." - 2008: The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life; http://religions.pewforum.org/comparisons#
The believe in real communion with Jesus during Eucharist, something Calvin taught, but Reformed can't even agree if that happens or if Eucharist is just a symbol.
Some Reformed are more Lutheran, but that is a minority of evangelicals.
Even if they were a "most distinctive religious threat" (not clear BTW), it does not mean they have unity. 1000 mosquitos with malaria in a room are an extreme threat, but the mosquitos don't have unity.
Really? They all fly, and need and want blood ans share the same method of obtaining it whereby they all are able to infect you, and all share a "theology" that they are the superior species, while you are to provide for them what they need at your expense. Sounds like they hold a lot fundamentally in common, with little diversity.

Much more fully is the case with evangelicals, both in fundamental contentions and in diversity.
Evangelicals are a major religious group. Are they in declension?
While decreasing the least, they are in declension, as are all religious groups while the fastest growing group are NONES.
What do you mean by the "limited unity of the NT"?
I meant that they could not have possibly considered the vast extent of theological aspects and dealt with them. Even if not as extensive as Colonial America not being in unity on the 20th c. tax code.
How did the NT era have "strong Scriptural substantiation" if the gospels hadn't even by written until after Paul's time?
Why is it that Catholic seems to assume that Scripture began with the NT, when in reality much or most of what we hold as Scripture was so established as being so that the abudant use of them by the NT church never is shown being a matter of dispute by those who sat in the seat of Moses, though later they might resort to this?
You say "lacking that [unity] today is our fault"- by that do you mean Reformed?
No, it means we do not have leadership even approaching such strong Scriptural substantiation as the apostles such as 2Co. 6:4-10; 12:13; Rm. 15:19 describes. though i am not requiring leadership fully attains to the apostolic level. And i certainly do not, but am far from such in sacrificial love, virtue and power. But the church of the living God must show that it is living, though the basic but profound transformative effects of the New Birth is the most fundamental attestation to the resurrection of Christ.
Do you support the Charismatic movement, and belief in modern massive Gifts of the Spirit? If so, can you please write about Charismatics' "substantiation" of heir gifts and whether you find it comparable to the NT era? It is an interesting question for me, probably for a separate thread.
Doctrinally i must at least allow for them despite the predominance of aberrations, and believe the genuine is needed today as before, and that God can do as He ever did.
There is a far better case for the perpetuity of "sign gifts" versus giving God a sabbatical from doing so, however support for and belief in them does not mean or require that this be on the same level as seen in the prima NT church.
What is a better example of "deformation" - Tradition-less religious communities that came out of Reformed communities and use the Bible to reject Nicene basics and to reject NT fundamentals like communion rituals, or the RC Church, which still accepts the fundamentals of Christianity and the Nicene Creed? What's a stronger deformation? "Bible-only based" JWs, Unitarianism, non-Trinitarian SDAs, "oneness Pentecostals, Eucharist-less Protestants who don't believe that the OT predicted the Messiah, etc., or the RC Church that accepts the Nicene Creed / Christian basics stated in the "CF" forum statement of faith?
Both usually subject Scripture to the elite leadership, effectually making them the supreme are authority on Truth, or operate out of a low unScriptural view of Scripture. Some are worse than Rome, but as said, she is the most manifest example of the deformation of the NT church.
Thank yo for your ideas. At this point, I would like to ask you to read Question 3 B.
Probably not. It has taken me days to write this reply and i have other things to do. Thanks anyway, and may God in His mercy and grace grant you repentance unto the acknowledging the Truth. (2Tim,. 2:25) And perfect what concerneth me. (Ps. 138:8)
 
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rakovsky

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Hello, PBJ!

This section was the most thought provoking for me, and since I like puzzles, I will write a bit:
Part 3:
Caths emphasize Jn. 6:53,54, invoking it as being as much the absolute imperative that other "very verily" commands convey, yet as such it would exclude all those who reject the literalistic position from salvation. However, the Lord does give explanation, first by making it analogous to how the Lord Jesus lived by the Father: "As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me." (John 6:57) And as He stated how we are to live is clear: "It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God," (Matthew 4:4) then thus the Lord - once again using metaphor which abounds in John - stated that obeying that word, doing the Father's will was His "meat." "But he said unto them, I have meat to eat that ye know not of. Therefore said the disciples one to another, Hath any man brought him ought to eat? Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work." (John 4:32-34)
In John 6:57, Jesus says that those who eat Jesus live by Jesus, in the same way that Jesus lives by the Father who sent him.
OK. So in what way does the Father send Jesus? Jesus proceeds from the Father as the Logos/Word of God proceeds from the Father. He was begotten before all ages. They have a communion with eachother, that is, a spiritual unity.
Those who eat Jesus in John 6:57 therefore achieve communion with Jesus in that same way.

Then in Matthew 4, Jesus says you must live by both bread AND by God's words, which would include of course The WORD/LOGOS (Christ). This does not rule out that you would also live by eating Christ the Word like John 6:57 said.

Then in John 4, he says that He has meat that is to do the Father's will. This however does not rule out that Jesus also IS meat like John 6:57, just as it does not rule out that you should also live not just by bread but by doing by God's words. After all, eating Jesus in John 6:57 would be in accordance with that will.

Furthermore, while carnal seekers (which here had come looking for another free physical feeding) once again understood the Lord as speaking of the physical, the Lord further explained,

When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it, he said unto them, Doth this offend you? What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before? It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him. (John 6:61-64)
This is interesting. The Bible says that "God is spirit", and Paul explains at length that the resurrected body is a "spirit body". Christ may have flesh, but his body in the Eucharist is in spirit mode, according to Luther. Luther explained that this was the same mode in which Jesus was in the wall in John 20.

Further, it's certainly true even in Reformed theology, that Jesus' flesh did profit something- when Christ died "in the flesh", this was part of an atonement. Had Jesus' flesh not been involved and there had been no incarnation, there would be no profit, as said death and mortality would not be possible. Therefore, even by Reformed theology, it must be said that while normal, animal flesh does not create profit, Jesus' flesh was a different matter. That is because Jesus was not just flesh like an animal, but was God incarnated.

This is why in John 6, jesus also says: "Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, ye have no life in you." (v. 53) He nowhere says that "the flesh of the Son of Man" (as opposed to just regular flesh) does not profit. So while it's true that he said, "The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life", he nowhere says in John 6 that "the flesh of the Son of man" are "the words that I speak to you" or vice verse. At the end of the day, John 6 still leaves believers thinking that (A) they must eat Jesus' flesh as a condition for having life (v.53), and (B) that it is the spirit itself that profiteth, not the flesh.

This brings to mind for me Paul's teaching in 1 Cor 10-11 that believers should eat the Eucharistic bread together, but only doing so worthily with a right spirit would profit.

So I think that considering this puzzle helped me come closer to the Lutheran/Catholic/Orthodox view.

But rather than linking this to the Lord's Supper, which John conspicuously does not do and never mentions the "take eat, this is my body" words seen in the synoptic gospels, instead the Lord speaks that which is consistent with the rest of John and the NT, which is never that of literally physically consuming anything in order to obtain spiritual life, but that the transcendent "words that I speak unto you, they are spirit," by which one who hears them and believes can obtain spiritual life, versus needing a priest and transubstantiated elements to consume.
Actually, this does link to the Lord's supper by invoking the Manna from heaven. In 1 Cor. 10-11, Paul called the consumption by the Israelites in the desert a prefigurement of the Lord's supper in which Christians eat Jesus' body. In John 6, Jesus makes the same link, noticing that in the desert the Israelites ate the manna from heaven, but that Jesus himself was manna from heaven that they would have to eat.

Hedrick also noticed the link between John 6 and the Lord's Supper.

It is by believing the gospel message with effectual faith that one has his heart purified by faith and is born again. (Acts 10:43-47; 15:7-11) And it is the word that is said to "nourish" souls, (1Tim. 4:6) and build them up, by which the pastors are to "feed the church," (Acts 20:28,32) the primary ordained charge being prayer and to "preach the word." (Acts 6:4; 2Tim. 4:2) Thus nowhere in the life of the church (Acts onward, which is interpretive of the gospels) is the Lord's supper preached as the means of regeneration, or even sees much emphasis or centrality, in stark contrast to Catholicism.
It appears that the breaking of bread was a major special practice emphasized in the New Testament, not to mention the 1st century Didache.

Acts 2:46 says that the apostles were "Day by day, attending the Temple together and breaking bread in their homes…"

Does this just mean a regular "breaking of bread" like an ordinary meal? That is the Quakers' conclusion and they don't continue the ritual of communion. However I notice how it is mentioned next to praying in the Temple, a major ritual. I think the early Christians' special breaking of bread was a key practice.
This website mentions other cases of the breaking of bread in the NT: http://www.therealpresence.org/eucharst/scrip/a6.html

You wrote:
"Do you support the Charismatic movement, and belief in modern massive Gifts of the Spirit?"~Rakovsky
Doctrinally i must at least allow for them despite the predominance of aberrations, and believe the genuine is needed today as before, and that God can do as He ever did.

There is a far better case for the perpetuity of "sign gifts" versus giving God a sabbatical from doing so,
however support for and belief in them does not mean or require that this be on the same level as seen in the prima NT church.
It sounds like you are rejecting the belief in Cessationism.
When I bring up the issue of whether a holy person's bones, clothes, or shadow could be involved in miracles like Christians who treat Tradition as a crucial authority teach, Reformed frequently tell me "No," and a common explanation they give is Cessationism. They propose that Elisha's bones, Peter's shadow, and Jesus' and Paul's clothes were involved in healing people in the Bible, but that does not happen any more, because of Cessationism.

A.M.R., whom you might recognize from the Semper Reformanda and Presbyterian Confessional sections, writes:
This would be akin to what charismatics would appeal to in denying the apostolic gifts have ceased. I am a cessationist, as are the conservative Reformed.

"I am just asking in the Second Question if there are early writings against this, and if not, what is the Reformed reasoning for why relics can't be involved in miracles?" ~Rakovsky


As I stated the majority of the ECF have denounced veneration of relics. I do not know of any that actually support it. I think "veneration" included the notion that these objects possessed some supernatural healing properties. This is reason number one. Reason number two, is that I do not see the healing gifts of the apostles as existing today.

In the Presbyterian section AMR wrote to another person:
Advocating that cessationism, which is, for example, part of the Westminster Standards, has no Biblical warrant is not allowed. Keep in mind that the Confessional view is not arguing that God's providence ceases working in extraordinary ways. Instead the Confessional view argues that Scripture teaches that the Apostolic gifts referenced in the Scriptures had a purpose which ceased given the fullness of Revelation.

The task of the apostle was shown as temporary by their task of laying the foundation of the Church. See Ephesians 2:20; 1 Cor. 3:10. Laying the foundation does not take forever. Laying the foundation stops and then come others building upon that foundation: ministers, teachers, etc.


For example, the WCF Chapter 1, section 6 reads:

[FONT=&quot]VI. The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man's salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture: unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit or traditions of men. (m) Nevertheless, we acknowledge the inward illumination of the Spirit of God to be necessary for the saving understanding of such things as are revealed in the Word: (n) and that there are some circumstances concerning the worship of God, and government of the Church, common to human actions and societies, which are to be ordered by the light of nature, and Christian prudence, according to the general rules of the Word, which are always to be observed. (o)
[/FONT]
How would you respond to the common Reformed teaching of Cessationism and its justifications?

I am inclined to think that if such gifts and miracles with visions and holy people's objects could happen in Biblical times, then they could still happen today. There was a need in apostolic times to lay the foundation and show that the early Christian miracles were for real. However, due to unbelief in later centuries, I can see that a need for such miracles would grow back. The need may have receded in the 2nd century, but that need may have reappeared. Further, as 1 Cor 14 shows, the gifts were not actually limited to the apostles themselves but included regular phenomena in churches like Corinth.

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But, as a matter of being conscious of reality, it seems to me that gifts are not present and appearing in churches regularly today in the same way that they were in Corinth or in Paul's mission in Acts. It looks to me realistically like speaking in tongues today is not miraculous and that real miracle visions are rare.

One of my challenges in religion, PBJ, is that at the mental level when I try to judge reality, I am attracted to the Reformed outlook that sees both religiously caring for holy objects and claims of their involvement in miracles as "superstition".
Yet if hundreds of thousands of traditional Christian miracle claims involve the use of holy objects, there are still many sincere Christians who make such claims firsthand, and this multitude of sincere claims is superstition, then when what mindset about the objective reliability of sincere miracle claims do I use when turning to those by masses of Protestants that don't involve relics and the times in the Bible that miracle claims do involve relics?

It is hard mentally for me to use a materialistic mindset that judges 1900+ years of relic miracles, large quantities of them sincerely claimed, as superstitious delusion, and then turn to those in the Bible and objectively compute that they are real. I think that this is why Hedrick concluded that the Bible's relic miracles were popular piety / "relic mania", and a conservative Reformed suggested that the Israelite mentioned in the Bible was not brought to life again after touching Elisha's bones.

Regards.
 
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PeaceByJesus

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Hello, PBJ!
This section was the most thought provoking for me, and since I like puzzles, I will write a bit:
In John 6:57, Jesus says that those who eat Jesus live by Jesus, in the same way that Jesus lives by the Father who sent him.
OK. So in what way does the Father send Jesus? Jesus proceeds from the Father as the Logos/Word of God proceeds from the Father. He was begotten before all ages. They have a communion with eachother, that is, a spiritual unity.
Those who eat Jesus in John 6:57 therefore achieve communion with Jesus in that same way.
That is a confused contortion of the analogy, as contrary to your reply, the analogy was not "as the living Father sent me and we have communion with each other," and as if mere communion was the subject and began with being sent, but it was as the living Father sent me and I live the Father," which refers to how He "lived by" the One that sent Him, which was how He said we are to live, which is by receiving and obeying His word (which Jeremiah "ate:" Jer. 15:16) and thus the doing of it was His "bread," (Jn. 4:34) not physically consuming the Father!

Likewise, the only reception that is said to spiritually "nourish" souls is "the words of faith and of good doctrine," (1Tim. 4:6) and thus after charging them to "feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood" (Acts 20:28) Paul says to the Ephesian elders "I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and give you an inheritance..." (Acts 20:32)

And thus the preaching of the word of God (and prayer) is the primary charge given to NT pastors in the life of the church, and is never that of dispensing substantiated flesh and blood to the flock, nor are they ever shown doing so, or referring to doing so in ministering grace to the flock, despite the extensive details of Pauline pastoring.

I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. (2 Timothy 4:1-2)

Till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine. (1 Timothy 4:13)

These things speak, and exhort, and rebuke with all authority. Let no man despise thee. (Titus 2:15)

Nor is taking part in the Lord's supper commended as means of salvific grace, or the neglect of it mentioned in the critiques and reproofs to the 7 representative churches of Rv. 2+3. Only in one epistle (besides Jude 1:14) is the Lord Supper even manifestly described, in which the focus is on the body of Christ as the church.

We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers; (1 Thessalonians 1:2)

Then in Matthew 4, Jesus says you must live by both bread AND by God's words, which would include of course The WORD/LOGOS (Christ). This does not rule out that you would also live by eating Christ the Word like John 6:57 said.
O come on! The issue is not what it may not absolutely rule out, which could include eating marshmallows as "bread," but what the context and the whole of Scripture clearly describes the living by the word to mean. The Lord here is quoting Scripture, and which He continues to do against the devil, and the actual text of Mt. 4:4 is that of Dt. 8:3, which also refers to hearing and obeying the word of God, no
Then in John 4, he says that He has meat that is to do the Father's will. This however does not rule out that Jesus also IS meat like John 6:57, just as it does not rule out that you should also live not just by bread but by doing by God's words. After all, eating Jesus in John 6:57 would be in accordance with that will.

Please! Scripture only describes living by the word of God as being by hearing and obeying it in general, with obtaining life resulting from believing the gospel message, and never by taking part in the Lord's Supper. That eating Jesus in John 6:57 would be in accordance with that will is simply begging the question.
This is interesting. The Bible says that "God is spirit", and Paul explains at length that the resurrected body is a "spirit body".
And God could choose to be incarnated as polar bear, but the issue is what does Scripture teaching in its totality. Which is also erroneous.
Christ may have flesh, but his body in the Eucharist is in spirit mode, according to Luther. Luther explained that this was the same mode in which Jesus was in the wall in John 20.
But at least it was not because of the priest’s words of consecration nor the sacrament being a cause of grace.
Further, it's certainly true even in Reformed theology, that Jesus' flesh did profit something- when Christ died "in the flesh", this was part of an atonement.
Which is apples to oranges. It is how His flesh profits as regards Jn. 6 that is the issue. The carnal Jews naturally supposed that the actual corporeal body of Christ would be given them to eat -some transubstantiated form was simply not in view - and thus the question was asked, "What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before?" (John 6:62) And consistent with John's constant contrast btwn the earthly and the heavenly, the answer was that physical consumption of flesh would not profit them, but "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." (John 6:63)

And which is the only understanding the John or Scripture teaches elsewhere, in which receiving Christ is by believing His word which results in spiritual and eternal life.

Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this? (John 11:25-26)

And when there had been much disputing, Peter rose up, and said unto them, Men and brethren, ye know how that a good while ago God made choice among us, that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word of the gospel, and believe. And God, which knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us; And put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith. (Acts 15:7-9)
This is why in John 6, jesus also says: "Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, ye have no life in you." (v. 53)
Which is an argument against you, as said before, for as with other "verily, verily statements this is an absolute statement, and it renders the Lord's Supper the essential means of obtaining spiritual life, and must exclude all those who have not received, as well as those who deny the Cath "Real Presence" from having spiritual life. Which is clearly contrary to Scripture, as well as modern Rome, for whatever that is worth.

This brings to mind for me Paul's teaching in 1 Cor 10-11 that believers should eat the Eucharistic bread together, but only doing so worthily with a right spirit would profit.

Indeed, profit in the sense of showing the Lord's death by effectually recognizing/treating the others present as actually being members for whom Christ died, versus eating independently, with some being full and others hungry, and thus to "shame them that have not." And which contextually is what was meant by "not discerning the Lord's body." See here by God's grace.

Actually, this does link to the Lord's supper by invoking the Manna from heaven. In 1 Cor. 10-11, Paul called the consumption by the Israelites in the desert a prefigurement of the Lord's supper in which Christians eat Jesus' body. In John 6, Jesus makes the same link, noticing that in the desert the Israelites ate the manna from heaven, but that Jesus himself was manna from heaven that they would have to eat.

Not so, as 1Co. 10:18 refers to "they which eat of the sacrifices [being] partakers of the altar? (cf. 10. 9:13; Le 3:3-5,11; 7:11-17; 1Sa 2:13-16; 9:12,13) which is not that of eating manna in the desert, 91Co. 10:3) which was before there as a temple and is a separate example pertaining to idolatry, nor which 1Co. 11:20-34 refers to.
Hedrick also noticed the link between John 6 and the Lord's Supper.
Someplace in cyberspace.
It appears that the breaking of bread was a major special practice emphasized in the New Testament, not to mention the 1st century Didache.
Acts 2:46 says that the apostles were "Day by day, attending the Temple together and breaking bread in their homes…" Does this just mean a regular "breaking of bread" like an ordinary meal?
At least you are not resorting to "it does not deny," but what i said was any "manifest description," but if you want to invoke church meals in general as being the Lord's Supper, then you need to exclude even apostles from doing the dispensing:

And in those days, when the number of the disciples was multiplied, there arose a murmuring of the Grecians against the Hebrews, because their widows were neglected in the daily ministration. Then the twelve called the multitude of the disciples unto them, and said, It is not reason that we should leave the word of God, and serve tables. Wherefore, brethren, look ye out among you seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business. (Acts 6:1-3)
That is the Quakers' conclusion and they don't continue the ritual of communion.
Which is as valid an argument as throwing the baby out with the bathwater is. The issue is not whether the LS should be observed, but its manifest meaning and place.
However I notice how it is mentioned next to praying in the Temple, a major ritual.
Which is not that of actually physically consuming anything to obtain spiritual life, which is uniquely pagan.
This website mentions other cases of the breaking of bread in the NT:
Which further examples specious extrapolation, and invokes Acts 20:7ff, which no more manifestly describes the LS than other mentions of breaking bread, but in which, consistent with descriptions of the primary duty of pastors (besides prayer), describes preaching the word as the pastoral function Paul engaged in.
It sounds like you are rejecting the belief in Cessationism.
When I bring up the issue of whether a holy person's bones, clothes, or shadow could be involved in miracles like Christians who treat Tradition as a crucial authority teach, Reformed frequently tell me "No," and a common explanation they give is Cessationism.
You mean most Reformed, not all, while the only solid basis for allowing such must be Scripture, and which is not that of prosperity preachers prayer cloths, nor the error of Catholicism in making relics a means of grace since God (very rarely) engaged in one-time or one-period use of such in Scripture. And the devil can also use such.
A.M.R., whom you might recognize from the Semper Reformanda and Presbyterian Confessional sections, writes:
...the Confessional view is not arguing that God's providence ceases working in extraordinary ways. Instead the Confessional view argues that Scripture teaches that the Apostolic gifts referenced in the Scriptures had a purpose which ceased given the fullness of Revelation.
But "sign gifts" were not restricted to apostles, as deacons (Stephen and Phillip) ias well as laity (1Co. 12) could possess them, if not in the same scope and degree, (2Co. 12:12) and "that which is perfect" which coming revelation means such will cease (1Co. 13:8-13) hardly conforms to the completion of the NT, versus the perfect revelation at the Lord's return. (1Jn. 3:2)

The problem is that of fabrications and false claims, which predominate, and it is more safe, if more sterile, to exclude all such than to seek and overcome such by the genuine. But that the type of warfare i that the NT church did.

The same followed Paul and us, and cried, saying, These men are the servants of the most high God, which shew unto us the way of salvation. And this did she many days. But Paul, being grieved, turned and said to the spirit, I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And he came out the same hour. (Acts 16:17-18)
In the Presbyterian section AMR wrote to another person:
The exercise of such gifts does not add to Scripture, nor present a competing supreme standard, and thus need violate the exclusion of Westminster of anything at any time being to Scripture whether by new revelations of the Spirit or traditions of men, while it also allows for "the light of nature" and nature itself "Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge, (Psalms 19:2) if not being express salvific revelation which the Law provides. (Psalms 19:7)

But calling prophecy today the word of God is problematic.
How would you respond to the common Reformed teaching of Cessationism and its justifications?
I think i basically have, but that should be another post.
I am inclined to think that if such gifts and miracles with visions and holy people's objects could happen in Biblical times, then they could still happen today.
Yet "...the Confessional view is not arguing that God's providence ceases working in extraordinary ways."
There was a need in apostolic times to lay the foundation and show that the early Christian miracles were for real. However, due to unbelief in later centuries, I can see that a need for such miracles would grow back.
True, as well as the need to test such, which must be by the only transcendent substantive body of the Truth that is wholly inspired of God, upon which revelatory foundation the church was grounded in and is subject to.
But, as a matter of being conscious of reality, it seems to me that gifts are not present and appearing in churches regularly today in the same way that they were in Corinth or in Paul's mission in Acts. It looks to me realistically like speaking in tongues today is not miraculous and that real miracle visions are rare.
Indeed, relatively, but the living God is still miraculously manifesting that He is alive and that the Lord Jesus arose.
One of my challenges in religion, PBJ, is that at the mental level when I try to judge reality, I am attracted to the Reformed outlook that sees both religiously caring for holy objects and claims of their involvement in miracles as "superstition". Y
Or fraud or the demonic, as Moses's first 3 miracles were duplicated by the magicians, but the by the Lord He overcame them. Yet the ritual use relics is unScriptural, as nowhere was such things as touching the bones of a prophet made into a ritual ongoing "sacrament," and the bronze serpent became an idol, and only the pool of Bethesda is shown as a place, not a relic, where apparently God moved at times, as He can anywhere. Yet this was not linked to false doctrine, and it remains that the validity of any miracle as being of God is judged upon what the assured wholly inspired body of Truth says (Scripture), not what some say who presume high authority.
It is hard mentally for me to use a materialistic mindset that judges 1900+ years of relic miracles, large quantities of them sincerely claimed, as superstitious delusion, and then turn to those in the Bible and objectively compute that they are real.
To much is given much is required. Before Moses there was not much express revelation and manifest supernatural attestation, but for Moses it was so profound in scope and degree that nothing could come close, and together with His character it established the Law which Moses gave was surely from God, despite the rebelliousness nature of those whom it was given to.

And as testimonies like Ps. 19:7ff; 119 and multitudinous references provide, it became the the transcendent supreme standard for obedience and testing and establishing truth claims as the wholly Divinely inspired and assured, Word of God.
I think that this is why Hedrick concluded that the Bible's relic miracles were popular piety / "relic mania", and a conservative Reformed suggested that the Israelite mentioned in the Bible was not brought to life again after touching Elisha's bones. Regards.
NO! That is the type of liberal revisionism that leads to greater denials of events which Scripture describes and treats as literal, and actually impugns the authority of Scripture as being the judge btwn true and false claims of the supernatural, as well btwn their two sources.

Some even say that the miracles of the Egyptian magicians in duplicating the initial miracles by Moses were simply fabrications, as if the Holy Spirit could not tell the difference and so just to play it safe said that they also "did so." (Ex. 7:11,22; 8:7)

And with the devil doing his most profound miracles in the last days of the last days, one must "prove all things" but the same source that the Lord reproved the devil and Jewish leadership by. Thanks be to God.

Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. (2 Thessalonians 2:9-10)
 
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rakovsky

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Hello, PeaceByJesus!

Hedrick also noticed the link between John 6 and the Lord's Supper.

Someplace in cyberspace.

The major feast of Judaism was Passover, with the Passover meal ritual instituted at the Exodus. Jesus was replacing that Passover feast ritual meal with the communion ritual meal.

Here is where Hedrick noted the link:
John 6 doesn’t refer to the physical bread and wine at all.

Indeed it’s even possible that it didn’t refer to communion at all. That’s a bit unlikely, but not impossible. John is structured around the major feasts and symbols of Judaism. Jesus is shown as effectively replacing them, or maybe fulfilling them all. So he is shown as the new temple, etc. In most cases the correspondence is fairly symbolic.

Here he is shown as the new exodus. His body is the new manna. But the exodus led up to the covenant with Moses, made in blood (Ex 24:8). Given the general Christian concept (e.g. shown in the words of institution) that Christ is the new covenant, the connection between Christ as the new manna and Christ’s blood as establishing the new covenant could stand without any reference to communion.

I do think communion is in the back of John’s mind, but only because of things I bring to the text from outside.

I understand there are Charismatics who claim the Reformed Tradition, when you say:
You mean most Reformed, not all, while the only solid basis for allowing such must be Scripture,
However, I expect that the conservative Reformed are going to say that the Charismatics are not "real" Reformed. Personally I sympathize with your answer: I think that if someone claims to be Reformed and meets some basic criteria they should be counted as such. I am not sure how to get the other Reformed to accept this.

God (very rarely) engaged in one-time or one-period use of such in Scripture.
Isn't to say that this was a one period use essentially to agree with Cessationism, namely that the special gift of believers (in this case the use of holy objects) was only for the Old Testament period and for the 1st century AD?

But "sign gifts" were not restricted to apostles, as deacons (Stephen and Phillip) ias well as laity (1Co. 12) could possess them, if not in the same scope and degree, (2Co. 12:12) and "that which is perfect" which coming revelation means such will cease (1Co. 13:8-13) hardly conforms to the completion of the NT, versus the perfect revelation at the Lord's return. (1Jn. 3:2)
I think that the bold part is a good rejoinder.

I wasn't able to get a definite idea from 1Co. 13:8-13 what that perfection refers to.


The same followed Paul and us, and cried, saying, These men are the servants of the most high God, which shew unto us the way of salvation. And this did she many days. But Paul, being grieved, turned and said to the spirit, I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And he came out the same hour. (Acts 16:17-18)
Maybe Paul did not drive out the demon right away because he wasn't sure if it was a demon?

The exercise of such gifts does not add to Scripture, nor present a competing supreme standard, and thus need violate the exclusion of Westminster of anything at any time being to Scripture whether by new revelations of the Spirit or traditions of men, while it also allows for "the light of nature" and nature itself "Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge, (Psalms 19:2) if not being express salvific revelation which the Law provides. (Psalms 19:7)

But calling prophecy today the word of God is problematic.
Don't you think though, that if Jesus really appeared to a charismatic today and gave the charismatic a message like Jesus gave John in Revelation, then this would make that message "God's word" and a prophecy?

Consequently, it seems that the conservative Reformed objection is that any new real revelation by God would mean adding to scripture, since they (the Bible and the new direct revelation) would be both God's word?
Still, if Jesus appeared to Stephen(who was not one of the twelve) and John in Bible times, and Paul accepted the Corinthians had "prophecy" it isn't clear and definite to me that we could not have prophecy today.

I think i basically have, but that should be another post.

Yet "...the Confessional view is not arguing that God's providence ceases working in extraordinary ways."

True, as well as the need to test such, which must be by the only transcendent substantive body of the Truth that is wholly inspired of God, upon which revelatory foundation the church was grounded in and is subject to.


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I sympathize with what you are saying, but am not sure how to "prove it".

It's one thing to say like I did that #1: "I am inclined to think that if such gifts and miracles with visions and holy people's objects could happen in Biblical times, then they could still happen today."

And another to say: #2: "...the Confessional view is not arguing that God's providence ceases working in extraordinary ways."

Just because Reformed accept #2 doesn't mean that they accept #1. But if #1 is correct, how to persuade them of this, PBJ?
Just because #1 "seems to me" to be true isn't a proof.

It is hard mentally for me to use a materialistic mindset that judges 1900+ years of relic miracles, large quantities of them sincerely claimed, as superstitious delusion, and then turn to those in the Bible and objectively compute that they are real. I think that this is why Hedrick concluded that the Bible's relic miracles were popular piety / "relic mania", and a conservative Reformed suggested that the Israelite mentioned in the Bible was not brought to life again after touching Elisha's bones.



Indeed, relatively, but the living God is still miraculously manifesting that He is alive and that the Lord Jesus arose.

Or fraud or the demonic, as Moses's first 3 miracles were duplicated by the magicians, but the by the Lord He overcame them. Yet the ritual use relics is unScriptural, as nowhere was such things as touching the bones of a prophet made into a ritual ongoing "sacrament," and the bronze serpent became an idol, and only the pool of Bethesda is shown as a place, not a relic, where apparently God moved at times, as He can anywhere. Yet this was not linked to false doctrine, and it remains that the validity of any miracle as being of God is judged upon what the assured wholly inspired body of Truth says (Scripture), not what some say who presume high authority.

To much is given much is required. Before Moses there was not much express revelation and manifest supernatural attestation, but for Moses it was so profound in scope and degree that nothing could come close, and together with His character it established the Law which Moses gave was surely from God, despite the rebelliousness nature of those whom it was given to.

And as testimonies like Ps. 19:7ff; 119 and multitudinous references provide, it became the the transcendent supreme standard for obedience and testing and establishing truth claims as the wholly Divinely inspired and assured, Word of God.

NO! That is the type of liberal revisionism that leads to greater denials of events which Scripture describes and treats as literal, and actually impugns the authority of Scripture as being the judge btwn true and false claims of the supernatural, as well btwn their two sources.

Some even say that the miracles of the Egyptian magicians in duplicating the initial miracles by Moses were simply fabrications, as if the Holy Spirit could not tell the difference and so just to play it safe said that they also "did so." (Ex. 7:11,22; 8:7)
Perhaps now you see my challenge here, PBJ?

If we accept the Reformed mindset and say that centuries of sincere Catholics are deluded in thinking that they got healed by praying with relics, how can we then turn to Protestant healing stories like the ones you linked me to, and then with the same mentality say that those Protestant healings are real?

I think that perhaps you might be implying in your passage above that the Catholic relic miracles are demonic. However when Jesus was accused of demonic miracles, Jesus' response was that demons can't drive out demons (like the Catholic true cross relics do). Charismatics sometimes launch the same defense, saying that their gifts are not demonic because they do good.

For Calvin, the miracles attributed to relics weren't considered demonic magic, they didn't happen and the relics were superstition and not "reasonable":
"In short, the desire for relics is never without superstition ....

It is true that St Ambrose, in speaking of Helena, the mother of the Emperor Constantine the Great, who sought with great trouble and expense for the cross of our Lord, says that she did not worship the wood, but the Lord who was suspended upon it.
But it is a very rare thing, that a heart disposed to value any relics whatever should not become to a certain degree polluted by some superstition.
...
At Orleans they have even the wine which was obtained by that miracle, and once a year the priests there give to those who bring offerings a small spoonful, saying that they shall taste of the very wine made by our Lord at the marriage feast, and its quantity never decreases, the cup being always refilled.
This brings to mind the story of Jesus turning water into wine. If it looks like these kind of wine parlor tricks are fake when done by Catholics, how reliable are they when attributed to Jesus?
water-to-wine-1.jpg
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An easy response is that the early Christians were filled with inspiration and underwent persecution. However, I believe that over the centuries there have been many fervent Catholics who sincerely believe in real relic miracles and visions of Mary, even to the point where they could get persecuted for it.

Another way - albeit a secondary one - that some Protestants advocate for Christianity is by pointing to the Turin Shroud and Sudarium of Jesus. Gary Habermas of Liberty University, whom you might recognize as a leading Protestant apologist, writes:

Even this very brief look at several aspects of the shroud of Turin reveals that it has much significance for Biblical studies. Scientific inquiry reveals that there is little chance that it is a fake. In particular, experiments show that there is no foreign substance that could account for the image. Historical inquiry provides much good material for a very early date that is seldom mentioned. Studies of the pollen samples have refuted historical agnosticism, while scientific studies of the material and especially the coins over the eyes point to a probable first-century date.

On the other hand, the shroud is consistent with the Biblical data concerning Jesus' burial.
http://www.garyhabermas.com/article...mas_JETS_Shroud-of-Turin-and-significance.htm


But here is what Calvin writes about the Turin shroud:

. It is now time to treat of the “sudary,” about which relic they have displayed their folly even more than in the affair of the holy coat, for besides the sudary of Veronica, which is shown in the Church of St Peter at Rome, it is the boast of several towns that they each possess one, as for instance Carcassone, Nice, Aix-la-Chapelle, Treves, Besangon, without reckoning the fragments to be seen in various places. F134 Now, I ask whether those persons were not bereft of their senses who could take long pilgrimages, at much expense and fatigue, in order to see sheets, of the reality of which there were no reasons to believe, but many to doubt; for whoever admitted the reality of one of these sudaries shown in so many places, must have considered the restas wicked impostures set up to deceive the public by the pretense that they were each the real sheet in which Christ’s body had been wrapped. But it is not only that the exhibitors of this one and the same relic give each other mutually the lie, they are (what is far more important) positively contradicted by the Gospel The evangelists who speak of all the women who followed our Lord to the place of crucifixion, make not the least mention of that Veronica who wiped his face with a kerchief. It was in truth a most marvellous and remarkable event, worthy of being recorded, that the face of Jesus Christ was then miraculously imprinted upon the cloth, a much more important thing to mention than the mere circumstance that certain women had followed Jesus Christ to the place of crucifixion without meeting with any miracle; and, indeed, had such a miracle taken place, we might consider the evangelists wanting in judgment in not relating the most important facts.

The same observations are applicable to the tale of the sheet in which the body of our Lord was wrapped. How is it possible that those sacred historians, who carefully related all the miracles that took place at Christ’s death, should have omitted to mention one so remarkable as the likeness of the body of our Lord remaining on its wrapping sheet? This fact undoubtedly deserved to be recorded. St John, in his Gospel, relates even how St Peter, having entered the sepulcher, saw the linen clothes lying on one side, and the napkin that was about his head on the other; but he does not say that there was a miraculous impression of our Lord’s figure upon these clothes, and it is not to be imagined that he would have omitted to mention such a work of God if there had been any thing of this kind.


Another point to be observed is, that the evangelists do not mention that either of the disciples or the faithful women who came to the sepulcher had removed the clothes in question, but, on the contrary, their account seems to imply that they were left there. Now, the sepulcher was guarded by soldiers, and consequently the dothes were in their power. Is it possible that they would have permitted the disciples to take them away as relics, since these very men had been bribed by the Pharisees to perjure themselves by saying that the disciples had stolen the body of our Lord? I shall conclude with a convincing proof of the audacity of the Papism Wherever the holy sudary is exhibited, they show a large sheet with the full-length likeness of a human body on it. Now, St John’s Gospel, chapter nine-teenth, says that Christ was buried according to the manner of the Jews; and what was their custom?

This may be known by their present custom on such occasions, as well as from their books, which describe the ancient ceremony of interment, which was to wrap the body in a sheet, to the shoulders, and to cover the head with a separate cloth. This is precisely how the evangelist described it, saying, that St Peter saw on one side the clothes with which the body had been wrapped, and on the other the napkin from about his head. In short, either St John is a liar, or all those who boast of possessing the holy sudary are convicted of falsehood and deceit.

...
What a sacrilege to make use of the name of Jesus Christ in order to invent such absurd fables!

http://www.godrules.net/library/calvin/176calvin4.htm
Actually, I can dispute some of Calvin's ideas here: Just because there were forgeries in France doesn't mean that the Turin shroud was a forgery. And just because the soldiers were at the tomb doesn't mean that they would stop Peter from taking the shroud, since the angel had paralyzed them. Besides, skeptics haven't succeeded in making a good reproduction of the shroud using their own methods.

But anyway, once I accept that the Turin shroud is just "absurd" superstition, there goes another common argument for Christianity, and instead begins to come the idea that "miracles" like the unexplainable image in the shroud can easily be fake superstition.

So to conclude, the conservative Reformed teaching appears to be that "gifts" ended with the first century (Cessationism), and so that relics and miracles attributed to them are "superstition" that Calvin tried to "debunk".

I sympathize with the Charismatic argument that theoretically God could still do miracles like he did before and that there is a need for them. However, this doesn't seem to be a strong enough proof that Charismatic style miracles are happening. In fact, although I find the Charismatic and Catholic ideas appealing, when my mind thinks realistically, it really isn't clear to me. My guess is that due to so many - thousands of - claims, miracles, including relic miracles, are still happening occasionally.

But this is still a tough issue, PBJ, because if I then apply the conservative Calvinist skeptical mindset retroactively to the Biblical stories, it looks like those could be "relic mania"/"popular piety" too. Sure, using the same intensity of skepticism that Calvin did, the magic done by Pharaoh's magicians' staffs could be seen as fabricated just like the Catholic priests whom Calvin complained about fabricated their own miracles.
 
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rakovsky

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Hedrick,

I like writing to you because you are thoughtful, ecumenical, and a critical thinker.
You are right when you say about the commentors:
One argument that has been given is that John 6:60 implies that the disciples thought Jesus was saying something hard. They wouldn’t have thought that of a metaphor.

John 6 says:
56 He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him.
57 As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me.
58 This is the bread which came down from heaven—not as your fathers ate the manna, and are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever.”
60 Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this, said, “This is a hard saying; who can understand it?”
61 When Jesus knew in Himself that His disciples complained about this, He said to them, “Does this offend you?
62 What then if you should see the Son of Man ascend where He was before?

The Reformed writer Gill sees the references to eating Jesus as metaphorical, but Gill says that the many disciples did not see it this way, and that in verse 62 Jesus was testing them. If they weren't able to conceive of eating Jesus, then how could they be expecting to react to the miraculous Ascension? Both actions, Jesus was implying were real miracles. How could they accept the Ascension if they can't accept actually eating Jesus' body? In the passage, Jesus switches verbs in Greek from just eating to another verb, "gnawing, munching, chewing". Although in English it's all translated as "eating", in Greek Jesus gets very specific about this process. Here is Gill's commentary:
What and if ye shall see the son of man, ascend up where he was before?
for Christ was, he existed before his incarnation, and he was in heaven before; not in his human nature, but as the word and Son of God: and he intimates, that when he had done his work, and the will of his Father, for which he came down from heaven, by the assumption of the human nature, he should ascend up thither again; and which would be seen, as it was, by his apostles; and which would prove that he came down from heaven, as he had asserted; see Ephesians 4:9; and that his flesh and blood were not to be eaten in a corporeal sense; in which sense they understood him: and he hereby suggests, that if it was difficult to receive, and hard to be understood, and was surprising and incredible, that he should come down from heaven, as bread, to be eat and fed upon; it would be much more so to them to be told, that he who was in so mean and lowly a form, should ascend up into heaven. (http://biblehub.com/john/6-62.htm)​

This is a revealing question for me. If Reformed were to think, the idea of corporeally eating Jesus' body, a "bread" from heaven is actually "incredible" (what Calvin called the idea of Christ being in two places at once), concluding thereby that such "chewing"/"gnawing" was only metaphorical, then if we apply their same reasoning to the Ascension, how would we react consistently to such a miraculous, supernatural, "incredible" claim?

If Gill is right, this is a major test for Reformed. Some Reformed have derided the Catholic transubstantiation idea as a bloody feast, an offensive sacrilege. But Jesus' test here is whether the idea of "gnawing"/"chewing" on his body is "offensive" to them, as he asks "Does this offend you?"

I understood you proposed that the "many disciples" were leaving Jesus over whether He came down from heaven, but what is more offensive, that idea or that one would eat Jesus' body? I think the latter, which is why I think that was what Jesus was asking about. If Jesus just meant this "chewing" and "eating" only symbolically, why would he make it a big test and care if chewing his body offended them or not?
 
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hedrick

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The problem with your understanding is that it contradicts the text. When his disciples have a problem with what he said in 6:60 he says "but what if you see the son of man ascending." That indicates that he sees the issue as him coming from his Father. Seeing him ascending shows that he actually came from above. It has nothing to do with the supposed literal presence of his body. He immediately follows it with "It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless." Kind of weird if the point is the literal presence of his flesh.

John is structured to show that Jesus is the replacement for all the major symbols of Judaism. He is the true Temple, Torah, etc. In this section he is shown as the true manna.

If you go back earlier in Chap 6, to 35 or so, you find that Jesus is the bread of life. “Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” This says that we eat this bread by coming to him in faith. The metaphor is clear: just as food is the source of bodily life, Jesus is the source of spiritual life. That’s the reason for 6:63: “It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.” Jesus is the Word. It is his Word that is communicated to us. Eating him is accepting his word in faith.

Throughout the Gospels, Jesus’ listeners misunderstand him by taking words literally. E.g. Nicodemus thinks when he talked about being born again, he meant physical rebirth. 6:63 is intended to guard against a similar error in this passage. You’re falling into exactly the trap that Jesus is concerned about avoiding.

 
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rakovsky

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The problem with your understanding is that it contradicts the text. When his disciples have a problem with what he said in 6:60 he says "but what if you see the son of man ascending." That indicates that he sees the issue as him coming from his Father. Seeing him ascending shows that he actually came from above.
Actually, I think you are right, Hedrick. I appreciate your correspondence with me.
Jesus' words have two aspects repeated throughout the preceding passage:
58 This is the bread (1) which came down from heaven—not as your fathers ate the manna, and are dead. (2) He who eats this bread will live forever.”
60 Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this, said, “This is a hard saying; who can understand it?”​
There are two aspects: That Jesus is bread that came down from heaven, and that believers must eat his body. Thus, Jesus asks two questions:
61. ...He said to them, “Does this offend you?
62 What then if you should see the Son of Man ascend where He was before?​

First, eating Jesus' body is an "offensive" teaching for 1st century Judaism. This is a point occasionally brought up by Reformed - that eating Jesus' body would be an offensive sacrilege. That Jesus came down from and would go up to heaven is not really "offensive" any more than Elijah going up to heaven, or an angel coming down from there. A divine person's soul could come from heaven. We already know that eating the body was one of the concerns in the passage, because it mentions that people were reacting "How can this man give us his body to eat?" This was an issue that Jews found offensive.

Thus, I think that the Reformed Gill and Evangelical Credo House is right and that Jesus is testing the disciples about the teaching of eating his body. Naturally, the disciples would have been familiar with Jesus using some allegories like when he said he was a door or his body was a temple. But Jesus knew what they were thinking, the verse says, and thus he tested them to see if they would still follow him even if it meant believing that they would eat his body that came from heaven.

If you say that the disciples were offended by the idea that Jesus' soul came from heaven but weren't offended by the idea that they would eat his body, you are missing part of the issue. And you yourself had said in your response to me: "Throughout the Gospels, Jesus’ listeners misunderstand him by taking words literally." People were taking Jesus literally on the idea of eating his body, and that is why Jesus asked them the question, as it says: When Jesus knew in Himself that His disciples complained about this, He said to them, “Does this offend you?



It has nothing to do with the supposed literal presence of his body. He immediately follows it with "It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless." Kind of weird if the point is the literal presence of his flesh.

John is structured to show that Jesus is the replacement for all the major symbols of Judaism. He is the true Temple, Torah, etc. In this section he is shown as the true manna.

If you go back earlier in Chap 6, to 35 or so, you find that Jesus is the bread of life. “Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” This says that we eat this bread by coming to him in faith. The metaphor is clear: just as food is the source of bodily life, Jesus is the source of spiritual life. That’s the reason for 6:63: “It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.” Jesus is the Word. It is his Word that is communicated to us. Eating him is accepting his word in faith.
It says "The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life."
Jesus is not the words that Jesus has spoken to them.
The words that Jesus had just spoken to them were: "This is the bread which came down from heaven—not as your fathers ate the manna, and are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever.”

What is the "bread"?
Jesus defines it as follows: "the bread that I shall give is My flesh".

Jesus never says "my flesh is words" or "my flesh is my teachings". Is that how you suggest interpreting the word "flesh"?
He says "my flesh is food indeed". Food is something eaten.

What is "eating"?
First,
one thing that is lost in English is that Jesus switches verbs in the discourse. At first he uses a common word "phagon" in Greek, meaning to eat or consume. Then in the discourse he switches to trogon, which in Greek means specifically to eat in the sense of masticate or chew on food.

Matthew 24 says: "For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating(trogon) and drinking"...
John 13:18 says:
"I speak not of you all: I know whom I have chosen: but that the scripture may be fulfilled, He that eateth (trogon) bread with me hath lifted up his heel against me."
In John 13, this is a reference to Judas having been given bread to eat by Jesus during the last supper.

Why get so specific with terminology about chewing when he gets into detail in the passage if he is only talking about general consumption?

Second, His analogy was to the manna from heaven, which was physically eaten. Paul implicitly makes a similar analogy in 1 Cor 10, when he brings up the Israelites in the desert eating the spiritual meat and drinking from the rock, and then later talking about believers eating the mystical supper.
What is the point of using prefigurements of eating and drinking if no eating or drinking is meant to occur?

In what sense is "the flesh useless" if Jesus' flesh brought salvation in the atonement?

Just cutting Jesus' body up and eating it would not profit. Likewise in 1 Cor 11, just eating communion does not profit. It is only eating it in faith worthily. Jesus says to worship in Spirit elsewhere in John. And as Luther explained, Jesus' body is in spirit mode in the wall in John 20, and in the Eucharist bread too. Thus, even though Jesus' death in the flesh brought atonement and even though mystically eating it in the Eucharist brings benefit, it is only doing so with right spirit that benefits.

Kretzman comments that at the Ascension:
"They would then also understand what He meant when He said that they must eat His flesh. For then His weak human nature would be forever imbued and united with the divine, with the heavenly manner of being. His flesh would then be spiritualized, His body glorified. That would be a visible proof of the fact that He came down from heaven. Knowing this in advance, they should remember that the spirit is life-giving, that the flesh has no value.
[But instead the nonbelievers had] refuse[d] to let the Spirit of Christ work in them and give them life."
This brings to mind what Paul had said about getting spirit bodies after the resurrection. Christ's body took on spirit form. Earlier in John 3, Jesus said "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." Jesus' body was reborn of spirit, and thus it was not simple flesh.

Rev. Philip Hale notes that "flesh in v 63 is man's flesh as opposed to when Jesus said: "the bread that I shall give is My flesh" (v51). In Christ, "God is present wherever this flesh and blood are present." It is a living flesh. The flesh described by Jesus in v63 is the flesh opposed to the spirit, that is, the sinful part of man."

That "whoever believes in me will never be thirsty" does not exclude that said believer will consume Christ's blood. It can help explain what that regular communer would not be thirsty - because of the regular communion. There can be both physical drinking and a spiritual one, as Rev. Phillip Hale notes, citing Luther:"'Many flock to the Lord's Table, and yet they die of eternal hunger and thirst.' The spiritual and the physical are not to be divided in the Supper. ... To give out the Supper is not the same thing as to give out life. ... The two different kinds of eating of Christ are hopefully simultaneous, but must be distinguished. Christianity is not solely a sacramental and ritualistic religion: access to physical, holy objects do not automatically grant life."

I should note however that Rev. Hale proposes that John 6 is not directly about the Eucharist, as he says that we don't consume Jesus' "flesh", only his body. A weakness with this is that John 6 doesn't just say flesh, but flesh and blood. And according to Luther, we do take the blood. In the Synoptics we see mention of body and blood, but in John we just have chp. 6 with mention of flesh and blood, which seems to be John's way of getting into an analogous concept.

Additionally, John Mueller notes that Luther accepted Augustine's idea that this passage is not talking about the sacrament in particular, but Luther applies it to properly taking in communion, in that "there can be no worthy communing unless the communicant does that very thing which Christ demands in this important passage; that is to say, unless He eats Christ's flesh and drinks His blood spiritually, that is, unless he believes in Christ
as the divine-human Savior.."
However, since Luther and Augustine didn't apply the passage to the Eucharist, it's hard for me to be fully certain one way or the other, but I think that it probably does.

You write:

Throughout the Gospels, Jesus’ listeners misunderstand him by taking words literally. E.g. Nicodemus thinks when he talked about being born again, he meant physical rebirth. 6:63 is intended to guard against a similar error in this passage. You’re falling into exactly the trap that Jesus is concerned about avoiding.
It looks like Jesus' disciples in Mark 9 were not sure about taking the resurrection from the dead literally:
"As they were coming down from the mountain, He gave them orders not to relate to anyone what they had seen, until the Son of Man rose from the dead. They seized upon that statement, discussing with one another what rising from the dead meant."
The gospels repeatedly say that the apostles did not understand what the resurrection meant until they had seen it.
In truth, rising from the dead has both a spiritual and physical meaning. A dead body can physically rises, while a person who is spiritually dead in sin can spiritually revive.
However, strictly speaking Jesus did not rise in the same very carnal way that Lazarus did.

Likewise, with being reborn there are several aspects. There is a ritual aspect in baptism where the believer is born again. There is a physical, bodily aspect where the person's body is reborn as a spirit body as Paul wrote about to the Corinthians. And there is a spiritual aspect where the person's spirit puts on the new man in Christ.
However, strictly speaking, the person did not come out of the womb a second time.

So when it comes to eating Christ, several aspects are also conceivable. There can be a ritual aspect, like in the mystical supper. There can be a physical act of eating bread that includes Christ's "spirit body". There can be a spiritual act through faith.
However, strictly speaking Jesus' purely carnal body was not cut into pieces in 33 AD for eating as cannibalism.

So in each case there are ways in which these processes occur both spiritual and physical, even if not in the purely carnal sense that we usually think of by such terms.

Looking back my main question for you would be whether in any verse that "flesh" is mentioned in John 6, do you understand the word to mean something else than flesh, and if so what?

For example, in verse 51, it says: "If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.”

Would you have it say "the bread that I shall give is My teachings which I shall give for the life of the world.”
To me rather this verse sounds like it's talking about Jesus' bodily sacrifice that He gave for the world.
John 3:16 says in a parallel verse: "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life."
It does not say God gave his teachings for eternal life (although that's true), but God gave his son for eternal life. I don't know anywhere that "flesh" in the Bible means "teachings".
For example, in the Synoptics, Jesus says "this is my body", and when he does so, by "body" he does not imply "teachings".

 
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PeaceByJesus

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Hello, PeaceByJesus!
The major feast of Judaism was Passover, with the Passover meal ritual instituted at the Exodus. Jesus was replacing that Passover feast ritual meal with the communion ritual meal.
Here is where Hedrick noted the link:
But the replacement is not the LS, which Hedrick sees as possibly being at the back of the mind of John, but that of feeding the flock with the word of God which the NT pastors (and people) preached. And which is how the word of God is said to be manifested, (Titus 1:3), and to spiritually nourish souls and build them up, (1Tim. 4:6; Acts 20:32) thus to so is the primary charge to NT pastors, (2Tim. 4:2) along with prayer for the flock, not giving food to be physically consumed (Acts 6:4) to obtain spiritual life after being offered as a sacrifice for sin.
I understand there are Charismatics who claim the Reformed Tradition...
However, I expect that the conservative Reformed are going to say that the Charismatics are not "real" Reformed.
Indeed, but which examples the viability of SS, as the validity of each case must rest upon the weight of Scriptural substantiation in word and in power. And i dare say that there is no real case for making 1Co. 12 to be temporary, and the coming of "that which is perfect" referring to the complete NT, and substantially placing the book of Acts in a museum.
Isn't to say that this was a one period use essentially to agree with Cessationism, namely that the special gift of believers (in this case the use of holy objects) was only for the Old Testament period and for the 1st century AD?
Just the opposite, for if the material instruments of grace were shown to have a permanent anointing, versus one-time or period, and were used as regular means of grace as ritualized sacraments, then you would have a case. As you would for God speaking by donkeys (at least literally).

However, what we see instead is that of spiritual gifts using human instrumentation being variously given to all believers as permanent personal gifts, and which gifts are manifest as a regular means of grace, and as such doctrinally being set forth as being part of the New Cov. In the NT church, prophets had an actual gift to regularly prophesy if they chose, as the Lord gave them a word, others had a gift to heal, etc. and with laying on of hands in conveying grace being an ordinance.

In contrast the use of material instruments to convey grace required no direct human instrumentation and were rare and unpredictable and temporary events, even if transcending covenants. Thus we do not see such things as "For ye may all prophesy one by one, that all may learn, and all may be comforted" (1 Corinthians 14:31) for the use of relics, or of the bone's of Elijah or Paul's handkerchiefs being a regular perpetual means of grace.
I think that the bold part is a good rejoinder.
But it is argued that these deacons were personally ordained by apostles, which is true, but then you have the Samaritans whom Phillip baptized, yet whom the apostles prayed for, that they might receive the Holy Ghost: For as yet he was fallen upon none of them: only they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus," (Acts 8:15-16) even though having believed and were baptized just as the Ethiopian eunuch whom Phillip also preached to.

The latter simply went on his was rejoicing, without even a known church to go to, while in the next chapter the shaken humble and fasting Paul is baptized, receives eyesight and told of his commission and is filled with the Spirit thru a man who is only described as a "certain disciple," a "one Ananias, a devout man according to the law, having a good report of all the Jews which dwelt there," (Acts 9:1-12; 22:1-16)

Then in the next chapter a company of unconverted contrite Gentiles were promised forgiveness by faith (Acts 10:43) and received by faith the same gift of the Spirit that the apostles received at Pentecost, and which Peter promised to those who would repent/believe and be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus, but which these Gentiles realized before baptism or any laying on of hand.

Thus we cannot place God in a box.
I wasn't able to get a definite idea from 1Co. 13:8-13 what that perfection refers to.
Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. (1 Corinthians 13:8-10)

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

It is rather obvious that despite the word of God being pure we yet see thru a dark glass, thru no fault of the transmission but due to imperfect reception. When then is that perfect revelation, but that of 1John 3:2.

Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. (1 John 3:2)

That is the "then" of "then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known." Note that the perfect is not referring to Christ ("perfect" being in the neuter in the Greek) but to the perfect revelation of Him. Glory to God.
Maybe Paul did not drive out the demon right away because he wasn't sure if it was a demon?
No. Paul would have had fellowship with such but not with devils, and likewise while false or heretical religions may profess somethings about Christ, true believers are not to do what the Corinthians were guilty of.

For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him. (2 Corinthians 11:4)
For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. (2 Corinthians 11:13)
Don't you think though, that if Jesus really appeared to a charismatic today and gave the charismatic a message like Jesus gave John in Revelation, then this would make that message "God's word" and a prophecy?
Yes, that was new, public revelation.
Consequently, it seems that the conservative Reformed objection is that any new real revelation by God would mean adding to scripture, since they (the Bible and the new direct revelation) would be both God's word?
Yes, as in new public universal revelation being the formal word of God, which even Rome denies is being provided today. Meanwhile the whole church went about "preaching the word," referring to the general gospel as with preaching Scriptural truths today, as thus we have different classes of the word of God.

Besides private communication, God could speak to His church as in encouraging them to hold firm to His established word, while neither private nor a public prophecy - both of which could be innumerable in Biblical history alone - means they are part of wholly inspired revelation for the whole church and a needed addition to or equal with Scripture. Which alone is the standard for obedience and testing Truth claims, as the established wholly inspired sufficient word of God, yet which materially provides for the Lord's guidance in living out, and consistent with the sure word of God.

There is a distinct and fundamental difference btwn Saul prophesying among the prophets and Moses giving the law, and btwn the Holy Spirit inspiring the writing of 1 Corinthians and of all the prophecies and like things spoken in their meetings. Scripture both separates wheat from chaff, as well as that which God sees necessary for salvation and growth in grace, although part of the sufficiency of Scripture is providing for grace via spiritual gifts.

It should also be noted that is meant by "speaking" need not be as in an express word, as even SS preachers allow for God "speaking" to the flock, at least during the offering.
Still, if Jesus appeared to Stephen(who was not one of the twelve) and John in Bible times, and Paul accepted the Corinthians had "prophecy" it isn't clear and definite to me that we could not have prophecy today.
Jesus appearing to Stephen was private revelation which God choose to make known via His wholly inspired word, while if the prophecies given to such as the Corinthians were for the whole church and were as wholly inspired and essential as Scripture then there would be no end.
I sympathize with what you are saying, but am not sure how to "prove it".
Just because Reformed accept #2 doesn't mean that they accept #1. But if #1 is correct, how to persuade them of this, PBJ? Perhaps now you see my challenge here, PBJ? If we accept the Reformed mindset and say that centuries of sincere Catholics are deluded in thinking that they got healed by praying with relics, how can we then turn to Protestant healing stories like the ones you linked me to, and then with the same mentality say that those Protestant healings are real?
How did the Lord work to persuade such souls as Sadducees of their since belief as there being no resurrection? Should was His recourse t Scripture be rejected simply because the opposition could argue against it? We need not convince all, and produce unity in belief, but provide the most solid argument, and i do not see much of one for cessationism, apart from the predominance of fraud.
I think that perhaps you might be implying in your passage above that the Catholic relic miracles are demonic. However when Jesus was accused of demonic miracles, Jesus' response was that demons can't drive out demons (like the Catholic true cross relics do). Charismatics sometimes launch the same defense, saying that their gifts are not demonic because they do good.
Do they in deed cast out demons? Witch doctors claims as much. If Catholic true cross relics do, so did Jewish ministers as the Lord also said, but which does not sanction all else one does.

And you have such astounding cases of Catholic occultists as Arigo: Surgeon Of The Rusty Knife, and Sister Magdalena of the Cross who fooled her church for 40 years.

Thus it may be possible for a RC to engage in exorcism, just as some RCs may preach the evangelical gospel, but the demonic is also real, and both the source and the manner of doctrine a miracle may be seen to attest to must be examined by the established word of God. In so doing we do not see relics being used as constant means of grace and turned into ritual sacramentals.
For Calvin, the ay miracles attributed to relics weren't considered demonic magic, they didn't happen and the relics were superstition and not "reasonable":
There is no warrant to impugn reason itself as the Lord often appealed to it, but it presumes a right standard by which to judge things by, and that one will be objective in so doing.
This brings to mind the story of Jesus turning water into wine. If it looks like these kind of wine parlor tricks are fake when done by Catholics, how reliable are they when attributed to Jesus?
Which deals the tentative nature of the miraculous as evidence, for simply because something seems supernatural does not mean it is or that it is not, or that it s from God or the devil, but the nature, source and attestation of which is determined in the light of the weighty of evidence.

In this case, in stark contrast to a mere wine parlor trick, the change was not only that of gallons, but was tasted by people who knew their wine and attested to the superior quality of it.

And which miracle was not mere showmanship, but filled a need, and attested to the One who performed it whose birth, words and ministry was established by Scripture as being of God.
An easy response is that the early Christians were filled with inspiration and underwent persecution. However, I believe that over the centuries there have been many fervent Catholics who sincerely believe in real relic miracles and visions of Mary, even to the point where they could get persecuted for it.
And Buddhist monks have burned themselves alive, and cultic heretics have endured great persecution. Such may attest to sincerity of belief, but that is not the same thing as a multitude of prophecies being fulfilled by one person, whose life and teaching was established upon Scriptural substantiation in word and in power.

Another way - albeit a secondary one - that some Protestants advocate for Christianity is by pointing to the Turin Shroud and Sudarium of Jesus. Gary Habermas of Liberty University, whom you might recognize as a leading Protestant apologist, writes:
Thus the weight of evidence favors this being a possible valuable but not essential relic of historical evidence.
But here is what Calvin writes about the Turin shroud: So to conclude, the conservative Reformed teaching appears to be that "gifts" ended with the first century (Cessationism), and so that relics and miracles attributed to them are "superstition" that Calvin tried to "debunk".
In a word, so what? If you want to argue that some or most conservative Reformed holding to Cessationism impugns the rest of their conclusions then you can look to the substantial number of continuationist reformed (including John Piper), past and present, who come to the contrary conclusion. This limited disagreement in this area does not impugn SS any more than the realities of wrong convictions impugns a judicial system that uses juries to come to conclusions based on the weight of evidence.
I sympathize with the Charismatic argument that theoretically God could still do miracles like he did before and that there is a need for them. However, this doesn't seem to be a strong enough proof that Charismatic style miracles are happening.
Again, the debate is not whether God can still do miracles but whether He doies so by still giving the spiritual Pentecostal sign gifts. As a former fundamental Baptist (which are anti-Calvinistic) I had to wrestle with this, but under SS one is sppsd to go where ever objective examination of the Truth leads, and i examined the arguments for Cessationism and objectively found them fallacious. I thus concluded that even if no such miracles were happening today, then doctrinally I still must allow for them.

But amid the false claims God brought me into contact with those whose testimony affirmed there were genuine miracles.

One was a humble quiet man i met about 25 years ago while giving out gospel tracts, and who commended me for so doing, and i asked him how he was converted/saved. I felt like i was extracting it from him as he was not forward about telling me, but he told me that he had had colon cancer which left him in constant pain, which he drank to overcome. Finally he decided that he had had enough, and was going to go to a friends house in NH to watch his favorite football team (Patriots) - whose games he never missed - and drink himself to death.

However, before he went someone he knew invited him to a Pentecostal church, and he decided to go. But when he entered in he saw cameras and media apparatus. This was during the time of the Jimmy Baker scandal, and his reaction was, "I'm getting out of here," and went to leave. However, before he did he met a friend from S. Boston who convinced the man to stay. He heard the gospel message, and which he said he had heard before, but concluded that for all he knew the disciples were on drugs.

However, then one of the minsters said that there was someone in the audience with a pain right here, pointing to where his was, and although this could be a lucky guess, he decided to go forward to be prayed for. Some people were praying in tongues as they prayed over him, and he began to sense something going on inside, and he asked them what he should do. They said to tell Jesus you love Him, and once he did it was like he could not stop.

Then afterwards he had to urinate badly, and felt this had something to do with that, and went back to his doctor for more tests, and they found he was cancer free. However, at the time he was talking to me he had backslid back to the bottle, and was struggling to overcome that, which likely the reason for his subdued demeanor.

Far less dramatically, i gotten a lower hernia helping a brother in Christ collect firewood, and lifted a log of Hickory as if it was Maple. The spirit was willing but the flesh was weak, or at least i lifted it wrong. For years i had to be careful, and sometimes after lifting something heavy i sometimes had to lay down to let the hernia recede, and overall had to be careful, although being somewhat underweight (at 5'5'') i could live with it.

But about 5 years later i was in a church and after the preaching the pastor said that if anyone has need of healing or prayer to come forward, and which i did for my hernia. There was no promotion or such, just a quiet couple who prayed over me, but after that i never had the symptoms of the hernia again, even in lifting such things as a heavy large capacity washing machine up two floors with a brother, as well as stoves and refrigerators and much much heavy snow, glory to God(!) But i almost got another one pushing a car.

To my knowledge these do not heal themselves, and I had some other health issues i can live with (including arthritic typo fingers) so i do not claim God heals all, but i do believe God does heal, and that some have that gift today, though as said, i would have to doctrinally allow for it even if i saw no genuine manifestations today.
My guess is that due to so many - thousands of - claims, miracles, including relic miracles, are still happening occasionally.
But again, they must be allowed for if the weight of Scripture favors this, although absence of such can be a judgment from God. (Lam. 2:9)
But this is still a tough issue, PBJ, because if I then apply the conservative Calvinist skeptical mindset retroactively to the Biblical stories, it looks like those could be "relic mania"/"popular piety" too.
The problem here is that you insist on equating Catholic use of relics with the use of personal spiritual gifts, for which a distinction is manifest, as explained by God's grace.
Sure, using the same intensity of skepticism that Calvin did, the magic done by Pharaoh's magicians' staffs could be seen as fabricated just like the Catholic priests whom Calvin complained about fabricated their own miracles.
This is true, and which is due to a biased, non-Berean approach to Scripture, which I think is too often due to a strong desire for pastoral control, and or a "better safe than sorry" approach to ministry, and with all the absurd (even barnyard) aberrations and false "O my people" prophecies (including by Benny Hinn) then you can understand why.

However, Paul was faced with a lack of discipline in the use of gifts, and rather than put a ban on all such, he enjoined rules of order so that "ye may all prophesy one by one, that all may learn, and all may be comforted." (1 Corinthians 14:31)

Now when and where was the last time you saw or know a church meeting that was like the only worship service of the church that we see in Scripture, besides that of Acts 20:7ff and the LS aspect of 1Cor. 11:19-34; Jude 1:12?

I think the reason why many cessationists today would be unconformable in such is the reason for their cessationism, though we most all have our biases to some degree.
 
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rakovsky

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Dear PeaceByJesus,

It is nice that you are writing to me and read everything. Did I explain my own dilemma well enough about the direction of Calvinism's materialism in comparison to previous stages of Christianity? My mind is drawn this approach because it feels realistic, but the problem is that it tends to rule out Christian beliefs. When I look at the world, including Christian phenomena, Reformed Cessationism looks realistic, and meanwhile I am skeptical about the Turin shroud and about holy objects.

I haven't found someplace in the Bible where it says that regular/frequent gifts would stop. The passage you cited says that at some point tongues would stop, but is not clear when exactly. The part about prophecying stopping is a different sentence than the one on tongues, so it does not explicitly say that we have to wait until the End Times for tongues to stop.
"Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. (1 Corinthians 13:8-10)"​

So it looks like the regular gifts should be around where people come and have "gifts", real visions and tongues every week like 1 Corinthians describes in Corinth. But it doesn't look to me or to the Reformed realistically like that is happening. I agree that skepticism is because of "all the absurd (even barnyard) aberrations" by people like Benny Hinn. But I think that even aside from the problem of Benny Hinn they would be skeptical. Cessationism as a viewpoint among Reformed goes back to the ideas of Calvin and Zwingli. You would be right that maybe 5%-15% of self-professed Reformed don't teach Cessationism. But the problem I am getting to remains - that the normal, conservative Reformed teaching looks like a true description of reality.

Likewise, I find Calvin's skeptical debunking of the shroud rather persuasive:
I shall conclude with a convincing proof of the audacity of the Papism Wherever the holy sudary is exhibited, they show a large sheet with the full-length likeness of a human body on it. Now, St John’s Gospel, chapter nine-teenth, says that Christ was buried according to the manner of the Jews; and what was their custom?

This may be known by their present custom on such occasions, as well as from their books, which describe the ancient ceremony of interment, which was to wrap the body in a sheet, to the shoulders, and to cover the head with a separate cloth. This is precisely how the evangelist described it, saying, that St Peter saw on one side the clothes with which the body had been wrapped, and on the other the napkin from about his head. In short, either St John is a liar, or all those who boast of possessing the holy sudary are convicted of falsehood and deceit.
...
What a sacrilege to make use of the name of Jesus Christ in order to invent such absurd fables!
Yet as I pointed out, Gary Habermas of Liberty University is one of the foremost apologists (have you heard of him?) points to the shroud. It's a piece of evidence hat some Protestant and Catholic apologists use. And for a while I had more belief that it was true. You yourself said: "the weight of evidence favors this being a possible valuable but not essential relic of historical evidence." But now with Calvin's hard skepticism it looks like this isn't true or valuable either other than as historical curiosity.

And as for the role of holy objects, it looks like the same problem with Cessationism.
If a person prays in sincerity with no object, a second person prays right in front of a Protestant church cross, and a third person prays sincerely in front of a piece of the true cross, and all three report miracles "substantiated in word and power", why is the last one and only the last one definitely fake and "superstition", or even worse demonic, but definitely not true? Once you constantly believe that hundreds of sincere, true cross miracles are just fake superstition, the Protestant cross miracles start to look that way too.

It looks like just as regular "gifts" should not have ceased, holy objects should not have ceased miracleworking either. Just as it doesn't say in the Bible that gifts would stop, it doesn't say that holy objects would stop miracleworking. The same kinds of arguments against cessationism work on behalf of holy objects, and even if you and I go 4000 rounds of messages on CF Forums debating it, that will still be a fact. Why? Because miracleworking objects were one of the faith-promoting miracle phenomena during both the Old Testament apostolic times.

God made a donkey talk once in the Old Testament, so I think theoretically it could happen again. But there is even a better case for miracleworking objects. Miracleworking objects were important in the Old testament like Moses' staff, the Ark of the covenant, the ephod, the Holy of Holies in the Temple, Elijah's bones, the Passover objects in the Temple used in the process of taking away sin. And not just that, but they were a tool for miracles associated with Jesus, Peter, and Paul. Even the Eucharist bread is a great example. Why? Because it was used in a ritual and if people ate it unworthily they got sick (1 Cor 11). It sounds like a supernatural phenomena. And if they get sick off it when using it unworthily, then when eating the bread at the holy meal worthily they can get healed too. Therefore, the principles of holy objects (communion bread and Jesus' spit being two cases) being repeatedly used in miracles is accepted in the Bible.

You write: "In the NT church, prophets had an actual gift to regularly prophesy if they chose.... In contrast the use of material instruments to convey grace required no direct human instrumentation and were rare and unpredictable and temporary events"
Paul chose to give out his clothes for healing in Acts 19 and so it had direct human instrumentation. We don't know that they were rare or unpredictable. Every time an object is mentioned in miracleworking with Jesus and the apostles, it works and doesn't "fizzle out". Every time it happened someone intentionally tried to use it, like Jesus trying to use spit and mud to heal, or the woman trying to touch his robes, or the sick coming to be in Peter's shadow. These were all choices and direct instrumentation.

The Bible doesn't say that miracleworking objects were rare, unpredictable, or stopped anymore than the Bible says that gifts stopped. If someone says the first about objects but not the second, they are not repeating the Bible anymore but just making up their own ideas about it.

Yes, it doesn't say "For ye may all prophesy " (1 Cor 14)for the use of relics, but nor does it say "ye may all speak in tongues" or "ye may all have visions" or "ye may all get physically healed". To act like a surgeon and cut out use of holy objects in miracles from all the other phenomena like the "gifts" is artificial. Just as the Bible doesn't say "miracle gifts, visions, and tongues will cease in 100 AD", it doesn't say "saint's objects won't be part of miracleworking". The same exact logic applies to the issue of holy objects here as to extraBiblical Cessationism, because to say holy objects can't miraclework anymore is to argue extraBiblical Cessationism in that case too.

So at the end of the day, did i explain what the materialist problem from Calvinist realism is? On one hand, I prefer for the gifts to continue and for the Turin shroud and miracleworking objects to be for real, but the Calvinist skepticism about them seems like a hardheaded, correct description of reality. And then when we put this same ideological skepticism about religious claims of gifts and holy objects deep in our minds, it looks like the Bible "gifts" and relic miracles likely weren't for real either.

A holy person giving out handkerchiefs for healings? Does that sound believable to you? If Reformed, who know that objects don't get involved in miracles, lived in the 1st century and an itinerant holy preacher named Paul came around handing out his napkins, what would they say?


Now, to be also considerate, I will turn to your questions for me.

When I asked what to do with Reformed who don't accept the ongoing gifts, you asked: "How did the Lord work to persuade such souls as Sadducees of their since belief as there being no resurrection? Should was His recourse t Scripture be rejected simply because the opposition could argue against it?"
Yes, this is a good example you gave - Jesus used scripture.
But there are still two hard parts. First, in scripture it does specify the resurrection of the dead, yet meanwhile it does not say that the visions and tongues will continue. Second, even though Jesus used scripture, he didn't persuade the sadducees. it is sad and frustrating that just making the right arguments can feel so hard to persuade people when it comes to religion. Maybe the best I got here was when Hedrick agreed that there is a contradiction between principles that treat relic miracles as impossible and what we see in the Bible.

You asked:
I think that perhaps you might be implying in your passage above that the Catholic relic miracles are demonic. However when Jesus was accused of demonic miracles, Jesus' response was that demons can't drive out demons (like the Catholic true cross relics do). Charismatics sometimes launch the same defense, saying that their gifts are not demonic because they do good.~me

Do they in deed cast out demons? ~PBJ
I don't have a strong opinion on this, I justed note that the same excuse can be made.
One reason I don't have a strong opinion is that I am not sure whether the demons discussed are real, or if we are talking about mentally ill people in reality.

The reknowned 17th c. Reformed theologian Joseph Mede, whom the book Lives of the Puritans extols, commented on the Bible:
"I am persuaded... that these demoniacs were no other than such as we call mad-men and lunatics... (SOURCE: J. MEDE, DISCOURSES ON DIVERS TEXTS OF SCRIPTURE)

Pastor Dr. Teri Thomas of Northminster Presbyterian explains:
In Jesus day people believed in demons. Demon possession was an accepted belief of those ancient times. Scholars still find in graveyards skulls which have had a hole cut in them to let the evil spirits out... When times are tough and tragedy follows greater tragedy, when life tumbles in and there are more questions than answers, more people begin to believe in demons. The fall of Jerusalem increased Jewish interest in the problem of personal possession by evil spirits. ...

The view is commonly held that the writers of the New Testament were creatures of their age and therefore ascribed all physical illnesses and abnormalities to possession by evil spirits. Demon-possession was understood to describe insanity and mental illness. Now scholars are beginning to question this and see instead a distinction between the sick and the possessed. In scripture there is a difference in the way the person addresses Jesus and they way he responds to them if they are called possessed as opposed to being identified as sick or lame. ...

Cong: So are demons real or simply a metaphor for evil?

Teri: I know a very intelligent theologian who believes that demons are grey and smoky, about 4 ft tall, with red or green eyes, and able to come into rooms under the doors. I prefer the definition of demons as "those malevolent forces that are deceptive, destructive, and diametrically opposed to the good and gracious will of God" (Samuel D. Zumwalt).

Cong: Like the dementors in Harry Potter?

Teri: Sort of. ...Whatever our answer to these questions, we know that evil seems defiant and stubborn. ... Whatever it is that causes these actions and feelings can seem so strong that we believe it can't possibly be us- it must come from some other source- like a demon. ...But some demons do come from inside. Memories of parental neglect or abuse of some sort are inside. Memories of childhood taunts and humiliations are inside. Living with the road not taken whether career choices, romantic choices, or some other what-ifs are inside. Knowledge of one's failures and imperfections are inside. All of these things can become demons that possess and even destroy.
http://www.northminster-indy.org/sermons/when-demons-come-to-church

This is another example - on one hand I am inclined to think that Presbyterian pastor Teri's idea is realistic when she talks about demons being commonly mental illness and dark forces but not actual "beings" like in Harry Potter. But I think that the theologian she mention is correct about the Bible when he imagines demons as actual beings.

Calvin had a skeptical attitude about exorcisms , saying that exorcists couldn't give a single proof of their profession.:
Who ever heard of those fictitious exorcists having given one specimen of their profession? It is pretended that power has been given them to lay their hands on energumens, catechumens, and demoniacs, but they cannot persuade demons that they are endued with such power, not only because demons do not submit to their orders, but even command themselves. Scarcely will you find one in ten who is not possessed by a wicked spirit. All, then, which they babble about their paltry orders is a compound of ignorant and stupid falsehoods.

So this is another example of how I find the more modern Reformed attitudes to be more "realistic". Realistically speaking, demons seem to have been mistaken for mental illness enough that they could have been confused about this in the Bible sometimes like Reformed theologian Joseph Mede proposed.

You asked:
"So to conclude, the conservative Reformed teaching appears to be that "gifts" ended with the first century (Cessationism), and so that relics and miracles attributed to them are "superstition" that Calvin tried to "debunk"."

In a word, so what?
So... Calvin's teaching seems realistic to me. Calvin wrote in the Institutes:
"The gift of healing, like the rest of the miracles, which the Lord willed to be brought forth for a time, has vanished away in order to make the new preaching of the Gospel marvelous forever."
(*Institutes*, Battle translation, 1960, p.1467).​

But I am rather sympathetic with your view that the gifts should still be around based on the impressions that Scripture leaves us with. The dilemma I keep coming up against is between the Calvinist "realistic" view and the Biblical, more mystical view of reality that preceded Calvinism.

Finally, you asked me:
Now when and where was the last time you saw or know a church meeting that was like the only worship service of the church that we see in Scripture, besides that of Acts 20:7ff and the LS aspect of 1Cor. 11:19-34; Jude 1:12?
Acts 20:7 says:
"And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow; and continued his speech until midnight."​

In the ancient Christian service, there was a separate Eucharist meal and love feast (mentioned in Jude 1:12). These were separate meals. The two separate meals have been preserved in the Orthodox Church when we have a Eucharist service and then afterwards have a big, common meal that starts with prayer. They sometimes combine these with long sermons like we read about in Jude 1.
The Orthodox church, which includes surviving Aramaic speakers in the Middle East, preserves the key elements of worship services from the 1st-3rd centuries AD.
There are some differences. In the 1st century there was a habit of "reclining" at table and wearing tunics. Wearing tunics is out of style, but reclining while eating is still sometimes done by our Orthodox brothers there. (For photos of Mideast reclining at table, see here: http://magoointhemiddle.blogspot.com/2011_11_01_archive.html)
last-supper-rossano31.jpg

Notice in the picture the peacocks. They were considered a special early Christian symbol. We still use this symbol in Orthodox Christian art many centuries later. the correlation between the peacock in the last supper above and below, separated by centuries is impressive:
uec_gr_patras_st_andrew_last_supper_peacocks.jpg


Thanks for giving me a chance to talk about Orthodoxy's special connections to early Christianity that many Western Christians aren't aware of.

Peace.
 
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