Okay. Dig them up, then.
Both? Monks were called to be leaders, patriarchs in fact. All our church bishops are selected from monastics, whos intent already was to renounce the world. They are picked and they can accept or reject based on the council of what they are needed for. A bishops job is to pray constantly for the people. That is their main job, it always has been. Having met several myself I can say that the ones I met were extraordinarily wise, and extraordinarily quiet and prayerful. Most of them barely talk at all unless asked something.Yet who saved them. The leadership or those they enlisted?
Will of man can go both ways. Repentance is turning the will towards God. Men are not entirely evil, we are created in God's image and can restore that image. The will of man can be Holy as long as that will is in submission completely to God, which some rulers have done.Whatever that has to do with me or what I said. But anti-Christian is putting the will of man before God, self interest, self justification, gain at the expense of others, not loving all the world as self. You know.. all the things the world is built upon.
AgreedWill of man can go both ways. Repentance is turning the will towards God. Men are not entirely evil, we are created in God's image and can restore that image. The will of man can be Holy as long as that will is in submission completely to God, which some rulers have done.
Beating a doctrinal tub, are we? OK, those of your sect are The Only Real Christians. Go in peace.And yet no one seems to put the will of God before the self serving will of man, nor love all as self.?
No, but as Jesus taught aligned with the Kingdom not the world of man. The issue was not legalization but rather allowing itself to be used as a tool of the governance of man, then later to become a governance of man.So in your opinion Christianity should have remained illegal? Hmmmmmm
Just repeating what Jesus taught.Beating a doctrinal tub, are we?
Sure, and one would hope that all Christians would be impeccable. But that expectation would be quite naive, even as leaders and teachers will certainly be held to a higher standard. Either way, being accepted rather than rejected, unpersecuted instead of persecuted, does not a harlot make even if it made an uncomfortable alliance in the end that would eventually, and fortunately, prove itself to be unworkable. For awhile I'm sure that many in the Church believed that God's kingdom was actually being realized here on earth. But either way it did allow the church to grow and spread the gospel, which is God's purpose. And as has been established, the Church did not bow to any governor's wishes when it came to defining doctrine and dogma. The Church, in fact, was considered to have authority that the governing body did not possess, spiritual vs the mundane.One would expect those leaders claiming to be doing the will of God to actually do it, not harlot what was entrusted to them to the world of self serving man so that ist may bolster it's own power.
Of course God's truth is what counts; we wouldn't need Him if we had the truth already, on our own, IOW. And He established a Church to safeguard that truth, to receive and preserve and preach the gospel before a word of the NT was written and then later to write that testament and later yet to assemble it into canon. And to continue to interpret and understand it in light of the historical context in which it was written and which the church was uniquely able to carry and pass down through the centuries. While Scripture is central along with Tradition as sources of revelation, neither of those sources are valuable unless and until properly understood. And even if it was possible to mass-produce the bible in centuries past, which it wasn't, arguably the majority of believers have been illiterate. People simply did not need to read the bible to understand our faith. In fact, individual reading and interpretation of Scripture probably cause more division in beliefs than any other source as can be witnessed by reading through just about any thread on this forum. Of course you may believe, as most others do, that your particular interpretation is necessarily the right one, for whatever reason you might have.He did. He used the corruption of man that built a religion more favourable to the world than the Kingdom, in order to forward scriptures through time so that those of His choosing willing to lose the scales the worldly blind have put on their eyes, may see. Scripture is essential while in the end, religion and institutional churches are not. God's truth lives in scripture while man's truth lives in religion. Remember what Jesus told Peter. It was God's truth, not man's that was the foundation.
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At the time of Constantine, Christianity accepted an offer to become the State religion of a new Roman Empire following a civil war. As a result it abandoned the counter-culture of Jesus' Kingdom, to rejoin the world of man, a world built upon self serving ways and self justification, as a result of the Fall. A religion meant to serve the opposing will of God, joined forces with the will of man, to become a power of man and eventually as it evolved, a worldly empire of it's own.
My question..... Did any Christian institution/denomination ever officially apologize for this traitorous act that anyone knows of? Did any repent of/change their official position and turn from accepting the offer of the Tempter that Jesus rejected, where 'all this could be yours'? Do they carry on like the rest of the governance of man to this day or do they now teach separation between the two worlds as Jesus taught. Will they teach that which condemns their act of joining the world of man and rejecting the Kingdom?
James 4:4 Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.
Prior to Constantine was King Tiridates of Armenia. When St. Gregory the Illuminator went to evangelize Armenia (following Apostles Thaddeus/Jude and Bartholomew) King Tiridates had him thrown in a pit for a dozen years. When the King started going mad, and they were desperate, they asked Gregory to pray for him. Gregory did and God healed the King. The King converted to Christianity and it became the state religion in 301 AD, 5 years before Constantine was even a ruler.At the time of Constantine, Christianity accepted an offer to become the State religion of a new Roman Empire following a civil war. As a result it abandoned the counter-culture of Jesus' Kingdom, to rejoin the world of man, a world built upon self serving ways and self justification, as a result of the Fall. A religion meant to serve the opposing will of God, joined forces with the will of man, to become a power of man and eventually as it evolved, a worldly empire of it's own.
My question..... Did any Christian institution/denomination ever officially apologize for this traitorous act that anyone knows of? Did any repent of/change their official position and turn from accepting the offer of the Tempter that Jesus rejected, where 'all this could be yours'? Do they carry on like the rest of the governance of man to this day or do they now teach separation between the two worlds as Jesus taught. Will they teach that which condemns their act of joining the world of man and rejecting the Kingdom?
James 4:4 Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.
Christianity is not entirely from Constantine so why do you want "Christianity" to apologize for or about Constantine? It's a weird thing to ask.
Um. You mean Theodosius I? And who exactly accepted this "offer" on behalf of the Christianity? What about Arians Christians? Where they included in this offer? This is a historical fiction. What happened was Theodosius issued several decrees whose end result was Nicene Christianity was the state religion. Where there and are there still problems from this marrying of Altar and Throne? You bet. In fact this event causes the monastic movement to pick up steam and many new adherents as a result. Although there are many problems that result from this marriage why do you think it wasn't God's will for this to happen? I have complete confidence that the LORD knows how to grow and keep His Church.At the time of Constantine, Christianity accepted an offer to become the State religion of a new Roman Empire following a civil war.
I can change the OP if you want but the point is what was to become the religion sold out at that point to work as a tool instead of an alternativeUm. You mean Theodosius I? And who exactly accepted this "offer" on behalf of the Christianity?
Although there are many problems that result from this marriage why do you think it wasn't God's will for this to happen?
I have complete confidence that the LORD knows how to grow and keep His Church.
I don’t know what you do with Rom 13. Recall every even worldly governments derive their authority from God. Even Babylon and Rome.It is interesting who objects. You would think all would know that Christianity whored itself to Babylon (Rome which Peter called Babylon) and that we should learn from yet another example of worldly man using everything of God for their own self interest.
OK, but you say "Christianity accepted a role as state religion of the Roman Empire."Again, it wasn't Constantine who sold out.