A Faith You Can Touch

[Albion]

You have a problem with not reading posts before you respond. I agree that there was an ordained ministry. My claim is that there was not an ordained priesthood.

I think the problem arises not from me failing to read the whole of your posts but from you posting words without letting on what you mean by them.

If I were to do that myself, I'd simply say, "Yep, there was an ordained priesthood" and then be prepared to blame you if you did not just take that answer as complete and definitive. Then I'd repost the same answer for a second time.

So, yes, there was an ordained priesthood.

 

[redleghunter]

Oh brother. It's not. It's called understanding the English language.

Yet the word is Greek.

 

[Albion]

Yet the word is Greek.

"Priest" isn't.

 

[redleghunter]

This is why I am not a Protestant, at all: the Bible is not adequate for truly understanding God's will for us, because the two testaments are as incomplete vis a vis our days as the Old Testament was vis a vis 100 AD: more has been revealed since then, and the errors and evils of using incomplete revelation have been made manifest by CHRISTIAN BEHAVIOR over the intervening centuries. A faith that murders people in the name of its authority, and enslaves them, is a trash faith that would be better off dying and disappearing from the face of the earth than staggering along on incomplete truths destroying lives in the process. THAT IS WHY Christianity has faded in the modern age.

It doesn't seem post apostolic age 'revelation' helped much for the Roman Rite church in stopping the carnage and corruption.

 

[redleghunter]

And then there is Catholicism, which is CAPABLE of a Vatican II to reform itself and set aside old traditions that had turned wooden, or been used to justify evils, and which can accept the evolution of species, if it's true, or not, if it's not, not based on what some non-scientific ancient book says, but based on the reality of facts.

What exactly were those infallible traditions which were set aside?

 

[Tree of Life]

So, yes, there was an ordained priesthood.

What evidence do you have from the New Testament or any first century writings that there was an ordained, Christian priesthood during the first century?

 

[redleghunter]

This article covers it pretty well--
Qualifications for the Evaluation of Elders and Deacons

I was pressed for time and searched for "sacraments" with not return. If you could point me to where deacons and elders solely dispensed Holy Communion etc.

 

[Albion]

What evidence do you have from the New Testament or any first century writings that there was an ordained, Christian priesthood during the first century?

Both of those sources testify to it. The Bible information has, I believe, already been referred to; and, in answer to another poster, I did name a few respected historians who have written on the state of the early church, including the roles played by the men who were installed as deacons, presbyters, and bishops. All of this dates to the first century and is not just something added in later centuries like the papacy.

 

[Tree of Life]

Both of those sources testify to it. The Bible information has, I believe, already been referred to; and, in answer to another poster, I did name a few respected historians who have written on the state of the early church, including the roles played by the men who were installed as deacons, presbyters, and bishops. All of this dates to the first century and is not just something added in later centuries like the papacy.

If you're referring to 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1, those passages describe qualifications of an overseer or episkopos (in 1 Timothy 3) and elder or presbyteros (in Titus 1). The qualifications are the same and both are followed up by qualifications for deacons. This would suggest (along with Acts 20 and other passages) that episkopos and presbyteros were used interchangeably by Paul and Luke. Nowhere in the NT do we see an officer of the church called a priest.

And you'll find this nowhere in the first century writings of the apostolic fathers. Unless you can demonstrate otherwise?

 

[Albion]

If you're referring to 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1, those passages describe qualifications of an overseer or episkopos (in 1 Timothy 3) and elder or presbyteros (in Titus 1). The qualifications are the same and both are followed up by qualifications for deacons. This would suggest (along with Acts 20 and other passages) that episkopos and presbyteros were used interchangeably by Paul and Luke. Nowhere in the NT do we see an officer of the church called a priest.

But we do see them in the early church. You just admitted it.

You are apparently arguing, in the manner of another poster on this thread, that the word (priest) isn't used, although there undeniably were priests! And why this is so has already been explained several times. Many terms and words used in almost every Christian church these days is absent from the Bible also, and no one who belongs to those denominations seems to feel the least bit apologetic about that. In the Presbyterian churches, for example, an important officer is the trustee. Where is that word to be found? How about classis?

 

[Tree of Life]

But we do see them in the early church. You just admitted it.

I did not.

You are apparently arguing, in the manner of another poster on this thread, that the word (priest) isn't used, although there undeniably were priests!

I deny this. I deny that there were ordained officials who performed the priestly duties of mediating between God and man by making sacrifices - even in the Eucharistic sense. There were "elders" just like there were elders in the OT. These were godly men who shepherded, taught the people, and exercised church discipline. They did not function as priests in a sense greater than any believer shares in the general priesthood of Christ.

And why this is so has already been explained several times. Many terms and words used in almost every Christian church these days is absent from the Bible also, and no one who belongs to those denominations seems to feel the least bit apologetic about that.

If you like to use the word "priest" to mean "pastor" or "elder" then whatever. I think that's confusing but I suppose you're at liberty to do so. But if you want to claim that there is an NT ordained priesthood which mediates between God and men then you're advancing an unbiblical belief. There is only one mediator between God and man - the man Jesus Christ.

In the Presbyterian churches, for example, an important officer is the trustee. Where is that word to be found? How about classis?

The only ordained officers that we recognize in the PCA are elders and deacons. Certain corporations for legal reasons might have presidents, clerks, and trustees but this is simply to comply with the law of the land. It has nothing to do with church government.

 

[Root of Jesse]

It deepens a false faith in the ordinances of the church which takes from Christ.

It's a faith that's seen and touched, as the OP has shown. It's not biblical faith. It's not Christian faith, it's Catholic faith.

As if the two are opposites, like saying Catholics aren't Christian?
To address your point, it doesn't deepen any false faith, because our faith is Truth itself.

 

[Root of Jesse]

I'm not sure what you're disagreeing with here. Are you sure you're disagreeing?

You said "but so long as they continue in the church with the sacrament of reconciliation and continued celebration of the eucharist then they are saved." You forgot the repentance and other things. You can't commit a mortal sin, go to confession, and commit that sin again, and be saved. You have to repent, along with those other things.

 

[Tree of Life]

You said "but so long as they continue in the church with the sacrament of reconciliation and continued celebration of the eucharist then they are saved." You forgot the repentance and other things. You can't commit a mortal sin, go to confession, and commit that sin again, and be saved. You have to repent, along with those other things.

To continue in unrepentant mortal sin would be to discontinue in the church. Mortal sin destroys fellowship with the church. We're not disagreeing.

 

[Root of Jesse]

To continue in unrepentant mortal sin would be to discontinue in the church. Mortal sin destroys fellowship with the church. We're not disagreeing.

Call it 'clarifying' then. Some people don't put the two together. Nancy Pelosi, for example, or VP Biden.

 

[redleghunter]

The NT church was Presbyterian before the Episcopacy developed.

Yes as we see here even decades into the 2nd century:

According to the conception of Ignatius, every Christian community ought to have at its head a bishop, a presbyteriumor session of elders, and a body of deacons. These constitute its office-bearers to whom, jointly and severally, obedience is due. Ignatius regards these three elements as going together to form one whole. He mentions the three classes of officials together twelve times in his seven epistles, and in ten out of the twelve they form an inseparable unity—presumably they do so also in the remaining two, but that is not evident from the passages themselves.483 There is not a trace of sacerdotalism in the sense that the Christian ministry is a special priesthood set apart to offer a special sacrifice; there is a great deal about the sacredness of order, but not a word about the sanctity of orders. Ignatius only once refers to priests and high priests, and he does so in the thoroughly evangelical fashion of contrasting the imperfect Old Testament priesthood with the perfect priesthood of the Redeemer.484

The bishop is not an autocrat. There is a “council of the bishop,” which includes the bishop himself.485The people are told to obey all the office-bearers, bishops, elders and deacons.486The ruling body is a court in which the bishop sits as chairman surrounded by his council or session of elders; and the one is helpless without the other, for if the bishop is the lyre the elders are the chords, and both are needed to produce melody.487There is no apostolic succession in any form whatsoever; even in the poetic conception of the disciple company it is the elders who represent the apostles.488

Lastly, there is no trace of diocesan rule. We undoubtedly find the phrase τὸν ἐπίσκοπον Συρίας; but as Lightfoot and Zahn, to say nothing of others, have pointed out, it must be translated “the bishop from Syria.” A bishop of Syria would have been an anachronism in the fourth century, and is much more so in the second.489It is unquestionable that the bishop is made the centre of everything in the Church or congregation. “It is not permitted without the bishop either to baptize or to hold a love feast,”490 and the love feast must include the Holy Supper.

[...]

But if there be no sacerdotalism, no apostolic succession, no one-man rule, and no diocese; if every Christian community is to be organized under a leader, who is called a bishop and some-times a pastor, who presides over a court of elders,492and has under him a body of deacons; further, if, as the Sources of the Apostolic Canonsinform us, every small Christian community, even when consisting of fewer than twelve families, is to have its bishop, its elders and its deacons; if nothing is to be done without the consent of the pastor or bishop, neither sacrament nor love-feast, nor anything congregational—then while the resemblance to modern episcopacy, with its diocesan system, is but small, there is a very great amount of resemblance to that form of ecclesiastical organization which re-emerged at the Reformation and which is commonly called the presbyterian, though it might be more appropriately named the conciliar system of Church government.​

(Lindsay, Thomas Martin (1843-1914)The Church and the Ministry in the Early Centuries Chapter V. The Ministry in the Second Century; pgs. 142-144; http://www.ccel.org/ccel/lindsay/early_church.pdf)

 

[redleghunter]

I don't know what that has to do with the way that other people--speaking our language--came to refer to presbyters as preeests without meaning to speak of a different office (let alone be intending to refer to the priesthood of all believers or to the priesthood of Christ himself or to the OT Hebrew priests).

It does not matter if some Frenchmen, Norman or Saxon had a lisp. Presbyter as used in the NT never meant priest or priestly duties. How the English butchered the word is irrelevant to my original point.

 

[redleghunter]

"Priest" isn't.

There is a word for priest in the NT and it is not presbyter. I made that quite clear several times.

hiereus is the Greek for priest.

 

[redleghunter]

You are apparently arguing, in the manner of another poster on this thread, that the word (priest) isn't used, although there undeniably were priests!

Frankly you are running in circles with this Albion. There is no priestly NT church office Paul nor any other apostle mentions or teaches.

 

[Mountainmike]

I think you need to do more than scratch the surface and see what is really there. It is not just an essay on docetism, it is far deeper than that.

Here is not the place for a long dissertation, but let me give you one example of food for thought. One single word of many examples clearly contests your interpretation.

" valid" a valid Eucharist can only be performed by a bishop - says a man taught by an apostle. So clearly that is the true faith, passed by paradosis - handing down - tradition,

A symbolic or memorial Eucharist can have no concept of validity or efficacy.

The only context in which the word valid makes sense - is in the context of a sacrament.

Which dovetails with scripture - How indeed can you eat and drink judgement on yourself if the Eucharist is only symbolic? Justin Martyr calls it " flesh. Our Lord used the word " gnaw" not consume which horrified his audience at capernau,. And in smyrneans 7:1 " they confess not the Eucharist etc...

Nothing you have said, alters an iota my general point.

The early fathers demonstrate a liturgical, sacramental church that believed in real presence, valid only if performed by clergy in succession.

None of the post reformation offshoots can live up to that.
The Catholic Church is not an alternative splinter, it is the very root and trunk of a tree, traceable back to the acorn. A few branches dropped off at the reformation.
Sadly because of logically provable falsehoods like " sola scriptura"

I have read many of the works of the Church fathers. 16 years of Catholic education saw to that. I even read them within context of what they were actually arguing against. Unlike plucked out of context eisegesis quotes used by apologists.


All of it. I actually read what comes before and after what Catholic apologists take out of context reading in their medieval metaphysics.


Unfortunately Ignatius was not giving a dissertation on the real presence but refuting Docetism.



I would say the Holy Spirit Inspired Holy Scriptures. Which come before the early fathers.