Well, yes and no. Recall Jesus said, "If you believed in God, you would believe also in Me?" Where would God be speaking that they should believe? The Bible, right? Same with Christ, right? Do you hear God talking through men? Isn't the middle verse in the Bible still "Better to trust in the LORD than to out your confidence in man?" (Psa 118:8)Parting shot skypair? I'm not sure what you mean by "trust the Bible."
It appears to me that you want us to interpret the Bible the way you do and that amounts to trusting the Bible. But the Bible never ever asks you to put your trust in the Bible.
They are very gracious. They don't assume that they know everything. In fact, they often look to me to explain passages that they don't understand.It may be that the Methodist men's group you've been hanging with is either easily swayed away from United Methodist teaching or they are just being gracious and allowing you to express your Baptist views without changing their own.
Yeah, I get that now. It is somewhat comparable (hope you won't be offended by a little history) to the "Constantinian change" circa 300 AD. The newly sanctioned religion had to be put together and the first order of business was to establish some sacraments that both Christians and pagans could understand (Christian observances in a pagan setting) .. then train the priests in their administration. This began under the rule of Decius.But what you've run into here is a group that is largely made up of clergy and very well educated laypeople of Wesleyan denominations. We know what our denominations teach. We are not so easily swayed to agree with you or anyone else just because they pop into our forum and start teaching another theology.
As you know, the Catholic church has lots of such. "Sacramental manipulation" became more important than the Bible or doctrine in bringing the empire together. It's really quite interesting, the story behind it. Quoting from "the reformers and their stepchildren," "The first thing that had to be done was to appropriate the pagan word 'sacramentum' and let it replace Agape of the authentic [communion] tradition. A second thing was to move the table out and the altar in this would automatically change the viands [bread and wine] on the table of Agape, into the flesh and the blood of the sacrificial victim [on an altar]. Instead of a ritual in which partaking was the central idea, there came a ritual in which the imparting was the central thing. All through medieval times the typical priest of the Empire Church was a stranger to the word [of God]." pp 138-139
Not that all of this applies .. just something to consider.
sky[air
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