Misconceptions about Protestants

[PilgrimToChrist]

There is no Church government that Jesus instituted. That is man's idea.

Jesus has given all of His followers--all Christians (who are the Church, the Bride of Christ) His authority to preach the Gospel in His power and in His name.

The Reformation did a good thing in breaking away from the control of the RCC where no one could have the freedom in Christ He longed to give. Holy Spirit engineered that break-out. Where would we be today without it? I shudder to think! Praise God Almighty!

Huh?

Take heed to yourselves, and to the whole flock, wherein the Holy Ghost hath placed you bishops, to rule the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood.

So the Holy Ghost established bishops to rule the Church of God and then engineered a rebellion against the very bishops He established? Such a confusing God...

 

[sunlover1]

No, I thought you'd recognize that one! Many times you've engaged Ortho when he called something "minimalist," and RC's chimed in saying that's what Pr is.

Ohh lol. No. I don't really read much of his stuff .

Im off to bed, ya really need to get out more sun

Hey it's a jungle out there! Oh wait, that's in here isn't it?

I betcha think going to the dentist for a root canal is "fun" too sis

[/QUOTE]
I meant "fun" as in the way I said it earlier LOL..
You go get some rest but good to know you're always on call should I
need something. Can we have a "fire" drill?

Huh?

So the Holy Ghost established bishops to rule the Church of God and then engineered a rebellion against the very bishops He established? Such a confusing God...

Rule as in oversee, not rule as in a King, which is our actual Head.
Not confusing at all. It's so plain in Scripture if you look at the different
meanings in the greek, you do read greek right? (Didn't know how you
answered that last time i asked )

 

[PilgrimToChrist]

Rule as in oversee, not rule as in a King, which is our actual Head.
Not confusing at all. It's so plain in Scripture if you look at the different
meanings in the greek, you do read greek right? (Didn't know how you
answered that last time i asked )

Which doesn't change the fact that the episcopate was established by God, not man.

I know very little Greek. I know the alphabet, I can transliterate it and sometimes recognize words I know or cognates, that's it. Right now I'm working on Eccesiastical Latin, perhaps a few years down the road I will work on Koine Greek but Latin is much more useful for me (as Mass and the Office is in Latin). For my Greek translations, I rely on Strong's and other concordances (via Bible.cc).

So, ποιμαίνειν is the present active infinitive form of the verb ποιμαίνω. Liddell translates ποιμαίνω primarily as "to shepherd" (LSJ).

Strong's gives it as:

1) to feed, to tend a flock, keep sheep
a) to rule, govern
1) of rulers
2) to furnish pasture for food
3) to nourish
4) to cherish one's body, to serve the body
5) to supply the requisites for the soul's need

which derives from ποιμήν, "a shepherd" (G4166). The English words "food" and "feed" also derive from the same PIE root.

I still don't see where it God established the episcopate to shepherd the Church only to then decide that the episcopate was unnecessary and to incite a rebellion against it (as LivingStone claimed).

These guys are important, they have the solemn duty to watch over all the souls of their diocese -- even more than local pastors. The Church is built around bishops:

Melkite Metropolitan Isidore of Homs, Syria.

EDIT: Caption on Flickr was wrong, Isidore Battikha was the metropolitan archbishop of Homs, Syria, not Aleppo.

 

[sunlover1]

I still don't see where it God established the episcopate to shepherd the Church only to then decide that the episcopate was unnecessary and to incite a rebellion against it (as LivingStone claimed).

Oh.. I think you misunderstood ...She was probably speaking of the clergy/laity division...
(manmade)

Maybe, dunno what she meant for sure.

 

[Heavens]

Read what I said very, very carefully. I specifically referred to matters of divine revelation. The fact that Christ instituted a Church government and gave it the authority to teach in His name is provable through natural revelation: you can demonstrate it using historical evidence and human reason. Christ promised that we would be led into truth, and He uses the teaching authority of the Church which He established as the vehicle by which we are led. It's an objective source of guidance.

This idea that the Holy Spirit will internally guide each individual believer into a true understanding of divine revelation is an invention of the Reformation, and it's nothing less than a claim that every individual believer is his own Pope.

Wrong. What a terrible witness of things of God. You have it backwards. Christ leads only individuals by His Holy Spirit. Those people, ARE the Church. Not the RC denomination, not any denomination. Rely on Scripture and it is clear. Rely on your history and reason, and you will fall in the ditch.
Your comment about every believer not in your church being their own pope sounds like denominational babble.
Unsubscribing.

 

[PilgrimToChrist]

Oh.. I think you misunderstood ...She was probably speaking of the clergy/laity division...
(manmade)

How is that man-made? Not everybody was an apostle.

 

[sunlover1]

How is that man-made? Not everybody was an apostle.

It's not, in your opinion.
I could tell you a million times and you wouldn't see it
any more than i can see that there should be some sort
of 'clergy/laity" split... so I am movin on and saving us
both some typing

 

[Rick Otto]

So then you really believe that you're immune from self-deception?

Interesting.

So then you really believe anyone can be?
Fascinating!

 

[Rick Otto]

quote=chilehed;Read what I said very, very carefully. I specifically referred to matters of divine revelation. The fact that Christ instituted a Church government and gave it the authority to teach in His name is provable through natural revelation: you can demonstrate it using historical evidence and human reason. Christ promised that we would be led into truth, and He uses the teaching authority of the Church which He established as the vehicle by which we are led. It's an objective source of guidance.

No it isn't. Not in the least. No more so than Fox News is "fair & balanced".
This idea that the Holy Spirit will internally guide each individual believer into a true understanding of divine revelation is an invention of the Reformation, and it's nothing less than a claim that every individual believer is his own Pope.[/quote]
Which is as legitimate as the claim that anyone else is.
The reformation didn't invent that scripture, but the RC invented an interpretation for it.

 

[razeontherock]

Strong's gives it as:


which derives from ποιμήν, "a shepherd" (G4166). The English words "food" and "feed" also derive from the same PIE root.

I still don't see where it God established the episcopate to shepherd the Church only to then decide that the episcopate was unnecessary and to incite a rebellion against it (as LivingStone claimed).

Get real. As soon as the "Bishops" G-d established were gone, Church leadership started acting in ways OTHER than a good shepherd. This much is clear throughout Church history! There is nothing about any "chair" or "see" designed to tolerate this for any reason; the leaven of the Pharisees must be corrected. As in the case of your need to treat heretics as murderers, for example!

"fear him who is able to destroy both body and soul in hell" does NOT refer to heretics! A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.

 

[Dark_Lite]

Wrong. What a terrible witness of things of God. You have it backwards. Christ leads only individuals by His Holy Spirit. Those people, ARE the Church. Not the RC denomination, not any denomination. Rely on Scripture and it is clear.

If it was actually clear, there wouldn't be thousands of different Protestant denominations all teaching contradictory beliefs.

Rely on your history and reason, and you will fall in the ditch.

So rejecting historical evidence is a good thing to do?

 

[chilehed]

This idea that the Holy Spirit will internally guide each individual believer into a true understanding of divine revelation is an invention of the Reformation, and it's nothing less than a claim that every individual believer is his own Pope.

Which is as legitimate as the claim that anyone else is...

Now this is a telling statement on your part.

On one hand you insist that the claim of every individual having this charism is as legitimate as the claim that the Bishop of Rome has it (by which you admit to claiming that you are your own Pope), and on the other hand you insist that the claim about the Bishop of Rome is utterly illegitimate.

As I said, this edifice of man-made traditions that the Reformers cooked up is completely irrational, and utterly contradicts the actual texts of Sacred Scriptures.

I'm done here; I have work to do.

 

[Tangible]

The fact that Christ instituted a Church government and gave it the authority to teach in His name is provable through natural revelation: you can demonstrate it using historical evidence and human reason. Christ promised that we would be led into truth, and He uses the teaching authority of the Church which He established as the vehicle by which we are led. It's an objective source of guidance.

This idea that the Holy Spirit will internally guide each individual believer into a true understanding of divine revelation is an invention of the RADICAL Reformation, and it's nothing less than a claim that every individual believer is his own Pope.

Fixed.

 

[MKJ]

You think something I said indicates that I don't know that?

Yes, they were utterly convinced that the Catholic Church had erred in doctrine, and yet they also saw the authority to determine doctrine as lying in the ecclesiastical community. These two ideas are mutually exclusive, because the Catholic Church is the ecclesiastical community that has existed since the time of the Apostles. There is not a single scrap of evidence that indicates that there was any other, which is why non-Catholics have had to invent the fiction of an invisible remnant. To say that it's invisible is to admit that there's no evidence for its existence, whereas the Church that responded to all the great heresies was, without a doubt, the Catholic Church.

A rational person cannot believe that the authority to determine doctrine is given by Christ to the government of the Church that He established, and be utterly convinced that it has erred in doctrine. It's a logical contradiction.

No, it isn't the same. The government of the community is not identical to the community itself, for one thing, and having authority to determine doctrine is not the same as saying one cannot err in that endeavor.

Your last paragraph is correct. The Reformers concluded that the Church had erred significantly in doctrine - therefor its hierarchy did not have the divinly established authority to determine doctrine. They continued with the idea that the community determined doctrine - even to some extent the leadership - but they no longer claimed the impossibility of error.

Tell me, did you become a Catholic despite having basic and serious theological disagreement with what the CC teaches? If you did, would you have accepted their authority and become (remain) Catholic anyway, or would you conclude they were not what they claimed? No need to answer, but I am saying that if you think a body has made a huge mistake, that can be a good reason to not accept their authority. Otherwise why not become a Mormon, or a member of any other group that makes claims of authority.

 

[GreekOrthodox]

Just as an FYI
A very good book to learning Koine Greek is Mounce's Basic of Biblical Greek. It starts by teaching the most common words in the NT so that by the time you are a third or so into the book, you can already read about 50% of the NT.

Could you recommend a good primer on learning Latin?

Brian

I know very little Greek. I know the alphabet, I can transliterate it and sometimes recognize words I know or cognates, that's it. Right now I'm working on Eccesiastical Latin, perhaps a few years down the road I will work on Koine Greek but Latin is much more useful for me (as Mass and the Office is in Latin).

 

[ddjones1230]

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[Catherineanne]

Nobody in a Protestant hierarchy of any particular denomination really claims any authority, it's just for administration purposes.

 

[Catherineanne]

Hi sun. Would a baptist mother be wrong if they did not allow their child to go to aCatholic VBS?
I know an evangelical family who told their son they would not help pay for college if he went Boston College a Cathlic school

My daughter (Anglican) went to a RC College to do her A levels, and won the cup for outstanding achievement in RE both years.

Needless to say, I have no problem with her going there.

 

[Catherineanne]

What kind of Christian college would a Protestant Anglican send their kids to?

See post above. I was happy for my d to go to a RC college, because it was smaller than the state equivalent in our town; fewer students per teacher, and therefore better results.

 

[Catherineanne]

Isn't that the definition of Protestantism -- a "protest" against the Catholic Church?

Far from it. The protest is against the former abuses of the Catholic Church, most of which no longer remain. We no longer have mendicant priests begging in the streets, we don't have indulgences sold, we don't have statues crying blood all over the place, nor sick people being touched with the water used to wash the dead body of a saint in return for money, we don't have priests and nuns living frankly lascivious lives, and children being born into convents, we don't have the suppression of the Bible to lay people; the list is a very long one.

Therefore, most of the protesting worked, and the position of the Roman versus, say, the Anglican Church are very much closer than they were in the mid 16th century. Not quite close enough, clearly, but much more so than when we were setting one another on fire in the name of Christianity.