what happens to someone between Lutheranism and Orthodoxy, where should they stay?

[Jacque_Pierre22]

Are titles important to Lutherans?

Do Lutherans use these titles when addressing people? Mr./Mrs., Dr., PhD, Pastor, President, Judge, etc; and yet "St." is where the line is drawn. Are secular titles are honored, but not the ecclesial ones?

yes titles are important ; they don't use saint for Luther but do for the ones that are more ancient; for example Saint Nicholas Cabasilas but not Luther even though it's only 100 year difference

 

[E.C.]

The thing to remember about Lutheranism, and most Protestant beliefs, is that it all spawns from reactions to 16th century Catholicism. The "sola scriptura" piece of it, from my understanding, comes from the view that Catholicism in the 16th century wasn't doing enough to teach the common people what is actually in the Bible and was also teaching things that are contradictory to the Bible. In Luther's view, some practices of the Catholic Church at the time were in contradiction to what is explicitly stated in the Scriptures (at least according to his own understanding of them). In Orthodoxy, Holy Tradition is the source of all our theology and practices and the Scriptures are the keystone within Tradition - meaning we wouldn't have Tradition without Scriptures. With Lutheranism, however, Scriptures are the prime source of theology and practices; I remember a Lutheran I met years ago once summed it up as "we have traditions and maintain them as long as they don't contradict Scripture".
A huge part of the problem on the dawn of the Reformation was more geopolitical and economic than anything. We have the popes in Rome, who were mostly Italian, telling the rest of the Christian West what to do, believe, etc. The popes collected their own taxes from all of Western Christendom when there was no explicit scriptural basis for it - meaning, there isn't a verse saying "I Paul command thee to give a special tithe to Rome" or anything like that. At some point someone is going to question why they're paying the pope taxes when it isn't explicitly stated to do so in the Bible.



I was raised Catholic before becoming Orthodox and somewhere in there I took a gander at the various Protestant branches. The issue I ran into, was that if the Bible is the sole source of all that we believe and do, what did the early Church have to work with during the first four centuries of Christianity when there was no Bible?

 

[Justin-H.S.]

The issue I ran into, was that if the Bible is the sole source of all that we believe and do, what did the early Church have to work with during the first four centuries of Christianity when there was no Bible?

I've heard an argument from "Classical Protestants" (Lutherans, Anglicans, and Reformed who disown radical Protestants like Baptists, Pentecostals, Evangelicals, etc.) who've said that the early church always had scriptures even if they weren't collected into a single tome like modern Bibles are. IE: Some churches had the Epistle to the Galatians, while others had Thessalonians, some had the Gospel according to John, while others only had Matthew, etc.

That would be their (flawed) argument against the early church not having the Bible, because none of them today would reconstruct Luther's tradition of Sola Scriptura without that verse in Timothy, and if the church in Galatia never heard of the epistles to Timothy, how would they know?

 

[ArmyMatt]

I've heard an argument from "Classical Protestants" (Lutherans, Anglicans, and Reformed who disown radical Protestants like Baptists, Pentecostals, Evangelicals, etc.) who've said that the early church always had scriptures even if they weren't collected into a single tome like modern Bibles are. IE: Some churches had the Epistle to the Galatians, while others had Thessalonians, some had the Gospel according to John, while others only had Matthew, etc.

the problem with this argument is that there was about 17 years after Pentecost when there was no written NT at all since the earliest writings are from about the year 50 AD.

 

[Jacque_Pierre22]

The thing to remember about Lutheranism, and most Protestant beliefs, is that it all spawns from reactions to 16th century Catholicism. The "sola scriptura" piece of it, from my understanding, comes from the view that Catholicism in the 16th century wasn't doing enough to teach the common people what is actually in the Bible and was also teaching things that are contradictory to the Bible. In Luther's view, some practices of the Catholic Church at the time were in contradiction to what is explicitly stated in the Scriptures (at least according to his own understanding of them). In Orthodoxy, Holy Tradition is the source of all our theology and practices and the Scriptures are the keystone within Tradition - meaning we wouldn't have Tradition without Scriptures. With Lutheranism, however, Scriptures are the prime source of theology and practices; I remember a Lutheran I met years ago once summed it up as "we have traditions and maintain them as long as they don't contradict Scripture".
A huge part of the problem on the dawn of the Reformation was more geopolitical and economic than anything. We have the popes in Rome, who were mostly Italian, telling the rest of the Christian West what to do, believe, etc. The popes collected their own taxes from all of Western Christendom when there was no explicit scriptural basis for it - meaning, there isn't a verse saying "I Paul command thee to give a special tithe to Rome" or anything like that. At some point someone is going to question why they're paying the pope taxes when it isn't explicitly stated to do so in the Bible.



I was raised Catholic before becoming Orthodox and somewhere in there I took a gander at the various Protestant branches. The issue I ran into, was that if the Bible is the sole source of all that we believe and do, what did the early Church have to work with during the first four centuries of Christianity when there was no Bible?

yea that is one view of how the story goes. In Lutheran sources though, they say that sola scriptura actually was the norm before the Reformation in medieval times, and it was only in efforts to counter Lutheranism, that Catholics began pushing back on the idea and emphasizing tradition as superior.

 

[prodromos]

yea that is one view of how the story goes. In Lutheran sources though, they say that sola scriptura actually was the norm before the Reformation in medieval times, and it was only in efforts to counter Lutheranism, that Catholics began pushing back on the idea and emphasizing tradition as superior.

That view conveniently ignores Eastern Orthodoxy though, doesn't it.

 

[ArmyMatt]

yea that is one view of how the story goes. In Lutheran sources though, they say that sola scriptura actually was the norm before the Reformation in medieval times, and it was only in efforts to counter Lutheranism, that Catholics began pushing back on the idea and emphasizing tradition as superior.

but how was sola Scriptura the norm when for Christianity’s first 17 years there was no written New Testament, and for about 400 years there was no agreed upon text?

 

[Jacque_Pierre22]

but how was sola Scriptura the norm when for Christianity’s first 17 years there was no written New Testament, and for about 400 years there was no agreed upon text?

I don't get what you mean... it was all by oral memorization like the Arabs. They to this day memorize the Quran, I think it's called tajweed Qurans, so if a NT author wrote a book it would be memorized the same way even before written down

 

[ArmyMatt]

I don't get what you mean... it was all by oral memorization like the Arabs. They to this day memorize the Quran, I think it's called tajweed Qurans, so if a NT author wrote a book it would be memorized the same way even before written down

correct, so sola Scriptura can’t always be the norm before the Reformation since we didn’t have it for 400 years.

 

[notRusskiyMir]

I don't get what you mean... it was all by oral memorization like the Arabs. They to this day memorize the Quran, I think it's called tajweed Qurans, so if a NT author wrote a book it would be memorized the same way even before written down

There must have been quotes of Jesus in written form from the very beginning. I think these were formed in various steps resulting in the Synoptic Gospels - Matthew, Mark, and Luke. John had access to one or more of them and wrote his Gospel, clarifying, adding, and emphasizing certain matters.

As to Islam, there were many versions of the Quran early on (including verses that a goat ate, per Aisha, Momo's child bride), but a certain Khalif? destroyed them, to some extent. In the early 1920s there were 4 popular Qurans. Someone has counted over 25 Qurans being sold today in the Moslem world. Don't buy into the "miraculous preservation" of the Quran. The internet era is no friend of Islam. Thank God.

 

[Markie Boy]

I have been pondering this some and have a big question. I came out of Catholicism and am still working to find a church home.

The Priesthood is a pivotal thing as far as I can tell. If you believe you need a priest with Apostolic Succession you have to go Catholic, Orthodox, or possibly certain Anglican.

But dang if I can't find a priesthood in the New Testament, and it seems to be an early development, not an apostolic teaching.

Any insight?

 

[ArmyMatt]

But dang if I can't find a priesthood in the New Testament, and it seems to be an early development, not an apostolic teaching.

Acts 14:23
Acts 15:2-6
Acts 15:22-23
Acts 20:17

(elder is the same word as priest)

 

[notRusskiyMir]

I have been pondering this some and have a big question. I came out of Catholicism and am still working to find a church home.

The Priesthood is a pivotal thing as far as I can tell. If you believe you need a priest with Apostolic Succession you have to go Catholic, Orthodox, or possibly certain Anglican.

But dang if I can't find a priesthood in the New Testament, and it seems to be an early development, not an apostolic teaching.

Any insight?

Not intended as a rigorous response, but hopefully, helpful to your understanding.... In Orthodoxy, "apostolic teaching" and "early development" merge or converge or are the same. At what point are they different? The NT mentions overseers (bishops) and elders (presbyters - priests). As paganism faded, the word priest was often used in lieu of presbyter.
To accept Apostolic Succession, one has to acknowledge bishops. If one accepts bishops as apostolic, then one must/should accept priests as their extensions. Authority dwelt (dwells) in bishops. Priests serve their bishops to meet the needs of the Faithful. It needn't be any more complicated than that.
Bishops in Orthodoxy are high priests per liturgical language. Priests are their aides. All of this is documented early. I refer you to these sources. The Jewish Encyclopedia entry talks about bishops, while the object of that discussion notates early thoughts on the Church, with a clear message that the Church was under the Authority of bishops early, and it was in a liturgic setting.

 

[notRusskiyMir]

I posted this in another thread with another emphasis, but it details (in a little over an hour), the situation Luther found himself in Wittenburg. And, in effect, the validity of Orthodoxy, including bishops and priests.
The Protestant Reformation and the Orthodox Christian East

 

[E.C.]

I have been pondering this some and have a big question. I came out of Catholicism and am still working to find a church home.

The Priesthood is a pivotal thing as far as I can tell. If you believe you need a priest with Apostolic Succession you have to go Catholic, Orthodox, or possibly certain Anglican.

But dang if I can't find a priesthood in the New Testament, and it seems to be an early development, not an apostolic teaching.

Any insight?

"Presbyter" is a priest though it usually gets translated as "elder".

Over the centuries, from a linguistic standpoint, "presbyter" eventually morphed into "prest" for short which eventually became "priest" in English.

Originally the bishop, or "episkopos", would consecrate the Eucharist in the cities and the priests, or "elders", would distribute it to the surrounding villages, countryside, and whatever the 1st century equivalent to a suburb was.