Who put them in charge?

[Rick Otto]

A very soul satisfying emotion.

 

[IgnatiusOfAntioch]

I think they will be displeased at how divided we are with the formation of sola scriptura and lack of respect towards the CC.

But they will proud to know there are 2 billion christians in the world.

Perhaps proud is the wrong word. Perhaps we should say gratified. However, with 6 billion people on the plannet, we still have a lot of work to do the get the Gospel to the other 4 billion.

Your brother in Christ.

 

[plmarquette]

go to the book of exodus ... Jethro , Moses father in law , and run a search on " the rulers of the congregation "... 10-50-100-1000 ; whether you call them pastor , monsignor , bishop , cardinal , etc. is irrelevant .... or consider Aaron and his seed ... will minister before the holy of holies as high priest of the people ... the parallel between Peter , Rome , and Magisterium and the Old Covenant church in the wilderness .

 

[plmarquette]

the question for all of us ... " if we are of the true religion , what , then are we doing for the least of the brethren , our community , and the world as a whole , that those around us are not ?"

James says if we have no works , we invalidate our faith protestant , catholic , jewish .... we are poser's ...

 

[rcj4039]

The Catholic Church is a predenominational Church it existed from the beginning. Like it or not it was there from day one. It's first leader was Peter and has continued to be the Church Christ instituted since then. All Other denominations evolved from the Catholic Church. It has weathered the storm for 2000 years. Revivals have come and gone for 2000 years, the only constant is the Catholic Church. It existed before the Bible was complied into one book. It mediated disputes about the nature of Jesus, it spread the Gospel to the ends of the earth before the first Protestant drew thier first breath. This is why they have the authority. It is the Church Jesus said that the gates of Hell would not prevail against. He was right, it still exisit today.

I am not a catholic but I have a great respect for the Church because they were the very beginning. It was the Catholic church that made it through all of the terrible persecutions that were forced upon them. Sometimes I can't believe all of the trash talk that goes on between the two. Protestants have no right to say anything bad about the Catholic Church just like the Catholics have no right to disrespect the protestants. The one thing I wish that the protestants would remember however is that if the Catholic Church hadn't survived through all of the suffering and persecution, no Protestant on this planet would be who they are today.

 

[Rick Otto]

Having respect for the first century church & respect for the denomination that claims exclusive pedigree is two seperate things.
Like it or not.
You inflate the true value of any one part to indebt all the others survival to it.
Unless I'm reading you totaly wrong, & you meant that all the Protestant churches would be healthier & more vibrant if your favorites had succomed to oppression.

 

[IgnatiusOfAntioch]

Having respect for the first century church & respect for the denomination that claims exclusive pedigree

The Church in the first century was undivided Church. and continued so for over 1000 years. That church split in 1054 into the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church. In the 16th century Luther, Henry XVIII and others split from the Western Catholic Church to form Protestantism. No one here has said otherwise. You are misunderstanding what folks are saying of you think otherwise.

God bless.

 

[Rick Otto]

was plenty divided, just not over the manufactured issues we are today. Unity & division are relative terms, and their importance as issues is only relatively important, as well.
What split was an ossified hierchy of clergy. Those who have Jesus as the true head of the body they belong to never lost an ounce of faith simply because the leaders couldn't get along. The rest is just denominational politics.

To say the reformers "split to form Protestantism" is the misunderstanding, I think. Those people were kicked out of your "undivided church" when they expressed their individual liberty, exercising religious freedom.

 

[springlake04]

t

 

[notveryoriginal]

The catholic church is what I am talking about here. I seemed to be confused because Jesus never put any one church over the others. His instructions were to live as one body in Him and love everyone unconditionly as we love our God. So why does the Catholic church think they should control the ancient scrolls, make laws, and the everything else they have done for 100's of years.

You bring up a very good question. One I asked many years ago. I discovered the answer by learning about the history of the church.

1. The story is told in the bible:
In Matthew 16 Jesus asks the desciples who they think he is. Simon says Jesus is the Messiah. Jesus changes his name and calls him Peter, which means Rock (this is not insignificant) and says, "upon this Rock I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."
Now, Peter was one of the most bumbling of the 12 apostles. He fell asleep when Jesus needed him to stay awake in the garden of Gethsemene and he denied Jesus three times before he was crucified. If Jesus was going to choose someone to lead the apostles why would he pick such a putz? Because it was not by Peter's own power that he was called to be the leader. It was by the calling of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost that brought Peter fully into his role as leader of the new Christian Church.

2. The evidence continues in the bible:
After the Resurrection, Jesus told the apostles to spread the Good News! In the book of Acts Peter and the apostles gather to elect the replacement for Judas. They drew straws and Mathias replaced Judas. This is the first incidence of apostolic succession. Also, the whole story of Judas demonstrates that the Church can survive despite the fact that sinners and betrayers hold positions of leadership from time to time in the Church. Men do not protect the Church; the Holy Spirit does.

3. Again, evidence from the bible:
The apostles, under the leadership of Peter, convene in the first Church Council at Jerusalem. They needed to answer the first question of the situation with the gentiles -- circumcision. One would assume there would not have been a question because through the reading of scripture males must be circumcised according to God's law. However, the apostles, guided by the Holy Spirit, came to the conclusion that gentile males did not need to be circumcised to be considered a child of God. This discounts the idea of sola-scriptura (scripture alone, which was an idea that came about in the 1500's) and demonstrates through scripture that the Church, guided by the Holy Spirit has the authority to teach by oral and written word.

4. Moving on past apostolic times we can read from the writings of the early Church Fathers in the first centuries who learned directly from the original apostles. They continued to teach and practice what they had learned from the men who knew Jesus Christ when he walked the Earth and rose from the dead. Whenever questions arose about the Truth (usually when a heresy developed), the early fathers convened and answered the question with the guidance of the Holy Spirit. They defined the Trinity, the Nicene Creed, the issues of Christ's human and divine nature, the Incarnation, the Real Presence of the Eucharist, the canon of the Bible, and other issues that continued to come up as time marched on and events warranted.

Church doctrine has not changed throughout the centuries (disciplines have, but not doctrine), but it has been defined and clarified when need be. Most of the basic Christian beliefs that are held to be true (Trinity, Incarnation, Creed, etc.) come from the decisions that the Catholic Church Councils (made up of sucessors to the first apostles) made from the 1st century until today.

The reason the Catholic Church holds the scrolls and the oldest scripture writings and the artifacts and makes the laws for (not 100s but thousands) of years is because there were no other churches at the time when Jesus established his Church until 1500 years later. There was and is only one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church. It's not a matter of pridefulness or "my church is better than yours." It's a matter of looking back and learning about the history of the church with a fresh perspective.

I hope this helps to begin to answer your questions.

 

[Rick Otto]

Could you explain to me something about "Thou art Peter & upon this rock~"?

Why the switch in pronouns from personal to impersonal?
Thou & this would seem to me to refer to two different things. Otherwise, the usage would keep in continuity, using personal or impersonal in both references.
ie, "Thou art Peter, & upon Thee ~"
or,"This is Peter, & upon this rock~"
It sure would've removed any shadow of doubt about Peter being "this rock", wouldn't you agree?

 

[notveryoriginal]

Could you explain to me something about "Thou art Peter & upon this rock~"?

Why the switch in pronouns from personal to impersonal?
Thou & this would seem to me to refer to two different things. Otherwise, the usage would keep in continuity, using personal or impersonal in both references.
ie, "Thou art Peter, & upon Thee ~"
or,"This is Peter, & upon this rock~"
It sure would've removed any shadow of doubt about Peter being "this rock", wouldn't you agree?

Hi Rick,
LOL! I'm not an English or Greek or any other language expert by any means. People much more knowledgable than I are able to explain all the nuances of the language spoken and written in the first centuries. I would only say that I don't come to that conclusion at all when I read the entire text of that conversation. I know Jesus did not use the actual words "thee" & "thy" but spoke in Aramiac. The "thee" & "thy" are old English and obvioulsy a translation from the original Greek. I also defer to the 2000 years of teaching on that particular conversation between Jesus and Peter.

I have learned that in Aramaic kepha means rock. So Jesus said, in effect, "Simon, son of John, you are Kepha (Rock) and on this kepha (rock) I will build my church..." We know he didn't grab his carpenter supplies and build a building on that very spot and he didn't instruct his apostles to do so either. He purposely changed Simon's name to Kepha. He didn't mean small pebble either -- he meant huge rock; the foundational type that doesn't move.

Now, although Jesus spoke in Aramiac, Matthew wrote in Greek and the Greek word for rock is petra. However, petra is a feminine word when it becomes a name so it was changed to petros (Peter) to make it masculine. Because of this, some do claim that Peter was not a foundational type of rock because petros in Greek means small stone. But as noted above, that is only because of the translation problem. The meaning has been well documented and understood from the beginning.

God Bless,
Denise

 

[Rick Otto]

simply contentious, but if we trust the translators for so much else, why do we make excuses about their switch in pronouns?
Even if the original language was somewhat different, we could simply change our translation to something somewhat different, yes? Why would the translators switch pronoun references if both references were toward the same thing/person?

It seems obvious to me that they considered the two references to be toward two DIFFERENT things, the first a person, & the second, an impersonal thing - namely the rock-like FACT of Jesus' divinity.

 

[BrRichSFO]

The catholic church is what I am talking about here. I seemed to be confused because Jesus never put any one church over the others. His instructions were to live as one body in Him and love everyone unconditionly as we love our God. So why does the Catholic church think they should control the ancient scrolls, make laws, and the everything else they have done for 100's of years. I have nothing against the Catholic church, I am just confused about this. The new revival which I believe is described in the new testament; which is starting to take place now, has no one church causing the movement but the Body of Christ stepping out into the land and starting the revival. That is just a different subject though. Thanks, God bless.

The confusion stems from the error that Christ established churches instead of ONE Church upon Peter, to whom He entrusted His flock in John 21:15-17

 

[notveryoriginal]

simply contentious, but if we trust the translators for so much else, why do we make excuses about their switch in pronouns?
Even if the original language was somewhat different, we could simply change our translation to something somewhat different, yes? Why would the translators switch pronoun references if both references were toward the same thing/person?

It seems obvious to me that they considered the two references to be toward two DIFFERENT things, the first a person, & the second, an impersonal thing - namely the rock-like FACT of Jesus' divinity.

I really don't trust the translators. I trust the Church to interpret the meaning of the writings. The reason I do so is because the meaning has been practiced and understood and taught long before the bible was actually written and canonized.

When someone wants to argue against the traditional teaching of the Church on a bible passage, I find they all use the same arguments -- arguments that they have heard from others who protest the Church. In that case, the person reading the passage is trying to find reason to dispute the traditional teaching and will twist the meaning to suit his own purposes.

Consider the following sentence:
I did not kill my wife with a knife.

Without prior knowledge of the situation to refer to it could mean the person was saying many different things depending on where the emphasis lies. Try reading it putting the sylable on different words and you will get many different meanings.

I did not kill my wife with a knife. (I hired someone else to do it)

I did not kill my wife with a knife. (My wife may be dead but I didn't do it)

I did not kill my wife with a knife. (She was still alive when I left her lying on the floor bleeding)

I did not kill my wife with a knife. (That's the neighbor's wife, not mine.)

I did not kill my wife with a knife. (We've never been legally married)

I did not kill my wife with a knife. (I used a fireplace poker.)

It's sort of like our former President Clinton playing with the meaning of the word "sex" and "is".

Denise

 

[Rick Otto]

I edited it slightly to show you what I mean:

When someone wants to argue for the traditional teaching of the Church on a bible passage, I find they all use the same arguments -- arguments that they have heard from the Church. In that case, the person teaching the passage is trying to find reason to confirm the traditional teaching and will twist the meaning to suit his own purposes.

 

[Martureo]

Hey guys,

I am about to get my feet wet here, but it seems to answer the question of the OP, that the Council of Chalcedon states within its canon why the Roman Patriarchate was put in charge. I havent figured out how quoting is done on this forum, so I will use quotation marks...

[FONT=&quot]"Following in every way the decrees of the holy fathers and recognising the canon which has recently been read out--the canon of the 150 most devout bishops who assembled in the time of the great Theodosius of pious memory, then emperor, in imperial Constantinople, new Rome -- we issue the same decree and resolution concerning the prerogatives of the most holy church of the same Constantinople, new Rome. The fathers rightly accorded prerogatives to the see of older Rome, since that is an imperial city; and moved by the same purpose the 150 most devout bishops apportioned equal prerogatives to the most holy see of new Rome, reasonably judging that the city which is honoured by the imperial power and senate and enjoying privileges equalling older imperial Rome, should also be elevated to her level in ecclesiastical affairs and take second place after her. The metropolitans of the dioceses of Pontus, Asia and Thrace, but only these, as well as the bishops of these dioceses who work among non-Greeks, are to be ordained by the aforesaid most holy see of the most holy church in Constantinople. That is, each metropolitan of the aforesaid dioceses along with the bishops of the province ordain the bishops of the province, as has been declared in the divine canons; but the metropolitans of the aforesaid dioceses, as has been said, are to be ordained by the archbishop of Constantinople, once agreement has been reached by vote in the usual way and has been reported to him." [/FONT]

Also, I saw someone state that the Catholic and Apostolic church was whole until 1054. I strongly disagree. The Council of Chalcedon was in 451 and the Oriental Orthodox are the reason I came to the conclusion that these ecumenical councils were inspired by truth, yet not inerrant.

The issue is that this statement in Chalcedon is a matter of fact statement found within the RC and EO Canon. The primacy of Rome is a legitimate standard, but the supremacy of Rome does not seem to be.

Also someone mentioned the use of the word Petros and Petra.
It really depends on whether one believes the Orthodox view that it means that Simon was given that name because he was being named after the revelation, or the Latin Church view that Simon was given that name because he was to be the rock for the Jesus' Church.

 

[notveryoriginal]

I edited it slightly to show you what I mean:

When someone wants to argue for the traditional teaching of the Church on a bible passage, I find they all use the same arguments -- arguments that they have heard from the Church. In that case, the person teaching the passage is trying to find reason to confirm the traditional teaching and will twist the meaning to suit his own purposes.

With all due respect, your editing doesn't make sense. I'm not using my own arguments, I'm using the Church's arguments. I fully admit these arguments are not from myself, but from the teaching of the Catholic Church as I understand them. And because the Church came before the bible, the Church has the authority to interpret the bible as it determined the canon of the bible about 1600 years ago.

Denise

 

[notveryoriginal]

Also someone mentioned the use of the word Petros and Petra.
It really depends on whether one believes the Orthodox view that it means that Simon was given that name because he was being named after the revelation, or the Latin Church view that Simon was given that name because he was to be the rock for the Jesus' Church.

If that were the only scriptural reference given to Jesus giving Peter primacy, I would understand the Orthodox position. However, there are other references of Jesus giving Peter authority. Later in that passage in Matthew Jesus told Peter he had the power to forgive and retain sins (later giving it to the rest of the apostles) and when Jesus told Peter 3 times after the resurrection to feed his sheep. These are just two examples off the top of my head.

Then there are the other references from the early Church Fathers who learned directly from the apostles. They've been quoted earlier in this thread so I won't repeat. It just shows what the general understanding was a the time of the apostles and immediately after.

Denise

 

[Martureo]

If that were the only scriptural reference given to Jesus giving Peter primacy, I would understand the Orthodox position. However, there are other references of Jesus giving Peter authority. Later in that passage in Matthew Jesus told Peter he had the power to forgive and retain sins (later giving it to the rest of the apostles) and when Jesus told Peter 3 times after the resurrection to feed his sheep. These are just two examples off the top of my head.

Then there are the other references from the early Church Fathers who learned directly from the apostles. They've been quoted earlier in this thread so I won't repeat. It just shows what the general understanding was a the time of the apostles and immediately after.

Denise

But I agreed that Peter had primacy, and authority. From what I have studied of the Orthodox teachings, Peter did have that kind of primacy, and Rome did have a special place as first among equals.

But the passage that you are using here, at the end of John, is actually not translated very well in my opinion. The focus is on Jesus when it should be on Peter being reluctant.
(Loosely Paraphrased except for the greek transliterations..)
Jesus asks his old name mind you "Simon do you agape me?" Peter replies "I phileo you". Jesus asks again "Do you agape me" Peter replies "I phileo you". Now Peter isn't answering the question Jesus is asking if you notice. So Jesus asks a third time but this time Jesus asks him if he even does as much as peter was willing to reply. The third time he challenges the validity of Peters first two replies, and asks "Simon, do you Phileo me?.

Joh 21:15 οτε ουν ηριστησαν λεγει τω σιμωνι πετρω ο ιησους σιμων Aιωαννου ιωνα αγαπας με Aπλεον πλειον τουτων λεγει αυτω ναι κυριε συ οιδας οτι φιλω σε λεγει αυτω βοσκε τα αρνια μου
Joh 21:16 λεγει αυτω παλιν δευτερον σιμων Aιωαννου ιωνα αγαπας με λεγει αυτω ναι κυριε συ οιδας οτι φιλω σε λεγει αυτω ποιμαινε τα προβατα μου
Joh 21:17 λεγει αυτω το τριτον σιμων Aιωαννου ιωνα φιλεις με ελυπηθη ο πετρος οτι ειπεν αυτω το τριτον φιλεις με και Aλεγει ειπεν αυτω κυριε συ παντα Aσυ οιδας συ γινωσκεις οτι φιλω σε λεγει αυτω ο ιησους ιησους βοσκε τα προβατα μου

So these responses in between are in a very different light, knowing the circumstances of what is going on in between...