Doc Holliday said:

---

Mothra said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

ShooterTX said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

Meanwhile Orthodoxy continues to be have massive wins:

---

I'm glad that you see it as a "massive win" to finally align with what Protestants have always believed.

---

Lol don't kid yourself. "Protestants have always believed"…which Protestants exactly? The ELCA holding hands with imams at interfaith services? The Episcopal Church hosting Muslim prayers in their cathedrals? The United Methodist Church's formal WCC ecumenical commitments?
Protestants have no magisterium to define what "Protestants have always believed" about anything.

Orthodoxy has been consistently and explicitly anti-ecumenist since the beginning. 1800+ years before your niche extreme version of Calvinism came about.

---

Oh, I don't doubt Orthodoxy's committment to anti-ecumenism. You've even kept separate from true Christianity!

The good thing about Protestantism, is precisely that there's no "magisterium" of fallible men dictating the tenets of the faith for all their followers. When a Protestant denomination goes corrupt, believers are free to follow their conscience and leave without jeopardizing their eternal fate; or they can fight to reform their church using Scripture as the standard of measure. On the other hand, when a "magisterium" goes corrupt, there is no fix, as they claim themselves to be the standard, therefore all their followers must bind their conscience to their decisions, no matter how apostate. And if you leave, you're condemned to Hell.

An undeniable constant of humanity is the fallibility of all men, and that power corrupts. God's word, however, is perfect and infallible. Protestantism understands this. Both RC and Orthodoxy deny it, and are under the terribly mistaken notion that a special, selected group of men are promised to be completely immune from error. A promise NEVER given by God, and a common characteristic of cults all over the world.

The immensely sad result of such ecclesial corruption is that you have millions, perhaps billions of people all over the world who simply can't grasp what ANY true Christian with the Holy Spirit can grasp -- that if you're bowing and praying to idols, crediting Mary for your salvation, and believing in a gospel of faith AND works..... it's quite apparent that somehow, some way, somewhere along the line, you've been bamboozled.

---

Which true Christianity? Yours? Congratulations, you've appointed yourself the magisterium you claim to reject.

You say no fallible men should define the faith...then you proceeded to define the faith. You determined what's apostasy, what's idolatry, what's a corrupt church and who's been bamboozled. You didn't eliminate the magisterium...you are the magisterium.

Christ promised "The gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church", and your position forces you to deny that or the Church collapsed and wasn't recovered until Luther and then really not until the 1900s where you get most of your theology from.

---

Fully incorrect.

The Holy Scriptures are the "magisterium". True Christianity does not have a magisterium of men, but follows the infallible Word of God instead.

Nice try, but you truly got it all wrong.

---

Impossible. Claiming the Bible is the magisterium is like claiming a Constitution is a Judge. The Judge is bound by the Constitution, the Constitution cannot explain itself, settle a court case, or stop someone from misinterpreting it.

---

This is an interesting analogy, especially given the wide range of jurisprudence interpreting the Constitution, which as we've seen the last few years, is often times overruled when a new majority comes into power.

I remember sitting through Constitutional Law, and trying to decipher from the Constitution this elusive "right to privacy" inherent in the Constitution - or at least so we were told my the magisterium at that time. I couldn't find it, and my eyes told me that this was a bunch of made up b.s. by the magisterium to reach the conclusion it wanted to reach. The plain language of the Constitution told me there simply was no such right, much less a right that would justify such a heinous practice.

Fast forward a few decades, and now the magisterium tells me I was right all along - there was no such thing as a right to privacy inherent in the plain language of the Constitution. I of course knew this 20 years ago, but had that knowledge validated.

The idea that the individual believer cannot know God's will or the central tenets of the faith without a fallible group of men telling me what the plain language I read means is just utter hogwash, and the reason so many of your ilk succumb to heresy.

---

The very fact that brilliant legal minds, all reading the same document, spent decades in fierce disagreement proves that language is rarely "plain" in its application.

If the text were truly "plain," there would be no need for a Supreme Court at all. The existence of the court is a confession that texts require an authorized interpreter to function in a society. Without it, you don't get "the plain meaning", you get legal anarchy, where every citizen is their own Supreme Court. This is exactly what has happened in "Bible only" Christianity: thousands of "Supreme Courts" all claiming the "plain meaning" while contradicting one another on the nature of God, salvation, and morality.

2 Peter 3:16 "He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction."

There's no verse in the Gospel of Matthew where the author says, "I, Matthew the tax collector, wrote this." We only know these were the authors because of Sacred Tradition: the oral and written testimony passed down by the early Bishops (the Magisterium). YOU HOLD TO THIS!

Every major heresy in the first millennium (Arianism, Gnosticism, Nestorianism) was started by an individual or a small group claiming they finally understood the "plain language" of Scripture better than the established Church.

---

Anyone who has gone through law school knows better. It's not disagreements over the text that are the main source of disagreement. It's trying to figure out a way to interpret the text to reach the conclusion you want. While abortion is but one example, history is replete with such jurisprudence.

It's also an attempt to fill in the gaps, as my constitutional law professor used to say. Unlike scripture, the Constitution simply does not address all scenarios. That is why we have judges that can find a mysterious "right to privacy" in the plain language of the document. This if of course not true of scripture. Sure, there are some verses which are difficult to grasp, and others that are as plain as day. Our God is not a God of confusion.

But all of that aside, the point is, history has shown that the magisterium that interprets our Constitution is often times wrong, as "brilliant" as you may believe those who compose the magisterium may be. So, you have unwittingly made a very compelling argument regarding why we should not let a magisterium dictate our positions, especially when its views cannot be found in or supported by scripture - just like the mysterious right to privacy.

Mothra said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

Meanwhile Orthodoxy continues to be have massive wins:

---

I'm glad that you see it as a "massive win" to finally align with what Protestants have always believed.

---

Lol don't kid yourself. "Protestants have always believed"…which Protestants exactly? The ELCA holding hands with imams at interfaith services? The Episcopal Church hosting Muslim prayers in their cathedrals? The United Methodist Church's formal WCC ecumenical commitments?
Protestants have no magisterium to define what "Protestants have always believed" about anything.

Orthodoxy has been consistently and explicitly anti-ecumenist since the beginning. 1800+ years before your niche extreme version of Calvinism came about.

---

Oh, I don't doubt Orthodoxy's committment to anti-ecumenism. You've even kept separate from true Christianity!

The good thing about Protestantism, is precisely that there's no "magisterium" of fallible men dictating the tenets of the faith for all their followers. When a Protestant denomination goes corrupt, believers are free to follow their conscience and leave without jeopardizing their eternal fate; or they can fight to reform their church using Scripture as the standard of measure. On the other hand, when a "magisterium" goes corrupt, there is no fix, as they claim themselves to be the standard, therefore all their followers must bind their conscience to their decisions, no matter how apostate. And if you leave, you're condemned to Hell.

An undeniable constant of humanity is the fallibility of all men, and that power corrupts. God's word, however, is perfect and infallible. Protestantism understands this. Both RC and Orthodoxy deny it, and are under the terribly mistaken notion that a special, selected group of men are promised to be completely immune from error. A promise NEVER given by God, and a common characteristic of cults all over the world.

The immensely sad result of such ecclesial corruption is that you have millions, perhaps billions of people all over the world who simply can't grasp what ANY true Christian with the Holy Spirit can grasp -- that if you're bowing and praying to idols, crediting Mary for your salvation, and believing in a gospel of faith AND works..... it's quite apparent that somehow, some way, somewhere along the line, you've been bamboozled.

---

Which true Christianity? Yours? Congratulations, you've appointed yourself the magisterium you claim to reject.

You say no fallible men should define the faith...then you proceeded to define the faith. You determined what's apostasy, what's idolatry, what's a corrupt church and who's been bamboozled. You didn't eliminate the magisterium...you are the magisterium.

Christ promised "The gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church", and your position forces you to deny that or the Church collapsed and wasn't recovered until Luther and then really not until the 1900s where you get most of your theology from.

---

So, to be clear, you need a magisterium to explain to you what "true Christianity" is?

Wow.

---

Remember, our Lord Jesus Christ preached and taught among us for three years, yet His disciples did not understand the Gospel until He rose from the dead.

Many today use crutches when they can walk without them.

Mothra said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

Mothra said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

ShooterTX said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

Meanwhile Orthodoxy continues to be have massive wins:

---

I'm glad that you see it as a "massive win" to finally align with what Protestants have always believed.

---

Lol don't kid yourself. "Protestants have always believed"…which Protestants exactly? The ELCA holding hands with imams at interfaith services? The Episcopal Church hosting Muslim prayers in their cathedrals? The United Methodist Church's formal WCC ecumenical commitments?
Protestants have no magisterium to define what "Protestants have always believed" about anything.

Orthodoxy has been consistently and explicitly anti-ecumenist since the beginning. 1800+ years before your niche extreme version of Calvinism came about.

---

Oh, I don't doubt Orthodoxy's committment to anti-ecumenism. You've even kept separate from true Christianity!

The good thing about Protestantism, is precisely that there's no "magisterium" of fallible men dictating the tenets of the faith for all their followers. When a Protestant denomination goes corrupt, believers are free to follow their conscience and leave without jeopardizing their eternal fate; or they can fight to reform their church using Scripture as the standard of measure. On the other hand, when a "magisterium" goes corrupt, there is no fix, as they claim themselves to be the standard, therefore all their followers must bind their conscience to their decisions, no matter how apostate. And if you leave, you're condemned to Hell.

An undeniable constant of humanity is the fallibility of all men, and that power corrupts. God's word, however, is perfect and infallible. Protestantism understands this. Both RC and Orthodoxy deny it, and are under the terribly mistaken notion that a special, selected group of men are promised to be completely immune from error. A promise NEVER given by God, and a common characteristic of cults all over the world.

The immensely sad result of such ecclesial corruption is that you have millions, perhaps billions of people all over the world who simply can't grasp what ANY true Christian with the Holy Spirit can grasp -- that if you're bowing and praying to idols, crediting Mary for your salvation, and believing in a gospel of faith AND works..... it's quite apparent that somehow, some way, somewhere along the line, you've been bamboozled.

---

Which true Christianity? Yours? Congratulations, you've appointed yourself the magisterium you claim to reject.

You say no fallible men should define the faith...then you proceeded to define the faith. You determined what's apostasy, what's idolatry, what's a corrupt church and who's been bamboozled. You didn't eliminate the magisterium...you are the magisterium.

Christ promised "The gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church", and your position forces you to deny that or the Church collapsed and wasn't recovered until Luther and then really not until the 1900s where you get most of your theology from.

---

Fully incorrect.

The Holy Scriptures are the "magisterium". True Christianity does not have a magisterium of men, but follows the infallible Word of God instead.

Nice try, but you truly got it all wrong.

---

Impossible. Claiming the Bible is the magisterium is like claiming a Constitution is a Judge. The Judge is bound by the Constitution, the Constitution cannot explain itself, settle a court case, or stop someone from misinterpreting it.

---

This is an interesting analogy, especially given the wide range of jurisprudence interpreting the Constitution, which as we've seen the last few years, is often times overruled when a new majority comes into power.

I remember sitting through Constitutional Law, and trying to decipher from the Constitution this elusive "right to privacy" inherent in the Constitution - or at least so we were told my the magisterium at that time. I couldn't find it, and my eyes told me that this was a bunch of made up b.s. by the magisterium to reach the conclusion it wanted to reach. The plain language of the Constitution told me there simply was no such right, much less a right that would justify such a heinous practice.

Fast forward a few decades, and now the magisterium tells me I was right all along - there was no such thing as a right to privacy inherent in the plain language of the Constitution. I of course knew this 20 years ago, but had that knowledge validated.

The idea that the individual believer cannot know God's will or the central tenets of the faith without a fallible group of men telling me what the plain language I read means is just utter hogwash, and the reason so many of your ilk succumb to heresy.

---

The very fact that brilliant legal minds, all reading the same document, spent decades in fierce disagreement proves that language is rarely "plain" in its application.

If the text were truly "plain," there would be no need for a Supreme Court at all. The existence of the court is a confession that texts require an authorized interpreter to function in a society. Without it, you don't get "the plain meaning", you get legal anarchy, where every citizen is their own Supreme Court. This is exactly what has happened in "Bible only" Christianity: thousands of "Supreme Courts" all claiming the "plain meaning" while contradicting one another on the nature of God, salvation, and morality.

2 Peter 3:16 "He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction."

There's no verse in the Gospel of Matthew where the author says, "I, Matthew the tax collector, wrote this." We only know these were the authors because of Sacred Tradition: the oral and written testimony passed down by the early Bishops (the Magisterium). YOU HOLD TO THIS!

Every major heresy in the first millennium (Arianism, Gnosticism, Nestorianism) was started by an individual or a small group claiming they finally understood the "plain language" of Scripture better than the established Church.

---

Anyone who has gone through law school knows better. It's not disagreements over the text that are the main source of disagreement. It's trying to figure out a way to interpret the text to reach the conclusion you want. While abortion is but one example, history is replete with such jurisprudence.

It's also an attempt to fill in the gaps, as my constitutional law professor used to say. Unlike scripture, the Constitution simply does not address all scenarios. That is why we have judges that can find a mysterious "right to privacy" in the plain language of the document. This if of course not true of scripture. Sure, there are some verses which are difficult to grasp, and others that are as plain as day. Our God is not a God of confusion.

But all of that aside, the point is, history has shown that the magisterium that interprets our Constitution is often times wrong, as "brilliant" as you may believe those who compose the magisterium may be. So, you have unwittingly made a very compelling argument regarding why we should not let a magisterium dictate our positions, especially when its views cannot be found in or supported by scripture - just like the mysterious right to privacy.

---

No, my point is that you can't escape the magisterium.

The choice isn't between "The Bible" and "The Church". That choice doesn't actually exist whatsoever.
You're have to make a choice between Personal Magisterium vs Apostolic Magisterium. You either rely on your own understanding, your denomination or the apostolic church.

Don't kid yourself. If a Baptist reads the Bible and concludes that infants should be baptized, they aren't told "the Bible is unclear." They are told they are wrong. By whom? By the denominational leadership: their "magisterium of men."

A Baptist reads the Bible through the lens of the London Baptist Confession.
A Presbyterian reads it through the Westminster Confession of Faith.
A Lutheran reads it through the Book of Concord.

"Once Saved Always Saved" proponent will treat John 10:28 ("no one will snatch them out of my hand") as the "plain" verse that defines everything else. They will then interpret Hebrews 6:4-6 (which warns about falling away) as being "difficult," "metaphorical," or "not about true believers." They are doing exactly what they accuse Orthodoxy of doing: they're using a human tradition to "explain away" the parts of the Bible that don't fit their system.

Doc Holliday said:

---

Mothra said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

Mothra said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

ShooterTX said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

Meanwhile Orthodoxy continues to be have massive wins:

---

I'm glad that you see it as a "massive win" to finally align with what Protestants have always believed.

---

Lol don't kid yourself. "Protestants have always believed"…which Protestants exactly? The ELCA holding hands with imams at interfaith services? The Episcopal Church hosting Muslim prayers in their cathedrals? The United Methodist Church's formal WCC ecumenical commitments?
Protestants have no magisterium to define what "Protestants have always believed" about anything.

Orthodoxy has been consistently and explicitly anti-ecumenist since the beginning. 1800+ years before your niche extreme version of Calvinism came about.

---

Oh, I don't doubt Orthodoxy's committment to anti-ecumenism. You've even kept separate from true Christianity!

The good thing about Protestantism, is precisely that there's no "magisterium" of fallible men dictating the tenets of the faith for all their followers. When a Protestant denomination goes corrupt, believers are free to follow their conscience and leave without jeopardizing their eternal fate; or they can fight to reform their church using Scripture as the standard of measure. On the other hand, when a "magisterium" goes corrupt, there is no fix, as they claim themselves to be the standard, therefore all their followers must bind their conscience to their decisions, no matter how apostate. And if you leave, you're condemned to Hell.

An undeniable constant of humanity is the fallibility of all men, and that power corrupts. God's word, however, is perfect and infallible. Protestantism understands this. Both RC and Orthodoxy deny it, and are under the terribly mistaken notion that a special, selected group of men are promised to be completely immune from error. A promise NEVER given by God, and a common characteristic of cults all over the world.

The immensely sad result of such ecclesial corruption is that you have millions, perhaps billions of people all over the world who simply can't grasp what ANY true Christian with the Holy Spirit can grasp -- that if you're bowing and praying to idols, crediting Mary for your salvation, and believing in a gospel of faith AND works..... it's quite apparent that somehow, some way, somewhere along the line, you've been bamboozled.

---

Which true Christianity? Yours? Congratulations, you've appointed yourself the magisterium you claim to reject.

You say no fallible men should define the faith...then you proceeded to define the faith. You determined what's apostasy, what's idolatry, what's a corrupt church and who's been bamboozled. You didn't eliminate the magisterium...you are the magisterium.

Christ promised "The gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church", and your position forces you to deny that or the Church collapsed and wasn't recovered until Luther and then really not until the 1900s where you get most of your theology from.

---

Fully incorrect.

The Holy Scriptures are the "magisterium". True Christianity does not have a magisterium of men, but follows the infallible Word of God instead.

Nice try, but you truly got it all wrong.

---

Impossible. Claiming the Bible is the magisterium is like claiming a Constitution is a Judge. The Judge is bound by the Constitution, the Constitution cannot explain itself, settle a court case, or stop someone from misinterpreting it.

---

This is an interesting analogy, especially given the wide range of jurisprudence interpreting the Constitution, which as we've seen the last few years, is often times overruled when a new majority comes into power.

I remember sitting through Constitutional Law, and trying to decipher from the Constitution this elusive "right to privacy" inherent in the Constitution - or at least so we were told my the magisterium at that time. I couldn't find it, and my eyes told me that this was a bunch of made up b.s. by the magisterium to reach the conclusion it wanted to reach. The plain language of the Constitution told me there simply was no such right, much less a right that would justify such a heinous practice.

Fast forward a few decades, and now the magisterium tells me I was right all along - there was no such thing as a right to privacy inherent in the plain language of the Constitution. I of course knew this 20 years ago, but had that knowledge validated.

The idea that the individual believer cannot know God's will or the central tenets of the faith without a fallible group of men telling me what the plain language I read means is just utter hogwash, and the reason so many of your ilk succumb to heresy.

---

The very fact that brilliant legal minds, all reading the same document, spent decades in fierce disagreement proves that language is rarely "plain" in its application.

If the text were truly "plain," there would be no need for a Supreme Court at all. The existence of the court is a confession that texts require an authorized interpreter to function in a society. Without it, you don't get "the plain meaning", you get legal anarchy, where every citizen is their own Supreme Court. This is exactly what has happened in "Bible only" Christianity: thousands of "Supreme Courts" all claiming the "plain meaning" while contradicting one another on the nature of God, salvation, and morality.

2 Peter 3:16 "He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction."

There's no verse in the Gospel of Matthew where the author says, "I, Matthew the tax collector, wrote this." We only know these were the authors because of Sacred Tradition: the oral and written testimony passed down by the early Bishops (the Magisterium). YOU HOLD TO THIS!

Every major heresy in the first millennium (Arianism, Gnosticism, Nestorianism) was started by an individual or a small group claiming they finally understood the "plain language" of Scripture better than the established Church.

---

Anyone who has gone through law school knows better. It's not disagreements over the text that are the main source of disagreement. It's trying to figure out a way to interpret the text to reach the conclusion you want. While abortion is but one example, history is replete with such jurisprudence.

It's also an attempt to fill in the gaps, as my constitutional law professor used to say. Unlike scripture, the Constitution simply does not address all scenarios. That is why we have judges that can find a mysterious "right to privacy" in the plain language of the document. This if of course not true of scripture. Sure, there are some verses which are difficult to grasp, and others that are as plain as day. Our God is not a God of confusion.

But all of that aside, the point is, history has shown that the magisterium that interprets our Constitution is often times wrong, as "brilliant" as you may believe those who compose the magisterium may be. So, you have unwittingly made a very compelling argument regarding why we should not let a magisterium dictate our positions, especially when its views cannot be found in or supported by scripture - just like the mysterious right to privacy.

---

No, my point is that you can't escape the magisterium.

The choice isn't between "The Bible" and "The Church". That choice doesn't actually exist whatsoever.
You're have to make a choice between Personal Magisterium vs Apostolic Magisterium. You either rely on your own understanding, your denomination or the apostolic church.

Don't kid yourself. If a Baptist reads the Bible and concludes that infants should be baptized, they aren't told "the Bible is unclear." They are told they are wrong. By whom? By the denominational leadership: their "magisterium of men."

A Baptist reads the Bible through the lens of the London Baptist Confession.
A Presbyterian reads it through the Westminster Confession of Faith.
A Lutheran reads it through the Book of Concord.

"Once Saved Always Saved" proponent will treat John 10:28 ("no one will snatch them out of my hand") as the "plain" verse that defines everything else. They will then interpret Hebrews 6:4-6 (which warns about falling away) as being "difficult," "metaphorical," or "not about true believers." They are doing exactly what they accuse Orthodoxy of doing: they're using a human tradition to "explain away" the parts of the Bible that don't fit their system.

---

However you choose to term it, it doesn't change (or refute) my point.

And of course every denomination has its own take, of course.

" No, my point is that you can't escape the magisterium."

Sort of like 'No one expects the Spanish Inquisition', I suppose?

Doc Holliday said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

Meanwhile Orthodoxy continues to be have massive wins:

---

I'm glad that you see it as a "massive win" to finally align with what Protestants have always believed.

---

Lol don't kid yourself. "Protestants have always believed"…which Protestants exactly? The ELCA holding hands with imams at interfaith services? The Episcopal Church hosting Muslim prayers in their cathedrals? The United Methodist Church's formal WCC ecumenical commitments?
Protestants have no magisterium to define what "Protestants have always believed" about anything.

Orthodoxy has been consistently and explicitly anti-ecumenist since the beginning. 1800+ years before your niche extreme version of Calvinism came about.

---

Oh, I don't doubt Orthodoxy's committment to anti-ecumenism. You've even kept separate from true Christianity!

The good thing about Protestantism, is precisely that there's no "magisterium" of fallible men dictating the tenets of the faith for all their followers. When a Protestant denomination goes corrupt, believers are free to follow their conscience and leave without jeopardizing their eternal fate; or they can fight to reform their church using Scripture as the standard of measure. On the other hand, when a "magisterium" goes corrupt, there is no fix, as they claim themselves to be the standard, therefore all their followers must bind their conscience to their decisions, no matter how apostate. And if you leave, you're condemned to Hell.

An undeniable constant of humanity is the fallibility of all men, and that power corrupts. God's word, however, is perfect and infallible. Protestantism understands this. Both RC and Orthodoxy deny it, and are under the terribly mistaken notion that a special, selected group of men are promised to be completely immune from error. A promise NEVER given by God, and a common characteristic of cults all over the world.

The immensely sad result of such ecclesial corruption is that you have millions, perhaps billions of people all over the world who simply can't grasp what ANY true Christian with the Holy Spirit can grasp -- that if you're bowing and praying to idols, crediting Mary for your salvation, and believing in a gospel of faith AND works..... it's quite apparent that somehow, some way, somewhere along the line, you've been bamboozled.

---

Which true Christianity? Yours? Congratulations, you've appointed yourself the magisterium you claim to reject.

You say no fallible men should define the faith...then you proceeded to define the faith. You determined what's apostasy, what's idolatry, what's a corrupt church and who's been bamboozled. You didn't eliminate the magisterium...you are the magisterium.

Christ promised "The gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church", and your position forces you to deny that or the Church collapsed and wasn't recovered until Luther and then really not until the 1900s where you get most of your theology from.

---

I'm correctable by Scripture. A "magisterium" is not. I don't dictate the interpretation for all of Christianity. A magisterium does.

If I start to say, for example, that homosexuality is not a sin, then any other believer could easily derive from Scripture that I'm obviously wrong. However, if a "magisterium" declares the same, then no matter how easily derivable from Scripture that it's wrong, it doesn't matter. You are bound to it, or you can't be in the church.

How is this difficult to understand?

And if your view is that Scripture isn't clear and perspicuous enough to know that bowing and praying to anyone other than God and crediting a human person for our salvation are obviously false and even heretical and idolatrous, thus requiring a "magisterium" to tell you that, then what's happening is that you're checking your brain at the door and blindly following the discernment of your fellow fallible man..... when you're supposed to use your God-given brain to discern for yourself, while letting Jesus' Holy Spirit guide you.

"And why do you not judge for yourselves what is right?" - Jesus, in Luke 12:57

"Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and they examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true." - Acts 17:11

When Jesus promised that the "gates of hell will not prevail", it did not mean that the church would never be in error. The true people of God will listen to his correction, and not follow the error. As long as a true remnant remains, then Jesus' church is never gone or defeated. Protestantism is once such correction, where the people listened to God over the traditions of man.

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

Meanwhile Orthodoxy continues to be have massive wins:

---

I'm glad that you see it as a "massive win" to finally align with what Protestants have always believed.

---

Lol don't kid yourself. "Protestants have always believed"…which Protestants exactly? The ELCA holding hands with imams at interfaith services? The Episcopal Church hosting Muslim prayers in their cathedrals? The United Methodist Church's formal WCC ecumenical commitments?
Protestants have no magisterium to define what "Protestants have always believed" about anything.

Orthodoxy has been consistently and explicitly anti-ecumenist since the beginning. 1800+ years before your niche extreme version of Calvinism came about.

---

Oh, I don't doubt Orthodoxy's committment to anti-ecumenism. You've even kept separate from true Christianity!

The good thing about Protestantism, is precisely that there's no "magisterium" of fallible men dictating the tenets of the faith for all their followers. When a Protestant denomination goes corrupt, believers are free to follow their conscience and leave without jeopardizing their eternal fate; or they can fight to reform their church using Scripture as the standard of measure. On the other hand, when a "magisterium" goes corrupt, there is no fix, as they claim themselves to be the standard, therefore all their followers must bind their conscience to their decisions, no matter how apostate. And if you leave, you're condemned to Hell.

An undeniable constant of humanity is the fallibility of all men, and that power corrupts. God's word, however, is perfect and infallible. Protestantism understands this. Both RC and Orthodoxy deny it, and are under the terribly mistaken notion that a special, selected group of men are promised to be completely immune from error. A promise NEVER given by God, and a common characteristic of cults all over the world.

The immensely sad result of such ecclesial corruption is that you have millions, perhaps billions of people all over the world who simply can't grasp what ANY true Christian with the Holy Spirit can grasp -- that if you're bowing and praying to idols, crediting Mary for your salvation, and believing in a gospel of faith AND works..... it's quite apparent that somehow, some way, somewhere along the line, you've been bamboozled.

---

Which true Christianity? Yours? Congratulations, you've appointed yourself the magisterium you claim to reject.

You say no fallible men should define the faith...then you proceeded to define the faith. You determined what's apostasy, what's idolatry, what's a corrupt church and who's been bamboozled. You didn't eliminate the magisterium...you are the magisterium.

Christ promised "The gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church", and your position forces you to deny that or the Church collapsed and wasn't recovered until Luther and then really not until the 1900s where you get most of your theology from.

---

I'm correctable by Scripture. A "magisterium" is not. I don't dictate the interpretation for all of Christianity. A magisterium does.

If I start to say, for example, that homosexuality is not a sin, then any other believer could easily derive from Scripture that I'm obviously wrong. However, if a "magisterium" declares the same, then no matter how easily derivable from Scripture that it's wrong, it doesn't matter. You are bound to it, or you can't be in the church.

How is this difficult to understand?

And if your view is that Scripture isn't clear and perspicuous enough to know that bowing and praying to anyone other than God and crediting a human person for our salvation are obviously false and even heretical and idolatrous, thus requiring a "magisterium" to tell you that, then what's happening is that you're checking your brain at the door and blindly following the discernment of your fellow fallible man..... when you're supposed to use your God-given brain to discern for yourself, while letting Jesus' Holy Spirit guide you.

"And why do you not judge for yourselves what is right?" - Jesus, in Luke 12:57

"Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and they examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true." - Acts 17:11

When Jesus promised that the "gates of hell will not prevail", it did not mean that the church would never be in error. The true people of God will listen to his correction, and not follow the error. As long as a true remnant remains, then Jesus' church is never gone or defeated. Protestantism is once such correction, where the people listened to God over the traditions of man.

---

You say you don't "dictate" for all of Christianity, but by calling the historical Church's beliefs on the saints or salvation "idolatrous" and "obviously false," you are drawing a line and saying: "My interpretation is the definition of True Christianity." By default, you are excommunicating everyone from the first 1,500 years of the faith who didn't read the Bible the way you do. It's the ultimate act of dictating who is and isn't a Christian based on your private discernment.

You say you're "correctable by Scripture," but by whose interpretation?
If another believer tells you you're wrong, and you disagree, who is the tie-breaker?

The Bereans weren't sitting alone with a Bible trying to "figure out" Christianity. They were listening to an Apostle (a member of the Magisterium) and checking if his message aligned with the prophecies of the Old Testament. They were using the Magisterium to understand the Word. If you are truly like the Bereans, will you submit your 'God-given brain' to the Apostolic Tradition Paul mentions in 2 Thessalonians 2:15, or will you continue to use your brain to judge the very Apostles who gave you the Bible?

If Baptist Pastor A says the Bible supports gay marriage, and Baptist Pastor B says it doesn't, and both claim they are 'correctable by Scripture' and led by the Spirit, who has the authority to settle the dispute?

Doc Holliday said:

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ShooterTX said:

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Doc Holliday said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

Meanwhile Orthodoxy continues to be have massive wins:

---

I'm glad that you see it as a "massive win" to finally align with what Protestants have always believed.

---

Lol don't kid yourself. "Protestants have always believed"…which Protestants exactly? The ELCA holding hands with imams at interfaith services? The Episcopal Church hosting Muslim prayers in their cathedrals? The United Methodist Church's formal WCC ecumenical commitments?
Protestants have no magisterium to define what "Protestants have always believed" about anything.

Orthodoxy has been consistently and explicitly anti-ecumenist since the beginning. 1800+ years before your niche extreme version of Calvinism came about.

---

Oh, I don't doubt Orthodoxy's committment to anti-ecumenism. You've even kept separate from true Christianity!

The good thing about Protestantism, is precisely that there's no "magisterium" of fallible men dictating the tenets of the faith for all their followers. When a Protestant denomination goes corrupt, believers are free to follow their conscience and leave without jeopardizing their eternal fate; or they can fight to reform their church using Scripture as the standard of measure. On the other hand, when a "magisterium" goes corrupt, there is no fix, as they claim themselves to be the standard, therefore all their followers must bind their conscience to their decisions, no matter how apostate. And if you leave, you're condemned to Hell.

An undeniable constant of humanity is the fallibility of all men, and that power corrupts. God's word, however, is perfect and infallible. Protestantism understands this. Both RC and Orthodoxy deny it, and are under the terribly mistaken notion that a special, selected group of men are promised to be completely immune from error. A promise NEVER given by God, and a common characteristic of cults all over the world.

The immensely sad result of such ecclesial corruption is that you have millions, perhaps billions of people all over the world who simply can't grasp what ANY true Christian with the Holy Spirit can grasp -- that if you're bowing and praying to idols, crediting Mary for your salvation, and believing in a gospel of faith AND works..... it's quite apparent that somehow, some way, somewhere along the line, you've been bamboozled.

---

Which true Christianity? Yours? Congratulations, you've appointed yourself the magisterium you claim to reject.

You say no fallible men should define the faith...then you proceeded to define the faith. You determined what's apostasy, what's idolatry, what's a corrupt church and who's been bamboozled. You didn't eliminate the magisterium...you are the magisterium.

Christ promised "The gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church", and your position forces you to deny that or the Church collapsed and wasn't recovered until Luther and then really not until the 1900s where you get most of your theology from.

---

Fully incorrect.

The Holy Scriptures are the "magisterium". True Christianity does not have a magisterium of men, but follows the infallible Word of God instead.

Nice try, but you truly got it all wrong.

---

Impossible. Claiming the Bible is the magisterium is like claiming a Constitution is a Judge. The Judge is bound by the Constitution, the Constitution cannot explain itself, settle a court case, or stop someone from misinterpreting it.

When two people read the same verse and arrive at opposite conclusions, the Bible remains silent on the shelf. The Magisterium is the living voice that adjudicates the interpretation. You can't claim both parties are guided by the Holy Spirit because then you'd have to claim the Holy Spirit is dishing out contradictions.

Do you know what the definition of The Pillar of Truth is? Its the Church.1 Timothy 3:15 explicitly states: "...the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth."

Jesus did not tell the Apostles, "Go and write a book and give everyone a copy." He said, "Go and make disciples... teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you" (Matthew 28:19-20). Do you really think all that he commanded is only found in scripture?

In Acts 8, when the Eunuch is reading Isaiah, Philip asks if he understands. The Eunuch responds, "How can I, unless someone guides me?" (Acts 8:31). This is the functional necessity of a Magisterium.

IN 2 Thess 2:15, we're told to hold to "stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter." Can you tell me ANY single spoken word that we're supposed to hold to? If you consider that the total word count of Paul's letters in the New Testament can be read in a few hours, it becomes clear that his written "Scripture" represents only a tiny fraction of the "traditions" and "spoken words" he imparted to the churches over his 30-year career.

You have no faith that Christ was able to setup a visible Church.

---

It's funny how you use 1 Timothy 3 as a response, but ignore 2 Timothy 3 which states:

16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the servant of God[a] may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

Notice that it does not state that the Scriptures must be explained or interpreted by a magisterium. In fact, there is no where in the Bible which states such nonsense.

It is true that we only have a fraction of what was spoken by Jesus, Paul, Peter and the rest. Are you then saying that the scriptures are incomplete? So you are saying that 2 Timothy is incorrect? That the scriptures are NOT enough to equip the servant of God for every good work?

We can see in Peter's letters that there are many who distort the scriptures, but that doesn't mean the scriptures are wrong or incomplete. It simply means that humans are not the source of truth, but in fact they can & will distort the truth for their own purposes. The Word of God is infallible. The magisterium is NOT! It is the Holy Spirit who helps us understand and apply the scriptures... not some group of men is funny looking hats & robes.

ShooterTX said:

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Doc Holliday said:

---

ShooterTX said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

Meanwhile Orthodoxy continues to be have massive wins:

---

I'm glad that you see it as a "massive win" to finally align with what Protestants have always believed.

---

Lol don't kid yourself. "Protestants have always believed"…which Protestants exactly? The ELCA holding hands with imams at interfaith services? The Episcopal Church hosting Muslim prayers in their cathedrals? The United Methodist Church's formal WCC ecumenical commitments?
Protestants have no magisterium to define what "Protestants have always believed" about anything.

Orthodoxy has been consistently and explicitly anti-ecumenist since the beginning. 1800+ years before your niche extreme version of Calvinism came about.

---

Oh, I don't doubt Orthodoxy's committment to anti-ecumenism. You've even kept separate from true Christianity!

The good thing about Protestantism, is precisely that there's no "magisterium" of fallible men dictating the tenets of the faith for all their followers. When a Protestant denomination goes corrupt, believers are free to follow their conscience and leave without jeopardizing their eternal fate; or they can fight to reform their church using Scripture as the standard of measure. On the other hand, when a "magisterium" goes corrupt, there is no fix, as they claim themselves to be the standard, therefore all their followers must bind their conscience to their decisions, no matter how apostate. And if you leave, you're condemned to Hell.

An undeniable constant of humanity is the fallibility of all men, and that power corrupts. God's word, however, is perfect and infallible. Protestantism understands this. Both RC and Orthodoxy deny it, and are under the terribly mistaken notion that a special, selected group of men are promised to be completely immune from error. A promise NEVER given by God, and a common characteristic of cults all over the world.

The immensely sad result of such ecclesial corruption is that you have millions, perhaps billions of people all over the world who simply can't grasp what ANY true Christian with the Holy Spirit can grasp -- that if you're bowing and praying to idols, crediting Mary for your salvation, and believing in a gospel of faith AND works..... it's quite apparent that somehow, some way, somewhere along the line, you've been bamboozled.

---

Which true Christianity? Yours? Congratulations, you've appointed yourself the magisterium you claim to reject.

You say no fallible men should define the faith...then you proceeded to define the faith. You determined what's apostasy, what's idolatry, what's a corrupt church and who's been bamboozled. You didn't eliminate the magisterium...you are the magisterium.

Christ promised "The gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church", and your position forces you to deny that or the Church collapsed and wasn't recovered until Luther and then really not until the 1900s where you get most of your theology from.

---

Fully incorrect.

The Holy Scriptures are the "magisterium". True Christianity does not have a magisterium of men, but follows the infallible Word of God instead.

Nice try, but you truly got it all wrong.

---

Impossible. Claiming the Bible is the magisterium is like claiming a Constitution is a Judge. The Judge is bound by the Constitution, the Constitution cannot explain itself, settle a court case, or stop someone from misinterpreting it.

When two people read the same verse and arrive at opposite conclusions, the Bible remains silent on the shelf. The Magisterium is the living voice that adjudicates the interpretation. You can't claim both parties are guided by the Holy Spirit because then you'd have to claim the Holy Spirit is dishing out contradictions.

Do you know what the definition of The Pillar of Truth is? Its the Church.1 Timothy 3:15 explicitly states: "...the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth."

Jesus did not tell the Apostles, "Go and write a book and give everyone a copy." He said, "Go and make disciples... teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you" (Matthew 28:19-20). Do you really think all that he commanded is only found in scripture?

In Acts 8, when the Eunuch is reading Isaiah, Philip asks if he understands. The Eunuch responds, "How can I, unless someone guides me?" (Acts 8:31). This is the functional necessity of a Magisterium.

IN 2 Thess 2:15, we're told to hold to "stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter." Can you tell me ANY single spoken word that we're supposed to hold to? If you consider that the total word count of Paul's letters in the New Testament can be read in a few hours, it becomes clear that his written "Scripture" represents only a tiny fraction of the "traditions" and "spoken words" he imparted to the churches over his 30-year career.

You have no faith that Christ was able to setup a visible Church.

---

It's funny how you use 1 Timothy 3 as a response, but ignore 2 Timothy 3 which states:

16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the servant of God[a] may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

Notice that it does not state that the Scriptures must be explained or interpreted by a magisterium. In fact, there is no where in the Bible which states such nonsense.

It is true that we only have a fraction of what was spoken by Jesus, Paul, Peter and the rest. Are you then saying that the scriptures are incomplete? So you are saying that 2 Timothy is incorrect? That the scriptures are NOT enough to equip the servant of God for every good work?

We can see in Peter's letters that there are many who distort the scriptures, but that doesn't mean the scriptures are wrong or incomplete. It simply means that humans are not the source of truth, but in fact they can & will distort the truth for their own purposes. The Word of God is infallible. The magisterium is NOT! It is the Holy Spirit who helps us understand and apply the scriptures... not some group of men is funny looking hats & robes.

---

When Paul wrote this to Timothy, the "Scripture" he was referring to was exclusively the Old Testament. If 2 Timothy 3:16 means the Bible is the only thing we need to be "thoroughly equipped"... then you have to conclude that the New Testament is unnecessary, because Timothy was already "equipped" using only the Jewish Scriptures.

If the Holy Spirit is the one helping every individual understand, why does the Spirit tell the Baptist that "This is my body" is a symbol, but tell the Lutheran it is the Real Presence?

The Holy Spirit was promised to the Church collectively (John 16:13), not to every individual in isolation to reach their own private conclusions.

2 Timothy 1:13: "Follow the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me."
2 Timothy 2:2: "What you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also."
If the Bible was all Timothy needed, Paul would have said, "Timothy, just read the scrolls and you'll be fine." Instead, he commands him to guard a pattern of spoken teaching and pass it to a specific chain of men.

Doc Holliday said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

Meanwhile Orthodoxy continues to be have massive wins:

---

I'm glad that you see it as a "massive win" to finally align with what Protestants have always believed.

---

Lol don't kid yourself. "Protestants have always believed"…which Protestants exactly? The ELCA holding hands with imams at interfaith services? The Episcopal Church hosting Muslim prayers in their cathedrals? The United Methodist Church's formal WCC ecumenical commitments?
Protestants have no magisterium to define what "Protestants have always believed" about anything.

Orthodoxy has been consistently and explicitly anti-ecumenist since the beginning. 1800+ years before your niche extreme version of Calvinism came about.

---

Oh, I don't doubt Orthodoxy's committment to anti-ecumenism. You've even kept separate from true Christianity!

The good thing about Protestantism, is precisely that there's no "magisterium" of fallible men dictating the tenets of the faith for all their followers. When a Protestant denomination goes corrupt, believers are free to follow their conscience and leave without jeopardizing their eternal fate; or they can fight to reform their church using Scripture as the standard of measure. On the other hand, when a "magisterium" goes corrupt, there is no fix, as they claim themselves to be the standard, therefore all their followers must bind their conscience to their decisions, no matter how apostate. And if you leave, you're condemned to Hell.

An undeniable constant of humanity is the fallibility of all men, and that power corrupts. God's word, however, is perfect and infallible. Protestantism understands this. Both RC and Orthodoxy deny it, and are under the terribly mistaken notion that a special, selected group of men are promised to be completely immune from error. A promise NEVER given by God, and a common characteristic of cults all over the world.

The immensely sad result of such ecclesial corruption is that you have millions, perhaps billions of people all over the world who simply can't grasp what ANY true Christian with the Holy Spirit can grasp -- that if you're bowing and praying to idols, crediting Mary for your salvation, and believing in a gospel of faith AND works..... it's quite apparent that somehow, some way, somewhere along the line, you've been bamboozled.

---

Which true Christianity? Yours? Congratulations, you've appointed yourself the magisterium you claim to reject.

You say no fallible men should define the faith...then you proceeded to define the faith. You determined what's apostasy, what's idolatry, what's a corrupt church and who's been bamboozled. You didn't eliminate the magisterium...you are the magisterium.

Christ promised "The gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church", and your position forces you to deny that or the Church collapsed and wasn't recovered until Luther and then really not until the 1900s where you get most of your theology from.

---

I'm correctable by Scripture. A "magisterium" is not. I don't dictate the interpretation for all of Christianity. A magisterium does.

If I start to say, for example, that homosexuality is not a sin, then any other believer could easily derive from Scripture that I'm obviously wrong. However, if a "magisterium" declares the same, then no matter how easily derivable from Scripture that it's wrong, it doesn't matter. You are bound to it, or you can't be in the church.

How is this difficult to understand?

And if your view is that Scripture isn't clear and perspicuous enough to know that bowing and praying to anyone other than God and crediting a human person for our salvation are obviously false and even heretical and idolatrous, thus requiring a "magisterium" to tell you that, then what's happening is that you're checking your brain at the door and blindly following the discernment of your fellow fallible man..... when you're supposed to use your God-given brain to discern for yourself, while letting Jesus' Holy Spirit guide you.

"And why do you not judge for yourselves what is right?" - Jesus, in Luke 12:57

"Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and they examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true." - Acts 17:11

When Jesus promised that the "gates of hell will not prevail", it did not mean that the church would never be in error. The true people of God will listen to his correction, and not follow the error. As long as a true remnant remains, then Jesus' church is never gone or defeated. Protestantism is once such correction, where the people listened to God over the traditions of man.

---

You say you don't "dictate" for all of Christianity, but by calling the historical Church's beliefs on the saints or salvation "idolatrous" and "obviously false," you are drawing a line and saying: "My interpretation is the definition of True Christianity." By default, you are excommunicating everyone from the first 1,500 years of the faith who didn't read the Bible the way you do. It's the ultimate act of dictating who is and isn't a Christian based on your private discernment.

You say you're "correctable by Scripture," but by whose interpretation?
If another believer tells you you're wrong, and you disagree, who is the tie-breaker?

The Bereans weren't sitting alone with a Bible trying to "figure out" Christianity. They were listening to an Apostle (a member of the Magisterium) and checking if his message aligned with the prophecies of the Old Testament. They were using the Magisterium to understand the Word. If you are truly like the Bereans, will you submit your 'God-given brain' to the Apostolic Tradition Paul mentions in 2 Thessalonians 2:15, or will you continue to use your brain to judge the very Apostles who gave you the Bible?

---

The only way to submit to the Apostolic tradition, such as that which came from Paul, is to submit ONLY to Scripture, because the only thing we know that came from the apostles like Paul is in Scripture, and no where else. You are literally making the whole case for sola scriptura.

Here's what you're saying, and it's quite remarkable: if a person were to believe that Jesus blessed gay marriage and made raping and murdering okay - you can't know that what he's saying is wrong, until a magisterium tells you. Because if you do know, then you're acting as a "magisterium" who's "excommunicating anyone who doesn't read the Bible the way that you do".

The true people of God know that bowing and praying to images and crediting Mary for their salvation is rank heresy and sheer idolatry, without a "magisterium" of men claiming to be infallible to tell them. The Holy Spirit is their "magisterium", and it leads all true believers to the same truth. And in the first 1,500 years of Christianity, it's certain that the true church of Jesus, his true body of believers, all who were led by the same Holy Spirit which leads all true Christians today, did not hold to that apostasy then just as they do not hold to it today.

Doc Holliday said:

---

If Baptist Pastor A says the Bible supports gay marriage, and Baptist Pastor B says it doesn't, and both claim they are 'correctable by Scripture' and led by the Spirit, who has the authority to settle the dispute?

---

Baptists can have their own authority structure they submit to, to which such appeals can be made. But even this authority structure is understood to always be itself correctable by Scripture.

The counter-question for you is this: If an Orthodox/RC magisterium tells you that gay marriage is okay with God, then can you say they are wrong? By what authority?

Division in truth is better than unity in error.

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc Holliday said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

Meanwhile Orthodoxy continues to be have massive wins:

---

I'm glad that you see it as a "massive win" to finally align with what Protestants have always believed.

---

Lol don't kid yourself. "Protestants have always believed"…which Protestants exactly? The ELCA holding hands with imams at interfaith services? The Episcopal Church hosting Muslim prayers in their cathedrals? The United Methodist Church's formal WCC ecumenical commitments?
Protestants have no magisterium to define what "Protestants have always believed" about anything.

Orthodoxy has been consistently and explicitly anti-ecumenist since the beginning. 1800+ years before your niche extreme version of Calvinism came about.

---

Oh, I don't doubt Orthodoxy's committment to anti-ecumenism. You've even kept separate from true Christianity!

The good thing about Protestantism, is precisely that there's no "magisterium" of fallible men dictating the tenets of the faith for all their followers. When a Protestant denomination goes corrupt, believers are free to follow their conscience and leave without jeopardizing their eternal fate; or they can fight to reform their church using Scripture as the standard of measure. On the other hand, when a "magisterium" goes corrupt, there is no fix, as they claim themselves to be the standard, therefore all their followers must bind their conscience to their decisions, no matter how apostate. And if you leave, you're condemned to Hell.

An undeniable constant of humanity is the fallibility of all men, and that power corrupts. God's word, however, is perfect and infallible. Protestantism understands this. Both RC and Orthodoxy deny it, and are under the terribly mistaken notion that a special, selected group of men are promised to be completely immune from error. A promise NEVER given by God, and a common characteristic of cults all over the world.

The immensely sad result of such ecclesial corruption is that you have millions, perhaps billions of people all over the world who simply can't grasp what ANY true Christian with the Holy Spirit can grasp -- that if you're bowing and praying to idols, crediting Mary for your salvation, and believing in a gospel of faith AND works..... it's quite apparent that somehow, some way, somewhere along the line, you've been bamboozled.

---

Which true Christianity? Yours? Congratulations, you've appointed yourself the magisterium you claim to reject.

You say no fallible men should define the faith...then you proceeded to define the faith. You determined what's apostasy, what's idolatry, what's a corrupt church and who's been bamboozled. You didn't eliminate the magisterium...you are the magisterium.

Christ promised "The gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church", and your position forces you to deny that or the Church collapsed and wasn't recovered until Luther and then really not until the 1900s where you get most of your theology from.

---

I'm correctable by Scripture. A "magisterium" is not. I don't dictate the interpretation for all of Christianity. A magisterium does.

If I start to say, for example, that homosexuality is not a sin, then any other believer could easily derive from Scripture that I'm obviously wrong. However, if a "magisterium" declares the same, then no matter how easily derivable from Scripture that it's wrong, it doesn't matter. You are bound to it, or you can't be in the church.

How is this difficult to understand?

And if your view is that Scripture isn't clear and perspicuous enough to know that bowing and praying to anyone other than God and crediting a human person for our salvation are obviously false and even heretical and idolatrous, thus requiring a "magisterium" to tell you that, then what's happening is that you're checking your brain at the door and blindly following the discernment of your fellow fallible man..... when you're supposed to use your God-given brain to discern for yourself, while letting Jesus' Holy Spirit guide you.

"And why do you not judge for yourselves what is right?" - Jesus, in Luke 12:57

"Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and they examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true." - Acts 17:11

When Jesus promised that the "gates of hell will not prevail", it did not mean that the church would never be in error. The true people of God will listen to his correction, and not follow the error. As long as a true remnant remains, then Jesus' church is never gone or defeated. Protestantism is once such correction, where the people listened to God over the traditions of man.

---

You say you don't "dictate" for all of Christianity, but by calling the historical Church's beliefs on the saints or salvation "idolatrous" and "obviously false," you are drawing a line and saying: "My interpretation is the definition of True Christianity." By default, you are excommunicating everyone from the first 1,500 years of the faith who didn't read the Bible the way you do. It's the ultimate act of dictating who is and isn't a Christian based on your private discernment.

You say you're "correctable by Scripture," but by whose interpretation?
If another believer tells you you're wrong, and you disagree, who is the tie-breaker?

The Bereans weren't sitting alone with a Bible trying to "figure out" Christianity. They were listening to an Apostle (a member of the Magisterium) and checking if his message aligned with the prophecies of the Old Testament. They were using the Magisterium to understand the Word. If you are truly like the Bereans, will you submit your 'God-given brain' to the Apostolic Tradition Paul mentions in 2 Thessalonians 2:15, or will you continue to use your brain to judge the very Apostles who gave you the Bible?

---

The only way to submit to the Apostolic tradition, such as that which came from Paul, is to submit ONLY to Scripture, because the only thing we know that came from the apostles like Paul is in Scripture, and no where else. You are literally making the whole case for sola scriptura.

Here's what you're saying, and it's quite remarkable: if a person were to believe that Jesus blessed gay marriage and made raping and murdering okay - you can't know that what he's saying is wrong, until a magisterium tells you. Because if you do know, then you're acting as a "magisterium" who's "excommunicating anyone who doesn't read the Bible the way that you do".

The true people of God know that bowing and praying to images and crediting Mary for their salvation is rank heresy and sheer idolatry, without a "magisterium" of men claiming to be infallible to tell them. The Holy Spirit is their "magisterium", and it leads all true believers to the same truth. And in the first 1,500 years of Christianity, it's certain that the true church of Jesus, his true body of believers, all who were led by the same Holy Spirit which leads all true Christians today, did not hold to that apostasy then just as they do not hold to it today.

---

It is historically impossible to claim that the written word is the only thing that came from the Apostles. You need to look at Second Temple Judaism and the book of Acts; the faith was passed on through the living voice. 2 Thessalonians 2:15 explicitly commands us to hold to traditions taught by 'spoken word'...that is by definition NOT written down.

If salvation depended on reading a text, Christ would have failed the poor and the illiterate for 1,500 years and then pretty much 90%+ of all of humanity that really couldn't read or acquire a bible until the 1900s.. Over 90% of people throughout history couldn't read and didn't have access to a personal Bible. I refuse to believe Christ left His people in the dark under 'apostasy' until the printing press was invented

He left a visible community with a living voice (the Magisterium) to be the 'pillar and foundation of truth' (1 Tim 3:15). You seem unable to fathom that Christ could trust men to be caretakers of His Church, yet you trust those same men to have correctly identified which books belong in your Bible. The New Testament canon was derived from the Liturgy, which was established by Apostolic authority.

Also, let's look at the fruits of the alternative: the 'spirit-led' megachurch model? Most American Christians attend a megachurch FYI. Your Calvinists who beat their chest's that they're better because they're the elect and think God preordained rape of children and that they deserve it. You like those guys? Or how about once saved always saved easy believism that produces WEAK MEN who refuse to clean up their lives because they have assurance of salvation and their sin is irrelevant.

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc Holliday said:

---

If Baptist Pastor A says the Bible supports gay marriage, and Baptist Pastor B says it doesn't, and both claim they are 'correctable by Scripture' and led by the Spirit, who has the authority to settle the dispute?

---

Baptists can have their own authority structure they submit to, to which such appeals can be made. But even this authority structure is understood to always be itself correctable by Scripture.

The counter-question for you is this: If an Orthodox/RC magisterium tells you that gay marriage is okay with God, then can you say they are wrong? By what authority?

Division in truth is better than unity in error.

---

Person A says the Church is wrong because of Scripture.
Person B says Person A is wrong because of their interpretation of Scripture.

The Result: There is no "Scripture" to appeal to that isn't already being filtered through someone's private mind. Without a final, living authority, the Bible becomes a "Paper Pope" that can be made to say whatever the person holding it wants it to say. How do you not understand that interpretation is inescapable?

In Acts 15 (the Council of Jerusalem), there was a massive dispute about circumcision. Did the early Christians just go home and read their Old Testaments to decide for themselves? No. They gathered as a Council. They issued a decree that began: "It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us..." (Acts 15:28).

They claimed to speak for the Holy Spirit.
They didn't say "this is our best guess based on the Bible."
They spoke with binding authority.

If a Baptist "submits" to an authority that is "correctable" by the individual's own reading of the Bible, then that individual hasn't actually submitted to anything but their own opinion.

So John 3:16 is vague?

I agree that some Scripture requires discernment, but a lot of it is very plain, and a lot more can be worked out by simply noting that Scripture does not contradict itself, so one verse can help others come into focus.


And then of course there are people who think their tradition counts with equal weight to Scripture, even if there is no Scripture which actually says what their tradition teaches.

Oldbear83 said:

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So John 3:16 is vague?

I agree that some Scripture requires discernment, but a lot of it is very plain, and a lot more can be worked out by simply noting that Scripture does not contradict itself, so one verse can help others come into focus.


And then of course there are people who think their tradition counts with equal weight to Scripture, even if there is no Scripture which actually says what their tradition teaches.

---

Bingo.

Oldbear83 said:

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So John 3:16 is vague?

I agree that some Scripture requires discernment, but a lot of it is very plain, and a lot more can be worked out by simply noting that Scripture does not contradict itself, so one verse can help others come into focus.


And then of course there are people who think their tradition counts with equal weight to Scripture, even if there is no Scripture which actually says what their tradition teaches.

---

John 3:16 has to be harmonized with John 15:6 ("if anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away as a branch and withers"), with Hebrews 10:26-29, with James 2:19 (the demons believe and shudder), with Matthew 7:21-23 ("I never knew you"). The moment you admit those texts exist, you've already conceded that "believe and be saved" requires significant theological unpacking, which is exactly what you claimed Tradition illegitimately does.

The very act of harmonizing Scripture requires interpretive rules that Scripture itself doesn't provide. Where do those rules come from? They come from a tradition of reading. Every Protestant who "just reads the Bible" is actually reading it through Luther, or Calvin, or whoever shaped their hermeneutic.

The five solas are not found as a package in Scripture. They are a 16th century theological framework, developed by councils, confessions, and reformers, then imposed onto Scripture as the interpretive grid. Heidelberg Catechism, Westminster Confession, Augsburg Confession, these are magisterial documents functioning as the norming framework for how Protestants read their Bibles. That IS a magisterium.

It's a myth for any Protestant to think its is them and their Bible. You're absolutely bending the knee to a pre packaged theological doctrine.

LOL

I notice you only read my post far enough to attack it. You seem to have missed where I wrote that one verse can help others come into focus.

And the presumption that unless I have a priest tell me what Scripture means, I am somehow worshipping an idol, is a detestable lie, sir.

Take it back.

Doc Holliday said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc Holliday said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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Meanwhile Orthodoxy continues to be have massive wins:

---

I'm glad that you see it as a "massive win" to finally align with what Protestants have always believed.

---

Lol don't kid yourself. "Protestants have always believed"…which Protestants exactly? The ELCA holding hands with imams at interfaith services? The Episcopal Church hosting Muslim prayers in their cathedrals? The United Methodist Church's formal WCC ecumenical commitments?
Protestants have no magisterium to define what "Protestants have always believed" about anything.

Orthodoxy has been consistently and explicitly anti-ecumenist since the beginning. 1800+ years before your niche extreme version of Calvinism came about.

---

Oh, I don't doubt Orthodoxy's committment to anti-ecumenism. You've even kept separate from true Christianity!

The good thing about Protestantism, is precisely that there's no "magisterium" of fallible men dictating the tenets of the faith for all their followers. When a Protestant denomination goes corrupt, believers are free to follow their conscience and leave without jeopardizing their eternal fate; or they can fight to reform their church using Scripture as the standard of measure. On the other hand, when a "magisterium" goes corrupt, there is no fix, as they claim themselves to be the standard, therefore all their followers must bind their conscience to their decisions, no matter how apostate. And if you leave, you're condemned to Hell.

An undeniable constant of humanity is the fallibility of all men, and that power corrupts. God's word, however, is perfect and infallible. Protestantism understands this. Both RC and Orthodoxy deny it, and are under the terribly mistaken notion that a special, selected group of men are promised to be completely immune from error. A promise NEVER given by God, and a common characteristic of cults all over the world.

The immensely sad result of such ecclesial corruption is that you have millions, perhaps billions of people all over the world who simply can't grasp what ANY true Christian with the Holy Spirit can grasp -- that if you're bowing and praying to idols, crediting Mary for your salvation, and believing in a gospel of faith AND works..... it's quite apparent that somehow, some way, somewhere along the line, you've been bamboozled.

---

Which true Christianity? Yours? Congratulations, you've appointed yourself the magisterium you claim to reject.

You say no fallible men should define the faith...then you proceeded to define the faith. You determined what's apostasy, what's idolatry, what's a corrupt church and who's been bamboozled. You didn't eliminate the magisterium...you are the magisterium.

Christ promised "The gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church", and your position forces you to deny that or the Church collapsed and wasn't recovered until Luther and then really not until the 1900s where you get most of your theology from.

---

I'm correctable by Scripture. A "magisterium" is not. I don't dictate the interpretation for all of Christianity. A magisterium does.

If I start to say, for example, that homosexuality is not a sin, then any other believer could easily derive from Scripture that I'm obviously wrong. However, if a "magisterium" declares the same, then no matter how easily derivable from Scripture that it's wrong, it doesn't matter. You are bound to it, or you can't be in the church.

How is this difficult to understand?

And if your view is that Scripture isn't clear and perspicuous enough to know that bowing and praying to anyone other than God and crediting a human person for our salvation are obviously false and even heretical and idolatrous, thus requiring a "magisterium" to tell you that, then what's happening is that you're checking your brain at the door and blindly following the discernment of your fellow fallible man..... when you're supposed to use your God-given brain to discern for yourself, while letting Jesus' Holy Spirit guide you.

"And why do you not judge for yourselves what is right?" - Jesus, in Luke 12:57

"Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and they examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true." - Acts 17:11

When Jesus promised that the "gates of hell will not prevail", it did not mean that the church would never be in error. The true people of God will listen to his correction, and not follow the error. As long as a true remnant remains, then Jesus' church is never gone or defeated. Protestantism is once such correction, where the people listened to God over the traditions of man.

---

You say you don't "dictate" for all of Christianity, but by calling the historical Church's beliefs on the saints or salvation "idolatrous" and "obviously false," you are drawing a line and saying: "My interpretation is the definition of True Christianity." By default, you are excommunicating everyone from the first 1,500 years of the faith who didn't read the Bible the way you do. It's the ultimate act of dictating who is and isn't a Christian based on your private discernment.

You say you're "correctable by Scripture," but by whose interpretation?
If another believer tells you you're wrong, and you disagree, who is the tie-breaker?

The Bereans weren't sitting alone with a Bible trying to "figure out" Christianity. They were listening to an Apostle (a member of the Magisterium) and checking if his message aligned with the prophecies of the Old Testament. They were using the Magisterium to understand the Word. If you are truly like the Bereans, will you submit your 'God-given brain' to the Apostolic Tradition Paul mentions in 2 Thessalonians 2:15, or will you continue to use your brain to judge the very Apostles who gave you the Bible?

---

The only way to submit to the Apostolic tradition, such as that which came from Paul, is to submit ONLY to Scripture, because the only thing we know that came from the apostles like Paul is in Scripture, and no where else. You are literally making the whole case for sola scriptura.

Here's what you're saying, and it's quite remarkable: if a person were to believe that Jesus blessed gay marriage and made raping and murdering okay - you can't know that what he's saying is wrong, until a magisterium tells you. Because if you do know, then you're acting as a "magisterium" who's "excommunicating anyone who doesn't read the Bible the way that you do".

The true people of God know that bowing and praying to images and crediting Mary for their salvation is rank heresy and sheer idolatry, without a "magisterium" of men claiming to be infallible to tell them. The Holy Spirit is their "magisterium", and it leads all true believers to the same truth. And in the first 1,500 years of Christianity, it's certain that the true church of Jesus, his true body of believers, all who were led by the same Holy Spirit which leads all true Christians today, did not hold to that apostasy then just as they do not hold to it today.

---

It is historically impossible to claim that the written word is the only thing that came from the Apostles. You need to look at Second Temple Judaism and the book of Acts; the faith was passed on through the living voice. 2 Thessalonians 2:15 explicitly commands us to hold to traditions taught by 'spoken word'...that is by definition NOT written down.

---

It's not a "historical" claim. It's a present day claim. The only thing we have that we know came from the apostles is in Scripture and nowhere else. The proof is that if I ask you to produce ANY OTHER words, written or verbal, that we KNOW came from the apostles but is NOT in Scripture, you can't do it. No one can.

The faith was passed through the "living voice" of the apostles while they were alive to speak it. They obviously aren't here anymore. Everything we know today that they taught, is in written form, i.e. Scripture. Hence, sola scriptura. 2 Thessalonians is NOT saying that we are to listen to ANY verbal tradition that is merely claimed to be from them. This is what cults do. And like cults, the Roman Catholic Church and Orthodoxy can't prove it came from the original apostles themselves.

Doc Holliday said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc Holliday said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

Meanwhile Orthodoxy continues to be have massive wins:

---

I'm glad that you see it as a "massive win" to finally align with what Protestants have always believed.

---

Lol don't kid yourself. "Protestants have always believed"…which Protestants exactly? The ELCA holding hands with imams at interfaith services? The Episcopal Church hosting Muslim prayers in their cathedrals? The United Methodist Church's formal WCC ecumenical commitments?
Protestants have no magisterium to define what "Protestants have always believed" about anything.

Orthodoxy has been consistently and explicitly anti-ecumenist since the beginning. 1800+ years before your niche extreme version of Calvinism came about.

---

Oh, I don't doubt Orthodoxy's committment to anti-ecumenism. You've even kept separate from true Christianity!

The good thing about Protestantism, is precisely that there's no "magisterium" of fallible men dictating the tenets of the faith for all their followers. When a Protestant denomination goes corrupt, believers are free to follow their conscience and leave without jeopardizing their eternal fate; or they can fight to reform their church using Scripture as the standard of measure. On the other hand, when a "magisterium" goes corrupt, there is no fix, as they claim themselves to be the standard, therefore all their followers must bind their conscience to their decisions, no matter how apostate. And if you leave, you're condemned to Hell.

An undeniable constant of humanity is the fallibility of all men, and that power corrupts. God's word, however, is perfect and infallible. Protestantism understands this. Both RC and Orthodoxy deny it, and are under the terribly mistaken notion that a special, selected group of men are promised to be completely immune from error. A promise NEVER given by God, and a common characteristic of cults all over the world.

The immensely sad result of such ecclesial corruption is that you have millions, perhaps billions of people all over the world who simply can't grasp what ANY true Christian with the Holy Spirit can grasp -- that if you're bowing and praying to idols, crediting Mary for your salvation, and believing in a gospel of faith AND works..... it's quite apparent that somehow, some way, somewhere along the line, you've been bamboozled.

---

Which true Christianity? Yours? Congratulations, you've appointed yourself the magisterium you claim to reject.

You say no fallible men should define the faith...then you proceeded to define the faith. You determined what's apostasy, what's idolatry, what's a corrupt church and who's been bamboozled. You didn't eliminate the magisterium...you are the magisterium.

Christ promised "The gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church", and your position forces you to deny that or the Church collapsed and wasn't recovered until Luther and then really not until the 1900s where you get most of your theology from.

---

I'm correctable by Scripture. A "magisterium" is not. I don't dictate the interpretation for all of Christianity. A magisterium does.

If I start to say, for example, that homosexuality is not a sin, then any other believer could easily derive from Scripture that I'm obviously wrong. However, if a "magisterium" declares the same, then no matter how easily derivable from Scripture that it's wrong, it doesn't matter. You are bound to it, or you can't be in the church.

How is this difficult to understand?

And if your view is that Scripture isn't clear and perspicuous enough to know that bowing and praying to anyone other than God and crediting a human person for our salvation are obviously false and even heretical and idolatrous, thus requiring a "magisterium" to tell you that, then what's happening is that you're checking your brain at the door and blindly following the discernment of your fellow fallible man..... when you're supposed to use your God-given brain to discern for yourself, while letting Jesus' Holy Spirit guide you.

"And why do you not judge for yourselves what is right?" - Jesus, in Luke 12:57

"Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and they examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true." - Acts 17:11

When Jesus promised that the "gates of hell will not prevail", it did not mean that the church would never be in error. The true people of God will listen to his correction, and not follow the error. As long as a true remnant remains, then Jesus' church is never gone or defeated. Protestantism is once such correction, where the people listened to God over the traditions of man.

---

You say you don't "dictate" for all of Christianity, but by calling the historical Church's beliefs on the saints or salvation "idolatrous" and "obviously false," you are drawing a line and saying: "My interpretation is the definition of True Christianity." By default, you are excommunicating everyone from the first 1,500 years of the faith who didn't read the Bible the way you do. It's the ultimate act of dictating who is and isn't a Christian based on your private discernment.

You say you're "correctable by Scripture," but by whose interpretation?
If another believer tells you you're wrong, and you disagree, who is the tie-breaker?

The Bereans weren't sitting alone with a Bible trying to "figure out" Christianity. They were listening to an Apostle (a member of the Magisterium) and checking if his message aligned with the prophecies of the Old Testament. They were using the Magisterium to understand the Word. If you are truly like the Bereans, will you submit your 'God-given brain' to the Apostolic Tradition Paul mentions in 2 Thessalonians 2:15, or will you continue to use your brain to judge the very Apostles who gave you the Bible?

---

The only way to submit to the Apostolic tradition, such as that which came from Paul, is to submit ONLY to Scripture, because the only thing we know that came from the apostles like Paul is in Scripture, and no where else. You are literally making the whole case for sola scriptura.

Here's what you're saying, and it's quite remarkable: if a person were to believe that Jesus blessed gay marriage and made raping and murdering okay - you can't know that what he's saying is wrong, until a magisterium tells you. Because if you do know, then you're acting as a "magisterium" who's "excommunicating anyone who doesn't read the Bible the way that you do".

The true people of God know that bowing and praying to images and crediting Mary for their salvation is rank heresy and sheer idolatry, without a "magisterium" of men claiming to be infallible to tell them. The Holy Spirit is their "magisterium", and it leads all true believers to the same truth. And in the first 1,500 years of Christianity, it's certain that the true church of Jesus, his true body of believers, all who were led by the same Holy Spirit which leads all true Christians today, did not hold to that apostasy then just as they do not hold to it today.

---

If salvation depended on reading a text, Christ would have failed the poor and the illiterate for 1,500 years and then pretty much 90%+ of all of humanity that really couldn't read or acquire a bible until the 1900s.. Over 90% of people throughout history couldn't read and didn't have access to a personal Bible. I refuse to believe Christ left His people in the dark under 'apostasy' until the printing press was invented

He left a visible community with a living voice (the Magisterium) to be the 'pillar and foundation of truth' (1 Tim 3:15). You seem unable to fathom that Christ could trust men to be caretakers of His Church, yet you trust those same men to have correctly identified which books belong in your Bible. The New Testament canon was derived from the Liturgy, which was established by Apostolic authority.

Also, let's look at the fruits of the alternative: the 'spirit-led' megachurch model? Most American Christians attend a megachurch FYI. Your Calvinists who beat their chest's that they're better because they're the elect and think God preordained rape of children and that they deserve it. You like those guys? Or how about once saved always saved easy believism that produces WEAK MEN who refuse to clean up their lives because they have assurance of salvation and their sin is irrelevant.

---

The apostasy didn't happen for 1500 years. It was a process that happened slowly via accretion. The "unchanging church" would be astonished at how the church in one time period would not even recognize what was being taught by the same church 1000 years later. In fact, they would likely see it as a heresy directly from Satan himself!

During the "illiterate" years, the gospel was preached, mixed with errors here and there. The true people of God who heard the clear, basic gospel and believed, they were given the Holy Spirit to see and reject the error. Many of them might have been punished or even killed for it.... by the so called leaders of the church. You see, Jesus didn't just leave a "visible community" - he left an invisible, infallible, powerful Spirit.

You: "yet you trust those same men to have correctly identified which books belong in your Bible." - I don't know why you guys keep claiming this. We obviously DON'T trust your church to have correctly identified the canon, because we don't hold to the same Bible as you.

Doc Holliday said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc Holliday said:

---

If Baptist Pastor A says the Bible supports gay marriage, and Baptist Pastor B says it doesn't, and both claim they are 'correctable by Scripture' and led by the Spirit, who has the authority to settle the dispute?

---

Baptists can have their own authority structure they submit to, to which such appeals can be made. But even this authority structure is understood to always be itself correctable by Scripture.

The counter-question for you is this: If an Orthodox/RC magisterium tells you that gay marriage is okay with God, then can you say they are wrong? By what authority?

Division in truth is better than unity in error.

---

Person A says the Church is wrong because of Scripture.
Person B says Person A is wrong because of their interpretation of Scripture.

The Result: There is no "Scripture" to appeal to that isn't already being filtered through someone's private mind. Without a final, living authority, the Bible becomes a "Paper Pope" that can be made to say whatever the person holding it wants it to say. How do you not understand that interpretation is inescapable?

In Acts 15 (the Council of Jerusalem), there was a massive dispute about circumcision. Did the early Christians just go home and read their Old Testaments to decide for themselves? No. They gathered as a Council. They issued a decree that began: "It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us..." (Acts 15:28).

They claimed to speak for the Holy Spirit.
They didn't say "this is our best guess based on the Bible."
They spoke with binding authority.

If a Baptist "submits" to an authority that is "correctable" by the individual's own reading of the Bible, then that individual hasn't actually submitted to anything but their own opinion.

---

Doc-

If an Orthodox/RC magisterium tells you that gay marriage is okay with God, are you personally able to believe and say they are wrong? Based on what, and by what authority?

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

Meanwhile Orthodoxy continues to be have massive wins:

---

I'm glad that you see it as a "massive win" to finally align with what Protestants have always believed.

---

Lol don't kid yourself. "Protestants have always believed"…which Protestants exactly? The ELCA holding hands with imams at interfaith services? The Episcopal Church hosting Muslim prayers in their cathedrals? The United Methodist Church's formal WCC ecumenical commitments?
Protestants have no magisterium to define what "Protestants have always believed" about anything.

Orthodoxy has been consistently and explicitly anti-ecumenist since the beginning. 1800+ years before your niche extreme version of Calvinism came about.

---

Oh, I don't doubt Orthodoxy's committment to anti-ecumenism. You've even kept separate from true Christianity!

The good thing about Protestantism, is precisely that there's no "magisterium" of fallible men dictating the tenets of the faith for all their followers. When a Protestant denomination goes corrupt, believers are free to follow their conscience and leave without jeopardizing their eternal fate; or they can fight to reform their church using Scripture as the standard of measure. On the other hand, when a "magisterium" goes corrupt, there is no fix, as they claim themselves to be the standard, therefore all their followers must bind their conscience to their decisions, no matter how apostate. And if you leave, you're condemned to Hell.

An undeniable constant of humanity is the fallibility of all men, and that power corrupts. God's word, however, is perfect and infallible. Protestantism understands this. Both RC and Orthodoxy deny it, and are under the terribly mistaken notion that a special, selected group of men are promised to be completely immune from error. A promise NEVER given by God, and a common characteristic of cults all over the world.

The immensely sad result of such ecclesial corruption is that you have millions, perhaps billions of people all over the world who simply can't grasp what ANY true Christian with the Holy Spirit can grasp -- that if you're bowing and praying to idols, crediting Mary for your salvation, and believing in a gospel of faith AND works..... it's quite apparent that somehow, some way, somewhere along the line, you've been bamboozled.

---

Which true Christianity? Yours? Congratulations, you've appointed yourself the magisterium you claim to reject.

You say no fallible men should define the faith...then you proceeded to define the faith. You determined what's apostasy, what's idolatry, what's a corrupt church and who's been bamboozled. You didn't eliminate the magisterium...you are the magisterium.

Christ promised "The gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church", and your position forces you to deny that or the Church collapsed and wasn't recovered until Luther and then really not until the 1900s where you get most of your theology from.

---

I'm correctable by Scripture. A "magisterium" is not. I don't dictate the interpretation for all of Christianity. A magisterium does.

If I start to say, for example, that homosexuality is not a sin, then any other believer could easily derive from Scripture that I'm obviously wrong. However, if a "magisterium" declares the same, then no matter how easily derivable from Scripture that it's wrong, it doesn't matter. You are bound to it, or you can't be in the church.

How is this difficult to understand?

And if your view is that Scripture isn't clear and perspicuous enough to know that bowing and praying to anyone other than God and crediting a human person for our salvation are obviously false and even heretical and idolatrous, thus requiring a "magisterium" to tell you that, then what's happening is that you're checking your brain at the door and blindly following the discernment of your fellow fallible man..... when you're supposed to use your God-given brain to discern for yourself, while letting Jesus' Holy Spirit guide you.

"And why do you not judge for yourselves what is right?" - Jesus, in Luke 12:57

"Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and they examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true." - Acts 17:11

When Jesus promised that the "gates of hell will not prevail", it did not mean that the church would never be in error. The true people of God will listen to his correction, and not follow the error. As long as a true remnant remains, then Jesus' church is never gone or defeated. Protestantism is once such correction, where the people listened to God over the traditions of man.

---

You say you don't "dictate" for all of Christianity, but by calling the historical Church's beliefs on the saints or salvation "idolatrous" and "obviously false," you are drawing a line and saying: "My interpretation is the definition of True Christianity." By default, you are excommunicating everyone from the first 1,500 years of the faith who didn't read the Bible the way you do. It's the ultimate act of dictating who is and isn't a Christian based on your private discernment.

You say you're "correctable by Scripture," but by whose interpretation?
If another believer tells you you're wrong, and you disagree, who is the tie-breaker?

The Bereans weren't sitting alone with a Bible trying to "figure out" Christianity. They were listening to an Apostle (a member of the Magisterium) and checking if his message aligned with the prophecies of the Old Testament. They were using the Magisterium to understand the Word. If you are truly like the Bereans, will you submit your 'God-given brain' to the Apostolic Tradition Paul mentions in 2 Thessalonians 2:15, or will you continue to use your brain to judge the very Apostles who gave you the Bible?

---

The only way to submit to the Apostolic tradition, such as that which came from Paul, is to submit ONLY to Scripture, because the only thing we know that came from the apostles like Paul is in Scripture, and no where else. You are literally making the whole case for sola scriptura.

Here's what you're saying, and it's quite remarkable: if a person were to believe that Jesus blessed gay marriage and made raping and murdering okay - you can't know that what he's saying is wrong, until a magisterium tells you. Because if you do know, then you're acting as a "magisterium" who's "excommunicating anyone who doesn't read the Bible the way that you do".

The true people of God know that bowing and praying to images and crediting Mary for their salvation is rank heresy and sheer idolatry, without a "magisterium" of men claiming to be infallible to tell them. The Holy Spirit is their "magisterium", and it leads all true believers to the same truth. And in the first 1,500 years of Christianity, it's certain that the true church of Jesus, his true body of believers, all who were led by the same Holy Spirit which leads all true Christians today, did not hold to that apostasy then just as they do not hold to it today.

---

It is historically impossible to claim that the written word is the only thing that came from the Apostles. You need to look at Second Temple Judaism and the book of Acts; the faith was passed on through the living voice. 2 Thessalonians 2:15 explicitly commands us to hold to traditions taught by 'spoken word'...that is by definition NOT written down.

---

It's not a "historical" claim. It's a present day claim. The only thing we have that we know came from the apostles is in Scripture and nowhere else. The proof is that if I ask you to produce ANY OTHER words, written or verbal, that we KNOW came from the apostles but is NOT in Scripture, you can't do it. No one can.

The faith was passed through the "living voice" of the apostles while they were alive to speak it. They obviously aren't here anymore. Everything we know today that they taught, is in written form, i.e. Scripture. Hence, sola scriptura. 2 Thessalonians is NOT saying that we are to listen to ANY verbal tradition that is merely claimed to be from them. This is what cults do. And like cults, the Roman Catholic Church and Orthodoxy can't prove it came from the original apostles themselves.

---

Neither can you prove that the extant writings of the Apostles came from the Apostles themselves. You're relying on the Church's judgment, just like everyone else.

Sam Lowry said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

Meanwhile Orthodoxy continues to be have massive wins:

---

I'm glad that you see it as a "massive win" to finally align with what Protestants have always believed.

---

Lol don't kid yourself. "Protestants have always believed"…which Protestants exactly? The ELCA holding hands with imams at interfaith services? The Episcopal Church hosting Muslim prayers in their cathedrals? The United Methodist Church's formal WCC ecumenical commitments?
Protestants have no magisterium to define what "Protestants have always believed" about anything.

Orthodoxy has been consistently and explicitly anti-ecumenist since the beginning. 1800+ years before your niche extreme version of Calvinism came about.

---

Oh, I don't doubt Orthodoxy's committment to anti-ecumenism. You've even kept separate from true Christianity!

The good thing about Protestantism, is precisely that there's no "magisterium" of fallible men dictating the tenets of the faith for all their followers. When a Protestant denomination goes corrupt, believers are free to follow their conscience and leave without jeopardizing their eternal fate; or they can fight to reform their church using Scripture as the standard of measure. On the other hand, when a "magisterium" goes corrupt, there is no fix, as they claim themselves to be the standard, therefore all their followers must bind their conscience to their decisions, no matter how apostate. And if you leave, you're condemned to Hell.

An undeniable constant of humanity is the fallibility of all men, and that power corrupts. God's word, however, is perfect and infallible. Protestantism understands this. Both RC and Orthodoxy deny it, and are under the terribly mistaken notion that a special, selected group of men are promised to be completely immune from error. A promise NEVER given by God, and a common characteristic of cults all over the world.

The immensely sad result of such ecclesial corruption is that you have millions, perhaps billions of people all over the world who simply can't grasp what ANY true Christian with the Holy Spirit can grasp -- that if you're bowing and praying to idols, crediting Mary for your salvation, and believing in a gospel of faith AND works..... it's quite apparent that somehow, some way, somewhere along the line, you've been bamboozled.

---

Which true Christianity? Yours? Congratulations, you've appointed yourself the magisterium you claim to reject.

You say no fallible men should define the faith...then you proceeded to define the faith. You determined what's apostasy, what's idolatry, what's a corrupt church and who's been bamboozled. You didn't eliminate the magisterium...you are the magisterium.

Christ promised "The gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church", and your position forces you to deny that or the Church collapsed and wasn't recovered until Luther and then really not until the 1900s where you get most of your theology from.

---

I'm correctable by Scripture. A "magisterium" is not. I don't dictate the interpretation for all of Christianity. A magisterium does.

If I start to say, for example, that homosexuality is not a sin, then any other believer could easily derive from Scripture that I'm obviously wrong. However, if a "magisterium" declares the same, then no matter how easily derivable from Scripture that it's wrong, it doesn't matter. You are bound to it, or you can't be in the church.

How is this difficult to understand?

And if your view is that Scripture isn't clear and perspicuous enough to know that bowing and praying to anyone other than God and crediting a human person for our salvation are obviously false and even heretical and idolatrous, thus requiring a "magisterium" to tell you that, then what's happening is that you're checking your brain at the door and blindly following the discernment of your fellow fallible man..... when you're supposed to use your God-given brain to discern for yourself, while letting Jesus' Holy Spirit guide you.

"And why do you not judge for yourselves what is right?" - Jesus, in Luke 12:57

"Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and they examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true." - Acts 17:11

When Jesus promised that the "gates of hell will not prevail", it did not mean that the church would never be in error. The true people of God will listen to his correction, and not follow the error. As long as a true remnant remains, then Jesus' church is never gone or defeated. Protestantism is once such correction, where the people listened to God over the traditions of man.

---

You say you don't "dictate" for all of Christianity, but by calling the historical Church's beliefs on the saints or salvation "idolatrous" and "obviously false," you are drawing a line and saying: "My interpretation is the definition of True Christianity." By default, you are excommunicating everyone from the first 1,500 years of the faith who didn't read the Bible the way you do. It's the ultimate act of dictating who is and isn't a Christian based on your private discernment.

You say you're "correctable by Scripture," but by whose interpretation?
If another believer tells you you're wrong, and you disagree, who is the tie-breaker?

The Bereans weren't sitting alone with a Bible trying to "figure out" Christianity. They were listening to an Apostle (a member of the Magisterium) and checking if his message aligned with the prophecies of the Old Testament. They were using the Magisterium to understand the Word. If you are truly like the Bereans, will you submit your 'God-given brain' to the Apostolic Tradition Paul mentions in 2 Thessalonians 2:15, or will you continue to use your brain to judge the very Apostles who gave you the Bible?

---

The only way to submit to the Apostolic tradition, such as that which came from Paul, is to submit ONLY to Scripture, because the only thing we know that came from the apostles like Paul is in Scripture, and no where else. You are literally making the whole case for sola scriptura.

Here's what you're saying, and it's quite remarkable: if a person were to believe that Jesus blessed gay marriage and made raping and murdering okay - you can't know that what he's saying is wrong, until a magisterium tells you. Because if you do know, then you're acting as a "magisterium" who's "excommunicating anyone who doesn't read the Bible the way that you do".

The true people of God know that bowing and praying to images and crediting Mary for their salvation is rank heresy and sheer idolatry, without a "magisterium" of men claiming to be infallible to tell them. The Holy Spirit is their "magisterium", and it leads all true believers to the same truth. And in the first 1,500 years of Christianity, it's certain that the true church of Jesus, his true body of believers, all who were led by the same Holy Spirit which leads all true Christians today, did not hold to that apostasy then just as they do not hold to it today.

---

It is historically impossible to claim that the written word is the only thing that came from the Apostles. You need to look at Second Temple Judaism and the book of Acts; the faith was passed on through the living voice. 2 Thessalonians 2:15 explicitly commands us to hold to traditions taught by 'spoken word'...that is by definition NOT written down.

---

It's not a "historical" claim. It's a present day claim. The only thing we have that we know came from the apostles is in Scripture and nowhere else. The proof is that if I ask you to produce ANY OTHER words, written or verbal, that we KNOW came from the apostles but is NOT in Scripture, you can't do it. No one can.

The faith was passed through the "living voice" of the apostles while they were alive to speak it. They obviously aren't here anymore. Everything we know today that they taught, is in written form, i.e. Scripture. Hence, sola scriptura. 2 Thessalonians is NOT saying that we are to listen to ANY verbal tradition that is merely claimed to be from them. This is what cults do. And like cults, the Roman Catholic Church and Orthodoxy can't prove it came from the original apostles themselves.

---

Neither can you prove that the extant writings of the Apostles came from the Apostles themselves. You're relying on the Church's judgment, just like everyone else.

---

Not on the Church's (big C) "judgement", but rather on the church's (little c) continuous, unbroken chain of testimony, which started with the very first Christians who heard from the apostles themselves. I believe they are the apostle's writings because the church (body of Christ) has always said they were. Not because a magisterial group of men said so.

You keep making this flawed argument, because you just can't/won't grasp this.

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

Meanwhile Orthodoxy continues to be have massive wins:

---

I'm glad that you see it as a "massive win" to finally align with what Protestants have always believed.

---

Lol don't kid yourself. "Protestants have always believed"…which Protestants exactly? The ELCA holding hands with imams at interfaith services? The Episcopal Church hosting Muslim prayers in their cathedrals? The United Methodist Church's formal WCC ecumenical commitments?
Protestants have no magisterium to define what "Protestants have always believed" about anything.

Orthodoxy has been consistently and explicitly anti-ecumenist since the beginning. 1800+ years before your niche extreme version of Calvinism came about.

---

Oh, I don't doubt Orthodoxy's committment to anti-ecumenism. You've even kept separate from true Christianity!

The good thing about Protestantism, is precisely that there's no "magisterium" of fallible men dictating the tenets of the faith for all their followers. When a Protestant denomination goes corrupt, believers are free to follow their conscience and leave without jeopardizing their eternal fate; or they can fight to reform their church using Scripture as the standard of measure. On the other hand, when a "magisterium" goes corrupt, there is no fix, as they claim themselves to be the standard, therefore all their followers must bind their conscience to their decisions, no matter how apostate. And if you leave, you're condemned to Hell.

An undeniable constant of humanity is the fallibility of all men, and that power corrupts. God's word, however, is perfect and infallible. Protestantism understands this. Both RC and Orthodoxy deny it, and are under the terribly mistaken notion that a special, selected group of men are promised to be completely immune from error. A promise NEVER given by God, and a common characteristic of cults all over the world.

The immensely sad result of such ecclesial corruption is that you have millions, perhaps billions of people all over the world who simply can't grasp what ANY true Christian with the Holy Spirit can grasp -- that if you're bowing and praying to idols, crediting Mary for your salvation, and believing in a gospel of faith AND works..... it's quite apparent that somehow, some way, somewhere along the line, you've been bamboozled.

---

Which true Christianity? Yours? Congratulations, you've appointed yourself the magisterium you claim to reject.

You say no fallible men should define the faith...then you proceeded to define the faith. You determined what's apostasy, what's idolatry, what's a corrupt church and who's been bamboozled. You didn't eliminate the magisterium...you are the magisterium.

Christ promised "The gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church", and your position forces you to deny that or the Church collapsed and wasn't recovered until Luther and then really not until the 1900s where you get most of your theology from.

---

I'm correctable by Scripture. A "magisterium" is not. I don't dictate the interpretation for all of Christianity. A magisterium does.

If I start to say, for example, that homosexuality is not a sin, then any other believer could easily derive from Scripture that I'm obviously wrong. However, if a "magisterium" declares the same, then no matter how easily derivable from Scripture that it's wrong, it doesn't matter. You are bound to it, or you can't be in the church.

How is this difficult to understand?

And if your view is that Scripture isn't clear and perspicuous enough to know that bowing and praying to anyone other than God and crediting a human person for our salvation are obviously false and even heretical and idolatrous, thus requiring a "magisterium" to tell you that, then what's happening is that you're checking your brain at the door and blindly following the discernment of your fellow fallible man..... when you're supposed to use your God-given brain to discern for yourself, while letting Jesus' Holy Spirit guide you.

"And why do you not judge for yourselves what is right?" - Jesus, in Luke 12:57

"Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and they examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true." - Acts 17:11

When Jesus promised that the "gates of hell will not prevail", it did not mean that the church would never be in error. The true people of God will listen to his correction, and not follow the error. As long as a true remnant remains, then Jesus' church is never gone or defeated. Protestantism is once such correction, where the people listened to God over the traditions of man.

---

You say you don't "dictate" for all of Christianity, but by calling the historical Church's beliefs on the saints or salvation "idolatrous" and "obviously false," you are drawing a line and saying: "My interpretation is the definition of True Christianity." By default, you are excommunicating everyone from the first 1,500 years of the faith who didn't read the Bible the way you do. It's the ultimate act of dictating who is and isn't a Christian based on your private discernment.

You say you're "correctable by Scripture," but by whose interpretation?
If another believer tells you you're wrong, and you disagree, who is the tie-breaker?

The Bereans weren't sitting alone with a Bible trying to "figure out" Christianity. They were listening to an Apostle (a member of the Magisterium) and checking if his message aligned with the prophecies of the Old Testament. They were using the Magisterium to understand the Word. If you are truly like the Bereans, will you submit your 'God-given brain' to the Apostolic Tradition Paul mentions in 2 Thessalonians 2:15, or will you continue to use your brain to judge the very Apostles who gave you the Bible?

---

The only way to submit to the Apostolic tradition, such as that which came from Paul, is to submit ONLY to Scripture, because the only thing we know that came from the apostles like Paul is in Scripture, and no where else. You are literally making the whole case for sola scriptura.

Here's what you're saying, and it's quite remarkable: if a person were to believe that Jesus blessed gay marriage and made raping and murdering okay - you can't know that what he's saying is wrong, until a magisterium tells you. Because if you do know, then you're acting as a "magisterium" who's "excommunicating anyone who doesn't read the Bible the way that you do".

The true people of God know that bowing and praying to images and crediting Mary for their salvation is rank heresy and sheer idolatry, without a "magisterium" of men claiming to be infallible to tell them. The Holy Spirit is their "magisterium", and it leads all true believers to the same truth. And in the first 1,500 years of Christianity, it's certain that the true church of Jesus, his true body of believers, all who were led by the same Holy Spirit which leads all true Christians today, did not hold to that apostasy then just as they do not hold to it today.

---

It is historically impossible to claim that the written word is the only thing that came from the Apostles. You need to look at Second Temple Judaism and the book of Acts; the faith was passed on through the living voice. 2 Thessalonians 2:15 explicitly commands us to hold to traditions taught by 'spoken word'...that is by definition NOT written down.

---

It's not a "historical" claim. It's a present day claim. The only thing we have that we know came from the apostles is in Scripture and nowhere else. The proof is that if I ask you to produce ANY OTHER words, written or verbal, that we KNOW came from the apostles but is NOT in Scripture, you can't do it. No one can.

The faith was passed through the "living voice" of the apostles while they were alive to speak it. They obviously aren't here anymore. Everything we know today that they taught, is in written form, i.e. Scripture. Hence, sola scriptura. 2 Thessalonians is NOT saying that we are to listen to ANY verbal tradition that is merely claimed to be from them. This is what cults do. And like cults, the Roman Catholic Church and Orthodoxy can't prove it came from the original apostles themselves.

---

Neither can you prove that the extant writings of the Apostles came from the Apostles themselves. You're relying on the Church's judgment, just like everyone else.

---

they are the apostle's writings because the church (body of Christ) has always said they were.

---

True enough...but you can't prove it. Plenty of modern scholars would disagree with you.

Sam Lowry said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

Meanwhile Orthodoxy continues to be have massive wins:

---

I'm glad that you see it as a "massive win" to finally align with what Protestants have always believed.

---

Lol don't kid yourself. "Protestants have always believed"…which Protestants exactly? The ELCA holding hands with imams at interfaith services? The Episcopal Church hosting Muslim prayers in their cathedrals? The United Methodist Church's formal WCC ecumenical commitments?
Protestants have no magisterium to define what "Protestants have always believed" about anything.

Orthodoxy has been consistently and explicitly anti-ecumenist since the beginning. 1800+ years before your niche extreme version of Calvinism came about.

---

Oh, I don't doubt Orthodoxy's committment to anti-ecumenism. You've even kept separate from true Christianity!

The good thing about Protestantism, is precisely that there's no "magisterium" of fallible men dictating the tenets of the faith for all their followers. When a Protestant denomination goes corrupt, believers are free to follow their conscience and leave without jeopardizing their eternal fate; or they can fight to reform their church using Scripture as the standard of measure. On the other hand, when a "magisterium" goes corrupt, there is no fix, as they claim themselves to be the standard, therefore all their followers must bind their conscience to their decisions, no matter how apostate. And if you leave, you're condemned to Hell.

An undeniable constant of humanity is the fallibility of all men, and that power corrupts. God's word, however, is perfect and infallible. Protestantism understands this. Both RC and Orthodoxy deny it, and are under the terribly mistaken notion that a special, selected group of men are promised to be completely immune from error. A promise NEVER given by God, and a common characteristic of cults all over the world.

The immensely sad result of such ecclesial corruption is that you have millions, perhaps billions of people all over the world who simply can't grasp what ANY true Christian with the Holy Spirit can grasp -- that if you're bowing and praying to idols, crediting Mary for your salvation, and believing in a gospel of faith AND works..... it's quite apparent that somehow, some way, somewhere along the line, you've been bamboozled.

---

Which true Christianity? Yours? Congratulations, you've appointed yourself the magisterium you claim to reject.

You say no fallible men should define the faith...then you proceeded to define the faith. You determined what's apostasy, what's idolatry, what's a corrupt church and who's been bamboozled. You didn't eliminate the magisterium...you are the magisterium.

Christ promised "The gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church", and your position forces you to deny that or the Church collapsed and wasn't recovered until Luther and then really not until the 1900s where you get most of your theology from.

---

I'm correctable by Scripture. A "magisterium" is not. I don't dictate the interpretation for all of Christianity. A magisterium does.

If I start to say, for example, that homosexuality is not a sin, then any other believer could easily derive from Scripture that I'm obviously wrong. However, if a "magisterium" declares the same, then no matter how easily derivable from Scripture that it's wrong, it doesn't matter. You are bound to it, or you can't be in the church.

How is this difficult to understand?

And if your view is that Scripture isn't clear and perspicuous enough to know that bowing and praying to anyone other than God and crediting a human person for our salvation are obviously false and even heretical and idolatrous, thus requiring a "magisterium" to tell you that, then what's happening is that you're checking your brain at the door and blindly following the discernment of your fellow fallible man..... when you're supposed to use your God-given brain to discern for yourself, while letting Jesus' Holy Spirit guide you.

"And why do you not judge for yourselves what is right?" - Jesus, in Luke 12:57

"Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and they examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true." - Acts 17:11

When Jesus promised that the "gates of hell will not prevail", it did not mean that the church would never be in error. The true people of God will listen to his correction, and not follow the error. As long as a true remnant remains, then Jesus' church is never gone or defeated. Protestantism is once such correction, where the people listened to God over the traditions of man.

---

You say you don't "dictate" for all of Christianity, but by calling the historical Church's beliefs on the saints or salvation "idolatrous" and "obviously false," you are drawing a line and saying: "My interpretation is the definition of True Christianity." By default, you are excommunicating everyone from the first 1,500 years of the faith who didn't read the Bible the way you do. It's the ultimate act of dictating who is and isn't a Christian based on your private discernment.

You say you're "correctable by Scripture," but by whose interpretation?
If another believer tells you you're wrong, and you disagree, who is the tie-breaker?

The Bereans weren't sitting alone with a Bible trying to "figure out" Christianity. They were listening to an Apostle (a member of the Magisterium) and checking if his message aligned with the prophecies of the Old Testament. They were using the Magisterium to understand the Word. If you are truly like the Bereans, will you submit your 'God-given brain' to the Apostolic Tradition Paul mentions in 2 Thessalonians 2:15, or will you continue to use your brain to judge the very Apostles who gave you the Bible?

---

The only way to submit to the Apostolic tradition, such as that which came from Paul, is to submit ONLY to Scripture, because the only thing we know that came from the apostles like Paul is in Scripture, and no where else. You are literally making the whole case for sola scriptura.

Here's what you're saying, and it's quite remarkable: if a person were to believe that Jesus blessed gay marriage and made raping and murdering okay - you can't know that what he's saying is wrong, until a magisterium tells you. Because if you do know, then you're acting as a "magisterium" who's "excommunicating anyone who doesn't read the Bible the way that you do".

The true people of God know that bowing and praying to images and crediting Mary for their salvation is rank heresy and sheer idolatry, without a "magisterium" of men claiming to be infallible to tell them. The Holy Spirit is their "magisterium", and it leads all true believers to the same truth. And in the first 1,500 years of Christianity, it's certain that the true church of Jesus, his true body of believers, all who were led by the same Holy Spirit which leads all true Christians today, did not hold to that apostasy then just as they do not hold to it today.

---

It is historically impossible to claim that the written word is the only thing that came from the Apostles. You need to look at Second Temple Judaism and the book of Acts; the faith was passed on through the living voice. 2 Thessalonians 2:15 explicitly commands us to hold to traditions taught by 'spoken word'...that is by definition NOT written down.

---

It's not a "historical" claim. It's a present day claim. The only thing we have that we know came from the apostles is in Scripture and nowhere else. The proof is that if I ask you to produce ANY OTHER words, written or verbal, that we KNOW came from the apostles but is NOT in Scripture, you can't do it. No one can.

The faith was passed through the "living voice" of the apostles while they were alive to speak it. They obviously aren't here anymore. Everything we know today that they taught, is in written form, i.e. Scripture. Hence, sola scriptura. 2 Thessalonians is NOT saying that we are to listen to ANY verbal tradition that is merely claimed to be from them. This is what cults do. And like cults, the Roman Catholic Church and Orthodoxy can't prove it came from the original apostles themselves.

---

Neither can you prove that the extant writings of the Apostles came from the Apostles themselves. You're relying on the Church's judgment, just like everyone else.

---

they are the apostle's writings because the church (body of Christ) has always said they were.

---

True enough...but you can't prove it. Plenty of modern scholars would disagree with you.

---

Similar to res ipsa loquitur - the existence of a continuous, unbroken chain of testimony is proof in of itself.

"Modern" scholar - LOL. What happened to the Roman Catholic sentiment against "modern" realizations usurping the old and established? Just goes to show that there is never any consistency in the defense of RC/Orthodoxy.

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

Meanwhile Orthodoxy continues to be have massive wins:

---

I'm glad that you see it as a "massive win" to finally align with what Protestants have always believed.

---

Lol don't kid yourself. "Protestants have always believed"…which Protestants exactly? The ELCA holding hands with imams at interfaith services? The Episcopal Church hosting Muslim prayers in their cathedrals? The United Methodist Church's formal WCC ecumenical commitments?
Protestants have no magisterium to define what "Protestants have always believed" about anything.

Orthodoxy has been consistently and explicitly anti-ecumenist since the beginning. 1800+ years before your niche extreme version of Calvinism came about.

---

Oh, I don't doubt Orthodoxy's committment to anti-ecumenism. You've even kept separate from true Christianity!

The good thing about Protestantism, is precisely that there's no "magisterium" of fallible men dictating the tenets of the faith for all their followers. When a Protestant denomination goes corrupt, believers are free to follow their conscience and leave without jeopardizing their eternal fate; or they can fight to reform their church using Scripture as the standard of measure. On the other hand, when a "magisterium" goes corrupt, there is no fix, as they claim themselves to be the standard, therefore all their followers must bind their conscience to their decisions, no matter how apostate. And if you leave, you're condemned to Hell.

An undeniable constant of humanity is the fallibility of all men, and that power corrupts. God's word, however, is perfect and infallible. Protestantism understands this. Both RC and Orthodoxy deny it, and are under the terribly mistaken notion that a special, selected group of men are promised to be completely immune from error. A promise NEVER given by God, and a common characteristic of cults all over the world.

The immensely sad result of such ecclesial corruption is that you have millions, perhaps billions of people all over the world who simply can't grasp what ANY true Christian with the Holy Spirit can grasp -- that if you're bowing and praying to idols, crediting Mary for your salvation, and believing in a gospel of faith AND works..... it's quite apparent that somehow, some way, somewhere along the line, you've been bamboozled.

---

Which true Christianity? Yours? Congratulations, you've appointed yourself the magisterium you claim to reject.

You say no fallible men should define the faith...then you proceeded to define the faith. You determined what's apostasy, what's idolatry, what's a corrupt church and who's been bamboozled. You didn't eliminate the magisterium...you are the magisterium.

Christ promised "The gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church", and your position forces you to deny that or the Church collapsed and wasn't recovered until Luther and then really not until the 1900s where you get most of your theology from.

---

I'm correctable by Scripture. A "magisterium" is not. I don't dictate the interpretation for all of Christianity. A magisterium does.

If I start to say, for example, that homosexuality is not a sin, then any other believer could easily derive from Scripture that I'm obviously wrong. However, if a "magisterium" declares the same, then no matter how easily derivable from Scripture that it's wrong, it doesn't matter. You are bound to it, or you can't be in the church.

How is this difficult to understand?

And if your view is that Scripture isn't clear and perspicuous enough to know that bowing and praying to anyone other than God and crediting a human person for our salvation are obviously false and even heretical and idolatrous, thus requiring a "magisterium" to tell you that, then what's happening is that you're checking your brain at the door and blindly following the discernment of your fellow fallible man..... when you're supposed to use your God-given brain to discern for yourself, while letting Jesus' Holy Spirit guide you.

"And why do you not judge for yourselves what is right?" - Jesus, in Luke 12:57

"Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and they examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true." - Acts 17:11

When Jesus promised that the "gates of hell will not prevail", it did not mean that the church would never be in error. The true people of God will listen to his correction, and not follow the error. As long as a true remnant remains, then Jesus' church is never gone or defeated. Protestantism is once such correction, where the people listened to God over the traditions of man.

---

You say you don't "dictate" for all of Christianity, but by calling the historical Church's beliefs on the saints or salvation "idolatrous" and "obviously false," you are drawing a line and saying: "My interpretation is the definition of True Christianity." By default, you are excommunicating everyone from the first 1,500 years of the faith who didn't read the Bible the way you do. It's the ultimate act of dictating who is and isn't a Christian based on your private discernment.

You say you're "correctable by Scripture," but by whose interpretation?
If another believer tells you you're wrong, and you disagree, who is the tie-breaker?

The Bereans weren't sitting alone with a Bible trying to "figure out" Christianity. They were listening to an Apostle (a member of the Magisterium) and checking if his message aligned with the prophecies of the Old Testament. They were using the Magisterium to understand the Word. If you are truly like the Bereans, will you submit your 'God-given brain' to the Apostolic Tradition Paul mentions in 2 Thessalonians 2:15, or will you continue to use your brain to judge the very Apostles who gave you the Bible?

---

The only way to submit to the Apostolic tradition, such as that which came from Paul, is to submit ONLY to Scripture, because the only thing we know that came from the apostles like Paul is in Scripture, and no where else. You are literally making the whole case for sola scriptura.

Here's what you're saying, and it's quite remarkable: if a person were to believe that Jesus blessed gay marriage and made raping and murdering okay - you can't know that what he's saying is wrong, until a magisterium tells you. Because if you do know, then you're acting as a "magisterium" who's "excommunicating anyone who doesn't read the Bible the way that you do".

The true people of God know that bowing and praying to images and crediting Mary for their salvation is rank heresy and sheer idolatry, without a "magisterium" of men claiming to be infallible to tell them. The Holy Spirit is their "magisterium", and it leads all true believers to the same truth. And in the first 1,500 years of Christianity, it's certain that the true church of Jesus, his true body of believers, all who were led by the same Holy Spirit which leads all true Christians today, did not hold to that apostasy then just as they do not hold to it today.

---

It is historically impossible to claim that the written word is the only thing that came from the Apostles. You need to look at Second Temple Judaism and the book of Acts; the faith was passed on through the living voice. 2 Thessalonians 2:15 explicitly commands us to hold to traditions taught by 'spoken word'...that is by definition NOT written down.

---

It's not a "historical" claim. It's a present day claim. The only thing we have that we know came from the apostles is in Scripture and nowhere else. The proof is that if I ask you to produce ANY OTHER words, written or verbal, that we KNOW came from the apostles but is NOT in Scripture, you can't do it. No one can.

The faith was passed through the "living voice" of the apostles while they were alive to speak it. They obviously aren't here anymore. Everything we know today that they taught, is in written form, i.e. Scripture. Hence, sola scriptura. 2 Thessalonians is NOT saying that we are to listen to ANY verbal tradition that is merely claimed to be from them. This is what cults do. And like cults, the Roman Catholic Church and Orthodoxy can't prove it came from the original apostles themselves.

---

Neither can you prove that the extant writings of the Apostles came from the Apostles themselves. You're relying on the Church's judgment, just like everyone else.

---

Not on the Church's (big C) "judgement", but rather on the church's (little c) continuous, unbroken chain of testimony, which started with the very first Christians who heard from the apostles themselves. I believe they are the apostle's writings because the church (body of Christ) has always said they were. Not because a magisterial group of men said so.

You keep making this flawed argument, because you just can't/won't grasp this.

---

Testimony in matters of faith requires . . . discernment and judgment. Setting aside the substantive disagreement, do you believe that the Catholic magisterium is not testimony (in the sense you are using the word)? I understand you would classify it as false testimony, but they is a different issue.

You aren't really addressing Sam's point. Instead you are trying to slyly change words and then pretend that Sam just doesn't understand you when we can all clearly see the bait and switch.

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

Meanwhile Orthodoxy continues to be have massive wins:

---

I'm glad that you see it as a "massive win" to finally align with what Protestants have always believed.

---

Lol don't kid yourself. "Protestants have always believed"…which Protestants exactly? The ELCA holding hands with imams at interfaith services? The Episcopal Church hosting Muslim prayers in their cathedrals? The United Methodist Church's formal WCC ecumenical commitments?
Protestants have no magisterium to define what "Protestants have always believed" about anything.

Orthodoxy has been consistently and explicitly anti-ecumenist since the beginning. 1800+ years before your niche extreme version of Calvinism came about.

---

Oh, I don't doubt Orthodoxy's committment to anti-ecumenism. You've even kept separate from true Christianity!

The good thing about Protestantism, is precisely that there's no "magisterium" of fallible men dictating the tenets of the faith for all their followers. When a Protestant denomination goes corrupt, believers are free to follow their conscience and leave without jeopardizing their eternal fate; or they can fight to reform their church using Scripture as the standard of measure. On the other hand, when a "magisterium" goes corrupt, there is no fix, as they claim themselves to be the standard, therefore all their followers must bind their conscience to their decisions, no matter how apostate. And if you leave, you're condemned to Hell.

An undeniable constant of humanity is the fallibility of all men, and that power corrupts. God's word, however, is perfect and infallible. Protestantism understands this. Both RC and Orthodoxy deny it, and are under the terribly mistaken notion that a special, selected group of men are promised to be completely immune from error. A promise NEVER given by God, and a common characteristic of cults all over the world.

The immensely sad result of such ecclesial corruption is that you have millions, perhaps billions of people all over the world who simply can't grasp what ANY true Christian with the Holy Spirit can grasp -- that if you're bowing and praying to idols, crediting Mary for your salvation, and believing in a gospel of faith AND works..... it's quite apparent that somehow, some way, somewhere along the line, you've been bamboozled.

---

Which true Christianity? Yours? Congratulations, you've appointed yourself the magisterium you claim to reject.

You say no fallible men should define the faith...then you proceeded to define the faith. You determined what's apostasy, what's idolatry, what's a corrupt church and who's been bamboozled. You didn't eliminate the magisterium...you are the magisterium.

Christ promised "The gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church", and your position forces you to deny that or the Church collapsed and wasn't recovered until Luther and then really not until the 1900s where you get most of your theology from.

---

I'm correctable by Scripture. A "magisterium" is not. I don't dictate the interpretation for all of Christianity. A magisterium does.

If I start to say, for example, that homosexuality is not a sin, then any other believer could easily derive from Scripture that I'm obviously wrong. However, if a "magisterium" declares the same, then no matter how easily derivable from Scripture that it's wrong, it doesn't matter. You are bound to it, or you can't be in the church.

How is this difficult to understand?

And if your view is that Scripture isn't clear and perspicuous enough to know that bowing and praying to anyone other than God and crediting a human person for our salvation are obviously false and even heretical and idolatrous, thus requiring a "magisterium" to tell you that, then what's happening is that you're checking your brain at the door and blindly following the discernment of your fellow fallible man..... when you're supposed to use your God-given brain to discern for yourself, while letting Jesus' Holy Spirit guide you.

"And why do you not judge for yourselves what is right?" - Jesus, in Luke 12:57

"Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and they examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true." - Acts 17:11

When Jesus promised that the "gates of hell will not prevail", it did not mean that the church would never be in error. The true people of God will listen to his correction, and not follow the error. As long as a true remnant remains, then Jesus' church is never gone or defeated. Protestantism is once such correction, where the people listened to God over the traditions of man.

---

You say you don't "dictate" for all of Christianity, but by calling the historical Church's beliefs on the saints or salvation "idolatrous" and "obviously false," you are drawing a line and saying: "My interpretation is the definition of True Christianity." By default, you are excommunicating everyone from the first 1,500 years of the faith who didn't read the Bible the way you do. It's the ultimate act of dictating who is and isn't a Christian based on your private discernment.

You say you're "correctable by Scripture," but by whose interpretation?
If another believer tells you you're wrong, and you disagree, who is the tie-breaker?

The Bereans weren't sitting alone with a Bible trying to "figure out" Christianity. They were listening to an Apostle (a member of the Magisterium) and checking if his message aligned with the prophecies of the Old Testament. They were using the Magisterium to understand the Word. If you are truly like the Bereans, will you submit your 'God-given brain' to the Apostolic Tradition Paul mentions in 2 Thessalonians 2:15, or will you continue to use your brain to judge the very Apostles who gave you the Bible?

---

The only way to submit to the Apostolic tradition, such as that which came from Paul, is to submit ONLY to Scripture, because the only thing we know that came from the apostles like Paul is in Scripture, and no where else. You are literally making the whole case for sola scriptura.

Here's what you're saying, and it's quite remarkable: if a person were to believe that Jesus blessed gay marriage and made raping and murdering okay - you can't know that what he's saying is wrong, until a magisterium tells you. Because if you do know, then you're acting as a "magisterium" who's "excommunicating anyone who doesn't read the Bible the way that you do".

The true people of God know that bowing and praying to images and crediting Mary for their salvation is rank heresy and sheer idolatry, without a "magisterium" of men claiming to be infallible to tell them. The Holy Spirit is their "magisterium", and it leads all true believers to the same truth. And in the first 1,500 years of Christianity, it's certain that the true church of Jesus, his true body of believers, all who were led by the same Holy Spirit which leads all true Christians today, did not hold to that apostasy then just as they do not hold to it today.

---

It is historically impossible to claim that the written word is the only thing that came from the Apostles. You need to look at Second Temple Judaism and the book of Acts; the faith was passed on through the living voice. 2 Thessalonians 2:15 explicitly commands us to hold to traditions taught by 'spoken word'...that is by definition NOT written down.

---

It's not a "historical" claim. It's a present day claim. The only thing we have that we know came from the apostles is in Scripture and nowhere else. The proof is that if I ask you to produce ANY OTHER words, written or verbal, that we KNOW came from the apostles but is NOT in Scripture, you can't do it. No one can.

The faith was passed through the "living voice" of the apostles while they were alive to speak it. They obviously aren't here anymore. Everything we know today that they taught, is in written form, i.e. Scripture. Hence, sola scriptura. 2 Thessalonians is NOT saying that we are to listen to ANY verbal tradition that is merely claimed to be from them. This is what cults do. And like cults, the Roman Catholic Church and Orthodoxy can't prove it came from the original apostles themselves.

---

Neither can you prove that the extant writings of the Apostles came from the Apostles themselves. You're relying on the Church's judgment, just like everyone else.

---

they are the apostle's writings because the church (body of Christ) has always said they were.

---

True enough...but you can't prove it. Plenty of modern scholars would disagree with you.

---

Similar to res ipsa loquitur - the existence of a continuous, unbroken chain of testimony is proof in of itself.

"Modern" scholar - LOL. What happened to the Roman Catholic sentiment against "modern" realizations usurping the old and established? Just goes to show that there is never any consistency in the defense of RC/Orthodoxy.

---

The existence of a continuous, unbroken chain of testimony is precisely the issue. It's what you're relying on the Church to prove.

Sam Lowry said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

Meanwhile Orthodoxy continues to be have massive wins:

---

I'm glad that you see it as a "massive win" to finally align with what Protestants have always believed.

---

Lol don't kid yourself. "Protestants have always believed"…which Protestants exactly? The ELCA holding hands with imams at interfaith services? The Episcopal Church hosting Muslim prayers in their cathedrals? The United Methodist Church's formal WCC ecumenical commitments?
Protestants have no magisterium to define what "Protestants have always believed" about anything.

Orthodoxy has been consistently and explicitly anti-ecumenist since the beginning. 1800+ years before your niche extreme version of Calvinism came about.

---

Oh, I don't doubt Orthodoxy's committment to anti-ecumenism. You've even kept separate from true Christianity!

The good thing about Protestantism, is precisely that there's no "magisterium" of fallible men dictating the tenets of the faith for all their followers. When a Protestant denomination goes corrupt, believers are free to follow their conscience and leave without jeopardizing their eternal fate; or they can fight to reform their church using Scripture as the standard of measure. On the other hand, when a "magisterium" goes corrupt, there is no fix, as they claim themselves to be the standard, therefore all their followers must bind their conscience to their decisions, no matter how apostate. And if you leave, you're condemned to Hell.

An undeniable constant of humanity is the fallibility of all men, and that power corrupts. God's word, however, is perfect and infallible. Protestantism understands this. Both RC and Orthodoxy deny it, and are under the terribly mistaken notion that a special, selected group of men are promised to be completely immune from error. A promise NEVER given by God, and a common characteristic of cults all over the world.

The immensely sad result of such ecclesial corruption is that you have millions, perhaps billions of people all over the world who simply can't grasp what ANY true Christian with the Holy Spirit can grasp -- that if you're bowing and praying to idols, crediting Mary for your salvation, and believing in a gospel of faith AND works..... it's quite apparent that somehow, some way, somewhere along the line, you've been bamboozled.

---

Which true Christianity? Yours? Congratulations, you've appointed yourself the magisterium you claim to reject.

You say no fallible men should define the faith...then you proceeded to define the faith. You determined what's apostasy, what's idolatry, what's a corrupt church and who's been bamboozled. You didn't eliminate the magisterium...you are the magisterium.

Christ promised "The gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church", and your position forces you to deny that or the Church collapsed and wasn't recovered until Luther and then really not until the 1900s where you get most of your theology from.

---

I'm correctable by Scripture. A "magisterium" is not. I don't dictate the interpretation for all of Christianity. A magisterium does.

If I start to say, for example, that homosexuality is not a sin, then any other believer could easily derive from Scripture that I'm obviously wrong. However, if a "magisterium" declares the same, then no matter how easily derivable from Scripture that it's wrong, it doesn't matter. You are bound to it, or you can't be in the church.

How is this difficult to understand?

And if your view is that Scripture isn't clear and perspicuous enough to know that bowing and praying to anyone other than God and crediting a human person for our salvation are obviously false and even heretical and idolatrous, thus requiring a "magisterium" to tell you that, then what's happening is that you're checking your brain at the door and blindly following the discernment of your fellow fallible man..... when you're supposed to use your God-given brain to discern for yourself, while letting Jesus' Holy Spirit guide you.

"And why do you not judge for yourselves what is right?" - Jesus, in Luke 12:57

"Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and they examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true." - Acts 17:11

When Jesus promised that the "gates of hell will not prevail", it did not mean that the church would never be in error. The true people of God will listen to his correction, and not follow the error. As long as a true remnant remains, then Jesus' church is never gone or defeated. Protestantism is once such correction, where the people listened to God over the traditions of man.

---

You say you don't "dictate" for all of Christianity, but by calling the historical Church's beliefs on the saints or salvation "idolatrous" and "obviously false," you are drawing a line and saying: "My interpretation is the definition of True Christianity." By default, you are excommunicating everyone from the first 1,500 years of the faith who didn't read the Bible the way you do. It's the ultimate act of dictating who is and isn't a Christian based on your private discernment.

You say you're "correctable by Scripture," but by whose interpretation?
If another believer tells you you're wrong, and you disagree, who is the tie-breaker?

The Bereans weren't sitting alone with a Bible trying to "figure out" Christianity. They were listening to an Apostle (a member of the Magisterium) and checking if his message aligned with the prophecies of the Old Testament. They were using the Magisterium to understand the Word. If you are truly like the Bereans, will you submit your 'God-given brain' to the Apostolic Tradition Paul mentions in 2 Thessalonians 2:15, or will you continue to use your brain to judge the very Apostles who gave you the Bible?

---

The only way to submit to the Apostolic tradition, such as that which came from Paul, is to submit ONLY to Scripture, because the only thing we know that came from the apostles like Paul is in Scripture, and no where else. You are literally making the whole case for sola scriptura.

Here's what you're saying, and it's quite remarkable: if a person were to believe that Jesus blessed gay marriage and made raping and murdering okay - you can't know that what he's saying is wrong, until a magisterium tells you. Because if you do know, then you're acting as a "magisterium" who's "excommunicating anyone who doesn't read the Bible the way that you do".

The true people of God know that bowing and praying to images and crediting Mary for their salvation is rank heresy and sheer idolatry, without a "magisterium" of men claiming to be infallible to tell them. The Holy Spirit is their "magisterium", and it leads all true believers to the same truth. And in the first 1,500 years of Christianity, it's certain that the true church of Jesus, his true body of believers, all who were led by the same Holy Spirit which leads all true Christians today, did not hold to that apostasy then just as they do not hold to it today.

---

It is historically impossible to claim that the written word is the only thing that came from the Apostles. You need to look at Second Temple Judaism and the book of Acts; the faith was passed on through the living voice. 2 Thessalonians 2:15 explicitly commands us to hold to traditions taught by 'spoken word'...that is by definition NOT written down.

---

It's not a "historical" claim. It's a present day claim. The only thing we have that we know came from the apostles is in Scripture and nowhere else. The proof is that if I ask you to produce ANY OTHER words, written or verbal, that we KNOW came from the apostles but is NOT in Scripture, you can't do it. No one can.

The faith was passed through the "living voice" of the apostles while they were alive to speak it. They obviously aren't here anymore. Everything we know today that they taught, is in written form, i.e. Scripture. Hence, sola scriptura. 2 Thessalonians is NOT saying that we are to listen to ANY verbal tradition that is merely claimed to be from them. This is what cults do. And like cults, the Roman Catholic Church and Orthodoxy can't prove it came from the original apostles themselves.

---

Neither can you prove that the extant writings of the Apostles came from the Apostles themselves. You're relying on the Church's judgment, just like everyone else.

---

they are the apostle's writings because the church (body of Christ) has always said they were.

---

True enough...but you can't prove it. Plenty of modern scholars would disagree with you.

---

Similar to res ipsa loquitur - the existence of a continuous, unbroken chain of testimony is proof in of itself.

"Modern" scholar - LOL. What happened to the Roman Catholic sentiment against "modern" realizations usurping the old and established? Just goes to show that there is never any consistency in the defense of RC/Orthodoxy.

---

The existence of a continuous, unbroken chain of testimony is precisely the issue. It's what you're relying on the Church to prove.

---

The "Church" is relying on the testimony of the "church" before them, who rely on those before them, and so on. The "Church" doesn't have to prove anything, but instead be a link in the chain. The existence of the unbroken chain is proof of its existence.

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

Meanwhile Orthodoxy continues to be have massive wins:

---

I'm glad that you see it as a "massive win" to finally align with what Protestants have always believed.

---

Lol don't kid yourself. "Protestants have always believed"…which Protestants exactly? The ELCA holding hands with imams at interfaith services? The Episcopal Church hosting Muslim prayers in their cathedrals? The United Methodist Church's formal WCC ecumenical commitments?
Protestants have no magisterium to define what "Protestants have always believed" about anything.

Orthodoxy has been consistently and explicitly anti-ecumenist since the beginning. 1800+ years before your niche extreme version of Calvinism came about.

---

Oh, I don't doubt Orthodoxy's committment to anti-ecumenism. You've even kept separate from true Christianity!

The good thing about Protestantism, is precisely that there's no "magisterium" of fallible men dictating the tenets of the faith for all their followers. When a Protestant denomination goes corrupt, believers are free to follow their conscience and leave without jeopardizing their eternal fate; or they can fight to reform their church using Scripture as the standard of measure. On the other hand, when a "magisterium" goes corrupt, there is no fix, as they claim themselves to be the standard, therefore all their followers must bind their conscience to their decisions, no matter how apostate. And if you leave, you're condemned to Hell.

An undeniable constant of humanity is the fallibility of all men, and that power corrupts. God's word, however, is perfect and infallible. Protestantism understands this. Both RC and Orthodoxy deny it, and are under the terribly mistaken notion that a special, selected group of men are promised to be completely immune from error. A promise NEVER given by God, and a common characteristic of cults all over the world.

The immensely sad result of such ecclesial corruption is that you have millions, perhaps billions of people all over the world who simply can't grasp what ANY true Christian with the Holy Spirit can grasp -- that if you're bowing and praying to idols, crediting Mary for your salvation, and believing in a gospel of faith AND works..... it's quite apparent that somehow, some way, somewhere along the line, you've been bamboozled.

---

Which true Christianity? Yours? Congratulations, you've appointed yourself the magisterium you claim to reject.

You say no fallible men should define the faith...then you proceeded to define the faith. You determined what's apostasy, what's idolatry, what's a corrupt church and who's been bamboozled. You didn't eliminate the magisterium...you are the magisterium.

Christ promised "The gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church", and your position forces you to deny that or the Church collapsed and wasn't recovered until Luther and then really not until the 1900s where you get most of your theology from.

---

I'm correctable by Scripture. A "magisterium" is not. I don't dictate the interpretation for all of Christianity. A magisterium does.

If I start to say, for example, that homosexuality is not a sin, then any other believer could easily derive from Scripture that I'm obviously wrong. However, if a "magisterium" declares the same, then no matter how easily derivable from Scripture that it's wrong, it doesn't matter. You are bound to it, or you can't be in the church.

How is this difficult to understand?

And if your view is that Scripture isn't clear and perspicuous enough to know that bowing and praying to anyone other than God and crediting a human person for our salvation are obviously false and even heretical and idolatrous, thus requiring a "magisterium" to tell you that, then what's happening is that you're checking your brain at the door and blindly following the discernment of your fellow fallible man..... when you're supposed to use your God-given brain to discern for yourself, while letting Jesus' Holy Spirit guide you.

"And why do you not judge for yourselves what is right?" - Jesus, in Luke 12:57

"Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and they examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true." - Acts 17:11

When Jesus promised that the "gates of hell will not prevail", it did not mean that the church would never be in error. The true people of God will listen to his correction, and not follow the error. As long as a true remnant remains, then Jesus' church is never gone or defeated. Protestantism is once such correction, where the people listened to God over the traditions of man.

---

You say you don't "dictate" for all of Christianity, but by calling the historical Church's beliefs on the saints or salvation "idolatrous" and "obviously false," you are drawing a line and saying: "My interpretation is the definition of True Christianity." By default, you are excommunicating everyone from the first 1,500 years of the faith who didn't read the Bible the way you do. It's the ultimate act of dictating who is and isn't a Christian based on your private discernment.

You say you're "correctable by Scripture," but by whose interpretation?
If another believer tells you you're wrong, and you disagree, who is the tie-breaker?

The Bereans weren't sitting alone with a Bible trying to "figure out" Christianity. They were listening to an Apostle (a member of the Magisterium) and checking if his message aligned with the prophecies of the Old Testament. They were using the Magisterium to understand the Word. If you are truly like the Bereans, will you submit your 'God-given brain' to the Apostolic Tradition Paul mentions in 2 Thessalonians 2:15, or will you continue to use your brain to judge the very Apostles who gave you the Bible?

---

The only way to submit to the Apostolic tradition, such as that which came from Paul, is to submit ONLY to Scripture, because the only thing we know that came from the apostles like Paul is in Scripture, and no where else. You are literally making the whole case for sola scriptura.

Here's what you're saying, and it's quite remarkable: if a person were to believe that Jesus blessed gay marriage and made raping and murdering okay - you can't know that what he's saying is wrong, until a magisterium tells you. Because if you do know, then you're acting as a "magisterium" who's "excommunicating anyone who doesn't read the Bible the way that you do".

The true people of God know that bowing and praying to images and crediting Mary for their salvation is rank heresy and sheer idolatry, without a "magisterium" of men claiming to be infallible to tell them. The Holy Spirit is their "magisterium", and it leads all true believers to the same truth. And in the first 1,500 years of Christianity, it's certain that the true church of Jesus, his true body of believers, all who were led by the same Holy Spirit which leads all true Christians today, did not hold to that apostasy then just as they do not hold to it today.

---

It is historically impossible to claim that the written word is the only thing that came from the Apostles. You need to look at Second Temple Judaism and the book of Acts; the faith was passed on through the living voice. 2 Thessalonians 2:15 explicitly commands us to hold to traditions taught by 'spoken word'...that is by definition NOT written down.

---

It's not a "historical" claim. It's a present day claim. The only thing we have that we know came from the apostles is in Scripture and nowhere else. The proof is that if I ask you to produce ANY OTHER words, written or verbal, that we KNOW came from the apostles but is NOT in Scripture, you can't do it. No one can.

The faith was passed through the "living voice" of the apostles while they were alive to speak it. They obviously aren't here anymore. Everything we know today that they taught, is in written form, i.e. Scripture. Hence, sola scriptura. 2 Thessalonians is NOT saying that we are to listen to ANY verbal tradition that is merely claimed to be from them. This is what cults do. And like cults, the Roman Catholic Church and Orthodoxy can't prove it came from the original apostles themselves.

---

Neither can you prove that the extant writings of the Apostles came from the Apostles themselves. You're relying on the Church's judgment, just like everyone else.

---

they are the apostle's writings because the church (body of Christ) has always said they were.

---

True enough...but you can't prove it. Plenty of modern scholars would disagree with you.

---

Similar to res ipsa loquitur - the existence of a continuous, unbroken chain of testimony is proof in of itself.

"Modern" scholar - LOL. What happened to the Roman Catholic sentiment against "modern" realizations usurping the old and established? Just goes to show that there is never any consistency in the defense of RC/Orthodoxy.

---

The existence of a continuous, unbroken chain of testimony is precisely the issue. It's what you're relying on the Church to prove.

---

The existence of the unbroken chain is proof of its existence.

---

Circular reasoning defined.

Sam Lowry said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

Meanwhile Orthodoxy continues to be have massive wins:

---

I'm glad that you see it as a "massive win" to finally align with what Protestants have always believed.

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Lol don't kid yourself. "Protestants have always believed"…which Protestants exactly? The ELCA holding hands with imams at interfaith services? The Episcopal Church hosting Muslim prayers in their cathedrals? The United Methodist Church's formal WCC ecumenical commitments?
Protestants have no magisterium to define what "Protestants have always believed" about anything.

Orthodoxy has been consistently and explicitly anti-ecumenist since the beginning. 1800+ years before your niche extreme version of Calvinism came about.

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Oh, I don't doubt Orthodoxy's committment to anti-ecumenism. You've even kept separate from true Christianity!

The good thing about Protestantism, is precisely that there's no "magisterium" of fallible men dictating the tenets of the faith for all their followers. When a Protestant denomination goes corrupt, believers are free to follow their conscience and leave without jeopardizing their eternal fate; or they can fight to reform their church using Scripture as the standard of measure. On the other hand, when a "magisterium" goes corrupt, there is no fix, as they claim themselves to be the standard, therefore all their followers must bind their conscience to their decisions, no matter how apostate. And if you leave, you're condemned to Hell.

An undeniable constant of humanity is the fallibility of all men, and that power corrupts. God's word, however, is perfect and infallible. Protestantism understands this. Both RC and Orthodoxy deny it, and are under the terribly mistaken notion that a special, selected group of men are promised to be completely immune from error. A promise NEVER given by God, and a common characteristic of cults all over the world.

The immensely sad result of such ecclesial corruption is that you have millions, perhaps billions of people all over the world who simply can't grasp what ANY true Christian with the Holy Spirit can grasp -- that if you're bowing and praying to idols, crediting Mary for your salvation, and believing in a gospel of faith AND works..... it's quite apparent that somehow, some way, somewhere along the line, you've been bamboozled.

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Which true Christianity? Yours? Congratulations, you've appointed yourself the magisterium you claim to reject.

You say no fallible men should define the faith...then you proceeded to define the faith. You determined what's apostasy, what's idolatry, what's a corrupt church and who's been bamboozled. You didn't eliminate the magisterium...you are the magisterium.

Christ promised "The gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church", and your position forces you to deny that or the Church collapsed and wasn't recovered until Luther and then really not until the 1900s where you get most of your theology from.

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I'm correctable by Scripture. A "magisterium" is not. I don't dictate the interpretation for all of Christianity. A magisterium does.

If I start to say, for example, that homosexuality is not a sin, then any other believer could easily derive from Scripture that I'm obviously wrong. However, if a "magisterium" declares the same, then no matter how easily derivable from Scripture that it's wrong, it doesn't matter. You are bound to it, or you can't be in the church.

How is this difficult to understand?

And if your view is that Scripture isn't clear and perspicuous enough to know that bowing and praying to anyone other than God and crediting a human person for our salvation are obviously false and even heretical and idolatrous, thus requiring a "magisterium" to tell you that, then what's happening is that you're checking your brain at the door and blindly following the discernment of your fellow fallible man..... when you're supposed to use your God-given brain to discern for yourself, while letting Jesus' Holy Spirit guide you.

"And why do you not judge for yourselves what is right?" - Jesus, in Luke 12:57

"Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and they examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true." - Acts 17:11

When Jesus promised that the "gates of hell will not prevail", it did not mean that the church would never be in error. The true people of God will listen to his correction, and not follow the error. As long as a true remnant remains, then Jesus' church is never gone or defeated. Protestantism is once such correction, where the people listened to God over the traditions of man.

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You say you don't "dictate" for all of Christianity, but by calling the historical Church's beliefs on the saints or salvation "idolatrous" and "obviously false," you are drawing a line and saying: "My interpretation is the definition of True Christianity." By default, you are excommunicating everyone from the first 1,500 years of the faith who didn't read the Bible the way you do. It's the ultimate act of dictating who is and isn't a Christian based on your private discernment.

You say you're "correctable by Scripture," but by whose interpretation?
If another believer tells you you're wrong, and you disagree, who is the tie-breaker?

The Bereans weren't sitting alone with a Bible trying to "figure out" Christianity. They were listening to an Apostle (a member of the Magisterium) and checking if his message aligned with the prophecies of the Old Testament. They were using the Magisterium to understand the Word. If you are truly like the Bereans, will you submit your 'God-given brain' to the Apostolic Tradition Paul mentions in 2 Thessalonians 2:15, or will you continue to use your brain to judge the very Apostles who gave you the Bible?

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The only way to submit to the Apostolic tradition, such as that which came from Paul, is to submit ONLY to Scripture, because the only thing we know that came from the apostles like Paul is in Scripture, and no where else. You are literally making the whole case for sola scriptura.

Here's what you're saying, and it's quite remarkable: if a person were to believe that Jesus blessed gay marriage and made raping and murdering okay - you can't know that what he's saying is wrong, until a magisterium tells you. Because if you do know, then you're acting as a "magisterium" who's "excommunicating anyone who doesn't read the Bible the way that you do".

The true people of God know that bowing and praying to images and crediting Mary for their salvation is rank heresy and sheer idolatry, without a "magisterium" of men claiming to be infallible to tell them. The Holy Spirit is their "magisterium", and it leads all true believers to the same truth. And in the first 1,500 years of Christianity, it's certain that the true church of Jesus, his true body of believers, all who were led by the same Holy Spirit which leads all true Christians today, did not hold to that apostasy then just as they do not hold to it today.

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It is historically impossible to claim that the written word is the only thing that came from the Apostles. You need to look at Second Temple Judaism and the book of Acts; the faith was passed on through the living voice. 2 Thessalonians 2:15 explicitly commands us to hold to traditions taught by 'spoken word'...that is by definition NOT written down.

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It's not a "historical" claim. It's a present day claim. The only thing we have that we know came from the apostles is in Scripture and nowhere else. The proof is that if I ask you to produce ANY OTHER words, written or verbal, that we KNOW came from the apostles but is NOT in Scripture, you can't do it. No one can.

The faith was passed through the "living voice" of the apostles while they were alive to speak it. They obviously aren't here anymore. Everything we know today that they taught, is in written form, i.e. Scripture. Hence, sola scriptura. 2 Thessalonians is NOT saying that we are to listen to ANY verbal tradition that is merely claimed to be from them. This is what cults do. And like cults, the Roman Catholic Church and Orthodoxy can't prove it came from the original apostles themselves.

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Neither can you prove that the extant writings of the Apostles came from the Apostles themselves. You're relying on the Church's judgment, just like everyone else.

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they are the apostle's writings because the church (body of Christ) has always said they were.

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True enough...but you can't prove it. Plenty of modern scholars would disagree with you.

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Similar to res ipsa loquitur - the existence of a continuous, unbroken chain of testimony is proof in of itself.

"Modern" scholar - LOL. What happened to the Roman Catholic sentiment against "modern" realizations usurping the old and established? Just goes to show that there is never any consistency in the defense of RC/Orthodoxy.

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The existence of a continuous, unbroken chain of testimony is precisely the issue. It's what you're relying on the Church to prove.

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The existence of the unbroken chain is proof of its existence.

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Circular reasoning defined.

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No, its a type of "Cogito, ergo sum". Like a tautology. It's existence is proof itself that it exists.

Your misconception is that it's existence needs to be proven externally. Therefore you see it as circular. The unbroken chain of testimony for the authorship/source of the writings exists by testimony, not by "judgement". It does not take "judgement", "authority", or "proof" to pass on the knowledge of authorship that was received from those before you.

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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Meanwhile Orthodoxy continues to be have massive wins:

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I'm glad that you see it as a "massive win" to finally align with what Protestants have always believed.

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Lol don't kid yourself. "Protestants have always believed"…which Protestants exactly? The ELCA holding hands with imams at interfaith services? The Episcopal Church hosting Muslim prayers in their cathedrals? The United Methodist Church's formal WCC ecumenical commitments?
Protestants have no magisterium to define what "Protestants have always believed" about anything.

Orthodoxy has been consistently and explicitly anti-ecumenist since the beginning. 1800+ years before your niche extreme version of Calvinism came about.

---

Oh, I don't doubt Orthodoxy's committment to anti-ecumenism. You've even kept separate from true Christianity!

The good thing about Protestantism, is precisely that there's no "magisterium" of fallible men dictating the tenets of the faith for all their followers. When a Protestant denomination goes corrupt, believers are free to follow their conscience and leave without jeopardizing their eternal fate; or they can fight to reform their church using Scripture as the standard of measure. On the other hand, when a "magisterium" goes corrupt, there is no fix, as they claim themselves to be the standard, therefore all their followers must bind their conscience to their decisions, no matter how apostate. And if you leave, you're condemned to Hell.

An undeniable constant of humanity is the fallibility of all men, and that power corrupts. God's word, however, is perfect and infallible. Protestantism understands this. Both RC and Orthodoxy deny it, and are under the terribly mistaken notion that a special, selected group of men are promised to be completely immune from error. A promise NEVER given by God, and a common characteristic of cults all over the world.

The immensely sad result of such ecclesial corruption is that you have millions, perhaps billions of people all over the world who simply can't grasp what ANY true Christian with the Holy Spirit can grasp -- that if you're bowing and praying to idols, crediting Mary for your salvation, and believing in a gospel of faith AND works..... it's quite apparent that somehow, some way, somewhere along the line, you've been bamboozled.

---

Which true Christianity? Yours? Congratulations, you've appointed yourself the magisterium you claim to reject.

You say no fallible men should define the faith...then you proceeded to define the faith. You determined what's apostasy, what's idolatry, what's a corrupt church and who's been bamboozled. You didn't eliminate the magisterium...you are the magisterium.

Christ promised "The gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church", and your position forces you to deny that or the Church collapsed and wasn't recovered until Luther and then really not until the 1900s where you get most of your theology from.

---

I'm correctable by Scripture. A "magisterium" is not. I don't dictate the interpretation for all of Christianity. A magisterium does.

If I start to say, for example, that homosexuality is not a sin, then any other believer could easily derive from Scripture that I'm obviously wrong. However, if a "magisterium" declares the same, then no matter how easily derivable from Scripture that it's wrong, it doesn't matter. You are bound to it, or you can't be in the church.

How is this difficult to understand?

And if your view is that Scripture isn't clear and perspicuous enough to know that bowing and praying to anyone other than God and crediting a human person for our salvation are obviously false and even heretical and idolatrous, thus requiring a "magisterium" to tell you that, then what's happening is that you're checking your brain at the door and blindly following the discernment of your fellow fallible man..... when you're supposed to use your God-given brain to discern for yourself, while letting Jesus' Holy Spirit guide you.

"And why do you not judge for yourselves what is right?" - Jesus, in Luke 12:57

"Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and they examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true." - Acts 17:11

When Jesus promised that the "gates of hell will not prevail", it did not mean that the church would never be in error. The true people of God will listen to his correction, and not follow the error. As long as a true remnant remains, then Jesus' church is never gone or defeated. Protestantism is once such correction, where the people listened to God over the traditions of man.

---

You say you don't "dictate" for all of Christianity, but by calling the historical Church's beliefs on the saints or salvation "idolatrous" and "obviously false," you are drawing a line and saying: "My interpretation is the definition of True Christianity." By default, you are excommunicating everyone from the first 1,500 years of the faith who didn't read the Bible the way you do. It's the ultimate act of dictating who is and isn't a Christian based on your private discernment.

You say you're "correctable by Scripture," but by whose interpretation?
If another believer tells you you're wrong, and you disagree, who is the tie-breaker?

The Bereans weren't sitting alone with a Bible trying to "figure out" Christianity. They were listening to an Apostle (a member of the Magisterium) and checking if his message aligned with the prophecies of the Old Testament. They were using the Magisterium to understand the Word. If you are truly like the Bereans, will you submit your 'God-given brain' to the Apostolic Tradition Paul mentions in 2 Thessalonians 2:15, or will you continue to use your brain to judge the very Apostles who gave you the Bible?

---

The only way to submit to the Apostolic tradition, such as that which came from Paul, is to submit ONLY to Scripture, because the only thing we know that came from the apostles like Paul is in Scripture, and no where else. You are literally making the whole case for sola scriptura.

Here's what you're saying, and it's quite remarkable: if a person were to believe that Jesus blessed gay marriage and made raping and murdering okay - you can't know that what he's saying is wrong, until a magisterium tells you. Because if you do know, then you're acting as a "magisterium" who's "excommunicating anyone who doesn't read the Bible the way that you do".

The true people of God know that bowing and praying to images and crediting Mary for their salvation is rank heresy and sheer idolatry, without a "magisterium" of men claiming to be infallible to tell them. The Holy Spirit is their "magisterium", and it leads all true believers to the same truth. And in the first 1,500 years of Christianity, it's certain that the true church of Jesus, his true body of believers, all who were led by the same Holy Spirit which leads all true Christians today, did not hold to that apostasy then just as they do not hold to it today.

---

It is historically impossible to claim that the written word is the only thing that came from the Apostles. You need to look at Second Temple Judaism and the book of Acts; the faith was passed on through the living voice. 2 Thessalonians 2:15 explicitly commands us to hold to traditions taught by 'spoken word'...that is by definition NOT written down.

---

It's not a "historical" claim. It's a present day claim. The only thing we have that we know came from the apostles is in Scripture and nowhere else. The proof is that if I ask you to produce ANY OTHER words, written or verbal, that we KNOW came from the apostles but is NOT in Scripture, you can't do it. No one can.

The faith was passed through the "living voice" of the apostles while they were alive to speak it. They obviously aren't here anymore. Everything we know today that they taught, is in written form, i.e. Scripture. Hence, sola scriptura. 2 Thessalonians is NOT saying that we are to listen to ANY verbal tradition that is merely claimed to be from them. This is what cults do. And like cults, the Roman Catholic Church and Orthodoxy can't prove it came from the original apostles themselves.

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Neither can you prove that the extant writings of the Apostles came from the Apostles themselves. You're relying on the Church's judgment, just like everyone else.

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they are the apostle's writings because the church (body of Christ) has always said they were.

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True enough...but you can't prove it. Plenty of modern scholars would disagree with you.

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Similar to res ipsa loquitur - the existence of a continuous, unbroken chain of testimony is proof in of itself.

"Modern" scholar - LOL. What happened to the Roman Catholic sentiment against "modern" realizations usurping the old and established? Just goes to show that there is never any consistency in the defense of RC/Orthodoxy.

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The existence of a continuous, unbroken chain of testimony is precisely the issue. It's what you're relying on the Church to prove.

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The existence of the unbroken chain is proof of its existence.

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Circular reasoning defined.

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No, its a type of "Cogito, ergo sum". Like a tautology. It's existence is proof itself that it exists.

Your misconception is that its existence needs to be proven externally. Therefore you see it as circular. The unbroken chain of testimony for the authorship/source of the writings exists by testimony, not by "judgement". It does not take "judgement", "authority", or "proof" to pass on the knowledge of authorship that was received from those before you.

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Again, others have looked at the same evidence and rejected it. I agree that the historical evidence for the validity of the NT canon is compelling. But that's just one of many historical opinions. You're claiming more than that. You're claiming that the evidence is infallible, which is a different claim altogether. It is nothing more or less than a statement of faith. That faith cannot be grounded in the historical record alone. It is in fact derived from the judgment of the Church.

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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If Baptist Pastor A says the Bible supports gay marriage, and Baptist Pastor B says it doesn't, and both claim they are 'correctable by Scripture' and led by the Spirit, who has the authority to settle the dispute?

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Baptists can have their own authority structure they submit to, to which such appeals can be made. But even this authority structure is understood to always be itself correctable by Scripture.

The counter-question for you is this: If an Orthodox/RC magisterium tells you that gay marriage is okay with God, then can you say they are wrong? By what authority?

Division in truth is better than unity in error.

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Person A says the Church is wrong because of Scripture.
Person B says Person A is wrong because of their interpretation of Scripture.

The Result: There is no "Scripture" to appeal to that isn't already being filtered through someone's private mind. Without a final, living authority, the Bible becomes a "Paper Pope" that can be made to say whatever the person holding it wants it to say. How do you not understand that interpretation is inescapable?

In Acts 15 (the Council of Jerusalem), there was a massive dispute about circumcision. Did the early Christians just go home and read their Old Testaments to decide for themselves? No. They gathered as a Council. They issued a decree that began: "It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us..." (Acts 15:28).

They claimed to speak for the Holy Spirit.
They didn't say "this is our best guess based on the Bible."
They spoke with binding authority.

If a Baptist "submits" to an authority that is "correctable" by the individual's own reading of the Bible, then that individual hasn't actually submitted to anything but their own opinion.

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Doc-

If an Orthodox/RC magisterium tells you that gay marriage is okay with God, are you personally able to believe and say they are wrong? Based on what, and by what authority?

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Very good question. I am interested in his answer.

Doc Holliday said:

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Oldbear83 said:

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So John 3:16 is vague?

I agree that some Scripture requires discernment, but a lot of it is very plain, and a lot more can be worked out by simply noting that Scripture does not contradict itself, so one verse can help others come into focus.


And then of course there are people who think their tradition counts with equal weight to Scripture, even if there is no Scripture which actually says what their tradition teaches.

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John 3:16 has to be harmonized with John 15:6 ("if anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away as a branch and withers"), with Hebrews 10:26-29, with James 2:19 (the demons believe and shudder), with Matthew 7:21-23 ("I never knew you"). The moment you admit those texts exist, you've already conceded that "believe and be saved" requires significant theological unpacking, which is exactly what you claimed Tradition illegitimately does.

The very act of harmonizing Scripture requires interpretive rules that Scripture itself doesn't provide. Where do those rules come from? They come from a tradition of reading. Every Protestant who "just reads the Bible" is actually reading it through Luther, or Calvin, or whoever shaped their hermeneutic.

The five solas are not found as a package in Scripture. They are a 16th century theological framework, developed by councils, confessions, and reformers, then imposed onto Scripture as the interpretive grid. Heidelberg Catechism, Westminster Confession, Augsburg Confession, these are magisterial documents functioning as the norming framework for how Protestants read their Bibles. That IS a magisterium.

It's a myth for any Protestant to think its is them and their Bible. You're absolutely bending the knee to a pre packaged theological doctrine.

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So, in order to harmonize John 3:16, we need a magisterium to tell us what it means by harmonizing it with the rest of scripture, which for some reason, the believer is unable to do on his own.

Oy vey.

Sam LowryThe existence of the unbroken chain is proof of its existence. said:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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Circular reasoning defined.

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No, its a type of "Cogito, ergo sum". Like a tautology. It's existence is proof itself that it exists.

Your misconception is that its existence needs to be proven externally. Therefore you see it as circular. The unbroken chain of testimony for the authorship/source of the writings exists by testimony, not by "judgement". It does not take "judgement", "authority", or "proof" to pass on the knowledge of authorship that was received from those before you.

---

Again, others have looked at the same evidence and rejected it. I agree that the historical evidence for the validity of the NT canon is compelling. But that's just one of many historical opinions. You're claiming more than that. You're claiming that the evidence is infallible, which is a different claim altogether. It is nothing more or less than a statement of faith. That faith cannot be grounded in the historical record alone. It is in fact derived from the judgment of the Church.

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The historical witness of the church is that the writings are authentic, via an organic, continuous and unbroken chain of testimony.

This isn't a claim to "infallibility", but merely a claim to its existence. Cite the scholarship that you say establishes its existence as a mere historical opinion.

It is based on faith, but on the faith that God would have his people preserve the authenticity of the apostles' witness through their unbroken chain of testimony. This is a Spirit-led organic process that never requires the "judgement" by an "authority" of men.

Mothra said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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If Baptist Pastor A says the Bible supports gay marriage, and Baptist Pastor B says it doesn't, and both claim they are 'correctable by Scripture' and led by the Spirit, who has the authority to settle the dispute?

---

Baptists can have their own authority structure they submit to, to which such appeals can be made. But even this authority structure is understood to always be itself correctable by Scripture.

The counter-question for you is this: If an Orthodox/RC magisterium tells you that gay marriage is okay with God, then can you say they are wrong? By what authority?

Division in truth is better than unity in error.

---

Person A says the Church is wrong because of Scripture.
Person B says Person A is wrong because of their interpretation of Scripture.

The Result: There is no "Scripture" to appeal to that isn't already being filtered through someone's private mind. Without a final, living authority, the Bible becomes a "Paper Pope" that can be made to say whatever the person holding it wants it to say. How do you not understand that interpretation is inescapable?

In Acts 15 (the Council of Jerusalem), there was a massive dispute about circumcision. Did the early Christians just go home and read their Old Testaments to decide for themselves? No. They gathered as a Council. They issued a decree that began: "It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us..." (Acts 15:28).

They claimed to speak for the Holy Spirit.
They didn't say "this is our best guess based on the Bible."
They spoke with binding authority.

If a Baptist "submits" to an authority that is "correctable" by the individual's own reading of the Bible, then that individual hasn't actually submitted to anything but their own opinion.

---

Doc-

If an Orthodox/RC magisterium tells you that gay marriage is okay with God, are you personally able to believe and say they are wrong? Based on what, and by what authority?

---

Very good question. I am interested in his answer.

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Don't think we're gonna get one. They simply won't be honest with the implications of their own arguments.