Greatest Sect of Christianity

[loinburger]

and is there really a question with the Holy Spirit?

So now you're adding passages to the Bible?

"The Holy Spirit is one with God and Jesus" - Kidicious 1:1

it helps to know about the early church especially on matters of tradition and doctrine.

Why? What is more important than salvation?

[Imran Siddiqui]

it helps to know about the early church especially on matters of tradition and doctrine.

Now you are for tradition and doctrine?!

[loinburger]

Now you are for tradition and doctrine?!

Apparently he's a hack!

[Kidlicious]

WRT Tradition, EVERYONE has a Tradition. Even you, Kid. You believe in predestination and the rapture? You got that from the people who introduced you to the faith, and/or influenced you in your development. You didn't independently derive those ideas, or any others you believe, from reading the Bible all by yourself. You got those interpretations from others, who got them from others, and so on back through time. That constitutes a Tradition. The difference between you and me is that your Tradition goes back about 500 years, tops, to Renaissance Europe, while mine goes back well over three times as long, to the ancient Mediterranean basin. For some reason, you think your Tradition more closely reflects what the early church believed, despite being far removed from them in its roots.

Yes, you have the Bible. Thing is, I have Shakespeare, but I don't pretend I know, by reading Shakespeare, exactly how his contemporaries understood him. That would be silly. His work is full of idioms, references and other gewgaws peculiar to his place and time. Today, even the best Shakespeare scholars have to leaf through old texts to understand what the heck The Bard meant by particular lines. Also, some parts of some plays appear to have been corrupted by bad transcription, by actors writing down lines they poorly remembered, or by later interpolations. These are unfortunate, but don't keep us from appreciating Shakespeare's work. It's just harder.

Now, if we had an analysis of a now-troublesome line written by a man who read the plays in 1653, that would be quite useful, wouldn't it? Such a man would be closer in time to Shakespeare, more steeped in the language and public knowledge of the day. And if people had kept a careful record of what that man, and others, said, and passed them down, why, that'd be almost as good as a First Folio. And that's what Tradition is: the preservation and accumulation of past understanding which might otherwise have been lost.

As to your charge that Tradition opens the door to corruption, I have two answers (aside from the objection that you have a Tradition too). The first can be summed up with the word "televangelists." All sorts of nasty shysters have sprung up to abuse the Bible in the Protestant tradition, because perversions of the Faith, like all other sins, are rooted in human wickedness and not in a particular organization. The second is that Tradition is really more of an obstacle to deviation than otherwise, because it gets people strongly accustomed to certain ideas, so that they strongly resist any change. The corruption Luther objected to was not a Tradition, but a recent deviation from Tradition. Purgatory was a novelty, as was paying cash to get a man out of it.

Man's true purpose is not to be a herd animal. It is to be a Self. To be a Self is to come into complete obedience to God and have abundant joy. Soren Kiekegaard said, "Spirit is precisely this: to be a Self."

Now of course I'm interested in the early church because reading the Bible it seems that christians were different then. They lived with a mindset in the Spirit (Self) and not the flesh (doctrine). That sai, they developed doctrine and started acting like people today.

The point is this, the key to Spirit is Selfhood, and the wzy is God's Word and his Spirit. Obey God and become a self.

[Kidlicious]

Let's you also commented on needing proper leadership to obey God. Of course there are bad Protestant leaders. Leaders in general suck. Don't follow any leader except Christ and the prophets and apostles who have been given authority to lead you. The thing is that the Bible was meant for you to read meditate on and discover the meaning for yourself through life's experiences. You have to have faith in it. Now if some religious leader tells you that you are incapable of understanding it or that it is full of errors and you need him to tell you what's truth then what faith do you have in God. You simply put your faith in a man.

[Kidlicious]

Give it to me in paraphrase Bible form so that even I can understand it.

I don't know if I can do that. The understanding of Christs teachings came after His death. The Holy Spirit is the one that makes men understand the Word. The Holy Spirit didn't come until the crucifiction. The other important detail is that the Holy Spirit revealed truth to the apostles from the time of Jesus' death to the completion of the Holy Scriptures. I don't know if the doctrine of the Trinity came about before the completion of Scripture, but if it did some might consider it as inspired by God. If it came after the compleytion of Scripture than it's just an interpretation. Regardless i's obvious.

[Kidlicious]

Wait, now you're *for* tradition? I don't get it. BTW, did you see my posts 645 ( http://apolyton.net/showthread.php/1...=1#post6047588 ) & 647 ( http://apolyton.net/showthread.php/1...=1#post6047608 )?

In this context "tradition" means teaching, as in the apostle Paul's teachings.

[Kidlicious]

Okay, so then the Bible should be sufficient for you to formulate the idea of the Trinity. Please state which passages you used to do so.

If the Bible is sufficient, then why are you referring to what the early church believed? You ought to be able to justify everything that you believe using the bible alone. That's what it means for it to be "sufficient."

It doesnt work that way. The Bible isn't written like that. I will say a few things though. There is only one God in the OT. It was a sin to even claim that there is two God's. So believing in the prophets the apostles obviously believed in the Trinity.

Now you might be interested in Genesis where it says God's Spirit was hovering over the waters and the verse in Psalms that I posted yesterday. And like I said read the whole book of John. Read the other Gospels. Read the whole Bible.

[Elok]

Man's true purpose is not to be a herd animal. It is to be a Self. To be a Self is to come into complete obedience to God and have abundant joy. Soren Kiekegaard said, "Spirit is precisely this: to be a Self."

I don't get why Soren Kierkegaard is more relevant here than, say, St. John Climacus, or St. Maximus the Confessor, but I suppose I can see what you're getting at. Of course, he seems to be reinterpreting Christianity through the lens of existentialist philosophy, at least in that quote.

Now of course I'm interested in the early church because reading the Bible it seems that christians were different then. They lived with a mindset in the Spirit (Self) and not the flesh (doctrine). That sai, they developed doctrine and started acting like people today.

Which specific parts of scripture gave you that impression? When I read it, I see nothing but admonishments about bad doctrine, or inadequate doctrine, or sometimes just St. Paul (I'm on Hebrews now, haven't gotten to the other writers' letters yet) scolding them to "avoid stupid controversies, genealogies, and arguments over the law, which do not profit a man." Something like that, I'm paraphrasing from memory since it's been a long day and I'm feeling lazy. If anything, they were more obsessed with doctrine. But the overall impression I get is that the early church was not all that different from the church of today; it was made of good but entirely fallible people.

The point is this, the key to Spirit is Selfhood, and the wzy is God's Word and his Spirit. Obey God and become a self.

If by this you mean, "obey God and become the true person He made you to be," we do not disagree on this point. Albeit the idea of Christianity is to deny oneself, and take up the cross. It's one of several examples in Christianity of giving up a thing only to receive it back transfigured and glorified--another being the Eucharist.

[Newgod]

well christanity and islam both have tried to convert with swords not with good deeds which clearly indicates that they just wanted more people in their religion for religious protection i can say that because i am have seen it myself infact there is a new concept used by terrorists its called love jihad which simply means to entrap females of another religion and convert here to islam once done these females are often used to or forced to work and help as terroritsts, if ayone thing what i say i not true then you might have good knowledge of the religious book but not what the real things are,

[Kidlicious]

Kid, let me put it this way: Matthew 1 lists the genealogy of Christ--technically, of Joseph--and says the father of Joseph was Jacob. Luke 3 does the same thing (in reverse order) and lists the father of Joseph as "Heli." Now, there are ways to interpret this conflict away, for example by saying Jacob must have been also known as Heli, or by saying they were brothers, one died, and the other married his widow to provide his brother with an heir.

Be that as it may, which strikes you as a more reasonable position to take?
A. The Bible-as-Word, being somehow equivalent to Jesus, was created before the dawn of time with two conflicting accounts of a relatively minor player's paternity deliberately embedded in it for some inscrutable reason. Also that bit in the OT (I forget its exact location) where God orders a cauldron to be made in certain dimensions, in the process strongly implying that he thinks pi is exactly equal to three. That was included on purpose too, although as creator of the universe God knows pi down to the eighty-quintillionth digit and beyond.
B. The Bible was written by mortal men, one or both of whom (in the case of Joseph's father) may have made some error, or reported an event differently due to differences in their perspective. It doesn't really matter if little bits like these are wrong; as that anonymous quote you posted says, the Bible contains all things necessary for our salvation. It doesn't need to be infallible in every single detail, since we are not saved by Joseph's father or by an old cauldron, or any of a million other dinky accumulated errors which are the natural consequence of the Bible's peculiar composition. We need only have faith that it will show us the overall Truth--Who is Jesus.

I think B works better. I don't think the Bible is the Antichrist, or "the prophets were wrong," or any of the other offensive rubbish you imputed to me. I simply think the Bible must be approached as an account of God written by men, not as some avatar of God himself. I defy you to come up with any quote from the early church saying such

a thing--do you seriously think that, after writing his Epistle to the Romans, Paul sat back and thought, "whew, I just transcribed a little hunk of God"?

This is all besides the point. To be honest I haven't a clue about a good deal of the Bible. However I understand what I need to for example the verse from 2 Peter that I posted twice and you ignore twice. Now I will reitterate, following the Word and believing in it is how I know to obey God.

That said, please read Slowws post. It's very good advice.

[Newgod]

well you guys are really busy translating and understand the book but what about the people who use the writing of the book and do evil you know or understand nothing about them its useless to dig your heads in religious book if you cant see truth or reality actually its s big shame

[Elok]

Let's you also commented on needing proper leadership to obey God. Of course there are bad Protestant leaders. Leaders in general suck. Don't follow any leader except Christ and the prophets and apostles who have been given authority to lead you.

And the people they passed on their titles to, such as whoever the second Bishop of Rome was after Peter, they meant for you to ignore? If the first Christians were superior to us, why did they need leaders, or have a use for them, while we did not? They had bishops and priests; why, if they could have just handed out the correct letters and said "read and figure it out yourself"?

The thing is that the Bible was meant for you to read meditate on and discover the meaning for yourself through life's experiences.

Why "for yourself"? If countless generations of people were able to discover its meaning, one way or another, why can't they share their experience and wisdom with you to help you on your way? Is that cheating, somehow? And how have you discovered the meaning yourself? As I said, your theology is derived from an existing interpretation, just as much as mine is. The difference is that your tradition is much younger and rooted in an entirely different culture than the one that wrote the Bible. Plus it keeps reinventing or splitting itself, rendering it somewhat dysfunctional.

You have to have faith in it. Now if some religious leader tells you that you are incapable of understanding it or that it is full of errors and you need him to tell you what's truth then what faith do you have in God. You simply put your faith in a man.

I listen to people like John Chrysostom and Gregory the Theologian. You listen to Calvin and Darby, apparently. People who listen to nobody at all, but just start reading, generally wind up with something completely off-base, because the Bible is a huge and extremely complex book from a foreign culture. See: Koresh, David.

And what you're expressing here isn't faith in God, but in yourself. You're assuming that you have sufficient wisdom and discernment to understand perfectly a message from two thousand years ago, even without understanding the meaning of basic concepts like logos. That's called pride. It's not a good thing. Also, if you characterize an interpretation born out of your own prejudices as "the guidance of the Holy Spirit," you've simply compounded your error with a little blasphemy.

You've repeatedly misread most of the things said in this thread, said by people you've known for a couple of years. Do you sincerely think you're personally competent to understand the writings of long-dead strangers unaided?

[Newgod]

the christans burnt females accusing them as witchs in the name of god if someone think that was for good or god then that person is horribly wrong,

[Elok]

This is all besides the point. To be honest I haven't a clue about a good deal of the Bible. However I understand what I need to for example the verse from 2 Peter that I posted twice and you ignore twice. Now I will reitterate, following the Word and believing in it is how I know to obey God.

But you don't even understand what the term "Word" refers to! You appear to be willfully ignoring the correct definition, and discarding the opinions of holy men from thousands of years simply out of an unjustified and frankly paranoid belief that they're all out to screw you. Never mind the ten million con men who made a mint at revival meetings back in the day, or the swindlers of the modern megachurch; apparently it's not being ignorant that makes you a menace.

That said, please read Slowws post. It's very good advice.

I will allow that there is a possibility of error in all discussions. That doesn't mean we should stop discussing things, or just go off and all be ignorant separately. I think it's good to discuss, and to point out error when we see it--following Biblical precedent. We Christians on Poly might be divided by belief, but we're still a kind of Christian community to the extent that we discuss the faith. If you don't want to do that anymore, that's your right and God bless.