YokelRidesAgain said:

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k2aggie07 said:

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False dichotomy.

Step 1. Define "Christlike"
Step 2. Define "Paullike"
Step 3. Demonstrate that the two are different.

Good luck.

---

Jesus of Nazareth was an itinerant Jewish preacher who traveled from town to town preaching about the kingdom of God. Whether you believe that his teachings were:

A) Messianic revealings of himself as the literal Son of God, as fundamentalist Christians would hold

B) Elaborations of a moral nature on a "kingdom not of this world" that would forever transcend the depravities of Empire, as some liberal Christians would hold

or

C) Eschatological visions of a literal, apocalyptic end of the world expected within a generation or two, as some atheists (e.g., Bart Ehrmann) would hold

...there is nothing in the gospel accounts that suggest that Jesus ever had any concern about specifying how the churches that would be set up to worship him as a god would be directed.

That aspect of the New Testament is largely Pauline, with some contributions from other writers.

---

First, this isn't related to the question of discipline.

Second, your scope is so narrow as to be useless. You can't separate the gospel accounts from the rest of the NT or the entire working body of church tradition without mangling them beyond use. Just like you can't remove parts you don't like from the gospel without rendering it impotent (as did Jefferson).

The gospels were written by the same folks that either walked with a Christ or were disciples of those who did (see another thread for this discussion). The NT canon was set / formed / preserved by those same people. You either must take it all or reject it all -- or, make the (difficult to support) case that sometime in the first thirty years after Christ's death it all went to hell.

RedAgs01 said:

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YokelRidesAgain said:

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k2aggie07 said:

---

False dichotomy.

Step 1. Define "Christlike"
Step 2. Define "Paullike"
Step 3. Demonstrate that the two are different.

Good luck.

---

Jesus of Nazareth was an itinerant Jewish preacher who traveled from town to town preaching about the kingdom of God. Whether you believe that his teachings were:

A) Messianic revealings of himself as the literal Son of God, as fundamentalist Christians would hold

B) Elaborations of a moral nature on a "kingdom not of this world" that would forever transcend the depravities of Empire, as some liberal Christians would hold

or

C) Eschatological visions of a literal, apocalyptic end of the world expected within a generation or two, as some atheists (e.g., Bart Ehrmann) would hold

...there is nothing in the gospel accounts that suggest that Jesus ever had any concern about specifying how the churches that would be set up to worship him as a god would be directed.

That aspect of the New Testament is largely Pauline, with some contributions from other writers.

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Well said. Less Paul and more Jesus.

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Your post made me picture this:



(Get it... Les Paul)

Bro both of those are strat styles. Cmon.

k2aggie07 said:

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Bro both of those are strat styles. Cmon.

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I know. But I couldn't find a good Les Paul Jesus photoshop.

RedAgs01 said:

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YokelRidesAgain said:

---

k2aggie07 said:

---

False dichotomy.

Step 1. Define "Christlike"
Step 2. Define "Paullike"
Step 3. Demonstrate that the two are different.

Good luck.

---

Jesus of Nazareth was an itinerant Jewish preacher who traveled from town to town preaching about the kingdom of God. Whether you believe that his teachings were:

A) Messianic revealings of himself as the literal Son of God, as fundamentalist Christians would hold

B) Elaborations of a moral nature on a "kingdom not of this world" that would forever transcend the depravities of Empire, as some liberal Christians would hold

or

C) Eschatological visions of a literal, apocalyptic end of the world expected within a generation or two, as some atheists (e.g., Bart Ehrmann) would hold

...there is nothing in the gospel accounts that suggest that Jesus ever had any concern about specifying how the churches that would be set up to worship him as a god would be directed.

That aspect of the New Testament is largely Pauline, with some contributions from other writers.

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Well said. Less Paul and more Jesus.

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Dr. Watson said:

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k2aggie07 said:

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Bro both of those are strat styles. Cmon.

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I know. But I couldn't find a good Les Paul Jesus photoshop.

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I should have read the rest of the thread. I didn't see that this joke had been made


edit:

Also, never google "more jesus" unless you want your brain to explode

Need a scratchplate? then you can have more jesus on a les paul!

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Kit-Pickguard-Scratchplate-Graphical-Covers-4-Gibson-Les-Paul-Guitar-Jesus-/322186434443

k2aggie07 said:

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Second, your scope is so narrow as to be useless. You can't separate the gospel accounts from the rest of the NT or the entire working body of church tradition without mangling them beyond use. Just like you can't remove parts you don't like from the gospel without rendering it impotent (as did Jefferson).

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Sorry, but you don't get to decide what is and isn't meaningful for Jefferson, or anyone else.

What you said implies that anyone who doubts the historical veracity of the Messianic words attributed to Jesus, or the Christology of Paul, must find no value in the New Testament. Experience demonstrates that such an assertion is simply not true.

Your claim that there is no difference between "Paul-like" and "Jesus-like" teachings is rooted in a fundamentalist interpretation of Scripture that does not admit any possibility of a Bible that may contain wheat and chaff--thus your claim that it must all be accepted or rejected.

In turn, I reject your premise.

Solo Tetherball Champ said:

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Quote:

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...there is nothing in the gospel accounts that suggest that Jesus ever had any concern about specifying how the churches that would be set up to worship him as a god would be directed.

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Because Jesus never taught about standards for behavior, right?

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I never said, nor implied, anything of the sort.

Then your post had no relevance to the discussion.

We're discussing what to do when someone in a position of leadership obviously fails in their role of leader, not how to structure the church. Since you at least read the gospels, you'll recognize that Jesus would frequently point out the hypocrisy of those in leadership. K2 posted a direct quote that showed how to handle when sin enters the assembly of believers. It is not a stretch to see how that can be applied to leadership position.

Solo Tetherball Champ said:

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Then your post had no relevance to the discussion.

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Nonsense. I was responding to a question posed by someone else about whether there was a difference between "Paul-like" and "Christ-like" statements. As with many discussion threads, this one is not limited to the specific question posed by the OP.

YokelRidesAgain said:

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k2aggie07 said:

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Second, your scope is so narrow as to be useless. You can't separate the gospel accounts from the rest of the NT or the entire working body of church tradition without mangling them beyond use. Just like you can't remove parts you don't like from the gospel without rendering it impotent (as did Jefferson).

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Sorry, but you don't get to decide what is and isn't meaningful for Jefferson, or anyone else.

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Didn't he display what was and wasn't meaningful to him when he butchered and rearranged the Bible?

YokelRidesAgain said:

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k2aggie07 said:

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Second, your scope is so narrow as to be useless. You can't separate the gospel accounts from the rest of the NT or the entire working body of church tradition without mangling them beyond use. Just like you can't remove parts you don't like from the gospel without rendering it impotent (as did Jefferson).

---

Sorry, but you don't get to decide what is and isn't meaningful for Jefferson, or anyone else.

What you said implies that anyone who doubts the historical veracity of the Messianic words attributed to Jesus, or the Christology of Paul, must find no value in the New Testament. Experience demonstrates that such an assertion is simply not true.

Your claim that there is no difference between "Paul-like" and "Jesus-like" teachings is rooted in a fundamentalist interpretation of Scripture that does not admit any possibility of a Bible that may contain wheat and chaff--thus your claim that it must all be accepted or rejected.

In turn, I reject your premise.

---

Value and use are not the same things. People can find value in whatever they like. You could find value in interpretation of Oreo cream separation patterns.

It's illogical to look in hindsight at a completed process - and that is exactly what the preservation of scripture is - and then presume to reinterpret that preservation through a modern lens. Its anachronistic. The fathers called St. Paul's writings scripture. St Peter alluded to St Paul's writing as scripture. You either count it as scripture or you don't count any of the NT. You can't piecemeal the NT canon by Paul and Gospel. Historically it simply doesn't work.

Are there things explicitly stated by St Paul that Christ did not teach explicitly? Yes. But they spoke from the same scriptures. To drive a wedge between them on mintuia is to ignore the vast majority of harmony of their teaching. Which is to say nothing of the view of inspiration.

I'm not scared of being called "fundamentalistic" although I suspect you intended it as a pejorative. I imagine you'd find my views on scripture quite a bit more nuanced than the groups most often called fundamentalists (ie modernist evangelical Christians) - which I'm not.

I don't think there's equality of use in all scripture. Some verses are more useful. But I also won't put myself in the ridiculous position of deciding what is "chaff" some 1800-1900 years after the canon was effectively set.

Dr. Watson said:

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RedAgs01 said:

---

YokelRidesAgain said:

---

k2aggie07 said:

---

False dichotomy.

Step 1. Define "Christlike"
Step 2. Define "Paullike"
Step 3. Demonstrate that the two are different.

Good luck.

---

Jesus of Nazareth was an itinerant Jewish preacher who traveled from town to town preaching about the kingdom of God. Whether you believe that his teachings were:

A) Messianic revealings of himself as the literal Son of God, as fundamentalist Christians would hold

B) Elaborations of a moral nature on a "kingdom not of this world" that would forever transcend the depravities of Empire, as some liberal Christians would hold

or

C) Eschatological visions of a literal, apocalyptic end of the world expected within a generation or two, as some atheists (e.g., Bart Ehrmann) would hold

...there is nothing in the gospel accounts that suggest that Jesus ever had any concern about specifying how the churches that would be set up to worship him as a god would be directed.

That aspect of the New Testament is largely Pauline, with some contributions from other writers.

---

Well said. Less Paul and more Jesus.

---

Your post made me picture this:



(Get it... Les Paul)

---

It's a pretty standard response from my funnier friends when we talk about this.

k2aggie07 said:

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It's illogical to look in hindsight at a completed process - and that is exactly what the preservation of scripture is - and then presume to reinterpret that preservation through a modern lens. Its anachronistic. The fathers called St. Paul's writings scripture. St Peter alluded to St Paul's writing as scripture. You either count it as scripture or you don't count any of the NT. You can't piecemeal the NT canon by Paul and Gospel. Historically it simply doesn't work.

---

Why can't you? This is a question about understanding and not about challenging your views.

Because the Bible did not fall out of the sky as a complete book. Christians don't believe that it was dictated word for word.

There are tons and tons of canonical lists out there and many fathers wrote about various books, why they included or excluded. Which means that selection of the scriptures was a exclusive process -- not all stuff made it in. And, if you choose to look at it this way, that process continued even into the Protestant Reformation when certain apocryphal books went from being "edifying but not scripture" to excluded from any lists to meet the needs of the demands of a sola scriptura approach to faith.

The same people that said these gospels (vs those gospels) are scripture are the same that said these epistles vs those are scripture.

That being said, my faith does not consider the epistles to be the same as the gospels. The epistles reflect the faith, the gospels are an icon of Christ. We even treat the physical books differently (the gospels stay on the altar). But, we recognize that they are part of a fabric, a singular tradition, and they were preserved in their place accordingly.

By way of analogy, if we have a team of scientists that preserve a skeleton, this is like someone later saying saying well this is a skull and this is a foot and so they are unrelated. Or we can consider the skull but not the foot. Or they are from different creatures, or can exist apart from each other. You either discount the work of preservation (ie the scientist that assembled the skeleton was wrong and these two things do not belong together) -- in which case the entirety of the structure / the whole of the work is in question -- or you accept the whole.

Put yet another way, if the people who preserved st Paul's writings thought they were not of the same quality or character or inspiration as the gospels, they never mentioned it.

Quote:

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I agree. Forgive and move on. Nevermine that he violated a couple of the big TEN by lying and cheating, but by all means, if he repents, let him up. It is the Christian thing to do. By repenting, he will surely be allowed into heaven along with all the priestly child molesters who have repented. Meanwhile the Jew, Hindu, Buddhist, atheist, etc. who have led good, honest lives will be left out. That will teach them.

---

This statement assumes people go to heaven by repenting or possibly keeping the big TEN, or by leading a good and honest life. If this is true, everything Jesus taught was a lie. Heaven is absolutely free because of who Jesus is and what He did. Living a Christian life for us who have accepted what He did will always be a struggle of ups and downs.

My thought is that the guy would be welcome back to the church but not involved in a leadership position. He can certainly serve in other areas.

k2aggie07 said:

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By way of analogy, if we have a team of scientists that preserve a skeleton, this is like someone later saying saying well this is a skull and this is a foot and so they are unrelated. Or we can consider the skull but not the foot. Or they are from different creatures, or can exist apart from each other. You either discount the work of preservation (ie the scientist that assembled the skeleton was wrong and these two things do not belong together) -- in which case the entirety of the structure / the whole of the work is in question -- or you accept the whole.

---

This analogy holds no water.

If a paleontologist finds he head of an Allosaurus and place it on the top of a body of a juvenile Tyrannosaurus, and calls the whole assembly an Allosaurus, he is wrong. That doesn't change the character of the skull at all.

k2aggie07 said:

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It's illogical to look in hindsight at a completed process - and that is exactly what the preservation of scripture is - and then presume to reinterpret that preservation through a modern lens. Its anachronistic. The fathers called St. Paul's writings scripture. St Peter alluded to St Paul's writing as scripture. You either count it as scripture or you don't count any of the NT. You can't piecemeal the NT canon by Paul and Gospel. Historically it simply doesn't work.

---

If your goal was to understand the theology of the early Church, I would agree with this.

I would also agree that it would be illogical to accept everything in the gospels as incontrovertible canon and reject some or all of the Pauline epistles.

Nonetheless, what you seem to be saying is that it is not possible to find value in the NT Scriptures without a take it or leave it approach, and that flatly discounts the last couple of centuries of New Testament scholarship.

The viewpoint of the early Church is a matter of historical interest, but I see no reason to regard the viewpoints they chose to include in the NT as either infallible or historically accurate, particularly when the evidence suggests otherwise.

What you are saying is that this view means that I should reject all of the New Testament entirely; which I do not.

YokelRidesAgain said:

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k2aggie07 said:

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By way of analogy, if we have a team of scientists that preserve a skeleton, this is like someone later saying saying well this is a skull and this is a foot and so they are unrelated. Or we can consider the skull but not the foot. Or they are from different creatures, or can exist apart from each other. You either discount the work of preservation (ie the scientist that assembled the skeleton was wrong and these two things do not belong together) -- in which case the entirety of the structure / the whole of the work is in question -- or you accept the whole.

---

This analogy holds no water.

If a paleontologist finds he head of an Allosaurus and place it on the top of a body of a juvenile Tyrannosaurus, and calls the whole assembly an Allosaurus, he is wrong. That doesn't change the character of the skull at all.

---

Sigh, yes, this is precisely my point.

The books are what they are.

The fact that we have them is a work of preservation.

The fact that they were preserved is a commentary on their reliability etc.

You're suggesting that you can take them piece meal without regard for the presentation.

The fact is, we don't have very much physical evidence. In the analogy, we don't have the "skeleton". We just have the published paper about it - and hundreds of papers afterwards. Ergo, if you say "man that is incorrect" it's not a commentary on the actual work but on the process of preservation.

All of our faith is an appeal to authority. There is nothing fundamentally extant about the Christian faith that can be proven outside of appeal to authority or personal experience. If you reject any appeals to authority (i.e., what is and isn't scripture) the who idea of scripture is useless.

YokelRidesAgain said:

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k2aggie07 said:

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It's illogical to look in hindsight at a completed process - and that is exactly what the preservation of scripture is - and then presume to reinterpret that preservation through a modern lens. Its anachronistic. The fathers called St. Paul's writings scripture. St Peter alluded to St Paul's writing as scripture. You either count it as scripture or you don't count any of the NT. You can't piecemeal the NT canon by Paul and Gospel. Historically it simply doesn't work.

---

If your goal was to understand the theology of the early Church, I would agree with this.

I would also agree that it would be illogical to accept everything in the gospels as incontrovertible canon and reject some or all of the Pauline epistles.

Nonetheless, what you seem to be saying is that it is not possible to find value in the NT Scriptures without a take it or leave it approach, and that flatly discounts the last couple of centuries of New Testament scholarship.

The viewpoint of the early Church is a matter of historical interest, but I see no reason to regard the viewpoints they chose to include in the NT as either infallible or historically accurate, particularly when the evidence suggests otherwise.

What you are saying is that this view means that I should reject all of the New Testament entirely; which I do not.

---

I already said that value is vague. You can find value in literally anything. Tarot cards. Tea leaves. Cloud shapes. Tire patterns. I have no idea what you mean by value. Historical value? Personal value? Educational value? Moral value?

You keep trying to separate things that can't be separated. There's not an early church (big pause) a middle church (big pause) and a modern church. There are schisms, splinters, splits, branches, heresies, sure. But even those are connected.

If the Church erred so dramatically as to fail in canonicity -- particularly considering that the Holy Scriptures have been the bedrock or crown jewel of Holy Tradition since the beginning -- or has change so much that things which were taken as fundamental and incontrovertible truths of the faith 100, 500, 700, 1900 years ago are now no longer truths, then Christianity is simply a lie. Then the faith is futile.

Whether you personally reject the NT or not (whatever that means) doesn't change that the faith as a whole is either internally consistent or wrong.

k2aggie07 said:

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Because the Bible did not fall out of the sky as a complete book. Christians don't believe that it was dictated word for word.

There are tons and tons of canonical lists out there and many fathers wrote about various books, why they included or excluded. Which means that selection of the scriptures was a exclusive process -- not all stuff made it in. And, if you choose to look at it this way, that process continued even into the Protestant Reformation when certain apocryphal books went from being "edifying but not scripture" to excluded from any lists to meet the needs of the demands of a sola scriptura approach to faith.

The same people that said these gospels (vs those gospels) are scripture are the same that said these epistles vs those are scripture.

That being said, my faith does not consider the epistles to be the same as the gospels. The epistles reflect the faith, the gospels are an icon of Christ. We even treat the physical books differently (the gospels stay on the altar). But, we recognize that they are part of a fabric, a singular tradition, and they were preserved in their place accordingly.

By way of analogy, if we have a team of scientists that preserve a skeleton, this is like someone later saying saying well this is a skull and this is a foot and so they are unrelated. Or we can consider the skull but not the foot. Or they are from different creatures, or can exist apart from each other. You either discount the work of preservation (ie the scientist that assembled the skeleton was wrong and these two things do not belong together) -- in which case the entirety of the structure / the whole of the work is in question -- or you accept the whole.

Put yet another way, if the people who preserved st Paul's writings thought they were not of the same quality or character or inspiration as the gospels, they never mentioned it.

---

So the Bible is basically our best guess at what God wants and we have to be open to the idea that maybe some of the rules might be just made up by men?

Quote:

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So the Bible is basically our best guess at what God wants and we have to be open to the idea that maybe some of the rules might be just made up by men?

---

I'm not sure how to answer this question.

I've never felt like the Bible was a rule book. I don't believe that the scriptures were ever intended to be all-encompassing with regards to the Christian faith.

The Truth is God, everything starts and flows from there (including scripture). If you believe in God, the next question is belief that Christ came as the Incarnate God, the God-man (theanthropos). These are intellectual questions. If you believe that, then the question is to discern His nature and character. This is where intellectual inquiry ends and experiential belief or faith begins.

Reading the scriptures can be intellectual. But as a question or discernment of what God wants for us, it becomes experiential. And in that regard it's one avenue of many for experiencing God. The point here is God, not the scriptures.

If we are in God, in union with Him, He becomes for us the standard of Truth. We measure the truthfulness of things against Him, the righteousness of things against Him. Not the scriptures or the church or any set of rules. But I think you will find that this measure validates and upholds the scriptures rather than damaging them.

RedAgs01 said:

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k2aggie07 said:

---

Because the Bible did not fall out of the sky as a complete book. Christians don't believe that it was dictated word for word.

There are tons and tons of canonical lists out there and many fathers wrote about various books, why they included or excluded. Which means that selection of the scriptures was a exclusive process -- not all stuff made it in. And, if you choose to look at it this way, that process continued even into the Protestant Reformation when certain apocryphal books went from being "edifying but not scripture" to excluded from any lists to meet the needs of the demands of a sola scriptura approach to faith.

The same people that said these gospels (vs those gospels) are scripture are the same that said these epistles vs those are scripture.

That being said, my faith does not consider the epistles to be the same as the gospels. The epistles reflect the faith, the gospels are an icon of Christ. We even treat the physical books differently (the gospels stay on the altar). But, we recognize that they are part of a fabric, a singular tradition, and they were preserved in their place accordingly.

By way of analogy, if we have a team of scientists that preserve a skeleton, this is like someone later saying saying well this is a skull and this is a foot and so they are unrelated. Or we can consider the skull but not the foot. Or they are from different creatures, or can exist apart from each other. You either discount the work of preservation (ie the scientist that assembled the skeleton was wrong and these two things do not belong together) -- in which case the entirety of the structure / the whole of the work is in question -- or you accept the whole.

Put yet another way, if the people who preserved st Paul's writings thought they were not of the same quality or character or inspiration as the gospels, they never mentioned it.

---

So the Bible is basically our best guess at what God wants and we have to be open to the idea that maybe some of the rules might be just made up by men?

---

God promised to preserve HIS word in Psalm 12, Isaiah 59, and Luke 21 (in addition to other passages). 2 Timothy 3:16 states that all scripture is inspired by God. I take GOD at HIS promise that scripture is both inspired and preserved, so the Bible is our authority on all ecclesiastical and personal spiritual matters.

Every cult and every rogue denomination can be traced back to some leader that exrta "extra-biblical revelation" and seeked to reform one or more of the doctrinal positions stated in the Bible.

I realize than many has maligned the Word of God, and even produced contemporary versions that have been highly edited and re-scripted with eisegesisical interpretations.

As k2aggie07 previously stated, it's ALL or NOTHING. Either God has preserved HIS inspired word, or he hasn't. If he has not, then we are left we the alternative that if there is a GOD, we have no idea what he wants nor how to worship him in truth.

TampaBayAg said:

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RedAgs01 said:

---

k2aggie07 said:

---

Because the Bible did not fall out of the sky as a complete book. Christians don't believe that it was dictated word for word.

There are tons and tons of canonical lists out there and many fathers wrote about various books, why they included or excluded. Which means that selection of the scriptures was a exclusive process -- not all stuff made it in. And, if you choose to look at it this way, that process continued even into the Protestant Reformation when certain apocryphal books went from being "edifying but not scripture" to excluded from any lists to meet the needs of the demands of a sola scriptura approach to faith.

The same people that said these gospels (vs those gospels) are scripture are the same that said these epistles vs those are scripture.

That being said, my faith does not consider the epistles to be the same as the gospels. The epistles reflect the faith, the gospels are an icon of Christ. We even treat the physical books differently (the gospels stay on the altar). But, we recognize that they are part of a fabric, a singular tradition, and they were preserved in their place accordingly.

By way of analogy, if we have a team of scientists that preserve a skeleton, this is like someone later saying saying well this is a skull and this is a foot and so they are unrelated. Or we can consider the skull but not the foot. Or they are from different creatures, or can exist apart from each other. You either discount the work of preservation (ie the scientist that assembled the skeleton was wrong and these two things do not belong together) -- in which case the entirety of the structure / the whole of the work is in question -- or you accept the whole.

Put yet another way, if the people who preserved st Paul's writings thought they were not of the same quality or character or inspiration as the gospels, they never mentioned it.

---

So the Bible is basically our best guess at what God wants and we have to be open to the idea that maybe some of the rules might be just made up by men?

---

God promised to preserve HIS word in Psalm 12, Isaiah 59, and Luke 21 (in addition to other passages). 2 Timothy 3:16 states that all scripture is inspired by God. I take GOD at HIS promise that scripture is both inspired and preserved, so the Bible is our authority on all ecclesiastical and personal spiritual matters.

Every cult and every rogue denomination can be traced back to some leader that exrta "extra-biblical revelation" and seeked to reform one or more of the doctrinal positions stated in the Bible.

I realize than many has maligned the Word of God, and even produced contemporary versions that have been highly edited and re-scripted with eisegesisical interpretations.

As k2aggie07 previously stated, it's ALL or NOTHING. Either God has preserved HIS inspired word, or he hasn't. If he has not, then we are left we the alternative that if there is a GOD, we have no idea what he wants nor how to worship him in truth.

---

But it wan't God that wrote that. It was a man that did and he eventually had the right political backing to get his words within the canon. We all could just as easily have been supporting Arianism if the right men had become emperor of the Roman empire. So it's really not all or nothing, it's just what is being supported at that time by the powers that be.

Maybe I'm just oversimplifying things.

RedAgs01 said:

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TampaBayAg said:

---

RedAgs01 said:

---

k2aggie07 said:

---

Because the Bible did not fall out of the sky as a complete book. Christians don't believe that it was dictated word for word.

There are tons and tons of canonical lists out there and many fathers wrote about various books, why they included or excluded. Which means that selection of the scriptures was a exclusive process -- not all stuff made it in. And, if you choose to look at it this way, that process continued even into the Protestant Reformation when certain apocryphal books went from being "edifying but not scripture" to excluded from any lists to meet the needs of the demands of a sola scriptura approach to faith.

The same people that said these gospels (vs those gospels) are scripture are the same that said these epistles vs those are scripture.

That being said, my faith does not consider the epistles to be the same as the gospels. The epistles reflect the faith, the gospels are an icon of Christ. We even treat the physical books differently (the gospels stay on the altar). But, we recognize that they are part of a fabric, a singular tradition, and they were preserved in their place accordingly.

By way of analogy, if we have a team of scientists that preserve a skeleton, this is like someone later saying saying well this is a skull and this is a foot and so they are unrelated. Or we can consider the skull but not the foot. Or they are from different creatures, or can exist apart from each other. You either discount the work of preservation (ie the scientist that assembled the skeleton was wrong and these two things do not belong together) -- in which case the entirety of the structure / the whole of the work is in question -- or you accept the whole.

Put yet another way, if the people who preserved st Paul's writings thought they were not of the same quality or character or inspiration as the gospels, they never mentioned it.

---

So the Bible is basically our best guess at what God wants and we have to be open to the idea that maybe some of the rules might be just made up by men?

---

God promised to preserve HIS word in Psalm 12, Isaiah 59, and Luke 21 (in addition to other passages). 2 Timothy 3:16 states that all scripture is inspired by God. I take GOD at HIS promise that scripture is both inspired and preserved, so the Bible is our authority on all ecclesiastical and personal spiritual matters.

Every cult and every rogue denomination can be traced back to some leader that exrta "extra-biblical revelation" and seeked to reform one or more of the doctrinal positions stated in the Bible.

I realize than many has maligned the Word of God, and even produced contemporary versions that have been highly edited and re-scripted with eisegesisical interpretations.

As k2aggie07 previously stated, it's ALL or NOTHING. Either God has preserved HIS inspired word, or he hasn't. If he has not, then we are left we the alternative that if there is a GOD, we have no idea what he wants nor how to worship him in truth.

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But it wan't God that wrote that. It was a man that did and he eventually had the right political backing to get his words within the canon. We all could just as easily have been supporting Arianism if the right men had become emperor of the Roman empire. So it's really not all or nothing, it's just what is being supported at that time by the powers that be.

Maybe I'm just oversimplifying things.

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So if the men that wrote scripture were not inspired, and God's word has not been preserved, how do I follow God? By all or nothing, I mean that God either preserved his word and the scriptures have been inspired as he promised or they have not. If God's word is not preserved and the scriptures were not written by men under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, which scriptures do we obey and which do we dismiss? What is our final authority? How do we know what God wants? If we believe in God, surely we must have an an absolute authority of what he wills and how we can please him. Nonbelievers are banking their eternity that there is no Biblical truth, and I am banking mine that God's word is truth, it's inspired, and it has been preserved forever.

(As stated before, no other book has come even close in terms of preservation, and multiple authors on multiple continents, spanning millennia, all bearing unity). No other book has been banned as much as the Bible, and no other book has caused as much global persecution such as the Bible. Yet it prevails to be the most sold, most gifted, and most read book in the history of mankind. We either trust God's word, or we trust whatever society tells us at that specific point in time.

Is there a test to determine if a man is inspired by God? If not, then as rational people we have to at least entertain the idea that those who wrote the part of the Bible were fallible and that some of it could be wrong. I know that Jesus didn't write but I tend to take his teachings at face value knowing that there could be information omitted or exaggerated.

But with Paul, in my opinion, he's just a guy that we believe to be divinely inspired. Too much stock is put into his teachings. For example, Jesus doesn't mention homosexuality but just about every Christian church sees it as a sin? Why? Because of Paul or other writers.

Homosexuality is a sin the OT. St Paul didn't make stuff up.

You're missing the forest.

The litmus test isn't some intellectual evaluation. It's an experiential validation in Christ.

k2aggie07 said:

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If the Church erred so dramatically as to fail in canonicity -- particularly considering that the Holy Scriptures have been the bedrock or crown jewel of Holy Tradition since the beginning -- or has change so much that things which were taken as fundamental and incontrovertible truths of the faith 100, 500, 700, 1900 years ago are now no longer truths, then Christianity is simply a lie. Then the faith is futile.

Whether you personally reject the NT or not (whatever that means) doesn't change that the faith as a whole is either internally consistent or wrong.

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Again, this is simply an opinion that you are stating as fact.

Scripture is quite clear on homosexuality, divorce and usury. These were certainly incontrovertible truths of the faith 1000 years ago, and all are now accepted to one degree or another by some (or, in the case of usury, essentially all) Christian sects.

Either you are declaring all of these groups to be practicing a futile faith, or you are engaging in parsing as to what "fundamental and incontrovertible" mean.

YokelRidesAgain said:

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k2aggie07 said:

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If the Church erred so dramatically as to fail in canonicity -- particularly considering that the Holy Scriptures have been the bedrock or crown jewel of Holy Tradition since the beginning -- or has change so much that things which were taken as fundamental and incontrovertible truths of the faith 100, 500, 700, 1900 years ago are now no longer truths, then Christianity is simply a lie. Then the faith is futile.

Whether you personally reject the NT or not (whatever that means) doesn't change that the faith as a whole is either internally consistent or wrong.

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Again, this is simply an opinion that you are stating as fact.

Scripture is quite clear on homosexuality, divorce and usury. These were certainly incontrovertible truths of the faith 1000 years ago, and all are now accepted to one degree or another by some (or, in the case of usury, essentially all) Christian sects.

Either you are declaring all of these groups to be practicing a futile faith, or you are engaging in parsing as to what "fundamental and incontrovertible" mean.

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Accepted? Source?

AGC said:

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Accepted? Source?

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Seriously?

Several mainline Protestant denominations have moved to full acceptance of homosexuality, or something like it (for example, allowing gay clergy and blessing gay marriage), including the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the Episcopal Church in the United States, the United Church of Christ, and the Disciples of Christ.

Divorce is allowed by most Christian denominations other than the Roman Catholic Church (and there have been circumstances, such as the "annulment" of Ted Kennedy's marriage, that suggest that this is negotiable as well, at least for the right people--not to mention the recent positions of Pope Francis.

Lastly, I am not aware of any Christian denomination except for perhaps the Old Order Amish/Mennonite communities that prohibit engaging in usury as it was commonly understood in the Middle Ages.

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Several mainline Protestant denominations have moved to full acceptance of homosexuality, or something like it (for example, allowing gay clergy and blessing gay marriage), including the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the Episcopal Church in the United States, the United Church of Christ, and the Disciples of Christ.

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Every "denomination" that you just listed is declared anathema by the rest of their base.

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Is there a test to determine if a man is inspired by God? If not, then as rational people we have to at least entertain the idea that those who wrote the part of the Bible were fallible and that some of it could be wrong. I know that Jesus didn't write but I tend to take his teachings at face value knowing that there could be information omitted or exaggerated.

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I think before proving inspiration one must prove historical validity. If it's not historically reasonable then one could stop there. I don't know if there's a test one could run to prove inspiration due to us not being able to repeat the events. Fulfilled prophesy in my eyes would be a supernatural fingerprint towards inspiration however there are books that I accept within the scriptures that do not contain prophesies. For me it's the content of the message being consistent across different books written by different people at different times in history.

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But with Paul, in my opinion, he's just a guy that we believe to be divinely inspired. Too much stock is put into his teachings. For example, Jesus doesn't mention homosexuality but just about every Christian church sees it as a sin? Why? Because of Paul or other writers.

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Matthew 15:19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.

Let's think about this for a moment. Jesus did not provide an exhaustive list of all sins. This would be like saying stealing children (kidnapping) is okay because Jesus didn't mention it. Also, how did Jesus treat the old testament law? Was he not teaching the people in the first part of his ministry to follow the law? Also, what would Jesus mean by "sexual immorality" in the verse above? What was considered sexually immoral?

I think all sexual immorality is wrong no matter what flavor and I'll be the first to admit that I've been guilty of this sin more times than I can count. If we learn anything from king David it's that humility, admitting when we've done wrong, and repentance can bring about restoration in a relationship with God although there may be consequences.

swimmerbabe11 said:

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Every "denomination" that you just listed is declared anathema by the rest of their base.

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What do you mean by "the rest of their base"?