You said: “You seem to be saying that these different apostles did these different things, and that supports your idea of different revelation for different people.”

Nope. My only point in the Paul vs. Apollo discussion (I Cor 3:4-7) is this: Instead of saying “I am of Paul” (or Augustine) or “I am of Apollos” (or Calvin) we should all be saying “I am of Christ.” Instead of defending or condemning the doctrines of Augustine or Calvin, we should be letting the Holy Spirit illuminate scripture and teaching us what we need to know.

Which leads me to the Mark 7:6-9 reference: “BUT IN VAIN DO THEY WORSHIP ME, TEACHING AS DOCTRINES THE PRECEPTS OF MEN. Neglecting the commandment of God, you hold to the tradition of men.”

You said: “I get the impression that you are connecting the “precept of men” to Augustine and Calvin and Arminius, and at times this is certainly true, but it is impossible to say for sure in the absence of a citation on your part of the errors of accretion of these men.”

If we spend all our time trying to understand Augustine and Calvin and Arminius, not only can we get hopelessly confused, but by default, we are neglecting the commandment of God. I cited no reference because the point is not whether their writings are right or wrong. The point is that their writings are not the Bible.

Having said that, I did not at all mean to imply that we don’t need teachers, as your comments on the Great Commission prove. I believe, though, that real understanding comes only through the Holy Spirit.

Matthew 23:8: “But do not be called Rabbi; for One is your Teacher, and you are all brothers.

John 14:26: “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.

This is not to say that we can’t learn from reading and discussing things other than the Bible. But your point “That people get “a word” is evidence of nothing until it lines up with what is written” also needs to be applied to what we read and what each church has “inherited.”

To sum up, I think our energies are much better spent trying to understand what Jesus meant, rather than what Augustine or Calvin meant.

Over the course of my Christian life, I have discovered a pattern that the Holy Spirit has used to teach me something new, and it goes something like this:

1) I will have an apparently random thought that I don’t understand at all.

2) I will pray and search scripture to try to find that understanding.

3) In God’s time, He will reveal to me the idea He’s trying get through my thick skull.

4) AFTER I have some understanding and can back it up with scripture, He will lead me to a book or a sermon or something else that explains it far better than I can.

As an example of this, I was a libertarian before I was a Christian. Several different times, I have tried to test my political ideas against Christianity, with only a modicum of success. A few months ago, I tried to crudely explain my thinking to a somewhat like-minded friend. He got it (bless his heart) but a while later I came across this link to an article by Tom Rawles that really said what I had been thinking:

http://www.liberalia.com/htm/tr_christian_libertarian.htm

God didn’t lead me here until I had the understanding myself. Here’s my posting on this: http://akagaga.blogspot.com/2008/06/christian-libertarian-or-libertarian.html

So generally, I’ve found that the writings of others are only used to confirm my thoughts and express them better than I can.

I hope this clarifies for you Beks, and again – I really appreciate your comments.

I really appreciate what you seem to be saying. As a die-hard congregationalist, I believe that each body of believers which God has called together, however it may have happened, are beholden to each other in all matters.

For instance, in 1 Cor 14:23, when Paul writes, “The Whole Church” he can’t possibly be talking about believers everywhere. In that context, ekklesia must mean the body of believers in Corith. I am certain that the vast majority of the uses of this word in this letter have primarily the local application, with some also being applied to the CHURCH, as with 10:32 and 11:22.

However this actually raises a challenge to your thesis.

You cite 1 Corinthians 3:4-7 in implicit support of your thesis. You seem to be saying that these different apostles did these different things, and that supports your idea of different revelation for different people. The problem is that, though this letter is for all of us, the specifics being dealt with are within a single body of believers. The different men were not teaching divergent or various truths to different bodies, these men all taught within the ekkesia of God which is at Corinth, and their teaching was approved by Paul. The men you cite which are mentioned in 1 cor 3 taught within one church, not different churches thousands of miles and years apart, so, no, 1 Corinthians 3:4-7 wouldn’t apply to Augustine and Calvin and Arminius.

I am not sure how you are citing Mark 7:6-9 in support of your idea. I get the impression that you are connecting the “precept of men” to Augustine and Calvin and Arminius, and at times this is certainly true, but it is impossible to say for sure in the absence of a citation on your part of the errors of accretion of these men, so I cannot accept your inference. With a comparable doctrinal citation from these men I may be able to accept what you are saying.

Here is where I feel that your thesis begins to take on what the Muslims call “The Doctrine of Abrogation”:

“He’s going to speak directly to us — to me and to you, His church body in Glen, NY. So who has authority over each church in each location? Jesus, who has been given all authority in heaven and on earth”

You connect Christ speaking directly to us with his perfect authority on heaven and earth. But the echo of Matt 28:18 does not at all presumptuously lead to “He’s going to speak directly to us” because of what follows. The next three lines have our Lord telling his followers (us) to make disciples, and in doing so we will baptize and teach these disciples to obey all that Christ has commanded. Why would such an instruction be necessary if, as you say, “…that we get our doctrine directly from God and the Bible, not other men”? Christ’s exhortation, in light of him having been given all authority in heaven and upon the earth, is that people are to teach other people. The great commission itself speaks against one of your two main assertions.

In fact, in providing some sort of corrective teaching as you are – that you think you need to refute some long standing error – proves that you don’t really believe “He’s going to speak directly to us.” You would just stand back and let Jesus teach, not needing to, in fact, teach anything at all. Indeed, your refutation could be construed as lording your interpretation over me, though my interpretation also came by a great deal of meditation and prayer. Your idea collapses under the weight of itself.

If the specific issues within the seven churches were for them only, then why do we have them? As Revelation 3:22 reads, “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches,” which certainly seems to indicate that though the specific issues were meant for the individual churches, the letters were not at all meant just for those ekklesia but for anyone “who has an ear”.

This would be dealt with a bit if you had provided examples of how those teachings of Calvin and\or Augustine were “refuted” (the presumptuousness of which also needs unpacking) by Arminius. What I mean is that we would have a much easier time understanding what you were thinking about in matters of doctrinal subjectivity within ekklesia if you highlighted details of these teachers which you are convinced were for their time only. I somewhat agree with you, but such reasoning has been used as of late to throw out the baby with the bathwater by relativists and some of the more extreme postmoderns.

As well, even Augustine wrote “retractions,” having seen errors in his own thinking. Are we to say that the parts of “City of God” which he later found to be an error were actually not errors, just subjective truths? Was he wrong to, earlier, teach things that he later found to be errors? If so, how do we make the case for these errors if “He’s going to speak directly to us”?

Now, after all that, please dear let me say how much I appreciate and agree with much of what you say.

For instance two of the last paragraphs are “can I get a witness” moments for me:

And that’s how I believe church is supposed to be. Each group of believers gets together with their strengths and their weaknesses and their Bibles and their Lord, and He conforms them into His own image.

The ideas which have been handed down to us are certainly to be scrutinized, and at times discarded. But the fact that there is dissention is not evidence of different revelations, it is evidence of sin, praying of course that the error lies not with me nor us, but we need to inspect ourselves.

That people get “a word” is evidence of nothing until it lines up with what is written I really believe that you agree, please don’t hear me saying that that is what I see, because it is not. but when I read Jude it sounds like Ezekiel 13:1-8, in which people are having insights and visions and they really believe that they are from God, and they may be very pious, but in fact they are either seeing what they want to see or what is being given to them by Satan in the midst of their blank slate of a brain.

Many divisions and debates are useless. Some are essential for purity, as with Pergamum and Thyatira, Rev 2:12-29 or the Apostle Peter’s error in Galatians.

Blessings,

Beks

I’m working on a new post called “Faith in Christ or Faith in Doctrine?”

We can continue the conversation there. And thanks, Reynaldo. It’s good to search for God’s truth.

I only pointed this out because many non-Catholic churches try to say that Catholic Church has introduced many new innovation into Christianity, if that was true like the tract you gave me states, this same ancient churches wouldn’t look so much like the Catholic Church in theology. Some of this innovations are also beliefs in this same ancient churches that broke away before and after the so call innovation where stated. Some of the innovations in the tract if correct are moments in time that a belief was questioned and the church decided to put it into ink in order that all questions may be answered, more like a Supreme Court decision.

“I would far rather ponder which church has the most theology in common with the Bible. ”

That sounds like fun, If possible I’m in fore it. I don’t like to shake once faith or my by debating, but I do find it edifying for me, because it makes me a more knowledgeable Christian.

Hay, My sister lives by Binghamton New York in Green.

God bless you for spreading the seed of his love.

As for your statement:
“You may wish to ponder how come most of the ancient Churches of the East and Orient have more theology in common with the Catholic Church then the churches of the reformation.”

I would far rather ponder which church has the most theology in common with the Bible.

You may wish to ponder how come most of the ancient Churches of the East and Orient have more theology in common with the Catholic Church then the churches of the reformation. All this ancient Churches are very conservative with their theology. Like they say its best to go to source when looking for information, what better then the original Ancient Churches, not Catholic parse.

Here goes a Catholic tract that may explain some Anti-catholic misconceptions.
http://www.catholicapologetics.org/

http://www.biblebb.com/files/CATHINFO.HTM

(2 Corinthians 5:21) He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

(1 John 1:8) If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

I currently reside in Miami Florida and I go to St. John the Apostle Catholic Church

With the aid of the Holy Spirit a man a Church can be infallible ( Jn 16:13 ) ( 1Tim 3:15 ). Remember you too believe in the infallibility of man, you do believe the Bible is infallible and guess what a man wrote it. This same infallibility this same Holy Spirit will be with us forever Jn 14:16.

Again, Paul said in Galatians 1:8: “But even though we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we have preached to you, let him be accursed.”

I believe we are supposed to test all things against the gospel found in Scripture, which is inspired by God. (2 Tim 3:16) Jesus promised us that God’s Word would not pass away (Matthew 5:18, 24:35) but He made no such promise about the words of subsequent teachers.

In fact, Jesus repeatedly warned us about “invalidating the word of God by your tradition which you have handed down; and you do many things such as that.” (Mark 7:13)

In addition, the New Testament is full of warnings about deception in the church, which we would be foolish to ignore. [See a previous post here: http://akagaga.blogspot.com/2008/03/deception-in-church.html

I hope this clarifies my thinking, Reynaldo. On a more personal note, can I ask where you are from and what your Christian background is? I’m always curious.