|
Users viewing this topic:
none
|
|
Login  | |
|
RE: The New Testament Church and Apostolic Succession - 9/22/2005 8:33:59 PM
|
|
|
unworthyseraphim
Posts: 1084
Joined: 4/12/2005
From: Mississippi
Status: offline
|
Walter asks if he is chopped liver: Perhaps, but if so certianly liver of the highest quality.
|
|
|
|
|
RE: The New Testament Church and Apostolic Succession - 9/22/2005 10:30:29 PM
|
|
|
alasoosie
Posts: 163
Joined: 4/12/2005
Status: offline
|
Hi meep meep and unworthy,
Well, I totally disagree with your position about NT church practices. I also think you misunderstood some of what I said. It would be interesting to chat more about this. However, since I am having issues with this borrowed computer (can't get used to using my finger instead of a mouse!) and since none one of us is likely to change our views anyway I am going to bow out of this conversation for now. Maybe I will jump back in when I get my computer back and can type and cut and paste without tons of aggravation!
But I did want to mention to unworthy that I was not referring to unleavened/leavened bread. I was refering to sin...read 1 Cor. 5 to see what I am talking about.
Julie
|
|
|
|
|
RE: The New Testament Church and Apostolic Succession - 9/22/2005 10:33:08 PM
|
|
|
walterquez
Posts: 1342
Joined: 4/12/2005
Status: offline
|
You can use the keyboard, I think it is much faster sometimes.
Ctrl+X to cut
Ctrl+C to copy
Ctrl+V to paste
|
|
|
|
|
RE: The New Testament Church and Apostolic Succession - 9/22/2005 10:48:28 PM
|
|
|
i_believe
Posts: 1298
Joined: 4/11/2005
Status: offline
|
quote:
Little question: Is the NT self authenticating and "self documenting?"
And
quote:
And your point? What does that mean? Even the bible is self documented.
Nope... different context than I mentioned in regards to the "church" (e.g. creating and maintaining the very documents that "prove" they have the authority to do so.)
_____________________________
Grace and Peace,
IB
Phi 3:12 Not that I have already obtained, or am already made perfect; but I press on...
|
|
|
|
|
RE: The New Testament Church and Apostolic Succession - 9/22/2005 10:52:38 PM
|
|
|
i_believe
Posts: 1298
Joined: 4/11/2005
Status: offline
|
quote:
That is how I can say. I've never encountered the like of Orthodox Saints anywhere...none even close outside the ancient communions. Their existance proved that there was a depth of life in Christ I did not know, that I had no hope of knowing if I would not walk as they walked and believe as they believed.
And where did you get these facts? From those claiming the authority?
_____________________________
Grace and Peace,
IB
Phi 3:12 Not that I have already obtained, or am already made perfect; but I press on...
|
|
|
|
|
RE: The New Testament Church and Apostolic Succession - 9/22/2005 11:07:28 PM
|
|
|
ayani
Posts: 194
Joined: 4/12/2005
Status: offline
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: walterquez
quote:
ORIGINAL: ayani
We Protestants believe that being apostolic means that one has placed himself to follow in the footsteps of the Apostles as we know them through the documents they left for us: the scriptures. So if I follow the footsteps of Ford and make a vehicle that looks like a Ford Mustang, can I call it a Ford Mustang, even tho it was not built by Ford?
Your analogy is doesn't get off the ground, because there is a problem with your initial assumption: you are assuming that Protestants/Orthodox, whoever, aren't part of 'Ford' at all but are part of Chevy (or, to my thinking, a new Lexus LS430). We are PART OF Christs church. TO use your analogy: we are part of Ford, we could make a Ford and call it a Ford.
quote:
ORIGINAL: walterquez
Protestants? What am I, chop liver?
Walter: I'm not following you-
|
|
|
|
|
RE: The New Testament Church and Apostolic Succession - 9/22/2005 11:14:59 PM
|
|
|
alasoosie
Posts: 163
Joined: 4/12/2005
Status: offline
|
Walter,
I can't figure out how to highlight the text. That is my problem!
Julie
|
|
|
|
|
RE: The New Testament Church and Apostolic Succession - 9/22/2005 11:24:01 PM
|
|
|
ayani
Posts: 194
Joined: 4/12/2005
Status: offline
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: unworthyseraphim
Because those saintly lives outside the Orthodox Church rarely if ever even come close to that of the Orthodox saints, let alone equal or excel.
Show me your holy ones who are transfigured like Christ on Mt. Tabor. Show me your holy ones who run across rivers and who live naked for decades in Russian winters. Show me your holy ones who prophesy without error...whose word always comes to pass. Show me your holy ones who know the hearts of those who seek them out and see their thoughts and who speak with unerring salvic wisdom unto them. Show me their lives, lay out their wisdom.
That is how I can say. I've never encountered the like of Orthodox Saints anywhere...none even close outside the ancient communions.
UnworthySeraphim:
I have no doubt but that there are many saints as you describe in the Orthdodox tradition. That I am not familiar with them and their witness is my loss.
It sounds like you are not familiar with the non-Orthdodox community of saints. Let me introduce you to some who lead exemplary lives of faith and selfless service, who take a back seat to no-one:
Henri Nouwen
Dr. Paul Brand
Francis of Assisi
Albert Schweitzer
Dorothy Day
Deitrich Bonhoeffer
And, that guy in my Icon, Martin Luther King.
I'm sure you could do an internet search and learn about any of them-
quote:
ORIGINAL: unworthyseraphim
God was not trapped only in the Temple in Jerusalem.
Yet there were no other temples in the earth He called His own...until the Temple of Christ's Body.
At least you admit that some communions do have a "geneology" so to speak, that apparantly your own Protestant communion does not. So what would enduce the Holy Spirit to change His Temple from one generation to the next. It seems Christ cleansed the Temple, and didn't hike down the road to start a new one. So while that original Temple of Christ's Body might expect occasional house cleaning...it would not expect desertion for a sunnier tidier locale. The Body would continue intact and offending infiltrations would be swept away, cast out.
The 'temple' became the heart of each believer:
quote:
16 Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? F17 17 If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy that person. For God's temple is holy, and you are that temple.
-1 Corinthians 3
< Message edited by ayani -- 9/22/2005 11:26:17 PM >
|
|
|
|
|
RE: The New Testament Church and Apostolic Succession - 9/22/2005 11:49:40 PM
|
|
|
Ezra
Posts: 1784
Status: offline
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: unworthyseraphim
Walter asks if he is chopped liver: Perhaps, but if so certianly liver of the highest quality.
As they say, Is life worth living? It all depends on the liver!
|
|
|
|
|
RE: The New Testament Church and Apostolic Succession - 9/22/2005 11:51:37 PM
|
|
|
Ezra
Posts: 1784
Status: offline
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: alasoosie
Walter,
I can't figure out how to highlight the text. That is my problem!
Julie
Julie:
It could be a symptom of some problem with the liver.
|
|
|
|
|
RE: The New Testament Church and Apostolic Succession - 9/23/2005 12:09:00 AM
|
|
|
meep meep
Posts: 89
Status: offline
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: i_believe
quote:
Little question: Is the NT self authenticating and "self documenting?"
And
quote:
And your point? What does that mean? Even the bible is self documented.
Nope... different context than I mentioned in regards to the "church" (e.g. creating and maintaining the very documents that "prove" they have the authority to do so.)
So, using your reasoning, and we really don't know, because you don't provide the sources - but let's give you all the benefit of the doubt so that we can understand and work towards agreement with your opinions -
I could say the NT texts, arguably, written and maintained by the Church are self documenting (and possibly) even forgeries...
so how do we know it is the word of God?
how do you determine that the Book of Mormon is not the Word of God?
Using your reasoning, anyone of Paul's epistles could be taken as a self documenting letter written by those who wanted to augment their positions.
Tell me, how do you prove - that the NT is the word of God?
In Christ,
Meep
_____________________________
"We must hold to the Christian religion and to communication in her Church which is Catholic, and which is called Catholic not only by her own members but even by all her enemies." - Augustine, The True Faith
|
|
|
|
|
RE: The New Testament Church and Apostolic Succession - 9/23/2005 12:25:10 AM
|
|
|
nowimfound
Posts: 389
Joined: 4/13/2005
Status: offline
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: unworthyseraphim
Actually NIF's DNA analogy has merit, though I think it somewhat mislocated in reference to the Scriptures.
Thank you for the acknowledgement, but I think you are mistaken. Let's discuss it....
quote:
What is DNA for? Its the biological mechanism, the genetic code that enables creatures to reproduce after their own kind.
It is also the genetic code that defines an individual.
quote:
So to take this analogy and apply it to the Church...if we take the Church as shown to us in the first century to be more or less the "seed" or let us say the life in Christ known by the early Church to be the seed, then we must expect that the Church no matter how it grows and changes outwardly in regard to the original seed the ontologial relationship between the seed as planted and the mature plant at some later point in time will be unbroken. The life of the seed is the life of the plant. Further we must expect that the plant will reproduce in kind...that is the kind of life sown will be the kind of life reaped. It will produce the same kind and depth of life in Christ as enjoyed by that first generation of Christians.
You have moved from the defining substance to a behavior manifestation. I think we should stick to the defining substance.
quote:
And that was the point I was making about the charismatic succession in its reduplication of an apostolic caliber walk with Christ among the faithful. Its best fruit is of the same kind as the best fruit of Apostolic times. Which is why Orthodoxy says, the proof of Orthodoxy is the saints. If Orthodoxy was not what it claimed to be such Christians could not be borne of her, such Christians who walk as the Apostles, Elders, and their disciples walk, who know Christ-God in that same intimate measure and have the corresponding graces of the Spirit.
Saintly behavior borne of love is from the outside indistinguishable from saintly behavior borne of fear or the desire to decieve. Satan masquarades as an angle of light. The fruits of the Spirit point us to the source, but it is the source---the DNA if you will that we really need to examine for authenticity and not a fraud.
quote:
There are many lives of Saints, ancient and modern, to be read about for the willing, or the stories and rememberances of these men and women can all be dismissed a pious fabrications. But if ever you take one of these accounts seriously, you face a dilemma, for you must now face the question posed by their life...If they attained the hights in Christ they attained believing and worshiping as they did, then does that not suggest that to discover some measure of the same for ourselves, we will have to walk as they walked and believe as they believed. Naw...easier to deny them as pious fairytales.
Pious or grim fairytails matter not. We are not called to attain the heights of Christ, but to be lifted up by him. We are not force our lives to conform to a pattern of behavior, but to allow the spiritual DNA to shape our lives according to His plan and purposes for us....a very big difference that may never be seen from the outside.
Grace and Peace,
NIF
|
|
|
|
|
RE: The New Testament Church and Apostolic Succession - 9/23/2005 10:10:18 AM
|
|
|
walterquez
Posts: 1342
Joined: 4/12/2005
Status: offline
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: alasoosie
Walter,
I can't figure out how to highlight the text. That is my problem! Ohhh.
Well, there is a way, again, with the keyboard. But this one just need getting use to it.
You obviously are able to post here, so you are able to navigate thru it.
You can use the TAB to jump from section to another. And once you are in the section where you want to be in order to highlight a text, you should see a blinking cursor. Move the cursor to the text you want to highlight. Then hold the SHIFT and press the RIGHT arrow until the full text is hightlighted. You can also place it at the end of the text, hold the SHIFT and press the LEFT arrow.
Instead of holding the SHIFT key, you can also hold the SHIFT with the CTRL together in order to highlight whole words at a time. Then you can let go of the CTRL, and use only the SHIFT with the arrow to trim it.
Hope that helps until you get a good working mouse.
And if that doesn't work, then as Ezra suggested, your computer may be having a liver problem. 
< Message edited by walterquez -- 9/23/2005 10:13:19 AM >
|
|
|
|
|
RE: The New Testament Church and Apostolic Succession - 9/23/2005 10:28:41 AM
|
|
|
unworthyseraphim
Posts: 1084
Joined: 4/12/2005
From: Mississippi
Status: offline
|
Dear Ayani,
umm..I was raised Protestant, grew up in Protestant/Evangelical circles in a Protestant Evangelical culture. Most of my adult life was spent as an active Protestant. I've had formal Biblical/doctrinal instruction at a Baptist college...enough for a heavy minor. I've even had a year or so as a lay pastor. I taught Sunday School and Children's Church...and am well aware of a number of Protestant Heros of the faith. My heroes used to be: Rees Howells, Jesse Penn-Lewis, Smith Wigglesworth, Praying Hyde, Hudson Taylor, Sadhu Sundar Singh, and folk of that ilk.
So I am familiar with the heights reached by these men and women. But though I yet hold several of these in high regard they still do not compare with the lives I've encountered in Orthodoxy. Only two of them seem to come close: Rees Howells and Sadhu Sundar Singh. Of course I know you cannot just take my word for it.
It was the vastness of that difference that kept my attention on what Orthodoxy had to say. If I had kept on the in Protestant path, I might could have grown in the same way as did Rees Howells or Praying Hyde...which would have been great as far as it went. And if they represented the pinnacle of potential Christian life in this world, then why bother with anthing else. But I discovered they did not...they made for some impressive foothills, but the heights I saw in the lives of Orthodox saints far surpassed them. So I chose to follow the path that could lead me beyond the foothills God willing that I should traverse so high.
|
|
|
|
|
RE: The New Testament Church and Apostolic Succession - 9/23/2005 10:34:57 AM
|
|
|
unworthyseraphim
Posts: 1084
Joined: 4/12/2005
From: Mississippi
Status: offline
|
Dear NIF,
I thought I was speaking less of behaviors as I was persons...
As for the Spirit making changes not always discernable without...I could agree with that. But it is interesting to note that it was when those changes began to be too visible from without that that the impetus for a great many Saints to head for the deserts, hills, and forests. They had no desire to draw attention to themselves and fled idle human curiosity and vain adulation.
|
|
|
|
|
RE: The New Testament Church and Apostolic Succession - 9/23/2005 12:33:29 PM
|
|
|
ayani
Posts: 194
Joined: 4/12/2005
Status: offline
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: unworthyseraphim
Dear Ayani,
umm..I was raised Protestant, grew up in Protestant/Evangelical circles in a Protestant Evangelical culture. Most of my adult life was spent as an active Protestant. I've had formal Biblical/doctrinal instruction at a Baptist college...enough for a heavy minor. I've even had a year or so as a lay pastor. I taught Sunday School and Children's Church...and am well aware of a number of Protestant Heros of the faith. My heroes used to be: Rees Howells, Jesse Penn-Lewis, Smith Wigglesworth, Praying Hyde, Hudson Taylor, Sadhu Sundar Singh, and folk of that ilk.
Dear UnworthySeraphim (I don’t want to shorten that to Unworthy because that is highly untrue)
I thought you were raised a Protestant, which is why I was (and am) baffled, being that you are seem well informed, that you would have come to the conclusion that you have expressed several times, “saintly lives outside the Orthodox Church rarely if ever even come close to that of the Orthodox saints, let alone equal or excel”.
I looked up the St. Seraphim you mentioned, and the short biography I read mentioned that he is considered saintly for the heroic life of prayer he lead, as well as extreme self-mortification he practiced, followed by a report of transfiguration by one of his disciples. His story is remarkably similar to some folks we have in the west. I am providing a couple of links so you can learn about some other saintly lives:
Catherine of Sienahttp://www.ewtn.com/library/MARY/CATSIENA.htm
Teresa of Avilahttp://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=208
Francis of Assisi.
You mentioned in post 125 an Orthodox geronti who ran across a river, and one who lived naked through the Russian winter. I would hold up the heroic service to God of Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer among countless others without the 'Apostolic Succesion' of the Orthodox, very favorably to those examples.
By the way, I don’t know if I have mentioned this, but I find your thoughts on this forum very interesting, and I make it a point to carefully read what you say. I find your posts very frustrating, in this way: I sometimes have the feeling you're saying something very important, but can't quite grasp what you're saying (you know the feeling I'm talking about).
But, on this thread I disagree strongly with you!
|
|
|
|
|
RE: The New Testament Church and Apostolic Succession - 9/23/2005 12:42:09 PM
|
|
|
sdaw
Posts: 877
Joined: 4/11/2005
Status: offline
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: nowimfound
quote:
ORIGINAL: unworthyseraphim
Actually NIF's DNA analogy has merit, though I think it somewhat mislocated in reference to the Scriptures.
Thank you for the acknowledgement, but I think you are mistaken. Let's discuss it....
quote:
What is DNA for? Its the biological mechanism, the genetic code that enables creatures to reproduce after their own kind.
It is also the genetic code that defines an individual.
quote:
So to take this analogy and apply it to the Church...if we take the Church as shown to us in the first century to be more or less the "seed" or let us say the life in Christ known by the early Church to be the seed, then we must expect that the Church no matter how it grows and changes outwardly in regard to the original seed the ontologial relationship between the seed as planted and the mature plant at some later point in time will be unbroken. The life of the seed is the life of the plant. Further we must expect that the plant will reproduce in kind...that is the kind of life sown will be the kind of life reaped. It will produce the same kind and depth of life in Christ as enjoyed by that first generation of Christians.
You have moved from the defining substance to a behavior manifestation. I think we should stick to the defining substance.
quote:
And that was the point I was making about the charismatic succession in its reduplication of an apostolic caliber walk with Christ among the faithful. Its best fruit is of the same kind as the best fruit of Apostolic times. Which is why Orthodoxy says, the proof of Orthodoxy is the saints. If Orthodoxy was not what it claimed to be such Christians could not be borne of her, such Christians who walk as the Apostles, Elders, and their disciples walk, who know Christ-God in that same intimate measure and have the corresponding graces of the Spirit.
Saintly behavior borne of love is from the outside indistinguishable from saintly behavior borne of fear or the desire to decieve. Satan masquarades as an angle of light. The fruits of the Spirit point us to the source, but it is the source---the DNA if you will that we really need to examine for authenticity and not a fraud.
quote:
There are many lives of Saints, ancient and modern, to be read about for the willing, or the stories and rememberances of these men and women can all be dismissed a pious fabrications. But if ever you take one of these accounts seriously, you face a dilemma, for you must now face the question posed by their life...If they attained the hights in Christ they attained believing and worshiping as they did, then does that not suggest that to discover some measure of the same for ourselves, we will have to walk as they walked and believe as they believed. Naw...easier to deny them as pious fairytales.
Pious or grim fairytails matter not. We are not called to attain the heights of Christ, but to be lifted up by him. We are not force our lives to conform to a pattern of behavior, but to allow the spiritual DNA to shape our lives according to His plan and purposes for us....a very big difference that may never be seen from the outside.
Grace and Peace,
NIF
Dear NIF,
How is ministerial validity reckoned in the Lutheran scheme of things?
On the Feast of Pope St. Linus
Blessed be God in His Angels and in His Saints!
|
|
|
|
|
RE: The New Testament Church and Apostolic Succession - 9/23/2005 12:42:43 PM
|
|
|
i_believe
Posts: 1298
Joined: 4/11/2005
Status: offline
|
quote:
So, using your reasoning, and we really don't know, because you don't provide the sources - but let's give you all the benefit of the doubt so that we can understand and work towards agreement with your opinions -
I could say the NT texts, arguably, written and maintained by the Church are self documenting (and possibly) even forgeries...
so how do we know it is the word of God?
how do you determine that the Book of Mormon is not the Word of God?
Using your reasoning, anyone of Paul's epistles could be taken as a self documenting letter written by those who wanted to augment their positions.
Tell me, how do you prove - that the NT is the word of God?
Again... the "church" claims things of itself that "only" reside in "it's" documents.
The NT is proven by many divergent sources that are all in substantiative agreement.
_____________________________
Grace and Peace,
IB
Phi 3:12 Not that I have already obtained, or am already made perfect; but I press on...
|
|
|
|
|
RE: The New Testament Church and Apostolic Succession - 9/23/2005 1:15:16 PM
|
|
|
nowimfound
Posts: 389
Joined: 4/13/2005
Status: offline
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: sdaw
How is ministerial validity reckoned in the Lutheran scheme of things?
On the Feast of Pope St. Linus
Blessed be God in His Angels and in His Saints!
I will give you my explanation as I understand it. I'm certain I error on the details to some extent.
The Lutheran Church has their set of documents which 'clarify' the Lutheran understanding of the Christian faith. Such documents as the Book of Concord, the Augsburg (sp?) Confession, the Small and Large Catechisms. These are all employeed in the eductation of Lutheran pastors and teachers. When a Lutheran pastor is ordained or a teacher is called, they are required to confess that these documents accurately convey the truth of the Christian faith as found in Scripture.
Beyond this, it is the responsibility of all Lutherans to assess what is preached as to its consistency with the Gospel and Scripture. Only God's Word is considered infallible. All else is our explanation of what we read in His word.
There are no self appointed Lutheran Pastors or teachers. They must be ordained or called by the Church
I hope this answers your question.
Grace and Peace,
NIF
|
|
|
|
|
RE: The New Testament Church and Apostolic Succession - 9/23/2005 1:48:52 PM
|
|
|
meep meep
Posts: 89
Status: offline
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: i_believe
quote:
So, using your reasoning, and we really don't know, because you don't provide the sources - but let's give you all the benefit of the doubt so that we can understand and work towards agreement with your opinions -
I could say the NT texts, arguably, written and maintained by the Church are self documenting (and possibly) even forgeries...
so how do we know it is the word of God?
how do you determine that the Book of Mormon is not the Word of God?
Using your reasoning, anyone of Paul's epistles could be taken as a self documenting letter written by those who wanted to augment their positions.
Tell me, how do you prove - that the NT is the word of God?
Again... the "church" claims things of itself that "only" reside in "it's" documents.
The NT is proven by many divergent sources that are all in substantiative agreement.
Okay, let's say you are right about the Church.
I'm open to understanding your argument... Let's ignore that for a second and go back to the NT...
WHAT are the "divergent" sources?
How do do authenticate them?
WHO decides?
If I go out and write a treatise and state "thus saith the Lord" and it is accompanied by wonderous works and my subsequent martyrdom ( which you have previously stated is really inconsequential to the truth)...
Is this the Word of God because I said so?
Why or why not?
Who determines, other than me, that this is or is not something God truly said?
Why are the miraculous events which asccompany the Hindi scriptures not the Word of God? Why is the Book of Mormon not the Word of God? Why is the Koran not the Word of God?
How do we authenticate the NT? How is that different than what any other religion does?
Now back to the Church...it does not claim IT is the Truth - it claims it HOLDS the truth and faithfully preserves it as it was delivered by God himself to the Apostles.
It proclaims now, as it did from the start that if your church deviates from that truth then it is not Apostolic - if it is not Apostolic then it does not hold the full measure of the deposit of truth.
In Christ,
Meep meep
_____________________________
"We must hold to the Christian religion and to communication in her Church which is Catholic, and which is called Catholic not only by her own members but even by all her enemies." - Augustine, The True Faith
|
|
|
|
|
RE: The New Testament Church and Apostolic Succession - 9/23/2005 2:04:58 PM
|
|
|
walterquez
Posts: 1342
Joined: 4/12/2005
Status: offline
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: i_believe
Again... the "church" claims things of itself that "only" reside in "it's" documents. This arguement is weak. Everything we know about Jesus comes from His own disciples, hence, self documented. This is the same arguement a Moslem, Budhist would used against you. But you know that is not valid.
quote:
The NT is proven by many divergent sources that are all in substantiative agreement. What other sources? Most of them come from the Church, including the NT.
I mean, how do you know the NT books are real and not something the Church concocted? There are many who actually say these kind of things. How would you prove them wrong?
This kind of reasoning doesn't prove anything.
|
|
|
|
|
Forum Tools
Printable Version
