The church existed and exercised authority before the NT was written
ROTFLMBO!!!
False dichotomy. If the Church is Christ and his body then the Church existed long before the revelation of the Church was revealed, and even were that not the case the Church and the New Testament are not mutually exclusive conditions. The word of God is logs, incarnate, and rhema and the three never contradict one another and never exist apart from one another. Furthermore, conflating the canon with God's word is misguided. The New Testament was written long before the canon was decided and every single time you conflate the two either an ignorance of the difference or a paucity of logic (or both) is demonstrated.
The church existed and exercised authority before the NT was written
That is an abjectly foolish comment on its face. The number and nature of erroneous (some of them completely thoughtless) comments is growing evidence of idolatry, (placing something other than God ahead of God). No one's allegiance to their denomination can be greater than their allegiance to God, and attributing to men the things of the Spirit borders on the unforgivable sin.
You are putting this in writing.
I, therefore, encourage you to be more circumspect, thoughtful and intentional with the words used, and more consistent with whole scripture rather than any denominational doctrine. The Church did not exist before the NT was written.
2 Corinthians 3:2-3
You are our letter, written in our hearts, known and read by all men; being manifested that you are a letter of Christ, cared for by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.
The Church existed while the NT was written, and it was not men who wrote it. God wrote the NT using the hands of Spirit-filled, Spirit-empowered, and Spirit-directed individuals. Since there is a direct line from the OT's
qahal to the NT's
ecclesia, the Church existed prior to the writing of the NT. The Church
is the testimony, the revelation, the word of God.
Take my two posts and print them up and take them to your priest. Ask him to verify for you what portion (all, some, or none) is correct AND explicitly give him permission to speak to you honestly, plainly,
forthcomingly without defensiveness or adversarial response on your part. If you will not take my word for it then take his. When you are done with him, ask two other elders or persons whose views you respect. You are wrong here, don, and some of the statements here do not reconcile with the RCC's own teachings. You're not being a good RC here. Go look at my op reply (Post #5). I purposely did NOT mention your RCCism and I purposefully did not do so because I did NOT want to make our exchange about RCCism versus the rest of Christendom. That is what you do (and you should tell your priest that is what you do every time you come into the forum). I tried t keep this principled and non sectarian but we all know that your entire existence in this forum is only and always about your imposing RCCism on everyone, and doing so without respect for others - even where the RCC has articulated and demonstrated sincere and genuine regard for others.
The is op is a bad op and it has nothing to do with our denominational differences.
- God wrote the Bible, not men.
- There is a difference between the scriptures and the canon of scripture; the two should not be conflated.
- The portion of the decided canon that was done by men occurred solely by God's design, ofr God's purpose and solely through the inspiration and empowerment of God.
- Taking credit for God's work is blasphemous (it kept Moses out of the promised land).
- The Church, whether it be defined as Christ, the qahal/ecclesia, or the institutional organization did not exist before the writings of the New Testament.
- False dichotomies are always and everywhere fallacious.
- Scripture does not support any errors found in any Church or denomination thereof.
- If the Church were the only institution that could "give" interpretation, then no one on any island could or would ever benefit from reading a Bible washing up on the shore. Taking credit for God's work is blasphemous.
- The RCC no longer denies the existence of other "churches" in the Church.
- The RCC agrees with every single point in this list, and I can provide evidence from RCC sources proving it.
The only proper response is a proven refutation or a concession to these facts. You've done neither. Your first attempt was to ADD to the falsehoods being posted. You know how I do things. I will give you three chances.
Titus 3:9-11
But avoid foolish controversies, genealogies, dissensions, and quarrels about the law, for they are unprofitable and worthless. As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned.
I will affirm that which is correct, inquire about that which is not clear (or I do not understand) and refute that which does not bear consistency with God's word (or RCCism or your own posts). That has always been my practice. Despite our differences
that is what you have seen and upon which you can rely. Be wiser in this op. This thread is still on its first page. You know as well as I do as others enter the dissent will increase. Sadly, much of it will be sectarian RCC-ragging and not about the substance of the posts' content. Coming into a Protestant forum you know to be heavily populated with overtly Reformed members speaks of latent masochism
.
For that reason, I encourage you to post some of these ops of yours (like this one) in one or two Catholic forums because I am confident your Catholic siblings will agree with me and help you sort out these mistaken beliefs and improve your posting here. It's not personal (at least not for me). These are simply poorly thought out and poorly worded ops that could easily be improved. Words matter.
.
