"interfaith discussion"

[loveme1]

RexCa, if you have read the Scriptures and still partake in Catholicism then you have not received the Truth.

We each therefore have our Faith where our heart is set.

Time will prove all things.. you must be questioning something to come here...

catholicism is universal and will prove itself in due time.... You will see a wide gate getting wider.....

 

[wattie]

There is definitely beliefs as taught in the bible.

Jesus' deity
Salvation by grace thru faith in Jesus
Literal death and resurrection of Jesus
Heaven and He'll being real places
And other doctrines that come straight from knowing your bible

Now.... thing is you get supposed Christians that don't believe Jesus is God ... don't believe in the existence of hell... believe you have to do a set of rituals to attain a place in heaven etc. ..

But whether someone is actually eternally saved... isn't dependent on the doctrine they preach or what they were taught. Not unless they got a crooked gospel of salvation.

So there will be saved jws. .. saved Catholics. .. saved Christadelphians. These are people who aren't following the bible... but who did get the initial salvation understanding right

There is saved... and then there is being truly Christ like for those who follow the word.

True Christians believe the Bible. Othera who don't believe some of the Bible may still have at some point been converted

 

[loveme1]

The Children of GOD obey their Heavenly Father.

Repent and believe or remain in unbelief.

One must be born again of the Holy Spirit.

The multi dollar question is not a free pass If answered correctly with lip service.. each denomination places criteria according to their standard... it won't cut the heart.

i have nothing more to share than the Truth.. that I received... being the least im over joyed and feel blessed to of Been made New inwardly to serve the Almighty GOD in Spirit and Truth.

i can not be offended if a person does not believe what I share....I'm a vessel relaying the Truth..

There is nothing more than the Light given to me to shine for the Good Shepherd at His lost sheep.. for I was lost and He came and found me.. some are astray thanks to the wolves.....

I can not deny this based on what anyone speaks about me.. receive freely or refuse.. im only doing what I'm suppose to... It is the Almighty that knows why I must do it.... mocking and threats are to be expected.. I'm following His voice and relaying it as I make my way Home. Loving all regardless.. but Love and Truth must remain one because the gate is narrow.

All Glory belongs to Heavenly Father and the Messiah.

 

[Seymmour]

First a small request, RexCa, please hit the enter key once in a while so we're not staring at a daunting, monolithic block of text.

This whole business of who's a True Christian and who isn't has been with us for as long as Christianity has.
There're currently over 33,000 denominations in Christendom and as all educated people know, over the centuries rivers of blood have been spilled over the question of who is a True Christian.
Our Muslim brothers and sisters seem to be having a similar issue. The Sunnis and Shia are still at each others throats, much like the Catholics and the Cathars were in the 13th century.

Were the Cathars on to something? Too bad we can't ask them because they've all been slaughtered by their Catholic neighbors. What about the Trinity? Is God three consubstantial persons or is nontrinitarianism right on the money?

From my point of view, which is an outsider's perspective, it seems that there's no way to arrive at a consensus on these questions.
This, to me, is the trouble with religion and not just Christianity; unlike science, it doesn't have a mechanism to find out what is true and what isn't, so we're left with the contrary opinions of flawed creatures like ourselves who labor under a great many biases, confirmation bias probably being the biggest impediment to finding out what is true.

Seymour G.

 

[RexCA]

The Testimony of the Messiah gives the Words of eternal life.

There is no mystery my dear for it is written:


[TABLE="class: passage-cols"]
[TR]
[TD="class: passage-col col-xs-12 first last"]1 John 5King James Version (KJV)

5 Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him.
2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments.
3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.
4 For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.
5 Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?
6 This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth.
7 For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.
8 And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.
9 If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater: for this is the witness of God which he hath testified of his Son.
10 He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: he that believeth not God hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son.
11 And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.
12 He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.
13 These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.
14 And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us:
15 And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.
16 If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it.
17 All unrighteousness is sin: and there is a sin not unto death.
18 We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not; but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not.
19 And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness.
20 And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.
21 Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen.



[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

when I say the "most sacred mystery" it means such a feat is beyond the point of reason granted we can make reasonable and logical attempts to explain the nature of the most sacred trinity and they may be valid true and even logical but the point is that even with such explanations and understandings we never while on earth will be able to fully understand the nature of God in that sense of how the essence of God remains as one yet in 3 distinct persons it is the key element to the Christian faith but it is also something beyond reason that is all that the word "mystery" means in this context beyond the point of reason there are many more points of Christian faith that would be deemed as "mysterious" in this sense.

 

[tanakh]

ok and where exactly in the scriptures can sola scriptora actually be found?

Martin Luther rejected James, Jude and the book of Revelation as being Scripture. It was only after his death that his decision was reversed. Even the sixty six books have been messed around with by the Church. The Jewish Tanakh they are based on has a completely different arrangement. The Catholic and Orthodox Bible is based on the Greek Septuagint which was used by the NT writers and the early Church and was the standard Bible until the reformation.

 

[RexCA]

Martin Luther rejected James, Jude and the book of Revelation as being Scripture. It was only after his death that his decision was reversed. Even the sixty six books have been messed around with by the Church. The Jewish Tanakh they are based on has a completely different arrangement. The Catholic and Orthodox Bible is based on the Greek Septuagint which was used by the NT writers and the early Church and was the standard Bible until the reformation.

this is exactly my point and btw the Greek Septuagint was seen as an authoritive source by earlier rabbis and it begs the question as to what source the scriptures come from to begin with as clearly there were many other Christian writings that theoretically could have just as easily been included in the Christian cannon but where not for various reasons

 

[tanakh]

this is exactly my point and btw the Greek Septuagint was seen as an authoritive source by earlier rabbis and it begs the question as to what source the scriptures come from to begin with as clearly there were many other Christian writings that theoretically could have just as easily been included in the Christian cannon but where not for various reasons

The Hebrew OT is grouped into three major sections. Each section has a sort of 'degree' of inspiration. The Law books are considered the most inspired followed by the Prophets that include everything from Joshua to 2 Kings in our Bible and finally the writings which basically are everything else. The writings include 1 and 2 Chronicles and Daniel.

If every supposed Christian writing was included we would need a cart to carry them around. If you exclude the Gnostic books you would still have a hefty load to contend with. It is fairly obvious why some of them didn't make it. An example is the Gospel of Peter where we are told an Angel at the tomb had his head in heaven and Christs Cross walked out of it.or the Acts of John where the Disciples were staying at lodgings and after praying all the fleas left the room where they slept. In one of the infancy Gospels Jesus is said to have turned his playmates into Goats and their Parents had to beg Joseph and Mary to persuade him to change them back again!

Some of these stories are entertaining but not edifying!!

 

[oldethennew]

please, don't confuse 'religion' with God...

 

[RexCA]

The Hebrew OT is grouped into three major sections. Each section has a sort of 'degree' of inspiration. The Law books are considered the most inspired followed by the Prophets that include everything from Joshua to 2 Kings in our Bible and finally the writings which basically are everything else. The writings include 1 and 2 Chronicles and Daniel.

If every supposed Christian writing was included we would need a cart to carry them around. If you exclude the Gnostic books you would still have a hefty load to contend with. It is fairly obvious why some of them didn't make it. An example is the Gospel of Peter where we are told an Angel at the tomb had his head in heaven and Christs Cross walked out of it.or the Acts of John where the Disciples were staying at lodgings and after praying all the fleas left the room where they slept. In one of the infancy Gospels Jesus is said to have turned his playmates into Goats and their Parents had to beg Joseph and Mary to persuade him to change them back again!

Some of these stories are entertaining but not edifying!!

you are 100% correct and the fact of the matter yes various books were excluded from the official cannon for various reasons as you stated the fact is some extra-biblical "scritptural" writings as you stated are not gnostic in nature and may not even been seen as contradictory the fact is while some of these sources may be true and uncorrupted they do not belong in the scriptures because the authorship was not divinely inspired but a great point that many also bring up on here which was the point of concern of many early protestants is the difference in old testament cannon between the Jews and the Catholic and Orthodox churches well there is a reason for this despite the fact that Judaism is at least 1300 years older than Christianity and the fact that the Hebrew scriptures were in tact at the time of Christ. There was no official cannon for the Hebrew Bible until after Christianity formulated a cannon believe it or not in my honest opinion this is somewhat suspect the Septuagint which is where books such as Tobit, Judith, 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, Baruch, Wisdom, and Sirach come from was used by many early Jews and was deemed a valid translation up until the 5th century in Judaism there were 2 reasons Jews ultimately rejected them one because they were authored in Greek rather than the native Hebrew and 2 because they seemed to Christian in nature yes many Jewish sources actually say this. The fact is though most Jews spoke or understood Greek between the 4th century BC and into the time of the middle ages for the sheer fact that Israel was Hellenized during the Alexandrian conquests and it remained this way until the Arab conquests in the 10th century. Greek would have been the more appropriate language to write something trying to reach a wider audience in Israel at the time as more people within the scope of the Alexandrian dynasty of Greece, the eastern Roman Empire, and the Byzantine Empire spoke Greek rather than Hebrew in fact it is quite likely that most people in Israel at the time of Christ spoke 3 languages Hebrew, Aramaic and Koine Greek, Latin was also understood by the educated class.

 

[RexCA]

my point is that in retrospect the fact that early Christians and Jews relied more heavily on oral tradition rather than "scripture alone" as no such thing was fully extent yet wouldn't this show an error with such a theory beyond that the fact that there were so many "scriptures" before the formulation of the official cannon it should raise the question as to what external source God guided in order to show Christians the proper scriptures and what they mean

 

[Bonaventure]

I don't think that many people don't appreciate how recent "reading the Scriptures" actually is. Mass printing of text and universal literacy are fairly modern occurrences.