I'm not trying to be contentious here, so please don't take offense, but these are some really serious problems that makes me wonder that even if the council was inspired, that we today don't believe in its necessity, in principle.
Please, I'm very interested to know what this criteria is. What you just above was, basically, the most popular books won out - which is what I said.
I understand wanting to remove confusion, but WHY was that necessary? Who decided there needed to be a universal understanding and agreement? And the reason I ask is that this belief in necessity seems inconsistent with how the Church operates today.
Why aren't we doing this today? Why aren't we having a council of all the most educated men across denominations to get together and clear up all the confusion today? Even so most of us agree for the most part on the basic tenets of Jesus (that the council decided was the truth - the inquiry of the criteria is an honest question, I imagine you've researched this), we STILL disagree - even if we say otherwise - what is needed for salvation. Why do I say this? Two reasons.
1) The first is the great divide, if you will, between Sola Fide and the belief that the word of God is balanced with tradition, and doctrine guided by the Church, NOT the individual, as not all believers are priests (which was what Luther thought). In one sense, you could say, that the Reformation gave Christians the power to say what is important, what isn't, about the doctrines concerning Jesus and Scripture - outside the five solas. The reasoning was "I can read this for myself, I have direct access to God, and I don't need guidance from the Church." I know that seeking guidance was encouraged, but, why? If you are encouraging to read it yourself and speak to God directly, what do you need guidance at all, but what you seek willingly from others? To me that's inconsistent. Maybe I misunderstand something.
2)And no matter how you coat this, the Catholic Church IS right in that this reasoning is what has ultimately lead to the thousands and thousands of individual churches, many of them preaching against all the others to keep their members in their pews. And this is ok? There is NOTHING wrong with this? No need to clear things up, and heal the division in the Body of Christ? And is this not why the council was called? To set a standard? To heal divisions?
This is one reason I positively loath, yes I really hate, about Christians - esp Protestants - pointing to this council as inspired and therefore you MUST adhere to this tenets... but they don't have the nerve to do the same today. They believe in it being necessary THEN, but today when you have so many different flavors of salvation in the Church - I mean Protestant - such opposition concerning the great divide between these and RCC and Eastern Orthodox... to me it takes a lot of nerve to say that this council was necessary, and yet the Body doesn't even care that it is in the same shape as it was then, wounded and too proud to go to the Doctor. The only difference is the differences in what the divides are.
Oh, and the other difference? Many of our divisions - excuses used to isolate themselves to one church - doesn't have anything directly to do with Jesus, His life, death and Resurrection. At least the council was addressing division over the center of CHRISTianity.
And as I said: You may have the "agreement" of the Apostle's Creed and such, but concerning the unity of the Body, it is all lip service. It is lip service because:
"Don't you go down the street to the Lutheran church - they believe in cannibalism."
"Don't you go to the Baptist church down the street, they never preach on Acts 2, which is like the most important chapter of the Bible." <--- little bit of sarcasm there on my part
"Don't go to the Episcopal church; they have gay Bishops."
"Don't go to the Presbyterian church, they believe that man forgives your sins (the Confession and Absolution done during the service, which conveniently leads the pastor to warn to stay away from also the Lutheran church, the - obviously - Catholic church, and the Episcopal church. You kill more than one bird with that stone!)
What we have today is a power-play - AND not even between learned people in the Body, but you EVEN have division over whether seminary is a necessity to preach. I'm not saying it is or isn't, and there are certainly pastors in some parts of the world ministering without a Bible or with no access to more information about it. But there is a great divide within the Protestant body of disciplinary academics. The first preacher I listened to upon being saved - confessed he had never been to Bible school or seminary, knows little about the Bible compared to those he critiques, and told me to stay away from Calvinism because they teach that once you are saved, you have to work to stay saved.
...
I was looking these things up myself, and I'm thinking "Yeah, you clearly don't know anything beyond your little I'll Fly Away, Oh Glory bubble of beliefs." That was my first taste of how pastors willingly or ignorantly, spread lies about other Christians and other churches.
But that's all well and good? No need to correct all this? And ironically, I've noticed that the more "compromising" churches, were the most open in discussion, and least likely to say "Stay away from this church." The liberals, if you will, who aren't threatened by other beliefs. Not an absolute, obviously, but when you by default think that disagreement is compromising, then you almost HAVE to demonize other churches. (By demonize I mean make them appear bad for the believer's faith and growth.) And that is loving your brethren, how? And the world knows us through our "love" for one another, so it's not wonder you have so many skeptics... it's not just the evil secular science, and the Church is beyond naive if she thinks that.
That is why I say the central tenet thing is lip service. Because if it wasn't, there would be no demonization of other denominations. Also because despite claiming that all it takes is "faith in Jesus to be saved and repentance," if this was truly believed there would be no need to warn of other churches (Protestant I mean), because they believe the same. In theory. And in theory a learned pastor would know this, unlike that first pastor I went to years ago.
Sorry for this tangent, but this is why I don't take appeals to the Council of Nicaea seriously, or as legitimate - because the principle behind the meeting is not thought important - in fact, many consider healing divisions as compromising God's word, and would be sinful. So there you have it.
Please enlighten me with a summary. I'm being honest in my asking.
Well... but when Moses had the laws guided by the Spirit, there were none countering it, correct? None within the Body of Israel? How is that like the council where there were deciding BETWEEN different understandings, and Moses only expanding on what they had in stone? Which he dropped accidentally, and needed a replacement.
And another problem, imo, is that assuming the council was inspired - long after the inspired writers of the Bible penned what they thought that we now consider exclusive authority - why do we assume there is not inspired writing after that? Why don't we consider everything THEY wrote as Scripture? Would we consider everything Paul had written after his conversion Scripture? What about King David and his psalms, Solomon and his wisdom? What about every other writer in the Bible? IF something else surfaced with Paul's name on it (and that DID happen), would that be inspired?
Concerning the Apocrypha, and I mean like what is found in the NRSV of the Bible, why is it that Luther - and some Protestant churches - consider these good for instruction, but not inspired? Well, what parts are good for instruction? How is something good for instruction, but not inspired? What exactly is meant by instruction, and how does that differ from inspired instruction?
This is where I get confused - what constitutes inspiration? How do you decide "Yes, this is exactly what God intended to say" which is different from other texts written on the same topic? I asked this above, but I'm asking again. How come. Luther seemed not to like James, and didn't want the letter in there. It is in there... so could Luther have error in his judgement, and thus how can we be sure that his included judgement/influence in the Protestant canon is sound?
This is why I say that - at its core - this is a faith issue - so yes, what follows is most everything else is a faith issue. You can't prove one text inspired over another, not dogmatically. And yes, I favor some thoughts over others, and I think some arguments are better than others.
I AM OPEN to correction about this, and I also want to make abundantly clear that if one thinks the Protestant Bible is the literal word of God, THAT'S OK. I have no problem with that - other than as believing it is the literal word, it is often used as justification to harass unbelievers or other "backslidden" Christians. I do admit you would have this with any text... but when you teach something is not IN ANY WAY open to interpretation or to be compromised, that is when the belief becomes detrimental, imo.
Anyhow, God bless, and I hope you have a wonderful day!
Please, I'm very interested to know what this criteria is. What you just above was, basically, the most popular books won out - which is what I said.
I understand wanting to remove confusion, but WHY was that necessary? Who decided there needed to be a universal understanding and agreement? And the reason I ask is that this belief in necessity seems inconsistent with how the Church operates today.
Why aren't we doing this today? Why aren't we having a council of all the most educated men across denominations to get together and clear up all the confusion today? Even so most of us agree for the most part on the basic tenets of Jesus (that the council decided was the truth - the inquiry of the criteria is an honest question, I imagine you've researched this), we STILL disagree - even if we say otherwise - what is needed for salvation. Why do I say this? Two reasons.
1) The first is the great divide, if you will, between Sola Fide and the belief that the word of God is balanced with tradition, and doctrine guided by the Church, NOT the individual, as not all believers are priests (which was what Luther thought). In one sense, you could say, that the Reformation gave Christians the power to say what is important, what isn't, about the doctrines concerning Jesus and Scripture - outside the five solas. The reasoning was "I can read this for myself, I have direct access to God, and I don't need guidance from the Church." I know that seeking guidance was encouraged, but, why? If you are encouraging to read it yourself and speak to God directly, what do you need guidance at all, but what you seek willingly from others? To me that's inconsistent. Maybe I misunderstand something.
2)And no matter how you coat this, the Catholic Church IS right in that this reasoning is what has ultimately lead to the thousands and thousands of individual churches, many of them preaching against all the others to keep their members in their pews. And this is ok? There is NOTHING wrong with this? No need to clear things up, and heal the division in the Body of Christ? And is this not why the council was called? To set a standard? To heal divisions?
This is one reason I positively loath, yes I really hate, about Christians - esp Protestants - pointing to this council as inspired and therefore you MUST adhere to this tenets... but they don't have the nerve to do the same today. They believe in it being necessary THEN, but today when you have so many different flavors of salvation in the Church - I mean Protestant - such opposition concerning the great divide between these and RCC and Eastern Orthodox... to me it takes a lot of nerve to say that this council was necessary, and yet the Body doesn't even care that it is in the same shape as it was then, wounded and too proud to go to the Doctor. The only difference is the differences in what the divides are.
Oh, and the other difference? Many of our divisions - excuses used to isolate themselves to one church - doesn't have anything directly to do with Jesus, His life, death and Resurrection. At least the council was addressing division over the center of CHRISTianity.
And as I said: You may have the "agreement" of the Apostle's Creed and such, but concerning the unity of the Body, it is all lip service. It is lip service because:
"Don't you go down the street to the Lutheran church - they believe in cannibalism."
"Don't you go to the Baptist church down the street, they never preach on Acts 2, which is like the most important chapter of the Bible." <--- little bit of sarcasm there on my part
"Don't go to the Episcopal church; they have gay Bishops."
"Don't go to the Presbyterian church, they believe that man forgives your sins (the Confession and Absolution done during the service, which conveniently leads the pastor to warn to stay away from also the Lutheran church, the - obviously - Catholic church, and the Episcopal church. You kill more than one bird with that stone!)
What we have today is a power-play - AND not even between learned people in the Body, but you EVEN have division over whether seminary is a necessity to preach. I'm not saying it is or isn't, and there are certainly pastors in some parts of the world ministering without a Bible or with no access to more information about it. But there is a great divide within the Protestant body of disciplinary academics. The first preacher I listened to upon being saved - confessed he had never been to Bible school or seminary, knows little about the Bible compared to those he critiques, and told me to stay away from Calvinism because they teach that once you are saved, you have to work to stay saved.
...
I was looking these things up myself, and I'm thinking "Yeah, you clearly don't know anything beyond your little I'll Fly Away, Oh Glory bubble of beliefs." That was my first taste of how pastors willingly or ignorantly, spread lies about other Christians and other churches.
But that's all well and good? No need to correct all this? And ironically, I've noticed that the more "compromising" churches, were the most open in discussion, and least likely to say "Stay away from this church." The liberals, if you will, who aren't threatened by other beliefs. Not an absolute, obviously, but when you by default think that disagreement is compromising, then you almost HAVE to demonize other churches. (By demonize I mean make them appear bad for the believer's faith and growth.) And that is loving your brethren, how? And the world knows us through our "love" for one another, so it's not wonder you have so many skeptics... it's not just the evil secular science, and the Church is beyond naive if she thinks that.
That is why I say the central tenet thing is lip service. Because if it wasn't, there would be no demonization of other denominations. Also because despite claiming that all it takes is "faith in Jesus to be saved and repentance," if this was truly believed there would be no need to warn of other churches (Protestant I mean), because they believe the same. In theory. And in theory a learned pastor would know this, unlike that first pastor I went to years ago.
Sorry for this tangent, but this is why I don't take appeals to the Council of Nicaea seriously, or as legitimate - because the principle behind the meeting is not thought important - in fact, many consider healing divisions as compromising God's word, and would be sinful. So there you have it.
Please enlighten me with a summary. I'm being honest in my asking.
Well... but when Moses had the laws guided by the Spirit, there were none countering it, correct? None within the Body of Israel? How is that like the council where there were deciding BETWEEN different understandings, and Moses only expanding on what they had in stone? Which he dropped accidentally, and needed a replacement.
And another problem, imo, is that assuming the council was inspired - long after the inspired writers of the Bible penned what they thought that we now consider exclusive authority - why do we assume there is not inspired writing after that? Why don't we consider everything THEY wrote as Scripture? Would we consider everything Paul had written after his conversion Scripture? What about King David and his psalms, Solomon and his wisdom? What about every other writer in the Bible? IF something else surfaced with Paul's name on it (and that DID happen), would that be inspired?
Concerning the Apocrypha, and I mean like what is found in the NRSV of the Bible, why is it that Luther - and some Protestant churches - consider these good for instruction, but not inspired? Well, what parts are good for instruction? How is something good for instruction, but not inspired? What exactly is meant by instruction, and how does that differ from inspired instruction?
This is where I get confused - what constitutes inspiration? How do you decide "Yes, this is exactly what God intended to say" which is different from other texts written on the same topic? I asked this above, but I'm asking again. How come. Luther seemed not to like James, and didn't want the letter in there. It is in there... so could Luther have error in his judgement, and thus how can we be sure that his included judgement/influence in the Protestant canon is sound?
This is why I say that - at its core - this is a faith issue - so yes, what follows is most everything else is a faith issue. You can't prove one text inspired over another, not dogmatically. And yes, I favor some thoughts over others, and I think some arguments are better than others.
I AM OPEN to correction about this, and I also want to make abundantly clear that if one thinks the Protestant Bible is the literal word of God, THAT'S OK. I have no problem with that - other than as believing it is the literal word, it is often used as justification to harass unbelievers or other "backslidden" Christians. I do admit you would have this with any text... but when you teach something is not IN ANY WAY open to interpretation or to be compromised, that is when the belief becomes detrimental, imo.
Anyhow, God bless, and I hope you have a wonderful day!
