Posted on 01/25/2014 11:26:41 AM PST by Gamecock
Your requirements exceed the Scriptural provisions...sorry.
"The Jewish apostles, at the command of, and with the express authority of, the Holy One of Israel, shepherded real local churches/assemblies that shared the same doctrine and had unity of fellowship. Your answer is that the true church is not really anywhere one could identify,"
Now read this remark of yours very slowly. Notice..."real local churches/assemblies that shared the same doctrine..." Notice, notice plural. There is no ONE organization which is "true". You seem to want one central headquarters of the AUTHORIZED gathering of believers. But, you noticed that there were many of them, all unaffiliated with others, with varying degrees of cooperation (Note the Galatians had wandered off the trail, the Corinthians believed in too much "unity" and accepted incest, etc.) Get it?
"Your answer is that the true church is not really anywhere one could identify, nor are you willing to publicly claim your local church is the true church."
As I said before, there is no "one true" gathering (there is no such word as "church" in the Scripture). But, I am willing to publicly state that it seems very likely to me that there are real believers in our assembly. I am not in a position to judge hearts and pound my fist on the table...are you?
You seem to claim the Eastern Orthodox group is the only one on target, but this simply your presumption. Please show us where they are granted this place in Scripture. I find that gatherings which comport to the message delivered by the apostles in the Scriptures are those that are considered good places to fellowship.
And, as far as the Roman apostolic succession claim...please. It is full of holes and whores (not an exaggeration). Rome's doctrines disqualify it from consideration.
If someone opens the Bible whenever they want, should they join a church, and if you say one should, which denomination or subdenomination ?
You misunderstood me. I wrote that only the eastern and western branches of Catholics publicly maintain they are part of a real, historic succession from the Jewish apostles. You implied your denomination is not a suitable candidate for that succession, and that your local church is comprised of wheat and tares, which I assume is in agreement with a Catholic view of their own local parishes. Is there no one willing to claim their denomination has the authority given by Jesus to the apostles in an unbroken chain, and if not, how about just the former ?
“If someone opens the Bible whenever they want,”
God forbid!
” should they join a church, and if you say one should, which denomination or subdenomination ?”
One that’s Bible believing and not liberal, though the former rules out the latter.
*Consults drinking game list. 203: Take a shot whenever someone starts arguing about what the 'true Church' is. Takes a shot!* Answer: Whoever confesses that Jesus is Lord and that God raised him from the dead for the forgiveness of sins and eternal life.
The Catholics have no succession of anyone other that figments of their imaginations...go read a real history of the world not their propaganda.
And, no, no one (of any integrity) should be willing to claim that their group is THE group. Sorry to disappoint. But, there is no Scriptural support that such a physical/geographical group exists. Can you tell us where you read that the Jewish apostles said that such a singular physical group existed? Most of the apostles are never heard from again (after Jesus’ departure) so what group did they go off and join?
The “group” which does exist is the universal body of Christ that is going to be taken out of here one day.
The Apostles form the foundation stones of the Church for all time.
“I wrote that only the eastern and western branches of Catholics publicly maintain they are part of a real, historic succession from the Jewish apostles.”
Which is not commanded in Holy Scripture, nor taught.
“You implied your denomination is not a suitable candidate for that succession, and that your local church is comprised of wheat and tares, which I assume is in agreement with a Catholic view of their own local parishes.”
No church has such an unbroken chain, nor is it ever necessary. God has no grandchildren. Every generation of faith is the first generation, directly related to God as sons.
“Is there no one willing to claim their denomination has the authority given by Jesus to the apostles in an unbroken chain, and if not, how about just the former ?”
There is no such authority that passes through apostolic leaders. If you are making a truth claim here, please share Biblical evidence that Christ taught Apostolic succession. If you also are making a truth claim to an unbroken succession, you’d better review actual history. It is ugly.
>> “And, no, no one (of any integrity) should be willing to claim that their group is THE group. Sorry to disappoint. But, there is no Scriptural support that such a physical/geographical group exists.” <<
.
Now you’re making sense!
In the Religion forum, on a thread titled Testimonies from ex-Roman Catholic Priests, aMorePerfectUnion wrote:
There is no such authority that passes through apostolic leaders. If you are making a truth claim here, please share Biblical evidence that Christ taught Apostolic succession.
http://www.catholic.com/tracts/apostolic-succession
Apostolic Succession
The first Christians had no doubts about how to determine which was the true Church and which doctrines the true teachings of Christ. The test was simple: Just trace the apostolic succession of the claimants.
Apostolic succession is the line of bishops stretching back to the apostles. All over the world, all Catholic bishops are part of a lineage that goes back to the time of the apostles, something that is impossible in Protestant denominations (most of which do not even claim to have bishops).
The role of apostolic succession in preserving true doctrine is illustrated in the Bible. To make sure that the apostles’ teachings would be passed down after the deaths of the apostles, Paul told Timothy, “[W]hat you have heard from me before many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also” (2 Tim. 2:2). In this passage he refers to the first three generations of apostolic succession—his own generation, Timothy’s generation, and the generation Timothy will teach.
The Church Fathers, who were links in that chain of succession, regularly appealed to apostolic succession as a test for whether Catholics or heretics had correct doctrine. This was necessary because heretics simply put their own interpretations, even bizarre ones, on Scripture. Clearly, something other than Scripture had to be used as an ultimate test of doctrine in these cases.
Thus the early Church historian J. N. D. Kelly, a Protestant, writes, “[W]here in practice was [the] apostolic testimony or tradition to be found? . . . The most obvious answer was that the apostles had committed it orally to the Church, where it had been handed down from generation to generation. . . . Unlike the alleged secret tradition of the Gnostics, it was entirely public and open, having been entrusted by the apostles to their successors, and by these in turn to those who followed them, and was visible in the Church for all who cared to look for it” (Early Christian Doctrines, 37).
For the early Fathers, “the identity of the oral tradition with the original revelation is guaranteed by the unbroken succession of bishops in the great sees going back lineally to the apostles. . . . [A]n additional safeguard is supplied by the Holy Spirit, for the message committed was to the Church, and the Church is the home of the Spirit. Indeed, the Church’s bishops are . . . Spirit-endowed men who have been vouchsafed ‘an infallible charism of truth’” (ibid.).
Thus on the basis of experience the Fathers could be “profoundly convinced of the futility of arguing with heretics merely on the basis of Scripture. The skill and success with which they twisted its plain meaning made it impossible to reach any decisive conclusion in that field” (ibid., 41).
Pope Clement I
“Through countryside and city [the apostles] preached, and they appointed their earliest converts, testing them by the Spirit, to be the bishops and deacons of future believers. Nor was this a novelty, for bishops and deacons had been written about a long time earlier. . . . Our apostles knew through our Lord Jesus Christ that there would be strife for the office of bishop. For this reason, therefore, having received perfect foreknowledge, they appointed those who have already been mentioned and afterwards added the further provision that, if they should die, other approved men should succeed to their ministry” (Letter to the Corinthians 42:4–5, 44:1–3 [A.D. 80]).
Hegesippus
“When I had come to Rome, I [visited] Anicetus, whose deacon was Eleutherus. And after Anicetus [died], Soter succeeded, and after him Eleutherus. In each succession and in each city there is a continuance of that which is proclaimed by the law, the prophets, and the Lord” (Memoirs, cited in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 4:22 [A.D. 180]).
Irenaeus
“It is possible, then, for everyone in every church, who may wish to know the truth, to contemplate the tradition of the apostles which has been made known to us throughout the whole world. And we are in a position to enumerate those who were instituted bishops by the apostles and their successors down to our own times, men who neither knew nor taught anything like what these heretics rave about” (Against Heresies 3:3:1 [A.D. 189]).
“But since it would be too long to enumerate in such a volume as this the successions of all the churches, we shall confound all those who, in whatever manner, whether through self-satisfaction or vainglory, or through blindness and wicked opinion, assemble other than where it is proper, by pointing out here the successions of the bishops of the greatest and most ancient church known to all, founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul—that church which has the tradition and the faith with which comes down to us after having been announced to men by the apostles. For with this Church, because of its superior origin, all churches must agree, that is, all the faithful in the whole world. And it is in her that the faithful everywhere have maintained the apostolic tradition” (ibid., 3:3:2).
“Polycarp also was not only instructed by apostles, and conversed with many who had seen Christ, but was also, by apostles in Asia, appointed bishop of the church in Smyrna, whom I also saw in my early youth, for he tarried [on earth] a very long time, and, when a very old man, gloriously and most nobly suffering martyrdom, departed this life, having always taught the things which he had learned from the apostles, and which the Church has handed down, and which alone are true. To these things all the Asiatic churches testify, as do also those men who have succeeded Polycarp down to the present time” (ibid., 3:3:4).
“Since therefore we have such proofs, it is not necessary to seek the truth among others which it is easy to obtain from the Church; since the apostles, like a rich man [depositing his money] in a bank, lodged in her hands most copiously all things pertaining to the truth, so that every man, whosoever will, can draw from her the water of life. . . . For how stands the case? Suppose there arise a dispute relative to some important question among us, should we not have recourse to the most ancient churches with which the apostles held constant conversation, and learn from them what is certain and clear in regard to the present question?” (ibid., 3:4:1).
“[I]t is incumbent to obey the presbyters who are in the Church—those who, as I have shown, possess the succession from the apostles; those who, together with the succession of the episcopate, have received the infallible charism of truth, according to the good pleasure of the Father. But [it is also incumbent] to hold in suspicion others who depart from the primitive succession, and assemble themselves together in any place whatsoever, either as heretics of perverse minds, or as schismatics puffed up and self-pleasing, or again as hypocrites, acting thus for the sake of lucre and vainglory. For all these have fallen from the truth” (ibid., 4:26:2).
“The true knowledge is the doctrine of the apostles, and the ancient organization of the Church throughout the whole world, and the manifestation of the body of Christ according to the succession of bishops, by which succession the bishops have handed down the Church which is found everywhere” (ibid., 4:33:8).
Tertullian
“[The apostles] founded churches in every city, from which all the other churches, one after another, derived the tradition of the faith, and the seeds of doctrine, and are every day deriving them, that they may become churches. Indeed, it is on this account only that they will be able to deem themselves apostolic, as being the offspring of apostolic churches. Every sort of thing must necessarily revert to its original for its classification. Therefore the churches, although they are so many and so great, comprise but the one primitive Church, [founded] by the apostles, from which they all [spring]. In this way, all are primitive, and all are apostolic, while they are all proved to be one in unity” (Demurrer Against the Heretics 20 [A.D. 200]).
“[W]hat it was which Christ revealed to them [the apostles] can, as I must here likewise prescribe, properly be proved in no other way than by those very churches which the apostles founded in person, by declaring the gospel to them directly themselves . . . If then these things are so, it is in the same degree manifest that all doctrine which agrees with the apostolic churches—those molds and original sources of the faith must be reckoned for truth, as undoubtedly containing that which the churches received from the apostles, the apostles from Christ, [and] Christ from God. Whereas all doctrine must be prejudged as false which savors of contrariety to the truth of the churches and apostles of Christ and God. It remains, then, that we demonstrate whether this doctrine of ours, of which we have now given the rule, has its origin in the tradition of the apostles, and whether all other doctrines do not ipso facto proceed from falsehood” (ibid., 21).
“But if there be any [heresies] which are bold enough to plant [their origin] in the midst of the apostolic age, that they may thereby seem to have been handed down by the apostles, because they existed in the time of the apostles, we can say: Let them produce the original records of their churches; let them unfold the roll of their bishops, running down in due succession from the beginning in such a manner that [their first] bishop shall be able to show for his ordainer and predecessor some one of the apostles or of apostolic men—a man, moreover, who continued steadfast with the apostles. For this is the manner in which the apostolic churches transmit their registers: as the church of Smyrna, which records that Polycarp was placed therein by John; as also the church of Rome, which makes Clement to have been ordained in like manner by Peter” (ibid., 32).
“But should they even effect the contrivance [of composing a succession list for themselves], they will not advance a step. For their very doctrine, after comparison with that of the apostles [as contained in other churches], will declare, by its own diversity and contrariety, that it had for its author neither an apostle nor an apostolic man; because, as the apostles would never have taught things which were self-contradictory” (ibid.).
“Then let all the heresies, when challenged to these two tests by our apostolic Church, offer their proof of how they deem themselves to be apostolic. But in truth they neither are so, nor are they able to prove themselves to be what they are not. Nor are they admitted to peaceful relations and communion by such churches as are in any way connected with apostles, inasmuch as they are in no sense themselves apostolic because of their diversity as to the mysteries of the faith” (ibid.).
Cyprian of Carthage
“[T]he Church is one, and as she is one, cannot be both within and without. For if she is with [the heretic] Novatian, she was not with [Pope] Cornelius. But if she was with Cornelius, who succeeded the bishop [of Rome], Fabian, by lawful ordination, and whom, beside the honor of the priesthood the Lord glorified also with martyrdom, Novatian is not in the Church; nor can he be reckoned as a bishop, who, succeeding to no one, and despising the evangelical and apostolic tradition, sprang from himself. For he who has not been ordained in the Church can neither have nor hold to the Church in any way” (Letters 69[75]:3 [A.D. 253]).
Jerome
“Far be it from me to speak adversely of any of these clergy who, in succession from the apostles, confect by their sacred word the Body of Christ and through whose efforts also it is that we are Christians” (Letters 14:8 [A.D. 396]).
Augustine
“[T]here are many other things which most properly can keep me in [the Catholic Church’s] bosom. The unanimity of peoples and nations keeps me here. Her authority, inaugurated in miracles, nourished by hope, augmented by love, and confirmed by her age, keeps me here. The succession of priests, from the very see of the apostle Peter, to whom the Lord, after his resurrection, gave the charge of feeding his sheep [John 21:15–17], up to the present episcopate, keeps me here. And last, the very name Catholic, which, not without reason, belongs to this Church alone, in the face of so many heretics, so much so that, although all heretics want to be called ‘Catholic,’ when a stranger inquires where the Catholic Church meets, none of the heretics would dare to point out his own basilica or house” (Against the Letter of Mani Called “The Foundation” 4:5 [A.D. 397]).
NIHIL OBSTAT: I have concluded that the materials
presented in this work are free of doctrinal or moral errors.
Bernadeane Carr, STL, Censor Librorum, August 10, 2004
IMPRIMATUR: In accord with 1983 CIC 827
permission to publish this work is hereby granted.
+Robert H. Brom, Bishop of San Diego, August 10, 2004
“Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died;
this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die.
I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”
The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us (his) flesh to eat?”
Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day.
For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.
Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me.
This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever.”
These things he said while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum
Then many of his disciples who were listening said, “This saying is hard; who can accept it?”
Since Jesus knew that his disciples were murmuring about this, he said to them, “Does this shock you?
What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?
It is the spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life.
But there are some of you who do not believe.” Jesus knew from the beginning the ones who would not believe and the one who would betray him.
And he said, “For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by my Father.”
As a result of this, many (of) his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him
Jesus then said to the Twelve, “Do you also want to leave?”
Simon Peter answered him, “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.
We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.”
Jesus answered them, “Did I not choose you twelve? Yet is not one of you a devil?”
He was referring to Judas, son of Simon the Iscariot; it was he who would betray him, one of the Twelve.” [John 6: 49-71]
Bart Brewer is/ was (he might be dead already) a pervert that was interested in sex with underage girls. Hardly the most reliable witness or best of testimonies. this makes the rest suspect right off the bat. I will pray for you.
Lutherans.
Of course, we define apostolic succession as those who teach the same thing that the Apostles (and by definition, Jesus) taught. And if a church doesn't teach what Jesus teaches, then it's not part of the big-C Church.
So once again, it comes around to 'what DID Jesus really teach?'
*Also, takes another shot for another argument about what the 'true church' really is.*
*Consults drinking game notes. 102: Take a shot whenever someone attempts to define Mormons as Christian. Passes. 103: Take a shot whenever someone attempts to accuse someone else of defining Mormons as Christian. Takes a shot.*
Define ‘apostolic succession.’
Arumentum ad populum: "Eat fecal matter--fifty million lies can't be wrong."
Actually, just one sinful priest saved by persistently trusting in Jesus' blood and righteousness alone is sufficient reason that Jesus suffered and died alone to purchase that life.
Jesus saves only one at a time. Ever. Not thousands.
3: Whenever someone quotes the Bible, take a shot. *Takes a shot*
Because I have to be fair in my drinking.
I’m not entirely sure why you decided to post that to me, though. Could you do me the favor of explaining, please?
2: Whenever someone makes an ad hominem attack, take a shot.
*Takes a shot*
Also, I have consulted The Google, and the only link that came up confirming your post was a link TO your post.
I got two words for you: citation needed.
So... you’re claiming that apostolic succession exists and that only the Roman Catholics have it... because some people who came after the Apostles said so.
And what authority do they have? Upon what are they basing this claim?
*Also, takes a shot for a copy/paste from an Internet source*
“hundreds of millions of former Catholics who left and found Christ”
Hundreds of millions? Are you off your meds again.
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