I am still curious about opinions on the topics presented in my previous post.

Also, on denominational variety: I had a thought. Our Lord would have us do many things. It seems logical to suggest that every denomination was born of a perceived shortcoming in the execution of God's will.

A group of believers starts a new denomination to address that specific perceived shortcoming. As a result, is it fair to say that, when all denominations are cumulatively viewed as one whole body of believers, we are more completely executing God's will here on earth?

As an example: Christ implores us to spread his good news. My local Seventh Day Adventist Church consistently has an awning at festivals in the county's town centers. My Baptist church does not. I am grateful the SDA folks are out there. I think this is one example of many. Every denomination has a sort of "specialty". So long as foundational doctrine is sound, I say it's largely a good thing that different denominations stress different things.

Of course some denominations have some doctrinal problems (SDA may qualify, depending on a given church's extent of their emphasis on their "prophetess"), and may be more harm than good to the larger body, even if their specialty is one that's needed.

As usual, just food for thought.

Two more quick thoughts.

The Liturgy of the Hours
A neat Catholic liturgy. Prayer is a big deal, regardless of denomination. A schedule to adhere to that promotes a combined prayer effort is a very good thing. Internet research says those in leadership adhere to it, and lay people are encouraged to as well. Do Catholics here execute this liturgy?

"Extreme" or "fringe" denominations
My wife and I are currently reading Salvation on Sand Mountain, a book about snake handling churches in Alabama in the '90s. It's a very interesting, entertaining, and often exciting book so far. I recommend it.

Denominations like this can be puzzling. How does venomous snake handling glorify and honor God? It is a display of faith, no doubt, but is the same energy not better expended elsewhere? The author of the book seemingly ultimately returns to Christ, after having been astray for many years, as a result of his attendance at a snake handling church. I get the impression he didn't remain in that particular church, but did remain in Christ.

Different denominations appeal to different personalities. Another good reason for the variety of denominations.

As a previous poster wisely stated (I'm paraphrasing): This denomination believes in salvation in Jesus Christ, and likes to do this. This denomination believes in salvation in Jesus Christ, and likes to do that. "This" and "that" are (nearly) always biblical, and the critical foundation in Christ is there regardless of the specialty, so does it really matter?

Many denominations vary on unbiblical teachings, some vary on style.

I cannot remember the verse, but I believe there is one which, essentially, says style doesn’t matter.

EG, an acquaintance was witnessing to a non western community - so taking shoes off, and women and men sitting separately was culturally expected - and theologically irrelevant.

Baptists rejecting dancing and wine, probably is relevant.

I was raised Catholic.I made my communion and my confirmation then dropped out of church entirely. I actually met a street preacher as I was leaving a bar. I did not get saved on the spot but I dedicated myself to proving him wrong. Long story short, God did write the Bible and he makes it clear.You must be saved if you want to get into heaven. I accepted the lord Jesus as my savior shortly after and slowly my entire life and my heart changed. Yes, I backslid many times but the core essence of my spirit never faltered.
When I did wrong I knew it was wrong and I always strive to get back to the lord. At age 66 right now.I'm doing well with the lord and and going to a Calvary Christian church. I don't know what I would
Do with my life if I was not born again. Most unsaved people are living their lives like their scared to death of the future and what it may hold. But God has a plan and God is in control. Remember things are not falling apart. For the christian things are FALLING TOGETHER. Praise the lord.
P.s, i am not any better than anyone else, I fail everyday. I'm just a stinking sinner saved by grace...

quote:

Originally posted by KSGM:

How does venomous snake handling glorify and honor God?

They are taking a passage from Mark 16 (Attributed to Paul IIRC) to an extreme. It's not biblical and in fact some say it's "putting God to a test" which we are told NOT to do in the Bible:

Mark 16:17-18

17 And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; 18 they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.”

If you ask me this is no different than some Muslim sects who slash and beat their chests bloody with swords to show how holy they are.

Just like there's crazy people in society.There are crazy people in all religions.

I'd like to share something that may not be directly responsive but I think is still relevant. As I've shared here or in another thread, I've been studying to determine what are the essentials and non-essentials of Christianity with the essentials being defined as the beliefs essential to Christianity and the non-essentials as the variations of beliefs still within Christianity.

I am just beginning to realize the essentials of Christianity are things that Christians need to know and believe for themselves and to share with another believer. But the Christian's responsibility and ability stops at knowing and believing them; understanding and explaining the essentials is beyond our responsibility and human ability.

For example, an important tenet of Christianity is that Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary. We can acknowledge that the Bible teaches that and we can accept it by faith but it is humanly impossible to understand or explain how a woman who has never been intimate with a man can become pregnant and give birth to a baby.

When we try to reconcile the biblical teaching with our human understanding is when we risk coming up with a non-biblical explanation. This applies to actual essential beliefs such as Jesus is both fully God and fully man. We can acknowledge and accept what is written about Jesus as being fully God and fully man, but our human minds cannot comprehend how Jesus the Creator can become one of His creation. Trying to reconcile this in human terms risks leading to one of the many heresies that have developed since the beginning about the nature of Jesus - adoptionism, that Jesus was born a mere man but adopted by God as His Son, Arianism, that Jesus was the first and greatest of God's creatures but not co-equal with God, Docetism, that Jesus only appeared to have a human body, Apollinarianism, that Jeus had a human body and soul but the divine Logos took the place of his human spirit, etc.

The same can be said for the trinity - the teaching in the Bible that says there is only one true God and yet the Father is presented as God, the Son is presented as God, and that the Holy Spirit is presented by God. We can acknowledge and take the trinity by faith but our human minds are not able to fully understand it or explain it. Any explanation falls short of what the Bible simply teaches as fact.

This view that there are things beyond the ability of humans to understand is consistent with how the Bible presents things. Genesis 1:1 starts out with "In the beginning God..." It doesn't explain how God came to be, who God is, etc. The Bible simply states the existence of God and we are expected to take it as a given.

I just thought I'd share.

On prayer and God's will:

We can likely all agree on "the power of prayer". Prayers are meaningful, and can affect change.

That said: To pray for something like a healing miracle, or other specific objective implies that God's will is impressionable or flexible. To pray with the thought that your prayer can affect an outcome that would otherwise not occur is more-or-less the foundation of many prayers.

On the other side of the same coin is praying that "God's will be done". To pray this way implies that there are hindrances and obstacles between God and the execution of His perfect will, and our prayers can somehow reduce or eliminate those obstacles.

It seems logical to me that said obstacles are us and our sinful nature.

I am sure we can all agree that it is God's perfect will that we all accept the truth of the gift of our salvation in His son Jesus Christ. We can likely also all agree that this objective of His perfect will is not achieved. God's will is defeated by us. Our God-given free will can stand in effective opposition to God's will.

A prayer for the execution of God's will is a prayer for a reduction of ourselves as obstacles. It seems logical that, if we wish for God's perfect will to be achieved, we should live according to it.

To pray for a preferred outcome in this-that-or-the-other circumstance while we persist in opposition to God's will in our daily lives is counterintuitive. Of course our prayers will always go unanswered if they are not righteous, but our Lord does tell us that we can ask and receive, and that we are capable of much if He is allowed to work in and through us.

I apologize for the disconnected nature of this post. I hope it makes some sense.

As acknowledged multiple times already, I am not a biblical scholar. I look forward to any feedback from those who are.

Christ gave us the Lord’s Prayer - but I think it’s part of those “God doesn’t need us, we need God,” things.

It’s not that God is moved by our prayers - we have no way of improving His plan - but prayer can improve us/help us connect to His will.

EG, I know a therapeutic masseuse who always prayed before working on people, and said he felt the Holy Spirit guiding his hands, at times.

I am quite certain that such prayers will help.

St. Paul regularly mentioned being supported by prayers of others.

And, I think there’s a lot going on, of which we are unaware/still ignorant, scientifically. “Energy flow,” “chi”, what have you, I would not be surprised if there is something eventually discovered which connects people to one another.

Too many people have “known” when something is wrong with a loved one, etc.

Prayer may be a way to help those others do better.

I get this sounds fuzzy, and it’s just a hypothesis, but I’m well aware of how little science actually knows.

*This is not a direct reply to Aglifter, but a continuation of my previous thought:

I reckon the best thing one can pray for is the presence of The Spirit. That presence will bring you in better alignment with God's will, and make you an enabler of it's execution, rather than a hindrance.

Though it is His will that the Spirit perfectly accompany all of us, merely praying for His will to be done is perhaps too vague to be best-effective. One could pray His will be done until they're blue in the face, while ironically, hypocritically, and paradoxically living in opposition to it, because they lack a greater presence of The Spirit.

He gives us a framework in which to live our lives in a way that enables the presence of The Spirit. To neglect it's employment while praying that His will be done is paradoxical.

Throwback time!

I am sure we all remember the great wine (alcohol) debate, in the early pages of this thread. It was an, at the time, unfortunate near-derailment of what has become an excellent thirty-two page discussion.

In a conversation last night, that topic was touched-on. I want to share two relevant nuggets:

Romans 14:13-23

I think those verses provide the nearest thing there is to a biblical encouragement of total abstinence from alcohol.

Consideration of those verses may prompt the question "Well, what if I am alone? I can't be a stumbling block if I am not with anyone."

In this age of near-constant access to immediate communication technology, a brother can call on you at any time. If consumption of alcohol makes you incapable of helping a brother in need, that's a problem.

Food for thought.

///

Also, I am curious as to folks' outlook on Romans 8:28-30. The larger Protestant church seems constantly at war with Calvinism. The "elect" vs the "whosoevers". As believers that it is God's will that all humanity be saved in His Son Jesus Christ, and whosoever believes in him with his God-given free will shall be saved, how do we discuss these verses in Romans 8?

Like many of the prohibitions and admonishments in the Bibles, avoidance of alcohol has many good nonreligious bases and reasons.

There are two immediate problems with consuming alcohol: Its effects on our inhibitions, i.e., judgment, and its effects on our abilities to do things well and properly. Both can be killers.

It’s often said that it’s unsafe to drive even after a single drink. Can most people do that and get away with it, most of the time? Sure. But that doesn’t change the fact that even small amounts of alcohol affect our perceptions and reactions, but also our judgment about what’s safe and what’s not. I recall hearing long ago from an Army helicopter pilot that their rule was, “Twenty-four hours between bottle and throttle.”

I started drinking later in my youth than most of my peers, but one thing I learned very early on was to not drink alcohol when playing chess or poker. Its effects on my thinking degraded my mental ability to play chess, and its effects on my judgment caused me to do unwise things while holding a hand of cards that I wouldn’t have done if sober.

Ten years of my Army career were as a crime investigator, and five years of that were in Germany where good(!) alcoholic beverages were readily available, and whose consumption was all but expected. Virtually every rape, robbery, and assault case we investigated involved the prior use of alcohol by the perpetrator, the victim, or usually both. The reasons? Impairment of inhibitions and judgment, i.e., the good sense to not do stupid things as either the victim or perpetrator, and impairment of the physical ability to defend oneself by either physical resistance or to escape a bad situation. Had ethyl alcohol never been inflicted on humanity our most serious crimes case load would have been much less.

And of course none of that refers to how alcohol consumption affects our own health, and which is being recognized as a more serious matter all the time.

I’m not a teetotaler and certainly wasn’t for most of adult life, but alcohol can cause people to do bad things, and some people are more susceptible to doing bad things than others. There seems to be a genetic component to whether someone will become an alcoholic, for example. Whoever wrote the admonitions in the Bible about avoiding alcohol no doubt recognized that fact and felt it was a good idea to say, “Just don’t do it.”

There is nothing magical about alcohol. It is no different than tobacco, Coca Cola, or white cheddar Cheezits. Consumption of them isn't eternal damnation.

Temperance is a virtue that should be practiced to avoid any kind of excess.

It is the "excess" that one should avoid, not the alcohol (or the white cheddar Cheezits...thank God).

quote:

Originally posted by KSGM:

Also, I am curious as to folks' outlook on Romans 8:28-30. The larger Protestant church seems constantly at war with Calvinism. The "elect" vs the "whosoevers". As believers that it is God's will that all humanity be saved in His Son Jesus Christ, and whosoever believes in him with his God-given free will shall be saved, how do we discuss these verses in Romans 8?

The elect and the whosoevers are the same. If you are using the term whosoever from John chapter 3, I would check out the literal translation from Greek and you'll find that no Greek word translates as "whosoever". But to answer the question, the elect of God are those who believe.

I referred to the terms "elect" and "whosoever" in the more general Calvinism vs broader Protestantism sense.

The Romans 8:28-30 actually doesn't use the "elect" language, but instead focuses on predestination, which is not eased by Greek translation.

No one is saying alcohol indulgence (or even over indulgence) or abstinence is a matter of salvation.

It's apparent that some of us agree that it is at least a matter to be taken seriously.

If the Army has a (written or unwritten) rule that would have a pilot abstain from alcohol within 24 hours of flight, and alcohol is the same as Cheezits, is that to say that the Army should either reconsider it's stance on alcohol or apply the same consumption restrictions to Cheezits?

In over indulging in Cola, Cheezits, or even cigarettes, my ability to help myself or someone else will not be compromised outside of perhaps a rotten feeling in my stomach or a headache.

Perception of those on the outside looking in is also to be taken into consideration. Are we helping or hurting the case for Christ as it's perceived by cynics and skeptics, if we're indulging in what they'll no doubt perceive as hypocritical behavior (whether it really is or not). This falls into the stumbling block category.

Also, a financial aspect can come into play as well. Cola and Cheezits aren't going to dent the bank account like alcohol or cigarettes. The money spent on these things is arguably better expended in a more righteous manner.

I don't think it's logical to make Cheezits an alcohol analog.

I don't condemn those who partake of alcohol. I used to. It's rare that a day goes by that I don't wish I still did. I am also not saying that someone can't be saved and consume alcohol. I do think that it will become a source of regular conviction though, and perhaps many will come to abandon it in their pursuit of Christ.

quote:

Originally posted by KSGM:
I referred to the terms "elect" and "whosoever" in the more general Calvinism vs broader Protestantism sense.

The Romans 8:28-30 actually doesn't use the "elect" language, but instead focuses on predestination, which is not eased by Greek translation.

Romans 8:28-30 doesn't use the term "elect" but it is indeed the elect that the passage is speaking of. As far as the theological differences between Calvinists and Arminians, broadly speaking both camps, i.e. all Christians, would say that the Bible teaches election and predestination and where the two camps part ways is whether or not election is individual or corporate and whether or not predestination means simply foreknowing or determining beforehand.
I hope I'm understanding your question a little better now but if not let me know.

On the Protestant vs Catholic (and Protestant inter-denominational) debate(s) concerning continuance or cessation of Pentecostal gifts of the Holy Spirit:

I have become aware of the Protestant cessationist outlook on Pentecostal spiritual gifts. As I understand it now, the gifts can be inventoried thus:

1. Tongues (foreign languages or "heavenly language") and prophecy. Acts 2:4, Mark 16:17, 1 Corinthians 13 and 14
2. The ability to forgive sins. John 20:23
3. The ability to cast out demons. Mark 16:17
4. Miraculous Healing. Mark 16:18
5. Serpent handling and poison immunity (arguably analogy and not limited to these two specific circumstances of protection from harm). Mark 16:18

I have experienced a few instances of Protestant expression of distaste for the Catholic sacrament of reconciliation. Primarily rooted in the would-be confessors issue with discussing things with a priest that they believe are between them and God alone. Also, their issue with what they perceive to be a Catholic belief that the priest himself forgives the sins. I don't see how any Protestant who leans on Biblical support for Pentecostal gifts of things like tongues, healing, or prophecy could take issue with another Spirit-issued ability that the Bible also evidences.

Seems to me that the gifts are an all or nothing thing. If you profess belief in one, you have to at least concede the possibility of the others.

Where tongues and prophecy are concerned, I see why they have a disproportionate following. They seem to have the most Biblical support.

As a side note on the Catholic sacrament of reconciliation: In my scouring of the Catechism, nowhere does it say that the sacrament is absolutely necessary for the forgiveness of sins; even mortal sins. I believe this is because, despite the opinion of much of the Catholic opposition, they ultimately defer to the Bible. The Catholic church knows the Bible doesn't provide a basis for the sacrament. They recommend execution of the sacrament as often as possible, but they do not say it is required for the forgiveness of any sin.

Sorry this is a little disjointed.

I don't think belief-in or opposition-to any of these gifts is a "matter of salvation". I am also not overly-invested in either side of the Protestant cessation debate. I am interested in the implications in the Protestant vs Catholic sphere though.

Perhaps the Protestant hang-up comes down to the fact that they don't acknowledge the "natural" formation/evolution of the early church, as evidenced in the Didache. The Protestants refer to the Bible only. Nothing in the Bible says priests must "certify" an act of repentance, so they don't agree with the Catholic sacrament.

I have played the part of Catholic apologist among my Protestant brothers (and my wife). It's a part I play gladly. I have long appreciated the sacrament of reconciliation, and have argued it's merits many times.

I think the sacrament serves to encourage (or force) a mature interaction between a believer and his elder. This is a good thing, but can seem unnatural to someone who isn't spiritually confident. I recall an awkward atmosphere in the confessional, as a young man. It was because I lacked a sincere faith and indwelling of the Spirit. Nowadays I'd be gettin' after it in there! I think the sacrament has detractors, in part, for this reason: it's uncomfortable for those who haven't been, as Protestants say, born again. I am firm in my belief that the execution of the sacrament of confirmation doesn't mean someone has a sincere relationship with Christ. Certainly not a mature one.

I agree wholeheartedly with James 5:16, and the more mature brothers in my church will talk to each other about such things. I wouldn't hesitate to consult my pastor about a particular personal sin either, in my effort of thorough reconciliation.

Thank you, Gustofer, for the article. I will say that the article seems to lean heavily on disproving the presence of scripture that implies we don't need an intermediary. I think it does this because there's no more certainty in the other direction. The Bible doesn't say one way or the other.

The article says this, in the first few paragraphs:

"Let’s examine where Graham, and many critics like him, go wrong when they rely on this verse to disprove the sacrament Christ gave us for the forgiveness of sins."

If there was indeed scripture in which Christ gave us the sacrament of reconciliation, then it'd be an open and shut case. But there's not, right?

I said previously that I play Catholic apologist. My post earlier today was doing the same. I hope it didn't seem to be attacking the Catholic position. I intended to highlight to Protestant problem of believing some gifts but not others. It is hypocritical to condemn something like the Catholic sacrament of reconciliation while endorsing prophetic tongues, healing, or snake handling.

The Protestant cessationist attitude would render all the gifts dead with the Apostles. My pastor is a cessationist, but it isn't something you'll know about him unless you ask relevant questions, because it isn't really important.

It is logical that the early new covenant church would mimic the church of the old covenant, in its employment of priests or elders. Christ did change the game though. I am not studied enough to have a confident position on what-all His game-changing would influence.

The article Gustofer shared doesn't make the Catholic position air tight, in my opinion. But I am not seeking to disprove the necessity of the Catholic sacrament. As I have conceded already: as I continue to decrease, so that the Lord may increase, I may find my way back to the Catholic church. My relationship with Christ was earnestly started in a Baptist church though, so that's where I am camped for now.